Three years ago Pastor Albert Mbenga, a refugee from the Congo (Kinshasa), had hardly any hope at all of being reunited with his family, but these days he and his wife Sophiane have lots of reason to smile.   The recent birth of their lively twin daughters – with very healthy lungs, we discovered when they visited SARCS’s National Office! – have made them feel even more at home here in their country of adoption. The South African Red Cross helped reunite Pastor Mbenga with his wife and 3 sons, Joel (16), Titus (15) and Jude (14) in March 2003.

Pastor Mbenga (46) had to flee the Congo in 2002. The Mbengas had to leave their home in Kinshasa when security police discovered that he had been harbouring Rwandan refugees on his property since the beginning of the civil war that had raged in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998. In the latter part of that year he bade his wife and children goodbye and boarded a train to Lusaka in Zambia, not knowing whether he would ever see them again. After spending 40 days in Lusaka, he stayed in Harare for a month.

In November 2002 he entered South Africa, hidden in the back of a truck, and applied for asylum in this country.  He is French speaking and had to learn English fast in order to prepare for a new life in South Africa.

Pastor Mbenga says: “When I left the Congo I left my wife and three sons and a baby girl, Bounty, behind. On Christmas day 2002 I received the sad news that my daughter had died of pneumonia. It was so very difficult to accept. He explained their tradition of processing a tragedy of such a nature by announcing and mourning the death of a child to a big gathering of people. “I did not have this opportunity and had to wait until March 2003, after being reunited with my family. I spoke about my daughter during my first sermon to the Church of the Christian Evangelical Assembly in Bellville, Cape Town.”

Sophiane swears her 5-month old twin daughters, Blessings Sophiane and Wonders Charlotte, are the very image of Bounty, the daughter they lost.  Sophiane is a full-time mother to her 5 children – the new additions to their family being more than a handful – but she would still like to find work to help sustain her family, and she is slowly getting her tongue around the English language.

by Estelle Neethling of the South African Red Cross
Photograph by Esa Alexander – courtesy of Die Burger