Dias, Manuel

Manuel Martins Carlos Dias was saved in Lourenço Marques (Maputo), Mozambique, through the ministry of the missionary, Rev. Floyd Perkins in 1955. Manuel Dias went to South Africa to take the course of study for the ministry in Spanish and was sanctified in 1956 at the Three Rivers Church in Vereeniging.

He was appointed to pastor the Portuguese congregation of Lourenço Marques First Church and was instrumental in arranging the construction of the congregation’s church building near the center of the city. A lady who was over thirty years of age became a Christian and brought over thirty vile books and other unclean things from her home. They held a burning service to destroy them.

While pastoring there he started extension Bible College classes. He also served the Matola Church. Manuel Dias was ordained by Dr. Williamson in 1961.[1]

In 1966 he was instrumental in the conversion of the Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Acácio Pereira. Rev. Pereira succeeded him as pastor of the Lourenço Marques First Church congregation.

Rev. Dias was a true Christian gentleman of the highest order. For him the going was rough but the homegoing was wonderful.[2]

Paul S. Dayhoff

Notes:

1. “Our Portuguese Church of the Nazarene,” The Other Sheep, Mission magazine of the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, December 1959), 7. Betty L. Emslie, 1966, Continent in a Hurry: a Study of Nazarene Missions in Africa (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House. 1966), 143.

2. District Assembly Minutes of the South African District, 1981, Memoirs report.

This article is reproduced, with permission, from Africa Nazarene Mosaic: Inspiring Accounts of Living Faith, first edition, (Florida, Gauteng, South Africa: Africa Nazarene Publications, 2002), copyright © 2001, by Paul S. Dayhoff. All rights reserved.