Missionary profile – Tawanda Masango

By Mercy Kambura

Tawanda Masango

My wife, Shupi, and I serve with SIM Zimbabwe, reaching out to students in Bulawayo. We are the only full-time student workers in the SIM ministry.

My dad died when I was just 15, and as the firstborn, I was given the staff to take my father’s name and all the responsibilities that came with that.

I had been brought up in a Christian home. My mother, Violet, was and is a devout Christian. She took us to church each week. My father, Wellington, identified as a Christian but struggled with syncretism. He sometimes consulted traditional healers. Mercifully, by the time he died, he had come to a complete understanding of who Jesus is.

My home was only a few minutes’ walk from Rusitu Mission, the very place where some of the pioneer missionaries first came to Zimbabwe in 1897. They established a Bible college, a school and a hospital. I attended the Baptist boarding school as a day boy.

I wasn’t sure I would continue with my studies after my father’s passing, but I miraculously received a sponsorship after my teacher intervened.

God give me two good friends at school, Antony and Peter. They were nominal Christians but, as we searched our hearts and heads for answers, we decided to start reading the Bible and praying together. In July 2000, we committed to follow Christ.

Every lunchtime, we met to read the Bible and pray. We started sharing the gospel, and by the time I left school in 2002, more than 40 people were joining us in the prayers and studies.

I later joined the university in Bulawayo, studying forestry and wildlife management, and then found a job in South Africa. While there, my old friend Antony, who had gone to theological college in Cape Town, encouraged me to consider a role as a ministry trainee with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES).

I always thought ministry was for people who had failed to make it in other professional careers, but my year in Australia opened my eyes. I returned to Zimbabwe and began working with the local IFES group, reaching out to students in Harare.

My wife and I got a scholarship to a four-year course at Moore College in Sydney, Australia. After completion, we felt God’s call back to Zimbabwe, so we came home and started work in Bulawayo. That was where I heard about SIM’s need for a university ministry coordinator, and we eventually took this role at the end of 2020.

I have been sent by the Presbyterian church in Bulawayo and supported by three churches and many friends in Australia. The church in Zimbabwe is not rich, but it can give support.

#Pray:

For more workers to minister alongside us.
For continuing good relationships with church pastors and that they would embrace the vision of partnership with SIM.
For us to have wisdom about what to take on, so we can guard against the possibility of being burnt out and overwhelmed by the workload.