Prisoner to prophetess: Part 1 — Radically transformed

Apostle Sebita Chipson Mzemba is the fiery leader of a growing, Malawi Christian women’s movement that is winning souls for Jesus, making committed disciples and practically supporting widows and orphans. Her ministry to women was birthed on a day in prison when she least expected it.

The oldest child of the second wife of her polygamous, tobacco-farmer father in Central Malawi, Sebita said her parents used to tell her that her birth was a miracle. They told her that after her mother was pregnant for 12 months they sought the help of a sangoma and she was finally born.

Her parents attended church and their children went to Sunday school but her spiritual life was a Sunday-only experience. During her secondary school years she started drinking alcohol and partying and she fell pregnant towards the end of her last year of school.

After the birth of Sebita’s daughter, her father, who was an elder at his church, got her a job as a consortium coordinator at the Evangelical Association of Malawi. She did not have a relationship with Jesus at the time and recalls how they received funding “which we used on things we were not supposed to use it for”.

She got married in 2010 and moved to Mangochi in Southern Malawi where they stayed for about two years and she gave birth to a second daughter. After her husband left to study in Australia she moved to Lilongwe and started partying again. She met an old boyfriend and entered into shady business dealings with him which led to their arrest in 2013.

Sent to jail for six years

Sebita received a six year prison sentence and was sent to the Maula Prison in Lilongwe. Soon after starting her sentence a Christian missionary from Canada visited the prison. “A lot of missionaries came to preach at the prison and you had to attend the prayer meetings, whether you liked it or not — even if it was a Muslim,” she said.

She recalls that the missionary from Canada “preached and preached and preached”. But she does not remember what he spoke about as she was not interested and paid him no attention.

After the preacher finished, the prisoners were returned to their cells. But Sebita’s group was told to return to the prayer hall where she saw the Canadian missionary once again. He said: “I couldn’t leave this prison because God has given me a message for someone here.”

Sebita became interested in the missionary for the first time after he addressed two women who were rumoured to be practicing witchcraft and appearing in people’s dreams. The man from Canada told the women they were doing witchcraft and troubling their friends while they were sleeping.

Sebita wondered how the man knew about the women’s activities. “I watched him praying for their deliverance and they manifested. After that, he was on fire,” she said.

‘God wants you to leave this place as a prophetess’

The next thing, the missionary was pointing at her. “Whatever happened before, that brought you here, just put it aside. God wants you to leave this place as a prophetess,” he said to her.

He prayed with her and asked if she was ready to receive Christ. “I said: ‘Yes.’ But in my heart, I said: ‘Okay, let me just, pray with him because he has said things that I know can never happen to me.'”

But she said she was shocked when the man said: “I have imparted the fire of the prophet in you. So, if this thing doesn’t come to pass today, God should remove the anointing on my life.”

On returning to the women’s cells, many women were participating in Christian praise and worship, which was the usual practice in the prison at that time of the day. Sebita had learned to drown out the sound of worship by listening to loud secular music on her small radio through earphones. She tried to do this again but even when she turned her radio to full volume she could not silence the sound of worship.

“Then, I don’t know what happened but I got off my bed, took a Bible that had been hanging around under my pillow for a long time and I went to the people who were worshiping and started preaching to them.

‘I just don’t know what really happened to me’

“I started prophesying. I started delivering people. I just don’t know what really happened to me. I preached from the book of, Mark where the Bible is talking about when you go to the court, don’t don’t worry what you’re going to say, the Holy Spirit will speak on your behalf. 

“I prophesied to three people. I said: ‘You said you are going to court tomorrow. You are not coming back. We are going to see you on that date. only for you to get your things here, but you are not coming back. This is what God is saying.’

“Everyone was like: what is happening? Next day, those three people, went to court and they just came back and said: ‘We have been released, and we just want to get our things.’ They went home.

“From that day on, people in the prison started calling me pastor. And I remembered that in his utterances in the prophecy, he [the Canadian missionary] said, this [people calling her ‘pastor’] will be the sign for you to know that God has sent me to give you this word.”

She also recalled that the missionary has said that nobody would beat her. The day after she suddenly began preaching, the head of the prison introduced a new law banning the wardens’ practice of periodically whipping women prisoners.

The prison officers also appointed Sebita as the head of spiritual issues among the prisoners. Soon she was responsible for all ministry and intercession arrangements in the prison.

“I gave all of my life to Jesus and then I started walking with the Holy Spirit,” she said. During this time God led her to seek Him in the Bible. He also gave her various prophecies for Malawi, some of which were being fulfilled now, she said.

One night in 2014 she had a dream in which God told her to fill three deep wells, which she did with her hands. Exhausted, she began to rest and found herself sitting on a very big stage surrounded by fields of wheat that stretched as far as she could see. In the dream God told her that she would stay in three prisons and then after her release she would minister to more people than she could count.

After an incident in which it was said that some people had tried to break her out of prison, she was transferred to the maximum security prison at Zomba where she was also recognised as a pastor and prophetess. While there she was moved by the Holy Spirit to pray intensively for the release of people who had been on death row for as long as 30 years. Her prayer was answered when a new law was passed.

Later she was transferred, at her own request, to a prison in Blantyre from which she was released in 2017 — two years short of her full six year sentence.

To be continued…

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