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Mar 22, 2010 | Carol E. Barnwell

Delegates Approve Partnership with Southern Malawi

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Bishop Andy Doyle and Bishop James Tengatenga sign the agreement of partnership between the Dioceses of Southern Malawi and Texas. The Rev. Susan Barnes, chair of the World Mission Board, and representatives from Malawi look on.  

 

Following a year of study by the World Mission Board, council delegates approved a partnership between the Diocese of Texas and the Diocese of Southern Malawi at the diocese’s annual meeting in Killeen, February 13.  Twenty five years ago, a young man--educated at Seminary of the Southwest as part of a previous relationship with the Diocese of Lake Malawi--returned to sign a new partnership agreement. James Tengatenga, now Bishop of Southern Malawi, joined Bishop Andy Doyle for the historic moment at the 161st Diocesan Council.


“God has chosen this time for us to begin to walk together in God’s mission,” Bishop Tengatenga said.


Bishop Doyle said he believed the partnership would bring mutual benefit to the people of both dioceses. “I’m sure there will be many ideas for meaningful exchange as we grow closer spiritually and in mission through this partnership,” Bishop Doyle said. 


The Diocese of Southern Malawi has 22 parishes with more planned as a result of subdividing existing congregations. Diocesan schools are helping to raise literacy rates and there is a micro credit development program for the empowerment of women. Other diocesan programs seek to improve water and sanitation for villagers, maternal and child healthcare, provide nets to lower malaria cases and work with HIV/AIDS patients. The bishop hopes the partnership will help him equip leaders through an exchange of clergy. 


The bishop wants visits to Southern Malawi to be more than “missionary” or “educational.”  


“[These] are journeys into God, hence my preferred term for them is ‘pilgrimage.’ One cannot overemphasize the Nathaniel effect in matters of the Gospel. Remember Nathaniel in the Gospel according to John, the guy who came and saw and was never the same again,” Bishop Tengatenga told delegates. He invited members of the diocese to join the people of his diocese on the Road to Emmaus, “in which the Lord Jesus promises a lot of déjà vu, epiphanies, eureka moments, memories of the future, prayer, proclamation and service.” 


In an earlier interview, Bishop Tengatenga said he hoped any relationship would include every category of people. He said he wanted people to get to know what the Church looks like, how it is experienced in a different place. A priority is clergy development in order to keep up with his growing number of congregations. 


Child and maternal health, sanitation and sustainable sources of water are other priorities. “We minister to people who are dying! I remember being an angry, young priest with parents and children who shouldn’t have died,” Bishop Tengatenga said, regarding the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He and his wife have three biological children and 10 others from family members who have died. 


Eighty-five percent of Malawi’s population are subsistence farmers. “We need small agricultural projects, animal husbandry information to support food, to help people earn income and buy milk for their children,” he said. Two-thirds of the country’s population is younger than 35. More than half are women whose literacy rate is generously measured at 30 percent the bishop explained. This makes programs that empower women very important. 


“AIDS is a woman’s face because she carries the burdens of it the most,” he said. 


The diocese’s six primary schools teach the Malawi curriculum and are models for the government run schools, while they are “unashamedly faith-based and values-oriented.” But they need classrooms for 60-70 children instead of 120, the bishop says, besides libraries, water sources for bathrooms and teacher housing. Schools also provide the perfect place to establish feeding programs for children. 


“People in the Diocese of Texas have experience in each area of need,” the bishop said. “We can share the joys of celebrating God. We want to offer a place of pilgrimage where people can encounter transformation,” he added. “We can provide that moment to see the effects of life-changing work.” 


The bishop’s expectations of the partnership are “rather big,” he says. “I would like to establish a relationship of mutual understanding, mutual support and mutual growth … being able to strengthen one another in our faith journey. Those things we think we are strong in, we can share with you, and those things you are strong in, you can share with us,” he said. 


He hopes to learn a more efficient way to deploy personnel from the organization of the Diocese of Texas. He also wants to learn how to set up an endowment, to look at schools here and share ideas between educational bodies. He envisions “student to student exchanges of letters and ideas … learning how school boards are formed, how to sustain the school’s program.” 


In Malawi, when a priest retires, they have no home. The bishop would like to gain from the experience of the Episcopal Church to develop a benefit plan for his clergy pensions because “most use all their pension money to build a wall and a roof and don’t have enough to finish their home.” 


Currently, women are not ordained in the Diocese of Southern Malawi. He hopes the role model that women clergy provide will open the possibility in Malawi. “Presence doesn’t hurt … Actually seeing [a women priest] makes a great impression,” he said.


“Our hope is to have people visit and experience how we live our faith and realize an opportunity to do something for God that one never thought they might be able to do …teach, speak, pray … is a significant gift. Seeing others in a different context will help people reflect on their own life, their own context, their own struggle with God … It gives you the distance to reflect on yourself,” Bishop Tengatenga concluded. 


Bishop Tengatenga will be Bishop-in-Residence at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin through May while he works on a historical record of the church in Malawi. He will be visiting churches here throughout the spring.