Cape Town – By March next year there will be no drought in the Western Cape and the dams will be full, said well-known lay preacher and potato farmer Angus Buchan as he prayed for "spiritual and physical rain" in Parliament on Friday.
His prayer followed shortly after he alleged that a woman rose from the dead after he prayed for her.
He was addressing a prayer day for Parliament organised by several Christian organisations and the ACDP, whose three MP's were all in attendance.
Demons run away
Among those who packed the Old Assembly Chamber was IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Grace Davies, wife of Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, Natalie Maimane, wife of DA leader Mmusi Maimane, Mamphele Ramphele and inaugural South African Idols winner, Heinz Winckler.
"This place will never be the same again," said ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe.
"So many righteous feet walk the corridors of Parliament. I trust that this Parliament will not remain the same," he said.
"Wherever there are demons, they will run away," he said.
The purpose of the event was to foster unity, with white people praying for forgiveness for what whites have done to blacks, and vice versa.
"I want to ask forgiveness today to all my fellow black, coloured, Khoi, San and Indian South Africans. We, as white people have sinned against you, over and over again. Today we want to repent unconditionally," prayed Anneke Rabe on behalf of "all white people in South Africa".
She asked for forgiveness for the way slaves were treated, oppressive laws, land dispossession and the way the churches condoned apartheid.
"I ask forgiveness that not more of us stood for justice," she said.
No future
Reverend Moss Nthla said in his prayer that he stands before the Christian deity "with a deep sense of awareness of the grace You showed us through what many have described as the miracle of 1994.
"I stand to confess our failure, as a people, to be good stewards of that miracle. We have neither sought nor walked in Your ways. As a result, we have harmed ourselves and each other as South Africans," Nthla prayed.
"I ask for forgiveness that sadly, a growing number of white South Africans, have been made to feel unwelcome in this country and that they have no future for themselves nor their children," he prayed.
"I ask for forgiveness for the thousands of farmers who have been murdered in our country by black people," he said.
While the prayers were delivered solemnly, Buchan, who wore a black cowboy hat throughout the event and spoke towards the end of the event, brought more ebullience to the proceedings, interrupting himself with loud grunts of "Amen!", gesticulating with his index fingers in a way reminiscent of PW Botha, encouraging the audience to applaud him and breaking out in song.
He said South Africa's biggest problem is that we're a "fatherless nation.
"What we need in South Africa is faith," he said.
