Our Mercy work was created in 1994 specifically to help and heal refugees , in particular young refugees, war orphans, or others whose family life has been totally disrupted by the wars in Africa. The security of a stable home brings healing and education diminishes fear of the future, replacing it with hope. Hence our motto: Love changes everything. Mercy House embodies this and our history has proved this to be true.
Three times a week, the Saint Vincent’s Society operating from the Kensington Catholic Church, provides food for around a hundred people. The project is run by Mr Mike Stewart. Volunteers work there, including our Danny.
Mercy House is privileged to receive boxes of food containing a good meal every Friday. We sincerely thank SVdeP MAY YOU RECEIVE HELP WHEN YOU NEED IT.
Lastly, we cannot fail to thank God for his many blessings on us for the continuation of His Mercy work.
To this end, we have a Holy Mass on our premises at the beginning and end of each year. This happened on 28 April, Freedom Day, this year. We were grateful to once again have had our Comboni Father Efrem to celebrate the Mass with us. “Praise the Lord for He is good!”
We committed to assisting 22 students with schooling for 2024, With everything becoming hugely more expensive, our policy now is not to add new scholars for the year 2025. We hope to continue with the registration fee, so that the children can get into school, but it is up to the parents to pay the balance themselves monthly. We continue to supply school shoes (thanks to AISJ) and stationery.
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From July 2023 to July 2024, we sponsored Zama with a one-year training as a fitness instructor at FITNESS PROFESSIONALS College in Sandton, which issues internationally
recognised certificates. On completion, Zama was offered a job at a gym at Eastgate, but the college itself was so impressed with his excellence, that they offered him a job immediately, where he continues to work till today.
To add to the wonderful story: a close friend of Zama, Jaffa Senga, asked if we had any way to enable him to do the course. We could not take this on, as it costs us just over R30 000.00 for the year. However, by God’s kindness, I got a call from our very first overseas volunteer (2000 to 2004). She asked if there is something she could help with. I told her about Zama and Jaffa, and asked if she would consider sponsoring Jaffa. She agreed and he is already studying there and loving it! Too wonderful that God provided when the need was right in front of us! Gives us courage to continue!
During 2024 we took in 7 new arrivals: Exocee, Lionel and Gaston from DRC, Vincent from Sudan and a couple – Olive and James, (who both have a four-year degree in accounting from Rwanda), with their adorable little girl, Giana, from Rwanda. Vincent pursues his trade as a shoe maker with excellence, Gaston is already employed as a health visitor by the JRS, this been a great blessing in times of wide-spread unemployment. These newcomers have been a great blessing to our Mercy community, especially our little 2- year- old Giana (see photo below), who everyone loves so much.
Our beloved Zeng, one of our leaders, has been with us since high school days and subsequently been through 6 years of training which he finished early this year. He is known to so many, and his talent can be seen on our website which he designs, as well as on all graphic work we do. His excellence was seen by a company in the United States, which immediately offered him a job. He is already working for them online from Mercy House! They will take him in February to USA, to get to know the staff and workings. We wish him everything of the best as he deserves.
Our other house leader, Masengo, also received the blessing of getting a job in Johannesburg doing videography. This even took him to Angola for a few weeks, to do filming there. Both he and Zeng do an excellent job in managing Mercy House.
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On 24 September 2024 we held our second Mercy Family Reunion Day. We plan to have this each year on the public holiday, 24 September. Once again Saint Vincent’s Society of Honeydew provided us with the meat for a braai and we invited past residents who are still around to join us. This was a great success. We thank St Vincent’s Honeydew, especially Mr Godfrey, very sincerely for this.
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