Church history, nuances
Phillip Segadika | Monday January 24, 2022 06:00
The memorial service held two days short of Christmas was akin to a live exhibition on the culture and history of this denomination in Botswana. Attended by hundreds of mourners, the memorial service was a packed congregation that took advantage of the COVID-19 regulations that had just been relaxed. Amongst the celebrants were Kgosikgolo Kgari III and both Members of Parliament for Molepolole, one of whom is Kabo Morwaeng, a minister in the Office of the President.
Fortunately, the moderator periodically intervened to reference a bereavement. Otherwise the event would have been mistaken for a church jubilation conference complete with song and dance, full band and instrumentals, laughter, fired up exhortations and a journey down memory lane. Even though there was a good array of Setswana hymnals and choruses, the Botswana evangelical church culture of preaching and singing in the language of the missionaries has long earned this group the derision ‘Dikereke tsa Sekgoa’.
From the eulogies and tributes it became clear that Mogotsi's life story reflects the humble beginnings and experiences of the Assemblies of God in Botswana. This is not a surprise because Mogotsi served the church for over 50 years, starting at Lobatse in 1963 and retiring in Molepolole by 2014. Even subtle church cultural nuances were on full display in the memorial service. One such remnant was the decidedly Sotho accent in eulogist, Rev Dr Drew Monageng's voice as well as his occasional chipping-in with specific but encumbered mix up of Tswana and English expressions like 're ne re fellowshipa...'. To 'fellowship' was a loaded diagnostic expression used by Batswana of the evangelical ‘born again’ creed in the 1980s to distinguish in adversarial attitude what was perceived as mere church goers of their parallels in mainline and indigenous African churches.
The simultaneous interpretation into Setswana and English at the memorial service, and now accepted as a norm, is in fact a historical relic from when foreign missionaries needed an interpreter. Some 60 years since the Assemblies of God came into the shores of Bechuanaland through the likes of Mogotsi, the late Revs Makgaola, Ngwanaang and Monageng the use of the dual languages is now part of the church worship services.
This reflects also the diversity of congregants from the elderly and youth whose educational levels, capacities and conflicted preferences in English and Setswana are stuck at siege. To this day there are still many Batswana in the broader Evangelical and Pentecostal church community whose language of spiritual expression remains English. Perhaps all is not lost, as former Assemblies of God Superintendent Bishop Raphael Habibo is quick to explain, the church seminary, the Assembly Bible College in Tlokweng addresses multiple challenges and has been successful in graduating hundreds of Assemblies of God pastors local and Southern Africa region who are all rounded enough to navigate the separate needs and potential cultural divisions of congregants. Some Batswana only know this church as Kamo le Kamo. Again for that you blame the likes of Mogotsi whose tent and open air 'crusades' in the 1960s and 70s were dominated by one popular Sotho song the lyrics of which talked of the overwhelming presence of God's Love being on all sides (kamo le kamo) like the sea waters.
Like the history of the reference 'Christian' the name Kamo le Kamo started as a deride but soon gained tract as the reference to this organisation that has over 106 established branches and several preaching points in Botswana.
A man of great passion for evangelism and church planting, Mogotsi is credited with founding and planting numerous local churches of the Assemblies of God directly, including Lobatse, Molepolole and Manyana. Some of them he planted impromptu like the Mogobane branch which started when he preached and made an alter call at a funeral. At home a strict disciplinarian, one of the mourners shared that in the early days, for Mogotsi, the time for fasting prayers was mandatory for all in his household including children, those breast feeding and was extended even to domestic animals. Mogotsi commanded respect as a pioneer and a counsellor of leaders, but also a seer of graphic visions and a prophetic voice in the church. One of the eulogists, Rev Habibo, spoke of a vision Mogotsi once shared.
In that vision people were drowning in a big river. As he drew near to the river he was shocked to find that the river was flowing not with water but with human waste and people drowning in that. It was revealed to Mogotsi that this was the state of the corporate global Church. It is through a sharing of such visions that people around Mogotsi were propelled to fervent prayers for God's intervention. For Mogotsi, God spoke through the Bible but also through the gifts of the Spirit in visions and dreams that had to be heeded. A designated main preacher at a high profile funeral is someone to watch closely. This portion fell on Bishop M.J. Tshukudu who is in his second year of service as Presiding Bishop of the Assemblies of God in Botswana. Tshukudu, who doubles as Pastor of the Mochudi branch, looks to be 60 and is the fourth Presiding Bishop since the establishment of the church in Botswana. Tshukudu is himself one of the products of the late Mogotsi having attended Assemblies of God since childhood in the Molepolole church and rising through the ranks from youth leader, pastor and now the church Bishop.
Tshukudu’s sermon content appears to deviate from the typical attempts at comforting the bereaved. Rather, he presents a challenge to the listeners to remain his faithful, loyal and fervent messengers of Christ. As the sermon climaxes, he brings it home to the memorial service - that listeners should continue Mogotsi's legacy whose early days saw him preaching in buses, trains and public squares first in Johannesburg where he was converted and later in many parts of Botswana. As a founding member of the Evangelical Fellowship of Botswana (EFB), the AOG in Botswana, like its international headquarter denomination in Springfield, Missouri, USA is a staunch adherent to Evangelical Persuasion. However, in its early days while Mogotsi was the church Deputy Superintendent and Pastor, the church saw to numerous social development activities that included a primary school in Sefhophe, later handed over to government.
The likes of Mogotsi and Makgaola have ‘transitioned unto glory’ as the cliché goes. It now falls on Tshukudu and his leadership team of ministers to see to it that Kamo le Kamo preaches the gospel while addressing the needs of poverty, unemployment and social ills that may threaten the peace of Botswana. One may wonder how a pioneer like Mogotsi has handled the proliferation of the new so called ‘fire’ and prophetic churches in Botswana. No doubt the relationship of the EFB with these new churches has remained mostly guarded and sometimes tense. In the absence of any official church policy, perhaps Mogotsi, had to be careful in his criticism of the proliferation because in his youth he too was a pioneer with a contrasted approach in a country that was then dominated by mainline and African Independent Church cultures.
In his book, Botlhodi jwa nta ya tlhogo, T.J. Pheto illustrates the plight of the African Independent Churches and their persecution under Dikgosi in colonial times. While Pheto’s book is fiction, it was based on a real situation of such experiences in Molepolole that Bakwena octogenarians relate with vivid recollection. Sadly, there has been no record on the stories, experiences and advent of the Pentecostal church in Botswana. Unfortunately, the last 20 years have seen the demise of the men who led this movement in the 1960s from Musa of the PPC Church, Schaefer of the AFM, Lavinah Gwebu of the Church of God Of Prophecy and a score others.
Mogotsi too, born in 1924 departed this world at 97 leaving behind his wife and 11 children but no book for us to read, a sad loss of testimonies and experiences. This has been a trend that needs divine and deliberate intervention. Perhaps the stories told at the memorial service need to be put together into chapters as we persuade the likes of Habibo, Johannes Kgwarapi, Malvern L. Dube and Monageng to sit down and bequeath the heritage of their lives and movement in black and white.
*PHILLIP SEGADIKA is a heritage manager and former Overseer of the Church of God Of Prophecy in Botswana. He currently serves the same church as Administrative Assistant for Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.