The Sunday Mail
AFM president in Zimbabwe Dr Aspher Madziyire
This year, the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe will be celebrating 100 years of existence. Dr Aspher Madziyire, who has been AFM president in Zimbabwe for the past 17 years, took The Sunday Mail Religion down memory lane.
Below are Dr Madziyire’s thoughts in his own words:
The Apostolic Faith Mission had people moving by faith. They didn’t believe in anything else besides God. I came in as a president who is the bridge between the old and the new generation. The old guys were walking by faith, not by sight. That is why in those years, you never experienced pastors who would go to court and fight the church.
They just believed in the Holy Spirit and working by faith. But in our time, it is now a new generation that is different from the old. If you read in Judges, it says: “There arose a new generation that did not know the God that delivered Israel.” So they were operating in a different way than the way that God was operating.
Probably they were choosing other gods. So in this time we are living in, we have challenges. The major challenge I have seen is the lack of faith in some people who are similar to the ones our fathers had.
It is now a balanced faith where you have an understanding that if I have a headache and I take a pill, the pain will disappear.
ln those days, they used to say even if a tooth was aching, they would not consult a doctor. They would kneel down and pray.
And things would happen. Those days when you were disciplined by the church, no one would go to the courts. They would accept that, “I sinned and I have to be corrected.”
In those days there was true prophecy. I have testimonies of things that I saw as a boy growing up in the rural areas.
This elderly prophet said: “There is a certain person who comes into the homestead. I have seen him walking, coming here without shoes or bags.” And within an hour’s time we saw that person coming with no shoes or bags. That was prophecy.
It’s different from today’s prophecy where some people believe that a bangle which has been prophesied over will protect them. But the person who is prophesying is walking with six body guards. If he believes that why doesn’t he wear the bangle and be protected?
So the challenge we have now is people are not having faith in God but in things. They are not moving by faith. If I give you a bottle of water saying that’s going to help you, your God is in the bottle of water. Now if you are told there is Jesus whom you cannot see, will you believe?
That is the challenge we are having today. So within the past 100 years, AFM in Zimbabwe has shifted from the original church to where we are today. How do we convince our children that God is still God?
I have an experience of an elderly person in Gutu who never went to school, didn’t know how to read, went into the mountains, fasted and prayed. And he said: “Lord I am not educated but I want to read the Bible.”
After three days of prayer and fasting, he came down from the mountain. He could only read the Bible. So if you are going to talk of that faith to the generation of today, its really impossible.
But we are saying we have walked the 100 years of experience of what our forefathers did. When they were crossing Jordan River, they put a pillar of stones.
When they asked why they had to do that they were told that, “Your children’s children must come back and see the miraculous work that was done by God that you crossed River Jordan when it was flooded.”
We are celebrating the 100 years to explain to our children to go back to the foundation.
