Rev. A. N. Ndebele
MR Elisha Silonsini Mnkandla was born in the late 1870’s at Emambanjeni. He was a twin. He told me that his twin brother was not allowed to live, as was the cruel custom in those days. When figuring out the time of his birth he spoke of some well known historical events like the death of Lotshe. Lotshe was closely related to King Lobengula but was killed at the King’s command because he had advised the King to allow white people to settle in his country, saying that efforts to fight them could not succeed. Mnkandla remembered the incident, which he saw as a boy when he was herding his father’s cattle.
As a youth Mnkandla worked as a “kitchen boy” in Bulawayo when that place consisted of only a few iron huts. But when he reached manhood he advanced to the then important job of ox-driver and worked for Mr Fynn, whose farm bordered the Ntabazindune Tribal Trust Land. He later worked for Morven Mine, and then as an experienced ox-driver for the Zeederberg Transport Organisation, which operated before the railway was laid between South Africa and Matabeleland.
It was when Mnkandla was involved in transporting wood to Lonely Mine that he first met with the gospel. A London Missionary Society man, Hlabangane, read the Bible to Mnkandla and his friends, the wagon drivers, and a desire was there and then generated in Mnkandla’s heart to be able to read so that he could read the Bible for himself.
Among the team of wagon-drivers was a man, Jonase to name, who came from South Africa with the Zeederberg Transport Organisation, and it was he who taught Mnkandla to read. At a later date, when Mnkandla went home to Ntabazindune Tribal Trust Land, or Ntabazindune Reserve as it was later called, his neighbour Ntongana Mthamo persuaded him to buy a Bible. This he did, and he and Mthamo went to the nearby Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland at Ingwenya, to hear the late Rev. John Tallach preach. Mnkandla’s reading of the Scriptures and his attendance on the preaching of the truth generated in his soul a love for the Word, and we believe for the Lord of the Word also.
Some time after Mnkandla became a member in full communion with the Church he was asked to conduct services at the church at Morven, and there he preached for many years in the 1930’s. In 1939 he was asked to move to one of the Ingwenya Mission outstations called Vidza. The area in which it is situated was known as the Nkai African Tribal Trust Land, and in it were two older preaching outstations, Nukwa and Milizane. A communion season was held at each of these three stations, turn about, and the missionaries from Ingwenya, Rev. John Tallach and Rev. Dr R. MacDonald, preached on these occasions. Elders Samuel Sithole and E. Sithole supervised the Nukwa congregation, while Philemon Ndebele supervised the Milizane congregation.
In 1945 the Government ordered that the Africans be removed from the European owned lands on which the three stations were situated. The three congregations were therefore scattered by the complete removing of Africans from those lands: so that the Sitholes settled at Sonsa, Ndebele settled at Zenka, and Mnkandla settled at Katasa, where he built up a congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland under the Zenka Kirk Session.
Mnkandla was one of the last of the old elders who were known for their mighty prayers. At Kirk Sessions he had authority of an unusual kind. When the Call to Rev B.B. Dube to the pastorate of the Zenka congregation was being organised he was very lively for such a very old man. And he travelled by bus a distance of over 70 miles, with the rest of the Zenka congregation, to Ingwenya for the Ordination and Induction to Zenka of their young minister. On the day of the Ordination, Mnkandla was remarkably bright, so much so that many people commented on his fresh attitude to life and the Lord’s work.
At the end of that happy occasion at Ingwenya, Mnkandla took transport to Katasa and to Mr William Mpofu’s home at Zenka. During the night, on Friday, 13th October, 1978, and at about the great age of 100 years, Elisha Silonsini Mnkandla peacefully passed away from this world of sorrow, afflictions and sin into the world of spirits, to be, we believe, forever with Christ, which is far better. May the Lord raise up young believers to take the places of these servants whom He takes away from the spiritual battlefield here to glory above.