“OUR first breakthrough in advertising Catch the Fire was a small advert in The Herald newspaper. I remember it was close to the funeral announcements back in June or July 2003,” says Apostle Tavonga Vutabwashe founder of Heartfelt International Ministry.
The mastermind of the acclaimed Catch the Fire, also known as Chatsva, Apostle Vutabwashe shares the history of the annual conference at a braai at HIM’s International Overflow Centre in Ashdown Park, Harare.
The conference has been held at City Sports Centre for the past few years but will be held in Ashdown Park from August 29 to September 4, 2016.
Apostle Vutabwashe says God showed him the “Chatsva” vision just after finishing his Bible School, but challenges have stalled implementation. “I had a moment to pray and fast with the help of my friend when I finished Bible School in 2002. God showed me a picture after four days and four nights of fasting and prayer. In the vision I saw the whole nation on fire. It was happening in all the suburbs, so I asked God what it was and He said He was commanding me to send fire as a revival tool in the country.”
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| Untold story of Catch the Fire Conference |
He says he was still quite young intellectually and naïve in the works of ministering but God led him through it. “God even showed me how to organise the revival. In July 2003, I organised the revival but did not brand it because it was going to send a wrong signal to the church though it was very successful.
“We would go to Glendale to pray for the conference as a church for three days and three nights. In 2004, people came in large numbers and the following year we had Pastor Chipunza coming to preach.”
The revival attracted much attention when Apostle Vutabwashe prayed for a 27 year-old man who was said to be possessed by several demons and was causing terror in his Kuwadzana, Harare neighbourhood.
“Police brought the man to my house with chains to his ankles and wrists. I was not even there … The police did not know what to do with the man who had a record of beating people including, men of God.
“So I came and I prayed for him. It took some hours to completely deliver him; demons that were possessing him were linked to his family’s success and the family members were also there. When he was delivered, his family members started receiving calls at once: some were told that their kombis had crashed into bridges while others learnt that their houses had burnt …”
Apostle Vutabwashe was reassigned to Belvedere in Harare, leaving his project in limbo.
With his wife, they fasted for three days and three nights for the revival. A dream would follow in which he saw a human who was so huge that the apostle could not reach the top of this giant’s shoe with outstretched hands.
In the dream, he says God told him to pick three stones and strike the giant and he complied.
“Everything that was happening in the dream was in threes. The stones I picked were three and the giant fell when I threw the third stone … God told me to get a sword from the giant’s hip girdle and cut off his head. So, I went to the head and it seemed like I took three days and nights to get to it. When I was cutting the head, it also took me three days and after that, God said to me ‘Now I have given you this territory’,” Apostle Vutabwashe says.
This saw him take the revival to City Sports Centre, where HIM’s praise and worship team had its first live DVD recording.
