Lilongwe, Malawi … News was received this past week of the death of Chewa senior chief Mazengera of Lilongwe. He died on Thursday afternoon the 18th of November at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) where he was hospitalized the previous Saturday. He was being treated for bacterial meningitis, and was in the intensive care unit.
Condolences were sent from the Malawi Project, by Richard Stephens, one of the board members. The message read,
“Young, vibrant, well educated, a passion for helping his people, and a man with a great future in serving his people and his nation. It was our first impression of Chewa senior chief Mazengera of Lilongwe when we first met a number of years ago. Our meeting took place at the home of senior chief Lukwa of Kasungu, and we were immediately impressed with the qualities of this young man. “Not young,” he encouraged us, “a chief is never young. We are born old.” I will always remember his words, for in his wisdom he was describing himself. He was a young man, but he was filled with the wisdom of age. We shared a passion for Malawi, and talked of ways to work together to assist the people. We felt certain we would see great things from him for many years, and that our paths would cross quite often through our joint efforts on behalf of Malawi.
Now we must say good-by to a man who has left us far too soon. In our years of working in Malawi there have been far too many of these “too soon” goodbyes. We can only look to God and ask, “Why so soon? Why him? We needed him?” But from the words God has given us when Job was faced with some of our same confusing questions, we understand that God is trying to tell us, “I cannot explain it to you. You would not understand. You must trust Me. I will make sure what happens is right. I will always be there with you, and for you.”
“Father, today we trust you. We will miss him. We cannot understand why he left us so soon, but we look to you for our future, and we believe you will make all things right. Goodbye our friend, Chewa senior chief Mazengera. You brought brightness to our lives, and to our mission in Malawi. We will miss you.”
Chief Mazengera was chief of the Lilongwe District of Malawi, and was one of seven senior chiefs of the Chewa Nation.