LAST week, I was inundated with an avalanche of e-mail and phone messages in reaction to the article on the prophecy by renowned Nigerian Prophet, Temitope Balogun Joshua, commonly known as TB Joshua.
My e-mail box and the mobile phone inboxes were flooded with comments on the annual prophetic message which Prophet TB Joshua; the pastor of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), delivered live on Emmanuel Television, on January 3 2016.
From the average number of 50 people who read my article on my facebook page every week, last week’s jumped to 196 readers by Press time.
At one time, all my three mobile lines were jammed up with calls from the readers, almost all of them agreeing with the prophet.
Of all the responses only two chose to discuss the messenger and not the message.
For this week’s article I have decided to feature the feedback from the readers who discussed the content and not those who chose to try and crucify the messenger.
The first reader writes:
“Hello Mr Muyanwa, good day to you.
“I would like to commend you for the article on Prophet TB Joshua’s prophecy in today’s Times of Zambia newspaper. May God bless you for sharing this message with the nation!
“As Christians, we need to be as bold as you are in the article (message) because we know the truth. God bless you abundantly. Chituwa Simwanza
Another one states that: “Good morning Mr Muyanwa,
“I am very delighted to read the article on the prophecy by the Man of God TB Joshua.
“I actually watched that prophecy on Emmanuel TV and as you have rightly put it, we need to go back to the land.
“Sir, thank you for bringing out that important message so that may be our leaders (government) should see sense in it and probably act in that direction.
“The reason behind (Mr) Magufuli (Tanzanian President)’s leadership is his association to such men of God.
“Imagine if our leaders can yield to this message, Africa and Zambia in particular can be much better than it is.
“Please continue using your platform to bring out important issues that we can benefit from both at individual and national level. God bless you and Happy 2016!!! Regards.”
Another one reads: “Your article in the January 6 2016 edition of the Times of Zambia refers. Most appreciatedly, I agree with you that according to the Man of God, countries must start changing certain things and re-aligning certain things to key issues and the question of us taking up land utilisation in agriculture is paramount.
“I agree with him that Africa is supposed to be the bread basket of the world but alas! Africa is a powerful continent because we have things like copper, gold, crude oil, gas and other things.
“We need a deliberate policy change in Africa to take agriculture as a business. We don’t buy clothes and cars every day at household level but we buy food every day at household level and so it’s high time we explored this avenue.
“Zambia and Africa has enough water bodies and fertile land to grow our economies through exports of food stuffs to the world out there.
“Africa is suffering from hunger because of misplaced priorities because as an adage goes that a fool dies of thirst when his legs are stepping in water.
“It’s high time we changed our thinking and not looking at donors and investors to come from Europe, America and the Far East Asian countries.
“We can transform our continent by changing our business approach to growing our economies.
“Happy New Year 2016! Richard Band LCGI MEIZ.”
Yet another one reads: “How are you sir? My name is Simpamba Simon from Luanshya (on the Copperbelt).
“My advice is to the government of the day is that bapele fertiliser iyingi mufifulo monse monse umuleloka mfula, numufifulo muli fimana fikalamba ba commercial farmers ba irrigation so that mu calo twika kwata ubwafya bwa kubulwa kwa fya kulya! (the government should give more fertilisers in areas with good rainfall and should attract irrigation commercial farmers near big water bodies so that there would be no starvation in the country.)”
One of the text messages reads: “Mr James Muyanwa I have just been reading your article in the Times of Zambia on TB Joshua’s prophecy on the economy.
“I totally agree with you on encouraging the governments particularly on agriculture. I have been following the prophet on agricultural issues since 2013 and it has worked for us at our farm.
“Thanks keep it up. For more details about me, kindly get a latest Zambia National Farmers Union magazine for November 2015. From Kasomo Chaila Cattle Ranch, in Mbala District!”
Others were, however, beyond the scope of this column as the senders were requesting me to pray for them so that they may succeed at school, at work and their search for marriage.
For comments call: 0955 431442, 0977 246099, 0964 742506 or e-mail:jmuyanwa@gmail.com