Dear Councillor Dr Rodney Cooper
My name is Jean, and I am a 31 year old mother of three children. I originally come from Zimbabwe, but have resided in the United Kingdom for more than 13 years. You may not know who I am but I would like you to take 5 minutes from your busy schedule and hear my cry. As I write this open letter to you, I am walking through the wilderness of this world, harsh realities have been thrown into my face that I have no control over, and I simply don’t know what to do. Many a nights I have cried tears of anguish, to the point where my tears have run dry. As you may notice Dr Cooper, English is not my first language. But when I was a five year old child, in a certain town called Karoi in a country called Zimbabwe, I learnt to speak English, and to write a bit of it as well. From that moment something happened to me, and English became the only language I could ever express myself in, especially on paper. I was always a quiet person, I could never say much, especially how I felt inside. I then came across books by a certain woman called Enid Blyton, she expressed herself in such simplicity, yet she had the power to captivate my imagination, and send me into another world I could only dream of. I then learnt that when one doesn’t have a big audible voice, they can still be heard, somehow somewhere, yes they can still be heard.
I have to say Dr Cooper you may wonder why I resorted to blogging to be heard. Well I tried all the more appropriate channels but my voice was simply not loud enough. So in a moment of despair and anguish, as I sat on a tiny bed in a women’s refuge only a few miles away from your town Bournemouth, I set to pen and paper, and thus began to write. As I walk through the wilderness of this world Mayor Cooper, I lighten at a certain place only, and the pen and paper happens to be my source of strength. I can only fight back with what I know and how I know best.
I chose to make this letter to you open to the public, because my story is already in the public domain, and I have nothing to hide but I am in pursuit of justice. I understand that you were invited by Agape For All Nations Ministries International Envoy Sarah Yafele of Bournemouth Satellite to attend a Church Service on Sunday 29 September 2013. I understand that as the Mayor of Bournemouth, you accepted the invitation and attended a Church Service on 29 September 2013 in Bournemouth in which you were a speaker. I just want to point out that on that day, I was in Winchester at women’s refuge, and being a Sunday it was tough. I remember the day so well, it’s so vivid in my mind still. Sundays were always the most difficult days for me, because I had no church to go to, and it was the day I thought about Agape the most, because I knew Dr Walter Masocha was somewhere carrying on as if nothing had happened, yet my life had been utterly destroyed without mercy by this Church. Well I could just mention that the only positive thing that happened on Sunday the 29th September 2013 was a phone call from Zimbabwean journalist Lance Guma, expressing his concerns and interest in my story, and for me that was somewhat comforting.
Mayor Dr Cooper, when I found out that you were recently a special guest at Agape For All Nations Ministries International, I was truly shocked and had a lot of confusing emotions within me. You have had first hand experience with Agape, you now even know some of the leaders personally. As I continue to echo on my blog, (the only voice I have) the leaders of Agape have subjected me to unimaginable pain and torture, including been violently assaulted by male leaders in the name of exorcism.
Dr Rodney Cooper, I fully understand that as a Mayor of Bournemouth, it is within your duty to attend religious gatherings of the many different faiths in your borough. In my limited knowledge, I understand you act in the best interest of the public. I also believe each religious organisation you choose to support and attend should be a reputable organisation that also acts in the best interest of the public. For that reason, I address this public letter to you, letting you know of the horrendous cruelty I suffered under your choice of religious organisation to support.
Agape For all Nations is a Church which openly claims the following false misleading mission statements
1. To reach out through the love of God, and communicate the message of the Christian gospel and way of life to all people regardless of their age, racial, social, religious or sexual background.
2. To bring real and demonstrable help and relief to such people suffering spiritual, emotional or, physical need (John 3:16-17; Romans 15:13). Finding the lost, equipping the found.
3. To be a Church that brings families back together through God's love, and a Ministry that represents one big family in Christ Jesus.
4. To be a Christian Ministry that breaks all known barriers such as race, colour, tribe or clan, creed, bigotry or prejudice (Ephesians 4:4-6; Galatians 3:26-27).
In my open letter to you Dr Rodney Cooper, I am going to focus only on the above 4 missions statements as I try to show you that this religious organisation you attended called AGAPE is the very opposite of what they claim to be. Its a religious organisation that hurt people. It destroys peoples’ lives and it cruelly puts women under severe humiliation and degradation.
1. Agape aims to reach out through the love of God, and communicate the message of the Christian gospel and way of life to all people regardless of their age, racial, social, religious or sexual background.
In my experience in this Church, I have been subjected to the extreme opposite of God’s love. The Church leaders are very cruel in nature and express hatred to its full capacity. In the branch I used to worship in, Wigan, the leaders are mostly mental health nurses by profession. Three Nurses in particular, Gertrude Musuka, Yvonne Gayakaya and Julius Gayakaya cruelly bullied me and subjected me to public humiliation using their professions as registered nurses in the UK and their positions in the church as leaders. Their cruelty towards me was instigated and sanctioned by the Church founder Dr Walter Masocha. Most of the cruel treatment I received from Gertrude Musuka, Yvonne Gayakaya and Julius Gayakaya was based on the fact that they carried out a full mental health assessment in Church and concluded that I was insane. I am not mentally unstable, the authorities and medics have proved this. But that’s not even the point, even if I WAS mentally unstable, that does not mean I deserve to be bullied or suffer such cruel stigma. I believe that people with mental illness did not choose to be that way, and it sickens me to the stomach that a church can mistreat someone and justify it because they are “mentally unstable”. Worse when they are mental health nurses.
I also continue to suffer public humiliation as the church labels me a ‘lesbian freak’ on the internet. I am not a lesbian but that’s not the point either, what shocks me is that the Church in their mission statement claims they do not discriminate on basis of sexual background and they say they will love anyone, straight or gay, however I have received the worst treatment of prejudice and condemnation on the grounds that the church labels me a “lesbian”. They even justify the abuse they subjected me to because they say I am a lesbian.
2. Agape aims to bring real and demonstrable help and relief to such people suffering spiritual, emotional or, physical need (John 3:16-17; Romans 15:13). Finding the lost, equipping the found.
When I fled the Church and my matrimonial home in July 2013, I received no relief emotionally, physically or spiritually from the church; in fact I became an outcast and destitute thus ended up homeless in a refuge with my 3 young children. All my needs were being met by the British Government and various Charity Organisations as Agape forsook me and my kids. So I can also confirm to you Dr Rod Cooper, that the above mission statement from Agape is false. Even the food and clothes my children were wearing was coming from the Children In Need Food Bank. For that reason I will always be grateful for people who donate food to the Children In Need, I never knew one day I would be on the receiving end after being abandoned by a Church and my husband who has a full time job.
3. Agape aims to be a Church that brings families back together through God's love, and a Ministry that represents one big family in Christ Jesus.
This is one mission statement I believe Agape should remove from their Vision Dynamics books and Website. Agape has one of the highest divorce rates in church history and I believe it is one of the most controversial churches to date. The Church thrives on breaking families apart. My 10 year marriage was broken by Dr Walter Masocha. He did this by turning me and my husband against each other. He advised my husband to forsake me and our children and my husband has taken this advice seriously. He no longer provides for his children in any way. He’s taken the advice of Dr Masocha so serious he has written several times to the Social Services asking them to take my children away from me because he says I am an unfit mother. In his own words as a committed Agape member he says my children needs to be removed from me because I am a) Addicted to pornography b) Addicted to blogging on the internet c) I am an extremist and d)I crave attention. According to my “Christian” husband, these above 4 reasons are good enough to have my children put into care. I am not any of those things, but even if I was I don’t think they are crimes deserving of such harsh punishment of having my children put in foster care when I love them dearly and live for them. If Agape had it their way, I would be locked up in a mental hospital somewhere, my three children will be in foster care without their mother, and Dr Masocha would find a more suitable bride for my husband. With that I can safely conclude that Agape does not bring families together, but instead it ruthlessly destroys the institution of marriage and family.
4. To be a Christian Ministry that breaks all known barriers such as race, colour, tribe or clan, creed, bigotry or prejudice (Ephesians 4:4-6; Galatians 3:26-27).
Again I fail to understand why Agape claims the above mission statement as I have been discriminated from all angles especially as a woman. I also have two friends who were kicked out of the Church because they presented with mental health problems. I was often banned by my husband and Dr Masocha from befriending anyone with mental illness as I was told it was spiritually contagious. I have suffered extreme discrimination for things I am not even, i.e. porn addiction, mental illness and lesbianism. I am not any of these things Dr Cooper, but I don’t believe people who are should be made to suffer as a result.
With the above I close my letter. I hope somehow you will read it. I am just a mother in pursuit of justice; a woman used, betrayed and abandoned. I have been left damaged and destroyed by Agape. But as a fighter, I refused to be defeated. For all the other women who have suffered under Agape and are afraid to stand up and fight back, I started this blog. Most of the women who go to Agape are vulnerable adults. They are mostly Zimbabwean immigrants who have come to the UK for a better life but end up on the other side of Britain, the one no one speaks about. These women often feel trapped in the Immigration system and have nowhere to run to. Their only answer to freedom is to seek religious help, and that’s where Churches like Agape come in. Sadly contrary to the “miracles and breakthroughs” promised by people such as Dr Masocha, people will then find themselves worse off than before they joined these Churches. Its a reality in the British Society today, and my prayer is that somehow one day there will be laws to regulate independent Churches and self styled prophets. And with that Mayor Councillor Dr Rodney Cooper, I close my open letter to you. God bless you.
Sincerely
Jean
The Mayor of Bournemouth Dr Rodney Cooper speaking at an Agape Church Service on 29 September 2013.
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