Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Luanda (Fides Service)- Lunda Norte was the last of Angola’s provinces to be evangelised. The first missionaries settled here in the early 20th century at Mussuco, in the far north west but because the area was vast, scarcity of personnel and transport, they were unable to guarantee the Church’s presence in all the Municipal centres. In1974 Divine Word Missionaries, SVD, started to build a mission at a Caungula, some km from Cuilo, but had abandon the fledging mission when civil war broke out less than a year later when Angola declared independence from Portugal. From 1975 to 1983 the SVD Fathers visited a few Catholics and organised some Christian communities. Then the area was occupied by guerrillas and visits were stopped.
When the civil war ended in 2003, the new Diocese of Dundo (the territory of Lunda Norte) took on the task of reorganising the presence of the Catholic Church in this province, certainly the most neglected. The parish of St Francis Xavier in Cuango, heir to the old Mussuco Mission, was opened and entrusted to the Society for African Missions SMA, present in Lunda Norte since 1999. Its territory is vast: 60.000 sq. km, for a population of 300,000. While waiting for the promised return of the SVD missionaries to their old Caungula Mission the SMA missionaries visit Christian communities in Cuilo.
These visits are arduous do to bad roads, destroyed bridges and dirt tracks, practicable by car only in the dry season. Most communities can only be reached by bicycle or motorbike.
The Missionaries were filled with admiration when they saw the situation, after 20 years of isolation. The communities have grown more in quality than quantity. Although for 20 years the communities were unable to receive the sacraments they became consolidated. And now requests for the sacraments of initiation and marriage are endless.
These communities are spontaneous, they were born thanks to the initiative of a believer who invited family and friends to gather together to listen to readings from the Bible and to pray using old hymns translated in Chokwe (widely spoken in Lunda Norte). Today the first task for the missionaries is to train catechists, church leaders, elders, and help these communities realise they are part of a Church which is Catholics and universal. Short courses for catechists and other leaders have already been organised. At the social level problems are gigantic. First of all infrastructures destroyed by war: lack of roads or bridges increases the region’s isolation and agriculture can only be subsistence farming. Schools, dispensaries, civil offices, barns for farm produce were all destroyed and need to be rebuilt. Here the infant mortality rate is among the highest in Angola, so is the illiteracy rate and prospects are not rosy, seeing the chronic scarcity of teachers in the region. There is a lack of small businesses, which help people obtain basic necessities: oil, salt, soap, sugar, milk. In this situation, despite a thousand difficulties, (to reach Cuilo from their mission SMA missionaries must undertake a 580km two day journey), the SMAs are helping the people in various ways. First of all they distributed small kits of medicine to treat and prevent the more frequent diseases (malaria, respiratory infections, infantile diarrhoea infantile, intestinal parasites), followed by 1,400 farming kits, to boost agricultural production. At the moment, to reduce the infant mortality rate, they are distributing mosquito nets, milk with vitamins for children, medicines and blankets. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 3/12/2004 righe parole)
