Pastor Vicente Alberto, 59Waiting on a long, wooden bench set out on the church office’s front veranda, I hear the familiar echo of Pastor Vicente heavily striking the worn keys of his antiquated typewriter. The methodical sound, combined with the pleasant smell of eucalyptus leaves wafting in the air, lulls me into a trance. I’m still profusely sweating from the hour-long bike ride to Mihecane, but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying the moment. Staring out at the local primary school students happily playing soccer on their haphazard, dirt field while occasionally greeting passing farmers who are hauling this year’s crops from the surrounding mountains to sell in Nauela, I can’t help but feel that these are the moments that I came to the Peace Corps for.
Eventually, I’m pulled away from my reflections by a soft, yet commanding voice calling me into the dim room where Pastor Vicente, the head of the local União Baptista church, is. After letting my eyes adjust to the contrast in lighting, I now see him sitting comfortably, in typical fashion, with hot tea set out in front of him and a smile stretching across his face. Although the room is filled with many individuals, including other area pastors, Vicente has an air about him that immediately draws all of one’s attention.
Looking around the room at his humbled colleagues, it’s not hard to see that this operation, for better or for worse and like so many others in Mozambique, is a one man show.
It wasn’t always like this though. Vicente has only been the head local pastor for a little over a decade. Before that, Mihecane had a longstanding missionary presence dating all the way back to the turn of the 20th century, but with the advent of Mozambique’s struggle for independence, civil war, and rehabilitation efforts since, the previous hierarchy has been tossed out the window and those who immediately filled the power vacuum are largely still hanging on to that position today.
Sitting down over freshly made tea, the hot water fogging my glasses, I try to delve into the details surrounding the church’s carpentry project designed to help local OVCs. But today, Vicente is not in a work mood. Growing up in an incredibly tumultuous time in his country’s history, he has already done his fair share of development projects and right now he just wants to enjoy his tea and chat…
 | The local União Baptista church headquarters in Mihecane with it's eucalyptus trees swaying to the side |
Born in 1951 to a polygamous father, Vicente Alberto grew up living out of his mother’s house on the banks of the Malapa River working as a farmer. Poor and black in a wealthy Portuguese-dominated society, Vicente’s only opportunity to receive a formal education in his early years came from the nearby protestant mission’s Sunday school which he attended regularly. Thus, at a very early age, the bond between future pastor and church was forged strong.
In order to better understand Pastor Vicente’s place in history with the area church, one must first step back in time to the beginnings of the União Baptista Church in Mihecane, Nauela. All the way back in 1913, Scottish missionaries initially founded the protestant mission in Mihecane dedicated to evangelizing to all of northern Mozambique (now the provinces of Zambezia, Nampula, Niassa, and Cabo Delgado… a HUGE region with literally millions of people in it). Over the next several decades the name of the mission changed several times and eventually settled on African Evangelical Fellowship. In addition to the church, the mission opened a school that went from 1st to 3rd grade, had a Sunday school bible study, and an orphanage. During these early years, many missionaries from Great Britain and Malawi came and went. The school grew and had peculiarities such as a piano, bells, and other musical instruments. During the First World War, the mission was actually attacked by some roaming Germans, killing one of the missionaries, but the mission’s presence in the area continued on through all obstacles and thrived.
It wasn’t until 1959, when Vicente was 8 years old, that the protestant mission in Mihecane was forced close by the Portuguese government because of a series of unfortunate events:
It all started when a new foreign evangelist named Cornelio arrived from Great Britain and started visiting the surrounding villages claiming God had given him supernatural powers. He started associating with many of the area curandeiros, speaking in tongues while praying, and even tried his hand at miraculous healing. Eventually, Cornelio wanted to prove his abilities and reasoned to throw a baby into a fire claiming he’d be able to save the child through the power of God. When he failed to resuscitate the child, however, he and the mission got in a lot of trouble with the local government.
Around this same time, a Mozambican named Ernesto who was working as a tax collector in Alto Molócuè robbed a large sum of money from the Portuguese government and, while fleeing the country, tried to hide with a friend in Mihecane. His friend didn’t feel comfortable taking him in to his house though and, instead, presented him to the head pastor of the mission at the time, Henry Gordon Legg, to turn him into the local authorities. Legg refused, knowing that if they took the man to authorities the fugitive would be killed and the man’s blood would be on his hands. Soon afterwards, the robber fled safely to Malawi and the friend immediately informed the area government about what had transpired with the pastor.
As one can imagine, the Portuguese government, already upset by the recent burning, was infuriated with Legg for not turning the robber in and consequently decided to close the mission (including the church, school, and orphanage… everything). Going a step farther, they also prohibited the local congregation from using the buildings as a punishment. Legg was eventually sent back to England, but, before he departed, he left the entire mission in the hands of a Mozambican named Martino Campos. Under the direction of Campos, the church’s headquarters migrated from Mihecane to the neighboring village of Eleve.
From 1959 to 1961, Vicente stayed at home because there wasn’t another school within walking distance for the young boy. However, in 1962, being a little older and having grown substantially, Vicente began making the daily trek to attend school at Nauela’s Catholic mission. During this time, in addition to going to school, he routinely helped out around the house of Pastor Campos; And while he might not have realized it at the time, seeds were then being sewn into his mind guiding him towards his future profession.
Although it took a while, on July 11th, 1968, at the age of 17, Vicente finally finished 4th grade - which was the highest grade a non-assimilated Mozambican was permitted to complete under Portuguese rule.
It’s important to note that during colonial times a Mozambican man could actually buy an assimilation card, a paper ID, stating that he considered his nationality to be Portuguese rather than Mozambican (this caused quite the controversy when the FRELIMO army later came through to push out the Portuguese during their War for Independence). The card cost 120 escudos, a lot of money at the time for a poor, rural Mozambican, but offered several advantages to its holder. An assimilated Mozambican, for example, was well known in the community and could attend all of the local Portuguese parties as well as go to school with all the Portuguese students. Once done with 4th grade, an assimilated Mozambican could even continue studying in Alto Molócuè or Nampula if he had enough money - Vicente’s family didn’t. Instead, Vicente bought a card with his hard earned money to take advantage of one thing: the parties!
One Portuguese party that still stands out in Vicente’s mind was a celebration surrounding the birthday of the Chefe do Posto during Vicente’s teen years. In the weeks leading up the event, invitations were sent out to all the assimilated Mozambicans instructing them to arrive in the village center at a certain time and date. During these years, there were between 30-40 Portuguese in the area and all of them promptly showed up at the said time and date with their family’s large contribution to the potluck-style dinner: chicken, potatoes, corn, wine, champagne, etc – the party was on!
After an hour or so, the food was still being divvied out, but wine bottles were empty and several Portuguese men were already drunk. And that’s when things got ugly! Yelling across the room at one another, a white store owner finally crossed the line when accusing a white farmer of being so uncivilized that he regularly eats field mice (something poor, rural Mozambicans did). Next thing Vicente knew, an all out war had erupted in the dining area. Vicente and his friends froze and watched in amazement as the white men took slugs at one another. They quickly recovered, however, and hurried back home with their mouths full of new, juicy stories, but little food having actually made it to their bellies.
When Vicente completed 4th grade in 1968, it was obvious that his family wouldn’t have enough money to enable him to continue studying in Molócuè. So, instead, he started working as a “Hey! Boy…” (a do-whatever-he’s-told helper) for a man named Gaspar - one of the six Portuguese store owners in Nauela.
It was at about that time that the church headquarters led by Campos really started to take hold in Eleve. After a difficult, slow transition the church finally began constructing a new sanctuary in Eleve in 1969. After two years of hard labor, the church in Eleve was finally inaugurated on November 11th, 1971 and quickly began to thrive. As the headquarters for all of northern Mozambique’s protestant churches, Eleve benefitted greatly, receiving financial support from all its congregations spread throughout the four-province region. Thus they were able to quickly construct several more buildings in the church’s immediate vicinity, including a seminary with attached dormitories, a church office, a head pastor’s residence, a guest house, a primary school, and a small health post.
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The church in Eleve and the remains of the seminary
Amidst all this construction, Henry Gordan Legg returned to Maputo and pushed for the joining of several protestant denominations to form Igreja União Baptista de Moçambique. Although many followed his lead, including Campos, several church leaders broke off at this point and separately founded their own churches (this division would later cause a huge struggle over land rights to the mission’s original property in Mihecane). Around the same time, the Portuguese government actually lifted the ban on the protestant mission’s use of Mihecane, but Martino Campos, having already started constructing so much in Eleve, reasoned to wait for things to settle down for a while before making the move.
From 1972-73 Vicente lived and worked in Eleve as teacher at the church-affiliated primary school. Outside his official teaching schedule, Vicente became an appointed church evangelist to try and reach out to the local children. For a brief moment, things in Eleve were going well and comfortable for all!
The brewing War for Independence in the North didn’t impact Nauela till 1973 when the assimilated Mozambicans, including Vicente, were forced to enlist into the Portuguese army. In an instant, the newly recruited soldiers were uprooted from their calm, rural lifestyles and sent off to be trained for war at the fort on Ilha de Moçambique.
After basic training, Vicente found himself stationed in the province of Manica as a heavy arms specialist shooting canons and mortars. During his down time, Vicente became a hack-electrician, wiring barracks and houses for the Portuguese army in Chimoio, a trade that would pay him much dividend during his life. Even while looking out at the enemy, it never occurred to Vicente that he was actually fighting against a force, FRELIMO, that would soon free and govern the country he grew up in. As the Portuguese forces finally retreated, however, FRELIMO stumbled upon Vicente with his Portuguese assimilation card on hand. Noting his Portuguese citizenship, the freedom fighters dared him to flee to Portugal with the rest of them. Vicente obviously couldn’t, so, instead, he trashed the card and pledged his allegiance to the new Mozambican government.
On September 7th, 1974 the fighting for Mozambique’s independence ended successfully having kicked out the Portuguese colonial government. By the start of the next year, Vicente had arrived back in Eleve and resumed his role as teacher and evangelist at the local primary school. Within weeks of moving back home, on January 17th, 1975, Vicente Alberto married the woman he had long since been committed to, Arlinda Enriques, and before the end of the year, on December 15th, 1975, their first child of 10 (!) was born.
On June 25th, 1975 Mozambique’s government signed the Lusaka Accords (??) with Portugal officially acknowledging its hard-fought independence. Although there had been a change of government, life in Nauela remained startlingly similar for several years to come. Even while most of the area’s white residents had fled, a stubborn handful remained. It wasn’t until 1977, when the communist government moved to nationalize everything: land, schools, religious institutions, hospitals, businesses, etc, that things were really turned upside down.
In a day’s time, Mozambican soldiers invaded Eleve, ransacking it far worse than the War for Independence ever did. It was a free-for-all with soldiers removing the town’s generator, maize mill, farming equipment, etc, and, going a step further, seizing the dormitories for the students, the school, the health post, all the improved housing, and all church buildings except the sanctuary, which the communist government mockingly allowed the church to keep.
In the face of this tragedy, many people, including Vicente and his growing family, dispersed from Eleve. Looking for stability and a future, they moved to the city of Gurue where Vicente found work as an electrician for the Mitilile tea farm. Even as the civil war began and raged outside the city limits, in the heavily protected oasis that was Gurue, Vicente flourished while working his way up the ranks over a 15 year span, eventually becoming the head electrician for the company’s five tea plants.
Not all people were so fortunate, however. Around 1985-86, the civil war between RENAMO and FRELIMO picked up in the Nauela area. RENAMO, heavily financed by regional and world capitalist powers (i.e. – the U.S. and South Africa) trying to rid the world of communism, led an attack aimed at destroying infrastructure and disrupting everyday life. Schools, hospitals, farms, and roads were obliterated while mines and troops were scattered throughout the country to paralyze the people.
Although their presence was felt before then, in 1986 RENAMO finally attacked the agriculture center of Nauela attempting to cripple one of the key food suppliers in the country’s northern region. The outnumbered FRELIMO forces fled the area, leaving behind many civilians, including Vicente’s parents, who were caught and forced to march with RENAMO to the rural post of Molumbo where they were left, scared and disoriented in the bush.
This was the beginning of a series of attacks and counterattacks in the Nauela area by RENAMO and FRELIMO. The losing side would typically run away from the battle in order to look for more supplies and troops (Renamo would normally go looking in Nampula, FRELIMO, on the other hand, Gurue). Then they’d come back and attack again. At one point, FRELIMO told area residents to come build makeshift houses around the base of Mount Nauela so they could better protect them. However, pretty soon after witnessing the back and forth nature of the battles, civilians in the area went into hiding out in the surrounding forest. People would do their best to avoid death – moving about carefully during the day, making clothes from tree bark, only cooking indoors at night – without doing too well for oneself (i.e. – if RENAMO caught you with salt you were assumed to be associating with FRELIMO and thus killed).
Not an uncommon occurrence at the time, one of Vicente’s sisters who had fled into the bush was doing her best to bear the cold one winter night, bundling up in that infamous, heavy, abrasive tree-bark cloth, when something tragic happened. Earlier in the evening, she had made a fire inside her mud hut, in order to not give away her location to RENAMO soldiers, and had fallen asleep huddling close by the fire to benefit from its warmth. She woke up in a state of panic hours later, her baby crying and an intense sensation of pain coming from her lower body: the tree-bark cloth was on fire! In fact, the dry material must have made for excellent kindling as it was already engulfed in flames. Heaving the cloth aside as quickly as possible, it had already severely burned a large section of her upper thigh and, to make matters worse, she knew she wouldn’t be able to seek medical attention on her own.
 | Lydia Duarte donning a replica of the tree bark clothes commonly used during the civil war. Lydia is about to be appointed as one of the local “regulos”, community leaders. A rare feat in rural Mozambique for a woman. |
Luckily, she was able to send a compassionate neighbor to Gurue to find Vicente and beg him to help transport her on a stretcher to Gurue (~60kms) in order to be treated by a doctor. Due to Vicente’s demanding work schedule as a company electrician he wasn’t able to personally make the trip (although he desperately wanted to), but sent four family members who were able to safely get her to Gurue in 3 days time (1 day there and 2 back), walking mostly at night since they were afraid of being caught and murdered by RENAMO troops. When Vicente’s sister finally arrived in Gurue, she was attended to by 2 surgeons from Doctors Without Borders who were working there temporarily to help with the war relief effort. In the short time it had taken to seek medical attention, the wound had begun to rot and the doctors debated whether or not to amputate the leg. In the end, they thoroughly cleaned the wound and let it slowly heal. Vicente’s sister is still alive today, albeit she has a limp, thanks to the courageous rescue efforts and the aid of the foreign doctors.
The story above isn’t the only area’s heroic act in these years during Mozambique’s civil war however. No, in fact, there are many more. At the time, there were actually still two foreign businessmen left in Nauela (1 Portuguese and 1 from Goa). Hearing about them, RENAMO soldiers wanted their blood. Before they could get a hold of them, however, Pastor Campos drove them in the church’s Landrover to Gurue in order to escape. When interrogated about the foreigners’ whereabouts, locals informed RENAMO forces what Campos has done. Instead of killing him for his rebellious acts, the soldiers reasoned to punish Campos by burning the car and made him stand at attention the whole day, from 9am-3pm. He came away from the encounter with inflamed legs and an aching ego, but ultimately suffered more when they later demanded he, along with a group of area pastors, march from Nauela to RENAMO’s base near Morrumbala by foot – the one-way journey took 30 days back then!
During the return, the aging Campos couldn’t go on and was left behind on the trail. Luckily, a nephew got word of his poor circumstance and carried him on his bike the rest of the way back home to Eleve. Campos didn’t fair the worst of all though, yet another pastor actually died during the return and was hastily buried in an unmarked grave on the banks of the Lua River. Even after his return, Campos wasn’t free from persecution. That same year he was deported to the Gurue area and later Quelimane. Soon after his arrival in Quelimane, he became very ill and died there in 1987. Eventually, however, his body was transported back north and was properly buried in a place of honor in Molócuè.
Within the safe confines of Gurue, Vicente received word of his parent’s involuntary relocation to Molumbo. Thus, in 1990 accompanied by allied soldiers, Vicente journeyed through the active warzone to seek out his parents or word of their fate. After arriving and asking around, he was actually able to locate them and safely move them back to Gurue to be with him and his family. At about this same time, the new local head Pastor Elias Guimarãnes traveled from Gurue to Maputo for a nationwide church conference where he was instructed to return as soon as possible to the original mission plot in Mihecane, instead of staying in Eleve since their buildings there were now in ruins.
Almost as soon as the civil war peace agreements were signed, construction started back up in Mihecane in March, 1992 under the supervision of Pastor Elias Guimarãnes. Looking for another church man from the area that he could trust as an auxiliary, Guimarãnes offered the new position of church secretary to Vicente (he had continued his work as an evangelist in Gurue for the church during the war). With the Gurue tea factories now failing, having been hard-pressed throughout the war, Vicente thought it an opportune time to officially join up with the church and finally head back home with Guimarãnes.
Slowly, Vicente gained more and more responsibilities in the church and eventually went back to biblical school (he had also attended biblical school in Eleve from 1971-73) with the idea of one day becoming a pastor. Under the supervision of Mihecane’s first post-independence missionaries, an English couple named Steven and Joanne Whitley who arrived in 1995, Vicente attended classes twice a week and completed a correspondence course. After a year or so of study, Vicente officially became a pastor in 1996 and when Elias Guimarãnes announced that he would soon step down as head pastor due to his declining health, there was little doubt as to who would be his successor. Indeed, in 1998 Vicente Alberto was voted to be head pastor of the local União Baptista Church, Costa Custodio to be the pastor treasurer, and Samuel Selvestre to be the pastor secretary.
 | The current group of church leaders, Pastors Selvestre, Vicente, and Basilio (replaced Custodio) from left to right. |
In addition to the Whitleys, there was suddenly an influx of post-war foreign aid in the area, including a Canadian couple, Dr. Mark Nelham and his wife Joanne, sent from Doctors Without Borders/Red Cross, Meli Wisbon (or Melanie Wishbone?), an American nurse who had previously been working in Zambia, and a shipping container full of donated clothes. Although Mark and his wife would usually only visit for brief periods (they had a house in Quelimane), the Whitleys and Melanie lived in Mihecane for several years. Melanie eventually left Mihecane as the health situation stabilized in their years following the war, but the Whitleys would have likely stayed many years longer if not for the fact that all the missionaries with the União Baptista church were kicked out of the country in 2001 by host-country-national church leaders.
The sudden expulsion of all the missionaries associated with the União Baptista church in Mozambique was pushed forward by João Vivente Ichaua, the national leader of the church at the time. In 2001, during a routine nationwide meeting in Alto Molócuè, the head leader vented to the mixed gathering of Mozambicans and foreign missionaries, claiming he had no way of making future plans for the church because he was being held completely unaware of the church’s finances. Inspired, he was roughly quoted as having said “Give us 10 years without any foreigners leading this church and see if we’re not better off.” You see, at that time, most, if not all, international financial support was funneled through the foreign missionaries before being presented to the church. If nothing else, this caused a bad perception because Mozambicans would see missionaries traveling around the country in their nice cars, building large houses for themselves, and then not giving money for every whim of the church.
The Whitleys' house in Mihecane.
The house in Mihecane where the nurse Melanie lived.
When the dust settled, all (about 30 in total) missionaries had been kicked out of the country by the church’s national direction so that Mozambicans could take control of the money and their church. Although this decision pleased the Maputo office, many grassroot level churches, including Mihecane, were both stunned and deeply disheartened by the move that ripped their loved and very dedicated companions away from them.
This sudden vacuum in leadership caused the local congregation to lean that much harder on Vicente. During his years as pastor he has had to handle conflicts between area churches over land - who owned what, fight adult illiteracy, mentor other potential pastors in biblical school, grow the church congregation, handle various development projects, not to mention care for and raise his family. He’s now been working with the church for 18 years, 13 of which as a pastor, and is getting excited about the idea of finally retiring. He’s tired and wants to rest. Who can blame him? He’s done an incredible job. The only real thing left for him to do is help transition the church over to the next leader. I’m sure he’ll be up for it.
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