Pension covers 'hardly anything,' retired Mozambican pastor says

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Pension covers 'hardly anything,' retired Mozambican pastor says

By Nancye Willis, United Methodist News Service

November 14, 2003

Retired United Methodist pastor Joco Tene Ngale never saw a self-sustaining pensions system in his home country of Mozambique.

He died just weeks after meeting with a fact-finding group studying the
feasibility of standardizing pension support for United Methodist clergy and other church workers outside the United States.

The church in Mozambique provides pensions to its retirees, but the depressed economic system causes the amount to vary. Ngale, who served 35 years as a pastor and district superintendent in this southeastern African nation, was receiving a pension of about $100 a year at the time he spoke to members of the United Methodist Global Pensions Task Force and other visitors.

"It is an amount that covers hardly anything," he said. Like many retirees,
he and his wife depended on family to help support them as they aged.

They were living in a son's home because of Ngale's failing health and a lack of funds to maintain a home of their own. "It's not just a matter of having children, but of having good children," Ngale noted.

The dire poverty of about 90 percent of Mozambique's residents make preparing for retirement a low priority for most, and church members often are unable to contribute to pastors' salaries.

A pastor's salary averages the equivalent of $48 a month, an amount that is covered largely by the denomination's Missouri Annual (regional) Conference, which has a covenant relationship with the church in Mozambique.

Ngale told the task force of the hardships clergy endure. "It's like the
pastors are preparing for hell while they are preaching the gospel," he said
through an interpreter. "If you went up to Inhambane, where the church is
much more rural, to visit the pastor there, you'd have tears in your eyes."

Ngale served several parishes in Mozambique, and he spent five years in South Africa, ministering to miners. "In the early years, when I was assigned an area where there was no school," he said, "part of my job was to teach people how to read and write."

His wife Serafina, a trained midwife, "helped a lot of women give birth," he
said. She also led study groups and worship services for women.

In fact, when rebel forces captured him during Mozambique's civil war, his
wife was at a women's conference in another community. "When she got home from her conference," he said, "she discovered that I had been kidnapped."
After his escape, he was sent to a hospital in Maputo, where he was able to join his wife again.

In mid-September, Ngale was still being called upon to serve Communion and conduct parts of services. However, his failing health had made him reluctant to use his "preaching voice," because it drained his sagging energy.

Ngale is survived by his wife, six children and 20 grandchildren.