wfn.org | Re: United Methodist Daily News note 3500

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Reply-to: owner-umethnews@ecunet.org (United Methodist News list)
"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (359
notes).

Note 358 by UMNS on Sept. 30, 1997 at 12:29 Eastern (4067 characters).

Contact:  Joretta Purdue  	546(10-71B){358}}
		Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722  	Sept. 30, 1997

Easier travel in Angola
helps church there, bishop says

	ROME (UMNS) -- Conditions have improved as far as traveling around Angola,
according to United Methodist Bishop Emilio J.M. de Carvalho, presiding bishop
for West Angola Central Conference, who was here for a meeting of the World
Methodist Council Executive Committee Sept. 21-26.
	He said that all districts were represented at the annual conference meeting
in July this year for the first time since 1992, when the most recent civil
war broke out following a short peace that began in 1991. Conflict dates to
the 1960 struggle for independence.
	"It was not easy to sign the accords [which were worked out in 1994]. It has
not been easy to implement all the items in the accords," de Carvalho said.
"There are still some items left now, but the country has been opened up."
	This freedom to travel has helped the church, which recently was able to
deliver by road clothing from Norway and the United States, but some of the
pastors have had no salary since 1992, he said.
	A number of chapels were destroyed. Some parsonages were demolished. Although
the pastors stayed with their people, two district superintendents had to hide
in a rocky area for six months until the soldiers were convinced that these
people were not police superintendents, the bishop related. The men survived
because women of the church said they were searching for water but were
actually smuggling them food.
	Now as people return to rural areas, they can produce food, and this can
circulate to the cities, he added. The circulation of money that accompanies
this movement of goods is a step toward recovery of the economy, he explained.
	Displaced villagers were not able to go to the fields, the bishop noted. Some
people starved, but those who survived did so thanks to food aid from outside
the country.
	All the health, educational, water and sewage systems have disintegrated
during the conflict. Unemployment is very high -- partly due to the
displacement of so many people, de Carvalho said.
	The structure of the families in rural areas was destroyed, the bishop said.
Often parents were killed or the children were killed. Families have been
separated by circumstance. 
	Rural people sought safety in the bush or in cities, but "when you move from
your normal place of living you become destabilized," he added.
	"I don't mean that we lost the sense of family ties," he declared. "Even in
displacement, the family still lives together."
	The United Methodist Church operates seven centers for children in Luanda,
the nation's capital, but the bishop said he wished they could serve more than
the 1,200 involved. Some of these children are living in the street, and some
simply have to spend their days there. The centers offer three meals a day and
schooling up to the fourth grade, as well as some carpentry, shoemaking,
sewing and other skills.
	"Every single city in Angola needs such centers," he asserted, but the church
needs funds to set up more of them. "The government is always appealing to the
churches, but the government doesn't put resources in our hands, and sometimes
this can be very painful. Every time we can do something, yes we are doing
it."
	Some cities have been completely destroyed, he noted, so conditions there are
even worse than in Luanda. The government has been restoring the water,
electricity and some health services, but it will take a long time to replace
the houses, de Carvalho said. And the people need the equipment to grow food.
	"The church in Angola needs the support of their sister churches in the
United States," he concluded. In spite of the adverse conditions, the church
in Angola is growing. "It's amazing," the bishop exclaimed, but he would like
to pay the pastors.
	He suggested that the United Methodist Church think of ways to address the
deep needs in the world's hot spots that are found not just in Africa but on
other continents as well.
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