Jonathan M. Mumbi

My dad was a middle class public officer who worked for government ministries such as health, education, agriculture and Foreign Affairs. I started my primary school in Zambia's First republic when we, the black kids were a minority in my primary school. I had an interest in languages and books all the way to high school. In college I took Christian Education including a course in Christian Writing. It opened up a new world for me. I begun to write even if there was no chance of ever being published. I still tried to find a publisher but, with only five small publishers in a nation of nine million people, it just never happened. So my passion to write had to be put on a slow burner.

Upfront, you may want to know if I grew up a wonderfully sheltered kid, with all personal needs covered by my wonderful parents. Life dealt their marriage some under-the-belt punches. My parents were divorced before I was six and my dad incarcerated four years later.

From age 10 to 17 my life was progressively messed up (mostly by my misguided choices) as I was passed from family to family within our extended family until I found faith in Jesus Christ. My focus then became to be very educated so that I could earn money as a lawyer or architect and never be poor again. God had a different plan.

I abandoned the pursuit of my self-willed heaven-on-earth scenario to pursue ministerial training at age 22 and have stayed in the ministry since. Serving God did not fit into my money-making strategy, because I was clear that the ministry is a "freely you have received and freely give domain." I was also clear that I could be richer chasing money, but I will never be happier as long as I remained outside the specific call of God for me. Sometimes I argued "why me?" when my impoverished family needs me more than that semi-millionaire's kid next door. In hindsight, I figured out that God wanted to teach me compassion.

At the bottom of my compassion for the poor and needy is my first hand knowledge of abject poverty (some folks joke about being too poor to afford two "o"s in the word, "poor"). I do not know what they mean, but I know that poverty dehumanizes people and it can never be fun. I know what it means to be hungry, sleep under the stars as a kid when a passing criminal can do you harm, and being without the dignity of appropriate clothes. For transvestites it may be fun to wear step-mom's long pants for three years but, I was an African boy finding my place among the boys and that was the only pants I had apart from the school uniform Khaki pants! Okay, more of that story in a book I might write one day.

Sometimes wishes are horses and a lot of poor people do ride them. I had to have a dream to sustain me, and even wild dreams e.g., going to Jamaica! God has taken me to the very places I considered my wildest dreams in the course of doing what I now do for Him. It is all because He is good to all He has made. My personal story is really a story of God's goodness manifested through the love and generosity of ordinary people. Both Christians and none Christians alike.

What do I do when I am not busy running around on Youth With A Mission or Church of God service errands? I read a lot of nonfiction books--but I am such a slow reader I will notice the crazy quotation marks with tails pointing up! I play chess, table-tennis, guitar, and compose instrumental music tracks on Fruity Loops Studio demos. Occasionally I am called out to counsel people or give community development input into a potential community project. Working at the same location where I live is a challenge in separating work from leisure so we do occasionally have to live our work and living environment to transition into holiday mood--and I won't say buy my book because I want to go on holiday!