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Johannesbirg, South Africa 2018
The 12 Apostles Church is a belief worshipped in South Africa since early 1900. Spread from a german lutheran evangelist, the credo is the direct continuation of Christ’s mission on earth and most of the immigrant arrived in South Africa from Zimbabwe follow this religious belief. Driving through the city of Johannesburg during the weekend it is common to see groups of worshipper gathering for pray, stand out in with their candid vest the sunny landscape. This credo doesn’t need a specific place and it is often professed in the less common places.
The main function for the 12 Apostles Church consist in two separate parts: the first is a long function on Saturday. Worshippers of this group gathered on late morning in the school area of Diepsloot, an informal settlement on north Johannesburg where the most of them lives. Inside the school - just a bunch of containers well placed - a class room has been cleaned from desks and chairs and transformed into the place where today the function will be celebrated. Shoes off, men on a side and women on the other, the function is attended by the bishop, on his green vest, and by the white dressed priest, both of them with wives and children in tow. One by one people took the pastoral stick, stand up and get to speak of their thoughts during the week, of their feeling about facts happened and why they are there to entrust to Unkulunkulu, the name they give to God. The function could last for 6 or 7 hours and often worshiper join it during its carrying out. This long day is marked by prayers, songs, sermons and lectures. Children get distracted, fall asleep and the youngest has been breastfeed. Some of them join the community for the first time and today, with a special blessing, it has been assigned them the white vest of the confraternity.
The baptism is the second part of the function. On Sunday morning, weather conditions or seasons regardless, the worshippers leave their houses in Diepsloot and walk to the “Steyn City” bridge, where the little Jukskei river is used for their ceremony. Driven by the Bishop and the community members, worshipper get entirely immersed in running water. Repeating the ritual of baptism, they wash away their sins and re-born into a new life. The baptism, as a worshipper said me going out from the freezing water, it helps to receive Unkulunkulu in their hearts and to heal their sorrow.
That Saturday will remain in my mind for long because I attended also to an exorcism. In the middle of the adult blessing time, as soon as the priest laid his hands on her for the blessing, the devote started to scream loudly and to move convulsively. Once understood that was a demoniac manifestation, bishop and priest started the healing treatment procedure: with the support of the entire community, the body of the sister was stripped of her white vest and tied up with the red belts coming from the vests of the community members. Enveloping the room singing and praying for minutes or maybe hours, they join together in louder and louder unique voice who penetrate the body of the sister and pushed out the demon from its inside. Holy water and salt, ingested during the endless practice, are the other two ingredient that have made the exorcism works and the sister finally take a rest.