Coronavirus frustrates Easter pilgrimages
Ryder Gabathuse | Sunday April 12, 2020 12:40
The 55-year-old Moloi started off going to Moria, a church based at a private farm in the Limpopo province, with his parents before he started off fending for himself. He was literally born within the corridors of the church.
In fact, his father was given a prophecy at Alexandra in South Africa in 1961 during a church service that he will have a boy child to be christened Daniel. True to that prophecy a son will be born four years down the line, whose loyalty to the church has not been in doubt.
To the best of Moloi’s knowledge, since his church’s inception in 1910, there has never been a disruption to the Easter pilgrimage let alone any of the church’s celebrations marked on the church’s calendar of events.
“It’s the first time in the history of the church that the church’s Welcome gate, right at the main entrance, is closed and the church secretariat is running only with skeletal staff,” says Moloi. At best he says, his church welcomes all and sundry to fellowship.
He describes Moria as the holy and dream place for all members as by simply setting feet there, “all your troubles will be wiped away”.
That there is no pilgrimage this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, which spreads like veldt fire, where people congregate in large numbers, Moloi is feeling a huge vacuum in his spiritual life.
“At Moria, we don’t just go there to pray for ourselves and family members, the church’s tradition is to pray for the world and all the troubles upon it.”
He reminisces how shops and filling stations along their journey to Moria would make a killing in terms of various wares as people buy in large numbers.
At Martin’s Drift in particular, it has become an annual occurrence that informal sector traders crowd at the border and parade their wares to the travellers who cross the border in their thousands from Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and other parts of southern Africa.
In the past, Moloi had the opportunity to travel by a bus from Lusaka, Zambia to Moria and throughout the journey that saw them crossing the border into Zimbabwe before finally arriving at their destination, people bought their supplies along the way benefitting local traders.
But in particular, he believes that it is the locals who set up their makeshift shops on both sides of Botswana and South Africa who particularly make a killing as thousands and thousands of people cross the border to Moria and other places of worship.
He quickly remembers how local farmers in Botswana particularly during the harvest season that will be selling watermelons, maize, tea, homemade bread and full meals to have been dealt a deathblow by the coronavirus.
To him, it was during times like these that household economic power will experience a boom but now it is simply dreams shattered.
Former Mmegi sales manager, Victor Malumbela is a staunch member of the star ZCC and a church elder. The 56-year-old Extension 14 loyal church member has never come across the church literature showing that the ZCC has ever had any disruption to its Easter pilgrimage which has traditionally become a must-go event for its nearly 18 million members across the world.
He says even during the apartheid period, the church was never disrupted but rather it was part of those who prayed hard for South Africa’s independence.
He regards the Easter pilgrimage as a special time to fellowship with fellow church members from across the world.
“It’s an opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones in a spiritual atmosphere that prevails there,” Malumbela says.
Malumbela suggests that if it were possible, he would just wear his church uniform and move around his house just in celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He has otherwise, decided to go into a closet and pray without ceasing so that God heals the world.
Baptised in 1980, going to Moria has been a must trip as he, like Moloi, regards Moria as holy ground where all their troubles are answered.
“I still believe that if the ZCC was allowed to continue with prayer, this pandemic will be contained by now”.
Meanwhile, at Matsiloje, the headquarters of the local Spiritual Healing Church have accepted their fate after it was announced that no church meetings as a way of containing the virus with already 13 people having tested positive with one death.
“Our people were ready for the Easter conference which is traditionally held at Matsiloje, but with measures to curtail movement and meeting in huge numbers, effected to comply with the government orders, we cancelled our Easter meeting,” says Spiritual Healing Church overseer Prophet Joseph Motswasele.
His church members were worried from different branches but they got to sympathise with the prevailing circumstances and it is now water under the bridge.
The man of the cloth, Motswasele, is steadfast that the pandemic that has left a trail of destruction in its wake will come to pass.
He was expecting about 6,000 members to attend this year’s Easter conference in Matsiloje.
“Since people come from all over the country, the local traders have been benefitting through selling various daily needs of the people camping for the purpose of the conference. Now, it’s a terrible disappointment,” Motswasele explained.
The church lost an opportunity to get pertinent reports from its branches and other procedural requirements, which will be presented at a later time, when the virus has been brought under control.
“We are praying very hard for God to intervene and save mankind in these trying times as people elsewhere continue to die in large numbers. May God heal His land,” he said.