Reaching the Unreached Ndau of Zimbabwe

One of the “unreached” people groups in Zimbabwe is the Ndau who live in the mountainous area of Zimbabwe’s eastern border with Mozambique. Three years ago Gracelife Baptist Church from Christiansburg, Virginia decided to adopt these people. During their previous trip to Zimbabwe, a church was planted at Zamuchiya. There are about 20 people who attend regularly, and 14 of them were baptized recently by Pastor Manyanga from Chipinge Baptist Church. Though quite a distance from Chipinge, the new church members and leadership from Gracelife were invited to attend the Easter meeting recently held by the Chimanimani Baptist Association in Chipinge.

“It was a great time of teaching, encouragement, and fellowship,” said Pastor Tim Hight. “It was amazing to see how God orchestrated it all through the inspiration of His Holy Spirit so that the separate preparations done by various people who taught at the meeting (from both Zimbabwe and the U.S.) all dovetailed together.”

Associate Pastor Gary Long came with Pastor Tim and also participated in the programme.

A vibrant youth group came to the Easter celebration and sang for the group.

Families participated in the meeting, and even the children sat and listened for hours on end!

One of the biggest challenges church planters in Zimbabwe face today is that the old mindset and methodology are not reproducible and the growth of our churches has stagnated as a result. The idea that a church must meet in a “church building” and be led by a “seminary trained pastor” greatly reduces the number of churches one can expect to plant. Now that a church has been planted at Zamuchiya, the church planters from Gracelife’s next goal is to model for them how to evangelize the lost in their area to grow their own church and to reach out to the neighboring villages to plant churches there that will do the same. In this way many people will be evangelized and churches may be reproduced more quickly. This means churches may need to meet in school buildings or even under a tree. It also means that church members must all be active participants in church life using their spiritual gifts for the encouragement of the brothers, teaching of the brothers, and reaching out to the lost. Three more teams are coming from Gracelife this year to help facilitate this learning process.

When Pastor Tim Hight was asked what he perceived to be the greatest challenges he gave quite a long list! The top four were: • Learning to navigate the church planting process in Zimbabwe. • Finding what limited resources are available for the churches to use. • Learning where to plug in and when to pull away. • Trying to keep the excitement in his church going for 5-10 years to ensure they are able to complete what they started. When asked what he would like people to pray for concerning the Ndau, he said, “Pray for a spiritual awakening among the Ndau and the birth of a true church planting movement.”