Via Testing to Testimony (December 2024)

Via Testing to Testimony - A Year With Deaths and Funerals Contents Chapter 1 An Impacting Conference Chapter 2 The Blessing of Reprimands Chapter 3 A Tangent to Politics Appendices - Introduction After I had received a message from Florry, the wife of a dear friend Henry (Jatti) Bredekamp, that he had been admitted to a hospital in a critical condition, I was thankful that I could visit him shortly thereafter to say 'Farewell', albeit that he could not communicate properly at all. What I didn't suspect that this would be the beginning of many a month where we would be confronted with death and the dying of friends fairly close to us. Spontaneously I wrote an 'in memoriam' around Jatti who had become my best friend after the passing on of Esau Jacobs, better known as Jakes, who suddenly passed into eternity in May I997 after contracting a stroke. In the case of Jatti, he had been suffering in the previous few years so that his two children who are residing in Durban and the US respectively, twice came to say their farewells to their father. After my late friend Jakes, who passed on already in 1997, Jattie and Ritchie Arendse, my Vasco High School chum, remained as my closest personal friends of the struggle era, along with Rev Douglas Bax, whom I got to know in 1972 with my two fulltime Moravian seminarian buddies in District Six, Fritz Faro, Gustine Joemath. I was so thankful that I could still see Jattie alive in hospital in Kuils River (and thereafter to go and visit Ritchie and Mary, his wife.) As one who was born and bred in the Moravian tradition, Jattie and I had a lot in common. (We matriculated in the same year, he in Genadendal, where there was one of only a few high schools for 'Coloureds' on the country-side at that time.) Whereas Jatti was, however, turned down by the church leadership when he wanted to attend the Moravian Seminary in Fairview, Port Elizabeth, I was invited in person by the bishop at that time to do so. The end of Jatti's life here on earth was more or less expected sooner or later like that of a few other friends, like our missionary colleague Jannie Ferreira or 99-year old Ds David Botha who had been terminal at some stage already. In the case of our German colleague Doris Kammies, who served here at the Cape from the mid-1990s, her husband Freddy and the two children expected to say farewell to her when her breast cancer appeared to be incurable already 20 years ago. (We had a special friendship to Freddy and Doris, getting to know them via Hermann and Mechthild Frick, whose wedding I attended in 1970 and to whom we got closely connected as a family. Rafael, one of our sons married their daughter Damaris.) Divine healing extended the life of Doris in answer to prayer, but towards the end of 2023, the reports coming from Germany indicated that she was heading for a facility where she would now finally 'go home'. The death of our friend Sedick Adams of Bo-Kaap had quite a special background, one of two families of the Muslim residential area with which we have had a strong friendship. In fact, his widow Ruweyda had been one of the first to give us a strong entry and introduction to other residents. (Marika Pretorius, a SIM missionary colleague, introduced us to Ruweyda and her husband Sedick.)1 Sedick Adams had contracted cancer. Not long after this had been diagnosed, he deteriorated so much that he had limited life-time prognosis. I was very thankful that I could visit Sedick a few weeks before he passed into eternity. Wheras the passing on of Jatti Bredekamp and Sedick was not completely surprising, that of our dear friend Stephan van Niekerk came out of the blue. Rosemarie and I were quite sad that we could not attend the memorial service. With fondness I recall the fruitful knowledgable conversations I had with Stephan van Niekerk at his home in Blauwberg. The information that our widely read and informed late brother had exuded, always led to wonderful conversation. During the three years between November 2011 and September 2013, Stephan was a regular at our 'highway meetings' with Pastor Baruch Maayan and his family. The last intense personal interaction I had with Stephan transpired when I picked him up to join the prayer event in Melkbosch Strand with Roxanne Visagie, the daughter of an apartheid era state president Her intercessory group has been praying faithfully on the beach there every first Saturday of the month.. Stephan's enquiry in January 2020 at that visit after my writing activity triggered his linking me up with Alaythea Hamlyn of Truth Publications in Johannesburg. She subsequently assisted with the editing and the (re)publication of three (e)books. A big shock to many MBBs was the news that Salama Temmers, a female pastor from their ranks, had married a Muslim. This was the third high-profiled person to have done so after the death or divorce of their spouses.. In the case of Adiel Adams and Ayesha Hunter, it subsequently surfaced that they did not revert to Islam. The Death of an Infant The death of Kevin, an infant at the beginning of 2024, sparked quite a bit of emotional baggage. Aysha, his mother, was one of the Muslim background females who attended the fortnightly Bible Studies with Rosemarie and our Dutch missionary colleague Maria van Maarseveen. Shortly before Chistmas Ayesha informed us that she was ready to give birth, a month earlier than was scheduled. She regarded Rosemarie as a sort of surrogate mother. A year or so prior to this, her own mother had also been attending the Bible Studies. The pregnancy of Ayesha was not easy. but we were quite surprised when we received a request around Christimas to assist with the transport of mother and child from Red Cross hospital. We were quite happy to hear thereafter that little Kevin was drinking nicely. After a few weeks, however, she phoned again. There had been some complication with his heart so that he had to be operated upon at Groote SchuurHospital. Shortly thereafter he died. The funeral took place at the Green Pastures Church, of which we had witnessed the start around the turn of the millennium. (It had been a night club cum off-sales liquor distribution centre called the Green Dolphin). The funeral turned out to be very emotional. At the end of the service Ayesha requested Rosemarie and me to carry the small coffin to the hearse... A Bird's Eye Overview of 2023 My participation in the Concerned Clergy of the Western Cape (CCWC) executive till the end of 2022 had an overflow into 2023 via Denise Atkins, who also serves with us in District Six. One of the first CCWC-linked events of 2023 was an early morning prayer meeting in Vredehoek. A prayer event prior to this would have taking place in one of the Parliament rroms, but the intercessors were surprisingly not given access to the premises. They nevertheless had a powerful session outside the Parliament Gates. The meeting in a Vredehoek church, led by Denise Atkins at the venue located halfway between our home and Parliament, turned out to be quite profound. Mabatho Zungu, an administrative worker at Parliament, and who is also an intercessor linked to the World House of Prayer. came strongly to the fore there. Furthermore, a brother also brought Pastor Wayne Thomas to this prayer meeting. (It was interesting to hear that Wayne Thomas is married to a Khoi princess who was raised in the Moravian Mission station Mamre.) The prayer event not only brought Ps. Thomas into the Concerned Clergy of the Western Cape CCWC-related Hope Through Unity process, but on their prayer farm near to Mamre, the first Hope Through Unity -linked prayer event would take place a few weeks later as Hub 1 of the Cape Metropol. Pastor Barry Isaacs had been leading physical prayer in the provincial parliament and/or the City Council Chambers twice per month, once each in the two venues already since 2007. Unsuccessfully he had been attempting to get back into one of the two venues. He ultimately reduced the the remote prayer frequency to once a month. A phone call from Erna Goedhart, a Dutch believer with whom we did not have much contact at that time, informed us out of the blue around time. She wanted to come and implement a prayer assignment of confession on behalf of the Dutch nation to the First Nation of South Africa. This resulted not only in me organising a meeting on a farm near Durbanville shortly therafter with historical connections to the Great Trek to the interior. New Houseparents Again? In our ministry there had been some heavy stuff running at that time. We always knew that Deon January, the housefather of our Discipling House, yearned to return to the township Manenberg. Not only did he and his family lived there before they came to Mowbray, but he was also raised in that township. When the January family got the key for a house of their own, we were thankful for them. We were less happy that we would have to get new houseparents again. The transition to the final move of the January family at the end of September 2023 was however quite traumatic. (We had agreed that they could serve till the end of the year after stressful interaction.) From our side.we did what we could to make the closure as friendly as possible. A six-week sojourn in Europe that included a week in Holland with all our children and grandchildren helped a lot to get Rosemarie and me back to some equilibrium, but there was little 'rest for the wicked' after our return at the end of August, 2023. In this overview of the death and dying of close friends I cover a 12 month period, thus not those who died in the last months of 2024. Chapter 1 An Impacting Conference Soon after our return from Europe Mabatho Zungu invited a few of us to come and pray with her in her office on Monday morning at 7.30h. She had been doing this since the beginning of the year, inviting other Christians working in parliament to come and pray with her before they start working at 9h, but she had been unsuccessful. She was very thankful that a few of us agreed to join her. Run-up to the Time to Rise Conference Already during our stay in Europe I told folk there about the Time to Rise conference in Bloemfontein from 6-8 October. I believed that this conference could be strategic for the future of our country. I dearly wanted to attend, but I also wanted confirmation. On Sunday, 1 October, Rosemarie and I prayed about this. There had still been no confirmation forthcoming that I should go to Bloemfontein. At the end of the Parliament prayer on Monday, the 2nd of October, Mabatho suddenly said: 'I will be going to Bloemfontein and you should also go, brother Ashley'. When Rosemarie heard this, she felt that this was the confirmation that we had been praying for. What a special week-end this turned out to be. The one-day event at that venue on 22 April 2017 had been exceptional. This conference even surpassed that with an unprecedented representation of all races, and a notable attention to the first nation of the country. How would this impact the future of the country? Although the leaders emphasized that TIME2RISE was not a political party, an impressive list of names was presented to the conference. These believers were standing as candidates to be voted for election in a new set-up that the Constitutional Court had enabled. This turned out to be an unrealistic fata morgana as the conditions to become a candidate and the number of votes an individual had to gather to get even into the provincial parliament made it almost impossible. A few months later a new party evolved from TIME2RISE, called #HOPE4SA. I would be strongly nudged to join that party, almost dropping my private principle not to get involved in party politics. A Week-End in Fransch Hoek We were blessed that Rosemarie could join me for a week-end at In Harmonie in Fransch Hoek, where I had been in September 2022 during the very special Pilgrimage of Grace. The week-end transpired a few weeks after the fateful October 7 event in Israel. Although the leader Peter Tarantal requesed the participants to keep their views on Israel to themselves during the week-end, the rift in the body of Christ could not be avoided. I was thankful though that I could interact and pray privately with a leader of a few among us who held the view that Israel is an apartheid state. Fairly amicably the two of us parted, agreeing to disagree abou this matter. At this time I was still receiving notifications of the Concerned Clergy of the Western Cape (CCWC), of which I had been a member till the end of 2022, At a meeting with Jewish leaders ahead of that march I was invited along with a few other Church leaders, all of which were from the evangelical side of Cape Christianity. I highlighted at this occasion that we were not representative of the Body of Christ at the Cape. I also expressed concern in the preparations for a one-sided march for Israel on 12 November that there was no mention of our prayers for Palestinian Christians. I was still hoping to meet with Concerned Clergy executive members before the march to look into this when it surfaced that the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) had organised a counter-march in the city for Saturday, 11 November on short notice. My insistence did not carry enough weight. My meeting with my former Concerned Clergy colleagues could not be arranged. At the meeting with the Cape Jewish leaders itself, someone hailed the proud testimony of Cape Town as the most anti-Semitic major city in the world I took me hours to prepare a paper when I was asked to assist with a more balanced paper as a statement on behalf of the CCWC. My contribution was possibly too lengthy and radical for the Concerned Clergy brethren. Denise Atkins, one of the members, took a part of my concern up in the group in the statement that the CCWC ultimately issued. This included the wording 'standing with Israel' and 'standing with Palestine'. At the event on 11 November thousands of Muslims got hyped up by Mandla Mandela, the grandson of our former President. He encouraged folk to disrupt the march in Sea Point the following day. The Pro Israel march from the Cape Town station to Sea point was called off by the police. Violent disruptions by PAGAD-related elements in Sea Point smashed the proud record of Cape Town as the most anti-Semitic major city in the world in one day. Within a few days Palestinian flags were sported all over the CBD and the flag colours painted on houses of the Bo-Kaap, and even a big flag on the the flats of Astana Road. In District Six, of course always following the lead from Bo-Kaap, the Aspeling Street Mosque soon sported the colours. We prayed into the same colours, as those of the wordless books that we have been using in children's club. We continue praying that many people all over the world might experience the healing and redeeming blood as Isaiah 1:18 teaches us: “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool. The green depicts the growth, we pray, that new followers of Jesus might display, and the yellow colour being near to gold, stands for the heavenly destination. In the back-drop of our personal lives, the corruption of our government and the effects of load-shedding on the country's deterioting economy could not be missed. When our friend Charles Robertson phoned me just before Christmas with the request for assistance in attempting to forge a delegation of Church leaders to visit the State President. His model was what transpired when Church leaders went to President P.W. Botha in the latter part of the apartheid regime to speak to him. The telephone call with Charles Robertson ignited my activist Honger na Geregheid for a moment, but to my disappointment, I had to discover soon that our government's support for Hamas also resonated among a sector of Church leaders. It surfaced that the anti-apartheid estrangement was so strong that Hamas was all but equated with the freedom fighters of yesteryear. Furthermore, my other premise for discussion, the right of Israel to defend themselves, was also unacceptable as common gound. I was very sad that the rift in the Body of Christ was so strong that an attempt to get an audience with the State President was not possible in this disunited situation. The delegation would have consisted of SACLI leaders and a few executive leaders of the Concerned Clergy of the Western Cape. Rather reluctantly, I aborted a very short-lived attempt at reconciling the two sides of the schism where I landed in the middle. Soon thereafter, my (former) CCWC executive colleague Alastair Buchanan made an attempt to start a zoom session around Israel-related issues in an effort to get some conversation and going that could perhaps lead to reconciliation, but I was not ready yet to participate. After I had been contracted a minor stroke on 27 February 2024, I informed him that I was ready to meet him alone first for a cup of something to see what is possible on that front. This ultimately led to a closer friendship. He started to attend our Isaac Ismael prayer meetings on Friday mornings. Another attempt to get the two groups talking in April 2024 when I heard that Israel should first finish the job of bringing HAMAS to their knees, with little apparent concern that thousands more could die in the process on both sides of the conflict. Once again I had to throw in the towel. In District Six we have been praying for a few years for a turn of the tide. In an extreme case we were not even given the opportunity to use a church in August 2017 for ablution purposes at a prayer walk that I had organised to counter the clear Islamic vibe over of the residential area that had been predominantly Christian before. The responsible person for the use of the church premises cited fear of Isis retaliation, Muslim violence of the terrorist type. My appeal to leaders brought no change either because the denomination had chosen inter-faith as their preferred mode. Nobody wanted to ruffle feathers. Prayer walks by Rosemarie and me in the area on Thursdays brought us to the discovery of the erection of the Krotoa Sanctuary opposite the Cape Peninsula Technical University as a venue for ancentral worship. There and then we changed that designation, using it as the venue of our weekly prayer walks and outreach. A lone combined worship event on 25 April 2021 did bring Denise Atkins, our former Moriah Discipling House mother, back into our ambits, as part of a small team in D6. (At a later stage Hennie Kotze, a student colleague of my post graduate Bible Iinstitute days in 1992/3, joined us, and still later Maria van Maarseveen.) Soon after our return from Europe at the end of August, 2023, I contacted followers in Jesus who serve in the parliament precincts in some capacity, like Steve Swart (MP) and Mabatho Zungu, an administrative worker, hoping to get a prayer meeting going there across party lines. (I had been joining the prayer times with the honourable brother Steve Swart occationally for quite a few years. That stopped at the time of the Covid pandemic. And then there was the fire of January 2021 at Parliament, after which security was tightened and even simple visits were resticted severely.) I had met Mabatho Zungu again in the early months of the year at a prayer event in Vredehoek that was part of the Hub initiative of the Concerned Clergy of the Western Cape (CCWC) led by Denise Atkins, with whom we had also been networking in recent years in District Six. (Sister Mabatho is also one of the intercessors who has been linked to the World House of Prayer that Pastor Callie Liew initiated in 2019.) Mabatho Zungu Suspended After our return from Bloemfontein, we started planning a prayer meeting as a final event for the year in a bigger space at Parliament before the end of the term. I approached Steve Swart, an ACDP parliamentarian to this end. However, soon thereafter, Mabatho informed us that she, along with 28 other colleagues, was accused of conspiring when the fire had occurred there in January 2021. She found an able advocate to assist her, opposing her retrenchment. A formal hearing was due to follow. This was postponed a few times until she was suspended on the 17th of November. We could thus not go to pray in her office thereafter. We started doing the weekly prayer via whatsapp call. This led to an increase in the participation. We got to know of the influence of sangoma's (witch doctors) in a possible sinister conspiracy of evil forces at Parliament. Fairly frequently we prayed that the corruption of politicians in the premises would be exposed. It became clear that her knowledge of the involvement of some of the ANC leaders was behind the effort to get rid of her. An Isaac Ishmael Interaction Interlude I was privileged to attend the Time to Rise Conference in Bloemfontein from 6-8 October 2023. On that Saturday morning, en route from the school hostel where we were accommodated, we heard in the minibus about a massacre that had taken place in Israel. There and then, in the bus, we prayed into that. This also happened at the conference later in the day. Hamas fighters had been killing many people and abducting many whom they would use as hostages and bargaining chips in the ensueing war between Israel and them. At the conference the rededication of the country to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was done on the koppie, the hill at the venue of the conference on the farm near Bloemfontein. It was highlighted that the ANC had been sacrificing bulls there in 2012. A clash in the spiritual realm was thus transpiring. It was thus not quite surprising that the bankrupt ANC, the biggest party in our government, would be behind the move to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza, allegedly funded by Iran. This was more than likely because of scheduled elections. (This had been a pattern every five years.) After we had our Messianic Testimony colleague and dear friend Leigh Telli to come and share at our extended session at our Discipling House in the beginning of November, Pastor Bruce van Eeden of the Evangelical Mission Church (EMC), one of our Born Again Believers Network board members, indicated that he would love to have Messianic Jewish believers come and share at one of their services. On Monday 8 January we resumed our activities for the year. In telephonic interaction with Pastor Alvin Davids and Alain Ravelo-Hoërson we started looking at having an event to see how we can resume teaching on Muslim Evangelism again after the near collapse during Covid. We decided to have an event at the EMC on 27 January. A few days later, on Friday 12 January, Shoshanna Phillips attended our Isaac Ishmael prayer. There the idea was birthed to look into the possibility to bring to fruition the idea to bring Messianic Jewish believers to the EMC. My idea to make an Isaac Ishmael event out of the 27 January was from a visionary point of view not bad, but it was basically not a good idea at all. Some tension ensued with my Bridge Team partners because of this. Worst would come on two other platforms. Wednesday 17 January was a black day, starting early in the morning when I was viciously attacked for opposing fairly mildly the support of our government for Hamas. I immediately decided not to respond. I was troubled nevertheless and then greatly blessed to read various Bible verses in a devotional booklet so much that I made a photo of it: Photo of the page for January 17: Back to Square One? Just before schools re-opened in January 2024, a challenge came from our Discipling House. We had been noticing that things were not going fine with the Pakistani family that we have been discipling for a few years. This was accompanied by many a challenge. (In November 2022 Rosemarie and I had been at the end of our tether when the sister, N., had to be admitted to the psychiatric ward of Groote Schuur Hospital after her husband had left the family, after been lured by his family to return to Islam.) Thereafter we saw God at work miraculously in answer to prayer, restoring a situation where the husband not only returned to the family, but our new houseparents could minister amicably to them as a family. The Pakistani brother was working in the shop of a Muslim cleric, without sharing his decision there that he had become a follower of Jesus. We respected his choice. (He expected to lose his job if he would share his conviction on this score openly. He was not attending mosque on Friday so that they could have noticed that he was not a staunch Muslim, and they seemed to accept that.) When N. brought truped up accusations against her husband, and saying a few other strange things, however, we suspected that she was not taking the required medication that had been bringing her to some normality in November 2022. She admitted this, finding it too strenous to go and spend hours at the day hospital to get the required medication. Were we back to square one? She more or less sent her husband away, creating a situation that brought a lot of strain again as Rosemarie and I initially kept the facts from other folk, hoping and praying that this could change soon. By getting our new housemother, a trained nurse who had moved into the premises with her husband at the end of November, to check whether N. was taking her medication, the situation there did not get completely out of control as in 2022. It did, however, bring with it a lot of strain. Bible Study With MBB Ladies The resumption of Bible Study with MBB ladies after our return from Europe at the end of August, 2023 was quite complicated after the departure of our houseparents at our Discipling House. They left a few months earlier than originally agreed upon, not completely amicably. Whereas Rosemarie, with limited assistance of our Dutch colleague who had resumed her studies in Biblical Counselling, could stll do some teaching in Mitchell's Plain in the early months of the year, this was not feasible any more. One complicated case was not uncommon in the townships where Rosemarie became like a mother to the lady in her thirties who had become pregnant simultaneous with a teenage daughter who was still at school. Whereas the pregnancy of the daughter was fairly uncomplicated, that of A. was not the case. Quite a few visits to Red Cross Pedriatic Hospital prior to the birth around Christmas was necessary. Quite an emotionally taxing few weeks would follow after I was asked to fetch the new-born prematurely born baby boy and his mother from the hospital.. At the end of January, 2024 we attended the funeral of our spiritual 'grandson' Kevin. At this occasion A. asked us on the last moment to carry the little coffin to the hearse outside. Chapter 2 The Blessing of Reprimands In February, 2024 I started compiling the rather emotionally painful experiences of the previous months. I decided to give it the title Via Testing to Testimony. Another title that I considered when I sensed God was working in our lives to come to His purposes was Pruning in Praise. I saw that this was a part of His Higher Ways, carrying us on Eagle's Wings. The latter phrases allude to Bible Verses that have been very meaningful in our lives. On Saturday morning 3 February 2023, I was all set to attend the Time to Rise event at the Calvyn Protestantse Kerk in Athlone. I had been looking forward to this event for more than one reason. (The denomination had a special role in the fight against apartheid from the beginnings in 1948. A friendship with Reverend Kay and Desiree Volkwyn evolved after my return from Europe in 1970. Desiree was the daughter of Dr Izak Morkel, the founder of the denomination. Other lines to the denomination ensued via a friendship to the Bam family of Grassy Park and friends in Tiervlei/Ravensmead.) But then my wife challenged to me: 'Are you sure that you have go to Athlone?' She knew that I had no duty to fulfill that morning. 'Did you ask the Lord whether you should be there?' A mini argument ensued, while she pointed out how a few other friends have been opining that I had to slow down. I was thorougly aware that I had been doing too much in recent days. The organisation of two meetings of the new political party, #HOPE4SA, had been resting almost completely on my shoulders. I knew that Rosemarie was right, but I was not ready to budge. (She saw me coming home the previous evening from the afternoon event in Montague Gardens in our Church, without even taking time to sit down to eat, thereafter rushing off to be at the Union Chapel in Kloof Street because I had told Pastor Dave Turner that I wanted to be there around 6.30pm, in time to assist in getting the hall ready for the #HOPE4SA meeting that was due to start there at 7pm. We had also heard that a memorial service for Doris Kammies, our former WEC missioanry colleague was due to be transmitted live-stream from germany on 3 February, 2024 in the afternoon. We thought of tuning in at least for the beginning of that service before going to Newfields for the memorial service of Rushi Achmat, a young man who had been killed on New Year's Day. (His mother Shehaam, the very first person from Cape Muslim background that I had baptised, was so thankful when we mentioned the memorial service as a possibility to commemorate the life of their son from the Christian side. Having committed his life to Jesus as a boy and later also recommitting his life to the Lord after surviving seven gun shots into his body that could have killed him in 2007, Rushdi was no Muslim any more, but his mother had no say in the Islamic burial that ensued.) Next to all these very frenetic stuff, another quite emotional thing happened on 1 February. We heard of the sudden death of Allain Ravelo-Hoërson, a pioneer missionary at the Cape with whom we had many a contact over more than 30 years. On the same hot and humid day I was battling myself with the climatic conditions with the three stents from my heart attack of 2012. At the end of that day I was very exhausted and reminded of previous occasions when I pushed through in spite of extreme exhaustion. Resumption of Parliament Prayer Meeting At the start of 2024 we invited Mabatho Zungu to come and resume the weekly prayer meeting at our home. It was special that we could now have the meetings in our prayer room, able to look from there on to the parliament buildings and the Civic Centre. (The Provincial Parliament is visibly obscured in this regard.) Steve Swart was the first active Christian politician whom we invited to participate remotely from his home in far away Gansbaai, a small coastal town two and a half hours away by car. Two weeks later we had Ps. John Mathuhle, the leader of the new party #HOPE4SA online and on 26 March Patricia Francke, a DA city counsellor of many years joining us remotely. (She had been praying with us physically in the city debating chamber and that of the Provincial parliament in earlier years.) It was quite special that on the very day that we prayed with Patricia, 26 March 2024, she could speak to the mayor of the metroplis, securing his 'yes' for the resumption of physical prayer in the debating chamber of the Civic Centre. (It was later, however, amended. We were only allowed to pray once-off, in gratitude and prais that the elections had been peaceful, to the contrary of predictions and expectation of many people. Our joy at the announcement on national news media that Ms Mapisa-Nqakula, the corrupt Speaker of Parliament, was dismissed as an answer to prayer, was quite short-lived. The travesty of justice in our beautiful country ran full circle once again when the tragically well-known bribes in our judiciary was possibly put to use. Not only did she get her away without any jail sojourn, but our criminal former State President Jacob Zuma could also proudly announce that he could now look forward to stand for election soon, to head the new Mkonto Siswe political party at the elections, He was ready to finish his term at the helm of the nation that was aborted in 2018. In human terms, the speed of 'the gravy train' as Nelson Mandela dubbed corruption, seeemed to increase towards the precipice of national economic disaster. On the other hand, the groundswell of prayer appeared to continue unabatingly as well. A few weeks later, Ex-President's attempt to get into parliament as leader of the MK party, failed. Also in the Constitutional Court his criminal record was taken into account to prevent it. A semblance of justice is thus still alive. Prayer Circles' Impact Time2Rise gave birth not only to Prayer circles throughout the country where believers lically would gather once a week around a cross. but also to a new political party called #HOPE4SA When I read what #HOPE4SA stood for, I was very excited, even to the extent of wanting to becoming a member. I was ready to deviate from a personal principle. I always refrained from joining any political party in order to remain neutral and being able to minister from this position. I expected Rosemarie to give me her blessing for this decision because we were after all in retirement and trying to do less. When she had no liberty to cooperate in this way initially, I refrained from joining #HOPE4SA. I did however assist with the planning of the visit of Ps John Mathuhle to the Mother City from 2-4 February 2024. Three deaths with an emotional connection had transpired at this time. We had recruited Doris Kammies with her husband in 1995 during our home assignment, serving with them in WEC international as missionaries subsequently, and attempted to help carry the burden of the family when she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer around 20 years ago. Rushdi Achmat was shot and killed on New Year's day. I had brought new born baby Kevin from Red Cross hospital who died soon thereafter. Having done so much of the preparations in a rather lonely battle - together with Hilary Cruywagen, a new friend whom I got to know in Bloemfontein in the special Time2Rise event, I got quite near to a burn out once again. High temparatures and and execptional humidity for our city drained my energy so much that I was extremely exhausted on the evening of the 1st of February. Although #HOPE4SA had all along been seen as a political party, it was important to separate the two enitities because of some confusion amongst rank and file believers. The two #HOPE4SA events I organised for Friday 2 February were both poorly attended. With little time between the two, I was at home only for a few minutes. I nevertheless looked forward to attend the Time2Rise meeting in Athlone the next day. Noticing how exhausted I was, Rosemarie literally stopped me from going. In a last ditch attempt to save face in a bad compromise, I said to her: 'Ok, I will stay at home, just to please you.' But I also contemplated to go later, perhaps after some rest. A Divine Reprimand When I went to the prayer room, I soon sensed that obedience was required because I was actually exhausted because of a lack of quality sleep. (We had many a day with an unusual high humidity, also during the night.) Various other matters had to be attended to, like final preparations for a memorial service of a 37-year old believer from Hanover Park who had been shot early on New Year's Day the same afternoon. Rushdie had accepted the Lord as a boy during an unforgettable week-end camp in the mid-1990s, along with his sister and another teenager who was later shot gangster-relatedly. The memorial service of Rushdie turned out to be a very emotional affair. Two other deaths of friends had transpired around that time which also had a fair amount of emotional baggage. We were so immersed in the necessities of the present that we actually forgot to try and tune in remotely to the first part of memorial service of our former missionary colleague Doris Kammies in Germany, at least partially. This was taking place more or less simultaneously with the one that Rosemarie and I had to conduct in Newfields of our spiritual son Rushdie. (We were blessed to listen to the recording of Doris's memorial service later.) As I sat there alone for quite a while in our prayer room, I was reminded of another special time when Rosemarie and I were praying there on the last Friday of 2023, when I was also blessed by a divine reprimand: That is the time of the year one almost invariably looks back over the events of the past months. In my prayer I recalled a clear visible expression of the unity of the Body of Christ nostalgically - what we had in the City Bowl in the past, notably with pastors and combined worship once a month. Not too seldomly, I had been repeating and bemoaning what seems to to be lacking. As I vocalised nostalgically in my prayer the difficulty of getting pastors to pray locally again, the Father dropped into my spirit a rebuke, a reprimand: What about a few groups of faithful followers of Jesus that I was blessed to be part of, notably the Tuesday and Friday events? And then there was the very special Parliament Prayer times on Monday mornings that we could enjoy physically in the office of a senior official until she was suspended, allegedly for neglect of duties when Parliament was arsonised in the beginning of 2022. (She showed to us pictorial evidence that she could use in her defence to prove her innocence.) That same day, 29 December, Tania de Freitas, a police captain of the Central Police Station in Buitekant Street sent me a message which I only noticed two days later. She wanted to resume the blessed monthly times of prayer in the Hope Room that we had to terminate because of Covid in 2020. What a blessing that reprimand in our prayer room became. It sparked a renewed attitude of gratitude in my heart. I felt greatly encouraged. A few days later, I went to visit Trevor Klein, the leader of the local Brethren fellowship. He had been going in and out of Groote Schuur hospital the last year or so due to serious ailments which may end his earthly life. (Rosemarie and I had decided to take it very easy in the first week of the year. My visit to Trevor was also a sort of killing two birds with one stone as I hoped to watch the second cricket test between our country and India while visiting him. Nothing came from the cricket watching as we talked and prayed together.) I was blessed to hear from Trevor that the well known Hillsong fellowship had moved back into the CBD. He shared that this transpired already many months prior to my visit, congregating now in the former Fugard Theatre. I was rather surprised that I had not heard anything about that. (I would normally hear via the grapvine of things like that. A few weeks later I was blessed to hear of another fellowship that moved into the City, to Long Street nogal, near to the Mission Museum, thus close to both Bo-Kaap and District Six.) Neither fellowship would make any impact. Quite different was the case with the revived Every Nation congregation in Vredehoek, sharing a venue with two other fellowships until they had to move, returning to the Primary school near to our home. The Container Saga A container with donated goods collected by our Goed Nieuws Karavaan-related friends in Holland in 2014 and 2015 would become a major bone of contention both in Holland and at the Cape when it had to be shipped. The content, however, was a big blessing to many recipients and to our Discipling House. When we got involved at the start of the prayer canopy of the World House of Prayer in 2019 with Pastor Callie Liew, the container was brought to Mitchell's Plain where it was used in vacation club children's ministry. There it also served the prayer team of Global Harvest. The container was subsequently designated to be used at the beginnings of a ministry on a property in Betty's Bay that Denise Atkins and her Theos Ministries folk were purchasing there. When the idea was raised to use the container for a medical outreach in District Six in the beginning of 2022, she was immediately willing to release it. This was however the beginning of a new saga. Various phone calls to find out where we could place the container brought no success. We understood that the Land Claims department of the national government was responsible. Around October 2022 we thought we were making headway. In fact, we were so excited when we 'bumped' into Jeff Alexander, the manager of Phase 3 in District Six where the container would be placed. His wife Catherine was a fire brand and a Born again Believer in one, what a gift from the Lord! We rejoiced! All the more deep grief ensued when my former Moravian seminary colleague, Bishop Gustine Joemath, phoned me two weeks later that Catherine Alexander had passed on, only 62 years old. Despite this major tragedy, the plans to get the container to District Six became concrete. Jeff Alexander had found practical folk ready to change the container for multiple use there. But now, however, we heard that the Land Claims Department of the government was not responsible any more for the placement of the container. It had been handed over to the City of Cape Town. The December holidays of 2022 when this would have happened, came and went. The container was still in Mitchell's Plain, unmoved!. Tired of the To and Fro Tired of all the to and fro, we decided to go ahead with the process of the transport. As Friends of District Six, a subsidiary of BABN, we were in the position to commit ourselves to pay the half of the transport from Mitchell's Plain. We had some funds that had been designated for ministry in District Six. (The steering committee of Phase 3 of the District Six building process indicated that they had funds to take care of the other half of the transport costs.) I contacted the shipping company which assisted to bring the container from Holland. With little ado it was arranged for the container to be brought to District Six. We met Genevieve McDonald, the new chairperson of the steering committee, (Jeff Alexander decided to call it a day, to concentrate only on the security of the area. A few burglaries had been reported just prior to that.) It was arranged for the container to be brought to District Six on Thursday, 18 January, 2024. I insisted on some written confirmation from the City that we could bring the container to District Six, but this proved very evasive. Deep into 2023 our brother Jeff Alexander informed me that the property where we wanted to place the container was now in the hands of Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). We could start all over again with the process. He thought we should now just bring the container to the city and sort out the permission for placement later. I was invited to a meeting of the District 6 steering committee in the Moravian Church on Wednesday evening of 17 January. There I was given the opportunity to share about the container to be brought the next day. At this meeting some differences occurred in the group, after which it was decided that I should hang on for another month. I was very frustrated and deeply disappointed by this turn of events, but I nevertheless sent a message to Gavin Paulse of the shipping company to postpone the transport of the container. A Fire Decimated Many Shacks At this point in time a fire decimated many shacks in 18th Aveue in Factreton Estate, in the informal settlement where Denise Atkins had started a pre-school. She called for donations. We collected some clothing and also put out the request in District Six. We were also asking ourselves where the container could be used the best, thinking immediately of Delft where our co-worker Muhammad April and his family were serving sterlingly. They would have loved to use the container, but they do not have the space to put it. One Monday morning soon thereafter, as we came down from our prayer room from our Parliament prayer, we ultimately put the offer to Denise. She responded in awe to this answer to her prayers for a replacement for the shack in which she had the pre-school learners. It was on the verge of crashing in the winter rains. A fire soon thereafter at the informal settlement speeded up matters so that the container could finally be brought to Factreton on Friday, 8 March, 2024. Dancing at Two Weddings Next to preparations for our meeting on 27 January of which I was the organiser, I was dancing at another wedding with a very high involvement level. Looking back, that was rather irresponsible. I returned very excitedly from the Time to Rise Conference with Dr Arno van Niekerk and Pastor John Mathuhle in Bloemfontein that I was privileged to attend from 6-8 October 2023. Just as excited, if not more, I became when I heard about the ONE ACCORD that Dr Arno van Niekerk and Pastor John Mathuhle had prepared to discuss with six other Christian political parties, with which they wanted to enter the national and provincial elections. When I saw the biblical principles and constitution of #HOPE4SA, I was ready to drop my prior reservations to get politically involved to help the new party getting off the ground at the Cape. The leadership of Time2Rise had made it clear that they wanted to keep #HOPE4SA clear from the movement. (Pastor John Mathuhle was resigning from Time2Rise to become the national servant leader of the political party #HOPE4SA.) I availed myself to assist with the organising of meetings on Friday 2 February, to display this separation. This was quite stressful, running concurrently with last minute preparations for our meeting at the Evangelical Mission Church (EMC) in Newfields on 27 January, an event that I had initiated to stimulate the resumption of networking and teaching on Muslim Evangelism after the near collapse during Covid in 2020. More than one church I had approached to host the evening meeting of the new political party, after initially giving me hope, changed when they heard that it would entail a meeting linked to a political party. I had full understanding for this position which had been a principle I had myself adhered to, staying our of party politics. I was happy to have two churches finally that were willing to host #HOPE4SA, one as a venue for a prayer meeting in the afternoon for pastors. The other one in the city in the evening was intended for rank and file folk. Both events were subsequently, however, attended very poorly. A Great Expectation Dashed I looked so much forward to the Isaac Ishmael event set for Saturday afternoon, the 27th January. At the church of our friend Pastor Bruce van Eeden we would be planning the resumption of outreach to Cape Muslims. The event turned into a major disappointment. Mistakes I had made in the run-up to the event that afternoon and notably the aftermath, would play a significal role a month later when I contracted a stroke as I recorded what had happened. The great expectation I had for a resmption of networking in Muslim Evangelism was more than merely dashed. It was smashed, as I became very depressed when my apologies for my mistakes made matters worse, turning into a saga of months. An Unreal Sequence of Events 3 February arrived at the end of an unreal week of frontline battle. Spiritual warfare was a reality as we had experienced only once before. (This happened in September 1993 when we were conned by a drug addict after our mminibus had been stolen. He was a criminal who masqueraded as a new Muslim background believer, and brought to our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting by a highly respected member of our group. Another skirmish with high intensity where both Rosemarie and I got quite close to a burn out was the run-up to our resignation from WEC in 2007.We were so thankful for counselling received by a brother from another mission agency. That helped us to regain our equilibrium to continue with ministry after a few weeks of time out.) Revitalised After less amicable interaction with Rosemarie during which she challenged me whether I had checked out with God in prayer whether I had to go to the Time2Rise event in Athlone, I decided to stay at home, going to our prayer room instead. In the prayer room on February 3, 2024 I was revitalised, knowing that a stroke or heart attack could have easily ensued. For days I had been battling an extreme exhaustion due to a lack of sleep. (In the days prior to this, a heat wave had been hitting us, accompanied by humidity to which we were not used to.2 Pastor John Mathuhle, who attended the #HOPW4SA prayer event February 2 for pastors shared there that it reminded him of 16 October in Senekal when God used the elements, the extreme heat, to save our country from civil war.) A Very Emotional Day Rosemarie joined me later in the prayer room that Saturday morning after finishing her preparation for a sermonette. The memorial service of our spiritual grandson Rushdi Achmat was set for the afternoon. In the afternoon Rosemarie and I went to the EBC Newfields where I had lost it a week earlier during the Isaac Ishmael event that I had co-ordinated. (During this service I got into a verbal tussle when I became very angry when it surfaced that the speaker had been brought into the programme without my knowledge.) At that stage, on 3 February, I had been stressed out already because of a stressful week, trying desperately to find a church building as a venue for the evening meeting of #HOPE4SA. (Many of the the churches to which I had good links were not open to host any meeting linked to a political party.) On 27 January I had handled the situation badly, apologising many times, also to those who actually caused the furore, and also publicly when one of the participants in the public argument, requested me to do that.) The memorial service at the EMC Church of Newfields on 3 February was the fourth death related event of the week, two days after the news came to us of the heart attack of Allain Revelo. Early on Monday morning 29 January we were already on our way tto Manenberg, picking up our Muslim background sister Carol at our Discipling House in Mowbray en route to the funeral a small one month old baby.. How blessed it was to hear in the message at the funeral of 1 month old Kevin in the Green Pastures Church of Manenberg once again a reminder of Jesus as the good shepherd, with the deceased baby a little lamb. To have four Muslim background believers present at the funeral of the prematurely born infant was quite special. Rosemarie had a special relationship with Ayesha, the mother, discipling her through a very difficult few years in the run-up to this event. It was quite emotional to me as well because we had been approached to assist when the mother and child had to be fetched from Red Cross Hosital just after Christmas last year. I was over-awed though at the formal conclusion of the service when Ayesha came to us with the request to carry the little coffin to the hearse. I was blessed that I could join the Bible Study of Edith Sher, our Messianic Jewish missionary colleague on Monday evening. (Our own regular Discipleship Bible Study with a Pakistani believer of Monday evening was not taking place). Tuesday morning at our weekly prayer time I was still battling with emotions, expecially since a few people were present at the dark Saturday afternoon, when I had lost it so terribly.a few days earlier. It was nevertheless so good to bathe in the loving fellowship of the siblings, albeit that by far not everyone was excited that I shared about my recent involvement in politics. (Rosemarie had only just displayed understanding the previous day when I phoned the #HOPE4SA servant leader John Mathuhle. I noted her reservations that we would be splitting the small percentage of evangelically minded voters, notably many who would have voted for the ACDP.) I was not greatly concerned, trusting that the Lord would in due course answer the many prayers of 'groaning', notably after the ANC had sided with Hamas, generally known as a terrorist group. On Wednesday I received a notification from a friend, Rommel Roberts, that his brother Alan had passed on. We knew that Alan had cancer. (We resided as a family for three months with Rommel, his wife Celeste Santos and his two brothers at the height of the vicious apartheid deportations of 'Blacks ' to the Cis- and Transkei in 1981. This transpired after my sister had died from leukemia, when we were given special permission to be in the country as a family.)3. In this unreal week of death-related activity we also wanted to write a note of condolance for Doris Kammies, a missionary colleague whom we had recruited for involvement with WEC International in Germany. A memorial service was due for Saturday 3 February, the same day when we would have a memorial service for Rushdi Achmat in Newfields. (I had also been able to get Doris and her husband Freddy to come and serve French speaking believers at the Cape Town Baptist Church in the late 1990s which served as a model for other churches in due course.) As if this was not enough, we heard on February 1 that our long-time missionary colleague Allain Ravelo-Hoërson had died. Years ago he had contracted a heart attack. Even before that his health was not great. Driving with his wife Nicole's nephew from Germany on a for the Cape untypical hot humid day, he suddenly asked the latter to take over the driving, going to the passenger seat where he collapsed. The Run-Up to Another Funeral A few weeks before this, Neil Conrad, one of our regulars at our Tuesday prayer meetings, informed me that the surgeon of Chris Barnard Hospital had phoned. They had a suitable heart for a heart transplant. After being boarded after many years of serving faithfully at the insurance company Old Mutual, Neil was introduced to us as a new colleague with Campus Crusade in outreach at the airport. Over the next weeks his wife Janine kept us in the loop. The transplant operation was successful, but the recovery was slow. Initially they kept Neil in an induced coma for a few days longer than expected at the beginning. We rejoiced with the couple when she reported thereafter of their special wedding anniversary celebration in hospital. Around 10pm I had just fallen asleep on Thursday 8 February when the phone woke me up. Our Discipling House resident Carol, who had been in regular telephonic with Janine Conrad, informed me tearily that our dear Neil had passed on. He was thus 'going home' ahead of Jannie Ferreira from whom it could have been expected from a medical point of view. The funeral in the Claremont New Apostolic Church a week later was the first one I ever attended in a sanctuary from this denomination. How I enjoyed the singing and the legacy of this young man whom I had come to know and love over the preceding months. On the other hand, how we would have loved to see him coming out of hospital to be used by God and spared for his family. Just like I did with my friend Jattie a few months prior to this, I collated some biographical notes from The Cinderella of Cape Missionary Work and other material, which I gave to Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson at the funeral of her late husband on Saturday 10 February 2024 and a week thereafter to Janine Conrad, Neil's widow. Yet Another Death A few days after the funeral of Neil Conrad, we heard of another death, of someone in far away Germany. Andreas Schlimm was the son of our mentors Henning and Anne Schlimm. Only 60 years old, his life had been extended many years ago by the medical profession after contracting brain cancer as a child, Our seminary director married Anne Reichel after the death of his first wife who died after contracting cancer. (I got to know Anne when I was still in my early twneties, and a member of the exceutive of the Moravian Youth Movement Union. She served us as speaker at the Clarkson youth camp at the end of 1968.) I visited the Schlimm home in Loch Road, Rondebosch now and then on my 49cc help my trap Solex as a seminary student in District Six where Andreas was the middle boy with two sisters, Marianne and Monica. The three children were present at our wedding in 1975, which Henning conducted. This was the last time that I saw Monica alive. A year or so later I attended her funeral in Königsfeld, another cancer victim. Andreas himself was shortly thereafter also diagnosed with brain cancer. His life could be spared, but in an operation during which he lost his hearing capacity. The last time I saw Andreas alive was at the funeral of Henning, when we happened to be in Germany seven years ago. Chapter 3 A Tangent to Politics The last week-end of February turned out to be very pleasant, which included more TIME2Rise events, albeit that the BDS movement attempted to cause problems when they heard that the programme for the National Day of Prayer would include repentance for the role that our government had played in taking Israel to the International Court of Justice. That the participants to the prayer meetings stuck to our request, to refrain from displaying Israel flags, possibly deflated them. Meeting a Hamas Leader On Friday 23 February we had Ps. John Mathuhle and his wife Cecilia with us. I took them through Bo-Kaap, showing them around. When I had just parked my car in Jordaan Street, Junaid Holliday, one of the leaders of HAMAS, came towards us after their Friday mosque service. This led to wonderful conversation with John Mathuhle, resulting in some further telephonic interaction. Over the next few months I started a friendship with Junaid. It was quite special when he shared about his link to the Comores, islands not very distant from Mauritius. Marie Jose, the wife of Daniel Kleinbooi, who was always in our home at that occasion, hails from that Indian Ocean island. A Major Disappointment Monday 26 February would however bring another major disappointment. I had been so happy to hear from John Mathuhle, the servant leader of #HOPE4SA of the good meeting that they had in Pretoria the previous week with six other Christian political parties around the document called ONE ACCORD. The seven Christian parties agreed to meet again remotely after a week before signing. Now John Mathuhle informed us that two of the parties were not signing the document, one of them the ACDP to which I felt quite close. Down the drain went the promising visible expression of a united front of Christians at the elections, the date of which had been set for May 29! Emotionally this was quite hard to pallate, comparable to the deep disappointment I had been experiencing in 2019 when the result of the elections was made public. At that time we heard that the ACDP could only muster 4 seats in Parliament. I saw the disunity of Christians in the run up to the elections as contributary to the bad result at that time from a Christian point of view. Would this mean that this will be the case yet again? I had hoped so much that the ONE ACCORD could bring about the visible expression of unity that I deemed to be a condition, if not a pre-requisite, for Godly governance to be ushered in. ACDP leaders subsequently criticized Time to Rise and #HOPE4SA in a rather uncharitable manner, highlighting that the movement and the new party was 'splitting the Christian vote.' Great relief followed my initial sadness that the ACDP withdrew from the ONE ACCORD. Reconciliation was thankfully reached after frank talks among the leaders of the two Christians parties a few weeks later. Run-Up to a Slight Stroke When we arrived home on Tuesday, 27 February, I told Rosemarie that I felt dizzy and was going to lie down. We linked this condition to some viral ailment she had the previous week when she also felt dizzy. I was reminded that it was exactly one month since the black day in Newfields. A few minutes later I got up, starting to write an email to Bishop Mark Bloemstein, who had been the messager of bad news on 12 February. (The heart attack and death of our brother Allain on 1 February was linked to the events of 27 January.) A few minutes later I went to our pool, cleaning the basket. Hereafter I got not only dizzy, but I could hardly stand on my feet. I struggled to climb up the stairs and went to bed immediately, got some rest and woke up around 14.45h. I was due to go and watch our grandson playing cricket against Rondebosch Primary School. I felt sick and had great difficulty to speak as I informed them that I could not come. An hour or so later my voice was normal again and I also regained my balance in walking. My voice message to them alerted our son and his daughter, requesting my wife to get me to the hospital. At the nearby Medi Clinic, the doctor on call decided to have me admitted after her initial examination and a CT scan. An MRI scan the following day confirmed that I had a minor stroke the previous day. I stayed in hospital for another two days. Praying for Breakthroughs I received a phone call from our friend Hammie van Zyl on 2 March while I was in hospital in the wake of the minor stroke. He and his wife had just returned from a trip to the Middle East where they had been ministering to believers. Rosemarie and I have been so blessed to get connected to him and his wife more closely in 2023. Hammie and Altie were due to have a meeting which Deon and Shamiela January would attend if the Manenberg could get someone to look after their children. (At these meetings Hammie and Altie teach and empower believers in servant leadership.) We continued praying that our relationship to Deon and Shamiela, our previous Moriah Disicpling House houseparents, would get back to the levels of a year ago. On Tuesday 12 March Arend du Preez, our Moriah housefather, led us in a devotional challenge on God's ability with 4 Bible verses, starting off with a reminder of how Reinhardt Bonnke suggested looking at any 'Goliath': One can either view it as the Israelite army which regarded him as too big, or praise God that our Goliath is so big that it will be difficult to miss him. I prayed that God may increase our faith to look at our Goliaths in the latter way, of which the possibile reunification of the Pakistani family was one of them. A Few Backlashes Personally, I made a series of serious mistakes in the run-up to and at the meeting of 27 January in Newfields. This jeopardized my own initiative and my attempt to get networking and teaching on Muslim Evangelism at the Cape back on track. Not only did this happen after a few stressful weeks. A few of these mistakes would haunt me for weeks thereafter. That was, however, not the end of the saga. A meeting facilitated by Bishop Bloemstein on Wednesday 3 April as an effort to bring about reconciliation, would turn into another black day for me, sparked by an unremorseful 'apology' from the person who caused the calamity of 27 January.. All of us were very thankful when the sad matter could be finally put to rest temporarily on Tuesday, 9 April after my one-sided apology. I was still praying, as the first prize, that the brother who caused the fiasco, would remorsefully own up to his part in it, so that we could go public together in a message displaying proper reconciliation. A mere few weeks before the national and provincial elections at the end of May, Pieter Terblanche, the Western Cape leader of #HOPE4SA phoned me with the request to represent the party physically in a radio debate on the Islamic station Voice of the Cape in their studio's. I felt quite honoured but got quite nervous in the run-up to it. I had done quite a lot of radio work in the past but I had never participated in a live debate. This one would surely centre around the issue and the party's support for Israel and opposing our government's support for HAMAS. I got so tense and nervous during the preparation, however, that I suffered another slight stroke, this time without any need for hospitalisaztion. This was to me another wake-up call to revert to a principle that I had adhered to for decades, viz. to stay out of party politics! I immediately phoned Pieter Terblanche to cancel my initial agreement to represent the party. Back to Square One? The Newfields saga coincided with the end of Ramadan 2024, the toughest one that we experienced in many years, notably in our ministry to Muslim background believers. More than once we felt that we were back to square one after seeing God at work in miraculous ways in the previous months in the lives of foreigners from Pakistan and Iran. There was no time for self-pity, however, as Rosemarie and I were praying more intensely for other folk with serious medical situations, one of them the best friend of Rosemarie in Germany with her children and grandchildren. On the other hand, we were also blessed to hear of many young people impacted and served through the ministries of colleagues involved in the execution of various types of equipping ministry, notably to disadvantaged young people and children. With our sister from Pakistan things were very difficult. She plotted succesfully to send her husband away. We kept close discipling contact with him, having him for a meal and fellowship once a week. Another few months down the road, we were at wit's end with her once again, crying to God to intervene. With a few other believers in the Mother City I have been advocating and disseminating the renaming of the mountain elevation towering over us to Doves' Peak, in the meantime simply doing it by word of mouth. We continue to pray for this to become also formally the case. The cherry on the cake would be if we could get more unity regarding Israel in the body of Christ. There is still a big rift between church leaders linked to the South African Council of Churches and those connected to the CCWC. We hold firmly to the Hope in Christ and faith in a mighty God for whom nothing is impossible. The trigger for my attempt to facilitate the speaking with a united voice by the Church at the Cape was an invitation to Church leaders at the occasion of a visit to the Mother City by a group of Palestinian students from Bethlehem College on 27 March 2024. For the discussion at the Desmond Tutu Centre of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) my teenage buddy Dr Allan Boesak was due to be one of the speakers. I hoped for some reconciliation with him at this occasion. I was very keen to be part of the Church leaders attending this discussion, but Rosemarie was very concerned for my heatlh in view of the prior minor stroke. When I heard that police chaplains would have a service in the Moravian Church of District 6 the same morning of 27 March, I felt that I should attend that instead.. At the meeting three of our group attended. Denise gave the good report of that event which: I give as a P.S,. edited from the transcription of her voice message: Boesak sent his apologies. He had developed some eye problem and the doctor thought that he should not be out. We had a gentleman by the name of Oscar who led the whole discussion. Quite a few from the Department of the Desmond Tuttu foundation and the Department of Social Justice at UWC, They basically laid the whole platform. Of course, speaking from the solidarity with Palestine's point of view, just relating that we stand in solidarity with Palestine because of our history being so similar. We then had Thandi from the Warehouse as speaker (We had met her at the Prioritising the Poor event of the Hope through Unity of the CCWC). She also came out very strongly for Palestine and for the oppressed. We listened to some beautiful poetry that she had written. She ended her speech by saying 'there is no hope outside of solidarity.' Those were her last words. And then we had the Palestinians.That was beautifully led by young people from the Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem. And then there were a few from various areas in the West Bank. Anthony, a Palestinian, also shared, of course, from their point of view, the suffering that Israel has caused them. Most of the young people that we spoke to afterwards could say that the land was never Israel's. It belonged to Old Testament Israel But New Testament Jews never ever owned Israel. So yeah, one can just see, the deep roots of the indoctrination. I'm not sure if they were all born Christians or if they were later on, you know, received the Lord and had been. You know, through this schooling, with that kind of biblical teaching, but it was strange that from a Bible background like Bethlehem Bible School, there would be so little understanding about the history of of the Jewish people. Anthony from Palestine, ended off when he was asked about the two state solution. And he said that there will never that will never be the solution. A 2 State solution will never be the solution. And then he added. In fact, there is no solution that the world can give us out there. So of course that set the stage and then they asked for a response. After the introductions of a 1 1/2 hours, we were given half an hour to respond with statements and questions and their response, all crammed into half an hour. Of course I did get a chance then to make our statement. But also jumping in by the answers about solutions that the two states is not a solution and solidarity is the only solution. And then just presenting. Jesus as the solution in that we have to be the peacemakers. And yes, we have to stand with Israel and we have to stand with Palestine. And ending up with Azaya 19 highway and of course I could say all of that. But the moment I mentioned Israel that we stand with Israel too. That was really just turned. Everyone else against me. Jeanie came to my rescue. She spoke after me and yeah, and we were just able to bring a little bit of Jesus love for the J. Into into the equation and then one gentleman from Paul and then also had a chance lunch that lunch was served 12:30 and the lunch was actually the breakthroughs that we that we were looking for because then we could speak to them one-on-one and really some beautiful discussions and turn arounds of hearts. Where we could at the end, actually hug each other and pledge our love towards each other. As South African people who love the Jews and love Palestine and they saying no, they do love us irrespective of our difference of views. We were promised another stage somewhere in the future with of course everyone that got left behind in South Africa. So that's just the briefing. Of the whole event, which I believe was really in the heart of God and God really helped us in the end to build a bridge and actually a bridge of prayer, and that came out very strongly that we cannot do this without prayer and fasting. An Alpha Course in District Six? Early in the year Rosemarie and I started thinking of doing an Alpha Course in District Six as a means to get a breakthrough there. We sensed that we needed another way of serving the community at large. With the container that we wanted to bring to a part of the suburb, we would serve at least a sector of the community. We had peace when the bringing of the container to District Six was stopped so to speak on the last minute. We were quite happy when it could be brought to an informal settlement where there had been a fire. We got an invitation to a prayer breakfast with Nicky Gumbel and his wife Pippa, the founders of the internationally renowned Alpha Courses. due to be held on Wednesday 21 February. I was happy that Rosemarie was able to join me. The event on 21 February encouraged us a lot, especially to hear about the seven mistakes one could make. Before we could start a course we needed a leader, someone coming from the area who would be able to head it up. After the fiasco of 27 January in Newfields, I decided to take a back seat in leading any ventures. The Alpha Course in District Six would be the first occasion to put this resolution into practice. Rosemarie and I would do what we could with some spadework, but we would not lead the actual running of the ten week course. Getting the leader of God's choice was the first matter to pray for, along with a Muslim cook, because we wanted to invite Muslims to the course. These 'fleeces' dwarfed the finding of a religiously fairly neutral venue where we hoped to have the course. Only much later in the year we found a suitable venue, the Trauma Centre in Chapel Street. We were, however, not able to recruit people for the Alpha Course at the venue with a great history. (Inter alia, Winnie Mandela and other political figures were accomodated there when they visited their family members on Robben Island.) Battles Around Parliament Prayer We continued to experience special encouragements at our parliament prayer on Monday mornings. After the ramblings around the Speaker of the National Assembly, we had a special blessing on Monday, 8 April. Pieter and Melanie Terblanche, the Western Cape Provincial leaders of #HOPE4SA, were going to attend our prayer meeting physically. The previous afternoon a neighbour across the road informed us of tiles that were out of place as a result of the worst storm the Cape had ever experienced. God in His mercy over-ruled sovereignly in this emergency. Although I had informed Pieter and Melanie Terblanche of the cancellation of the physical prayer at our home, they nevertheless came through for the fellowship and the whatsapp call prayer that we then did from our home. Jonathan Cole, a Messianic believer and pastor of the fellowship in Muizenberg where Pieter and Melanie had a time of prayer and fellowship the previous day, came as well. He stayed on after two other sisters left at 9h. They were also not aware that we only wanted to do the prayer meeting remotely via whatsapp call. Jonathan shared with us that he is a builder, who has experience of putting back tiles from the inside. Together with him, my balancing skills after the slight stroke a few weeks prior to that, passed the test. Twelve tiles were replaced and two more adjusted slightly to make it more safe. Jonathan shared how God woke him up early in the morning, enabling him to attend the prayer time. Because of the inclement weather he could not go to work. In this way he could become the divine instrument to assist us in our predicament, and strengthen our bond to him. (Eleven years ago he was among those who attended the inauguration of our Isaiah 19 prayer room, and now we got quite close again via the Time to Rise movement.) The 'normal' Parliament prayer meeting of Monday, 15 April, was quite special in its own right. After an extended time of praise and prayer for 'Brother Israel' after the divine protection - more than 300 missiles and drones had been downed the previous day - our imminent elections were on the agenda. The Cape gangsterism situation, after 7 young men had lost their lives gangster-relatedly over that week-end, was prayed into this matter length. With great expectation an evangelistic campaign at Athlone Stadium the following week-end also had ample prayer attention almost till 9h. The big question mark ws how conversions at the event would be followed up. That had been an Achilles heel of previous big campaigns of this nature. Would the one of 19-21 April, 2024 be different to the mass event of 1984 with Reinhardt Bonnke in Valhalla Park when many Muslims indicated some public commitment, but where only two people were known who were still following Jesus ten years later? Stay Out of Party Politics! A mere few weeks before the elections Pieter Terblanche, the Western Cape leader of #HOPE4SA phoned me with the request to represent the party physically in a radio debate on the Islamic station Voice of the Cape in their studio's. I felt quite honoured but got quite nervous in the run-up to it. I had done quite a lot of radio work in the past but I had never been in a live debate. This one would surely centre around the issue and the party's support for Israel and opposing our government's support for HAMAS. I got so tense and nervous during the preparation, however, that I suffered another slight stroke. This was to me another wake-up call to revert to a principle that I had adhered to for decades, viz. to stay out of party politics! I immediately phoned Pieter to cancel my initial agreement to represent the party. Nearer home we were very sad when Mabatho Zungu heard on June 8 that she was fired. The hearing to this end was clearly flawed and prejudiced. To hear that the CCMA is also not free of corruption, did not augur well for her review application. Both Daniel Witbooi and I hoped to get a parliamentarian's assistance to prevent this process, but this was of no avail. (Pastor Daniel serves as a chaplain to Parliament) God had to intervene! We are very much aware that our having an Israel-facing prayer room on our premises that also has a clear view to Parliament, makes us possibly a target of some sort. But our experiences of the divine Eagle's Wings over more than five decades, prop us up. Haven't we seen all too often how God would turn around what the arch enemy has schemed and planned for evil? The Dire Situation of the Country The dire situation in our country was, of course, the big challenge. We held perseveringly to the prayer that with God nothing is impossible. We continued to pray for Godly governance after the elections of 29 May both on national and provincial level. This was one of the challenges which we share of course with millions of South Africans who groan under the corruption and ineptitude of our government. What effect would the infighting within the ANC have on their performance at the elections? We continue that the run-up would remain free from violence and intimidation and that the electoral process would be free and fair. We were disappointed when nothing was done about the fraud in Kwazulu Natal that enabled the new MK party to participate in the elections. One of their leaders conceded that they had collated thousands of signatures fraudulently, enabling them to participate both nationally and also very broadly, in many provinces. (#HOPE4SA on the contrary succeeded only in two provinces.) Obvious fraud, when thousands of ballots were found later that had not been counted, resulted in a skew outcome. (That was strangely still described as basically free and fair, with no reported investigation of the irregularities.) We were very thankful though, that there was no violence or clear intimidation of the voters reported, not even in the highly sensitive Kwazulu Natal! If the MK of Jacob Zuma as leader would have been disallowed to participate there, one can only guess what could have happened. (That possibility might have weighed heavily in the considerations not to investigate the MK's way of getting the signatures in the short space of time alloted for new parties to do this.) We praised God, nevertheless, that there was no violence in or after the elections. The ANC and EFF were the big losers. Government of National Unity All around the country (and world-wide) there was relief when the old and new State President announced that there would be a Government of National Unity with participation of 10 political parties, without MK and EFF. The new brooms swept quite clean in the first months in office, with the Cabinet Ministers of parties other than the ANC out-performing the biggest party. It is still early days, but we are thankful that the general gloom, as we teetered for months on the prospect of the economic disaster, has lifted. Bewilderment in Our Ministry A serious allegation against one of our leaders cause major bewilderment in our ministry towards the end of August. We cried to God that the full truth would come out soon as a broad dissemination of the allegation would impact our service in different parts of the community gravely. Appendix 1 Email to Certain Believers About the War in Gaza Dear Siblings, Thank you for the reactions to my attempt as a leader of Isaac Ishmael Ministries, to be a facilitator to get followers of our Lord Jesus, the Church in our country, to speak with one voice about an issue. I believe the Church, unitedly and corporatel, should not be silent about the Gaza War, notably in view of our government's intervention. Via Philip Rosemthal, a Jewish Messianic believer, I received the following invitation Greetings Church Leaders, INVITE TO WELCOME PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS RE: Palestinian & South African Church Leaders Dialogue: Exploring SA Christian Support for Palestine – A Theological Reflection by Dr Allan Boesak, Father Peter-John Pearson, and Dr Thandi Gamedze. SADRA-Conflict Transformation, based in Cape Town, in partnership with the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice is hosting a Delegation of Ten (10) Palestinian Theology Students and Activists from Bethlehem Bible College, who are on a 2024 Palestine / South Africa Solidarity Pilgrimage to gain knowledge and experience of SA struggle against apartheid, role of theology and the church as well as exploration of SA Sites of Struggle, the Legacy of Apartheid, and the Role of Global Prophetic Voice of the Church. The Dialogue will be Chaired and facilitated by Father Peter John Pearson. The idea is for Heads of Churches and Theologians in Cape Town to share this precious Once-in-a Lifetime-Opportunity with these Palestinian Christian Leaders and hear from them and build solidarity. The dialogue will take place on Wednesday 27 March 2024 at Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, from 10h00 to 14h00 Too naively, I latched onto this occasion as a possibility to forge more unity in the Body of Christ here at the Cape. I immediately checked out with my former CCWC colleagues whether they also saw this, as well as Bishop Gustine Joemath in District Six. This also triggered in my heart an attempt to revisit a recent document, with which I had assisted Denise Atkins in writing a statement for the CCWC. My new attempt was the proposal of a position paper on behalf of Isaac Ishmael Ministries which could assist the Church at large to address the government. On Thursday 21 March Bishop Mark Bloemstein sent out the following: Kindly share with all Church Leaders. There is space for 6 people to welcome Palestinian Church Leaders to Cape Town This sparked in me the idea to get younger people from Isaac Ishmael Ministries to attend the discussion around the Palestine -Israel issue, inviting two apiece from the Jewish and Muslim side. As much as I wanted to attend the meeting with Palestinian students myself, I felt obliged to attend the meeting of Police chaplains at Moravian Hill in Disctrict 6 which was happening at the same time However, I recognised that my attempt, to coming from a biblical stance, still had too many political elements in it to unify the Body of Christ. I rested my case for that moment. The discussion around the Gaza war did present the challenge to look, in due course, at how we as South African Christians can possibly assist the Church in the Middle East corporately in some way . Dear Siblings, I was following the discussion around the Gaza War on the group a few months ago with great interest, I was quite happy with the invitation/suggestion of Peter Tarantal to write our story regarding the matter of Israel and Palestime. Thereafter there was the suggestion of a discussion on the group, which triggered some debate. That was clearly not uniting us as a group. I consciously chose not to engage, wary of causing further division. Nevertheless, I think all of you would agree that the instruction of Jesus, for us to be peacemakers and reconcilers, should enjoy high priority, Lets remind ourselves that the Genadendal Heritage initiative was the child of SACLI Reconcile! I was approached to present my story as a proponent of those who support Israel, I did not have liberty, however, to present my testimony as part of a discussion, as that of 'one side of the divide'. I was rather sad that there are two 'sides'. I mentioned to the SACLI founder leaders my concern that the proposed conversation proposed for this month could distract the group from our main focus, viz to be reconcilers, and that it might widen the possible rift in the Israel/Palestine debate of the group. I was thus happy when it seemed as if the idea of two sides to be represented, was shelved. An intercessor outside of our group suggested that I should nevertheless write my story to have it ready when the occasion would arise again, I went ahead with this suggestion, giving here a summary of my journey in the matter, praying that those who hold other thelogical positions will be able to see this as an attempt to speak the truth in love, that it will contribute to more maturity within the Body of Christ (cf. Ephesians 4:15). Bearing the context of Ephesians 4:15 in mind, I am still wary of engaging in theological or doctrinal tussle that would be tantamount to semantic bickering: 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is athe head, into Christ,16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Noting that doctrinal differences are not new, and also knowing that they have led to big and small Church rifts down the centuries, I am, however, very thankful that the opposite also happened. Thus it is recorded in Acts 15 how the dispute around circumcision was resolved in a win-win situation, of which the one new man of Ephesians 3:14 is an apt summary. (There were, of course, also personality clashes down the centuries, with the Paul/Silas parting of ways, as one of the first in the New Covenant era, that led to an 'agree to disagree' split which also benefitted Kingdom expansion.) I pray that the Father may turn things around in the matter under discussion; that He might use the united Church to come to His glory in this matter! I post the rest of this whatsapp message as an appendix. Appendix 2 Involvement in Ideological Skirmishes When I started reading Gemartel vir Christus of Pastor Richard Wurmbrand on the Pendennis Castle en route to Southampton in January 1969, God opened my eyes for the Persecuted Church of Eastern Europe. A very low-key support and prayer got greater intensity in Holland where we quite intensely involved with practical support for Romanian believers. With other co-workers of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan in Zeist, of which we were the leaders, support for Open Doors and other agencies that served followers of Jesus in the Communist bloc of Eastern Europe, the centrally situated Dutch town of Zeist became the hub of this support. The Lord blessed our home on the Broederplein of the Moravian community there, to be pivotal in this low-key movement. Working closely with other organisations, we were able to send many a carton with clothing to Romania to addresses received from Sina and Erwin Klein, whom we got to know in Southern Germany in 1987. This blessing to the families angered the Communist regime tremendously, but they made no clear effort to stop or interrupt our efforts. Appendix 2 Trips to Romania via Hungary and West Africa After up-grading my Mathematics teaching qualification in 1989, I did not succeed in getting a teaching post in Holland in that subject thereafter. Instead, my unemployment gave me the opportunity to serve in Eastern Europe and West Africa at the end of 1989 and in the beginning of 1990. In both cases it was funded by other people. What a blessing to know that the Father could use us in some small way behind the scenes. The impact not only assisted to loosen the shackles of the despotic Ceausescu regime in Romania, but also in small moves from abroad that would contribute to ushering in our coming to South Africa as a family in January 1992. The trip to Mali and Ivory Coast in February 1990 sharpened my expectation to see the demonic side of Islamic exposed and ultimately demolished as we could witness it happening with Communism and Apartheid at that time. Appendix 3 Coming a Long Way in District Six (and Bo-Kaap) I was teetering on the horns of dilemma in 1973 when I was seriously torn emotionally between my love for my country and a wonderful girl in Germany who would take me into exile. A strong calling to serve my country in racial reconciliation had started already in January 1969 when I started reading about the work of Martin Luther King Jr in the US. My departure into exile in November 1973 was coupled with mixed emotions. This included one of being like Jonah in disobedience to a calling and the finality of the real possibility that I would never being able to the country I loved so dearly. This mingled with the joy of going to marry the love of my life. When I took my newly wedded wife two years later during our 'illegal honeymoon' in late March 1975 to District Six and Tiervlei (now called Ravenmead), I could thankfully still show her the Zinzendorf Primary School in Arundel Street in District Six and meet theological seminary students at a lecture on a Saturday morning, albeit often nostalgically, but in other cases I could only show her where our respective houses had stood. Driven by an anti-apartheid activist Honger na Geregtigheid (Hunger for Justice), I was still determined, much too optimistically, to use my pen in a battle with the rulers of the day, I wanted to fight the gocernment to get back in South Africa with my wife and children by 1980. I was yearning quite intensely to return to the country of my birth. This enkindled a strange prayer that God did not answer, thankfully in retrospect: I asked Him to not let me fall in love with a German girl. Appendix 4 My Isaac-Ishmael Autobiography, nudges of outreach to Jews and Muslims As a receptive rebellious teenager I was ready to be baptismally immersed (and prepared to be expelled from the Moravian Church as it happened in many mainline churches in those days with wederdopers). At that time I heard the argument of a devout teenage theological student (and also from my best friend, a young Sendingkerk dominee), that the chistening of babies was the equivalent of circumcision in the OT. I was not completely convinced, but I gave the benefit of the doubt to the reformed Calvinist proponents of the view that the 'baptism' of babies is the NT replacement of circumcision of the Old Covenant,. (At that time I was not aware of supercessionism, the view that the Church replaced Israel in the New Covenant.) Around that time I was invited to the Harmony Park CSV stranddienste of 1964/5. That event impacted me deeply towards a great appreciation of the Unity of the Body of Christ and its visible expression. This was important seed towards my yearning to attack apartheid from this side, to demonstrate our unity in Christ visibly. The few Afrikaners with whom I interacted about this were, however, not ready for meeting people of colour physically, not even for prayer as was the case with young people in Bellville that were linked to Youth for Christ. The Harmony Park CSV stranddienste also sowed seed on my heart's soil for united prayer and for loving gospel outreach to Muslims. Ever since reading books from Martin Luther King and Albert Luthuli during my first stint in Germany from January 1969, I was ablaze in opposition to apartheid. I saw this as my Christian duty. One of the first things after my return in October 1970 was to join the Christian Institute (CI). Here I linked up with Paul Joemat, my old rebel mate in the Moravian Church. He also held the view that Christians should actively engage in opposing the unchristian apartheid policies. We were, however, quite disappointed when we discovered that the ‘White’ members of the CI were not prepared to fall foul of the immoral apartheid laws. They hid behind the excuse that it was not CI policy to do illegal things. (We were ready to be arrested for these actions.) The 'debate' about baptismal immersion resurfaced when my bonny over the ocean was convinced to get baptised in a lake while I was studying at the Moravian Seminary in District Six in 1972. At this time there was secret correspondence going to get Rosemarie to come and serve at a Kindergarten of the German Lutheran Church in the CBD. This was part of our plans to get married in South Africa and serve here with the Moravian Church. In earlier correspondence, the Minister of the Interior put Rosemarie's presence in South Africa as a condition to get her reclassified as a 'Coloured'. (This was however, subsequently abused to ''blacklist' her for entry into the country.) Rosemarie was not only refused a work permit, but also a tourist visa. Instead of coming to South Africa, She went to serve in a children's home in Migdal near Tiberias (in Israel) for a few weeks in the northern Summer of 1973. Rosemarie's love for Israel and the Jews, that had been nurtured already in her childhood, was fuelled. (The dispute at home between her mother and her Nazi indoctrinated father triggered her interest and love for Jews,) She was thankful to be able to serve in Israel as some restitution for what Germans had done to Jews in the decades before her birth. I have been involved in diverse disputes, one of which brought me into an unparralled rage. That could have had dire consequences. This transpired during a visit in South Africa in October 1978 with my wife and our eldest son. In His mercy the Father used the banned Dr Beyers Naudé and the congregation where he worshipped to bring me to my senses. A divine touch cured me of my intense bitterness and anger. I am forever thankful that a Dutch brother pointed out to me, soon thereafter, that my apartheid-opposing manuscript Honger na Geregtigheid was like an overdose of medicine to a sick patient. That was part of the run-up to my readiness to make conciiatory amends, by interacting physically with three NGK leaders in the Netherlands and thereafter via correspondence with Professor Heyns, at that time the moderator. As a member of the liturgical commission of the Moravian Church in the Netherlands the issue of the christening of babies brought me in some verbal conflict with colleagues when I highlighted the unbiblical baptismal regeneration in the liturgy that we used for the christening of babies. Before my stint of service in the Netherlands I was hardly aware of the special love and regard of Count Zinznedorf for Israel and the Jews. However, in October 1979, hearing Colossians 2:11,12 read during the Bible Study with other believers in our town Zeist, the phrase 'circumcision of the heart' struck me existentially. The unbiblical tenability of the Calvinist argument suddenly came to the fore. I could not imagine that Count Zinzendorf and Jan Amos Comenius could support the view that the christening of babies was a New Covenant replacement of the revered Jewish ritual of circumcision. Were we substituting the sacred ritual of Judaism and calling it infant baptism? My subsequent unhappiness, to continue christening babies as a pastor, was respected by the Church leadership, but I was wary of causing disunity. My hand was forced, however, when confronted, to concede that I had difficulty to continue christening babies with a good conscience. The denominational leadership accepted my problem, offering me another post where I would not have to christen babies. Radical stewardship, however, ultimately evolved in my thinking. I resigned ultimately as a Moravian pastor. I was not ready to compromise on that score any more. This, however, enabled us to take a step in faith to go to South Africa as a family after receiving the news of the diagnose of leukemia of our sister at the end of 1980.1 Back at the Cape in January 1992 Fast forwarding to January 1992, we sensed that we had to focus on Muslim Evangelism, From our residence in Tamboerskloof from February 1992, Rosemarie and I decided soon to do prayer walking in the adjacent Bo-Kaap, asking the Lord to lead us to those people where the Holy Spirit had already done preparatory work. There was surely some divine element when we were led to the city Vineyard Church fellowship2 where we met Achmed Kariem, a Muslim background believer and Elizabeth Robertson, who had a special love for the Jews. The contacts of these two would turn out to be very strategic. As a direct result of our prayer walking in Bo-Kaap, regular prayer meetings in the home of the Abrahams family at 73 Wale Street ensued. Achmed and Liz joined us for prayer meetings there. We had the planting of a simple church3 in the most extreme Islamic stronghold of the Cape Peninsula as an ultimate goal. In 1992 it was regarded as quite a daunting challenge and it still is. In mid-1993 the fellowship of believers from the Vineyard Church stopped gathering at the Cape Town High School. The Lord hereafter led us to the Cape Town Baptist Church, using the 8-year-old daughter of one of the elders of the church. The girl had been terribly troubled by the calls from the minarets in the nearby mosques. Her Messianic Jewish father suggested that she should start praying for the Muslims. Soon thereafter a group of believers from Cape Town Baptist Church arrived one Monday evening at our prayer meeting in Bo-Kaap. Just at that time we heard that the theological student Louis Pasques and his wife Heidi were interested in ministering to the Muslims. Louis was a student at the Baptist Seminary, and a leader of one of the three daughter congregations of the Cape Town Baptist Church. This eventually led us to join the fellowship the following year. Friday Lunchtime Prayer Meetings At one of the Wale Street prayer meetings, our close friend Achmed Kariem suggested that we start a lunchtime prayer meeting on Fridays at the same time when Muslims attend their mosque services. We started doing this from September 1992 in the Shepherd’s Watch, a small church hall at 98 Shortmarket Street near Heritage Square. When the building was sold a few years later, the weekly event switched to the Koffiekamer at 108 Bree Street (That venue was used by Straatwerk for their ministry over the week-ends to the homeless, to street children, and to certain night clubs.) In addition to prayers for a spiritual breakthrough in the area, those Friday lunch hour prayer meetings formed a foundation and/or catalyst for many evangelistic initiatives hereafter. A Special Impact on (Cape) Jewry When the Bo-Kaap prayer meeting in the Abrahams’ home in Wale Street was changed to a monthly event, it made room for a prayer event where intercession for the Middle East became the focus. The new monthly meeting - at our home in Tamboerskloof and later in the suburb Vredehoek from 1994 - also included prayer for the Jews, those in Israel as well as those in Cape Town. The catalyst for the Jewish part of the prayer meeting was Elizabeth Robertson, whom God had used to touch many Jews of Sea Point in 1990 and later when her testimony was published as The Choice. Subsequently the book was also read on CCFM radio. In August 1992 we thus seemed to head into Isaac Ishmael ministry, praying for Jews and Muslims in Sea Point and Bo-Kaap, residing in the suburb Tamboerskloof. Nudges Towards Muslim Outreach Already in the first weeks back at the Cape, however, there were many nudges pointing to involvement in outreach to Muslims. This included part time study towards a post graduate course in Islamic studies at the Bible Institute of South Africa in Kalk Bay. More pointers would follow in quick succession in the first months of 1992, notably when I was introduced to MBBs (Muslim background believers), co-workers and missionaries who were linked in some way to the loving outreach to Cape Muslims. After hearing the Indian MBB Majied Pophlonker’s moving story, seed was sown into my heart to write down the testimonies of converts from Islam. Op Soek na Waarheid, my first printed publication in 1995, became Search for Truth in translation. The need to disciple new believers was a direct result of this compilation when I heard from one of the converts how she had come to faith at the evangelistic campaign of Reinhardt Bonnke in Valhalla Park in 1984. In the massive tent she was one of hundreds with koefia's (fezzes) and scarves who responded positively to the altar calls. Focusing on the Discipling of MBBs The discipling of MBBs, many of whom were still secret believers, would become a main focus of our ministry in ensuing years. The challenge to not only disseminate the testimonies of Muslim background believers via Op Soek na Waarheid/Search for Truth and tracts with their stories, but also to disciple the new believers from Islamic background, became very important to us. A Trigger For Activity in the Spiritual Realm A low-key prayer event with Bennie Mostert and Jan Hanekom at the Kramat of Sheikh Yusuf in Macassarin October 1992 seems to have triggered significant activity in the spiritual realm. Two MBBs who had suffered intense persecution and intimidation prior to that, hereafter got boldness to start sharing their testimonies publicly. Esmie Orrie and Majied Pohplonker did this in churches and later even via the Christian station Radio Fish Hoek and its successor CCFM. Assignments from my post graduate Islamic studies thrust me into in-depth research long after my graduation. This was notably around the History of Cape Islam and via Comparative studies of the Abrahamic religions. Many an incomplete manuscript ensued as the one or other small detail distracted me into deeper research.4. Confession Suggested for Corporate Guilt 'Discoveries' from my studies would impact our ministry profoundly. I documented some of my studies in two manuscripts which I titled The Cinderella of Christian Missions and The Unpaid Debt of the Church. There I notably recorded how the Church, corporately, failed Islam and Judaism, suggesting that we should also confess this. (Taking note how public corporate confession on behalf of the Church through the Stuttgart Confession of 1945 and the Rustenburg Confession of 1990 had been impacting the respective nations, I really hoped that this could be the result to assist Muslims to get out of Islamic bondage. However, I found no ear or understanding for public confession among church leaders or missionary colleagues whom I approached in this regard.) Our corporate guilt in respect of Islam was rather compelling at the discovery that Muhammad was misled by Waraqah bin Naufal, an Ebionite priest The narrative goes that no less than his wife Khadiyah relaying Waraqah's message to Muhammad that he was like Moses to get an angel by 'Jibril'. He was apparently not aware that 'Jibril' was actually masquerading as the bibilcal Angel Gabriel. I was nevertheless very surprised when a Maulana, who had been playing the role of a liberal academic, was so offended when I wanted to bring a Muslim background believer along for discussion. After discovering that the anti-apartheid UDF had been paving the way for the misconception that even pastors were misled to to be believe Allah was identical with Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures and our Bible. I could not participate glibly in interfaith dialogue any more Similarly, the role of Martin Luther's ranting against Jews towards the end of his life and the influence of his antisemitic writings on Adolph Hitler impacted me significantly. (I had by this time probably already discovered how the respectful anti-semitism of First century theologian Justin Martyr did the spadework for the replacement notions of other theologians of East and West. (Sadly, our revered North African Augustine must be counted among these replacement theologians.). With deep regret I took note how my theological training had inculcated a haughty attitude in me towards Judaism. I discerned how we were indoctrinated to look down condescendingly on the 'Old' Testament. (We thus seldom listen to a sermon from the 'minor' prophets apart from the narratives of Jonah and Daniel. (I have already highlighted above how my 'discovery' of circumcision of the heart in Collosians 2:11,12 triggered my ultimate resignation as a pastor of the Moravian Church.) When some of these issues were raised in an international confession, and forwarded to me by Bennie Mostert in commemoration of the Crusades in 1996 one thousand years ago, I duly forwarded this to our Western Cape Forum of CCM (Concerned Chistian for Muslims). This was, however, rejected with a flimsy excuse without any discussion: it was asserted that it was not valid for us in South Africa. Only seven years later, in 2003, Cobus Cilliers, a missionary colleague, rendered support in this regard. The CCM-related siblings agreed at that occasion finally that we would collate a 'manifesto', rather than a confession. While I was in Europe the following year, and not present to drive the confession towards themanifesto, which sounded to me merely like a semantic exercise because colleagues regarded a confession as the equivalent of an apology, it was however ultimately also rejected. Later I came to understand that many people find it very difficult to apologise or confess when they have erred. Other Possible Confessions? Now, over 20 years later, there are other issues to confess corporately. Having learnt from the lessons of the past, I know that it can still be very difficult for Christians for suffered under apartheid are still hurting. This somehow blocks their ability to even consider the need for confession of new heretical laws. Thus, akin to the obsession of the old National Party with racism, the ANC government has been taken on tow by a propensity for secular notions that oppose biblical and family values. Furthermore, there will always be pastors and theologians which will defend unbiblical positions as it has happened with slavery and apartheid. Getting the United Church to confess anything has become very difficult. We praise God for individuals who swam against the stream to bring the Church to a situation where these views are now more or less universally ostracised. We should pray that God might raise new young leaders to fight His cause in our country. Let us pray that a revival movement may be triggered that will bless the whole continent and even further afield.