A Message from Bishop Gerard

The following is an email message from Bishop Gerard of Western Tanganyika, one of our new companion dioceses. He describes the beautiful ceremony they have planned for the signing of the companionship agreement, which will take place this Sunday, November 30.

Dear Mary and Michael;

We are getting more excited as we draw near to the real day....Sunday Nov. 30.

Let me briefly share with you what we have planned to do. The Launching ceremony will be done at St Peters Church, at Mwanga Musanga Parish. As I said this is my home town and home church. I had already planned to visit them on this Sunday and so we decided we might as well have the launching event there.

We shall begin the Eucharist service until after the Nicene Creed. After the Creed we will sing a song as my chair gets brought forward in front of the Alter. After I am sitted into my Episcopal Chair, the Diocesan Secretary Canon Mathayo Kasagara (who by the way is our communication person) will read a statement to set the stage as to what we are about to do. After he finishes the reading, there will be a procession of bringing the Partinership agreement to the bishop. There will be three women carrying three barrel like african traditional baskets. The middle basket will be a little bigger and will contain the official document to be signed. The other two baskets will contain the swahili versions. So as the process begins from the main door at the back of the church, they will be escorted by young men and women dancing and celebrating the joy of the beginning of our companion relationship. After they arrive in front of the bishop, the bishop will receive the middle basket containing the gift of our relationship ie the official document. This is how chiefs received special gifts from their people. Then another lady will then read the agreement document. After the reading, and before signing it, a swahili translation will be read to allow people to hear the contents of our agreement. After the Swahili version is read, I will stand up and sign the agreement on the alter in the midst of shouts of joy and celebration. After the signing is done, I will say the partinership prayer in swahili and then a choir will sing the set song for the occasion. Then my sermon will follow.

That is what we have planned to do. After the document is signed, it will be put back into the same basket which will be kept in my office. When people come to my office they will always remark about the beauty of that basket and I will always remark that, the beauty of that basket is the symbol of the beauty of our tripartite relationship. By the way after my signature, one of our senior lay canon and also a Trustee member of the diocese will also sign as a witness.

I have another suggestion to make. Since you two are coming here in March, how about signing our partnership together during your visit, rather than mailing copies to each other? Here we really don't trust our mail system. We might lose some copies. So if you really like what we want to do on Nov 30th, we could repeat the same celebration here at the Cathedral when we are all three together. What do you think about this idea?

+ Gerard