Till death did them part – Ezekiel Guti Junior

By Fatima Bulla

The late Evangelist Ezekiel Guti Jnr called his wife from the lounge and sent her a Christmas message while she was in the kitchen just before going out on the day that he nearly drowned in a swimming pool in South Africa.

Speaking before mourners who had gathered to console the family, Mrs Guti Jnr revealed that she was reminded of the love her husband had for her when she broke down in hospital soon after his passing.

“When I was in the hospital I started crying and I said my husband did not even say goodbye. I was with Bongi and Bongi said, ‘No aunty you are forgetting, remember when we were in the kitchen uncle EJ called you and he said I love you’.

“He was calling from the lounge to say, ‘I love you honey’ and he sent me a Christmas message saying ‘Merry Christmas babe’ while he was sitting on the couch before going to the swimming pool. It’s still there, before he passed away,” she said.

Evangelist Guti Jnr died on December 27 in intensive care unit after he nearly drowned in a swimming pool during a holiday in South Africa.

Mrs Guti Jnr described the father of three as a transparent, humorous and loving man. She said her husband never kept grudges.

“Whenever l got upset or angry, he would beg for forgiveness saying ‘I’m sorry my wife, I love you my wife’. If you delayed saying I forgive you, he would come to say, ‘Please forgive me’. And he would hold me saying, ‘I am not letting you go until you forgive me’.

“So he would never let anything go unsettled. And he was full of jokes. Kumba kwedu tainakidzwa, isusu mumba medu tainakidzwa (We had fun in our home). With EJ taipa vanhu mazita (we gave people nicknames) and we have got codes in our family. If we say this name we know we are talking about who, even if that person is there.

“Almost everyone has got a name that we call them. For sure because I heard one day our Archbishop saying you are allowed to gossip only with your wife or husband. So in our family, everyone had a name that only EJ and l knew,”

She added that the late evangelist was a unifier to the point of being called Family Relations Officer.

Mrs Guti Jnr left people in stitches when she narrated how her husband arranged her a ‘surprise’ birthday party.

“He would call me and say, ‘Honey you know what I’m coming to order a cake’. I said a cake for who? He said, ‘I’m planning a surprise party for you. So I would know. I knew the venue, I knew this and this.

“I wanted to see what he was going to do on the day of the party. So on the day of the party he came and said, ‘You know what, we are being invited to a couples’ fellowship’.

“So I knew it was my party. I dressed so well. When I appeared at the party everybody was like, ‘Ah it’s a lie she knew she was coming to her function’. So everyone was asking, ‘Why are you dressed like this?’ I said okay to tell you the truth my husband told me that he was planning a surprise party for me. So that’s why I came because I knew there was a party for me, I am well dressed for it.”

The couple would visit believers’ homes where the late evangelist would eat what he did not prefer eating in his own home.

“One time we went to another believer’s house and we were sitting in the lounge. And the believer was just walking up and down. I called her and I said, Mhamha what’s wrong, is there anything wrong?’ And she said, ‘Mhamha we had only cooked sadza and beans so I don’t know if evangelist can eat that’. I said, ‘Bring it we will eat’.

“So she brought the sadza and beans, the evangelist ate. Then he said can I have some more. He was given some more. Then we went home. One day I cooked sadza and beans, I gave him. He said, ‘Pamba pani panodyiwa sadza nebeans (whose house is this where you prepare sadza and beans?’

“I said, ‘But you ate sadza and beans that day and he said not in my house, when I go to people’s houses I can eat,” she said, leaving the audience roaring with laughter.

As a member of the bishops transfer board, Mrs Guti Jnr said her late husband transferred himself following a feeling that he had been leading in Chisipite District for too long.

“So he went there and he transferred himself. When they were doing their meetings he told the board that he needed to transfer. I was called for a meeting, I am in there and the bishops were so serious and I was scared. They were telling me we were being transferred and he (Evangelist Jnr) was acting like he didn’t know.

“And I’m like, ‘But did you talk to baba and mhamha that you need to transfer us? And the bishops said, ‘Its your husband who said you are tired, so I don’t have a choice. Then we transferred to Braeside and were given a region,” she said. The Sunday Mail