Freddy mourns church demolition

By Zvikomborero Parafini

Prophet T Freddy yesterday took to Facebook to mourn the demolition of his church premises by the Harare City Council on Wednesday.

T Freddy of Goodness and Mercy Ministries based in Glen View rose to prominence through his ‘spiritual spectacles’ which he is popularly known for.

As such, his followers expected him to have predicted the demolition of the church beforehand.

T Freddy who was sobbing in his live video said he had predicted the demolition of the church in a song.

“People are asking me if I had seen it in the spiritual realm, the thing is God will always tell us, I wrote a song that was meaningless to me, haisati yabuda, and God told me uchabatwa panorwadza and for a moment I thought it was death in my family or around me.

“I was praying for God’s protection and now I know what it meant, I wanted to release the song and God stopped me saying you will release it when you have real tears, and I’m going to do that,” said Freddy.

Freddy said he was allocated the land by the City of Harare and he feels that they should have told them to remove the temporary structure.

He said he had built the shed with authority of the council and had taken advantage of the lockdown to put the roofing sheets which were destroyed.

“We hadn’t used that structure because it was completed just before the lockdown, it was difficult for us to raise that money, our finances were down and someone had to pledge their car to see us through the completion of the shed.

“We only needed four hours to remove our roofing sheets without them being destroyed as they were yesterday,” he said.

T Freddy also lamented that he was in constant partnership and working hand in hand with them in the community work, giving borehole water to the residents in Glen View.

“Why did you proceed to demolish the structure without telling us, you are the same council I approached three months ago telling you that I am putting a gate on the poly clinic, building a guardroom at the council office, you could have told me,” he said.

He also lamented over the difficulties for upcoming churches to secure church stands .

He said he had managed to secure a stand which was far away from the church offices and if they wanted him to move, he would have done so immediately.

He also gave a narration of how he received his calling in 2005 and he resisted it, but the more he resisted it, nothing worked out for him, he got promoted and before he could drive his company car, he fell terminally sick.

He advised fellow church leaders who are operating from illegal structures to demolish them by themselves if they want to save their material as the council are ‘ruthless’ when they come demolish.

City of Harare spokesperson Micheal Chideme refuted T Freddy’s claim that he was allocated the land.

“One is allowed to claim all they want but all illegal structures were destroyed yesterday and we are going to destroy more,” he said.

Responding to the reported ‘cordial’ relationship between council and Goodness and Mercy Ministries, Chideme said:

“It’s not about relationships, when one is engaging in illegal activity, he will be met by the law, I would also want to warn other church leaders to remove all illegal structures because they will be removed in due course.” H-Metro