All Under One Roof

The 11th August was Men’s Christian Fellowship (MCF) Sunday and Mwandi Consistory like Ancient Gaul was divided into 3 geographical areas. We were assigned the Northern part comprising in ascending order from the tar road the congregations of Sankalonga, Kamusa, Adonsi and Magumwi which is 85km from Mwandi. The service would be held at 10am at Adonsi Church.

Adonsi Church

We set off at around 7am in long shadows and the rising sun, with Mr Libonda from Sooka, the Consistory Chief Steward, who was preaching, and our boot packed with 12 cartons of men, women and children’s clothing from the CART container. These would be distributed to the congregations after the service. We headed downstream parallel to the river but through the bush to Sikuzu to pick up Mr Mutakela, the MCF Convenor who was leading worship and Mr Chikeba, the MCF Consistory Choirmaster.

 

Inside Adonsi Church

We travelled along the still densely afforested loose sand track to the dip tank and along the potholed tar road to the Namango turn-off where we were once again on sand. We cut across the khaki carbonated plain, dry, sooty and dusty towards Kamusa- through mopani, palm and Ngongo trees, past termite mounds and dried up water pans. Most surface water has entirely evaporated, though some villages continue with a valiant effort to grow tomatoes and kale, irrigated by hand with buckets of water drawn from shallow wells.

 

We passed herds of meandering fallow and dapple-coated long horn cows with their still suckling calves. The lack of pasture is now a problem and the cattle are beginning to appear on the island at Mwandi as the river has fallen they can now swim the river and reach the still green grass on these small flood plains. Our path was also crossed by a number of families of bounding squirrels. The best sight was when we inadvertently flushed out a quartet of flapping and disapproving ground hornbills.

 

An hour after the turn off jolting along the dry puddle-pock marked sand track and straining through small dunes of drifting sand we arrived at Kamusa to a warm welcome and a breakfast of samp and pounded groundnuts. Samp is a local porridge made from broken and chipped maize seeds. The four congregations began to gather and the service started at 10am. The sermon was a call to prudent stewardship. After the close of the service we were able to distribute 3 cartons of men, women and children’s clothes to each congregation and four communion platters.

We then looked at the site for the new Church that Dornoch will help to roof. It was agreed that 60 sheets would be supplied with nails ridging and rafters. After a lunch of buhobe, kale and catfish washed down with fresh milk, we set off for Adonsi and Magumwi. It was quite a squash until we deposited members at the school. We carried on to Magumwi where we met the Congregational Board and eldership. Again we agreed to help with the roofing. The congregation numbers over 300 and they have made 5000 clay bricks. It is exciting as this will be the first rural church to be built of  bricks.

 

 

Current Magumwi Church
 

 

We set off from Magumwi at 4pm and were home just as the sun was setting with a gift of a sack of maize and a bucket of groundnuts to share out.