Huambo – The Secretary of the President of the Republic for Social Affairs, Fátima Viegas on Saturday called on the churches to reinforce messages of unity and tolerance, for a future of peace and sustainable development.
Fátima Viegas was speaking in the city of Huambo during the worship service in reference to “Women's March” and the opening of the commemorative days of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Angola, which takes place on June 29th.
On the occasion, she said that churches, due to their ideological matrix and peculiar practices, cannot forget to continue to be the mirror of love, spiritual, moral, civic and patriotic values of society.
She added that these religious values must be transmitted, above all, to new generations, for a promising future and the necessary development of Angola, as a Christian nation, and considered important the various ongoing social projects of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Angola, which demonstrate its commitment to rescuing biblical values, in which they guided the missionaries throughout the 100 years of existence in the country.
Fátima Viegas who is also godmother of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Angola, reaffirmed the Angolan Executive's commitment to working “hand in hand” with the country's religious confessions, as a partner of the State, with a focus on necessary social well-being.
She stressed that working with churches means acting in harmony with society, as it has an important social and economic role, generating permanent understanding in families.
Regarding “Women's March”, she highlighted the role of this social fringe in the development of Angolan families and in the transmission of wisdom and ethical and moral values accepted in society.
In turn, the pastor-president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church of the Southwest Region, Manuel Filipe Pacheco, said that the denomination has been working in community kitchens to feed disadvantaged citizens in various regions of the country.
He reported that in the Southwest Region, in particular, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has donated, from 2023 to the present date, at least 900 bags of blood to the country's hospitals, with the aim of saving human lives, in addition to providing health services. health and have 17 schools with approximately nine thousand students at different levels of teaching/learning.
When speaking at the event, the governor of the province of Huambo, Lotti Nolika, said that she was working together to ensure the success of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Angola, whose genesis is in the Bongo Mission, in municipality of Longonjo, in the western corridors of this region of the Central Plateau.
She ensured the creation of conditions, in coordination with the central government, for the access road to the Bongo Mission to be rehabilitated, taking into account the number of faithful that could receive during the celebrations of the centenary of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Angola.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Angola was founded in Bongo missionary center, in the municipality of Longonjo, 64 kilometers from the city of Huambo, in 1924, by Missionary James Delmer Baker.
The aforementioned missionary center had been destroyed in July 1975, as a result of the armed conflict in the country. ZZN/JSV/ALH/DOJ
