Ex-convict2 Mncedisi Mdingi and his wife Nomonde.
Image: Phiri Cawe
Ex-convict From left, Mncedisi Mdingi with his wife Nomonde, far right and their good friend Mawethu "Parkie" Gwenxa who played a huge role in their lives at their Gugulethu business.
Image: Phiri Cawe
Phiri Cawe
phiri.cawe@acm.co.za
In a heartwarming testament to the spirit of redemption, former convict Mncedisi Mdingi of Gugulethu has become a beacon of hope for his community.
“Politics had an influence in my rebellious behaviour,” he said, blaming the harsh township life and Apartheid’s oppression for leading him to turn to crime which eventually led to a jail sentence of 42 years.
Recalling his youth, Mncedisi said: “I was raised by two married parents but at some point I was sent to live in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha).”
Mncedisi was in primary school at the time.
“At that early age, I was already rebellious,” he said, explaining that he spent the next few years shuffling between Gqeberha and Cape Town, but trouble dogged his footsteps in both cities.
“I was a primary school learner, yet I was in and out of jail,” he told Vukani.
He dropped out of school midway through grade 10 and fell deeper into a life of crime, which started with petty robberies but escalated.
Eventually, in 1986, at age 17, he was sentenced to 42 years and six months for a series of robberies, some of which were violent.
The sentence, however, did not spark a change in him, he said, but ironically did help him meet the love of his life.
An 18-year-old Nomonde Bam, was accompanying the wife of one of Mncedisi’s fellow inmates on a prison visit when they were introduced . Mncedisi had been in jail for a few months by then but the pair fell in love and carried out a relationship over the phone with occasional visits until Mncedisi and a group of prisoners escaped in 1997.
Mncedisi was in hiding in Gugulethu for 18 months before he was rearrested. Before he went back to jail, he proposed to Nomonde.
Nomonde, who always believed in the goodness in him, prayed for him constantly.
“My family supported me in many ways. I was always praying for him to be released,” she said.
The couple would wait many more years before their prayers were eventually answered. Mncedisi was in jail for 19 years when “something clicked within him” while listening to a broadcast of the renowned pastor Billy Graham,
“I was helped by the word of God," he said. "Jesus became my saviour when jail could not change me."
His jailers also noticed the change in him, and this led to him earning parole. Mncedisi was released in March 2016, 30 years into his sentence, and one of the first things he did was marry Nomonde.
Now, as the couple prepares to launch Mncedisi’s upcoming memoir Beyond Prison Bars, they travel around the Western Cape and tell their story to pupils at schools, in the hopes of deterring them from a life of crime, and to inmates at jails, to give them hope.
“I do not believe my own history sometimes,” Mncedisi said. “I did things that I still ask myself how could I have done them − but that does not count today, because I am a changed man."
Nomonde affirmed his transformation.
“Believe me when I say he is a good man. It was not an easy wait, but God is a provider,” she said.
Mncedisi’s book, set for release on April 13, will chronicle his experiences.
“My integration into the community was very smooth. I was nicely accepted because I was not doing what criminals do to their people today,” he said, adding that he is not boasting about his past crimes. “I am glad that now I am saved. Jesus has been good to me. He sustains me even today and I encourage others to read the word of God."