“I apologise for the hurt I caused coast’s people”

A South African man with “many enemies” at the coast begs for forgiveness. Claims he regularly receives threats – wants to use theNamib Times to apologise to the coast

“My name is Jan Myburgh, I am writing this letter to publicly apologize to everyone who I have wronged when I was living and working in Namibia. I would like to explain what happened and express my regret.

When I moved to Namibia, I was in love. Which also was my reason for moving there in the first place. At first, I tried hard to build a business and create a good life. But things started going wrong early. Problems arose in my personal life and my marriage. Things which I can-not make public. I used to blame every-thing on those pro-blems, but what I didn’t want to accept was that I was too weak, and ultimately, I could only blame things on myself. I was overlooking the problems in my mar-riage and kept trying to fight for the success of it. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was fighting for it in the wrong manner and that it was all in vain. Yet I continued trying to fight blindly and it became my ultimate focus. Eventually I fell into depression, because nothing I was working and going right, and things got worse in the war I was busy fighting to fix things. I went as far as attempting to take my own life, but both times my attempts failed. Once I woke up in hospital two days later, and another later the day. Ultimately, I gave myself over to sub-stance abuse to over-dose and hopefully succeed in ending my life. I was still trying to build a business and trying to eliminate my personal and marriage problems at the same time. My focus on my personal issues were increasing more every day, so much that I bought a vehicle I couldn’t afford and rented a house I couldn’t afford. I felt under pressure to make my marriage work because I never believed in failure. With the failure evident and my substance abuse, the worst was yet to come, and business completely disappears. At first, I tried seeking help, but there was no one who wanted to help in any way, not even churches I spoke to. I ended up living on the street for a while and I was left with No one, not even the people I was fighting to keep. I tried getting rid of my demons by myself, but I felt tied to my chains that were impossible to escape from.

Then I wiped out my eyes and noticed that I had become someone I wasn’t. Eventually I had wronged others who trusted me and the people this apology is for. I am not trying to give reason to my wrongs, and I am ashamed of how things turned out. I am also not asking for pity, but I am merely explaining why my mind was not where it should have been. I had used what was truly important on trying to fix some things and situations that was never going to be successful. I was wasting it on substances in my depressive state and became someone I always feared of being. I want all who I have wronged to know that not a day has gone by that I have not regretted what I’ve done to you. Not a day has gone by that I didn’t think about it. Not a day has gone by that I didn’t pray for forgiveness and that someday all of you might be able to forgive me. There are no words that can describe how sorry I am for what I have done to all of you. When I finally opened my eyes and saw that I was damaged and what I did to those who were very good people, I had to decide. I needed to find myself again and because of my failure in my personal situa-tion, staying in Nami-bia would not be wise. So, I decided to return to SA. If I wanted to fix the wrongs I did, I knew I had to first heal and fix my life first. The things I did was not meant to happen or deliberate, and I am not the sort of person that would do such things, but it was because of my own weakness, trying to please others, losing focus and making stupid decisions at a very crucial time in my life that it turned out like that in the end. Since my return to SA in 2017 my fight has shifted to healing and then correcting my mistakes. I have received messages of threat of physical harm, people from Namibia looking for me here and attempting unimaginable things, and this when I was still weak and in the healing process, and my depression still alive. What happened I don’t want to write about, but I understand their actions. I want everyone to know how sorry I am for what I have done. None of you deserved any of it. Before everything I was also a good person, and I felt I didn’t deserve what happened to me either, but I now know that it doesn’t aid me to focus and put the blame on others. I was the one who made the wrong decisions, the one who needs to correct them and should have thought before making any of them. I was stupid and weak, blind, and I am regretful for what I have done.

Today I am completely healed, and my life has turned around. I have received my priesthood and I am free from depression and any sort of substance, alcohol, cigarettes, or any drugs. I know that to completely be free of my pain I need work on now correcting the things I did to others. It is not that I only need to, but I want to as it is important to me. The process to where I am today was not easy and I fought every day harder to get here. I know that asking for all your forgiveness might be too much to ask, but I just want you to know that even though it was hard, I forgave myself. I prayed every day about what I have done and hope that one day you might forgive me too. I know that only apologizing doesn’t make things right, but I want to work at correcting with every person I have wronged. I want all of you who I have sinned against to please contact me on social media (Facebook) or email:

tyler.giselle@yahoo.com. I am hoping you all will contact me so that I can make some ar-rangements on how I can fix all with you and begin to correct my mistakes. I am in the process of finding new work with my new qualification and shifted my primary focus on attempting to make things right with every person I have wronged. Many of you hate, despise and is very angry with me, and you have all the right to be, but now I am healed, and I am better than I ever was. Now I will do everything to fix everything I did wrong. Again, I want to express my sincerest apology and regret and wish for your forgive-ness one day. Please contact me so we can come to an arrange-ment and agreement. Thank you.