The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi Post Correspondent
Speaker after speaker was literally unveiling a legacy . . . a legacy of a life devoted to God and His children, a legacy of an extraordinary principal, teacher, and rector . . . legacy of one fondly loved and missed.
Memorable in the speeches was Mr Johannes Mtisi, a Divinity teacher at Tsambe. Himself now a Divinity guru, mentored by the late Father Prosser, he gave testimony of how the late Father Prosser was literally ‘‘a father’’ to him and his family.
“Ten of us in our family were helped to study here at Tsambe. Father Prosser put me on scholarship to study here at a time financial odds were against my parents. Not only I did he help . . . all my brothers and sisters.
“Then he invited me to come back and teach here after my university studies. I agreed.
“How could I say no? Only then did I start to help my own siblings with school fees . . .again it was Father Prosser’s advice.”
Dr Chiremba current chairperson of the Saint Augustine’s Tsambe Alumni (SANTA) also glowingly chronicled the uniqueness of the late Kebble Prosser but as he remembered him only as a student at Tsambe, a school he openly said he is proud to have been part of. “Father Prosser loved the school and the students, the community and his God.
“He was everything we talk about today about this great school and mission.” The doctor is known for assisting the school even in its darkest moments. He has through the Alumini that he chairs
Reverend Chikomba, current priest-in-charge at St Augustine’s spoke about adding value to a school the late Father Prosser worked so hard for the rest of his long life. “Don’t be like the number 1 which changes nothing . . . adds no value if you use it to multiply other numbers. Or like zero which brings everything down to naught if you use it to multiply other numbers no matter how big they may be.”
In this proverbial example the good reverend was simply saying ‘Let no one . . . absolutely no one, teacher or learner, community member or mission administrator must throw mud on the water Father Prosser suffered to keep fresh and clean.”
Wise words indeed, especially also from someone who never saw or worked with the inimitable Father Richard Hugh Kebble Prosser!
No one can claim to know and understand the late Anglican rector (CR) more than those who in their maturity, perhaps old age, worked with him.
Students who never then had a chance to work with him speak about Prosser only as their Divinity or History teacher.
Good enough, but it is those who were lucky to teach at Tsambe with him, under his leadership, who have a real story and real picture of a man they knew and knew very well.
Moses Mukoyi, once his student, his teacher and ultimately his deputy head spoke about a man whom he knows . . . he knew, almost inside out. “When I say Father Prosser made me who I am I mean it sincerely and literally. I am all I am because of this man. I copied him in everything I did and still do.
Even at St Faith’s where I am, often-times when I am faced with a tough administrative challenge I ask myself, ‘‘How would have Father Prosser done it here?’’
“And suddenly as I carefully recall him, an answer shapes up and a solution surfaces.”
The late Father Prosser’s Tombstone unveiling was the Alumni’s idea.
They raised the money to hire a mason to do the tombstone and proposed October 6th to be the day for the unveiling. The SANTA alumni must be congratulated
