Mathews Mochaba, the preacher who minces no words

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Wednesday October 20, 2010 00:00

 

To him there are no formalities of 'Halleluja' and 'Amen' and his target is usually commuters knocking off from their respective places of work.

Though he does not choose where he starts bellowing his plethora of warnings about the impending wrath of God, in Francistown, he has become a permanent feature opposite the waiting room at the bus station.

To him preaching the word of God means calling a spade a spade and not a garden spoon and going straight for the root cause of everything.

He tells his listeners to stop fornicating as this has led to many deaths in the society.

'The reason why you are suffering from AIDS is because you are sleeping around. Just go ahead and sleep around, you do not only risk getting syphilis and gonorrhea, but also, your destination is fiery hell where you will burn eternally,' he says.

There is a legend that once a young lad visited his girlfriend and when they were about to consummate their affair, they heard someone not far from their home:

'Wena o robetseng le mosadi yo eseng wa gago, emelela o tsamaye. Mosadi yoo ga se wa gago (you who is sleeping with a woman you are not married to, stand up and go. That woman is not yours).'

The man is said to have thought the speaker was referring specifically to him and he stood up and slunk away.

Also, witches and wizards are told in no uncertain terms that their destination is eternal damnation unless they abandon their wicked ways.

Born in Rakops in 1940 and a married father of seven, it was in 1966 when he was working in the South African mines that Mochaba became a member of Pentecostal Holiness Bafodisi Church.

In fact according to him, the famed late Frederick Modise of the International Pentecostal Christian Church (IPCC) was a member of the church before he left 'to enrich himself.'

A builder by profession, Mochaba said it was in 1985 when he started preaching in the streets and by then he would take the bus or train between Francistown and Gaborone and bombard fellow passengers with his messages and warnings.

So far, he remembers only a handful of villages where he has not preached, notably villages in the Bukalanga area which he says 'he owes a visit.'

Besides Botswana towns and villages, he has been spotted at Johannesburg's Park Station warning all and sundry of what will befall them if they do not abandon their wicked ways. In South Africa he has also been to Krugersdorp and Garankuwa where he says he was drawing audiences. 'People were listening to my message down south. I would love to go there again,' he says.

In his preaching, Mochaba says he has had to deal with hazards like the day he nearly had his head chopped off by an irate church member.

'I was visiting the church in 1996 and when I was asked to preach, I told them to open Leviticus Chapter 19 verse 27 and also Chapter 20 verse 27.

'The verses warn against ancestral worship and I told the congregants that it was against the word of God to worship idols.

'I was stopped mid sentence by one of the elders of the church who said I had opened a part of the bible that was a no go area in their church.

'Afterwards, a member of the church chased after me with an axe, but by the will of God he could not hack me with the axe,' says Mochaba, who earlier was preaching to Zimbabwean shoppers down Ngilichi House at Meriting Spar and warning them to stop their fornication.

'Tlogelang boaka, botagwa, bogodu  (fornication, drinking alcohol, stealing in that order),' he was bellowing as the shoppers stopped in their tracks to listen to the man with a graying goatee.

In Palapye, he says it was early one morning- around 4am- when he was out preaching when he saw a figure ahead of him. It turned out that it was a boy and on reaching him, the boy humbly requested Mochaba to pray for him so that he could pass his subjects at school.

'But when I told the boy I can only pray for him at my place, he became abusive and spewed unspeakable expletives at me as he walked away,' says Mochaba.

In Gaborone it was at News Stance where he says he confronted a church minister who had placed a board outside his house talking about ancestral worship.

Mochaba says he walked with intent to confront the minister as to whether he (the minister knew that it was wrong to worship ancestors).

Mochaba said the the minister was so incensed he called two other church elders to bear witness as he physically destroyed Mochaba.

'As he went behind the house with one of his friends, the other friend remaining behind pushed me away saying I was going to be killed. I refused to go because I knew I did nothing wrong.

'All I did was tell the man to stop worshipping ancestors as it was against the word of God,' says Mochaba.

It was on Friday when Mochaba popped into the Mmegi offices and where he said it was his last day in the city, as he will be heading towards Selebi-Phikwe.

Walking with a limp from an accident that occurred at his home when he was repairing one of the houses, he said it was time he visited the area and boxed their ears with his blunt gospel.