Thirty-six years ago, when I was preparing to come to Malawi for the first time, the Church of Scotland held a valedictory service for our family in Edinburgh. The minister who led the prayer at the service was called Richard Baxter and I later learned that he had served in Malawi himself at an earlier time, in the 1950s and 1960s.
I cannot remember everything that he included in the prayer but one thing I do recall is that he prayed that we would be enriched by the heritage of faith that was represented by Harry Kambwiri Matecheta and Stephen Kundecha. It was the first time I had heard these names. Little did I imagine that thirty-six years later I would be publishing a little book about the two of them.
The fact that I am, might be considered an answer to Richard’s prayer. The two men have indeed become inspirational figures for me, as they are for many others here in Malawi. They were the first two to be selected for training as ministers when the Blantyre Mission decided the time had come to establish an African ministry.
This fact alone gives them a unique place in history. But what is more remarkable is the calibre of the two men – which is what I have tried to capture in the book. Matecheta, for example, had witnessed as a teenager the last big Ngoni raid on the Shire Highlands where he lived. Ten years later he left his own Yao people to become a missionary among the Ngoni. As he put it, “In 1884 the Ngoni brought war to our villages; in 1893 we took the gospel to their villages.”
He spent the rest of his life among the Ngoni and was buried next to the church at Bemvu where I now serve as associate minister. It was therefore a bit special on Sunday when I was able to present some copies of the new book to the congregation who are his living legacy. His memory continues to inspire.
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