Dreifontein Zimbabwe

SMB Formation in Africa in the Heart of Zimbabwe

Driefontein is the heart of SMB formation in Africa — a place where missionary vocation, community life and pastoral experience take root in the living heritage of the Society in Zimbabwe.

Our mission

Established in the Midlands of Zimbabwe, Driefontein has been a major centre of the Bethlehem Mission Society’s mission in Africa since 1947. Today it welcomes candidates from Africa and Asia for the first stages of missionary formation through the Community Experience House and the novitiate "Emmaus".

Formation combines prayer, human and spiritual growth, pastoral service and community life, in close contact with the schools, parish, hospital and local communities that grew from the long missionary presence of the SMB in the region.

The Bethlehem Mission Society's house at Driefontein stands in the rural heart of the Province of the Midlands, between Gweru and Masvingo. It is the second overseas field of the Society — and the first on the African continent. In October 1938, a pioneer group from Immensee arrived in what was then Salisbury (today Harare); in 1947, thirty-two SMB members led by Fr. Alois Häne moved into the province of Gweru to build what has remained, ever since, the largest SMB mission abroad. In total, about 130 SMB confreres have served on Zimbabwean soil.

For more than three decades, the Society poured its energies into the local Church: primary and secondary schools, teacher training colleges, special schools, vocational training centres for women and men, four hospitals, a tuberculosis sanatorium, and — with the Canisius Sisters of Fribourg — the Mambo Press in Gweru, which from 1958 onward became one of the most respected Catholic publishing houses of the country.

The Village Around the House

The Driefontein mission is more than a building. The surrounding village of Driefontein — its parish church, its primary and secondary schools, its hospital, its workshops, its orphanage — was built up over decades by the SMB and remains today the daily horizon of the formation community. Every candidate who arrives at Driefontein steps into this living heritage: he sees, touches, walks through what generations of Bethlehem missionaries planted there.

The Community Experience House

Within the same campus, the Community Experience House welcomes each year around ten to twelve candidates from various African countries, and increasingly from Asia, for the first stage of SMB missionary formation.

The programme is structured in twelve modules:

Liturgy and Sacramental Life
Biblical Foundations
Spirituality and Inner Growth
History and Identity of the SMB
Language Development
Academic Methodology
Hygiene and Self-Care
Etiquette and Social Conduct
Sports and Recreation
Manual Work and Workshops
Community Services
Pastoral Exposure

The daily rhythm is a life marked by simplicity, fraternity, interior silence, daily prayer, shared service, and presence — where participation in the daily celebration of the Mass is at the heart of the house's spiritual rhythm and where ordinary gestures become the first language of the Gospel.

Beyond the house, the candidates take part in pastoral exposure in the local parishes — including come-and-see weekends and vocational outings — because pastoral exposure introduces candidates to the human face of mission. Through real encounters, they begin to understand the Church's call to serve Christ in the poor and vulnerable. What we are, the SMB framework reminds, "speaks more than what we say."

The Driefontein formation community is accompanied by Fr. Mathew Madziva, rector of the formation house and novice master, Fr. Roy Chimbindi, spiritual accompanist of the candidates, and Fr. Marko Mudzingwa, responsible for pastoral placements and missionary stages for all SMB candidates in Zimbabwe.

The Novitiate "Emmaus"

The novitiate, is lived on the same campus under the name "Emmaus" — a deliberate echo of the Gospel scene of the two disciples whose hearts burned as Christ walked beside them.

The Introductory Year is a year of interior deepening — no longer centered only on basic human and spiritual rooting, but now oriented toward clarity of vocation, mature discernment, and the gradual internalization of the SMB charism.

It is built around eighteen modules, ranging from SMB Missionary Spirituality, Missiology, History of the SMB and the Constitutions, to Safeguarding and Ethical Conduct, the History and Culture of Switzerland, Synodality – Walking Together in Mission, the Evangelical Counsels, Spiritual Accompaniment, Psychological Maturity and Human Integration, Pastoral Exposure, and Pilgrimage and Missionary Exposure Visits.

The spiritual life is deepened — liturgical life and silence are deepened, along with daily prayer and specific practices such as Lectio Divina, the examen of conscience, and guided retreats — toward what the framework calls interiorization of the Gospel in daily gestures and an inner attitude of listening, trust, and surrender to God.

At its end, the Introductory Year prepares the temporary promise — a mature yes — not perfect, but free — to walk with brothers in the simplicity, availability, and missionary fraternity of the Child of Bethlehem.

Fr. Mathew Madziva, the novice master, is also the spiritual father of the Community Experience candidates — a deliberate continuity that allows him to accompany each young man from his first day at Driefontein through the discernment of his vows. Fr. Marko Mudzingwa serves as spiritual father of the novices.

I love accompanying young people in their formation.

We want to help the candidates become true members of the SMB — missionaries who know and love God, themselves and others. The formation is integral: intellectual, spiritual, human and pastoral. The Eucharist is central — from it the candidates must learn to carry Jesus into the world.

So says Fr. Madziva. Grace builds on nature. Personal growth and maturity are decisive, as are emotional intelligence and the capacity for healthy relationships with others and with God. Teaching, for me, is something deeply spiritual.