(The Capuchin, Spring 1985, pp.5-6)
It’s not a household name, but it stands written in the book of life. It’s a small settlement on the border between Angola and Zambia, beside the banks of the Mashi River. The people in the surrounding area are Zambians, but mostly Angolans who have taken refuge in Zambia from the war of independence against the Portuguese from 1962 to 1975, and from the civil war which has followed in Angola since then.
Like most refugees, these people came into their new situation penniless. Their herds of cattle had to be left on the west bank of the river, their few possessions a hindrance in the rush to get away in their dug-out canoes. Some never made it; crocs got them. Most have witnessed atrocities by the Portuguese or in the civil war.
Most Precious Possession
One possession they did not leave behind them was their faith. They received it through the Portuguese Benedictines at the mission of Santa Cruz, across the river from Shangombo, a mission and abandoned for 20 years. The nearest mission was about 200 km away, on the Zambezi River, at Sioma. The refugees, Kwamashi and Mbukushu by tribe, sent a delegation to Father Philip O’Connor at Sioma to ask his help in building a church. He shared the work with them and, in 1974, the church, dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua, was opened.
For the refugees, the completion of the church was not a signal to settle down and rest on their laurels; it was a starting-point for much greater efforts. A priest could come only two to three times a year at the most, so the people had to become self-reliant. They chose a church council, appointed people for various tasks, and got to work. For example, some led a prayer service on Sundays; some prepared adults for the sacraments. Perhaps most importantly of all, others went out to the villages in the surrounding areas and began to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Work of God
And then the Holy Spirit took over. It wasn’t long before a second church was built, this time by the people’s unaided efforts. And then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. By 1982, the one church had grown to twenty-one. In each case, a church council had been chosen by the people, and the work of instruction in the faith had begun. In some cases even the leaders themselves were catechumens preparing for baptism.
To achieve this was the work of grace and the also ‘the work of human hands.’ The churches were built by hand – literally. There are no shovels or block-moulds, much less cement mixers, in Shangombo. The walls are built of mud dried in the sun and smoothed out to form an even surface. The water for this is carried by the bucketful on people’s heads from a stream or a well which might be 1 km away. Then the roof is built of grass, long shoots of 2 or even 3 metres. The grass and the roofing timbers may have to be renewed after two or three years if the white ants take a liking to it. Those little devils can even eat plastic, and they love books.
A further problem is that very few of the adults are literate. Nothing is available in print in their own language. A New Testament in Kwamashi is out of print and unavailable. So the few who can read used books in the Lozi language and they then translate for the others. They are many problems, too, which stem from their own culture and tradition, such as polygamy and divorce. Sometimes there is friction between different tribes, and between the refugees and the settled people. And yet, through it all, there is growth. The power of God is there, without a doubt.
A Place of Blessing
Shangombo brings back memories and many emotions. I remember a small girl offering to share her supper with me – a rat; the village headman who offered me his hut for the night but the bed was so short that, even sleeping diagonally across it, my legs from the knees down dangled out over the end; the magnificent sunset looking across to Santa Cruz; the choir-master who led the congregation through a Latin Mass, holding an incredibly battered Liber Usualis, probably left by the Benedictines; the night the people put on a dance for me, that pitch black night when the only brightness seemed to be the reflection of the fire on eyes and teeth, until a satellite, a messenger from the twentieth century, arced across the sky; the violence of a sand-storm that even the headlights of a Landrover could not penetrate; the faith of thirty men who walked 200 km in five days so as to attend a course on improving their Sunday services.
Shangombo, whatever its name means, is surely a place of blessing.