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 (Advance #3022750) of Zimbabwe and Nana Kutela Fatuma Katembo (Advance #3022312) 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.
Local Communities Receive Needed Health Care
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.
Food Insecurities Addressed in Annual Conference
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.
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.
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.”
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You can designate your donation to go to a specific missionary/country through The General Board of Global Ministries’ Advance accountability system. Missionaries are but one part, there are numerous of projects that you can support depending on your preference.
excerpt from a story by Neusa Ndalamba, correspondent for UM News and district superintendent of the West Angola Conference’s Kwanza-Norte District.
The Advance is the accountable, designated-giving arm of The United Methodist Church. The Advance invites contributors to designate support for projects related to the General Board of Global Ministries. Individuals, local churches, organizations, districts and annual conferences may donate to The Advance. One hundred percent of every gift to The Advance goes to the project selected by the giver. Gifts to missionaries support the entire missionary community.
