Prophet fakes resurrection miracle

As the Christian community is being rocked by scandals and strange practices ranging from a claim of being raptured to heaven during Easter by Jesus to miracle pens for students to pass.

An investigation by this reporter has drawn up some really interesting information about some of the happenings in the church. A young Bulawayo prophet Chrispen Sibanda ( 22) recently claimed to have raised a dead child back to life by prayer over the phone.

The child is said to have been declared dead by doctors but a visit to the hospital soon revealed a different story. The child is said to have actually gone into cardiac arrest and not necessarily death as claimed by the young prophet.

It leaves one wondering to what extent these so called prophets will go to to get "testimonies".

Out of interest we followed up on this little known prophet who was apparently very close to controversial prophet Sisonke Ndlovu.

'Prophet' Chris as he is affectionately known by the ten or so people who include his family and friends who attend his church Kingdom Force is no different from the hoards of prophets of his time. We visited a man only known to us as Geofrey who lives in the same area as Chris and has visited his church. "I can only say that these young men need to be guided to do the work of God in the right way. I have lived here for over 14 years and i have seen them come and go,rise and fall",said Geofrey.

"The biggest problem for these young men is their marriages or relationships,for instance this Prophet we know he has a child with a woman who is 4 years his senior whom he has not married either customarily or court wise and yet they are co-habiting in this area", he further stated.

Quizzed on how he knew so much about this young man he had this to say.

"Our teenage children attend these churches and we hear so much as they discuss and we also as a community also discuss what they discuss", laughed the old man. He refused to give us the residential address of the prophet but just directed us to the area we could ask around from.

Upon asking we discovered that the community had few kind words about the character of this prophet. One lady said that she has always known him to be hot tempered and unwelcoming. Another young man only identified as Shortie began to state the dealings of the prophet with ladies. "I hear he is married but when his wife leaves we see him at the house of Lungile and sometimes for hours closed up inside there. Some of us are not married and these are our hunting grounds and possible mates but why must we share with the married ones especially uChris, uyasidelela njani lowana(he does not respect us)."

We failed to reach the prophet as his only contact was a mozambiquan number. However it is clear that the young man is cohabiting with a woman whom he sired a child with and has been rumoured to have affairs with certain ladies quite often. He was earlier last year said to have been seeing a lady from Tonota while his 'wife' remained fending for his child.

When will all this end? Will the church be ravaged like this forever?