Lightning Strike Kills Church Choristers in Tanzania
by Charles Gardner
March 16, 2007
NALA, TANZANIA (ANS) -- An England-based vicar recently flew out to Africa in the wake of a family tragedy in which his teenage niece was struck by lightning.
Tanzanian-born Rev. Jonas Mdumulla, who heads up a parish in Yorkshire, England, is helping his family cope with their grief following the death of 15-year-old Monica and three other children in a freak storm.She was among nearly 20 young members of a church choir practicing for a special service when the lightning struck them twice - inside the building!
Monica's two brothers were also very badly injured and were taken to hospital having lost consciousness. And they are not quite recovered yet.
"They were actually in the church," Mr. Mdumulla told me. "Some were hiding under the altar; others were sheltering under the pulpit. Now the boys are frightened of returning to the church. They keep having flashbacks."
The incident occurred in the Anglican church at Nala, Mr. Mdumulla's own home village near Dodoma, the Tanzanian capital.
"I know the church very well," said the vicar who came to England 25 years ago as part of a Church of England drive to influence parishioners with some of the passion of African Christianity.
His unexpected departure meant he could not be involved, as planned, in the special commemorative service in York Minster to mark the bi-centenary of the abolition of slavery as a result of the long campaign of local hero William Wilberforce.
But it did mean he could meet officials and tidy up details of the ambulance bought with proceeds of a campaign sponsored by his local newspaper, the Selby Times. The ambulance, which will ferry patients from the remote medical clinic at Nala and other outlying areas, has still to be shipped out to Africa, but Mr. Mdumulla doesn't foresee a problem raising the remaining £1,500 ($2,896 USD) required for the purpose.
© 2007 ASSIST News Service, used with permission.
