Family Keeps Body In The House For 4 Days Praying For A Resurrection
A woman from Harare’s Kuwadzana suburb and her three children reportedly spent four days with her husband’s corpse indoors, praying for his resurrection from the dead.
The body of Garikai Chirongwe who died aged 47 was kept in the house by his widow, Rashiwe Muchapondwa (39), and their three children.
Concerned neighbours notified the police when Garikai’s body was in a state of decomposition.
A post-mortem was carried out and the body was taken to a funeral parlour before it was buried at Granville Cemetery.
Rashiwe told H-Metro their religious cult instructed them not to accept death or to conduct a memorial service in case the inevitable happened. She said:
My husband was deeply rooted in his faith, it’s what they taught at our church.
He complained of a headache last Wednesday and we invited one of our church members to pray for him.
I want to believe that he died midnight, on the same day, but we continued praying, unaware that he had already died.
There was an unpleasant smell and we opened all windows, until Monday, when police came to remove the body.
He was in the dining room and we had to take him in to another room.
He warned me over abandoning our faith and this tragedy came after we left our main church to meet as a small congregation after some differences.
My husband told me to tell his relatives that his clothes have to be buried together with his body.
If that fails then the clothes would be burnt to ashes.
Garikai’s niece, Nelly Chirongwe, told H-Metro that the family of the deceased was brainwashed by their church and need redemption. She said:
My uncle’s church elders polluted him so much that he no longer accepted any relative, who did not go to his church.
They buried two of their children without the presence of their relatives due to their church doctrine.
Today, none of their church members came to support them.
Nelly said some church doctrines are harmful to the community and her prayer is that the family will be delivered from poisonous indoctrination.
