Guta RaVaJehovah Church disputes Timothy Scarnecchia’s Journal of Southern African Studies research article

This research article was authored by Timothy Scarnecchia and published in the Journal of Southern African Studies Volume 23 Number1, (March 1997): pages 87-105. Its contents attracted the attention of members of Guta RaVaJehovah (G.R.J). 

Members of G.R.J searching for the authenticity of the research found out that parts of the research were incorrect. This included parts which talked about Mai Chaza’s early life at Concession. She never lived in that mining settlement north of Salisbury (now Harare). Secondly, she never suffered any mental illness as the research portrays.

When she was called to do God’s work, she never charged her patients any money, neither did she blindfold them and ask them to go and throw their money in a bushy place referred to here as “sango rendarama”. In addition to this, there was never a bus that operated using the name “Todya Zvemarema”.

To verify this information, members of G.R.J went to find out from Mai Chaza’s son who is still alive and living in Canaan, a section of Highfield Township in Harare. He narrated the story of his mother. She grew up under the care of her brother, Huchu Nyamushanya because their parents had died while she was still young. When she was old enough, she got married to a Mr. Chaza who lived in Wedza area south east of Marondera town. . She had eight children but some of them died in their early years. The son who the church interviewed was crippled at the time. He was also a teacher by profession.

Mai Chaza was a devout Christian in the Methodist church and also became a leader of the women’s movement (Ruwadzano) at Chemhanza Methodist church near Wedza growth point.

She fell ill several times. Her husband sent her back to her home several times. Each time she recovered, she went back to her husband because she was not allowed to go home with any of her children, including this crippled son.

During her final illness, she was sent home but never returned to her husband again. Her brother, Huchu Nyamushanya lived west of Wedza, across the Sabi River, near a Methodist mission called Kwenda. Later Huchu Nyamushanya decided to leave his home and go to Buhera, where his in-laws lived in chief Chitsunge’s area.

When she was at this new place, she passed away. After some time had elapsed, she came back to life. She narrated what had happened during the time she had passed on, and this is what she had to say. “When I passed on, I went to Heaven and met Jesus Christ. He received me and took me to God, the Father. Jesus then said to Him, “Father, I have brought you this one, whom I would like to go down to earth and finish the work that I did not complete. After this introduction, She was commissioned to come back and embark on Her new task. When She came back to life, She started doing God’s work whilst operating in the Methodist church.

From Chitsunge she moved to Mhondoro where one of her sons was teaching at Gora Methodist School. Mai Chaza attended church services at this place and started doing God’s work of healing the sick. Her main issue was confession of sins before any miraculous healing could take place. The chief evangelist there did not like the new teaching and ordered her to leave the place.

She left for Harare and from there she moved to Kandava in chief Chihota’s area where she finally settled. This place was near Marondera town. It was at this place where she started her own movement called Guta RaVaJehovah because she was no longer allowed to operate in the Methodist church.

People with different kinds of diseases came for healing as well as those who were barren who needed children. They were told that thorough confession was the medicine. Here mission was for both the poor and the rich, and all were treated the same.

The people who were against the idea of confession were people who preached negative ideas about G.R.J. Timothy Scarnecchia must have got his ideas from such people because his research article did not quote from well-known members of G.R.J for authentic information about Guta RaVaJehovah.

Below is an account of a certain doctor who went to kandava to see what was going on there. It was Professor C.H.G. MacAfee. In his surgery, he had removed the uterus of a certain woman who later went to G.R.J and was able to bear a child. When he found the woman with a child he remarked, “Anyone who wants to see real doctoring should visit G.R.J”.

Doctor MacAfee was the Professor of midwifery and gynecology at Queen’s University in Belfast and a leading authority in his field. Besides having carried out much original research on obstetrics, he was also a medical historian and published The History of Belfast School of Obstetrics 1793-1933.

When he got to Kandava, he had this to write: Nearby are rondavels outside which Europeans, Asians and coloured people are waiting to consult the healer. This account was recorded in the Central African Journal of Medicine Volume 2 Number 2, (February 1956): Pages 88-90. He went on to write: One cannot help noticing the numbers of coloured, African and Indian women dressed in white, obviously pregnant. The whole atmosphere of the village is one of great expectation, friendliness, happiness and elation. The place is clean and no one is permitted to smoke. All visitors are met by African men in charge of the village. They are well dressed, speak good English and are ready to tell all about the wonderful woman possessed of the great healing spirit.

The village is inhabited by some 1,700 people under her care and there is a continual coming and going of patients – about 200 a day. New arrivals are not immediately permitted to enter the camp, but sit on one side with their blankets, food and families, all waiting to be purified by this woman’s touch. After confession takes place, she touches each person on the site needing treatment. Those treated say that with her touch, a terrific feeling of strength and power enters them and if they have confessed their sins, they immediately begin to improve. Mai Chaza’s greatest fame, perhaps, lies in her treatment for sterility. The women with their husbands live in the village until they fall pregnant. Many of them remain there until after their babies are born. In the meantime they sing in the choirs to help the healer cure others.

The doctor was shocked by what he saw at the village. He felt all he had learnt in his area of study and his work could not compare with Mai Chaza’s work of healing the sick. At the end of his visit he had this to say: As our car moved away from this village where hundreds of the sick came to be healed, we could not help feeling a little sad. It was difficult to reconcile ourselves to such evidence of the failure of medicine in an age of medical discovery, with its antibiotics and phenomenal surgical advances. It was a reminder that as long as man exists with his unpredictable behavior, we must expect this rush to non-medical sources for cures.

From Kandava, Mai Chaza tried to move to Murehwa but chief Mangwende refused. She then went to Dangare under chief Zimunya, near Mutare. After a few years at Zimunya she moved to Zvimba near Chinhoyi. It was at this place that Her health deteriorated and She finally passed away on 25 December 1960. She was buried in the same area.

Guta RaVaJehovah is still functioning today. One group uses Dangare as its main centre and another group is based at Zvimba where the Healer was buried. The third group has its centre in Mhondoro. This is the group that followed the newly revealed faith healers – the second and the third. Guta RaVaJehovah has spread all over Zimbabwe, going even beyond its borders.

Another very important researcher on Guta RaVaJehovah was the late Reverend Canaan Banana. Reverend Banana was a minister of religion and served as the first president of Zimbabwe as well as lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.

In his book Politics of Repression and Resistance – Face to Face Reverend Banana also wrote about Ruwadzano and healing. He wrote: The Methodist Church boasts of a proud tradition of women given to God’s service. While African women tended to be viewed as docile followers of the male, there is a remarkable woman who goes against the stereotype grain. I am here referring to Mai Chaza, Methodist Prophetess, healer and non-conformist extraordinaire. She was born and bred in Methodism and Reverend Stephen Manguni, based in Bulawayo recalls her heydays with nostalgia, affection and respect. In an interview he said, “Evangelist Chaparapata and I used to pray with Mai Chaza from 1947 to 1948 at Gunde. She went on praying devoutly at the mountain shrine. She then developed the gift of faith healing”.

As her phenomenal gift attracted more and more adherents, she fell out with the church. The church did not subscribe to the substantial spirituality of faith healing and was quick to point this out.

Here was a remarkable man in the mold of Matthew Zvimba and Esau Nemapare, male protagonists in the realm of African religious independence. She offered the soothing balm of healing to those in need, particularly married women who were not given any children. This was seen as a result of a divinely inspired revelation.

Mai Chaza did not leave the Methodist Church as a matter of conscious decision. However, it is important to note that she had been a full member of ‘Ruwadzano’ prior to her departure and as such, never at any time renounced the moral standards inherent in the women of ‘Ruwadzano’. Her respect for Methodism stayed with her until her death, as proved by the incident described here: Soon after establishing her  independent Guta RaVaJehovah Church, a problem developed wherein a teacher in Kandava, where Mai Chaza’s church was located, was denied the right to preach unless and until Mai Chaza had laid hands on him. This did not accord well with the officials of the Methodist Church and as Reverend C.C.G Mazvorere reports: Reverend E.M Mapondera and P. Mudakureba and myself were commissioned to institute an investigation of the situation.

We visited the congregation and I had to conduct the afternoon service. After all the faithful had assembled and were waiting in anticipation of Mai Chaza’s arrival, the four of us were told by the usher to go in before her. I remarked that according to Methodist practice, the preacher goes in after the rest of the congregation has settled in.

Mai Chaza then arrived, attired in full ‘Ruwadzano’ uniform. The ushers reiterated for us to precede Mai Chaza while I stood resolute. After respectfully welcoming us, Mai Chaza went in before us as per Methodist custom. However, the lay preachers were told they had to be blessed by Mai Chaza before entering the church. I expressed the fact that the lay preachers, as fully accredited into priesthood, were entitled to the same respect as that accorded to ministers. That effectively settled our seeming differences and the service progressed smoothly, after which we had an opportunity to appraise Mai Chaza of the problem. She remarked that the actions had been presumptuous on the part of some officious members of the congregation and that she did not subscribe to such high handedness. This incident served to affirm the graceful and humble Mai Chaza’s association with the ‘Ruwadzano' movement.

This is supported by Ernest Mwazha the archbishop of the Apostolic Church, himself a former Methodist.

Mai Chaza’s fame spread far and wide. The purity of her work manifested in the spiritual and physical, received positive sanction from various important figures within the hierarchy of African chiefdom as evidenced in an article in the African Weekly, June 15, 1955, which read: “Many people in the area of headman Zamuchiya are preparing to visit Guta RaVaJehovah in Mashonaland, where Mai Chaza, the faith healer is stationed at the moment. It is understood that the headman who recently returned from Guta RaVaJehovah paid high tribute to the work that Mai Chaza is doing. He is encouraging his people to visit this place”.

It appears therefore, that for all intents and purposes, Mai Chaza’s church had a strong member constituent based mainly in the African populace. This is understandable, given the fact that most Africans would easily identify with her peculiar form of spirituality, manifested in God’s self disclosure to the individual concerned.

More to that, another possible explanation could be the fact that her mission was of a dual nature. On the one front, she offered spiritual healing to the wounded soul, and on the other she offered physical healing to the stricken.

What remains clear from the account given is that Mai Chaza probably moved out of the Methodist church because the church in its strict observation of convention in worship standards could not accommodate her peculiar form of spirituality. Had the church been cognizant of the form of witness that manifested itself more through God’s self disclosure than anything itself, she might have been found to be practicing within its confines and possibly further splits could have been avoided.

The accounts given by Mr. Chaza, the son of the faith healer, that of Dr. MacAfee and that of Reverend Canaan Banana show quite clearly that Mai Chaza’s mission and work was clean and pure. Timothy Scarnecchia’s research is therefore faulty in some parts and inaccurate.