By Michelle Solheiro

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Pastor Romando Carey’s story of how he ended up in pastoral ministry and founded the Ubuntu choir at Burman University, in Lacombe, Alta. I would like to share that story, as well as the effect the choir has had on its members, the vision of Ubuntu, and the ways you can make an impact in your community.

For Romando, it all started when he came to Burman University in 2017. He had always enjoyed music and had a classical upbringing at his all-boys school in Jamaica. His teenage years were full of Negro spirituals and classical music. He went to law school initially. God had called Romando to ministry when he was 15, but it was only later that he had a full-on “Moses moment … Jonah, even,” he remembers. “I got swallowed up in Jamaica and spat up at Burman.”

He started over in Canada. Romando wanted to follow God and tried to be obedient. He had incurred a lot of debt from pursuing his law degree and needed to pay it off. He began fasting and praying every Wednesday for two years, asking God for money. Romando wanted to follow God’s call on his life, but he couldn’t afford to attend Burman University and get his theology degree. So, he told God that He needed to open the doors.

He prayed and reached out to people to see if he could find some financial support. Someone connected him to a marketing representative at Burman University, and they said, “It sounds like you would benefit from a Dare to Dream Scholarship, which is a full-tuition scholarship. We don’t have one available at this time, but you are a suitable candidate.”

This lit a spark of hope in Romando’s heart, so he kept praying. During that time, he also read a devotional book by E.G. White called Prayer. It talked about making specific prayer requests so that when God does respond, there is no doubt that it is the answer to your prayer. He quickly started to pray for a full-tuition scholarship to Burman University and said, “God, if it’s Your will for me to be a pastor, it’s going to have to be Your bill as well.”

Close to the end of those two years of praying and fasting, he received an email from the Burman music department saying, “We don’t really have the funds for the scholarship at this time, but you can potentially get one if someone fails and loses theirs.” He immediately told God that he wasn’t going to be praying and fasting for somebody to fail. Is that what God was asking him to do? He felt that God did not need to take from other people to provide for him, and that God knows how to get His resources. So he just kept on praying.

A month later, he got an email from the president of Burman University asking if he would accept a Dare to Dream Scholarship. Romando was ecstatic— this was the answer to the prayer he had for two years. He finished his theology degree in the four years allotted to him.

During his time at Burman, Romando felt so inspired by the way God had met his needs that he wanted to give back and invest in other people, similarly to how God had provided for him. He pledged to create praise teams and start a choir with the gifts God had given him. He also pledged to create more opportunities for others to express themselves in the ways they are most gifted.

He noticed a particular lack on the Burman University campus and felt that something could be done about it. Romando’s parents had often told him that you shouldn’t wait around for other people to do things for you if you can do them for yourself. It is important not to complain about what isn’t present but rather to create it. And if you don’t feel welcome at a table, build your own.

When he noticed an opportunity for a choir that celebrated African music and let African students sing in their heart language and worship God in ways that were more natural for them, he decided to create it. He focused on music that was within the realm of Negro spirituals and gospels, or that came from Black arrangers and composers. Burman University had so much talent, and the school needed some diversity. He saw that space to fill and wanted people to have a bit of home on campus.

Romando asked God what he should call this choir and received the name Ubuntu. Although he had been enjoying singing since he was a toddler, he had never conducted a choir and had no musical education or ability to read music. He didn’t know where to begin but kept on praying, as was his custom. God guided him to pick some songs that he enjoyed, find some people who would be interested in this sort of group—which ended up being 25 individuals—and just give it a shot. Their first songs were “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “Beulah Land.”

Now the Ubuntu choir has 38 people. It became an official university choir three years ago, after lots of lobbying and proposal writing to create more equality, diversity, and inclusion on the Burman University campus.

Ubuntu is a Zulu word from the Bantu languages and means “I am because we are.” It is not a direct translation but the idea that our humanity is inextricably wound up in others. “I am human because you are human. I am a person because you are a person. I experience personhood from other people. I am changed and impacted and moulded by human experience, and every interaction is a sacred experience where we are made into the people that we are. I am a collective of humanity being impacted and am not an individual on my own.”

Romando has witnessed the students in the choir take more pride in themselves. Ubuntu emphasizes the pursuit of excellence and community. Members aim for excellence in all spheres of life— in music, academics, their interests, and especially their spiritual lives. They have grown in their relationship with God and in how they show up in their community. They are some of the busiest students on campus, yet they are among the most productive. They are truly the heart of the culture on campus, participating in activities like campus ministry, student government, and cultural clubs.

In their time together, they have honed their skills and have a lot of pride in who they are and what they bring to the table. Most importantly, they empower other people to feel the same way. They have also become more sensitive in their musicianship. When they come together, they are intentionally merging the best of both worlds to create something new—a combination of classical musical, gospel, and African ideals.

Romando encourages people to start with prayer as they endeavour to make an impact in their own communities. “We are put on this planet to serve and God has a purpose for every single one of us,” he says. “Prayer is a great way to start and connect with our Creator and meditate on how we can reflect His image by creating. He can connect us to places where there are needs and where our gifts and talents intersect. Where we find that intersection is usually where we find fulfillment.”

At this year’s annual Black History Month concert at Burman, titled Unsung, Romando handed the reins of the choir to Sean Kapakasa, a founding member and student. Sean will be the new conductor, and his assistant conductor will be Bruce Ruzindana, a legacy member and teacher at Parkview Adventist Academy in Lacombe.

The members of Ubuntu are thrilled for what the future holds. Romando will become the musical director and support the choir behind the scenes. He will also lead clinics with the members as he continues his education at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich., getting his masters of divinity degree.

Romando felt it was important for the choir to have longevity—he didn’t want to create something that would be for a season, but rather, something that would last. Illustrating the concept, the heart of Ubuntu’s logo is a tree surrounded by the phrase “I am because we are.” The idea for the tree came about when Romando was looking for a philosophy to guide the way the choir would operate. He wanted to reflect a quote he had come across by Nelson Henderson: “The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”

Romando wants to see this choir last longer than any of its members and provide a safe haven for students coming from all over Canada and the world. He wants them to feel a sense of belonging and enjoy a community that inspires the pursuit of excellence in all things. Ubuntu aims to remain a beacon for these ideals at Burman University.

Romando acknowledges that this choir stands on the shoulders of many people. A lot of individuals may see him and immediately see Ubuntu, but before Romando came to Burman University there were others who saw the need for this choir. They had tried to create it but were unsuccessful. Ubuntu wouldn’t have got to where it is today if it were not for the members’ efforts. Their desire is to continue to create a campus where new ideas can come to life and more people feel at home, creating equality for all students.

This year, from May 5 to 13, Ubuntu went on its first international mission trip to the Bahamas to celebrate five years of music making and community building. Visit burmanu.ca/ubuntu for more information about how you can support this group.

Source: https://adventistmessenger.ca/features/ubuntu-the-genesis-the-journey-and-the-vision

by: Mike Lemon, speaker/director for It Is Written Canada.

Some would say it all started in a country schoolhouse in Waldheim, Sask., with a boy named Henry Feyerabend. His skinny, four-year-old legs dangled from the bench while his uncle Dietrich Neufeld, affectionately known as Uncle D.D., preached at an evangelistic meeting. Old charts covered the chalkboard, revealing the beasts from the prophetic books of Daniel and Revelation.

The boy poked his mother to get her attention. Then, he pulled her close so she could hear his announcement: “Mama, you know something? Mama, someday I’m going to be a preacher and a baptizer, just like Uncle D.D.”

Instead of pin-up pictures of hockey heroes and movie stars, a young Feyerabend papered the walls of his bedroom with pictures of H.M.S. Richards, of the Voice of Prophecy radio program, along with prints of the King’s Heralds quartet.

Feyerabend had a persistent fire burning in his heart to preach, to sing, and to share his love for his Saviour. That fire took him from selling Christian books to teaching, to being a boys’ dean at an academy, to being a singing evangelist, and to spending 11 years as a missionary in Brazil. There, he preached and sang to thousands of people from the pulpit and from the broadcasting studio.

When Feyerabend returned to Canada in 1969, his first assignment was working with Pastor George Vandeman in a Toronto evangelistic campaign. At the time, Feyerabend had no idea how the Lord was about to amplify his voice as a humble servant of God.

First, God led Feyerabend to produce weekly broadcasts from a tiny radio station in Toronto and then to make five-minute telecasts—first in Portuguese and later in English. After that, God led him to establish what today is the national and international media ministry known as It Is Written Canada.

When Feyerabend returned to Canada from his 11 years in Brazil, he was able to speak, teach, and preach in Portuguese. But he didn’t realize how much he would have to rely on his ability to speak Portuguese in order to reach a large group of Portuguese-speaking immigrants who had come to Canada.

“Henry was given the challenge of opening up a Portuguese-speaking Seventh-day Adventist Church in downtown Toronto,” Pastor Bill Santos recalls. “Pastor Henry, his wife, a Bible worker from Brazil (Tracy Bravo), and her parents set out to reach the Portuguese community, which was about 250,000 people. This is long before Google. So literally they used the white pages—the phone book—and they looked at every name that sounded Portuguese.”

After writing the addresses down, they set out knocking on doors, introducing themselves and asking people if they would like to study the Bible. They put forth a tremendous effort, but the first 80 doors they knocked on resulted in not a single interest.

“What you and I may take as an obstacle,” Santos says, “Henry would say, ‘This is an opportunity; we’ve just got to keep plugging away.’ And in the course of that search, they found six Portuguese-speaking Seventh-day Adventists. Some were not attending church because they didn’t speak any English, and some were attending an English church but were struggling.”

Those six—together with Feyerabend and his wife, and Bravo and her parents—rented space in the Ukrainian Seventh-day Adventist Church in downtown Toronto. One day Feyerabend decided to visit one of his church members at her home, and a certain older lady was in the living room.

Doug Bruce, who has been working with Feyerabend since 1979, first doing sound and then directing and producing, describes what happened next.

“Henry ended up visiting this woman, and she was watching TV. But the sound was off. She was just watching the picture. And he asked her, in Portuguese, ‘Is something wrong with your TV? Why is there no sound?’ She said, ‘Well, Pastor, I like watching the pictures, but I don’t understand the English, so there’s no point in me having the sound,’” says Bruce.  

“And that inspired him to think, like, ‘Wow, so she just wants to be able to watch television in Portuguese. I’ll start a Portuguese TV program.’ So Henry immediately tried to find air time. And through a series of miracles, he managed to hook up with a fellow that had some air time.”

Feyerabend asked the businessman to sell him some air time, but the answer was emphatic: “Nope!”

Feyerabend didn’t see the barriers. He kept on asking, day after day, no matter how many times he heard no. Finally, to get Feyerabend off his back, the businessman answered, “I’ll give you a contract for $4,000 for 13 five-minute telecasts.”

Without hesitation, Feyerabend accepted the offer. “I’ll take it!” he said.

Walking away with the contract in his hands, Feyerabend remembered he had no money. The average price of a new car in 1972 stood at $3,690, and he had only six working-class, blue-collar members in his church.

No money.

Nothing but faith.

Feyerabend feared he had gone too far. He thought, Maybe I should go back and tell him I made a mistake. But then again, what would it hurt to wait a few days, tell my members, pray about it, and see what happens?

Santos picks up the story: “Henry goes back to the Ukrainian Church where they were renting, and a miracle happens. A miracle! He says he felt impressed to go to the mailbox and he found a letter.

“They just recently came to use the Ukrainian Church, so no one knew they were there, and this was a letter from Massachusetts that had to have been mailed a couple of weeks beforehand.

“It’s a letter from a friend of his by the name of Dr. Edgar Latimer. Well, he opens it, and inside there’s just two pieces of paper, a note, and a cheque. And the note says, ‘Henry, I thought you might need this. Use it wherever you need it.’ And the cheque is for $1,000.”

Bruce continues the story. “The miraculous thing about this cheque,” he says, “is that Henry signed the deal for the TV contract that day—no more than an hour before he received the letter.

“Think about the timing on this: this is not an e-transfer. This is back when you had to mail something, and from the U.S. it would take a couple of weeks. So, Dr. Latimer was impressed to actually donate the money, fill out the cheque, and mail the cheque two weeks before Henry actually even managed to sign a contract. To me, that’s absolutely incredible! How that happened is nothing short of miraculous.”

By the end of the week, another $3,000 had come in, unsolicited. The donors were Tony Diniz, Carroll Cross, and Gus Martin—none of whom were members of his congregation.

After that, Feyerabend’s focus was no longer on how he was going to pay for the air time; the focus was on what he was going to say in each of those five-minute episodes. In the first television broadcast, Feyerabend offered free Bible studies and a free Bible in Portuguese; 29 families called in to request Bible studies and to receive the free offer.

The first family that responded was the Santos family. “One Sunday, God wanted me to stay home.” Isabel Santos fondly recalls, “We didn’t go to the beach as we usually did, and I put my television on. There is a man speaking about God in Portuguese.

“I’m listening closely to this man, and he said something that touched my heart. He says, ‘Some people say that God is dead, but I know that’s not true because I talked to Him this morning. God is alive.’

“‘Oh, my!’ I thought. ‘He talks to God?!’ Being a very faithful Catholic, I was praying to my saints. At that time, I must be honest, I never talked to God directly. When I heard him saying that he could talk to God, I said, ‘I have to know how he does this.’

“Pastor Feyerabend and Tracy gave me a Portuguese Bible and Bible studies. You know, I did not know that Jesus suffered so much for me. And when I heard this, I said, ‘I have to tell this to everyone. All my friends and my family have to know this—the love of Jesus!’”

Says Pastor Shawn Boonstra, “Henry was a legend. Henry loved people. Henry loved winning people to Christ more than anything in the world. He just absolutely lived for it. I mean, he bought a bus at one point just so he could tour Canada and go from town to town and hold public meetings where people could investigate the scriptures with him and get to know Christ.

“I’ve never seen that level of dedication. I mean he literally died on the job eventually—right to the end, serving Christ, leading people to Christ. My first impression was, ‘Man, I’ve never met somebody so dedicated to anything in my life!’ And I found it contagious to hang out with him. Henry rubs off on you. And the next thing you know, I’m doing it every day and probably for the rest of my life.”

Through this media ministry, countless souls across Canada and around the world have come to know the love of Jesus and have embraced Him as their Saviour, Lord, and Friend.

To honour how God has used the ministry of It Is Written Canada over the years, we invite you to attend one of the six weekend rallies we will be holding. The rallies will celebrate the 50th anniversary of this media ministry, which began with a flame the Lord sparked in a young Henry Feyerabend’s heart so many years ago.

Here are the locations and dates of the six It Is Written Canada weekend rallies this year:

We look forward to meeting you there as we look back and celebrate how the Lord has kept the fire of It Is Written Canada burning over the past 50 years.

Mike Lemon is the speaker/director for It Is Written Canada.

Source: https://adventistmessenger.ca/features/50-years-of-media-ministry-it-is-written-canada