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Dorp’s dead oom misses another deadline
More articles on this topic: David FrancisWidow and ‘prophet’ insist that a man who died a month ago will still come back to life
The dead did not rise in Hertzog ville this week. Another deadline passed and the steadily decaying corpse of Oom Paul Meintjies remained in the Free State town’s only mortuary, where it has lain since July 1 waiting to be resurrected.
Cookies baked by the 76-year-old carpenter’s widow, Anna, in expectation of his return, went uneaten. A jersey she started knitting before his death went unworn. Local gossips said this week she was on the verge of “cracking”.
Son Pieter, daughter Petro Joseph, and a Durban “prophet”, David Francis, kept her company. All four are adamant that Oom Paul will arise. They remain closeted in the family home on the town’s main street, rarely venturing out and spending most of their time behind drawn curtains.
The prophet, a former Nedbank branch manager who now fixes leaky roofs for a living, is regarded with contempt by many townsfolk who believe he is an opportunist with a Svengali-like influence over a grieving family. It was he who said God had told him that Oom Paul would rise from the dead.
Francis left the bank under a cloud. According to a Nedbank spokesman Francis, who was branch manager in Eastgate in Johannesburg 10 years ago, resigned from the company and left “of his own accord”.
Bank officials said Francis was “asked to leave”. According to one, “It involved an irregularity with a loan. One of the loans he granted was to a family member who had difficulty honouring the loan.”
Three years ago Francis started an apocalyptic Christian sect, Action for Christ Ministries - God’s Kingdom on Earth, in Durban. Joseph, who lives there, became involved and introduced family members to Francis.
Francis first attracted attention in Hertzogville when he held a “miracle crusade” at the United Reformed Church in the adjacent Malebogo township in December 2002. There, Francis said, “500 to 600 people came… and the blind saw and the lame got up and the dumb spoke”.
Zachariah Letsabo, 53, is in a wheelchair although he can sometimes struggle along with the aid of a walking stick. “I got sick once and I became lame in my legs.
“[Francis] prayed and put his hands on me and said: ‘Walk’. I walked and fell over. The man talks too much. None of the people who were there when he prayed got better.”
Abattoir worker Johannes Seretsi said he too went to see Francis. “My eyes give me trouble. When it’s summer they burn and feel as if there is sand inside. He told me: ‘Go home, you’re healed.’ I never got better. I still have a problem with my eyes.”
The Rev Joseph Malefane, who heads the Malebogo United Reformed Church, recalled: “In 2002 Francis started phoning me and telling me that God had mandated him to perform a miracle in my church. I didn’t have a problem with that. On a Sunday in December 2002, he came and prayed for those people. There were many there who were not from my denomination.
“They reported that they felt better and were healed. I saw someone stand up from a wheelchair and walk freely for 8m, and someone who was blind, saying they could see clearly now.
“I don’t know most of those people so I don’t have contact with them to find out if the healing was efficient or if it was just temporary.”
However, Malefane said he was convinced that “God has really mandated Pastor David to do things”.
“God really worked through him to heal people. He is just an innocent man who has a strong belief and faith in God.”
Malefane said he and his wife had dined with the Meintjies family when Francis visited - an unusual occurrence for Hertzogville. “I was so surprised, as a black person, to be accommodated in the house of a white man and be treated equally.
“They told me that they were not like that before and used to discriminate against black people but God changed their hearts and minds.”
According to another Hertzogville resident, Oom Paul, a veteran of the Rhodesian bush war, had been a “k***** hater”.
“Then this prophet came along and they started going to the location for service. Now he’ll probably be buried in Malebogo.”
The controversy over Oom Paul’s death and “resurrection” has turned the quiet farming town with a population of about 25 000 into a Mecca for crackpots, visionaries and prophets.
Last Saturday, another prophet drove into town. Duke Potgieter, leader of The Kingdom Body, a Cape Town-based sect, walked into the Majuba Kontantwinkel and loudly announced that the end of the world was nigh. He said Oom Paul would arise when the sun set that day. At that moment the last trumpet would sound, signalling the end of the world.
Potgieter said he would then drive back to Cape Town.
But, asked a woman who was in the shop at the time: “How’s he going to go back if the end of the world has happened?”
That night Potgieter accused undertaker Nico Foulds of killing Oom Paul for a second time. Potgieter said he had woken Oom Paul at about 5pm but because Foulds could not be contacted to open the mortuary cold room, Oom Paul “froze to death and nobody will ever wake him up again”.
Foulds said he was “gatvol of the whole story”.
He is tired of the hundreds of telephone calls and crackpots who he said wanted to buy Oom Paul’s body. His business had been affected because few people wanted bodies to be kept in a mortuary where the cloyingly sweet smell of decay is becoming increasingly evident.
This week Foulds gave the Meintjies family an ultimatum: remove the body by Friday or the storage bill would rise from R250 to R1 000 a day. They already owed him R9 000. Foulds said the family had agreed to the price hike.
Oom Paul’s sister, Hettie Vorster, said she supported Foulds. “If it wasn’t for my dominee on Sunday, I would have had blood on my hands. I wanted to go and donner them to death.
“They [Oom Paul's widow and children Petro and Pieter] are no longer my family if they carry on with his body like this.”
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