Second female Anglican bishop elected by Southern Africa; Deadly Kenya Sunday school attack; Wanted – “Agents of Change” volunteers for distance learning course; Returnees in South Sudan in need of help to restart their lives; New Primate of West Africa
Second female Anglican bishop elected by Southern Africa
A South African woman has been elected as the second female Anglican bishop in Africa. Canon Margaret Vertue, the senior priest in a diocese which includes most of the poorer suburbs of greater Cape Town, was elected bishop of the Diocese of False Bay on Wednesday (3 October).
The second of two women elected to the episcopacy in recent months, Canon Vertue was one of the two first woman priests to be ordained in Cape Town by Archbishop Desmond Tutu 20 years ago.
Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said, ‘I am absolutely delighted that the Revd Canon Margaret Vertue has been elected the next Bishop of the Diocese of False Bay’.
‘Margaret was my junior when we were both training for ordination at the College of the Transfiguration – then St Paul’s, and I have worked closely with her on the board of HOPE Africa. She is well known, respected, and liked throughout Southern Africa, and we thank God for this new chapter in her life and ministry, and the life of False Bay Diocese.’
Canon Vertue will replace Bishop Merwyn Castle. The Archbishop learnt the news while attending the Anglicans Ablaze conference in Johannesburg, the largest gathering from across the whole Anglican Church of Southern Africa in living memory.
Deadly Kenya Sunday school attack
Following the explosive attack at Anglican Church of Kenya St. Polycarp Parish on Juja Road in Nairobi yesterday, Archbishop Dr. Eliud Wabukala joined other religious leaders in condemning the explosive attack.
Earlier in the day, Archbishop Wabukala, and Bishop Joel Waweru of Nairobi Diocese visited and prayed with four of the six children still admitted at Kenyatta National Hospital, Children’s Ward.
In a statement released today at the scene of the explosion, he stated that Kenya is a multi- religious society and termed the attacks as atrocities whose perpetrators should face the full rigor of the law. He called upon the Government to offer adequate security since asking citizens to be vigilant is not sufficient. “This is a cruel provocation, but I appeal to Christians not to feed violence with violence, either in word or deed, because we are called to overcome evil with good,” he remarked.
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2012/10/1/ACNS5195
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19776747
Wanted – “Agents of Change” volunteers for distance learning course
The Anglican Alliance is calling for volunteers to take part in a distance learning course in community development skills is providing with Open University.
The course called “Agents of Change” has been developed especially for the Anglican Alliance by Open University, the world famous distance learning university based in the UK. The course will soon be ready for use worldwide, and the Anglican Alliance is looking for some small groups of up to 10 people to try it out. The course is free of charge to Anglicans or people studying in Anglican academic institutions.
“Agents of Change” takes six months to complete, and includes modules in:
• Inclusion
• Consultation
• Governance
• Protection of vulnerable people
• Work Programming
• Principles of financial management
Students can study on-line, via CD Rom, or by running off the material in hard copy. They need to be able to get to a computer with internet access three times during the course so that they can upload their work.
They can study individually, but they will have to meet with other students once a month – preferably face to face or if this is not possible, then via the internet – to talk through the challenging issues they will study. The course is designed for access level, so students need to have completed primary schooling, and done some secondary schooling, but do not need to have completed secondary education or done a degree. It is a challenging course, and during it students will design a development project for their own community.
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2012/10/2/ACNS5196
Returnees in South Sudan in need of help to restart their lives
After decades of conflict and displacement, returnees from Sudan to South Sudan are facing huge difficulties to restart their lives. According to the United Nation Office for the Organisation of Humanitarian Affairs, around 123.000 people have returned this year.
Despite the raising of hopes for going back home, the situation for people arriving is very complicated. The relief and development coordinator of the Diocese of Rejaf, Episcopal Church of Sudan, Mr Bullen Pitya, explains how returnees could not bring along their things, as they were flown from Sudan to Juba with minimum personal belongings.
They have been temporarily accommodated in a transit camp at Kabu, at the outskirts of Juba town, in the compound of a Teachers’ Training Institute. The returnees are expected to continue their journey and resettle in their villages, or towns of origin. However, as many of them had lived in Khartoum for a long time, over a period of 21 years of war, they do not seem to know their original villages.
Returnees have been asked to vacate the installation of the training institute within few weeks. The Central Equatoria State has provided a new land, the Kuda village in the north of Juba town, for their permanent resettlement. The International Organisation for Migration is providing the transport to their new home but they do not have anything to restart their life since they left all behind.
The diocese of Rejaf is asking for support to help South Sudanese returnees who are in urgent need. They are planning to implement the following plan:
Objective of the response: To provide a package of cooking utensils, canvas and hand tools for each of 200 returnee families to enable them resettle in Kuda on their own plots allocated by the government of Central Equatoria State.
http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2012/10/3/ACNS5197
New Primate of West Africa
The Anglican Church of the Province of West Africa has elected the Rt Revd Dr Solomon Johnson as its ninth Archbishop and Primate.
Dr Johnson, who is currently the Bishop of Gambia, was elected to be the next Primate for the province at a special synod held at Cuttington University, Suacoco, Bong Country, Liberia, between 25 to 28 September.
He succeeds The Most Revd Dr Justice Akrofi who has been Primate since 2003.
There has been no word of whether the synod agreed to the proposal to adopt a constitutional change that would see the creation of two internal provinces with two archbishops, in the style of the Church of England.