How the Gospel is changing hearts in KZN
Pastor Sipho Mfusi grew up in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) in a traditional Zionist church, but despite faithful attendance, Baba Mfusi had never heard the message of the Gospel. “Sunday after Sunday, I would go to church, as part of the practices of the family, not because of any relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ,” says Mfusi.
When Baba Mfusi’s first wife passed away from cancer, everything changed for him. “I think it’s an understatement to say I questioned God,” says Mfusi. “I hated God. Because now I said, ‘Where are all my good works? Why is God not showing up for me?’” He had been taught that if he did the right things, God would show up for him. But now he wondered what went wrong.
While Mfusi and his second wife, Lungi, were at a Presbyterian church in Australia, Mfusi heard a message unlike any he’d heard before. The pastor said, “When you repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus Christ, God treats you like you’ve lived the life that Jesus lived of obedience,” Mfusi says. Once Baba Mfusi came to know and accept Jesus, everything changed again. Now, he had a burden on his heart for the people back home who had never heard of the hope offered in Christ.
“I wanted to teach about God,” Mfusi says. “We think that God can be fooled with our filthy rags and that God is like the ancestors.” The Zionist church the Mfusis grew up in still practiced animal sacrifices and worship of the ancestors, traditions which the Mfusis now knew were not Biblical. This is what drove Mfusi to proclaim the Gospel and teach people how to study the Word of God.
Mfusi and his family returned to South Africa after working several years in the States, raising enough money for Mfusi to attend Bible college. Mfusi was introduced to ZEBS, where he found Bible curriculum in his people’s own language. The Mfusis teach Bible Studies in Mama Lungi’s grandfather’s home. When the church leaders saw that Mfusi’s message differed from their traditions, they threw the Mfusis out of the church. The next Sunday, 51 people came to the Mfusis’ own service, hungry to know more of this message of grace.
The church that Pastor Sipho and Mama Lungi started is called The Reformed Zionist Church of Christ. Seven years after it began, it still stands and faithfully teaches Jesus Christ as He is revealed in Scripture. Many attendees are children from the village hearing the Gospel message for the first time.
“If we were to use the kids’ language, who is the hero of this whole story?” asks Mfusi. “From the time when my wife died, [to] when I made a turnaround…I didn’t have the education to go to Australia, but God just opened the door. I only had grade 12 [education]. I was in the United States and back, Bible College, [and]back here, ministry opportunities, partnership with ZEMA, with ZEBS: the hero of this whole story isn’t me, because I couldn’t orchestrate all of this. It’s all glory to God!”