Van Wyk lives with a bullet in his head for 20 years
For more than 20 years, a bullet has remained lodged in the centre of Kobus van Wyk's brain.
Doctors warned that removing it would leave him with only a slim chance of survival. Leaving it there, they said, meant living with blackouts, migraines and crippling headaches for the rest of his life.
Today, however, the 43-year-old husband, father of three and full-time missionary speaks with quiet conviction about a life he never expected to have.
The bullet, however, is only one chapter in a life marked by violence, tragedy, addiction, depression and survival.
Long before he survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Van Wyk says he narrowly escaped death as a six-month-old baby when his biological father attacked him with an Oshiwambo traditional dagger known as an omukonda.
"My mother found me and rushed me to the ICU. The doctors said the wounds were too deep and the knife was too big. They said the baby would die. But God kept me alive," Van Wyk narrated the story from what he was told.
When he was in the hospital, Van Wyk said his mother discovered that her husband was sexually abusing their daughters.
"She left me in the hospital and went to fetch her daughters. She hid them in boarding schools before she came back for me. After that, she started running with me because my father was looking for us," he said.
His sister, Blom Wonder, remembers those years differently but reaches the same conclusion.
"Our father was very violent and beat up our mom because of alcohol. He actually stabbed baby Kobus because my mom wouldn't give him money for wine.
Yes, she sent us to hostels to keep us away from him. He used to force us to rub his stomach and touch his penis," Wonder told Namibian Sun yesterday.
Running from fear
The family spent years moving from place to place before Van Wyk said his father eventually tracked them down to Windhoek when he was eight years old in 1991.
He said the father threatened them with a knife, pushed them into a bedroom, threw his sister onto the floor and sat down on the bed with their mother.
According to Van Wyk, his father stabbed his mother in the knee before grabbing her around the neck.
"He pulled her over his lap because he wanted to stab her in the back," he remembered, adding that his sister intervened.
"My sister jumped up and grabbed the knife. Her hand was cut badly during the struggle," he said.
She then struck their father with a piece of metal.
Police later arrived after his father allegedly attempted to take his own life while fleeing.
"I never heard that my father went to prison for any of the crimes he committed," Van Wyk said.
Another devastating loss
Van Wyk was nine when his mother suffered a heart attack and died while he looked on in 1992.
"That left me in severe depression," Van Wyk said, adding that the grief gave way to alcohol and drugs.
"I gave myself to drugs and alcohol because of the depression," van Wyk explained.
At the age of 24, while living in Walvis Bay, Van Wyk attempted to end his life by shooting himself between the eyes.
When he woke up in the hospital three days later, the doctors told him that his suicide attempt had failed and that the bullet was lodged deep inside the centre of his brain.
"They told me they couldn't remove it because I would only have a 20% chance of surviving surgery. They said I would have to live with the bullet for the rest of my life," he recalled.
Doctors warned him that headaches, migraines and blackouts would become part of his daily life.
After leaving the hospital, he became dependent on painkillers, taking between 30 and 40 every day for about three months.
"I realised it wasn't the painkillers or the doctors keeping me alive. There had to be a higher power," Van Wyk said.
Finding purpose
Van Wyk started reading the Bible and read the Book of Matthew, where Jesus Christ was crucified for the people's sins and sicknesses.
"When I truly believed, God healed me from the pain," he said.
Van Wyk has been married to Salome for 14 years. They are raising three children while serving in a full-time Christian ministry.
"I'm living a happy, healthy life. I've been married for 14 years. We have three beautiful children who serve the Lord with us," Van Wyk said.
Salome said the injury still affects their everyday life.
"There are times when he drives and then he has those blackouts. I will see him signing out, then I call his name so that he can wake up and focus again on the road," she said.
She recalled another incident while he was working for Coastal Hire.
"I know about an incident where he blacked out three times on the road, and the Lord really protected him. One time, he blacked out before a traffic light and went through the red light, but he came to himself before an accident could happen and managed to take control of the car," Salome remembered.
Although the headaches have eased, she said, the blackouts have become more limiting.
"When we first got married, he frequently had headaches and had to take painkillers. Throughout the years, somehow it's not so much anymore.
"In the past, we would drive long routes… and we didn't really experience so many blackouts. But now he needs somebody else to do the driving when he goes on very long roads," Salome said.
Van Wyk said he does not seek sympathy for sharing his story but to give hope to people battling trauma, depression or suicidal thoughts.
