God Can Do It AGAIN!!

I have been a believer since 2006 September and I have seen the hand of God in my life even before I got born again. I come from a humble family , growing up and raised by my parents until 2006 when they all passed away ( A dark year for me really, may their souls rest in peace). I developed a heart problem at a tender age of 2 years and my parents toiled and visited every Cardiologist in the city even to the traditional healers until I was 6 when finally I had to go for a heart surgery at Parirenyatwa Hospital . All was set in the operating theatre and I recall they were more than 6 people in the theatre and the Paediatric  Cardiologist came in. My father had already appended his signature to approve the  surgery but the surgeon said the complication of my heart was a win-lose situation and the chances of survival were very lean.

The door was shut down for the family who had hoped that it was now going to be the end, but the surgeon refused and advised my parents to try "something else". I have been through a lot as a child , my parents were desperate for a solution to the extent that they could take advise from anyone. I remember in 1994 my aunt took me to a female traditional healer who cut me on the chest with a razor and she had a half cut tennis ball that she used to extract what she said was a needle from my chest and she said that I had been bewitched.  We left that place but deep down in my heart I always knew that nothing had happened to me. We even went to Chivhu in my rural areas and consulted one of our relatives who gave us concoctions some which were so bitter that at my age I could not take them but I had to take them to be cured. That again did not help me , God had a purpose and plan for my life which He had embedded inside of me because each time I received the medicines and all the types of healers whom we visited I was never convinced that I had received my healing.

Back in 1992 when I was in grade 2 at St. Paul's primary school, I could not sit up for a long time  because I had this heaviness in my chest that caused pain and you can imagine enduring such things at  tender age of 8 , life was unbearable. I dropped out of school before we could start term 3 of grade two and in the previous two terms I had been number one in class but it was a painful decision for my mom for me to drop out of school because of illness. I did not go to school for the whole term but my elder brother was so touched that he believed I could just go and write the exams and he would carry me to school , when he was only in grade seven at the same school. God says in Jeremiah 1:5  "Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I consecrated you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations". I never knew or imagined that God  had a plan in my life and that year I beat all the other students and emerged number one and I got the prize and as if it was not enough I was able to walk again and proceeded to grade three.

When I think about the goodness of the Lord , I just reflect on my life and I believe every reader of this amazing testimony would agree with me that God is Great, It makes me sing " Great is thy faithfulness". I grew up and I never had any problems though at school I never played any sport and in my family I was called a 'weakling' and I was the tinniest  person at school. I now know why my parent named me TAPFUMANEI and if we break the name TAPFUMA literally  means "we have been blessed " and NEI seems means " but with what?" so it suggests that my parents thought they had been blessed but at the same time they thought maybe it might not be a blessing. My life has been full of downs but I was resilient though I never knew what really God wanted to achieve through me, I graduated form primary school and at grade seven I was the highest again and was offered a scholarship by Aroma bakery back in 1998 but unfortunately my dad turned it down preferring to stay close to me monitoring my health. I enrolled at a day school in Harare and did my secondary education until I went to college. That again was another turning point for me , going to college was a wonderful experience for me, not not because of anything but because my dream of becoming a dentist had been shattered after my dad could not afford to send me to A'Level to but I went to Harare Polytechnic to pursue a business course, and I say it was a great experience because maybe I could not have gone there considering that I failed to go for a level.

In my third year at college I got an intern-ship with one of the companies in Harare and I was given an 8 months contract from December 2005 to July 2006. The year 2006 as I said earlier on was one of the horrible years, I lost my dad in April of the same year and that time my brother was not going to work and being on attachment ,I was not remunerated well but I automatically assumed the role of bread winner taking care of three siblings , and my Mother who later became very ill . My brother would go to Mozambique and Botswana to get some items to sell but it was not sufficient hence he decided to go and work in the company that dad used to work for in Botswana. I was left alone and my other siblings were in Chivhu looking after my bedridden mother, I could pay rentals and buy food for myself and the family , and my brother did not settle very well in Botswana to the extend that he could not even get money to come back home. As if that was not enough my contract was terminated after the eight months and I had to sell some things in the house to get a meal.Life became unbearable , when I could sleep not knowing what to eat tomorrow  those days going to stay  in someone's house was a burden to the person even if it was a relative.

I could not find anything to eat let alone to send to my siblings, some well wishers whom we stayed with would give me some mealie meal but I felt for them since the situation was really bad in the country. I recall one of my elder friends Wisdom Mureerwi suggested that I could come and eat  at their house , he was married and they did not have child with his wife so I could go and eat there but I had no peace at all knowing that my siblings were in a terrible situation. The haven was short-lived because Wisdom's mother came and shouted at me said that he had many relatives to take care of. Wisdom was hurt and he almost cried and insisted that I could continue when his mother had gone but I did not want to put him in trouble so I continued but I don't know how I sometimes got the food. God says in Mathew 6 vs 25-26 "So I say to you, Take no thought for your life, about food or drink, or about clothing for your body. Is not life more than food, and the body more than its clothing? See the birds of heaven; they do not put seeds in the earth, they do not get in grain, or put it in store-houses; and your Father in heaven gives them food. Are you not of much more value than they".  Maybe you are reading this story of my life and you are in a similar predicament but I tell you I have been there, God is real.

It was the same year in September 2006 that I decided to give my life to Christ, I had seen a lot, experienced a lot and life was meaningless and the only way was to turn to God. I got born again after going for a church service at ZAOGA in Budiriro , Harare, I felt that God was with me now and I had no need to worry. I could attend the bible study and home group services and my growth was evident. The people at that church nurtured me very well and I discovered the goodness of God, I was taught how to pray and to read and understand the bible. However the devil was not yet done with me, though I was still in my situation of not having daily provisions, the church helped me and I received a message that my mother's health had deteriorated. I had to go down to Chivhu and see her, but I did not have bus fare, finally I got the money from my uncle and went to see mama but what I saw was alarming. I had never seen my mother in such a bad state like that it was a death bed. All the faith that I had gathered as an infant in Christ was gone, I saw no hope in my mother but when I got there she recognised me and as the people narrated she ate for the first time and smiled at me.

I had only stayed there for a week, not helping in any way than just to watch her further deteriorating each day , when I received a message from my uncle that the company that I had been attached had offered me another contract. I bade everyone farewell and we were so excited at least light had come finally , it was on the 30th of November 2006 and I left Chivhu for Harare. I got to Harare where I rented but I found that the Landlord had moved our property out because she felt for me and thought I had no money to pay any more and she was now leasing it to someone but the property was in good shape.

That same day I had no place to stay so I went to my uncle's house and slept there because the following morning I was going to start work! On the 1st of December 2006, early in the morning before I even left for my first day at work I received a message that my mother had died. I saw a dark cloud over my life, all hope was lost, I had a lot of questions and no answers, I felt that only if I had died myself because I was only 21 years then. My brother was still in Botswana , we contacted him and he managed to get bus fare to come for mother's burial. We laid my mother to rest , a strong woman who endured much to send us to school, spending sleepless nights preparing peanut butter for sale ! I could write a book about this diligent woman, a notable woman, a wonderful woman, my dearest mother who departed and whose untimely death robbed us of a pillar of strength, a shoulder to lean on , oh my mother!

To those  whose mothers or parents are still alive,cherish them , love them you will see when they are no longer there that those people are awesome and God gave them to us for a purpose. After mother's burial , life had to continue but I had lost one important thing, MY FAITH. I found no meaning of life and I enjoyed spending time alone not talking to anyone meditating on the problems I had experienced. Life can be difficult my dear reader, I became so bitter but I leant one lesson bitterness is like leprosy, it will only eat the one who has it! One day a certain brother a devout Christian we worked with, came to me and asked me what was eating me up as if he did know. I told him but the words that he said to me where so much to bear that I still remember them to this day and I want to share with you such wisdom from God. His name was Nyasha Zhou, and he told me "to mourn and cry until I had no tears" , you can imagine, I expected to be comforted and to be told that "its part of life" and words like "its the will of God", but I now understand he took it from the bible in 2 Samuel 12:21-23 " Then his servants said to him, Why have you been acting in this way? you were weeping and going without food while the child was still living; but when the child was dead, you got up and had a meal. And he said, While the child was still living I went without food and gave myself up to weeping: for I said, Who is able to say that the Lord will not have mercy on me and give the child life? But now that the child is dead there is no reason for me to go without food; am I able to make him come back to life? I will go to him, but he will never come back to me".  

It was a painful decision but that  healed me and I recovered from grief , when God is about to do something he sends a man and I believe that he sent Nyasha Zhou. After I recovered from my grief , I was able to live again but unfortunately I hanged around the wrong people who never encouraged me to seek God , but instead followed pleasures of the world, I would go to Methodist church on Sunday but the previous day having been at the Mtukudzi shows though I did not take beer, but what I saw there was the decay of the world, there is nothing there dear reader, pleasures are but for a moment but the joy of the Lord is our strength. It is possible to go to church and still sin but I compel you to receive Jesus and be born again confessing that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead and ascended to Heaven and He is seated at the right hand of the Father. Beware of false religions that have sprung in the world dear reader, they profess to know God but their hearts are far from Him. The bible warns us of such people in
2 Timothy 3:1-7 "Know this also, that in the last days grievous times will be at hand. For men will be self-lovers, money-lovers, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, unyielding, false accusers, without self-control, savage, despisers of good, traitors, reckless, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it; even turn away from these. For of these are those who creep into houses and lead captive silly women loaded with sins, led away with different kinds of lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the full knowledge of the truth".

I was going to church but at the same time being in the world so I wouldn't want any one of you readers to get in the same predicament, its a lie from the pit of hell you cant be in both. I would come from church and go again to do the same things that God said NO! I had backslidden but in the church , you may say how is that possible? but a lot of people are living in the same way , they are like the fig tree that Jesus cursed, blossoming but not producing fruit.I was getting into a comfort zone without knowing, I met the love of my life Agnes who had a friend who was going to Word Of Life Ministries and she invited us there, as soon as I stepped into Word Of  Life I discovered an atmosphere that I had not been exposed to. It was an atmosphere for growth, joy, love and excellence, I had never experienced church that way and I said to myself these people must be crazy but oh yes they were for Christ. I quickly recommitted my life t Christ and the teachings that I received from the New Life Series classes opened my mind and I was baptised the biblical way . I was not sure whether I should stay but just after a week having recommitted my life I received a letter from The Pastor Dr. Mutungamiri and it was a great experience for me I said to myself " so the pastor knows me,  I have to go back again next week because he will look for me"

The experience at Word of Life encouraged me to work for the Lord because I saw a lot of young men and women with a passion for God that I had never seen, I felt challenged. I heard messages that I had never come across though sometimes I fell in the devils net but I rose up and the Word of God became so lively and real to me .  I started to attend home groups , I developed a passion for Christ that I had never experience and encounters being baptised in the Holy Ghost, was a tremendous experience. I challenged you dear reader to attend home groups or cell groups because there you have the opportunity to learn and ask questions and the word becomes real to you. The word of God says in Acts 2 vs 42 " And they were continuing steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and in fellowship and in the breaking of the loaves, and in prayers. And fear came on every soul. And many wonders and miracles took place through the apostles.And all who believed were together and had all things common".  If you are a believer and you desire to grow , attend a home group and get to know God personally. At Word of life I learnt humility because the men and women of God I met there are very  humble but they have social status that you can never imagine, I was amazed  by such humility.


The church is moving so am I and I have discovered that everyone has a duty to affect the community for Christ in every sphere, as our Vision for  Word of Life says " To affect the community for Christ in every Sphere, Spiritually, Politically , Economically , Culturally and Socially". What a vision! It is a duty of every believer to transform their communities and I am running my race, a certain American billionaire the late, "Steve Jobs in interview for PBS' 'One Last Thing' documentary, 1994 said “When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. 
The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mould it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better, because it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again”. Change the world around you make impact, GOD CAN DO IT AGAIN!!!


to be continued........Watch out