Oct. 20, 2008 issue
Bishops: Go to Paraguay in 2009
By Ferne Burkhardt Mennonite World ConferencePage:
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KITCHENER, Ont. — Go to Paraguay in July 2009, or support someone else in going, a Zambian bishop told Anabaptist groups during a September visit.
Two Brethren in Christ bishops, Danisa Ndlovu, left, of Zimbabwe and Thuma Hamukang’andu of Zambia speak in Ontario. — Photo provided by MWC
Danisa Ndlovu, Mennonite World Conference president-elect and Brethren in Christ bishop of Zimbabwe, and Thuma Hamukang’andu, BIC bishop of Zambia, were in Ontario for a meeting of the executive committee of the International Brethren in Christ Association.
They spent a day in the Kitchener-Waterloo area meeting with Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada leaders, students and staff at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, Mennonite Central Committee Ontario workers and MWC donors and supporters.
The Africans and the Canadians discovered they both face challenges such as striving against loss of identity, sustaining Anabaptist theology, dealing with the confusion of faith and culture, resolving the generation gap and worship wars, and not allowing the institution to take over the essence of church.
In Zambia, Christians are a majority, and the church is a force politicians know they can’t ignore, Hamukang’andu said.
“The church is the voice of the voiceless,” he said. “It fights injustice. The church tells the government it may not dehumanize people.”
Ndlovu spoke about how the current crisis in Zimbabwe is affecting the church.
“The country is polarized; so is the church,” Ndlovu said. “We need to stand for justice and not align ourselves with either political party.”
MWC deacon delegations to Zimbabwe have changed the perspective of the church, Ndlovu said. Its members sense that the world body is standing with them and suffering with them.
“We feel we could not have gone on without the support of the global church,” he said. “It is a pillar of our strength.”
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