Zimpeto, a neighborhood on the northwestern outskirts of Maputo, was entrusted to the Community. It is an area composed of popular neighborhoods, with red earthen streets, undergoing a process of urbanization.
The mission is dedicated to the Holy Trinity and extends over 100 square kilometers inhabited by around 120,000 people. This is a territory where the land, which has staggering prices for people, is the dream of every family: everyone would like to have a small plot of land to build a house or start a business or cultivate something to live on. Along the streets there are endless series of stands loaded with corn on the cob, peanuts, bananas or coconuts.
Here the official language, Portuguese, is spoken together with Ronga, a local language useful to interact well with the population. Poverty is tangible here; people get up early at 4:00am to go to work – jobs that are not fruitful enough to ensure families can satisfy their basic needs.
“Getting sick is a mortal danger,” the missionaries say; “Many people here call the hospital the antechamber of death.”
Parishes
The mission territory of Maputo is divided into three large pastoral areas where there are 2 parishes, the pastoral care of which is entrusted to the missionaries of the Community. Each parish has chapels where Christians can gather and which also serve as meeting places for other inhabitants of the district.
Eleven years after the creation of the parish of Holy Trinity, founded by the first group of missionaries from the Community who arrived in Maputo in 2009, on October 10, 2021, Bishop Mons. Francisco Chimoio created the new parish of Sant’ Agostino, born from the chapels of Saint Augustine, Presentation of Mary and Saint John Paul II.
The Chapels
Parish SS. Trinité
- Saint François Xavier
- Sainte Monica
- Sainte Isabelle
- Saint Théodose
- Arci Michel
- Sainte Thérèse de Calcutta
- Notre-Dame de Fatima
- Notre Dame Auxiliatrice
- Notre-Dame de Lourdes
- Saint Jean Baptiste
Parish Saint Augustin
- Saint Augustin
- Notre Dame de la présentation
- Saint Jean Paul II
The Challenge of Faith
Being a Christian in Maputo is not easy. The enthusiasm and vitality of a young Church copes with the lack of structures where people can meet and with the need of formative and spiritual support to ensure stable roots for the journey of faith.
The distance from one chapel to another is often daunting. In the neighborhoods there are groups of people belonging to other religions or sects. Local people are often unable to distinguish among Catholics, Evangelicals, or sectarian churches, so attending the church closest to home is often the simplest solution.
“On the day of our arrival in Maputo,” Antonietta Tufano tells us, “it was raining heavily. The streets were flooded, we could not even walk, but each of us had the desire to meet those people and to share our lives with them.
We are glad to see that many people regularly walk long distances to reach the chapels or the meeting places of our mission, without any personal means of transport. Often they come straight after a busy day of work.
Many young people want to live a journey of faith and make great sacrifices to do so. One of these is Joana, who usually gets up at 5:00am, cleans and tidies the house, and then leaves to arrive on Saturday at 8:30am for catechesis in the chapel of St. Augustine. She has never missed one meeting; she wants to receive baptism and live her faith with commitment.”
