HOW EVIDENCE BECAME TRUST
BY
FRANSCOIS OLWAGEN
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Costa and his family seven years later. They came to visit and is doing well and looking good. Little Monica is now as old as Krissmonne(our daughter) was when she was born. With the Migrants in Europe in the forefront.I once more p;ace this story in the hope it opens hearts and minds please share.We could all become refugees or migrants,whatever you want to call destitute displaced people. They are people like us and hold no threat to you.I do it because I care, once more I watched fleeing masses of humanity and the tears came running once more involuntarily. |
It was a normal Sunday and we were at church in Reiger Park
If I wanted to be honest, I would admit that I felt responsible for the disillusionment and hurt, caused to her by an unashamed scoundrel in a Shepard’s, disguise that nearly wrecked our marriage and definitely hurt her confidence in churches.
The new church was unfortunately no different. I found it difficult to stomach the antics of yet another “guest preacher”,that abused the pulpit with relish. Along with hallelujah’s and amen’s and much drama, a sick parody was playing itself out. My soul was disturbed and a cold anger was creeping into my being. Maybe it was just me being overly “white” in this mostly “coloured” congregation, I felt claustrophobic.
I felt so disturbed, that I earnestly prayed that God must forgive me for my prejudice and anger. I simply could not still this inexplicable feeling welling up inside of me. It just grew worse and before I did or said something regrettable I escaped outside to get much needed fresh air.
I went outside and a feeling of dread came over me, a feeling that overrides my anger, a feeling of darkness and doom,that made the nippy winter breeze feel icy cold. There was no escape from it and I was not going back inside. As if in a dream I heard noises of sirens and crowds above the noise of the church sermon inside.
I looked up into the pale blue sky and saw a column of smoke rising over Ramaphoza, a squatter community close by. The noise was emanating from there, and unbeknown to me the anger of Xenophobia was erupting with full force, all over Ramaphoza. I suddenly realized that we were in real danger, this was no illusion, there were police helicopters circling in the sky.
I decided to leave immediately; I rushed inside and acrimoniously halted the church service. My wife pleaded with the congregation to pray for the people of Ramaphoza, and we made a hasty departure, it was difficult, most roads were blocked or barricaded. Police and emergency vehicles were part of a maddening cacophony of blaring sirens.
We carefully picked our way through Reiger Park
Scenes like ones out of a holocaust movie were playing out. Streams of fleeing people were strung out among the roads some clinging to a couple of belongings, others with nothing and even some barefoot and half naked with gaping, bleeding wounds inflicted on them. Whole families were fleeing the horror that unfolded behind them, and were still chasing after them.
The persecutors were like packs of hunting dogs chasing up hares. They chased them while carrying pangas, knobkerries, sticks, assegais and guns. If they caught one that one would surely be torn apart as bloodlust turned the killing into a frenzy of aggression and madness. This was Africa ? This was South Africa
Again history was repeating itself. Our ancient history was bloodied with similar scenes of people who denied others the right to share their land because of different skin color, ethnicity or culture. It happened to the Strandloper Hottentots and the Koi Bushmen, when we were but a fledgling nation. The history of the proud Zulu nation is well known but it is a violent one, one that did not tolerate enemies.
The uprising of the youth, that culminated into the Sharpeville killing fields was re-birthed again. This was not the horror of Apartheid; this was the horror of a democracy. The stage was the same, the cast differed.
Apartheid was but a continuation of a tendency that was ingrained in the essence of man’s being. Cain and Abel come to mind and many other instances where intolerance of someone that is different or perceived to be favored in some way gets eliminated.
This word Xenophobia has many names and guises but all boils down to one thing, Man’s inability to love his neighbors because of his own greed.
All the way home we found them, on the radio there were emergency news reporting an outbreak of Xenophobia in Ramaphoza and Primrose. There were other places mentioned but we came from Ramaphoza and were on our way home, to Primrose! I cannot describe the scenes that met us along the way adequately. I just cried out to God to help the fleeing masses. I felt helpless and frustrated that I could do nothing except try to get my family safely home.
Closer to home we had to take detours to avoid clashes and barriers in the roads. Flaming tires and rocks were strewn across it to bar police and emergency vehicles free access to try and prevent the carnage. How could this be happening in a civilized country, a Democracy we are so proud of?
We put the news on at home after securing all entrances and went searching for candles and torches. Our domestic worker, Nonthlantla was ill and was diagnosed with TB; she was trying to find a way home. Her sister Zandile appeared, from nowhere, she also fled as she was living with her Malawian boyfriend in a squatter camp close to Primrose.
Xenophobia, a word I never paid heed to before, entered my house in the form of this scared and bewildered young girl. Her family phoned to say that they are sending transport for Nonthlantla to go home immediately. She left for Swaziland
I was concerned, very concerned and the images that reached us form the television screen was most worrisome. The word Apocalypse was flashing through my mind. Nevertheless we told Zandile that she could stay at our home an assured Nonthlantla that she had a job when she came back, no matter how long it took to get healed. We had to harbor these people, even though I feared retaliation aimed at my family, if we were found out.
My premonitions of the last three months were becoming reality right in front of my eyes. I have been praying for months, every morning I set my alarm for three AM. I got up and went outside to give the puppy Tackies food, so that he would not mess inside the scullery, where he slept in his basket. Then I went back to the room and kneeled down in prayer. It benefited everybody, Tackies got fed, I put on the Geyser, so Monica had hot water when she woke up and we saved money through it. Money was desperately short and I felt more useful as I did not have a job. My family was covered in prayer every day and I slept better for it.
The Monday came and Monica phoned from work saying that she was feeling terrible and wanted to help the displaced people. I felt the same. I told her I would take all the soup I have prepared and froze in preparation for winter, to Reiger Park
Literally overnight a refugee camp sprung up in the open area. We asked at the church where we could help. I immediately asked where the baby was, that was born in the camp. I saw a picture of the story in my daily paper and immediately realized they would need help. A Red Cross lady took us across the road to one of the white tents, which were pitched virtually on top of each other.
In front of the tent was a young black man washing himself from an empty coffee tin. The lady motioned Monica to go inside the tent and they reappeared with a mother and baby, swathed in blankets. The baby was tiny and it was very cold and would get dark soon so I made a flash decision, without consulting my wife. I invited the couple to stay at our home. The lady, actually just a 22 year old Mozambican girl called Isobel, walked with difficulty, still hurting from recent childbirth, brought on by fear.
We took the mother and baby to Monica’s car, while I waited for the husband, Costas to gather their earthly belongings from the tent. Monica took mother and baby home. Krissmonne, our seven year old daughter, would have to give up her bedroom for them, which she did with enthusiasm, as she loved
babies. I followed with Costas and their belongings and helped them unpack and settle in.
The first of five refugee babies settled in for the night at our home. I went back to the camp site and Monica attended to the couple as they could only speak Portuguese and a little Zulu, Monica was fluent in Zulu. I could only converse through her or with Zandile interpreting.
Dear reader at this stage of our lives we were people with a need. The previous week Monica borrowed R10 000. To pay our water and lights account after two kind gentlemen from the city council, visited and threatened to cut it. We could barely look after ourselves, as I could not find a job and my business did not make enough to support Monica’s income.
Interest rates were killing us and fuel prices were soaring, Monica stopped paying household and car insurance long ago. We could not make ends meet from month to month. Our life policies were two months in arrears and were about to lapse. The bills streamed in daily and here we sat with a situation that screamed so loud for attention that we could not refuse.
On arriving at the site I jumped in to help where I could. The church closed the gates at 18h00 in the evening; all helpers had to be out by then. As I was about to leave, a gogo, “aged black lady” stopped me and asked, please sir can you take one more?, I just nodded and took another young girl with newborn baby to my car.
That whole week, was one of the most tense and emotionally draining times of my life, yet I would never wish it otherwise. Suddenly I did what I did well, organize. I cooked daily, for in excess of 2500 people on gas stoves. The pots were too small for the task, there were not enough helpers and my time was thoroughly used.
Dear readers think about another scene, during another time, when a mass of people were fed with five loaves of bread and two fishes. Miracles were happening daily, food streamed in unabated. At first bread was rationed to five slices a person, eventually people could eat their fill and there was still some left. John 6:5 - John 6:10 (ASV) 5Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes, and seeing that a great multitude cometh unto him, saith unto Philip, Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat? 6And this he said to prove him: for him he knew what he would do 7Philip answered him,
Two hundred shillings’ worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him There is a lad here, who hath five barley loaves, and two fishes: but what are these among so many? 10Jesus said, Make the people sit down.
The logistics of the exercise was staggering; I quote from Frans Olwagen's refugee menu for one meal. Take 120 kg of stamp and put into bins, ad 30kg of dried beans, mix wash and rinse thoroughly and soak overnight. Open 750 tins of corned beef into bins; or rather pry them open with pliers. Open approx 200 to 250 tins of beans in tomato sauce into bins. Chop one bag of onions. Empty 5kg of assorted spice, for various instant dishes in a container. Put 100kg of frozen mince meat out in the sun to thaw.
Cook stamp and beans for one day. Keep on emptying pots into bins as the mixture swells out. Empty six 250 gram margarine containers into each filled bin, Fry onions in margarine with corned beef, and add spices. Add, what seams to be a bath full of beans in tomato sauce to supplement sauce as it is inadequate for the amount of stamp. Serve up to 2000 plus starving refugees, sit back and enjoy.
This happens on gas stoves in pouring rain under the roof of a small stoep, the area of a small carport. Then as I start panicking to find a portable light, as dusk sets in a young brother tries to get smart by suggesting, that I should not leave the bins in the torrential rain.
He was fortunate, it was not three years earlier, before my salvation, as surely that would be the last words he uttered out of, a still handsome, face. I was ready to give him the “fivefold ministry of my fists’” I had work to do under most trying circumstances and could not find it in my heart to entertain the sarcasm from a prima Donna in disguise. Later I found myself praying for a young man of the same ilk, in the priests’ office. He told me his mother was a victim of Aids and he wanted to go and lay her to rest.
Desperate measures for desperate times. People’s nerves were taught, they were stressing because of the horror surrounding them. They felt helpless against the seemingly insurmountable task. Yes some broke down in tears; one gentle man turned ugly and pulled out a gun while swearing at families. The priest calmly requested him rather not to come back again; we did not need that kind of help.
God revealed himself a thousand times as donations streamed in and people opened heir hearts and purses to help. Young and old jumped in. There was no differentiation of age ethnicity or culture. Even peoples religious convictions did not seem to matter A miracle was happening in Primrose and I, doulos was in the middle of it, and I praised my creator who alone could change devastation into devotion, horror into healing and haplessness into hope.
I called myself “Doulos” after the Greek word favored by some of the Apostles to describe the fact that they considered themselves servants to Christ. Eph 6:6: not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; 7 with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
The babies at home came and went as busses arrived to take them back to their countries of origin. There was strife in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
I remember the first night I helped dishing out bread. The jostling and pushing of hungry people became scary as they thronged around the bread tables. That was when I disobeyed orders to give half a loaf only and started dishing out whole loaves. Just that morning I read that a loaf of bread was selling for two million Zim dollars and the price was going up by the minute as inflation sky rocketed.
I understood the organizers concerns, at first they bought bread daily and the cost was frightening. At R6.50 a loaf 500 loaves a day cost R3 250-00. God new better, as he always does. The manna that is stored in heaven came down in buckets. Bread arrived from everywhere. Truckloads were donated on a daily basis. Ordinary people arrived in droves with food.
Monica took two days leave to help organize the storeroom, an emptied Sunday school room converted to house food. The food kept coming as we were using it, it was replaced. My bakkie worked overtime. I had to go to place A to collect 2000 tins of corned meat. Place B had copious amounts of yoghurt and milk products. Place C had literally a ton of fresh fruit. It was all donations from concerned business people who opened their hearts and warehouses.
The official relief organizations and other Ngo’s arrived daily. We were concerned only with our immediate situation on our front stoep, so to speak. They could look at the bigger picture together with those that ruled the country. I carted away bakkie loads of clothes and blankets, to other locations to make place for food for the people camped on our doorstep.
I was at the end of my tether. Some journalists representing a German Television station came to our home to film the babies. I barely had time to talk with them. Monica stayed with them. When the story appeared on “Welt Spiegel”, I was surprised to see them using the few seconds of footage talking to me. I had my five minutes of fame thrust upon me by circumstance. I was grateful to them because that was one of the few pieces of positive news coming from both the local and international press.
As always there were disappointments. One young girl whom we helped found a place on a bus to go home. She told the Red Cross that she did not get enough food at our home and that is why she is leaving. Yet she appeared on German National Television enjoying a sumptuous meal, by our standards, with us and other refugees in my home. How could she know that we were “needy” in our own pampered western way? There is just no comparison to, what she experienced and what we were privileged to enjoy.
In the chaos at the refugee camp I reversed late one afternoon out of the church gate and into a bakkie parked right across the entrance. The kind gentleman, a South African citizen, with Mozambican relatives insisted that we pay for the damage to his bakkie as we both did not have insurance. He brought a quote later and we made him a counter offer. Eventually we forked out R2 000-00, that we could not afford, to pay for the damages.
Two families remained with us, one from Mozambique the other from Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
I was very busy at the church until it was decided the refugee’s must move to another, more suitable site. In my diary I wrote that I was once more not needed and felt alone. Not having a job to be able to contribute to my family’s needs took its toll on my emotional well being. I often thought on what I would do when it was me at the receiving end of what happened to the refugees. Many South Africans, is of the opinion that they do not belong here and must go home. Although they condemn the violence their statements go to the contrary by implication.
The Methodist church and Red Cross were superb in the way they assisted us with donations of food, clothing and even cash from the Church. We could feed everyone, God provided as always in abundance. We carried on faithfully, trusting that our financial woes would come to an end. I was well aware that my good deeds were not a free pass to heaven, which was my job, if I wanted a bonus I would have to go above and beyond that. I happened to see Sylvie getting into an ambulance at the campsite. Enquiring later I heard that the little boy, she named Evidence, was ill.
I let it be. My heart was broken enough and I quietly cried when the busses took the refugees to the other site. We helped the Red Cross volunteers to dish out food packaged in polystyrene holders. That was the last dish I prepared with 330kg of donated frozen chicken and mountains of rice.
My wife took two days leave as she became ill with flu. I knew it was more because of stress than anything else. We were lying on the bed talking when God spoke to me. “You must find the boy child or he will die,” like always I obeyed and although it was raining I went to the new camp to find Sylvia and her little boy.
On arrival I was shocked with the state of the place. Organized chaos greeted me. The rain made things worse for overstretched organizers and volunteers. I found two men close to the double decked Bus, where a temporary crèche cum office was established. I asked them about the baby boy. The one man was Sylvia’s brother in law, who I have never met before! God always knows exactly what, who and when, something is needed, to do his will.
I asked them were she was and they told me she was in a clinic somewhere in Natalspruit, a township approximately 40 kilometers away. In pouring rain we set off to find them. I was praying furiously for God to protect us. Natalspruit was a notorious place where criminals hid after hijacking cars. I did not know these foreign black men and I was going into a township during troublesome times when people got brutally hacked and burned to death just because they were not local citizens. Yet I carried on I trusted God, I knew he never spoke without revealing the reason.
I duly found out when we eventually found the clinic and our quarry. She was in a maternity ward with the baby. At reception they told me, “You must take them they do not belong here. The arrogance of South African nursing staff was nothing new to me.
Evidence was in a bad shape. He was blue from cold and was on the verge of starving to death, a sister told me the boy would die if I did not take him. They gave Sylvie a syringe and a tin of formula. I had to write an affidavit as to who I was and where I lived and what the reasons were for me taking the mother and child out of the clinic. We left with them and I advised my wife to light the fire at home as “my son is coming home,’.
At the camp we were refused entry to fetch Sylvie’s belongings. They expected her to trudge through the rain and mud with a tiny, ill baby, to get her things.
There was love and peace in my home. The way I liked it, although, because of our desperate financial position, my wife and I often had heated arguments. For now it was peaceful. There were two babies and two little girls that demanded love and attention and we all gave it abundantly.
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| us and the family that remainedwith us for five months |
In the meantime I prepared formula and after a lot of struggle got him to swallow some by literally force feeding him. Monica squeezed some milk out of Sylvie’s breast directly into his throat and he swallowed. We had to do something, that child was starving. Since his birth nearly a week ago he has never taken any real sustenance.
Between my wife and Isobel little evidence eventually was breastfed by his mother. In the mean time the Red Cross provided formula and even coca cola, to bring on more lactation. I religiously saw to it that she drank healthy Rooibos herbal tea at least five times a day and Monica regularly bought fresh fruit to supplement her diet.
One day she told me she decided to rename Evidence, “Trust” and so a little boy changed name because a loving God heard his cries and sent his servant to save him, just like He heard, a servant girl named Hagar, with her crying baby in the dessert. He was blossoming and even started to get round cheeks, like babies should have. Sylvie’s boyfriend visited week-ends but I could see He was not at ease.
I spoke to him in private a beseeched him to let his son stay until he is stronger, I told him he nearly died and needed all the help he could get. I offered to keep them until the end of winter when it was warmer. They staid for free and enjoyed all the commodities we did, we ate what they ate, and we were a proper family unit.
We started to take the people in our home to Cornerstone Church
Sylvie became friends with Isobel and Zandile. She visited the local clinic and started smiling. She was a doting mother. She liked to sit in the winter sun under a big tree to feed her baby. She was content.
The day arrived that I secretly dreaded. Her boyfriend arrived without letting us know he was coming. He informed me he is fetching his wife and that she had to go back to Zimbabwe
Sylvia decided to go back to the camp. She simply took her baby and left. I held him in my arms and introduced him to God as “Truth” and asked God to go with them and to protect then from all evil. My heart was broken, the little boy I dearly loved and rescued was taken away abruptly.
We gave Sylvie supplies of food to take with. She left half her earthly belongings behind saying she would return for them. Monica told her she could phone at any time and we would fetch her and the baby if they needed more help.
Two ladies from Cornerstone Church
One day at the camp a man came to me. He introduced himself as the ambassador for Mozambique in South Africa
Monica took them home and later that night I found them there, all in a jovial mood and chatting up a storm. In the meantime Isobel and Costa settled down nicely. Costa worked on and off and Monica got along well with Isobel
One Sunday after church Costa told her that he desired to be baptized. Cornerstone sent two ladies around to bring us gifts of love. They brought lingerie, for the ladies and clothes and nappies for the babies. There was food for the house and even cake and real meat.
I was so sick of our daily diet of corned meat one day, tinned sardines the next, that meat was a real treat. They left an English bible as well. Costa immediately laid claim to the bible.
God kept on providing in many ways. We pray, “Give us our daily bread,” and he ads the cake and sweets and cold rinks and clothes and petrol etc, etc, simply because he loves us.
Our daily routine was settling in and Krissmonne had to stay in our room as hers were occupied by the visitors. The cost of the exercise was taking its toll though, despite generous donations we frequently had to pitch in and still carry on with our own lives of working and carting Krissmonne to school and back.
The Methodist church phoned one day to say that they collected R500-00 and that I had to go and fetch before lunch time. Monica and I already agreed if we got money would buy anthracite, as ours were finished a week ago, and some frozen chicken. I collected the money and went straight to the Christian bookstore and bought the only Portuguese Bible they had for R100.
I proceeded to go to the place that sells coal and enquired about the price. It was R150-00 a big bag; I bought two, R400-00 gone. I had some money left on my business card that I saved from doing a job earlier in the month and planned on using that to buy chicken, and as I needed diesel, I put a R100-00 of diesel in my bakkie.
Costa looked more at ease and started working in the garden on weekends. He was a timid quite spoken man; He used to put his radio next to the pool area when he worked outside. He was a good person and bought bread for everybody when he had a job.
I decided to get rid of a steel structure that served as a frame for grapevines to grow on. It was quite a sturdy metal structure and I helped him disassemble it. I realized he wanted to sell the steel and that the frame was too bulky so I bought a hacksaw. He cut the pieces smaller and borrowed the wheelbarrow and went to sell it to a scrap merchant. He gave me a very welcome R50-00 from the spoils.
Ricky, our home cell leader of Cornerstone Church, sent a Sms to say that he would be baptizing the following Sunday. I am very grateful for this; I can sense Costa is serious about his salvation and that there is a lot of promise of him growing beyond any ones expectation. Often I am surprised at the people God has elected to do his will. They do not always fit my idea of successful or competent people. I am a good example of that.
Sunday came and there was much excitement in my home. It was Costa’s big day. The day he will celebrate as his spiritual birthday. I was surprised to find out that it was the first time Ricky baptized anyone. In a sense it was his baptism to baptize. My heart is singing of joy, this was a good day.
