'Small houses are from the underworld'

A LOCAL pastor says small houses are from the underworld and are the work of evil spirits that torment people into these unholy unions.

Pastor Lilian Bwanya of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) North End Assembly in Bulawayo said this on the sidelines of a sports gala her church held at Hartsfield Stadium yesterday.

"Evil spirits are there, and small houses are the work of these things. They cause confusion in people's happy marriages and you find a man leaving his wife to be with these women and it is not good at all," she said.

Pastor Bwanya said she believes that the spirit of the underworld has a huge contribution on this new breed of "home wreckers that have tormented marriages".

Pastor Bwanya made headlines in 2011 when she said the small house phenomenon would end in 2012, a claim that she refuted saying she was misquoted by journalists.

"I never put a timeline to this small house issue, I just said it was going to come to an end one day if the nation was to come together and pray for it. The reporter put words into my mouth. I never said there was a certain date they would end," she said.

She further said many women were poverty stricken such that they were in adulterous affairs in order to put food on the table.

"Vanhu varikutambudzika kunze uko so at times they just look for ways to put food on the table and the next man they meet they fall in love with so this gives rise to these illicit affairs and we are against this," she said.

Pastor Bwanya said at AFM they had witnessed testimonies from men who had fled their matrimonial homes to go and be with small houses.

"At our church we have had testimonies from men who had left their homes to stay with small houses but they have since returned and are leading good Christian lives now with their families after realising that they were lost," Pastor Bwanya said.

The church secretary Mr Saul Mashamba said AFM held the sports gala in a bid to fundraise for a church conference that they will hold later this month.

"We are fundraising for a conference that will run from 22 to 27 July at the Amphitheatre and we expect to see the power of God as people will get delivered from spirits that torment them," said Mr Mashamba.

The conference will go under the theme, Revival In Our Times (RIOT).

Pastor Bwanya bemoaned the limited coverage of issues of faith in the media, saying Bulawayo needed to be saved.

"In Harare Prophets Emmanuel Makandiwa, Hubert Angel and Walter Magaya make headlines as they receive enough coverage but it is not the issue this side, more needs to be done to spread the word of God in this region," she said.