A Man of the Cloth with a Muslim Background

One mention of his surname and people start questioning him about his faith. The curious questions from people who do not personally know him is something normal for 50-year-old ordained Methodist Church preacher Reverend Lal Mohammed. He shared with the Fiji Sun that he was born into a Christian family and practised the faith since birth, but his surname was inherited from his family.

“My late parents were both from the Muslim background and when we were born we inherited this name,” Reverend Mohammed said. “But my father was a church elder in Vanuabalavu.

“He converted to Christianity when we were in Lau after attending Adi Maopa Secondary School where he studied the Bible and became a Christian.”

Rev Mohammed later grew up in Sigatoka where his father served as a church elder in Nakalavo Village. “My six siblings and I grew up from an iTaukei background and we are fluent in the Nadroga dialect and iTaukei language, but not much fluent in Hindi.”

The inspiration to answer the calling of becoming a lay preacher came from his Indo-Fijian brothers who were non-Christians. He started in Sigatoka in 1999 as a Vakatawa and preached his way through to now head the Indian Division in Labasa since 2015. “Although I was going to church in an iTaukei circuit I wanted to evangelise my non-Christian brothers. I prayed about it and the Lord showed me the way and I joined the Indian Division,” he said.

“I had to attend sermons in the Indian Division to get a full grasp of the Hindi language before evangelising to Indo-Fijian non-Christians.

“The calling was there from the very beginning.”

The Lau-born preacher is married to a school teacher of South Indian background and has two children aged 14 and 16 years old. “When I married my wife in 2006 she accepted the Lord and converted to Christianity and now she also preaches the gospel.” Reverend Mohammed also preaches in the iTaukei language when he is invited to do so, a gift he says enables him to reach out to majority of the Fijian population in three languages.

Photo: Ronald Kumar From left, Reverend Apisalome Vuadreu, Reverend Daniel Sami, Reverend Lal Mohammed, Reverend Ben Yoo, Reverend Joseph Swamy and Reverend Adriel Sami during Methodist Church annual conference at Centenary Church on August 21, 2018.