Once a pastor, always a pastor

Pastor Magesa and his wife

Andrew and I recently visited Pastor Magesa and his family at their home.  Magesa is one of the Bible translators for the Jita language; you might recognize him from pictures from the time when I was the adviser for the Jita team.  This was the first time I'd met his wife and although I'd seen some of his kids before, I'd never interacted with them until this visit.  He has a really nice family, and a very pretty wife!

During the course of our visit, Andrew asked him if he was still considered a pastor, even though he is no longer teaching regularly at a particular church.  Magesa replied that he still preaches sometimes, filling in when the regular pastor can't be there, and that his extended family still comes to him regularly in a pastoral role, when they need advice or a mediator or something.

Also, he said friends and neighbors sometimes treat him like he's their pastor.  He told us how one acquaintance came to him for help when the teenage daughter of one of his relatives needed prayer.  She had an evil spirit trying to kill her.  It would throw her into the lake trying to drown her, or take her out to the main road and attempt to get her run over by a passing motorcycle.  Magesa said he prayed for her and she is much better now.

He told us this story as a short example, rather off-handedly.  It took him all of three sentences to relate how this high school student was being attacked by a demon, and then he moved on to talking about how he's the guest speaker at a church this coming Sunday.  Even after six years in Tanzania, I still think stories like this sound like they are straight out of the gospels.  It's not that I don't believe there are currently evil spirits out and about, but Americans don't tend to casually chat about them.  But they are a reality and I appreciate people like Pastor Magesa who calmly and capably deals with the evil that comes his way in a Godly manner.