Rev I D MacDonald
I arrived at Bulawayo airport to be met by Mr Mpofu, the Mission Administrator and Miss Norma MacLean, the Deputy Head of John Tallach High School. The hospitality and kindness shown then was continued throughout my three-week stay.
During my time in Zimbabwe I was asked to preach on 17 occasions and I was able to visit all of the Church’s institutions which are designed to be handmaids to the gospel. These include the hospital at Mbuma with its two rural clinics, the Mission head-office and Thembisio Children’s Home in Bulawayo, the five primary schools and, at Ingwenya, the John Tallach High School. This took me to all of the Church’s main congregations there with the exception of Nkayi. The sheer scale of the Mission is striking to the first-time visitor. Each of the Mission compounds with their primary schools and staff accommodation, the High School at Ingwenya, and the hospital at Mbuma bring an inflow of people from various backgrounds under our roof as a Church.
This was seen most strikingly in Zenka and Mbuma and Mawere also, although we do not have our own school or compound at the last place. The mid-week prayer meetings in all these places saw packed churches, with the primary school children in their hundreds filling almost every square inch of the floor, upon which they sat without chairs or cushions and with a commendable stillness. Even the vestries were packed full with maybe 40 or so of
these little ones. Where the Primary pupils, and at Ingwenya the High School children also, attend these services the congregation can number close to 1000 souls. The Bulawayo congregation is flourishing numerically, with many young families, and on my last Sabbath I preached to a packed church there as the various stations gathered into one at Lobengula.
At Zvishavane, where the late esteemed Rev Z Mazvabo laboured, I visited four of the stations and took prayer meetings mid-week. Mawere is one of these stations and, as mentioned above, the local primary school staff and children joined for the prayer meeting, although they are not connected with us as a Church. As a result the small church was packed full. One was left with the feeling that our five primary schools, with not far short of 3000 pupils in total, provide a tremendous opportunity to instruct the upcoming generation in the doctrines of the faith. The recent provision of dedicated Bible Knowledge teachers for each school, almost like catechists for children, will go some way to achieving this.
The setup at John Tallach High School, Ingwenya, with around 600 pupils, is perhaps better known to our people. It was here at Ingwenya that I had my main base throughout my stay. While many of the children seem to value only the educational side of the school, there are others who seem to be impressed with the religious side of the school’s instruction.
A very brief and imperfect thermometer check on this point was provided when I took the senior Timothy group, a voluntary meeting for the study of the Scriptures. I had been told to expect around 50 pupils. I was a little disappointed when I arrived and a small group of 30 or so at most were huddled around the front of the assembly hall. But within five or so minutes a constant stream of newcomers began and ended only when the hall was around half full with, I estimate, roughly 250 to 300 pupils present. On questioning them on various topics I was impressed with their grasp of Scripture and doctrine. I spoke on John 3:14,15, and when I asked how they would describe the death which follows sin, as compared to the death which the serpent bites caused to the Israelites, one boy replied, “It is the death of the soul”. When asked, “For whom did Christ die?” the answer was, “The elect”. However, my time with them was too brief to judge whether there was any true concern of soul among them.
At Mbuma, where the hospital lies, within the large mission compound, along with two connected rural health clinics, there is an opportunity, as Rev James Fraser observed during his time there, for medicine to preach in its own way. The Mbuma congregation has 16 outstations with between 20 and 50 people attending at each. In addition to the Mbuma prayer meeting mentioned above, I had opportunity to preach at one of these outstations
during the week. Rev N Sibanda was my host during my time in Mbuma and he kindly drove me to visit one of the rural health clinics and to the station where I preached.
My overall impression was that there was still an open door for the Church to bring the gospel to sinners. At the same time, there are challenges facing the Church as she seeks to maintain her scriptural standards across so many institutions. It would be highly beneficial to our Mission in Zimbabwe to see more of our own people giving their time and careers to the schools and hospital. Above all, the great need is that the Lord of the harvest would send forth men, called and equipped by Himself, to the vacant congregations across the Mission.