Visit
to the Diocese of Mthatha, South Africa
January 22nd - February 6th 2007
by the Very Rev Gerald Stranraer-Mull
The
Bishop Sitembele Tobela Mzamane, with Dean Samson
Makalima
and some of the thirteen Archdeacons of the
Diocese
Contents
History of the Diocese
Personal Links
Diary
| Jan 22nd | Jan 23rd | Jan 24th | Jan 25th | Jan 26th | Jan 27th | Jan 28th |
| Jan 29th | Jan 30th | Jan 31st | Feb 1st | Feb 2nd | Feb 3rd | Feb 4th |
| Feb 5th | Feb 6th |
The Diocese of Mthatha came into existence on June 25th, 2006, when a change of name from the Diocese of Saint John’s was promulgated. Before Saint John’s Diocese was founded missionary work had been started by Christian traders, military chaplains and priests such as Henry Waters at Saint Mark’s Mission, close to the Great Kei River in 1855, John Gordon at All Saint’s Mission, Ngcobo, in 1859 and Bransby Key and John Dodd at Saint Augustine’s Mission, Inxu, in 1865. The history of the Diocese itself begins in 1871 when Henry Cotterill resigned as Bishop of Grahamstown to move to Edinburgh as Coadjutor Bishop and later Bishop of Edinburgh. As he left he promised that he would endeavour to ensure that the Scottish Episcopal Church supported mission work in South Africa.In December 1871 the Bishops of South Africa wrote to the Bishops in Scotland inviting co-operation and on All Saints’ Day 1873 Henry Callaway, a missionary pioneer, was ordained by the Bishops of Moray, Edinburgh and Brechin as the first Missionary Bishop for Kaffraria in what today is the Church of Saint Paul and Saint George, Edinburgh.
In 1873 the Diocese covered an area two thirds the size of Scotland and had just six small mission stations. Bishop Callaway held his first Synod at one of them, Clydesdale, during the week before Christmas 1874 and a key decision was to name the Diocese Saint John’s. Within two years 16 extra staff had been recruited and the following year the first African priest, Peter Masiza, was ordained. Hospitals and schools were established – Saint John’s College in Mthata, founded in 1879, is now one of the premier schools in South Africa.
The Diocese flourished and its Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist was consecrated on September 30th, 1906, as a memorial to Bransby Key, the second Bishop of Saint John’s. The first eight Bishops of the Diocese were white, although from the start the earliest missionaries had been clear that their task was to be able to say “goodbye” to Africa by creating an African Church. The Diocese had its first black Canon in 1905 and was the first in the Province of Southern Africa to have a black Suffragan Bishop.
The Diocese has rolling pasture land, deep valleys, mountains and the Indian Ocean along its coastline. The Xhosa people live in scattered communities and so everywhere there are groups of houses, some of European design but many more the traditional round houses with their cone shape thatched roofs. Many of the Xhosa are farmers with a few sheep or goats. Unemployment, though, is extremely high and money scarce. A high percentage of families depend on government aid to survive.
In the years of apartheid in South Africa the Transkei was a black homeland and regarded by the national government as a labour reserve for workers for the mines of South Africa. Apartheid was introduced when the National Party won the election of 1948 and Transkei was one of the first homeland areas - in which 13 percent of South Africa’s land area was to be home to 75 percent of the population. Transkei obtained nominal independence (although real power still lay with the national Government in Pretoria). Bishop James Schuster’s message on the eve of Transkei’s “independence” in 1978 led to his invitation to the State Banquet to mark the event being withdrawn. In the struggle against apartheid, which ended with the election of 1994, the Transkei produced many of the leaders of the African National Congress, including Nelson Mandela, and Oliver Tambo.
The first African Bishop of Saint John’s was the ninth bishop, Jacob Dlamini, elected in 1985. In 1991 he oversaw the creation of the Diocese of Umzimvubu as Saint John’s, with 52 parishes and many outstations, was becoming too big. The division of the Diocese left Saint John’s with 32 parishes but by the time of his retirement in 2000 the number had grown to 48 through an intensive outreach ministry. The bigger Archdeaconries were sub-divided into units of five parishes in each Archdeaconry and the bigger parishes divided into smaller ones to ensure effective ministry
This growth has been sustained during the episcopate of the tenth Bishop, Sitembele Tobela Mzamane, and the number of parishes had grown to 69 by September 2006. The Bishop’s vision to create a new Diocese in the south, based on All Saint’s Mission at Ngcobo, will be discussed at a Synod in August 2007. Meanwhile progress continues with new Rectories being built and pioneering work among AIDS and HIV sufferers being undertaken.
Saint Bede’s Theological College in Mthatha was closed in 1991 on the creation of a new college in Grahamstown. In 1993, however, because of the expense of maintaining students at Grahamstown, the Diocese of Saint John’s re-opened the buildings at Saint Bede’s as Christ the Redeemer Theological College, to train students not only for the Anglican ministry but ecumenically as well. The Diocesan Office and Bishop’s Office and home are located within the same complex and in 2002 a new centre for the Mothers’ Union, was built opposite the Diocesan Office.
The Diocese values its historic links with Scotland and appreciates the companionship relationship with the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, which was established by Bishop Dlamini and Bishop Fred Darwent after the Lambeth Conference of 1988.
My own links with the Diocese go back to a visit to Scotland by the eighth Bishop of Saint John’s, Godfrey Ashby, in 1982. He was a consultant at the Partners in Mission consultation and subsequently visited the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney. He and his two successors kindly invited me to visit South Africa and it has taken until 2007 to accept the invitation. I am grateful to the Overseas Committee of the Scottish General Synod and the Mission Committee of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney for encouragement and financial support towards the cost and, as ever to the parishes of Ellon and Cruden Bay for their encouragement and forbearance as their Rector travels furth of the parishes and for the financial support that enabled Glynis to go as well.
What follows is a day by day account of the visit which will, hopefully, give those who read it a flavour of a warm and welcoming country. Grateful thanks go to everyone who welcomed us and did so much to make our visit such a fruitful one.
There’s a snow shower at Aberdeen Airport as we prepare to fly out. The plane for Amsterdam has to be de-iced before we set off and we land at Schipol Airport as it gets dark and a frost sets in. We travel on the shuttle bus to the NH Hotel and enjoy supper in the coffee shop.
A fine buffet breakfast in the dining room at 7am, and we leave the hotel on the 8am shuttle bus and arrive back at Schipol Airport at 8-15am.
We find the departure gate and see the KLM 747 jumbo jet, City of Shanghai, waiting for us. We take off in cloud and the 11 hour journey passes surprisingly quickly, with wonderful views of the Alpine peaks rising above the clouds. The cloud lifts over the Mediterranean and we see Sardinia and the African coast. Gradually, the Sahara appears and we fly over it for several hours - rocks, lava fields and then sand and more sand. Just before darkness falls we pass a river with water flowing in it. In the darkness of Africa there is an occasional single light to be seen on the ground, but we pass over no towns.
We land at Johannesburg on time and pass through immigration and the custom formalities easily. A walk to the airport hotel and a comfortable night.
Breakfast in the hotel’s Quills restaurant and, in the late morning, a walk to the domestic terminal to check in at 1pm for the flight to Mthatha. Our luggage is deemed to be 2kg over weight and so we go to the South African Airways ticket desk to pay 40 rand as an excess baggage charge (around £2.80p). The terminal has a fine view over the airport and the small plane going to Mthatha leaves a few minutes late at 3-15pm. From the plane there are dramatic views of the Drakensberg mountains, before clouds cover the view.
On the descent to Mthatha Airport, we come below the clouds and see the river, hills, houses and our first rondavals, the traditional roundhouses of the Xhosa people. At the airport we are met by Dean Samson Makalima, who visited Aberdeen in 2002. He drives us the seven miles into town, and we pass the entrance to the Bedford Hospital, where Katie Davies, a member of Saint Mary’s in Ellon, worked. The town centre of Mthatha is very busy and it takes some time to negotiate the crowded streets. It also takes time to adjust to the heat!
The Diocesan complex is at the top of Callaway Street, named after the first Bishop of Saint John’s, the Right Reverend Henry Callaway, who bought this site, sloping down to a bend in the Mthatha River, in 1876 for the headquarters of the new Diocese. It is on the edge of the town and our home is the Diocesan Guest House. It is a comfortable ground-floor flat at the end of a block of student accommodation.
The Diocesan Guest House
We are welcomed by Amanda who works in the Diocesan Office and at 6pm a young man knocks on the door, introduces himself as one of the people to be ordained deacon tomorrow and invites us to supper with the others. There are 10 people to be ordained (some stipendiary and some not and one of them a woman).
After supper they are to meet Bishop Sitembele Mzamane in Saint Bede’s Chapel, and he comes on to us afterwards and has a cup of tea, along with the Principal of the College who is mourning his youngest son, a skilled musician at the cathedral, who died last week. There is grief in his eyes.
The Bishop comes at 8am to drive us to St Cuthberts at Tsolo for the ordination. We drive across the Mthatha river bridge and are out of the city almost immediately, into a countryside of low green hills. After 30 minutes we turn left into the town, a large village really, of Tsolo and 10 minutes later come to Saint Cuthbert’s Mission.
The Church stands in open countryside, close to the foot of a flat-topped mountain. There is a great sandstone church, which was begun in 1897, and consecrated nine years later. It was served for 64 years by the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, the Cowley Fathers, from Oxford. The evidence of their Oxford presence is there in the Crucifix, Rood Screen and the statue of the Virgin and Child (which is very similar to that in the Bishop’s House, Iona, which was also served by the Cowley Fathers).
In the Vestry I am given a (very light) cope to wear and meet the clergy. There are perhaps 50 of the 110 clergy of the Diocese present, many of them either Archdeacons or Canons. There are 13 Archdeacons and 17 Canons in the Diocese. The Archdeacons include Father Alfred, former parish priest at Ngcobo - Ellon and Cruden Bay’s link parish - and Father Templeton, the present parish priest there. The ordination begins at 9-0am. I am seated at the Bishop’s left side and also beside him are his Chaplain and the Dean. My sermon is translated into Xhosa by a priest who shares the pulpit with me.
Bishop Sitembele and some of the new Deacons
After the ordination and Eucharist, which together last well over three hours, there is lunch. It is a meal for everyone, although we eat it in a very select company of the senior clergy and their wives in a small hall. We meet Beauty from Ngcobo, who is the parish link correspondent, and then Dean Sam drives us back to Mthatha, as the Bishop is going on further to Maclear to visit his mother. We are back in Mthatha by 2-30pm. At 4-30pm the Bishop calls in and takes us to meet Rebecca, his wife, and Sonia, his youngest daughter. We then travel across town to the Pick and Pay supermarket, which competes with the Spar to be the best in town. The temperature in Mthatha is 33º - warmer at Saint Cuthbert’s!
We should be going to the Institution of a Rector - You are not required to preach says the itinerary - but this is postponed because of a funeral, and we shall miss it on the re-arranged date, so in the morning we explore the Diocesan complex, including the fine Chapel of Saint Bede right beside our house and the Diocesan Offices.
Saint Bede’s Chapel
The Diocesan Office and Bishop’s Office at Mthatha
once part of Saint Bede’s Theological College.In the afternoon we walk a mile into the city centre and explore it. The Lonely Planet guide book says of Mthatha - It isn’t pretty but it’s refreshingly free of racism and has a raw, African edge which is missing from most cities in South Africa. The temperature this afternoon is 35º.
Downtown in Mthatha
Much cooler today after rain in the night and it is also cloudy. Archdeacon Gerald Buso and his wife Zola come at 9-15am and we set off over the Mthatha river bridge and down the same road as on Thursday. At the Tsolo junction there is a police checkpoint at which all cars are being stopped, but we are waved through. There are some advantages for the clergy in South Africa! We go to All Saints’, Mbokotwana, where there’s a new priest and a newly built Rectory.
All Saints’, Mbokotwana
In 1880, eight Christians were martyred here, including the catechist, and they lie buried under the High Altar of the stone Church, which is another which was served by the Cowley Fathers. After a tour of the Church we visit a rondaval, which was the Cowley Fathers’ first schoolroom and then go over to the Rectory, built in March 2006.
we had not been expected until 2pm, and the priest will be back for then. We enjoy freshly baked bread and more coffee. comes. Then lunch is served as the young priest, Father Simnikiwe Mqunyana, returns.
At 1-30pm we leave, after many photographs, and drive to the Umzimvuvru river which marks the boundary of the Diocese. The new diocese across the river was formed in 1991 when St John’s grew too big. We travel back up the main road and go to Tsolo and to Saint Cuthbert’s again - but this time to the Community of Saint John the Baptist.
In many ways, Saint Cuthbert’s has been the religious centre of the diocese and has been the home of several religious communities. The first was an attempt in 1900 to create a religious order for men - the Society of Saint Cuthbert - with the parish priest, Father Godfrey Callaway, as Superior. In 1904 the Cowley Fathers, the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, arrived and worked here for 64 years. In 1905 Sisters from the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin, Wantage, came and the hospital at Saint Cuthbert’s (founded in 1907, and since 1975 run by the Government) is named Saint Lucy’s – the name in religion of the then Mother of the Community. The sisters withdrew in the mid-1970s.
The one remaining order at Saint Cuthbert’s is the Community of St John the Baptist. In 1914, Alberta Ngudle came 30 miles from her home, bringing all her possessions in a wagon drawn by 16 oxen, to begin a religious house for African women. Sister Alberta died in 1957, at the age of 83. Today the community has ten Sisters. It also takes in orphaned children and presently cares for eight, the eldest of whom is fourteen.
Sisters of Saint John the Baptist
with some of the orphan children they care forWe are welcomed by the young Mother Superior and meet the Sisters and eat a (second) lunch, which they had prepared for us, having expected us at 1-0pm. Afterwards, we tour the Convent, meet some of the children and pray in the Sisters’ Chapel and then in the drizzle, which has been falling for two hours, we drive back to Mthatha.
Up at 5am and at 7am Father Templeton arrives having driven an hour from Ngcobo to collect us. It is another hot day as we drive an hour back along the fast road and meet Pumala, Father Templeton’s wife, and Beauty, our parish link correspondent, the assistant priest, who says that he is now retired and aged 68, and the new young deacon, ordained on Thursday. We have tea and sandwiches in the spacious old Rectory and at 9am the Eucharist begins.
A procession of choir servers and clergy move down the north side of the outside of All Saints’ and in through the west door. All Saints’ has a vast space with a seating for 500 people. There are French windows on both side walls. It was about half full this morning, but will fill up more as the Eucharist proceeds.
The Eucharist is in Xhosa but I am given the prayer book in English. My sermon is translated by the Warden and, as at Saint Cuthbert’s, I assist with the administration by giving Communion to the choir and servers first and then to the congregation. After the Communion, the children, perhaps, 50 of them, come up for a blessing, followed by a number of men who seek a blessing too. We are welcomed by the Warden and the financial support from Ellon and Cruden Bay is mentioned and appreciated. Both Glynis and I respond. At the end of the Eucharist, the children sing in our honour, followed by the servers, led by a teenage girl who earlier had been the thurifer.
When the Diocese of Mthatha divides for the second time because of its growth, Ngcobo may well become the cathedral of the new diocese. A decision on this will be perhaps be taken at a Synod in August 2007.
All Saints’, Ngcobo
After the procession out of the church, photographs are taken by an official photographer and then Beauty takes us on a tour of the Mission. It was the second to be founded in Transkei. On All Saints’ Day 1859 the chief of the Qwati tribe assigned land to the Reverend Henry Waters and the Reverend John Gordon of Saint Mark’s Mission, founded in 1855 as the first Mission across the Kei river (hence Transkei), and fifty miles from Ngcobo. Father Gordon immediately began work at Ngcobo. He was joined in 1864 by two young laymen, Bransby Lewis Key (who was to become the second Bishop of Saint John’s) and John Dodd. At Advent they were ordained deacon by the Bishop of Grahamstown and went on to found other mission stations, including Saint Cuthbert’s, begun by Father Bransby Key in 1881.
All Saints’ Mission is set in a wooded valley, with high hills around it, some miles from the town of Ngcobo. We see the house, where Pat Begg from Saint Mary’s once stayed and now to be the home of the newly ordained deacon, and the former convent buildings of the Sisters of the Community of Saint Denys, from Warminster, who worked here from the early 1900s to the mid 1970s. These buildings are now rented out as housing and somewhat dilapidated. We also see the bungalow where Stuart and Pirjo, from Saint Mary’s, stayed two years ago. It is close to All Saints’ Hospital.
The first Anglican Bishop in South Africa was Robert Gray, Bishop of Capetown. He had responsibility for a vast area and from the first modeled his mission stations on those of the Moravians, who had built self-contained missions, where education, medicine and training were all provided, along with the preaching of the Gospel.
This continued to be the pattern of the Anglican mission stations until the mid-1970s when the Transkei government took control of both schools and hospitals. At one time Saint John’s Diocese ran five hospitals, more than any other Diocese in the Anglican Communion.
Mobile Clinics of the new hospital
We visit All Saints’ Hospital. The old buildings have been renovated and phases 1 and 2 (outpatient, casualty and children’s ward) of a new hospital built. Mobile clinics also travel out on each weekday to the surrounding countryside.
We also see the small house - A Place of Hope - which the Mothers’ Union opens once a week for AIDS and HIV sufferers. Lack of funding precludes improvements to the building - such as flushing loos, which health regulations insist on - and this prevents more extensive help being offered.
We see the old Church now in use as the Hall and the venue for a parish lunch, but we are not taken inside, although we visit the grave of Father Waters, a priest who died in 1923, one of the early missionaries here. Our lunch is at the Rectory with the clergy and the Mothers’ Union leaders. The financial support from Ellon and Cruden Bay is again acknowledged and much appreciated.
After lunch we leave, and Father Templeton drives us to see an outstation church (at the roadside on the main Mthatha to Ngcobo road) and then into Ngcobo itself for petrol. A quick journey back to Mthatha and we arrive around 4-30pm.
The water supply fails - seemingly for the whole of the area of town in which we live. This afternoon we leave for two days at Coffee Bay, but before that we have time to visit the new Mothers’ Union Centre opposite the Diocesan Offices.
The building was dedicated by the Bishop Sitembele and opened by Trish Heywood from Dunfermline, the Mothers’ Union Worldwide President, in 2002.
Sister Josephine whom we met on Saturday at Saint Cuthbert’s is in charge of the office (just since last Monday) and takes us around. There are 20 children in the nursery and four women working in the sewing room making vestments, copes and cassocks.
Dean Sam comes to take us to Coffee Bay at around 1-15pm It is a slow road, with many twists and turns and many potholes to avoid, but it goes through open and beautiful countryside. The rondavals are painted a turquoise colour, which is the tribal colour of the Tshezi people. Not every house is painted in this colour as tradition is not strictly adhered to by the younger generation. The paint is water based and so the side facing into the south-west prevailing wind, and rain, is left unpainted.
Every two or three miles along this road there is a school and so everywhere groups of schoolchildren are walking home through the heat of the afternoon. Just before 3-0pm we turn a corner and far below us is Coffee Bay, with its beach, and the river flowing into the Indian Ocean. We say goodbye to, and thank, Dean Sam; settle into the Ocean View Hotel and then walk along the shore.
There is much rain in the night and morning is grey with a light drizzle. However, after breakfast the drizzle stops and we walk along the beach but the far end, about three quarters a mile from the hotel, the rain comes on again and we get very wet indeed.
Back in the hotel we change into dry clothes and there is lunch in the hotel bar. During the afternoon, the rain finally stops and we walk along the road to the river bridge, and then come back to visit the Coffee Bay shop. The shop is as a shop in a Scottish village would have been 50 years ago - with a high counter and everything on the shelves behind. Another walk along the beach and dinner to end a restful, peaceful day.
Up early and a walk on the beach before breakfast. One of the idiosyncrasies of the Ocean View Hotel is that its little shop, which we visit, is only open between 7-30am and 9-30am. After breakfast, we spend the morning in the hotel garden and Dean Sam arrives for lunch and drives us back to Mthatha.
At 10-0am in the College Hall, I meet 30 or more of the Diocesan clergy. There is an introduction from the Bishop and then an address from me. Questions and discussion follows. The whole event lasts about 2 hours before a sandwich lunch.
In the evening, we go 200 yards down the road to St John’s Mission Parish, founded in 1873 and the oldest in Mthatha. We are there at the invitation of the Rector, Archdeacon Wycliffe Nombekela. I speak about Scotland and our link with the Diocese of Mthatha and answer questions. This is a deep thinking group and discussion moves to the problems of the Anglican Communion, and it is clear that opinion is as divided in this congregation as in most across the world. Coffee and sandwiches in Saint John’s Hall, a new and excellently equipped octagonal building.
Bishop Sitembele comes at 8-0am and we take the road towards Coffee Bay once more. Some 25 miles from Mthatha we turn off the tarred road and onto the dirt one. We follow this for some 4 miles heading for the Church of Saint John the Baptist at Ngqungqu, in a deeply rural community where a new Rector is to be instituted and a new parish formed today.
The Diocese’s policy is to develop outstations into parishes. The priest to be made Rector is Father Admiral Magadla, who is non-stipendiary and will continue to live in Mthatha where he runs a business as a funeral director. About half a mile from the Church, the Bishop’s truck is stopped and led at walking pace by the crucifer and servers in scarlet cassocks, and escorted by drumming and singing women and teenage girl tribal dancers.
The service is scheduled for 9am and it’s now 8-50am. Three marquees have been erected around the Church and we are invited into one for breakfast - juice, bread and, for those who would like it, a heaped plate of meat.
The Eucharist itself begins around 10-0am and I am the preacher, with an Archdeacon translating into Xhosa for me. At least six of the 13 Archdeacons of the Diocese are present. The institution is formal and the promises similar to Scottish ones. They are made in English. After the Eucharist itself, at which I administer the host from midway down of the aisle, there are speeches and presentations to the new Rector, to the Bishop and to us.
After 3¾ hours we process out of the church and lunch follows in the marquee, although in the church there is a further display of tribal dancing.
One of the presentations to the Bishop is of a live chicken and as we leave this is enhanced with one of a live sheep, both of which are transported back to Mthatha in the back of the Bishop’s Indian built truck. Back in Mthatha we find that the water is once more off. A trickle appears at 9pm, but it’s much in demand as the College accommodation is fully booked over this weekend.
The trickle of water runs out by 8-0am. No electricity is forecast for tomorrow. Today is a quiet day. In the hot afternoon, we walk down Callaway Street and turn left and explore the Triangle Circus shopping mall, very similar to the Trinity Centre in Aberdeen.
Saint John’s Cathedral, Mthatha
At 6pm, Dean Sam collects us for dinner with the Cathedral Church Council. Young people from the cathedral are playing marimbas as we enter the Theo Mbambisa Unity Hall. We meet Professor Chris McConnachie and his wife, Dr. Jenny, with whom Katie Davies worked during her first visit to Mthatha in 1993.
Speeches are made by Dr G.Z. Mbambisa, the Reverend T.N.P. Msengi, Mrs P. Mbambisa and Professor McConnachie, to which I respond. We receive a presentation of an Mthatha made tablecloth and set of mats and napkins and also a beaded necklace for
Glynis and a beaded tie for me. The young people sing and dance and there is a background of marimba music as we enjoy an excellent dinner.
Dean Sam collects us at 7am and drives us back to the Cathedral for the 7-30am Eucharist, at which I both celebrate and preach.
The predicted power cut has not affected the edge of town where we are but has reached the Cathedral. A generator is at hand however, and the Eucharist proceeds, in English, with 100 plus people present.
The Dean’s wife has to leave mid way as she is unwell and is taken to Saint Mary’s Hospital. It means that I also celebrate (as well as the scheduled preaching) at the 9-30am Eucharist which is in a mixture of English and Xhosa and at which the marimbas are again in evidence. As the congregation of around 200 all speak English there is no need for an interpreter.
After the Eucharist, there is a sandwich lunch at the Deanery at which we learn that Dean Sam’s wife has been kept in hospital but is “stable”.
After lunch we are driven by a Church Warden to Misty Mount and see the Church of Saint Mary and the Holy Cross and the Rectory there. An Archdeaconry meeting is taking place in the Church at which we are welcomed before being offered juice and cakes in the Rectory, which was dedicated by Bishop Sitembele in February, 2005. The young Rector is Father Sindisile Faleni. He was ordained priest in December and is the third priest in charge of this new parish, which was formed around 2002. Previously the Church had been an outstation. Misty Mount lives up to its name – it is very misty and also very wet.
We are back in Mthatha, where it is dry, by 4pm. At 6pm, a deputation from Ngcobo arrives at the Diocesan Guest House, along with Ngcobo’s former priest, Father Alfred, and Canon Siphiwo Bam, who combines being Rector of Butterworth with the role of Diocesan Secretary. Speeches are made and gifts given including a cope and stole, a beaded walking stick, and a beaded fruit bowl. We are overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness. Afterwards, Canon Bam takes us – and several of the Archdeacons - to dinner at Spurs, a restaurant with a Red Indian theme.
A morning of packing and a visit from Neziwe Nombekela, who is Archdeacon Wycliffe’s sister and who visited the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney with the youth exchange some years ago. She brings a gift of CDs recorded by the Diocesan Choir.
Canon Bam drives us to the airport at 3-30pm and we are able to check our luggage through to Aberdeen before catching the South African Airways 5-30pm flight to Johannesburg. There is a five hour wait before boarding the very crowded KLM jumbo jet and the overnight flight to Amsterdam.
Dawn breaks over the Mediterranean and the plane arrives in Amsterdam at 9-40am, twenty minutes ahead of schedule. We have another five hour wait before the plane to Aberdeen. It leaves Amsterdam in a snow shower and arrives at Aberdeen in another snow shower at 3-30pm, which is 5-30pm in Mthatha..
The Diocese of Mthatha is a vibrant place where faith clearly means a lot to people. There has been and continues to be considerable growth. It is also a Diocese in which young clergy are given responsibility early in their ministry as new parishes are created.
In the days of apartheid South Africa the infra-structure of the Transkei region was much neglected by the South African Government, despite the brave stands taken by successive Bishops - James Schuster, Godfrey Ashby and Jacob Dlamini. Much progress has been made in the years since apartheid ended in 1994, but much remains to be done.
Some of the new parishes have considerable financial struggles as a majority of the people are unemployed, but everyone is optimistic and cheerful about the future. They also value all that the Scottish Episcopal Church has done to assist them from the earliest days. It is remembered and the earliest missionaries are revered for their faith and perseverance. The current links with the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, and with a Canadian Diocese, are also greatly appreciated. It is said that they learn much from us, as we undoubtedly can from the people of the Diocese of Mthatha.
