The Sunday Mail
WORSHIPPERS usually turn to men and women of God for help in their time of need.
But a man of God had no one to turn to when he sunk into depression, so he turned to booze.
However, Bishop Sammy Gitonga of South Africa managed to beat his demons and found his way back.
He shared with Daily Sun that his challenges started in 2004 and they affected the running of his ministry. The founder of Remnant Ministries in Tshwane said he had depression and stress and had nowhere to turn to.
“My wife and I, whom I married in 1999, got divorced in 2005.
“The cause of divorce was stress and we burnt out. Running the church also affected my personal life. My wife and I started to fight. It escalated and we decided to separate,” he said.
“We almost lost our property and it was a serious challenge as I lost weight. There was no income.”
Gitonga said he lived alone for more than two years after the divorce and it was challenging because of loneliness.
“I tried to pray and cried out for help, but help was not coming. People, friends and colleagues distanced themselves from me and part of the congregation left. Other church members remained and continued to pray for me and encouraged me,” he said.
He reportedly started to drink alcohol around 2015, with wine becoming his comfort.
“I used to drink one glass of wine, but found myself addicted to alcohol, especially wine. I was drinking alone almost daily from 2016 to 2018,” he said.
The bishop said towards the end of 2018, the Lord told him in a dream that he wanted to heal him.
“God even said he will heal my marriage and my life. We called the elders, they reconciled us and we remarried in 2019. I went to a rehabilitation centre in Jo’burg in the same year for three months and I am now healed. I even opened a Bishop House Rehabilitation Centre in Pretoria CBD in August,” he said.
“When you are going through problems, this is what you get. I have faithful sons and daughters together with my wife. My daughters also have a few friends from America and London.
“We lost a lot of church members, but I see the number is growing and the family is stable,” he said.
The bishop appealed to men of the cloth to stand together and support each other.
“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else shall be added to us.”
“Those struggling with alcohol and substance abuse should come and we will help them. Don’t die alone and don’t worry about stigma,” he said.
Woman raped on passenger train
Riders watched as a woman was raped Wednesday night last week on a train near Philadelphia (US), but they did not intervene or call police, authorities said.
Some are alleged to have taken pictures and videos while it happened.
Officers reviewed surveillance footage from a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) train that shows a man board shortly after a woman and sit next to her, according to Upper Darby Township Police Department superintendent Timothy Bernhardt.
The man talked to her, the footage shows, then “gradually” got aggressive, eventually ripping her clothes off and assaulting her.
“He sat next to her for a conversation. . .” Bernhardt said.
“And then he just completely overpowered the woman and forcibly raped her.”
Authorities were alerted by a female SEPTA employee, said Andrew Busch, a SEPTA spokesman. An officer from SEPTA’s police department intervened after the train on the Market-Frankford line stopped at 69th Street Transportation Centre in Upper Darby.
The assault, he said, took about eight minutes, but onlookers did not help the woman.
“If somebody who witnessed this had called 911, it’s possible that we would have been able to intervene even sooner,” Busch said.
“Because this had apparently started before the employee who was on board noticed what was going on.”
The suspect, Fiston Ngoy (35), has been charged with several crimes, including rape and aggravated indecent assault, according to court records. He is being held at the Delaware County jail on US$180 000 bail.
Once Ngoy was arrested, the woman — who has not been publicly identified — was taken to a hospital for treatment.
“I spoke with the victim . . . and she is an unbelievably strong woman,” Bernhardt, the Upper Darby superintendent, said Saturday last week.
“I can’t say enough about her, how she was able to identify her attacker, tell us what happened. Now she is working . . . to get through this.”
SEPTA’s police officers and several unarmed guards regularly patrol its stations and trains, Busch said.
They mainly respond to reports of robberies and thefts. After this sexual assault, he said, the transit authority is considering increasing its security.
For Bernhardt, the most “appalling” part of the event was the lack of empathy displayed by the other individuals riding the train.
Investigators are going over the surveillance footage, and police received reports of riders recording video or taking pictures while the rape took place.
“I am just speechless,” he said.
“To be a victim of a crime like this and be victimised a second time is absolutely horrible.
“I don’t know where we are in society that people can’t help other people out in a time of need,” he said.
Man kicks family
out of wedding
Families can be a handful sometimes and their pranks can be a bit much. But this man got more than he bargained for when all the women in his family decided to show up to his wedding wearing white dresses in a bid to “test” the bride.
In a post on Twitter, one man shared his story about how his aunts, women cousins, mom, stepmom, stepsister and grandmother formed a “unit” — that he says is “toxic” — aimed at “testing” the women who want to be part of the family.
“They would tease and roast every new woman that enters the family by marriage by setting up ‘tests’ to see if they deserve to be part of the family,” said the man.
He added that some of these “test” and roasts would get to the point where it could break confidence and affect self-esteem.
“Then after a few months of teasing, they would announce that they have finally welcomed them into the family,” he posted, adding that the newest member would join in on the teasing if a new woman gets introduced.
The man posted that his brother warned him that his women family members intended to wear white to the wedding as an “ultimate test”.
When confronted, the family said they would never do such a thing. However, when the big day arrived, all of them showed up wearing white dresses. He asked that they leave, resulting in scenes being made.
His aunts and mother refused to leave, prompting him to threaten “harsher action”.
They eventually all left.
“My cousin blasted me on social media later, saying I excluded all the women from the wedding because my wife was insecure that she couldn’t handle another woman’s presence at the wedding.”
He posted that he also got in an argument with his mother, who said it was “just supposed to be a prank” and that they wanted to see if she was a “bridezilla”.
His mother also asked that he and his wife apologise to them.
“I haven’t seen the lot of them in two weeks and they have excluded me from everything.” — Wires.
