Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services’ Chaplain Christine Makurumidze, popularly known as Chaplain Phiri’s ‘rags to riches’ tale can easily qualify for a Hollywood movie script.
Her story, to some people, may be too good to be true. But to her, it’s a journey that shows God’s amazing grace and power.
Chaplain Phiri rose to popularity for singing Zimdancehall tunes on the pulpit as she gave powerful life-changing sermons.
Inspired by her life experiences, Chaplain Phiri has seen it all.
In fact, the 44-year-old mother of two has experienced life as an orphan, a widow and a sex worker.
She has suffered a stroke, survived a brain tumor, gender-based violence and a hurtful divorce.
It has been a long and painful journey but the courageous chaplain takes it all in her stride, using her life experiences to add depth to her sermons.
The Tough Journey
Born in Rusape as the firstborn in a family of four, her parents divorced when she was still 12.Her mother had to find a job as a domestic worker to take Chaplain Phiri and her siblings through school.
This meant sometimes skipping school to take care of her siblings.
However, her meagre salary was not enough.
Chaplain Phiri recalls sometimes spending the night outside with her siblings while the mother rendered services to the clients she brought home from the bar.
Sometimes, the quadrat would spend the night in a disused vehicle at a nearby garage.
In 1996, the mother died, leaving Chaplain Phiri to care for her siblings through proceeds from well-wishers.
“Life was tough but I was determined to pass my Ordinary levels, which I finally did after three attempts,” she narrated.
“I wanted to transform my life but just after O’ level as I tried to figure a way out of the poverty, I got married and my siblings had to be taken in by relatives.”
As fate would have it, four months into her first marriage, Chaplain Phiri’s husband who was a Pastor got involved in a car accident and died.
She was already three months pregnant by then.
Suddenly her life changed for the worst as she was accused of witchcraft and the subsequent death of her husband.
After the burial, she was forced out of her home.
She still has fresh memories, of spending cold nights under a bridge in Mutare and almost getting sexually violated by a mentally ill man one day.
A well-wisher who used to see her under the bridge later offered her a place and a blanket.
“The room had no roof and I would wrap myself up in that one blanket and sleep. I felt safe,” she recalled.
She later gave birth to her baby without any clothes for the newly born.
With each passing week, life became tougher as she failed to provide for the baby, forcing her to turn to prostitution.
Turning point
One day, Chaplain Phiri met a friend who introduced her to a church.
The church assisted her with some donations and this kept her away from prostitution.
Later, she was set up in entrepreneurship.
With the help of a friend from church, in 2003 she applied for a job at the then-Zimbabwe Prison Services for a job as a prison officer.
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| From Prostitution To The Pulpit: God’s Amazing Grace Over Chaplain Phiri! |
“The day I received the news that I had gotten the job at ZPC is still fresh in my mind because I had prayed for it and my prayers had been answered. Poverty days were over.
“With my first salary, I planned to spoil my son and siblings even if it meant buying them food to the last cent just to wipe all memories of poverty,” she chuckled.
In 2010, after she had enrolled for ZPC Chaplaincy, she suffered a mild stroke and was also diagnosed with a brain tumor.
As if that was not enough, while in the hospital, Chaplain Phiri lost her sibling.
“My younger brother had just gotten a job at Green Fuels, he had called me earlier promising to visit me yet the following morning, I got the shuttering news,” she said.
By 2014, she graduated as a Chaplain but her marriage suddenly crumbled.
“It was also discovered that I did not have brain tumor as had been diagnosed,” recalls the Chaplain
“By then I had two children and my second born was diagnosed with a rare condition, surviving on one lung so his condition deteriorates when temperatures are low.
“Emotionally, I struggled, so I would fall into stress-related seizures.
“I divorced and looking back, I have experienced everything that life has to offer.”
Despite the divorce, she still uses the title Chaplain Phiri for her followers.
Currently, stationed at Marondera Open Prison she has also penned ‘My life, a great testimony’, a memoir which narrates her journey as a woman of God who has seen it all.
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