Good Samaritan’s horror attack
SHOCKED: Gerome Hendricks, 41 SHOCKED: Gerome Hendricks, 41
A well-known Mitchells Plain community worker and his wife were robbed while trying to do goodwill.
Gerome and Charlene Hendricks, both 41, are full-time missionaries who dedicate their lives to feeding hungry kids and transporting the elderly to hospital appointments for free.
The couple, who fund their Kingdom Ministries mission themselves, say they were left traumatised after they were held up at gunpoint recently.
Gerome says he feared for the lives of his wife and three young daughters.
He says the Nissan bakkie he uses to transport the elderly had broken down and his cousin from Nooitgedacht had offered to fix it.
The family went to fetch it on Sunday, 7 April.
Gerome says it was around 10pm when he, his wife and their three daughters, aged 8, 14, and 19, drove the repaired bakkie back to their Rocklands home when their worst nightmare came true.
MISSION: Charlene Hendricks, 41, and her husband feed the poor
“We drove down Duinefontein Road and as we got to Lansdowne Road, the bakkie cut out again,” he explains.
“Within a few minutes, we were surrounded by three men with guns, one held the gun to my side.
“They took everything I had on me, including my phone and wallet.”
He says it looked like the men wanted to shoot him, but then noticed his wife sitting in the bakkie, and they also robbed her of her bag and phone.
Gerome says his frightened daughters were at the back of the bakkie, but remained quiet.
He says the men ran off, and he desperately knocked on the door of a shack to ask for help.
He says the residents only reacted when they heard the hysterical cries of his daughters.
Gerome says it was a good thing they left because the skelms returned to check the back of the bakkie, and stole the samp, tins of fish and soya mince meant to feed poor children.
CHARITY: Gerome with children that he and his wife feed
Gerome says he called some relatives and they towed the bakkie home.
The bakkie has since been fixed again and Gerome’s services are so in demand, that he now also helps people outside Mitchells Plain from as early as 3.30am.
“When I’m driving early in the morning in Mitchells Plain, while the roads are dark and quiet, that fear pops up again but when the pensioners get in I’m encouraged to continue,” he says.
Charlene bakes and sells cakes to fund the petrol for the bakkie.
Gerome says he didn’t bother to lay charges with police because “I have no faith that anything would happen.”