Clergy from left, Deacon Amy Schmuck, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com

By The Rev. Mary Ann Hill
Rector
Trinity on the Hill

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel 37:1.

Six years ago, clergy friends and I were wondering if our congregations would survive. We couldn’t hold services. Parishioners were dying alone. Our buildings were shuttered. We struggled to learn how to worship online. We didn’t know how long the pandemic would go on, or if our churches could go on.

So I told my friends about someone I once met. His name was Dinis Singulane, and he was from Mozambique. When introducing him, the conference leader told us a story: “Years ago, members of Dinis’ diocese gathered at the cathedral to elect a new bishop. Dinis was there, but he wasn’t part of the election. He waited outside with others to find out who was chosen. At one point, a priest came out, approached Dinis and asked him, “How old are you?” Dinis replied, “Today is my birthday. I am 30 today.” The priest thanked him and went back inside. A short time later he returned, walked up to Dinis and said, “Congratulations Dinis! You are our new bishop!” At that point, Dinis had been a priest for just one year, and that very day he met the age requirement to be a bishop.

The election of Dinis Sengulane to be the Anglican bishop of Lebombo, Mozambique proved providential. He played a pivotal role in ending his country’s 16-year civil war. Afterwards, he founded a program that led to 600,000 weapons being traded in for books, bicycles, tools, and sewing machines. The weapons were broken and melted down, and some were turned into works of art. In the years since the war, he has served as the chairperson of a multinational campaign to eliminate malaria, with support from USAID.

At the conference I attended, Dinis told a story of what happened to his diocese during the war. His people fled their homes, leaving behind the churches they loved. Exiled and living in refugee settlements, they thought they had lost everything. But then, after a few months, something unexpected happened. They stopped grieving what they left behind, and started building new churches. When the war ended, they left those churches in the care of their new friends, and returning home, they reopened their old churches. Dinis said, “We never expected that out of the tragedy of war, we would end up with twice as many churches as when we started!”

Wars, pandemics, calamity, and destruction never seem to end. As hard as they are to bear sometimes, as bleak as things may seem, they are not the end of the story. Because, as we will be reminded in just a couple of weeks, that yes, these bones can live!