Earlier this week, RelZim posted two stories that I can’t ignore discussing in public.

Police prepare to deport three satanists” and “Kambuzuma’s “Mother Theresa” invites you to look after children” appeared on our front page on the same day. But they seem to be worlds apart. The former is an account of a bloody practice by refugee satanists that the majority of us Zimbabweans will certainly disapprove of. The latter story is a heart-warming narration about a dedicated Zimbabwean lady, who takes care of Mozambican orphans.

Yet, it was not by chance that both stories ended up on RelZim’s editing table on the same day. These both stories about non-Zimbabweans in our country can teach us a lot about our faith and our actions inspired by it.

You may well remember the spark of xenophobic attacks on our compatriots in South Africa several years back. There were also such xenophobic cases against Nigerians in this country.

Some readers that commented on the story about the Congolese and Rwandan satanists in other publications that discussed the topic were quite xenophobic in their remarks. Some went as far as saying that the three men who escaped to Zimbabwe as a result of unbearable conditions in their homeland and tried to establish a satanist church here should be killed. Some simply invoked the deportation of the trio as the just action. It was clear from the comments that the readers are Christians. What surprised me, however, was the lack of a truly Christian stance: behaving with holiness in unholy situations. There was only one reader who suggested that the satanist trio should be prayed upon.

In this spirit, the “Mother Teresa story” teaches us how each one of us Christians can, prompted by the true loving faith, take on the responsibility for the non-Zimbabweans that happened to come and live nextdoor to us. 

My final thought is if you are a Pentecostal go to Prophet Makandiwa, if you are a Catholic come visit your Jesuit priest or Archbishop, go to your religious leaders, ask your imam if you are a Muslim, ask them about the way you can behave with holiness in unholy situations. Also ask them about accommodating foreigners and let us know their thoughts.