User:Waynejayes/sandbox6

CHURCH TIMES

Obituary: Joan Antcliff https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/30-august/gazette/obituaries/obituary-joan-antcliff

30 AUGUST 2019

Joan Antcliff MBE

Elizabeth Thomas JOAN ANTCLIFF, a retired Anglican missionary who had spent more than 20 years training teachers and working with the Church in Mozambique in the midst of the war for independence, died recently, aged 98.

Joan was born in Birimgham in 1921, and felt called to Mozambique after serving in the British Land Army during the Second World War. She led one of the few Anglican mission schools in the country, looking after 300 pupils and training teachers.

Joan first went abroad, as a newly trained teacher, to Malawi in 1951, moving on in 1956 to Messumba, off the beaten track in Mozambique, for ten years.

This mission station had been established by the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa to serve the 150-mile-long lakeshore. Charles Wright, a former colleague in Maxixe, wrote in 2004 that she had been an excellent director of the school, “a good organizer and teacher, concerned about the welfare of her pupils”.

Friendly with both the Portuguese local administrators and the African teachers, Joan was called south to Maxixe by the Bishop when the war for independence broke out in the north and reached Messumba in 1966. Her Messumba house, with its clear view of the valley to the lakeshore, was subsequently occupied by Portuguese soldiers.

Chambone, Maxixe, was very different from Messumba. Joan threw herself into life there, and was Superintendent for the next ten years until independence. “Under her care, Chambone sprouted from a derelict mission to a bright station with all mod. cons and a growing sense of responsibility on the part of local Christians,” Charles Wright recalled.

Joan took seriously her responsibility for training teachers, developing courses, and organising the building of schools in remote areas. Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote: “Many of us in Africa would probably not be alive today had it not been for mission hospitals and clinics: many of us would not have been educated had it not been for mission schools. . . we owe an immense debt to the intrepid women and men such as Joan Antcliff.” For her work in education, she was appointed MBE in 1976

While in Mozambique, she was a trusted colleague of the previous Bishop of Lebombo, the Rt Revd Dinis Sengulane, who helped to bring peace to Mozambique in 1992 after 16 years of civil war. When Joan returned to the UK in the 1970s, she served with Canon Helen Van Koevering on the MANNA committee as Bishop Sengulane’s commissary, and spent years giving talks in churches and encouraging others to support the growing churches and community work in Mozambique.

Helen recalled Joan’s “no-nonsense steely support of Bishop Dinis Sengulane, her involvement with the Christian Council of Mozambique’s [CCM’s] project Swords into Plowshares, which Bishop Dinis championed as CCM president, her energy — and the passion that we all shared for the returning peace in Mozambique.”

In 2002, Joan wrote a book about her experiences, Living in the Spirit, which raised funds for the churches in Mozambique. In it, she wrote: “The schools’ and church finances were desperate and so were ours. We were not paid a salary and were given £30 a year for personal needs. I stayed through ten years of the fight for freedom. Most of the Frelimo were my pupils who had been trained in Tanzania. It was extremely difficult to keep an aura of neutrality. One by one, the pupils vanished to fight for their country. It was extremely difficult. They would send us notes telling us not to travel on the roads because they were putting down landmines.”

Joan is one of those who planted a seed in Mozambique which is being carried forward by those whom she was a part of educating and encouraging into leadership. She inspired the churchwomen she met in those new fields with her life-giving sacrifice, strength of presence, and power of service. She lives on in the hearts of those she taught, who are now remembered as community, church, and educational leaders throughout Mozambique.

Joan’s life bore more fruit than will ever be known. Graças a Deus!

Anglican News Service, Published by the Anglican Communion Office https://www.anglicannews.org/news/2019/08/mozambique-missionary-and-advocate-joan-antcliff-dies-aged-98.aspx?fbclid=IwAR3z04IF7_CXyifX6adOOg8vb71YWE5tD9lNXsyN5J6_spDWeshoM3bXPrs Mozambique missionary and advocate Joan Antcliff dies, aged 98

Posted on: August 9, 2019

[ACNS, by Rachel Farmer] A retired missionary and advocate, who spent more than 20 years training teachers and working with the church in Mozambique in the midst of the war for independence, has died aged 98.

Joan Antcliff, who felt called to the country after serving in the British Land Army during the Second World War, led one of the few Anglican mission schools in the country, looking after 300 pupils and training teachers.

During her years in Mozambique she was a trusted colleague of the previous Bishop of Lebombo, Dinis Sengulane, who was the longest serving bishop in the Anglican Communion when he retired in 2014. Bishop Dinis is recognised internationally for helping to bring peace to Mozambique in 1992 after 16 years of civil war. His peace programme and the ‘Swords into Ploughshares Project’, where weapons were exchanged for agricultural and domestic equipment, cemented peace.

Joan Antcliff returned to the UK to her family home in Devon during the 1970s, when missionaries were forbidden to teach religion. In 2002 she wrote a book about her experiences called ‘Living in the Spirit’, which raised funds for the churches in Mozambique.

Recalling her time in Mozambique, she wrote: “The schools’ and church finances were desperate and so were ours. We were not paid a salary and were given £30 a year for personal needs. I stayed through 10 years of the fight for freedom. Most of the Frelimo were my pupils who had been trained in Tanzania. It was extremely difficult to keep an aura of neutrality. One by one the pupils vanished to fight for their country. It was extremely difficult. They would send us notes telling us not to travel on the roads because they were putting down landmines.”

Paying tribute to her courageous work in Mozambique, the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Dr Desmond Tutu wrote: “We owe immense debt to the intrepid women and men such as Joan Antcliff, whose riveting account of her work in Mozambique deserves a large audience.”

On her return to Devon, Joan Antcliff became head of religious education in a local grammar school. She later became Editor of the MANNA magazine, for the charity Manna, which works with the four Anglican Dioceses of Lebombo, Niassa and Nampula in Mozambique and Angola. She was also Director of the Southern African Church Development Trust and acted as the Commissary to Bishop Dinis.

Joan served as a churchwarden as part of the Church of England’s Haldon Mission Community, serving Teignmouth, Bishopsteignton, Ideford, Luton and Ashcombe in Devon. Through her influence, the church supported the ‘guns to ploughshares’ campaign and ran an annual Lebombo Sunday event.

In 1976 she received an MBE in recognition of her services in education and overseas.

Published works
Living In The Spirit Paperback – 2004

by Joan. Antcliff (Author) Publisher: Orphans Press (2004)

ISBN-10: 1903360080 ISBN-13: 978-1903360088