Children in front of the newly built classrooms at Magude
Primary School in Maputo, Mozambique. The Church and No Poor Among Us
helped the school upgrade to brick-and-mortar buildings in 2022.
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Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Imagine trying to learn in a makeshift mud classroom
that floods every time it rains — or having no classroom at all, only a
spot under a tree.
Many students in Mozambique face overcrowding
and lack of infrastructure. More than half of girls drop out of school
by grade five. Among students who finish primary school, nearly
two-thirds leave the system without basic reading, writing and math
skills.
Recently The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the nonprofit organization No Poor Among Us
replaced makeshift classrooms in underprivileged schools with
brick-and-mortar buildings, helping 2,340 students have space to study
and overcome barriers to their education, reported the Church’s Africa Newsroom.
No Poor managing director Josh Phillips — who served a mission for the
Church in Mozambique — said one of the schools they assisted was Magude
Primary School. “The kids at the primary school were learning in a mud
school,” said Phillips. “Every time it rained the school would fall and
the school would have to rebuild. As a result, the students lost more
than half of their school days, every year.”
Children
learning in a dilapidated makeshift classroom at Magude Primary School
in Maputo, Mozambique. The Church and No Poor Among Us built new
classrooms for the school in 2022.
Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church was able to replace the makeshift buildings
with brick-and-mortar classrooms, and build bathrooms as well, reported
Newsroom.
At Picoco Primary School, 1,300 children were being
taught with just three classrooms. The school’s director, Gilberto
Albano Chiburee, said the school had been able to accommodate 200
students among those three classrooms, but the number of students kept
increasing.
Students then were divided into three sessions,
morning, afternoon and evening. When the number of students passed 500,
Chiburee and the faculty started planting trees.
“We used these
trees as makeshift classrooms because we did not have any other option.
We had sought the help of various companies, nonprofit organizations and
the government but to no avail,” Chiburee said.
Children
learning under a tree at Picoco Primary School in Maputo, Mozambique.
The Church and No Poor Among Us are working together to build new
classrooms for the school in 2022.
Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The first and second graders were given the classrooms, while third through seventh graders learned under trees.
“It broke my heart to have children arrive as early as 6 a.m. only to
sit on the hard and uncomfortable ground until noon. Some of the
children started experiencing back problems,” said Chiburee.
When
the Church and No Poor heard about the school, they arranged to
construct five classrooms. Newsroom reported the news was received with
great excitement, gratitude and tears from teachers, students and
families. Chiburee expressed how thankful he was that no student would
be sent home as a result of rain or wind.
The project is expected to be completed by the end of June this year. An additional 900 students will be accommodated.
The Church’s Africa South Area welfare manager, Phillip Moatlhodi, said
another project they tackled was Matole Gare Primary School. “The
conditions prior to the start of the project were not ideal,” said
Moatlhodi. “The parents had started to construct two classrooms to
improve the conditions of their children, however, because of the impact
of COVID-19 they were not able to complete the classrooms.”
The
Church funded the construction of two classrooms and private donors
funded the construction of three more. Then they gave five new
classrooms to a small, struggling school in the rural area of Mahubo.
About 900 additional students can now be accommodated thanks to this
effort, reported Newsroom.
Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles gives a copy of the Book of Mormon in Portuguese to Mozambique
President Filipe Nyusi, in Mozambique on Thursday, May 19, 2022.
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Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
A meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, this week marked
the first time an Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints met with a head of state in that country.
Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi met Thursday, May 19.
Their meeting began with prayer at the invitation of Nyusi. Elder
Rasband prayed for the country, for the Lord’s guidance to come to all
leaders of the nation, and for the peace of Jesus Christ to be brought
to existing conflicts in the land, reported the Church’s Africa Newsroom.
Elder Rasband thanked the president for allowing religious freedom in
the country. “It’s no small thing to us that you and your government
have created such a wonderful spirit of freedom of religion,” he said.
The Church of Jesus Christ has grown from 50 members in Mozambique in 1991 to more than 15,000 members today, with a temple to be built in Beira.
The temple, which is in planning and approval stages, is a beacon of
hope to people in the country, who have dealt with challenges from
COVID-19, political unrest, tropical storms and unemployment, Africa Newsroom reported.
Nyusi said they await the temple. “It will add physical beauty, but
above all, it will be a place of peace and humility and coexistence
between cultures, between people and between generations,” he said.
Seated, Elder
Ronald A. Rasband, left, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, with his
wife, Sister Melanie Rasband, and Elder S. Mark Palmer of the Presidency
of the Seventy, with his wife, Sister Jacqui Palmer, meet with local
leaders and dignitaries in Maputo, Mozambique, on Wednesday, May 18,
2022.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Elder Rasband also spoke in the meeting about the Church’s
commitment to help alleviate suffering in Mozambique. The Church has
spent $17 million on humanitarian projects in the country over the past
10 years, including disaster relief, building classrooms and schools, and training farmers in rural areas.
Nyusi said those efforts give skills and empower the individual, while
adding to the fabric of society. In its humanitarian endeavors, the
Church can contribute “values of solidarity, values of peace, tolerance,
forgiveness, and values of work,” he said.
Also present at the meeting were Elder S. Mark Palmer of the Presidency of the Seventy, Elder Edward Dube,
General Authority Seventy who is serving in the Africa South Area
presidency, Sister Melanie Rasband, Sister Jacqui Palmer and other local
Church representatives.
Samo Paulo Gonçalves, a counselor in the
Mozambique Maputo Mission presidency who works as a technical adviser
to Nyusi, said the meeting was a great honor for the Church and a
historic moment. “There are a lot of leaders in Mozambique, and the
president doesn’t meet all of them, but he decided to meet us,” he said.
His wife, Albertina Gonçalves, said: “We are going to work hard as
Church members to make sure that the commitments that Elder Rasband made
to the president will all take place as he promised.”
‘This is just the beginning’ for Mozambique
Elder Rasband and the other general authorities also met with other
dignitaries and opinion leaders while in Mozambique, and held a meeting
with nearly 3,000 Church members both in person and virtually.
Elder Palmer said Apostles are called to go out in the name of the Lord
and under the direction of the First Presidency to build up the Church
and preach the gospel as special witnesses of Jesus Christ.
“To
have Elder Rasband come to Mozambique in that capacity … is a great
blessing to this country. Not only for our members, but for the country
as a whole,” Elder Palmer said.
Elder Dube said the Spirit was
powerfully felt on several occasions during the visit: “It has been
confirmed to me over and over during this trip that we are led by
prophets, seers and revelators,” he said.
In social media posts
about the experience, Elder Rasband said he was told the gathering was
the largest gathering in the history of the Church in Mozambique, and he
told the members “this is just the beginning.”
“As we turn our
hearts to the Prince of Peace, the sun is always on the horizon. Despite
our very real challenges, we have infinite reasons to hope,” Elder
Rasband posted.
He also wrote about giving Nyusi a copy of the
Book of Mormon in his language of Portuguese. “I was privileged to share
this sacred book with him as another sign of hope of the opportunity
for good things to come in this country,” wrote Elder Rasband.
Instruction for leaders throughout Africa South
Before the meetings in Mozambique, Elder Rasband led an instruction
meeting with Elder Palmer and the Africa South Area presidency — Elder Christoffel Golden and his counselors, Elder Dube and Elder Ciro Schmeil — for leaders throughout the Church’s Africa South Area.
District presidents, stake presidents, mission presidents and temple
presidents from Angola to Zimbabwe were at the Sandton chapel in
Johannesburg, South Africa.
Elder Rasband has traveled to Africa
six times in the past few years, and was thrilled to meet in person with
members as COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease, reported Africa Newsroom.
“Technology is wonderful, but nothing can replace looking into
someone’s eyes,” Elder Rasband said following the meeting on Saturday,
May 14. “It just feels wonderful.”
Elder Duane D.
Bell, Area Seventy from South Africa, left, speaks with Elder Edward
Dube, General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the Africa South
Area presidency, in Johannesburg, South Africa, on May 14, 2022.
Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
COVID-19 was a theme in many of the challenges that were raised in the session.
“Leaders come to a meeting like this and they’re looking for hope. Just
meeting is hopeful, and being able to be with each other and ask these
questions — it’s hopeful,” said Elder Rasband.
“[W]hat is
wonderful is that we all serve the Prince of Peace, which is Jesus
Christ. He is the great Healer, and He’s going to help families and He’s
going to help people. And His underservants — the leaders of the Church
— are going to do that too.”
President Gabriel Chinomwe of the Blantyre Malawi District told Africa
Newsroom that many questions that leaders often struggled with were
addressed.
“At the same time, I noted that the challenges that
were shared by brethren from other units are common in our units,” he
said. “It helped me to see that this work is one. We all have common
challenges.”
Elder Dunstan G.B.T. Chadambuka, an Area Seventy
from Zimbabwe, said the experience was “exceptional,” and inspired of
the Lord. “We felt a new brotherhood, a new love for one another, and a
desire to go and do better and do more. This has really lifted the
brethren up.”
Elder Amândio A. Feijó, an Area Seventy from
Angola, said it was an enlightening session. “We’ve been taught things
that we already know, but it was so spiritual in a very simple way.”
President Lebohang F. Mosia of the Phuthaditjhaba South Africa District
said, “There were moments when I felt like the Lord was literally
speaking.”
When Elder Rasband expressed the love of President Russell M. Nelson for each of the leaders present, “it felt so real,” said President Mosia. “It felt like the Savior was saying he loves me.”
Missionaries with baptismal candidates from the areas of
Trevo and Liberdade in the Mozambique Maputo Mission, at the Liberdade
Ward building in Maputo, Mozambique, on April 30, 2022.
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Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the government of Mozambique implemented rules prohibiting baptisms and other religious ordinances.
The
number of people waiting to be baptized grew over the past two years.
On April 20, the president of Mozambique announced the restrictions
would be eased and baptisms could take place again.
Some 900
people were baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in Mozambique in the two months since restrictions were lifted,
reported the Church’s Africa Newsroom.
Elder
Stephen Woodbury, a senior missionary in the Mozambique Maputo Mission,
said they hurried to get ready and get started after the announcement.
“Interviews
were conducted, baptismal fonts scrubbed and baptismal clothes cleaned
in preparations for the first baptisms in Mozambique, set for Saturday,
April 23,” Elder Woodbury said. “The first baptism took place at 8 a.m.
in Magoanine, where a faithful security guard for the chapel was
baptized, after he had cheerfully helped clean and fill the font the day
before.”
Antônio and
Angelina Pondja, center, on their baptism day in front of the Magoanine
Ward building in Maputo, Mozambique, April 23, 2022. Antônio Pondja is a
guard for the chapel and waited a long time to be baptized.
Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Baptisms continued throughout that day and into the evening
in 15 areas of the mission, he said, “with a total of 63 people being
baptized, limited only by the number of baptismal clothes that were
available.”
The
Beira Mozambique Mission saw similar events take place. Jaime Casa
Branca, 23, had been waiting for the announcement that baptisms could
take place again. He met the missionaries in the street outside his home
at the beginning of the year.
“I was scared at one point,
wondering, ‘When is my baptism going to take place?’” he said. “But I
continued to be faithful, knowing that one day the COVID restrictions
would be lifted.”
Branca said the day of his baptism “was the happiest day of my life.”
Cleidy Maria
Francisco, center, with other baptismal candidates in Nelspruit, South
Africa, April 9, 2022. They traveled over the border from Mozambique in
order to have the opportunity to be baptized, before Mozambique lifted
the restrictions.
Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Cleidy Maria Francisco, 23, had also been waiting. Her baptism came six months after she first met the missionaries.
“I
felt really anxious,” she said. “But I kept thinking, maybe God sees
the need for me to learn more before I take this step.” She continued to
attend Church and study the gospel until she was able to get baptized.
“I remember everything about that day,” Francisco said. “The ultimate joy came when my father performed the baptism.”
Entering the waters of baptism was a moment of joy and relief for Flávia Amosse, age 51.
“It
was as if I had been on a long, long journey,” Amosse said. “It felt
like I was dusty and sweaty, and I could now finally take a shower. When
the baptism came, it was like the waters were there to cleanse me.”
Elder
Woodbury told the Church News that the Mozambique Maputo Mission
president, President Osvaldo Dias, had been fasting weekly for nearly a
year and a half that baptisms would be allowed again.
Missionaries
in Mozambique said they felt a new and reverent spirit of gratitude
during the baptismal meetings — and they knew the Lord answered their
fasting and prayers to allow this work to begin again in the country.
Elder
Koby Hilbig said, “Our bishop repeatedly said that the angels of heaven
were blowing their trumpets, celebrating the grand work that will
follow this miracle of baptism opening.”
Elder Gabriel Njange and
Elder Nelson Canamala shared how they saw the determination and joy of
investigators as they entered the water to make a covenant with Heavenly
Father and they were “very happy to live this moment of great joy.”
Now two months after being baptized, Amosse, Francisco and Branca say the gospel has changed their lives.
Said
Amosse: “Now that I’ve joined the Church, my experience has been great.
I feel like I have more family. I belong to a family of Saints. I love
the fact that there are other women to talk to, and other women can talk
to me.”
Francisco said: “Ever since I joined the Church I am a
much happier person. I feel it was the best decision that I have ever
made.”
Branca baptized his sister in June, and several other relatives were baptized in the ensuing weeks.
“I am so happy to share this experience with people I love,” he said.
New members of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Mangu, Nigeria,
pose for a photo on their baptism day, April 10, 2023.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
For people who live in Mangu, Nigeria, the closest
meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a
nearly two-hour drive away. Many members don’t have vehicles in this
remote area. Attending church was nearly impossible.
But in early 2023, things changed.
According to a news story on the Church’s Africa Newsroom,
President Mathias N. Niambe of the Nigeria Lagos Mission was inspired
to work with his full-time missionaries to establish Church units in
some of the more remote areas of Nigeria, specifically in the Jos
District, Plateau State. One of the areas he identified was Mangu.
It
was an answer to the prayers of many members in Mangu, specifically
Simon Panan Mwanchi, who desired to share the gospel with his family,
friends and neighbors.
President Niambe traveled to Mangu to meet
with him and other members. President Niambe promised that the Lord had
not forgotten them and invited them to prepare the way for missionaries
by sharing the gospel. He also met with local municipal and tribal
leaders and was warmly received as he shared the Church’s desire to
spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in their town.
The first
missionaries arrived in Mangu in January and were astounded by what they
found — dozens of individuals who had been prepared to be taught. Over
the next four months, the missionaries met with larger and larger groups
of people, several of whom were baptized.
Church leaders
and missionaries welcome people of Mangu to their baptism on April 10,
2023. A total of 33 individuals were baptized that day.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Elder Joseph Success Menjor of the Nigeria Lagos Mission
said: “With the help and support of our mission president and his
companion, the district president and his counselors, and Brother Simon,
who worked vehemently with his family and friends, we have had 104
convert baptisms in Mangu.”
The first baptismal service was held on March 15 for 43 individuals. A group of 33 was later baptized on April 10. Most recently, 28 new members were baptized on April 30.
“This
service was more than just baptismal services,” said President Joseph
Samson Garba, second counselor in the Jos District presidency, of the
first baptismal service. “It was a day for rekindling faith, a day to
remember covenants, and a day to rejoice as family in the Lord’s
kingdom. God truly sees and blesses all of His children.”
The
members in Mangu are holding sacrament meeting in their town with
support from priesthood leadership in Jos as they hope for a new branch
to one day be established.
Church, Bibles, and faith play major roles in Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) video announcing his (let's face it) run for president.
The motto of Scott’s nascent campaign is “Faith in
America.” He concludes the ad with “God bless you” and describes the
question behind the Civil War thus: “Would we truly be one nation, under
God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?”
You
see that religion is central to the story Scott is trying to sell,
which is normal for a conservative politician. But Scott’s story uses
religion in an important way.
The most interesting part of Scott’s story is he doesn’t
attribute his climb out of poverty to his own virtue — to simply pulling
himself up by his bootstraps or some abstract concept of the “American
dream.” Scott stated explicitly that America has infrastructure that
helped him climb and that infrastructure is under attack.
“It
pains my soul to see the Biden liberals attacking every rung of the
ladder that helped me climb,” Scott said in the middle of the video. He
then cited schools and neighborhoods. After Scott announced his
exploratory committee, the “hero walk” started with Scott strutting into
the Huguenot Church in Charleston. This is key.
Church is one of the rungs of the ladder of the American
dream and so is America’s “Judeo-Christian foundation.” Scott also
pledged to “protect our religious liberty.”
Republican politicians often play up their faith and show
themselves in a church as a way of playing to the religious Right, but
here, Scott is connecting dots that need connecting. The Democratic
Party’s attack on religious liberty and the Left’s rejection of
America’s Judeo-Christian foundation are part of their attack on the
ladder of opportunity Scott is celebrating.
Scott described his climb out of poverty by saying, “We
had faith,” and zoomed in on a Bible and a shot of him praying in
church.
The
American dream of climbing out of poverty isn’t really a story of
rugged or exceptional people transcending their conditions. It’s a story
of civil society providing the scaffolding, or the ladder, that allows
people to climb. Community institutions are how people get the
connections, the mentoring, the modeling, the belonging, and the
human-level safety net that enable them to do better.
Social science finds this again and again. Probably the
best research bolstering civil society’s role in upward mobility came
from economist Raj Chetty. Chetty and colleagues found
one of the strongest correlates of upward mobility in an area is
“social capital”— the amount of volunteering, the number of community
institutions, the number of churches, etc.
For working-class people, especially immigrants and
African Americans, the central institution of civil society has always
been church. In Bowling Alone in 2000, Robert Putnam found that about half of all civic activity in America originated in religious institutions.
But much of the secular Left — including academia, the
news media, and parts of the Democratic Party — sees church as, at best,
something private to do on Sunday. Thus they try to force religious
schools to abandon their principles, they try to force nuns to provide
contraception coverage, they try to force Catholic hospitals to abort
babies, and they detest the idea of any public funding going to
religious institutions.
But religion isn't some private aspect of individual life —
it is a crucial pillar of public life. The irony is that President Joe
Biden kind of gets this: He won the South Carolina Democratic primary in
2020 by campaigning in black churches and winning the church-going vote.
Go back to that hero walk scene
and check out the Gospel passage above the door of Huguenot Church: “Be
ye doers of the word, not hearers only.” That’s’ from the Epistle of
St. James, and it is the last words the worshippers at Huguenot Church
see as they leave church every Sunday to go back out into the world.
That is, a person cannot “do my religion on Sunday, in church,”
as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) once inartfully put it, then go out and
support the government’s attack on religious liberty. A Christian will
live his or her life every day out in public. He or she will do Christianity and not merely listen to it for an hour once a week.
Religion belongs in the public square. That’s something
rejected by too many people these days. Hopefully, Scott can set the
public straight on this.
The head of Awaiting The Second Coming of Christ Ministry, Pastor
Adewale Giwa has warned of God’s wrath and destruction on Ghana.
Although the cleric did not give any reason for the warning, he
claimed that God had instructed him to warn the West African nation.
The western media reported that Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo had
said that “substantial elements” of the anti-LGBTQ bill being
considered by its parliament “have been modified” after an intervention
by his government.
Akufo-Addo was quoted to have said this at a joint press conference
with US Vice-President Kamala Harris, who recently visited the nation
with gay rights prominent in her agenda.
“Destruction awaits the entire city of Ghana if they fail to turn to God very quickly,” Giwa said.
“The Lord warns the nation not to allow herself to be used as an
instrument to lead other African nations to the devil. And the LORD said
to me in a dream: ‘Tell them that they are leading my people to sin.
Woe to the nation that forgets God, woe to the nation that leads my
people astray. They will be punished for their immoralities unless they
turn to me (LORD)’.
“The Lord also told me to tell the people of Ghana to fast for one
day and pray to God for forgiveness. He says their leaders have caused
many to stumble. Ghana, turn to God and stop doing evil, repent now to
allow God to bless your land exceedingly,” he said.
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