One of the senior leaders at Believers in Christ church has been accused of raping his brother’s widow in what he called an anointing.
Though the woman refused to speak to Sunday World, the publication obtained a secret recording of her reporting the incident to her church elder and colleague of the alleged rapist.
The woman says her brother-in-law arrived at her home in De Deur, south of Johannesburg, after she had told him that she wanted to go to an Easter church conference but didn’t have money for travel costs.
“He sent a child that was in the house to the shops to buy a cold drink,” she said, adding that the married man then forced himself on her. The woman and the alleged perpetrator are both known to Sunday World, but the publication has decided to withhold their names.
The woman, whose sobs can be heard in the recording, tells the elder that she felt dirty as her brother-in-law was touching her below the belt in a demeaning manner.
“Since my husband died, things are tough for me, and Mr X as a brother of my late husband, has never been helpful, not that I am complaining.
“There was a church service in Pretoria before Easter, and I called him to say [I wanted to go but] I didn’t have cash to travel. He said that he would speak to other congregants to ask them to give me a lift,” she said, explaining why he came to the house.
“What he did to me is very painful… for him to force himself on me in my own house. I respected him as my spiritual leader, and I asked him why.
“After he did all the dirty things to me, he asked me to give him my bank account [number]. I never fought him, but asked him why he was doing this to me as my spiritual leader, and he said that he was anointing me, as it was a culture in the family for such a ritual to take place,” said the woman as she cried hysterically.
“He [later] sent me R1 000, and I managed to go to the Easter celebrations, but I avoided him at the church.
The woman said that she confided in her son that her spiritual father was proposing love to her and that she didn’t appreciate such nonsense, but did not tell him what had happened because “I feared if he knew, he would attack him”. She said she only told her daughter.
“When I look at him, I get flashbacks. I even dreamt about him coming to me naked and touching me. I prayed, asking my late husband to protect me from his brother,” she said.
The woman’s daughter told Sunday World this week that the recording had gone viral, but the family would no longer comment. “The voice note is viral anyway; we don’t have control over that. I’m sorry, [but] the family doesn’t want us to talk about this,” she said.
The alleged perpetrator told Sunday World yesterday that he wouldn’t comment.
“I don’t want to comment on what my brother’s wife wanted the world to know.
“Truth only belongs to God.
“I don’t want to stoop very low, and she can comment if she wants, but I am standing on my point that God knows the truth,” he said.
