THE REVD DR. LEON SPENCER, FORMER DEAN OF THE DIOCESE OF NORTH CAROLINA’S SCHOOL OF MINISTRY, IS TEACHING AT THE NEW ST. AUGUSTINE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL IN THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF BOTSWANA, WITH WHICH NORTH CAROLINA HAS A COMPANION LINK. HE CONTINUES HIS DIARY FROM 2010, WHEN HE SERVED AS A CONSULTANT ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN BOTSWANA. HERE IS HIS “BOTSWANA DIARY.”
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. AugustineTheologicalSchool. 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.
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.’
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.
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 TEECollege (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 TrinityChurch, 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 TEECollege 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 TEECollege 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 TEECollege, 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 TEECollege, 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.
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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.”
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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.
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In the forty-six years since my first trip to Africa, as a WakeForest 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?
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 UjamaaCenter, 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 UjamaaCenter, 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.
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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 ZuluKingdom, 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.”
I think I have let someone down today. One day I promise to go with a church warden to see an outstation called Mmopane, on the other side of the airport, then this morning I say “next week instead.”
But I have my reasons. She calls from Molepolole, saying I should “just drive out the Molepolole Road past the BDF….” I pause, then remember that BDF stands for Botswana Defence Force. There must be a base out there somewhere. After I pass it, she continues, she’ll be waiting for me by the side of the road.
I have driven to Molepolole once in my life, and then with someone to direct me. The road is very congested, lots of road work, and the notion I will spot her just “somewhere by the side of the road” seems unlikely in the extreme. No.
Instead I pick up a few things at the shops, then pack for the four day trip to Tsabong.
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A bit after eight the Archdeacon, Fr. Andrew Mudereri, and I find ourselves on the way. The trip from Gaborone to Tsabong is a long one, perhaps 300 miles. In an hour or so we reach Kanye, then head west, leaving the dramatic hills for flat. The trees seem smaller, the scrub further apart, as we go along; the soil becomes distinctly sandier. We are skirting the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert.
There are few towns along the way. My map marks them with an all-black circle (“garage only”), half-black half-white (“petrol only”), or all white (“no known facilities”). Tsabong will have gasoline.
Some thirty miles from Tsabong we turn off the main road. “There is the church,” Fr. Andrew says, “with the blue door.” Up a short dirt track and we are there: St.Anna’s, Kisa.
The congregation had expected us at noon, and they are still there, some 30-40 of them, at 2:30. I’m introduced, we say dumela rra, dumela mma, over and over again in greeting, and we go in.
A woman is at a blackboard, propped up on a bench in a corner near the altar. She writes Difela, hymns, on one side, Dipalo, readings, on the other.
The readings are dispensed with quickly: One from 1 Timotheo, the gospel from Mareko. Fr. Andrew looks up the appointed psalm, Peselema.
The hymns take longer. The Archdeacon chooses one from the Setswana hymnal, sings a verse. The
congregation joins in, as they are able; a poor response shows it’s not known well enough. Eventually we have five. The woman dutifully puts their numbers on the board.
At the end of the service the women come dancing out of the building, singing a chorus. Last are two ancient ladies, taking full part, large smiles. I try to capture them with my camera. Their faces have no place left to put another wrinkle.
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I am sitting in the early morning sun, keeping warm, next to the church in the desert village of Kolonkwaneng. The old church building, of clay and thatch, sits empty now, some 50 feet away across reddish sand. There are signs that goats take up residence in the old building from time to time, probably trying, like me, to stay warm.
Fr. Andrew is hearing confessions in the vestry in the new building. It’s Saturday morning. Soon we will celebrate the Eucharist.
The drive here from Tsabong is about 60 miles, along a newly paved road that clings to the South African border. Only a few months ago it was gravel. Fr. Andrew entertains me as we travel along, pointing out places where he has been stuck in the sand.
The lay minister, Simon Moseki, comes over as I write. “It is awkward here,” he says, looking around the village. “No work.”
That’s difficult to respond to, as his English is poor, and my Setswana extends only from greetings, thank you, and that’s fine to being able to say “the body of Christ” at the altar.
A herd of goats comes wandering over, interrupting our congenial silence.
We wait. More people gradually arrive. The goats move on.
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At the offertory a ceramic bowl is placed in a plastic chair and positioned in front of the altar. The congregation comes forward, dropping coins into the bowl. I can hear them clang. I add a bill.
The reading is from Mark, the widow’s mite. I wonder if I will miss the bill, as the widow may surely miss her thebe – the Botswana equivalent to a mite – which I think is Jesus’ point.
After the Eucharist we drive away, leaving behind another spot that Fr. Andrew can point to, where he became stuck in the sand.
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Middelputs is maybe 20 miles further along. We promise to be there by 2:00, and we are remarkably close, given that our Kolonkwaneng saga starts before nine, we do not leave the church before one, and even then there is communion to the sick, and a meal in Mr. Moseki’s home.
The village of Middelputs is on the MolopoRiver, which marks the boundary with South Africa. A border post is actually in the town.
The church is tiny, maybe 25 by 25 feet. A cement foundation for a new building is nearby, but it looks as if it were laid some time ago, and no sooner have we arrived than the lay minister, Jackson Ditlhatibi, takes me aside and says they need money to build.
As we follow the same pattern again – confessions, Eucharist, teaching, inviting anyone in the congregation to raise concerns or questions, taking communion to homes – I gather a better impression of what it means in this Diocese to have outstations at considerable distance and to have so few priests to serve them. This is the first opportunity to visit that Fr. Andrew has had since Ash Wednesday.
Lay ministers may be well-trained, or frankly, may not, but it’s clear that priests are missed, and sorely needed. There has been no priest in the parish of Tsabong since 2005.
I think about this as I drive back to Tsabong. Well, about this, and about whether there are any cows in the road. Dusk changes to darkness, and it’s hard to see. Fr. Andrew is resting.
Moroka is a small rather nondescript village northeast of Francistown, just off the main road to Bulawayo, and only a few miles from the Zimbabwean border. Most houses are modest, small rectangular buildings with metal or tile roofs, with dirt yards swept clean. Some are the traditional round dwellings, thatched, with smooth painted walls. Mrs. Lydia Maleho, the lay leader of the small congregation here, has both.
She isn’t home, but her grandson, named Witness, is. “I will take you to her,” he offers. “May I let the cattle out first?” Polite. Rev. Callender, of course, assents. Witness frees them from their overnight pen, and they wander on off.
The congregation meets in Mrs. Maleho’s small living room, but a church building is on its way up. Witness takes us there first, where we see the cinderblock walls of what will be St. Alban’s Church standing on a large plot, awaiting a roof, among other things. The Diocese of Newcastle, which has a companion link with Botswana, has offered to help complete the work.
We return to our van, head back to the narrow tarmac, then turn left onto a dirt track next to a small shop named “Why Not Fresh Vegetables.” It’s closed. No doubt that’s why not.
Mrs. Maleho is at her farm, several miles along the twisting track. Finally we come to a gate, consisting of huge thorny branches. Witness hops out and pulls them aside. We drive a short way, then park and walk. We can see her in the distance.
She brightens up when she sees us. No doubt part of that is genuine hospitality, but I can also imagine she happily envisions a ride back to her home as well.
She’s been gleaning the remnants of her harvest, sorghum mainly, but some rather sad-looking sweet potatoes too. “Like Ruth,” Rev. Callender says.
We lug the bags back to the van and climb in. Her dog, who has accompanied her, looks up. “He’ll find his way back,” she tells me, but the dog has already gauged that in me he has a potential ally. He has big eyes. “Surely we can make room for him,” I say. I hear a sigh. Witness lifts him up into the van, and he settles nicely between the seats.
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Saturday is our day for the lay leaders’ workshop in the north of the diocese, similar to what we have already done in Gaborone. Actually there are two parallel workshops, one for church wardens, the other for lay leaders. We all gather together at St. Patrick’s, in the town center, and I do a meditation on 1 Corinthians 12. Then it’s tea time.
Afterwards we split up, and the lay leaders and Fr. Amanze and I head to the rectory, where I have been staying, to meet in the living room. We have been expecting, at the most, about 20, but 38 of us crowd inside. No one complains.
We hear many of the same things about what kind of training they need, but not all are the same. Two women say that they want someone to “teach us how to pray.”
Unfortunately I never find the chance to learn what in particular they have in mind, but several of us talk about it later. One thought is that ingrained in them is a deep respect for liturgy in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, so they can read prayers from the prayer book but have a hard time spontaneously getting wound up the way they surely have heard their pentecostal neighbors do. “Teach us how to pray.”
I hope someday someone will value their appeal and come, holding up for them and others the richness and diversity of prayer, in our tradition and in the church universal.
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At lunch on St. Patrick’s grounds I spot a young man sporting a Carolina sweatshirt. Oteng Montwedi is his name. A part of the youth delegation that visited North Carolina some months ago, he wears it proudly. We take pictures.
Two days later he comes to my house to see me off as I return to Gaborone.
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As the sun is setting, a bunch of us are standing outside a small office at a very imposing gate, waiting for our passes to be issued so we can enter Orapa. A large sign gives the company name, Debswana, a combination of the historic diamond conglomerate DeBeers and Botswana. Underneath it says, “You are entering a Precious Stones Protected Area,” and it goes on to warn that we must have a pass and are subject to search.
I fantasize that Orapa’s diamonds may be the solution to the Diocese of Botswana’s stewardship problems.
We have driven the 125 miles or so from Francistown to be present at the consecration of land given for the building of a church, suitably planned for Pentecost tomorrow. Bishop Mwamba has flown up from “Gabs,” as folk here shorten Gaborone, on the company plane.
Soon I am seated beside him in the living room of a Debswana guest house. He leans over and says, “I wonder if you might preach tomorrow?” That’s not quite as bad as when I visited one of my former seminary students in his Nairobi parish, and as we were walking down the aisle in the processional, he suggested that I should preach. But close. It’s been a long day.
We are enjoying a glass of wine at the time, and I am looking forward to another. Instead I say “yes,” and I take my leave to make some sermon notes.
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The Pentecost service, held in a schoolroom, is over, and some 30 or 40 of us - many from Francistown have come in solidarity - head over to the new plot, in Letlhakane, a nearby town where mahy who work in the mines live. The property is already fenced, and Bishop Mwamba moves from one corner of the plot to another, marking the sign of the cross in the ground, and censing the area, and offering prayers – from the American BookofCommonPrayer that Bishop Curry gave him on his first visit. We sing “The Church’s One Foundation” as we go along.
The Orapa congregation has three trees to plant, and Bishop Mwamba does the first two. Then they turn to me. “The third should be a ‘North Carolina’ tree,” someone says.
I begin digging and strike rocks but no diamonds. It’s an orange tree. The task done, a young man comes over and waters it.
