Key points:
- Two mission workers with United Methodist Global Ministries have had an impact in the areas of public health and agriculture in the West Angola Conference.
- For Tapiwanashe Moreblessing Manyeza of Zimbabwe and Nana Kutela Fatuma Katembo from the Democratic Republic of Congo, working in Angola has required adapting to a new context and language.
- Both Katembo, a Global Missionary, and Manyeza, a Global Mission Fellow, are among United Methodist mission workers serving in about 60 countries.
Faith and friendship have helped two mission workers in Angola thrive in a new culture and implement programs that are changing lives.
Tapiwanashe “Nashe” Moreblessing Manyeza of Zimbabwe and Nana Kutela Fatuma Katembo from the Democratic Republic of Congo were connected in mission by United Methodist Global Ministries, the mission agency of The United Methodist Church.
Being assigned to the Portuguese-speaking country required learning a new language and adapting to a new context.
“I am an extrovert, and I love learning new things and interacting with people both young and old,” Manyeza said. “The idea of traveling to Angola where I did not know anyone and had no language skills at all was very exciting to me, though there was a point where I got nervous, but I got emotional support from my family.
“Thank God, I met Nana in Angola, and she was a sister to me and helped me a lot because the first two months were quite challenging,” she said. “By the time I was able to communicate, things started falling into place.”
Manyeza, a Global Mission Fellow, has served in the West Angola Annual Conference for two years, working in the church’s health department as a health program assistant. She recently completed her assignment as part of the 2023-2025 Global Mission Fellows cohort.
Katembo, a Global Missionary, has been serving in Angola for nine years. She is a specialist in agriculture and works with low-income people in rural areas.
United Methodist Global Ministries, which has mission workers in about 60 countries, offers opportunities for people to serve as Global Missionaries, Global Mission Fellows and as mission volunteers on short-term assignments. Participants have the opportunity to enter into new communities, build relationships and work to overcome systemic challenges. Partnering with community organizations, they address issues such as migration/immigration, education needs, public health issues and poverty.
Manyeza, who studied public health, put her training to use in Angola by working with the church’s health department, which has a dispensary unit, and she initiated a mobile clinic that offers health care to local communities. She and the West Angola health team visited congregations on Sundays to educate people and raise awareness of such issues as cholera and malaria. During a January cholera outbreak, she partnered with the Angola Council of Churches and together they identified four communities where they raised awareness of the disease and distributed hygiene packs.
“When I got to Angola, the public health sector of the church’s department was not functioning well,” Manyeza said. In addition to starting the mobile health clinic, she re-established a cadre of health workers at the local church level, and she trained health professionals in the Luanda District. “We also managed to march for the first time last year and raise awareness on health issues affecting the Angolan community,” she said.
Katembo, who has a background in agriculture and natural resources, began serving as an agricultural technician in the West Angola Annual Conference in 2016. Her husband, Dieudonne Kutela Katembo, is a missionary in the East Angola Conference.
Food security and agricultural ministries are important in the West Angola Conference, where 75 percent of the 428 congregations are in rural areas. The church seeks to support farming projects and help communities achieve economic self-sufficiency. It maintains an agriculture school in Caxito and has a partnership with the government’s Agriculture Development Institute. The latter provides seeds and fertilizer from time to time.
When Katembo arrived in Angola, the West Angola Conference had set aside a piece of land for mission ministry.
“I was presented a piece of land in Caxito that had some mango trees planted by the UMVIM (United Methodist Volunteers in Mission) missionaries who had once visited Angola,” she said.
She said she started getting to know the widows of pastors and talking to them about their needs.
“I used some personal funds to buy seeds and started planting them with the help of two young men who started working with me. We managed to produce vegetables and distribute them to the widows’ homes, and this action is now a routine for us.”
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A $500 donation from a group of United Methodist visitors from the California-Nevada Conference — which has been partnering with the West Angola Annual Conference on building a clinic in Bom Jesus — enabled Katembo to buy additional land for local women to use as a subsistence resource. The women are using it to raise vegetables and create products such as tomato paste.
Katembo also has been doing some community development work, including helping provide classes on sewing and soapmaking. A kindergarten was opened for children. “Many of these children had malnutrition problems; that pushed us to finding a way to care for them,” she said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Katembo had the idea of building a community center, which is expected to open next year.
“Thank God, we now have a farm,” she said. “The land (that began) with only some mango trees has turned into a farm with many other fruit trees (and) two big piggeries. We have (a) plantation of many crops like tomatoes, onions, cabbage, spinach, eggplants and others.”
The farm is supported by Global Ministries in a variety of ways, including through the Yambasu Agriculture Initiative with the West Angola Conference.
Both Manyeza and Katembo see their work bearing fruit.
“I see myself as someone who has built a foundation in this sector in the West Angola Annual Conference,” Manyeza said. “I opened up people’s minds to a world of possibilities, and I am hoping by the grace of God other (Global Mission Fellows) will be able to do so much more in the future. One thing I was reminded of throughout is that I was never alone; God is in my story.”
Said Katembo: “I see my work as a success because things are happening. We are changing people’s lives for the better.”
Ndalamba is a correspondent for UM News and district superintendent of the West Angola Conference’s Kwanza-Norte District.
News media contact: Julie Dwyer at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digests.
