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Petro Kime Risase

Photo courtesy of Nathaniel Walemba.

Risase, Petro Kime (c. 1890–1982)

By Musa Erasto Nzumbi

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Musa Erasto Nzumbi

First Published: October 19, 2021

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Petro Kime Risase was a teacher and pioneer missionary in East Africa.

Early Years

Petro Kime Risase was born between 1888 and 1891 at Kihurio Village, South Pare Mountains, in Same District, Kilimanjaro Region in Tanzania.1 Petro’s parents were Elder Kime Risase and his mother. Kime Risase lived in the village of his birth, where he spent most of his childhood. His parents were fighters against the Masai people who used to steal livestock. They taught Petro to work hard and also influenced him to be a missionary.2

His parents lived at Kihurio-Mareti, and his father manufactured beds in this economically active community located on an old caravan route at the foot of the Pare Mountains. When Seventh-day Adventists opened a mission at Kihurio in 1905, the second station in the country, he was among the first pupils to attend their school. At the same time, he served as missionary Ernst Kotz’s houseboy and soon also worked as his language and translation assistant. Risase was baptized in 1909 at Mamba-Giti (then called Friedenstal Mission Station, the first Adventist station established in Tanzania in 1903), and his sister Rebekka married Petro Mlungwana, another early convert and Pare church leader of the first generation.3

Education

Petro was 12 years old when Adventist German missionaries arrived in Kihurio. While working at Ernst Kotz’s house, he performed some duties including typing and serving as a language and translation assistant, which gave him a good chance to read and study the word of God. Risase was baptized in 1907 at Mamba-Giti, then called the Friedensatal Mission Station, the first Adventist mission station established in Tanzania in 1903 by the German missionaries, E. C. Enns and Johannes Ehlers.

When I was a child of about twelve years of age, German missionaries of the S. D. A. church arrived in my country and began to open schools that was about 1902. I went to school for a while but was soon given work by the missionaries as houseboy. At the same time I continued to learn to read. Then I entered a baptismal class. I was baptized in the year 1907.4

Risase finished primary school in 1910 after which he was made a teacher. “Two of us young men were sent to a place where there were no Christians, to teach school and to give the message,”5 Risase recalls. As a result of his hard work, missionaries went there and built a mission station and baptized believers. Petro Risase helped the missionaries translate the New Testament into the Pare language. In 1912, Petro married Mary, the daughter of Chief Kantu who also lived at Kihurio. Their wedding was conducted in the Kihurio Church in Same, Kilimanjaro. Mary gave birth to a baby girl called Anna, but both the mother and the baby died shortly after delivery, sadly.

In 1914, he was transferred to the mission at Kihurio to teach at the school where he was formerly a pupil. In 1919, Risase married Naetwe, who gave birth to Gadi, Monica, Gideon, Orgenes, and Silas. Naetwe lived for her entire life with her husband until she passed away in early 1960.

Ministry

When World War I started in 1914, Risase left teaching in order to help complete the translation of the New Testament as quickly as possible. He did this work faithfully for one year and finished this task in 1915. Then he continued teaching until 1917 when all the German missionaries left the Tanganyika Territory. Three years later, British missionaries came to take over the work. However, regular schoolwork ceased. During this period, Petro Risase continued to teach the children of the SDA Christians without any wage payment. “I had to work with no wages”6. When Pastor Spencer Maxwell came to take charge of the work in East Tanganyika, the teachers who had stayed by the work during the First World War had to stop working until they were soon reinstated. So, he had to teach in different schools until the beginning of 1926 when he was called to take up evangelistic work.

In 1927 when Pastor Spencer Maxwell left Tanganyika to open up work in Uganda, Risase was sent with him. “The first year I stayed with Pastor Maxwell at Nchwanga mission station; then I was sent to another part of Uganda to start work. When I left this place in 1931 there were about fifteen baptized members there, four of them already having begun working for our mission as teachers.”7 In 1931, he was given four months leave to visit his people in Pare, Tanganyika. When he returned to Uganda, he was stationed at Kampala to work with Missionary Valdemar Toppenberg. His work with other missionaries in Kampala turned out to be very difficult; however, they were more successful in the villages outside the Kampala town where they established a church of nineteen members. While in Uganda, he worked with his fellow Pare missionaries Abrahamu and Raheli Msangi from 1928 to 1931.8

In 1934, Petro Risase was ordained to the Gospel ministry as the third Tanzanian to be ordained as a pastor in the SDA Church. “He was the third Tanzanian to be ordained as a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and was an important spiritual leader among Adventists in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. Early in the year (1934) he was given another leave at the end of which he was transferred to Kenya to work in Mombasa area, a Muslims area. While in Mombasa he opened an Adventist mission at Changamwe, a little distance inland from Mombasa Island, together with Missionary W.C. Raitt, Risase founded the Chonyi, Paziani, and Singwaya Congregations and baptized many people.”9 Even in Mombasa, Risase could not forget to visit his relatives though they were very far away and lived outside the country. While Pastor Petro Risase was in Mombasa, he regularly visited his relatives in Kihurio by riding a bicycle from Mombasa through Tanga. While visiting his loved ones at Kihurio, he took with him various types of souvenir items from Mombasa including seedlings of various fruits and trees for planting at local houses. They are now very common in present-day Kihurio Village.10

His most powerful witnessing happened when teachers in Tanganyika were imprisoned during World War II. They were told that they would be confined until the war was over. “At that time, (the middle of October) we prayed very earnestly, thinking of our followers away in the villages, that if this be indeed God's work, He would lead the officials to set us free on November 1, that we might go back and care for the believers. The Official who confined us was a Catholic and did not like us.”11 Near the end of October, they became fearful since they had not received any response about their request, and they were now kept under very strict watch. However, in the end God intervened, and they were released. As soon as they returned home, they gathered together again, thanked God for His answer to prayer, and promised they would work for God always whether employed by the mission or not. “From my childhood I did not like to go from home, but because of this promise I have always since been willing to go afar for the missions, even as far as Uganda when I was called there. Because of this experience I desire to stay in work of God all my life.”12

Later Years

Petro Risase retired from the ministry at Kihurio on December 31, 1947, and after he retired, he kept on working for the church by giving seminars to the church members, officiating at weddings, and conducting baptisms in different parts of the North East Tanzania Field. He had been recognized for his missionary work in East Africa.

Petro Risase died on December 7, 1982, at Kihurio Mission, in Same District in Tanzania, and he was buried there, leaving behind his three children.

Impact

Petro Risase’s life had a very important impact on the SDA Church in that his work of translating the New Testament into Pare local language led to the quick spread of the Gospel in the mountains of Pare and in Tanzania at large. This led to the establishment of the first SDA church in East Africa and church education institutions such as Suji Secondary School, Parane Secondary School, and others. Petro Risase's contribution to the North East Tanzania Conference especially included increasing the interest among church members to know how to read the Pare Bible and to encourage the members to go to school. You can’t mention the SDA Church in Pare Mountain without mentioning Petro Risase.13

He is also credited with raising the missionary spirit in East Africa as a result of working in Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. He influenced many young men and women, elders and youth to have a passion for working as missionaries. He was a role model in missionary work. When Petro Risase was coming back from Uganda and Kenya after his vocation time, many people were asking him about missionary work, and some wanted to join him there. Some people decided to honor him by also joining in the missionary work being conducted in the North East Tanzania Field.14

Sources

Elineema, Kangalu B., et al. ed. Arise and Shine, Vol. 1: Stories of 32 Suji Mission Schools Alumni. Pietermaritzburg, SA: Interpak Books, 2015.

Hoeschele, Stefan. “Risase, Petro (1890-1982).” Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://dacb.org/stories/tanzania/risase-petro/.

“Story of Petro Risase.” Canadian Union Messenger, August 30, 1938.

Notes

  1. Kangalu B. Elineema, et al. ed. Arise and Shine, Vol. 1: Stories of 32 Suji Mission Schools Alumni (Pietermaritzburg, SA: Interpak Books, 2015), 385.↩

  2. Elder Kime Risase Kime, telephone interview by author, March 15, 2020.↩

  3. Stefan Hoeschele, “Risase, Petro (1890-1982),” Dictionary of African Christian Biography, accessed March 19, 2020, https://dacb.org/stories/tanzania/risase-petro/.↩

  4. “Story of Petro Risase,” Canadian Union Messenger, August 30, 1938, 1-2.↩

  5. Ibid.↩

  6. Ibid.↩

  7. Ibid.↩

  8. Gadi Petro Risase, son of Petro Risase, interview by author, March 14, 2020.↩

  9. Elineema, 385.↩

  10. Ibid.↩

  11. “Story of Petro Risase,” 1.↩

  12. Ibid.↩

  13. Elias E. Ijiko, president of North East Tanzania Conference, interview by author at NETC HQ, Same Kilimanjaro, March 13, 2020.↩

  14. Aaron Ndimangwa, retired pastor, North East Tanzania Conference, interview by author, March 15, 2020.↩

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Nzumbi, Musa Erasto. "Risase, Petro Kime (c. 1890–1982)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. October 19, 2021. Accessed September 10, 2024. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8IAT.

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Nzumbi, Musa Erasto. "Risase, Petro Kime (c. 1890–1982)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. October 19, 2021. Date of access September 10, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8IAT.

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Nzumbi, Musa Erasto (2021, October 19). Risase, Petro Kime (c. 1890–1982). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved September 10, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8IAT.

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