President Cyril Ramaphosa visited Ermelo on Good Friday to deliver his Easter message during a sermon at the Elshaddai Tabernacle International Ermelo.

In his address, he said he wasn’t in Ermelo to preach, but rather to receive prayers and be among the people of Ermelo on Good Friday.

“It should not be a platform for politicians, like me, to come and make politics in the church.

“I’m just here to receive your blessings, your fellowship and to be with you, that is what brought us here and we are very pleased to be among such positive people.

“You are among the most positive South Africans I have come across. Ngiyabonga!”

He went on to say that our country faces enormous challenges.

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He touched on matters such as Covid that have plagued citizens for two years and have impacted our economy negatively.

“Whilst we thought we were dealing with Covid-19, unrest in the country in Gauteng and KZN errupted.

“In the end, some 350 lost their lives, and yes we’ve admitted that there were missteps in the security cluster, but at the same time, it gave us the knowledge to strengthen our security cluster and make it a lot better.”

He then went on to say that now, just as the country thought we could end the state of disaster, we had a natural disaster that descended on our country, particularly, the province of Kwazulu-Natal, with close to 340 people losing their lives.

“This has caused a lot of devastation, a lot of havoc, and it is a catastrophe of enormous proportions that we have not seen before in our country in that so many people can die and more than 40 000 will be affected.

“Many of them being displaced, houses destroyed and people having lost everything.”

He said that in his presidency, it was probably one of the saddest moments he had experienced when he had to visit a family that had lost 10 family members at once during the floods.

ALSO READ: KZN floods: Death toll rises as province works to clean up path of destruction

According to him, the whole eastern part of the country has been affected by heavy rains brought on by climate change.

“We need to be serious about how we deal with climate change.”

He also addressed the unemployment rate in our country, gender-based violence, crime in general, corruption and towns where service delivery has broken down.

He then quoted the bible, II Chronicles, Chapter 7 verse 14:

“If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

He emphasized that our country needs healing.

He received a great cheer from the Ermelo community when he addressed the Msukaligwa municipality’s leaders and acting mayor when he said they need to do better.

“Whatever challenges we face, whatever breakdowns we have, we should know that there are breakthroughs as well, let us look for those breakthroughs because every cloud has a silver lining.”

In closing he urged South African citizens to unite in order to overcome the challenges we face.