News and events of Zambia Sector of SAP
One 25th August 2013, the Good Shepherd Parish celebrated the World Day of Prayers for the Prisoners. The Eucharistic celebration was led by Fr. Cleophus Lungu, the Secretary General of the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC). In attendance were the parishioners, the Commissioner of prisons, 30 prisoners and 25 prison officers. After the Eucharist, the parishioners had an opportunity to interact with the prisoners.
Reported by Adelarde Munishi, M.Afr
Namushakende, September 05/08, 2013
I heard so much about the sand covering the land in Mongu’s area where our confreres are ministering since January 2002 that I did not miss the opportunity to see by myself when Oswald Mallya offer me to go there with him. The first Missionaries of Africa to start this new venture were Charles Obanya (currently Provincial of EAP), Henry Byamukama (currently Vocation Director in Uganda) and Robert Lavertu who is back to Namushakende after few years working for the Diocese in Mongu. After them came Bationo Romaric in 2005 and Jaya B. Mrutyun in 2011. At the moment, Robert and Alfred Awogya are sharing the pastoral work with Élie Sango, a second year stagiaire.
The sand is truly everywhere, making the driving quite perilous at times. St. Gabriel Parish, former outstation of St. John Parish, host 16 outstations with a Catholic population of about 1000 Christians only. We arrived on Thursday few hours before Bishop Evans Chinyemba who came to confer the sacrament of confirmation which took place in three different places, including the chapel of Sianda.
The Parish house overlooks the Zambezi Valley. The river itself is at 25km form the house but becomes an immense lake at the end of the rainy season.
Sisters Dympna Clarke and Rose McHujh of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate are living next door. Founded in 1893 in Texas by a widow called Margaret Mary Healy Murphey, she previously escaped the great famine of Ireland. Her inspiration went against the current social and political environment of the time. In that sense, she was prophetic in providing education for the African American and Hispanic populations who were destitute. This spirit brought three Sisters in Zambia 25 years ago. They dedicate themselves to the poor through Home Base Care, elderly and orphans well as vulnerable children programs. They are located in Limulunga, Mongu and Namushakende.
On Sunday the 8th, together with the confirmation mass in the hall of St. Gabriel Youth Training Centre, Élie Sango made the renewal of his Declaration of Intent. Another interesting particular aspect of the liturgy took place at the presentation de the Word of God before the readings. In procession, the women put the Bible in a symbolic boat in reference to the Kuomboka ceremony for the Losi King. This event is an honorific display to the King “coming out of the water”. Similarly, Jesus, the incarnate Word of God and new King, is carried in a boat. But, contrary to the custom of the Losi, women are symbolically paddling while only men do so for the King in real life.
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Watch also this video:
The Christians who made their confirmation
Fraternal greetings come your way from the Catholic Secretariat in Lusaka.
It is indeed with a great sense of sadness that I now write to officially inform you that His Eminence, Medardo Joseph Cardinal Mazombwe, the Archbishop Emeritus of Lusaka, passed away around 17:00hrs on Thursday 29th August 2013. READ MORE
Profile of Cardinal Joseph Mazombwe
HIS EMINENCE MEDARDO CARDINAL JOSEPH MAZOMBWE – 1931 – 2013
In particular I remember two occasions when he spoke for the cancellation of Zambia’s debt during the Jubilee campaign. The first was at the First African Synod, Rome 1994. He made an impassioned call – factual, analytical and scriptural – of the need for cancelling debt as part of the Jubilee movement. He told me afterwards that he was moved by the fact that his intervention received a unique and prolonged ovation! The second was during a 1998 meeting in the USA where the President of the World Bank and the Director of the IMF were present, along with high Government officials and non-governmental representatives. His presentation of the debt issue as a moral challenge moved the audience and became a reference for subsequent Jubilee calls by the Bishops Conference of the United States of America. I know that this influenced decisions to cancel debt.
The very fine book of Zambian Bishops’ social letters, edited by Fr Joe Komakoma, contains so many rich teachings influenced over key years by Cardinal Mazombwe. His memory will continue to inspire the justice mission of the Zambian Church, indeed the wider African Church, in the years to come.
Personally, I was so happy to visit the Cardinal at Christmas time last year, where he very kindly recalled working with us on many occasions at the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection.
I wish I could be there at the Cathedral of the Holy Child next Tuesday for the Requiem Mass – but I will surely be there in spirit!
Peace of Christ.
Peter J. Henriot, S.J.
Director of Development, Loyola Jesuit Secondary School, Kasungu, Malawi
Funeral Mass at the Cathedral of the Child Jesus, Pope Square Grounds, Lusaka, Zambia presided by Cardinal J. Njue of Kenya.
Pożegnanie Kardynała
Procesja rozpoczynającą mszę pogrzebową pamięci kard. Medardo Mazombwe, w wykonaniu tradycyjnego chóru Bemba, w katedrze Dzieciątka Jezus na Placu Papieskim w Lusace.
Kard. Medardo Joseph Mazombwe zmarł 29 sierpnia 2013 r. Był pierwszym pochodzącym z Zambii członkiem Kolegium Kardynalskiego. Od dłuższego czasu zmagał się z chorobą nowotworową. Był znany ze swego wielkiego zaangażowania w sprawy społeczne nie tylko swej ojczyzny, ale całej Afryki. Link sent by Krzysztof Błażyca
Our next FENZA Conference will take place on Saturday 7th September 2013.
Venue: Faith and Encounter Centre (FENZA), Bauleni near Mathia Mulumba Catholic Church or Yatsani Radio.
Time: 14:00 to 17:00 hours
Times
of Zambia Newspaper August 14, 2013
By Kaiko Namusa
DEFENCE Minister Geoffrey Mwamba has pledged K110, 000 towards helping the Kabwata Catholic Church women’s group to continue uplifting the living standards of vulnerable groups.
Mr Mwamba said the Kabwata Catholic Women’s League from the Good Shepherd congregation had continued in its endeavours of assisting the less privileged and had, among other projects, assisted the Saint Lawrence Home of Hope. He said the projects being embarked on by the church group required support for them to be fulfilled, hence his decision to contribute to the effort.
Mr Mwamba, who was accompanied by his wife, Chama, joined the women after attending church service for a luncheon where he pledged the financial support, saying that assisting vulnerable groups was Government’s vision. He implored the church to ensure they lived according to the call by Pope Francis to be committed to the call of charity, works and loyalty.
Mr Mwamba said days of relying on handouts by the church were gone and it was up to the church to embark on various fundraising ventures to raise money for their projects. He said with close cooperation with various stakeholders, the women’s group would efficiently and effectively implement their projects.
Parish Priest, Adelarde Munishi, assured that the funds raised from the event would be used for the intended purpose. Father Munishi said it was important for the women’s group to fulfill its objective of helping the vulnerable in society.
Note: the value of 100, 000 kwacha is about 18,500 $
By Bernhard Udelhoven, M.Afr
These are some book titles in our Christian bookshops that remind us of spiritual forms of slavery that hold us hostage today. Thousands of new deliverance ministries witness in Zambia to bondages to witchcraft and demons. The need for liberation from the slavery to evil forces seems enormous. Many people testify to the inner freedom and the new start which they found after undergoing sound deliverance services.
Yet, while the number of new churches and deliverance ministries has been multiplying steadily over the last decades, sometimes coming with the promise of a fast-track to divine blessings and prosperity, demons and witchcraft are in no way diminishing. The opposite seems true. Demonic entities are increasing. This is strange. One should think that the demons surely must be useful to some of us; else they would hardly hang around given that they are beaten, cast out and insulted so often by so many churches. Is it not also pastors, prophets, and churches who profit? READ MORE
Here we are! 70 Years of Evangelisation and Social Concern – Regiment Parish (St. Charles Lwanga Catholic Church) (1939-2009)
Marc Nsanzurwimo is a member of the Society of the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) ordained in 1995. He was Parish Priest of Regiment Parish (2006-2009). Before that he served in Kasaba (1989-1991), Serenje (1995-2000) and Kasamba (2003) Parishes. He was Vocation Animator (2003-2005). He holds a Doctorate in Mission Theology from Urbaniana Pontifical University, Rome.
His other publications include: Facing the Challenge: Self-Sustainability for the Catholic Church in Zambia (2003); Echo of the First African Synod: New Look of the Ordained Ministry (2008); The African Participation in the Intercontinental Mission: A Gradual Awareness of a Shared Responsibility (2012); The Funeral in Zambia, with Particular Reference to the Lala People of Serenje: An Inculturation Perspective (2012).
He is currently a staff member at FENZA (Faith and Encounter Centre Zambia) in Bauleni, Lusaka.
His books can be purchase from the author. Please, leave your particulars using the space “Leave a comment” below.
Edited by Fr. Marc Nsanzurwimo, M.Afr
Foreword by Telesphore-Georges Mpundu, Archbishop of Lusaka
Printed by Mission Press, Ndola, Zambia, 121 pages, 2013.
Of all the global resources, human life is the most significant. The bible in Gen 1:27 say “so God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female” This shows how valuable we human beings are special in the eyes of the creator. No diamond can mine itself and no gold has the capacity to be refined without manpower; without human life, all the weapons, food and oil in the world would mean nothing. READ MORE
By Jacek Rakowdki, M.Afr
Published in the Saturday Post, Saturday 27 July 2013
Most people remember very well a moment or an episode in their lives, which was a turning point. (…) It happened (to me) 10 years ago. I had just arrived in the country, form my native Poland, to continue my training with the Missionaries of Africa in Kasama. I was in Cairo Road, looking for an Internet Café from where I could call my family to tell them I had arrived safely. I found one but at the door, lying on the pavement, there was a child. The only way for me to enter into the shop would have been to step over his body. But I couldn’t. I froze and I moved to the other side of the street and went back home. That night the vision of that boy came back to haunt me time and again. 
On the following morning, I went back to the shop and the child was awake, standing and begging. Unable to communicate, I just took him by the hand, led him to a fast food and bought him something to eat.
Today I would not encourage anyone to do that but that’s what happened to me on that fateful encounter which threw open a door on a world I only knew through readings and movies.
Two weeks ago, I visited Kambwiri (today Chasera) in one of our outstations to see how it looks like. It was the first mission of the White Fathers in the diocese. I asked Mr Kezyius Phiri, the vice chairperson of Chasera, to accompany me. From about 60km from Lumimba Parish or 2km from the new church of Chasera, it was on this rarely visited spot that the Diocese celebrated its centenary in 2004. A stone was laid as a remembrance. I took a few minutes of prayer and silence to thank for the great men of faith and hope who started this mission in 1904, though they had to close it and leave the valley barely seven months later. This is part of our history connecting us to our ancestors in faith. More about Kambwiri mission can be read in the report of Luangwa Valley written by Fr. Bernhard Udlehoven in 2006. This is an historical place to preserve for future generations.
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