08 Jul 2019

Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC) Botswana Chapter president, Mr Mookami Motlhagodi has implored the church to participate in the socio-economic development of the country.

Addressing OIAC members in Kasane on July 6, Mr Motlhagodi encouraged churches to pray for the general electios and for peace.

He implored the church to pray for political leaders and urged politicians to desist from using abusive language in their rallies.

Mr Motlhagodi said the church should be an advocate for the less privileged in the society and play a pivotal role in transforming the society.

He noted that since Chobe and Ngami were tourism areas, it was the responsibility of the church to pray for growth of the tourism industry in order to generate more revenue for the nation.

Mr Motlhagodi applauded President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi’s remarks at the recent Zimbabwe Wildlife Summit that Botswana was committed to ensuring that the wildlife resource benefitted communities nearer to them.

On allegations of the scrapping of Religious Education and Moral Education from the school syllabus, he said this called for the church to take upon itself to instil good morals in the children. He said by doing this, the church will be playing its part in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goal of Quality Education.

Mr Motlhagodi, who is also chairperson of the Botswana Networking Churches Organisation, urged the church members to be exemplary in law abiding and to refrain from making structures on land that they are not permitted to settle on. He said registering a church did not grant them permission to start worshipping in areas that they were not allocated.

Giving an overview of the church in Chobe, a representative of the Chobe Ministers Fraternal, Pastor Karabo Koosimile, lamented the non-attendance of OAIC affiliated pastors in the fraternal’s meeting.

He pleaded with OIAC to furnish the Ministers Fraternal with the list of churches affiliated to them in Chobe.

He complained that though there were many “fire churches” in Kasane, they still remained not affiliated to Evangelical Fellow of Botswana (EFB) a thing that he said made it difficult for the fraternal to work with them.

He implored churches to attend the Ministers Fraternal meetings so that they could know each other and be better positioned to speak with government with one voice. Kasane Customary Court president, Kgosi Thuso Wasetso said Kasane was faced with challenges such as high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among the youth and alcohol/drug abuse.

He, however, decried that some pastors did not practice what they preach since they sometimes engaged in social ills such as cohabitation.

OAIC regional overseer for the North Region, Arch-Bishop Lebalang Pilot said the objective of Mr Motlhagodi’s visit was to pray with the churches in Chobe for peace to prevail in country and for the general election.

He implored OAIC members to ensure proper church structures with proper ablution facilities.

Arch-Bishop Pilot called on OAIC prophets to desist from operating as traditional healers and urged those who wanted to start traditional practice to register with Dingaka Association and leave the church.ENDS