Hastings Kamuzu Banda, valueless cargo and Life in abundance.

A while back I heard the story of Francis Pelekamoyo a former Malawian Central Bank Governor who turned down an offer to be finance minister in 2003 to focus his energies on a Christ Centred, Client Focused, Transformation Bank. A man who could work virtually anywhere he pleased yet he chose this. Once he was interviewed and asked why he chose this path. He said he was picked by the former President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, a man who was dodgy in some ways but was responsible for Malawian independence. Known as the Lion of Malawi, the father of the nation and to those who were blind followers he could do little wrong. Hastings Banda was a giant among men.

Upon his death Francis and some other powerful government ministers flew to south Africa, where he was being treated to retrieve his body. At the airport they were ushered into a room where they sat with the expensive casket they had purchased, brooding, wondering ‘what is taking these guys so long? Can’t they hurry up? Do they not know who is lying there? do they know who we are?’ Suddenly a young chap walked in and up to the casket. Paying no attention to the men in the room, he slapped a sticker on the casket and left. Francis was disturbed by this, ‘who would dare touch Banda’s coffin?’ He walked up to the casket to see what was tagged on and his life was forever changed. The sticker said, ‘cargo with no value charge no duty.’

There lay the lay the Lion of Malawi. A man who they speculate lived up to 100 years, their first president… no value.

“The world can only be enjoyed for a season, and that with a great deal of fatigue and trouble; but the soul continues for ever; and if it is lost and damned, its torment always abides, and the smoke of it ascends for ever, its worm never dies, and its fire is never quenched” John Gill on his commentary on Mark 8:36