What God Joined Together January 2025

To my grandchildren CONTENTS Introduction 1. Getting acquainted with God’s higher ways 2. Don’t marry a foreigner! 3. Don’t get involved in politics! 4. The girl from Mühlacker 5. Love grows, where my Rosemarie goes 6. Miles apart 7. A confession with serious consequences 8. A final farewell? 9. Love the stranger as yourself 10. Stormy waves 11. Reunited 12. More turbulences 13. A honeymoon with a difference Epilogue Appendices Glossary INTRODUCTION In earlier years we used to enjoy singing: I want God’s way to be my way As I journey here below For there is no other highway That a child of God should go Though the road be steep and rough Where He leads me ‘tis enough I want God’s way to be my way every day Little did I know back then that this chorus would go on to become like an anthem over my life. Time and time again, my wife and I were able to experience God’s clear leading in our lives – particularly on those occasions when the road was indeed ‘steep and rough’. One of the most rugged roads was undoubtedly the one that ultimately led to our wedding on 22 March 1975. A by-product of choosing to walk this road was an involuntary exile from my country of origin, forced upon me by the apartheid legislation that was in place in South Africa at that time. Even before I reached adulthood, I felt that it was the rightful responsibility of committed Christians to face the challenge of racial reconciliation in South Africa. At a later stage I deemed this as my special God-given duty to the country of my birth. As part of my effort, I collated personal documents and letters, hoping to get these published under the title Honger na Geregtigheid [Hunger for Justice]. In that manuscript I included correspondence with the apartheid era rulers of the 1970s and 1980s, along with comment. I hoped to win over the one or other person from the overwhelmingly Afrikaans National Party government of the time by writing the manuscript in our mother tongue. A good friend in Holland, where I was living with my family when I was collating that document, pointed out to me that the manuscript took on too critical an angle. He felt that it lacked a sense of genuine love and compassion towards the Afrikaner people group. I had to concede that the manuscript was possibly an overdose of medicine to a sick society. I went on to revamp and tone down the Honger na Geregtigheid draft, dividing it into three smaller booklets. The first of these concentrated on personal experiences relating to the so-called Mixed Marriages Act. I named it Wat God saamgevoeg het [What God joined together]. This present book is a translated, updated and changed version of the original collation and comment on letters and other material. Looking back over well over 50 years since Rosemarie and I first met, it is hard to miss the obvious pitfalls I allowed myself to land in at various points in my life. False activism is one of the traps that I fell into regularly. So I wish to very deliberately record my gratitude to the Lord for correcting me continuously and bringing me back whenever I strayed. He used no other person more in this than my wife Rosemarie to whom I devoted an earlier version of this text on the occasion of her 60th birthday. I am grateful beyond words to our Father for leading me to such a wonderful woman. I am also very thankful for God-fearing parents. The title of chapter one is derived from a Bible verse (Isaiah 55:8) through which my parents were challenged to take a step of faith regarding finances needed to see me through my teacher training. God used this parental obedience to set a pattern in my life. They helped me to learn from early on to trust that God’s ways are indeed higher and much better than anything we could ever contrive ourselves. As a vote of thanks to them I presented memoirs with the title His higher Ways to my late father on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Rosemarie’s late mother’s obedience to the Master also played a pivotal role in our story. This very special contribution is highlighted in chapter 4 of this book. As mentioned, the original version of What God Joined Together was written in Afrikaans. I attempted to get this published in the early 1980s, but this did not meet with success. Nonetheless, I did sense some satisfaction when the law that prohibited people from different races to get married was finally repealed in 1985 (without tangible proof that my actions contributed to that). The death of our revered President Nelson Mandela in December 2013 brought back many fond memories, and inspired me to resume work on this story. I hope that one day our grandchildren will be able to read it. Due to the nature of our story, racial terminology is used numerous times throughout this book. I have chosen to utilize the most commonly understood terms Black, White and ‘Coloured’ to differentiate between the three biggest racial groups in South Africa. I have put the word ‘Coloured’ in inverted commas and capitalized the term, as I am aware that this classification of my own race group has caused particular controversy over the years. To the other races I refer as 'Black' and 'White' respectively, with a capital B and W, to denote that it is not normal colours that are being described. I refer readers to the glossary for explanations of Afrikaans and German words. I wish to record my sincere gratitude to our daughter Tabitha who edited the document to make it more readable. She also photographed the picture of our hands on the cover of this book. Our son Rafael proofread the final product. I pray that many may enjoy reading about What God Joined Together so sovereignly and particularly about how He did it so beautifully with us. Cape Town, March 2015 (slightly changed in May 2022) CHAPTER 1 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH GOD'S HIGHER WAYS Until I reached the age of about nine, the world as I knew it consisted solely of the single square mile around our family home in the bubbling slum-like District Six in Cape Town. As a little boy, I did not think in my wildest dreams that I would one day get to any other country, let alone get married to someone from a place far away. I can vividly remember the few instances that I stepped outside the District Six neighbourhood. What a big deal it had been for us to attend the Van Riebeeck Festival at the docks when I was six; and what a memorable outing it was when we watched the documentary ‘A Queen is crowned’ at the Bijou Cinema in Salt River a year later. Although both venues were only a few kilometers away, they were located in another world from my perspective. The Whites living in Vredehoek and Green Point were geographically nearby, but it may as well have been overseas. This is how disconnected our society was at that time. The Blacks of Windermere and Langa, represented in my world by the coal-blackened men who brought fuel for our stove, were to be feared and resented. The radio was something I only started listening to after we had left District Six, and even then it was only ever to hear rugby commentary on a Saturday afternoon. From an early age, I made a habit of roaming all corners of District Six. I knew the names of almost every street by the time I was six. When Aunty Bertha Roman, our neighbour, found me in a dark alley that I was not supposed to be in, I knew that I was in for a double hiding – one from her and one from my mother. “Sit die hond agter haar!” I retorted ingenuously, telling my friends to let the dog go after her. It was thus with great relief to my parents that I could start my schooling career at Zinzendorf Primary School in Arundel Street. Through God’s grace, possibly also as an answer to the prayer of my parents, we moved away from the area where I had already started mingling with the wrong folk. As a mere fifteen year old teenage boy, I started to become acquainted with the idea of a sovereign God. My then best friend Nicholas Dirks invited me along to an open-air rally, where Dr Oswald Smith, a prominent Canadian evangelist at the time, was the main speaker. Amongst a crowd of a few thousand faces, I found myself feeling deeply challenged by the evangelist who beckoned us to ‘come to the Cross.’ However, due to a lack of discipling that would have helped me to pursue a relationship with God, my spiritual growth was stifled. It was only when I visited the DRC Sendingkerk [Mission Church] in Tiervlei (now called Ravensmead) that I was freshly challenged to wholeheartedly put God first in my life. I also realized at this occasion that this might mean putting other passions aside to better align myself with God’s will for my life. The pastor of the church there, Dominee Piet Bester, subsequently took on a mentoring role in my life. He was also the one who got me interested in missionary work. Raised as a ‘Coloured’ in apartheid South Africa, I never considered that I would ever end up in another country, though – no more so for missionary purposes. As far as my education was concerned, it was always clear that after completing secondary school, I would go on to be trained as a teacher. Many members of my extended family were practicing this profession and it seemed to be the obvious choice for me as well. However, the financial situation at home was a major constraint, so it was decided that I would go and work after Matric to enable my older brother Kenneth to complete his two-year teacher training at the prestigious Hewat Teacher Training College. After a few unsuccessful attempts at finding white-collar clerical work, which was as a rule reserved for ‘Whites’ in the apartheid era, I settled for a menial job, cleaning machines at the Nasionale Boekhandel printing works in Parow. After working there for only a few weeks, I came home one late afternoon and learned that I, like my brother before me, had been accepted as a trainee at Hewat Teacher Training College. I was quite surprised when my parents disclosed to me that they felt I should go to Hewat despite the absence of funds for this. Our mom had been challenged by that day’s ‘watchword’ from the Moravian textbook. It read, “My ways are not your ways ...” (Isaiah 55:8). My parents wanted to trust God to see us through financially for that critical first year of teacher training. This was quite exceptional, as “faith ventures” were fairly unknown in the ‘Coloured’ society of South Africa and even more so in the Moravian Church of the 1960s. However, their faith was completely vindicated. Looking back, I believe that God used this parental obedience to set a pattern in my life, in helping me discover that God’s ways are indeed higher than our own. After completing the two-year teaching diploma at Hewat, I landed my first teaching post at Bellville South High School. I was actually qualified as a primary school teacher, but was offered a position due to the dearth of high school teachers at the time. I taught there from 1965-1968, whilst simultaneously doing some part-time studies towards a B.A. degree. While I was still completing my teacher training, an inner longing to also become a pastor began to tug at my heart. Chris Wessels, a young pastor who had preached in our church, had challenged me to take up theological studies, but I was adamant that the Lord should call me clearly and personally if becoming a pastor was in line with His plan for my life. The decision to wait for His divine calling did not in any way lessen my involvement in evangelistic work. I myself had started preaching at youth services from the age of fifteen, still looking like a primary school boy, and soon began inviting teens from other denominations to preach at our local Moravian youth services. Through a mutual friend, I managed to get Allan Boesak, who would later become an extremely prominent political activist, to speak at one of our youth services. Allan’s dedication to the Lord made a deep impression on me. When he mentioned the ‘stranddienste’ [beach services] of the SCA (Students Christian Association) he sowed important seed on the fertile soil of my heart. The SCA got Christians from different denominations together to evangelize. One of their big projects involved students sharing God’s love to guests at beach resorts during the Christmas holidays. ‘Coloured’ students were assigned to Harmony Park near Gordon’s Bay and I had no hesitation in signing up for this event, which started every year on Boxing Day (26 December). As I was getting ready for this outreach, I suddenly began to panic when I realized that I was not at all equipped for a task like this. I felt so spiritually empty myself. How was I going to evangelize in this condition? In desperation I cried to the Lord to meet me anew. I had nothing to share with anybody – unless God would fill me with His Spirit. And that He did. Something supernatural happened that day. In one brief moment I felt touched and lifted from the feeling of complete barrenness. I was suddenly energized and keen to join the other young folk in Harmony Park. The sense of unity and love of the young vibrant believers, who came from different church backgrounds, was a completely new experience for me. As we joined together in the outreach, there seemed to be some very special power at work. I was spiritually set on fire and the experience changed my life completely. After this, I started to consider God’s potential call on my life into full time service more prayerfully. I put it before the Lord time and time again that I was fully prepared to proceed with theological studies if this was His calling. At the beginning of 1968, one of my teenage heroes, Reverend Ivan Wessels, contracted leukemia. He passed away a few weeks later in his hospital bed at Groote Schuur. He had been such a prominent and influential figure in our community that almost the entire Moravian Church establishment gathered in the suburb of Lansdowne for the funeral. The church had lost one of its great sons, and South Africa as a whole had lost one of its unsung fighters for justice. Bishop Schaberg challenged the funeral assembly: “Who is called to fill the gap caused by our deceased brother?” I felt personally addressed. Back home in Tiervlei after the funeral, it was not difficult for me to say, “Lord, I’m prepared to be used by you to help fill the void.” The next day we went to the mission station Pella for a Sunday School Conference. I was completely surprised when a member of our church board approached me with the question of whether I would be interested in a bursary for theological studies in Germany. I was overawed by the perfect timing of the Lord! If this offer had been put to me a few days previously, I might have declined it. The temptation to study abroad would have been very attractive, but I wanted to be absolutely sure that it was God’s call. I told the minister that I saw this as clear confirmation of the call of the Lord the previous day. Barely a few months later, I was packing my bags for the great trip abroad. CHAPTER 2 DON'T MARRY A FOREIGNER In the meantime, a girl called Rosemarie was born in the South of Germany and was raised in a world utterly different from mine. Yet this very girl would one day cry out to God that “it would be the greatest miracle of all if I were to marry Ashley Cloete one day.” A true miracle is exactly what it would be. One that bears witness to a God who is capable of so much more than we can ever imagine. Rosemarie and her sister Waltraud grew up as typical ‘post war’ children, with their parents often recalling their traumatic experiences of the war at home. A constant fear existed in their young hearts that another war could break out any time. Around the age of four, little Rosemarie was sometimes too afraid to go to the bathroom alone, fearing that the next war might break out right then. One of the greatest dreams of Rosemarie’s father, who had climbed the ladder to a respectable position in the regional revenue office, was to own his own house. In order for this to be financially possible, her mother took a secretarial position at a school. As little children, the two sisters were left in the care of young women who were employed as housekeepers in their home. When Rosemarie got to primary school age, she and her older sister became latchkey children; each one of them had a key to the house around their necks, with nobody to welcome them when they came home from school. Growing up, Rosemarie and her older sister Waltraud often witnessed their parents in conflict. These disputes were usually evoked by the differences in their respective upbringings and their very different views on life. Not understanding what the conflict was all about, Rosemarie often feared that her parents might get a divorce. Throughout her childhood and teenage years, Rosemarie battled with the tension she felt between wanting to respect and obey her father with his somewhat rigid views on life, and the desire to forge her own ways, and create her own opinions. She was well-aware that her father wanted only what was best for his daughters, but also learnt that his idea of what was best may have been tainted by the unusual circumstances surrounding his upbringing. To put things into perspective, let me share with you a little bit about the background of Rosemarie’s parents. Franz Göbel, Rosemarie’s father, grew up in the small town of Weißwasser in Silesia, a region in the east of Germany. During World War II, this part of Germany was taken over by communist-ruled Czechoslovakia, causing his family to flee to southern Germany. In the environment in which he had grown up, Adolf Hitler was regarded as the ‘Führer’ who provided solutions for all of the country’s problems. Rosemarie’s father, along with most of his community, was thus very much influenced by Nazi indoctrination. Years later, he still regularly defended the Nazis in conversation, even referring to what he termed “the exaggerated numbers asserted to have been killed” in the gas chambers. Rosemarie’s mother Erika (née Marte), on the other hand, came from the city of Stuttgart with a completely different upbringing. She had been one of the best in the class academically, privileged as a girl to attend school right up to the ‘Abitur’. She was, however, not allowed to proceed onto higher education due to her refusal to join the Hitler youth. Her family had been critical of Adolf Hitler and his regime, and as a family the Martes respected Jews. Aside from this, the war had left Erika deeply traumatized in another very direct way; their house had been bombed when she was a young adult, and this was how she had lost her mother. Erika was ‘evangelisch’, i.e. she was a member of the Lutheran State Church. Rosemarie’s father, however, had been raised as a Roman Catholic. In a general atmosphere of mutual distrust between the two big German ecclesiastic denominations, Rosemarie’s parents dared to get married nonetheless. They had mutually agreed that any children in the marriage would be raised as Protestants, not Catholics. After fleeing to southern Germany, Rosemarie’s father’s family had found refuge at a former monastery in the small village of Maulbronn. The former Protestant monastery was used to welcome war refugees from both big church denominations. Rosemarie’s parents were very happy when they were allowed to stay on in the accommodation section of the monastery as a young couple. Housing for families was very scarce in Germany at this time, and they were grateful to find a solace there. From a young age, Rosemarie had been an avid reader, and often used the time alone at home after school to catch up on some literature. But their father felt that reading was no pastime for young girls, so this became something she had to do in secret. It took many years for Rosemarie to overcome the sense of guilt and secrecy she felt while reading books. Still, it was largely through the literature she read that Rosemarie gained more and more compassion towards the Jews as a people. This was of course much to the dismay of her father. As far as Rosemarie’s faith journey is concerned, Rosemarie was well-aware of spiritual matters from a young age. In her own words: “I recall my mother telling us Bible stories from an early age. Even as a child, I suffered from feelings of guilt because I felt that I could not live a life which lived up to God’s expectations. Very early in my life I had the secret wish to become a missionary one day, although I also had the impression that I could never remain faithful and steadfast if I would be required to suffer persecution. While still at primary school, I was confronted at a camp of the Liebenzeller Mission to accept Jesus as my personal Saviour. I experienced this step as a relief, to know that I was at last a child of God. The verse from Isaiah 43:1 I called you by your name, you are mine..., which was given to me at that occasion, carried me through into my teenage years, when the worldly things began to attract me increasingly.” As Rosemarie approached the age of fourteen, she attended confirmation classes, as was customary for teens in the Lutheran State Church. The classes themselves were not particularly gripping or challenging. For the final confirmation event in the church, the pastor requested the learners to randomly pick a card with a Bible verse from a box, which was to become their respective ‘Konfirmandenspruch’ on the special day. Rosemarie picked Psalm 93:4; a verse that would become deeply meaningful to Rosemarie. Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty! In later years she was often reminded of these words when it seemed as if she would ‘drown’ in yet another wave of life’s turbulent storms. Rosemarie’s liberal Religious Studies teacher in secondary school seemed to attempt to counter other spiritual influences in her life. It was not easy for Rosemarie to stand firm in her faith when the teacher peppered them with critical perspectives on the Bible. Similarly, she needed steadfastness at home as she continued to gain a lot of sympathy for the Jews, opposing any influence her father tried to exert. Rosemarie wanted to study physiotherapy, but this would mean moving to the town of Tübingen for her studies, and her father did not like that one bit. Besides the expense of studying there, there were too many foreign students in that university town for his liking. The thought of his daughter potentially meeting someone who was non-German seemed too great a risk. He had his own ideas about what his future son-in-law should be like. His negative experiences with southern European foreigners as part of his work in the civil service seemed to confirm all the prejudices he had picked up as a receptive young boy. Thus Rosemarie and her sister were requested to make a promise that they would get married only to a German. Although she had not met many foreigners in her life up to that point, Rosemarie refused to commit to any promise along those lines. She did not refuse so much out of conviction, but she just felt that she should not bind herself in such a way. When Papa Göbel scathingly mentioned that she also better not marry a pastor, she once again refused to oblige. As she was not allowed to study physiotherapy, she settled for her second vocational choice, studying to become an ‘Erzieherin’, which would officially qualify her to become either a kindergarten teacher or a support worker in a children’s home. This training brought her to the city of Stuttgart in 1967, the very city where I would spend much of the year 1969. CHAPTER 3 DON'T GET INVOLVED IN POLITICS! I cannot say that preparations for Germany were my biggest priority in the months leading up to my scheduled departure. I was teaching and simultaneously completing studies towards a B.A. degree. In the summer vacation at the end of the year, I hopped from one youth camp to the next instead of trying to get my knowledge of the German language on par. Just before my departure in January 1969, the same bishop who had challenged me so much at that funeral a few months before, warned me earnestly to stay clear of politics whilst in Germany. It was rumoured that agents of the apartheid government were also well represented overseas. While teaching in Bellville from 1965-68, I had tried to instill the idea of racial equality among my pupils. I would repeatedly tell them, “We are not inferior to Whites but also not superior to Blacks”. Therefore it was quite consistent when I opposed my teacher colleagues who were only clamoring for salary parity with Whites. I made myself unpopular, suggesting that we should rather fight for salary parity with Blacks. I was, however, not aware how deep-seated notions were in South African ‘Coloured’ society – yes, even in my own heart. The acid test started the moment I left South African shores in January 1969. Although there was no apartheid on the steamboat called the Pendennis Castle1, I felt so inferior that I did not dare to use the swimming pool while the Whites were still in the water. In Germany a few weeks later, I was shocked when a very dark-complexioned West African from Togo entered the room at a conference that I attended as a guest. My immediate thought was, “What is he doing here?” I conveniently over-looked that I, too, was a guest who was foreign in the context. I thought I had completely overcome my inculcated racism after being in Europe for about one and a half years, when I was suddenly caught off-guard walking through a subway. A racially mixed couple was walking in my direction, affectionately and unashamedly holding hands. My immediate reaction was, “Are they not afraid of being arrested for contravening the Immorality Act?” In later years, these personal experiences helped me to have more understanding for other people who wrestled with deep-seated racial or national prejudices. As a native speaker of the Germanic language Afrikaans, and having taken a year of German in my degree studies, I was soon quite fluent in the language. Being a South African of colour meant that I soon gained some renown in the southern German countryside and I was invited to speak about South Africa at various events. I spoke about the ‘unique problems’ of the country, which I defined as the apartheid government policy, the disunity of the churches and alcoholism. The Lord blessed me with insights that turned out to be quite prophetic. I suggested prayer as a solution to the problems – I believed fervently in the power of prayer, although I was never a great intercessor myself. This was obviously the result of the mentorship and teaching of Dominee Piet Bester and the influence of a few fervent intercessors of Moria Sendingkerk. Without making a particular effort, I initially heeded Bishop Schaberg’s warning not to get involved in politics. However, a letter from my parents in mid-1969 changed all this in an instant. It shocked me out of my wits to hear that our family had been served with a notice stating that we had to leave our property in Tiervlei under the guise of ‘slum clearance’. Before I left South Africa, we had heard a rumour that our property (the house we lived in and the surrounding piece of vacant land which was suitable for development) had been offered to a businessman from Bellville South. Considering that our solid brick house by no means resembled the shacks which one thought would qualify for slum clearance, we realized that the rumour which we had initially brushed off as unfounded, was true in all likelihood. What really enraged me about my mother’s letter was the fact that she mentioned something about “the will of the Lord”. I simply could not see it that way! In my eyes, this was nothing but a blatant wanton move by the Parow Municipality. I felt strongly that this would never have been allowed if it hadn’t been for the unjust apartheid-inspired government practices. In my anger, I stopped just short of joining the armed struggle against the apartheid government. I chose instead to write a strong letter of protest to the Parow Municipality. I couldn’t care less if the government would withdraw my passport or apply any other punitive measure and I almost invited the folk at the municipality to pass the information I had sent in the letter on to the authorities in Pretoria. Sadly, the protest letter did not have any visible effect. A few months after writing it, whilst I was still in Germany, my family was forced to leave our home. My parents moved to the mission station Elim, which was at that time the southern-most village on the African continent. My father became a sort of ‘migrant labourer’, going home to Elim to be with his wife one weekend per month. This, combined with the stress of losing our property for which he had worked so hard, became too much for him. It affected his heart and he had to go into early retirement. When my parents moved to Elim, fewer visible reminders and bits of news about me reached the Tiervlei community where they had lived. With this, the support from the prayer warriors there began to lessen. During this time of the move to Elim, and in my bitterness surrounding that situation, much of my initial missionary zeal petered out. Instead, I became almost reckless in my opposition to the South African government. I was very critical of the regime, and did not withhold my opinion in public utterances. I justified the strong resentment I felt and implied that I had every right to feel that way. The only constraint with regard to the content of my speeches on South Africa was a moral and religious one. I did want to act responsibly as a follower of Jesus in everything I did. CHAPER 4 THE GIRL FROM MÜHLACKER I had just turned twenty-three when I left South Africa. Romances started to play a bigger role in my life as all around me my peers were now getting married. Yet I was quite determined not to fall in love in Germany. I firmly intended to return to South Africa to make a meaningful contribution to racial reconciliation in one way or another. Because of the prevalent laws, marrying a German would have meant not being able to return to my home country. I also felt committed to a task and commission which I deemed to be waiting for me in South Africa, feeling that I could make a greater contribution there than anywhere else. As a result, I did not want to remain in Europe too long. I regarded my stay in Europe primarily as an opportunity to study, but it was also combined with missionary zeal. At almost every occasion when I was asked to speak, I would talk about the role of the SCA in my life, citing their motto ‘Make Jesus King’. Some Germans were quite shocked by this notion. How could their ‘Christian’ country appear to be in need of missionaries from Africa? I immersed myself whole-heartedly in ministry, embracing all opportunities I was given to speak at various events. My resolve not to fall in love with any German girl was strengthened after a few weeks in Europe when I visited the village of Selbitz for an event at a Protestant institution which had all the hallmarks of a monastery. The lifestyle of these Christians challenged me to consider a celibate life, something with which I had not been confronted before. However, I knew myself too well. I didn’t want to stay single for the rest of my life, so I settled for a compromise: I dedicated my ‘youth’ to the Lord, intending to stay a bachelor until the age of thirty. But alas! God’s ways are not our ways. In May 1970 a dark-haired beauty by the name of Rosemarie walked into my life. I fell in love as never before. I first set my eyes on Rosemarie when she came to the Christian Encounter youth group with her student colleague and close friend Elke Maier. I had been frequenting the Wednesday evening youth group for some time. Being a first-time visitor, she stood up and introduced herself to the group as “Rosemarie Göbel from Mühlacker”. Her beauty immediately made an impression on me. There was something special about her, and something comfortingly familiar in that long black hair which was a rarity amongst German girls. I was intrigued. As soon as the formalities of the evening were over, I darted over to the mysterious girl from Mühlacker and started to make small talk. My interest in her only grew when I discovered that her personality perfectly matched her outer beauty. When I came home that evening, I bubbled over in excitement, immediately wanting to tell my two roommates in Stuttgart about this Rosemarie Göbel from Mühlacker. On my side, this was as close to ‘love at first sight’ as it could get. Rosemarie had stayed over with Elke in Stuttgart that night as she was planning to attend the big ‘Ludwig Hofacker Konferenz’ the next day. Incidentally I, too, was planning to attend the conference with a group of student colleagues. It seemed more than mere co-incidence that we entered at the same entrance of the huge Killesberg auditorium at just the same moment amidst hundreds of people. In child-like fashion, I abandoned the group of student colleagues I had entered with to take my chance of getting to know Rosemarie a little bit better. Without too much thought, I accompanied her and Elke to their seats and remained there for the first half of the conference. This gave us the chance to converse amiably. I was dismayed when Rosemarie did not return to her seat next to me after the lunch break. As we had not had an opportunity to exchange addresses or telephone numbers, Rosemarie stepped out of my life again as quickly as she had entered it. I later learned that Elke was not so pleased with the fact that Rosemarie was talking to me so much during the conference, almost ignoring her entirely in the process. Out of allegiance to her friend, Rosemarie chose not to return to her seat next to me, and sat somewhere else with Elke instead. Because of this, Rosemarie and I lost contact with each other after the conference. During the European summer holidays, Rosemarie again attended the Christian Encounter youth group in Stuttgart where we had met the first time, but this happened to fall on a day on which I was not present. At this time, Rosemarie had a choice of two centres where she could do the practical part of her training. The difference between the two institutions was stark. At the Ludwigsburger Höhe, she could have had a brand new ultra-modern flat at her disposal, but in Stuttgart at the School for the Blind, she would be confronted with difficult work and a tiny room. After praying about it, she knew she had to take the latter option although the conditions would be clearly inferior. How happy I am that she opted to stay in Stuttgart. Months later, almost simultaneously with my Greek exam which took place two weeks before my scheduled return to South Africa, Rosemarie entered into my life once more. To my delight she joined the Christian Encounter youth group again that evening, when we were attending an evangelistic campaign in a marquee in another suburb. I immediately spotted her coming in with others who had not been aware of the change of venue that evening. The meeting had already started at this point. Our youth leader asked us to meet briefly after the end of the meeting to discuss an outreach event the following Saturday. As I sat there listening to the announcements and discussion, Rosemarie was sitting in the row in front of me. I resolved not to lose contact with her again. Fearing I might never see her again, I resorted to a rather unconventional method; I scribbled my number onto a piece of paper and quietly passed it to her. Rosemarie was, however, not impressed by this gesture! She was to call him? This was not exactly her idea of gentlemanly behaviour! As it turned out, my second-rate action had actually been rather unnecessary. Rosemarie had gotten a lift to the event with the leader of the Christian Encounter group and I noticed her standing outside waiting for him after the meeting. I shouted out her name and offered her a ride. There were already three other people in the Volkswagen Beetle I was in, but of course there was still plenty of space for that particular young lady! My assertive roommate was also in the car with us on the way home and he chatted with Rosemarie in a manner that made me suspect that he, too, might be interested in her. As we were walking to our college the next day, this particular roommate of mine boasted that the beautiful Rosemarie Göbel had waved at him when they had dropped her off at the school for the blind. I may have burst his bubble a little when I simply asked him whether he knew for sure that it was him she was waving at. The answer to that question came the next day, when Rosemarie called me as per my request. It turned out that this had not been an easy decision for her. She felt a little put off by my forward manner, asking her to call me, but she had thoroughly enjoyed my conversation at the conference in May, and eventually decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. We chatted quite a bit over the phone that day and we seemed to have a real connection. I invited her to attend an event hosted by the Wycliffe Bible Translators due to take place that very evening. Her reaction was astounding; “I’ve wanted to become a missionary since my childhood!” To me this was the clear confirmation that I wanted nobody else as my future wife. Rosemarie, though keen to attend, was unsure about whether she would be able to make it. She had a late shift at the School for the Blind that day, and wasn’t sure if she’d be able to get someone to stand in for her. I assumed that this had to have been the case when I could not spot her at the event that evening. When things started to drag on a bit towards the end, I signaled to my roommate, who had taken a seat on the stage as a volunteer (he enjoyed the limelight), that I was going to head back to our room, implying that he should make his own way back. Hours later, when I was already in bed, he eagerly told me about the exciting evening he had just had. From the stage, he had spotted Rosemarie coming in late and after the meeting they had talked. Not only did they apparently talk “for ages”, but they then walked to the tram station together. The tram didn’t arrive as promptly as usual, so they spent quite some time waiting. I struggled to get back to sleep after that! The picture of the two of them spending hours together late into the night kept playing over and over in my mind. I was so confused. Just that morning she seemed to have shown such interest in me when we spoke over the phone. And now she had spent so much time with my ‘player’ roommate? Had I been wrong about her? The next day I resolved to find out once and for all what was going on. I knew that I was in love with her, this much was sure. How she felt about me, however, remained a mystery. I gave her a call to ask her if I could meet her at the train station that afternoon. I knew that she was due to go home to her parents in Mühlacker that weekend. I was thankful when she agreed. We met at the Schlosspark, a romantic park close to the station, and spent some time together in conversation. I was overcome by how much I admired Rosemarie to the point where I could no longer keep my feelings to myself. I verbally confessed to Rosemarie right then: “Ich liebe dich.” [I love you]. Rosemarie responded by laying her head on my shoulder. With a deep sigh she said, “Oh, Ashley.” Her body language conceded that the feelings were mutual. However, with a heavy heart, she went on to tell me that her parents would not be happy with us entering into a relationship. That same Friday evening, Rosemarie went to a symphony concert with her mother. During the interval Rosemarie told her mother about her love for me, an African student. The concerned Mrs Göbel knew that the situation could cause a crisis at home. Fearing an explosion from her husband, she immediately opposed the relationship and requested Rosemarie not to meet me again. In her heart, Rosemarie was unhappy about this development, but her mom persisted and my darling was more or less forced to agree. Under no circumstance should her father hear about our relationship. He had made his opinion clear to her in the past. Had he not warned her never to get involved with a foreigner or a pastor? And there I was pursuing his daughter – an African, in training to become a pastor. Rosemarie respected her mother’s wish not to meet up with me before my return to South Africa. Thankfully, Mrs Göbel did allow us to phone each other. Her reasoning was that with me leaving so soon, it was unlikely that things would get serious enough for her husband to ever have to find out. Because Rosemarie was now no longer staying at home, she was able to phone me without anyone knowing. We spoke on the phone almost every day during those two weeks. All local calls were charged one unit, irrespective of the duration, so we made the most of it with very lengthy phone calls and we got to know each other fairly well. In fact, we spent so much time on the phone that the fellow students at my boarding house soon complained that I was blocking the line! Rosemarie was not permitted to attend my farewell at the Christian Encounter group. That evening I taught the young Germans two choruses, ‘My Lord can do anything’ and ‘By u is daar niks onmoontlik Heer’ [Nothing is impossible with you, Lord]. I chose these two songs without thinking much about the content. Yet these two choruses would go on to mean such a lot to Rosemarie and myself in the months that followed. We made an audio recording of the valedictory youth meeting by means of a recent technological advance; the cassette tape. I promptly sent Rosemarie the recording of the evening’s proceedings. In this way she could also learn the two choruses that I had taught the youth group. The two choruses contained the same message: For our Lord, who can do anything – nothing is impossible. From an objective perspective, the future development of our intense mutual love seemed hopeless. I was about to head back to my country of origin for good, and besides that, Rosemarie’s father would have prohibited the relationship in any case. We had no option but to stick to our faith that our Lord can do anything. A foretaste of the miracle that was still to happen occurred just prior to my departure. When Rosemarie went home again the next weekend, her mom gave her permission to see me once more. Rosemarie joined me at a performance of Händel’s Oratorio ‘Messiah’. We were thoroughly blessed when we listened to the words from the prophet Isaiah almost at the outset: Every valley shall be exalted... We looked at each other eagerly and lovingly, applying the promise to our personal circumstances. How we longed for a fulfilment of the verse from Scripture in our situation! Mrs Göbel allowed Rosemarie to accompany me to Stuttgart airport with my roommates. But we were not happy when our scheduled time together at the airport was cut short, because I was required to take an earlier flight to get to Frankfurt. The flight from Stuttgart to Frankfurt was the very first time I experienced the inside of an aircraft. From Frankfurt, I phoned Rosemarie one last time. We prayed together on the phone, concluding the two special weeks by singing and encouraging each other. The words ‘My Lord can do anything’ and ‘By u is daar niks onmoontlik Heer’ gave us a sense of hope when our circumstances seemed to be so heavily against us. Yes, in faith we trusted that God would deal with our two major hindrances: The objection of her parents to our relationship as well as the legal prohibition of it in my home country of South Africa. CHAPTER 5 LOVE GROWS WHERE MY ROSEMARY GOES When I returned to South Africa in October 1970, I had no doubt that Rosemarie Göbel was the girl I wanted to marry. My resolve and determination not to get involved in a relationship that could lead to marriage whilst in Germany were thus effectively dashed. A new resolve grew in my heart. I wanted to fight the law that prevented her from coming to join me in South Africa. During this time, I was starting to get ready to attend the Moravian Seminary as a full-time student from the beginning of the next year. In the meantime, I took up a teaching post at Alexander Sinton High School in Athlone, substituting for a teacher who was in hospital during the last school quarter of 1970. I was so excited about my new-found romantic relationship that I latched onto every opportunity to narrate our special story. Even many a learner at school had to hear it. When one of them pointed out to me that there was a pop song doing the rounds with the words Love grows where my Rosemary goes, my heart resonated in agreement. In the first few weeks, our airmail letters flew to-and-fro between Cape Town and Stuttgart in quick succession. I wrote about almost everything that I was doing, writing at railway stations and on trains, reading and re-reading her letters in all sorts of places. But it was also not long before I was swept along by the race politics of the day. How eager I was to get going with the task of working towards racial reconciliation in my dearly beloved home country. Already in Germany I had decided that, once back in South Africa, one of the first things I would do was to join the Christian Institute (CI). This was an organisation which stood up against apartheid by uniting Christians of different races. Influenced by my intensive reading about the experiences of Martin Luther King in his battle for racial equality in the southern states of the USA, I had a plan of action ready. I believed that we should demonstrate our unity in Christ as people of different races visibly, and be prepared to suffer the consequences, if needed. In concrete terms, that meant being ready to be arrested in contravention of immoral racist laws. At the CI in Mowbray I linked up with Paul Joemat, my fellow Moravian rebel soulmate. There we hoped to connect with other young people who shared our vision of actively opposing the unchristian apartheid policies. At the very first meeting with other young people linked to the CI, I suggested that we could take a train ride jointly, entering into a ‘non-White’ carriage and then walk through to the 'White' side together. This rebellious gesture could very well have led to imprisonment, but we were ready to embarrass the government in that way. Unfortunately, the 'White' compatriots disagreed, pointing out that it was CI policy to stay within the limits of the laws of the country. Paul and I had been rather naïve to expect that other young people would also be prepared to be arrested. I was disillusioned, because the basic tenet of my reasoning fell away: I believed fervently that doing things together as believers from different races would be the most effective opposition to apartheid. It was also my conviction that our united opposition had to be visible, and that it would include the contravention of the deplorable race laws. I discovered that I was probably expecting too much for the bulk of middle-class Whites in 1970. Even in the ‘Coloured’ society of the day, landing in prison – even for a good cause – still had too much of a stigma attached to it. Paul and I subsequently stopped attending the CI youth meetings. Though I was not at all ready to give up the fight against apartheid, emotionally I was preoccupied with my intercontinental romantic relationship, and for quite a while I was not actively involved in trying to bring about racial reconciliation. In fact, I was so much ablaze in my love for Rosemarie that I was already planning my return to Germany to see her again as soon as possible. I caused self-inflicted problems over in Germany, as I had been quite outspoken there about my desire to return to South Africa to serve my people. In a newsletter to friends in Germany dated 22 December 1970, I wrote from my parents’ new home after their relocation to the mission station Elim: I can already hear your question: You always asserted that you see your duty in South Africa and now you have fallen in love with a German? I defended myself in the same newsletter with some clever semantics: It is not so much that I fell in love, but that GOD granted us this exceptional love. I pointed out in that newsletter that if I had had my own way, I would have returned to South Africa much earlier and then we would not have met each other again two weeks before my return in October 1970, after we had initially lost contact with each other. During that same December visit to Elim, I divulged my romance with Rosemarie to my cousin John Ulster. He was the minister and superintendent of the mission station at the time and it was he who pointed out the obvious to me: I would have to choose between South Africa and Rosemarie. However, I was adamant that I wanted both. This must have sounded really stupid and naïve. Marriage between a ‘White’ and someone from another race was completely out of the question in our country. I was, however, too much in love to give her up that easily. I was determined to fight to get Rosemarie into South Africa though the idea sounded crazy to everybody else. As Rosemarie was still residing at the School for the Blind in Stuttgart at this time, we could correspond without her parents getting upset about it. Rosemarie initially kept the promise to withhold the information from her father but she did share it with Waltraud, her only sister. Waltraud was engaged to Dieter Braun at that point and everything was set for their wedding a few months later. Many acquaintances on either side of the equator were rather skeptical about our relationship, waiting for the novelty of our new-found love to wear off as time would go by. For my part, I did not feel a need to prove anything, though. I was so sure of our strong love. Rosemarie, however, experienced intense loneliness. Besides her friend Elke, nobody seemed to show any understanding. She wrote in one of her letters: Yes, Schatz, I have experienced so many disappointments from people from whom I had expected it the least. I could even say that everybody to whom I have spoken about you reacted in a negative way, believers and non-believers alike. Often it is very difficult because they use arguments which I can’t counter... Often I have to hear, “Your love will cease, especially when the physical circumstances will wear you down.” Had Rosemarie’s friends read my letters to her, those sentiments would have been confirmed. I gave Rosemarie heartaches with my naïve ‘honesty’, for example writing about girls in Cape Town that I liked, but who could never match up to my darling in Germany. When she received interest from local young men, who also hoped that she would forget about the African young man as time would go by, she gave me the same bitter medicine. I was, however, too naïve to sense any danger. With the money I was earning through my teaching, I wanted to visit her as soon as possible. I knew that the advice of my cousin John Ulster was realistic; I had to choose. I could not have both the girl and the country I loved. Nevertheless, I somehow still hoped to bring Rosemarie into my beloved fatherland. There was, of course, also that other rather large snag: Rosemarie’s father still didn’t know about our relationship. The secrecy became almost unbearable to my darling. We so much desired to live as children of the Light. She knew that sooner or later, she would have to tell her father the truth. On Christmas Day 1970, Rosemarie wrote: I had thought I’d wait to tell my father about us until certain things would have changed in his life. However, I can’t wait any longer because I can’t bear this responsibility. I know how he thinks. It could very well be that he will forbid me to write to you. There was a foretaste of the possible reaction from her father a few days later, when Rosemarie was all set to leave for a week long youth conference in the village of Liebenzell taking place at the end of 1970. The village, situated in the Black Forest, is well known in Southern Germany because of the mission agency located there. Her father warned her; “Just see to it that you don’t fall in love with a missionary. Otherwise you may still end up in Africa or who knows where, just to be thrown out by the native inhabitants.” She expected him to explode if he heard that his daughter was already in love with someone interested in missionary work, and one who is in fact a native African! My darling was in complete desperation as she left for the conference. At the conference itself, her desperation worsened. My Schatz [darling] thought that she had no choice but to let go of me. The last day at the short conference in Liebenzell was a red-letter day for her. On the 5th of January, 1971 she wrote: There are many letters which I had started to write but tore up again, because I discovered that I wasn’t being honest. Then I started to pray, but I somehow couldn’t get further than “Lord, you see how I love him. Surely you can’t expect me to release him?” But I knew that this was exactly what God wanted from me; to be prepared to let go of you. In the night, I couldn’t sleep because I was completely frustrated. The mere idea of a sacrifice almost drove me to insanity. And yet I knew, to find peace again, I had to get through all this. Then she went on to write victoriously: … I sensed the power of Jesus so that at last I could say: “Yes, Lord, I want to be completely obedient to you. I will give Ashley back to you if you require this from me.” Thereafter I found inner peace and I knew that I would tell my father about you the same day. With this sense of peace at heart, Rosemarie returned to their home in Mühlacker, determined to tell her father about our relationship that same day. As much as the thought of possibly losing me hurt her, she knew that choosing her own ways over those of God was ultimately going to hurt her even more. But somehow, she could not bring herself to act on her intention to tell her father about her love for me, an African theological student, right away. CHAPTER 6 MILES APART In January of 1971, I bumped into my former Afrikaans teacher, Mr Adam Pick. He was now the principal of Elswood High School. My reputation as an ‘above average’ Mathematics teacher had somehow done the rounds and he promptly asked me to come and teach at his school. This came as a bit of an unexpected temptation, as prior to this I had already made the decision to resign from the teaching profession to pursue theological studies. Being a Moravian himself, however, he knew that the seminary I intended to attend had just moved to Cape Town after the Group Areas expropriation of the church’s property in Port Elizabeth. He sowed seed into my heart, suggesting that I could also study theology part-time. This is exactly what I decided to do. I soon took up a full-time teaching post at Elswood High School in Elsies River, making it clear that I would only be teaching for a year. Thereafter I wanted to study theology full-time. My parents were now living in Elim and my sister and her family resided quite far from the school in Elsies River where I would teach. I needed accommodation in that vicinity. Mr Pick introduced me to a family that owned a 3 by 3 metre outside room with one double bed that I would share with my brother Windsor. On the inside of the door I hung my most important possession, a photograph of my beloved Rosemarie. I especially made use of the picture for our regular Sunday 10 p.m. rendezvous. We had set this time aside to pray for each other exclusively. What special times we experienced in divine union although we were so many miles apart. On the occasional Sunday night I engaged in the prayer rendezvous with my darling while I was travelling back to Elsies River in the train after the Sunday evening symphony concert at the City Hall. I had frequently utilized my monthly train ticket to get there during my teacher training years, and still enjoyed attending occasionally after my return to South Africa. The event started at 8.45pm and was advertised as ‘admission free’. What this really meant was that one could be a seat-filler at the back of the auditorium for no charge. Those ‘free’ seats were often empty, barring a handful of ‘Coloureds’ and a lone 'Black' man who attended regularly. I never experienced a single 'White' person sitting there. Back in Germany, Rosemarie deemed it wise to go home to see her parents in Mühlacker less frequently. The secrecy of our relationship was starting to take its toll, particularly on her mother, who was deeply torn between her love for her husband and the allegiance to her daughter and her ‘wayward’ choice of a boyfriend. She reckoned with the possibility that I would return to Europe in the future. In a letter to Rosemarie she wrote very wisely: ... I feel that if Ashley were to come to Europe one day, should you still think about it as at present, it would be the opportunity to get to know him. Think about how many people have had to experience a time of parting. Sometimes God requires a time of testing of us. In the meantime, you can learn some additional things for His service. Should you serve Him together one day, He will surely make your way clear... Rosemarie’s father was, however, still clueless as to what was going on. After a few months, the secrecy of our relationship so much affected Mrs Göbel that she eventually landed in hospital with a serious gall ailment. Rosemarie herself was also coming close to a nervous breakdown. The tension in the family became unbearable. Finally Rosemarie had to face the fact that our relationship was the reason for all of this. She knew that she could no longer withhold the truth from her father whom she loved so dearly. On one of the rare weekends at home, she eventually plucked up the courage to tell him about me. She knew full-well that it would hurt him tremendously. As expected, Papa Göbel was shattered. All his ideas about his daughter’s future seemed to have taken a deep plunge. He cried excessively and uncontrollably like a deprived child, and said things a responsible parent should never say to their children – hurtful things, shameful things. The years of indoctrination while growing up had taken its toll. His ideological world of Aryan racial supremacy crumbled. Deeply hurt by her father’s reaction, Rosemarie took her bag and ran out in tears. This also brought her into a spiritual crisis, thinking that the termination of our relationship would be the only way out. Two young Kriegdienstverweigerer2 [conscientious objectors], who were doing the substitute for military service at the School of the Blind where she was doing her internship, came to the station in Stuttgart to pick her up after her weekend trip to see her parents. But she was so distraught about what had happened in the interaction with her father that she tearfully disappeared into the ladies’ room at the train station. There Rosemarie wrote me a letter in which she stated: I never thought that our relationship would end in this way. Yes, my darling, I have given up all hope that we will ever see each other again. Why? Because I can’t take it anymore. The responsibility towards my parents is too big. I deemed it appropriate then to write a formal letter of apology to Mr Göbel. But rather than leaving it at an apology, I requested insensitively to correspond again with his daughter, yet not secretly. He replied equally formally, naming the reasons why I should terminate my relationship with his daughter. Ultimately it came down to this: He had nothing against me personally, but he didn’t want Rosemarie to marry someone from any nation other than Germany. I probably should have left it at that. Instead, I stubbornly requested him to allow me to continue the correspondence with Rosemarie at festive occasions. Ethically, this was deplorable. I more or less attempted to twist Mr Göbel’s arm. In the same letter, I insolently suggested that if I did not get a reply from him, I would assume that he had agreed to my proposal. I still had to learn that one could aggravate a problematic situation by forcing an issue. Mr Göbel was too angry to reply, and instructed Rosemarie to write me one final letter terminating the relationship! As a result, the tension at the Göbel home in Mühlacker increased to breaking point and Rosemarie decided to stop going home over the weekends. The Göbel family was soon very busy preparing for the pending wedding of Rosemarie’s sister Waltraud. When no reply came from Mr Göbel, I uttered a totally uncalled-for sigh of relief. I deduced that I could now go ahead with the writing of my thick epistle for Easter. Via this letter Rosemarie would have enough material to read and to re-read until Pentecost! Easter 1971 would have been the first occasion for our mutual exchange of letters. I sent mine, but her letter didn’t come at the expected time. After some delay, a letter from her did eventually arrive. Had I not been so ignorant, the contents of this letter should have alarmed me excessively. CHAPTER 7 A CONFESSION WITH SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES Prior to receiving her letter, I had confessed in one of my letters to Rosemarie that I had kissed another girl. I believed in transparency. This behaviour was of course absolutely unacceptable in every way. I was claiming to be so deeply smitten with Rosemarie (which I was!), yet somehow I managed to rationalize kissing another girl. I really did make some foolish mistakes in the span of my youth! However, I had no notion what a world of cultural difference there existed in this regard. I hardly suspected what consequences my confession could evoke. Upon reading my disclosure, Rosemarie’s world almost broke down. Her initial reaction was anger, which quickly turned into a deep lingering sense of disappointment. A flood of questions about my character entered Rosemarie’s mind. Had she misjudged me? Just at that vulnerable moment, a young man by the name of Günther3 who had been interested in her for some time, started courting her. When he asked her if she would like to go on a date with him, she agreed. She was confused and hurt by my actions, and felt that one date couldn’t do much harm. In her Easter letter to me she wrote on pages 7-11 about going out with Günther. The rest of the letter (through to page 18) was, however, full of so much love for me that I had no great difficulty in accepting the fact that she had gone on a date with another man. I was under the impression that this was some sort of episode which was now over. I was too much in love to consider that I could have a serious rival. Not alarmed by her letter whatsoever, I saw in her reply only an honest response, at most some revenge for my confession. However, Günther was interested in more than just a single date. An internal wrestle in Rosemarie’s heart began to unfold. Her father had so clearly instructed her to write me one final letter, breaking off the relationship for good. She so much wanted to be obedient to her father. Was Günther perhaps God’s answer for her? Rosemarie’s relationship with her parents became so tense that she was earnestly considering entering into a serious relationship with Günther. In her heart, Rosemarie was nevertheless still hoping for some miracle to happen so that she could marry her ‘first choice’ in Africa. More and more this began to look like a pipe-dream. On the South African side of the ocean, there was of course the ominous ‘Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act’ that prevented any marital union between a 'White' and someone from another race. The circumstances were just not in our favour. Instead of waiting on God’s intervention to enable our marital bond, I decided to ‘assist Him’. I had read in a local newspaper about someone who had been racially reclassified; something like that could of course only transpire in the apartheid era! This seemed to be my big chance. I would not accept the ‘realistic’ choice of either Rosemarie or South Africa that my cousin John had put to me. Getting Rosemarie reclassified was a possible way out of the cul-de-sac. Theoretically, there was also another possibility to beat the legislation, if ‘non-White blood’ could be traced in her ancestry. But research which had already been done for Rosemarie’s family tree showed just the opposite. Rosemarie has European ancestry as far as could be traced! I wrote to Mr Vorster, the Prime Minister, inquiring about the procedure to get someone reclassified. The reservations of one of my lecturers that I would give recognition to the immoral racial laws of the country by doing so could not deter me. I was too much in love. I wanted to get married to Rosemarie, and I was willing to do whatever it might take. Despite my active pursuit in trying to figure out a way to bring Rosemarie to South Africa, Rosemarie herself was still far from ready to make such a move. The inevitable objections of her family at the idea of releasing their daughter to go to the African continent were too much of a hindrance. In one of her letters she actually asked me to pray for inner freedom from the inhibitions she felt in this regard. I had no problem with this request, trusting God to change her views in His time. Had she not told me that she had always dreamed of going to the mission field when I invited her to the evening with the Wycliffe Bible Translators? I just pushed ahead with my ideas. I had completely forgotten the lesson that His ways are higher than our own. Completely oblivious to what Rosemarie had intimated in her Easter letter, I continued writing my next epistle that was intended to arrive at Pentecost. I had elevated this church feast to the next ‘big occasion’. I was of course just looking for an opportunity and an excuse to write a letter to my Schatz. Pentecost came and went, but no letter arrived from my bonny over the ocean. I was sure that the South African government had intervened. Our post had to have been intercepted. I surmised that my enquiry after the procedure to get someone reclassified might have alarmed the government. This became a conviction to me, much more than merely an assumption or deduction. Practices like this belonged to the day-to-day occurrences of apartheid South Africa. If the powers that be could stop our contact in this way, they would definitely not have hesitated. Mixing across the colour bar, especially interaction between the sexes, was resented. Nevertheless, I was also very worried that something could have happened to Rosemarie. In unrealistic naivety I still did not even consider the possibility that my darling could be involved in another romantic relationship. If ever there was any proof needed that love could blind someone, I was definitely a perfect example. Very soon Rosemarie informed Günther of her long-distance relationship with me. She knew that he was very serious about her and thus did not want to mislead him. The confusion in her heart grew rapidly. She knew that Günther was just the kind of man that her parents would have wished for as a son in-law. He was German to the bone, intelligent and cultured, a prim-and-proper gentleman. She was teetering on the horns of an immense dilemma when the mother of the handsome young friend became critically ill. He had stated innocently to Rosemarie that he would not be able to take it if he would lose both Rosemarie and his mother. A few days after Günther’s mother passed away, my darling made the decision that she would choose Günther over me. She just could not see a realistic future with me, and overwhelmed with sympathy for Günther, she made the choice that seemed to be the right thing to do. I was of course completely oblivious to all of this and continued to impatiently await Rosemarie’s Pentecost letter. Months before this, I had formally resigned from teaching to go into full-time pastoral work. Just at this point in time, I received a cheque from the government as repayment of money that I had paid into the State Pension Fund. The amount of the cheque was more or less just what I needed for the cheapest return air ticket to Luxembourg. After some intense prayer, I expediently perceived the government cheque to be divine provision to fly to Europe in the June vacation of 1971. When I hadn’t heard from my darling for weeks, I became really worried that something might have happened to her. I wrote to her parents in dire frustration, mentioning that I hoped to come to Germany in the June school holidays. I did not hear back from them, and with that my worries continued to grow. Any doubts about the correctness of such a drastic step as going to Germany were dispelled when I heard from Trek Airways that the flight just after the start of the school holidays was fully booked and I was wait-listed. This, in my opinion, was a very convenient way of testing to see if it was right to use my pension cheque in this way. Two-hundred-and-sixty odd Rand meant a lot of money in those days. I argued that, ‘if it is the will of the Lord that I should go, then he has to get a place for me on that flight’. When I received a phone call only a few days before the departure date that one seat was free, I saw this as a clear indication that I should go. I had considered the venture prayerfully enough! CHAPTER 8 A FINAL FAREWELL? The moment Rosemarie had verbally chosen Günther over me, a deep sense of guilt overtook her. Was she being dishonest to Günther? Or unfair to me? The thought of breaking the news to me plagued her. She knew that she now had no choice but to write me that final letter as she had been instructed. She also knew that writing this letter may be one of the hardest things she would ever have to do. Her heart was broken, yet she saw no other way out. When she stayed over at her friend Elke’s house a few days later, she opened up about her feelings. She bravely told Elke that she could not get over me, no matter how hard she tried. The next day, Rosemarie and Elke went for a walk in Zavelstein, the village where Elke was doing her internship. From a distance, she saw the Van Niekerks, a South African family whom she had met through me. Feelings of love for me rushed in with great force, confirming that she indeed still possessed an intense love for me. That night, Rosemarie started to fall ill as the emotional turmoil was starting to manifest itself physically. She lay in bed that night wrestling with God. Her future had been sealed. She had made a promise to Günther and felt that she could not go back on that. Whilst lying in bed with a flu, Rosemarie cried out to God in her heart, “I cannot go back on my promise to Günther. If You want Ashley and me to be together, then You must do the miracle because I can’t do anything now. It would be the greatest miracle in my life if I would ever still marry Ashley Cloete. ” After that prayer, she was overwhelmed with a sense of complete peace. She had given it over to God again and left it at that. Günther came to visit Rosemarie at her parents’ home in Mühlacker while she was still sick with what had now developed into a severe case of tonsillitis. This was the first time her parents met Günther and they were impressed. After Rosemarie recovered from her illness she returned to the School for the Blind in Stuttgart, and continued to see Günther on weekends. Waltraud had married her Dieter in the meantime, meaning that Rosemarie was alone with her parents on those weekends. The relief at the parental home had become almost tangible every time she pitched up with the likable Günther. Peace returned to their Mühlacker home. Immediately after her return to Stuttgart, Rosemarie wrote that consequential final farewell letter. She showed the letter to Günther who approved of its content with much relief. If ever there was a competition for such letters, this one surely would have won a prize. Dearest Ashley, I know that it sounds empty and mundane to start this letter with an apology. I can imagine very well how much you must have suffered not to hear from me for such a long time and to be kept in such a state of uncertainty. It is quite clear to me that you may have come to all sorts of conclusions when you didn’t hear from me at Pentecost and in the weeks thereafter. This has distressed me greatly over these last few weeks, because through your letters, I have also become very conscious of my guilt (for not having written to you). I must also tell you that I was emotionally not able to write to you before Pentecost. In the time after Pentecost I was ill with high fever. Only now I am really able to tell you about my inward, emotional and spiritual experiences. That it is no longer so difficult, is only possible because: 1) I trust, and I also know, that God will guide me to find the right words and way of expression; or to put it differently, without God’s help I would not want to write this letter at all. 2) During the past few days I have experienced His presence in a special way (during my illness I had much time to be completely ‘quiet’ before the Lord), so that I can still be at rest – for the first time after a long time. Mind you, it looked to me almost impossible to write this letter to you, especially because I also want to mention that this will be the last letter (or at least one of the last letters) which you will receive from me... There is also something else I want to tell you, Ashley, before you read further. You wrote once that you had great trust in God and that you are sure that He will guide you on the road that will be good for you. I wanted to remind you of this, Ashley, because this is very much my wish. You should know that I pray that you may adhere steadfastly to this. Especially when you experience such a drastic change in your life and dreams, you should know that God never makes a mistake. But we must also trust Him firmly. You know, precisely this is what I have really had to learn. I, too, wanted to lead my life as I wanted to. I could not understand why my ideas of my future life with you were taken away one after the other. Yes, Ashley, I believe now that much of what we thought about in our dreams was really our wishful thinking. You know how every part of me has lived in this dream. It went so far that I could not imagine my life in Germany, and especially my life without you, anymore. But you also know that I wished for God’s blessing for our future life together above all else. No, I simply don’t want to do anything without His blessing. I know that such a bond could only be proper when there would be a conscious blessing on it. Therefore I clung ever more to our motto (when the doubts came) of which you always reminded me: WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. Yes, I really wanted to believe that God would bring us together despite all the problems. That’s why I was so disappointed that God gave us so few confirmations. I often asked, “Why does God allow so much strife in our family because of this matter if we belong together?” Only when my mother became so ill – the doctor said that it resulted solely from stress, i.e. because of the tensions – I started to doubt whether our plan really had God’s blessing. Thereafter, this doubt never left me... Nevertheless, I could not give up everything. I noticed how my prayers increasingly became claims. You should know even now that I can’t be happy because I sense that God’s ways may be different from ours and that He might want to lead us (as you once said) into new ways. I was so very conscious of it when the letter, in which you had written about the correspondence prohibition, came. That morning I had to listen to the words of Job from the watchword for the day: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Perhaps you can still remember that I was reading the book of Job some time ago.) Today it is even clearer to me that these words apply to us. At that time I could not understand Job. How could he still praise God after everything which had been dear to him and everything which he had possessed was taken away from him? But, Ashley, today I can understand. I discovered that it is exactly in this where the absolute trust in God lies. I can say to you now – and I wish that you may also experience it likewise – that all my experiences since Easter have been guidance from God. Especially through my doubts, uncertainties and trials, I was driven closer to God. I know, however, that I would never have been able to give up what I had built up in my dream world independently. To enable this, God had to intervene. Such intervention started when I got to know Günther at a time when I was full of doubts. Initially (especially in the first two or three weeks), I resisted the idea that God perhaps wanted to make a new way with this. And yet I remember that I wrote to you already at that time that I was starting to love Günther. Thereafter there followed a time in which I was full of uncertainty. Yet, just at that time God came so near to me. Eventually he brought me to the point where I could give up my own will. I could only pray, “Lord, please let me only go the way which will bring me closest to you.” Through all of this I became so dependent upon communion with God. Then I wished for myself that it would never be different again; because only then I can be really free. When God gave me more guidance to show me His will, I deduced that He had heard my prayers. One of the clearest signals was when Günther’s mother died a few weeks ago. Four days after this occurrence I opted for Günther. You should know that it wasn’t an ‘act of sympathy’. I know that one can’t build a life-long marital relation on such a basis. To me, it was recognition of God’s will. Dear Ashley, I know very well that all this will be very painful to you, but you should never think that I want to hurt you. What I do want is for you to feel that I was honest with you. Perhaps it is simply the wish that you can understand me and also acknowledge that the way God has led us is good... I want to remind you of another word from Job 1: “… only upon himself do not put forth your hand”. (God gave this command to Satan, because Job was a child of God and he could thus not fall out of God’s hand – even when everything had been taken from him.) In closing, you should know that I want to accompany this letter with my prayers, because I know only too well that it is only God’s Spirit which can determine how you react to this letter. Be cordially greeted, Your Rosemarie Rosemarie never posted the letter; not because she did not mean to – the intention was always there! It was simply a delay for practical reasons, as there was no post box in the section of Stuttgart where she stayed. The intention was to send it as soon as she was able to get into town. For about two weeks, the letter lay on her desk, inducing feelings of guilt every time she saw it. She knew that, to be fair to Günther, she would have to send the letter as soon as possible. I had no clue of what had occurred in Germany, though. Day after day, I was hoping for an airmail envelope with the familiar handwriting to arrive. Those few weeks seemed to me like an eternity. I was now convinced that the South African government had abused the letter in which I had asked for information about racial reclassification. I firmly believed that ‘they’ wanted to stop our love affair in this way. So I finalised the booking, and headed for Luxembourg in June 1971. I caused some alarm bells when I informed the Van Niekerks, my South African friends in Germany, of my pending departure and asked them if I could stay with them for a few days. I mentioned my date of arrival, without mentioning that I would be coming via Luxembourg. When Rosemarie’s mother came to hear of my intention, she duly relayed the news to my Schatz. Rosemarie immediately phoned the airport in Stuttgart to find out at what time the only connecting flight from South Africa was due to land. She went to the airport at the designated time, but I did not appear in the arrivals terminal. Rosemarie deduced that God had intervened somehow. With a sigh of relief, she thought that she could sleep in peace. The surprise to Rosemarie was thus fairly complete when I phoned from Trier, the border town in Germany. There, I boarded the train to Stuttgart. When Rosemarie’s mother heard that I was in the country, she was terribly worried for her daughter. The general sense of mistrust towards foreigners that was so deep-seated in Rosemarie’s father had rubbed off on her and she even feared that I might have harmful intentions towards her precious daughter. Up to that point, the only communication they had had with me were the letters I had written to Rosemarie’s father. And those letters did not exactly shed the best light on my character. Hoping to prevent the tragedy that was imminent upon my hearing of Rosemarie’s new relationship, she phoned Rosemarie’s colleagues in utter desperation, asking them to follow Rosemarie to the airport. Essentially, they were being asked to spy on Rosemarie and myself. When Rosemarie discovered this, she was horrified. Rosemarie was not the only one to be surprised upon my arrival in Germany. During our telephonic conversation she hinted, without providing any details, that I was in for a disappointment. For the first time I had to come to terms with the possibility that there might be someone else in Rosemarie’s life. The long train journey of approximately four hours felt like ages. My uncomprehending naivety had left me completely flabbergasted and confused. Rosemarie met me at the train station. Seeing her again, I was engulfed by an enormous mix of emotions. Never before had I been in love with anyone the way I was in love with Rosemarie; nobody even came close and, in my opinion, nobody ever would. Yet now, all of a sudden, my dreams were under severe threat. Rosemarie drove me to her home at the School for the Blind and began to explain everything. My fears were confirmed. I had many questions. I could not understand a thing. Was all this necessary? Had I not considered the trip prayerfully enough? How could God allow me to come all this way for such a calamity? My unexpected arrival in Germany ruffled feathers, to say the least. Rosemarie regarded herself as all but formally engaged to get married to Günther in due course. Upon seeing me again, she now knew in her innermost that she could not proceed with a marriage of compromise to Günther. Understandably, Günther, too, was shaken by the news of my arrival. He had read and approved the letter Rosemarie had written to me in which she informed me of her decision to terminate our relationship. However, what he did not know was that she had never posted the letter. The next day, I met the generally pleasant young man who, by entering Rosemarie’s life, had started a chain of events leading to my sudden overseas trip without me knowing. I met him at the open evening organised by the same group of young people that had organized the memorable evening with the Wycliffe Translators just prior to my departure for South Africa the previous year. I really pitied my rival when I saw how mislead he felt. However, between the three of us, it was surely Rosemarie who experienced the excruciating pain most severely. Her failure to post the letter had an explanation, but nonetheless it was a grave mistake with far-reaching consequences. With me appearing so suddenly, she now knew whom of the two suitors she loved most. She knew full well that the problems at home would flare up again. After an intense struggle in prayer, Rosemarie decided to part with both of us. Everybody had understanding for her decision, even her parents. Concerning this time she later wrote to me: If God has really led us together again, and given us a new love, then I can’t do anything other than to believe that I belong to you. I had complete empathy for her, but my own faith was tested to the full. I truly could not comprehend why God would allow me to come all the way to Germany only to experience all of this. The last time Rosemarie and I were together towards the end of those intensive two weeks, the Lord comforted us in a special way. Although we had the inner conviction as never before that we belonged to each other, we hesitantly agreed to part completely. We committed our future into God’s hands. During our last occasion of praying together, we more or less put the ball ‘into God’s court’. He would have to re-unite us if it was His will that we should marry one day. One of the important signs would be that the attitude of her parents towards our relationship had to change. I also discerned that it had been wrong of me to try and assist Him through letters to the South African authorities or the like. For the moment, my only consolation was knowing now that we adored each other as always. The next few days, I still had a lot of trouble releasing Rosemarie completely. I flew back to South Africa very much in the doldrums, emotionally shattered and perplexed. I might have known that it was unsound to blame God, but I simply could not understand why he would’ve allowed all this. Mistakes had been made, of course. Still, I wondered why He had not stopped my plans. It was only on looking back later, that I was able to discern a glimpse of the puzzling but beautiful mosaic that God was shaping with us. If I had not flown to Germany and seen her in person, Rosemarie would have become formally engaged soon thereafter and that would have ushered in the end of our relationship. I also returned to Cape Town with an added maturity, though I still had quite a few more things to learn. Rosemarie had finished her internship at the School for the Blind by now. Retrospectively we could recognize God’s hand in her subsequent appointment as kindergarten teacher for the children of a hospital in Tübingen. This hospital was linked to the famous university town where my former roommates from my student days in Stuttgart were now continuing their theological studies. Via Hermann Beck, one of the former roommates whom I had given the nickname Harry, I could still read of Rosemarie’s whereabouts. She frequently visited the Bengelhaus, the residence for evangelical theological students, to hear from Harry how I was doing in Cape Town. What a faithful letter writer Harry was during this critical period! Rosemarie and I owe much to him, as we were able to hear about each other through him. Rosemarie’s work in the children’s cancer ward of the hospital where she worked with terminally ill children was physically and emotionally very demanding. In spite of that, she loved her job as it was immensely fulfilling. The kids were living very intensely because they knew that their life expectancy was very short. They were so open for the Gospel and Rosemarie had the privilege of leading some of them to the Lord before they died. The relationship with her landlady was, however, not a happy one. This woman objected fiercely when she saw my photo on the wall of Rosemarie’s room. Even though we had parted ‘completely’, we still kept to our weekly rendezvous when we prayed for each other every Sunday evening. Rosemarie’s photo behind the door of the tiny three by three meter room in Elsies River had a similar central place in this regard. What glorious hours of supernatural ‘fellowship’ we enjoyed as we continued to pray for each other! My darling always found new excuses to visit the Bengelhaus. The real reason was of course to be updated about my whereabouts. In South Africa, almost all my acquaintances seemed to expect my feelings for Rosemarie to peter out in due course. There was nevertheless general sympathy for me after the calamitous two-week trip to Germany. Although we had parted formally, I still had a lot of trouble releasing Rosemarie completely. I made it very difficult for her and I even tried to keep contact with the family. When I had met Rosemarie’s mother and sister during my unexpected short stay during the June holidays, they were fairly clear in their rejection of me as a partner for Rosemarie. I thus made it even more difficult for my Schatz by writing a letter to her parents. In my letter I mentioned that my own mother was also not so happy with my ideas. Referring to my letter, Mama Göbel was emotionally charged when she responded on 21 October 1971: Initially I wanted to return your letter, but then I opened it to reply only one more time. Further letters will have to be returned unopened... When it arrived, my husband was so angry! He accused me for not making it clear enough to you that we can never agree to contact between you and Rosemarie. I came very close to a physical and nervous breakdown. I really fear that our marriage could break down because of this conflict, which has been going on for so long now. You know very well that I gave you no hope whatsoever in our conversation. Rosemarie has reassured us that for the time being there will be no correspondence. Why we cannot take responsibility for it, I have explained to you thoroughly, haven’t I! I don’t understand why you persevere with such stubbornness to make contact. Do you believe that it could be God’s will that you pluck a girl from her family and fatherland and put her into a life where she would be exposed to grave dangers, mistrust and hatred from all sides? Rosemarie would then have to take responsibility for her own downfall and for the unhappy, embittered old age of her parents. Could it not rather be God’s will that you commit yourself to the task of non-violent resistance in your country, but with a partner who grew up in your country by your side? Would you please think prayerfully about these questions and give an honest answer to God? I would like to request you very urgently not to send any post whatsoever to our address, as well as not to write to Rosemarie as you have promised. I have been suffering a lot from pain of the gall and the stomach lately and I can’t take any more agitation. I hope that you can respect this. Please listen to your mother who thinks just as I, according to your own words. I am still praying that God might bless you. Erika Göbel God intervened in Rosemarie’s life when it became clear to her that she loved me too much – her love for me was competing for first place with her love for God. She deemed it necessary to release me emotionally, as the first release during my sudden visit in Germany was more an outward release. It came as quite a shock to me when I received a letter from Rosemarie not long after the one from her mother: Tübingen, 7th November 1971 “MAY THE LORD BE BETWEEN YOU AND ME” ... You must know that it was not only the love for, but also the trust in our Lord which has led me to write this letter to you to tell you of my decision. Precisely because I want to love Jesus above everything. I want to be absolutely obedient to Him. You know, out of a genuine love there must also grow complete trust. Out of this trust I want to take a step in faith which will lead both of us into a genuine inner freedom. Yes, Ashley, I know now clearly that it is God’s will that we part. Anything more I cannot and shouldn’t tell you now. You may expect more details via Harry. May you experience the compassionate love of God. Your Rosemarie She felt that her love for me was obstructing her relationship to God. Later she described it as her Isaac experience, comparing it with the Bible narrative where Abraham had to sacrifice his beloved only son. Rosemarie felt that she had to sacrifice me completely – outwardly, as well as in her heart. Somehow the Lord started preparing me for this shock. Just prior to these lines, I received a letter from the South African government’s Department of Home Affairs, informing me that the minister could only consider reclassifying Rosemarie if she was in South Africa. Did this now mean that I would have to give up all hope of a life with the person I loved like no one before? I felt forced to release Rosemarie, trying hereafter to get over the emotional pain as soon as possible. I even became emotionally involved in new superficial relationships. This was unfortunate for the females concerned – all this did was intensify my burning love and longing for Rosemarie. CHAPTER 9 LOVE THE STRANGER AS YOURSELF Rosemarie’s friends seemed to be happy with her decision to break off her relationship with me once and for all. Many of her friends had not approved of her romance with an African to begin with. Only her friend Elke was sympathetic, as she knew me when both of us had been regulars at the Christian Encounter group in Stuttgart. In January 1972, my sister suspected that my heart was still yearning for Rosemarie when a letter arrived from Hermann (Harry) in which he wrote, “I think Rosemarie still loves you”. I moved into the Moravian Seminary complex in District Six as a full-time student at the end of that month. Henning Schlimm, our director, became my confidant and counselor. I shared the content of all letters from Hermann with him and his wife Anne. I was one of three full-time students at the seminary. A big dose of cross-cultural pollination was administered to us as students during our time in District Six. Not only the formal theological studies, but also the extramural activities, with which our German lecturers brought us into contact, enriched our lives tremendously. I became quite immersed in the race politics of the day. The banned and other literature that I had been reading overseas had stimulated activism in me. My interest was now more than merely aroused by the inequalities and injustice I was seeing all around us. I more or less expected to land in prison because of non-violent protest. The Seminary already had a bad name with the government because people of all races were meeting there. Even students from the renowned Stellenbosch University with their conspicuous maroon-striped blazers visited us. In those days, racial mixing was regarded as a subversive activity. Influenced by the emerging Black Theology, I was fond of wearing my ‘Black is Beautiful’ t-shirt defiantly, especially after I heard that its sale had been banned. With a felt tip marker I wrote ‘Civil Rights’ on the back of another t-shirt and ‘Reg en Geregtigheid’ [Rights and Justice] on the front. (This meant of course that I couldn’t wash this t-shirt for many weeks, but this didn’t trouble me much, as long as I could display these risky sentiments.) In church politics we gave the denominational leadership a rough time. Some of the older ministers seemed to emulate the government in their dealings with opposition to traditionalism in the church, e.g. by banning young preachers. In spite of my activism on more than one front, my heart was still aching about the fact that I couldn’t write to Rosemarie. This was quite prominent in my prayers. But mentally I was almost completely caught up in the race problems of the country. Coming from the teaching profession, the unchanged racial discrimination in educational funding and facilities was something for which I felt protesting publicly was worthwhile. We as seminarians joined a protest march organized by the predominantly 'White' students from the University of Cape Town. This was in defiance of police orders to the contrary and I reveled in this sort of activism. On that particular day, I had a letter to Hermann in my pocket which I wanted to post before joining the protest. In this letter to Hermann, I stated that we expected to be arrested. However, we came away ‘unscathed’ as tear gas won the day and the demonstration was scattered. Returning from the protest to the Seminary in Ashley Street, there was a letter from Germany. It had come completely unexpectedly, directly from my darling! I could hardly believe what I saw there in black and white. Her mother had given us permission to resume our correspondence. Rosemarie’s mother had been challenged by the Old Testament Watchword on her own birthday: “…love the stranger in your gates.” On Rosemarie’s 21st birthday, the Lord had spoken to Mama Göbel through another word from Scripture: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” She knew that it meant for her that she had to accept me. She reacted positively, giving Rosemarie permission to write to me again! This was very courageous of Mrs Göbel who knew that this was definitely not the wish of her husband. Wasn’t it one of the pivotal signs we had prayed for, that the attitude of her parents towards our relationship would change? I spent the last part of the June holidays of 1972 with my parents in Elim and there I had a frank discussion with them about my political activism. The direct cause of the discussion had been my request to have my personal copy of Pro Veritate, the organ of the Christian Institute, sent to Elim (at the Seminary we already had access to the controversial Christian magazine). With some satisfaction I noticed that my father, by reading this material, became more enlightened on some issues. In earlier years all of us had been influenced to some degree by the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) distortion of what was happening in our country, even though we were aware that much of the current affairs programming was a propaganda perversion of the truth. I also discussed the issue of my love for Rosemarie at length with my parents for the first time. I spoke of my hope to get her to South Africa via racial reclassification. In response, they stated clearly that they would be prepared to sacrifice me if I went to Europe, rather than seeing me bring Rosemarie into the humiliations and injustices of an apartheid-permeated South Africa. I was too much in love to appreciate how generous their gesture was, though. They knew what they were talking about. My cousin, who had got married to a British naval officer in the early 1950s, had not been allowed to visit her parents, even after about 20 years. Still, I insisted stubbornly that I would do whatever it might take to have both my Rosemarie and South Africa. I disregarded my parents’ discouragement from bringing her to the country. At the same time, we were oblivious to the fact that, back in Mühlacker, Rosemarie’s mother had not only written her daughter the letter in which she granted us permission to continue our correspondence. Evidently, she also wanted her husband to give his consent and blessing to our union. We were not even aware of the fact that she was trying to win Mr Göbel over. A letter that Rosemarie had received from Anne Schlimm, the wife of our Seminary director, made a significant impact on her mother. Many years later we discovered the draft of a letter which Mama Göbel had written to Henning Schlimm, my mentor and confidant in Cape Town, in which she referred to me as A.C.: ... When A.C. came here unexpectedly, my husband unfortunately refused to meet him because he thought that A.C. should have refrained from further contact with our daughter after the explanations in his letter. I utilized the occasion to meet A.C. at the house of our married daughter. I thought that I had to warn them against such a marriage because of the conditions in Africa. I told him that Rosemarie could be isolated there and rejected by the Whites as well as the Coloured population, yes, even despised and hated. We simply fear for our daughter, that she would be exposed to such a life. A.C. confirmed to me on that occasion that he saw his future role in Africa. You will – I trust – not be affronted by the fact that we here in Mühlacker had put our hopes in Rosemarie becoming betrothed to a reliable, believing young man when A.C. came here. After having spoken to various other people who had a connection with Africa, the contact with A.C. looked so hopeless. That’s why his sudden arrival was such a shock to us. Now I do not want our daughter to marry someone else just because of us, because that would also be dishonest to such a partner. Just as much, we do not want her to remain single. I am convinced – and I know this from my own experience – that God will lead A.C. and our daughter in the right way according to His eternal purposes, because they want to surrender themselves to His will. They and I pray towards this end. Unfortunately my husband cannot be consoled by this and he has no trust in prayer to God. Thus he suffers a lot, worrying about our daughter. His nerves are already very frayed because of over-exhaustion. He thinks that it is a case of romantic fanaticism with them. Time and again he tries to persuade Rosemarie because he foresees so many grave dangers and risks in a marriage with A.C. Of course I am suffering under this estrangement between father and daughter. When we celebrated Rosemarie’s 21st birthday in July, she gave me the letter from your wife. Later Rosemarie told me how she saw this letter as an answer to prayer. The evening prior to this, she had prayed to God for clarity regarding His plan. I then went through a similar process. I had a sleepless night after this day, with the embitterment and disappointment of my husband clearly playing a role. I asked God again and again for help and discernment of His will. The next day, when I felt so terrible, I got clear Scriptural guidance from the daily Text Book: “Love the stranger as yourself.” I want to do this with all my heart. Should A.C. become my son-in-law according to God’s will, I shall surely learn to love him like the husband of my other daughter. But I also wish so much that my husband would not have such fear and worry about Rosemarie’s future, that he will gradually come out of his bitterness towards the two young people... Encouraged by the development, my mentor, Reverend Henning Schlimm, facilitated a teaching post for Rosemarie at the kindergarten of St. Martini, the German Lutheran Church in Cape Town. I was unaware of the great courage Pastor Osterwald, the local German minister, had displayed to appoint her. The racist attitude of some of his congregation members would have been very disheartening. He initially asked Rosemarie not to mention anything about the appointment in her letters to me. The authorities could very well open the letters, which was quite common in apartheid South Africa. This could have resulted in the iron hand of the law coming down on Pastor Osterwald. Early one morning in October 1972, while I was on my knees praying for the country, I felt compelled to write a letter to the Prime Minister. In this letter, I addressed him with the word liewe [liewe = dear], which was definitely a little extraordinary. My natural inclinations towards him were definitely not charitable. In that letter I challenged Mr. Vorster to let himself be used by God like US President Lincoln to lead the nation in the ways of God. Basically, it was a letter of criticism, which could have landed me in hot water. But I only received a reprimand, the standard reply to people who objected to the racial policies of the country on religious grounds. In this letter, the Prime Minister implied that I was involved in politics under the guise of religion. It was a typical government ploy to encourage church folk to make a sharp distinction between faith and politics. And indeed, many Afrikaner eyes in particular were blind to the apartheid heresies because of this. I was also far from careful in other matters. In a newsletter to friends in Germany, I stated openly that Rosemarie would come and work in Cape Town the following year. That was looking for trouble. At times I was just so naïve and irresponsible! CHAPTER 10 STORMY WAVES In those days it was normally easy for a European to get a visa for South Africa. Not only that, but the government in fact encouraged immigration from Europe; so much so that the South African government often even paid for their flights. In expectation of her visa application being granted without any problems, Rosemarie resigned at the children’s hospital in Tübingen. She also sent ahead a wooden box with her books and other belongings to Cape Town. The year thereafter I would send personal belongings ahead of me when I left South Africa in 1973. As Rosemarie was preparing to leave for South Africa, her friends at the independent evangelistic church in Tübingen which she attended gave her a hard time, though. She had been baptised among them and had grown tremendously on a spiritual level. Her friends, however, did not support her decision to resume her relationship with me. And to be fair, they had a genuine point. In their eyes, Rosemarie had hardly had the opportunity to get to know me properly during my stay in Germany in 1970. Rosemarie was pleasantly surprised when a ‘Coloured’ South African from Gleemoor (part of the suburb Athlone) in Cape Town pitched up in her residential area. My darling thought this was the perfect opportunity to send me a cassette tape via this gentleman. On this recording she included Pastor Osterwald’s advice: “I have to tell you that your decision to start on this daring venture will lead you into many a conscientious conflict...” She had no reason whatsoever to suspect that this man could have been linked to the South African security network. But in those days BOSS (the Bureau of Social Security – in many ways the South African version of Hitler’s Gestapo) was also tasked with keeping ‘problems’ like our romantic relationship across the colour bar out of the country. The link between this gentleman or his landlady to the South African authorities became quite clear when a certain kommissar [detective] assured Rosemarie soon hereafter that she might not get a visa or work permit to enter South Africa. It was evident that this ‘detective’ knew the content of the cassette tape and the tape never made its way to me in South Africa. Further enquiry brought to light that the BOSS agent who had introduced himself to Rosemarie was not actually known to the local police in Reutlingen4. Completely unaware of what was going on in southern Germany, I was still counting the days to the beginning of March 1973 when Rosemarie was due to arrive. How disappointing it was when the first of March came and went without any news of her visa and work permit! I was completely stunned when my darling phoned me on the direct line from Germany which had just come into operation. She had received a letter from the South African consulate. The content, which confirmed what the detective had said, was shattering: I regret to have to inform you that your application for permanent residence in the Republic of South Africa has been declined... No reason was given, although the reason was fairly obvious to those who knew the country’s racial policies. Rosemarie was also refused a work permit without any reason given. The disappointment we experienced at that time was immense. After all our relationship had been through, and the great battle Rosemarie had gone through with her parents, this sudden turn of events came as quite a shock. It seemed inevitable that I would have to leave the country if I wanted to marry her. Looking back, we discerned that the Lord had been very gracious to us. Our brittle love would have been put under extreme pressure by the sphere of secrecy that would have been necessary to maintain our relationship in apartheid South Africa. Theologically, we were also miles apart at that time. I had become rather liberal under the influence of Black Theology and the teaching at the seminary. At the same time, the spiritual environment in which Rosemarie was moving in Tübingen was very intense and she grew tremendously over this time. It is doubtful whether our sensitive relationship would have survived the double tension of politics and theology if Rosemarie had been able to come to South Africa in March 1973. Despite the work permit rejection, we thought it would be important for Rosemarie to at least get acquainted with South Africa and my family. So she applied again, this time for a tourist visa. However, this was also refused. Instead of coming to South Africa, Rosemarie went to Israel with Elke Maier and other Christian friends to work in a children’s home in Migdal. During this time in Israel, her love for the Jewish nation deepened and she also gained a much deeper understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, notably God’s purposes and plans. As for me, after Rosemarie’s second visa refusal, I had to face the fact that my resolve to have both Rosemarie and the country I loved and felt so strongly called to serve in, was nothing more than an unrealistic dream. I had to choose. I wavered for some time, incredibly unsure of what to do. However, our Church Board cooperated optimally. They suggested that I could go and work with the Moravian Church in Germany at the end of the year. The Lord was evidently also working in my life, chiselling away many a rough edge. My student colleague Fritz Faro had strong interaction with the Jesus People, a group of young men and women with links to the hippy movement. We appreciated their radicalism, but we seminarians had problems with their apolitical stance. We could not accept, for example, that people from the different races were sitting apart in their church services. We could not leave their stance unchallenged and we invited one of them, a young fellow from Zimbabwe, to join us in a public demonstration of our unity in Christ. He immediately agreed to join us in playing choruses on our instruments at Muizenberg beach. This could have led to arrests, as this beach was racially designated ‘for Whites only’ but we were quite prepared to take this risk. To our great dismay, the brother from Zimbabwe later phoned, opting out of the plan with a flimsy excuse. We learnt that other believers had advised him not to come along with us. I felt similar tension within me when we invited a 'Black' speaker to our youth service in District Six. The South African Council of Churches had declared the month of August as the month of compassion and member churches were challenged to do something practical. As our contribution in August 1973, we asked one of our CI friends, the Congregational Church minister Claude Goba, to speak. But this was possibly one of the first occasions that there was a 'Black' South African on the pulpit of Moravian Hill Chapel and it was not surprising that an honest congregant left the sanctuary demonstratively the very moment Claude Goba walked to the pulpit. (Admittedly, we three full-time seminarians had done something similar, leaving another church service when a local pastor persisted with segregated seating for visiting Germans.) Claude Goba’s sermon caused me to do some deep soul searching and my inner tussle came to a head. Was I not like Jonah, running away from the problems of our revolution-ripe country? To cop out cowardly was the very last thing that I wanted to do! The result was an intense inner struggle between the love for my country and my love for a foreign girl who could turn me into an exile. I so much wanted to make a contribution towards racial reconciliation in South Africa. I thought, perhaps a touch too self-assured, “I can be of better service here in my native country than anywhere else.” I would yet have to be brought down from that presumptuous pedestal. I started praying that God would let me fall in love with a ‘Coloured’ girl who could be the ‘equal’ of Rosemarie. I did not feel that my job in contributing towards racial reconciliation in South Africa had been completed. Yet in the end, I could not face the idea of a life without Rosemarie. So, after much deliberation and many discussions with Anne and Henning Schlimm, I finally decided to join Rosemarie in Germany. I was booked to leave fairly soon after completing my theological exams, not only because I wanted to get to my beloved Rosemarie as soon as possible. Almost just as important was the fact that my passport would expire soon thereafter. I considered that I could perhaps get peace at heart by applying in time for an extension of my expiring passport. Yet I simply couldn’t muster the courage (or faith?) to apply for the extension in South Africa! I just couldn’t bear the real possibility of a negative response to my application. I feared that my low-key political involvement of the previous months, such as the public display of my opposition, for example by wearing my defiant t-shirts, could have jeopardized such an extension. So following in the footsteps of my cousin who had married an Englishman around 1950, all of us expected this to be my final farewell to South Africa. After the many youth camps and the like which I had attended over the years, I regarded myself accustomed to occasions of parting. This time, however, it was almost unbearable to think of bidding farewell to relatives and friends. The finality of leaving behind my family was the hardest of all. Five years before this, I had cried on the deck of the steamship the Pendennis Castle as I watched Table Mountain gradually disappear into the distance. But back then I was determined to return to the country. This time I would have to expect, to all intents and purposes, never to return. And then there was also that gnawing uncertainty: Was this God’s will or was it my own way? In the months prior to their departure from South Africa, various leaders of the Christian Institute had their passports confiscated at Jan Smuts Airport, Johannesburg, as they were about to leave the country. Although I was only a very inconspicuous member of this organization, one could never know. The presence of Dr Beyers Naudé as key note speaker at our youth rally just a few weeks before my scheduled departure did not augur well for me. His passport had also been seized. Would the passport official let me through or would he be tipped off to my detriment? Although I was never directly involved in overt opposition politics, there were a few semi-political reasons for fearing the seizure of my passport. On the day when I was to fly to Germany, I was nevertheless quite composed, knowing my future to be in God’s hands. The uncertainty about where I was supposed to be in order to be in the centre of His will – in Germany or South Africa – perhaps also helped me to relax somewhat. I had written to Rosemarie that I would phone her from Johannesburg if they had confiscated my passport. So on the day of my departure from South Africa, Rosemarie waited tensely at the Karl Heim Haus in Tübingen, where Hermann (Harry) resided. He had closely observed how Rosemarie had initially made preparations to go to South Africa. She had also told him of the difficulties she had experienced with the Christians in her church fellowship who could not accept the possibility that it could be God’s will that she should marry me, an African. For many of them the refusal of the visas had been a sure sign that we were not meant for each other. But Hermann had stood with us through it all. He knew that we considered every step prayerfully, desiring to obey God in everything. Together they were hoping that there would be no phone call from South Africa, as this would have meant that I had not been allowed to leave the country. CHAPTER 11 REUNITED My anxiety with regard to leaving the country turned out to be unnecessary. After hearing that I intended to be involved in church-related ministry in Germany, the customs official merely advised me not to go and learn to drink wine over there! How much I would have liked Rosemarie to share in the sigh of relief. She was, of course, still waiting nervously, hoping that no phone call would come from South Africa. Early the next morning, in weather almost amounting to a snow storm, Rosemarie, Hermann and another student friend took off by car to fetch me in Luxemburg. There had been no phone call from Johannesburg. Under normal circumstances the trip from Tübingen would have meant a four-hour drive. What a sacrifice it must have meant for them to fetch me in those harsh wintry traffic conditions. My own nerves were also strained when I arrived in Luxemburg. Nobody was waiting for me; no Rosemarie to meet me at Findel Airport. I phoned Tübingen to ask about their whereabouts. Fortunately, the airport was still very small according to international standards and Rosemarie and the two males who accompanied her spotted me in the telephone booth just as I was phoning the Karl Heim Haus. Such relief and joy mingled as Rosemarie and I embraced each other lovingly! Poor Hermann and his friend had all the trouble in the world driving in the adverse traffic conditions, while on the backseat, Rosemarie and I enjoyed every minute of being reunited after the years of involuntary separation. I was due for my first visit to Rosemarie’s parental home in Mühlacker soon after my arrival and I met her father for the first time. Besides making a disapproving remark about the way I was dressed, our encounter could not be defined as a clash. He was courteous and polite in his dealings towards me. However, I had no clue of what was going on in his mind. Agreeing to meet me had been a big deal for him. And now, upon seeing me in person, he was confronted with the fact that I was serious about his daughter; serious to the point that I wanted to marry her. This thought plagued him deeply. He could not yet accept a foreigner as a possible future son-in-law. In the weeks that followed, there was once again much stress and debate in the house over my relationship with Rosemarie. The tension escalated to the point that my darling’s parents requested her to leave the home. Mama Göbel still treasured the command from Scripture, but her husband had such a lot of entrenched hang-ups around the matter that he could not accept any such guidance from God. Coming from South Africa with all its racial prejudices, I could cope with these developments much better than Rosemarie. She really struggled with the fact that she had been requested to leave the parental home. Understandably, this was hurtful to her. She did, however, also know that she was not expelled because her parents didn’t love her any more. Elke Maier’s parents in Gündelbach lovingly took care of Rosemarie, took them into their home and treated her like their own daughter while in the meantime I applied for the extension of my passport. My anxiety in this regard was eventually dispelled and my passport was extended for three more years. There was still a glimmer of hope that I might one day return to South Africa. We became engaged for marriage in March, 1974 – with no family from either side present to celebrate the joyous occasion with us. However, Rosemarie and I were due to part again shortly thereafter. After a few months of re-orientation in Königsfeld, I was called to far-away Berlin, to serve there as a Vikar, an assistant minister, in the western part of the divided city from April onwards. On the afternoon of the day I was due to leave for Berlin, I went to the soccer field where the local team was due to play against a team of Gastarbeiter, i.e. immigrant workers from Yugoslavia and other southern European countries. I had seen an advertisement, and thought I would kill some time watching the game. While the visitors were waiting for more players to arrive, I joined in the fun, kicking the ball around with the other players. When the guests noticed that I possessed some skill with a football, I was promptly picked to join the non-Germans. Just after half time, I heard a click as I stepped into a ditch on the uneven surface. The pain was so bad that I was immediately forced to stop playing. But I could fortunately still cycle home and when my ankle got swollen, I still did not suspect that I had actually fractured my ankle. My Königsfeld neighbours suggested that I should have the injury checked. After examination, the local doctor immediately sent me to the hospital in the neighbouring town of Villingen for an X-ray. I would spend the night, and quite a few thereafter, in hospital. Neither Rosemarie nor I was really sad at this turn of events, because this meant that we would be much nearer to each other a little longer. CHAPTER 12 MORE TURBULENCES In far-away Berlin, the members of the church brass band were all set to welcome the new Vikar [curate] from South Africa the next morning, on the 1st of April. When they received the news that I had broken my ankle, everybody thought that it was an April fool’s joke. They soon learnt that this was not the case; I had indeed broken my ankle, just a few hours before my scheduled departure. A few weeks later the West Berlin Moravian congregation enjoyed the privilege of an inaugural sermon with a difference: I walked to the pulpit with my leg still in a plaster cast! At a German Moravian pastors’ conference in May 1974, I shared the room with Eckhard Buchholz, a missionary from the Transkei in South Africa. Unlike so many other people, he was not skeptical at all about the fact that the South African government intended to grant independence to a ‘homeland’. Transkei was one of the enclaves by means of which the apartheid regime attempted to reduce the numbers of ‘Blacks’ in the so called ‘White South Africa’. Eckhard challenged me to come and work in the Transkei after the commencement of independence of the ‘homeland’, expected to follow in 1976. He was confident that Transkei would not take over the racist prohibition of mixed marriages. I gladly accepted the challenge, encouraging him to send me audio cassettes so that I could start learning Xhosa. And so I did. I was quite determined to return to the African continent as soon as possible. Taking for granted that Rosemarie wanted to be a missionary one day, I expected that she would join me as my wife to the Transkei. During her visit to West Berlin soon thereafter, I casually communicated my intention to return to Southern Africa. I was completely taken by surprise to hear that she was not at all ready to follow me back to ‘Africa’. Neither of us was prepared for this turn of events. What could we do now? On the issue of our future abode, we seemed to be miles apart – both figuratively as well as literally! In our utter despair, we cried to God for help! We loved each other so dearly. We didn’t want to part, yet this was a matter we had to agree upon. We knew that it had to be sorted out immediately. We loved each other far too much. In complete desperation we prayed together, asking God to guide us through His Word. Divine intervention seemed to be the only possibility for saving our union. Both of us knew that it would not be the ‘proper’ way to handle Scripture, but we decided to seek God’s will by prayerfully opening the Bible at random. When the Word of God fell open at the verse where Ruth said to Naomi, “I shall go where you go,” we were filled with awe and thankfulness. We were elated as we sensed that this was God’s special word for us. We-- could go into the unknown future together, and that’s what both of us dearly longed for! Had we discussed the issue further, we would have encountered a big problem; both of us interpreted the Bible verse in our own way. I trusted that this meant Rosemarie would join me in going back to Africa. She thought that I would now stay in Europe at least a couple of years. Thankfully, we didn’t pursue the matter further. For that moment, parting was not an issue any more. We were overjoyed at this confirmation that we would be serving the Lord together, wherever He would lead us! In September 1974 I was back in southern Germany. In the tiny village of Bad Boll, at the headquarters of the European continental province of the Moravian Church, I joined the Predigerseminar [preachers’ seminary] to be prepared for ordination. With three other Vikare [curates] I was now studying there, in preparation for independent pastoral service. I expected to work in Germany for three years or so at the maximum, and then return to South Africa – more specifically the Transkei – with my future wife Rosemarie. But with time, it became clear to Rosemarie and myself that living together in Southern Africa was not quite ‘on’ yet for us as a married couple. We really wanted Rosemarie to get acquainted with my country and, if at all possible, get to know my family. For the third time, but with increased hope, Rosemarie applied for a visa to enter South Africa. Along with the application she sent an explanatory letter, mentioning the fact that I was now living in Germany. We reasoned that a major obstacle to a visa should have been eliminated because of this. The Moravian Church Board in South Africa cooperated optimally once again. Rosemarie was invited to come and work as a volunteer at the Elim Home for children with severe disabilities for a period of two months. She would thus be serving on the same mission station where my parents lived. Theoretically, my darling and my parents would thus be able to get to know each other well over this time. At the same time, we also started to make plans and preparations to get married after Rosemarie’s return from South Africa in May the following year. We were quite encouraged when we were informed that the Special Branch (of the police) had left a message in Elim: Rosemarie and I could come to South Africa together, on condition that we would not alert the press. At that point in time we had no intention whatsoever of going to South Africa as a couple. Therefore it really took us by surprise when instead of the requested two months, Rosemarie received a visa for only two weeks. A ticket for two weeks would have been much more expensive. We were grateful nonetheless that she managed to get a visa at last! That was progress in our eyes. And hadn’t the Special Branch given us an idea? The thought of spending our honeymoon in South Africa was so enticing! We decided to bring forward our original wedding date, to be in South Africa for the Easter holidays. We were not going to passively accept whatever the South African government decided on our behalf, so we went ahead to book flights with Luxavia, the cheapest travel option at that time. The activism which had taken hold of me ever since my return from Europe in 1970 and which had been substantially fed during my seminary days, was fuelled anew. I had no idea about the stress I caused for my darling when I prompted her to write the following letter: Gündelbach, 10th December, 1974 Dear Mr Consul, I thank you very much for granting me a visa. Thus far I have not been able to use it, because I have learnt that the cheaper flights are only applicable from 19 days [stay in South Africa]. My fiancé and I have now decided to undertake the trip after our marriage. We would like to spend four weeks in South Africa. Could you please extend the visa to four weeks? If this is not possible, we would like to hear it soon, so that we can apply timely for visas to other neighbouring countries within the 19-45 days tariff. I want to make it clear, however, that we would rather spend the full four weeks in South Africa. Yours in high esteem, Rosemarie Göbel. Although the Consulate in Munich was notified fairly promptly by Pretoria to give Rosemarie a conditional visa to enter the country without me, the details were unclear. Plagued by the uncertainty of whether the visa would be extended or not, Rosemarie decided to phone the South African Consulate in Munich directly for clarification. The lady on the other side of the telephone line was very impolite in her dealings, deeming it necessary to point out to Rosemarie very crudely that her fiancé should know the South African laws. This phone call led to an adventurous but nerve-wracking correspondence with the authorities in Pretoria, which unfortunately didn’t bring about the desired result. In the end we felt compelled to get clarity by undertaking the 200 kilometer drive to Munich to see if we could get the matter sorted out. We did this in February 1975, about a month before our proposed new wedding date. At the Consulate in Munich we discovered that Pretoria had already notified the Consulate in January that Rosemarie had been allocated a visa for four weeks, albeit under the condition that she would “not travel to South Africa accompanied by [her] future husband.” The lady at the Consulate warned us not to try and circumvent this condition. Unwittingly, she gave us an idea. Initially I didn’t see any problem with the condition, I was so elated that Rosemarie had received a visa at last to visit my home country! In her Renault R4 on our way back from Munich, my darling had an apt but vexing rhetorical question for me: “What sort of honeymoon is that?” She wasn’t prepared to go to my heimat [fatherland] alone any more. All the arrangements for our wedding had more or less been finalised by this time. Rosemarie’s question hit me by surprise and I had no answer ready! With a fearful heart I agreed to travel separately. We would thus defy the warning of the Consulate official. We knew that I could be arrested. The prospect of spending my honeymoon in prison was not so enticing, but I agreed to take the risk. To ensure that our plans would not be wrecked at Jan Smuts Airport, Johannesburg, I became untruthful. I gave the impression in my correspondence to my parents and friends that Rosemarie would come alone. I felt that the risk would be too great to inform anybody of our intention to circumvent the condition of the visa. It would have been quite easy for the government to send one (or both) of us back with the next flight or to lock me up as I still possessed a South African passport. We altered our traveling plans, cancelling the booking with Luxavia and booked instead on two separate flights to comply with the condition of the visa. The new 19-75 day tariff had a distinct advantage which was of special interest to us. One could change any booking from one international airline to another free of charge. We would be able to take advantage of the fact that the condition of Rosemarie’s visa said nothing about leaving the country together. Our friend and confidant from my seminary days, Reverend Henning Schlimm, had just returned from South Africa with his family. He was due to take up a post as minister of the Moravian Church in Königsfeld (Black Forest), where I had resumed my stay in Germany, and where I had broken my ankle. It seemed almost obvious that we should marry there and ask Henning to perform the ceremony. Unfortunately we could not consider marrying from Rosemarie’s parental home, although her mother had participated fully in all the preparations. I had not met her father again since that day soon after my arrival in November 1973, after which Rosemarie had to leave her parental home. Nevertheless, we kept on praying, hoping that a miracle might still happen and that Papa Göbel would change his mind to attend our wedding. Rosemarie wrote a loving letter to her father, apologising for the hurts caused by our relationship and pleading with him to attend our wedding. Sadly, he was not to be swayed to come to Königsfeld. We were under the impression that he was stubbornly sticking to his guns. He did not see his way clear to attend the wedding, having made plans to visit an uncle that day. We were grateful that he gave his wife full freedom to act in line with her own convictions. On Thursday the 20th March 1975 (two days before the church ceremony), we became husband and wife legally in Rosemarie’s home town, Mühlacker. We deemed it a special blessing that her mother agreed to serve as witness, along with Elke Maier, who had such a big part in the run-up to this moment. Nonetheless, a bit of a cloud hung over the proceedings because my parents and family were not represented and Papa Göbel had no liberty as yet to participate. On the Saturday, the stage was set for our church wedding ceremony. I was quite content with the simplicity which the German wedding custom allows. The German custom does not prescribe bridesmaids and best men, or special clothing for the flower girls and page boys. That suited our pocket perfectly in the light of our honeymoon plans. The wintry conditions in Königsfeld could not mar our joy. Virtually until the last minute we were busy with preparations and chores like removing ice from the windows of our wedding ‘limousine’, Rosemarie’s little Renault R4. I also assisted with the boiling of eggs for the reception. The Königsfeld church choir rose to the occasion with a splendid performance of ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s desiring’, giving the service a festive touch. The highlight of the church ceremony was undoubtedly the sermon. Our friend and mentor Reverend Henning Schlimm understood magnificently to intertwine parts of the thorny road up to our marriage with the biblical verse that we had requested him to speak on. Many a tear was shed; we were overawed by God’s goodness and grace. Hadn’t we experienced through the years clearly enough how He bore us on His wings? Our hearts were filled with gratitude and joy towards the mighty God whom we would serve together, joined in marriage. Despite the indescribable joy we experienced that day at finally uniting in marriage, and the sense of gratitude towards God for his favour on us, there were still those two issues hanging over us. For one, Rosemarie’s father did not attend the joyous celebration and had not given our marriage his official blessing. And then, the laws in South Africa were still against us. What would happen on our honeymoon? Was trouble awaiting us? Would I get arrested? Would we be caught out together? CHAPTER 13 A HONEYMOON WITH A DIFFERENCE Three days after our church wedding, Rosemarie and I parted once again for the start of our honeymoon. I left with a Lufthansa flight and Rosemarie was ready to fly the following day with South African Airways. She was still very tense because I was not supposed to enter my home country at this time. We were clearly circumventing the condition of the visa that she had received. Not knowing what had happened to me since I left Germany, fears of my arrest in Cape Town or Johannesburg airport would have been only natural. Initially we intended to stick to the spirit of the special condition of the visa, by entering the country separately. We had taken precautions with regard to lodging. It was arranged that Rosemarie would sleep in the Elim mission station guest house. This was indeed a strange preparation for a honeymoon journey, but we were quite prepared to put up with this situation temporarily. We had also agreed that I would not come to the airport in Cape Town to meet Rosemarie, because one could never know whether she would be watched by the Special Branch of the police. Thus Rosemarie came to the Mother City of South Africa with a good dose of apprehension, expecting to possibly see my brother Windsor as the only known person. He had visited me in Bad Boll during his period of study in Switzerland. In my correspondence with family and friends, I had been misleading all by implying that Rosemarie would be coming alone. This untruthfulness was also coming home to roost soon. From Johannesburg, I phoned Wolfgang Schäfer, our seminary lecturer, asking him to pick me up me at D.F. Malan Airport (now known as Cape Town International Airport). My sister and her family were, however, not at home when we arrived in Sherwood Park5. Thus I requested Wolfgang to drop me at my friend Jakes’ home in Penlyn Estate. I felt so bad when I saw how my dear dark-complexioned friend turned completely pale when he opened the door. He was so completely unprepared for this turn of events! Soon it was agreed that I would be sleeping at Jakes’ house during the first night after Rosemarie’s arrival. I was quite happy with this arrangement because I could thus catch up on the latest church news at the Cape. Jakes had become quite an ecumenical personality since the special New Year’s Day of 1965 when we met each other for the first time. My parents, however, still did not know that I had come to South Africa. I thought of sending them a telegram, but in the end I didn’t do it. In a small village like Elim one had to be very careful, especially since the Special Branch had been there with clear instructions for our stay. Rosemarie was scheduled to arrive the next day. In the morning, I utilized the opportunity to go to the Newlands Cricket Ground. To see the likes of Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock in action was too wonderful an opportunity to miss. Despite our agreement not to meet at the airport, I decided on the spur of the moment to go along to the airport after all to welcome my bride on home territory. On her arrival at D.F. Malan Airport, I was there to welcome her with the words: “Das ist ein richtiger Hochzeitstrauß!” [This is a proper wedding bouquet!]. I had not been impressed with her simple Biedemeier bouquet at the wedding, and could not resist the temptation to surprise her in this way. How could I welcome her more fittingly than with a box of beautiful Proteas from the Cape? She could, however, not really appreciate my gesture. She was too shocked that I had come along to meet her and, on top of that, was kissing her there publicly! That was not a wise move on my part. Thankfully, there were no negative consequences. Rosemarie was extremely thankful and relieved that none of the worrying scenarios that plagued her so much had come to pass. Coming from a cold, wintry Europe with Königsfeld covered in snow at our wedding, we could not have given Rosemarie a better treat than to go to the beach the very same day. Here the problems could have started with all the racially segregated beaches, but the Esaus, my sister’s family, had a good solution; the Swartklip Beach had not (yet) been racially classified. The 200 kilometre trip to Elim was on the programme for the Friday. When we arrived there, I thought rather impulsively that Rosemarie should get a ‘real’ welcome by my parents and not in my shadow. After all, I was not supposed to be in the country. I let Rosemarie go inside while I hid in the car. From the car I could hear the warm welcome given to my wife, coupled with general relief with regard to Rosemarie’s ability to speak English. In jest, Jakes, who had also met her in Germany the previous year, had left almost everybody with the impression that she could hardly speak any English. Now it turned out, as the Esau family members had of course discovered already, that it was not such a big problem after all. The first few questions about the journey and so forth didn’t pose any problems, but then the crunch came: “How’s Ashley?” I had put Rosemarie in a real predicament. I salvaged the situation by appearing ‘from nowhere’. But this was too much for our dear mother. Hysterically, she burst out in tears. Not only had I misled them through my letters, but they did not expect to see me ever again. That was apartheid reality. Now I was standing there in front of my parents so unexpectedly! In this unforgettable, close to sacred moment I could only embrace my parents and my newly wedded wife. In our minds, this treasured moment still belonged to our wedding ceremony. One of the imperatives was to visit the local police station. It would have been impossible to hide my presence in the small village in which my German wife would surely have been the talk of the town. Because I knew that the local police officers were classified as ‘Coloured’, it was easier to ask what instructions they had received. The officer co-operated fully. I told him of the arrangements we had made to sleep separately, but he encouraged us instead: “You are married. Behave yourselves as such. If I get new instructions from my headquarters in Stellenbosch, I shall warn you timely.” On Easter Saturday we went to the local graveyard to assist with the annual cleaning exercise. Rosemarie sported a “Black is beautiful” T-shirt. I was glad that she did that because it had been quite a problem to some friends that I wore these shirts. We met one of these friends, a pretty dark-complexioned young woman from our youth group in District Six. At that time she and other young people had been entering and leaving the Seminary complex almost every day. “That’s not true!” she exclaimed, as she pointed to Rosemarie’s T-shirt. We had some trouble explaining to her that God created people with different skin colours as he did with the flowers, that they are all beautiful in their own right. The experience in Elim helped us to become more ‘daring’ with regard to sleeping together. We knew of course that we were morally on firm ground, but yet we also knew that our mere being together was already tantamount to breaking South African law6. However, we didn’t feel any strain at all because of this. We were learning fast to behave normally in an abnormal society. Initially there was no necessity to appear together in public. But I also wanted to show my wife something of the diversity of Cape Town. Rosemarie and I tried not to provoke anybody through our presence, but on the other hand, we had now decided to try and be ourselves as much as possible. We would simply do the most convenient thing with regard to notice boards and the like, acting as if we were in any other country. This meant in concrete terms that we ignored the sign boards denoting the facilities for the different races occasionally. One of the first things that Rosemarie had to see was District Six – or more correctly what was left of District Six. This slum area of Cape Town with its beautiful setting between Table Mountain and the sea had been declared a 'White' residential area in February 1966. In the years thereafter, many houses were demolished. While I was studying at the Theological Seminary just prior to my leaving South Africa permanently, we witnessed the bulldozer at work, demolishing one house here and a shop there after the owners or tenants had been forced to move out by government decree. I took Rosemarie to the vicinity of my childhood. Our parental house at 30 Combrinck Street had unfortunately already been flattened. The two houses to the left and the right in the row were still standing there. Thus Rosemarie could get some idea of what the area had looked like. Table Mountain is obligatory for any tourist to Cape Town. After seeing the sordid remains of my childhood, I had great pleasure to take Rosemarie there on the beautiful day. Here I felt like a tourist in my own country. My friend Jakes dropped us at the cable car station, where we bought our tickets at separate ticket offices. There was, however, only one cab to take us to the top. Being the only non-'White' in the cab, I was not surprised by the unfriendly faces which looked at me as someone who did not ‘belong’ there. The one Rand fare was still a lot of money for ‘Coloureds’ in those days. They would rather walk up on one of the many routes (though very few of us took that trouble; hiking was not a common pastime for us). The gazes instantly became excited and admiring (as well as jealous?) when I started talking to Rosemarie in fluent German. I could almost read their minds: “Oh, this is what Mr Vorster must have meant when he said that the country would change within a matter of months.” South African Whites were apparently ready to accept foreign people of colour, which left me with mixed feelings. A few hours later we were emotionally in the doldrums as we tried to behave ourselves normally in the apartheid set-up. There was a restaurant for ‘Europeans’ (the term used for Whites) on Table Mountain, which we wanted to visit at lunch time. When we saw a long queue outside, I thought that this was wasting precious time. Why not go to the other facility, the one for ‘non-Europeans’? That one was completely empty when we got there. We took seats there, but we now had to wait… and wait… and wait. No waiter came to serve us. They did not have the courage to come and tell us that they would not serve us. I should have known better. We were after all still in apartheid South Africa. On Sunday morning, a visit to our church in Tiervlei where my cousin ‘Boeta’ John Ulster was now the minister, was almost obligatory. The two Blue Gum trees that stood forlorn on both sides of our gate in Northway Street in Tiervlei reminded me where we had once lived, where we spent so many happy days as a family, before my parents were relocated to Elim. On the eight plot small holding there was now a shopping centre and at the back corner where our pig sty had been, there was a cinema which later became a big church (My parents subsequently received a 'princely' amount for the three bedroom brick house and 8 plots it had been.)8 During our lunch chat in Sherwood Park Mommy spoke with gratiude how they could assist our sister and her family to purchase their prorty. I still admire the grace and magnanimity of my parents. The compensation was actually a pittance for this blatant theft under the guise of slum clearance. On this our first Sunday evening back in the Mother City, Rosemarie and I also wanted to enjoy Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik at the City Hall. We did not sit in one of the 'free' seats that were used by 'non-Whites'. Amazingly, nobody seemed to take offence. Was this a sign of the beginning of the end of petty apartheid? Would we be able to return permanently one day? I also took Rosemarie to the schools where I had taught. At Alexander Sinton High School I had been receiving letters from my darling immediately after my return from Europe, because post was not yet being delivered in Sherwood Park where my sister resided with her family. At this school there were still a few Matric learners who immediately wanted to know whether my wife was the Rosemarie I had spoken about as a teacher. A visit to Elsies River had to include meeting the family from where I wrote many a letter and where I had her photo on the door of the tiny outside room. After visiting various friends and family in the Western Cape, we travelled through the Eastern Cape, via the Transkei to Natal, spending only a night apiece at various homes. After a wonderful weekend in Pietermaritzburg that was forced upon us in a way because of fuel rationing, we drove via Zululand to Johannesburg. The whole journey was quite adventurous, because we were not supposed to be together, let alone be driving as a couple in a car. We experienced many a close shave, just avoiding speeding checks ahead thanks to the warnings of drivers coming from the opposite direction. We were fortunate to have taken two young 'White' female hitch hikers along just before entering Transkei. It was treated like another country with a border post control. The border guards seem to have been satisfied that the three 'White' ladies had a chauffeur! An experience in Johannesburg was even more nerve-wrecking. We arrived in the ‘city of gold’ at about midnight. It was clear that we could not go to the Potberg family in the Moravian parsonage at that time of the night, without informing them beforehand of our intended arrival. I knew that there was a hotel for ‘Coloureds’ in the Bosmont suburb where they lived. However, I had no idea where this suburb was in the largest city of Southern Africa. We could not think of any better option than to get information at a police station, of course very fearfully. Now it was Rosemarie’s turn to hide in the car. The police officer explained the way to Bosmont. After having driven some distance, we became unsure whether we were still on track. At a set of traffic lights I tried to check this out with another motorist. How happy we were when the Indian explained that he was going in the same direction. The owner of the hotel, aware of the South African laws and practices, was rather skeptical at first. This was not surprising due to the time of the night that we arrived there, but after inspecting our passports, he was satisfied that we were indeed husband and wife. The next morning we left before breakfast, because we didn’t want to get the hotel owner into trouble. Having fulfilled the condition of the visa not to enter the country together as a couple, and after our honeymoon with a difference, we returned to Germany with thankful hearts that nothing happened that could have spoilt the memorable trip. However, the honeymoon did bear a stamp of finality regarding my new status: to all intents and purposes I was an exile. Back in Germany, one of the first things to do was to phone our parents (i.e. my in-laws). To visit them on the very first Sunday after our return was only natural. We knew that this did not mean that Papa Göbel would be at home to meet us, though. The memory of the previous time I had visited their home, on that tragic occasion one and a half years prior to this, when Rosemarie had to leave her parental home, was still vivid. But on this bright sunny afternoon we experienced one surprise after the other. Our faith had been too small, because God had wonderful things in store for us. Papa was there at home to start with. But then he also went along to their Stückle, a small allotment where the family spent many a Sunday afternoon. This time it was to be totally different. Papa Göbel offered me a pair of his shorts, addressing me with the personal Du [You]. With that – and it was particularly discernible in the tone – he was saying almost as much as “I accept you fully as my son-in-law.” He soon followed this up with: “You can call me Papa!” Rosemarie, who knew her father so well, recognised how much it must have cost him to come this far. Once the ice was broken, it didn’t take long before it seemed as if we had known each other for ages, as if there had never been any problem at all. God had performed nothing less than a miracle! Evidence was found later that the Lord had started working in his heart prior to this. He had treasured Rosemarie’s letter pleading with him to attend the wedding, and on 4 February 1989, when he died suddenly of a heart attack in his car, the letter was found in his possession, in his wallet. I didn’t give up on my dreams to return to South Africa with my wife one day. I was ready to battle fiercely for the right to return from exile with my wife and the children we hoped to have one day. One of the forms this took on was many years of intense prayer for my country. The prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act was finally repealed in 1985. We returned to the Cape, seven years later, with five children in tow. We still live here today, and have dedicated our lives to His service. We hold on fervently to the promise, that “every valley shall be exalted.” DEO GLORIA TO GOD BE THE GLORY EPILOGUE Looking back at 47 years of happy marriage, during which we however also had our fair share of challenges, gratitude stands tall towards the Father whom we have been serving since our youth. We had to learn many lessons, including a few of them the hard way. On occasion I had to suffer under the dire consequences of ill-considered moves, such as when I tried to manipulate Rosemarie’s father to give us permission to correspond. And when the chances of a possible marriage looked remote, after some bungling on my side, the Father intervened to bring us together again in His mercy and love, thus confirming our relationship towards ultimate union. But also in this regard we experienced the meaning of the Bible verse that our former seminary director, Bishop Henning Schlimm, expounded so beautifully and movingly at our wedding ceremony, namely how the divine Eagle's Wings carried us again and again. A practice which we implemented not only during our short courtship before my return to South Africa, but also during an agreed hour on Sunday evenings, highlighted the power of prayer. Indeed, what a friend we have in Jesus. Praying for and with each other, taking all your issues to the Lord in prayer, would be the advice we would give to so many couples down the years. Right from the start we discerned that next to the challenges of a cross-cultural marriage, there is also an opportunity to learn from the positives of the culture of the other party. To have God as the third party in our union demonstrated the strength of a three-stranded chord. In the twilight of our lives we are blessed to see how my exile, of which our wedding was the final trigger, became a blessing to many not only here in South Africa, but also in Germany and Holland. With Joseph, who spent the bulk of his life in Egypt, I can now testify that what misled apartheid legislators contrived, God turned around for good. APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 Original Foreword of the Afrikaans version, November 1979 Hiermee wil ons ‘n beskeie bydrae lewer tot die diskussie rondom die Gemengde Huwelike-wet. Hier word bewus vanuit ‘n subjektiewe betrokkenheid geskryf, maar terselfdertyd hoop ons om hierdeur enigsins ‘n aanduiding te gee van die menslike probleme waartoe die onderhawige wet aanleiding gee. Ons maak by verre na nie aanspraak op volledigheid nie want hier het ons ons alleen tot ons naaste vriendekring beperk. Ons hoop dat vooroordele deur hierdie boekie afgebreek mag word. Meer nog, ons vra God om hierdie boek te gebruik om alle mense in Suid-Afrika saam te voeg tot een hegte volk wat Hom wil dien. ·Intussen moes ons nog ‘n keer leer: As die Here die huis nie bou nie, ons tevergeefs met ons menslike planne daaraan bou. Ons het gemerk dat selfs verharding kan intree as ons alleen op ons menslike insig vertrou en daarom stuur ons hierdie stof uit met die gebed op ons hart: Here, gebruik dit tot u eer. Zeist, Nederland November 1979 P.S. Die strekking van die begin van die Voorwoord geld nie neer nie, omdat ek uitgegaan het van die welwillendheid van die regering 119 in Suid-Afrika. Die jongste ontwikkeling aldaar dui nie daarop dat hiermee - menslik gesproke - in die nabye toekoms gereken kan word nie. Ons hou egter vas aan ons voorneme om ‘ n eerste publikasie van die hier aangebode materiaal in die vorm van ‘ n gedrukte boek nie in die buiteland te doen nie. APPENDIX 2 Letter to the Prime Minister Bad Boll, 30 April 1975 Die Eerste Minister, Pretoria Geagte Mnr.Vorster Graag wens ek hiermee my waardering uit te spreek dat u regering van voornemens is om rasse-diskriminasie uit die Suid-Afrikaanse wetboeke te verwyder. Na aanleiding van (ons) onlangse ervarings in Suid-Afrika, wil ek u graag bemoedig om daarmee voort te gaan. My (Duitse) vrou en ek was baie dankbaar dat ‘n visum uiteindelik aan haar toegestaan is, alhoewel dan ook op voorwaarde dat sy nie „onder my begeleiding“ die land binne moes kom nie. (Ons neem aan dat die rede vir die weierings tot nog toe haar verhouding met my, ‘n sg. Kleurling, was.) Deeglik daarvan bewus dat dit ‘n groot risiko was, het ons besluit om die land afsonderlik binne te kom en sodoende die instruksies van die visum nog na te kom. In Suid-Afrika het ons met mense in verskillende dele van die land gepraat. Ek was aangenaam verras deur ‘n merkbare verandering in rassebewussyn op verskillende plekke. Die ignorering van ons oortreding van nog heersende wette in die toeristiek (hotel, restaurant, strand) en openbare verkeer, het bewys gelewer dat die tyd ryp is om hierdie wette af te skaf. Dat ons nie eers deur polisie en/of veiligheidspolisie ondervra en/of bespied is nie, was vir ons eweneens ‘n bron van groot dankbaarheid. En tog sou die oopstelling van sulke „voorregte“ aan alle Suid-Afrikaners slegs ‘n baie klein begin in die verwydering van diskriminasie in ons land wees. In die naam van God, in die naam van ·reg en geregtigheid, doen ek op u en u regering ‘n beroep om die werklik basiese, dog hemelskreiende ongeregtigheid t.o.v. grondbesit en die reg om as gesin saam te mag woon, te verwyder… Mag ek ten slotte nog die egoistiese wens uitspreek, dat u in u beraadslagings nie sal vergeet om die diskriminerende paragrawe van die Ontugwet en die Gemengde Huwelikswet te skrap nie. Ek doen dit ook in die naam van ander gemengde egpare wat tans noodgedwonge buite Suid-Afrika moet woon. In voorbidding wil ons graag verder aan Suid-Afrika dink. Mag God aan u en u regering, sowel as aan die gehele Parlement moed en wysheid skenk. Die uwe in Christus, Ashley D I Cloete APPENDIX 3 CERTIFICATE OF MARITAL STATUS7 I , … , General Consul of the Republic of South Africa in Munich, confirm herewith that there exists no certificate about the marital status of its citizens in the Republic of South Africa. Mr Ashley Daniel Isaac Cloete declared before Dr. W. Günther (member of the Moravian Church executive in Bad Boll) under oath that he was born on 31.12.1945 in Cape Town, that he is unmarried and that he is not aware of any impediment in both South African as German laws which would block his marriage with Miss Rosemarie Göbel, 713 Mühlacker, Albert Schweitzer Str. 12. The General Consulate of the Republic of South Africa in Munich has no information which contradicts this. Thus there is no objection against the proposed marriage. As Mr Cloete has been told, a marriage between White and Coloured persons is not recognised in the Republic of South Africa according to South African laws. GENERAL CONSUL APPENDIX 4 GLOSSARY Dominee – A minister in Dutch and Afrikaans contexts in reformed denominations. Erzieherin – A female in Germany who has the qualification to be either a kindergarten teacher or a support worker at a children’s home. Evangelisch – Literally it means evangelical. However, in Germany it merely refers to someone belonging to the Landeskirche (see below). Gastarbeiter – Literally it means guest workers. In Germany it is, however, used condescendingly when referred to nationals from Turkey and Southern European countries. Konfirmandenspruch – At the final confirmation event in the church the 14 year old Lutheran teenagers get an individual Bible verse. This is their respective Konfirmandenspruch. Kriegdienstverweigerer – conscientious objectors, literally someone who refuses to do military service. Landeskirche – The big Lutheran Church, the denomination as the counterpart of the Roman Catholic Church. All other ecclesiastic denominations are generally seen as ‘Freie Kirchen’ [free churches]. Vikar – An assistant minister in Germany who has finished the first theological exam. The person then does practical work under the authority and supervision of a minister. REFERENCES 1. Travelling by air was still financially out of bounds for the general public. The church paid my ticket. 2. Literal translation: Someone who refuses ‘war service’ 3. This is not his real name. 4. The town where Rosemarie and Elke were doing a training course for children with disabilities. 5. They still had no telephone connection. ‘Coloured’ people usually had to wait very long after applying for one. 6. We had a ‘certificate’ from the South African Consulate, stating that our marriage would not be recognised by the government (see Appendix 3). 7. Translation of the German document of the Consulate in Munich. 8. In the democratic era of the country they were eligible for a few million rand as restitution. They decided to refrain from applying because they had forgiven the apartheid government. In 1975 I was not ready yet to be so forgiving, but by 2018, when land expropriation without compensation became a hotly debated issue, I would use this fact, and the fact that my two brothers and I respected their decision. (Our sister died in 1980 after contracting leukaemia.)