A Sam Houston State student shares how his name, his journey from Zimbabwe, and a favorite verse shaped his faith.
Kupakwashe Ethan Kahiya carries a name that preaches before he ever opens his mouth. Kupakwashe means “the giving of the Lord” in Shona, his first language. Ethan comes from Ethan Hunt of Mission Impossible, a nod from his parents to the movies they loved. Put together, the name tells the story of a young man from Zimbabwe who now studies at Sam Houston State University and has learned, sometimes the hard way, that God writes better plans than people do.
“My parents named me Kupakwashe because it means in Shona, it means the giving of the Lord,” he said. “And then Ethan is from Ethan Hunt, Mission Impossible.”
From Zimbabwe to Huntsville by way of closed doors
Kahiya grew up in Zimbabwe and has also lived in South Africa and Kenya. His path to Huntsville was not a straight line. At one point he hoped to transfer to a different school, and the door shut. A hernia surgery blocked the move entirely. At the time it felt like a setback. Looking back, he sees the hand of God in the no.
“He continued being so faithful to me,” Kahiya said, describing how God kept showing up even when his plans fell apart. The closed door eventually became an open one at Sam Houston State, where he found the Baptist Student Ministry and the community he had been praying for.
He had spent a long time looking for a community that would push him toward Christ. He came from a Christian school, but he said it never gave him the kind of fellowship he found in the BSM at Sam Houston State. “It’s been a lot of answered prayers,” he said of his experience so far.
Praying for strength instead of escape
One of the most honest moments of the conversation came when Kahiya talked about the season when nothing was going the way he wanted. Instead of asking God to remove him from the hardship, he changed the prayer.
“I started praying instead of for escape, I started praying for strength through it,” he said. “And that’s something that I pray every” day, he added. The shift did not change his circumstances overnight, but it changed him. He began to see the difficult stretch as something God could use, even as a testimony that might help someone else.
A verse for the God who stays in charge
Asked for his favorite verse, Kahiya did not hesitate. It is Lamentations 3:37, “Who can say something and it shall be done without the Lord saying so?” The verse anchors his view of God’s sovereignty, the theme that runs through his whole story. Closed doors, open doors, surgeries, transfers, new countries. None of it caught God off guard.
“If I’m following Christ the way I’m supposed to be, there’s absolutely nothing that I can do to disturb the plan that he has for me,” he said. “That always keeps me at peace.”
He also shared his admiration for the Bible characters Elijah and David. David, he said, pursued the Lord from shepherd boy to king and always came back to God even when he stumbled. Elijah’s miracles thrilled him, though he admitted that after reading about Elisha, with the floating ax head and the parted waters, he thinks Elisha might have done “way cooler stuff.”
About Kupakwashe Kahiya
Kupakwashe Ethan Kahiya is a Sam Houston State University student from Zimbabwe who is active in the Baptist Student Ministry. He shared his story on Students of the Kingdom, hosted by Joshua Mahshi. Students interested in the BSM can find it near the Lowman Student Center on the Sam Houston State campus.