Mozambique Blog 4

Wednesday July 20

I suspect there’s a north/south divide in Mozambique very much like our own – except for the fact that the warmer weather is in the north. It’s the depth of winter here, of course, with maximum temperatures frequently below 20°, which people keep assuring us is very cold. So what it would feel  like for a synod delegate travelling down from Cabo Delgado Province you can hardly imagine. But don’t worry, because no one actually came from there.

So far as the Presbyterian Church is concerned, part of the reason for the division is history: the Portuguese authorities did not allow the Swiss Mission to operate beyond the three southernmost provinces. But once independence  was gained, the Church determined to have congregations in all eleven provinces, and for all the chaos of the time quite quickly succeeded. However, this has not destroyed the impression of its being a southern-based church.

Last week’s synod was mostly conducted in Portuguese – but apparently that is quite a new departure. Previously proceedings have been in the local languages of Shangana and Ronga, which although widely spoken will not be understood by most people in the north. Much of the worship and singing last week was in those local languages, even including the sermon on Sunday morning. I wonder how included that makes the delegate feel who has taken a 24 hour bus journey to get to Synod?

And when the Synod moves pastors around, as it does every five years, it’s more than likely that those who can be persuaded to go north (and I understand that there is some consultation in what seems like a pretty authoritarian process) won’t even be given language training. So they are left to speaking Portuguese, which only the middle class in the towns will be fluent in, or going round with an interpreter all the time. Hardly the best circumstances to operate in an area where evangelisation has been a declared priority!

Yesterday morning I had a long conversation with one of the five Pastors who are stationed in the four northern provinces which make up nearly half the land area of Mozambique. (I haven’t the means at hand to look up how many Wales’s or Belgiums that makes, but it must be a pretty fair number.) As President of the Northern Presbytery (those same provinces again) he reckons that journeys between churches vary from 100 to 700Kms. And the one car is barely in working order…..  It’s very hard for people from these parts not to launch into The Week’s Good Cause mode before they’ve finished the introductions. The lack of resources is so overwhelming that you’d try anyone to help you on a bit.

But I’m left wondering what the IPM itself is doing, and whether the strong Maputo base makes it hard for people to understand what life is like there. Of course it’s hard for them to go and see for themselves, and the expense of regular visits from the Centre could hardly be justified. But having made that facile comparison with our own north/south divide, I have to admit that it only takes a three hour comfortable train journey to get me to those meetings in the capital where all the important decisions are taken. A very different experience from Mozambique.

Here at Khovo where I’m based, the last couple of days has seen a gathering of the Pastors from the North, as they visit friends and relations in the big city, and also negotiate the purchase of bus tickets home. Just for these few days they’re at the centre of where it is all happening -  but then it’s going to be back to the parish and those poor roads and appalling distances and unreliable transport. My guess is that when the IPM Synod, like our Synod, starts talking about mission strategies and evangelism priorities, it probably knows that in fact the burden of the work is going to fall on the shoulders of the willing and dedicated few.

John Durell