BROKEN-HEARTED AS LUNGA BIDS FAREWELL TO ITS ‘JOHN THE BAPTIST’

Some people shouldn’t have to die. How are we expected to cope with the death of those who were regarded in different ways by different people? How do we draft their obituary?  

I regarded Tresphore Kunda Pintu as my Shepherd, Father, Teacher, Counselor, and Son.

Late Tresphore Pintu with son Fr. T. Pintu

Yes, someone I had wanted to take my cue from. But now, death has concealed him under its bottomless pit with no regard to the emotions of surviving loved ones.

 

While the Catholic fraternity was just coming to terms with the loss of its Bishop in Monze and two well-known Fathers, Charles Chilinda and Muyenga from St. Ignatius Parish in Lusaka, Lunga was trying to absorb the shock of losing its longest-serving Catechist, Tresphore Kunda Pintu, aka TKP who was pronounced dead at Samfya District Hospital on the evening of Saturday 23rd January 2021 at 20:35 hours.

 

 Thirteen years after he drew the curtain on his long and eminent career in 2000, his health started to fail him. He finally succumbed to Diabetes Miletus surrounded by his wife Elly Annah Masesa Pintu, sister Choko, and other close relatives.

 

 Just who was TKP to Lunga? You may ask.

 

He was someone I can’t describe in a 1000-word piece. Suffice to say he was born from Mr. and Mrs. Pintu Chibesa at Bwalya Mponda island on 5th January 1946. He grew up here and was fascinated by the work of Catholic Fathers who encouraged him to serve God. He was later selected to go to Bahati Catechetical Training Centre in Luapula province and did a Catechetical course from 1970 to 1973. Upon completion, he was commissioned to work as a Catechist in Lunga District, a service he took passionately, with dedication, honesty, and notable personal sacrifice.

 

You may realize that Catechists were instrumental in evangelizing at the time. This is because most Missionaries who served as priests knew very little about the geography of these places, local people, and their cultural beliefs; they also had language challenges that required their Catechists to work as interpreters and guides. In addition, priests usually visited these areas twice or thrice a year leaving Catechists to fill up the gap in their absence. His job then involved traveling the breadth and width of Lunga, paddling from island to island. This meant he had little time for his family and had to work extra hard to provide for them.

 

As can be expected, he, therefore, led a very simple life. He was never moved by either money or material things. He sook neither fame nor prominence; a very rare show of true humility you see in many men of the cloth today. However, through his deeds, he was larger than his physical appearance. A man whose name will ever remain etched in the annals of Lunga history, not only as a promoter of the Catholic faith but also as an example of complete dedication to a person’s belief in a cause.

 

As stated earlier, he undertook solitary voyages for twenty-seven good years, punting his dugout canoe as he traversed all islands of Lunga armed with two important tools; his Bible and a Catechism. This he did with great zeal, day and night, without worrying about what he was going to eat or where he would sleep. He taught and prepared hundreds, if not thousands of baptismal candidates while offering logistical support to visiting Catholic priests. As if that was not enough work, he visited the sick, presided over funerals, supervised church-building projects, and many church administrative duties. Tresphore Pintu became a household name in Lunga. He was a popular brand. That’s how people in Lunga will probably remember him.

 

 But, my experience with this selfless human being I imitated, mimicked, and grew up admiring was unique.

 

He was our family shepherd in that whenever we did not show up at church on a Sunday, he would come to see what went wrong. And, by the way, we did not live that close to him. Like a shepherd, he knew his sheep and brought them to where they belonged.

 

He was my father in that whenever we lacked essentials of life, he gave us. I remember when my mother was terminally ill for months and we had lost all hope, he mobilized, through the Christian community, everything we needed till my mother died. How can you possibly forget such a man?

 

He was my teacher in that when the school administration rejected me at Bwalya Mponda Primary school based on being underage, he took me on and enrolled me as a catechumen. It was here that I first experienced what it meant to learn. He taught me to recite prayers which, before, I only heard adults sing in unison. I took these lessons seriously such that my father felt I was being spoiled. One day, he came to forcibly drag me out of the church while TKP and my mother pleaded with him in vain. Dad was worried because I had started imitating him by wearing my sister’s dress for a gown and talking like TKP! Dad feared I would end up becoming a Catechist which, to him, was a thankless job.

 

He was our family Counselor. Whenever there were family feuds and differences in the Bena Mpende family, he and his brother Paul Mulele were always there as neutral arbitrators. Until his death, he was our umpire. He was treated with respect as a son of our forebearers and usually, his advice prevailed. He was so fond of his father’s family that it broke my heart that we could not give him a befitting send-off. Like Christ, his death was demeaned and treated worse than that of a nonentity or a criminal.

 

When asked to describe his father, Fr. Tresford Pintu, a Priest serving at Bahati Minor Seminary, had this to say about him:

 

“Dad was our mentor, disciplinarian, gallant pillar of the family, a man of God, an oasis of both wisdom and intelligence, humorous, a friend to everyone and always preached peace and love.”

 

Interestingly, TKP was my son. And I comically learned about this fact. As mentioned earlier, TKP would visit every member of our clan at Mukanga Village. Wherever he went, he would greet both men and women with the word, “Bataata.” I used to get baffled that whenever we met, he would address me as his father when I was but just a little boy. He was far much older and had a family.

 

Then one day, after addressing my elder sister with the same tag of Bataata, I asked my grandmother whether the gentleman was normal.

 

Granny: “Yes, he is your son.”

 

“But I am too young to have a son, and of his age for that matter! And, he addresses my sister and my mother the same!”

 

“He’s right,” granny said, smiling. “That’s what you all are to him.”

 

“It can’t be possible. He should address my mother as ‘Mother,” I said, thinking granny was also out of her mind.

 

“It’s because he’s a son of your uncle. It means he is automatically your son,” granny explained.

“So, there are children you acquire automatically?”

 

“Yes. Like him and many others that are born from your uncles, your mother’s brothers.”

 

“Okay, so I have many of those. Thank God and tradition that I have TKP as my son, automatically.”

 

 As you can see, he was many things to me. While the loss is painful, I can only draw strength from the scriptures. John 5: 29 gives us hope that there will be a resurrection of those in memorial tombs. TKP will surely be there. Hebrews 6:10 assures us that God is just and will never forget his good deeds while on this planet. Farewell, TKP. Farewell, our shepherd. Farewell, Our counselor. Farewell, my father. Farewell, my son. Farewell Lunga’s modern-day “John the Baptist!”