Police storm Anglican parish in Zimbabwe

The parishioners were lined up for Holy Communion on Sunday when the riot police stormed the stately St. Francis Anglican Church in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, reports the New York Times. Helmeted, black-booted officers banged on the pews with their batons as terrified members of the congregation stampeded for the doors, witnesses said.A policeman swung his stick in vicious arcs, striking matrons, a girl and a grandmother who had bent over to pick up a Bible dropped in the melee. A lone housewife began singing from a hymn in Shona, “We will keep worshiping no matter the trials!” Hundreds of women, many dressed in the Anglican Mothers’ Union uniform of black skirt, white shirt and blue headdress, lifted their voices to join hers.

Joseph A. Davenport, III

My good friend Joseph A. Davenport, III has done much for the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea New York: He provided insightful leadership through the transition of three deans and in planning for the Leaders for the Church capital campaign. He challenged the Seminary to be more ambitious in its fund raising goals, leading the way with one of the first major gifts of the campaign, an endowed fund for the Joseph A. Davenport Scholarship for postulants from the diocese of Western Louisiana or Mississippi.

Durban 1947

By Roon Lewald

1947 was a good time to be a white five-year-old in Durban. The beaches offered halcyon days beside the Indian Ocean. The Durban July turned the town into an exciting tourist mecca. The Bioscope was still the gateway to Hollywood’s dream factory of the world. In that stronghold of English speakers, blimpish super-patriots of Empire basked in the last rays of the setting Empire, and the 1947 Royal Visit whipped monarchist enthusiasms to fever pitch. “Our magnificent Zulu” were complacently thought to be quite content with white overlordship, and one of the few blots on white horizons was the rapid encroachment of increasingly prosperous Indian merchants on previously all-white shopping and residential areas.

EMM 1982 – 1983

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: England Manchester Mission

Elder Martin Gardner, 2002

Elder Stephen Paul Hadlock, 1982

Elder George “Foxy” Knox, 1982

Elders Paul Guthrie and van Pletzen, 1982