The Church in Mozambique

The Brethren in Christ Church in Mozambique has 116 churches, with an estimated membership of 6,000. The churches are small in size. The larger churches have about 20 adults and an equal number of children. We are present in 8 of the 10 provinces. Most of our churches are in the central and northern parts of the nation.

Bishop Filipe Maharange lives in the south in the capital city of Maputo and works for the police department there.

Portuguese is the official language of Mozambique. About ten languages are spoken in our churches, with Ndau (en-dow) and Sena (sen-ah) being the primary ones.

Steve and Chris Newcomer are here at the invitation of the Mozambican Church to do leadership training. They distribute Bibles and Bible study aids. Steve is available to speak in the churches on many subjects, and on Sunday afternoon he leads a weekly discipleship group of about 25, consisting of BIC and other local Christians, both pastors and lay workers.

Two missionaries came from the BIC Church in Malawi eleven years ago to do evangelism and church planting here.

Youngson and Elizabeth Palibendipo live here in Beira. He has planted many of the BIC churches here. He is gifted in linguistics and administration. He does translation work for the bishop, both in documents and in speaking occasions. He takes Steve and Chris to many of the churches and introduces them there. He also works with Mennonite Central Committee in Theological Education by Extension.

Youngson and Elizabeth have two young children.

The other missionary from Malawi is Laston Bisani, shown here with his wife Carlota and their ten children. Laston had nine children with his first wife, then she died of cancer, then he married Carlota and they have one child together, hence the family of ten children.

Laston is a church planter supreme. I have no clear word as to how many churches he has started here in Mozambique, but the number is high. The province where he lives, Zambezia, has 65 churches.

I not have occasion to meet Laston; he lives in another town, far from here, on the border with Malawi.

There are other fine pastors and leaders who are Mozambican, but so far I do not have photos and information about them. Perhaps I can post some more information later.