/ 2 September 2009

Johannesburg’s Methodist homeless mission

A son throws himself at his father’s mercy. The son is a ruin, his head balding, his clothing ragged. He kneels and buries his face in his father’s breast. The old man, white bearded and scarlet caped, looks down at his son with tenderness and love. Their monumental figures glow in a pool of light, reflected on the faces of spectators in the impenetrable darkness.

“What do you notice about the father’s hands?” asked Bishop Paul Verryn as I studied the framed reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son. I mumbled something. Verryn answered for me: “Who’d have thought the father has a woman’s hand?” I looked closer and could see one of the hands appearing slender and graceful as it rested on the son’s back.

The biblical image of homecoming and forgiveness lies against a wall in Verryn’s office at the Central Methodist church in Johannesburg. The church has an “open-door policy” to thousands of homeless people, mostly desperate Zimbabweans who have fled their homeland with nothing. It attracts the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but it is hardly a comfortable refuge.

When I stepped inside, the first thing that hit me was the pungent smell of stale sweat and urine. The lobby was dingy with paint peeling off the walls, cracked floor tiles and old bags piled in a corner. I peered into a dormitory where each person’s living space was little bigger than their mattress on the floor. Improvised partitions were not enough to dull the cacophony of televisions. Across the corridor was an ornate wooden chapel in which children in school uniform could be seen running and laughing.

I went upstairs, passing dull-eyed men leaning against the wall, pursued by the foul odours. Instead of pushing open a door, I merely stepped through its frame, since the glass panels had long gone. I noticed a memorial inscribed with the names of World War I and the legend: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Verryn reckons there are between 3 000 and 3 500 people living in the building, about 85% from Zimbabwe. During the day he encourages them to go out, ideally in search of work, but at night they cram in wherever they can, sleeping on the floors, stairs and pews. Some used to squat on the street outside, but an aggressive police raid last month, following complaints from local businesses, has forced the church’s worship areas to take in a further 300.

There are about 100 babies and 50 toddlers enduring these cramped conditions, with 25 to 30 in a creche. About 110 children are here without parents but spend their days at school, learning everything from catering and computing to karate and ballroom dancing from teachers who are themselves seeking sanctuary.

The bishop estimates there is one death every two weeks at the church, with winter months especially harsh. There were six diagnoses of cholera last year but no fatalities thanks to the work of Médecins Sans Frontières.

Screenings for HIV and tuberculosis have also gone some way to staving off disaster. But alcoholism, gang crime and violent feuds are persistent scourges.

Verryn (57) said: “Every conceivable social problem that you could imagine is here, from child abuse to stealing to sex on the steps. It happens. It can be testing, but on the other hand there’s a huge possibility. To begin organising and garrisoning the potential of people in this place can be exceedingly rewarding. There is huge hope looking for a home.”

Johannesburg is currently rebranding itself as a “world class city”. But foreigners without money are not always so welcome. Verryn added: “The World Cup next year is becoming a pain in my neck because everybody wants the city to be clean and beautiful and spick and span. We need to get rid of the cockroaches, who are the poor, and shove them into some corner because that’s not what a world-class city really looks like, it’s not exactly New York.”

“Obviously that impacts on what’s going on in this church very specifically. If they could smudge us into oblivion it probably would be the happiest day of the bureaucrats’ life.”

Downstairs I met destitute Zimbabweans who said that they experienced more hostility than hospitality after they crossed the border. Noel Muguti told me: “Most of the people are xenophobic. They look down at us. They don’t recognise us as black. They don’t recognise us as Southern African people.”

Muguti (33) was a candidate for the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. He said last year’s political violence started on his homestead, resulting in the death of his campaign manager. Three weeks later his wife was kidnapped — he assumes she is dead — and his home razed to the ground.

He was abducted and tortured but managed to escape and flee to Johannesburg.

Three months ago his sister, Belinda, was poisoned and his two-year-old son, Democracy, smashed in the skull. They are still in a mortuary because he cannot afford to bury them. He would like to work for the sake of his other children, aged six and 10. Muguti said: “I help here as security and we are given something to survive, even though it’s not every day. There aren’t any jobs in Johannesburg and Zimbabweans have flooded here. So as I stand here, I still face the crisis.”

However difficult the conditions at the Central Methodist church, there will have to be a lot more political change before Muguti and his compatriots return to Zimbabwe. The other day Verryn did a survey of the 1 700 people in the building at the time. Only 120 said they would go back if they could. – guardian.co.uk