Goitse Leburu: Botswana's first female foreign missionary to the Americas

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Wednesday December 15, 2010 00:00

 

A society that is light-years more sophisticated than that of her humble origins in Serowe.

'It's a calling' is the simple answer that Goitseone Leburu will give you.  This calling is now taking her across the turbulent oceans separating Africa and the Americas.  She becomes the first female missionary to the West ever to come out of the Forward in Faith Church, and possibly out of the Pentecostal movement in Botswana.

'I will be pastoring the Forward in Faith Church in Ottawa, Canada,' she says simply.

Thirty-five-year old Goitse, as close friends and family affectionately know her, became a 'born again Christian' at the age of 16.  That was during the repeat revival that swept the country in the 1990s. 

'I never looked back after that and made it a point that I committed my life to God,' she says.

Nearly 10 years later, Goitse knew that she wanted to be a church minister.  She enrolled for a Diploma in Theology with the Africa Multinational Christ College in Zimbabwe, run under the auspices of the Forward in Faith International Ministries.  That was in 1999.  She went on to do a degree in Theology at the Triune Biblical University, still in Zimbabwe.  Not only did she come back armed with both a degree and Diploma but also came back a fluent speaker of the Shona language.  She went into full-time ministry, becoming pastor of the Naledi branch of the church.

'Recently I have been pastoring the City Christian Centre at the Gaborone Bus and taxi rank,' she said.  Her commitment to God and the Church did not go unnoticed and the Church General Overseer, Archbishop Dr Ezekiel Handinawangu Guti, whose ministry has been reported to be accompanied by supernatural signs and wonders, eventually gave her the Ottawa assignment.  Guti is the leading founder of Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa (ZAOGA), a Pentecostal church, which broke away from the South African, derived Pentecostal church, the Apostolic Faith Mission, in 1959.  Outside Zimbabwe ZAOGA is known as Forward in Faith Ministries International (FIFMI) and has a presence in 108 nations across the globe, with the biggest concentration of churches in Southern Africa where the church boasts over 2000 branches.

FIFMI hosts Ezekiel tv channel, which broadcasts to a number of African countries as well some European countries.  Batswana may one day see their very own daughter ministering on television to the multiracial Ottawa church.

Goitse has met challenges in her life as a female minister, but sheer determination and 'God's grace' saw her through.

'As can be expected, it was difficult at the beginning to gain acceptance from some male members of the church who simply could not fathom a woman leading them and making final decisions.  As you can guess I have through God's grace been able to go past that hurdle,' she says, adding that she received much support from her mother and siblings.  She is second born in a family of four.

Ask Goitse what her life motto is and she tells you: stay focused, persevere.  That is the same word she has for all young women.

'God did not create us as second class citizens.  He created us for a purpose and we must see that purpose coming to fruition by staying focused, refusing to be treated as lower human beings,' she says.