Reality TV star Nandi Mlombi claims the central district bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA), Faith Whitby, told her husband Mawuzole Mlombi, a senior reverend of the church, to divorce her.
Last week, Nandi caused a stir when she went on to her social media pages, accusing the church leaders of mistreating her husband after the church elders decided to leave him without an appointment after serving as a minister of the Bedfordview Methodist Church, in the east of Johannesburg, for more than five years.
In the latest war of words, Nandi accused Whitby, who is in charge of the MCSA churches in Gauteng and North West, of attempting to wreck her marriage following last week’s Sunday World story, where she took the church leaders head on after her husband was informed he was without appointment and must vacate the mission house.
In last week’s article, we stated that MCSA secretary Michel Hansrod wrote a letter to Mawuzole telling him he was no longer stationed at the Methodist Church in Bedfordview, nor at any of the MCSA churches around the country and in the Southern African region.
“After you had published the story, Faith sent a church steward to our house in Bedfordview to fetch my husband. When my husband arrived there, he was told by Faith he should write a letter to apologise for my statements.”
Nandi also claims church leaders were on a crusade to destroy her marriage because she is problematic, speaks her mind and refuses to be bullied.
“I am not going to stand idle while my husband’s calling as a priest is being destroyed.My husband is a reserved person and I respect and love him the way he is. If they think my husband is going to write that letter of apology or divorce me, they should forget it.
“They must stop being delusional. They are actually saying that Mawuzole must choose between me and the church,” she said.
“I have been married to my husband for 13 years and they are not going to destroy this union. It is clear now why many pastors have divorced their wives. Marriages are being destroyed”.
Nandi said she and her family will not vacate the mission house and she will fight tooth and nail to protect her family from being bullied by church leaders.
When asked to comment, Whitby said: “I have no comment to make.”
A number of damning allegations have been made by other members against the leadership of the MCSA. The daughter of a pastor, Nqobile Mbatha, from Newcastle, claimed her father was discriminated against by church leaders because of his disability.
“I, the daughter of Rev and Mrs Mbatha, wrote to the Methodist church at the age of 16. I am 18 today and my dad’s story began when I was 12 years old. I wrote regarding discrimination in the church but until today I have never gotten justifiable answers. Even now, the minister who discriminated against my dad in 2020 at Central City
Mission, Thekwini, has never apologised and this matter has never been handled properly,” said Mbatha.
Yonela Nyembenya from Johannesburg said: “I thought the church would have [the] appetite to address the matters of a sexual abuse incident. The matter is known by some senior reverends of the church who advised mfundisi [the priest] to report the matter.
“Mfundisi did not report it because he was trying to save himself from being sidelined as that’s what the church does best, to protect its bishops. That’s what the church does.”
MCSA spokesperson Bongi Moyo-Bango failed to answer questions sent to him and did not answer his phone or respond to text messages.
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