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Showing posts from January, 2020

Rev. Conrad Mbewe and his jewel that keeps shining

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Rev. Conrad Mbewe with wife Felistas in Paris.   Rev. Conrad Mbewe and his jewel that keeps shining JACK ZIMBA ON JANUARY 2, Conrad Mbewe and his wife Felistas celebrated 32 years in marriage, and the Baptist preacher still describes her as “a jewel that keeps shining brighter and brighter”. Conrad and Felistas first met in the small mining town of Mufulira on the Copperbelt. Conrad had just graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in mining engineering, but still inclined to preaching rather than mining. He would abandon a career in mining altogether to become a preacher, and since he made that decision in the mid-1980s, he has gone on to obtain a Master of Philosophy in theology, a Master of Arts in Pastoral Theology, and a PhD in Missions. But despite his high academic qualifications, Conrad is not fastidious about titles. “I honestly do not mind what titles people use,” he once told me. As for Felistas, she was working as a nurse at Malcolm Watson Hospital in ...

The preying prophets

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What if your papa is actually a phoney? Joseph Lenga was deported from Zambia in 2018, but he still runs his church from South Africa with many faithful followers.     JACK ZIMBA S HE called him “papa”, and revered him as a Man of God. But one day when Barbara was alone with him in his office, the man of God suggested something that made her squirm. Barbara is a strong evangelical Christian who had become acquainted with a Congolese preacher called Joseph Lenga back in 2011, the year the preacher first arrived in Zambia from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In fact, Barbara had helped Lenga to establish a church called Salvation City International Worldwide. Within a few years, the church had grown from a home-based church to having hundreds of followers, and had even attracted high-profile figures who poured thousands of Kwacha into the church offering basket every Sunday. Lenga was charismatic and his preaching spellbinding. “I thou...