Our El Al flight touched down in Johannesburg, collecting our car and beginning the 12-hour drive to Harare. We had left a few personal items and our Cavalier Spaniel with Howie and Michele Silk. We had met Howie and Michele in 1983 and stayed in their home numerous times over the years. [See 71 - “A Whiter Shade of Pale”] We were surprised to hear that Howie who was a major personality and youth pastor at Rhema, was thinking of leaving his years’s long association with Rhema and the Deuschles. His affable nature and sense of humor was an essential element of what made Rhema a success, but Tom’s need to be the leader without peer had finally left him uncomfortable and powerless. I quietly wondered whether Tom’s connection to Casey Treat and his cultish authoritarianism had captured Tom’s soul. This did not bode well for reappearance in Harare and return to the Church Growth Support Centre.
We knew that the Brooms had left co-ministry with Tom before we had arrived in 1983. Dave and Maxine Broom were older than the Deuschles and they were locals, not American missionaries. They had been cofounders of Rhema church several years before and were responsible for many of the members of this European (white) congregation. They felt forced out by Tom as the Deuschle fame (mostly Bonnie’s) spread.
We reached out to Tom to let him know that we were back and ready to move forward with the the Church Growth Support Centre, but he didn’t even make time for us! He had sent in a new arrival in Zimbabwe from Switzerland to manage the school while I was gone. Since I couldn’t get any time with Tom that first week back, I drove out to the school to reunite with students and staff. The Swiss guy wasn’t there, but it was as if we no longer were part of the school. Not much had changed there and it seemed as if the school was already losing steam. It wasn’t a good feeling.
After about a week with the Silks, we felt abandoned by Tom who still wouldn’t give me the time of day. Feeling that our presence with the Silks was only exacerbating their deteriorating relationship with Tom, we decided to accept the offer of to stay with the Brooms while we pursued our residence visas through Mr. Patel. Once we had our residency status resolved, we hoped that Tom would welcome us back.
The Brooms were still friendly with Tom and Bonnie, but had established their own ministry which was focused on reaching Africans. Tom had never really developed a vision for reach the 7 million Africans in Zimbabwe. He was focused on 60-70 thousand remaining white ex-Rhodesians. So, there wasn’t a pending issue between the Brooms and Deuschles. From the Broom’s perspective, it was pretty much water under the bridge. I suspected that Tom saw Dave and Maxine’s separate ministry as a “win.” Once Howie left, then the ministry would be his and no one else would be competing for hegemony over American finance and influence.
I finally got an “appointment” (!!!) with Tom at the church office. Rhema didn’t have a church building. Instead they rented various public venues. Tom couldn’t be bothered to even stand up to greet me. Instead, he remained seated behind his desk. What had happened to the friendship that we had? And what about the warm connection that Pegi had made with Bonnie? Had it all been a ruse to “claim” us after we had established ourselves in spite of dismissing us when we had first arrived in 1983? Or had it been that Casey sent a negative report about us to Tom. After all, Casey was using Tom and Bonnie’s rising celebrity in southern Africa to support his own rise in the American charismatic scene. Maybe Tom hadn’t sent us to Seattle to get our input on on what was working for Casey in Seattle. Maybe we were sent there to get Casey’s input on how to control us!
As I sat in Tom’s office, I felt I was being treated as a recalcitrant teenager who had violated daddy’s standards. Tom suddenly began accusing me of all kinds of things that made no sense at all. Somehow, we had gone from being friends and coworkers to suspected interlopers. After all, he was preeminent in Harare! How dare we think that we could have participation in his kingdom!
In conversations with Dave and Maxine, we learned of the history of Tom using others to build his ministry success. Dave and Howie were the two most prominent who were pushed out, but there were many more just like us. As a matter of fact, we were invited to a meeting with other ex-ministry team members who were trying to establish some sort of communion with Tom. There were about 20 of us in a private home. At some point Tom arrived and the chair of the meeting said that they were going to have literal communion with Tom, ie; sharing bread and grape juice. It just all seemed wrong and we left after refusing to agree to the hidden agenda.
About the same time, Mr. Patel was telling us that our residence permits were running into problems. The Minister of Home Affairs was “reconsidering our case.” I began to suspect that he might be looking for some sort of gift (bribe) that Patel was unable to provide and which we would refuse on our behalf. We kept hearing that the “next week” would bring a resolution. We had to face the reality that we were no longer welcome in Zimbabwe.
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