Church buildings – but not as we know them! - Saturday 23 July

During our meal together on Friday night Bishop Cleophas had been joking with us about how long it was going to take to get to Binga where we were due to commission a grinding mill at St John’s Mulindi.  We were to leave from Bishop’s House at 7am and travel for four hours on bumpy roads to get there.   It is probably true to say that most of us were not especially looking forward to the trip which while worthwhile felt as if it was going to be very tiring on top of what had already been a very tiring first day.

But it soon became clear that plans had changed, not least because Bishop Cleophas and Bishop Richard had realised how tiring the trip would be as so we were told on Friday evening that we would in fact be meeting at the Cathedral at 10am and visiting some of the churches that we were to have visited the following Sunday.   The idea of this being that we would be able to have a slightly less busy day the following Sunday and that those who were here from parishes which were to have links with parishes in Matabeleland Diocese would have the chance not only to go to their link churches but to spend some real time with them getting to know them.

So, today we have visited: St Joseph, Emganwini, St Clare, Nkulumane, St Katharine and Kingsdale.  All these churches have building projects and are projects which will be supported by the 2011 Bishop’s Lent Call which was for Zimbabwe.  Other building projects to be supported include St Anne’s, Pumula South and St Paul’s, Cowdray, which will be visited by Link members on Sunday 31 July.  Sadly, I leave this group (having travelled for two weeks through two Dioceses) on Thursday 28 and so won’t see them.  I hope that others will bring me news and pictures!

At St Joseph, Emganwini, the priest and some church members showed us the places in which they are meeting now and walked us around the boundaries of the site of the plot of land which they own for the building of a church (and in due time a Rectory and Church Hall – this latter to be a place to meet but also to provide rental income.)  At the moment the church meets in a shelter created of scaffolding-type poles and a corrugated tin roof.  The Sunday School meets under a slightly smaller version of the same!  The plot of land is literally right next to another church.  But, having heard stories of one church in Central Zimbabwe Diocese which has had to continue to meet at 7am because its Pentecostal neighbours meet at 10am and are so much more noisy than the Anglican congregation that they drown them out, I was pleased to hear that the services at St Joseph’s are finished by the time the services at the other church begin!

We were able to look at plans for the new church and also to see plans for the church toilets.   It is hard to underestimate the importance of building toilets when building a church as many will have had a long or difficult journey and the services are often long.  The plans for the church had been passed and Bishop Cleophas encouraged them to begin building before the permissions ran out.   He told them especially to start on the toilets.

 After our tour of the site and look at the plans and Bishop Richard had prayed for the work of the church and its people, the Mother’s Union (as we had now come to expect) produced refreshments for us offering us cold drinks and cake.  Zimbabwean hospitality is incredible.  People who had been on one of these Link visits before had said it was good but nothing that they had said prepared me for the warmth of personal welcome that we have received from everyone.  It is an extraordinary experience visiting the home of someone whom you don’t know and finding yourself cared for and fed and taxied around in a way which I could not ever have expected - even taking into account what everyone had said.   Wherever we go we seem to be given food and drink…  I hope that I can still fit into my clothes when we get home!

After St Joseph’s we drove on to St Clare, Nkulumane.  Here, there is not only a toilet block already but there is a church too and another block in which the Mother’s Union can cook.   This church too has plans for building as it wants to extend to become bigger.   Once again we looked around the site and saw where the church would be.   The plans for the three churches which we saw were very similar.  They are quite simple structures which vary in size according to the plot of land which has been acquired, what else needs to be built on the site and ultimately, I imagine, on the projected size of the congregation.  Here the Church Council has decided to build a big church and when I say big I really do mean BIG.  They described it to us as the same size as St Columba church which seats 500 – more of that in another blog later when we have visited it! – and so we asked why they wanted to build such a big church and they explained that they had seen that other churches had had to build extensions and so were just going to go big at the beginning.   There is a logic to this of course, but one problem with this way of thinking is that it will make the building very expensive to construct and thus mean that it will take a long time as money has to be raised for each stage of the building. 

The churchwarden told us that having just finished the toilet block (which is awaiting a final connection before it is usable) the church is completely broke.   What money they gather they plan to use to paint the toilet block.  Bishop Cleophas, however, encouraged them to use any money they had to begin work on the church as they have planning permission and it will be important to start the work before this runs out.  They hope to build around the existing church structure so that they will not be without a place of worship whilst the work is being done and will then knock down what they have when some of the new church has been finished.

It is amazing to see the commitment of people to making sure that there are places of worship for those in their communities.  After lunch, once again provided by the Mother’s Union, the members of the MU sang for us before we left to visit our next and final church site.

St Katharine, Kingsdale is a beautiful but very small church which has existed since veterans who returned from the Second World War were given land upon which to build and live and they built the church as they were building. It feels like a place in which prayer has been offered and answered, it is peaceful and well kept and loved.  But it is too small.  So, the parish council has decided to build a new bigger church alongside it.  We were all delighted to hear that they will leave the existing church building as a small chapel which will have a roofed passageway joining it to the new bigger church when it is built.

Once again Bishop Cleophas encouraged them to begin the work on the building before the planning permission runs out.  He urged them to begin to dig as they saved for the cost of the foundations of the church. 

Wherever we went Bishop Cleophas encouraged his congregations and thanked them for all the work that they were doing in raising money to build new churches.  He assured them of help and support from the Diocese and via the Diocese from the Kingston Link but most especially he encouraged them to own the projects for themselves to raise the money necessary for the building work and to begin to move ahead to bring their plans to fruition.

The churches will all be of a similar design and will differ in size and finish according to the way in which the different parishes wish.  But, they will all grow out of the real conviction that the work of the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe can help to change lives and build the Zimbabwe of the future.  It has been a privilege to see the plans and to hear of the work of the priests and people under difficult and harsh circumstances and as we have prayed with them as we left it was with the sure hope that God will bless the endeavours of Bishop Cleophas, his priests and people.