Ten years after its reopening in 1997, the SVD Mozambique Mission is now composed of the Northern and Southern districts. The Northern District covers the Monapo and Liupo mission stations in the Diocese of Nacala, with Fr. Paul NADOLNY as District Superior. The Southern District is in the Archdiocese of Maputo with Fr. Francisco Javier VIDAL as District Superior. At the moment, three new confreres arrived in the last quarter of 2008. They are Frs. Chibairo Tapera MUSERERE, Michael Thanh DO and, Anthony NGUYEN. For this year onward, two more confreres are coming.

Infrastructure:

After more or less two years of searching, the SVD Mission in Mozambique was finally able to buy a house in November 2008, in a spacious compound located in Maputo. This will serve as Central House which will be a guest house and a residence of the Mission Superior. The rest of the compound will be used for the future formation house.

Fr. Benjamin ASARE believes that when human life is at stake, anything is possible. Along this line, Fr. Benjamin considers himself the priest turned ambulance driver. On one occasion, Fr. Benjamin was just arriving from a 200 kms. journey from Tamale to Chereponi when a group of people begged him to transport a woman in labor. She was in a critical condition and she needed to be brought to a hospital in Yendi. The ambulance of the local clinic was not in running condition. When Fr. Benjamin went to pick up the woman another patient was also in a critical condition, bleeding after delivering a baby the previous day. Fr. Benjamin had to transport both women to Yendi Hospital. The other woman who was bleeding profusely and in critical condition did not make it to the hospital. The 97 kms. trip, the bumpy roads and the lack of medical support along the way, was too much to bear. But the other woman who was in labor delivered a healthy baby at the hospital. Fr. Asare, in the course of his missionary work in Chereponi, has had other experiences of transporting patients to the hospital.

There is a new web blog from TOG Province. The web blog is www.svdtogoben.over-blog.com The purpose of the web blog is to inform, through short news, animations, videos and documentations about the missionary activities in the province.

Fr. Narciso CELLAN, the Provincial Communications coordinator of KEN composed a devotional song for St. Joseph Freinademetz. The song is available on two sites: http://soysi.multiply.com/video/item/22/St._Joseph_Freinademetz and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3CvGyWGZFg

Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Yendi in theNorthern Region of Ghana celebrated her 50th Anniversary on February 15, 2009. The White Fathers started the parish in 1959. Then the SVDs were invited to help Yendi mission. Fr. Henry Janssen, SVD had arrived Yendi on February 1960. He was the first SVD in the area. When the  White Fathers left for another mission outreach, more and more SVDs came. They did their mission work and stayed until now. During the Golden Jubilee Mass, Most Rev. Vincent Sowah BOI NAI, the Bishop of Yendi, invited all the people of Yendi to join him in praising and thanking God for the abundant blessings God has showered upon Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral Parish and her parishioners. He cautioned that, in celebration like this, we should not focus our attention only on how much we have achieved materially but how far we have witnessed our Christian life and spread the Good News.

AFRAM Mission Secretaries’ Workshop

In the AFRAM Mission Secretaries’ Workshop held last March 8-13 in Luanda, Angola, all the 6 provinces and 1 region were represented. Seated left to right: Fr. KPAKPAYI, Seraphim (TOG), :Fr. ODEKE OWIRE, William (KEN), Fr. Rolando REYES of MOZ, Mission area coordinator, and Fr. PEREIRA, Denis (ANG). Standing left to right: Fr. GALLA, Pawel (MAD), Fr. VATTAPPARAYIL, Sunny (BOT), Fr. WOJDYLA, Franciszek (CNG), Bro. CHAMENYI, Rudy Kwame (GHA), the Zonal Coordinator, Fr. Xene SANCHEZ and the Generalate Mission Secretary, Fr. Pio ESTEPA.