Meet Phiwe
We thought it would be great to introduce you Phiwe - whose photo sums him up beautifully - nobody is asleep in the back row when Phiwe is teaching!
We first met Phiwe while he was studying for a theological degree. He is a passionate learner, but his journey has been far from straight forward. His story helps explain the need for sharing resources as we seek to do.
When he was born, Phiwe lived with his dad, uncles and grandma, and went to a Zulu-speaking school for his first years. Then he moved to an English school when he lived with his mum, in an Indian area. He was taught in English and Afrikaans. For high school, he was with grandma for a year in Durban, then another school then back to one of the first schools… to be honest, I had lost track at this point! If you are a typical Brit like me, you are in awe of anyone who grasps the basics of a second language, so therefore you are already a fan of Phiwe. And yes – you are hopefully getting a picture of why a lot of the pastors and teachers we meet, feel a bit overawed at studying such topics as the Abrahamic covenant, or the Mosaic law in their second or third language??!! YES, they’re great at faith, and YES to all the praying, but Phiwe helped me see that if you ask somebody to sit down and study the word of God, it’s a massive challenge.
He loved geography and was interested in town planning at school, but ended up doing electrical engineering of all things, just like our very own Mr. Nichols! He went to bible college, but his real passion is local church. He explained that he has a deep conviction that the local church is where change happens in a community, so he LOVES working for his church in a team in Harding (a few hours away). And the theology? Well, why should there be a choice between pastor and theologian? Phiwe wants to combine both, believing that the story of the bible should shape all that we teach, and all our life decisions.
I was curious as to how this passion came about, so I asked where it began. Phiwe explained that good teaching helped him so much in the beginning of his own walk. His friend used to take him around different churches where he’d get asked to preach or testify. He would get asked all sorts of questions afterwards and found himself lacking answers, so he went and studied.
I think this shows real humility as many people would just pretend to know. Also the bible helped him in his personal walk with Jesus – each time he hit a question, he found that freedom followed on from gaining new understanding. And he’s still learning, like all of us.
As you can hear, Phiwe is a humble guy who wants to keep growing in the knowledge and love of the word of God. It takes time to unlearn things and to settle new ideas in our brains, but he is committed to helping people with this more and more.
Over the time that we’ve known Phiwe, he has grown so much in his knowledge and his ability to teach others. It’s such a joy to see him now taking on leading a church and applying all the things that he’s been learning through his training.