OVING BETWEEN cultures isn't always easy, but Pastor Tabitha Phiri's courage and faith travel well.

Emanating a joyous energy, Tabitha's clear smile and welcoming eyes immediately proclaim her a woman of strength. Not a mere physical capability, but a power of character. It's a strength that enabled her to pastor one of the largest districts in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare in the East Zimbabwe Conference, and to lead the conference's Sabbath School and Children's Ministries departments from 1990 to 1998. It's that strength and flexibility, rooted in the church she joined as a teenager, that allow her to meet the unique challenges of her calling and to keep making positive contributions as she moves forward, furthering her education in Canada-an environment very different from her native country.

Take a look at the following vignettes of her life, for example.

Scene 1: Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. Soon after arriving in December 1998 at Canadian University College in Alberta, Tabitha and her two teenage sons accept the invitation of Sinikka Dixon, chair of the Behavioral Sciences Department, to join her in a day of skiing at one of the most famous ski areas in the Canadian Rockies. Tabitha is donning skis for the first time and without hesitation. She makes it down the hill. Returning the skis to Dixon so she too can make a run, Tabitha declares, "Someday I will conquer this mountain!"

Scene 2: Office of the Vice President for Academic Administration, Canadian University College. Arriving in the middle of the academic year, Tabitha finds that the only job openings on campus are custodial. As she works in his office, John McDowell immediately recognizes Tabitha as African by her quietly dignified demeanor. Remembering his own move from Africa (where his parents were missionaries) to Newfoundland in the 1970s during a snowstorm, he knows the culture shock she must feel. And so they talk.

She is here without significant economic backing. Her conference is sponsoring her studies in behavioral science, studies they feel will make her even more valuable to the conference. She is sponsored at the same rate as other pastors, but the Zimbabwean economy has collapsed. Her husband, also a pastor, is in Zimbabwe, sending what he can as he continues to work and wait for permission to join his family in Canada.

"She's a well-educated professional, a pastor," McDowell says, "and here she's cleaning my office! Something has to be done for her." Members of the president's cabinet agree; Deborah Chenowith, the director of student finance, has already begun working with her on assorted aid applications. In spring 2000, Tabitha receives a scholarship award from TEAM (Time for Equality in Adventist Ministry).*

Tabitha smiles at McDowell's dismay about her workload. "That kind of work doesn't bother me," she says. "It doesn't matter who you are or what you did before. When you're a student, you have to work."

Scene 3: Native church, Hobbema Indian reserve. Tabitha has been warned that joining native ministries is a waste of time for someone of her complexion, but she goes weekly to the reserve church anyway. "Whether with failure or success," says Tabitha, "I feel more comfortable doing something." She works with Alma Saddleback (a CUC student whose home is on the reserve) and Lynda Rawn, coleaders of the native ministry, on Sabbath programs and plans for a special native women's ministry. Within a few weeks several native women and even some men are seeking her out, confiding in her. When she preaches, no one leaves the room or even walks about-a rare accomplishment in that cultural setting.

"Tabitha was well-respected . . . listened to by our church ladies especially," says Rawn, who now works with a native community in British Columbia. "She grew to love the people, and they her. She attended our First Nations spiritual retreats with joy and helped Alma and me out a lot with the last one this past June [camp meeting]. . . . She is an untapped treasurehouse!"

Scene 4: A new social club on campus. The Quarter Century/Young Married Couples Club is meeting after electing Tabitha president. There's singing-lots of it, as her husband, Damton, who joined her at Christmas 1999, plays the accordion and sings with melodious power. "She blew me away," says Paul Lehmann, chair of the Outward Pursuits Department and one of the faculty sponsors of the new club. It was formed in September 2000 when Tabitha decided to do something, at the urging of mature students, to enhance the social life of those who don't fit the "18-21 and single" student profile. "I met people at that gathering I'd never seen before," says Lehmann. "We had a great time! [Tabitha] has so much energy!"

Scene 5: Campus church, Christmas program 2000. God is good. This year Damton sits beside Tabitha in the overflowing sanctuary-the sanctuary where she is happy to serve as a deaconess. Tabitha watches their son Crux, now an academy junior and dressed in a tux, take his place among the drummers. He's one of a half dozen percussionists arranged in front of the choir, preparing for the hands-down favorite piece of the 120-voice CUC Singers' Christmas program. A Nigerian business student begins the hand drumming, joined in succession by Crux and the others, and familiar African rhythms fill the air. The song is "Betelehemu." The words are Nigerian-not Tabitha's native Shona, but the joy of Christ's birth is there, complete with rhythmic clapping and even a kupururudza (a happy whooping trill) provided by an Egyptian girl. Tomorrow Tabitha and Damton will drive several hours to Tofield, where he will preach to the small company they helped establish in the summer. Tomorrow she will be an unpaid pastor, a coworker with her husband again, volunteering in a new mission field. But tonight she is an African mother, surrounded by brothers and sisters, listening to the sounds of home.

From Catholic Girl to Adventist Pastor
When asked about home, Tabitha immediately thinks of the church in her homeland rather than her homeland itself. "I'm tied to the church in Zimbabwe," she says, "because that's where my roots are. It gave me a strong foundation."

It's been a dear and sometimes costly foundation. Tabitha has always known her lifework would be in a religious community. Even when she was a young girl in a Catholic home, her first ambition was to be a nun. "My teachers told me to wait until I was older to make such a large decision," she recalls, "but I knew what I wanted to do." Then, when she was in eighth grade, an Adventist church member brought Daniel and Revelation Bible studies to her home, resulting in the conversion of Tabitha, her brother, and her sister.

Upon joining the church (despite her father's anger and refusal to support her further education), she immediately became involved in outreach. She participated in witnessing, literature evangelism, and outreach follow-up programs. Her friends noticed her talents and unquenchable desire to share her faith, and through their influence Tabitha decided to enter the ministry.

Graduating from Solusi University with a ministerial diploma, Tabitha, still a single woman, joined the East Zimbabwe Conference in Harare-the only one of four women in her class to get a job. In the teeming capital of Harare she pastored in the Chitungwiza district, one large church and several companies. Tabitha enjoyed strong support from the vast majority of her members and her conference president, but a few highly influential members were strongly opposed to the idea of a female minister and began to pressure her conference president.

"The presidents [in succession] saved me from a lot of heartbreak," says Tabitha. "For a long time I did not know what was going on in those committee meetings." The president attempted to diffuse the small but vocal group's attacks, but when Tabitha married Damton Phiri, a distinguished graduate of Solusi's pastoral program, and followed her husband to his appointment, she was not offered a job.

Because Damton is blind, his first job was a "soft" position as chaplain at a boarding school. But their work-including Tabitha's full-time unpaid work-did not go unnoticed. Her former parishioners demanded to know why a capable pastor such as Tabitha was out of a job, and in 1986 the conference offered them both regular pastoral jobs in Harare, Damton in one district, Tabitha in another-her old district. She was ecstatic.

Their churches grew-Tabitha's churches and companies alone had a membership of about 2,000-and tithes increased. While keeping up with two church districts (she was also assisting her husband in his duties), Tabitha saw the need to have a cycle of children's Sabbath school programs, which did not exist in that area. She created Sabbath school programs that were widely used throughout the conference and organized the children's divisions for the conference's eight annual camp meetings.

With her knowledge of four languages, Tabitha was invited in 1988 to work in the conference's Translation Department, translating all mission stories and quarterlies, from children's divisions to adult, into the Shona language, used by various conferences of the Eastern Africa Division. Seeing the great work she had continued to do with Sabbath schools and children, conference officials in 1992 decided officially to recognize her work. "She was being invited by local people, and so we gave her the mandate in an official capacity," says Cuthbert Machamire, who as conference secretary worked with her from 1993 to 1998 in the East Zimbabwe Conference office. "[The conference officers] felt she was making a good impact, so we said, 'Let's empower her to do these jobs.'"

Machamire saw firsthand the enormous amount of work she did and the acceptance she had among church members generally. "She is very capable and very dedicated-someone who has a way of going on and doing her business, if not through one means, then finding another." Tabitha assumed the title of associate director rather than director (officially a man was director) of the Sabbath School and Children's Ministries departments, but she continued to be the practical leader of these departments.

Because she was so able and funds were short, Tabitha also assisted with the Health and Temperance, Youth, and Women's Ministries departments, though without title. She was sought out by prominent women for pastoral advice; she organized youth campouts and conducted many cooking schools. Seeing an opportunity to bring the church into the public eye, she invited civic leaders and prominent citizens as speakers and guests to the cooking school graduations. "It became quite a public relations tool for the conference," Machamire recalls, "and there were quite a few conversions through these schools." All this time Tabitha continued to act as a copastor in her husband's growing congregations.

"[Tabitha] is one who presented a good model for the acceptance of women in ministry," says Machamire, who left Zimbabwe at the same time as Tabitha, he to pursue postgraduate studies at Andrews University. "She maintains a lot of respect in the church back home." He adds with a chuckle, "When we were preparing to leave, I thought that she would be missed more than me, for all the work she did!"

A division administrator, seeing her ability, had offered to sponsor her further education. She began writing to colleges and universities. Finally, after two years of prayers and questions, Tabitha decided to further her education. In consultation with her conference officials she chose the field of behavioral science and Canadian University College.

What She'll Take Away
As many of her colleagues at CUC attest, they have learned from Tabitha. What has she learned in her dialogue with brothers and sisters on another continent?

On the formal side, she has learned professional counseling skills that she says will be invaluable as she continues to be sought out as a pastor by women (some African women still write to her for advice). "I wish I'd had this program before I did 14 years of ministry," says Tabitha. "I would have done much more than I did."

On a nonacademic level, she cites two more important lessons. "To be kind to everyone," says Tabitha, reflecting on the unexpected kindness that greeted her in the new land. Those first important months in Canada left a deep impression. "When I came, there was no reason for people to be so kind to me except that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Being kind to everyone-no matter who they are-is very important."

The second thing Tabitha will take with her is a better understanding of the uniqueness of each person's relationship with God. "Sometimes we have focused on the things people do or do not do," she says, making judgments on that basis about church membership. Sometimes, she's found, those judgments can be hasty, and it is better to defer to God.

With her homeland in turmoil politically and some voices speaking more loudly against women in ministry, Tabitha does not read her future as an open book. But as in all the challenges and times of uncertainty in her life, she finds strength in systematic devotions. "I feel that books like Exodus and Joshua were written especially for me," says Tabitha. "The children of Israel could see all the problems around them and in front of them," she says, "but they just kept going forward. God was leading then, and He is still leading now."

Postscript: Tabitha expects to graduate at the end of this month (April) with a B.A. in behavioral science and plans to work for a year before continuing her education. She hopes to complete a Master of Science degree in marital and family therapy at CUC through Loma Linda University's extended campus program. Her husband is involved in part-time evangelism through preaching and singing.

* TEAM offers scholarships to women preparing for ministry as pastors, chaplains, Bible workers, and secondary or college religion teachers. For inquiries, please write to: TEAM, P.O. Box 7816, Langley Park, MD 20787-7816.

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Lynn Neumann McDowell wrote this article while serving as director of college relations at Canadian University College, College Heights, Alberta. She is now the director of planned and major gifts at St. Helena Hospital in St. Helena, California.

Amber C. Ritchie is a senior at Canadian Universtiy College. She graduates at the end of April 2002 with a B.A. in English and a minor in French. After continuing her education, she hopes to teach university-level literature.