Faith by name and by nature
Each of us has a memory from the harsh winter in 2010, when temperatures plummeted well below zero, pipes froze and burst, roads were treacherous and daily life as we knew it was halted.
Revd Faith Sithole has her own account of the freeze, a memory that shaped her life.
Cooped up inside for too long, Faith and her late father Joseph took the opportunity during a brief thaw in the new year to go for a walk. Living in the town, they ended up walking to Virginia church, when her father said he could see her serving in the Anglican church.
“My father was standing in the Church of Ireland grounds saying to me ‘I see God using you in this church one day',” she said.
“It can’t be a coincidence that somebody stands in the church grounds of the same church that I ended up going to,” she said.
Her late grandmother, Lydia Negange also encouraged her to be a pastor.
Little did she know 13 years later she would be ordained as Deacon to the Virginia Group of Parishes.
Ordained on June 23 in St Feithlimidh’s Cathedral Kilmore, Rev Faith spoke to The Anglo-Celt about her journey from nursing to ministering in Lurgan (Virginia), Billis, Killinkere and Munterconnaught churches.
She described how she felt on her ordination day. “There was an inner joy that I had but there were also mixed emotions,” she revealed.
“I wish my dad was still alive, he could’ve seen what he said to me years ago.”
Originally from Zimbabwe, Faith was “born and bred” in a Methodist family. She describes herself as a single woman with an adopted son who loves life; walking, meeting and being a “lifelong learner".
She outlined how she came to the ministry path. Arriving in Ireland 28 years ago, she studied general nursing at Trinity College for four years and trained and worked in St James’ hospital, Crumlin Children’s Hospital, The Mater, Blackrock Clinic and Vincent’s private and public Hospital. She suffered badly from back problems and took early retirement 15 years ago.
“[During] that time I had already moved from Dublin to Virginia,” she said.
With the nearest Methodist church in Tullyboy or Belturbet, which was too far away, she got involved with the Word of Life church in Ballyjamesduff. There she did a four-year course in Victory College in Tulsa in the United States, which she carried out online.
“The move was not hard, I just felt like God was calling me to the Anglican Church,” she said.
A member of the Virginia group of Parishes for the past 11 years, she is a part-time scholar of Cavan School of Theology for the last decade and also studied at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, where she completed two years.
“Studying the bible and studying theology has always been my passion, I’m still studying even now.
“I just don’t study to get the knowledge, I study to grow and impact other people.”
Message of love
For the past four years, Rev Faith has been leading services but, up until last Sunday, had not been preaching. It was a proud moment to lead her first service as Deacon. She hopes to get the message of love across in her ministry.
“To love yourself and to love others and then love anything and everything from trees to stones to skies to land.
“Once you fall in love with nature, you begin to question yourself why and where did this come from.
“Obviously there’s somewhere it came from and then it leads to the bigger love, the love of God.”
“I don’t just believe it, I know that there is a God that created everything and that is my message to people.
“That same God loves every one of us and if we can transfer that love within us, among us it will spread.”
She looks forward to her future in the Virginia Group of Parishes.
“It’s exciting and interesting to me because, when I was little, the Irish priests and nuns came to Zimbabwe, to Africa, to spread the gospel, to build hospitals and schools and colleges and everything.
“Now look at the flipside of God’s beauty, he’s bringing a little old woman like me from Africa, from Zimbabwe, in the middle of County Cavan, to preach the good news.”