Author: Zeng Dieulv

There are many refugee women keeping their families going, without husbands present, for one or another reason. These women do not have a good command of English and little training, so they often come desperate for money for their monthly rent. This is difficult for us to sustain, since we have to keep Mercy House going at big cost, monthly. Our policy now is, rather than keep on giving rent, to empower them, so that they can get onto their feet and thereby keep their families going, alone.

To this end, we have given one woman a braai stand and a double-plated gas cooker. She has started cooking and selling meals on the street, which we understand is slowly taking off. We then asked another to list all the things she would need to do likewise, by way mainly of foodstuffs for her cooking. She, too, is now selling outside her apartment on the street. Our third and most recent endeavour has been to help a single parent to set up a small shoe business on the street. She buys large bags or crates of new shoes and resells them. This, too, is slowly taking off and we hope that their endeavours will be successful, so that they will be able to pay their rent, and above all, that the police do not come and “confiscate” their stock and chase them away. Cruel as this is, it does unfortunately happen – may they be protected…

 

 

 

 

 

How nice to have a small celebration amidst all the distancing Covid has sadly caused between friends and family. On Sunday, the 23rd of May, we had three reasons to do just this. And it was such a pleasure to be with some of our Mercy House residents present and past, joyfully reinforcing our belonging and togetherness.
Firstly, we celebrated the wedding of our Douglas, who is seen in the photo with his lovely young Burundian wife. Secondly, we celebrated the birthday of our youngest resident, Brielle, also seen in the photo. Lastly, we welcomed our new resident, Brilliant, from Burundi.

We had looked forward so much to having our young volunteers, American, Paige and Emmanuel, her Mexican husband, who too were looking forward so much to the celebration. Sadly, they could not come, due to the fact that ten of the pupils where Paige teaches had contracted the virus that week. The school was closed and staff and pupils put in isolation. In spite of that, Paige made sure that she provided lovely cakes and gifts and dropped them outside our gate! We are endlessly grateful for having such committed and loving volunteers.

Indeed, the Knitwits must be good at knitting and crocheting, as this group of about 50 women have taken it upon themselves to make blankets every year for people in need. These are not only very beautiful, but very warm. By chance, they heard about Mercy House and our work and decided to donate some of their blankets to us! We are immensely grateful to them, as, with the cold winter weather, people at the gate are asking for blankets. Knitwit ladies delivered 24 lovely blankets on Saturday, 29th May – see photos. They have come in so helpful giving relief and joy to those in need. Thank you again dear Knitwits. Keep up your wonderful work of service.

 

Once we emerged to a lower Lockdown, we were able to restart our Saturday lessons in Afrikaans for our students, kindly given by our very dedicated teacher, Innocentia. Because of Covid caution and restriction, we have limited our number to only 15 and divided them into two groups at our play centre, outside. The photo shows their joyful enthusiasm.

We once again thank our wonderful teacher, Innocentia, whom our young people love so much. May she be rewarded for this.

 

 

 

 

We, of Mercy House, did not only pray that we would be spared from the virus, but also implemented practical measures to protect ourselves and to help our refugees who suffered severely from the devastating effects of Lockdown.

 

• In the first place, we put up sanitisers on our property and made sure that everyone had masks, mostly made and donated by Papa Zeng, father of our website designer.  
• During Lockdown 5, we were not even allowed out of our own property. A tough time!
• Once Lockdown 4 was introduced we allowed those students whom we assist with studies, who live out, to sit in our driveway and use our internet (which they depend on) from there. During Lockdown 5, 4 and 3 no one was allowed beyond the driveway, into our garden and house.
• We managed to provide two of the live-out students with their own laptops, so that they were able to study online at home.
• We spent a lot of money on data and gave the vouchers to the live-out students, so that they could work online at home on their laptops, tablets or cell phones.
• We bought a large number of food vouchers at our local Pick n Pay store, and distributed these to our live-out refugees, who did not have money for food, since their only income is sitting on the street selling second-hand clothing or vegetables, which they were not allowed to do during Lockdown. Devastating, when a family loses its source of income…
• We assisted as many as 15 live-out refugees with rent for several months.
• All in all, we have spent around R70 000.00 or more on the Lockdown Aid, and this is continuing. For this we thank those who especially donated money for Covid relief, Dr Emmanuel Taban, Dr Martin Kalenga, Paige Clark – who raised money from the American International School, The Coutts-Trotters and others. Your money has been really well-spent. We know the African saying: “I am because you are,” but we can truly say: “We are because you are!” Thank you.
• Lastly of course, we thank our Father God, who answered our prayers and has so far spared all at Mercy House and, as far as we know, all who in some or other way, belong to our Mercy Family world-wide, from the virus. May He continue to keep his protecting wall of fire around us all. Thank you, Father.

CONSTRAINTS

When I was a student, we had a saying we used to joke about amongst one another:

A student sends a message to his dad (and funder):  

“Dear dad, no mon, no fun, your son!”

Dad replies:

“So sad, too bad, your dad!”

The 8 months or more of  Lockdown has, of necessity, been somewhat “no fun”- a bit flat and uneventful as regards our vibrant Mercy Family life! So much of the fun we have had in the past has been dampened, because of precautionary regulations like social distancing etc. 

Not only have we missed our Sunday services at church, but we have not been able to have any of our usual Holy Masses in our play centre with our Comboni Fathers, all year! “So sad, too bad…“     

Likewise, we missed our normal celebration of birthdays with a weekend lunch, though we did manage to celebrate the birthday of our leader, Eddie. 

Easter Sunday was another big disappointment. Not only could we not attend the beautiful Holy Week services, but we also could not have the large gathering of our extended Mercy family for lunch and the catching of Easter eggs, which usually rain down from the skies for the little and big children. Looking ahead, at the time of publishing this update, we do not even know whether we will be able to have our large Christmas celebration on 25 December. If not, we will certainly have to find some way to give joy on that day, we shall see, we shall find a way…

 

POSITIVES

Despite all the constraints mentioned above, perhaps we have got to appreciate the people and many gifts we have taken for granted in our daily lives. We are born into community, so the isolation may have made us value our relationships, our family and friends more. We may value our church services more, the celebration of its feast days, which bring us together and give us joy. Perhaps our scholars may value their schooling more. We may value our work more – during this time our Colby managed to get a job with a UK company, working online! Our faith really has been tested, but our God does have his ways of educating us, let us give him the benefit of doubt! “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways,” as the Scriptures say! (Isaiah 55:9)

 

We thank Mr Peter Keshwar and his co-workers for their tremendous support. They not only give us donated food of the best quality once a week, but also provide us with 20 cooked chickens every Christmas. The weekly food donation enables us to provide food, not only for Mercy House but for the very wide circle of refugees we support that live out. The photos show the delivery on 2 December. Thank you so much to all involved.