The first #StoriesofLoveComing was of a well known missionary but this wonderful couple are not so prominent. They have been faithfully and quietly working in Tete, Mozambique all their lives but their influence has been far-reaching and their story largely untold.
Alberto Papane is now 78 and together with his wife Filo Mena Papane, 70, they are the founders of Anglican mission work in Tete, Mozambique. Mr. Papane was the former Provincial Police Commander and he came to Tete in 1974. At this time there was no known Anglican congregation in this area. In the 1980s Mr Papane, his wife and a few others nurtured a God-given desire of having an Anglican church planted but they were not sure how as they felt they did not have any skills for lay ministry.
Bishop Dinis Sengulane from Lebombo heard several reports of Mr Papane and about the opportunuities of planting a church in this area and so he commissioned the late Fr. José Chamusse Nhagumbe to visit and to celebrate the first Eucharist.
And so began the first church in the home of the Papanes. This was the real birth place of the Church of Epiphany of Tete. In 1991, they had their first priest and it was soon to become a mission centre for the birth of 5 new congregations on the north side of the Zambezi river.
Today this same church has started to plant new congregations in districts south of the Zambezi to spread the Gospel. It is close to this area, that the truck explosion in mid-November occurred, killing 93 people so we pray especially for these churches.
Father God,
We thank you for Alberto and Fila Papane.
That they chose to be witnesses to Jesus when no-one else was and that they embodied #StoriesofLoveComing in Tete and beyond.
We ask you as Lord of the Harvest to send more labourers like them from within Lebombo, Niassa and Angola dioceses.We pray especially for these churches today after the tragic loss of life and for the families of the victims.
Amen.
