Precious Memories (7 August 2025)

Precious Memories Introduction 1. People Not Able To Attend Our Celebration 2. Relatives Present at Our Special Anniversary 3. Other People Not Able To Attend 4. Other People Who Attended our Celebration 5. More Pieces of the Mosaic 6. Special Indian Background Believers 7. Moves Towards a Spiritual Highway 8. Special Friends in the Late 1990s Other Skirmishes of Spiritual Warfare Other Friends With Special Stories Other Skirmishes of Spiritual Warfare Precious Memories, how they linger. How they ever flood my soul In the stillness of the midnight Precious sacred things unfold Introduction What a special day we experienced on Wednesday, 16 April, 2025 - the culmination of some of the most exhilarating weeks of our chequered lives over the last 50 years. Also for weeks thereafter, we basked in the memories of our Golden Wedding Anniversary celebration in District Six with the theme On Eagle's Wings. This was our wedding text on 22 March 1975. I take my cue for the title from the old American song called Precious Memories. how they linger'. I enjoy compiling these memories thoroughly, cutting and pasting from diverse autobiographical material that I had collated over the years. At our family gathering in the Netherlands in 2023 we decided to have the next one in Cape Town, to coincide with our Golden Wedding Anniversary. Subsequently, after various medical crises in the family had transpired, we started a zoom session every alternate Sunday evening with all the children and their spouses. This was to Rosemarie and me a special rehash of our praying for each other from October 1970 on Sunday evenings. Rosemarie and I soon came to the conclusion that we do not want an extravagant three-course meal where we could only invite a few people plus the 26 of us. The two of us resolved without discussion that we just wanted to have a thanksgiving event, without speeches, where God would get the glory. Wednesday, 16 April was the only suitable date for our celebration. All our (grand)children could be present, and giving us a day inbetween to recover after the week-end of of 11-14 April. (With our children we agreed to spend the week-end in accommodation big enough for all of us.) The students of a film school in Somerset West were on vacation so that we were blessed to get that. As a venue for the Golden Wedding Anniversary celebration, we briefly considered to also have a second occasion on Saturday, 22 March at the Newfields Evangelical Church, to which our ministry got linked over the years. This would take place be during day time to enable more dear friends and especially special older people could attend. (That was, of course, the actual day of our wedding in Königsfeld in Germany's Black Forest in1975.) Had we used that date as well, we could have invited wider. But as about half of our (grand)children would not have been able to attend, apart from extra work with preparations and the like, we did not even mention this possibility to our children. Although we also tried to get a bigger venue where we would have been able to welcome more guests, it was virtually a no brainer to celebrate in the Moravian Chapel in the street after which I was named. (Furthermore, I was christened there and attended the adjacent Zinzendorf Primary School for three years in my childhood. Later, from 1971 – 73, I enjoyed extended tertiary training at the theological seminary when it was relocated there temporarily. I received airmail letters sent from my bonny over the ocean at 18 Ashley Street in 1972 and 1973.) I started typing these memories on Stille Saterdag (Holy Saturday), the day after Good Friday - thus a few days after our celebration. I was reminded of the special week-end 50 years ago on the mission station Elim. This transpired during our 'illegal' honeymoon journey. Soon after our return from an outing with all our (grand)children at Vergelegen, the historical farm, to the venue of our gathering in Somerset West, I took note of the passing on of our friend Ann Jacobs the previous day. When I spoke the last time to her, the widow of my best friend, Jakes, she indicated that she was not well, about to see a doctor. I was still hoping to join the live streaming of the funeral that took place in Wellington. I would have loved to be there, but had to make a choice. Rosemarie and I were blessed to join the memorial service on Tuesday evening, 14 April, 2025 - the day before our celebration. On Resurrection Sunday we enjoyed a magnificent rendering of Händel's Messiah in the City Hall with four of our relatives from London, This time we just had the tickets on a cellphone, unlike our very first proper date in the Liederhalle of Stuttgart in 1970. Precious memories linger around these events, as I recorded it in What God Joined Together: ... 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! This transpired a few days after the telephonic invitation ahead of the Wycliffe bible Translators event the same evening in 1970. The Father used that conversation to confirm in my heart that Rosemarie was the woman I wanted to marry, although it looked so impossible at that time. My first visit to Rosemarie's home in Albert Schweitzerstrasse, Mühlacker, was not one with precious memories. she was asked to leave the home. The family of Elke Maier, Rosemarie's student colleague who brought her to the Christian Encounter meeting in Stuttgart in May 1970 took her lovingly into their home. It was a no-brainer that she should be our bridesmaid. In What God Joined Together one can read about the state ceremony, at which Elke brought along a protea. Her special gift would bring me to a special idea a few weeks later: 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. Picture of Elke Maier and her Mom assisting to dress Rosemarie at our wedding We will be sharing quite a lot about the wedding and honeymoon of 1975 in due course. Here now a few lines of the wedding ceremony itself: On Saturday, 12 April, 2025, I got a blow to hear early in the morning that Ann Jacobs, the widow of my best friend, had passed on the previous day. I had spoken to her telephonically a week prior to that, where she said that she was not well at all. She was getting ready to go to the doctor. I had to deduce that she would not be able to attend our celebration. At the thanksgiving celebration of our Golden Wedding anniversary on 16 April 2025, I was emotionally overwhelmed not only by gratitude. As I saw some of the people in front of me in the Moravian Chapel of District Six, I verbalised my intention to write some of our precious memories in the interaction with them. After initially intending to postpone the actual writing, I resumed jotting on May 2, 2025: The temptation is just too great, with a set of circumstances that brought us to a situation where I have started to read messages to Rosemarie because of her eye surgery two days prior to that. The temptation started when I looked back to Sunday, the 2nd of March. On that day our daughter Maggie arrived here at the Cape with their three youngest children. What a surprise we gave to our two Capetonian children Tabitha and Sam and their families. We succeeded to keep the date of the arrival of the advance guard of the army of children and grandchildren a secret. This was the wish of the folk from overseas. Tabitha had no suspicion what to expect when she went to our vehicle to fetch something, when suddenly Maggie and the three children appeared from our car. Also Sam and his family were truly surprised to see the four from the UK there already when they arrived. We envisaged, very truthfully, to have lunch together with all the Capetonians and resume our preparation for the weekend starting on 11 April in a big house in Somerset West with all the children and grandchildren and perhaps also perform some initial prepartion of our thanksgiving celebration Golden Jubilee service for which the venue was not yet finalised. (Via zoom we had been starting with preparations already with all the children and their spouses on alternate Sunday evenings, a nice rehash of our rondje at meal times in the days when our children were still in the house.) My own memory invariably went back to something similar on Good Friday, 1975. This is how I recorded this in our booklet What God Joined Together. The recollection of it still makes me very emotional while I type, cut and paste: 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. I utilised the days afforded by the predicament with Rosemarie's condition, after the operation to close a hole in the macula of her left eye, and me forced to stay at home more than usual. I could work on a few autobiographical manuscripts, trying to reduce the inevitable overlap. For the present I drew on different old ones substantially. For the record, I endeavour to keep the hurtful apartheid-related absurdities and ludicrousnesses to a minimum. I assume that many of the older folk of all races who attended our celebration, probably prefer not to be reminded of them in a book that has precious memories as title. The younger ones like our own children and grandchildren, hopefully get some idea of life in that era of our lives. We wish all of you pleasant reading hours! Cape Town, 1. People Not Able To Attend Our Celebration I was quite sad that because of diverse reasons, some people could not attend our celebration. That the family of Rosemarie in Germany would not be represented, was bad enough. That we had nobody from my own family present at our own wedding 50 years ago, is no comfort at all. (We did have a few friends from South Africa in attendance though.) Photo: South Africans who attended our wedding in Königsfeld in 1975 We want to start this chapter by honouring our parents on both sides and my sister among all those who have passed on to eternal glory. Starting with Rosemarie's parents, we paste and excerpt of a draft of a letter of motherly concern, which Mama Göbel had written to Henning Schlimm, my mentor and confidant in Cape Town, in which she also referred to a letter written by his wife, Anne Schlimm, to Rosmarie: ... 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... 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.” Next on the list is Papa Göbel, highlighting his conciliatory sentence after our 'illegal' honeymoon,“You can call me Papa!” ...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! Arguably even more meaningful was something that Papa Göbel treasured quietly of which we were not aware until at his funeral. ...It was very special when our dear Mama Göbel told us that he carried the letter in his wallet 1 that Rosemarie had written to him just before our wedding. In that letter she specially requested Papa Göbel to attend our wedding, apologising for the trauma she had caused them as parents through her friendship to me. Although he did not attend our wedding, he evidently treasured that letter. About our very wise mother I wish to highlight a childhood incident, soon after I had received a brand-new spinning top from Aunty Dorie Ulster. Playing on the street outside our home, a bigger boy claimed it to be his, which had the same coours as mine, but an older version. After going to complain, I was quite ontent when she joined me as I hoped she would rectify the obvious injustice. After all, she knew about my special gift from her sister. I could however not appreciate her application of Solomon's wisdom to take both tops in her two hands, putting them behind her back. The big boy had, of course, no problem with the judge's method, giving him a fifty percent chance to get my top. Mom just brushed aside my objections, sulking at this obvious injustice. Around twenty years later, during the June holidays in Elim during my seminary days when I had already become a quiet anti-apartheid advocate, I reminded her of this incident. Her response was a lesson for life: “I deemed it important that you would learn to accept injustice gracefully already in childhood.” (I was not so happy with that teaching at that time, having seen how my parents accepted a pittance as restitution for our small holding in Tiervlei gracefully, thankful that they could help our sister and her husband to buy property as a result.) Just over another two decades later, she and our Daddy gave us an example when they refused to apply for restitution from the ANC government which could have made them millionairs, choosing to forgive the apartheid rulers instead. My most pronounced memory of our Daddy was when he warned me after I had written a protest letter as a teenager, my pristine exercise in my Honger na Geregtigheid (Hunger after Justice.) I jotted down my draft in pencil in the following context, an excerpt from Jumping Over Walls: Political Interest and Prejudicial Influence The Sharpeville and Langa events of 1960 made itself felt all over the Western Cape. I had really started to hate apartheid, but not 'Whites' as such. The subtle indoctrination of society and the oppressive laws and regulations had its effect on me. Thus I was thoroughly influenced to look down condescendingly on 'Blacks'. I nevertheless displayed some courage at this time to draft a letter to the Prime Minister, Dr Verwoerd. In my letter of protest I addressed the inequalities and injustices of the political system. I did not post the letter immediately. But I was not really sad when my father discovered the letter in my school blazer when it had to be sent for dry cleaning. A serious reprimand followed: “Do you also want to go and languish on Robben Island?” I did not fancy the idea of sharing the fate of political prisoners like Nelson Mandela whose name was, however, not known as yet among Cape 'Coloureds'. First on the list of those dear family and friends still alive at the Cape is Aunty Bertha Fortune, our 96-year old former neighbour of District Six, who had become a sort of surrogate mother to me after our own mom passed away in AD 2000. (For this reason, I seriously considered having another Golden Anniversary celebration on Saturday 22 March in the afternoon, the actual date of our marriage in the Black Forest Moravian sanctuary of Königsfeld in 1975.) On the photo above I am the kaalvoetklonkie, holding the hand of Aunty Patsy, the teenage younger sister of Aunty Bertha. We would have loved to have both of them present at our celebration, of course. Aunty Bertha Fortune had been praying for many years that I might return from exile overseas. And when we were living 'illegally' for three months in Haywood Road in the 'White' suburb of Crawford in 1981, Rosemarie would often walk with our baby son Rafael in his buggie to Tanner Road in the 'Coloured' suburb Sunnyside, that is part of the more well known one Athlone. Autie Bertha, an expert seamstress who made the wedding dress for our sister in 1965, taught Rosemarie some skills in this field at that time. Aunty Bertha would narrate from time to time how I walked through the legs of a cart-pulling horse as an adventurous toddler and how the naughty pre-schooling roamer Ashley could be found at the wrong places. At one such occasion she tried to remove me from there. Not happy with her request, I commanded the dog nearby: 'Sa! Byt haar!' (Bite her!) At the end of the previous millennium, my parents would rather lodge with Aunty Bertha and her husband, Uncle Harry, than with us in Vredehoek when they came from Elim occasionally. They found our household too busy with the five children and many guests coming and going. (Uncle Harry Fortune had been a teacher for any years in Bonteheuwel, where the famous struggle victim Ashley Kriel was one of his learners. Tragically, Uncle Harry lost his way due to dementia at the end of his life. He was ultimately found drowned in the Black River. ) Had we also celebrated our Golden Wedding on Saturday afternoon 22 March, 2025, we would have had Aunty Maria Masaking-Bedien in attendance. She was one of our regular intercessors in the 1990s in Bo-Kaap. It was very special that she had served at Groote Schuur Hospital as midwife together with Peggy Wessels, the late widow of Rev. Ivan Wessels. (I was called into the ministry in March 1968 at his funeral, the day before I was offered a scholarship to go and study in Germany.) Photo of Rev. Ivan Wessels Aunty Maria Masaking was one of the faithful prayer warriors who attended our monthly prayer meeting at 73 Wale Street throughout the 1990s, also after the passing on of Cecilia Abrahams, in whose home we prayed from 1992 - and later at the home of Daphne Davids diagonally opposite that house in the same street. Already seventy years old, Aunty Maria married a widower, who passed away not very long thereafer. When the roof of her house in the 'Kraal' in Chiapinni Street was blown off about five years ago (do you know when exactly, she moved to close relatives in Kensington. For a few years thereafter, she was also resident in Monte Rosa, the retirement home linked to the Groote Kerk. There we visited Aunty Maria often until she moved back to Kensington. Another person in this category is Pietie Orange, a youth friend from my Tiervlei/ Ravensmead days. At two points he was deeply involved in my life. In the first instance I regarded a possible preaching engagement at their church, the Rhenish congregation of Tiervlei, as divine confirmation that I should stop attending the catechism classes as a rebellious teenager. Cancellation of the service the day before it would have taken place, got me to be ultimately confirmed at the Maitland Moravian congregation as the only candidate of Tiervlei on Palm Sunday of 1964. At the second instance, our friend Pietie Orange was the strategic instrument to bring me back to the country in 1990. He was thus, so to speak, the answer to Aunty Bertha's prayers. In my most recent autobiographical manuscript, Jumping Over Walls, I recorded it thus: Come Over And Help Us! On my return from West Africa in February 1990 there were quite a few letters awaiting me, two of which were 'doors' to new areas of ministry. Most of all, I was surprised that Rosemarie appeared quite tense about my response to a letter from South Africa. Out of the blue there was a hand-written letter from Pietie Orange. There was not much in Pietie’s letter in terms of contents, but very clearly there was the clarion call: COME OVER AND HELP US. I was quite perplexed and somewhat confused. The prior experiences in West Africa especially, were still fresh in my mind. For years the doors to mission services seemed to remain closed, and now there appeared to be many doors opening. Which was the right one? We decided that the correct thing would be to proceed on the road that we had started traversing with WEC to West Africa. When that door closed unexpectedly, we saw God leading us back... ultimately to the Cape in January 1992. Before going to other people still alive whom I would have loved to be in attendance at our 50th wedding anniversary celebration, we mention Ann Jacobs, the widow of my best friend, Jakes. (He passed on already in May 1997.) When I spoke to Anna, the name under which nobody knew her, she indicated that she was on her way to the doctor. It came, nevertheless, as a big shock to me when I had to hear a week later that she had passed on. An interesting ramification of her death was that Allan Boesak and I started interacting again in the wake of death. We had not been communicating for decades. Way back in 1964 it was Allan, who had told me about the impactful CSV evangelistic stranddienste of Harmony Park where I met Jakes. (Paul Engel a Moravian teenager who was also a student colleague at Hewat Teacher Training College in 1964, also nudged me to attend.) In Jumping Over Walls I wrote the following about that event, which definitely qualifies for precious memories: Impacted By Other Followers of Jesus The Harmony Park beach outreach would change my life radically. At the student evangelistic outreach at Harmony Park from New Year’s Day 1965, Esau Jacobs (Jakes) introduced ‘spiritual warfare.’ He started to ignite a vision for outreach to Muslims in me, albeit still fairly vaguely. For the other participants at Harmony Park it might not been so significant, but the unity of the believers coming from different church backgrounds there left an indelible mark on me. I did not know the truth of the Bible verse yet that God commands His blessing where there is unity. But I saw the Holy Spirit at work, as I had not experienced before. There my friendship was forged with Jakes, the young pastor who came to join us after a long drive through the night from far-away Umtata in the Transkei. Along with David Savage, who had a background in the Cape Town City Mission with Pastor Bruce Duncan, I started learning the power of prayer there at Harmony Park. Relatives in Attendance at Our Golden Wedding Anniversary At our wedding there were my two brothers and two cousins from my father's side whom I know from our common childhood in Distict Six. We were quite a close-knit family of which I was the black sheep in a sense, being here and there and everwhere, whereas my two brothers were rather home-bound. With my late sister I had the roaming spirit in common. Apart from our walking together with Daddy one Sunday afternoon along De Waal Drive to the Zoo a few kilometers away and a few times to Salt River where Daddy conducted a Sunday School, I cannot recall much of our common childhood in District Six with my two brothers. I was very much of a roamer when I was not at school or playing with other children in the street. All the more I have clear memories of the 14 years of the family in Tiervlei During two of those years I was actually only at home during the June and December holidays. Oupa Joorst, who lived on the Elim Mission Station far away, asked whether I could come and help him and Aunty Maggie, our mom’s sister, as a ‘stuurding’. A few months later, Daddy was retrenched. Living initially with Oupa and Ouma Cloete, our youngest sibling, Windsor, came to Elim in a similar role, after Daddy lost his employment as milliner. (Windsor got his name in the way of the royal visit of King George VI to South Africa in 1947, the year in which he was born.) Kenneth was always at home, while our Tiervlei property evolved into a small holding. There, in due course, we had a pig sty in one corner, a chicken pen and at least one goat for much of our time there. Daddy was a keen gardener, next to his work as night porter at Mupine. As boys we never showed interest in the gardening, but Kenneth always milked the goat. We, as boys, were not actively encouraged to assist with the gardening. Our parents saw the education of the three sons as the top priority. Mommy went to work as a nanny in the home of UCT Law Professor Beinart, but our parents ultimately also took our sister Magdalene as the eldest of the children out of school when she was still in Standard Seven (Grade Nine). She started working at Footmaster, a sock factory to help keep the pot boiling. Mom would later also join her in that factory, until she could not do this any more after contracting arthritis and being on her feet all day. Thereafter, she did some washing and ironing for the Dietrich family of which Uncle Paul was a much better earning school principal. Aunty Maggie, Mommy's sister, came to live with us in Tiervlei at the end of 1958, making doughnuts and other things which Magdalene and Momy sold at the factory. Aunty Ria Rosant and their family on the mission station Wittewater near to Piquetberg, took Windsor to finish his primary schooling there. Aunty Ria was an older sister of Mom and Aunty Maggie. After Magdalene and Kenneth had left our home because of marriage, Windsor and I got closer to each other. He attended the one or other VCS student camp with me when he studied at UWC. He would also cycle from Tiervlei to Fourie Street in Bellville South for many an event at the saaltjie, a small hall related to the Christian student movement. In this way we got many common friends. One of my most precious memories go back to 1971 when I shared a tiny room with Windsor at the Esau family in Elsies River. I taught at Elswood High School and studied theology part-time. There I got my letters regularly from my bonny over the ocean till the week after Resurrection Sunday. In one of these letters, Rosemarie wrote to me: ...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.) Photo of Rosemarie behind the door 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... At this time, Windsor was working as a chemist's assistant. He bought an old Austin later in the year, of which the clutch plate packed up on Sir Lowry's Pass en route to or from Elim. We had to be towed back to Elsies River. That was, of course, not really the most precious memory. Another recollection of the same calibre was when we celebrated Daddy's birthday on 30 October 1978 in Grabouw at the cottage when Windsor was possibly working for Appletizer in their laboratory. (Jattie Bredekamp, who had been visiting us in Holland just prior to that, had given us the use of their second car for a few days.) A few days before this, we saw an advertisement of a special train fare offered. This transpired at a moment when we did not have enough funds to fly back to Johannesburg, ahead of our return Luxavia flight back to Europe. This special fare would spare us the embarassment of having to borrow money from our family. When we brazenly went through the 'White' side of the Cape Town station to enquire, the young Afikaner at the other side of the counter sheepishly had to acknowledge, upon hearing that we are a family from Holland: 'You see, in this country we discriminate. I have to ask my boss.' After a few minutes, he came back with the reply. 'We can't give you the ticket. The boss has to get permission from higher up. You have to phone back...' On 30 October 1978 we were in Grabouw, celebrating Daddy's birthday. Windsor and Ray had no phone. We decided to just drive to the office of the South African Railways where we had to be back in the city before 4.30pm to hear the result of our request to use the same train compartment. We arrived from Grabouw at the Central Train Station actually late, just a few minutes after the closing time. Excitedly, an official came storming from the inside to the closed door to invite me in. He inform us that our request, to travel in the same compartment, had been relayed up the ladder to the Cabinet. I had to leave a phone number so that they could call me back. The result: the Cabinet gave me 'honorary White' status for the duration of the train trip to Johannesburg. I was, however, not happy at all. In fact, I was very angry, sulking possibly even more than the prophet Jonah at the end of the Bible book. This co-incided with a negative reply that I had received from the Moravian Church Board upon my request to come and serve in the country for three years with my family. This was part of my carnal attempt, hoping to assist in breaking down the apartheid edifice. Here are a few lines from my report of this sad saga, taken from Tears, Trials and Testimonies: Hunger After Justice Our marriage in 1975 had finalized my exile from the country. I longed quite intensely to return while we served as a pastoral couple in Moravian congregations in West Berlin and Utrecht (Netherlands). In September 1978 Rosemarie and I left for South Africa for a six-week tour with our son Danny. Experiences with the Moravian Church leaders at the Cape and with the folk of Moral Rearmament during this visit in 1978 would be quite traumatic. My attempt to return to the country included a skirmish with the Moravian Church leadership at a meeting in November 1978. Disappointment in the church leadership and their reaction to the imprisonment and restriction of Chris Wessels, our friend who had been detained without trial - along with apartheid-related experiences - completely embittered me. Apartheid Has the Beating of Me As a disgruntled critical rebellious 32 year old pastor, who dared to question the denominational leadership, I harvested an angry reply: 'we don't want tourists'. (I had hoped that my suggestion of a limited three-year stay could help break down the apartheid edifice.) I had, however, gone overboard with my activism. I left the meeting in the parsonage of the Moravian Church in the suburb of Bridgetown like a dog with his tail between his legs. I was, however, very angry and fuming, ready to leave the country, and not wanting to put my foot on South African soil again. This happened very close in time to a response of the government, another result of my activism. I was very angry, actually somewhat unwarranted. Our bold request to travel in the same train compartment as a family harvested 'honorary' status for me as a 'White' in the process. I had was quite upset that this 'simple request' had to move right up to the Cabinet for approval. These moves combined to bring me to the point of utter frustration and despair, deciding to leave South Africa - never to return! Three years before that, Rosemarie was not ready to return for service in South Africa. After our 'illegal' honeymoon she had prayed: ‘Lord, I am prepared to serve you anywhere in the world as long as it is not South Africa!’ Now it was my turn. Another impactful memory, albeit one with mixed feelings, transpired when Windsor with his wife Ray and their baby son Kevin visited us just over 9 months later in the Netherlands. My bro ther Windsor and his wife Ray from Grabouw generously put the use of one of their two cars at our disposal. Thus we could visit my sickly and ageing parents in Elim - 200 Km away - fairly frequently. It was very special to see our ailing mother recovering slowly in due course. The diminishing strain was evidently also doing our Daddy a lot of good. Sarah Campher and her two younger siblings were the children of Aunty Hetta, the third child of Oupa Amos and Augusta Cloete of Sand Street in Elim. The Campher family lived with us under one roof for some time at 30 Combrinck Street after they had came from the Knysna area in 1954. Sarah was in the same class at the Zinzendorf Primary School with my brother Kenneth and Jerome, her younger brother, shared a class with me. Sarah's daughter Benita, who brought her to our celebration, was raised by Aunty Stienie, who married a widower when she was in her fourties. Aunty Stienie had no children of her own. The three younger sisters of Daddy, Aunty Stienie, Aunty Maggie as well as Uncle Sais were still single when we lived in District Six. Two of them worked as domestic servants in Sea Point and Aunty Emmie in a factory. They were often with us on Sunday afternoons. When they attended Zonnebloem for secondary school and teacher training we often also had the Rosant daughters visiting. We celebrated the 70th birthday of Oupa Cloete in Combrinck Street and around that time we also went to Elim for the wedding of Aunty Emmy in Elim: Photo made at the occasion of Oupa Cloete's 70th birthday: Both Sarah and Benita Campher have been trained as teachers, along with many others on both our mother's and our father's side. I got to know our cousin Jeff Cloete as a little boy, the youngest son of Uncle Christie and Aunty Anne in Rutger Street, who came to some rare party at our home when he asked: 'Aunty Bettie, is die paatie nou oo?' Rather disappointed with her reply in the affirmative, he retorted with child-like rationalisation: 'En da is dan nog koek! (Later the Cloetes of Rutger Street also got a fourth son, Christopher.) Aunty Bertha Fortune narrated furthermore, how Jeff would say already as a small boy that he wanted to become a medical doctor. He pursued that goal perseveringly, serving many Amos Cloete clan members faithfully and pro bono to this day, visiting some of us even in different hospitals. From my mother's side there was also my brother-in-law Anthony Esau, with two of his children and a spouse. Two periods come to mind as precious memories with him, my late sister Magdalene and the family. Just after I had returned from overseas in 1970 after our parents had already moved to the Elim mission station after the expropriation of our property. In What God Joined Together I penned the following about our honeymoon trip 50 years ago: ... 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. The above referred to what I also recorded in What God Joined Together: ... 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.. The most impactful time with the Esau family transpired when Rosemarie and I stayed with our two eldest boys in 1981, contain memories of a very mixed nature: Teaching In Hanover Park I took up a teaching post at Mount View High School in Hanover Park. I knew that this was one of the two schools where the boycotts had started the year before. I felt uneasy though, when the relevant authority in Wynberg expressed his satisfaction to have a clergyman to take over at the school where a colleague had been dismissed for ‘unprofessional conduct.’ The suspicion at the school was almost tangible that I was a government informer. The reason was clear. My predecessor also had the surname Cloete. In addition, I must have dished up a story to them that would have been quite strange, having come from Holland and a sister who had passed away. All this must have sounded very suspect. On top of this, the widely read tabloid-styled newspaper of the ‘Coloured’ Community, The Cape Herald, reported shortly after I started teaching in Hanover Park that Matthew Cloete, my predecessor, had been sacked for disseminating ANC pamphlets. It must possibly have been logical for the school fraternity to regard this as confirmation that I was an informer, a collaborator with the hated regime. Fortunately for me, the practice of ‘necklacing’[9] was not yet in vogue. We tried to support the bereaved Esau family as best as possible. Richard Arendse, my classmate of high school days and a later teacher colleague, immediately obliged, by allowing us to use their caravan. Thus we could now sleep in the caravan in the backyard of the Esau home in Sherwood Park... Camping Semi-Permanently As the nights became colder in March, it became imperative to move out of the caravan. Our one and a half year old Rafael constantly had a cold. However, the politics of the day prevented us from getting temporary accommodation in a ‘White’ residential area for three months. Not even our church was prepared to take a risk by allowing us to stay in a vacant parsonage in Newlands, a 'White' residential area. I was quite willing to be a rent-paying ‘caretaker’.  Of course, the danger of repercussions and government reprisals were very real. It is understandable that the Church Board did not see their way clear to take a risk. The Church Board members possibly also considered my rebellious attitude of the past, for example when I challenged them in 1978 on behalf of Chris Wessels. They had to be cautious. The one or other of them might have noted the possibility of me wanting to stay in South Africa with my family permanently. Then the church leaders would have been in trouble! I could actually understand their stance, but I was nevertheless very disappointed that no one took the trouble to explain the refusal. Repeatedly Rommel Roberts and Celeste invited us to come and stay with them. The couple had been with us in Holland for a few months after they were more or less forced to flee from the country the previous year. They were not only known as political activists, but just like us, they were a racially mixed couple. To accept their offer would have meant inviting trouble with the authorities. After all other efforts to get temporary accommodation had failed, we had no other excuse available to turn down their generous offer. Very hesitantly, we moved into the three-bedroom cottage in the 'Whites only' suburb of Crawford with our two small boys, joining Rommel, Celeste, Alan and Wally. (The latter two are brothers of Rommel.) The two children of Anthony Esau at our celebrations there were our nephew Clarence with his wife Celeste and `our niece Elizabeth. I recall fairly vividly how Anthony and Magdalene would come and visit us after the birth of Clarence on 9 October 1966 with their grey Fiat, the first car in our family. Clarence was present at the Cape Town Docks when I left for Germany in January 1969: Insert the photo with 2-year old Clarence and all those at the quayside: With both Clarence and Elizabeth we would see highlights and emotions on both extremes of that spectrum. The passsing on of his mom when he was still a teenager at the height of the school boycotts in the 1980s, would leave a permament scar on Clarence. At the end of the first year of our new sojourn in the country, we attended his first wedding, that did not last very long. The second marriage to Celeste has also had many a challenge. With Elizabeth, who carries the name of her grandmother, a memory goes back to our honeymoon. Magdalene was pregnant with her and struggling in the sea, swimming next to Rosemarie. In 1981, when we stayed in Richie Arendse's caravan in the yard of the Esau family in Sherwood Park, our son Danny joined Elizabeth every morning, going to the crêche of the Salvation Army in Lansdowne. One of the happiest moments of Elizabeth, that we could share for a few hours many years later, was when she got married as a spinster. This would be followed not long thereafter, however, with the sad passing on of her husband whom she had married when it was known that he had contracted a heart disease. This did not lessen the heart ache in any way, of course! Originally we invited Angela Dunn as the only representative of the Ulster clan at our Golden Wedding Anniversary Celebration. Angela is the oldest daughter of my cousin John Ulster. She enquired whether her younger sister Jenny could accompany her. (I had not known that Jenny had moved to Brackenfell. She was immediately willing to bring along our friend Pietie Orange, who is deep in the 80s in the meantime. He could, however, not come. ) I had furthermore hoped that Matie October, a seminary colleague and retired minister in Elim, could be the chauffeur to bring my 81-year old brother Kenneth and his wife Emmy from Elim as he had done in the past. That Hennie Ulster would drove them, was no bad surprise, of course. He is the only son of my cousin Boeta (John), who also lives in retirement in Elim. Something about a conversation of December 1970 with our cousin, John Ulster, our oldest cousin, needs to be revisited. He was the pastor in Elim when I had just returned from Germany, and raving about my great love to all and sundry. I add here a few lines from my first German newsletter, taken from What God Joined Together: … 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. All three children of Boeta Ulster, and Aunty Florry, our cousin and his wife, might have been present when we attended the service in Ravensmead in April 1975, where I possibly also preached. I wanted to show Rosemarie where we resided before our property was expropriated. I recorded about this visit the following in What God Joined Together, when we crammed: 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 involuntarily relocated to Elim. I did not know that Boeta and his younger brother Dan played such a massive role in the music development of District Six. I 'bumped' into a piece of Africana about the origins of the renowned Eoan Group, FAMILY OF THE LATE DAN ULSTER (BROTHER OF THE LATE BISHOP ULSTER) “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the Crown of Righteousness. Which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, will award me on that day and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His Appearing”………… (2 Tim. 4: 7-8) Some years ago a small band of singers met regularly on Saturday afternoons at Zonnebloem College (Demonstration Room) and enjoyed what they did best…. singing. In 1940, two brothers, John and Dan Ulster realised the potential this group had and they founded a choir. Apart from singing, the other objective of this choir was to help and assist organisations who were in need of funds – sorely needed at the time. Thus we find this choir performing at various functions, particularly on Sunday evenings wherever required. We found ourselves performing at the AME Church, Blyth Street, the Volkskerk in Grey Street, DRC in Aspeling Street, sometimes at “Tea Meetings” in the Banqueting Hall. It functioned so well and from time to time was used for background music in productions. This choir was to have an enormous effect on the community in later years. In 1943 Joseph Manca was brought to the choir one Saturday afternoon by Helen Southern Holt. He was dumbfounded at what he heard; however the end result later was the birth of the “Eoan Group Choir” conducted by Joseph Manca, Assistant conductor John Ulster Accompanist Dan Ulster. John had a bass voice of exceptional quality and he automatically became the soloist – in fact a Cantata performed in South Africa – “The Redeemer” – for the first time had John singing the part of “Jesus” which had raving results in the media. After becoming a bishop in the Moravian Church, John Ulster was awarded an honorary Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from Stellenbosch University. The younger brothers of the musical Ulster family also made their mark in different ways. Dan was the first person of colour in South Africa to be awarded the Bachelor of Music and allowed to play the organ of the City Hall. The youngest of the three brothers, Godfrey was an even more accomplished organist. A trumpeter of note, he could perfectly emulate Louis Armstrong in his rendering of What a wonderful world. At our family clan gatherings, the last one of which was 'inspired' by our sister Magdalene at the Jolly Carp facility of Grassy Park a few weeks before she passed away in December 1980, Uncle Goy's rendering was, of course, a compulsory item at these family gatherings. Photo of a Jolly Carp gathering, December 1980: In the Moravian Church it was kept a secret that the choir master and organist of Moravian Hill was the accomplished trumpeter and leader of the Joe Ulster Jazz Band. was actually Godfrey Ulster of Hyde Street in District Six. Many people in our area knew this, of course. (His song at night clubs was invariably followed by thunderous applause on Saturday evenings,) At the royal visit of King George VI to South Africa, Godfrey Ulster played for the later Queen Elizabeth II on her 21st birthday when she was still a princess. A newspaper described him as 'the Cape's leading trumpeter'. (Here is a You Tube clip of him playing with his son Ernest at the Cape Town City Hall in 1996). Uncle Goy's three sons Godfrey, Mark and Ernest were all musicians of note and playing in the band, often in the capacity of leader and Randy, the son of Uncle Dan also carried the musical torch of musician. Every first Monday evening of the month the Joe Ulster Jazz Band entertained the psychiatric patients of the Valkenberg Hospital in Pinelands. The music tradition was carried on, not only by many members of the Joorst descendants, but also on the Hans side of our family (Ouma Gussie, Daddy's mom Augusta, was born Hans on the farm Houtkloof near to Caledon.) Uncle Christie Hans was the organist of the Lansdowne congregation for many years and his son Reginald Hans has been a leader and conductor of many choirs also on the national level. Our Dad had a special gift in whistling classical music like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in with a double note. He wrote composed many a tune, a tradition my brother Kenneth emulated, writing and composing the Feeslied of the 200 year anniversary of the Elim mission station in 2024. Of the present generation, our cousin Rudolph (Rudi) Joorst is a choir leader who served in the executive Moravian Choir Union. Two of the younger generation graduated with B.Mus. degrees, Hayley Joorst, Rudi's daughter has the trumpet as main instrument and Courtney Esau, the granddaughter of Anthony and my late sister Magdalene, the saxophone. At one of the events at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow, where I had been the speaker, Ernald Arendse came up to me at the end, introducing himself as the younger brother of Mervyn, who was in my class in Elim. An accomplished worship leader, I used Ernald later at many events such as at our combined worship services of the City Bowl. A few lines need to be added about our interaction with our cousin Milly Joorst, the daughter of the youngest sibling of our mother. This was part and part of special encouragements we received at a time when we were by far not the only believers on the receiving end of attacks. I include a little more around the context of this in On the Eagle's Wings: Encouragements The arch enemy tried to give us one hammering after the other, but the Lord encouraged us. In the second quarter of the year we felt that Rosemarie should visit her ailing mother again to relieve her sister Waltraud. When we lived in Holland, we would go to Germany in the school holidays to give Waltraud a break. But how could we finance such a trip to South Africa? Just as Rosemarie and I started praying together about the matter one morning, the telephone rang. It was Waltraud from Germany. She and her husband had been thinking about funding a trip for Rosemarie to come and visit them. That would be much cheaper than trying to get the bed-ridden mother into a home for two weeks so that they could get a break. My cousin Milly Joorst and her prayer warrior friend Magda Morkel came from Genadendal to cook for us in Tamboerskloof while Rosemarie was away. That was the beginning of a close prayer relationship with the two of them. While Rosemarie was in Germany, money became available that her late father had earmarked as an inheritance for his grandchildren. For months we had experienced the need of a guest room. The need was amplified with the visit of Milly and Magda. We did not feel comfortable to approach the Buchhorns again and again when we had visitors. Rosemarie’s visit to Germany also contained a temptation. While being there, she heard how nothing was done to reach the many Turkish people of the area with the Gospel. In order to share the good news with the children of the guest workers and other foreigners in the region, it would not even be imperative to learn their language. In due course the enemy was to abuse this snippet of information to tempt us to return to Germany. The Country in Turmoil Just after Rosemarie’s return to the Cape in July 1993, South Africans were shocked out of their wits. On the last Sunday of that month, deluded hate-filled ‘Blacks’ killed a few congregants and maimed many believers wantonly in the evangelical St James Church in the Cape Town suburb of Kenilworth. It was a miracle in itself that not many more were killed. The great deceiver evidently planned this to become the start-shot of massive bloodshed. It had been preceded and followed by many attacks on innocent civilians, including Amy Biehl, an American exchange student. Although the date had been set for the first democratic elections, hardly anybody expected the run-up to the elections to be peaceful. 'Black' townships like Khayelitsha were no-go areas for anyone who was not 'Black'. Our friend Melvin Maxegwana of the Khayelitsha City Mission fellowship had to flee from the area. The local civic organization had concocted allegations against him. As a pastor with contact to other races, he was accused of mixing with the 'Whites'. This was for some local ‘Blacks’ tantamount to colluding with the devil in person. But satan had overplayed his hand. The St James Church massacre turned out to be the instrument par excellence to impact a country-wide movement towards racial reconciliation. Those family members who lost dear ones received divine grace to forgive the brutal killers. The massacre of innocent people during that church service sparked off an unprecedented urgency for prayer all around the country. The adage of Albert Luthuli after he had been dismissed as chief by the South African government in November 1952, received a new actuality when he said, ‘It is inevitable that in working for freedom some individuals and some families must take the lead and suffer: the road to freedom is via the Cross.’ A Home of Our Own? About this time we received a letter from the German owner of our home. She wanted to sell the house, but she gave us the first option to buy it. Our landlady was definitely not the only person who wanted to sell property. In fact, the times were not conducive to the purchase of property in South Africa at all. Apart from bombs detonating in various parts of the country, also in the Cape bombs were found that did not detonate. Bomb scares abounded. Thus our children had to evacuate their school after a bomb scare. Whosoever was in the position to immigrate, did so. From Holland and Germany we received telephone calls from concerned friends, inquiring when we would be returning to Europe. The country had moved into revolutionary mould People who could afford it, were encouraged to hoard groceries and to buy guns. We did consider buying property but the house in Tamboerskloof was much too small. I was rather sceptical when Rosemarie shared that the Lord had given her a vision of a house with a beautiful view in the City Bowl. I was ‘absolutely sure’ that there would be no suitable house in the price range that we could afford. On Rosemarie’s insistence we went to an estate agent to indicate our interest in buying something in the area. With money that would be coming from Germany soon, we were now in the fortunate position to consider buying property. Up to that point in time we did consider this option, but a bond on a house with four bedrooms was well beyond our means. (It was still the question whether the bank would grant us a bond because we had no fixed income.) With Bo-Kaap and Hanover Park as the main areas of our activity, we were looking at possibilities to purchase a house geographically somewhere between these localities, such as the suburb Pinelands. The first few houses that we viewed in the City Bowl vindicated my scepticism. But then one day the estate agency phoned to inform us that a run-down house in Vredehoek, a suburb on the slopes of Table Mountain, was for sale. The bank offered the re-possessed building to the estate agent on condition that a potential buyer had to make an offer within two weeks. The run-down mansion we entered and viewed at 25 Bradwell Road in the City Bowl suburb Vredehoek contained some broken windows plus a stinking carpet in the living room that dogs had infested with fleas. Vagrants were already living at the back. But then Rosemarie saw the beautiful view that the Lord had previously given her. I was not yet convinced. We would possibly have to spend a fortune first to get the property habitable! But it had a swimming pool, albeit that it was algae-invested dark green in colour! After more prayer, we decided to request Rainer Gülsow, a German friend who had been in the building trade, to give us his view on the matter. His reply was: “A bargain, take it. You will never get this again!” This was the clear cue we needed. But the decision to make an offer within two weeks created some strain. Furthermore, the buying price was still substantially higher than the price range that we had originally envisaged. As a prayer warrior and intercessor of note, Milly came back into our lives after the passing on of Magda Morkel in May 2024. With a special mission around Israel and the end times in which we are living, we interacted physically and telephonically more than in the previous years. 3. Other People Who would have Like in Attendance I want to start this chapter with some recollections of my High School days till my early twenties. These memories include the first years of our marriage. Two Moravians at the Cape who are still alive and with whom I interacted in the 1970s are Paul Joemat and Ferdie Engel. (Via the Moravian seminarian whatsapp group I did invite Paul Joemat indirectly to our celebration, but that was, of course, not good enough.) Ferdie Engel took Rosemarie and me around in Johannesburg during our honeymoon in 1975, inter alia to Soweto and to Myrtle Wyngaard, with whom I had served in the late 1960s on the excecutive of the Moravian Youth Union. Subsequently, Ferdie visited us in Berlin and in 1981 he and his first wife Jacqui borrowed furniture to use during our three month stay in Crawford that was stored in a garage in Mowbray. Paul Joemat was the third teenager activist, next to Paul, the late brother of Ferdie, who attempted to bring the Moravian Church in South Africa back to its blessed roots in the 1960s. Chris Wessels, the other person mentioned in the following extract, would surely have been invited to our celebration were he still alive: ...Along with two young Sunday School teacher colleagues, Paul Engel and Paul Joemat, I would often launch out in an arrogant way to ‘get the Moravian Church back on track’ with regard to biblical conversion. To get ‘converted’ to faith in Jesus was regarded to be unfitting by the rank and file Moravian Church members at the Cape, also on the mission stations. Sadly, our denomination had thus drifted very far from its blessed evangelistic and missionary beginnings. The two Pauls and I sometimes used unconventional means. Bible choruses were regarded as sectarian in those days, but we had the respected Chris Wessels on our side. Chris had been in Holland and Germany before he returned to the church’s service and then he became travelling secretary of the Christian Students Association. In that capacity he would impact quite a few ‘Coloured’ young people around the country. Apart from being a student colleague, Paul Joemat also attended the theological seminary in District Six part-time. At another point our lives as activists intersected. Both of us were members of the Christian Institute: After my return from Germany in 1970, I was soon swept along by the politics of the day. I became a member of the Christian Institute (CI) almost immediately thereafter, seeing the unity of the body of Christ across racial lines as a top priority. Here I linked up with Paul Joemat, my old rebel mate in the church. He also had the vision that Christians should be actively engaged in opposing the unchristian apartheid policies. The incarceration of Paul Joemat (and Allan Boesak) in the early 1980s led to a strong letter of protest to Prime Minister P.W. Botha with Liefde Dryf die Vrees Uit, of which I unfortunately could not find a copy as yet. The next two persons in the category of people whom we would have liked to welcome at our Golden Anniversary are Richard Arendse and his wife Mary. Initially our class mate Eddie Davis and his wife would have brought Richard and Mary along, but Richard's health situation made him decide to give our celebration a miss. (Both Richard and Eddie are already 80 years old.) My friendship to Richard goes back to our high school days. Of all the class mates Richard was the closest to me. Once he came to visit me in Tiervlei in the school holidays on his bicycle from the Goodwood Acres. Later we taught together at Bellville South High School from 1965-68. When Richard went to the USA on a stint with his family, they visited us in Zeist, as did our common friend Jattie Bredekamp. (If Jattie were still alive, we surely would have invited him and his wife Florrie to our celebration.) A hilarious snippet with Ritchie transpired when he took me and my family with his yellow Toyota Cressida to the main train station ahead of our trip to Johannesburg on the Transkaroo Express. When a junior porter came to the car to collect our luggage, the highest ranking porter came promptly to enquire whether I was Meneer Cloete. I had, obviously, been elevated to 'honorary White' status from the highest echelons of government, given the 'special privilege' to travel in the same train compartment with my wife and our one and a half year old son Danny. I was not amused at all at that time. In fact, I was very angry. More about that occasion later. My best memory of my Matric class mate Eddie Davis was when he taught me a special skill in table tennis – smashing. Eddie Davis was the only classmate present at our Golden Wedding anniversary. Another one, Richard Arendse, who had also been a teacher colleague at Bellville South High School, was not well, asking to be excused. After completing a Master of Education degree, Eddie was a Senior lecturer at the Bellville College of Education and also part-time lecturer at UWC in the Faculty of Education. With the new political dispensation in 1994, the new government was keen to overhaul the entire education system. Early retirement packages were offered to the older teachers, who were regarded as not being progressive enough. Eddie's decision to leave the education system, was – in his own words - 'to a large degree prompted by Archbishop Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane, a long-standing friend, who asked me to come and work for him at Bishopscourt as Estate Manager – more or less in charge of the Bishopscourt Estate...' My friendship to Jattie Bredekamp had a common denominator. Both of us were significantly impacted by Chris Wessels when he was the travelling secretary of the VCS. Like Chris, Jattie hailed from Genadendal and was raised by his aunt in the township Bonteheuwel. We were privileged to host Jattie and his family in Zeist. I assisted him with some research at the archives in Utrecht. Subsequently he returned the favour, assisting me with historical literature about slavery and Islam at the Cape. In the following, I also note some lack of the student movement that influenced the history of our country also negatively, however: ...His visit to our home in Tiervlei with Harry Booysen, the travelling secretary of the VCS and sucsessor of Chris Wessels at that time, would impact him significantly. When he heard of my extra-mural studies at UWC, with which I had started in 1965. In later years he would head up the Historical Research at UWC and later the national library services Iziko. After his retirement, the government asked him to salvage Robben Island after the prime historical heritage site had been ravaged by rabbits, destroying wild life on the island Looking back to the momentous 'stranddienste', and also at subsequent student camps that I attended, we possibly missed out on becoming an even bigger influence on society by just practising the South African slave-master 'way of life', in stead of using the biblical model of servant leadership. The 'juniors' were required to do manual work for which the leaders seemed to be too good. In Harmony Park I was not only spiritually revived, but there I also received an urge to network with other members of the Body of Christ, with people from different denominational backgrounds. This was an impact that I carried with me ever since. Quite a few of the participants at this evangelistic outreach played significant roles in the opposition to apartheid in later years. Some of these friends lost their evangelical zeal in the process. I would most probably also have belonged to this group if I were not led to a special girl friend overseas. God used her to bring me back to Harmony Park roots. That friendship was also the cause of my leaving the country at a time when I could have become embittered like so many of my friends due to anti-apartheid activism. Kathi West Schulze is one of those still alive to whom many precious memories are linked. (she married the Cape Methodist minister Graham West later. spending the bulk of their ministry in the US with their family. Her presence as physiotherapist in 1973 at the Elim Home gave me the idea to bring Rosemarie there as a volunteer for two months the following year so that she could get to know my parents. Around Kathi and a few other friends, some of whom are still alive, many a fact of our honeymoon trip is recorded in On the Eagle's Wings: A “Real” Welcome? On Good Friday, the 200-kilometre trip to Elim was on the programme. When we arrived there, I thought 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 instructed Rosemarie to go inside while I hid myself in the car. This idea was not good at all. A few minutes later I regretted my version of ‘surprise’ very much. 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’s have of course already discovered – that it was not such a big problem after all. The first few questions about the journey and so forth didn’t pose any problem, but then the crunch came: “How’s Ashley?”.... I had put Rosemarie in a real predicament. I salvaged the situation for a moment by appearing “from nowhere”, but this was too much for Mummy. Hysterically, our dear mum burst out in tears.... This was to be expected. Not only had I misled them through my letters, but they also did not expected to see me ever again. That was apartheid reality. Now I was standing there in front of all of them, so unexpectedly. In this unforgettable - close to sacred moment - I could only embrace my parents and my newly wedded wife, also as a consolation. This treasured moment still belonged to our wedding cere­mony. Other Things to Organize But there were also other things to organize. One of the imperatives was a visit to the local police. It would have been impossible to hide my presence in such a small village in which my German wife would surely become the talk of the town. Because I knew that the local police officers were classified as ‘Coloured’, it was easier to ask them exactly what instructions they had received. The officer co-operated fully. I told him of the arrangements we had made to sleep separately, but instead he encouraged us: “You are married. Behave yourselves as such. If I get new instructions from my headquarters in Stellenbosch, I shall warn you timely.” Next on the list of things to do was to inform Alice Habelgaarn and Kathi Schulze of the Elim Home (for handicapped children) that Rosemarie would not spend the nights with them at the Mission House after all.2 In the course of our conversation there, we mentioned that we intended to return to Johannesburg by other means than by air. Kathi noted that she wanted to go to the USA soon for the wedding of her sister Jo who was due to marry Dennis Fahringer. She would be very happy if we could take her car to Johannesburg. Thus it would also be cheaper for her and travelling the 1500 Kilometres by car in both directions would have been rather strenuous as well. Black is Beautiful On Easter Saturday we went to the graveyard for the obli­gatory annual cleaning turn. Rosemarie wore one of my “Black is beau­tiful” T-shirts. I was glad that she did it because it had been quite a problem to some friends that I sported these shirts. We met one of these friends, a pretty dark-com­plexioned young woman from our youth group in District Six. She was a former Roggebaai High School learner, who lived just down the road in Arundel Street. At that time she had been coming into and going of the seminary complex. “That’s not true!” she exclaimed, as she pointed to Rose­marie’s T-shirt. We had some trouble explaining to her that God has 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 law.3 However, we didn’t feel any strain at all because of this. We were experi­encing the wings of the eagle of our wedding sermon, the power of the interceding prayer of family and friends! Back in Cape Town, Jakes, my bachelor friend, would have none of it that Rosemarie should go and sleep with Lies Hoogendoorn and Hester van der Walt, our two CI 'White' friends, with whom we had fought many an apartheid skirmish. (It belonged to the duties of the police to peep into bedrooms to see if ‘'Whites'’ were sleeping with someone of another race.) Jakes insisted that we move into the so-called servant’s quarters of his home, the parsonage of the Hanover Park Sendingkerk congregation. Eventually, Rosemarie never slept in the flat of Lies and Hester in the suburb of Observatory. We were learning fast to behave ourselves normally in an abnormal society. Showing Rosemarie Around Rosemarie and I tried not to provoke anybody through our presence, but on the other hand, we had now set ourselves the goal to be ourselves as much as possible. We would simply do the most convenient thing with regard to notice boards and the like. We would act as if we were in any other country. This meant in concrete terms that we had to ignore the notices indicating the facilities for the different races. Initially there was no necessity to appear in public. But now I also wanted to show my wife something of Cape Town. One of the first things that she just had to see was District Six, or more correctly, what was left of it. This slum area of Cape Town with its beautiful setting between Table Mountain and the sea had been declared a 'White' area in 1966. In the years thereafter, many houses have been demolished. District Six was the part of Cape Town where I had spent my first and last years in South Africa. While I was studying at the theological seminary just prior to my leaving South Africa for good, we witnessed the bulldozer at work - demolishing one house here, one shop there. I took Rosemarie to the vicinity of my childhood, but unfortunately our parental house at 30 Combrinck Street had already been flattened. The two houses to the left and the right in the row were still standing there. Thus she could get some idea of what the area looked like. However, she could still see the Zinzendorf Primary School where I had my first years of schooling as well as the seminary building, previously the old parsonage where the German missionaries lived.. On that particular Saturday morning Wolfgang Schäfer was actually teaching at the seminary. Quite conspicuous was the presence of lady students like Rica Goliath and Angeline Swart. In our days that was not possible. The group coming together in this way was actually pre-empting a synod decision to accept female students at the seminary. (Rica and Angeline were to become leaders in the denomination at the turn of the millennium.) A must was, of course, a trip to Table Mountain with the cable car. The experience there might sound hilarious today, but it is not really funny. This is how I narrated it in What God Joined Together: 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. I have, similarly, some discomfort to paste some of the aburdities of apartheid society. They are definitely not precious memories, but they do give the new generation a fuller picture of life in South Africa in those dark days: 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... Chris Wessels, the fourth person of our close Sendingkerk-Moravian circle in the mid-1960s (Jakes and Allan Boesak were the other two), was not at home when we slept at their home in Port Elizabeth, but we met Billy Temmers, a youth friend. This would usher in a detour via the mission station Enon, where Billy was the pastor. (Enon is one of the first Moravian mission stations in the country, already started in 1818.) Driving through the Ciskei we had to cross an 'international' border into the Transkei homeland, thankfully without a hitch as we described above with me as 'chauffeur' of three young 'White' ladies. In Umtata we popped in at our friend Douglas Bax and his wife Betty. There Douglas lectured at a theological Seminary. We slept in the manse of Eckard Buchholz when he was still a single missionary. He had challenged me to learn Xhosa when we shared a room in May 1974: Here follows a few snippets of my interaction with him and the run-up to our honeymoon, as narrated in What God Joined Together: 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 to write a letter requesting a visa for four weeks. UNHERALDED SPIRITUAL GIANTS With Jakes far away in Umtata and Port Elizabeth until 1971, Ds. Piet Bester was my chief mentor. Posthumously I want to honour the memory of the great spiritual giant. Likewise, Rachel Balie, godmother of our son Danny, who protracted pancreatic cancer, ultimately succombing to it, has a special place in our memories. I narrated her role in my advocacy on behalf of our friend Chris Wessels, when he was detained because of his service to Robben Island prisoners for the South African Council of Churches. I add a few lines about my involvement with the Moral Re-armament Movement, which influenced me significantly to discern the power of confession: Soon after our arrival in Holland in September 1977, we received a letter from our friend Rachel Balie, who had returned to South Africa after the completion of her studies. She wrote that Chris Wessels, a minister colleague and long-time friend, in whose home Rosemarie and I had been on our honeymoon journey, had been imprisoned. Nobody from his family knew where he was incarcerated. He was never formally accused or brought before a court of law. Later we understood that his main 'offences' were his involvement and role in the formulating of a hard hitting statement at the conference of the South African Council of Churches and that he helped to care for the families of political prisoners on behalf of that body. Shortly before this, Steve Biko, a 'Black' activist, died while in police custody. We feared that the same thing could happen to Chris. Advocacy On Behalf of a Friend In Detention Egged on by Rosemarie, my anti-apartheid activist spirit was aroused. I moved into action mode, attempting to nudge the Moravian Church leaders into action on behalf of our brother in detention. Initially it involved a bit of a battle to get our church authorities in Bad Boll (Germany) on board, but they subsequently also urged Moravian church leaders in other countries to write to the respective S.A. Embassies. We heard later that this move possibly saved Chris’s life. A Stint With Moral Rearmament At the end of 1977 Rosemarie and I attended the Moral Rearmament[4] conference in Caux, Switzerland. There the apology of the daughter of Ds. George Daneel, a MRA leader, on behalf of 'Whites' for the hurts that the South African government had inflicted on us, made a deep impression on me. (The clergyman had been a former Springbok rugby player.) The power of vicarious confession left an indelible mark on me, something that I perceived – possibly a touch too naively - as something which could change the social and political landscape of South Africa. In Caux (Switzerland) we also met Rommel Roberts, a Cape anti-apartheid activist. The practice of Moral Rearmament adherents, to write down thoughts that came up during a few moments of quiet meditation, was one that suited the anti-apartheid activist spirit in me perfectly. My subsequent interest and involvement in Moral Re-armament taught me to jot down insights and possible actions during my personal ‘quiet time’. In a not very charitable activist way, especially through letters to various Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers, I resolutely pursued my goal of returning to South Africa by 1980, i.e. attempting to get the apartheid laws gradually repealed. (Much later, I changed my views in my correspondence with the South African authorities significantly, after I had discerned from Scripture that one could not really reform a wicked system; that it had to be eradicated completely.) As a radical activist, I started collating the documents and correspondence pertaining to our struggle with the authorities in South Africa. The title of the developing manuscript was Honger na Geregtigheid (Hunger for Justice.). Memories Around Our Children We turn now to our own children. Already in the run-up of the birth there was quite a lot of anxiety after we had lost our first-born David, at whose birth there had been quite a lot of tears, not only when Rosemarie had to be admitted premature to the Neukoellner Krankenhaus because of placental insuffiency. Better advice by the gynocologist in Boll in the first months of pregnancy, and possibly also some inexperience on our side when we agreed to move to Berlin with our meagre belongings in a rented truck, might also have saved our first-born. I have much more severe remorse to this day, however, because of a serious error on my side. I chose to preach on the Sunday when my wife had to give birth to a dead foetus - thus without her husband at her side.) I recorded the following about the birth of Danny in Spandau and the first months thereafter: Birth of Danny My parents had started preparing to come and visit us after the birth of our first child. We encouraged them to continue with the preparations nevertheless, despite the fact that there was now no baby to show. Great was the joy a little while later when we had my parents with us in Berlin. That visit became a highlight to them and to us at Easter 1976. Soon thereafter, Rosemarie was pregnant once again. Tension arose when a complication set in. She was therefore closely monitored in the highly rated Steglitz Hospital. All the more we were happy when Rosemarie gave birth to Danny on the 4th of February, 1977. However, she had to deliver by way of a caesarean in far-away Spandau - in the opposite corner to the suburb Neukölln in the metropolis of Berlin where we were living. In the end it was touch and go or we could have lost our baby son as well. The umbilical chord around his neck curbed his entering the world in the normal way. At home our little Danny kept Rosemarie quite busy soon enough, although I helped to give him the bottle and cleaning him. I never got to relish the latter chore though! A Sad Welcome and Good Bye Upon our arrival at D.F. Malan Airport, the name of the international airport of Cape Town at that time, we heard that my sister had passed on the previous evening. We were thus in time to attend the funeral. Hoe kan ek u prys, the anthem of our clan, was of course, a must at this occasion. Rosemarie and our almost four-year old son Danny had learned the hymn, that was sung at every family occasion, as well. Leer u my o Heer, my lewe lank u deur my wandel te eer (Teach me, oh Lord, to honour you through my walk with you), was a fitting but challenging prayer. It was felt that the event of the Joorst clan at the Jolly Carp Recreation Centre in Grassy Park, that our late sister Magdalene had initiated, should go ahead just after Christmas. She had hoped, of course, that she could still attend it for the last time and meet the 200 odd clan members. In a series of events prior to our scheduled return to Holland, we discerned God’s hand clearly. This happened especially during the evening devotion of 19 January 1981 in Elim. My father was reading the scriptural Macedonian injunction for that day: ‘Kom oor en help ons.’ Our mother was quite ill at that time. Her passing into eternity was actually anticipated. With Daddy’s heart condition, which caused him to go on early retirement, it was a big question whether I would see one or both of them alive again after our return to Holland. The Anti-Apartheid Spirit Hardened Me By this time I had, however, become quite a hardened anti-apartheid activist. The only constraint that I had, was that I waged my opposition from a religious platform. I thought to have discerned, however, that the unity of believers was all-important in the battle against apartheid. We were thus very much encouraged by a multi-racial group from different denominations in Stellenbosch that had been started by Professor Nico Smith and a few pastors. (I met Professor Smith later when he visited the Netherlands and we corresponded subsequently.) This rare phenomenon in South Africa at that time was a sequel to the SACLA event in Pretoria of 1979. Rosemarie was deeply moved when she saw how our brother‑in‑law Anthony was struggling after the death of his beloved wife. She could not understand why I insisted on going to Johannesburg in the remaining week before our scheduled departure for Holland. The anti-apartheid activist spirit had made me uncompassionate. When people heard that I had no employment in Holland on our return there, some of them asked me why we didn’t stay longer. According to certain trusted people to whom we turned for advice like our friend, the Anglican Reverend Clive McBride, I could easily get a post with my reputation as a Mathematics teacher and the dearth of qualified colleagues in ‘Coloured’ schools for that subject. When Clive McBride double-checked it, this was confirmed. But I was not to be moved to stay longer in Cape Town. I wanted to proceed to Johannesburg. Not even the possibility of my mother passing on soon - and that I would not see any of my parents again - could move me significantly. Divinely Cornered On the afternoon that had been scheduled as our final time together, my special friend Jakes was at hand, taking us to the Strandfontein beach. A strong wind was blowing there. In the evening, we were due to board the train for Johannesburg. This time we had received government permission to travel in the same compartment as a family without any ado, albeit that it did bug me that one still had to ask for permission for such a mundane issue. My manuscript Honger na Geregtigheid had possibly done some intimidating work in government circles. When we arrived in Sherwood Park at the home of the Esau family, the train tickets were, however, nowhere to be found. I must have lost them in Strandfontein. With the strong wind there, it would have been futile to go back, to try and find the small tickets. God had caught up with me once again! The Holy Spirit had thankfully softened me up by now. Reticently I agreed to stay in Cape Town for another week. My parents were pleasantly surprised when we pitched up in Elim once again. This time we had interesting news for them. We had decided to extend our stay in South Africa, unless I got the Religious Instruction teaching post in Holland for which I had applied. Tha was the new 'fleece'. After the extra week in Cape Town, everything was cut and dried. It was confirmed that we should try and stay for another six months, but forfeiting our special round-trip air tickets. The church in Holland graciously agreed that we could leave our furniture in the parsonage in Zeist. A new pastor for the Utrecht congregation had not been appointed yet, so that there was no urgency to vacate the parsonage. We could also pay the accumulated six months rent later. Four years later, when we stayed in Richie Arendse's caravan in the yard of the Esau family in Sherwood Park, our son Danny joined his cousin Elizabeth every morning, going to the creche of the Salvation Army in Lansdowne. A funny memory of those days was when four-year old Danny, who was a shade bigger than his peers. Not used to this competitive type of thing, however, Danny turned his head around, waiting for them to catch up with him. I can't remember whether he won or not. But I derived a lesson from that. Comraderie and encouragement is much better, more Christ-like I dare say, than a competitive attitude, wanting to be the best.when he was already well ahead of his classmates, waiting for them to catch up with him. At that time God used our son Danny to bring me to correct me when I was still very much of an anti-apartheid activist, and easily offended by any trace of racism. In On the Eagle’s Wings I jotted down the following: We heard about 'possibly the only good multi-racial fellowship of Cape Town, the Living Hope Baptist Church that congregated at the St.Giles institution for the physically handicapped in Mowbray. Already surprised when I was the only person of colour when we went there the first time, nobody took the trouble to speak to me when I stood completely alone after the service, waiting on Rosemarie who had gone to fetch Danny from the children's group. When something similar happened a second time, I had enough of it, definitely not ready to back there. By this time we were living in Crawford, thus much nearer than for Sherwood Park. (With the blue Cadillac of Windsor and Ray we attempted to go to Elim every second week-end.) I The next Sunday I wanted to drop Rosemarie and the children Living Hope and then go to Bridgetown where Kallie August, my former student colleague from District Six, was the minister. When I stopped to drop them, Danny cried terribly. The Holy Spirit convicted me immediately. I decided to stay. God was at work in a profound way when the minister, Lloyd Thomas, said that God said that someone else would bring the message that day. Just prior to this, I was asked on short notice at the school after the Resurrection Week-end to lead the devotional exercise at the school assembly, and I also preached at the Congregational Church where our friend Douglas Bax was the preacher. I felt a clear nudge to share the same message with the Living Hope congregation. He also said something about the Moravians of Herrnhut. I knew that I was meant, but I still hoped that someone else would go forward. Lloyd hereafter did something very unconventional. He just sat down, obviously in obedience to the nudge of the Holy Spirit. The ensuing silence of only a few seconds felt to me much longer. I was challenged to be obedient likewise, knowing that I was the one meant, but still hoping that someone else would respond. After going forward and sharing, I went overboard with a touch of carnality, also mentioning what had transpired the previous week. I should not have done that. Lloyd responded positively to the message in principle, but possibly noting with a touch of carnality on his part as well, that he would be speaking on Romans 13 in the evening service. He was basically hinting that he would be correcting my challenge. (The standard exposition of Paul's teaching among 'Whites' in South Africa on this chapter was that one had to obey the government in all matters, although everybody new that apartheid and racism was sinful.) This was perhaps the first time that this so-called non-racial congregation was clearly challenged from the pulpit about the apartheid ideology with Mary Magdalene, a former demon-possessed as the divine instrument with the good news of the risen Lord. Fast-forwarding to10 years later, Danny was also involved in our orientation visit to the country at the end of 1990, together with Tabitha, recorded in On the Eagle’s Wings. In the following excerpt we also mention Kees Lugthardt of the Dorothea Mission. Kees was the printer of the first edition of Patrick Johnstone's seminal prayer manual Operation World: Crying Children in Ministry In at least two cases God used crying children to minister to us. I noted already how God used our 4-year old Danny to bring me to correct me in 1981 when I was still very much of an anti-apartheid activist, and easily offended by any trace of racism. When Tabitha was 8-year old the Father used her to teach Rosemarie and I after we had been thrown into a dilemma when a Christian friend seriously meant to impress on us the absolute necessity of personally experiencing the ‘Toronto Blessing’. According to him, we would be missing out significantly if we did not have this blessing. We had our doubts. We nevertheless went to the Lord in prayer with the question. His lesson in reply to us was unequivocal and almost prompt. Our 8-year old daughter Tabitha had to cry unabatedly just as I was about to go to the Sunday evening service of a fellowship before Christmas where there had been big interest in getting training in Muslim Outreach. Somehow she had become very much burdened that people might go to hell. Tabitha now wanted to know whether she could volunteer her life and go to hell instead so that others could be saved from a lost eternity. Romans 9, where Paul agonized in a similar way, came alive before our eyes. Rosemarie explained to her that Jesus did just that when he died for our sins on the Cross of Calvary. I went to the fellowship near to our home with the hope of getting quite a few of the 30-day Ramadan Prayer focus booklets among the people. Now however, there was hardly any interest in anything else than an overt ‘laughing in the Spirit’ that appeared to me rather carnal. For Rosemarie and me the penny dropped: it is not that sort of ‘laughing in the Spirit’, but our weeping for the lost that honours God more! Going back to our orientation trip to South Africa in 1990, precious memories take us to the WEC HQ in Durban where we got enough confirmation to move forward in the same direction: A Sense of Home-Coming In a wonderful way transport was supplied for us to get to Josini. We were given a ‘bakkie’, a transport vehicle with only one seat for two or three passengers. Our two children that we had taken with us – Danny, our eldest son and Tabitha, our youngest - could sit under a canopy at the back. We had to return the vehicle to one of the Van Stelten children in Durban. The son was only too happy to have convenient transport in this way to go home for Christmas. Another son would return the vehicle later to the military base Voortrekkerhoogte near Pretoria. In Josini it was clearly confirmed that the Lord did not call us to serve in Ubombo, a school for Zulu children. On the other hand, when we joined the national conference of WEC in Durban, we experienced a sense of home-coming. Although we did not know anybody present, we felt that we belonged there, in spite of a hick-up or two.4 Durban was the ideal preparation for our candidates’ orientation at Bulstrode in England, which was to follow soon after our return from South Africa. Also in Cape Town - the next step - things fell in place. It was agreed that we could return there at the beginning of 1992 with a role in representative work and possibly for evangelistic work among students. It was great to be present for the 80th birthday of our mom and the Golden Wedding Anniversary of our parents. We hereafter linked up with old friends like Jattie and Florrie Bredekamp. They not only assisted us with contacts which helped us to consider the future schooling of our children, but they also put a car at our disposal that we could use during our week or so at the Cape before our return to Europe. The link to a couple that had a child at the German School looked promising because our children could speak neither English nor Afrikaans. We knew now that this would be the best option at least for the two oldest boys. Fast-forwarding to 1999, I want to share now how we as a family almost lost Danny due to a burst appendix. How thankful that Maria van Maarseveen, a Dutch WEC colleague, was on hand to take him to Somerset Hospital while I was in Nairobi. There was clearly some spiritual warfare involved, was one can deduce from what I wrote about the traumatic event: A Strategic Detour Out of the blue I was asked to represent our country at a Tear Fund-sponsored conference on Muslim Evangelism. (Aware that direct flights in Africa were very expensive, I thought that this could be an opportunity to speak to folk in Madrid and Holland towards the realisation of a centre for drug rehabilitation and a discipling house for converts from Islam.) The overseas trip to Nairobi via Holland and Spain turned out to be quite strategic on the short term. My two days in Holland were special, pivotal in getting funds for our discipling house ... I discovered that the invitation to the international conference in Nairobi was a part of God’s over-ruling. The Nairobi conference ran parallel to a traumatic event at home. While I was still in Spain, our son Danny was rushed to hospital after his appendix had burst. He turned out to be allergic to the medication given to him. According to reports it was touch and go or we could have lost him. Rosemarie sensed that this was an attack from the arch enemy yet again while I was away. She alerted prayer warriors at home and abroad. I got the news that they were fighting for his life at a strategic moment in Nairobi, when we were not making much headway to get a draft on paper which we could report back to our respective missionary sending bodies. Divine Intervention When someone at the Nairobi conference tried to share something about spiritual warfare, I had the opportunity to chip in. The impact was tangible when I reported how I had just heard how our son escaped death narrowly. In the months hereafter, we heard from different people how they had been praying for Danny's life to be spared. Another anecdote takes us back in time to those days in 1978 after apartheid had the beating of me, when our Father used Oom Bey and Ds Joop Lensink, a Dutch dominee to change me from within, healing me of my extreme anger, not wanting to put my foot on South African soil again: Tears And Anxiety A pleasant ‘aftermath’ of our visit to South Africa was that Rosemarie was pregnant once again. It was so fitting that the addition to the family was conceived just before our return to Holland, after I had been reconciled to my home country. A few months after our return to Holland, Rosemarie was diagnosed with Hepatitis. Both she and Danny, our son, had contracted it in South Africa. In January 1979 both of them had (yellow) jaundice. We were not overjoyed at all when the doctor felt compelled to suggest an abortion, intimating that this was advisable because of the great risk to the foetus. The possibility was great that we would have to cope with a deformed or handicapped baby. But we would not have anything of that. As a matter of principle, we decided that we would accept the baby in whatever state it would come into the world, as God’s gift to us. For the next six months we had to live with the real possibility of a handicapped child to be born in August 1979. The crowning of my renewed commitment to work towards reconciliation in my home country was to me the birth of our second son, 9 months after our visit to S.A.! On August the 4th our second son was born healthy - against the prognosis of the doctor. Fittingly, we gave him the name Rafael. This means God, the healer. With Danny's spouse Chrissy an interesting pattern started, namely in the choice of their partners. When Chrissy Schlue was visiting a friend in Mühlacker, we were in nearby Lienzingen with the Braun family. She came to discuss the possibility of a short term missionary endeavour with us. A few months down the road she joined us in Vredhoek with Hanna Noelle after their missionary training in Eppstein at the WEC German Headquarters. At the Cape Town Baptist Church Danny was leading a young adults group as well as the worship group. Chrissy was a member of both. When he wanted to go and do a year of Bible School training at the WEC-related instition Kirchberg we suspected that there were other motives. That he stayed subsequently to take a job in his field of electrical engineering in the Freiburg area where she was studying, was only natural. The rest is history. Next to having children of their own, Josiah (16y), Noa (14), Samu(el) (10) and Adina (5), the couple cared for many a baby entrusted to them by the local Social Services. The other children got very attached to these infants that left their home after a few months. With Ebrahim (4), that they call Ebbo, the family decided to keep him in foster care. We shared earlier the run-up to the birth of our son Rafael, when Rosemarie had Hepatitis (jaundice) when she was pregnant with him. At the beginning of our ministry at the Cape in January 1992, the Father would use Rafael in a very special way: In Dire Straits Finding suitable accommodation to rent at R1500 per month - this was the equivalent of the pledge from our home church in Holland, was almost like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. After we had seen a swimming pool at one of the houses, our daughter Magdalena had the liberty during our Sunday afternoon 'rondje' after lunch, our weekly devotional prayer time with the children where everyone participated, to add in her request for a house: Alsjeblieft een huis met een zwembad, Heer. (And give us a house with a swimming pool please, Lord!) Whenever the home owners heard that we had five children, they lost interest. We soon made a point of mentioning this fact right at the outset whenever we enquired. This spared us unnecessary waste of time, petrol and more disappointments. Sleeping on the Street? This was our situation on Thursday, the 30th of January at the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute in Surrey Estate. We could not believe our eyes when a house with four bedrooms plus another room was available in the suburb called Gardens at ‘our price’. It was, furthermore, not very far from the German school, albeit that a busy road had to be crossed. The timing seemed to be perfect, because it was almost the end of the month and we could move in straight away. We were all set to 'camp' there until the container with our belongings would arrive by ship. The wife of the house owner took for granted that her husband would agree to have us because he was a German-speaking Swiss. We were really in the clouds when the phone call confirmed that he indeed agreed initially. We were already praising the Lord at supper time, when the public phone in the dining room rang once again. This time it was the husband himself. He had just heard from his wife that we have five children; this was a major problem to him. They were not prepared to rent their house to us. After my return to the supper table with the shattering news, all of us were devastated. Little Tabitha vented her fears spontaneously as she cried uncontrollably: ‘Will we now have to sleep on the street?’ This was a reality in Cape Town anno 1992, which she had possibly already heard about. How thankful Rosemarie and I were when our 12-year old son Rafael consoled his sister: ‘No, the Lord will see to it that we will not have to sleep on the street.’ I had a big lump in my throat at the child-like faith and yet also the maturity into which our son had started to grow. In our observation as parents, he had been experiencing it as a big sacrifice to leave Holland to come and live in Africa, leaving behind in Holland his best friend. All our children have, of course, experienced how the Father answered out prayers. Around Rafael's wife Damaris there have been strong links. She is the second daughter of Mechthild and Hermann Frick, with whom we have been close friends for well over 50 years. Whenever we were in Southern Germany, we often visited them in Stuttgart Ruit, and they also lodged with us in Holland as a family. In 1992 I was able to assist that Damaris, generally known as Mara, and a friend could come and serve as volunteers with the G.H. Starke home in Hanover Park where Val Kadalie was the matron. They resided with Charles and Val Kadalie in nearby Penlyn Estate at this time. After getting mugged by gangsters in Harmony Park at the end of that year when we were with Mara and a friend together, a close relationship evolved with Charles and Val and the City Mission of Hanover Park. Later we will be sharing more about this special couple. Rafael and Sammy were members of the basketball team of both the German School and one at the Cape Town Baptist Church in a very strenuous time of our ministry that I recorded as follows: A Difficult Month I had to discover anew: If there were to occur a spiritual breakthrough, a revival in the Mother City of South Africa, it would be God’s sovereign work. Our personal experiences highlighted the need for more prayer. October 1996 was a month when we were very much involved in spiritual warfare, often at the receiving end. I started writing a diary that went as follows at some stage: “The attack starts not only very early in the month, but also early in the day. Neither Rosemarie nor I was able to sleep properly. For Rosemarie it was the second sleepless night in a row. She shares her concern that we were getting nowhere with our ministry: ‘For almost five years we have toiled here in Cape Town. And what have we achieved? Almost nothing! We might as well go back to Holland.’ I concede that I also feel completely depressed.” Prayer walking by me and Rosemarie in October 1996 for a 'New Testament'-based fellowship to be established in Bo-Kaap, the (former) Muslim stronghold, brought us anew to the discovery that demonic forces were at work that are trying to destroy the churches of the city centre. The necessity of church unity was more than evident. It had to become one of our priorities! Somehow we forgot that we had learned that we should not be doing prayer walking alone as a couple in the Muslim stronghold. The risk of spiritual warfare became very evident when the arch enemy tried to attack us via the children. This seemed for Rosemarie to be the signal for us to stop with our ministry. To her the price was too high to have to sacrifice anyone of our children. Reminding her of the false alternatives, I had to face years ago when someone suggested that I should choose between my love for her and that for my country, I pointed out that we should fight in prayer for our second son, who seemed to be targeted yet again.5 This definitely paid off. He came through the crisis with flying colours. He later became pivotal for the ministry of Cross Culture, a ministry among young people of a few city churches while he studied at Cornerstone Christian College.6 There he completed a Bachelor of Arts (cum laude) degree in 2002.7 Rafael’s friendship with Francois Booysen at the youth of our church was less of a success for us as a family. The young man had experienced serious rejection by his family, dropped out of school and became a street kid, using drugs. On the other hand, Rafael’s close friendship with Gildas, a refugee Congolese teenager, helped to take the congregation as a whole to great heights in outreach to the poor and needy, setting an example for many other churches in the Cape Peninsula. The two were also the guinea pigs for a ministry to teenagers at the church, ably led by Elsabe Odendal. Rafael’s prowess in basket ball set the example for Sammy, who went on to be selected for Western Province while being a member of the German School. The two of them became the crux of a powerful basketball ministry under the leadership of Elsabe Odendal at the church into the surrounds. His year with YFC in Germany became a pioneering venture with various South African Germans following suit. Soon after our prayer stint of October 1996 we heard of rifts in various churches around the Muslim stronghold. It was a sort of breakthrough to me that we could stage the launching of the new Ramadan booklet at the historic St Stephen’s Church, i.e. on the doorstep of Bo-Kaap only a few months after the great PAGAD scare. Sandwiched between his Youth for Christ stint in Germany and a more permanent sojourn in Europe, Rafael completed the Cambridge University linked Celta course for teaching English to foreigners. During this relatively short period, he assisted us tremendously to get our own ministry of service to African refugee-type foreigners via teaching English to started at the Cape Town Baptist Church. Thereafter Rafael went to Chemnitz in East Germany, to serve there as an English teacher, he linked up with the Salvation Army and the Jesus Freaks. There Mara was a prominent member. When Rosemarie and I visited Rafael there in the course of our WEC Internatonal itinerant ministry, we surprisingly bumped into Mechthild and Hermann Frick, who happened to visit their daughter. Neither they nor we knew that something had been brewing. In the heavenlies God was obviously also at work. Because we had not been closely in contact with the family in Ruit apart from meeting Mechthild and Hermann and their younger children occasionally around this period, everybody on both sides of the equation was surprised when Rafael and Mara became an item via a quiz over a few months not long thereafter. The big aha moment for everybody came when the clue was the name Er in the OT. (Er is the letter R in the German alphabeth. Rafael ❤ Mara filled the last piece of the puzzle for the bulk of those who guessed.) When Raf went to the UK to resume studies in Linguistics at Luton University and Mara going to serve at the head office of the Salvation Army in London, it was no surprise any more. On a pitstop at Gatwick Airport in November 2007 Mara and Raf came to meet me. I was on my way to Orlando in Florida in the US, after an invitation initiated by our famous Egyptian friend. (He stayed with us in the mid-1990s, causing quite an uproar among Muslims when his written testimony landed on the desk of Maulana Petersen in Newfields.) The next time I would see Rafael and his girlfriend, Mara shared her home with our daughter Maggie and our first grandchild Lolita. Rafael went to salvage them in Belgium from an unhealthy relationship with the father of our granddaughter. The background of my visit to Luton, thus did not have great memories. In this town it was special though, to visit the millinery museum. (Way back in the late 1940 my father had worked as a blocker of female hats for Luton Milliners in the extinct business.) We have to back-track to give the salient info about our daughter Magdalena, who came to be called Maggie in due course, just like two of my own aunts. She was, of course, also named after our late sister Magdalene, of course. The family name is one that many in the Moravian Church have, reminding us of De Oude Lena of Genadendal in our mission history. The birth of Maggie was more or less the opposite of the last time round in this regard with Rafael: Back In Our 'Jerusalem' Back in Holland, a very difficult period in our lives started after our return from the impactful six months stint in South Africa. It was quite difficult to accept that Rosemarie was pregnant again. We very much wanted another child - preferably a daughter - but the timing of the pregnancy was rather uncomfortable. I was still unemployed, with little prospect of anything coming up. Time was running out because my work permit was due to expire soon. However, we had no motivation to start packing. The church had offered us temporary accommodation in Bad Boll, where we started our marriage in 1975. But we had no peace about this move. And then it happened. Virtually on the last minute, I got a temporary teaching post in nearby Utrecht. (Only later we discerned that we had to remain in Holland and that God still had to chisel away some rough edges in me for more effective service.) Spiritual Warfare Highlighted When we came to Holland in 1977 we were fairly ignorant with regard to unseen things happening in the spiritual realm. However, we should have known better in the mid-1980s because we had learnt of occult realities through reading material of Kurt Koch, a German theologian. We were so thankful when we were spared a severe calamity at this time. Someone rang the bell of our home to ask if I knew anything about the baby left on the street in front of our house. Just a few minutes prior to this, I had placed the baby basket with our daughter Magdalena behind the car, finding the back door cum boot of our station wagon locked. I trusted that Rosemarie would see it there. It was Rosemarie’s habit to first reverse from our parking area. I did not think about this when I put the baby basket at the back. When she came to the car, she thought the baby was in the vehicle. She drove off, without looking. Only at the destination, the woman’s group of the Panweg fellowship, she discovered that there was no Magdalena. In the case of the habitual custom, she would have driven over the basket with the precious content. We choose to go to pleasant memories of Maggie, with the most recent one her visit to us from 2 March 2025. These were the run-up to the most wonderful months of our lives, ahead of our Golden Wedding anniversary and the aftermath, of which the collating of Precious Memories which kept me busy for at least another few weeks. Spiritual Warfare would be highlighted once again in the run-up to the birth of Sammy. We hoped to have four children from the outset. (In fact, at a conference of the Offensive Junger Christen in 1978 in Germany, the participants were asked to come up with their vision for the future 10 years hence - I envisaged having four children and being back in my home country again permanently.) In the end, we even surpassed the first part of my dream with one child extra. The second part of my vision was realized in January 1992. A Battle in Rosemarie's Womb Rosemarie had excruciating pains in her back during the pregnancy with our Samuel. She feared that evil forces were trying to kill the foetus. We had learnt about generational curses and influences in the meantime. Rosemarie heard from her father why he never wanted a son. Over generations some curse had rested on their family coming via the sons.8 One night when she had this heaviness and fears again, she woke me. When she told me this, we immediately prayed, breaking the curse in Jesus name! That was the last time that Rosemarie had these problems although the actual birth of Samuel was not plain sailing at all. Also at the time of his birth a battle raged. Rosemarie was well overdue. Mama Göbel had already arrived from Germany to come and assist the family, but the baby refused to come. Rosemarie decided to join the summer holiday fun when our GNK friends decided to pick blueberries in the forest. As was the custom, we cycled as a group. The exercise was especially good for the mother in spe. While we were engaged in the blueberry picking activity, our Sammy gave the early indication that he wanted to leave the safety of her womb. We stopped our activity in the field immediately. When we landed at the maternity ward of the Zeister Ziekenhuis, Rosemarie had harvested a nickname, the blueberry mom. But the battle was not over. Although the fruit water had come in the forest, Sammy would still not make his entry into the world. Also the aid of a drip machine was not successful. After a few more hours, the staff discovered that the machine was defective. Rosemarie was so aware of a spiritual battle being fought out for the life of the foetus. After an intense round of prayer she got peace. Soon thereafter labour set in and we were blessed with a healthy boy. This was, however, not the last time that we almost lost him. Samuel’s birth brought Brigitte Röser, a Dutch friend who has been visiting us from Germany from time to time, closer into the family frame. We asked her to become his godmother. In later years she would become our contact person for the distribution of our newsletters in Germany. | Sammy Almost Drowned Little Samuel was playing in Henschotermeer, where we often went with our children. Danny was swimming when he suddenly saw black hair in the water. He quickly grabbed the baby, only to discover that it was no less than Sammy, his baby brother. Knowing that we were now in the front-line of missionary outreach, we were not surprised any more at the attacks that we recognized as demonic. Yet, we still had not discerned mutual links between Communism, Islam and other anti-Christian forces. Fast forwarding now to 1995, after our return from home assignment in Europe I recorded the following of Sammy at that time, as a special memory of thankfulness to our Father for sparing his life: Back At the Cape Within our own family the first few days back at the Cape were quite traumatic. We returned from an extraordinary hot summer in Holland to an icy Cape Town. Our son Samuel promptly developed double pneumonia. Early on the first Sunday morning after our return we had to rush him to Somerset Hospital. It was touch and go or we could have lost him. That our eldest son Danny prayed with me when things looked very critical, was a special blessing indeed!! In the next few years Sam moved into a difficult period as teenager with bad influences from peers from affluent families in his class. After he came to faith however, he bloomed, co-leading the Bible group at the German School and attending the Bible School for high school learners of His People Ministries, together with Tabitha. I recorded an interesting snippet from his life as follows in Revival Seeds Germinate, Part 3: Disasters Shake Young Christians Towards the end of our stay in Germany in July 2007, where we had gone for the wedding of our eldest son Danny, we received an email from Sam, who had returned from Germany earlier than us. The subject of the email was ‘pray’. Sam shared that Rüdiger (Rudi) Hauser, his close German friend who had gone to Austria to study, had been killed in a mountain cabin with some friends the day before, when a gas explosion collapsed the house. Rudi and another friend died on impact. The incident shook Sam very intensely. He had been leading the Bible group at the German High School together with Rudi. Students were moved to contribute sacrificially towards a deposit for a children’s home. At a ‘Simply Worship’ event shortly hereafter, the Holy Spirit ministered to Sam and Brendan Studti,9 another student friend, independently of each other. They were moved to contribute sacrificially, to give their savings and a bequest towards the deposit for a children’s home. A group of UCT students now started to come to our home quite regularly on Fridays, as they prayed and organised on behalf of such a children’s home. One of them was Sheralyn Thomas. This was followed by an impact into our own ministry, viz new involvement with Somalians: The next chapter with Somalians came in October 2007 via our son Sam who had become involved in the start of a prayer room at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He had become intensely involved with the vision of a children's home along with a group of UCT students. As a result, various UCT students including Sheralyn Thomas, the daughter of John and Avril Thomas, the pastoral couple of King of Kings Baptist Church, started visiting us quite regularly. We were not very keen to minister to Somalians as such when Rosemarie had a recurring dream one morning which seemed to indicate that we should resume outreach to Somalians. Our previous experience with some of them in Mitchells Plain in 2004/5 ended on a rather disappointing note. By October 2008 we had been linked to the All Nations International team for a few months already. They had been doing intensive outreach in the informal township Masiphumelele near to Fish Hoek already for months. There a major clash between Somalians and indigenous 'Blacks' had resulted in 50 people killed in 2006. We learned that Sheralyn Thomas had been negotiating in the talks between Somalians and Xhosas the previous year. She furthermore told us about a believer from the East African country who had just been baptized in Bellville. I needed no encouragement to phone the pastor of the Baptist Church there. I knew he had a heart for foreigners. It turned out that the Somalian Ahmed, who subsequently changed his name, had been baptized at that church on October 7. We had started with 'international Bible Study', intended as foundational teaching for new believers from the nations. An excerpt from Revival Seeds Germinate tells the story where our three boys operated together in the sports ministry at Cape Town Baptist Church: + Culture Among Youth in the City Bowl Our second eldest son Rafael returned from Germany at the end of 1999 where he had been evangelising with Youth for Christ in a mobile bus for the greater part of the year. After his return from overseas an interdenominational youth ministry called, ‘+ culture’ (cross culture), with the emphasis on the emblem of the Cross, started to flourish. With his musical talent, our son Danny was also quite pivotal in this movement. Unfortunate interference by one of the local pastors who had little vision for the unity of the Body of Christ, stifled the promising revivalist movement amongst the youth. The promising revivalist movement was stifled The Eagles Sports Ministry would have quite an big impact among City teenagers. It was started in 2000 as an outreach project to the community around the Cape Town Baptist Church by our son Sam and his German class mate Christopher Jahn. This was led by Elsabe Odendal, a sports teacher.  The ministry offered sport and play group activities to any child between the ages of 5 and 18 years old on a Saturday morning irrespective of their individual beliefs.  They used sport, mainly basketball and soccer as a tool to reach out with God’s love to the children living in our community.  Gospel seed was sown into many a young Muslim heart. The ministry ended in 2010 when the church leadership decided to discontinue the outreach. The sports ministry was revived when Eric Hofmeyer became the youth pastor there. Some damages at the hall that had been such a blessing to young people, however, caused the church leaders to convert the hall into a coffee and clothing shop, bringing a close to the ministry into the Bo-Kaap from that fellowship. This was sad, because there was still a full complement of youth leadership trained by Elsabe Odendal, and nurtured by Eric Hofmeyer, yongsters who were very enthusiastic to continue with the ministry. After stopping to function as a minister of the Moravian Church, a period of great uncertainty followed for us as a couple. This coincided with the practical need to feed the family. My interest at fighting apartheid was basically self-centered. In my heart there was the deep desire to return to my home country. During my quiet time in the mid-1980s eighties, God liberated me from this passion. I had been reading in the Word how Joseph was taken out of his home country against his will; that was how I felt. I thought to have discovered that Joseph never returned to Israel. Hereafter I was prepared to spend the rest of my life abroad. My preference was nevertheless Africa. I decided to resume studies in Mathematics, not only as a way of getting a teaching post more easily, but also as a vehicle with which I could return to Africa in ‘tent-making’ missionary work. Rosemarie could not appreciate my wish to go to a Muslim country like Egypt. But she initially allowed me hesitantly but patiently to continue with my studies in Mathematics, in order to use that as an entrance qualification into one of the countries that were closed for Christian missionaries. I had just turned 40 and our fifth child Tabitha was born on 25 April 1986, the very day I had a Maths examination to write and thus not able to be present for the birth. (Apart from our first born, who came lifeless into the world, and Danny, who was delivered via a Caesarean, I was privileged to be present at the birth of the other three.). The addition of Tabitha to the family brought less positive memories. I wrote the following in On the Eagle's Wings: My Mathematics studies caused a lot of frustration at home because I had so little time for Rosemarie and the children. From 1985 I had been attending lectures on two evenings per week and often thereafter I still studied or worked after coming home because I was also teaching simultaneously. One evening per week every fort-night there was also the Broederrraad (church council) meeting - without female members - apart from the responsibility and work associated with the leading of the city-wide evangelistic work of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan (GNK). Almost every evening of the week I was not at home. The children only really saw experienced me at the evening meal times and on the weekends. We tried to compensate for this by doing something together on the Sunday afternoons that they would enjoy. It surely was a good idea to take time with one child apiece over the weekends. This could be just going for a drive by bicycle, eat ice cream or whatever they would wish and which would not be expensive. This was also excellent for the education of our children, but it petered out however after only a few months. (Yet, we continued with the practice of me washing the dishes with one of the children in turn for many years, until I succumbed to Rosemarie’s request to buy a dish-washing machine because of the many guests we often had.) We were happy with our four children, not planning to have another child. We had been falling already out of the boat at that time. (A family with more than three children was more or less regarded as a-social.) I wrote in On the Eagle's Wings: .... But then it happened. Once Tabitha was there, she proved to be such a blessing. For one, she helped Magdalena to accept her role as a girl. (The little tomboy would for instance pull down her pants out in the open on the Broederplein emulating her two brothers as she tried to her thing rather aukwardly at a tree. Before Tabitha’s birth, Magdalena objected stubbornly when required to wear a dress, e.g. as flower girl for a wedding. This changed hereafter, when she saw the cute little dresses her little sister had received as gifts. From her own German background where their father would go on hikes with them on Sundays, Rosemarie was rather disappointed with me. I could never get excited to go on walks. (After all, we never possessed a car, so that walking was always a necessary must. I could not appreciate this as leisure. On the other hand, I enjoyed playing football with our boys. Also, I did not mind to go on the bicycle with the whole family to some playground with the children, especially when we did it together with another family or when we visited friends. We relished the Dutch custom of celebrating all sorts of occasions. Thus the twelve-and-a-half year wedding anniversary - it being the half of 25 years - was unforgettable for children and parents. Two and a half years prior to this we had been blessed when our Goed Nieuws Karavaan workers took care of our children to send us for a marriage enrichment weekend in the Dutch province of Zealand. And then there were the indelible memories of the unique annual Dutch Sinterklaas celebrations where the children would be busy for weeks before 5 December in some secretive corners of our big house to make ‘surprises’ that had to match the poems specially fitted to the person for whom the humorously wrapped gift is meant. Rosemarie would add the special touch to make every celebration extremely festive. A Compassionate Heart We travelled from Durban to Cape Town in January 1992. When the train stopped at De Aar, we bought bananas for R5 from a vendor. Before we could get money out in time to pay for it, the train departed. Little Tabitha burst out in tears because the poor people did not get their money. (A few weeks later she bursted out in tears again when it seemed as if we could become homeless. We share this in the next chapter.) When she was 8 years old, Tabitha's compassionate heart was even more extreme. That was precious to us in a learning curve when we needed guidance.We were pressured by a brother living with us regarding the 'Toronto Blessing, that would ravage many a congregations, abused by the arch enemy to spit fellowships. Also Cape Town Baptist Church was negatively impacted. I recorded the following in On the Eagle's Wings: Unknown to me, the excesses of the ‘Toronto blessing’ had become rife at the church I had attended and taught at. I witnessed profuse ‘laughing in the Spirit’ which I could not appreciate. I went there with the hope of getting quite a few of the 30-day Ramadan Prayer focus booklets among the people because before Christmas there had been such interest in Muslim Outreach in that fellowship. Now there was hardly any interest in anything else than an overt ‘laughing in the Spirit’ that appeared to me rather carnal. For Rosemarie and me the penny dropped: it is not that sort of ‘laughing in the Spirit’, but our weeping for the lost that honours God more! In the context of the rigours around the run-up to the building of our prayer room in February 2012, we include a precious memory of Tabitha and her husband Mike Mee, a few years after their marriage when they had no children. Here follows an excerpt from Tears, Tests and Testimonies. (The couple now have two boys, Mason and Asher.) Is This Your Idea, Lord? Because of inclement weather conditions on the first Saturday of December 2011, our prayer warriors met at our home. (We had been praying at Signal Hill since 1998, initially every fortnight and later once a month.) What an encouragement it was when Baruch Maayan climbed on to the roof above our dining room. There we hoped the prayer room facing Israel would be built. There Baruch anointed the space. A big challenge was the funds for the project, but our faith had grown after so many experiences over the previous decades. We trusted God to see us through if the prayer room was His confirmed will, without engaging in 'fund raising'. Here and there a financial gift came in towards the project, but nothing substantial. We became somewhat unsure whether it was indeed the Lord's commission to have the prayer room built. Or was it just a nice idea? Confirmation of the Prayer Room Project Early one January Saturday morning we took this matter anew to the Lord in prayer. In His faithfulness, the Father duly confirmed the project. When Rosemarie came out of our dining room door on a beautiful sunny morning, she was surprised by a special phenomenon. This was no less than a modern-day variation of the fleece experience of Joshua in the Bible. Above the awning and the area adjacent to it, on the top of the table on our north-facing balcony, there were rows of drops, whereas the rest of the balcony was completely dry. She looked up, only to see that there were also drops on the awning. Because the awning was just below the place where the prayer room would be built, we gladly interpreted this as divine confirmation of the project. A few weeks later, just before the Passover weekend, we had a devout young German medical student visiting us. He worked in one of our townships as an intern. When he heard about the prayer room project, his down to earth question was how we expected to fund it. We did not hesitate to tell him that we expected God to do it. We were, however, very much surprised, dumb-founded, when the very next day we received an email from Holland. The Dutch HQ of WEC International had received a bequest for the missionary work of the Cloetes in South Africa in 2010, which had just been cleared. Rosemarie and I did not expect to get the prayer room without some difficulty. That it would become a big nightmare, was not what we wished, however! The actual building process would ultimately lead to an asthmatic condition in Rosemarie because of the dust that was emitted. The pinnacle of this challenge was a serious mistake made by the Christian builder to whom we had given the task. This was compounded by exceptionally unseasonal heavy rain in February 2013. Our daughter Tabitha and her husband Mike visited us unexpectedly at that time, just as Rosemarie and I were praising God while we attempted to address the flooding of our kitchen! We had learnt through experience that praising God in adversity is a very powerful weapon in spiritual warfare! OTHER PEOPLE WHO ATTENDED OUR CELEBRATION It was such a blessing that we could have our celebration in the Moravian Hill premises to which I have such strong links. (I was christened here as a baby, attended school at the Zinzendorf Primary School here nearby in Arundel Street. I got my letters from my bonny over the ocean at 18 Ashley Street when I attended the seminary on the same premises.) Therefore it was so very special to have my two full-time student colleagues present. Fritz Faro, one of my former Bellville South High School learners in Mathematics classes, came with his wife Andriana all the way from George, along with their two sons Conrad en Fidel. In Revival Seeds Germinate Part 2 I wrote the following about Fritz: Our Interaction With the Jesus People Meanwhile, our student colleague Fritz Faro had been in close interaction with the Jesus People, a group of young men and women who came out of the hippy movement. We appreciated that they were radical, even though we had problems with their a-political stance, for example that people from the different races were sitting separately in their church services. Spiritually, their radicalism did rub off. It reminded me of the days with the SCA people of which I had become estranged, possibly because of the liberal phase through which I was going. In Jumping Over Walls I wrote about our common time with Gustine Joemath at the Moravian Seminary in District Six, including the start of our contact with Rev. Douglas Bax: Fritz was impacted significantly by the evangelistic zeal of the Jesus People that had ignited the Hippy Revival. Many young people, of whom many became pastors subsequently, became followers of Jesus, breaking through the racial barriers quietly. We - Gustine Joemath and myself, the other two full-time students - tried to accommodate Fritz's excitement. At the same time, we deemed it necessary to challenge the Jesus People acceptance of the racist South African status quo. Thus we invited a student from Rhodesia - as Zimbabwe was still called in those days - to join us in evangelistic outreach on Muizenberg beach. The idea was just to go and sing choruses, using our instruments. (I blew my own trumpet, literally as I had received one as a donation in Germany.) On the Photo with Fritz and Gustine on the right, Rev. Henning Schlimm lecturing As the Muizenberg beach was reserved ‘for Whites only’, we were very much aware that we could be arrested. Although we wanted to play Christian music, this was not intended as evangelism. It was out and out defiance of an apartheid law. After possibly influenced by other 'Whites', our Zimbabwean friend opted out. This was perhaps what the advisors of our Zimbabwean brother picked up. We were spared an arrest and uncomfortable accommodation in a police cell. But it definitely would not have been persecution because of our faith. Looking back, I rue the lack of any spiritual element in this activism. We seminarians also sharpened our axes for 'White' liberals who professed to be against apartheid, but who were not prepared to suffer for their convictions. Thus we decided to challenge the St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Green Point. Outside this church a notice board welcomed all races. (The renowned St George’s Cathedral and the Jesus People had already failed our test when we noticed how the congregants were still sitting separately along racial lines.) Reverend Douglas Bax and his St Andrews Presbyterian Church passed the test with flying colours. Thereafter he became a close friend of our seminary. Our activism is displayed on the photo of me with a T-shirt, on which I had written Reg en Geregtigheid with a Koki pen, Gustine Joemath just behind me: Subsequently Rosemarie and I visited Douglas Bax and his wife Betty on our honeymoon journey in Umtata, where he was lecturing at the time and in 1981 I preached in his church in Rondebosch. At the latter occasion I also informed the congregants in some interaction after the service on what had been happening in Crossroads and at the school in Hanover Park. The 1981 interaction with Douglas Bax was closely connected with Celeste Santos and her first husband Rommel Roberts, who died in a cycle accident last year. (We have already mentioned the couple in connection with the run-up to our coming to the country through the terminal illness of our sister Magdalene.) It was quite special that Celeste was also present at our Golden Wedding anniversary celebration. Next to many prayers into the human suffering linked to apartheid legislation, the actions of Celeste Santos and her friend Nomangezi Mbobosi, humanly speaking, in resisting the intimidation and harassment of the regime, would ultimately lead to the formal scrapping of influx control laws in 1985. Similarly Douglas Bax was a divine instrument in the scrapping of the prohibition of racially mixed marriages and related laws the same year. In Revival Seeds Germinate Part 2 , I reported about this as follows: A Catalyst to the Scrapping of Apartheid The presence of Rosemarie and me at the Cape in 1981, where we lived for three months ‘illegally’ in a ‘White’ residential area, became in a quiet way a catalyst to the ultimate scrapping of the racially mixed marriages prohibition and the influx control legislation. We shared a house with Rommel Roberts and his wife Celeste Santos, thus defying the prohibition of racially mixed marriages and residential legal prescripts in that regard. From their home on Haywood Road in Crawford we advocated for 'Black' women who were regarded to be living at the Cape 'illegally' with their husbands. We networked closely with our friend Rev. Douglas Bax and other Cape Church leaders. We returned to Germany and Holland in June 1981, unaware of the effect which our short involvement in Crossroads and Nyanga would continue to have. That we could bring our friend Douglas Bax and Ds. Jan de Waal into the battle of Nyanga proved to be pivotal. Only many years later I was blessed to read how the homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads had scored one moral success after the other, encouraging many ‘Blacks’ to resist the oppressive race policies. This culminated in their victory during the ‘Battle of Nyanga’ and their subsequent sojourn in St George’s Cathedral. Later I was so much blessed to read what happened after our return to Europe. Networking of Cape Church leaders From our home in Haywood Road in the 'White' suburb Crawford we advocated for 'Black' women who were regarded to be living at the Cape 'illegally' with their husbands. We networked closely with our friend Rev. Douglas Bax and other Cape Church leaders. That we could bring Douglas Bax and Ds. Jan de Waal into the run-up to the ‘The Battle of Nyanga' proved to be very strategic. The fact that Rommel had been serving Bishop Tutu from 1978-1980 as a national development officer when the bishop was General Secretary of the SACC, was pivotal. The need had arisen to pay for transport to bring those people back to the Cape who had been forcefully 'deported' to the Transkei. Bishop Tutu responded positively, supplying funds for buses to bring women back to the city who had been forcefully taken to the Eastern Cape. This act of compassionate defiance ushered in the first major defeat of the apartheid government. We returned to Germany and Holland in June 1981, unaware of the effect which our involvement in Crossroads and Nyanga would continue to have. Only many years later I was blessed to read how the homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads had scored one moral success after the other, encouraging many ‘Blacks’ to resist the oppressive race policies. This culminated in their victory during the ‘Battle of Nyanga’ and their subsequent sojourn in St George’s Cathedral. In Revival Seeds Germinate Part 2 I also reported about other contributions of Rev. Douglas Bax and Celeste Santos as follows: Churches Clearer in Opposition to Apartheid The plight and determination of the women of KTC, Nyanga and Crossroads played a role in another sense. Churches began to take a clearer stand in opposition to apartheid laws. Rev. Rob Robertson and our friend Rev. Douglas Bax played a crucial role in the political stand of the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa (PCSA).13 Eventually, newspaper posters lined the Johannesburg streets with massive black headlines: CHURCH TO DEFY MARRIAGE LAW. A few Presbyterian ministers married a number of racially mixed couples. The marriages were registered and kept in the central office of the PCSA. When other Churches also supported the Assembly’s decision on the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, this sparked a political debate that eventually led in 1985 to the abolition of this keystone of apartheid legislation. On another page in the same book, I wrote: I suspect that one of the biggest roles in the contribution towards change could have been the booklet A Different Gospel of Rev. Douglas Bax, albeit that it quite surprisingly remained fairly unknown. No less than the well-known author Alan Paton commented on A Different Gospel in his review in the periodical Reality, stating that Rev. Bax 'has certainly played his part in urging 'White' South Africa to repent and turn.' Because of his stance on conscientious objection to military service at SACC conferences, Rev. Douglas Bax had become the enfant terrible of many 'White' South Africans. At the end of A Different Gospel Douglas Bax reiterated the challenge of Prime Minister Vorster, only with more urgency: 'South Africa stands on the edge of a political disaster "too ghastly to contemplate". It is a false theology and a false ideology, as well as the greed and the fears of both Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking Whites, that have dragged her people there. The urgent question is: is it too late for us to repent and turn back from the abyss?' We start the contribution in our lives here in South Africa, outside of our own family and relatives after we returned to the country in 1992, with Ireni Stephanis, a Greek believer. Here follows the run-up, taking up the story where the Father used our son Rafael in such a special way, after Tabitha feared that we would have to sleep on the street: Something Happening in the Heavenlies On Friday the 31st of January we packed all our belongings together, without knowing where we would be going the next day. On Sunday the students were expected to arrive. We were now clinging to our last hope. Shirley Charlton, our WEC missionary colleague, was going to ask her landlord whether we could move into her two-bedroom flat in Diep River temporarily. She would then go to a friend. When we approached Shirley the Saturday morning, this last hope was all but dashed … We were not aware how many people were praying for us. Of one group of believers we knew. They were Christians from the Community Bible Fellowship in Crawford that we had attended the previous Sunday. They would pray right through the night from Friday to Saturday, also for us! In the heavenlies something had obviously been happening, because somewhere in the suburb of Kenilworth – a few kilometres from Crawford - a Greek lady could not sleep. Ireni Stephanis never had problems with sleeplessness – not even when her husband died. But that night she constantly had to think about the family from Holland about which she had heard from Shirley Charlton. Ireni phoned to enquire what happened to the family of seven and whether they had found accommodation in the meantime. After hearing of our predicament, Ireni offered to share her big house. Her daughter had just married and left the home. Ireni’s two adult sons were living elsewhere. They would not be around for some time. When we learnt this story that Saturday morning from Shirley Charlton, we stood there in awe! We could only marvel at the timely intervention of the Lord. It looked to be the most practical thing to sleep at the Bible School for the last time. With the name Shirley Charlton many precious memories in a broad spectrum are associated. Were she still alive, we definitely would have loved to have this dynamic missionary present at our Golden Wedding Anniversay. As it happened, only Maria van Maarseveen and Freddy Kammies were present from the era of our service as WEC International missionaries. We will come back to the latter two WECers in due course. Bible School Connections In the first months of 1992 Shirley Charlton took me to various Bible Schools in the Cape Peninsula. Apart from those, I had my own contacts like the Moravian Bible School, which had moved to the township Heideveld while I was overseas. There my seminary colleague Kallie August was now the director. He hails from the Elim mission station, having attended primary school simultaneously with me. Kallie would proceed to finish his dotorate at Stellenbosch, also becoming a professor there. At the Chaldo Bible School in Wittebome, the theological training institution of the Full Gospel Church, David Savage, my buddy from the Harmony Park ‘stranddienste’in 1964, with whom I had subsequently corresponded for a long time, was now the principal. Through our link to the Cape Town Baptist Church a regular annual slot at their seminary ensued. Here I could challenge students during their chapel hour. At one of these occasions Jonathan Clayton invited me to come and share at Pollsmoor prison. At that occasion I challenged the inmates, many of whom had become followers of Jesus, to pray for Rashied Staggie. I compared him with Zaccheus, who was a chief tax collector, the co-leader of the big Hard Livings Gang was no normal drug peddler. He had become a drug lord, a celebrity who was often interviewed by the media after Rashied had become prominent, notably after the public execution of his twin brother Rashaad on 4 August 1996 by PAGAD (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs). Three years later, God would use him to marginalise PAGAD with the aid of the In due course, I shared at various Bible Schools and also at the Theological Faculty in Stellenbosch. Long before the days of the internet - in a pun on BI - I continued researching the diverse aspects of the three Abrahamic religions also after completion of my post-graduate Missiology studies with an Islamic focus at BI (Bible Institute of South Africa in Kalk Bay). A Cross-Cultural Choir At one of the events to which Shirley took me, I heard Joyce Scott reporting. She was a missionary of AIM using her gift of music in ministry, lecturing at the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute. This was the catalyst for us to start a choir with singers coming from different cultures, a vision I had brought along from Holland. (In Zeist I had attended a performance of a culturally mixed group from New Zealand.) At different occasions to which I was invited as speaker, I took along the cross-cultural choir that we had recruited. Apart from Grace Chan, our colleague from Mauritius, we also had people from different races in the choir - including a Zulu and a few Xhosas. We collated the choir members predominantly from Capetonian Bible Colleges. Rosemarie and I contributed a modern Dutch song, written and composed by Charles Groot, who often spoke in our Figi fellowship. The content of the hymn spoke of the unity in Christ: Samen in de naam van Jesus - United in the name of Jesus we proclaim his praise in different languages. When Joyce left the Cape to take up a post in Pietermaritzburg in Natal, the choir was disbanded. Another interesting snippet from those earlier weeks at the Cape transpired once the schools had started. Rosemarie could, of course, also be involved in various activities in a limited way when the children were at school. Following the advice given in Bulstrode to potential missionaries in a new country, she would be at home for the first six months when the children came from school. This is how I recorded this in On The Eagle's Wings: New Wine in Old Wineskins When Shirley Charlton organised for her to address a women’s group of a mainline church in Goodwood, one of the cape northern suburbs, we knew that we were treading on the turf of the Boereworsgordyn. Would we be attempting to pour new wine in old wine-skins? Rosemarie insisted that I should go along, to drive her there because she was still unsure to drive to the various venues on her own. When I carried the books and helped set up the apparatus for the slide presentation, she noticed how the ladies had no problems at all. This was the familiar old South African way of doing things – the person of colour in the subservient role, doing the manual chores. But then the 'bomb' exploded when she introduced me as her husband. They were very clearly uncomfortable. She could see it on their faces. But the wineskins luckily didn’t burst. They gracefully listened to her presentation. Ireni Stephanis, the Greek lady from Kenilworth where we resided in January 1992 would be the link to the Living Hope Baptist Church that we had attended in 1981. Almost from the word go we got in touch with a big problem of the Cape communities - drug addiction. Soon we discerned that this was an area in which we could serve the Cape Muslim community. Involvement With Drug Rehabilitation? On the first Sunday after moving to Kenilworth, we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church with Ireni Stephanis. A couple there told us about their daughter who was addicted to drugs and who subsequently became a Muslim. We were immediately reminded of the successful Betel outreach of our mission agency to drug addicts in Spain, seeing this as a loving avenue of service to the Muslim community. This was yet another nudge that we should get involved in compassionate outreach to that part of the Cape population. The problem of drug addiction in the Cape Muslim society was highlighted again and again. We were thus confronted with the need of a centre for rehabilitation where people could be set free through a personal faith in Jesus. (Our mission agency WEC had significant success in Spain. Many former addicts started out from there as missionaries to other countries. This had became our model for the drug addicts of Cape Town.) We were yearning to share the vision with Capetonian Christians. The initial response was however general indifference. Soon after our move to Tamboerskloof we heard of a fellowship at the Cape Town High School. The wife was Dutch and the informal group called themselves the City Branch of the Vineyard Church (as the Jubilee Church was called at that time). Dave and Herma Adams, the City Branch leaders, had a vision to reach out to the Cape Muslims. After a few weeks in the Vineyard Church we found out that there was a Muslim background believer in the congregation. Achmed Kariem had fled South Africa in the wake of his anti‑apartheid activities with a hatred for Christianity. In his fairly accurate youthful assessment apartheid had been the cause for his family to be moved from the suburb Mowbray to the desolate Bonteheuwel on the Cape Flats. This ultimately resulted in Ahmed fleeing the country as an atheist. In London he became addicted to drugs. There he was miraculously set free from drug abuse through faith in Jesus. The need of a centre for the rehabilitation of drug addicts in Cape Town was invigorated in my heart when I heard his testimony. We were so happy that Freddy Kammies happened to be in Cape Town at the time of our celebration. He originally met Doris Gegenheimer, at the time when she was in the city, but serving as a volunteer at the Elim Home for Cerebral handicapped children. (Rosemarie's request to work there for two months in 1974, becoming a catalyst for German missionaries to go there as volunteers in the process. Katharina Kronbach, at whose home I had lunch once a week during my months in the Black Forest village Königsfeld, was one of them. Thereafter, the Broederkerk (South African Moravian Church) link to the Lutheran mission agency in Southern Germany brought people like Doris there.) Already as a teenager, Freddy served as a committed follower of Jesus of BABS (Build a Better Society), a local community organisation of Kewtown, a gangster-ridden Cape Township. I jotted about this involvement as follows in Seeds Sown For Revival: Community Disruption Leads to Missions ... In 1982 the gangs of Kew Town killed seven people in 3 months. After approaching other organisations without success, BABS asked the local Docks Mission Church to do something about the situation. A coffee bar was started specially for the gangsters, led by Rodney Thorne and Freddy Kammies. Every Sunday evening between 60 – 80 of them attended. Many of the gang leaders were challenged to put down the weapons and guns. Soon the crime rate came down in that township. During our 'home’ assignment in Germany and Holland in 1995 our long-time friends, Hermann and Mechthild Frick, were God’s instruments in linking us up with Doris and Freddy Kammies, who were also in Southern Germany at the time. The couple had been working as missionaries with OM on one of their ships and in Montreal, Canada. Doris had previously been volunteering at the Elim Home from 1988 and Freddy hailed from the township of Q’town near Athlone. We paid them a visit, after which they started considering to join WEC. A year later Doris and Freddy were in Cape Town, praying about joining our Muslim outreach team. They did not sense a call to join our team, but a further few years on Freddy and Doris were pioneering a ministry among sexually broken people. I recorded the following: … The ministry of Straatwerk in night clubs and the work among French-speaking foreigners received a boost from abroad when Freddie Kammies and his German wife Doris, who had worked in Montreal (Canada) with street youth, ladies on the street and in the gay village under the auspices of Operation Mobilization. They joined the team of WEC International in Cape Town at the end of 1997. The couple formally linked up with Straatwerk, the pioneering outreach effort of the Dutch Reformed Church to nightclubs, prostitutes and homosexuals. The contact with our colleague Maria van Maarseveen goes back to Zeist in Holland when we met her together with Anneco Adriaanse. Anneco stayed with us in Zeist until she got married. (At that occasion we had quite a problem to get our 3-year old Magdalena, the flower girl, into a dress and to the Moravian Church on Zusterplein.) The next time we met Maria, it was in a traumatic context, linked to sweet memories of Joyce and Chris Scott, two very special WEC International missionaries. I narrated the traumatic incident in On the Eagle's Wings: Rosemarie Burnt Out With our nerves already on edge, I almost killed a pedestrian on the return journey from Wellington. The man suddenly crossed the highway while I was driving at approximately 120 kph. Completely exhausted physically and emotionally, we arrived home. Back in Vredehoek Nadia10 manipulated in such a way that Rosemarie still agreed to drive her to friends in Silvertown, 15 Kilometeres away. Joyce Scott, our missionary colleague from England, who was with us at the time, accompanied her to Silvertown. When she arrived home from there, Rosemarie collapsed. She had symptoms of having had a serious stroke (temporarily she could not see anything. We feared that she had become blind.). Assistance From Nearby and From Abroad We phoned Ekkehard Zöllner, a befriended doctor and the father of children who also attended the German School. (With him, his wife and other parents we had been praying about twice per quarter for the German school while we had children there.) Ekkehard referred us to a Christian specialist, who diagnosed that it was a nervous breakdown caused by stress. I was very near to burnout myself, battered and bruised by the circumstances of the weeks prior to my best friend’s funeral. The specialist, to whom we were referred, ordered us at least two weeks’ rest. It was so good that Joyce Scott, our missionary colleague from England, a nurse, was on the spot. She spoilt our children to the hilt as we left for a few days for Betty’s Bay, to the holiday home of the Edwards family from our church. Soon thereafter, Maria van Maarseveen, a member of our home church in Holland, came to do her Bible school practicum from the Africa School of Missions with us. With Nadia in the very late state of her pregnancy, it was handy to have Maria, a qualified midwife, with us. During this period Maria sensed a call to come and join us in ministry after completing her Bible School training. Maria van Maarseveen played an important role in another medical emergency: Rumblings at the Moriah Discipling House Toward the end of 2001, a period of spiritual conflict seemed to move towards a climax. I suffered a personal setback after I had reacted inappropriately to a manipulative phone call from our discipling house. There we have been discipling new followers of Jesus who had been persecuted and/or evicted because of that decision. That set off a negative chain reaction. During the next two and a half months the tension levels in our team remained extremely high. After travelling by bus all night from Durban and after having had very little sleep, I resumed with my work rather carelessly on Friday, March 15, 2002. This triggered a stress-related loss of memory the next day. Rosemarie called our colleague Maria, who took me to the nearby Mediclinic. (We thankfully had Hospital Plan medical insurance by this time, in response to the insisting request by our church folk in the Netherlands.) After a day in hospital and further medical treatment, I was cleared with the instruction to return after a year. We realized that there were major spiritual forces involved. This would be the pristine part of the run-up to a diagnosis of prostate cancer in October 2003. That saved my life from a human of view. The Going Gets Tough Rosemarie and I were blessed to take a holiday break at Carmel Christian Farm in July 2003. At this occasion she had been taking some photographs of beautiful waves at Sedgefield and Knysna. In that vicinity we found Psalm 93:4 engraved on a stone. That was exactly the Bible verse that Rosemarie received on the day of her confirmation in Germany as a teenager, way back in the 1960s. ‘Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!' A Challenging Dream Right from the start it had been part of our vision to see Muslims from the Cape becoming followers of Jesus and some of them ultimately sent to other parts of Africa and the Middle East as missionaries. In October 2003, Rosemarie had a dream in which a young married couple, clad in Middle Eastern garb, was ready to go as missionaries to the Middle East. Suddenly the scene changed. As she narrated: ‘While the two of us were praying over the city from our dining room facing the Cape Town CBD, a massive wave came from the sea, rolling over Bo-Kaap. The next moment the water engulfed us, but we were still holding each other by the hand. There was something threatening about the wave, but somehow we also experienced a sense of thrill.’ Then Rosemarie was wide awake, very conscious that God seemed to say something to us through this dream. What was Abba trying to convey? The interpretation of the dream became clear quite soon. We had to prepare for a wave of opportunity – a tsunami, as tidal waves became widely known from the following year. The continuation of this recalls the contribution of a few other siblings in the Lord, who engaged in loving outreach to Muslims. In the case of Lillian James, she linked us to Leigh Telli, a missionary colleague of Messianic Testimony, to whom we would get very close in due course. A Wave of Opportunity We heard about a conference of Middle Eastern Muslim leaders in the newly built Convention Centre of Cape Town. We decided on short notice to have our Friday prayer meeting there nearby, instead of in the regular venue, the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk in Bree Street. Lillian James, one of our friends, was on hand to arrange a place for the prayer meeting near to the Convention Centre. The same Friday afternoon Rosemarie and our colleague Rochelle Malachowski went to the nearby Waterfront where they literally walked into a group of ladies in Middle Eastern dress. The outgoing Rochelle had no qualms to start chatting to one of them. Having resided among Palestinians in Israel, she knows some Arabic. Soon they were swarmed by other women who were of course very surprised to be addressed in their home language by a ‘White’ lady with an American accent. A cordial exchange of words followed. Rosemarie was reminded of her dream, sensing that God might be sending in a wave of people to Cape Town from Muslim countries. We understood that we should also get ready to send young missionaries to that area of the world when it opens itself up to the Gospel. Shortly hereafter we heard of various foreigners who had come to the Mother City, including a few Uyghur, a minority people group of China. Prostate Gland Cancer Diagnosed After my stress-related temporary loss of memory in March 2002, a medical check-up was overdue. This led to a period that seemed to usher in the last lap of my 'race' on earth. After going to the doctor for the blood pressure check-up at the end of September 2003 - without having any complaint - he suggested a PSA blood test because of my age. Detecting a reading slightly above normal, the physician, Dr Woolf, hereafter referred me to an urologist, who did a biopsy on 7 October 2003 – just to make sure! I was so confident that the result of the biopsy would be negative because I had no physical discomfort up to that point in time. Both specialists pointed out that the PSA count was only minimally above normal. There could have been other causes for the abnormal count, for example infection. When a phone call came from the hospital on Thursday 9 October 2003, I was caught off-guard. I was told that I had contracted Prostate Gland cancer! Without any ado Dr Aldera, the urologist, gave me the result of the biopsy: I had contracted prostate gland cancer in an early stage. Through an extra-ordinary set of circumstances, the Lord however, prepared me for the diagnosis. The previous day, on 8 October 2003 to be exact, I was encouraged by the ‘Watchword’, as the Moravians have been traditionally calling the Old Testament Scripture for the day: ‘I will not die but live and proclaim what the LORD has done’ (Psalm 118:17). To be told that you have contracted prostate gland cancer, was like getting a death sentence. However, the Lord had encouraged me with Psalm 117:18. I saw that verse as an encouragement to ‘proclaim the works of the Lord’, as another translation puts it. I immediately thought that I would not be able to attend the CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) leadership conference in Paarl that was scheduled for the first November weekend of 2003. I approached the Moravian Church Board formally in October 2003, just after the rather traumatic diagnose, also meeting a few of their leaders shortly thereafter, with regard to the use of their church building in District Six that had been returned to the denomination. I sensed that the attitude of the leaders to me had softened. (I had not been invited to preach in any Moravian Church for a long time.) The request to use the Moravian Hill sanctuary was duly approved. We also received permission to have monthly meetings with Muslim background believers in their church building in District Six the following year. We were worshipping at the Cape Town Baptist Church after 1993. Ps Graham Gernetsky was the senior pastor initially. With Louis Pasques, his successor and his wife, Heidi Rosemarie and I had a close relationship, assisting them when the congregation went through a serious crisis that led to the departure Ps Gernetsky. Before we go into memory lane regarding them, we would like to highlight what was happening at the church when we joined, as well as our interaction with two special members. Even before we became members there, we had a few from that church attending our fortnightly prayer meeting in our home, first in Tamboerskloof and later in 73 Wale Street, Bo-Kaap. Hendrina van der Merwe was an exceptional intercessor, a very special regular of those prayer meetings. She had a close fellowship to both Bev and Heidi Pasques, the wife of Louis, who became the senior pastor in 1996. Heidi Pasques and Carol Günther, an American volunteer, pioneered there with the teaching of English to foreign students. With predominantly Asians attending these lessons, the church started to become quite cosmopolitan. An Impact Via Bo-Kaap Minaret Calls The Lord himself seemed to confirm our link to Cape Town Baptist Church, using the eight-year-old daughter of one of the elders of the church. The girl had been terribly troubled by the calls from the minarets in the nearby mosques of Bo-Kaap. Her father, Brett Viviers, a Messanic Jewish believer, suggested that she should start praying for the Muslims. That Heidi Pasques and her husband Louis displayed interest to become missionaries to a Muslim country. This became the factor that ultimately nudged me to join the congregation formally with our family. Furthermore, two members of our Bo-Kaap prayer meeting, Hendrina van der Merwe and Daphne Davids, already belonged to the congregation. Yet, Rosemarie was not quite convinced that this was where we should be church-wise. Its proximity to Bo-Kaap, where we wanted a spiritual breakthrough, clinched the matter for me. There is where we wanted to plant a house church. (Hendrina had suggested and praying into that we could just our house church if we would have four male participants. We had three more than once, but the fourth regular one never transpired. Rather hesitantly Rosemarie agreed to join the congregation. For many years this would cause some strain in our relationship, notably when we became increasingly unhappy there. We had apparently not yet learned the lesson well enough, that we should not proceed with major decisions like this without complete unity as a couple. God could subsequently, nevertheless, use us at that congregation in many a way for the longest stretch to date in a single congregation. Carol Günther was part of our home ministry group that met on Wednesday evening in our home initially, and later in that of Alan Kay, a Telkom employee. He later became the administrator of the church. A later addition to the group was Gershin Philander, a young man who was raised in the tradition of the Plymouth Brethren. He had a phenomenal knowledge of the Scriptures. To all three church members there are precious memories to narrate. Hendrina van der Merwe linked up with Beverley Stratis closely. Hendrina had a heart ailment so that her transition into eternal glory in 2004 was not completely unexpectedly, In the spiritual realm these two special intercessors played a significant role in the 1990s and at the turn of the millennium. Rays of Light Two members of Cape Town Baptist Church, Hendrina van der Merwe and Beverley Stratis did some precious spade work to forge more visible expression of the body of Christ locally. Our faithful intercessor Hendrina van der Merwe took along Beverley Stratis to visit various City Bowl churches. Believers across the country participated in a forty-day period of prayer and fasting from Resurrection Sunday to Ascension Day 1998. Rev. Louis Pasques of the Cape Town Baptist Church led the City Bowl effort. After the 40 days, a weekly meeting of pastors with a prayer emphasis slowly gained ground. Later that year, combined evening services were held once a month, rotating among the participating churches. A corresponding Jericho Walls initiated period of prayer and fasting in 1999 - this time for 120 days - was concluded in the Western Cape in the traditional Groote Kerk celebration of the Lord’s Supper when pastors from different denominations officiated. At that Ascension Day event, Dr Robbie Cairncross was divinely brought into the equation, after hearing me speak there. He came to the Mother City with a vision to see a network of prayer developing in the Peninsula. His prayer for an office for his Christian Coalition/Family Alliance near to Parliament was answered in a special way. He could move into the premises of the Chamber of Commerce (SACB), a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament. In due course, Achmed Kariem, a Muslim Background believer, and Pastor Eric Hofmeyer would serve there with him. In due course the City Bowl weekly pastors' prayer meeting was changed to 8h in the morning, for a year apiece at a different venue. Special initiatives that grew out of this change were combined events. At Christmas there were combined Carol services and on Resurrection Sunday a sunrise service was held at the noon gun. A monthly combined prayer meeting on a Friday evening at the Cape Town Baptist Church, with missionary input and believers from a broad denominational spectrum that evolved in due course, was quite unique. With Beverley Stratis a close friendship would evolve in due course. She had been one of the teachers whom we used for the English tuition to foreigners at the Baptist Church and with the venue in Loop Street where Ps Gary Coetzee had a small fellowship. Our friendship 'exploded' in 2012 when I contracted a heart attack that could have taken me out in the night of 30/31 January 2012 in the wake of a season of intense spiritual warfare. I reported as follows, including a picture of the angiogram taken at the Vincent Palotti Hospital on 2 February, 2012: A Significant Backlash A Transformation Africa mountain peak name change event soon thereafter had been set for Saturday 4 February at Rhodes Memorial. I would have been one of the speakers. It was touch and go or I was eliminated by a heart attack on the night of 30/31 January 2012. Three severe artery blockages should have taken me out but God had fore-stalled this massive attack on my life. A few days prior to this, Beverley Stratis, a good friend and a faithful intercessor, received a vision while she was praying. She saw a dark cloud and a life-threatening vibe of death surrounding me in this vision. That was the cue for her to engage in intense intercession for me. About two weeks later Erika Schmeisser, an intercessor who attended our Saturday evening fellowship with Pastor Baruch Maayan regularly, came up to me to tell me about her special experience. She had heard that I had a heart attack. At that moment she woke up from a massive pain in her chest. Fearing that she was going to die, Erika immediately sensed that this was the experience of someone else who was having this severe pain. This circumstance highlighted Isaiah 53 to me in a special way: the Lamb to be slaughtered carried our iniquities and ailment on the Cross of Calvary. Initially it was suspected that I had contracted a ‘slight heart attack’. (The GP who sent me to hospital for an EKG, was very perplexed that I had been driving there by myself, with the low pulse that I had.) At the angiogram performed on me two days later, it surfaced that I had a complete blockage of a main artery and two blockages on another one. Any one of the two occurrences could have caused death. At Vincent Palotti Hospital the nurses were very surprised that I had no need for tablets for pain in the chest region. Picture of the Angiogram The Gospel message became clear to me as never before, namely how Jesus could bear our sins, ailment and pain vicariously, in our stead. Three stents gave me a new lease of life. To Beverley Stratis we got a special relationship, notably after January 2012 when the Father gave her a vision of me a few days ahead of a heart attack. In this vision, with a ogre of death surrounding my head, she discerned a nudge to intercede for me intensely. Technically this might not qualify for 'precious memories.' Her intercession and that of another dear sister that had to endure the pain I should have had, saved my life. Due to the corona virus situation, Graham Power, the well known Capetonian instrument that God in the run-up to the annual Global Day of Prayer, adapted a prayer which folk could use on Sunday, 22 March, 2020. This was of course no visible expression of the unity of the Body of Christ, but unprecedented as a global one. It went around the globe between 12h and 13h on that day. It had a personal touch because we were with our special huisgenoot Bev Stratis in Hout Bay when we took note of the strict lockdown to be announced by our President on that day. The following three months got etched into our memories with wonderful times of corporate prayer with Bev, often in our prayer room. We would watch The Chosen, a video series in which the life and times of Jesus are depicted very vividly together on my laptop. Listening to the audio book Intercessor of Norman Grubb, a biography of ??, was another hit at this time. (The Welsh prayer warrior changed the course of World War 2 with his Bible School students of Swansea.) During the permissible early morning walks, all Vredehoek seemed to be on the road, including children and dogs. When the lockdown was relaxed, but indoor meetings still prohibited or limited, we had our Friday morning Isaac Ishmael time in the De Waal Park. A fairly recent precious memory with Bev Stratis is of the first three months of the Covid lockdown, as narrated in Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3, which includes a reference to Graham Power, another Cape spiritual giant of yesteryear. Due to the corona virus situation, Graham Power, the well known Capetonian instrument that God in the run-up to the annual Global Day of Prayer, adapted a prayer which folk could use on Sunday, 22 March, 2020. This was of course no visible expression of the unity of the Body of Christ, but unprecedented as a global one. It went around the globe between 12h and 13h on that day. It had a personal touch because we were with our special huisgenoot Bev Stratis in Hout Bay when we took note of the strict lockdown to be announced by our President on that day. The following three months got etched into our memories with wonderful times of corporate prayer with Bev, often in our prayer room. We would watch The Chosen, a video series in which the life and times of Jesus are depicted very vividly together on my laptop. Listening to the audio book Intercessor of Norman Grubb, a biography of ??, was another hit at this time. (The Welsh prayer warrior changed the course of World War 2 with his Bible School students of Swansea.) During the permissible early morning walks, all Vredehoek seemed to be on the road, including children and dogs. When the lockdown was relaxed, but indoor meetings still prohibited or limited, we had our Friday morning Isaac Ishmael time in the De Waal Park. If Achmed Kariem had been in South Africa, he would definitely have been someone we would have loved to have present at our celebration. He impacted our ministry significantly, notably when he suggested a lunch hour prayer on Fridays at lunch time, way back in 1992: Start of Friday Prayer Meetings At one of our Bo-Kaap prayer meetings, Achmed soon suggested that we should start a prayer meeting on Fridays at lunch time when the Muslims attend their major mosque weekly service. Such prayer events started in the Shepherd’s Watch, a little church hall at 98 Shortmarket Street near Riebeeck Square in September 1992. It was an added blessing when we heard that missionaries in other parts of the world were also starting to do this. My vision, to get prayer groups all over the Peninsula, so that the spiritual eyes of Muslims might be opened to Jesus as the Saviour of the World and as the Son of God, never really got off the ground. Here and there one started, but petered out again. The only prayer meetings that kept functioning many years was the one in Wale Street on every first Monday of the month and the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings which started at the Shepherd’s Watch in September 1992. The latter one continued in the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk at 108 Bree Street for a number of years. Among the early regulars at the new Friday prayer meeting, we had Alain Ravelo from Madagascar. Alain had been in the country for some length of time. He had been part of a group that met regularly, praying for the country when apartheid was still rife. He also had a vision for networking. Soon hereafter, Arina Serdyn, a retired Afrikaner teacher, joined us. She was one of the best examples of networking, soon linked to our children’s work in Hanover Park while still having close links to Alain and his wife Nicole, who were linked to TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission). Simultaneously, Arina was a co-worker of SIM Life Challenge. Another person from that early days at the Cape whom we would have loved to have present at our celebration is Elizabeth Robertson. (She married Jamie Campbell quite a few years later.) In On the Eagle's Wings I wrote: Diverse Strategic Moves Elizabeth Robertson, who was now attending our evening Bo-Kaap prayer meeting, really loves Israel and the Jews. A few years prior to this she had been on the verge of marrying a Jew in Israel. Soon we decided to pray for the Middle East at every alternate Monday prayer meeting, including Muslims and Jews in our intercession. Renette Marx, who was also interceding for the Jews, soon joined our group for this prayer meeting. Hereafter we visited the Beth Ariel fellowship of Messianic Jews in Sea Point from time to time. In later years Lillian James, who grew up in Woodstock, started to pray with us. (Lillian James was God’s strategic instrument to link us up with Leigh and Rabah (Paul) Telli, when they came from the UK early in the new millennium.) Still later, two Messianic Jewish believers joined this prayer group. Lillian had a heart for both Muslims and Jews. This was thus the pristine low-key Isaac Ishmael ministry beginnings. Bruce Rudnick, who changed his name later to Baruch Maayan, was pastoring the Beth Ariel fellowship with Dr. Francois Wessels. Jesus Marches at the Cape One of the events organised in 1993 with some link to the Western Cape Missions Commission was a workshop with John Robb of World Vision. I used the list of participants at this event to organize Jesus Marches the following year. All around the world Jesus Marches were planned for 24 June 1994. In a letter from our friend and missionary colleague Chris Scott from Sheffield (England), he wrote about their preparations for a Jesus March in their city. Inquiries on this side of the ocean dropped the co-ordination of the whole effort in the Western Cape into my lap. I soon became involved in the co-ordination of about 20 prayer marches in different parts of the Cape Peninsula, liaising closely with Danie Heyns, a Christian businessman and Chris Agenbach of the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington. Danie Heyns organized the marches in the northern suburbs of the city and Chris Agenbach did the same for the immediate ‘platteland’ (country side). In the run-up to the Jesus Marches the vision came up in my heart to get a prayer network going throughout the Cape Peninsula to achieve a breakthrough among the Cape Muslims. I was so terribly aware that concerted prayer was needed. A few prayer groups got going. I had high expectations that the Jesus Marches would result in a network of prayer across the Peninsula. However, the initial interest that our second attempt, which an updated audio-visual had stimulated in various areas, petered out. As part of my own research, I thought to have discerned that the Islamic shrines around the city were keeping the city in spiritual bondage. I shared this in meetings prior to the Jesus Marches. Probably for the first time, Cape Christians started to pray concertedly against the effect of the occult power of the Kramats, the Islamic shrines on the heights of the Peninsula. Spin-Offs of the Jesus Marches As the time for the Jesus Marches approached, the vision grew in me to start a prayer network throughout the Cape Peninsula to effect a spiritual breakthrough among the Cape Muslims. I was very much aware that concerted prayer was needed... In the mid 1990s Sally Kirkwood led a prayer group for the Cape Muslims at her home in Plumstead. Later she played a more prominent role among Cape intercessors. Another group was formed by Gill Knaggs in Muizenberg after she had attended our Friday prayer meeting. She had been involved in a close relationship with a Muslim young man before she became a believer in Jesus as her Lord. Soon God used Gill to get the YWAM base in Muizenberg more interested in outreach to Muslims. Concretely, an Egyptian connection was established, with YWAM starting to network with the Coptic Church via links through Mike Burnard of Open Doors. My wife and I were asked to teach at a YWAM Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Muizenberg in 1996. This culminated in a close friendship with a former shaykh from Egypt, who had changed his name from an Islamic one when he became a follower of Jesus. Jan Hanekom and William Tait are two spiritual giants who died suddenly and unexpectedly. The former was a stalwart of the Western Cape Missions Commission. Until the passsing on of Pastor William Tait on 13 July 2016 and also for a few years thereafter, when his widow Evangeline was at the helm there, I would take many a missionary to the Grace Chapel. Here a snippet about our interaction in the early years of our ministry at the Cape with these two as well as with another spiritual giant, Pastor Graham Gernetsky: Taking Back What Satan Had Stolen? The indifference of the churches to evangelistic outreach has always been a problem all around the Peninsula. The situation in Woodstock and Salt River had no good record in this regard. The two crime- infested suburbs, made up of people of lesser means, had become predominantly Islamic within a few years in the early 1990s. In March 1994, Pastor Graham Gernetsky, the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, organized a missions week with theological students from the Cape Town Baptist Theological Seminary. The author was asked to teach at this week-long event along with Bobby Maynard, who was linked to Veritas College, then still in its embryonic stage. Reverend Gernetsky reacted positively to my suggestion to engage in prayer warfare with the students not only in Bo-Kaap, but also in Woodstock. This would be tantamount to an attempt to take back what satan had stolen through drug abuse, prostitution and gangsterism. During a prayer walk by the students - which formed part of the missions week - a local Woodstock resident mentioned Pastor William Tait and his fellowship. This led to contact with the local Assemblies of God congregation there. When Pastor Tait started his ministry in 1989, that suburb was becoming completely Islamic, albeit not for a reason that made Muslims proud. Christians were leaving Woodstock as gangsterism and prostitution took the area by storm. By 1990 it had become the drug hub of the metropolis. By 1990 Woodstock had become the drug hub of the metropolis The 1994 missions week was also the start of closer co-operation between the Assemblies of God fellowship11 and the small local Baptist Church. I had been preaching occasionally at the Baptist fellowship, which had no pastor at that time. William Tait was pivotal in this networking, one of very few pastors for whom united prayer and the unity of the Body of Christ was more than merely concepts. Until his retirement and relocation to Bot River, Pastor Bruce of the Woodstock Baptist Church also networked closely with the neighbouring church in many a combined service. Here some recollections: The Face of Woodstock Changed Towards the end of the decade, the notorious suburb slowly changed its religious complexion. The centre of drug-peddling and prostitution moved to more lucrative areas. Pastor Tait and his church were ably assisted by the small local Baptist Church under the inspiring and pioneering sickly new minister, Pastor Edgar Davids. Sadly, Edgar Davids died in March 1998 after his body rejected a transplanted kidney. The two buildings where these churches met, visibly demonstrated the need for change in the area. Both structures had become quite dilapidated by 1995. The Baptist Church bought the ruin of the old Aberdeen Street Dutch Reformed Church, and soon they started to restore it with financial and practical aid from North Carolina believers in the USA. The Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God initially rented a delapidated building which they subsequently tried to buy from the Woodstock Presbyterian Church in 1997. The Presbyterian Church found it difficult to survive in the deteriorating suburb. (Almost all their members had either left the area or passed away.) The Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God fellowship was in many ways an exception to the general indifference. From 1994, they conducted five o’clock prayer meetings every morning on weekdays. Almost before our eyes we could see God starting to use these two fellowships of Woodstock - to gradually change the face of the suburb. The restored churches, respectively in Clyde and Aberdeen Streets, that once had been the shame of local Christianity, now stood there as a visible testimony to God’s renewing power in that suburb. We prayed that something similar would happen in the spiritual realm. I have many sweet memories around Jan Hanekom. One of the very special ones of these happened was when he introduced me to Bennie Mostert, ahead of a visit to the kramat (shrine) of Sheikh Yusuf in Macassar in October 1992. In the spiritual realm this was quite significant. Bennie suggested there that we should enthrone Jesus, rather that fighting the demonic ideology of Islam. We sang Jesus, we enthrone you. I kept this in mind, using this as the theme song in 2011/12 and 2025 when I was privileged to influence the programme of conferences. Esme Orrie, a MBB who had been fiercely persecuted by her family when she came to Christ, initially crept into her cell as a secret believer. Hereafter, however, she boldly stood her ground, sharing her testimony in many a church, and later also via CCFM radio. Also other MBBs could be used in churches thereafter. At this juncture it is important to highlight the role of three other giants of the prayer movement with whom I had the privilege to network, viz. Gerda Leithgöb, Bennie Mostert and Charles Robertson. The first two lived in Pretoria for a big chunk of their lives. I was blessed to interact with Dr Robertson fairly intensely, much of it telephonically. He and his wife Rita attended our golden anniversary. The three of them were divine instruments in a national prayer awakening, which I recorded thus in Seeds Sown For Revival: A Wave of Prayer Starts at UWC … Dr Robertson was approached to help fund the hiring of a bus to take participants to a prayer service at the historical Sendingsgestig Museum in the Mother City’s Long Street, which coincided with a Frontiers Missions Conference at the University of the Western Cape (UWC)... A National Prayer Awakening Erupts The Sendingsgestig Museum itself would become the venue for Concerts of Prayer. That event would reverbarate throughout the country, ushering in the prayer movement. In 1983 a prayer awakening started in a few congregations all around South Africa. One of these was a small group of intercessors led by Gerda Leithgöb in Pretoria that helped set them on a path previously unexplored in this country. Simultaneously, Bennie Mostert, a Dutch Reformed Church minister, started a newsletter to mobilize prayer in Namibia. Mostert dubbed his newsletter for Namibia Prayer Action Elijah. In 1987 the Lord led the group in Pretoria to do more intense research into spiritual matters. In that same year, a similar initiative started spontaneously all over the world. The Lord also called pastors in South Africa to start writing on prayer. Books appeared concerning this issue. Gerda Leithgöb requested prayer warriors from other countries at a conference in Singapore in 1988 to pray for South Africa, which had been in constant crisis since 1985. Ds. Bennie Mostert founded a national prayer network known as NUPSA (Network for United Prayer in Southern Africa), which had the spiritual transformation of the continent as goal. In 1993 the first teams started praying through information gained from serious research. South Africa also participated in the Pray through the Window12 initiative, that was launched internationally by the AD 2000 Prayer Track. Linked to Jan Hanekom, a few other special believers come to mind. Many of them are already with the Lord. At a meeting in September 1993, organised by him in Stellenbosch, a member of our WEC prayer group, that consisted of a few old ladies, borrowed me her car after our minibus had been stolen. That lady, a former nurse and member of the Hospital Christian Fellowship, had been pivotal for a link to St Monica's Maternity Home, where I was born. The weekly visits to that institution gave us access to many a Muslim home, not only in Bo-Kaap, but throughout the Cape Peninsula. In Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3 I wrote the following: A Breakthrough in the Spiritual Realm The contact I had made with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre and SAAWE in Stellenbosch was quite strategic. Through this unheralded spiritual giant I got linked to the country-wide prayer movement. (Jan Hanekom was preparing prayerfully for entry into Bhutan, a Buddhist stronghold that was completely unknown to believers at that time. He intended to go there as a tent-making missionary, to work there low-key in some secular occupation. Spiritually speaking, Jan Hanekom was honourably wounded in the battle, contracting a mysterious disease. He died tragically as a result – much too young from a human point of view!) We have been blessed to be witnesses of God's over-ruling and His using tragic circumstances so often, that we may one day perhaps hear how God utilised the death of Jan Hanekom, this young gifted spiritual giant. (I was called into pastoral ministry at the funeral of Rev. Ivan Wessels when he was only 43 years old.) 5. MORE PIECES OF THE MOSAIC We have to fill in some of the gaps around the loving outreach to Muslims that we perceived as a clear calling. This transpired the very first day after our arrival as a family of seven at the Cape in January 1992. In Seeds Sown for Revival I described this as follows: When we were getting ready to leave Holland, we had no guaranteed accommodation in Cape Town. We were already considering approaching my faithful friend and former teacher colleague Ritchie Arendse for the use of his caravan as we had done in 1981, when just before our departure to South Africa we heard that we could move into a Bible School in the Cape suburb of Athlone during the month of January. On the first morning after our arrival in Cape Town at half-past four, we were awakened by a deafening roar Called to Minister to Cape Muslims? On the first morning after our arrival in Cape Town at half-past four, we were awakened by a deafening roar. The cause was the prayer calls from the seven mosques within a radius of two kilometres of the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute.13 This was the first indication that the Lord was perhaps calling us to get involved with the Cape Muslims. During our orientation at the end of 1990 we had decided that we had to enroll our two older boys at the German School... To get more information about the German school, we were referred to the Pietzsch family. Horst Pietzsch was involved with the SIM Life Challenge missionary outreach. A clear confirmation along these lines could have been when we were able to rent a house in Tamboerskloof, almost a stone’s throw from Bo-Kaap. God had evidently started fitting things together in his perfect mosaic. Our lack of transportation brought us into touch with Manfred Jung, a German missionary, and the late Alroy Davids. Both of them were involved with the Life Challenge outreach to Muslims. (The 13-year old minibus that looked horrible had previously belonged to Walter Gschwandtner, another German missionary, who ministered in Bo-Kaap before he sold the vehicle to Manfred.) The Master clearly used our first weeks in Cape Town in January 1992 to make it unambiguously clear to all and sundry that we were called to minister to the Cape Muslims... Soon after our move to Tamboerskloof, our first home at the Cape, Rosemarie and I decided to do prayer walking in the adjacent Bo-Kaap, asking the Lord to lead us to those people where the Holy Spirit had already done preparatory work. But we felt very soon that we should not be alone in this venture as we sensed a spiritual darkness hovering over the area, notably on a Friday after the athaan called Muslim adherents to prayer. The streets would then be empty. We discerned that we needed more prayer backing of other Christians. Achmed Kariem and Elizabeth Robertson were the first two at the church that we joined, who started praying with us there in Tamboerskloof. This was part of the run-up to Friday Lunchtime Prayer Meetings: Friday Lunchtime Prayer Meetings As a direct result of our prayer walking in Bo-Kaap, regular prayer meetings in the home of the Abrahams family at 73 Wale Street were resumed. At one of these meetings, Achmed Kariem suggested a lunchtime prayer meeting on Fridays, to be held at the same time that Muslims attend their mosque services. Such prayer events started in September 1992 in the Shepherd’s Watch, a small church hall at 98 Shortmarket Street near Heritage Square. When the building was sold a few years later, the weekly event switched to the Koffiekamer at 108 Bree Street (The venue was used by Straatwerk for their ministry over the week-ends to the homeless, street children, and to certain night clubs.) In addition to prayers for a spiritual breakthrough in the area, a foundation and/or catalyst for many evangelistic initiatives was laid at the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. The vision, to get prayer groups formed all over the Peninsula - so that the spiritual eyes of Muslims might be opened to Jesus as the Saviour of the World and as the Son of God - never took off. Here and there a prayer group started and petered out again. Two prayer groups operated in Plumstead and Muizenberg for a few years apiece. The leaders of the respective prayer groups, Sally Kirkwood and Gill Knaggs, later got involved with the Cape prayer movement. The only prayer group that continued functioning over many years was the one in the Abrahams' home in Bo-Kaap's Wale Street. The Friday lunch hour prayer meetings persevered in the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk until July 2007, when it was relocated to our Discipling House in Mowbray and moved to another day of the week ... Global Ramifications Gill Knaggs became one of the first students of Media Village that had been started by Graham and Diane Vermooten in Muizenberg, a ministry linked to Youth with a Mission. The founders, Graham and Diane Vermooten, committed their ministry to train believers for media work and also to tell the stories of God around the Globe. Gill wanted to make a documentary of our ministry at that time as a part of her practical work. Looking back, we are quite happy that it did not materialise. It could have jeopardised our sensitive ministry at a moment when it would have been quite dangerous too, if the footage had come into the wrong hands. Her documentary on Robben Island, that was subsequently used on the ferries to and from the renowned island, may have assisted to put Media Village on the map. In later years the Media Village DVDs and stories would carry the story of Transformation Africa and the Global Day of Prayer around the world. Slaughtering of Sheep in Bo‑Kaap In our loving outreach to Cape Muslims it seemed as if we could never penetrate to their hearts. We had been reading how Don Richardson had a similar problem in Papua New Guinea until he found the peace child as a key to the hearts of the indigenous people. We started praying along similar lines, to get a key to the hearts of Cape Muslims. Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son at their Eid-ul Adha celebration. This made me realise how near the three world religions Christianity, Judaism and Islam actually are to each other. The narrative of Abraham and the near-sacrifice of his son is central to all three faiths. One day our Bo-Kaap Muslim friends invited us to the festivities around the Korban, the slaughtering of sheep. Attending initially with some trepidation and prejudice, the occasion became such a special blessing to my wife and me. The Lord gave us a key to the hearts of Cape Muslims Five sheep were slaughtered that Sunday afternoon. Vividly we saw how one sheep after the other went almost voluntarily to be killed. To see how the sheep went to be slaughtered brought back the childhood memories of Isaiah 53. Rosemarie and I looked at each other, immediately knowing that the Lord answered our prayer. He had given us the key to the hearts of Cape Muslims. The ceremony brought to light the biblical prophecy of Isaiah 53 that I had learned by heart as a child in the Moravian liturgical church practice, referring to the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. A few minutes later the message was amplified when a little girl came into the kitchen where Rosemarie was talking to the ladies. (I was in the living room according to prevailing custom). The animal-loving child sought solace from her mother. ‘Why do the innocent sheep have to be slaughtered every year?’ The answer of the mother was special: “You know, my dear, it is either you or the sheep.” We were amazed how the atonement concept was thus actually passed on in their religion. It was wonderful to discover somewhat later that according to Jewish oral teaching traditions Isaac was purported to have carried the firewood for the altar on his shoulder, after Abraham saw Moriah on the third day - just like someone would carry a cross. In many a church I not only hereafter preached how resurrection faith was birthed in Abraham’s heart, but we also shared the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus to many eager-listening Muslims, usually without any objection (Officially Muslims were not supposed to believe that Jesus died on the cross, let alone that He died for our sins!) Prayer Warriors Respond A divine response followed when individual prayer warriors from different communities were raised. A fourth national 40-day fast was organised in conjunction with an international initiative called A Day to Change the World. Thousands of people participated in this fast, which culminated in Jesus Marches all over the country on 24 June, 1994. The country lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational divisions Although much of the mutual distrust was temporarily overcome, the country lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational divisions. The recipe of Pete Grigg, an American prayer leader, was very appropriate: ‘If there is not significant unity, the first step is to bring together the believers in prayer or in renewal and teaching until there is reconciliation and brokenness.’ Manfred Jung is another visionary with whom I have been blessed to interact with quite intensely. Unlike other expatriate missionaries, the SIM Life Challenge Western Cape leader saw the potential of utilising my background as someone who had been born and bred at the Cape. Manfred died with Fadi Gerges, a Lebanese colleague in a car accident on 25 May 2011 on a missionary assignment in our neighbouring country Zimbabwe. Manfred Jung was 51 years old at that time. The visionary Manfred Jung challenged me to collate and write down the stories of MBBs at the Cape. (At that point in time we had possibly less than 30 of them that we knew about – a conservative estimate - along with possibly many secret believers. But sadly, too many returned to Islam, not only due to pressure of families, but also because of little or no discipling.) I highlighted the need to focus on the discipling of new believers from Islam in Seeds Sown For Revival: A Focus on Muslim Background Believers While I collated testimonies for the booklet Op Soek na Waarheid, I discovered that many new Muslim background believers (MBBs) had reverted to Islam due to deficient discipling and follow-up. This had notably been the case at the campaign of Reinhard Bonnke in Valhalla Park in 1984. Rosemarie and I decided that the discipling of new Muslim background believers should be a focus of our ministry. It was furthermore our vision to attempt to initiate or start small groups of MBBs all over the Peninsula in conjunction with other missionary colleagues. Already after a few months at the Cape I was the chauffeur for a Muslim background group of believers in Southfield, networking with Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson of The Evangelism Alliance Mission (TEAM) once a month on a Friday evening. Around the same time we also started with a group around Alec Patel from the remnant of the Moravian Hill congregation of District Six and Azisa Engelbrecht from the Fountain of Joy Assemblies of Joy fellowship in Woodstock. Salama and Colin Temmers from the Calvinist Church soon joined us after they had been coming to our Friday lunch hour prayer times. A special addition was Ayesha Hunter, who had been miraculously healed. (We had originally met her in the course of our Groote Schuur Hospital outreach as a terminal cancer patient.) The predecessor of Manfred Jung as leader of Life Challenge at the Cape was Gerhard Nehls, another spiritual giant with whom we interacted only minimally, however. Sweet precious memories exist around many a name as we networked quite closely with some of them. We could have shared some more about him and Ds. Davie Pypers, two other giants of missionary outreach to Muslims at the Cape. To keep these memories as terse as possible, we restrict ourselves to those persons with whom at least one of us had closer interaction. In the case of Ds. Davie Pypers, we had a seminar lined up with him as keynote speaker in Rylands in January 1995 at which we wanted to launch Op Soek Na Waarheid. I wrote the following in THE CINDERELLA OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE CAPE: After our return to Cape Town from our ‘home assignment’ in August 1995, there were also other blessings. It seemed as if our vision of a prayer network across the Peninsula was slowly coming off the ground. Gill Knaggs, who had been touched at one of our Friday prayer meetings, now helped with the English translation and editing of my booklet containing the testimonies of Muslim converts with the title ‘Op Soek na Waarheid’. She also began a weekly prayer group for the Muslims in her home. Was this the start of the exciting fulfilment of our vision to get a network of prayer across the Peninsula? This was unfortunately not to be. However, a group of believers would pray at Gill’s home in Muizenberg for quite a few years. We regarded a network of prayer groups for the Muslims across the Cape Peninsula as one of our priorities. Towards this goal I thought it imperative to invite pastors primarily for united prayer. We were thrilled when things had actually started to develop while we were overseas. Another member of the Life Challenge team with whom we interacted quite closely, is Marika Pretorius. I narrated the following in THE CINDERELLA OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE CAPE. Children’s Work Via our SIM missionary colleague Marika Pretorius who had a vision for networking and through whom we got to know our first Bo-Kaap families, we got acquainted with the Greek background nurse Cheryl Moskos. The two of them were involved with children’s and youth work once a week at the Alpha Centre. The Alpha Centre of Hanover Park became another connection to a notorious township. Vivian West was the directress. (She was one of my friends who attended the outreach at Harmony Park in the mid-1960s, later attending the Bible School in the Strand run by the Moravian and the Lutheran Churches.) We had the jitters there when we discovered that some Muslim mother would peep secretly, to listen what we were doing. It turned out that the Holy Spirit had started touching her. My presence at a meeting of the Alpha Centre, the venue of our weekly children’s clubs, led to our being approached by Shehaam, the mother of a few of our children’s club. Their youngest child had just been declared terminally ill because of an unknown virus. This got the ball rolling for many sessions of counselling and prayer when Rosemarie and I visited her. At one of these visits she shared a very special dream she had of a man with a long stick walking on grass that was very green. When I turned my Bible to Psalm 23, she got so excited!! 'That's exactly what I saw in my dream!' she exclaimed. She was like a ripe apple, ready to be picked. She was the first Cape Muslim we were blessed to assist twards faith in the Lord and to disciple. The latter was a major challenge of course. A few months later Shehaam, became the very first Cape Muslim that we were privileged to lead to faith in the Lord, and one of a group of five MBBs to be baptised on 22 March 1995. Involvement in the adjacent suburbs of Walmer Estate and Salt River started with prayer walking. In the latter instance it became the prelude to a children’s club that we commenced with Marika Pretorius - a SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague - after our return from ‘home assignment’ in Europe in 1995. (Marika had been used by God to introduce us to families in Bo-Kaap, as well as a link to the Alpha Centre in Hanover Park, where we also conducted children’s clubs from 1993 to 1995). In our absence she did further spadework work with a holiday club in Salt River in the Burns Road Community Centre.14 At some stage Marika brought along her roommate and co-worker from their Dutch Reformed congregation in Panorama, Jenny van den Berg. When Marika left for Germany to work among Turkish people, Jenny not only became our valued co-worker in Salt River. In due course she would become one of the regular lecturers at the annual Muslim Evangelism course at the Bible Institute of South Africa that we started in 1996 under the auspices of CCM. After we had handed the children’s work in Salt River to Eric Hofmeyer, Jenny van der Berg pioneered with a similar ministry in Woodstock, based at the renovated Baptist Church, persevering there for a number of years. On our home assignment we visited Marika en route to Holland from Southern Germany. She indicated telephonically that she had a surprise for us. Quite special to find that her special friend was no less than Cees Rentier. He had been my successor as leader of the Friday evening outreach of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan ministry in Zeist. What a special privilege it was for me to translate Manfred Jung's wedding service in Parow into Dutch months later. Together Cees and Marika would perform sterling work nationally among Muslims in the Netherlands. A Focus on Muslim Background Believers While I collated testimonies for the booklet Op Soek na Waarheid, I discovered that many new Muslim background believers (MBBs) had reverted to Islam due to deficient discipling and follow-up. This had notably been the case at the campaign of Reinhard Bonnke in Valhalla Park in 1984. Rosemarie and I decided that the discipling of new Muslim background believers should be a focus of our ministry. It was, furthermore, our vision to attempt to initiate or start small groups of MBBs all over the Peninsula in conjunction with other missionary colleagues. Already after a few months at the Cape I was the chauffeur for a Muslim background group of believers in Southfield, networking with Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson of The Evangelism Alliance Mission (TEAM) once a month on a Friday evening. Around the same time we also started with a group around Alec Patel, a believer from the remnant of the Moravian Hill congregation of District Six and Azisa Engelbrecht from the Fountain of Joy Assemblies of Joy fellowship in Woodstock. Salama and Colin Temmers from the Calvinist Church soon joined us after they had been coming to our Friday lunch hour prayer times. A special addition was Ayesha Hunter, who had been miraculously healed. (We had originally met her in the course of our Groote Schuur Hospital outreach as a terminal cancer patient.) Before we narrate some precious memories of those who did attend in the next chapter, we would like to mention a few other names of missionary colleagues in loving Muslim Outreach with whom we interacted after we saw this as the focus of our calling, also taken from THE CINDERELLA OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE CAPE. The Missionary Work Among Cape Indian Muslims Pieter Els (later he became professor of Old Testament at UWC) soon joined the Muslim outreach effort with Ds. Davie Pypers in Rylands. There the Reverend Edward Mannikam was the first from the Indian community to be given leadership responsibility in a church. In the mid 1970s the mission effort to the Muslims at the Cape got a big push through the pioneering work of the German missionary Gerhard Nehls, who laboured hard for many years without seeing much in terms of fruit or local recognition. Nehls started with regular outreach to Muslims in Salt River in 1980. Support from the churches was almost non-existent at the time. In fact, in general they were indifferent to Muslim outreach. Even denominations that had a vision for evangelism like the Docks Mission and the City Mission hardly had an eye for the Muslims on their door-step. Suburbs like Woodstock and Salt River became increasingly Islamic, apparently because of the indifference of the churches Prostitution and drug abuse were the other major factors that pushed Christians out of these areas. Life Challenge and the initiative from the Dutch Reformed Church seemed to co-operate quite well, especially while Ds. Chris Greyling was still the Sendingkerk man. Neville Truter became a co-worker from DRC ranks after a tract, which was given to him by Gerhard Nehls at the sale of his car in 1976, had touched him. Truter was thrown into the deep end when he was requested to arrange an appointment for Gerhard Nehls and Walter Gschwandter with the imam of a mosque in Cravenby near Parow. Hereafter, Truter teamed up with Pieter Els. They joined forces for many years in that Indian residential area. Two big names in Muslim Evangelism I was blessed to have met and interact with are John Gilchrist and Gerhard Nehls, two spiritual giants at the cradle of CCM. Along with Gerhard Nehls, John Gilchrist put South Africa on the map in Muslim Evangelism in a special way through literary contributions. Through their research and publications, Gilchrist and Nehls became worldwide renowned apologists. In THE CINDERELLA OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE CAPE I narrated the start of CCM: CCM started as a gathering of small group of Christian workers who were perturbed by the fact that the Islamic communities which needed most attention as far as the Gospel was concerned, were actually receiving least. In probably the pristine CCM in early 1982 in a small lounge at the Bible Institute in Kalk Bay. Giants of evangelical Christendom in South Africa at the time, such as Hugh Wetmore, Harold Froise occupied the seats, as Gerhard explained that to maximize the impact, it was necessary to work together. CCM proper was born a few months later. CCM, at the beginning stood for ChristianS ConcernED for Muslims. Later on, it became Christian Concern for Muslims. Along with Gerhard Nehls, John Gilchrist put South Africa on the map in Muslim Evangelism in a special way through literary contributions. Through his research and publications, Nehls became a worldwide renowned apologist. Gerhard had a strong vision for an expression of unity of followers of Jesus. With Uli Lehmann and his wife Heidi at his side, he invited John Gilchrist and two Bible School students, Allain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson, respectively from Madagascar and Reunion to join, starting Christian Concern for Muslims. Fred Nel of Pretoria, the founder of Eternal Life Outreach and a SA leader of the Haggai Institute for Advanced Leadership Training, soon joined the team, as well as Gloria Cube, a Xhosa-speaking female, started with Muslim outreach in Bo-Kaap as preparation for missionary work with Africa Evangelical Fellowship. We close this chapter with joint ventures. Here the reader finds names of people who attended our celebration and others who did not for different reasons. Among those who attended were Sollie Staggie and Ps. Tertius Bezuidenhout. The Wynstok Gemeente of Bellville and the Evangelical Mission Church of Newfields would in due course become the two congregations closest linked to the ministry of Born Again Believers Network. Other Joint Ventures In the early 1990s Bo-Kaap Muslim ladies were jogging, swimming and walking with born-again Christian peers. What started in 1992 as a friendship to M,, a Muslim lady who was living in Tamboerskloof, developed into Rosemarie attending a ladies craft group in Bo-Kaap. The contacts made here, became the inspiration to start Jamiela Groups later. Renate Isert, a missionary from SIM Life challenge, joined them. (The friendship with M. , who had been married to a Swiss doctor, continued also after she had moved to District Six in 2019/20??.) The idea of the Jamiela groups subsequently went national, with Renate Isert the driving force, assisted by Kathy Bowen. In the new millennium Kathy Bowen and Geraldine Williams, a long time co-worker from Mitchell's Plain, have been heading up this ministry. (Charlene Abrahams, who could not return to serve in Italy after the return of the family in 2017. They had been serving there for twelve and a half years. She was asked to lead Jamiela in 2021, but died suddenly in 2024.) Afrikaner ladies with links to SIM worked alongside the Dutch Reformed Church of Rylands in the outreach to children in Pelican Park. One of them, Marika Pretorius, was also working together with other missionaries in this ministry in Hanover Park and Salt River before she left for Germany to work among Kurdish children. When the Doulos, a ship of Operation Mobilisation (OM) was in the Dry Docks of Cape Town for a lengthy period in 1993, a few of the OM short term workers were also involved in the evangelistic outreach at Hanover Park and other areas. In 1995 a missionary joint SIM/WEC venture started with prayer walks in Salt River. Marika Pretorius was pivotal to get children’s ministry at the Burns Road Community Centre off the ground after a holiday club in the June holidays. When Pastor Eric Hofmeyer, a former gangster, moved to this venue on behalf of the Cape Town City Mission at the beginning of 1998, a new low-key evangelistic thrust started. Through his involvement in the Salt River community, which is heavily affected by drug addiction, many a Muslim opened up to the Gospel as they were being counselled. Because Hofmeyer had been a reputable weight lifter - a South African champion and seventh in the world in his weight division - the centre was also used for training in this sport as well as for Karate. Hofmeyer also worked closely with the sports ministry SCAS, gaining entry into many schools. Even institutions of learning, which have Muslim principals, gladly invited Eric and his multi-racial team as they ministered to young drug addicts. A Potential Assassin Led To The Lord From Eric Hofmeyer I heard about his discipling of Sollie Staggie in Pollsmoor Prison. Eric had been a former member of the Hard Livings Gang, Sollie Staggie was given the task to eliminate our brother who had been 'a disaster who had become a pastor now serving the Master. (this is how Eric quipped his testimony tersely.) But God intervened on this mission. Sollie was serving a 25 years sentence there. Ultimately Eric led Sollie to the Lord. Subsequently, when he was discharged on parole in 2015, Sollie went to serve in Hanover Park in Newfields (adjacent to Hanover Park) at the congregation of our dear brother Bruce van Eeden with whom we had served with a children's club from mid-1992 when he was still an EBC pastor. In 2020, when we started Born Again Believers Network, Sollie Staggie became one of our co-workers. He continued in ministry to children and youth, together with Ps Eric Hofmeyer in the agency The World Needs a Father, led by Ds. Cassie Carstens. Now he serves committedly not only in ministry to children and youth in Hanover Park, but also in a similar capacity in the gangster-infested Lavender Hill. Our Vehicle Stolen In 1993 a traumatic event shook us to the roots of our existence. Whereas the violence and turmoil on the East Rand, in Natal or even Khayelitsha was still on the periphery of our lives, the weekend starting with the second Friday of September 1993 had us reeling. After the children had left for school at about 7.40h. Rosemarie and I had a short prayer session. Just after nine o’clock I had to fetch a few old ladies for the monthly WEC prayer meeting at our house. Here we would especially pray for our missionaries from South Africa and for those ministering in other parts of the country. To my horror, I had to discover that our old Microbus was stolen. The events of the next 30 hours were traumatic in the extreme. Our emotions swung like a very long pendulum from the heights of elation to the deepest despair. For many years hereafter I tried to document a complete report of the events, but I was never able to finish it within a time limit where the memory of the events was fresh enough. On the Friday morning that we discovered that our Microbus was stolen, a new ‘convert’ came to our one o’clock prayer meeting- a drug addict who purported to have just been ‘saved’. Thirty hours later we found out that he was a conman. In between, this fake convert had fooled us terribly. His demonic demeanour removed my vision for a drug rehabilitation almost completely.15 The events of the weekend highlighted the temptation to return to Europe. The Lord however did not give us peace to leave the Mother City as yet. In fact, over thirty years later we are still living in Vredehoek in the home that we actually bought. A sequence of special circumstances made the purchase possible. Mitchell's Plain Pastors in a Prayer Offensive In the early 1990s various Mitchell's Plain pastors – with Pastors Henry Busch, Eddie Edson and Theo Roman leading the way - met for prayer every Friday morning. In 1994 a separate Jesus March was organised on short notice. During prayer drives believers would target strongholds of the arch-enemy The ministers’ fraternal was also the driving force of the pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meetings which took place every second Thursday of the month from the mid-1990s. This prayer meeting soon included church leaders from all over the Peninsula. Pastor Edson of the Shekinah Tabernacle was also pivotal in the formation of prayer drives where believers would target strongholds of the arch-enemy and go there and pray against them every last Friday evening of the month. (Edson had already pioneered transport for the needy at his church in Mitchell's Plain, purchasing buses to transport his congregants.) In due course, strategic marches followed in other areas, such as Hanover Park, where combined prayer marches by churches on a Saturday afternoon would especially stop at places of vice, such as the homes of drug merchants. The seed sown in Hanover Park germinated when various attempts were made after 2005 to tackle the ‘tik’ drug problem. When Victory Outreach commenced with ministry at the Cape in 2006, Hanover Park was one of the first townships to see a vibrant church planted under their auspices. It is quite fitting that the former Bruce Duncan Children's Home in that township now hosts the offices and a drug rehabilitation centre of Victory Outreach. It was sad though that the effort to tackle the tik scourge had to be aborted. It came to light that one of the pastors involved in this new attempt, had been receiving money from a gang leader cum drug lord. Secret MBBs Coming Out of Hiding Increasingly converts were making a bold stand for their new-found faith. The radio programmes via CCFM - using local MBBs - gave a significant push for Muslims to turn to Christ and for secret believers to step out of hiding. Ayesha Hunter, one of the two convert presenters, who came out into the open after eight years of being a secret believer, was harassed, threatened and offered a bribe to return to Islam. Testimonies of local converts from Islam, in the form of tracts and as cassettes used in taxis, started to make a significant impact on the Muslim community of the Cape. I also interviewed MBBs once a month every Friday evening on the weekly programme God Changes Lives until the station used an American testimony programme called Unshackled for which the station received funds from there. This did not look like a blessing initially, notably when the funds from the US ushered in the termination of my weekly radio ministry, coinciding with the closing of the devotional series that I had been recording around John 4. (The result can be accessed on our blog as A Revolutionary Conversation.) I took the disappointment in my stride as I had time at the beginning of 2004, not only to get Search For Truth Part 2 printed after the challenge of Rosemarie at the removal of my cancerous prostate gland in December 2003. (I had quite a few unfinished manuscripts on my PC.) In one of these higher ways, we thus had time at our disposal to do some spadework for the 'wave of opportunity' in the wake of Rosemarie's dream cum vision, namely the compassionate outreach to refugees and Muslims from other countries. We started using teaching of English as a service to enable them to make a living here and simultaneously open their hearts for the gospel. Two years later we started the NGO Friends From Abroad. Accusations of racism within the Tygerberg Radio Station brought the evangelical witness in the northern suburbs in disrepute, but it never reached dangerous proportions. It did seem to have the effect, however, that the station opened up more to have people of colour on the airwaves. When various ‘Coloureds’ and former Muslims started sharing their testimonies via this station, many critics were silenced. The radio station went subsequently, however, into caution after intimidatory phone calls by Muslims. Radio work could perhaps be rated amongst the most effective evangelistic tools at the Cape at that time, possibly second only to the ministry in trains. The radio evangelistic outreach to Muslims achieved its success in the wake of the insecurity and crisis that followed the PAGAD ‘holy war’ after 1996. Many Muslims started phoning the two Christian radio stations of the Cape, which were perceived to co-operate harmoniously. At the beginning of 1999, a convert from Islam who had been relatively obscure between 1994 and 1998 after serious moral failure, bounced back with a vengeance. Dean Ramjoomia, who had been used so powerfully in Hanover Park among the gangsters in 1992/3, got the vision to become a full-time evangelist among the gangsters, started attending a Cape Bible School in January 1999. Subsequently, he and his wife Susan served as the first houseparents of the Moria Discipling House in Mowbray, a facility started by WEC International in 2000. 6. SPECIAL INDIAN BACKGROUND BELIEVERS From the earliest days of our marriage hospitality was the norm in our family. Already in Bad Boll and Berlin many a South African went in and out of our home. In the latter case, this became international, with a Swazi female refugee staying with us for many a month. Here at the Cape, we had guests from across the globe over the years. From the latter part of the 20th century, these also included many an Asian. I use this as introduction to a few South African Indian background followers of our Lord. We would have loved to welcome Richard and Elizabeth Mitchell, as well as Valerie Mannikkam, at the 16th April celebration. They live now in the UK and Durban respectively. I wrote the following in On the Eagle's Wings: Assistance in the Ministry When Valerie Manikkam, a young Indian Christian lady from Durban joined our team for practical experience in preparation of missionary work, she had a passion for a rather unusual combination, namely for the aged and for youth. Both of these were age groups we had been neglecting in our ministry. In the case of the former, this was only covered through our hospital ministry and occasional visits to the homes of patients. The latter – the youth - we left over to Eric Hofmeyer in Salt River in 1998 when we went overseas for a period of home assignment in Holland and Germany. Valerie joined Rosemarie in many a venture, not only at the home craft club in Bo-Kaap, notably in assisting Rosemarie with the Discipling of Fazleen, after the latter had phoned CCFM. (Elsa Raine, the CCFM worker responsible for the prayer ministry, faithfully passed on to us all Muslim-related calls for follow-up.) A very special result ensued when a Muslim lady, Fazleen, 2who had phoned the station in 2003, could be ministered to. The new convert later also became a co-worker, responding to the calls of Muslim enquirers. (Fazleen's boyfriend had terminated their relationship when he discerned that he would get unequally yoked as a believer if he would marry a Muslim. The couple resumed their friendship into matrimony, now happily married with two teenage children with a good relationship to her parents.) Valerie turned out to be a valuable assistant and extra daughter in our home. This was especially evident when we celebrated our silver wedding. Together with our children she helped prepare a wonderful and memorable occasion on 22 March 2000. Interestingly enough, the memory to our first meeting with Richard Mitchell goes back to 1 November, 1997. Later I will share more about that memorable occasion. Before going into more details of the life of Richard Mitchell, I would like to paste a special snippet around the networking in which Pastor Eddie Edson played a significant role. Like-Minded Partners In his divine wisdom the Lord had already started to raise more like-minded partners. I attended the monthly city-wide pastors’ and wives’ prayer meeting on the second Thursday of January 1998 after a substantial absence. Pastor Eddie Edson asked me to address the group off the cuff about the latest issues in the Muslim outreach. As a result, an ‘unknown’ brother gave me his address card and a scribbled note in my hand as we lined up for tea at the end of the meeting. The content of the note had me looking up: ‘You don’t recognise me, but you were my Sunday School teacher!’ The circle was complete. Ernest, who had written the note, hailed from the Sonnenberg family in Ravensmead that the Lord had used to thrust me into missions while I was still an arrogant rebellious teenage Christian. When Rosemarie and I visited Ernest and Eleanor, his wife, we sensed an immediate bond. Exactly those ideas that had been on my mind for years - and that I had struggled to put over to pastors - were aired by them. It turned out that Ernest had also enjoyed training as a journalist. Ernest was writing a regular newsletter to about 100 pastors. The life story of Richard Mitchell needs to come out as a publication soon to bless the nation. Over seventy years old now, he has been living in the UK since 1999 with his family. Richard Mitchell was present at the cradle of the African Christian Democratic Party. Here now a summary of my own recollection. When Richard was a Hindu teenager, his family was forcibly removed from their home in Durban following Group Areas legislation. There he first became a Muslim and then a Jehovah's Witness Christian. After discovering the flawed doctrine of this sect, he got trained at a night school in theology, becoming a Full Gospel pastor, in due course. A prayer event at the Cape in 1983 would impact Richard Mitchell significantly. He attended a prayer event. I take up his story to give some idea why I am so eager to see a full version of his life story of Richard Mitchell published, quoted from Seeds Sown for Revival: Thrust Into the Struggle When his Indian family was evicted from their home near to the city centre of Durban, the life of the twelve year old Richard Mitchell was completely uprooted. Although quite intelligent, he had no interest in school any more thereafter, failing twice in subsequent years. The Hindu practices of his devout grandmother had never really impressed him, nor did Christianity with the god of the 'Whites', its blond Jesus. (His sister had become a born again Christian but he would have none of that. The change in her life did impress him after she had become a follower of the ‘White’ man's god). Already at high school his resentment for the apartheid politics reared its head. With a few learner colleagues Richard sawed down the pole at night that had been erected for the fiercely hated birthday celebration of the Republic of South Africa. His life disrupted, he soon became a drug addict to boot. After Richard left high school it was almost natural that he would join SASO, the protest student movement of the day. He was not only thrust into the struggle, but also landed behind prison bars. There torture was the daily bread for him and 21 other young students, including the likes of Ahmed Timol and Steve Biko. When one of his Muslim jail colleagues introduced Islam to him, he was interested enough to give Islam a go, reading the Qur'an soon from cover to cover. The deep search for truth however prevailed. He decided to give Christianity a try as well. With his body paining excruciatingly because of the terrible torture he had been experiencing, he decided to pray something like the following: “Ok blond Jesus, you ‘White’ man's god, I will really consider following you if you get me out of this place.” A Snippet From the Book of Acts Re-Enacted When a warden came to wake him in the early morning hours to tell him that he can leave, he would at first not believe him. He thought this was another chapter of these tormenting episodes coming up, now disrupting their sleep which was not a real pleasure anyway. Only when he got outside in the cool fresh air it broke through that he had been discharged, the only one from the group of 22. With the body aching all over, he struggled to get home. Whoever opened the door, could not believe it. A group of Christians had been having an all-night prayer meeting. One of the major topics was their prayer for him in prison. The political anti-apartheid activist and former drug addict not only came to personal faith after this interaction, but soon he was on fire for the Lord, preaching in public all over the city. When Richard heard of the possibility to attend evening Bible School, he enrolled, soon becoming a pastor in the Full Gospel Church, in due course. I recorded the following in Seeds Sown For Revival: An Indian Couple From Durban Impacts the Cape As a young Indian pastor, Richard Mitchell came by bus from Natal to the Frontiers Missions Conference at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in 1983. At the Frontiers Missions Conference Richard Mitchell met a young man from the Cape, Roland Manne, who had a heart for missions. Roland contracted cancer of the bowels, and died in 1984. Roland's commitment had however by then sown seeds that were germinating in the hearts of many young people. Richard Mitchell was one of those changed by the testimony and commitment of Manne to missions and prayer. When Richard Mitchell came to the Cape two years later to plant a church in Rylands Estate, he felt challenged by his background in the struggle against apartheid to bring prayer into the matter as well. He approached Pastor Ron Hendricks of the Silvertown Baptist Church to gather a few evangelical pastors for regular weekly prayer. In later years the practice was powerfully emulated in Mitchell's Plain. Pastor Richard Mitchell became an important catalyst for citywide prayer in the late 1990s. Rosemarie and I were blessed to network with Richard and his wife in the two years from our meeting on 1 November, 1997 at the Moravian Hill Chapel until they left for the UK, where they contributed significantly towards the prayer ministry and evangelisation there. I joined Richard and Elizabeth Mitchell for a prayer meeting at Rhodes Memorial in 1998. Prayers on the heights of the city would knit our hearts together. Our friendship at that time was a double trigger. We started fortnightly prayer on Signal Hill, which have in Sea Point and Bo-Kaap as the respective strongholds of Cape Jewry and Islam in its proximity. When I was given the opportunity to start a weekly testimony programme in 1998 via CCFM, a Cape Christian radio station, Richard was my man for the job as presenter. At this time we would visit each other in our homes. (After the Mitchell family left for the UK in November and December 1999, we reduced the Signal Hill prayer events to monthly ones.) Every Friday evening our programme God Changes Lives had to compete with the TV favourite Pasella on the national TV, but soon it became a favourite programme among Cape listeners, nevertheless. I did the interviews at the radio station, getting one convert from Islam every month, next to others followers of Jesus who had come from other faiths or cults. I was at that time, furthermore, also a regular of the pastors and wives monthly meeting, that was ably led by Ps. Eddie Edson. This was a constant and steady reservoir, a resource from where I got names and phone numbers of people to interview on my radio programme. A scourge in Cape townships at that time was PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs), an Islamist front that started in 1996 in Manenberg as an interfaith project led by Father Clohessy. However, it was soon high-jacked by extremist Muslims. The CCFM radio station with which the Cape Flats pastors networked powerfully transmitted on a 24/ hour basis alternating with Tygerberg Radio, that grew in stature in the late 1990s. Together these stations, and to a lesser extent Radio Pulpit/Radio Kansel, became a prime force in stopping the Islamization of the Western Cape when PAGAD attempted to do this by force. I recorded the gist of the contribution of the pastors Eddie Edson and Richard Mitchell in this process as follows in Seeds Sown for Revival. Renewed Interest in the Lives of Gangsters Glen Khan’s assassination in April 1999 was divinely used to bring many a church in the city together, not only for prayer. To some extent the Church was challenged to reach out to Muslims in love. Following Khan’s death, some churches showed renewed interest in the lives of gangsters. Pastor Eddie Edson saw the need to disciple them, starting a programme of special care for gangsters who wanted to change their life-styles. The gang war triggered a significant increase in evangelistic ministry, notably at Pollsmoor prison. In the wake of the assassination of Glen Khan and Rashied Staggie’s powerful testimony at the funeral, a trickle of Cape Muslims started turning to Christ. A direct result was the birth of the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI), where church leaders mediated between PAGAD and gang leaders. The contribution of Errol Naidoo, a young journalist and pastor at His People Ministries, was significant, as was that of Hindu background Ps. Richard Mitchell, his mentor, who had originally led Errol Naidoo to the Lord. In due course, the element of fear of possible Muslim reprisals was steadily eroded, even the fear of being ostracised by the Muslim Umma (community) if they would become followers of Jesus. In due course, many MBBs could be found in 'Coloured' townships, notably in Mitchell's Plain and Manenberg. Steady inroads among gangsters and drug addicts continued nevertheless, even though many of the new converts did not persevere in their new faith. PAGAD Marginalised Suddenly PAGAD felt themselves cornered. Pastor Edson was surprised when the ‘Muslim leaders’ turned out to be representatives of PAGAD. This was a major turn-around on the part of the extremists. It was however quite unexpected that they had become willing almost overnight, eager to speak to church leaders. This was evidently God supernaturally at work, but Edson and other church leaders were not immediately aware of it. A few weeks prior to the meeting, PAGAD had still refused to meet any Christians or other mediators. A direct result of the 13 April meeting was the birth of the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI) - church leaders trying to mediate between PAGAD and gang leaders. An agenda for a bigger consultation scheduled for 22 April, was agreed upon. This was arranged to take place at the Pinelands Civic Centre. There were also discussions with gang leaders on the same day. At both meetings prayer warriors interceded for the discussions, and other believers helped to serve the delegations at meal-times. A tense moment developed when the issue of violence was addressed. The PAGAD leaders asked for permission to discuss the matter separately. It was evident to the CPI delegation that God had intervened powerfully. At the consultation in the Pinelands Civic Centre on 22 April 1999, God intervened powerfully. PAGAD was suddenly ready to speak to the government together with the church leaders - unarmed! This was an answer to the prayers of the warriors around the country,with Sally Kirkwood playing a pivotal role. Intercessors had been interceding for the proceedings. To all intents and purposes PAGAD was marginalized. PAGAD was suddenly ready to speak to the government – unarmed! PAGAD was hereafter suddenly ready to speak to the government together with them - unarmed! This was an answer to the prayers of the warriors around the country who had been interceding for the proceedings. To all intents and purposes PAGAD sensed that they had suddenly been marginalised. To all intents and purposed the violent islamising of the Western Cape was thwarted, and the intention to make the African continent by AD 2000 was effectively pushed back! I would not do justice to the legacy of Ps. Richard Mitchell, if I would not give more attention to the prayer ministry where his contribution was phenomenal, not only at the Cape but also in Europe, and especially in the UK. Here now an excerpt from Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3 about our early contact with him and his wife. Attempts To Rename Devil’s Peak As part of the effort to stimulate revival, attempts were made to rename Devil’s Peak, one of the city’s (in)famous landmarks. The unofficial renaming attempt of ‘Devil’s Peak’ to ‘Disciples' Peak’ in 1994 was led by Pastor Johan Klopper of the Vredehoek Apostolic Faith Mission Church. This, along with regular prayers at Rhodes Memorial with Hindu background Pastor Richard Mitchell and other believers, fitted into the pattern of high-powered spiritual warfare. These venues had been strongholds of satanists. Next to the battle against the lie and deception of Islam, the attempt to rename ‘Devil’s Peak’ to ‘Disciples' Peak’ would turn out to be a very high hurdle. Eddie Edson was mentioned a few times. Coming from a gangster background, he saw the need of 'cleaning the fish that had been caught'. Deficient discipling is still a major flaw in Cape townships, notably of gangsters who were purported to got converted in prison. Other flaws to mention is the indifference of loving outreach to Muslims and Jews, which I came to highlight as THE CINDERELLA OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE CAPE. Arguably the biggest contribution of Ps Eddie Edson in Cape transformation in the 1990s is his bringing together of 'Coloured' pastors with monthly prayer drives and meetings from 1996. With him, other great men of God at the Cape of the 1980s and 1990s need to be mentioned. I refer the reader for more details to Revival Seeds for Revival Parts 2 and 3. Here I want to highlight only those siblings with whom I interacted more than merely casually. I got to know Ps Eddie Edson after the co-ordination of Jesus Marches of 1994 at the Cape was thrown into my lap. Below the Western Cape Missions Commission is mentioned. The name of of Dr. Ernst van der Walt, with his heart for missions stands out. Now deep into their eighties, they are quite frail. I would otherwise have loved to invite him and his wife Sr. Freda to our celebration. Before we go to the new millennium, we have to highlight how the main catalyst of the big stadium events from 2001 to 2010, Graham Power, was impacted: A Link to Community Transformation Pastor Eddie Edson of the Shekinah Full Gospel Tabernacle congregation of Mitchell's Plain organised two all-night citywide prayer events on 25 June and 15 October 1999. By this time ‘White’ pastors started to attend the monthly pastors' gathering more regularly, even at places like Die Hok in Manenberg, a former drug den and headquarters of the Hard Livings gang. Rev. Trevor Pearce, a minister who later became the minister of the Anglican Church of Bergvliet, joined one of these prayer meetings with copies of the transformation video. The transformation video’s first screening to a big audience in Cape Town took place at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow on 15 October 1999. Already in the short term this showing brought about substantial change in some churches. By this time ‘White’ pastors started to attend the monthly pastors’ and wives’ occasion more regularly, also at venues like Die Hok in Manenberg, a former drug den. A Special Dream of Graham Power During their annual holiday in Spain, Graham Power had a very special dream. He had a supernatural visitation, during which he was challenged to approach the Western Province Rugby Board for the use of their stadium at Newlands for a mass prayer event. This was foremost in his mind when he returned to his office after his holiday, with Barbara Cilliers present. Barbara was the coordinator for the 24/7 prayer watch in the Helderberg Basin. In the biographical Not by Might nor by Power the interaction is narrated as well as the subsequent events soon thereafter: Opposition by Church Leaders Knowing that this sort of thing had never been done before 'in one hundred years', at the Newlands Stadium, Graham Power did not expect an easy ride to get permission for a mass prayer event on 21 March 2001, but what he did not envisage was massive opposition by the body of Christ. Sharing his vision with a particular group of pastors. Graham once again felt the resistance and quietly prayed for a breakthrough. He was beginning to doubt whether the church could put aside its differences to support the vision. This was still the situation when he set off for a meeting in the 'Black' township of Langa where he narrated about the momentous meeting (p.39f): 'No sooner had he finished sharing his story than he began receiving quick and vehement opposition. Concerns over insufficient time, logistics and planning came quickly...The room got hotter, and for a moment his mind wandered away from the debate until he was sharply brought back at that moment by a voice that broke through the questioning crowd. Slowly standing to her feet, a Xhosa believer called Mamela, spoke with conviction and authority. The room seemed to settle in an instant as her voice cried out, 'What is this thing? When God gives a vision we are not to question, we are to come alongside and support.' Was this the moment that Graham and the Transformation Africa committee had been waiting for? It only lasted a few seconds, but it could be said that while God had conceived the vision in the heart of Graham Power in Spain, this moment marked the beginning of the labor pains. Could the vision finally become reality in the hearts of the people of Cape Town? The first man to courageously stand to his feet was Reverend Willem Malherbe. It had only been one week before, that Willem had attended a presentation as a member of the Dutch Reformed fraternity in Durbanville. This fraternity had initially expressed strong reservations against the idea of a united day of prayer. Willem stood tall among the crowd, and with a voice that tilted with his Afrikaans accent, humbly said, 'I want to support Mamela. I do now believe that this is a vision from God, and I want to support it.' As he sat down, he too had a sense that this was a significant moment for the church in Cape Town, but never could he have imagined the impact that this day would have as a catalyst in the global story of transformation and prayer. One by one, other leaders started to nod, and then as the Holy Spirit sealed the issue in their hearts, they too stood to their feet and voiced their approval and agreed to stand in unity '. He promptly approached his co-directors for the use of the biggest sports stadium of the Mother City. I intend recalling my interaction with a few other dynamic personalities of that era in the last chapter of Precious Memories. 8. SPECIAL FRIENDS IN THE LATE 1990s In the following excerpt from Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3, a few other believers from the 1990s are mentioned who attended our celebration. Ps Bruce van Eeden was there with his wife Sandra, Nasra attended with her husband Dyon Vosmer as well as Shehaam Achmat from Hanover Park. Valuable Mission Contacts The Western Cape Missions Commission, to which our WEC colleague Shirley Charlton took me soon after my return to the Cape in January 1992, proved very valuable in terms of contacts. Here I met Jan Hanekom and Bruce van Eeden among other strategic people,. The pastors Martin Heuvel and Bruce van Eeden were instrumental in bringing the missions vision to many ‘Coloured’ churches. Pastor Heuvel was God’s instrument to nudge me into getting more involved with Muslim background believers. (The 1992 occasion was the distribution of invitations to a pending visit of the internationally well-known Patrick Johnstone, the author of Operation World. Together with Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson, a few Muslim background believers were soon congregating once a month at the Ravelo-Hoërson home in Southfield). Pastor Bruce van Eeden set up Great Commission Conferences to great effect. After a rather traumatic run-up, our 20th wedding anniversary, initially forgotten by everybody in the family, turned into a red-letter day. This is how I described it in Seeds Sown for Revival. I recorded the following about the special day when we baptized Nasra and Shehaam Achmat in diverse manuscripts. We were blessed that both could attend our Golden Anniversary celebration. Nasra came along with her Dutch husband Dyon Vosmer.) A Red-letter Day Our wedding anniversary - twenty years after the special ceremony in the Moravian Church of the Black Forest village Königsfeld - nevertheless turned into a red-letter day. On that memorable Wednesday morning we baptized five converts who came from Islam, including Shehaam Achmat, from Hanover Park and Nasra Stemmet from Woodstock. On the evening of 22 March 1995 the home ministry group of our Cape Town Baptist fellowship sprang a big surprise on us. We had no clue what they were up to when the group came to our home for a special farewell. Everybody in the family had forgotten that it was our wedding anniversary, but Carol Günther did not. She arranged with the participants to bring along some eats to make it a very special celebration. The day became perfect when the gentleman of Club Travel, who had been working overtime, phoned at approximately 21h that he could secure seats for all of us. This was thus only a few days before our intended departure! The three older children could fly on a youth fare of Lufthansa, with the rest of us flying Air France. MBBs Serving in Cape Townships Shehaam Achmat was one of five Muslim background believers that were baptised on the same day, on 22 March 1995. Shehaam remained a secret believer for about 20 years. She continued to shine for the Lord covertly. Among other things, while keeping contact with us, she ultimately impacted Lameez Ras, a young woman who got into a romantic relationship with one of Shehaam's two sons. (Lameez would subsequently become an ardent disciple of our Lord, divinely used to see all three of her sisters in the Beacon Valley drug and vice infected township of Mitchell's Plain becoming following of Jesus in due course.) Just before our departure for Europe in March 1995, I was praying with a few students of the Baptist College in Mountain Road, Woodstock where the Baptist Church had a property – actually a residence. At that venue I had been preaching from time to time, notably with my first sermons on John 4, lessons from the interaction of Jesus with Samaritan Woman at the well. I recorded the following in Seeds Sown for Revival: Prayer With Other Ministers ... What a blessing it was when we heard that Edgar Davids accepted the call to be their pastor from the following year. This augured well for a close link to the Cape Town Baptist Church only a few kilometres away, where Louis Pasques was now the interim pastor. Edgar Davids proved to be a real visionary and a man of God, along with his devout wife Sandra. Edgar Davids introduced me to a group of pastors at Rondebosch Dutch Reformed Church with Dr. Ernst van der Walt, Pastors Fenner Kadalie from the City Mission and Theo Bowers from the Full Gospel Church as regulars. Walmer Estate and Salt River Personal involvement in the adjacent suburbs of Walmer Estate and Salt River started with prayer walking. In the latter instance it became the prelude to a children’s club that we began with Marika Pretorius, a SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague, after our return from ‘home assignment’ in Europe in 1995. (Marika had been used by God to introduce us to families in Bo-Kaap, and as a link to the Alpha Centre in Hanover Park, where we also conducted children’s clubs from 1993 to 1995). In our absence she did further spadework with a holiday club in Salt River in the Burns Road Community Centre. At some stage Marika brought along her room mate and co-worker from their Dutch Reformed congregation in Panorama, Jenny van den Berg. When Marika left for Germany to work among Turkish people, not only did Jenny become our valued co-worker in Salt River, but in due course she would also become one of the lecturers at the annual Muslim Evangelism course at the Bible Institute of South Africa that we started in 1996 under the umbrella of Christian Concern for Muslims (CCM). After we had handed the children’s work in Salt River to Eric Hofmeyer, Jenny van den Berg pioneered a similar ministry in Woodstock, based at the local Baptist Church, where she ministered until 2009. The year 1997 would contain many salvo's of spiritual warfare. Thus this was the year when a Cape Evangelical Bible Institute in Surray Estate was sold to Muslims. Around that time this also happened to other church-related buildings, such as the Christian Science Church in the City Bowl, the former Dutch Reformed Church that had been used by the Jubilee Church in Toronga Road in Crawford and the former Lutheran Church in Ottery. This major 'march' of Islam seemed to peter out at the turn of the millennium, which co-insided with a significant expansion of the prayer movement. The physically diminutive Sally Kirkwood played a pivotal role in this process. Here is how I recorded that: A 'Presence' Established in Mitchell's Plain In May 1997 our WEC intercessor Sally Kirkwood was approached to organise intercession for the visit of Cindy Jacobs, a prominent intercession leader from the USA. She contacted people and also organised a prayer and fasting chain. She felt a nudge to 'establish a presence' at the Shekinah Tabernacle in Mitchell's Plain. Taking along Dottie Bezuidenhout, an Afrikaner intercessor at a time when it was quite dangerous to go and pray at the venue as 'White' people, the Lord used the two intercessors to open the way for others to follow. The visit by Cindy Jacobs from the USA brought a significant number of ‘Coloured’ and 'White' intercessors together at the Shekinah Tabernacle in Mitchell's Plain. She confirmed the need for confession with regard to the blight of District Six. Lea Barends from Ravensmead and Sheila Garvey from Durbanville were faithful quiet intercessors. Sheila had been praying faithfully for District Six for many years in its hey-day before this. Diminutive Sally Kirkwood played a pivotal role, taking a huge burden on her shoulders in praying for District Six. When she approached me in October 1997 about the matter, I had already started with preparations for a visit of intercessors from Heidelberg (Gauteng), scheduled to come to the city the last week of that month. (This was included in the two-yearly initiative, called Praying Through the Window). Intercession for breakthroughs in the so-called 10-40 window was the intentional agenda. Praying Through The Window At the sending of prayer teams to different spiritual strongholds in 1997 as part of the Praying through the Window initiatives, a team from the Dutch Reformed congregation Suikerbosrand in Heidelberg (Gauteng) followed the nudge of Bennie Mostert's NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa), to come and pray in the Mother City. This was spiritually quite significant because Heidelberg had once been the cradle of the racist and right-wing Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). That the AWB town was sending a team in November 1997 to pray for Bo-Kaap, might have hit the headlines had it been publicized! But all this had to be covert undercover stuff. This was transpiring at a time when PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) was still terrorizing the Cape Peninsula. Bo-Kaap was not geographically situated in the 10/40 window, but NUPSA leader Bennie Mostert discerned accurately that it was the case ideologically. (It had become a Muslim bastion in the wake of apartheid legislation.) A Strategic Prayer Meeting in District Six As part of the special mission from Heidelberg (Gauteng), a prayer meeting of confession was organized for 1 November 1997, in front of the (former) Moravian Church in District Six. Our intercessory co-worker Sally Kirkwood had a vision for the suburb District Six that had become so desolate, to be revived through prayer. She also informed Pastor Richard Mitchell, a Hindu background Full Gospel pastor, and Mike Winfield, an Anglican member of the congregation in Bergvliet, about the event. I asked Eben Swart to lead the occasion, at which tears of remorse and repentance flowed freely. It was significant that that there were not only participants from different racial groups present but also a good representation of both 'White' sectors of our society. Historical resentment had by no means dissipated in this regard. Eben Swart’s position as Western Cape Prayer Coordinator of Herald Ministries was cemented. Through this event he got linked to the pastors and wives’ prayer occasions that were led by Ps. Eddie Edson of the Shekinah Tabernacle in Mitchell's Plain. The Cape prayer movement received a major lift. The confession ceremony in District Six on November 1 closed with the demolition of an altar that satanists or other occultists had probably erected there. With Eben Swart as a member of the strategic Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow, this became a pivotal link for subsequent city-wide prayer events. The Moravian Hill prayer meeting attempted to break the spirit of death and forlornness over the area, so that it would be inhabited again. However, it would take another seven years before that dream started to materialize (and abused for election purposes in 2004). Twenty five years after 1997, much still has to happen in terms of new inhabitants coming to District Six, but ideologically a change was taking place. The arch enemy hit back to create a Muslim stronghold there. A watershed transpired for many a participant The first of November 1997 became a watershed for quite a few participants. Gill Knaggs, Trish and Dave Whitecross were challenged to go and serve in the Middle East. Sally Kirkwood became a special Cape intercessory leader. Richard Mitchell, Eben Swart and Mike Winfield linked up more closely in a relationship that would have a significant mutual effect on the prayer ministry at the Cape in the next few years, and on transformation in the city at large. Eben Swart, at that time based at the Lighthouse Christian Centre, would play a massive part in City-Wide events on the Grand Parade in 1998. Linking up with Ps Eddie Edson of Mitchell's Plain, City-Wide events at the Lighthouse in Parow were harbingers of big open air events. On Friday evening the 19th of May 2000 a citywide half-night of prayer, attended by 6,000 people, took place at the UWC Sports Grounds in Bellville, followed by another big one soon thereafter at the Velodrome. The businessman Graham Power was brought into the equation at a Lighthouse meeting in this regard in June 1999. Satan could, of course, never allow the longed-for revival to take off without a big fight. I narrated some of the spiritual warfare at that time in Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3 as follows: By 1998, stories of violence were regular headlines on the front pages of South African newspapers. That satanism was making inroads, surfaced not only through reports of ritualistic use of human foetuses and babies, but also in the satanic strategy of targeting the marriages of clergymen. Nationally the divorce of the well-known Pastor Ray McCauley, whom God had used so wonderfully in the preparation of the Rustenburg event of 1990, was a national setback to the evangelical cause. At the Cape. the moral failure of well-known ministers threatened to bring the growing city-wide prayer movement to a halt. I was blessed to witness divine replies from close by, such as an impactful weekly woman's programme via CCM with Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers, two MBBs from January 1998 as well as through a MBB, who recommited his life to the Lord after becoming backslidden after he had been involved in grave moral failure. I recorded some of the obvious evidence of spiritual warfare: Fireworks of a Different Kind More ‘fireworks’ exploded at the beginning of the academic year 1999. A Muslim background believer shared his testimony on the radio. He also began attending the Evangelical Bible School in Strandfontein. A tea-time prayer group was started at the George Whitefield Bible College in Muizenberg, to coincide with the time of the special Life Issues broadcast. Gill Knaggs, a new student at the George Whitefield Bible College and the programme’s scriptwriter, started the prayer meeting. The combined efforts did not miss its mark, somehow managing to neutralise the PAGAD attempt to Islamise the Western Cape. On March 1, 1999, the battle of the airwaves took a nasty turn when a petrol bomb was thrown at the CCFM Radio studio. Mercifully, the missile did not detonate. The cowardly action was repeated a few weeks later on March 18. This time the perpetrators smashed a window pane, and also made sure that a burning ‘torch’ was dropped inside the building. Miraculously, there was neither an explosion of the petrol bomb, nor was the studio gutted that housed the expensive equipment. God surely protected the building. The second attempt occurred only hours before the scheduled broadcasting of the Life Issues programme with one of the Muslim background believers. This threw the suspicion on the radical PAGAD corner of Islam as the possible perpetrators. On various other occasions that group had indicated that they were very unhappy about people turning their back on Islam. PAGAD was very unhappy about people who turned their backs on Islam The perceived resistance of Muslims to the Gospel – along with the lack of success in Muslim evangelism - deterred many Christians from actual loving outreach. This changed quite significantly after the conversion of Rashied Staggie, the famous drug lord. The public burning of his twin brother and co-gang leader Rashaad catapulted Rashied into prominence.) However, the violence of PAGAD also added an element of fear. We go back slightly in time for our link to John and Avril Thomas. When we got to know about Radio Fish Hoek, this would have significant ramifications for our ministry. We had no notion in 1993, of course, that we would become family of the founders via our children. John and Avril are the parents of our daughter-in-law Sheralyn. Patrick Johnstone, who always stayed with them when he was in Cape Town, there had been an early WEC International connection to the couple. Another early connection went via one of their church members, and a link via the Western Cape Missions Commission. An even closer connection transpired in the new millennium when our son and their daughter got married after meeting each other in the prayer room of UCT. Preparation For New Initiatives One of the events organised in the first term of 1993 by the Western Cape Missions Commission was a workshop at the Cape Town Baptist Church with John Robb of World Vision. I used the list of participants at this event to organize Jesus Marches the following year. In this way, I updated my contacts for further mission endeavour in the Western Cape. There we met Trefor Morris and Freddie van Dyk, two City Council workers. Trefor was closely linked to Radio Fish Hoek, a pioneering Christian Cape radio station. Trefor became a regular at our Friday lunch time prayer meeting while he was assisting with work on the OM missionary ship the Doulos in the City dockyard. He was also the link for Rosemarie and me to be invited to the radio station to give some advice and teaching to the ‘prayer friends.’ These were the people who had to advise Muslims who phoned CCFM (Cape Community FM) for telephonic counselling. Trefor became my Fish Hoek link for the 1994 Marches for Jesus and a hopeful recruit for the envisaged prayer network in the Cape Peninsula. (The seed of the vision of a prayer network germinated in the new millennium when the Consultation of Christian Churches (CCC) in the Western Cape, in conjunction with Jericho Walls, attempted to stimulate the formation of houses of prayer across denominational barriers.) Freddie van Dyk, a member of the Logos Baptist Church of Brackenfell, another contact from the World Vision workshop, became a regular attendee of our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting. He led us to a training course by Dr Henry Dwyer, a friend of our common CSA days as students. This evolved into very strategic hospital outreach every Saturday morning that Rosemarie would lead in due course. Danie Heyns was another member of the congregation who would become a pivotal link as a contact for the organisation of Jesus Marches in June 1994. The contact with Logos Christelike Kerk, as it became known later, was invaluable, notably when Christo Botes was the pastor. That congregation remained a powerful missions-supporting congregation throughout. Also with his successor, Gerhard Barnard, we had good contact, notably after their son Lukas joined the CPx of All Nations International, of which Gerhard would become an international executive member. In the following excerpt, the contribution of John Thomas, the father-in-law of our son Samuel, is noted. A Christian ANC member of Parliament seems to have played a positive role to influence matters significantly at that time. A Fight for Freedom in Religious Expression On 2 September 1998 twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unity in the fight for freedom of religious expression in reaction to a move by the atheist attempt to regulate radio stations. This would have had a big effect on Christian and other religious media. One of the banners of a marcher proclaimed 'United we stand'. (This was a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main slogan.) Thankfully, the government dropped its plans. (Behind the scenes God used an ANC Member of Parliament, a believer, to share the relevant information with Rev. John Thomas of CCFM. In this way, amendments could be affected to the Bill that allowed the government not to lose face on the issue.) The mass march to Parliament, in response to the perceived government attack on community radio stations, was followed by a big prayer event on Table Mountain a few weeks later. At a prayer rally on 26 September 1998, hundreds of Christians prayed along the contour road of Table Mountain for the effort to rename the adjacent reviled peak ‘God’s Mountain.’ New Prayer Initiatives The event inspired a new initiative, during which a few believers from diverse backgrounds began to pray at 6.a.m. on Signal Hill on Saturdays every alternate week. After we had started with these early morning prayer meetings on Signal Hill, we got into a close relationship with Pastor Richard Mitchell and his family. When a door opened for a regular testimony programme on Friday evening on Radio CCFM, Richard Mitchell was an automatic choice to be the presenter. The programme ‘God Changes Lives’ was used to advertise the citywide prayer events. Tygerberg Radio cooperated with CCFM in all bigger Christian events. During the course of historical research I had discovered that Duivenkop had been an earlier name of Devil’s Peak. Around the turn of the millennium I got to know Murray Bridgman, a Cape Christian advocate. He had previously also researched the history of Devil’s Peak, even in more detail. Murray felt God’s leading to perform a prophetic act in District Six on the steps of the Moravian Church. Along with Eben Swart, another church historical researcher of note, Dr. Henry Kirby was encouraged to lobby Parliament, to change the name to Dove’s Peak. Dr. Kirby had been serving as YWAM missionaries in Mozambique.) Dr Kirby’s role as the prayer co-ordinator of the African Christian Democratic Party resulted in a motion tabled in the City Council in June 2002. The motion was however unsuccessful. In 2009 the issue was tackled again. Is it mere wishful thinking that it will be ultimately given the name Dove’s Peak Murray Bridgman, who approached Ps. Barry Isaacs and me in a new effort to affect the name change to Dove’s Peak, saw quite early the similarity of the rule of President Jacob Zuma to the corrupt rule of Willem Adriaan van der Stel and the farm Vergelegen, whom he acquired with unjust means. Only many years later President Zuma abused tax payers' money to build the Nkandla estate. In due course, it was decided to disseminate the notion by word of mouth. Radio Fish Hoek was renamed to Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM). A close contact to Avril Thomas, the Directress of Radio CCFM would have major ramifications for our ministry. I recorded the following in Seeds Sown For Revival: A Closer Link With Radio CCFM At the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the Directress of Radio CCFM, was challenged to use the station to reach out to Cape Muslims, the main unreached people group of the region in terms of the Gospel. She phoned the author, offering airtime for a regular programme to this end. We had to warn Avril of the unsuccessful arson attempt on the Lansdowne church building where we wanted to stage a Love your Muslim Neighbour course the previous year. She and the CCFM Board were prepared to take the risk for the sake of the Gospel. I wrote a radio series on biblical figures in the Qur’an and the Talmud, which was transmitted towards the end of 1997. The consistent denial of the Cross in the sacred book of the Muslims had struck me. It was more than compelling. It was just too subtle to be man-inspired. Knowing the history of the compilation of the Qur’an, the question was how I could sare this potentially devastating information in a loving way. The fact that I would possibly be addressing Christians and Muslims via the radio simultaneously would of course not make things easy. During one of our prayer walks in Bo-Kaap it became clear to me that I should not speak over the airwaves myself. I preferred to remain behind the scenes, with someone else reading the script. CCFM agreed to the suggestion. After a gradual increase of occasional programmes geared to address the Cape Muslim population, we felt challenged to start utilising the CCFM offer to use the medium on a regular basis. A Series of Divine Interventions In a series of divine interventions, our ministry touched the gangster scene in 1999. In the context of our hospital outreach, where we focused on the cancer ward of Groote Schuur Hospital, God healed Ayesha Hunter miraculously in 1997. She would subsequently become one of our presenters on CCFM radio while ministering to children linked to the Hard Living Gang that was led by the Staggie brothers. Ayesha Hunter, as one of our co-workers, shared her testimony at churches here and there. At one of these, Shamiela Philander came to faith. Ayesha took her under her wing. Subsequently she requested us to take Shamiela Philander into our home after the teenager had been terriby abused by her gangster husband. She was one of various women that we had been taking into our home within the space of a few months. Three of them were Muslim background believers, one of whom had two children. This was the immediate run-up to the urgency of having a facility to disciple new believers from another faith. The Need of a Discipling House Amplified What a joy it was to see how the young woman grew rapidly in her new faith. I was moved intensely to hear Shamiela sharing the burden she had for the residential area where she grew up. In Woodlands, a part of Mitchell's Plain, drug addiction and gangsterism was a way of life. But Shamiela knew that she first had to become spiritually strong and mature. Much too early we allowed her allowed her to go back to the life-style of an abusive husband. We were, however, quite disappointed in the meantime, having to face the fact that Shamiela was the third failure with a Muslim background believer, into whose life we had invested quite a lot of time. We were thrown back on the grace of God. The need for a discipling house where we could have these new Christians nurtured for a longer period, was amplified once again. In Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers we had two dynamic in our group of MBBs, who were meeting at our home once a month. This opened a special possibility after Avril Thomas had approached me with an offer of regular programmes via CCFM. The Battle of the Airwaves Escalates In the meantime, Gill Knaggs, our co-worker from Muizenberg, offered her services to CCFM. Gill had previous experience in commercial scriptwriting. Soon she was ready to write the scripts for Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers, two followers of Jesus with an Islamic upbringing. At a meeting on 7 January, 1998, it was decided to start with a regular programme on CCFM, using two converts as presenters. On the same day, the Islamic radio station Voice of the Cape published their intention in the Cape Argus to use a convert from Christianity as one of their presenters. The precedent created space for CCFM radio to follow suit - with less fear of PAGAD reprisals for putting Muslim converts on the airwaves. The two Muslim background believers soon started with a weekly programme, beginning with the theme 'the woman of two faces'. Gradually many women, some of them Muslims, started responding with phone calls, giving evidence that the radio programmes were making an impact. Life Issues, the women’s programme on CCFM on a Thursday morning with Muslim background Christians, went from strength to strength. (It was unfortunately aborted in the second half of 2004 when CCFM restructured their programmes for 24-hour transmission. Weekly midday devotionals which I had been recording - inter alia as a series on the interaction of the Samaritan woman at the well with our Lord - suffered the same fate at that time.) The Response to an Attack on Community Radio Stations On August 20, 1998, a white paper was rushed through Parliament which contained a veiled threat: to close down community radio stations. There had previously been an attempt to close down Radio Pulpit, a Christian radio station that broadcasts nationwide. The ill-fated government white paper on public broadcasting - whatever its original intention - spawned a mass march to the houses of Parliament on Wednesday, 2 September, 1998. The perception could not be denied that the government wanted to regulate the airwaves in such a way that the freedom of religious broadcasting would be severely curtailed. Twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unity for religious freedom Twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unity, fighting for religious freedom and that its expression would be retained. One of the banners proclaimed 'United we stand'. This was a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main slogan. Thankfully, the government dropped their plans. (Behind the scenes God had used an ANC Member of Parliament, a believer, to share the relevant information with Rev. John Thomas of CCFM. In this way, amendments could be affected to the Bill that allowed the government not to lose face on the issue.) Already in the previous millennium we had to relocate our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting from the Shepherd's Watch in Shortmarket Street when the premises were sold. We moved to the Koffiekamer below the St Stephen’s Dutch Reformed Church at 108 Bree Street, that was linked to the compassionate ministry of Straatwerk. This co-incided with our close friendship to the pastoral couple of the Cape Town Baptist Church, Louis and Heidi Pasques. Both of them are already with the Lord. Heidi was tragically killed in the crossfire during a bank robbery in Septem 2017 and Louis lost the fight against cancer in February 2022. Louis played an important role in the ministry to foreigners, of which Cape Town Baptist Church was the prime pioneer in the Mother City in the 1990s. The Friday lunch time prayer meeting was the cradle of this move, with Louis' fluency in French playing an important role, combined that there were a few missionaries available to assist at French services. I recorde some of the action as follows in Seeds Sown for Revival. The Foreigner in Our Gates … A believer from the suburb Eerste River on the northern outskirts of the city, who had been a regular in the beginning of our prayer meetings, popped in again one day. He challenged us, mentioning the many French-speaking Muslim street traders from West Africa, who had been moving into the city: ‘Have you ever considered bringing the Gospel to them?’ When we started praying about possible ministry to foreigners at our Friday lunch-hour meeting, God used these occasions to prepare the heart of Louis Pasques. He had just become the senior pastor of Cape Town Baptist Church. When the destitute Congolese refugee teenager Surgildas (Gildas) Paka showed up at the church, Louis and his wife Heidi sensed that God was challenging them to take special care of Surgildas. One weekend Louis and Heidi had their parents over for a visit. They asked Alan Kay, an elder and the administrator of Cape Town Baptist Church, to provide accommodation to him. Gildas crept into Alan’s heart. This was the start of an extended and unusual adoption process. One thing led to the other until Alan Kay not only finally adopted Gildas, but he also became deeply involved in compassionate care of other refugees. Soon the Cape Town Baptist Church became a home to refugees from many African countries. Gildas and our son Rafael became quite close friends and basketball buddies. A Positive Change Towards Refugees The attitude of ‘Whites’ in the Cape Town Baptist Church gradually changed towards refugees in a more favourable manner. Before long, quite a few refugee-background Africans started attending the church services, especially after special ones in French were arranged monthly and later twice a month. This was an effort to help equip the Francophone believers for loving outreach to the Muslim French-speakers from our continent. That goal was not achieved, but the word spread quite well, so that in due course also other churches started opening their doors to refugees. The need for refugees to get employment was the cause for the English language classes at the church to be revitalized. This inspired the offer of 'free' English lessons to many of these refugees. Officially they had to pay a small nominal fee to preserve their dignity, with the understanding that there would be no big deal if they could not pay that. Nobody ever abused this. The simultaneous need for a discipling house for Muslim converts and a drug rehabilitation centre gave birth to the Dorcas Trust. Allain Ravelo-Hoërson of The Evangelism Alliance Mission (TEAM), who had been praying with us every Friday during lunch time in the early 1990s, played a big part in establishing the ministry among Francophone Africans at the church. Other missionaries who had been working in countries where French is the national language, were also part of this effort. Allain was ably supported by Ruth Craill, a SIM missionary, who had ministered in West Africa with her husband Edgar. Maria van Maarseveen, a member of our home church in Holland, came to do her Bible school internship from the Africa School of Missions with us. During this period Maria sensed a call to come and join us in ministry after completing her Bible School training. She had served in Haiti before and was therefore fluent in French, as were Doris and Freddy Kammies, WEC International colleagues, whom we had met in Germany during 'home assignment' in 1995. The example of Cape Town Baptist Church found emulation not only in sister congregations in Mowbray and Bellville, but also other ones with which we had close connections like the Atlantic Christian Assembly in Sea Point and the Jubilee Church in Observatory. When Jennifer Burgess, a 'Coloured' WEC International missionary from Natal was ordained at the Apostoliese Geloof Sending (AGS) as co-pastor of Vredehoek, a transformation of the former Afrikaner 'White' congregation started. Johan Klopper, the lead pastor, was a visionary who also launched a ‘seven-eleven’ tent campaign in Walmer Estate for (7-11) October 1998, supported by local churches under the auspices. a residential area, which had been completely islamised in the wake of apartheid legislation. It was quite special when the church continued the effort as an open-air campaign after the tent had collapsed due to the strong South Easter on the first evening. Our contact to Charles and Val Kadalie go right back to our first year back at the Cape, when the City Mission fellowship of Hanover Park became the link to our intense involvement there in the run-up to Operation Hanover Park. A second link later that year had fore-runner in my first stint in Germany into the past and a family connection in the future. Here is how I recorded this in On the Eagle's Wings. Our friend Hermann Frick wrote to us in the course of 1992 for advice. His daughter Damaris wanted to come and do volunteering work in a 'Black' location in Soweto, but somehow the correspondence had stalled. I promptly advised them that it was not a good idea at all. This was a time when it would have been extremely difficult and dangerous for two 'White' girlts to go Soweto. I arranged for the two young girls to come and assist Val Kadalie at the G.H. Starke age home for the aged in Hanover Park and living with the Kadalie family in nearby Penlyn Park. That would have entailed more than enough of cross-cultural exposure. Just under two decades later, Damaris became our daughter-in-law. The stay of Damaris and her friend with the Kadalies in Penlyn Park had, however, a memory which was not precious at all, but which had a great aftermath: ….the crime and violence of the townships hit home to us in a personal way at the end of the year. Walking on the beach at the Strand with two guests from Germany, we were mugged in broad daylight by a group of youngsters with big knives. The Lord used the incident to knit us even more closely to the City Mission of Hanover Park. The German guests were lodging with Charles and Val Kadalie, while they were working as volunteers. Spontaneously the local fellowship gave us a gift to make up for the monetary loss. Hereafter I preached there regularly since 1993... Hanover Park would become the township where we served predominantly for the rest of the decade. I want to highlight a little known fact of the great Kadalie couple. The descendents of the great trade unionist Clements Kadalie, who came to the Cape at the turn of the 20th century were pioneers of the ministry to AIDS/HIV patients. I recorded the following about them as well as pioneering service by Ps John Thomas and his wife Avril in the same context in Seeds Sown for Revival Ministry to AIDS/HIV Patients At a time when AIDS was still being mentioned covertly, there was almost no ministry to people who suffered from HIV and AIDS. A ministry with close links to the Cape Town City Mission started when Val Kadalie, a trained nurse, had a deep concern for young people who contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). She was invited to speak in many churches and schools - to warn young people about the dangers of promiscuity and encourage them to abstain from pre-marital sex. After Val Kadalie had become the matron of the G.H. Starke Centre in Hanover Park, the institution also started functioning as a hospice for terminal patients. She warned her staff in the late 1980s that they might soon have to treat AIDS patients. Her colleagues were thus ready for that, trained to care for people with HIV and AIDS long before they received their first request. The acid test came when she and her husband, Charles Kadalie, were approached to take care of a four-year old boy, Jason, who was HIV positive. One day, when Charles put the phone down at the electric power plant in Athlone where he was working,16 he sensed that God was challenging them as a couple to practise what they preached. Jason was the first of four children they cared for in succession, until all but one died from AIDS. Val Kadalie became a pioneer fighter for AIDS awareness In the process Val Kadalie became a pioneer fighter for AIDS awareness throughout the country, responding to calls from churches and groups of the most diverse backgrounds. Nazareth House, a Roman Catholic institution in the City Bowl, performed the same work during this period. The occurrence of HIV-positive babies started to increase. At the building in Vredehoek where the Roman Catholic Church had already started caring for orphaned children and destitute elderly since 1888, they pioneered with the care of HIV-positive/AIDS babies in 1992, possibly the first ministry of this nature in South Africa. ... In the southern suburbs of the metropolis, Pastor John Thomas and his wife Avril were moved in 1999 to start with HIV and AIDS-related ministry. They soon built a hospice to care for people with HIV and AIDS, beginning a ministry of prevention and support which today reaches thousands of people. In due course Living Hope, with various related ministries, became a significant agent of loving service to the community. An Achilles heel of the extended Living Hope service to the disadvantaged communities was that it remained very dependent on aid from overseas, surely causing some anxiety when John Thomas had health issues, through which he was teetering on the termination of his life for many years. Our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting became the start of yet another venture after Daniel, a believer from Eerste River, a distant suburb in the north of our city, who had been a regular participant in the beginning of these prayer meetings in 1992, popped in again one day. He challenged us, mentioning the many French-speaking Muslim street traders from West Africa, who have been moving into the city: ‘Have you ever considered doing something about bringing the Gospel to them?’ Ministering to the Aliens in Our Gates In the meantime Louis Pasques, who was raised in an Afrikaner environment, had become the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church. He had not only been a regular participant at the prayer meeting in the Koffiekamer, but he also speaks French. Due to this fact and possibly also because of a brave sermon in which Louis confessed on behalf of Afrikaners for the hurts to people of colour during the apartheid era, a few 'White' people left the church. More and more however, those from other races started attending. We started to pray about the possible outreach to foreigners at our Friday lunch-hour meeting. God surely used these occasions to prepare Louis Pasques’ heart. When the destitute Congolese teenager Surgildas (Gildas) Paka pitched up at the church, Louis and his wife Heidi sensed that God was challenging them to take special care of the youngster. When Louis and Heidi had their parents over for a weekend visit, they asked Alan Kay, an elder in the church, to take over the Congolese teenager. Gildas crept into Alan’s heart. This was the catalyst to an extended and unusual adoption process. He and our son Rafael, who was now 17 years old, became quite close friends. A Positive Change Towards Refugees The attitude of CT Baptist Church members towards refugees hereafter gradually began to change positively. Before long, quite a few of them attended our services, especially when special French-speaking church services were arranged first monthly and later twice a month as an effort to equip the French-speaking believers for loving outreach to the Muslim French-speakers from our continent. The word spread, so that in due course also other churches started opening their doors to refugees. The need for refugees to get employment was the spawn for the English language classes at the church to be revitalised. (Carol Günther, an American missionary, and Heidi Pasques had been giving English lessons to paying foreign students.) The simultaneous need for a discipling house for Muslim converts and a drug rehabilitation centre gave birth to the Dorcas Trust. I hoped that the city churches could take ownership of these ventures. That turned out to be easier said than done. Yet, the Dorcas Trust was finalised in 1998. Also with Nasra Stemmet, a convert from Woodstock, we discerned a significant spiritual growth development. She shared her desire to become a missionary, wanting to return to Holland, where she had been serving in a church, to share the Gospel among Moroccan women there. While we were in Europe on home assignment in 1995, we succeeded in bringing her to Holland, where she soon got into a Bible School in preparation for missionary work. In due course she settled in her vocation in Holland. Ministry Snippets in the New Millennium Although I have never been near to becoming an intercessor, I was privileged and blessed to build friendships with spiritual giants of ministry. Start of a 24-hour Prayer Room Bennie Mostert and Daniel Brink attended a conference led by Tom Hess in Jerusalem and brought the message back to South Africa. In September 1999 this new challenge for 24-hour prayer watches began in South Africa. On 9 February 2000, Sooispit, the turning of the soil, took place in preparation for the building of a prayer room. At Kleinplaas, new premises of Dr Charles Robertson, the seasoned prayer and restitution stalwart, started near to Brackenfell, where they intended to include a 24-hour prayer room for intercessors from the entire continent. Daniel and Estelle Brink were called to lead the NUPSA initiative to get a 24-hour Prayer Watch off the ground. That this was spiritual warfare of a high degree became evident when Daniel Brink became critically ill shortly after commencing his new function. The Lord touched and healed him in answer to the prayers of many intercessors. In due course, Daniel and Estelle would take the prayer movement at the Cape to great heights. God had raised a special couple to stimulate unity of the body of Christ at the Cape! A Special Indonesian Connection A special sweet memory of a visiting German WEC missionary in the mid-1990s brought the Indonesian couple Nim and Nur Rajagukkuk to our team. Veronika Elbers had to go to another country at that time because of her visa for Indonesia every six ?? months. She decided to come to Cape Town. Struck by the close connection of Bo-Kaap to Indonesia, Veronika left a chair with us as a gift and a 'project': She would be praying for Indonesian missionary colleagues to come and serve with us. We would do the same. Photo of the chair left by Veronica Elbers In a special answer to prayer, the couple arrived in September 1998 with baby twins. Nur Rajagukuk had been serving in Hong Kong before their marriage where she met and befriended an Uygur believer. The latter married a national of Togo who became a professor at UCT at the turn of the century. The result of their co-incidental meeting in Cape Town led to a ministry among quite a few Asians in the new millennium. This became a significant component of our service to Friends From Abroad. We were blessed to baptise two of them in due course. Nim Rajagukuk's grandfather, a tribal king, had been killed by the Dutch in the colonial war of independance. I was unaware of a grudge that he was still nursing when I took Nim along to the historic farm Vergelegen when Dutch nationals Pieter Bos and Cees Vork were visiting the Mother City in their trip of repentance for the sins of their forefathers. The Body of Christ Made Visible At a mass half-night of prayer on 18 February 2000 on the Grand Parade, the unity of the Body of Christ became visible to some extent. The same week-end, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, representing the prayer movement in Holland, joined local Christians in confession and in praying against anti-Christian spiritual strongholds in the Cape Peninsula. (Pieter Bos was the founder of the Regiogebed in the Netherlands, of which we in Zeist-Driebergen had been the first branch in 1988.) The Grand Parade event was attended by more than four thousand Christians from a wide spectrum of denominations. Denominationalism, materialism and other evils were confessed The divisive denominationalism, materialism and other negatives of South African society, in which the Church had played a role in the past, were confessed. In a moving moment just before midnight, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork confessed the catastrophic contribution of their forefathers to the evils of Cape society. Through the prayer watches, a countrywide prayer network evolved. The electronic media, in the form of emails, played a big role. What a blessing it was to see how the ‘seeds’ that we had been sowing from 1992 at the Cape, seemed to have started to germinate. The event on the Grand Parade was followed during the next days by strategic ‘Closing the Gates’ prayer occasions. Other meetings like a combined church service on the Bellville Velodrome, left the impression that revival was in the air. The moving confession of Pieter Bos because of Dutch colonial guilt at the shrine of Sheikh Yusuf at Macassar, the pioneer of Cape Islam, moved Nim Rajagukguk, our Indonesian missionary, deeply. At the historical Vergelegen our Indonesian colleague Nim Rajaguguk repented for their resentful attitude towards the Dutch, who had colonised and oppressed their people. There we also met Dr Lovejoy Tiripei, a national of Zimbabwe, who had been a freedom fighter before he came to faith in Jesus as his Lord. He started Grace Fellowship Africa, an agency that would impact our own ministry significantly.17 On Friday evening the 19th of May 2000 a citywide half-night of prayer, attended by 6,000 people, took place at the UWC Sports Grounds in Bellville. Here the unity of the Body of Christ was emphasised once again! In the spiritual realm it was a powerful moment when Pastor Martin Heuvel apologised on behalf of about 40 pastors present, for - among other things - their lording over their churches, for being dogmatic, and for the lack of a servant attitude. A month later, in June 2000, another expression unity of the Body of Christ took place in the Velodrome of Bellville. One was wondering whether the prophesied revival had started at the Cape! The Run-Up to the Global Day of Prayer Sometimes God has to take people ‘by the scruff of the neck’ to bring them into obedient submission, just as he once did with Jonah. This happened to Michael Share, who was challenged to leave his work in the police force to start Cops for Christ at the turn of the millennium. A cop was stranded in a shack with bullets flying past him After being involved in a raid, Michael Share was stranded in a shack with bullets flying past him. He experienced supernatural protection. Not a single bullet hit him. This was to him a wake-up call when anarchy was threatening once again. He started., As founder and leader of Cops for Christ, Michael Share called on policemen throughout South Africa to bring spiritual life and encouragement into police stations. Fanie Scanlen was already a Superintendent of the Central Police Station in Buitenkant Street in the Mother City when he was stabbed seven times, narrowly escaping death. This became a turning point in his life. Superintendent Fanie Scanlen became an important conduit of our effort to get more prayer into the Central Police Station. He became a significant divine tool in the preparations for the first Global Day of Prayer. Fanie Scanlen also organised a teaching course based on Christian principles at the police station, which allowed us to meet other Christians serving there ... A Catalyst For a 24/7 Prayer Facility Towards the end of 2003, it was my turn to be taken by the ‘scruff of the neck.’ During the short post-operative period in Kingsbury Hospital after the removal of my cancerous prostate gland, I was challenged to stop looking for other people to get a 24-hour prayer watch going in the City Bowl. I sensed that I should get involved personally. The hospitalisation was God's instrument to challenge me. A Prayer Venue at the Civic Centre In due course Die Losie, a former freemason lodge at the police station, became our regular prayer venue. As preparation for the 2006 Global Day of Prayer, prayer drives were organised, during which participants prayed Scripture. The prayer drives converged at the Central Police Station in Buitenkant Street. God used this event to touch at least one person in a special way. (Wim Ferreira, an intercessor, had been a transport engineer working with the City Council. He was challenged to to concentrate on prayer for the City. He was around that time invited to work with the Deputy Mayor of the metropolis.) When all the groups had arrived at the police station, they were taken to Die Losie. There Daniel Brink, the co-ordinator of the event, asked me to share in a few words about how God had changed things at the police station. Wim Ferreira was deeply touched at this occasion. He promptly requested a room for prayer in the metropolitan Civic Centre where he had started to work. This was another divinely orchestrated move. A few months further on, a regular Friday prayer time was functioning in the ACDP board room of the Civic Centre. Before long, a trickle of workers from all walks of life was coming to faith in Jesus as their Lord as a result of these prayers. On Wednesdays at lunch time, believers from different denominational backgrounds gathered there to pray and intercede for the city. The Lord also challenged Wim Ferreira to start a day-long prayer meeting at the Civic Centre premises. Soon a prayer room near to the parking area on the ground floor was frequented by many people throughout the day. The foundation stone towards 24/7 prayer in the CBD of the metropolis was laid. The prayer room at the Civic Centre is still used. In 2019 it served as the foundation stone of a World Prayer Tower. Wim Ferreira linked up with Pastor Barry Isaacs, who had just become the new co-ordinator of the Transformation Committee as successor of Graham Power. This enhanced his position as a widely respected Church leader country-wide. As a result of further deliberations, prayer meetings started in October 2007 at the Uni-City Council Chambers on the third Saturday morning of every month at 5.30 a.m. Wonderful answers to prayer were subsequently experienced month after month. At one of these occasions, the lack of the availability of the Civic Centre Banqueting Hall for a combined prayer event on Ascension Day touched Peter Williams, the secretary of the Provincial Parliament. He promptly extended a provisional invitation to the group to come and pray there as well. In due course, this became monthly as well,. Next to all this, Steve Swart, an ACDP parliamentarian, got intercessors to pray in the debating chamber of the National Parliament from time to time. The Covid Pandemic, plus a fire at Parliament in January 2022 – the result of an inside orchestrated job - would bring all the above prayer initiatives to a halt. We were taken back to the drawing board. Renewed contact with Nasra and her husband Dyon Vosmer transpired after we bumped into the couple at Century City one day. We had not been aware that thay had recolated to Cape Town. What a surprise it was when we discovered that they were neetworking with Cecil John, a builder who had finished our prayer room in 2013 after a serious blunder delayed the completion. I wrote the following in the E-book Glimpses of God's Mysterious Ways; The choice of another builder to complete the job would become another wonderful chapter of God's over-ruling. The testimony of Cecil John, a former gangster, had all of us in tears - overawed by the divine work in and through sinful human beings like us! His Kingdom ministry would evolve through the use of his exceptional building skills, to empower broken young people. How special it was to hear a few years later how Nasra and Dyon Vosmer networked with Cecil John and his Sozo Foundation. (With the assistance of Christian friends we could assist Nasra Stemmet, one of the two Muslim converts I had baptized on our wedding anniversary to return to Holland in 1995. There she attended the In de Ruimte Bible School in Soest, to which our dear friends Fenny and Harmen Pos had a close contact. Subsequently Nasra served in Holland in microbiology, and still later got married to Dyon Vosmer in 2010. There they sensed a calling to come and serve at the Cape.) This was another glimpse of those mysterious ways of God that we have been blessed to witness. The prayer room itself has a long run-up, going back to 1973 when Rosemarie went to Israel after also a tourist visa for South Africa was turned down. That was, in turn a trigger that sent me into a massive dilemma: I knew that I had to chose between two deep affections: Rosemarie whom I got to love passionately or South Africa, the beloved country where I wanted to be used in reconcilation of the races in the apartheid era. I knew that my choice for Rosemarie would send me into exile. I still hoped at that time to be back with her and any children that the Father would entrust to us, by 1980. It would take much longer. After her stint in Israel, a longing to visit Israel again, was rekindled. This became also a longing in my heart. The Father used her 60th birthday on 7 July 2011, to trigger the financial enabling to visit to the annual convocation of International House of Prayer in Jerusalem later that year. There the seed was sown into the heart of Rosemarie by Ps Callie Liew of Singapore for a North-facing prayer room to be built at our house in Vredehoek. A few days later, during a visit to Migdal with Ps Baruch Maayan and a few other believers, she shared this with me. (Rosemarie served in a children's home in Migdal as a volunteer for a few weeks. One of our group, Ingrid Pieterse, subsequently stayed on in Israel to serve at the children's home for a few months.) Here follows in more detail the run-up to the building of the prayer room from 2010, which co-incided with a 'discovery' earlier in the year that Isaac and Ishmael buried their father Abraham together, evidence of prior reconciliation (later I saw that this was also the case with Esau and Jacob). The result was the start of a very low-key Isaac and Ishmael Ministries: Tears Rather Than Laughter? For years I had been examining the history of genuine revivals. I discerned that, as a rule there had been: (a) united prayer across barrier of church and race (b) genuine remorse, accompanied by tears. These phenomena would help to indicate that a revival had not been hyped up artificially. The first Saturday of October 2010 I stated publicly on Signal Hill the need for tears of remorse, as a possible condition for genuine revival. I was praying that I might also genuinely experience this. (In different places we had been seeing ‘laughing in the Spirit’, notably in the 'Toronto Blessing' movement of the mid-1990s, but the deep remorseful crying to God as I had been reading about, was lacking.) Quite soon thereafter, my prayer in this regard would be answered, publicly and very embarrassingly! Jews First On 11 October, 2010 the Lord ministered to me from Romans 1:16 when we received the Quarterly Bulletin of the Lausanne Consultation for Jewish Evangelism (LCJE). That edition of the LCJE Bulletin highlighted the legacy of Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus. In the paper that Rosen delivered as part of the Jewish Evangelism track at Lausanne II in Manila in 1989, he highlighted 'Jews first'. In the printed summary of his paper, Rosen proposed 'God’s formula' for worldwide evangelization as the bringing of the Gospel to the Jew first. God’s blueprint for worldwide evangelisation Using the example of Paul: ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek’ (Romans 1:16), Moishe Rosen proposed that ‘by not following God’s programme for worldwide evangelisation – that is, beginning with Jerusalem (Israel and the Jews) – we not only develop a bad theology because of weak foundations, but we also develop poor missiological practices.’ I felt personally challenged to get involved with low-key loving outreach to Jews. The very next day, a long-time friend, Brett Viviers, visited me. He was a Messianic Jewish believer, and a former elder at Cape Town Baptist Church. His daughter's prayers for Muslims were instrumental in linking Rosemarie and me up with that fellowship in 1993. I agreed to start Ishmael Isaac Ministries with him, joined by Barauch Mayaan soon thereafter. On the Muslim side, Achmed Kariem joined in our early deliberations. Brett and I did many a prayer drive together in Sea Point. Years later, I would also join Amanda Hattingh and other prayer warriors on the occasional prayer walk in that suburb. Overawed By a Sense of Guilt On October 19, 2010, we received an email from our friend Liz Campbell, with whom we had started prayer meetings for the Middle East in the early 1990s. She shared 'that Baruch and Karen Maayan (Rudnick) and their five amazing children are back in Cape Town from Israel.  A quick and sovereign move of God believe me, and worth coming and finding out why! … we have sent this out to not only those who know Baruch and Karen, but also to those we know will be greatly touched by Baruch's ministry.' The meeting with the Maayan family on Saturday afternoon, 23 October, at a private address in Milnerton was a defining moment. Baruch shared his conviction that he was sent to Cape Town a second time. He used the example of Jonah to challenge believers with the message of the Highway from the Cape to Jerusalem. I felt very much embarrassed there I felt very much embarrassed there when I broke down in tears uncontrollably. I was completely overawed by a sense of guilt towards Jews, while I felt a deep urge to apologise on behalf of Christians for the fact that our forebears had been side-lining the Jews. My excessive weeping was an answer to my own prayers, but it was nevertheless very embarrassing, especially as many others present followed suit. The 'sea of tears' however knitted our hearts to the Maayan family. The Lord had called them back to be part of a movement to take the Gospel from Cape Town throughout the continent of Africa, and ultimately back to Jerusalem. Replacement Theology Still an Issue? It was very special for Rosemarie and me to attend an event that was linked to the international LCJE Conference on 15 October, 2010. For the first time this was held in Cape Town. People from all over the world who were somehow involved with outreach to Jews attended - including those delegates who specially came for Lausanne III. It was however very much of a shock to us to hear that a few lines in the draft document for Lausanne III were supportive of so-called Replacement Theology. (Christians have been haughtily suggesting down the centuries without scriptural backing that the Church has replaced Israel as God's special instrument, somehow omitting that we have been merely grafted into the true olive tree Israel (Romans 11:17) A Special Visit On Sunday evening 24 October I received an SMS from our friend Richard Mitchell whether he could come and stay with us for a few days. (We had been working together so closely in the mid and late 1990s in the prayer movement at the Cape and especially in the fight against the PAGAD onslaught and battle against the effort to Islamise the Western Cape. Until his departure for the UK in November 1999, Richard was also my presenter on the CCFM radio programme 'God changes Lives.') I knew that Richard had been attending Lausanne III, but somehow we could not find a moment to meet each other. Tuesday 26 October 2010 was quite eventful when I took Pastor Richard Mitchell along to Noordhoek where we had a wonderful post-Lausanne report back by Floyd McClung, our leader. He requested me to share, knowing that Rosemarie and I attended Connected 2010, the conference specially organized for all those who had not been invited to the main event at the International Convention Centre. Rather spontaneously I shared our concern that a few lines in the draft for Lausanne III were supportive of so-called Replacement Theology. Soon thereafter, I was 'reprimanded' in an email out of the blue, a very painful experience indeed. I had taken for granted that our concern was shared in evangelical circles. The email rattled me quite a lot when I had to discover how deep-seated the effects of Replacement Theology still was among evangelicals. This was even more so when we had to learn that also at the Convention Centre they needed a lot of further deliberation to draft wording which could be included in the final Cape Town Commitment document. The flaw was thankfully corrected in the final revision when it was published in the Cape Town Commitment. The flaw was thankfully corrected in the Cape Town Commitment. For many years our love for the Jews found very limited expression. This changed to some extent from 2004 when we increased our networking with missionary colleagues who ministered to Jews. During 2004 our messianic Jewish missionary colleague Edith Sher organised a prayer breakfast in Sea Point, during which a Cape Muslim background believer also gave his testimony. Soon thereafter, we were introduced to Leigh Telli, who would become a special friend of Rosemarie. This triggered a closer link to Cecilia Burger, the South African coordinator of the Lausanne Consultation of Jewish Evangelism (LCJE), of which Rosemarie and I became members. In 2008 Leigh invited Roseamrie to share the platform with a Holocaust survivor. I paste a lengthy excerpt from this period from Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3: Towards Muslim/Jewish Dialogue and Reconciliation … Lillian James is a long-standing contact and one of our prayer partners. She grew up bilingually in Woodstock among people of different cultures. After she had become a committed follower of Jesus, she got to love both Jews and Muslims. She had been one of the believers who attended our prayer meetings for the Middle East, where we prayed for both groups. Lillian introduced us to Leigh Telli whose husband comes from Muslim background in North Africa. Leigh has a special love for the Jews. This served to confirm our calling of ministering to foreigners and also linking our ministry to Messianic Jewry. Rosemarie and I were encouraged anew to attempt stimulating Jewish dialogue at the Cape. We were ready for another attempt towards facilitating reconciliation under the banner of Jesus, with the aid of Messianic Jews and other followers of Jesus – notably also those coming from Muslim background. More Reconciliation Moves The next step was a seminar on reconciliation on February 19, 2005. In our preparation for the seminar, we worked closely with Leigh Telli. In her contribution she shared about the role of the descendants of Isaac in the last days, and I did the same for those of Ishmael. (Our co-worker Rochelle Malachowski who had been working in Palestine, reported on the ministry of Musalaha in the Middle East.) Subsequently a manual of our two papers was printed, in which some of Leigh’s paintings also featured. On the cover a Jew and a Muslim are depicted in intense discussion with a wall broken through in the background . Soon hereafter we conducted an open air service in Camps Bay called ‘Shalom Salam’, signifying our intention to reach out to both Jews and Muslims. These efforts became the start of a close friendship between Rosemarie and Leigh Telli, and a strengthening of the ties to Edith Sher. Edith Sher started a weekly radio programme on Sunday afternoon Edith Sher started a weekly radio programme hereafter on Sunday afternoon via CCFM under the auspices of Messiah’s People. (Edith became an important additional source of information for my manuscript Pointers to Jesus, in which I highlight how the Hebrew Scriptures that is commonly called the 'Old Testament', profoundly point to Jesus as the Messiah.) For quite a few years Esther Krüger, an Afrikaner, produced a programme for Jews on Radio Tygerberg called Israel Kaleidoscope, on which Leigh Telli featured frequently. Confrontation With the Holocaust Rosemarie and I had joined All Nations International, led by Floyd and Sally McClung. In one of the sessions Floyd challenged us to ‘tithe’ our ministry time. For years Rosemarie had been battling with the guilt of Germans in respect of Jews. She was deeply convicted, resolving to try and devote a tenth of her ministry time to loving outreach to Jews. This implied quite a challenge for her as a German in the light of the anti-Semitic Nazi history of her nation. Rosemarie was challenged to share the platform with a holocaust survivor. God was not slow in answering her prayer. Soon thereafter, our friend Leigh Telli invited Rosemarie to share the platform with a holocaust survivor. Our involvement with the All Nations International CPx course was a genuine reason for procrastinating the issue. Rosemarie however finally accepted the challenge. Rosemarie and a Polish Holocaust Survivor At a meeting in Durbanville on 31 May 2008, Rosemarie shared the story of her upbringing as a post-World War 11 child in Germany. David, a Polish holocaust survivor, was the other speaker at this occasion. Quite a few Jews present at that occasion were clearly touched. She highlighted the fact that she learned to appreciate Jesus as the scapegoat for our sins. Among other things she said in her talk: ‘… I also stand here this afternoon with great humility. After having listened to David and his enormous sufferings during these horrible years of the Holocaust (and what this caused most probably for the rest of his life) brings myself as a German descendant to a place of utter humility and shame. And yet I want to thank God that He has given me this opportunity to stand here today. For many years I was searching for a way to express my deep feelings of regret, sorrow and shame as a German in respect of what has happened, to Jewish people in general, but even more so towards those who have suffered so much themselves during the Holocaust and those who have lost family and friends in a senseless and cruel way…’ Rosemarie closed with the following remarks: …I also want to ask forgiveness for the Church, whose role should have been to stand up for the Jews in the times of horror, instead of being mainly silent. As for myself, it feels like being insulted myself when anybody says something negative about the Jews. I love them with all my heart and I am glad that I had the opportunity today to speak out what has been in my heart for a long time. God bless you all.’ Hope Springs Eternal  After this event, a Jewish lady asked Rosemarie to come and speak to her group in Sea Point. This took place at a follow up meeting in August 2008. There she, Leigh Telli and Cecilia Burger, a veteran Dutch Reformed church worker among the Jews, were warmly welcomed.       Rosemarie was thereafter invited to share her story at various meetings       Unexpectedly, Rosemarie was thereafter invited to share her story at various meetings with Jews, including one with another Holocaust survivor, to Jewish business people on the 20th of April 2009. The organiser of these events was energetic 85-year old Mirjam Lichtermann, herself a holocaust survivor.  Rosemarie received another invitation to a Jewish home in Claremont on 20 May 2009, and to a meeting in Sea Point the same day. On this occasion, Rosemarie was heavily attacked with depression in the days before these events. She prayed fervently as she felt so completely inadequate. The Lord encouraged her, not only with a word from Matthew 10, that she should not fret about what she should say. She deemed it a special privilege to encourage the Jews with Isaiah 40:1 Comfort ye my people.... For quite a while after these opportunities, things went quiet in respect of Jews. We continued to pray that God would bring natural Jewish contacts on our path. 7. MOVES TOWARDS A SPIRITUAL HIGHWAY With Dr Ernst van der Walt, a founder member of the Western Cape Missions Commission, the memories are very much linked to his tenure at the Rondebosch DRC, coming out of the apartheid era when many Cabinet belonged to his congregants. (With Llewellyn Paps-Brown, the father-in-law of his son, we would have weekly contact. A former ambassador of the country in Mozambique and Malawi during the apartheid era, and now in his late eighties, Llewellyn is still a regular atteendee at our Moriah House prayer meeting.) A phone call from Dr Ernst van der Walt from his retirement abode towards the end of 2012 would thrust me soon into activist mode, organising meetings for Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, a former Muslim from Algeria. I wrote in Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3 about this visit: Visit of Pastor Youssef Ourahmane This visit would become a blessing to our own ministry after Ps. Tertius Bezuidenhout had told a fairly new Algerian believer at the Cape about a meeting with Pastor Youssef Ourahmane. At this meeting Ahmed was challenged to attend a Bible School, which he subsequently did. He graduated at the end of 2016. In due course John, the new name that he adopted, would be leading a home church of MBBs. In February 2013 we had Pastor Youssef Ourahmane sharing at various venues how there had been a revival in that country. Before 1980 the number of born-again followers in Algeria could be counted. In 2006 the Algerian government prohibited evangelism of any kind and ordered several churches to close down. The churches refused to obey the government. They said: 'Build more prisons because we are not going to do what you are ordering!' Since that time, because of the persecution of Christians, the church grew faster than before and the Algerian government came to understand that they would never be able to stamp out the church. (In 2013 there were already over 100, 000 believers in the country. He had personally seen imams, Islamic scholars and terrorists come to faith in Jesus.) Subsequently the Algerian government said to the church 'You must train your pastors!!!' Permission was given for a Bible School to be built. At the various events during the first days of March 2013 that they addressed at the Cape, Pastor Youssef and his wife did not only share these facts, but they also shared with us their ‘secret’, a prayer chain. The prayer chain that we started subsequently, did not last very long, but the effect was significant. Two foreigners who lived in Bo-Kaap at that time, came to the Lord and were baptised. Later John, the Algerian, became the leader of the fortnightly home church that meets to this day, unlike many other which later stopped. We still pray for a simple church to start in Bo-Kaap. In October 2010, Achmed Kariem was on hand in our attempt to assist getting Isaac Ishmael Ministry reconciliation off the ground. This also ushered in the building of our prayer room. I narrated the following in Jumping Over Walls: Start of the Highway Fellowship Soon after the Milnerton meeting of October 2010, Baruch Maayan approached Brett Viviers and me. At a meeting in the Company Gardens, he announced that he would start with weekly prayer on Monday evenings at the home of Gay French in Claremont. After a few months it was decided to start with Highway meetings every last Saturday of the month at the Sea Point High School. Pastor Light Eze, a Nigerian pastor, who had responded obediently to a divine call to rally the Church at the Cape to repentance and prayer, was at this time fairly closely linked to the group. He had also started a fellowship in Parow, where Maditshaba Moloko became a prominent member. She would also become closely connected to the Maayan family and the Highway fellowship when the family moved to the centrally situated suburb Pinelands.          When a problem arose with Sea Point High School as a venue for the monthly Highway events, the upstairs minor hall at 14 Hope Street, a former Jewish building from where His People Ministries operated, became the new place of monthly worship. Weekly meetings started at that venue. Run-up To the Isaiah 19 Prayer Room After Baruch challenged all of us in mid-2011 to pray about becoming a part of the South African group to the annual Jerusalem prayer convocation, also other Monday evening regulars were blessed in special ways. On June 27 Baruch, Karen and a few other believers in Claremont prayed fervently that the Lord would confirm clearly whether Rosemarie and I should step out in faith to join the Jerusalem convocation.  Knowing that our children wanted to sponsor Rosemarie for her 60th birthday in July 2011 so that we could fulfil this secret wish, I had to pray now for confirmation before the 30th. This was very clearly confirmed. A Cape Delegation to Jerusalem The very next day a letter which I received from Germany informed me that I would receive a small monthly pension, retrospective from 1 January 2011. I don't know how the German Social Services got my address. (Possibly the folk retrieved our address via the Moravian Head Office in Germany. There I had been paying into the pension fund in the few years from 1973 to December 1980.) On Thursday morning, the 30th June, during my quiet time, I felt that this was the confirmation to trust the Lord for all the funding necessary for the Jerusalem convocation, even though the situation in Israel was very unsettled because of the threats of the Palestinians.          For Rosemarie it was very special that she could now be a part of the South African delegation. (She had gone to Israel in 1973 to assist in a children's home after the work permit and tourist visa for South Africa had been refused.) Their leader had expounded from a Bible study during her visit to the Holy Land that nations would in future be going up to Jerusalem.       In a counter to the preparations for the ANC centenary celebrations of January 2012 that included a lot of ancestor worship, Pastor Light Eze and a few other prayer leaders staged '8 Days of prevailing prophetic prayers. What a powerful not to forget easily 8 days ensued, recorded thus: Another Mountain Peak Name Change Endeavour The name change of Devil’s Peak was still high on our prayer agenda. Noting that racial prejudice, discrimination of all sorts, unwitting demonic activity through ancestor worship and freemasonry have been practised in traditional religious rituals, repentance and forgiveness were included in our prayers. Central in all of it was the uplifting of Jesus. 'Jesus, we enthrone you!' was our theme song throughout the week. We invited believers to join us. We prayed that the Unity of the Body of Christ might be visibly demonstrated in the prayer event. Pointers to Divine Approval Supernatural things seemed to point to divine approval, such as water coming from the ground next to St George's Cathedral where we were praying - as if it was coming from a well!. This could never have been manipulated. Similarly, water dripping from the lions' mouths at Rhodes Memorial, was very special. Deep remorse was evident at the evening at national parliament for some of the laws promulgated that encouraged sexual immorality. We prayed for a reversal of them. Our prayers at the Green Point Stadium addressed sexual immorality especially, but they also included thanks and praise to the Lord for the victory of 2010 when the Lord so wonderfully answered our prayers regarding human trafficking. (Hundreds of prostitutes had been ‘imported’ for the World Cup. They were hardly used because so many men who came to the event brought their wives or partners along.) The last evening definitely ‘took the cake.’ There on Signal Hill we have never had such a diverse crowd before – one of the best representations of the body of Christ that I had ever experienced in every respect. Very special was the extended session of praying for Israel and for the Jews. Pastor Chris Eden of Bridges for Peace showed us from Scripture where we have faltered as a nation and as the Church. The prayers included repentance for the replacement of Israel by the Church down the ages and for the side-lining of Jews. Pastor Light then invited all persons present with a special link to a nation, to pray and repent on behalf of his/her nation, in its dealing with Israel. Eighteen countries from all continents were represented. Pastor Maditshaba Moloko, a Tswana intercessor, led us in a prayer of blessing Israel. The congregation was then requested to stretch our hands to the north, so to speak in the direction of Israel. At that moment a rainbow was visible around the moon. What a confirmation this was of the divine unction on the ‘apple of His eye!’ That this week was strategic in the spiritual realm, became evident when I was almost taken out a few weeks later through a severe heart attack at the significant backlash described elsewhere. Our Rhodes Memorial prayer would spark a train of actions. From March 2015, the removal of a statue of Cecil John Rhodes at UCT trigger protests on university campuses as far afield as Oxford in England and Los Angeles in the US. A mountain fire in 2022 destroyed the bench near to the memorial where the former Cape Prime Minister would relax. In 2025 we resumed our annual link to the prayer for the nation at the end of February, but the Throne Room prayer event on 6 July 2025 was prone to have caused some stir in the heavenlies. Eleanore Malgarte was another significant role player of the prayer movement whom I initially got to know there on Signal Hill . She subsequently became a prime mover with Jericho Walls and at the start of a World Prayer Tower in our city in 2019. In due course, this intercessor of note would be moved by the Father to pray for the Cape Muslims, who are living all around her and her family. She participates in more than one international weekly zoom prayer times. Sharon Richter, another intercessor to whom got quite close via the World Prayer Tower from 2019. She also attended the First Century Fellowship in Montague Gardens faithfully as a sterling intercessor. We got to know Bernhard Schwarz and his wife Erene in 2018. A Bull's Eye in Spiritual Warfare Spiritual warfare at Rhodes Memorial seemed to be a proverbial ‘Bulls Eye’. Our battle had as target the corruption that was associated with the Zuma administration. Advocate Murray Bridgman had been sharing how Devil’s Peak was said to have received its name. (Murray Bridgman had been putting some persevering stalwart research into that process.) We decided subsequently that we would use ‘word of mouth’ as our new strategy to achieve our goal. With Selby and Philip Shaw we have long-standing relationship that includes many a precious memory, notably what transpired on Signal Hill where we prayed regularly for many years on the first Saturday of every month, and prior to the Covid Pandemic in our prayer room. This couple proved to be powerful intercessors over many years. They are now the organizers of quarterly prayer meetings at Rhodes Memorial. In the following excerpt from Revival Seeds Germinate 3, the name of Ernald Arends appears. He is a friend who hails from the Elim Moravian mission station. Ernald, a worship leader served many a time as worship in a way that took the congregation to special times of a divine presence. … We heard that a Brazilian couple, Francis and Mildred Lire, had a vision for 40 Days of Worship in South Africa that should start on 24 September 2017. The Lord opened a door for Francis and Mildred to come and live in the Mother City quite near to us in September 2017, just prior to the 40 Days of Worship. We changed the venue of our monthly combined worship time to Rhodes Memorial for that occasion. Next to worship, praying for rain was a common topic at various other venues all around the Western Cape. There we prayed of course also for the name change to Doves' Peak. A Catalyst for Revival The actual 40 Days of Worship were quite special. Apart from indoor events throughout the country there were also worship occasions on Cape heights and at Blaauwberg Beach. Shofars were being used increasingly. At the various venues praying for rain was part of the programme and fairly prominent. On Tuesday 26 September we invited Francis and Mildred Lira to our home. It was quite crowded in our prayer room but very blessed. Our friend Ernald Arends led us in worship. God’s presence was almost tangible. While we were praising the Lord, an unseasonal local deluge suddenly poured down as confirmation that God was pleased with our adoration. Organised by our friends Selby and Phillip Shaw, intercessors started gathering at Rhodes Memorial every last Sunday afternoon of the month subsequently until Covid-19 had another victim, albeit one meeting was held at the end of March 2021, networking with United Prayer for South Africa and Global Harvest. In a supernatural move, Holy Spirit nudged Michelle and Arthur Coetzee, intercessory giants and leaders of Global Harvest, to organize a 24/7 Throne Room initiative from 3-9 July, 2025. A recent precious memory with Murray Bridgman occurred in the context of this special Week of Throne Room prayer, narrated in Revival Seeds Germinate, Part 3. A Special Week of Spiritual Warfare Many Christians are not even aware of spiritual warfare, some deny the reality of it. The Holy Spirit inspired Arthur and Michelle Coetzee, intercessory leaders from Gordon's Bay, to invite intercessors throughout country to come to the Mother City. Prayer for our country was linked to the seven 'gates of influence' in society: Family, Belief systems, Government, governance and leadership, Economy Education, Science and Technology, Media, Arts and Culture. Profound divine over-ruling took place on Sunday, 6 July. The initial weather forecast for the day was quite grim, so that the intercessors were, of course, pushed into prayer action because an open-air event was planned. After our theme song Jesus, we enthrone you and a few other worship songs, Brother Murray Bridgman started sharing about the demonic origins of the memorial. Intercessors could learn there that the building was a replica of the temple in Pergamum described in Revelations 3 as a 'seat of satan'. Literally 'out of the blue' drops started to come down while Bridgman was speaking, coming as a sort of demonic taunt. We were actually blessed, however, when we were thus forced to move to the sheltered precincts higher up where the actual words of Cecil John Rhodes can be read on the wall. We sang Jesus we enthrone you up there again. Inter alia, a former satanist shared up there how he came to faith there in Jesus during an open air service many years ago at that venue. God gave the preacher a word of knowledge at that occasion, ushering in his conversion. Next to the Castle of Good Hope, the Moravian Chapel in District Six was a major venue of the throne room prayer. An interesting link was that there was also a contingent of intercessors from Genadendal. (The mission station was founded by South Africa's first missionary, a Moravian. Believers who also serve among Jews, as well as two Messianic Jewish followers of our Lord, helped us to pray for a greater visible expression of the 'one new man', of Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 3:14) and the unity of the body of Christ at large (John 17:21-23). That Abraham and Isaac buried their father together (Genesis 25:9), as well as Esau and Jacob with the patriarch Isaac was noted as an important example of obvious prior reconciliation of the brothers. The need of practical networking for the unity of believers, also locally, was prayed into. Furthermore, the fallacy that Israel replaced the Church via the decision of the Nicaean Synod 1700 years ago, was also highlighted. We took note there at Rhodes Memorial, with sadness and regret, how all of us have been contributing inadvertently and unwittingly towards the spread of the Islamic ideology and the support of terrorist movements via the hallaal certification on goods. The naked truth of addiction to pornography of so many people was shared lovingly and prayed into (Naked Truth Project https://nakedtruthproject.com/). OTHER SKIRMISHES OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE International intercession began in earnest with the identification of the ‘10/40 Window’. These are Asian and African countries situated between the 10th and 40th degree lines of latitude of the northern hemisphere. They gave a geographical focus to pray into a divinely-inspired ‘window’ given to Christians by Luis Bush, an American prayer leader. It was also used by Peter Wagner, a colleague, to rally the evangelical world in united prayer for the peoples who were still unreached with the Gospel. I was blessed to interact with Bennie Mostert and Gerda Leithgöb personally. I shared how Jan Hanekom introduced me to the former, ahead of a strategic visit to the kramat (shrine) of Sheikh Yusuf in Macassar in October 1992. I met Gerda Leithgöb in January 1995. It was special that I could share my research on the Western Cape Islamic shrines and get her to share at the seminar in Rylands. Prayer Initiatives of the North Impact the Cape What happened through Gerda Leithgöb and Bennie Mostert in 1987 are examples of divine callings received by individuals. A visit to Singapore in 1988 by Leithgöb became a spur for worldwide prayer for South Africa. In the country itself she became a pioneer in using the results of research for informed prayer. She taught and implemented research on spiritual strongholds quite effectively. The biblical models come from the twelve spies who were sent to Canaan and the reconnaissance work that Nehemiah performed before the actual building of the wall around Jerusalem. Fasting and praise were profitably 'rediscovered' in the late 1980s. In May 1990, David Mniki, a pastor from the Transkei, called the first national 40-day fast. It was here, as people waited on God, knowing that the situation was hopeless, that God clearly spoke from the book of Isaiah. The fast was localised, and not many people participated, but it was spiritually significant. We would get linked to the Kholo Kingdom Mission Centre in Idutywa. via Phillip and Selby Shaw, two powerful intercessors. Phillip Shaw had been a satanist and Selby Gray, a bubbling young party girl of the Cape township Heideveld who made a 'deal' with the Lord at the end of that 1887. I recorded the following about them in Revival Seeds Germinate, Part 2: A Special Couple Forged ... In January 1988 this happened: her life changed completely when she started mingling with Pentecostals. Ultimately Selby worshipped with a group of believers around Pastor Roger Petersen. This interaction soon brought her into evangelistic mode, so that she went to the Kholo Christian Mission Centre, where she participated in the holistic practical missionary training program. When Phillip met Selby the first time, she was an extreme extrovert. Phillip was doing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) Course with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The DTS outreach group was en route to Port St Johns in the Transkei! They drove from Worcester to the Eastern Cape and stopped at the Kholo Kingdom Mission Centre in Idutywa. Selby subsequently came to the Cape to attend a Bless the Nations conference in Wellington at the Andrew Murray Centre with David Bliss. Via Cape Town she then went on a missionary trip to Namibia and thereafter went back to the Transkei, where she was thoroughly trained in the deliverance ministry, that would stand her in such good stead later. The second time Phillip and Selby met was in September 1990 at an advanced Missions' Course. By now Selby was very different, very appealing and attractive to Phillip. He knew in his spirit that she was 'it'. God used the couple wonderfully in the new millennium, notably in the deliverance ministry. I bumped into the siblings Denise Atkins and Theo Dennis separately. With Theo Dennis I would start Friends from Abroad. This is how I recorded this in On the Eagle's Wings. During the first term of 2006 Shipley Jacobs, a young OM missionary, started to work more closely with us, inter alia in Parkwood Estate. He also had a vision to minister to foreigners. In the course of us looking for a neutral venue where we could help the sojourners from other countries with English lessons, Shipley suggested that we pop in at the home of Theo Dennis, one of the OM leaders in the Western Cape. When Theo shared from their ministry in Coventry in the UK with the title Friends from Abroad, I once again had a sense of home-coming, especially when he mentioned that the group does not operate in the UK under this name any more. The very next day I took Rosemarie along, starting discussions for the establishment of an alliance with other agencies and local churches to be called Friends from Abroad. Both of us felt that this was the new thing that has been sprouting, a renewed challenge to get involved with foreigners. A major confrontation the new national WEC leadership followed that could not see us combining our work as leaders of the Evangelism Team at the Cape with the challenge to reach out to foreigners. Months of extreme turmoil were to follow with many a tear shed on our pillows. A very traumatic period was ushered in but the two of us were personally encouraged by Isaiah 43:18, to forget the past and to expect a ‘new thing’ that has been sprouting. Our colleague Rochelle suggested that we get counselling. What a blessing Dave Peter of YWAM became to us at this time. We definitely did not close ourselves to the possibility that the ‘new thing’ could still happen within WEC confines. We remained committed to operate in a positive frame of mind until the end of July, while we prayed for clarity about what God had in store for us. We were sure that our ministry in Cape Town had not been completed yet. When we heard that Floyd and Sally McClung were coming with the vision to ‘establish a training and outreach community in Cape Town that impacts Africa from Cape Town to Cairo’ and the vision ‘for a multi-cultural community that exemplifies the kingdom of God’, we were quite excited. This was more or less what we wanted to see coming to pass, albeit that our vision somewhat wider, also for countries outside of Africa to be impacted from Cape Town. Getting the vision over to local Christians and pastors was the big challenge. After they retired from their service at the Bethel Bible School, Theo approached us with the request to pray about getting his sister Denise and her husband Dennis Atkins as our house parents when we needed a couple at our discipling facility in Mowbray. I deem it feasible to give some more information about this very special couple. A Young Cape Couple Moulded Among Hindus Denise and Dennis Atkins were both from Kensington and as young people were converted at the Dock’s Mission Church. They enjoyed exciting times of ministry at the Bloemhof Flats in District Six, open airs on the Grand Parade and the rich teachings of the Keswick meetings at the Dutch Reformed Synod Hall in Orange Street. Denise’s mom, Doreen Dennis was from Bo-Kaap. Denise served with Youth For Christ in 1976 before proceeding to Bethel Bible School. Dennis, also hearing God’s call to full time missions, followed two years later. The couple was subsequently sent as 'Pilgrims' to Natal to serve as pioneer Africa Evangelical Band missionaries among Hindus. Working alongside Pastor Solomon, a great Indian preacher from Tinley Manor Baptist Church, the Lord blessed their work, with many a Hindu coming to faith. From 1985 they served as house parents and later as principal and matron of the Bethel Bible School until 2006. Many young people from all over the country profited there from their wise counsel. It was quite providential to meet Wendy Ryan, a missionary from Trinidad, a journalist who had been assisting with the editing at one of our All Nations gatherings. As we became friends, she was soon willing to assist with the editing of Seeds Sown For Revival. A Caribbean Journalist called to the Cape In April 2005 Wendy Ryan, who hails from the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean and former director of Communications for the Baptist World Alliance, visited Cape Town. During that time, Wendy toured the different Living Hope facilities. She observed this work of mercy and heard testimonies of how God was changing lives because of it. She felt a powerful tug in her heart. Compassion filled her soul as she felt God calling her to come to the Cape. As complex and impossible as it seemed, God put all the plans together and,under the commission of Evangeline Ministries (EM), Wendy returned to Cape Town in January 2006. After listening to women in HIV support groups, the Holy Spirit impressed on Wendy that these ladies, mostly poor and under-educated, needed skills to help them earn a living for themselves and their families. With the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs (ARV’s) they were no longer consigned to death. With the blessing of Pastor John Thomas and his wife Avril, Wendy began a sewing programme. Evangeline Ministries (EM) determined that this would be given free of charge to the women from the Living Hope support groups. Once they began, Wendy was challenged to give to the women a skill and also a tool. EM decided to award each graduate from the sewing class a new sewing machine. Over the years EM has given hundreds of sewing machines to graduates. Teach One to Teach Many Each woman received a Bible in the Xhosa language and every class ends with Bible study and prayer. At graduation and at other times, special speakers come in to present the gospel message in the proper cultural context and invite them to accept Christ. An additional focus to teach women, who will in turn teach others in their communities. Women from another informal settlement, Sweet Home Farms, have already started to put their training to use, showing the women in their HIV and AIDS group and others how to sew. They have inspired Wendy, and the Holy Spirit has used their example to show EM the way forward. 'When we sow the seeds, God gives the harvest!' Soon after our return to the Cape at the end of August, 2023, I contacted followers of Jesus who serve in Parliament in some capacity like Steve Swart (MP) and Mabatho Zungu, a senior administrative worker. I tried once again to get a prayer meeting across party lines going there. (I met Mabatho again earlier in the year in Vredehoek in April at a Hope Through Unity related prayer event.) Ultimately Mabatho Zungu invited a few of us to come and pray with her in her office on Monday mornings at 7.30h. Unknown too me, she had been attempting since the beginning of 2023 to invite other Christians to join her for prayer for the nation in her office. Mabatho would be God's instrument to trigger my attendance of the Time to Rise conference in Bloemfontein on 6 October, 2023. I wrote the following in Tears, Tests and Testimonies Parliament Prayer Continuation I was greatly blessed at the Time to Rise conference in Bloemfontein in October 2023, which we hoped could usher in a new season in the politics of the country. This co-incided with the October 7 event in Israel. (The two events, geographically far apart from each other, would combine to cause a lot of bewilderment in my life, including two light strokes in February and May, 2024.) After my return from Bloemfontein, we started planning a prayer meeting across party political lines as a final possible event for the year at Parliament. However, soon thereafter, Mabatho Zungu informed us that she, along with 28 other colleagues, was among the accused as the responsible person for a fire that had broken out there in January 2022. Subsequently Mabatho was suspended. Thereafter we started doing the weekly prayer via whatsapp call. We got to know from close by about the influence of sangoma's (witch doctors) and freemasons in a possible sinister conspiracy of evil forces at parliament. Since the state capture report became known, we regularly prayed against the corruption of politicians. (Mabatho had quietly assisted that some of the corruption got exposed. It became clear that this was also behind her suspension. The culprits in high positions of authority had to get rid of her. We are thankful that she was not 'eliminated' as it happened to other whistle blowers.) Ultimately she was fired. Getting a lawyer to fight her suspension and engaging the CCMA process, was all in vain. Also an appeal against her retrenchment that looked promising initially, did not deliver the goods. A source close to the inner circle, told Mabatho that they needed a scapegoat. OTHER FRIENDS WITH SPECIAL STORIES In this final chapter we would like to highlight other people that either attended our golden wedding anniversary with whom we intersected only occassionally, or in recent years. We have been in fairly close fellowship with Maditshaba Moloko from 2010 when she rose the ranks in the business world, even receiving a national ABSIP successful woman entrepeneur award in Financial Services in 2023: Our initial contact stemmed from her visit to our Signal Hill prayer meeting one Saturday morning and thereafter with the fellowship of Baruch and Karen Maayan, when Maditshaba and her son became closely befriended to the Maayan family at their move to Pinelands. Apart from our common fellowship, I would interact with Maditshaba in many a prayer endeavour, but also as part of a think tank to oppose the effort of expropriation without compensation of the ANC government in 2018. The final document that Murray Bridgman would deliver to the parliament might have helped to slow down the process. (In 2024 the government pushed it through, possible as an election ploy to prevent young voters from putting their cross next to the EFF on their ballots.) United Prayer for South Africa During a meeting in January 2016 with church leaders in the 20th floor Prowess premises at Thibault Square of Pastor Maditshaba Moloko, it surfaced that nobody knew whether anything was happening in the Cape Peninsula regarding the United Prayer for South Africa initiative. I had picked up through Gateway News that Pastor Robbie Black of East London had the vision to get South Africans to pray on Sunday the 26th of February 2016 at 14:00h. He said: “It is time for us as Christian believers to rise, take a stand and unite in prayer for our nation. I pray that you as a fellow Christian will share in the excitement and join us in the United Prayer for South Africa … to have a prayer session at prayer points all across our country, mobilizing as many towns and cities as possible.” Just like 1994 when my inquiry brought the Marches for Jesus in the Western Cape into my lap, I hereafter found myself attempting to get United Prayer for South Africa off the ground in our part of the country. This time round it was, however, fairly easy with the technological advances of emails and whatsapp at our disposal. (In due course, I found Terence Phillips, with whom I had been praying at various occasions already, notably on Saturday mornings, willing to co-ordinate that. Later he would also become the successor of Ps Barry Isaacs as the Transformation Africa parliament prayer co-ordinator.) Sinister forces seemed to collude to bring the able Finance Minister Gordhan down. We were not buying the Saturday edition of the Cape Argus as regularly as we used to do, but we happened to buy a copy on Saturday the 25th of February 2016. There on the front page it was disclosed that President Zuma was about to remove Pravin Gordhan. It was only natural to mention that fact as a main prayer point at Rhodes Memorial the next day, along with prayer for Dove’s Peak, the attempt to change the name of the mountain peak that seems to rule supremely over our city. We were blessed that our prayer intervention clearly resulted in a special response. The secretive links of the President and his cronies to the Gupta family, that came to be known as ‘state capture’, were exposed in the weeks thereafter. It would, however, take another two years for President Zuma to be deposed. I recorded the following, the time when I got into a closer friendship to the parliamentarian Steve Swart. Expropriation to be Implemented The alarm caused by the February 2018 decision in the South African parliament to expropriate land without compensation, brought a few Christians together once again. The idea came up to provide biblical guidelines to the electorate in view of the 2019 elections. Using our Doves' Peak committee as nucleus, a few other Cape Christians representing different organizations, were asked to join this ‘think tank’. We were quite thankful that the government did not steam-roll the scary law through Parliament. Instead, public hearings around the matter were ordered. This differed to the previous steam-rolling of new legislation. The ANC could have abused their two-thirds majority with the aid of the EFF. We attempted to get 'into Parliament', to dialogue with different political parties. Via Steve Swart, the ACDP member of Parliament and a friend, it was fairly easy. On 20 April 2018 quite an array of pastors pitched up, including some however, who had a score to settle with the Christian party. Our goal, to meet with different parties, was therefore more or less still born. Steve Swart was subsequently a member of a government commission that went around the country, to give rank and file folk the chance to verbalize their opinions about the sensitive issue that was dividing the nation along racial lines. Wilna and her husband Adie van der Merwe came into our lives in 2015 when they became the pastoral fellowship that met in a restaurant every Sunday morning. In due course, we got closer to Charmaine Singh, Nicky Wolmarans, Michael and Michelle Curtis as part of the fortnightly life group of the First Century Vineyard fellowship. (We had joined that fellowship in 2013 as a temporary one, hoping and praying that we could start a simple home church in Bo-Kaap and mentoring some Muslim background believer as leader, but subsequently we were blessed to have a couple to succeed us there.) Theo and Mignonne Schumanne would get even closer into our ambits the following year. Wilna's sermon at the beginning of 2016 would bring the latter couple under our wing. In due course, we could hand over responsibility for Bo-Kaap over to them as we concentrated on District Six. Getting Into Re-tyring Mode When I turned sixty-five in December 2010, I started looking more intensively at ‘re- tyring, ‘putting on new tyres’ as I called it - not merely re-treading old ones! We seriously considered relocating to the Middle East to share the Gospel in a low-key way there among Arab speakers, and also engaging in some itinerant teaching. During our sabbatical in 2014 when we were in Holland for two weeks, we were very much challenged by the fact that hardly anything was done by believers there in a loving outreach to the Moroccans, many of whom had been living there for generations. During our mini sabbatical in the Netherlands the possible relocation was not confirmed, however. As a high school learner Tertius Bezuidenhout was intensely impacted by the ministry of his uncle, Dr Kosie Booysen, a medical doctor who returned from Zimbabwe in the early 1980s. (Missionaries were asked to leave the country while communist influence increased in that country significantly.) At that time, Tertius also prayed often on Saturday mornings with his father and other men for Jews. This sowed seed in his heart for a love of Jews and Israel. The publication of Ed Silvoso's book That None Should Perish: How to Reach Entire Cities for Christ Through Prayer Evangelism, in April 1995, inspired many believers from all over the country finding their way to the Hatfield Baptist Church in Pretoria the following year. Tertius Bezuidenhout, a young minister, having graduated fairly prior to that from the renowned Theological Faculty of Stellenbosch, were among those who attended. Bennie Mostert held prayer seminar seminars, as leader of Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa (NUPSA), in the early 1990s. Tertius was impacted at one of these, both for strategic prayer and for outreach to the unreached people groups in respect of the Gospel. This would take him to many a Muslim country in the Middle East. When Tertius was asked to share at a prayer gathering for missionary work in Bellville in May 2008, he was challenged to highlight the mission field on the doorstep, notably the many Somalians. The very next day, the xenophobic violence broke out in the country. Together he and another brother went from shop to shop, giving their phone number to Somalians and reassuring them of their support. The Wynstok congregation, of which Tertius had become the pastor, retained their love and interest in the Somalians ever since. I started interacting more intensely with Tertius and the Wynstok congregation after 2009 via Muslim Evangelism teaching that Rosemarie and I gave at the local Presbyterian Church. This was done in collaboration with Metro Evangelical Services (MES). We networked thereafter in different ways, notably when I could link Gloria Cube of Africa Inland Mission (AIM) and Operation Mobilization (OM) missionaries with them. A special feature of the Wynstok fellowship was the involvement in prayer and outreach in many a town and village of the Western Cape. Precious memories in this regard exist when I joined them on a trip to Wupperthal in 2019. Furthermore, the fellowship has an exceptional prayer ministry linked to evangelism and missionary endeavour. Intensive connections evolved between our Born Again Believers Network (BABN) ministry and the Wynstok congregation, after Tertius became a board member of BABN in 202??, notably with co-workers and missionaries in Bo-Kaap and Delft. Crossing the Jordan! At the beginning of 2016 Rosemarie and I were challenged and blessed by the sermon of Wilna van der Merwe, the new pastor of First Century Vineyard Church that we were still attending. (Three years prior to that we looked at our attending this congregation as a transition ahead of planting a simple church in Bo-Kaap and mentoring a Muslim background believer as leader of the fellowship.) Wilna used Deuteronomy 11:11f as her point of departure: You are crossing the Jordan to take possession of a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven... Bo-Kaap was the 'Jordan' that we wanted to cross. We still hoped and prayed for simple churches to be started in Bo-Kaap and perhaps assist with some monitoring. ‘Crossing the Jordan’ became our goal as we prayed more intensely for three leadership units to take over from us. We were blessed when shortly thereafter, Mignonne and Theo Schumann contacted us. They intended to return from the island Ibo soon because of the education of their two teenage children. God had challenged them to serve Malay people when they heard about our ministry via a colleague. (A sector of the present-day Bo-Kaap was known in earlier days as the Malay Quarter.) In due course we could hand over responsibility for Bo-Kaap over to them as we concentrated on District Six. We have been in fairly close fellowship with Maditshaba Moloko from 2010 when she rose the ranks in the business world, even receiving a national ABSIP successful woman entrepeneur award in Financial Services in 2023: Our initial contact stemmed from her visit to our Signal Hill prayer meeting one Saturday morning and thereafter with the fellowship of Baruch and Karen Maayan, when Maditshaba and her son became closely befriended to the Maayan family at their move to Pinelands. A Closer Link to Israel At the time of another visit to Israel in 2014 by Rosemarie and me, Maditshaba was leading the South African delegation to the International House of Prayer of Ps Tom Hess in Jerusalem. More Christians from the 'Black' sector of the population got a heart for and interest in Israel. Apart from our common fellowship, I would interact with Maditshaba in many a prayer endeavour, but also as part of a think tank to oppose the effort of expropriation without compensation of the ANC government in 2018. The final document that Murray Bridgman would deliver to the parliament might have helped to slow down the process. (In 2024 the government pushed it through, possible as an election ploy to prevent young voters from putting their cross next to the EFF on their ballots.) United Prayer for South Africa During a meeting in January 2016 with church leaders in the 20th floor Prowess premises at Thibault Square of Pastor Maditshaba Moloko, it surfaced that nobody knew whether anything was happening in the Cape Peninsula regarding the United Prayer for South Africa initiative. I had picked up through Gateway News that Pastor Robbie Black of East London had the vision to get South Africans to pray on Sunday the 26th of February 2016 at 14:00h. He said: “It is time for us as Christian believers to rise, take a stand and unite in prayer for our nation. I pray that you as a fellow Christian will share in the excitement and join us in the United Prayer for South Africa … to have a prayer session at prayer points all across our country, mobilizing as many towns and cities as possible.” Just like 1994 when my inquiry brought the Marches for Jesus in the Western Cape into my lap, I hereafter found myself attempting to get United Prayer for South Africa off the ground in our part of the country. This time round it was, however, fairly easy with the technological advances of emails and whatsapp at our disposal. (In due course, I found Terence Phillips, with whom I had been praying at various occasions already, notably on Saturday mornings, willing to co-ordinate that. Later he would also become the successor of Ps Barry Isaacs as the Transformation Africa parliament prayer co-ordinator.) I recorded the following, the time when I got into a closer friendship to the parliamentarian Steve Swart. Land Expropriation to be Implemented The alarm caused by the February 2018 decision in the South African parliament to expropriate land without compensation, brought a few Christians together once again. The idea came up to provide biblical guidelines to the electorate in view of the 2019 elections. Using our Doves' Peak committee as nucleus, a few other Cape Christians representing different organizations, were asked to join this ‘think tank’. We were quite thankful that the government did not steam-roll the scary law through Parliament. Instead, public hearings around the matter were ordered. This differed to the previous steam-rolling of new legislation. The ANC could have abused their two-thirds majority with the aid of the EFF. We attempted to get 'into Parliament', to dialogue with different political parties. Via Steve Swart, the ACDP member of Parliament and a friend, it was fairly easy. On 20 April 2018 quite an array of pastors pitched up, including some however, who had a score to settle with the Christian party. Our goal, to meet with different parties, was therefore more or less still born. Steve Swart was subsequently a member of a government commission that went around the country, to give rank and file folk the chance to verbalize their opinions about the sensitive issue that was dividing the nation along racial lines. When the government, (mis)led by President Zuma, left the mediating position in Middle East matters from 2015, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) was the only party who boldly opposed this stance. (In October 2015 the party of the State President had the red carpet rolled out for the leaders of HAMAS, known at that time already as a terrorist Islamist group that supported the stance of Iran that clearly verbalised their intention to eliminate all Jews in Israel.) In due course, I would also meet Steve Swart with Daniel Kleinbooi privately and praying with him and other believers. (Daniel Kleinbooi is a pastor at the Bellville Baptist Church has been serving for many years as an informal chaplain at Parliament, praying there with many a parliamentarian across the board.) Tertius Bezuidenhout was intensely impacted by the ministry of his uncle, Dr Kosie Booysen, a medical doctor who returned from Zimbabwe in the early 1980s. (Missionaries were asked to leave the country while communist influence increased in that country significantly.) They started praying together for the Muslims in Northern Mozambique. At that time, Tertius also prayed often on Saturday mornings with his father and other men for Jews. This sowed seed in his heart for a love of Jews and Israel. The publication of Ed Silvoso's book That None Should Perish: How to Reach Entire Cities for Christ Through Prayer Evangelism, in April 1995, inspired many believers from all over the country finding their way to the Hatfield Baptist Church in Pretoria the following year. Tertius Bezuidenhout, a young minister, having graduated fairly prior to that from the renowned Theological Faculty of Stellenbosch, were among those who attended. Bennie Mostert held prayer seminar seminars, as leader of Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa (NUPSA), in the early 1990s. Tertius was impacted at one of these, both for strategic prayer and for outreach to the unreached people groups in respect of the Gospel. This would take him to many a Muslim country in the Middle East. When Tertius was asked to share at a prayer gathering for missionary work in Bellville in May 2008, he was challenged to highlight the mission field on the doorstep, notably the many Somalians. The very next day, the xenophobic violence broke out in the country. Together he and another brother went from shop to shop, giving their phone number to Somalians and reassuring them of their support. The Wynstok congregation, of which Tertius had become the pastor, retained their love and interest in the Somalians ever since. I started interacting more intensely with Tertius and the Wynstok congregation after 2009 via Muslim Evangelism teaching that Rosemarie and I gave at the local Presbyterian Church. This was done in collaboration with Metro Evangelical Services (MES). We networked thereafter in different ways, notably when I could link Gloria Cube of Africa Inland Mission (AIM) and Operation Mobilization (OM) missionaries with them. A special feature of the Wynstok fellowship was the involvement in prayer and outreach in many a town and village of the Western Cape. Precious memories in this regard exist when I joined them on a trip to Wupperthal in 2019. Furthermore, the fellowship has an exceptional prayer ministry linked to evangelism and missionary endeavour. Intensive connections evolved between our Born Again Believers Network (BABN) ministry and the Wynstok congregation, after Tertius had become a board member of BABN in 2022, notably with co-workers and missionaries in Bo-Kaap and Delft. Amanda Cochrane came to join and assist Rosemarie with the craft workshop for refugee ladies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at our discipling house. Introduced by Tracy Brent, a former housemother, she also quite regularly also brought her sister Ruby along. Corona started a tragic sequence of deaths when Amanda's husband Paul died after a very short Covid-related sickbed. Shortly thereafter, within a matter of months also Ruby and their brother Basil died. Having worked for Nedbank before going into early retirement, we were very thankful when Amanda took over as the treasurer of Friends from Abroad. Instead of merely fretting in bereavement and mourning after the sudden loss of her loved ones, Amanda initiated a course for the grieving at Connect Church of Meadowridge. For the last five years, many mourners were touched and blessed at this course. It was not a 'no brainer' when our FFA colleague Theo Dennis approached us to take a destitute family of three from an East African country into our discipling house. The family did not fit our prime criterium at the institution, viz persecution from another religious persuasion and/or needing discipling in the Christian faith. However, after prayer and consideration of their special circumstances, plus the fact that we could supply accommodation for the family at that time, we took them in. We were extremely blessed to see God moving in that family, notably when our brother could ultimately serve in many churches around our country, advocating for the persecuted Church in Africa. We were similarly blessed to get linked quite closely to the ministry of two Afrikaners, Hammie and Altie van Zyl, after Ps Tertius Bezuidenhout had suggested getting him to come and share at the combined core member meeting on a Sunday afternoon at our Discipling House in 2022. The couple, who have gained a lot of experience in serving the least reached tribes of Asia in spite of medical conditions where both of them had been teetering on the threshhold of eternity, have been sharing precious biblical insights with some of our Born Again Believers co-workers. Furthermore, they have been blessing so many people with testimonies of their service in the Middle East and the Himalayas over a period of many years. Here is a snippet from their very powerful booklet God is Good:  … God called us to go to twelve unreached tribes in the Himalaya Mountains to plant churches and train the church leaders. We (who are no hikers) had to walk for days to reach some of these tribes. My health hadn’t recovered since my time in Iraq, so I was always tired and in a lot of pain. God asked us to visit two specific tribes in the Himalayas, and we had to walk twenty nine days to reach them. At that time I couldn’t get through a single day without immense discomfort. How would I walk in the difficult Himalayas for twenty-nine days? Night after night I woke up in panic. It was too much for me. God faithfully helped me through that whole trip, but fear kept me from enjoying life. These fears became part of my make-up. Fear became the first reaction to whatever life put in my path. I realized I needed a breakthrough from these fears. Jesus did not come to give me a spirit of fear. I started to recognize all the fears in my life: fear of men, fear of rejection, fear of narrow spaces, fear of suffocating, fear of flying, fear of failing, fear of disappointing others, fear of dying, fear of losing someone, fear of going to unknown places, fear of not meeting deadlines, fear of speed, fear of water, fear that the worst would happen to me and fear of sickness. Then Jesus helped me to deal with the stronghold of fear.