Pastor Matthew Chamunorwa Wazara, who lost his father at the age of 14, believes that the loss shaped him as he learnt to be assertive and defend his territory.
Wazara (MW), who is also a specialist surgeon, shared his life journey with Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN) on the platform In Conversation with Trevor.
Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: Pastor Matthew Chamunorwa Wazara, welcome to In Conversation With Trevor.
MW: Thank you very much Trevor, and good morning.
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TN: I am so excited you have no idea. I am so excited to be sitting with my pastor.
To be sitting and having a conversation with a man who has impacted so beautifully in my life, in my wife's life, in my family's life. You are special to us.
MW: Thank you. Thank you very much.
TN: I am going to start at this interesting place. Chamunorwa? Where does it come from? What is the story behind Chamunorwa?
MW: Okay. So Chamunorwa is a name I believe was given to me by my grandmother, my paternal grandmother, and it is a name that means why fight or do not fight.
I have interpreted it to mean a man of peace.
So there seems to have been a family dynamic that was going on at the time and my grandmother's position was that she should not fight and so she said I will name this child Chamunorwa, why fight at all, and that is where I have got it from.
TN: And the effect of names, I mean that embodies who you are, man of peace.
MW: Maybe it was prophetic!
TN: Pastor Wazara, Dr. Wazara, I actually don't know where to start because you have such an amazing life, a rich life.
You are a man of faith, you are my pastor like I said.
You are also in the medical field as a specialist surgeon, very important callings.
I was reminded on Sunday that Faith Ministries has been in existence for 47 years having been started by Alistair Geddes. Is it Alistair Geddes?
MW: Alistair Geddes, that's right.
TN: And it is still going and you are doing amazing stuff, but I want to know how did you get to know God?
What is your journey?
Was it love at first sight or it was like mine.
I will tell you what mine was like. I got born again.
I did some backsliding, and then one day on a Sunday when I was troubled Nick Vingirayi calls me and it [was] on a Sunday I think.
Nick Vingirayi calls me and says Trevor God has been speaking to me about you, are you okay?
MW: Wow.
TN: I said I am not okay. He says can we meet tomorrow in my office and have breakfast.
There began the journey that has now lasted over 23 years.
So was yours like that? Was it love at first sight? Did you backslide? Just talk to us about that?
MW: Thanks Trevor.
So, I grew up in quite a strongly Catholic family, both my parents, and in fact my father had been to the seminary to become a priest and then his mother's illness distracted him and then he met my mom and so on.
But we grew up strongly Catholic and when I was 14 years of age in high school, believing that I was a full Christian and you know doing all the functions of a good Catholic Christian, a friend of ours who was quite an opinion leader in the school, and kind of the chief debater, his name was Kevin Musarira, just happened on me one day and he said if you died today are you sure, I was 14 years old, are you sure you are going to go to heaven?
And I had never really thought about it.
TN: Yeah.
MW: And that began two or three days of him explaining that Christianity is not inherited.
That you have to make a choice to have a relationship with Christ.
So that was April 1982, and eventually he led a few of us actually on the same day in a prayer, what we call the sinners prayer, but really of accepting Christ for ourselves and that was it and I was 14 years old.
TN: And when you look back at your journey, what have been the low moments [in] your journey with God?
What have been the low moments [and] what have been the highlights?
And any testimonies that stand out there that God did this for me?
I mean God did this for you? I mean you are sitting in front of me right now, but any stuff that stands out in your walk with God?
MW: Trevor I think that when you are in high school you learn, and we had a good scripture union group and you learn so much of the things of God, but you do not have to exercise faith.
[School] fees [are] paid, food is there and then when you get to university, then what you believe starts to be tested.
What do you believe about alcohol? What do you believe about girls? What do you believe about politics?
What do you believe about this?
And that was a very tough time to navigate being a Christian and answering all these other questions.
And then you finish university, and you start to work, and you have to balance your own chequebook or to balance your own budget and then suddenly you have faith.
You need to apply faith...
TN: Yeah.
MW: ...Because things do not always add up...
TN: Work out.
MW: So in terms of lows, I think a big low for me, and I did not realise God was in it, was when I finished Grade 7 and I did not have a place for Form One because my father died when I was in Grade 7.
I did not have a place and the place that I found, my mother could not afford it and I got a scholarship that saw me through my six years of [high] school.
I think that low was dealt with by that high, and in retrospect I see that it was it was God...
TN: The hand of God.
MW: Yeah absolutely. And then through university I always had the question why did my father die?
Why did we grow up under these circumstances?
And that would always bring me low moments.
Whenever I achieved something or there was a prize giving at school and my father was not there, or when I got married and my father was not there, and when I had my first born and my father was not there.
I used to always have that question why me of all these people?
But I learned, you know, with time that God does not want you to ask why.
[He] asks you what should I do, and though your problems are heavy to you, when you listen to everyone else's story it may be different but to them it weighs the same.
So that sort of brought me comfort.
TN: But don't you have those moments where you go, I mean you know my dad and my mom died in one week...
MW: Yeah.
TN: Those moments do come when you say but why God?
MW: Yeah, but it is with a different perspective now.
Before it was with a bitterness or a grudge towards God, but when you weigh life circumstances and you hear what other people have had to go through you suddenly realise that I am not the worst afflicted, and that should give you some kind of revised approach to [it].
I am at peace now that God loves me, I am at peace that God has been looking out for me.
I miss my dad 44 years later, in fact it will be 44 years on the 29th of October. I still miss him.
TN: Your dad passed [away] when you were 11 years old? Am I right?
MW: Yes, I was 11 [years old].
TN: What do you remember about him?
MW: Everything Trevor.
If my father was behind this wall and he spoke or he laughed I would recognise that it was him.
I remember his voice. I remember some of the things that he said. He was very particular about tools and things...
TN: I'm laughing because you are particular about tools and things!
MW: Do not waste metal. Do not lend your car to anyone.
TN: That’s you hahaha!
MW: So it is those things. He had such a premium on education.
He said you must be educated, I remember that.
He said you must look after your mother, and I remember that.
Some of his last words, because he did not die straight away, he was in a land mine accident. One of the last things he said...
TN: During the war?
MW: Yes, during the war.
On the Saturday before he died on the Monday, he said I want you guys to stick together as a family, he [said] it will help you.
I remember a lot about my dad to be honest I do.
TN: Yeah. And you say you have stopped, even when you ask the question why your father died when you were that young, do you think as you go through life you still carry scars that I did not have my father?
You are a pastor, I am sure you have had people come to you and they have got issues and the reason they give is [they] do not know who [their] father is, I never had a father.
Has that scarred you in any way?
MW: I think so, you know Trevor I would not be the best evaluator of it, but there's certain things that I notice about myself that I wonder if I would have been that way had my father been alive.
Very much later in life only was I able to stand up for myself, and to defend territory and not to be taken advantage of.
You know I have had to consciously learn to be assertive, and I think that may have come from there.
But having said that, and another high in my life is that they were always fathering figures that God sent to help.
It was an uncle, it was a pastor, it was a Roman Catholic priest Father Schmidt.
At each stage of my life there was always someone that had that voice of a father giving direction, I think God compensated a certain percentage of my loss with willing individuals that came to help us and to came to help me.
- “In Conversation With Trevor” is a weekly show broadcast on YouTube.com//InConversationWithTrevor. The conversations are broadcast to you by Heart and Soul Broadcasting Services. The conversations are sponsored by WestProp Holdings.