Our Mission

Ndanda's mission within the Local Church

Although being a monastic center, the Abbey of Ndanda did not retract itself into a cloistered community. On the contrary it remained responsible for quite a number of activities within the local church and took even up new responsibilities. A good number of the monks carried on as parish priests in former mission parishes in our traditional area in Mtwara and Lindi. In addition already since 1972 we accepted new missionary work opening two parishes in the Tanga diocese; in 1976 a third one was added: Handeni among the Masai; in 1978 three of our fathers were sent to Mbulu where they took care of an undeveloped area, setting up four parishes and baptizing about 20.000 people; In 1995 a further mission was added: Kilimahewa in the Muslim belt South of Daressalaam.
At Ndanda itself an intensive renewal took place aiming at a more independent and permanent life of the Abbey within the African Church. Basic for such a life was, that the Abbey opened up for local vocations. Formerly we had all possible candidates referred to Hanga Monastery hoping that sometime in the future Hanga monks would come back, take over from us and carry on our work. When we were officially informed, that this was wishful thinking, we started our own recruitment. Since 1985 Ndanda had a continuous inflow of candidates, though we set a rather high level for acceptance: Form VI secondary school or full vocational training. The probation time extended to nine years. But a good number of candidates endured and in November 2004 Ndanda had 34 African members, 13 in perpetual vows (9 of them priests), 17 temporary professed and four Novices.