My Personal Testimony

I am a Christadelphian Brother born in 1953, living on the edge of Lake Malawi, in the very heart of Africa, in the area of the great missionary activity by Livingstone and others many years ago. My parents were Anglicans and I was baptized into the Anglican faith in 1965. I attended church and was active, but something was lacking, and I thought I cound find it in the Pentecostals, whose meetings I began to secretly attend.

Eventually, in 1985, I got the courage to write a letter of resignation from the Anglicans; when I told my wife, she urged me to write it also from her and our children, because she wanted the whole family to be of the same faith. I was active with the Pentecostals, I planted churches and was a lay pastor, bringing very many into their ranks. But I began to have many questions, especially about how the Trinity, which we preached, could be squared with the fact that God is clearly one. I didn't lose my faith in God, but these questions meant that I began to be less active in the church.

One day I was helping another Pastor build a latrine for a church. He asked me why I was no longer so committed, and I told him my Biblical beliefs that God is one not three. I thought he would be shocked, but instead he said he agreed with me and had the same questions, so we should write to the Executive Committee of the church and get them to change their position. He did this, and they replied that I was demon- possessed, and he accepted them, wanting the praise of men more than of God. And so I totally stopped my involvement with them.

At that time I thought to leave the civil service where I worked, and go and work in South Africa, but I needed some more skills. I thought it would be good to learn to drive. I knew one man who had a car, and I asked him to give me driving lessons. He agreed, on the basis that I would clean his car regularly. I did so. This was now 1999. One day as I cleaned the inside of the car I came across a copy of Bible Basics, very dirty and greasy. He let me take it, and I read it four times one after the other. It answered all my questions. I knew it was from God and that I had found the Truth I had been looking for, for so long.

So I wrote a letter to Duncan, using the address in England which was inside the book. I was unaware at that time that he doesn't live in England but in Eastern Europe. Marcus replied to me, a very warm letter, and he sent me 10 British pounds so that I could go to visit the Christadelphians in Zomba. I can remember well the excitement I felt, and how I sent my daughter to the bank to cash that banknote and received 900 Kwacha, which we thought was wonderful. And so began my visits to various Christadelphian meetings, meeting at one time with the brothers from England, who answered my further questions very well.

In due course, I was baptized in 2002 by a nearby Christadelphian Bible Mission ecclesia, it was strange that some of the members didn't know doctrinally why they were Christadelphians, so I ended up even teaching them. My wife however wasn't baptized then. She realized that this time, it was more serious than just all being of the same religion. But she started to question things she heard in the Pentecostals and then she too, couldn't stand to be in a church where you hear things like Trinity, pre-existence of Jesus, going to heaven on death, Satan, immortal soul, hell, and all the other things we know are wrong. So she of her own freewill resigned from that church and was baptized in 2004, and three of my children too. Since then I have helped establish another two ecclesias and read the writings of Bro Thomas and Bro Roberts. I also had contact with Bro Duncan by email, and he introduced me to some of his contacts in other parts of Malawi whom I also baptized. Then one day now in May 2011 I had a phone call. It was Duncan. He had informed me of his coming to Malawi by email but I hadn't received it, and he had only that day got my phone number from the brethren in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp. He said that in 40 minutes he would be passing by my place, as he was passing by the lakeshore road going up Lake Malawi to baptize some people in the north! So he came to my workplace and we sat in my office after the workers had all gone home and had a very wonderful fellowship. It was like the coming of Christ will be - suddenly we will know we have a visitor whom we feel we know well and whose words we have read many times, but have never seen in the flesh. We went on our ways rejoicing very, very much.

Bro. George Mayimba and Duncan

Bro. George Mayimba (Senga Bay, Malawi)