RUPERT’S LAND NEWS: What do you like to do in your free time?
REV. NABOTH MANZONGO: I spend time with my wife, Thelma, and my three children, Emily (11), Ngoni (7), and Amy (9 months). I love gardening. I enjoy working in the soil, growing my own food, because that’s how I was raised. I enjoy walks, soccer, and theatre. And I like long drives as well. I kind of think through things on those long drives, especially when I’m alone. I can talk to myself, and sometimes sermons come through.
RLN: What is your favourite book in the Bible and why?
NM: It is difficult to really choose one over the other. It just depends on the situation. I think with what has happened in my life, I lean more on Paul’s letters to Timothy. As a young man in ministry, I really needed to hear the instructions of a mentor to a mentee. I was ordained to the priesthood when I was young. So, I needed to hear those words and those instructions to keep the fire burning, to fan the flames.
RLN: Wow, so you must have known early on that you wanted to enter the priesthood. Tell me more about that.
NM: I believe that my calling came when I was in grade 9. So yes, from an early age, I knew that I wanted to be a priest. The nuns at the Convent of the Community of the Blessed Virgin Mary (CBLM) and the Priest in Charge, Rev. Clifford Dzavo (MHSRIEP), talked me into it and continued supporting me throughout the journey.
RLN: What made you feel called to ordained ministry? NM: I became an altar server when I was in grade 4. I was brought up in a mission school of the Anglican Church. The life of doing the offices i.e. Morning Prayer, the Angelus at noon, Evensong, and Compline at the end of the day, was normal. When I was in grade 9, that’s when I became the head server for the whole mission. At first, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but I would say that it was in grade 9 when I felt the call to the priesthood. The Rev. Clifford Dzavo got me more involved by training me as a lay reader. He trained me on how to read scripture and construct a sermon. In his absence, he would ask me to officiate at Morning Prayer and preach to fellow students. So, by grade 10, it was now clear that this was what was happening. When I graduated from high school, the bishop knew me, and everyone in the diocese knew that there was a guy from one of the mission schools who was entering seminary.
RLN: How has your prayer life changed and developed over time?
NM: I had a rule of life, without knowing that I had a rule of life, because I was brought up in a mission. In the mission, there is this rhythm of doing the offices — a Morning Prayer, Eucharist, Midday Prayer, Evensong, and Compline. So, you see how I had a rule of life without knowing it was a rule of life. Moving into seminary, it was the same thing with weekends assigned to assisting clergy in the parishes. So, yeah, my life was very structured and has been informed by all these things — the offices, the structure, the reasoning. But for myself, I understand life and God more in retrospect. I look back with gratitude and I’m like, “God, I thank You, because whatever I’ve gone through, it is because You are moving me from one place to the other.” So, I’ve learned to live looking back with gratitude, but at the same time, I look forward with fortitude to say that whatever comes, I have been able to stand because I don’t know what the trials and tribulations I face will be. But, one day, I will look back and say “Wow, I didn’t know why God had put these things in my way.” So, that has been my life, all those ups and downs. Many times, I look back, especially at the downs, and say “Oh, God, You had a message.”
I can’t say that all has been smooth. I remember that after being ordained, I neglected the rule of life. I would do the offices less, and I would always think I was busy and didn’t have time to include the office. In retrospect, I think that I was just a young man reacting to the newly found freedom and autonomy where no one is monitoring your rule of life. It was only when I sought spiritual direction from my mentor after a phase of burnout that he asked me about my rule of life. It was only then that I realized that the whole structure had given balance and rhythm to my life. I also realized that I had grown up being shielded from many things. The rule of life and community shielded me from many things, and I think that’s why I am who I am today, because people were there looking out for me. So, I think that my community and also that attitude of looking back with gratitude and forward with fortitude helped me to pray faithfully.
RLN: When and where would you say you feel closest to God?
NM: When I am in the valley, that is when I feel closest to God. Because when you are in the valley, in the downs of life, God has a way of talking to you. Sometimes in that valley of life, I feel as if God is saying, “I’m bringing you here for a lesson so that you can go up encouraged, you can go up more strengthened.” I have understood that to say that life is not that consistent. An example is the machine in hospitals, the cardiac monitor (ECG), which shows the ups and downs. When the line becomes straight, that means the person is dead. But if it is up and down, you know that there is life. So, when I get my downs, I get to understand God better and I’m closer to Him. I know that I am being brought down in order for Him to bring me up. I’m being brought down for instruction so that I may listen. That way, when I go up, I may be able to do that which I have been instructed to do. There is resurrection in that. Even that is why I enjoy my garden, because I know that the only way to live is to die first. The seed must rot and die in the ground in order to germinate.
RLN: What are some books that have been very influential in your life?
NM: I like (auto)biographies. My first autobiography was Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, which I read when I was in grade 8. I also read Desmond Mpilo Tutu’s The Rainbow People of God: The Making of a Peaceful Revolution. The “Ubuntu” philosophy from Desmond Tutu also resonates with me. For him, “No man is an island, but it takes a village to raise a child.” I don’t understand myself as an island or an individual. I understand myself collectively with the village. So that gives me grounding. I also enjoy books that have to do with liberation. Most of the writers in Africa who write about liberation make no disconnect between liberation and the land. So even when I read about indigenous issues here, I make that connection that there is no liberation without the land. When you are oppressed, you are landless. But when you are liberated, you have land; you have somewhere to stand and a means of production. What inspires me are the values that people in the biographies hold. For me, what inspires is not how great these people have become but the challenges they faced and the bravery they exhibited.
RLN: Where do you find hope?
NM: My hope is in Christ. The “sure hope of the Resurrection.” If, after the horrible event of Good Friday, when even the physical nature seemed to mourn, and darkness covered the earth — if, after that, you see the glorious Resurrection, what can ever be worse than that moment? And what can ever again make you doubt that if God be for us, who can be against us? If that has happened, what can ever again separate us from the love of God? Desmond Tutu believed that evil, death, hate, and injustice will never have the last word. If Christ conquered death, what else worse can make us hopeless? We have hope in Christ, and we are prisoners of hope.
