On field placements, and vestments

            Two of our students are being introduced to the congregation at St. Peter’s, Mogoditshane. They are placed here for some months as part of their ministerial formation.

            Our students like to be supportive of one another, and a good number have come to Mogoditshane today for the occasion.



Ordinands Octavius Bolelang (left) and Bashie Tsheole
with Fr. Andrew Mudereri



            I preach. The story of Jeremiah’s call works well, I think, to talk about their call to the ordained ministry, and about God’s call to all of us. Fr. Andrew Mudereri then celebrates the Eucharist, after which there are introductions and a Mothers Union lunch. The parish is having its vestry elections, so we St. Augustine folk eat together out on the porch.

            We are cooling off now that we have shed our vestments. It is already in the upper nineties. I sit there as students chat in Setswana, wondering whose idea vestments were anyway. I suspect a layperson, wearied by tiresome sermons, deciding that clergy should suffer too.

St. Augustine Theological School



Seated, Fr, Leon Spencer, Fr. James Amanze, and the
Rev. John Hamathi, faculty,
with ordinands at St. Augustine Theological School

    My time with the St. Augustine Theological School begins when four of our students come down from the north, around Francistown, for a week of intensive study. It has proven difficult for tutors to meet with these students frequently, and now, as the second term begins, they have come to Gaborone.

We meet in a small duplex that houses the School. It consists of a small classroom, an office for the head of the School (where the copier donated by the Diocese of North Carolina lives), another office for the second tutor, James Hamathi, and me, and a small kitchen. Nothing fancy, but it works.

I am teaching three courses: Reformation history, Biblical interpretation, and Sacramental theology. Only the latter have I taught before. I spend the week trying to organize my thoughts, organize the courses, and do a few things in our hours together that may be helpful in these students’ ministerial formation.  All the while we are no doubt sizing up one another – they as to whether I will be able to teach anything relevant to their ministry, me as to what their particular gifts and their academic strengths and weaknesses are.

            At the end of the week they go home – ‘it is time to tend my farm,’ one remarks – and the next week the students from here in the south, around Gaborone, arrive. There are seven of them. They work during the day, then come every weekday evening for classes.

            The next week one student from Lobatse, maybe an hour’s drive away, arrives. He finds it hard to come each evening, even when he is in Lobatse, and presently he is working on a project in the Kalahari, perhaps 700 miles away. When he is home, he comes up to spend several full days with us.

The final student – there are thirteen in all – is doing some theological study through a South African institution. We are evaluating the courses he is taking, and plan to augment them with areas where we see a particular need. Pastoral studies come to mind, Fr. James Amanze, who heads the School (as well as the companion link committee), indicates.

            I am impressed with the investment in time and energy and travel these students make. They have jobs, family demands, and church responsibilities. And yet, they are here, at a new school named for the patron saint of theologians. Their academic levels vary. But it is clear that they are committed, serious about this journey they – and the Diocese of Botswana – have begun.

            There is then something to celebrate here, already. The Diocese of Botswana now has an institution to prepare persons for ordination and lay leadership, something it has sought for literally decades. Earlier postings in this Botswana Diary date from 2010, when I was part of their reflections upon how the Diocese might provide ministerial formation locally, and… how it could support and sustain it. Now, they – we, thanks to encouragement from North Carolina – have begun.

Feast day at Molepolole

Bishop Trevor, censing the altar at St. Paul's, Molepolole.

Today St. Paul’s Church in Molepolole is celebrating the feast day of the Conversion of St. Paul, which was Friday.

I travel to Molepolole, some forty miles west of Gaborone, with Bishop Trevor Mwamba and the new dean of the cathedral, James McKeran. It’s a beautiful, sunny day, already getting hot. The Bishop’s car’s air conditioning works better than mine.

The service is superb, wonderful choruses in Setswana, a fine ‘farewell’ sermon by Bishop Trevor, even special prayers for the paramount chief of the Bakwena, who stands before him.

It is commonplace to ask guests to bring greetings, and I do so, naming the Bishop of North Carolina, Michael Curry. But I also mention that North Carolina just held its annual convention Friday and elected a suffragan bishop, Anne Hodges-Copple, and so I bring greetings from her too. I make sure gender is not lost on the congregation; I mention ‘her election’ and ‘she’ to underscore the point. I trust it is duly translated.

This will not be disturbing to the people in the Diocese of Botswana. They have wanted to be able to ordain women for quite some years, and there has been some complaint that there are no women in our first intake of students at the St. Augustine Theological School. The Diocese is asking once more that the Church of the Province of Central Africa – which includes not just Botswana but also Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia – permit dioceses who wish to do so to ordain women. This has been a successful practice elsewhere; Kenya is a case in point. We’ll see. The provincial synod is in February.

There’s a good meal afterward. The chicken is tender and spicy, with a good dose of vinegar and pepper, like my Mama used to fix.

A Botswana ordination

            Today Sefularo Mogopodi is ordained a priest.

The Cathedral of the Holy Cross here in Gaborone is packed, not least with clergy at the benches ringing the wall at the altar. Mongezi Guma, the former cathedral dean, has traveled up from Johannesburg, and Benjamin Moleko, the former diocesan secretary, from Pretoria. Nick Darby, another former dean, is visiting from the Diocese of Newcastle, in England. And many clergy, familiar faces, from within Botswana join them.

Fr. Sefularo is a Motswana, thus adding to the very short list of priests from Botswana itself. He finished his studies at the College of the Transfiguration in South Africa a year ago. And he is young. His wife is invited forward toward the end of the service, carrying with her their baby girl. The infant is wearing a lacy white dress, and has a small band of white cloth wrapped around her head. She stares out at the congregation with interest, no doubt wondering what this is all about.

Bishop Trevor presides. He is busy preparing to leave Botswana in slightly over a month. This is his last ordination.

‘You stand here today as God’s dear child,’ he begins his charge to Fr. Sefularo. I especially like the words that come later: ‘Remember your own frailty.’ Perhaps that comes after nearly 25 years in the priesthood and 70 years of life.

It is a glorious celebratory service. True, it lasts a bit over three hours, and some of my African friends complain about it. But still….

I wish this young man well. And when he gathers years from now to reaffirm his ordination vows – as we do each year during Holy Week – I hope he will say with as strong a voice as he uses today: ‘I do.’

Welcome home 2013

‘Welcome home.’

            Ben Motlhalamme, the diocesan secretary, greets me with these words as we pass the peace in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Gaborone.

            They are kind, even generous words for him to say. Botswana, of course, is not my ‘home,’ but a message that I am home given by someone whose true home it is is a message to be gratefully received.

            It is perhaps easy to overlook, from the outside, just how international a city Gaborone is, despite its relatively small population for a nation’s capital. The Church reflects it. Naturally most are Batswana in the cathedral congregation, but there are people from Asia, Europe and North America, and from elsewhere in Africa and from many other countries in the region: South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe especially.

            Are we all ‘at home’ here? Maybe. Maybe not. But Ben Motlhalamme’s greeting reflects a vision, that we all may find a home within the community of faith, within the one Body of Christ, wherever we may be.

            Meanwhile, back at my home in North Carolina, my Bishop, Michael Curry, has been speaking of our Diocese’s going to Galilee, to a diverse, sometimes chaotic world, which is where Jesus told the disciples to go after the resurrection. That complex world, he says, should be seen as we look about us in our congregations.

I also think that when Jesus told his disciples to ‘go to Galilee,’ he was saying to the disciples, ‘let’s go home.’ Home to family, security, and perhaps, safety, after a tumultuous week in Jerusalem. Somehow the dynamic between our churches’ entering and engaging with the diverse community that is our Galilee, on the one hand, and providing ourselves with a continuing sense of being home, on the other, will lead to our realizing the call to have a church where all will find a home.

‘Welcome home.’ Wherever we may be. Whoever we are.

Botswana Diary 7

            My cell phone lights up and the screen indicates a message.  “Stuck on the M1 – accident,” it reads.

            As I wait for my ride over to the TEE College (Southern Africa), I think back on my introduction to theological education by extension (TEE).  I was living in Kenya at the time, the dean of studies of the Diocese of Nairobi’s residential theological college.  The Trinity Grants Program from Trinity Church, Wall Street, was pouring money into Africa, East Africa in particular, in support of TEE.  They saw it as a healthy alternative to residential seminaries – more accessible, more contextual, less expensive.  Local writers were busy designing TEE workbooks, on the gospels, on church history, on African traditional religion.  Trinity Grants supported writing conferences, and resources in multiple languages were churned out, some quite good, some not so.

Behind it all was a strong vision for alternatives to traditional seminary studies, and East African Anglicans embraced TEE, especially for laity.

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TEE was a late arrival in East Africa.  It originated in Latin America in the 1950s.  The name Ross Kinsler returns to my mind as I wait for transportation here in Johannesburg and reflect on those years in which I worked myself up the learning curve about TEE.  To this day his name is associated with the founding of the movement, and in fact he spoke at TEE College a few years back on some anniversary of theirs.

The burden of TEE in Africa has been to demonstrate that its programs and resources have depth and integrity.  Some have been very simplistic, which is why they continue to be relegated to lay education and to be looked down upon by some leaders of residential seminaries.

But that is changing.  When I left Kenya there were those who were developing degree-level TEE programs, a sign that TEE was moving forward and might serve broader needs.

Which is what brings me to TEE College here in Johannesburg.  For many years it has been offering quality resources and programs leading to solid diplomas and degrees.  I visited them some years back.  Now I want to be clear about what they are up to these days, and to see whether, and how, their programs might be useful to the Diocese of Botswana.

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Craig Dunsmeir has extricated himself from the M1 and pulls up in front of my lodge in Melville.  He is the new administrative head of TEE College, an Anglican priest serving at an ecumenical institution.  We drive back to the College, his kindness over and beyond the call of duty, even though the M1 has cleared.

The College is between terms, so few staff are around, but even during term there are not many students around – some local ones come to use the small library – since it is, after all, distance learning. 

They enroll over 4,000 students from throughout South Africa and beyond.  Their motto: “Equipping anyone anywhere for ministry.”

We talk for quite awhile in a cold office.  They are good at the academic substance of their courses, Craig says, but he acknowledges that the nature of TEE makes ministerial formation, especially in community, hard.  He’s been working with the folk down at the residential College of the Transfiguration in Grahamstown, where Botswana already sends ordinands.  My mind starts working on the notion that Batswana ordinands might remain in Botswana for two years of their course of study, enrolled with TEE College, then head to Grahamstown for a final year of residency.  I run the idea by Craig.

He takes me over to where their resources are located, and I look at a few samples.  Dense.  EfM’s are more attractively laid out.  But it’s good stuff.  I’ll take substance over appearance any day.

-

It seems a long time since I was worshipping at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Gaborone on my first April Sunday in Botswana, I think to myself as son Trevor and I walk down the street to the local Anglican parish, in the neighborhood of Auckland Park here in Johannesburg.  It’s the Fourth of July.

            St. Peter’s is a lovely old parish, very English in its design.  Now it boasts quite a mixed congregation.  The Rector is Vicentia Kgabe, and she is the Archdeacon for this region of the Diocese.

            Today is “Favourite Hymn Sunday,” and the requests have been eclectic.  One parishioner asked for the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and this the congregation sings with great energy, seemingly oblivious to its history and our Fourth.

            The “special prayer” offered today is “for our country, our visitors, and that xenophobia does not arise again.”

-

            In a few hours I board my flight to Atlanta and home to Greensboro.  Packing is virtually done.  I have cautiously placed my many notes into my carry-on, fearful that my checked luggage might disappear, and with it the foundation for my final report on the Diocese of Botswana’s vision for theological education.  I may even pull some notes out, and type a bit, during the 16-hour flight.  (But probably not.)

            I wonder how it will feel, writing away in my study in Greensboro.  In my cottage in Botswana there seems an immediacy to the work.  I worry that the energy that feeling of immediacy generates might dissipate as I return to the routine, and the heat, of a North Carolina summer.

           

-

             In the forty-six years since my first trip to Africa, as a Wake Forest undergraduate, I have never left the continent without a feeling of how richly blessed I am for the experience.

            Not to idealize the experience.  Things go wrong sometimes, and frustrate, and for every time the different pace of African life refreshes, there is a moment when it irritates.  But I like the time Africans, especially within the Church, take for people who appear at their door.  Including me, time and again in Botswana.  It plays havoc with schedules, but maybe that’s not so bad.

            And maybe it’s something for us to learn.  After all, Jesus let himself, and his plan for the day, be interrupted by Bartimaeus, much to his disciples’ chagrin.  Which role should we opt to play?

-

            At St. Peter’s in Auckland Park yesterday we say together the post-communion prayer, but then, before moving on to the priest’s blessing, the congregation begins to sing.  It’s not in the bulletin, but everyone knows it.

                        God bless Africa.

                        Guard her children.

                        Guide her leaders.

                        And grant her peace.

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Botswana Diary 6

          Mr. Maplank comes through the diocesan office most days, walking into every room, making sure that everything is as it should be, and that all of us are okay.  He sometimes speaks and sometimes doesn’t.  He has mental problems.

            Bishop Mwamba comes into the room where I am ensconced and sees Mr. Maplank.  “Have you met?” he asks me.  “Mr. Maplank kindly comes to see that we are alright,” he explains.  “He’s a very distinguished man.”  Mr. Maplank smiles.  “I like your coat,” the Bishop tells him.  “You’re warm on this chilly day.”

            Mr. Maplank heads on into another room.  “Would you like me to fix you a cup of tea?” I hear someone ask.

            This is how it should be, I think to myself.

-

            At a fine farewell dinner the conversation gravitates away from the Church to the World Cup (which has its own theology).  In that frame of mind – otherwise I am not quite ready to leave – I depart Botswana on a short flight to Johannesburg the next morning.

            There, united with son Trevor, who has just flown in from London, I drive south toward Ladysmith.  Complete with snow flurries.

-

Two days later we are in Pietermaritzburg, staying at the Church Land Program guest house, with meetings scheduled throughout the day.  Soon-to-be-seminarian Trevor tags along.

Besides being the capital of the province of KwaZulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg is a university town.  It used to host the Federal Seminary, an ecumenical effort that could not survive apartheid pressures.  Now there is the Cluster, a cooperative arrangement among separate denominational seminaries.

The Anglican House of Studies (AHS) here is still working out its identity, for the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (read, “the Anglican Church”) has had a hard time figuring out what it wants it to be.  The AHS needs to ensure that it’s not seen as in competition with the College of the Transfiguration, the Anglican theological college down in Grahamstown.  To do that it has taken on a post-ordination role, and soon will have formal links with the University of KwaZulu Natal’s School of Theology.

I want to know whether this model may be helpful as Botswana designs its own AHS.

-

            Peter Wyngaard heads the Anglican House of Studies, and we spend a stimulating couple of hours talking less about the politics of a House of Studies and more about ministerial formation itself.

            He divides formation into a trilogy: Academic, spiritual, and the practice of ministry.

            The academic he considers easy to accomplish.  He would, in a university environment with a highly-regarded School of Theology.

            The practice of ministry he considers secured by the placement of ordinands in parishes under senior experienced priests.

            It’s spiritual formation where he sees the challenge, and the priority.  How do ordinands maintain a spiritual discipline and reveal maturity in faith?  How does the Church discern spiritual qualities among ordinands as their period of formation continues?

            I’ve been thinking on these things during these past two months in Botswana.  How, I wonder, does a sense of community fit into all of this, especially if numbers are tiny, as they will surely be in Botswana?  Can we even be formed in the faith without meaningful community?

            Sigh.  I picture another clump of paragraphs in my final report.

-

            Lunch is with Gerald West, who came onto the international Anglican stage in his role designing the Bible study at the last Lambeth Conference, and now with the Bible in the Life of the Church project.

            He’s on the university faculty and head of the Ujamaa Center, what used to be called the Institute for the Study of the Bible.

            His program follows the old Institute of Contextual Theology (ICT) model, a South African variation on the Latin American theologians’ liberation approach to the Gospel.  (The ICT was especially known for its role in the creation of the Kairos Document during anti-apartheid days.)

            The Ujamaa Center, I learn, offers required courses for theology students, and places the students in the Center’s community-based projects.

            “Could Batswana ordinands come down for an intensive course?” I want to know.  He’s enthusiastic.  “Absolutely!” is the answer.  “We can tailor it to their needs.”

            “How much will it cost?” I finally ask.

-

            Rorke’s Drift’s claim to fame is as an icon of British military history.  It’s in the heart of what used to be the Zulu Kingdom, and here a tiny remnant of British forces held off several thousand Zulu warriors in 1879.  Never mind that the Zulu had pretty much wiped out the British at Isandlhwana, just up the road, the day before.  This is what the British military choose to recall, and what Hollywood makes movies about.  Think Zulu (1964).

            But I’m not much of a battlefields’ buff.  Instead, I’ve taken this route northeast of Pietermaritzburg because the battle at Rorke’s Drift was at a Swedish Lutheran mission station.  (On who cleaned up the mess and repaired the mission’s buildings after the battle was over, military historians are scrupulously silent.)

            Less than a century later, in the 1960s, the Lutheran mission began an arts and craft center.  Apartheid was in full sway, and the idea was to bring black artists to Rorke’s Drift for further training, and to do their own work in the mission’s studio.

            I know of this story because of John Muafangejo.  He trained here.  I met him in Windhoek, in Namibia, in 1983.  He was teaching survivors of landmines to make some marvelous wool tapestries, a project the Diocese there helped to start.  I still recall their sitting in front of their looms, in wheelchairs.

            But Muafangejo was known most for his woodcuts, large things on liberation struggle themes.  I bought two.

            A troubled man, he committed suicide a few years back.  There is a book of his woodcuts out.  Madiba, Nelson Mandela, wrote the foreword.

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            We visit Isandhlwana this afternoon.  Near the battlefield is an Anglican church – named St. Vincent’s, on whose feast day the battle was fought.  The church was built only five years after the Anglo-Zulu War ended.

            Its stained glass windows depict “Christian Warriors.”

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