Church-Raising in São Dâmaso

This weekend, Laura and I decided to venture out of the city. It's always a bit of an ordeal since beyond the edge of Maputo all but the main roads are paved with loosely-packed sand, so we have to borrow a vehicle with four-wheel drive to make the journey.

Our destination was a small church in a community called São Dâmaso, about 45 minutes outside of Maputo. The church's two leaders are men whom I met during our micro-enterprise training in Khongolote a couple of months ago. They invited us to visit, so we decided that doing so would be a great opportunity for us to see Mozambique from a slightly different perspective.

For the past two years, the church in São Dâmaso has operated out of a small building on rented land. Earlier this year, they purchased their own land nearby and -- because caniço is a wonderfully portable construction material -- took the church apart, carried it down the street, and reassembled it on their newly-acquired property. A group of five people from Oregon who were here visiting this week helped with the project.

The labourers took the opportunity to install more durable posts and roof struts so that, over time, they can replace the church's caniço walls with concrete blocks to make their building more permanent and weather-resistent.

Some of the caniço wall panels needed to be replaced, but in a society that wastes little, the old walls still had value. Nelson, the church's leader, wanted to put them to use to enclose his outdoor washroom. We hoisted them onto Nathan's Land Cruiser and delivered them to Khongolote, where Nelson lives with his wife and children in a small home built by an international aid agency after Mozambique's floods in 2000.

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Relationship and community are immensely important attributes in Africa, and the home is an important focal point of these relationships. In fact, there’s a saying here that if you don’t know my house, you don’t know me.

At the conclusion of the church meeting in São Dâmaso, every single member in attendance, bar none, walked to the home of a woman who was too ill to attend this week. They crowded into her living room, spent 15 minutes in song and prayer to show their support and hope for healing, and then parted ways.

Their act of kindness required an investment of only 15 minutes, but I'm sure it brightened that one person's entire day.