Author: Zeng Dieulv

On Thursday 25 October 2018, Emmanuel Taban received his 3rd degree at Wits University in Johannesburg. Having arrived in Johannesburg as a teenage refugee in 1995, with nothing other than the clothes he was wearing and no place to stay, through his unbelievable faith in life and unstoppable determination, he not only qualified as a medical doctor, but then specialized as a physician and has just completed his second specialization as a pulmonologist – in lung disease! If anything is a tribute to the human spirit, this is, and we congratulate him with all our hearts, we are proud of his achievement and wish him every blessing in his service to humanity in the future. A great life lies ahead.

We invite our readers to read his story, written in his own words, given below.  If anything is, this is enough to restore our hope in life and humanity! Read on!

 

My name is Emmanuel Taban. I was born in South Sudan in 1976 into a Catholic family. My father was a soldier in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. He died in March 1993, during a clash with government soldiers. Shortly after this, these soldiers went to our house, and took my mother away. They put her in prison for two months. I was away at the time, being a boarder at a Catholic school. I went home for the December Holidays. On Christmas Eve I attended the Midnight Mass in our local church, and on my way home afterwards, soldiers arrested me. They took me to prison in Juba and then to Port Sudan.

 

In this prison I was constantly interrogated about my father and brother. They tortured me and beat me. I had to go dig salt in the harbour from morning to evening, with no food all day. It was only at night that I was given some bread to eat. The torture and beatings went on for 3 months. After some time, I was approached by the commander of the prison who said that he would help me, on condition that I become a Muslim. This was my only hope, and I accepted his proposal. They changed my name to Nazir – which means follower of Mohammed. I had to learn the Muslim prayers and the Koran. They then sent me to a centre of instruction for boys in the Muslim way of life, near the border of Eritrea. I was guarded by 3 soldiers. They said that the instructions would last 3 years after which I would be sent to Yemen for further studies.

 

I had not been there long when I was commended for good progress. This entitled me to more freedom – I could move around without soldiers guarding me all the time. I took the very first opportunity to escape. I walked for 3 days until I reached the border of Eritrea, but once there, I was put in jail for 45 days, because I had no documents. I was unable to explain, because no one could speak English. On 15 September they released me and gave me a temporary document, but this was in their language – Tigris – which I could not understand!

 

Soon after that I met a friend of my father. He helped me to get proper documents and helped with some money. It would have been too much of a risk for me to go back to my family, so I made my way to a seaport and got onto a cargo boat to Mozambique. From there I proceeded to South Africa. On 23 November, 1995 I arrived in Johannesburg with no money and no place to go! All I did know was the name of the Comboni Missionaries who work both in South Africa and Sudan. I found their number in the phone book and contacted them. They allowed me to stay with them. Father Henry got me into Jeppe Boys High School where I did matric. Father Joe Sandri did me the very great service of finding a bursary for me to enter Medical School. Thanks to the Comboni Missionaries, I graduated as a medical doctor from Medunsa University, after which I specialized as a physician then completed a second specialization in October 2018 at Wits University as a specialist in lung disease.  Happily, Comboni Brother Peter, who mentored me along my way, was able to attend the graduation and my gratitude is immense.

The photo shows Charlie when he came to us in December 2013.  He is with
Zeng, whom Charlie adopted from the word go.  We purchased Charlie when he
was only a few weeks old from a Rasta man on a corner nearby, who was
selling him. Today he is a mature boy, 5 years old, and much bigger, as can
be seen in the recent photo of him with our Moise. Every Saturday morning, we
take Charlie to the nearby park where he has the time of his life chasing
all the birds, even though they are unreachable. For him it is a good game.
Charlie has his contribution to make to life at Mercy House, making our
community feel more like a family.  We love Charlie. So of course, does Zeng.

 

On 20 July this year, our UK Mercy Team, once again held their annual garden party to raise money for Mercy House. Mick and Penny Finn host the luncheon, generously offering their beautiful garden (see photo), as the venue. The function was a great success and a very generous donation was sent through with the magic of exchange rate, meaning that it multiplied by about 16! This year it was used to assist with the funding of our final year chemical engineer student, Robert, whose story is given below. Please read an abridged form of the thank you email we sent to our UK friends.

 

Dear Friends

It was great joy to hear that Mick and Penny have again this year offered their beautiful garden for the venue of another annual fund-raiser, the garden party lunch. A very big thank you to you all. St Richards has been a most faithful and reliable supporter for about 22 years, through the initial instrumentality, dedication and enthusiasm of Ms Judy McGregor. It all came about in the most unexpected of ways. My brother, Dennis, who is a dentist, went to work in the UK in 1996. There, at a braai, he met Judy and Gerald, who had moved from South Africa to the UK. My brother and Gerald used to jog together in Durban and so had become friends in their very early years. Whilst chatting at the braai in 1996 Dennis mentioned that his sister had started a home for the young refugees in Johannesburg. Judy immediately said that she would like to get involved in helping. It did not take long before she got other people interested. Parish priest, Father Kieron – with David Rang – even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise as much as R40 000.00 for Mercy House! Subsequent to that they cycled to Lourdes for the same cause! Father Andrew organised two highly successful classical musical evenings… And so the ball started rolling. Since that time, the priests and parish have been marvellously supportive to the extent that Father Andrew even flew out to Johannesburg and spent one jam-packed week getting to know Mercy House. What a privilege that was.

St Richards has been our main supporter over the 22 years of our existence. We are deeply grateful for this commitment and extend our sincere gratitude to all at St Richards who have helped us along our way. To quote a modern hymn: “We are pilgrims on a journey, we are brothers on the road, we are here to help each other, walk the mile and share the load.” Thank you St Richards for doing just this.

Saturday is usually a day for extra lessons, but not the 8^th September. This was set aside to be “Make Mercy House Beautiful” day. The lawn was almost totally depleted due to the bitterly cold winter and lack of rain. So, we ordered slabs of grass (at considerable cost!) and replaced our whole lawn. Much picking and digging and hard work. It looks good now, (see photo) so our hard work was worthwhile. Innocentia, our Afrikaans and Zulu teacher also took the day off from teaching and got stuck into the kitchen, with the help of some of our boys and Ma B. See the action in the photo below.

On Saturday 9 of our Mercy House scholars had the privilege of attending a Fun Day at the American International School. This was arranged by one of our co-workers, Nozizwe Ndebele, who works there. A bus came all the way from Pretoria to fetch them and bring them home. A great time was had by all, as the photos show. Ivan, a matriculant who attended wrote the following:

“Being at The American School was like being in another world. It was an environment that I am not used to. There were so many activities being done there and I found them fun. I wasn’t just going there to have fun, but to get an experience. As I would like to be a teacher one day, I learned a lot: there were children from different nationalities and cultures, who speak different languages. I learned that at the end of the day, that you have to treat all these children the same! Although there weren’t people my age, it was still fun, as I enjoy working with children and made good friends!” 

We thank Nozizwe for arranging this and the American School for giving this joy to our young people.

Daniel is the youngest in a large family from the DRC. He is now 12. When he was only a few months old, it was found that he had epilepsy. This disease paralysed him before he was even one year old. The devotion of his mother, who is a single parent, and of his siblings, is simply wonderful. He is seen in the photo in a wheel chair obtained for him this October by Mrs Sharon da Silva of St Vincent’s Society, Malvern. We commend and thank her for her compassionate care and also the family, for their loving devotion to their young brother. May Daniel’s presence and suffering be a blessing to them all.

 

This year two of our residents are writing matric. Ivan and Dioscor, both from Rwanda, attend Phoenix College and Dominican Convent School respectively. They have both been with us for some time.  Ivan would love to be a teacher, but that involves 4 years of university study, which may be dream impossible, nevertheless, we are wondering how to access assistance for him.