Just outside the Mozambican city of Mocuba is the site of a Bible school with the lovely name: Let's Keep the Word (EBOM). During a working visit to that school, Rev Arjan Witzier spoke with Rev Mario Duarte Martins. He explained what meaning that Bible school had for him.
Course
Rev Duarte Martins is pastor of the Igreja de Christo in the city of Alto Molocue. Together with Rev Estevão Campana, he leads 12 congregations of the Igreja de Christo in that city. We visit his congregation on Sunday, but we had met him earlier at a meeting at the Bible school. He tells us that he had been a pastor for years, and that when he turned almost 50, he thought: maybe I should take a course at EBOM after all.
New knowledge
After enrolling, he had to go back to school for three years. 'Those school days were not the worst,' he recounted. 'The hardest part was that I discovered, that I did not actually know what it means to be a pastor or what the work of being a pastor entails. And also that I had been teaching rather un-Biblical teaching in my sermons. I had not passed on to the congregation the Word of the Lord, but very often me own inventions. Fortunately, God gives me time of life, and I can now correct the mistakes I made in the service and in the classes I teach. I am incredibly grateful for what I learnt at EBOM. I hope EBOM will also continue for a long time, because there are still many pastors like I was before I took the course.'
Passing on
When we go to church in Alto Molocue the following Sunday, we meet a group of people who have now formed their own class, where, among others, Rev Duarte Martins teaches - passing on what he himself received. We also meet the elderly Rev Fario Raul Matxaro. Seventy-eight years old, he still enjoys sharing the Gospel with people in his community. He is the one who long ago started preaching the Gospel in Alto Molocue, creating the Igreja de Christo in that town.
