‘Christmas miracle’: Zimbabwe student’s lost passport, visas found

‘Christmas miracle’: Zimbabwe student’s lost passport, visas found Leonard Mawora made a public plea for help to find his passport after he accidentally left it in a bag he returned to a store in St. John’s. On Saturday night, that help arrived.

After realizing where he’d lost it, the Memorial University business student from Zimbabwe found out from Winners that someone else had bought the bag he’d returned. He made a public plea for help, asking people to check bags recently purchased from the Stavanger Drive store.

That plea was answered late Saturday night. April Day of St. John’s was wrapping Christmas gifts when she found Mawora’s passport in a bag she’d bought for her mother. Day posted her discovery on Facebook.

“Omg, I started to cry and was shaking trying to find Leonard’s number to tell him the good news! A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!” she wrote.

Mawora told CBC News that just before he got the good news, he’d bought some groceries, having accepted the fact that, without his passport, he wouldn’t be going home for Christmas.

“As soon as I sit down, then I got a call from her, saying, like, ‘I have your passport,'” he told CBC News. “I just couldn’t believe it at first. It took me some time.… At least now I can go see my family. I’m so happy.”

 

 

There was more good news for Mawora: Day has invited him for a Christmas dinner — and has offered to help pay for his ticket home.

“I’m just very happy and glad that I can actually help Leonard to go home to his family,” she said.

Mawora and Day have already spoken on the phone and plan to meet on Sunday so Mawora can get his passport, which also contained his study permit and his U.K. and Canadian visas.

Mawora said he was touched by the outpouring of support he received after asking for help.

“You have people from Winnipeg, people who don’t even know you. Like, they were calling to support me, even when I thought of giving up,” he said. “They’re telling me, ‘Just keep on fighting, things will look up.'”