Dear Confrere/Friend,

Loving greetings of peace and joy of Christ and His Mother of Compassion!

We wish you a very Happy New Year. May the Good Lord bless you abundantly!

Today we complete six years of our presence in Mozambique, Africa. We felt the Lord wants us to share with you some news about our life and work here. Often we failed to communicate with you. In spite of that, you are with us in prayer, through counsel, encouragement and financial help. We thank you very much. Do continue to be with us.

Way back in 1997, Dom Alexandre dos Santos, the Cardinal Archbishop of Maputo, requested Fr. Emile Mayoraz, our former Superior General, to send missionaries to his Archdiocese. Fr. Mayoraz requested the Nagpur Province to take up the mission work in Mozambique. Fr. Joseph Pottemmel, the then Provincial Superior of Nagpur, took up the challenge. After the initial visit to Mozambique and the study, he was able to organize a team to be sent there by 1999. The First batch of volunteers, Fr. Sebastian Annaikandathil, Fr. Mathews Kodamullil and Fr. Melroy Almeida, was commissioned on 20th October 1999 during the Provincial Congress in Nagpur. We reached here in Maputo on 4th January 2000. Together with the Provincial, Fr. Joseph Pottemmel, and the Coordinator of African Mission, Fr. Augustine Mangatt, we journeyed through the length and breadth of the proposed new Parish an area of 5,043 square kms of the most backward and interior terrain where the population live a primitive way of life with no roads, no transport.

After completing three months of pastoral experience together with Portuguese learning, the two of us, Fr. Sebastian Annaikandathil and Fr. Mathews Kodamullil arrived Bela Vista, the headquarters of Matutuine district. On 01st May, 2000, the Archbishop installed us in the new parish of St. Francis de Sales. This unfinished and abandoned chapel survived the 17 years’ long civil war as it was used as the only existing club of the area. Everything that belonged to the Catholic Church was nationalized by the Marxists at the wake of Independence in 1975. The little property around this Chapel was occupied by three various Departments of the District Administration.

We managed to get a little space in the Spanish Agency-run orphanage in the 100 years old mission of Sao Roque, seven kms away. Thus since 05th May 2000 we are residents of Matutuine.

The first thing we felt that the Lord wanted of us was to know our people. The old catechist who was still acting as the leader of the faithful discouraged us from visiting all the still remaining Catholic families. He said it would not be possible as the houses are distant from one another, the terrain difficult (sandy, swampy, slushy, slippery, thorny, jungle, forest, slopes, climbs, wild animals, snakes and what not). Hence we had to seek others’ help. Different local leaders led us to each family in the entire district. The census turned out to be a first-time-house-blessing programme. The whole process that took six months of walking transformed itself to be short pilgrimages (from house to house we walked in large groups praying rosary and singing hymns). The faithful repeated: for the first time a priest stepped into our houses. The cardinal desired of us to make the catholic presence felt in the district. It was fulfilled: praise the Lord. We knew our people in their own surroundings. We had their names and other details and the Christian empathy was born in us for our people. And till this moment we have not looked back.

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