The Official Blog of the Lichfield Cathedral Youth Fellowship visit to the Diocese of Matlosane, South Africa

21st-29th October 2011





The Diocese of Matlosane

The Diocese of Matlosane covers over half the North West Province of South Africa, an area of 24,432 sq. mls., is 165 miles from north to south as the crow flies and 145 miles from west to east.

The Diocese is organised into 4 Archdeaconries, North, Central, Cathedral, and South. The Church of the Resurrection at Ikageng (Ika-heng) was inaugurated as the Cathedral in 2004, the first Cathedral to be established in a township in South Africa.

In October 2009 there were 41 clergy in the Diocese: Bishop Stephen, Bishop Sigisbeth (ret’d), 36 priests and 3 Deacons.

Of the priests, 2 are retired, 3 others over retirement age, and 21 are Self Supporting. There are only two white clergy, one of whom is over retirement age.

The clergy serve 20 parish churches, most of which have daughter churches and a very large number of outstations. The majority of the congregations are black, and there are over 80,000 communicants in the Diocese, some of whom receive the sacrament very infrequently due to lack of transport.

There are also 2 ordinands in full time training at the College of the Transfiguration, one paid for by Lichfield Diocese.



Wednesday 26 October 2011

Day 3: Church Family Day

Sunday

We were up early on Sunday morning and driven Ventersdorp/Tshing in four cars at varying speeds.

The service lasted 3.5 hours with a whole hour dedicated to the collection it was a truly amazing and uplifting experience of dancing, praying and singing. During the service three languages were spoken, Setswana, Afrikaans and English. The service included people of all ages including a little girl of about 7 who read the first lesson. The service was “high church” but it was very informal with many choirs who were sometimes competing for the floor.

 
After a few concerns about what we should wear to the service and expectations of a highly formal dress code we in fact all wore our Visit T-shirts and were warmly welcomed.

We were then enlightened by the “family day” which followed the service which involved many happy family and friendship groups who were barbequing (known as a ‘Braii’), eating, drinking and partying well into the evening. After enjoying a Braii cooked for us by members of the Cathedral congregation, we left with our host families and returned home after a great day!


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