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If you can cast your mind back a few months you will recall (although I do understand that it’s not advisable to retraumatise oneself for no good reason so early in the week) the little visit Jacob Zuma paid to the Rhema Bible Church flock while he was on the campaign trail in March just prior to the election.
Oohh they clapped and they cheered and they sang as Mr Zuma reminded the congregation – which offers the church around R70 million a year – that the ruling party needed its support to “release the South African people from poverty and all its manifestations.”
Of course one of the manifestations of a certain kind of self-imposed poverty is debt. And we do all know that one of the root causes of debt, as the Charles Dickens character Mr Micawber explains in David Copperfield, is that it usually arises when someone lives beyond their means.
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery," says Mr Micawber.
Apparently Pastor Ray and his spendthrift wife, Zelda, are in financial trouble and McCauley’s son, Joshua, has sent out a letter to about 100 close friends and family appealing to them to bail his father and wife out.
“I would love nothing more that to help my father settle his existing debt and see him go into his 60s debt free,” the Sunday Times quoted Joshua’s letter.
Jeez so would the five million other South Africans who work and pay tax.
Could we suggest that everyone, instead of giving them a hand out, rather give the McCauley’s a hand up. You know like that old bible story about teaching a man to fish rather than ruining his spirit by giving him one.
Why don’t we just pray for Pastor Ray and Zelda instead? The rest of us are certain that God, in his/her infinite wisdom will most certainly look favourably upon such devoted servants.
This is their finest opportunity, the moment that Pastor Ray and Zelda can prove to their congregation and the rest of us that God really, really listens to him, that he has a hotline to the redeemer.
Pastor and Mrs Bling have not been media shy in the past and have often been photographed either in their R6.5 million mansion in Durban or showing off the earthy blessings God has bestowed upon them. God is surely pleased by their good work here on this material plane.
According to the Sunday Times report, Mrs Holy Bling once told a journalist at the paper that the secret to her cleavage was the exclusive Victoria’s Secret underwear range. She added that it might be a bit pricey but that a girl had to feel good about how she looked.
In the meantime, Pastor Bling was criticized last year for spending R25 000 on meals, which included R365 bottles of Meerlust Merlot, in ONE month. But surely these are just God’s blessings made flesh I can hear some believers thinking.
Since Zuma’s appearance at Rhema, McCauley, his New Best Friend (NBF – his OFB “Old Best Friend” being Schabir Shaik) has formed the important-sounding National Interfaith Leadership Council, which is, according to a newspaper report, “closely associated with President Jacob Zuma”.
The Leadership Council will no doubt advise the president on weighty moral matters, the economy and that other vital issue - same sex civil unions.
But I digress.
President Zuma, if you recall, has a large family and needs to keep everyone fed, watered, educated, mobile and happy. As we know from court records in the Schabir Shaik trial, Shabby paid for lots of things for Mr Zuma from his children’s school fees to a car washes and snazzy suits.
It seems that neither Zuma nor McCauley understand the basic principles of the household budget they expect others to bail them out and keep them afloat.
But remember God helps those who help themselves.
So people, on your knees for Pastor Ray and Zelda…don’t part with a dime, you don’t need to, God will take care of his own.
What do you think about powerful, rich people asking other people to give them money to get them out of self-made debt?
