The Rev. Mutwale wa Mushidi and Kabaka Alphonsine, longtime Global Ministries missionaries in Tanzania, will visit and fellowship with United Methodists in both the Greater New Jersey and Eastern PA conferences from February 17 to March 6. They will visit four churches in GNJ, February 17-24, and then five churches in EPA, February 25 to March 6.
Their latter itineration will include a visit to EPA’s South-East Region Tools for Ministry leadership training event at Eastern University in St. Davids PA, expected to draw about 200 attendees. They will speak to a class learning about our covenant relationships with missionaries. And they will visit the EPA Conference Office March 4 to speak to the combined EPA&GNJ staffs at their weekly joint staff worship service.
Mushidi and Alphonsine have served in Tanzania since 1992, when they and four other missionaries were sent by their bishop in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to develop a United Methodist mission presence. They became Global Ministries missionaries about 20 years ago and have led in the development of the small but growing Tanzania Conference of the UMC—including churches and mission enterprises.
They joined Bishop Mande Muyombo and other clergy last spring in welcoming the post-pandemic return of Bishop John Schol and clergy from GNJ to attend their annual conference and teach at their Pastors School. The clergy there expressed gratitude for GNJ’s teaching, fellowship and financial support, including the new For Tanzania fundraising campaign to help build a church in the largest city, Dar es Salaam, and to help pay under-compensated pastors a living wage for a year.
Mushidi and Alphonsine will visit and participate in worship, meals and programs at the GNJ and EPA churches listed below:
