Luanda, Angola. The Independent Delegation of Mâe de África and the Christian communities with which it shares its journey have experienced a month of August full of joy and good news. From the good memory left by the 1st Delegation Assembly held in July with the participation of almost all its perpetually professed members and the Claretian Family to the additional eight priests and three newly professed students to the Delegation in August.
The new priests (Frs. Símone J. António, Rui Águas Luís, Awelde Jamal, David Nambele, Rodrigo de Jesus Tumbula and Francisco Tchimbaia, Estevâo Kapewa and Marcolino F. Viyanga) were ordained on different days of the month in São Tomé, Luanda and Lubango, in well-attended celebrations in which the faithful expressed their joy in many ways. The eight new priests, who had shared several years of formation, studied theology in various places (Cameroon, St. Charles Lwanga, West Nigeria) and only met again on the occasion of the Delegation’s assembly.
August also brought the joy of the first religious profession of three Delegation students (Gomes Pereira B. Tchindiguile, Barnabé Bonito Sachimuco and Pedro Benevide da Costa), who professed their vows together with eleven other companions at the Anton Probst Novitiate in Cameroon on the 13th. In the same center, two young men of the Delegation began their novitiate year a day earlier and concluded their philosophy studies in Luanda (Angola) in June. On the 8th, Joseph Zoa, a professed student of the Congolese Delegation, renewed his religious profession in Sao Tome, where he is doing a period of pastoral experience and learning Portuguese.
The Mâe de África Delegation, created in January 2019, has 37 members (2 novices, 11 students in temporary vows, 1 Missionary Brother and 23 priests). Last academic year, 36 young men studied philosophy and propaedeutic studies in their formation houses. The communities of the Delegation are four: one on the island of Sao Tomé and three in Angola, although in two of the latter the missionaries live in two different locations serving different Christian communities.
