A covenant relationship begun by newly elected bishops over 20 years ago is still going strong today.
Bishop Warner H. Brown was elected in 2000 along with Bishops Jose Quipungo and Gaspar João Domingos, both from Angola, and they discussed a conference-to-conference partnership. Angola’s decades-long civil war was still going on at the time and didn’t end until 2002. Brown, then episcopal leader of the Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain conferences, was finally able to visit and returned with a challenge to the conferences to provide pastoral support to United Methodist pastors in Angola.
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“A new partnership with bishops trying to rebuild a country after war seemed like wonderful place for us to jump in and work together,” Brown said.
“Salary support was a critical need that I thought the conferences could take on as best matched them. Even for small congregations that could only do a little, that little bit would make a difference and help them to develop their mission muscle.”
The partnership began with both the East and West Angola conferences but the work that continues today is solely in East Angola. The East Angola Conference covers a large rural area with some of the poorest communities in the country.
“There was no way for them to derive enough income from the congregational model. Their congregations could provide them produce from their gardens but little money,” said the Rev. Sue King, who was on the first conference trip to Angola in 2003.
By providing a system of monetary support, she said, the East Angola Conference was better able to recruit, retain and sustain new clergy. Churches in the Yellowstone Conference raised money to be able to provide 40-50 Angolan pastors with $40 per month. Supplemental salary support for pastors: Advance #3021453.
King said that school fees might take up 20% of a pastor’s monthly budget, so this “love offering” ensures pastors can send their kids to school and care for their families.
“One got some medicines and set up a pharmacy in his village. Some have bought land to grow and sell food,” she said.
Nowadays, the Mountain Sky Conference — created by the 2018 merger of the Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain conferences — is able to provide $50 per month to 115 East Angola Conference pastors. The program is overseen by Ken Koome, a Kenyan missionary for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries serving as the finance officer for the East Angola Conference.
“The support program wouldn’t work without him,” King said. “Every pastor has a bank account set up now and we can wire the money directly to them.”
In July 2023, a team from the Mountain Sky Conference traveled to East Angola and the Quéssua Mission, its first post-COVID mission trip.
“Ken said, ‘We wondered if you forgot us’ and we said, no, of course not,” said the Rev. Janet Mulroy, the conference’s mission engagement and resource strategist. “He said it was important that we came and gave hope.”
Brown, who retired from the episcopacy in 2016 but is serving as the interim bishop for the Sierra Leone Area, last visited Angola in 2010. Reflecting on the 20th anniversary of a ministry he helped start, he said he is delighted.
“What the bishops and I had hoped for happened, to the benefit of all conferences involved. It made real the mission connection between us and our partners around this globe.”
excerpt from a story by Joey Butler, multimedia producer/editor for United Methodist News
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