A Second Chance to Life

A

Second Chance to

Life

A life relieved

By Sibusiso Ntshakala

Copyright ©2 015 Sibusiso Ntshakala.

Pretoria South Africa

Email: sibu.author@hotmail.com

Distributed by Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, store in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-0-620-64402-0 (print)

ISBN: 978-0-620-65313-8 (e-book)

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible. Copyright ©1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God for granting me the opportunity to write this book and all the revelations I got. The aim is to transform lives, let God be known to all nations, for Jesus commanded us to go all out, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19.

I am grateful to the senior pastors of Emmanuel Christian Church (ECC) ‘The House of Judah’, Apostle Vincent Loate and his wife Pastor Kgalalelo Loate, for all the positive contribution they have made in my life and lives of many, I really appreciate you and I am so blessed to be under your leadership.

My thanks go to all the people who took part in making this project to be what it is today, through prayers, inputs and support. I am not going to list all the names, but you all know yourselves. I really appreciate it, May God greatly bless you’ll.

I am indebted to my parents (Dudu & Alfred Ntshakala); my little sisters (Smangethemba & Snelile Ntshakala) for their infinite love and support. None of your sacrifices went unnoticed.

My deepest appreciation goes to my beautiful wife Prudence Ntshakala, who believed in me all the times even when I did not believe in myself and felt like giving it all up. I appreciate the unconditional love and support you grant me all the times. Thank you so very much momma. The book of Proverbs 18:22 says; He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from the Lord NKJV. Surely you are my good thing.

My message to all the celebrities we have in this world, we thank you for entertaining us, and most of you guys are role models to many people. You are an influence to our children. My prayer is that you use it wisely to build a better generation; you don’t want to be regarded as a generational thief. Please do not do things to be rewarded here on earth but do for your Father who is in Heaven, for greater is the reward that awaits with Him.

Last, but assuredly not least, I am grateful to you reading this. It means you took the time and made the sacrifice to be part of it. I pray you find something that will make a positive impact in your life.

May the good Lord richly bless each of you.

Sibusiso Ntshakala

Twitter: @Sibu_DaAuthor

Facebook: Sibusiso Ntshakala

Instagram: @sibusiso_ntshakala

Preface

The biggest hunger is the hunger for the meaning of life, if you don’t get that one right, you will starve for the rest of your life. You know one thing I have realized in life; every person is good towards himself or herself. My inspiration is to be a better person towards everyone. I just want to live my life in a way that is pleasing to God, making my family proud and probably being a nightmare to my haters because I will be giving them love all the time.

Everybody has been given a second chance to life, some are still desiring a second chance and some want to do it right the first time. Sometimes in life you get thrown to the wolves’ den, its either you get yourself eaten or you survive. No matter how good you are; sometimes as a hunter you are hunted yourself, but never make that mistake of under-estimating your strength.

Being in hospital with both legs broken, your spine injured, broken ribs and broken dreams is no child’s play, but the feeling of having the people you care about all around you, supporting you and praying for your speedy recovery is such a pleasant feeling. I was told success has a million fathers and failure is an orphan.

My biggest fear is not being broke, it’s not losing the people I care about, it’s not being in jail for 27 years, and it’s not being hospitalized for six months or a year. My biggest fear is to die having known the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet shoot straight to hell with no traffic, no potholes, no puncher, no speed-humps, no stop signs, no yield signs and not even red traffic lights to delay me. I don’t want to die before receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Savior. I don’t want to die before am born of Christ.

When the going gets tougher only men survive, remember not every male is a man. From time to time people go all the way out doing some crazy things simple because they just want to be accepted not expected.

Christianity is not just a belief, but it’s a lifestyle, we all want to see heaven and yet we do not want to live for heaven. When life knocks you down, knock yourself right back up and don’t ever doubt God and his timing. Sometimes God will delay you because He knows there is a storm where you are headed. Learn to be grateful when He closes that door you so desperately want to enter into, it’s for your own good.

We don’t choose who to have feelings for but we choose who to be with. Even when all things are a mess, remember no mistake is too great to recover from and bounce back to your second chance to life. I see you are now confused; okay let me take you back to where it all started.

One

Having been born and raised in the same small town of Mpumalanga province called Amsterdam, Bongani Xaba and Lethiwe Cele only met as teenagers in the ’80s. They were both at the very lowest of their career under South Africa’s apartheid government. They were both working for Werner Botha in his farm as domestic workers.

Lethiwe was a very attractive young girl with a pretty smile, strong character, and a humble and welcoming heart. For any girl at her age she had so many dreams and ambitions, one of which was to get married someday and start a family of her own. She loved her parents and had pure respect for elderly people and her male counterparts. It didn’t take long for Bongani to see all her noble qualities; it was then that he pursued her into a relationship. It took Bongani over 13 months of grind and hustle to sell the idea of his unfailing love for this young striking woman before he could see the dividends of his hard work. As teenagers their relationship was kept a secret from both their parents as they were still interested in building a solid foundation that would see them growing old together, and making each other happy for all the days of their lives.

Not so long after being an item, they felt it was time they inform their parents about their union and their intentions for the future. Their parents were amazed and worried since both of them were still young, but this didn’t stop them from opening their hearts in welcoming the news. Now that their relationship was known to their parents it gave them a bit of freedom to spend quality time together which includes but not limited to sleepovers.

A few years into the relationship Bongani went to Gauteng in Johannesburg (Jozi) ‘the city of gold’ in search of a better life. This was heart-breaking to both of them having to adjust into a new life where they won’t be able to see each other whenever they wanted due to distance and time, but they both agreed it was for a good cause and that it needed to be done. This was the very same year that we also saw Lethiwe leaving her place of birth (Amsterdam) for the very first time since birth, heading to the Natal province on a lookout for better employment opportunities. The two had a very rare kind of connection as they both found employment almost the same time with Bongani in Gauteng, Boksburg working for Prime Metals Co. and Lethiwe in Natal, Pietermaritzburg (UMgungundlovu) working for Spar supermarket.

Letters and telephone were their only method of communication at the time. They were over 500km apart but they did not allow the distance to reduce or take away what they shared, instead they kept the fire burning, writing letters to each other almost every week.

In December 1989 these lovebirds went back home in Amsterdam for the Christmas holidays. This was a joyful moment for both of them and their families as it was their first time coming back home after having left early in January. They tried by all means possible to make the very best of the time spent together, and as a result a baby boy was born in September the following year (1990) and they gave him the name Skhumbuzo, which means memorial, as they both felt he would always remind them of their first time together after spending long months of loneliness, missing each other, far apart separated by many hills, mountains and rivers. The birth of their son was a precious and life transforming moment for them as they now had someone to live for, protect and provide for.

Since both Bongani and Lethiwe were working far from home, they decided their little boy Skhumbuzo would remain home with Lethiwe’s family as they were going back to their respective places of employment. Skhumbuzo was the youngest and the third grandchild under the watchful eye of Ma-Cele (Lethiwe’s mother) as both Lethiwe’s sisters had babies of their own remaining with the old woman. Bongani paid all the cultural damages required by the Cele family for his son to be called by his own surname (Xaba) and he was a very responsible father, taking every free moment he got off work in travelling back home to his beloved son, so did Lethiwe.

As a child Skhumbuzo had a tiny body structure and yet he was very clever, as a result he started going to school for his grade one a year before his peers. His academic excellence saw him come top of his class throughout his primary school life. The years went by so fast; when he was due for secondary school his parents decided to marry and bought a house of their own in the city. This was post-apartheid season. They made this move so that their son could move-in with them and have access to quality education. For the first time in his life now Skhumbuzo had to stay with his mother. Lethiwe had to resign from work to look after her beloved son and make their new home a sweet and warm place to be. Although Bongani continued working in Gauteng, life changed for better because he had his own car which meant he was able to come back home at least once or twice every month.

The Xabas were able to send their only son to a private (Multi-racial) school where they were spending a fortune trying to make sure that he gets the best quality education present. In his first year at the new school, he was able to identify his talent in soccer and still continued to produce excellent results academically.

Under the new government’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy in South Africa, the Xabas were able to start their own catering business Letha-BS inspired by the passion Lethiwe had for food and cooking. Not so long after the establishment of Letha-BS, they started getting big and long-term clients. At the same time their son was excelling at school and his football career started gaining momentum as he was being monitored by many professional football teams for their development structures. A few years later Bongani and Lethiwe were blessed with a healthy baby girl; they named her Nandi which means joyful.

Now that this family was growing and Lethiwe couldn’t manage