Farewell to Pastor Nkanyiso Kingdom Maphumulo- his journey continues + Interview by Jocelyn Sommerfeld, President
Last updated on June 14th, 2025
An Interview with Pastor Nkanyiso Kingdom Maphumulo
By Jocelyn Sommerfeld, President
After an online interview and an in-person welcome reception with Church Council, Pastor Nkanyiso joined the Martin Luther Church Ministry team in August 2024. Over the past 10 months, many of us have come to learn about his deep intelligence through listening to his remarkable sermons, where he speaks passionately about complex thoughts from memory. During his time with us, Pastor Nkanyiso was also completing his PhD at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College, arguably Canada’s most eminent and one of the world’s most prestigious Universities – all while his young family was still in South Africa, and he was coping with living in an expensive and sometimes culturally bewildering city.
I sat down with Pastor Nkanyiso to understand more about him and his life experiences, with the goal of sharing his stories with the congregation.
Born in 1979 in the township of Inanda (near Durban), KwaZulu-Natal, in the country of South Africa, Nkanyiso grew up living in a tent with his grandmother and grandfather and their extended family. Their living conditions were a direct result of the Group Areas Act, a piece of legislation passed during Apartheid that enabled the South African government to seize peoples’ land and displace entire communities.
With his father and mother still in school and unable to care for him, Nkanyiso was brought up by his grandmother. Nkanyiso’s grandmother worked for a wealthy white family living in a ‘posh’ residence in Umdloti Beach, by the sea, and she often took little Nkanyiso with her when she went to work. As a young boy, his experience of witnessing life in two worlds influenced his thoughts about God:
“The first world was a poverty-stricken, poor, refugee camp, and it was black. The other world was affluent, beautiful homes, happy living, and that world was white. And I remember asking myself as a child ‘Who created this situation?’ Is it God, or is it man? …Because if you say God created this, what kind of a God is he? If you say man or human beings created this, the question still remains: how could God allow man to create this? …So either way, God is in trouble.”
He also described other experiences in his life where he questioned the horrors of human suffering. For example, he recalled a particularly vivid image from the Soweto uprising of 1976, during the Apartheid regime. A South African Minister of Education declared that in South Africa, all studies would suddenly be conducted in Afrikaans – a language largely only mastered by the minority ruling class. Black students took to the streets in protest, and many were killed.
“…there is a famous picture that is always used as a symbol of this time – where a student is running with a dead body of a boy, and a young girl next to him, both running, with fires shooting around. So I grew up with that picture, I remember I saw it a lot.”
Thinking about God and questions about suffering also led Nkanyiso to questions of faith, one in particular being how Black communities are able to maintain their faith in hard times: “During Apartheid, with all the crimes against humanity that were committed, [in] Black communities churches were packed…where does that hope in the midst of suffering come from?”
The question of what keeps people going is an important one. For Nkanyiso, this is especially influenced by his two-world view. What he saw while growing up in South Africa surprised him – that people living in deplorable conditions akin to that of a refugee camp, who had next to nothing, still experienced high levels of happiness. On the other hand, wealthy people who lived in lavish comfort had “sadness on their faces [and] fear in their eyes.” He hypothesized that these differences in happiness arise from going through a shared experience:
“I grew up in a community where you find strength in challenge – you cry together, you laugh together, you share stories, and you find healing. [So] in times of suffering and pain, there is strength in togetherness. …You may not have a solution, you may not have an answer, you might not know how to solve this problem, but at least we are together.”
He went on to say that togetherness is not always physical, but can be a feeling of knowing you are not alone in this world. A common greeting in South Africa is “I see you”, and he described how this term can evoke a feeling of being together even when people are apart. He uses a particularly evocative example from his childhood:
“Back in the old days, we didn’t have a ‘house’ with a sitting room and dining room, but each room would stand on its own [similar to a series of cottages]…so at night when a grandmother is sending a grandchild saying ‘Go and fetch something in my bedroom’, that means they need to get out of that building and walk in the dark until they reach whatever building they are sent to. And the grandchild [would] say ‘Grandmother, I’m scared of the dark’. The grandmother would stand by the door and say ‘Go, I see you.’ And the child would walk in the dark with confidence, because the grandmother sees them. …Even though the grandmother is lying, because she can’t see in the dark! But the child believes that ‘No harm will befall me because grandmother sees me.’ It’s knowing that you are being seen that gives us strength to walk in the shadow of darkness.”
Nkanyiso comes from a strong South African Anglican background. His family are all Anglicans back to his great grandfather, he recalls, so he has always grown up in a faithful environment. However, he originally pursued a different interest at university: “I was fascinated by psychology – I love people, I love to analyze things, I am fascinated by human behaviour…so I pursued that.” But during his undergraduate studies he felt a strong calling to the ordained ministry. He spoke to a church minister (“an old man!”) who he met through a friend. Interestingly, the conversation did not go as expected:
“He said to me ‘I’m told that you feel called to the ministry?’ I said ‘Yes, I feel like God is calling me to do this.’ And he said ‘I’m going to give you a piece of advice: Ignore it! Ignore it until you reach a point where you cannot ignore it anymore.’”
Though initially shocked by this response, Nkanyiso believed the man’s words were a godsend because they helped him finish his undergraduate degree; only at that point could he no longer deny his calling, and transitioned into the ordained ministry.
Initially, the transition was not easy on his family. Unfortunately being an ordained minister doesn’t make as much money as other jobs, so his family initially struggled with his choice as it meant he could not use his personal success for the immediate financial betterment of his family. As the first to attend University, Nkanyiso felt a strong pressure to support others:
“…the idea [was] once I completed my studies and I am working, I should pull someone else in the family and support them to go to school, to go to university. And then that person will pull the other person behind them. Because it costs money to do that, it’s called ‘Black Tax’.”
However, he recalls a turning point in a family discussion when someone said “…but we always knew. We can argue…but if we are all honest with ourselves we would realize that we all knew he was going to be called to the ordained ministry.” “I think that,” Nkanyiso said, “was the end of the discussion!”
Now with the support of his family, he was sent to an Anglican seminary in Grahamstown, Makhanda. While he was there he participated in an exchange program with the University of Toronto, and ended up at St. Hilda’s College on the downtown campus for 3 months. He described his impactful stay in the city:
“I actually arrived here on New Year’s Eve in December of 2009, and the following day it was 2010. And I think, Canada [was] holding the …Winter Olympics, so there was a big buzz in the city – especially I remember watching hockey and you won gold in a match between the US and Canada, which was a tight game. …The atmosphere [in the city] was amazing, and I said to myself ‘If I want to do my PhD I think I will come back and do it here’.”
Indeed, he enjoyed being in the city so much that after he returned home, got married, had three beautiful girls, and completed his Master’s degree, he chose to return to Toronto for his Doctoral studies.
As he spoke about in his first sermon at Martin Luther Church, the core aspect of his religious understanding – and the subject of his PhD – is his attempt to understand God’s role in human suffering, and how people can still retain their faith after having experienced hardship. While his studies may continue to evoke more questions than answers, reflecting on his life experiences has led him to a poignant awareness of our common humanity:
“For the 45 years of my life I’ve realized that…we are actually in this together. …It doesn’t matter where you are in the world – it might look different, but the struggles are the same.”
Nkanysio also shared a few other stories with me – including his thoughts on why Canadians are always apologizing (Do we often just not know how to react?), wanting to do good in church but having to deal with ‘necessary evils’, and on many occasions being caught off-guard by the presence of our Martin Luther statue (“I always forget he is there, and he’s always there!”) If you have your own stories to share about Pastor Nkanyiso, I would love to hear them!
We wish Pastor Nkanyiso well and look forward to hearing about the continuation of his studies. One day we hope to welcome him back to Canada – hopefully with his family – to share more of his insightful stories in person.
-Jocelyn Sommerfeld, President, June 13, 2025
June 6, 2025 – Pastor Nkanyiso Kingdom Maphumulo, who joined us as an interim Pastor for one year in August 2024 as a partial replacement for Pastor Annika (during her maternity leave), will be leaving us mid-June 2025. He preached once a month, led confirmation classes, attended council meetings, interacted with local community members during Bowls & Blessings outdoor food ministry, and was an occasional guest speaker at Dinner Church evenings (even playing the guitar on one memorable occasion!). Grateful for his time at Martin Luther Church, he says the way he was welcomed made him “feel like a part of the family”, and he was pleasantly surprised to see how many people at MLC are involved in church life –not simply church staff or ministry team members. Our congregation greatly appreciates his charismatic and engaging sermons, in which he weaves personal stories and truly speaks from the heart. His kind, caring, and empathetic aura is so often noticed by others, many of whom have complimented him on his ability to make them calm and relaxed. In his view, “We are called to change the world – and if you can change one person’s world, done.”
Nkanyiso has an inherent love of learning, as shown through his educational background. He first completed a junior degree in Psychology, then transitioned to an Anglican seminary in Grahamstown; during his time at the seminary, he participated in an exchange program with the University of Toronto for 3 months. Back in South Africa, he obtained a Diploma in Theological studies and was ordained as a deacon in 2010, then ordained as a priest in 2011. From 2011, while serving as a parish rector in 3 different parishes within the diocese of Zululand, he obtained both an Honours Bachelor of Theology and a Master’s degree in Theology. In 2021, he returned to Canada to pursue his PhD at the University of Toronto, Trinity College.
Now this chapter of life is being put on pause. On June 13, he is returning to South Africa where his wife, Phindile, and three daughters, Kuya, Mesuli, and Nonka, eagerly await his arrival. His goal is to continue his PhD remotely, then hopefully come back to Toronto on a work visa. As he says, “It takes time and cost, but we trust God and we are trusting in his will for us.” We wish Pastor Nkanyiso well on the continuation of his life journey. Godspeed!
We will send him off on Pentecost Sunday June 8, 2025 during a bilingual German-English Pentecost service with Confirmation. Please join the reception following the service and bring a German or Canadian dish to share. If you are unable to attend in person, please send farewell messages to office@martinluther.ca
Photo Gallery, various occasions 2024-2025:
