Kaduha, Jonas (1910–2010)

Jonas Kaduha was the first Burundian who joined the Adventist faith, when David Elie Delhove, the first Protestant missionary in Burundi after World War I, brought the Adventist message to Burundi. Kaduha was among the first Burundian Adventists who championed as pioneering workers in Burundi.

Early Years

Jonas Kaduha was born in 1910 to a non Christian family, the son of Mukunguvu and Asinath¹ Bazubwabo. At that time, Christian religion was not yet deeply rooted in the country. Though the first Catholic missionaries had established their mission stations in the eastern part of the country apart from Buhonga,² the area where Jonas Kaduha was born was still unreached.

Jonas Kaduha was born in the northwest part of the country of Burundi, in Mayuki area, in Mabayi commune, currently in Cibitoke province. His parents were farmers. As a first born to his parents, Jonas Kaduha had four other siblings, two girls, Kerenie Ntahobatanshikanye and Nshimbigiri, and two boys, Ntigereranya and Nzigiraheze Samuel.

Conversion

When the first Adventist missionary reached the Buganda area, Jonas Kaduha was 15 years old. Once Adventism was rooted there, it didn’t take much time to spread in other places. Two factors helped in spreading the Adventist message.

The first one is that David Elie Delhove, who brought the Adventist message in Burundi, came along with some Rwandan converts who assisted him in his duties of teaching and preaching.³ Prominent among them were Daniel Kagegera, Jonas Munyerari, Ezechiel Munyenkiko, and Eliazar Semutwa.⁴ They helped missionaries become familiar with the local population, whose language was similar to Kinyarwanda.

The second factor is that missionaries got land for free as they were welcomed by local chiefs. That is how, three years after its entrance, the Adventist movement went to other localities, including Butahana, Buhoro, Mabayi, and Muhungu. Thus, around 1928, church nucleus were launched at Butahana, Buhoro and Mabayi. Those places served as evangelical centers and educational sites.

Missionaries who entered Burundi came from Gitwe, Rwanda, where the work was already established before 1920.⁵ Thus, Rwandan converts who came with Delhove were experienced in preaching, teaching, and constructing church structures.

It is probable that Jonas Kaduha converted to Adventism by attending evangelistic series.⁶ He got baptized around 1928, and bore the name of Jonas instead of “Venant.”⁷

Education

Upon the arrival of Germans in 1884, Burundi entered a colonial period. The colonists launched two schools for local chief rulers’ children, one in Usumbura (Bujumbura), and another in Kitega. They used Kiswahili as a language of education.⁸ Belgians took over in 1916, and launched a school at Muramvya in 1923 to be able to teach King Mwambutsa.⁹ The schools emphasized counting and reading. The schools were located far from Kaduha’s native village, and he did not come from a local chief family, but a remote area far from Usumbura, Muramvya, and Gitega.

Thus, when the Adventist message reached Burundi, both the educational system and program were still wanting.¹⁰ The Germans had left Burundi without transforming it into modern society. Meanwhile, the Belgians were still at the beginning of securing their administration.¹¹ Roads were not yet built.¹² Public schools were few in number, with the education system left to missionaries.¹³

Among Adventists, church sites and structures were used as centers of influence, and a school was launched. Young Burundian converts were taught how to count and read. Upon the completion of a level three school program, a skillful candidate could be sent to another locality to start a new church nucleus.¹⁴

By 1928, the Adventist message had reached Buhoro, in Mabayi commune, where Kaduha received his training.¹⁵ He completed the three first levels program and was qualified to launch another center of influence. Those who were qualified and sent became assistants to missionaries and worked with them as a team.

Marriage

At 25 years old, Jonas Kaduha married Rebeka Ngejeje who was born in 1922 to John Mushatsi and Manjogori. Rebecca Ngejeje was a Burundian woman with a third grade education. She had been baptized in the same year she married. They were married almost 40 years, until her death in 1975. Their marriage was blessed with eight children.

One year after he lost his wife, Jonas Kaduha married a Rwandan woman, Nyiradadari Sifora, born June 20, 1953, to Uwejejwe Denis and Mukabiganda Suzanne. They were married at Gitega, in a ceremony conducted by Pastor Phenias Nsengiyumva, on July 5, 1976.¹⁶ They had five children, daughter Emima Simbakemeye and four sons, Isaac Mutunzi, Elam Niyiziyobiva, Adiel Niyonkuru, and Ntitsindwa Michel.¹⁷

Mission Work

Kaduha is counted among the Burundians who joined the Adventist faith early and entered the organized work. He spoke Kirundi and Kiswahili, the latter being the language of school. His ability to speak Swahili made him a translator to missionaries during church gatherings and a missionaries’ assistant. One of the strategies of missionaries was “recruiting assistants and working with them as a team. The latter were to assist them in their duties of teaching and preaching.”¹⁸

In 1934, at age 24, Kaduha entered the organized work. Wherever Kaduha was sent, he went with his wife, sharing with her the blessings and hardships of the ministry.

Kaduha braved rivers, forests, and wild animals to bring the gospel to isolated people. Thus the gospel reached Muyinga, Rutana, Ruyigi, Cankuzo, the eastern part of Congo, and the southwest part of Rwanda.¹⁹

Kaduha started denominational work as a primary school teacher at Gitebe (1933-1935), then moved to Gitukura (1935-1937), in the actual Mabayi commune, in Cibitoke province. Then he moved from Gitukura to Mabayi, where he spent two years (1938-1940). From Mabayi, Jonas Kaduha was moved to Butahana (1940-1943), where he taught children. In 1944 and 1945 he went to Gitwe for missionary training studies.²⁰

When he returned to Burundi in 1946, he was appointed as evangelist in the Nyamusumo area. From 1947 to 1950 he was transferred to Bukinanyana and served as a district leader. From 1951 to 1953 Bukinanyana served as a district leader in Muyinga, and in Butahana from 1953 to 1960. During that period, he was promoted from a district leader to a traveling pastor.

As a traveling pastor, he supervised work in different districts, visiting local churches, conducting seminars, surveying the educational system, selling books, and administering communion. Areas under traveling pastors’ supervision were Bujumbura, Ngozi and Muyinga. Beyond that, they supervised the Astrida territory, Butare in Rwanda and Cangugu, and Mwenge territory at Fizi in Congo.²¹

From 1961 to 1962 Kaduha settled at Ndora, where he became mission director. From 1963 to 1969 he worked in the Church Building Mission Department. With the launching of a new field in East Burundi in 1964, Kaduha was sent to Gitega from 1969 to 1979, where he worked as an evangelist and traveling pastor. There he retired on March 23, 1978.²²

Final Years and Contribution

Jonas Kaduha gave his life to service of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a primary school teacher, evangelist, district pastor, a traveling pastor, and a mission department Director. As a key figure in spreading the gospel and rooting the Adventist faith in Burundi, he served the church for many decades.

As one of the first Adventist pastors from his native region and country, Kaduha left a legacy of faithfulness and a transparent, open and direct talk when addressing issues. He worked as a representative of an epoch when mission service was a life calling.

Before his death on January 10, 2010, he lived at Bujumbura. He remained a faithful retiree, characterized by fervent prayers, reading his Bible, and visiting homes, which made him a pillar of peace throughout the different crises Burundi experienced.

Sources

Gahama, J. Le Burundi sous Administariton Belge. La Période du Mandat 1919-1939. France, Paris: Karthala, 2001.

Kayigema, Jacques. “Rwanda.” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8FI0&highlight=Rwanda.

Ndikumana, S. The Fruit of a Work String: Beginnings of Seventh-day Adventism in Burundi, Research Paper, Friedensau Adventist University, 2010.

Notes

1. Before the introduction of Christianity, Burundian people bore one name. Those who were later baptized bore their Christian name as their second name. Jonas Kaduha’s mother was baptized by Pastor Kaduha himself in 1956, as witnessed by Barake, an eye witness baptized at the same period.↩

2. Joseph Gahama, Le Burundi sous Administariton Belge. La Période du Mandat 1919-1939 (Paris, France: Karthala, 2001), 217.↩

3. Interview with Samuel Ngendakumana, a retired pastor whose father, Lazaro Bapfinzira, championed pioneering workers spreading the gospel by the side of European Missionaries.↩

4. Ibid.↩

5. Kayigema, Jacques, “Rwanda,” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, accessed January 11, 2022, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8FI0&highlight=Rwanda.↩

6. Delhove brought to the Buganda mission all his missionary experience of combining strategies of meeting people’s spiritual, mental, and physical needs. He understood well how to do his duties as a missionary, through preaching, teaching, overseeing, and building.↩

7. According to Ephraim, a grandson of Jonas Kaduha, Jonas Kaduha was called Venant before his conversion. However, at this baptism he took the biblical name Jonas.↩

8. Joseph Gahama, Le Burundi sous Administariton Belge. La Période du Mandat 1919-1939 (Paris, France: Karthala, 2001), 245.↩

9. Ibid, 246.↩

10. After World War I, Germans left Burundi with the essentials of the educational system in the hands of Catholic missionaries. Only Catholic mission posts had built schools that young people could attend. Where there were no Catholic mission posts, there was no school.↩

11. From 1919 to 1939, Burundi was under a League of Nations mandate. Belgium oversaw the country’s development.↩

12. The first road joined Bujumbura to Gitega in 1923.↩

13. Joseph Gahama, Le Burundi sous Administariton Belge. La Période du Mandat 1919-1939 (Paris, France: Karthala, 2001), 245.↩

14. Interview with Samuel Ngendakumana, a retired pastor whose father, Lazaro Bapfinzira, spread the gospel by the side of European Missionaries.↩

15. Interview with Barake, an Adventist believer baptized at the same time as Rebecca Ngejeje, the first wife of Jonas Kaduha.↩

16. The marriage certificate signed by Phenias Nsengiyumva is still available.↩

17. See letter of July 14, 1999, from Seraya Mbangukira, Africa-Indian Ocean Division associate treasurer, to Samuel Nteziryayo, Burundi Association treasurer, commenting on Jonas Kaduha’s letter of February 25, 1999 to Africa-Indian Ocean Division Officers.↩

18. Samuel Ndikumana, The Fruit of a Work String: Beginnings of Seventh-day Adventism in Burundi, Research Paper, Friedensau Adventist University, 2010, 10.↩

19. Interview with Uzziel Habingabwa, retired pastor and former Burundi Association president, January 10, 2022.↩

20. Burundi Union Mission Archives, Service Record sheets, December 2021.↩

21. Interview with Uzziel Habingabwa, retired pastor and former Burundi Association president, January 24, 2021.↩

22. Burundi Union Mission Archives, Service Record sheets, December 2021.↩