Beyond the flashy lights and high life of the Johannesburg suburb of Melville, there exist sects of evangelists who prefer worshipping in the night’s darkness on top of a koppie. On Saturday evenings, they emerge from the noisy Jo’burg metropole to ascend the sombre hills of the Melville Koppies nature reserve for overnight prayers.
There are more than 20 groups who are either Zionists (Amazayoni) or Apostles (Amapostili). Congregations are made up of adults only because members are migrant labourers from the rolling hills of rural KwaZuluNatal. Most are factory and domestic workers who have come to Gauteng in search of money-making opportunities. They seem oblivious to their buzzing, modern environment.
Clad in green, blue and white church regalia (izambatho), they carry Bibles and gather around bonfires underneath trees to keep the blistering cold of a winter night at bay. But once the worshippers are singing, shouting and dancing in wild jubilation on the koppie’s moist floor, they seem undeterred by the weather. With hands in the air, they gesticulate in a wildly spirited frenzy to the humming of a monotonous and rhythmless spiritual chant.
‘We are Christians and we are led by the Holy Spirit to pray at night. There’s nothing bad we’re doing up here. We just pray,” says New Gospel Church evangelist Lucky Nyathi. ‘When we get the urge to pray, we come to this hill to worship our God, and nobody can stop us,” he adds.
Between the chanting, the pastor reads from the Bible — he is the only person authorised to do so during sessions. The rest of the congregation listens to the words of wisdom and respond with ‘amens” and ‘hallelujahs”.
On this night, the service is attended by less than 20 people, and the few women who have arrived sing at the top of their voices. One begins speaking in tongues and, as though the pastors and prophets had expected it, robes of white immediately crowd her. They spin her around on the cold ground until her clothes are entirely stained; they tap her with sticks until she momentarily passes out. She is sprinkled with holy water and abruptly jumps up in excitement, much to the cheering of the congregation. ‘She has an evil spirit and the pastors will try to help her overcome it. There’s something bad about her, very bad,” whispers a young man from the crowd.
Casting out demons and pleading for divine intervention are some of the motivations for night-time worship for these evangelists. But the primary reason for the ascension of the hill at night is to distance evangelists from heathen and worldly influences.
‘We are led by the spirit of God to climb up this hill. We come here to conquer evil spirits and the use of muti. Muti does not work; it does the work of the devil,” says evangelist Vusi Ndlovu.
Muti aside, members also climb the koppie to refrain from alcohol and drug abuse. The churches are also strongly against sexual activities between members before coming to services, whether married or single. Involvement in these ‘heathen activities” before coming to church is, says Nyathi, ‘an insult to God”.
‘When you want to come to church on Sunday, you must go up the hill on Saturday night, like Jesus did all the time when he wanted to pray. This will keep you away from sin and you will come to church a pure man the following day,” says Nyathi.
There are multiple services going on at the same time, and there is movement when some of the evangelists visit other congregations to join in the chanting. But, as the clock approaches midnight, quiet falls over the western koppie as everybody prepares for midnight prayer. In the near distance, the quiet is inevitably shattered by revving cars, a reminder that beyond the ‘holy koppie” lies the reality of urban life.