From Conversion to Calling, to College and Beyond

In 2008, Emmanuel Mupfure arrived in South Africa as a refugee from Zimbabwe—and he remains one to this day. Emmanuel came to know the Lord while attending Trinity Church Mitchell’s Plain. He remembers God’s gracious intervention in his life and says, “God found me in a time of confusion. When my identity was not rooted in anything. I was just a young man trying to find his place in aforeign community.”

By reading the Bible, but especially those opening lines of Genesis, Emmanuel gained clarity concerning whose story we truly inhabit. Not ours. But God’s. “Thus, everything in my life had to correspond with the word of God and what He says about humanity.” Throughout his school years, Emmanuel served in children’s ministry at Trinity Church, eventually deciding to pursue a career in ministry. However, he had little idea how the ministry would correspond with his other hopes of being a pilot and rapper—for the record, he didn’t become a pilot, though he did drop an EP years later.

During Emmanuel’s gap year, the church encouraged him to further equip himself for children’s ministry through GWC’s year-long certificate program, which turned out to be the start of his Bachelor’s Degree in Theology. Following college, from 2021 to 2023, Emmanuel spent time training as a curate at Trinity Church Mitchell’s Plain. This led to him being ordained earlier this year, becoming the first person who grew up in that church also to be ordained there. It’s a wonderful, kind of full-circle story.

Are you interested in praying for Emmanuel’s future plans? Though he was supposed to begin an internship in Ireland this year, God has instead placed him as the assistant minister of St Luke’s Church in Mitchell’sPlain. Join us as we pray for him among our many other alumni and the gospel opportunities before them.