MACIA, Mozambique, March 2000 — Victor Victorino had arrived too late. Boxes in the back of the Bible Society distribution vehicle had been ripped open, emptied of Bibles, and given to the crowd crying out for God's Word. Minutes later, there was not one Bible to be seen anywhere - Victor was devastated. Bible Society of Mozambique, Distribution Officer, Agosto Jose Zita had been distributing food and Scriptures to flood victims at Macia's relief centre - some 130 kms (80 miles) north of Maputo. He had just given away the last Bible when Victor appeared.
Unlike the young and vigorous seekers who had been quick to reach the distribution truck, Victor (52) had been too weak to elbow his way to the front. Instead, he was held back until the crowd mobbing the truck had been and gone. When he finally got to the vehicle all the Bibles had been given away.
Victor was discouraged but he didn't give up. He pleaded his case so well that Bible Society workers started searching in every nook and cranny of the vehicle to see if perhaps one Scripture had been overlooked. Moments later a Bible was found wedged under other supplies, behind a seat. It was a time of great rejoicing.
Bible Study Without a Bible
Sara Calvino Maposa was less fortunate. By the time she arrived, all distribution had ended, as had the madness, the chaos, the shouts and the pleas, and the hundreds of outstretched hands. She came on her own, quietly and timidly, enquiring if there were maybe - just one last Bible.
Sara is a schoolteacher. Until the flood, she had been leading Bible studies for a group of 16 children of all ages. She escaped from her water-logged village near Chokwe but lost every volume in her library of 48 Christian books - all of them useful in her Bible teaching. Gone also were all her study materials, swallowed by the floods.
She desperately needed a single copy of the Bible to resume teaching - but none were left, not even under the mats on the floor of the vehicle, nor wedged between the seats or stuffed in the glove compartment. Nothing! Everything had been distributed.
Sara and her students are now praying for a Bible and hope that the Bible Society will return with more soon.
Life is a journey
Victor was born and raised at a mission where his father was a teacher. His family regularly attended church and read from the Bible. "Our lives were driven by the Bible," Victor reminiscences, "And when I was 12 years old I started attending a seminary because I wanted to become a priest."
Although he studied hard for seven years he did not finish the program because he had been influenced by anti-Christian feeling among some of the country's leaders. He abandoned his hopes of the priesthood and became a businessman instead. But his heart was, and still is, ardently committed to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
| Fact Box |
|
1880 was the beginning of formal Bible work in Mozambique.
The Bible Society of Mozambique distributed 42,753 Bibles and 18,618 New Testaments in 1998-99.
Population was 18,165,000 in 1997, and the Annual Per Capita Income was US$80 in 1995.
Major religions are Traditional Beliefs 47.8%, Roman Catholic 31.4%, Muslim 13.0% and Protestant 7.5%. |
Victor loved to read and owned many books in English, French and Portuguese - as well as a Bible in English. The flood swept it all away. When a Bible was miraculously produced from behind a seat in the Bible Society vehicle he could not adequately express his joy.
"Even before the floods Bibles were difficult to find in town," he explained. "Most people from Chokwe wish to have their own Bible but few actually ever come to own one," he says. "If someone did manage to get their hands on one, that person was obliged to share it. They had to help their friends and neighbours understand what the Bible teaches."
"Most people would say that they want to guide their lives by the exemplary teachings of God. They know that the teachings found in the Bible are true and give directions for the path to heaven," he said.
"If we know the true way, which we find in the Bible, we can avoid becoming a devil-man," he added. "If we follow the message of the Bible we feel free inside and rejoice."
Broken Hearts
Judy Kedall, a photojournalist on assignment with the United Bible Societies in Mozambique, was distressed to see so many flood victims coming to the Bible Society vehicle, only to be turned away, empty-handed. There were simply not enough Bibles to go round.
"Each time the crowds dispersed we were left to look upon the hopeless faces of those people who remained without a Bible," she writes. "The old, the weak, the slow were broken-hearted. Some of them were angry that the young had received Scriptures. They felt it should have been the elders who read to the children to teach them. Others were upset because unbelievers had received copies before those who had devoted their lives to the faith.
But chaos in those crowded situations was unavoidable and distribution officers have no way of knowing who anyone is. They can only put Bibles into grasping hands and hope that the Word of God will do its work in hearts and lives.
The reality of the situation was that the small stock of Bibles available simply couldn't stretch far enough to meet the demand."
- Source material taken from various articles supplied by United Bible Societies, Communication Services. Drew Morey, freelance journalist for Canadian Bible Society.
|
