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Hope and commitment were central in the report that the Africa region presented to the WCC central committee on 26 June. As is customary during these meetings, central committee members, advisors, stewards, and staff from each region met for prayer and sharing and to identify issues affecting the life and witness of the churches in their region.

Amid a rising death toll, hundreds missing, and concerns over slow rescue services in Malawi’s cyclone disaster, the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), United Methodist Church, and many other churches are appealing for support to aid populations affected by the weather phenomenon.

By rights, it should have been Africa. The World Council of Churches’ (WCC) First Assembly had been held in Europe (Amsterdam), the second in North America (Evanston, USA), the third in Asia (New Delhi). Hopes were raised that Africa would be the next continent to host the council. But questions arose concerning acts of violence and military conflicts in Africa throughout the 1960s, from the Biafran region in Nigeria to Zanzibar and Eritrea, from Algeria to Mozambique and Rhodesia. And so the Fourth Assembly returned to the “safety” of Europe, to Uppsala in Sweden. In one of history’s ironies, Soviet tanks would roll into Prague one month after the assembly’s close.

The northern Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado was summed up by Rev. Arnold Temple, bishop emeritus in the Methodist Church of Sierra Leone, as "a sad story.”

As Mozambican churches respond to growing humanitarian challenges in the country, their leaders are urging the government to act decisively to end a violent conflict in the north which has left behind a trail of death, destruction and displacement.