Zaoga declares 30 days of mourning for Guti
ZAOGA FIF Ministries International has declared 30-days of mourning following the death of arguably Zimbabwe’s most famous clergyman. As of yesterday, there was still no word on when Archbishop Guti’s burial arrangements as his body is still in South Africa.
Secretary General of ZAOGA FIF pastor Mishael Nyambo said the church’s executive had declared 30 days of mourning and celebrating the life of their leader.
“ZAOGA Forward in Faith executive has declared 30 days of mourning, celebrating the life of legendary leader, our Father. We are thankful to God for the long life he gave him. For exactly 100 years and two months, he was alive on this planet earth.
“We agreed as the executive that from the day he entered the glory which is the 5th of July up to the 5th of August these are days of mourning and we prefer to call them 30 days of celebration, celebrating the legacy that he has left us and we are happy to announce to the nation the programme.
Pastor Nyambo said there would no mega gathering at the moment but church members had been directed to gather at their respective parishes.
“Zaoga is a big family and there is no house we can go to gather, so what we have done is we have directed our church members to gather in the various places, centres of worship across the nation until the time we know when the body will arrive from South Africa,” he said.
Condolence messages from across the world continued to pour in with the Christian Church elders of Zimbabwe under the coordination of the African Christian Council International yesterday requesting that Archbishop Guti be accorded national hero status.
“In terms of his contribution towards peace, unity and ambassadorship on the global level, we view him as an influential leader who brought together a lot of people to worship in Christianity,” said Archbishop Bishop Johannes Ndanga, the ACCI president.
“We hereby propose that he be awarded the National Hero status as a step toward uniting the people of Zimbabwe during this critical time.”
Archbishop Guti died in South Africa at the age of 100 on July 5, leaving behind an enormous history of evangelism spanning 63 years when he founded ZAOGA FIF.
