African Christian College is excited to welcome Tendekai Kudakwashe Mashaire to our team as a lecturer. Originally from Zimbabwe, Tendekai is completed his first degree at ACC in 2017 and has since completed a graduate degree. He first joined our teaching staff as a remote lecturer in September and has since joined us on campus.
In this post, our newest lecturer shares about his journey back to African Christian College. The following is from Tendekai Mashaire:
Upon completing my first degree, I went back to my country with a clear vision and lots of hope on starting new life applying what I had acquired through African Christian College (ACC). I am really grateful for God’s providence in my life with all the current challenges in Zimbabwe such as the unemployment rate. I managed to get a job as a counsellor in HIV-related issues within two months after graduating from ACC.
I am also grateful that I managed to complete my graduate degree (MSc Organisational Psychology) which I did through distance learning with Unicaf University (2018-2020).
One of my strengths is that whenever I have a goal or objective, I work on it until it is achieved. The idea of me coming back to ACC is not something new or something which ‘just happened‘. I had a vision even when I was a student that I needed to come back to ACC.
Below are a few reasons which made me decide to come back and re-join the ACC team:
- The additional experience I gained through working as a counsellor and in my graduate degree made me think of ways I could help the ACC family. Coming back and working with the team is the least I could do. As a student I benefited from ACC, and it was always my passion to join ACC once again on the helping side — with something to offer and join the great work which God is doing through ACC. I decided to come back to ACC as a servant.
- The cultural diversity at ACC makes a great environment for personal growth. I saw that there was an opportunity for personal growth through being part of the ACC team. This was based on learning through others both in classroom setting and through creating relationships with people from different cultures and communities during my days as a student at ACC. In short, just after graduation I made sure that I worked hard enough to be able to come back to ACC, which is why I had to enrol in graduate school and complete my graduate degree in the shortest time possible.
- In addition, I also joined ACC because it is a great place to be. Worship is part of the community norms and as someone who seeks to worship and serve God, I feel like coming back to ACC is a blessing indeed.
- Last but not least, being a former student and coming back to be part of the faculty team is really encouraging to other students and I hope my coming back to ACC can encourage other students to aim higher towards advanced tertiary education.
I hope through being part of the ACC team, I will be able to achieve several goals. One of the reasons for me being here is personal growth and I really hope to advance in my professional experience within the field of academics and other key areas of life. I also hope to be able to work on my PhD in the near future and to achieve that through being at ACC by taking advantage of the learning environment. Last but not least, I also hope to continue growing spiritually, becoming a better servant of our Lord Jesus Christ and be exemplary to other people.
I got a chance to experience what lecturing at ACC is like through the online classes before I even came back to campus physically. To me, being a lecturer means being willing to learn from others and to help others. I taught people from different cultures, and the experience was amazing as I learnt a handful of concepts from the students and supporting faculty members.
This has been great experience and I am looking forward to more classes in the year 2021 going forward.