TITLE: 'You can make it'
AUTOR: Bongelo Gombele
REVIEWER: Barbara Nelson
THIS INSPIRING journey must, without a doubt, rank among the best of those unbelievable, but true stories of human courage and determination undergirded by an unwavering faith in God.
The author of this amazing story, Dr. Bongelo Gombele, is currently an intern at the Kingston Public Hospital. He is fulfilling the dream he had to become a medical doctor when he was a poor young boy growing up in his hometown, Mbandaka, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, in Africa.
How did he go half-way around the world to realise his dream? And why? He went on a long and perilous journey that took him from Mbandaka through more than 20 countries where he suffered hunger, discrimination, loneliness, poverty - even one night in a Jamaican jail, but eventually he triumphed against all odds.
DIVIDED FAMILY
Bongelo Gombele was one of a family of 10 children. His parents died when he was very young so "the family was divided" and he was adopted. Early in life he decided that he "went to that poor school (Mbandaka 111 primary) not to learn to remain poor but to learn how God works in peoples' lives and uses everyday circumstances to manifest his divine providence.
My religion classes," he writes, "helped me to understand or realise that it is God's pleasure to see us bring our dreams into reality."
He was inspired by the story of Joseph in the Bible and totally believed what he learned from the Protestant school that the fear of the Lord is connected with success.
Life was hard in Mbandaka. In order to find pocket money while in primary and junior high schools he started selling kerosene oil on the streets at night calling out "Molili Mabe" (Darkness is bad!). As he built up a clientele the activity helped to build his self-esteem and he looked at work as a positive activity. He felt, however, that if he was to succeed in life he had to leave that village.
INTENSE HARDSHIP
Bongelo did well at Saint Theophile Senior High School, passed the government examination then proceeded to the University of Lubumbashi, as a medical student. He experienced intense hardship and misery there.
At one point he and his two friends had no food and no money and "spent several days drinking cornmeal porridge made with sugar." When the sugar was finished "it was cooked instead with salt."
In his second year, life on campus life was even more difficult and because he was very involved in the Seventh Day Adventist church he started having problems with the keeping of the Sabbath. It became an issue where certain classes and his examinations were concerned. He failed his second year at the university.
During this time of difficulty his "faith in God got stronger" and he "came to the conclusion that God was the only one to help" him.
The day he left the University of Lubumbashi campus was a sad one for him. However, these words from Ellen G. White: "The human will, together with faith in God can do extraordinary things" sustained him. He had discovered that there were only two Seventh-day Adventist universities that offered medicine: Loma Linda University in the U.S.A. and Montemorelos in Mexico.
MEDICAL DEGREE
With the possibility of a medical degree far away on the horizon and with the understanding that "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him," Bongelo crossed the wilderness of the Sahara, travels to Europe and through a series of 'events' receives a ticket from Sister Rima to travel from Belgium to Jamaica via Atlanta and Miami.
In Jamaica, he struggles to get into West Indies College, "a college founded in 1915 with the intention of giving poor students the opportunity to study". He observed that there were students registered there from all over the world. Once again he finds himself in a maelstrom - he had very little or no money and in an effort to raise funds travels to the Cayman Islands to colporteur. However, he was deported in the same plane in which he had landed!
Bongelo persisted in helping himself while in Jamaica. For example he worked on a farm owned by a monastery and taught young priests who were preparing for exams.
OFFERED EMPLOYMENT
The persistent lack of financial stability, however, forced Bongelo to leave the campus, but he was offered employment at Immaculate Conception High School to teach French. There he met "the love of his life", Karen, who also taught at Immaculate.
Then comes the shocker when Bongelo is thrown in jail because his papers had expired and he was accused of living illegally in Jamaica. But, even while he experienced that horror his permit to work in the island was being processed. His friend David Barry assisted him greatly throughout the ordeal.
As the fascinating story continues to unfold Bongelo decides to leave Jamaica for Panama and then goes on to Costa Rica where, after more adventure, he eventually became the only African to begin and complete his studies at the Adventist University of Central America in Alajuela, Costa Rica.
He graduated in November 1995 and he and Karen were married on December 23 in Costa Rica. After a honeymoon in that country Karen returned to Jamaica while he prepared to go to medical school in Mexico.
"If I have overcome my problems then, with the help of God you can overcome yours," says, Dr. Bongelo. He promises that the rest of his story will be told in In the making of a Medical Doctor.
