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This is a text-only version of an article first published on Friday, 13 February 2015. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
By Elizabeth Thomas
MANY of you will remember the horrendous floods in Mozambique in 2001 and the infamous baby that was born in a tree as a desperate lady waited to be rescued.
Sadly the reality is that Mozambique is all too used to atrocious weather conditions and although disaster planning and mitigation has improved over the years, it is still an ongoing issue for one of the poorest countries in the world today that is three times the size of the UK.
157,000 people affected
A few weeks ago, in mid January, the Zambezia province in central Mozambique experienced horrendous flooding. Over one hundred people were killed, an estimated 157,000 have been affected with over 10,000 losing their homes. 11 million people north of the Zambezi River have no electricity and many roads were destroyed.
Bishop of the area, Mark van Koevering, says: "We must have had about a months worth of rain in just one day".
The local Anglican churches in the Diocese of Niassa, has been at the heart of an emergency response to this crisis through their 'Teams of Life'.
Niassa Diocese is one of the fastest growing dioceses in the Anglican communion and is in the process of multiplication into three. In 2003, there were seven active priests. Now there are 61. In 2004 the 159 congregations have grown into 442.
Over the same period membership of churches has grown from 34,465 members to 63,973.
Emergency Response
One factor in church growth has been the formation of Equipas de Vida from the diocesan mission department. These volunteer teams from Anglican churches respond to the most pressing health and development needs of their own communities.
The leaders, initially trained in HIV prevention, treatment and community mobilization are also trained in health and development issues and so they were best placed to make a fast and strategic disaster response.
Over these last weeks, this emergency response has involved supporting 1,000 families across 18 communities with kits of food, water purifying equipment, mosquito nets and farm seeds and implements. MANNA is a long-standing UK registered charity that exists to enable and grow the churches in Mozambique and Angola and supports the Diocese of Niassa and the 'Teams of Life.'
Another one of these partners is ALMA - the London diocese's links with Mozambique and Angola which in turn has grown some incredibly fruitful partnerships between parishes.
How exciting and encouraging that the Anglican church is right at the heart of this emergency appeal and how fitting that we as fellow Christian servants of the Gospel of the poor should partner with these Mozambican churches at this time. Elizabeth Thomas, of Marcham Church in Oxfordshire is MANNA's Executive Officer.
justgiving.com/MANNA-Floods-2015-Appeal
manna.anglican.org
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