Priest-in-Charge welcomed at two local Episcopal churches

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Ahoskie, and St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Windsor, have jointly called The Reverend Samson Mamour to serve as Priest-in-Charge at the two parishes.

Rev. Samson Mamour

Now living in Windsor, Father Mamour and his wife, Juliet Salim, come to the Roanoke-Chowan area and the Diocese of East Carolina from Roanoke, VA and the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia where he served as Curate/Assistant Rector of Grace Episcopal in Lexington and supplied the parishes of Christ Episcopal in Buena Vista, Trinity in Buchanan, and St. John in Glasgow.

Daniel Toler-Pulley, who worshiped with Mamour at St. James Episcopal in Roanoke, Va., proclaims that the twin St. Thomases have called as their new priest “a godly and good shepherd.”

Mamour began leading both flocks this month.

At the time of his birth in what is now South Sudan, Africa, the country had long been at war, dividing the area, as he describes it, along religious, political, cultural, and even intellectual lines. As he talks, you are aware of his keen knowledge and understanding of the past events that have led to the present and will shape the future. The climate there was such that his father encouraged him to leave permanently when he briefly returned following university education in Egypt.

Mamour states that he was fortunate enough to go to government schools in his native country. Having qualified for university education, he found himself one of a huge number of students for a very small number of universities, but Egypt, with more university slots than students, agreed to take the students for study there. The study in Egypt was in Arabic as had his elementary and junior school studies been, whereas his secondary education had been in English.

After completing his undergraduate education in Egypt, he returned to the Sudan, going to Khartoum, where he met with his father who was in the capital concerning his retirement. That was the last time he would see his father who died thereafter, and it was on the father’s advice that Mamour returned to Egypt where he worked for seven years.

The large number of Sudanese in Egypt contributed to a difficult situation, and the United Nations began pressuring Egypt to offer assistance to the Sudanese in applying for asylum. With the United States, Canada, and Australia offering sanctuary to these refugees, Mamour, with the aid of CCUSA (Catholic Charities USA), relocated to Roanoke, Virginia.

It was there he worked first in furniture manufacturing and then in automotive manufacturing before answering God’s call to the Episcopal priesthood. From 2019 until 2022, he was a student at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria.

As a priest, Father Mamour uses his global view to help all see ways to serve, locally and around the world.

Ed Rawls, Senior Warden of St. Thomas’ in Windsor, notes that the Mamours’ “life journeys and their unwavering relationships with God will be a testament to help us best navigate these most challenging times in the world, our country, state and community.”

Throughout his life, Mamour has been open and adaptable to new experiences, and this ministry is a new experience for both him and his congregations. The new parishes have joined under a shared leadership with each retaining separate identity.

On the first and third Sundays of each month, Father Mamour will preach and celebrate Holy Eucharist at St. Thomas’ Ahoskie, and on the second and fourth Sundays he will do the same at St. Thomas, Windsor. On the Sundays he is not present, services will continue in each parish with lay leadership conducting the Office of Morning Prayer.

“We welcome the opportunity to grow as individual churches and in this new shared partnership,” Hugh Davis, Senior Warden in Ahoskie, said of Mamour’s arrival and the new opportunities for the two churches which arise. “We are excited by the possibilities of this new chapter, as we find new ways to engage our mission and outreach,” Davis added.

Father Mamour will be present in Ahoskie on Monday mornings, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and in Windsor on Monday afternoons, Thursdays, and Fridays. Ever adaptable, of course, he will be open to the needs of the separate congregations whichever day they arise.

Of his new calling, Mamour says, “My prayer is seeing the people of God come together and work together regardless of where we come from, to show love to everyone, that we love one another.”

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