The Paroled Pastor

Book excerpt: After 40 years of impressive community service in the village of Morwa in Botswana, Leroy returns to his native United States and becomes a celebrity. His bitter rival for 40 years, Jealousman, looks forward to finally being the sole village hero once again. Suddenly, the paroled Pastor Limelight Mmonadilo of the defunct Ten Commandments Ministries attains popularity by mobilising the village leadership into preserving and celebrating Leroy's legacy for purposes of employment creation, amidst the grinding global economic recession. Jelousman, believing that his own legacy is more worthy of celebration and preservation, gets determined to bring Pastor Mmonadilo's project to its knees. For a while he tries to do this in an uncharacteristically subtle manner. Meanwhile, a group of city-based professionals motivate the formation of a company for tourism business in Morwa. This intensifies the rivalry between Jealousman and Pastor Mmonadilo. Father Sebastian Modiga of the Roman Catholic Church channels the negative energy between the two men into unleashing a "holy war" and "final solution" against the allegedly predatory charismatic or "Fire" church in Botswana.