WATCH: One man’s mission to rebuild ‘The Ark’ heads to Durban High Court

SOUTH AFRICA’S socio-economic issues have tragically left thousands of its citizens homeless.

And while many find it best to just look away and ignore those begging for help at intersections or sleeping in parks and pavements, one man is not prepared to abandon the people who need help so desperately.

Dr Peter Munns should certainly be counted among the most passionate advocates for the poor and homeless people in society.

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While the national, provincial and local government and ruling parties all say they want to help the poor and end homelessness, Munns walks the talk, which will see him standing alone in the High Court on Monday to fight a list of defendants (which include the eThekwini Municipality itself) for hundreds of millions of Rands which he claims is owed to the entity that seeks to rebuild the homeless shelter and services entity for Durban’s destitute.

“This isn’t about me though,” said Munns when he met with the Queensburgh News last week to explain why he was going ahead with what so many had told him was a lost cause. “This is about making those who need to account for stealing from the poor answer for what they did.”

“The Ark Christian Ministries Church is the main Plaintiff and the Durban Ark Concept was established to receive the grant funds but never received them as they were taken by the Metro Housing department in 2001,” said Munns.

Munns also said his fight should serve to shame those who should have helped the poor, but didn’t.

“It also is a symbolic indictment against more than 75 865 ‘so-called’ Christian churches and 80 per cent of the population claim to be Christian which have done nothing over the past 16 years to improve the lives of those they were given a Kingdom Mandate and The Great Commission to ensure the poor were fed and clothed and sheltered by Jesus Christ Himself.”

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“I am not a pastor, even though my doctorate is in theology,” said Munns who took over the chairmanship of the Ark Ministries Church and the non-profit organisation, The Ark Concept, which is first plaintiff in the claim against the city when the man who ran the Ark at the time of its closure, Pastor Derich Johan De Nysschen, died.

“Pastor De Nysschen essentially died of a broken heart, this fight was too much for him and broke his spirit leaving him frustrated and feeling like a failure. He couldn’t go on any longer, so it fell to me to take up the fight,” said Munns explaining that the heart failure someone dies from as a result of prolonged stress, resulting from anxiety and trauma, is often called “Broken Heart Syndrome”.

“Pastor Derich had established The Ark Christian Ministries Church in 1986 to heed the cries of the poor. He built it to a 900 bed shelter. The Department of Housing insisted an NPO be established to manage the funds that were never paid into that account. This was The Durban Ark Concept established in 1999. It did not establish the church or the shelter or provide any services, it merely existed to receive the money which it never did,” explained Munns.

The shelter which used to be affectionately called The Ark was well known among Durbanites. Munns changed the name to The Ark of Compassion in 2008.

Displaced

Munns took the Highway Mail to meet people who were displaced when the Ark was shut.

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They now live in a disused clinic building with a leaking roof and bare electric cables on the floors who are but some of the almost a thousand who were evicted when the city closed down the building what used to be called the Point Road beachfront are near the harbour, and then destroyed all that the Ark Ministries Church, had built over more than a decade since 1986.

The court claim hangs on the city’s refusal to live up to an agreement made in 1999 to identify, secure and provide an alternative building and site suitable for the relocation of the Ark which the court documents describe as “an established, recognised, respected and fully accredited transitional housing institution and a Christian Church and place of prayer and Christian worship that served the needs of the homeless and all of the socially excluded members of the Durban community in all of the areas of the Point Harbour and Durban beach front and wider central business district.”

However, as Munns pointed out, the Ark actually served as one of the only organisations seeking to help the homeless in all parts of Durban and a larger area of KZN, including poor people from other parts of the country who found their way to Durban because of its favourable weather and hopes for opportunities for employment.

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Describing this fight as his “swansong” Munns says he feels this fight is his mission and likened himself to David fighting the giant Goliath in the bible.

“This alone has kept me going for 15 years and all these so- called christian attorneys and advocates could not get their heads or brains beyond those prospects of success. I have sympathy fatigue for devils advocates ans see myself as an advocate for truth: justice and righteousness,” he said. “I’m going there as God’s advocate and I will stand on my own, I am unqualified, but God doesn’t call the qualified but he qualifies the called. I’m like Noah, I say the rain’s coming it’s a perfect storm and the church needs to prepare for it.”

“This is not about money or a need for revenge! This is about a wake up call for a silent: passive and irrelevant church. It is all about restorative justice as described in- Leviticus 6:1-7. It is about holding the heartless accountable and a real need for an indemnity: restitution and recovery of loss in stolen grant funds and the damages as a direct result of that theft.”

Righteous anger

What Munns said angers him most about the way the Ark was destroyed was that he feels it was not necessary.

“It was avoidable and it was heartless! It is a humanitarian crisis as a result of the abuse of power and a political decision to evict rather than assist relocation – and I owe it to pastor Derich: the trustees who asked me and also the 822 homeless: sick and dying people that in 2004 had nowhere to go but the Ark. I am doing it to rebuild the Ark and to make sure this type of thing never happens again in the 278 Municipalities in South Africa.”

“I am doing it because the bedrock of evangelical work is the charity and all welfare and the church has just ignored Matthew 25:35-40 (For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’) The poor must be fed!”

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Dr Munns said it is remarkable that he is being forced to represent himself in the High Court.

“Usually that court doesn’t allow anyone to do so, they have to be represented by an advocate, but because the court refused to permit time for me to find representation, I am being forced to represent myself in order to ensure that the Ark gets it’s nine days in court,” he said.

“The city would love to be able to make this matter go away, but I am not giving up anytime!”

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