My dear brothers,
It is with great emotion and feelings of great gratitude that I hasten to communicate with you once again. With you who have been our true supporters from the very first moment of our move to Central Tanzania. With the grace of God and the care and the ardent blessings of His Beatitude our Patriarch Theodoros II, the work of our Church continues thanks to your unwavering support.
Recently we held baptisms of new members of our Church at the missionary centre of Kidamali Iringa. The joy of all of us was evident. The happy faces of the little children reflected the divine light of their encounter with Christ in the baptismal font. But especially touching was the following event:
After we finished the baptisms and handed out the New Testament to each new convert family, three women arrived with their young children. Eight little angels came running towards the place where the baptismal font is located. Their Orthodox mothers invited us to baptize their children too. They arrived late, because that day they could not find any transport in their village. Not wanting their children to be unbaptized, they all walked together for about four hours, crossing forests and dirt roads. Admiring their desire, we celebrated the sacrament for these blessed souls as well.
After the end of the baptisms, another group from another region, from the highlands of Iriga, arrived and invited us to go to their area to indoctrinate them. It was a group of fifty people who were ready to be baptized. Such stirring events, which show the living presence of the Paraclete in the mission, give us courage and inspiration to continue the graceful struggle of evangelization of the noble people of Africa.
But I would like, my brothers and sisters, once again, to appeal to your charitable hearts and ask you to embrace our effort for the operation of our new Missionary Centre in the city of Arusha. By the grace of God, the plans for the construction of the Church of Our Lady have been completed, entrusting to Her grace the entire effort being made to establish Orthodoxy in the city of Arusha.
At the entrance of the plot we placed, in a specially designed arch, a fresco with the figure of our Virgin Mary. Her serene figure attracted the interest of many residents of the surrounding area, who, although still unbaptized, confessed that they felt the Virgin Mary, as she was in the picture with open hands, as if welcoming them into Her home, sweetening their souls in Her loving arms!
In the city of Arusha, which is the undisputed capital of the Union of East African Nations, and which is visited by many tourists on a daily basis due to the adjacent Safari and Mount Kilimanjaro, the living standard of the people is higher and life is more expensive than in the rest of Tanzania. This, as you can understand, makes our effort even more difficult to complete the project.
Humanly it seems impossible, because our small and frail shoulders cannot carry this heavy burden alone. But we go forward with our hand on our hearts and placing every hope and expectation in Our Lady. After all, this work is not personal, but belongs entirely to our Church!
The vision of the Holy See of our Pope and Patriarch Theodore II is that this spiritual cradle will be the source, the reference point where Orthodoxy will shine again in the provinces of Arusha and Mossi, where for the first time the pioneer missionary of Tanzania, the blessed Archimandrite Fr. Nicodemus Sarikas, who passed away in 1941 and was buried in the city of Tanga.
This new spiritual nursery will include the Holy Church of Our Lady, technical schools for the young men and women of Tanzania from which they will receive the appropriate knowledge to enable them to work and survive in an environment that does not promise comfort and professional careers, a clinic and a place for seminars for the better training of the clergy and laity of the Diocese.
May the word of the Gospel, my brothers and sisters, touch every aching soul and the bells of Orthodoxy ring out in every corner of the African continent. Amen!
With a grateful heart
† Arusas Agathonikos
