Johann Kikillus, director Soteria Ministries
Dear gangsters of Ocean View, as I write this letter, I can hear one of you discharging your firearm somewhere close by. It is only 12.20pm. Yesterday two of you decided to shoot near Ocean View Care Centre at 10am, causing panic among my staff and the small children we look after.
So I wish to reflect a bit on our relationship over the past ten years. Since I opened an office in Ocean View, I have counselled hundreds of your mothers, grandmothers and siblings who were all traumatised by your actions. I have had a few hundred of your younger brothers and sisters in my school, who were all traumatised. I have been to many murder scenes of your brothers, sisters and even mothers and fathers. Everyone at the murder scene was traumatised.
I have witnessed you running around the flats at the Care Centre with gun in hand leaving residents traumatised.
You take comfort in the fact that very few people will report you to the authorities, but maybe you have forgotten that God is always watching. And, as I continuously remind you, He does not sleep.
It is not just your families and residents that are hurting. I know that most of you are hurting as well. Most of you have been rejected by your parents, have been physically and sexually abused and have been just as traumatised by what you have done or had done to you.
Please do not fall for the lie that there is no door out. I have worked with your fellow gangsters for 17 years and witnessed many of them make the decision to turn their lives around and go on to live in peace and happiness – something you do not know.
So for your sake and the sake of the community, please, can I invite you to also turn your life around. You might not care much about God, but He cares about you. I will be in my office at the Care Centre on Wednesday March 31 and Thursday April 1 in the morning and will be happy to help you out of that bottomless pit you are in.
PS: please bring along your firearm and ammunition. You will have no more need for them on the path of restoration.
