Local church celebrates 70th Anniversary

St Francis ‘In the Wood’ Anglican Church in Modderfontein celebrated its 70th anniversary on October 7.

The history of Anglicanism in Modderfontein dates back almost 120 years.

The Modderfontein Dynamite Factory first produced commercial explosives in 1896. Just eight years later, in 1904, the Anglican community in Modderfontein started a formal worship group.

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There was no local priest, but a priest from Germiston travelled by train to Zuurfontein Station, now Kempton Park, where he was met by a pony trap.

For the next 50 or so years, clergy from Germiston continued to conduct services at various frequencies.

The Modderfontein factory management granted the Anglican congregation the use of the inter-denominational church.

It was a wood and iron building that had served as a hospital ward in Middleburg during the Boer War, before being relocated to a site in the vicinity of the factory manager’s home, now known as Franz Hoenig Haus.

Anglicans used the church on the first and third Sundays of the month.

An old pump organ with foot-operated bellows was procured and this grand old instrument is now housed in the Dynamite Factory Museum.

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The Kempton Express caught up with the church’s lay minister, Len Larson.

“I have been a member of this congregation since 1961 and I have seen this church grow, fail and grow again. Now we are blessed that every Sunday we have about 40 to 50 people in attendance,” he said.

He said he is delighted that the congregation has a healthy mix of people from different backgrounds and ages.

“What we stand for is to actually encourage people to consider the way they live and to consider other people.

I love the term Ubuntu because I am who I am through other people. Relationships with other people are fundamental to our congregation,” he said.

“I’m hoping the church will grow that we’d need to build a bigger one. We need to fill it with devout Christians.”

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Reuben Dlamini and Isah Mpwaha, who are the church’s council members and also youth representatives, touched on why it is important for the youth to go to church.

“It’s good for young people to be in such safe environments as it keeps them away from bad things. It is also a sign that the church is growing,” said Dlamini.

Mpwaha said that the youth is the future and the leaders of tomorrow.

“Elders are grooming us as the youth to take over leadership positions so it’s important for us to partake in these events,” he said.