This interview took place on the 25th of April 2020 under the workshop themed Careers. The workshop was held in the Whatsapp group Izifundo Zabatsha. The program director was Wayne Sibanda a devoted youth who stirred the program in an enlightening manner leaving the forum filled with knowledge. Dumisani Mudenda opened the session with a soulful prayer praising and asking God to raise more heroes who will carry out the work of salvation.
Garainesu Mapombere delivered an opening lesson of the workshop touching on careers. Garainesu first started by defining that a career is a person’s work through out their life. It is the way they can work in order to achieve their and live life. Garainesu then took from the Combined Volumes, Topic 605 titled “Ungakhohlisi abanye”. In the lesson God states that it is a good example to liken our bodies to houses. God points out that He had been long saying that the youth must learn and get educated. They must further their studies some can become mechanics, some scientists and some doctors. He went on to say Doctors for instance they are some who understand Guta Ra Mwari. Such doctors send people with stubborn sicknesses to Guta Ra Mwari. When those directed people arrive in Guta Ra Mwari they testify that they were told to go to Guta Ra Mwari by a certain doctor because here there is life.
God says it is clear that these could be Guta Ra Mwari children because We already opened in spirit that go and learn to be doctors who open surgeries. As a child of Guta Ra Mwari you know that there are so many stubborn illnesses that can be cured in Guta Ra Mwari. It is very helpful especially to those who will be going to the Hospital and also getting healing in Guta Ra Mwari. As a Guta Ra Mwari child once you open a surgery you will find it easy to work on the patients as you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. Garainesu then ends the lesson by further stating that the topic continues to touch God’s emphasis on opening businesses after attaining the education.
The Interview with Evangelist P Hikhwa interviewed by Zibusiso D. Ndlovu.
Zibusiso: Evangelist Hikhwa we welcome you as we discuss on careers.
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: Am happy to be able to speak to you today
Zibusiso: When did you join Guta Ra Mwari ?
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: I joined Guta Ra Mwari in 1974. I was joining with my parents who had joined previously in 1972 due to my sister’s illness who had a whooping cough. That cough where you cough and never stop coughing. I was 10 years old at the time.
Zibusiso: When did you start working as a Youth Coordinator ?
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: I started working as a youth coordinator in the year 1994. Initially my role was made very difficult by other members of Guta Ra Mwari, where other members were competing with me for the role . There was no acceptability. The duty was made very difficult wherever I went, I seemed to face competition. In 1996 God came and affirmed my position that this is the role I have given to Peter Hikhwa. I was only a leader at that time not an Evangelist and this is what I want him to do, to work with the youth and that is when the entire competition stopped and my work really started from there, that’s when I started effectively working from there.
Zibusiso: What teachings from your time as a youth do you hold so dearly and attribute to becoming the person you are today?
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: There are a lot of teachings that we received as the youth during my time. First of all there was just a question who is God? And understanding God in the way Guta Ra Mwari teaches. The explanations which we were given, the way it was broken down and in fact that still influences our position even now, nobody can tell me about how I should understand God, because I have been clearly taught and understood what God is. No one can try and change that for me. That is one teaching that really stuck with me. It made me to be set on Guta Ra Mwari. To know what God is, agree and believe, I have understood,I have seen the body that carried God. I have heard God. I have met God in person. I have seen God teach. This teaching was really number one, profound and was the basis of my belief in Guta Ra Mwari.
As the youth we were taught by Sekuru Nyoni (Chosen 12) who came from Bulawayo. He covered various topics, but obvious as a young man and I was now growing up and looking to get us married. Some take aways were that people must decide within 3 months of meeting to get married with the person you chose. 3 Months was kind of a shocking time, but what he was simply saying, was within 3 months of meeting someone, it is enough to have taken a decision about the person you want to be with the rest of your life. We were taught how to behave as a child. How to avoid temptations as there were others pulling us towards smoking, drinking and fornication but we managed to fight against all those temptations through those teachings from Sekuru Nyoni. Even one day God was teaching in Botswana and said people here in Botswana I see, sometimes you take a woman and you want to test if a woman can give birth, what is that? It should stop and therefore understand if you have that situation, that is the person you will get married to. It is therefore that teaching where I saw that the woman I meet, must be the woman I must marry.
Zibusiso: Great insight on the 3 months taken to make a decision on marriage. I will ask the next question. What is your means of making a living and what path did you take to get there?
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: Currently I work in the insurance industry but I am a Deputy director in a broker firm however my side of the business is taking care of pension fund so I head the pension administration and consulting of AON Botswana where am working, My job is to advise various clients being with pension funds in our industry. I conduct many board meetings. A board of trustee meetings where we provide reports to them, assist them make decisions about their pension funds and help their members retire better. It is quite interesting. I have gone to be Chairperson of the Pension Society in Botswana which means I head all the pension funds and represent them in negotiating with government over legislation that comes through. I also can arrange trainings for pension funds. This is an interesting job. I see myself coming out on TV as I talk to these boards of trustees. How did I get there, first of all I am an accountant and I started work as an accountant.
Let me take you back to my years of Cambridge where I was in the best class. I was one of the bright pure sciences student but for some reason others were just too fast for me. I did not pass my science subjects and it pushed me out of my first class and upper second class. I could not get direct access to university. I did not despair, I had passed my Mathematics and English very well but the sciences were that bad. I started with an Association of Accountant Technicians (AAT) which I then passed and become a member.
I went on to study CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) which I also passed and started working with that qualification. Under the AAT, I was also the chairperson of that association in Botswana. I have worked for the Botswana Airline. I started as a junior accountant and went on to become a senior accountant. I left them and joined the Insurance industry where I was Finance Manager got promoted to senior Manager Finance and Administration. I left those and joined AON where I work now as a Deputy director in the pension division. My work is interesting in that I have the accounting part and also the managerial side as I now head the accounting and data administration together with the consulting side, This is where I am and wish to be bigger than that.
Zibusiso: We praise God for giving you such a career. We hope to see more GRM children on the TV leading in Africa. Those who are accountants or wish to be leading accountants will benefit from this. I will ask the next question:
Share with us any obstacles you encountered on your career path and how GRM healing helped you overcome them.
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: First obstacle was my inability to enter university directly, however I got a job immediately and I was under pressure around me to forget schooling but I was very clear that I wanted to study. I wanted to be an accountant. When Botswana Airline recruited me, they gave me a test and I passed it. I was very good in Mathematics. In writing the exam, I was the top in the mathematics section. They now wanted to move me to Piloting insteading of Accounting. Parents also gave me pressure to forget and so on. For some reason I was clear I wanted to be an Accountant. The pilot job for me had a lot of travelling producing some risks.
I kept on studying for my accounting qualifications. I will send you a picture of the trophy I was given as the best student of 1999 here in Botswana. The rest of the issues were competition at work. When you are at work, you see everyone wants to make a mark. There were jealousy traits. I remember this one gentleman I worked under. He was jealous as the boss recognized my efforts and openly gave me praise hence generated a lot of friction. I went into Gomo to ask to be helped with this problem and in no time, I was promoted to this junior accountant working side by side with him. That person ended up becoming my mentor in the IT side of business.
There were so many challenges and I would get into the Holy of Holies and ask God to remove those things. God answers my prayers and I cant complain. God has given me a lot of things. Sometimes just the humility, the ability to fight the cooperate wars in the cooperate world in a highly professional manner, you continue to earn people’s respect and be highly respected by the employer. In where I work I carry a credit card just to entertain clients as given by employer. The fee of money that I can spend is high however I never find myself buying things like alcohol and there were so many efforts to get me to drink. They would try to make me taste alcohol. Those are the obstacles but I have managed to overcome them. Speaking of competition I was one of the two sponsored to study my CIMA in London and others did not make it.
Zibusiso: The challenge of not being able to get into university directly is faced by youth when they finish their O and A levels. We hope most youth get inspired and understand that there are many ways to reach their career goals. Your focus will surely inspire most of us today. We praise God.
Next Question:
Youth of today need guidance on how to make their lives better, What advice can you give to that effect ?
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: The youth of today face more challenges than us, maybe each and every generation has its own challenges. In our time we stayed with our parents, they forced us to go to Guta RaMwari even when we were bit doubting and made sure we follow God’s laws. We would not indulge in alcoholic, smoking and any other activities that give impurities. This may not be the case for each and every child now. There are some who are staying in International Countries such as South Africa and are not staying with Parents. What children must understand is that they must follow God themselves and not lean on others. Sometimes as humans we fool ourselves thinking we are better than those next to us But 12 lessons teaches us God’s standard of judgement is not one of comparisons but rather one of perfection. So instead as an individual you need to look at yourself, compare yourself with what God wants.
The youth of today are facing an influx of drugs into their lives and it is pushed to them. Other countries you can be forced into these gangs. They need to be very very strong, stay within the realm of Gita Ra Mwari, be aware of how they make money and must avoid drugs and these other method such as prostitution which ruins one’s purity. The next one I can say focus on your future, Don’t study to get a job in Zimbabwe locally or next door but rather study to be able to operate everywhere, Companies are going global, you can be able to work in Kenya, In the UK or wherever through your work. I have seen our youth who are working globally in big banks, cooperates. I think this is where our youth needs to fit, to be globally employable. In marriage people are marrying even in neighbouring countries Africa, UK among Guta Ra Mwari members.
We have people who stay overseas who have families there, people getting married in Kenya to Nigerians and so on. We need to operate at a global level now. rather than locally. However this is not a problem particularly for those in Zimbabwe. I believe that is true, because of those economic difficulties that they have gone through they have seen that they need to be competitive globally. The Zimbabweans that we have here in Botswana are not sleeping they are working so hard to be relevant to continue at a level that is higher than a Motswana level. A single degree is not enough these days. You need your Masters, you need your certifications, you need to continually improve yourself in order to competeat that high level. As you do all this let God be your guide with you always. Be prayerful always call upon Him ask Him to give you strength, you will be able to achieve and get where you are suppose to get to.
Zibusiso: Great advice that we don’t compare ourselves to others but we should perfect our individual characters. God should be our guide.
Next Question:
What is your wish for today’s youth ?
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: My wish for the youth, this question is related to the previous one however my wish for the youth is that they should choose a life of principles. Good life is a life with principles, without principles we are just gliding without direction. We need to be grounded in our thinking. Be focused as youth, The youth needs to know what is right and wrong and choose what is righteous. My wish is that youth choose proper ways of making money not fraudulent methods. Do not involve yourself as youth in such wrong activities. Choose that life and marry within Guta Ra Mwari, don’t take too long sometimes I find young man of age 30 years and above still unmarried. I need you to look at getting married whilst you are young. Your wealth, doing well with your partner you will be happier. The way in which God taught us is that when we marry within Guta Ra Mwari, someone who has been taught about Guta Ra Mwari we are likely to continue teaching our children tomorrow the right principles of God. I will share with you a picture of where I have come from therefore please stay in God’s path. The youth must continue studying, be big players in the global arena. Continue to be the best they can be, we want to hear their names in UN, WHO and other organizations. We have seen some of our youth who would have studied to be Doctors and other big professions, that they leave Guta Ra Mwari however I wish that as Youth stay. There are a few of us that have stayed in Guta Ra Mwari regardless of our study level and profession.
There is a tendence of people lying to themselves when they start having money. They don’t see God as important anymore then realise God is important at a later stage in their lives. At that time they would have polluted their spirit and bodies. Stay in Guta Ra Mwari am one example like that of someone who stayed in Guta Ra Mwari and did not participate in alcohol drinking, fornication and other activities that produces impurities.
This time I read somewhere where it said two people can live for 60 years but one of the people can achieve three times or more what the other person had but they had the same period of time each but one was more aggressive in filling his time. Whatever economic situation you are in right now, let that drive you to want to achieve more rather than to despair. When we despair it is because we are sometimes waiting for handouts, someone to help us but we can help ourselves. All the help we need is within us, we can drive ourselves by achieveing more, stay in God’s love. God loves us. Just follow God’s teachings as He says If you follow me and my guidance I shall give you what you ask for.
Zibusiso: Evangelist P Hikhwa we praise God for being with us today in the workshop. We have learnt a lot. Are there any additions you would like to share with us before we finish this interview session ?
Evangelist P. Hikhwa: I think I have said it all. I don’t have much to add rather than saying, I wish the youth the very best in their endeavors, life and future. Thank you for inviting me to talk to the youth today. This is what God has given us to do.
Forever