Our School in Angola

This primary school will be built in a very needy part of Angola and St Botolph’s is building it in conjunction with our link church, St Barnabas, Greenwich, Connecticut.

We needed to raise around £40,000 for the building costs of the School and this was achieved mid 2009. The plan is to recruit a team to join with our US friends and visit Angola to help in whatever way we can with the local community.

Uige is a city in north-western Angola. Settled by Portuguese colonists, Uige grew from a small market centre in 1945 to become Angola’s major centre for coffee production in the 1950s and was designated a city in 1956. Its prosperity was short-lived, however, as the city was affected by recurrent fighting between Portuguese forces and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola; FNLA), one of three Angolan pre-independence guerrilla movements. The fighting, which occurred primarily from 1961 to 1974, resulted in heightened instability in the city and surrounding area, as did the subsequent Angolan civil war (1975-2002) that immediately followed the country’s independence in 1975. Portuguese settlers abandoned Uíge in 1974-75, and it became the headquarters of the FNLA. In 1976 the city was captured by forces of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola; MPLA), a pre-independence guerrilla movement and one of the primary factions fighting in the civil war. Attempts at reviving the lucrative business of coffee production in the locality had only limited success until the civil war ended. From late 2004 to mid-2005, the city was part of a region afflicted with one of the world’s largest epidemics of hemorrhagic fever caused by the Marburg virus. Pop. (latest est.) 61,966.

Founded in 1939 by the helders Antonio Luyindu, Mbunga Zowa, Julia Mfuendu, and Mpanzu a Fua respectively. In June 25th, 1945 the church received their first pastor called Santos Manuel Nlandu and in the same day 45 people were baptized. From there, the church has grown and many people have come to believe in Jesus as their Saviour.

In March, 1961, when the war for independence started, many of the members were killed, others sought refuge in the bush and then went to Democratic Republic of Congo until 1975, when the liberation movements signed a memorandum of understanding for an independent Angola with the Portuguese Authority.

From March 1975 people started coming back home from Congo, unfortunately in June a civil war started and many died and others joined with the MPLA.

On 15th July 1981, the members started building the chapel you can see in the picture. In 1991, The Rt. Revd. Dinis S. Sengulane dedicated the church with the name of St. Barnabe. An that time the church was led by the evangelist, Pedro Massala and in 1995 the Revd. Pedro Antonio Sacala from Luanda, went to lead the church. In 2004 he became the Archdeacon of the Lukunga Loge district. In August 2007, Deacon Robert Mario was sent to help with the work. Bishop Michael visited with his wife in 2006.

The Parish has 1352 members and 736 are communicants.

Poverty, iliteracy, poor education, lack of water and inadequate health provision are the main problems people face in this area.

The Bishop of London set a challenge to the City of London Churches to raise enough money between them to build a school in Angola and one in Mozambique. We at St. Botolph without Bishopsgate decided to go one better and in partnership with our link church St. Barnabas, Greenwich, Connecticut started to look for an area in Angola to build an extra primary school. After receiving advice from various organisations, a village called Songo in Uige was identified as a particularly needy area.
At the moment there is no school, the children are taught outside under a tree or in the church.

Housing has been greatly improved since a brick kiln was built at the side of the Church. The kiln as well producing bricks also provides regular work for some of the village people.

The total cost of building and fitting out the school is estimated to be somewhere in the region of £40,000. St Botolph has raised £20,000 and we understand that the American Church a similar amount. We are therefore looking forward to the building work starting as soon as possible.

Once the building work has been started the plan is then to recruit a team to join with people from the American Church and visit Angola to help in whatever way we can.

Below is a message from Bishop Andre to everyone who has helped to finance the building of the school

Lent´s greetings to you all

I believe that Father Nunes has sent the update about this but only to confirm the news about St. Barnabas school dedicated last Sunday 19th February, 2012 .It was during the Holy Eucharist service in the presence of the people ,clergy and administration members. you can see the pictures bellow.

Many thanks for your support and greetings to St. Botolph’s Church and St. Barnabas for their support.

Yours
+Andre

The Parish School of St Barnabas Songo, built with monies raised by St Botolph’s and one of our sister Churches, St Barnabas, Greenwich, Connecticut, is now open and teaching over 600 kids. Here are some recently arrived pictures of the happy pupils. Please pray for the Church in Angola and for all the good work happening in our school.

Great news from our school in Angola.

On 11th July, John Tasker, ALMA Twinning Officer visited Songo. John made the arduous journey from Luanda in the company of the Revd Maria Domingos (ALMA Link Officer for the Diocese of Angola) and the Revd Jacinto Henriques (Parish Priest of Uige, Songo).

John found the School in good order- and discovered the astonishing statistic that this year there are 855 pupils being taught by 31 teachers (8 of whom are women teachers).

The School was built in 2012 by St Botolph’s along with our sister church in the US- St Barnabas, Greenwich, Connecticut. Such massive enrolment figures clearly justify the extent of our initial investment- the School was built with 5 classrooms but now, such is the number of kids wishing to be educated, classes are also having to be conducted under the trees.

The Rector of St Botolph’s thanked John for making the trip and reporting back on such a success story. We will continue to seek appropriate ways to encourage and support this important work. The photos below show some scenes in class.

Bishop André has sent this encouraging news of Easter celebrations in the Anglican Church of Angola. That Christ was seen and heard and experienced in Uíge by thousands of people is such good news of the love of God overcoming all the public health and economic crises that are having so much effect on the lives of most people in Angola. Please pray for these issues, and that Bishop André and the whole diocese may be strengthened in being and proclaiming good news.

Alleluia Christ is risen indeed!

From 20th to 27th March we visited some parts of Uíge District. During our stay, we visited the parish of St. Michael and All Angels in Negage and had the privilege to confirm 26 candidates. Then we went to visit Holy Cross Church in Puri and on Holy Wednesday we celebrated the mass and confirmed 8 people, here the chapel was destroyed by the wind in December last year.

After the service we returned back to Uige where on Holy Thursday the priests renewed their vows. On Friday we had a wonderful sacred via from St. Philip to All Martyrs, which moved about 4000 people participating with joy and sorrow, the media and police also participated.

The afternoon of Friday we passed in retreat with 192 candidates for confirmation. On Saturday there was a retreat with 5 candidates for ordination.

So on Sunday 27th the day of resurrection we had a wonderful celebration in which we ordained 5 deacons and confirmed 192 people, the majority young people (102 female and 90 male). The service was broadcast live in Uíge. About 3500 people participated in this celebration.

God is good all the time and the missionary diocese has been blessed with this kind of work, despite the difficulties the country is facing in disease, death, corruption, poverty and so on. Please pray for us.

Yours in God´s mission.

+André

At the end of 2016 we sent via ALMA (the Angola, London, Mozambique Association) the final tranche of money collected here for the building and equipping of a new school in our linked parish of St Barnabas, Songo, Angola (the funds had been raised in conjunction with our partner church in America, St Barnabas, Greenwich, Connecticut). We have now heard that the money was distributed to teams of painters, builders, carpenters and metalworkers who have completed the renovation of the school, meaning that many children who had to have their lessons outside the school under the trees are now able to have them in classrooms instead.

The news came in a heartfelt message from the parish priest of St Barnabas, Archdeacon Garcia Kazayilawoko, who gives thanks to God on behalf of all this people for their partnership with St Botolph’s.

Below are some pictures showing the renovation work being finished and some of the children in their school.