The Sunday Mail
Dr Rutendo Wutawunashe
SINCE I was 12, I dreamt of becoming a medical doctor. I was surprised when this drew a lot of scepticism from the adults around me.
After completing my A-level studies at a girls’ school, I enrolled at the Medical School at the University of Rhodesia.
My surprises turned into questions when I found myself the only African girl in the class, there was also no African girl in the class ahead. My colleagues would sympathetically tell me that Medicine was not for girls because six years was too long. Their advice was for me to go back home, have nine cows paid for my lobola and have my babies.
I would ask myself, “Is there anything wrong with being a woman? Are women not supposed to achieve anything else apart from making babies?” No one could give me answers to such questions.
Now as a young pastor’s wife, on May 2, 1990; I was in Durham, North Carolina, USA when I saw a lump of soil in a vision. Then water flowing over it and gently washing away the soil until a bright green stone emerged. A sharp instrument, like a miniature sword, appeared and was cleaning the crevices of the gem as the water continued to flow. The result was a polished, beautiful emerald, the biggest I had ever seen.
As I thought deeply on this experience, the Holy Spirit gave me the interpretation backed by scriptures:
The lump of soil with a hidden gem represents a woman or girl whose value and potential is not obvious to people. This is echoed by the question in Proverbs 31:10: “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” God is asking because the value of women is not easily seen to people. God places a very high price tag on the woman.
The soil concealing the gem according to the vision is the evil works of the devil who was declared the woman’s enemy in Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
This enemy fights the woman from the cradle to the grave and is the source of all the problems and challenges of womanhood. These evil works include sin, sickness, confusion, violence, abuse, fear, loneliness and poverty.
The major weapon of the enemy against the woman is the inferiority complex into which the woman is tutored by traditions and culture from birth.
The good news is the water that represents the word of God that has power to cleanse, “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,” (Ephesians 5:26). When women and girls are exposed to this water of the word of God, the soil is washed away, thereby revealing the hidden gem.
The precious stone is the woman described in Proverbs 31:10-31 in whom are found seven virtues that add value to any woman or girl; namely wisdom, wealth, strength and honour, true beauty, good works, excellence and fear of God.
This revelation helped me realise that I have a lot of value before God. When I came back from the US, I began sharing this word with other women. As I shared it with women and girls around me in the Family of God Church, significant changes took place in appearance, homes and service of God. Women became more active in the church, looking after their homes and themselves more.
On February 26, 1992; my husband, the founder of the Family of God Churches, Apostle Andrew Wutawunashe called a meeting of believers in Harare and communicated that God had shown him that this word should be used as a basis of ministry to women and girls in the Family of God Churches because we were just a young church which had begun in 1981.
This became my mandate to turn this word into a full blown ministry. My challenge in this was that they had never seen the word of God, there were no reference books for such a ministry and my only source was God and His word.
The name Precious Stone was derived from the emerald that came from the washing of the lump of soil in the vision and the ruby mentioned in Proverbs 31:10, “…her price is far above rubies.”
The names, order and colours of the fourteen women’s groups that constitute the Precious Stone Ministry are based on Revelation 21:19-21, “And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the forth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl. The ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprarsus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. “And the twelve gates were twelve pearls — every several gate was of one pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.”
Since its inception in the Harare congregation of the Family of God Churches, the Precious Stone Ministry has spread to the Worldwide Family of God Churches in the whole of southern Africa, East Africa, United Kingdom, Australia and USA. Women and girls have risen with high confidence levels to build their own lives, spiritually serving God and financially building businesses.
Dr Wutawunashe is the visionary of Precious Stone Women and Girls Ministry, a women empowerment arm of the Family of God Church. She is the founder of Gemstone Women and Girls Resource Centre, and is also a qualified medical doctor, a business woman and an author
