Dear friends of the Mission,
Along with my warmest wishes for health and spiritual progress, please accept my sincere gratitude for your prayers, patience, understanding and spiritual, material and financial support for the Holy Diocese of Kananga.
As you well know, every month, but also every day and every moment, we try without sparing any effort or sacrifice, to stand worthy of the vast missionary work of the Holy Diocese of Kananga in the heart of Central Africa.
The work in the Mission, however difficult it may be, is pleasing to God since it faithfully follows the words of the Lord: “Go forth and make disciples of all nations…”
In this Diocese where God has commanded us to serve, we have focused our attention on the reorganization of the existing parishes along with the creation of new ones so that the new spiritual sprouts of Orthodoxy can be guided to the real faith.
We alco focus on securing the salaries of our priests, who continually multiply and are indispensable, since they perform the holy sacrament of Eucharist in the depths of Africa and they ring the bell of the Mission in the ends of “the Continent of the Future”, as his Beatitude Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria has aptly named Africa.
Moreover, we focus on our teachers and our schools, whose costs we must often fully bear as regards the financial support of the needy students who long to quench the thirst of their dried-up soul with the gurgling water of our Holy Orthodoxy.
Furthermore, we focus on our Priests, who run to distant and rugged places in order to meet, pray, baptize and perform all the holy sacraments for their indigenous brothers, preaching the Gospel of the Resurrection.
Last but not least, we focus on our sick fellow human beings and do everything in our power to meet their needs and help them with medical examinations, provision of medicines, hospitalization and surgeries. Unfortunately, physical pain is further burdened by hunger, which is something we could not possibly ignore and we struggle to deal with in order to relieve our hungry brothers.
However, our main concern is the holy churches which are under construction. The Holy Dormition Monastery, the first monastery in our Diocese, is in progress and we ask the Mother of God to send donors so that little by little the monastery will come into being. Two wings are already being built but they are not enough to meet the needs of the first monks and novices, who desire to live a perfect angel-like life, as Saint Basil calls the monastic life. May our Lady hear our voice so that we can build in her honor the Katholikon of the Monastery.
We have also been praying for years for the purchase of a Land-Cruiser-type car, which is the only one suitable for these regions in order to reach all the rugged places and set up bell towers to awaken the souls of the faithful.
I believe that once again you will hear the cry of the faithful of Kananga coming from the depths of their souls and you will meet the needs of our missionary work, because with your help, the Kingdom of God spreads in the center of Africa and in the center of the heart of our Congolese brothers.
† Theodosios of Kananga
