Mai Chaza: an African Christian story of gender, healing and power

Abstract

Mai Chaza’s story is one of evolution from wife, mother and “bloused” member of the Methodist Church's women’s union to elder, faith healer and founder of the Guta RaJehovah Church. Chaza’s healing ministry to women unable to have children offers African perspectives of gender, healing and cultural gerontology. As a healer, she emerges as a prominent woman who transcends the socio-cultural hierarchy, defying the imposed status of “perpetual minor” to become an elder, commanding respect and occupying a position of power and prestige in the very community that shamed, humiliated and ostracised her as an ordinary wife and mother of six, and by whom she was labelled a witch. The correlation of gender, healing and power is crucial for women surviving HIV/AIDS in Africa today; recasting Chaza’s story permits an exploration of what it means currently to be an African, a woman and a Christian.