Eight months after being shot and left for dead by armed thieves, Irish priest Fr Kieran Creagh returned to South Africa yesterday to resume his mission.
"I come with an open mind, an open heart, and an open ticket," said the Belfast-born Passionist who suffered near-fatal gunshot wounds in the attack at Leratong hospice, a clinic which he set up for people dying of Aids.
Brought straight from Johannesburg airport to the hospice, Fr Creagh was surrounded by well-wishers, including Leratong staff and members of the parish community in Atteridgeville, a large township near Pretoria.
"It is a miracle," said hospice matron Remigia Tloubatla who was one of the first people on the scene of Fr Creagh's shooting.
"When we were going to the hospital I could not even pray. I could not even say 'Our Father'. I just held his hand and said, 'please just make it'. Today, I am so happy."
Dozens of children from a local school formed a guard of honour amid banners in the national colours of Ireland and South Africa.
Nursing staff sang hymns and ululated with unrestrained joy as Fr Creagh made his way into the clinic, where the shooting occurred on February 28th.
"I was a bit nervous coming back," Fr Creagh admitted. "I had a sinking feeling in my stomach - a bit like that feeling you used to get around August time returning to school.
"I suppose I was wondering what it would be like to be back at the scene."
He said he was determined to see through the hospice's expansion plan, which include a drug dispensary clinic for 3,000 HIV patients and a chapel.
He said he also wished to meet his assailants, some of whom were due in court next week. "I want to ask them why they did it, and to tell them not to do it to anyone else."
Saying Mass on his arrival, Fr Creagh amended the Gospel reading, commenting: "happy are those when people persecute you, and shoot you, and speak all types of calumny against you . . . God wants us to be happy."
He said while he had been thinking about returning to Ireland within about a year, his feelings might change.
"We want to finish off the project, and, as you can see, one or two people like me here."
Fr Creagh's brother Liam travelled with him from Belfast.
Leratong, meaning "Where the love is", was opened in 2004 after Fr Creagh identified an urgent need for palliative care arising from South Africa's Aids crisis.