{"id":72171,"date":"2017-09-10T06:00:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-10T04:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mobserver.co.za\/?p=72171"},"modified":"2017-09-22T08:26:08","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T06:26:08","slug":"time-running-mercy-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/news-headlines\/2017\/09\/10\/time-running-mercy-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Time running out for Mercy Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercy Home outside Middelburg, was started by Winnifred du Preez, a woman with a heart of gold and tons of unconditional love to give.<\/p>\n

Winnie, as she is known to her friends, believes that \u2018loving someone back to life\u2019 should come without conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has got potential. Everyone has a destiny. I try to help them find it, and I never give up,\u201d she told\u00a0www.mobserver.co.z<\/b>a<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
The signage was supposed to be erected next to Mercy Home. It could not be done because the property has been sold to new owners.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She started Mercy Home because she believes that it is her destiny, to help others, especially those everyone else have given up on. She chose the name Mercy Home because she says that to her, mercy is something given to someone without them earning it.<\/p>\n

\"\"
WarriorRic visited Mercy Home to encourage residents.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cGod is the most merciful,\u201d she says, saying that she strives to be more and more like Jesus.<\/p>\n

The place of refuge, previously funded primarily by her husband\u2019s business, now runs the danger of closing down, because the harsh economical climate has also come knocking on their door, forcing them to sell their source of income or lose it to the bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never known love, or Jesus, before I ended up here,\u201d a young man from Durban says. He says that even his family, who sent him to numerous rehab centres to try and rid him of drug addiction, eventually gave up on him and he ended on the street.<\/p>\n

\"\"
WarriorRic in action.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winnie vows that she will never lose faith in people. Some addicts do come and go, out of their own free will. But no matter how bad the conditions are when they leave, she will always receive them back with open arms when they are knocked down by life again.<\/p>\n

Mercy Home consists out of a circle of Wendy-homes, with a large wooden chapel in the centre, where residents gather on a daily basis for praise and worship, and to talk about their problems and also their dreams.<\/p>\n

Winnie\u2019s dream is to open a soup kitchen in Middelburg, one where people can come for a daily meal, a dose of gospel and a safe place to sleep without having your clothes stolen off your back at night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A home for the black sheeps of society, the cast out and the broken, is in danger of closing down, leaving its occupants without refuge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2844,"featured_media":72148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Jana Boshoff","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}