REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS (11 March 2026)

REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS - Blessed Reflections On And After My 80th Birthday Contents 1. An Object Lesson 2. A Choice For Exile 3. Memories Ignited By A Zoom Meeting 4. Childhood and Youth Reminiscences 5. Lasting Friendships 6. A Bumpy Start to Cape Ministry 7. A Very Stressful Period 8. An Impactful Prayer Meeting 9. Divine Correction 10. Some New Year Reflections 11. A New Season Looming Introduction Starting to write on New Year's Day 2026, I attempted to recall the most important items of another memorable day of my life, my 80th Birthday. I would like this material - as in all my writings - to be SOLI DEO GLORY, knowing full well that I am possibly going to fall short yet again. All my earlier efforts in writing autobiographical stuff included too much of myself and too little to God's glory. I pray that this attempt might have less of this deficiency. Nevertheless, gratitude overrides completely as I look back. I am so thankful to testify now that through His higher ways and thoughts, the Father corrected so much of my rebellious arrogant youthful ways. When I thought that my battle for racial reconciliation should happen from inside our country, He clearly over-ruled. However, this transpired only after I had accepted exile so to speak reticently – leaving our shores to get married to my bonny over the ocean. My wife Rosemarie's call to missional involvement as a child was the prime divine tool to confirm to me that I wanted her as my future wife, when that seemed impossible in human terms. But when both Rosemarie and I were ready to settle for second best in our choice of a life partner, the Lord came through so sovereignly. Praise be to God! In the process of the blessed reflection in the collation of this material, I became very conscious of my own failures and mistakes. Many a tear rolled over my cheeks as a result. I am so thankful for the Dutch brother whom the Father used to rectify my poisonous Honger na Geregtigheid, by pointing out that it was tantamount to an overdose of medicine to a very sick patient. He missed the elements of forgiveness and love in my manuscript with that title. Initially I had some regret because of two instances of false modesty, but the considerations still contained a good dose of rational explanation. I was led into remorseful repentance about these issues thereafter. How the divine higher ways operated in our lives via financial constraints, is so clear when we look back over the decades. It all came full circle when my yearning to return to Africa would be used by God as a trigger to apply for a Dutch passport in 1988. (This was required to enable us to come and serve as missionaries in the so-called dark continent.) This would become a part of the answer to the prayers of believers around the world, not only for change in South(ern) Africa, but also in the Communist world in the months thereafter. My choice for leaving the pastorate in the Moravian Church, that had been sparked by my difficulty to continue christening infants - plus a radical understanding of stewardship - led to partial unemployment and financial insecurity over a long period of time. Gifts of clothing to us as a big family, accumulated at our home. We gladly distributed this to other families in our church and elsewhere in a similar situation. The visit of Shadrach Maloka, a pastor from South Africa, to our Panweg congregation in Zeist, triggered the start of a sort boutique at our big home, the former parsonage of the Utrecht Moravian Church. (We were allowed to remain there as our successor as pastor had a house of his own.) Funds were generated by the 'recycling in humans' via a voluntary contribution in this 'boutique', was quite novel for Holland at that time. The proceeds were used to bless folk in Africa. We thus filled a car that that had been donated to a Surinamese missionary couple that served in West Africa with clothing. This coincided with the acquisition of a small trailer. In due course, we took cartons of clothing, posting them from Germany to needy folk in different countries, How we were blessed to use the German government's subsidy of holidays for kinderreiche (big) families in 1987. At a family camp in the Southern German village of Tieringen we met the German background Klein family that had just come to the West from Romania, one of the most extreme Communist countries of that era. It was so obviously divine how our friendship to the Klein family, followed by a ' Romania fever' among Dutch evangelical Christians Zeist and surrounds in the months thereafter. This transpired in support of persecuted Romanian believers, the addresses of which we were able to relay. The Father used this to usher in the demise of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu a mere two years later. This transpired concurrently with the moves of September and October 1989 at the Cape. I only heard later about the big peaceful inter-fath march of 13 September that year in the Mother City of Sout Africa. In the Dutch town Zeist where we resided, we had a special Regiogebed (regional prayer) on the evening of 4 October, 1989. A whole evening devoted to prayer for South Africa had been triggered by a confessional aerogramm (air letter) earlier that day. There in Zeist we were not aware that President de Klerk was due to meet Dr Allan Boesak and Archbishop Desmond Tutu the following week. This could only have been orchestrated from on high. Another three months later, Nelson Mandela was released. It was not difficult to discern that there had been a hand 'sterker as myne aan die stuur. Months later, the 'closing of the door' to Ivory Coast for missionary engagement followed a Macedonian call from the Cape: 'Kom oor en help ons!' That letter helped not only me to take the major disappointment in my stride, but it also nudged Rosemarie to accept the call to the one country in the world where she had thought previously that she had enough reason not to have to raise our children! (South Africa's racist apartheid society had been a wound that simmered in the background, something that the arch enemy could abuse to mar our blissful marriage seriously.) By that time, February 1990, I had already been healed from my extreme unhealthy love for the beloved Heimat (Fatherland) through a Joseph experience. I was ready to serve the Father elsewhere if that was His confirmed will. My fervent yearning to return to my home country had been dealt with so that I got excited to return to West Africa to serve there. God ministered to Rosemarie through the letter from the Cape, so that she was ready to join me for service in South Africa when the 'door' to Ivory Coast closed. Ironically, I was not able to see TV reports of the two big events of those special months at the time when they transpired. On 9 November 1989 I was in some Romanian hotel, where only a small clip referred to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and on 11 February 1990 I had to hear about the release of Nelson Mandela only indirectly in Mali in West Africa, en route to Ivory Coast in a bush taxi. (My co-passengers pulled me into the cab after I had to retrieve my shoe that I had lost while helping to push the vehicle near to the top of the hill, after it had run out of fuel. They had found out from my Dutch missionary friend in the interim that I hail from Afric du Sud. Excitedly they pulled me into the vehicle with shouts of Viva Mandela!) Another full circle can be discerned regarding our actual ministry. Whereas there was an Isaac Ishmael challenge already present in February 1992, actual loving outreach to Jews would not transpire for many years thereafter. In this regard, the door to actual involvement only became concrete in 2010 when we got challenged to take the words 'to Jews first' of Romans 1:16 seriously. Other ministry priorities prevented intense engagement. We pray that this may change in due course. In this recollection of the events of 31 December 2025, I will be peppering the reader with all sorts of memories and pictures, which I pray will nevertheless bless readers. My chaotic habits (nature?) was the nudge in 2003, when I had contracted cancer, to get some method in my madness. Rosemarie encouraged me at that time to finalise unfinished manuscripts. Soon thereafter, Search for Truth 2 was printed in January 2004. (The bulk of completed and unpublished manuscripts can now be accessed at www. isaacandishmael.blogspot.com). I would like to highlight an Afrikaans Moravian hymn verse that I learned in 1957 from our maternal grandfather, Oupa Joorst, soon after I had started becoming the stuurding1 of him and my Aunty Maggie in Elim in January 1957: Wandel waardig Hom ons Here Groei in kennis en gena' Dan sal julle hom ter ere Altyd goeie vrugte dra Another hymn verse with some link to Ephesians 4:1 (As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received) is Hoe kan ek u prys, my dankbaar bewys? The Joorst (and later Cloete) clan is still sung at many a family occasion. The theme of Ephesians 4 is Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ. The family anthem has a fitting but challenging prayer for a persistent persevering walk that would honour the Lord: Hoe kan ek u prys, my dankbaar bewys? 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 throughout my life). I endeavour and pray that I may contribute to the visible expression of the Body of Christ here in the Cape Town City Bowl in these last years of my life. In the ongoing reflecting. I changed the title from SOME REFLECTIONS ON MY 80TH BIRTHDAY to BLESSED REFLECTIONS ON AND AFTER MY 80TH BIRTHDAY. From a bibliographical point of view, this material is related to memoirs, but as it contains a selection of autobiographical information, I regard reflections as a more fitting word to use in the title. As in all my material, I write ‘Coloured’ between inverted commas and with a capital C when I refer to that racial group in traditional South African parlance. I refer to the other races as 'Black' and 'White' respectively, with a capital B and W, to denote that it is not normal colours that are being described. In a country as ours where racial classifications have caused a lot of damage, I am aware that the designation 'Coloured' has given offence to many people of the racial group into which I have been classified. As always, Soli Deo Gloria. To God all the glory!. Cape Town, March, 2026 Chapter 1 AN OBJECT LESSON An experience with our youngest grandson on my 80th birthday became to me an object lesson of our Father's grace: Even when we mess things up in our effort to 'assist', He is loving, gracious and forgiving. In the morning we were preparing for the birthday celebration outside in our spacious yard later in the day. I had been sweeping some leaves together in three little heaps, with the biggest one of them near to the refuse bin into which the leaves would be thrown. Four-year old Asher came to help oupa with another broom. He tried to bring the small heap in front of the flat of our tenant and friend, Beverley Stratis, to the bin. Of course, with all the leaves distributed from there, I had more work to do. While I did this, I burst out in laughter, but as I noticed this. I was simultaneously also reminded of earlier efforts to 'assist' Father. At this point in time, Bev came out of her flat, curious to know the reason for my hilarity. I shared how another heap many years ago in the lounge of our home in Holland came to mind, created by our one and a half year old son on potty training. Reflecting on this, I know that I should have laughed instead of rebuking his two and a half years older brother for not calling one of us as parents. Instead, I forced him to defend himself into a nonsensical excuse: “I told him not to do it here, that he had to do it in Papa's study! I propose the teaching of Paul in Ephesians 6:4 to be valid for all parents, young and old, not to anger your children. (Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.) Instead of provoking our children to anger, we should balance the necessary rebuke by also putting boundaries in place, supported with discipline and correction. When I reflected further on our grandson Asher's attempt to 'assist' me, I was reminded of the two major blapse (errors) of 1971 where I tried to help our Father. Before I paste a portion of our story when Rosemarie's father was still clueless of our relationship, one should keep in mind that Papa Göbel was raised in the political climate of Germany's Nazi ideology. Now I have much more understanding for his behaviour at that time. Rosemarie wanted to study physiotherapy, but her father did not like the idea that she should study in Tübingen, because there were too many foreign male students in the renowned tertiary institution. He was possibly horrified by the thought that one of them would perhaps want to marry his beautiful daughter. When Papa Göbel wanted Rosemarie to promise that she would not marry a teacher or a pastor, she however, would not oblige. It was good for me that she did not promise that! I started off as teacher and became a pastor and missionary later. I paste an excerpt of our story in Afrikaans now, referring to a time when Mama Göbel was admitted at their local hospital, due to the stress caused by our friendship. Not only to be funny, I paste the Afrikaans translation, keeping in mind that I wrote Wat God Saamgevoeg Het originally in my mother tongue: (For those who don't understand Afrikaans, just google translate. In our recent English edition of the booklet, it is on p.32f). I also paste a summary at the bottom of this page as a footnote.1 Rosemarie se pa het egter nog steeds geen idee gehad van wat aangaan nie. Na 'n paar maande het die geheimhouding van ons verhouding mev Göbel so geraak dat sy uiteindelik in die hospitaal beland het met 'n ernstige galkwaal. Rosemarie was self ook op die rand van 'n senuwee-ineenstorting. Die spanning in die gesin het ondraaglik geword. Uiteindelik kon Rosemarie nie die feit ontwyk nie dat ons verhouding die rede vir alles was. Sy het geweet dat sy nie meer die waarheid van haar pa vir wie sy so lief was, kon wegsteek nie. Op een van die seldsame naweke tuis het sy uiteindelik die moed bymekaargeskraap om hom van my te vertel. Sy het baie goed geweet dat dit hom geweldig seer sou maak. Soos verwag, was Papa Göbel verpletter omdat sy eie voorstelling van sy dogter se toekomstige lewensmaat hiermee verbrokkel het. Hy het onbeheersd in 'n stortvloed van trane uitgebars soos 'n kind, en dinge gesê wat 'n verantwoordelike ouer nooit vir hul kinders moet sê nie - skandelike dinge wat diep seermaak. Die jare van indoktrinasie tydens sy kinderjare en jeug het beslis sy tol geëis. Sy ideologiese wêreld van Ariese rasse-oorheersing het inmekaar gestort. Diep seergemaak deur haar pa se reaksie, het Rosemarie haar tas geneem en in trane uitgehardloop. Dit het haar ook in 'n geestelike krisis gedompel omdat sy gedink het dat die beëindiging van ons verhouding die enigste uitweg sou wees... Ek het dit toe gepas geag om 'n formele brief van verskoning aan mnr Göbel te skryf. Maar eerder as om dit by 'n verskoning te los, het ek onsensitief versoek om met sy dogter te korrespondeer, maar nie in die geheim nie. Hy het ewe formeel geantwoord en die redes genoem waarom ek my verhouding met sy dogter moes beëindig. Uiteindelik het dit hierop neergekom: Hy het persoonlik niks teen my gehad nie, maar hy wou nie hê dat Rosemarie met iemand van enige ander nasie as Duitsland sou trou nie. Ek moes dit seker maar daar gelos het. In plaas daarvan het ek hom hardkoppig versoek om my toe te laat om die korrespondensie met Rosemarie by feestelike geleenthede voort te sit. Eties was dit betreurenswaardig. Ek het min of meer geprobeer om mnr Göbel te manipuleer. In dieselfde brief het ek brutaal voorgestel dat as ek nie 'n antwoord van hom kry nie, ek sou aanvaar dat hy daarmee akkoord gegaan het. Ek moes nog leer dat 'n mens 'n problematiese situasie kan vererger deur 'n kwessie af te dwing. Mnr Göbel was te kwaad om te antwoord, en het vir Rosemarie opdrag gegee om vir my 'n laaste brief te skryf om die verhouding te beëindig! Gevolglik het die spanning by die Göbel-huis in Mühlacker tot breekpunt toegekom en Rosemarie het besluit om op te hou om naweke huis toe te gaan...2 At that time a German young man, Günther (not his real name), entered her life. I described this in What God Joined Together as follows: However, Günther was interested in more than just a single date. An internal struggle in Rosemarie’s heart began to unfold. Her father had so clearly instructed her to write me one final letter, breaking off the relationship for good. She so much wanted to be obedient to her father. Was Günther perhaps God’s answer for her? Rosemarie’s relationship with her parents became so tense that she was earnestly considering entering into a serious relationship with Günther. In her heart, Rosemarie was nevertheless still hoping for some miracle to happen so that she could marry her ‘first choice’ in Africa. More and more this began to look like a pipe-dream. Here now the narration of the other big mistake, another effort to 'assist God', one that had an even bigger backlash: On the South African side of the ocean, there was, of course, the ominous ‘Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act’ that prevented any marital union between a ‘White’ and someone from another race. The circumstances were just not in our favour. Instead of waiting on divine intervention to enable our marital bond, I decided to 'assist God’. I had read in a local newspaper about someone who had been racially reclassified; something like that could of course only transpire in the apartheid era! This seemed to be my big chance. I would not accept the ‘realistic’ choice of either Rosemarie or South Africa that my cousin John had put to me. Getting Rosemarie reclassified was a possible way out of the cul-de-sac. Theoretically, there was also another possibility to beat the legislation, if ‘non-White blood’ could be traced in her ancestry. But research which had already been done for Rosemarie’s family tree, showed just the opposite. Rosemarie has European ancestry as far as could be traced! I wrote to Mr Vorster, the Prime Minister, inquiring about the procedure to get someone reclassified. The reservations of one of my seminary lecturers that I would give recognition to the immoral racial laws of the country by doing so, could not deter me. My attempt to 'assist God' would backfire in due course. Despite my active pursuit in trying to figure out a way to bring Rosemarie to South Africa, Rosemarie herself was still far from ready to make such a move. The inevitable objections of her family at the idea of releasing their daughter to go to the African continent, were too much of a hindrance. In one of her letters she actually asked me to pray for inner freedom from the inhibitions she felt in this regard. I had no problem with this request, trusting God to change her views in His time. Had she not told me that she had always dreamed of going to the mission field when I invited her to the evening with the Wycliffe Bible Translators? I just pushed ahead with my ideas. I had completely forgotten the lesson that His ways are higher than our own. Completely oblivious to what Rosemarie had intimated in her Easter letter, I continued writing my next epistle that was intended to arrive at Pentecost. I had elevated this church feast to the next ‘big occasion’. I was, of course ,just looking for an opportunity and an excuse to write a letter to my Schatz. When Günther (not his real name) started visiting their home, peace returned to their home in Mühlacker. I recorded it as follows in What God Joined Together : My Bonny in a Dilemma In the meantime, Rosemarie was teetering on the horns of an immense dilemma when the mother of Günther, the handsome German young friend, became critically ill. He stated innocently to her that he would not be able to take it if he would lose both Rosemarie and his mother. Günther obviously sensed that she still loved the African in Cape Town. Rosemarie felt cornered when his mother died. The temptation was too strong for her. Promptly she gave her word to him. The relief at her own home now became almost tangible every time she pitched up with courteous Günther. Peace and happiness returned to their home in Albert Schweitzer Street in Mühlacker. She promised Günther to write a letter to me to finally sever our friendship. Through a combination of circumstances she never posted this letter, which would have settled the matter. I would then not even have contemplated flying to Europe in the school holidays. * * * The shock was complete when a letter from Cape Town arrived at Rosemarie’s parental address in the first half of June 1971. Because I had not received my ‘Pentecostal lett­er’, I wrote to her parents in desperation and frustration, to enquire about Rosemarie’s whereabouts. I also indicated that I wanted to come in the June school holidays, ‘even if it would mean to visit her grave’. Any doubts about the correctness of such a drastic step as going to Germany for only two weeks were dispelled for the moment. I heard from Trek Airways that the first flight just after the start of the school holidays was absolutely fully booked. When I received a phone call only a few days before the departure date that one seat was free, I saw this as a clear indication that I should go. I had considered the venture prayerfully enough! * * * When the young friend’s mother died, this was for Rosemarie the signal to choose for him and to give me up finally. At the beginning of June, she wrote a farewell letter that could be entered for a prize if there ever was a compe­tition for such letters. (The letter is printed in What God Joined Together.) But after she had written the letter, Rosemarie became very ill. She somehow never ‘came’ to post this letter. Of course, in South Africa I had no clue what had occurred. I was still waiting for the airmail envelopes with the familiar handwrit­ing day after day, week after week. I was quite convinced that the South African government had abused the letter in which I had asked for information about race reclassification. I firmly believed that ‘they’ wanted to stop our love relationship in this way. If Rosemarie had posted the above letter, I would possibly not have boarded the flight heading for Luxembourg. I take the object lesson via Asher's assistance on my birthday to heart. I sensed that I got too excited and that I was trying to help Father again, hoping increasingly that my booklet, should it get to a printed publication, might trigger a love for reading. Very consciously, I decided to wait longer on more confirmation from the Lord, before I would send my effort to family and friends. My love for writing in earlier years included (auto)biographical and anti-apartheid activist material. By 1992 I had written a few (auto)biographical treatises already. With my first hand-written book that I had sent to the Moravian Church Board from Germany in 1969, I hoped to generate some funds for the Church. (The Printing Press in Genadendal was still operative at that time.) In 1977-79 I wrote my anti-apartheid manuscripts Honger na Geregtigheid and Wat God Saamgevoeg het. They were written on an electric typewriter, where one could erase mistakes. I typed them on a Gestestner stencil and cyclostyled the stencils on the machine of the Zeister Zendingsgenootschap. (The last two sentences constitute a real museum piece that probably only those people can understand who are museum species themselves, people who were already adults in the 1970s.) Our daughter Tabitha edited our love story as What God Joined Together a few decades later in 2014, with our son Rafael proof reading it. At the end of last year, 2025, we printed 100 copies of an improved edition. It was quite special that Gustine Joemath and Martin (Matie) October, the two with me in a photo included in that booklet, pasted below, were physically present in our home on the 30th and 31st December 2025 respectively. (Gustine brought 2026 textbooks on the 30th and Matie drove my brother Kenneth and his wife to our birthday celebration in Vredehoek.) (Matie next to me and Gustine at the back) Let's go back to Douglas Bax, my 91-year old friend whom our son Sam brought to our celebration. He is now my best friend. When we chatted on the phone on the 30th December about his coming to my birthday celebration, Douglas wanted to know whether he could bring a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne. This was, of course, ajust the cue to ask him to propose the toast at the occasion. He included in his sharing how we met, including the narrating of how he met Betty, his first wife. Betty was the one, when they were not yet married, whose memory of the names of the three seminarians would be pivotal in our being so surprised when Douglas, the pastor of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, cordially welcomed Ashley, Augustine and Fritz. Here follows how I had recorded this, typifying our arrogant 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 Andrew's 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 Andrew's Presbyterian Church passed the test with flying colours. Thereafter Douglas became a close friend of our seminary.3 In the 1973 photo of Rev. Martin Wessels lecturing at the seminary, Fritz Faro is sitting next to me on the right and Paul Joemat on the left. (Along with the late Paul Engel, Paul Joemat and I tried to get the Moravian Church at the Cape back to its historical evangelical roots as teenagers, albeit in activist fashion.) In Jumping Over Walls I described some of our battles against church tradition, along with my early attempts to address racism and inculcated prejudices of our time, noting that I am not proud of it any more. My two teenager 'fighters' and were too activist: I quietly opposed traditions in the church and society which made no sense, engaging in non-conformist action here and there. Already as a 15-year old teenager, I started using every opportunity at Sunday School conferences and sermons to oppose what I regarded as senseless traditions in the church. Along with two teenager Sunday School colleagues with the name Paul who had the typical Cape Moravian surnames Engel and Joemat,we would sometimes launch out in a rather haughty and arrogant way to ‘get the Moravian Church back on track’ with regard to biblical conversion. The two Pauls and I sometimes used unconventional means. On my return to South Africa from Germany in October 1970, I had set as one of my goals to oppose racial prejudice wherever it would surface. Operating predominantly within the confines of the ‘Coloured’ community, I knew that we also had to address the superiority complex of our people in respect of ‘Blacks’. Deep-Seated Inculcated Traits From personal experience I knew, however, also how deep-seated these acquired prejudices were. Although I had been teaching learners of Bellville South High School from 1965 to 1968 that all people are equals in God's sight, I would discover the inculcated trait of our racist society soon after my departure in January 1969 very personally. In an unguarded moment a few weeks after my arrival in Germany, I was the only non-German present when a very dark-skinned student from Togo in West Africa entered. My immediate thought was Wat soek hy hier? (The deep-seated racial prejudice thus came to the fore. Conveniently overlooking the fact that, according to my own racist thinking, I was also not 'belonging' there.) A few weeks prior to this, the parallel to the other side of this prejudicial spectrum had happened on the passenger steamboat Pendennis Castle. I did not feel free to go into the swimming pool while the other folk the very first day were there, because all of them were 'Whites'. After all the other people had left, I dared to go in, all alone, of course. During our half-year stay in South Africa in 1981, I took the manuscript of What God joined together to Tafelberg Uitgewers, yet without success.4 Our friend Douglas Bax continued to fight our cause. The Presbyterian Church Synod actually passed a resolution whereby the denomination would defy the Mixed Marriages Act if racially mixed couples requested to be married.5 In the photo below, Rev Henning Schlimm lectures, with Gustine Joemath and Fritz Faro on the right.(The others on the picture are Chris Liedeman on the right, Pieter Kiewiet (Lutheran), Leonard Maart (Presbyterian) and Derrick Meyer.) Here now two photo's taken on my 80th birthday, the first one of Douglas Bax making his toast-proposing speech and the second one of me blowing out the candles. (Rosemarie had quite a job to prevent the wind from blowing them out before I could do it during the singing of Happy Birthday): Chapter 2 A CHOICE FOR EXILE As a gift for Rosemarie's 40th birthday, I gave her a type-written copy with the title Op Adelaars Vleugels. This alluded to our wedding text of Exodus 19:4, where our seminary director Henning Schlimm marrying us. In Op Adelaars Vleugels, I narrated some of our experiences - how we sensed to have been divinely 'carried'. I wrote our love story in Dutch, our home language at that time, ahead of Rosemarie's 40th birthday. Later I expanded and translated it into English as On Eagle's Wings, which is now accessible on our internet blog www. isaacandishmael.blogspot.com. That would, in due course, become the basis of What God Joined Together, the narrative of our love story until that day. I wrote the following as a sort of preamble on 14 June 1971:6 Mijn allerliefste schat! Over 3 weken word je 40 jaar oud! Hoe kan ik je beter verwennen op een manier die aan de gelegenheid recht laat geschieden? Je raad het wel...Het wordt de langste liefdesbrief die ooit geschreven werd!! Wat ben ik bevoorrecht zo'n vrouw en moeder voor onze kinderen te hebben. Uit de talrijke gesprekken die wij over de jaren hebben gehad en uit onze gemeenschap-pelijke belevenissen wil ik dat distilleren wat voor mij, voor onze kinderen en voor zoveel anderen tot een zegen was geweest... P.S. Je vindt het zeker niet erg dat ik niet in het Duits, onze oude liefdestaal, maar in het Nederlands, onze tegenwoordige huistaal schrijf, niet waar? Dan kunnen de kinderen, en eventueel lezers onder onze vrienden in Zeist. het immers toch makkelijk lezen... I wrote my next autobiographical manuscript, Home or Hearth, as my gift to my parents for their Golden Wedding Anniversary in January 1981. (Initially I was going to visit them alone.) A friend of our family, David Appelo, felt that Home or Hearth, the story of our visits to South Africa in 1975 and 1978, should be getting a wider audience than mere family history. He changed, edited and got 5 hard copies printed in 1992 as Involuntary Exile. I was quite unhappy with the change of the title for various reasons. One of them was that I felt that the activist motivation of my writing was compromised. Furthermore, I did not want the book to get known because of my contact with Dr Beyers Naude, putting him voor my karretjie, in front of my cart. I also felt that God did not get enough honour in it. Now, 34 years later, I discern that David Appelo's title was definitely appropriate. It was, after all, my conscious choice for Rosemarie in a serious dilemma that took me into a very involuntary exile. I became even more aware of it when I was able to read the original Dutch version of On Eagle's Wings in January 2026, my love letter to her at the occasion of her 40th birthday. Here is an example of my activism, as narrated in Jumping Over Walls: Fighting Racism in Our Church In our own denomination we were also fighting traditions with a racist slant simultaneously. One of them in the Moravian Hill Chapel of District Six called for a challenge. Twice per year German Moravians attended this church. The tradition evolved that chairs would be specially put on to the stage for the Germans and removed again after the service at the two occasions. The tradition was highlighted when the local minister refused the request for this special privilege in August 1972. Family of a deceased member wanted to get this privilege granted to other 'Whites', the employers of the sister who wanted to attend the funeral in the sanctuary. At the seminary we were, of course, quite happy with this principled stand of the minister. When we saw the chairs specially taken out for the German Moravians a few days later, this smacked too much of hypocrisy to us. We couldn’t leave the double standards unchallenged. When the church council member who was taking out the chairs the Saturday evening, he was not willing to listen to reason. We saw to it that the word was spread quickly. The youth group wanted to stage a mass walk out at the ‘Love Feast’ on the hallowed annual traditional 13th August commemoration of the revival in Herrnhut in 1727. This would certainly have rocked the boat severely. We feared that the church leadership would point to Fritz Faro, Gustine Joemath and me, the three full-time students at the seminary, as the instigators of such a walkout. Thus, we suggested to the young people, that we would rather do it on their behalf and face the inevitable music alone. There was not much discussion about the matter because the decision had to be taken quickly. At the beginning of the service with its blessed historical background, the three of us left the church quietly, without really upsetting the proceedings. But the impact was nevertheless quite consequential. We were in hot water from more than one quarter. The youth turned against us as well, accusing us of wanting to steal their show. I actually failed the other youth members at this time as a senior, giving them activism as example in stead of encouraging them to join the Hippy Revival that raged among other young Christians at that time. In fact, we were critical of Fritz, who joined the Jesus People meetings occasionally. One of the female youth members verbalised the problem that she especially had with me - perhaps others also had it, but they didn’t articulate it so openly: I was sporting ‘Black is Beautiful’ on my T-shirt at many occasions - and yet I had a 'White' girl friend overseas! That church service was part of another one, a year later in the same church. In the interim we got to know people from other races at the meetings of the Christian Institute, including Claude Bongonjalo Goba who visited the seminary from time to time: … The South African Council of Churches had declared the month of August as the month of compassion and member churches were challenged to do something practical. As our contribution in August 1973, we asked one of our CI friends, the Congregational Church minister Claude Goba, to speak. But this was possibly one of the first occasions that there was a 'Black' South African on the pulpit of Moravian Hill Chapel and it was not surprising that an honest congregant left the sanctuary demonstratively the very moment Claude Goba walked to the pulpit. (Admittedly, we three full-time seminarians had done something similar, leaving another church service, a year before this, when the local pastor persisted with segregated seating for visiting Germans.) Claude Goba’s sermon caused me to do some deep soul searching and my inner tussle came to a head. Was I not like Jonah, running away from the problems of our revolution-ripe country? To cop out cowardly was the very last thing that I wanted to do! The result was an intense inner struggle between the love for my country and my love for a foreign girl who could turn me into an exile. I so much wanted to make a contribution towards racial reconciliation in South Africa. I thought, perhaps a touch too self-assured, “I can be of better service here in my native country than anywhere else.” I would yet have to be brought down from that presumptuous pedestal. I started praying that God would let me fall in love with a ‘Coloured’ girl who could be the ‘equal’ of Rosemarie. I did not feel that my task in contributing towards racial reconciliation in South Africa had been completed. Yet in the end, I could not face the idea of a life without Rosemarie. So, after much deliberation and many discussions with Anne and Henning Schlimm, I finally decided to join Rosemarie in Germany. In another seminary initiative, shortly before my departure for Europe, Dr Beyers Naudé was invited to address a youth rally on Youth Power in the Old Drill Hall. Robbie Kriger, a part-time seminary student, was the main driver of this event. In the early and mid-1990s only a few people knew about the Internet. However, I was blessed to be in Cape Town from January 1992 when I had easy and free access to many libraries. My passion for (Church) historical research was fuelled, engaging in writing about theological issues around the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam7. After only a few months at the Cape, I was challenged by a German missionary colleague to record the stories of local MBBs, former Muslims who had become followers of Jesus. (I was a Cape 'Coloured', whereas all my missionary colleagues were expatriates, many from German speaking countries, but also from Madagascar, Reunion, Taiwan and South Korea). There were not many MBBs known at that time, so it was not a big challenge. I enjoyed the exercise of writing and collating the stories, one of them with the use of a tape recorder, which would, of course, today also be regarded as a museum article. My Matric class mate Attie Kotze, at that time a teacher at Elsies River High School, assisted with the proof reading of Op Soek na Waarheid. The booklet was later edited and translated as Search for Truth, with the assistance of Gill Knaggs. Quite a few manuscripts – all unfinished – followed until I got a diagnosis of prostate gland cancer confirmed on 9 October 2003. I narrated the run-up as follows in I Was Like Jonah: Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer A medical checkup was due a year after my stress-related temporary loss of memory in March 2002. This led to a period that seemed to lead to the last lap of my 'race' on earth. After going to the doctor for the blood pressure check-up at the end of September - without having any complaint - he suggested a PSA blood test because of my age. The physician hereafter referred me to an urologist, who did a biopsy on 7 October 2003 – just to make sure! Perhaps the arch enemy tried to knock me out. 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 and the doctors to whom I had spoken, pointed out that the PSA count was only minimally above normal – a high count would have pointed to cancerous activity. Neither of them had initial reason for concern. There could be other causes of the high count like infection. I was told that I had contracted Prostate Gland cancer When a phone call came from the hospital on Thursday 9 October 2003, was caught completely off-guard. With little ado, Dr Aldera, the urologist, gave me the result of the biopsy: I had contracted prostate cancer in an early stage. Through an extra-ordinary set of circumstances, the Lord, however, prepared me for the diagnosis. At that time – 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). I have done this in different ways, e.g. by narrating them. Not knowing what the outcome would be, with my passing on very much a reality we had to face, Rosemarie challenged me: “What will happen to all those incomplete manuscripts on your computer?” (I was indeed very chaotic in this regard.) The testimonies of a few Cape Muslims had been on my computer already for about two years. We had printed some of them as tracts, with testimony of an impact made. We heard that Muslims were told that these stories were not factual because I did not mention the names of the persons. The result of Rosemarie’s prodding was that Search for Truth 2 could be printed within a matter of weeks by my cousin, Patrick Cloete, a printer. I ordered 1000 copies at a time when printing costs at the Cape were still fairly low. Without my knowledge, my cousin subcontracted the job to a colleague. When many copies could not be used, this printer agreed to repeat it. Pat allowed me to use the good ones of the first order. I thus had quite a number of copies. I disposed of the last five copies I had on hand in January 2026. I now go back to 31 December 2025, noting that the son of Matie October, a seminary colleague now in retirement in Elim and whom I mentioned earlier, is married to the daughter of Majied Pophlonker, one of our Born Again Believers Network executive members. (Majied is one of the first Cape MBBs that we got to know. His story was also the decisive nudge for the writing of Op Soek na Waarheid, the first booklet with true stories of Cape Muslim followers of Jesus. That booklet was planned to be published at a seminar with Ds. Davie Pypers in 1995 in the Indian residential suburb of Rylands. In translation, the booklet got the title Search for Truth. The content would have a low-key impact upon Cape Muslims, notably after the publication of Search for Truth 2 and tracts that my cousin Patrick - and later Hindi Sanneberg, a youth friend - had printed. The booklets and the tracts included a few of these stories plus a few other testimonies.) The writing of Op Soek na Waarheid set off a chain reaction in our own ministry when we discovered the big need for the discipling of new converts from Islam. (When I interviewed one believer, I discovered that many Muslims responded to the altar call during the campaign of Reinhard Bonnke in Valhalla Park in 1984. What happened to all the other new believers?) The discipling and equipping of Muslim background believers became ultimately a focus of our ministry. We are thankful that only a few of those we have been serving over the decades subsequently, are not followers of Jesus today. And with those who did, we kept in contact to this day, with few exceptions. Of the birthday messages that I received on my birthday, one stands out for me. My younger brother, Windsor, wrote the following on the Cloete Family whatsapp group: Gods Richest Blessings Ashley on your 80th birthday ...it's time to scale down and let the Lord do the work I replied from my heart: … We are blessed to be able to report that as from tomorrow Born Again Believers Network has a new leadership team succeeding us. We can scale down, going to the back stage. Praying for a good transition. There is an unfortunate perception that I was still running around, just like in earlier days. This is not the case completely, but it had been a burden to us that we were not able to hand over the weight of the responsibility of the leadership of Born Again Believers Network. I announced already at the beginning of 2025 that I will be resigning as chairperson at the end of the year. (Already since my 65th birthday I was looking for successors in the leadership of Friends from Abroad, the name of the agency before the merger in 2020.) When we were once again at the end of our tether in a ministry situation in November, 2025, Pastor Tertius Bezuidenhout, a member of our executive, took over the reigns in a very difficult situation wonderfully. It was easy to announce, soon thereafter, that he and Pastor Bruce van Eeden would be the new leaders from 1 January 2026. (We passed the baton publicly in a Sunday afternoon service on 22 February in the Wynstok Gemeente of Bellville, one of the two congregations that have been the most supportive of the ministry of BABN.) Let me now try to recall more events of 31 December, going to Bev Stratis coming out of her flat when I was sweeping outside in the morning Twice in the course of the day, I introduced her as someone whom God had used to save my life. (The Father used her to intercede for me earnestly, upon her getting a vision of a morbid vibe around me a few days ahead of a heart attack attack in the night of 30/31 January, 2012.) Here are the angiogram pictures of that procedure and the story linked to it: (On the top picture, one can see how the blood could not flow freely through the two main arteries and on the bottom one how the three stents inserted allowed free flow of the blood.) Special Intercession 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 of me 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 on my behalf. About two weeks later, an intercessor who attended our Saturday evening fellowship with Pastor Baruch Maayan regularly, came up to me to tell me about her special experience. Erika Schmeisser had heard that I had contracted a heart attack. In that night 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. She knew that the Father wanted her to intercede for that person. The Gospel message of Isaiah 53 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. Erika Schmeisser had the pain which I should have had. 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 ur 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. 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. This was no less than a modern-day variation of the fleece experience of Joshua in the Bible. 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. We had learnt through experience that praising God in adversity is a very powerful weapon in spiritual warfare! We experienced this truth concretely but it also came with a price. Rosemarie contracted an asthmetic condition that plagued her for years thereafter. Another Glimpse of Divine 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! Cecil John's 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 Nasra8 and Dyon Vosmer networked with Cecil John and his Sozo Foundation. This was another glimpse of those mysterious ways of God that we have been blessed to witness. God's Timing For Publication? The death of our revered State President Nelson Mandela in December 2013 was a nudge to me to get our love story printed, so that our grandchlildren could read it one day. Our daughter Tabitha assisted with the editing of What God Joined Together and Rafael did the proof reading. In 2015 we printed 100 copies of which we gave many to family and friends. At that time there was a new wave of anti-'White' feelings aroused by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), notably after the demolition of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes on the grounds of UCT. The destruction of the statue set off a chain reaction around the world. Rhodes had been the prime example of the worst of colonialism. In the previous era of South Africa he had been hailed as one of the last former prime ministers of the Cape Colony before the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910. In South Africa the UCT rigours triggered an anarchic campaign of 'fees must fall' and boycotting. Julius Malema and his EFF was riding on the crest of that wave. The murdering of 'White' farmers increased drastically. An anti-'White' sentiment among 'Blacks' was going around the country that brought a general fear of racist riots and an uprising was feared. Our son Samuel thought that our booklet could help to counter the mounting racism. He posted our booklet on Facebook in an effort to start a 'time to rise' movement. (Pastor Errol Naidoo had a similar idea.) A wave of prayer went around the country which definitely helped to stem the racist tide. Someone heard about our story at this time, which led to an invitation to a TV appearance in 2015 on SABC on the favourite Afternoon Express programme. Next to Bev Stratis, I was so blessed that we could have Douglas Bax present. After the passing of my best friends of earlier decades, Esau (Jakes) Jacobs and Henry (Jutty) Bredekamp, Douglas had moved into top spot. Jakes and Jutty had been friends from my teenage days - when I was a young teacher. I was deeply impacted by the special unity of the Body of Christ I experienced in the SCA with its powerful challenge motto: FAC JESUM REGUM, Make Jesus King. I am so thankful to have been privileged to say 'fare well' to both of them in hospital prior to their 'going home'. Both of them were in a coma, with their passing expected imminently. In the case of Jutty, this happened soon after our return from a six week visit to our children, family and friends in Europe in late August 2023. (It was sadly, also the first of a string of deaths of folk to whom we had a special tie.) Jakes' funeral in May 1997 ushered in a stroke with Rosemarie, that was caused by an extremely stressful weeks in our ministry. We subsequently kept contact with Ann, his wife. Ann died a few days before our Golden Wedding anniversary. I was quite sad that I could not attend her funeral, at which our common friend Allan Boesak brought the message. But I was thankful to be present and blessed to give a tribute at a memorial service of Ann, the day before our own celebration. I was blessed with two phone calls in the morning of my 80th birthday from folk linked to the SCA/VCS of those days. Monica Brown is known to all and sundry in the student Christian movement of 'Coloureds' of yesteryear as Aunty Mon. Monica was the camp mother of many a camp in the late 1960s and 1970s. For decades she kept in touch with many of the former campers, including los donkies, i.e. those who had no SCA branch at their training institution or who continued to attend camps after they were already serving somewhere in the country as social workers or teachers. Monica also turned 80 earlier in 2025. The last time that we chatted telephonically, she gave me the phone number of Franklin Sonn. He was the camp father of the Harmony Park stranddienste of 1964/5 where I was so deeply impacted regarding Church unity.) The other phone call was from Sammy Lawrence, one of my learners at Bellville High School. He subsequently became the travelling secretary and leader of the VCS. At his request of a recent photo from me, I suggested that he should just make a screen shot. Here is the result: A third phone call had an interesting background. Our missionary colleague Theo Dennis contacted me regarding a problem with some ministry-related person who had called him. With Theo we started the evangelistic umbrella organisation Friends from Abroad. From 2003 the Lord enabled us to shift the focus of our ministry from Cape Muslims to foreigners from African countries. This transpired after Rosemarie had a special dream cum vision, recorded thus: A Wave of Opportunity Around October 2003 Rosemarie had a strange dream cum vision 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 in the dream. 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 prime Islamic stronghold. 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. (We requested our daughter Tabitha to make a painting to depict the wave. We used this painting on the cover of Seeds Sown For Revival, my first book publication in print after Op Soek na Waarheid/Search for Truth. I subsequently updated and revamped it into 3 parts) Then Rosemarie woke up, very conscious that God seemed to say something to us through this dream. But what was God trying to convey? The very next day we heard from Robert Crowe, our housefather at the Moria Discipling House, about a conference of Middle Eastern Muslim leaders in the newly built Convention Centre of Cape Town. We decided on short notice to move our Friday prayer meeting there nearby instead of in the regular venue, the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk. Lillian James, one of our prayer partners, was on hand to arrange a venue for us near to the new Convention Centre. After our prayer meeting, Rosemarie and other female intercessors went to pray there. Surprisingly, the ladies were not stopped by security officials. The same Friday afternoon, Rosemarie and our missionary colleague Rochelle Malachowski went to the nearby Waterfront. There they literally walked into a group of ladies in Middle Eastern attire. 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 Middle Eastern 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. A Focused Ministry to Foreigners During 2003 it seemed as if the Lord was leading us more and more to a focused ministry to foreigners. While Lynn Holder’s husband Jeff preached one Sunday, Rosemarie received another vision, namely of our Moriah Discipling House to be used for foreigners. In our search for a couple as house parents of the facility, the Lord had to correct us because we had thought that a Cape ‘Coloured’ couple would be the ideal because they would understand the culture of the Cape Muslims the best. In the aftermath of the strange dream, it seemed as if the Lord was confirming a ministry to refugees and other foreigners. In November 2003 we baptised a Muslim background refugee from Rwanda. Shortly hereafter, the Lord also brought to our attention various groups of foreigners who had come to the Mother City, including a few from a Chinese minority group. In the city I bumped into Theo Dennis and OM missionary colleagues John Moses and Florent Ndomwey, a Congolese brother. John Moses and his wife Martha had been serving in Turkey with their two sons. In due course, I got to know Theo Dennis better, notably when our decision to concentrate on foreigners brought us on a collision course with our WEC International leadership. Another Home-coming Rosemarie and I were experiencing a very traumatic period as a couple in 2006. We were personally encouraged by Isaiah 43:18, to forget the past and to expect a ‘new thing’ that had been sprouting. During the first term of 2006 a young Operation Mobilization (OM) missionary started to serve more closely with us. Occasionally he joined us in outreach in the township Parkwood. He also had a longing to minister to foreigners. In the course of looking for a neutral venue where we could assist the sojourners from other countries with English lessons, the young colleague suggested that we pop in at the home of Pastor Theo Dennis, one of the OM leaders in the Western Cape. I experienced a sense of homecoming once again. When Theo Dennis shared about their ministry in the UK some years ago in Coventry and Bradford called Friends from Abroad, I experienced a sense of home-coming, especially when he mentioned that the group no longer operated in the UK under that name. (Theo Dennis and his family were confined to the UK after OM had decided that people with South African passports were too much of a liability on their ships.) A New Challenge Ever since our return from Holland in 1992, I had been hoping to be a blessing to foreigners coming from other countries as I had been positively impacted overseas. Both Rosemarie and I felt that this was the new thing that had been sprouting, a renewed challenge to get more intensely involved with foreigners. After some collaboration with Theo Dennis, we decided to approach a few City Bowl pastors regarding a common effort. Initial responses were positive when I asked them to pray about possible involvement. We were however wary of getting too excited prematurely. Haven’t we been disappointed more than once when we attempted to get churches of the City Bowl to do something together? Perhaps this was just God’s time? Could the plight of the destitute and exploited foreigners possibly be the trigger to bring about the revival we have been praying for so long? This was not to be. Only one church sent two females next to Straatwerk for this venture. We formalised the ministry, starting a non-profit organisation that we gave the name Friends from Abroad. Our obedience to the call to reach out lovingly to foreigners who had come to the Cape, brought matters to a head in WEC International. Our newly elected national mission leaders could not accept our vision of the combination of reaching out to Cape Muslims and stronger involvement with foreigners. Rosemarie and I were hoping that we could still function with our ‘new thing’, the new umbrella NPO Friends from Abroad, under the auspices of WEC International. We remained committed to operate in a positive frame of mind until the end of July 2007, 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. We sensed that God was possibly using the personal trauma to shake us towards flexibility for change. The 'New Thing' Sprouting During the first term of 2006 an OM missionary started working more closely with us who also had a vision to minister to foreigners. In the course of looking for a neutral venue where we could help the sojourners from other countries with English lessons, the young OM colleague suggested that we pop in at the home of Theo Dennis, one of the OM leaders in the Western Cape. When Theo spoke about their ministry in Coventry in the UK with the name Friends from Abroad, I once again had a sense of home-coming, especially when he mentioned that the group does not operate there under this name any more. The very next day I took Rosemarie along to him, starting discussions for the establishment of an alliance with other mission 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. In our hearts we wanted to remain in WEC until the end of our ministry days. This led to a severe crisis, however, with the result that we had a letter of resignation already on our computer on 29 April, just ahead of the national conference that was due to start the next day in the Cape, in Stellenbosch. The Lord intervened via a SMS from someone who knew nothing of what had transpired. The divine instruction via this channel was to wait on the Lord. This kept us from formally handing in our resignation straight away. We definitely did not close ourselves to the possibility that the ‘new thing’ could still happen within WEC (Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ) 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, the founders of All Nations International were coming to Cape Town with the vision to establish a training and outreach community 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 was somewhat wider, also for countries outside of Africa to be impacted from Cape Town. All Nations International later also sent people long term to different countries. Getting the vision over to local Christians and pastors was a much bigger challenge. Kindred Spirits Rosemarie and I were encouraged by the arrival of Floyd and Sally McClung at the end of 2006, especially because we detected kindred spirits when we got to read their reason for coming to the Cape. We now started to endeavour even more to see a church planting movement established among those foreigners who have come to the Mother City of our country. We longed intensely for the metropolis to become the Father's City at last. With the McClungs, leaders of the relatively new mission agency All Nations International, we had a common experience of seeking God’s will for the next step in our lives.         In Need of Counselling During the months prior to the WEC conference in Stellenbosch in May 2006 and also thereafter, we experienced a very traumatic period in our ministry. In on-going discussion with our WEC national leaders, serious problems arose. Our nerves were on end and we had no energy left to continue with our missionary work. Our colleague Rochelle suggested that we should get counselling. What a blessing Dave Peter of YWAM became to us at this time! The advice of Dave helped us to carry on. He challenged us - never to leave a ministry in defeat. I had made a mistake, mentioning the name Friends from Abroad in correspondence to our WEC leaders, although everything was very much still in an orientation stage. This caused a serious problem. We were nevertheless completely surprised when our national WEC leaders would not give us a ‘green light’ to continue working within this context as WEC missionaries, without giving a proper reason. Towards the end of April things followed each other up in quick succession, so that a letter of resignation was already on our computer on the 29th of March. We now received a warning email out of the blue that simultaneously encouraged us with Psalm 7:14 to wait on the Lord. The next few weeks were not easy though, but the Lord carried us through in a special way as we did the ‘Experiencing God’ course at the Cape Town Baptist Church. As the weeks passed by, our situation in the mission became worse. Prayer at the University of Cape Town From 2006 young people from different churches, backgrounds and cultures in the Rondebosch area came together to ‘simply’ worship once a quarter. In mid-2006 a Simply Worship service was held in the Jameson Hall of the University of Cape Town (UCT). There our son Sam was challenged to go and pray at UCT. About ten people came to him afterwards, indicating their interest in joining him. They started meeting together to spend time in worship and intercession on a weekly basis, but they also spent much personal time with God in the prayer room at UCT. In the prayer room of UCT some chemistry started operating between our son and Sheralyn. Eventually the students organised an event. They decorated the prayer room and encouraged people to worship God, using their creative gifts. The students prayed continuously for 77 hours, leading to the next Simply Worship evening. Empowering People From the Nations We wanted to see countries outside of Africa impacted from Cape Town. Getting the vision across to local Christians and pastors, remained however a big challenge. Long before the official inauguration on 17 February 2007, one of the new ventures of Friends from Abroad (FFA) which Rosemarie and I had already started before we left for Europe in 2006, was fortnightly sessions of fellowship, Bible Study and prayer. We did this with a few Uighur believers from China, as well as other Asians such as Nim and Nur Rajagukguk the Indonesian couple that we had as house parents of our Discipling House. The philosophy of FFA is to equip and empower people from the nations to serve their own people, just as I had been impacted while I was in exile in Holland. A Supplement to Our FFA Philosophy We resumed our contact with Bruce van Eeden, the former pastor of the Newfields EBC, with whom we had started children’s work in 1992. (In 1995 he initiated a Mitchell’s Plain-based mission agency called Ten-Forty Outreach.) We thought that his ministry could be a valuable complement to our Friends from Abroad concept - to bless expatriate Christians and empower them to be a blessing in and for their own countries. Through Pastor Theo Dennis we got linked to Ds. Richard Verreyne, pastor of the Soter Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk in Parow. Pastor Deon Malan and his wife Iona, a couple with mission experience in North Africa and our YWAM colleague Rochelle Smetherham-Malachowski became members of our core team of Friends from Abroad (FFA). Together we started free English lessons for refugees and other foreigners at the church in Parow. It was an added blessing that we had a short-term missionary from Germany to help us keep the children of the refugee ladies busy in a good way. This was a forerunner of a weekly children’s club at the same venue with refugee-related and local children. The FFA compassionate outreach to foreigners soon included a jewellery workshop for refugee ladies, the bulk of them Muslims. This helped them to have some income. Our daughter Tabitha not only assisted there with the children, but she also kept the ministry running all on her own - long after the German short-term worker had returned to her home country. A jewellery workshop for refugee ladies, to help them earn a few cents and teach English to quite a few of them, was part and parcel of the FFA compassionate outreach to foreigners. Our involvement at the Parow church opened the rather conservative Soter Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk for subsequent fruitful ministry to foreigners, including regular French services. Chapter 3 MEMORIES IGNITED BY A ZOOM MEETING Soon after the phone call with Theo Dennis on my birthday, we had a zoom session with all our children and grandchildren. The last time when we had been together physically was, of course, earlier this year when Rosemarie and I celebrated our Golden Wedding anniversary. Rafael and his wife Mara were in Germany, visiting Danny and his family. Tabitha and her family were with us for a few days while her husband Michael's brother David and his family from Australia were in their house in Kirstenhof. Rafael and Maggie, both of them normally residing in the UK, had been preparing quizzes, the standard fare when we do family zoom sessions. This time the quizzes circled around oupa's life's journey. In Rafael's part of the quiz, the children had to draw their answers to the questions. Upon his question in which sports I have participated in younger days, they were all surprised to hear that I had participated in four different sport disciplines (rugby, soccer, athletics9 and cricket). Upon the question which instruments I learned to play as a child, many were surprised that I started learning to play the piano and that I only learned to blow my own trumpet in Germany (sic!). I was quite surprised myself that little Asher drew a boat in response to Maggie's question to the transport method when I came to Europe the first time. (One of his older cousins drew a train. I explained to the zoom audience that the steamboat was still the cheapest mode of travel in January 1969 when I left the Cape shores. I created some anxiety for the folk at the boat that day when I arrived quite late. I had been driving around with Jakes, my best friend, seen here on the left on the photo of those who came to see me off. Here now a picture of that occasion at the quayside: Bishop Schaberg can be seen in the middle. God used him at the funeral of my teenage hero Rev Ivan Wessels in March 1968 to call me into the ministry. At the front is Harry Booysen, the travelling secretary of the SCA, who was always very funny. (Sammy Lawrence became his successor.) My friend Jakes is on the left of family members, viz. my parents, two siblings and their spouses and the only nephew at that stage, Clarence Esau. The very next day after the funeral, Rev. August Habelgaarn offered me a bursary on behalf of the Church Board for two years of theological studies at the Johanneum Bible School in Wupperthal, Germany. This was later changed to a one-year internship with the Evangelisches Jungmännerwerk in Stuttgart. Rev. Rolf Scheffbuch, my leader there, had studied at the Moravian University in Bethlehem in the US. Already at our first meeting Rev. Scheffbuch showed interest in assisting to get me a scholarship for a full theological education at Tübingen University. When I showed interest to be equipped for ultimately lecturing at our seminary in South Africa, conveying this to our Church Board, this was declined. The church leadership argued that I would get estranged from South Africa if I would be out of the country too long. They also found a three year course at the Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania too long. When Rev. Habelgaarn came to Germany, he also came to visit me in May, 1969. There he agreed in principle that I could stay in Germany for another year of studies in the biblical languages. That turned out to be very providential. I met and fell in love with Rosemarie in Stuttgart in May 1970. Rev Habelgaarn with me in Bietigheim In Tears Tests and Testimonies I included a tearful experience of the day I left the Cape shores for the first time: More Memories of Tears Shed As An Adult Before moving to theological issues that triggered the shedding of tears as an adult, I want to briefly recall a few times when this actually transpired. The first time that I remember clearly was in January 1969. As a 23-year old, I was crying almost uncontrollably, standing alone on the deck of the Pendennis Castle, seeing Table Mountain disappearing slowly. This was the very first time that I left our country! The next time that I would cry, happened a few weeks later. When I heard the children of the Maier family in Leonberg-Silberberg in Germany singing a tune well known to me at bed-time - Der Mond ist aufgegangen - I was overwhelmed by homesickness. The third time happened not long hereafter when I heard someone speaking Afrikaans. I was emotionally overwhelmed by the occasion when I heard this from the lips of one of the old Tietzens. The missionary couple was back in Germany after their retirement when I saw them in the village of Bad Boll at my first visit there. The couple served on the Elim mission station at the time when I attended my last two years of primary school there as a 'stuurding' of Oupa Joorst and Aunty Maggie. The indoctrinated notion that men don't cry must nevertheless have operated quite effectively. Major disappointments like the discovery that I had to share the affections of a competitor for the hand of Rosemarie in 1971 or that she was refused a work permit and a tourist visa in 1973, could not activate my tear glands. Deep sadness at the thought that I would possibly never see my family again when I went into the life of an exile to all intents and purposes, still however, did not bring me to tears. The next time when I sobbed bitterly, occurred while I was travelling on a train from Germany to the Netherlands some months after the passing of my sister in December 1980. I was recalling memories of the sibling who enabled the education of my brothers and me. My callousness as an anti-apartheid activist in January 1981, eager to meet Bishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Beyers Naude when the passing on of my mother was expected, did spark many a tear – decades later, however. Inbetween, I also shared interesting anecdotes in the zoom session, such as the aftermath of my farewell sermon in Königsfeld before I was due to leave by train the same evening for Berlin on 31 March, 1974: On the afternoon of the day I was due to leave for Berlin, I went to the soccer field where the local team was ready to play against a team of Gastarbeiter, i.e. immigrant workers from Yugoslavia and other southern European countries. I had seen an advertisement, and thought I would kill some time watching the game. While the visitors were waiting for more players to arrive, I joined in the fun, kicking the ball around with the other players. When the guests noticed that I possessed some skill with a football, I was promptly picked to join the non-Germans. Just after half time, I heard a click as I stepped into a ditch on the uneven surface. The pain was so bad that I was immediately forced to stop playing. But I could fortunately still cycle home and when my ankle got swollen, I still did not suspect that I had actually fractured my ankle. My Königsfeld neighbours suggested that I should have the injury checked. After examination, the local doctor immediately sent me to the hospital in the neighbouring town of Villingen for an X-ray. I would spend the night, and quite a few thereafter, in hospital. Neither Rosemarie nor I was really sad at this turn of events, because this meant that we would be much nearer to each other a little longer. In far-away Berlin, the members of the church brass band were all set to welcome the new Vikar [curate] from South Africa the next morning, on the 1st of April. When they received the news that I had broken my ankle, everybody thought that it was an April fool’s joke. They soon learnt that this was not the case; I had indeed broken my ankle, just a few hours before my scheduled departure. A few weeks later the West Berlin Moravian congregation enjoyed the privilege of an inaugural sermon with a difference: I walked to the pulpit with my leg still in a plaster cast! Maggie brought also me into action with her questions. Along with the children, I also had to collect artifacts in our home. This had to be shown to the other zoom participants subsequently. It was my pleasure to show them the picture of a 1971 letter from my darling in our booklet, one that had been eaten by a mouse in Zeist on the loft where we had it stored at some stage: A question directed at me by Maggie, was what is my favourite Bible verse. Already earlier in the zoom meeting I reminded the grandchildren of Proverbs 3:5,6 that Rosemarie and I had given them as a legacy at our Golden Anniversary week-end with the whole family in April: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight I added to this Isaiah 55:8 and 9 which had become so precious to me down the years. That was the watchword in the Moravian Textbook when I heard that I had been accepted to study at Hewat Teacher Training College in January 1963. Our Father used the verse to encourage my parents to trust God for provision to send me to college straight away. (I was ready to continue with the manual work at the printing factory of Nasionale Boekhandel till the end of that year: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. All our children knew, of course, that Exodus 19:4 is another favourite verse, and that we have been carried on Eagle's wings. (At the occasion of our Golden Wedding anniversary our six-year old grandson Gabriel read the bible verse that we asked our pastor Wilna van der Merwe to give a 10 minute sermonette.)10 We were still in the throngs of our zoom meeting when my brother Kenneth and his wife Emmy arrived, along with their driver, Matie October. The latter is a primary school mate of the Elim mission station and later a seminary colleague in District Six. The three newcomers enjoyed interacting briefly with all our children and grandchildren, including those in Germany and the UK via the electronic medium. After Bev had walked into our lounge, it was, of course, natural to introduce her. Sure enough, I asked her to share with the folk from Elim her role in the saving of my life, and thanking God again for using her at my heart attack of January 2012. A few minutes later, also Theo and Mignonne arrived to congratulate me. I shared briefly with the folk who came from Elim how the couple was the answer to our prayers at the beginning of 2016. I added to that also some information about other facets of our ministry, as I recorded it in Jumping Over Walls: When I turned 70 at the end of 2015, Rosemarie and I started praying more intentionally for successors as leaders of Friends from Abroad. We are very thankful for two senior couples who have been serving for longer periods at our Discipling House as houseparents. This helped to give continuity to ministry at that facility. Former residents of our Moriah Discipling House also served as houseparents from 2019. Successors in the leadership of Isaac Ishmael Ministries, that we regarded as the other part of our Twin Track Ministry, is something we consciously leave in the hands of our Lord. We are thankful for relative good health for both of us, enabling us to continue serving our Lord. A mini-crisis arose at the beginning of 2020 around the use of the Discipling House for other purposes than for the accommodation of persecuted or evicted believers from another faith. This led to the start of the Born Again Believers Network, where Muslim Background believers (MBBs) would be strongly represented in the leadership. The dilemma of Maria van Maarseveen, Rosemarie and me being responsible for the running of the facility, having to make difficult decisions about people, brought about a significant decision. Thus it was a big relief when a resolution was passed that henceforth the executive of BABN would take the final responsibility for everything transpiring at the Discipling House, in conjunction with the two churches, of which we have two executive members. Rebuilding the Walls Rosemarie and I were commissioned for service as missionaries of WEC International in the Netherlands way back in 1991. The Dutch leader challenged us to rebuild the ancient ruins, to restore the places long devastated (Isaiah 61:4). That turned out to be quite prophetic. We forgot that teaching, but were somehow blessed to join a group of intercessors on 1 November 1997. There in Ashley Street in front of Moravian Hill Chapel we prayed for the spiritual restoration of District Six. (That suburb was forlorn and uninhabited for many years after the apartheid demolitions of the 1970s and 1980s.) With Barry Isaacs and Murray Bridgman, I pursued a vision in 2009 for the name change of the mountain peak from the demonic one. This came back into focus in 2024 when Murray started putting his research into print. This would culminate in a booklet, from which he had the launch in August 2025: In Revival Seeds Germinate Part 3 I gave some more information about the rebuilding of the wall in District Six, the run-up to our effort to focus the ministry into a Twin Track one. I also add two situations in 2023 and 2024 which really challenged us: A Variety of Turbulences The beginning of 2023 brought turbulence and stress at our Discipling House that lasted for months. We always knew that Deon January, the housefather of our Discipling House, yearned to return to the township Manenberg, where he grew up. When they got the key for a home of their own, we were quite happy with them. The transition to the projected final move of the January family at the end of September was, however, quite traumatic. (After stressful interaction, we agreed that they could serve at the Discipling House till the end of the year.) In a very stressful situation, we did what we could to make the closure as amicable as possible from our side. A six-week sojourn in Europe, that included a week in Holland with all our children and grandchildren, helped a lot to get Rosemarie and me back to some equilibrium. We were very thankful that we could be fully reconciled to Deon and Shamiela in June 2024. 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 in Vredehoek in April at a Hope Through Unity related prayer event. We had originally met at a meeting called by Ps Callie Liew of Singapore of the World House of Prayer, ) 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 at the impactful Time to Rise conference in Bloemfontein from 6-8 October, 2023. When I turned seventy in 2015, we were reminded of the charge we received in Holland to rebuild the walls. This was the nudge to 're-tyre' more consciously. Soon thereafter the Lord answered our prayer for a couple to succeed us in the Bo-Kaap ministry. This freed our hands to some extent at the end of the main sector of our common active service as missionaries, to focus more on serving the community of District Six. It is quite special that two MBBs, former residents of the Moriah Discipling House, served as house parents from 2019. At a prayer retreat in Betty's Bay subsequently, we got a nudge to reduce our involvement to a Twin Track vision, namely the Isaac Ishmael Ministry and serving the District Six community. At the beginning of 2016 our new pastor, Wilna van der Merwe, challenged us through her sermon of on Deuteronomy 11:11-15 to 'cross the Jordan'. In our prayers for successors we decided to break up our fairly extended ministry into three parts. Successors for the ministry in Bo-Kaap was the first one. From 1992 we had been praying for simple home churches to start there, coming so close to the fleece which our dear sister Hendrina van der Merwe had suggested. We were praying for four regular males to attend our monthly prayer at 73 Wale Street from mid-1992. We need pointing to the role of that Afrikaner intercessor, one of many special other ones that we would get to know over the years. Here now a few lines recorded about that prayer meeting: More Supernatural Guidance At the beginning of our stay in Tamboerskloof I joined Manfred Jung's SIM Life Challenge team in Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. However, I soon felt very uncomfortable with the method of knocking at strange people’s doors, to speak to them about my faith. This period coincided with the termination of the SIM Life Challenge outreach effort in Bo-Kaap soon thereafter. A positive result of the door-to-door ministry with the SIM Life Challenge team was that I discovered that my knowledge of Islam was completely inadequate. When I heard from our colleague Shirley Charlton that a post-graduate course in Missiology, with a special focus on Islam, was about to start at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) in Kalk Bay. I immediately requested permission from our WEC leaders to do this. A Prayer Focus As Part of Evangelistic Outreach Prayer had been used quite substantially in the outreach to Cape Muslims. Under the leadership of the German missionary Gerhard Nehls, the founder of Life Challenge, the team had people praying while co-workers visited Muslim homes. In the mid-1980s, his German missionary colleague Walter Gschwandtner had his group praying in the home of the Abrahams family in Bo-Kaap, where the Muslim head of the home came to faith in Jesus as his Lord just before he died in 1983. The information about the Bo-Kaap prayer meetings almost went amiss when the Gschwandtner family left for Kenya. After a few weeks, we sensed that we should not be alone in our prayer venture. We needed the backing of other Christians. As a family we were attending the city branch of the Vineyard Church. Dave and Herma Adams, the local leaders, had a vision to reach out to the Muslims, although the denomination in general had no affinity as yet in that direction. Targeted Prayer Prayer walks in Bo-Kaap resulted in the resumption of a fortnightly prayer meeting in mid-1992 in the home of Cecilia Abrahams, the widow of a Muslim background believer from Wale Street. The prayer meetings focused on reversing the effect of apartheid on Bo-Kaap. An interesting facet of this prayer meeting was the high percentage of Afrikaners, Next to Hendrina van der Merwe, an old intercessory stalwart, two young females and Sybrand de Swardt became regulars. From Hendrina we learned to pray strategically for difficult people: reg of weg. God had to change or remove them. We prayed already at that time every second Monday evening in our Tamboerskloof home with an Isaac Ishmael vision. We interceded for Jews and Muslims with Elisabeth Campbell bringing in the Sea Point component. We had Achmed Kariem, a Muslim background believer, from the start of our praying for Bo-Kaap. Continuing the narrative now, as recorded in Jumping Over Walls: Soon after our our pointed intercession for successors in Bo-Kaap, the Lord answered our prayer for a couple. Theo and Mignonne Schumann, a missionary couple that was serving on a small island of Mozambique, sensed a call to come and serve the 'Malay' people, that was relayed to us via Tess Seymore, a relatively new co-worker. This freed our hands to some extent at the end of the main sector of our common active service as missionaries in Bo-Kaap, to focus on serving the community of District Six. From 2019 our involvement there was not much more than a weekly prayer event in the area, which grew into a vision to serve the community initially with support for the families of drug addicts, and looking for a venue for this venture. Not completely up-ended by the Covid Pandemic, we resumed ministry with a Combined Worship service at the Krotoa Sanctuary in District Six on 25 April, 2021. There we had been resuming our weekly outreach already with a short prayer session. Thereafter we looked at getting our container from Mitchell's Plain, to use it for basic medical services in District Six. A Painful Backlash Various deaths and funerals of people that were fairly close to us, ran concurrently with a sad aftermath of the October 7 event in Israel over an extended period of a few months. After an unsuccessful attempt at mediation between two groups of Church leaders around the end of 2023, I sadly ultimately threw in the towel. I concluded that I actually wasted two years by engaging in an exercise I should not have started with. An event that I had initiated, as a networking effort to inject some life again in loving outreach to Muslims, backfired completely. On 27 February, thus exactly a month after the black day in Newfields where I had lost it so completely, I started putting on paper what had transpired on that day. I was not aware how the burden of it all, notably a serious subsequent accusation, was affecting me subconsciously. The same afternoon, on 27 February 2024, I suffered a slight stroke, after which I spent a few days in hospital. Chapter 4 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH REMINISCENCES Just before we wanted to start the afternoon 80th birthday proceedings, we noticed that 97-year old Aunty Bertha Fortune, our former neighbour from District Six, had not arrived. We have a special relationship to her, especially since Aunty Bertha had been teaching Rosemarie sewing during our 3-month stay in Crawford in 1981. (I was teaching at Mount View High School in Hanover Park at that time.) Often Aunty Bertha would narrate how she prayed almost every day for many years that I might return to South Africa from exile. When my parents were still alive, they would go and lodge with Aunty Bertha and Uncle Harry, her late husband. (They found our household too busy, with people coming in and out much too often to their liking.) After the passing on of our Mom in 2000 and the tragic drowning of a dementia and Alzheimer tormented Uncle Harry in the Black River, I adopted her - and Aunty Maria Masaking of Bo-Kaap - as my surrogate mothers. When I phoned Aunty Bertha to check what had transpired, she explained that she had tried a few times to phone me unsuccessfully and why she could not come. (Her grandson Reece was taken to hospital in a sort of emergency situation.) Aunty Bertha couldn't attend my birthday celebration. She insisted to make me a bowl of honeycomb sponge pudding, as she has been doing every year for my birthday. (She knew that this had been my favourite pudding assisting my mother on many a Saturday evening to beat the white of the egg for that purpose. ) Rosemarie and I went to visit her and our brother-law Anthony Esau who was due to relocate to the Eastern Cape soon. Our objection to the 97-year old was of no avail. On 2 January Michael, her son, brought to us a bowl full of honeycomb sponge pudding which we devoured in one go with our daughter Tabitha, who was with us with her family while Mike's brother from Australia and his family were in their home. Bev Stratis, our dear friend, helped us to finish the pudding. Desmond, Aunty Bertha's son-in-law from Grahamstown, was on hand to make a photo when Rosemarie and I visited her in Sunnyside, a suburb of Athlone: Aunty Patsy Crowe was one of so many other people whom we would have loved to invite to our celebration. She was the one who tried to take me home from the kraal of Hanover Street when I was a small naughty boy in District Six. At the unsavoury company I was not enthralled by her effort, commanding one of the stray dogs to remove her: 'Sa, byt haar!' In the photo below, I am the kaalvoetklonkie at the front, holding the hand of Aunty Patsy, the teenage younger sister of Aunty Bertha, in front of our home in Combrinck Street in District Six: On Thursday, 8 January, 2026, I returned the bowl of Aunty Bertha in which the honeycomb sponge had been, putting into it a few lemons and some other fruit. What a surprise it was to find thereat her home on a visit, no less than Aunty Patsy. Brenda, Aunty Bertha's daughter from Grahamstown, was only too happy to make the photo: Chapter 5 LASTING FRIENDSHIPS Since I would have been half-way to Retreat, I decided to also visit my friend David Savage there. We became best friends, along with Jakes at those impactful student 'stranddienste' 1964/65 of Harmony Park. In the chapter on divine correction I share more about that. What a shock it was to see that my dear friend David Savage is now in a wheel chair. When I spoke to him few a months ago, he said that he doesn't drive, but I thought that it was merely age-related as my other good friend did not mention anything serious when I spoke to him in September 2025 on the phone. Highlighting another person of my generation, we would have loved to have Richard Arendse and his wife Mary to be present at our Golden Wedding celebration and my birthday. He and his family lodged with us in Zeist in the Netherlands when they were travelling many years ago on the way to his study stint in the US. (When Jutty Bredekamp did the same, I was happy to be able to assist him with his research at the Utrecht archives about Hendrik Marsveld, one of the three missionaries who came to Genadendal in 1992.) Richard also got to know my siblings well, having driven Kenneth to afternoon classes for the third year academic course at Hewat Training College in 1966, and also with my late sister Magdalene and her family they had interaction. Richard Arendse, a high school class mate and teacher colleague at Bellville South High School. (Richard has Parkinson disease and is now relying on his children to drive him and his wife Mary around). To the family of Richard and his wife Mary we kept contact down the years. They visited us in the Netherlands when they were en route to the US in 1981 where he went to complete a Masters programme in Counselling Psychology. The resumption of our close contact in 1992 was quite dramatic when we were basically homeless in a Bible School after our return to the Cape: I recorded the following about the run-up to our 3-month stay in Sherwood Park in 1981 after the death of my sister in December 1980. It involved Richard Arendse and the use of their caravan: …. We tried to support the bereaved Esau family as best as possible. Richard Arendse, my classmate of high school9 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. My brother 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. 86-year old Pietie Orange was the other outoppie we would have loved to have present on 31 December, 2025, seeing that he could not attend our Golden Anniversary in April because it was an evening event. God had used him powerfully in my life, notably in 1990, recorded as follows in Jumping Over Walls: Come Over And Help Us! On my return from West Africa there were quite a few letters awaiting me, two of which were 'doors' to new areas of ministry. I was experiencing a strong pull to go and serve as a teacher in the Ivory Coast. I was quite 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, a friend from my Tiervlei/Ravensmead days. 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? Doors Opening Up I was surprised to sense Rosemarie’s excitement about the possibility to go to South Africa. She knew of my fervent desire to return to my home country. In the early years of our marriage it caused a lot of strain when she sensed that I perceived it as a sacrifice to live in Europe. Through my ‘Joseph experience’ during personal devotions the Lord had by now thoroughly dealt with my craving after a return to South Africa. (I was ready to serve him in any country because of that encounter.) With Campus Crusade I had started to do some voluntary work in Holland with their devout diligent worker Bram Krol. Also from that side we were challenged to go and work full-time. I had learned to use the four spiritual laws and we started seriously considering to buy a house in Zeist from where we would be operating. (When Rosemarie’s father was still alive, her parents wanted to help us with capital towards this end). Personally, however, Africa was still my preference.) We decided to move further along the road towards the teaching post at the WEC school for missionary kids in Ivory Coast, unless the Lord would close the ‘door’. And just this happened so clearly. Jean Barnicoat, the directress of the WEC mission school, pointed out lovingly in a letter that the age and number of our children militated against our coming to serve there. I was nevertheless, quite shattered to some extent, when this reply came. Now some recollections of our missionary orientation and preparation in England and Holland and the run-up to it: The Lord At Work In Different Ways The WEC leaders in Holland suggested that we should have ‘contact persons’ before we would set out to our mission field, South Africa. Rosemarie mentioned Harmen and Fenny Pos, our faithful ‘Goed Nieuws Karavaan’ co-workers. We could not have asked for more devout persons. The way they rallied around us became an example for other missionary support groups in our own fellowship and even for many other groups in the Netherlands. The procedure to become WEC missionaries was already well under way when we suddenly became very uncertain. We asked ourselves what would happen if WEC turned us down or if we would decide not to join that mission agency after all? Then we would have been without any accommodation. We knew how difficult it was to get a house even for a couple or a small family. We deliberated: 'Having our five kids, would such a step be responsible?' We decided to put out a ‘fleece’ to test the waters. If the Lord would give us people who would be willing to come and stay in our home and pay the rent for the six months of our missionary orientation, we would know for sure that God was confirming our call. In quite a testing way we got a couple without children that lived and paid the rent for our house in Zeist during our six months absence. The belated payment in bulk would became special provision for our tickets for seven people and for the shipping of a container with our belongings. Journey Into the Unknown In his faithfulness, the Lord intervened once again. Out of the blue we received a phone call from Dick van Stelten, a missionary couple in the little town of Josini in South Africa, near to the Mozambican border. They invited us, challenging us to come and take over their missionary work. Through a process of elimination, we felt guided to WEC (Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ). Jacob and Emmy Spronk, the Dutch WEC leaders, were very supportive. They suggested that we should go and explore the work in Northern Natal, to see if the Lord would confirm it. Perhaps it could become a new venture of the mission agency. My mother was due to turn 80 at the end of that year and the golden wedding anniversary of my parents was due shortly thereafter. After all the trips to other countries in the preceding months, we hardly had liberty to share our vision with other Christians that we also wished to visit South Africa on orientation. How could one ‘sell’ that to others, especially from a financial point of view? In official terms, I was still unemployed. But gradually every hurdle was surmounted. We decided ultimately to take the eldest and youngest of our children along on the journey into the unknown. Wonderfully the Lord provided the finances to pay for all the tickets and even some ‘pocket money’ for a very special orientation trip. We were severely tested as we prayed about going to work in Northern Natal. In a programme on Dutch TV the reporter mentioned that conditions regarding violence in Natal was worse than Lebanon and Northern Ireland put together. Was this the sort of situation into which we wanted to take our children? A Sense of Home-Coming In obedience to the Lord, we nevertheless planned to start our visit to South Africa in Pretoria, visiting the Lugtharts, a Dutch missionary couple linked to the Dorothea Mission. From there we trusted that we would get to the Van Steltens in Josini in Northern Natal somehow. In a wonderful way transport was supplied for us to get to Durban via Josini and Kwasiza Bantu. In Josini it was clearly confirmed that the Lord did not call us to serve at a school for Zulu children in Ubombo. When we joined the national conference of WEC in Durban, we experienced a sense of home-coming. Although we did not know anybody present there, we felt that we belonged, in spite of a hiccup or two. Our Stint with WEC Almost Still-born We arrived in Durban just prior to 16 December, a public holiday that evoked deep divisive emotions among the various communities of South Africa. It was called the Day of the Covenant at that time. I drafted a letter which I intended to send to President de Klerk, Dr Gatsha Buthelezi and Mr Nelson Mandela, the big three political leaders of the day. In my draft I suggested that the three of them should meet as a sign of reconciliation and that the 16 December public holiday be renamed Day of Reconciliation. When I showed the draft of this letter to a leader of the mission agency, he lashed out at me viciously. Pointing to a right-wing activist whom they had to expel because of his political inclinations, he wanted me to understand that WEC was a-political. They could not accept a left-wing activist as I had obviously been branded. The views of the brother led to some deep soul searching. I had indeed displayed a very activist position against apartheid. Yet, I also deemed my sentiments to be Bible-based. I asked myself: Was this the mission we could join? Soon hereafter, we were due to go to Bulstrode for our candidates’ orientation course. A cloud was now hanging over our joining the mission. Thankfully, also in Cape Town things fell in place. It was agreed that we could return to Cape Town at the beginning of 1992, with a role in WEC representation work and possibly for evangelistic work among students. Divine Preparation The Lord used the prospect of missionary candidate orientation in Bulstrode, the international WEC Headquarters near London, to bring our friend Geertje Rehorst back into the missionary frame. When we had served in Zeist among Moroccan and Turkish children, the Lord had started to prepare us for future ministry among Cape Muslims. And then there was, of course, the visit to Mali and the Ivory Coast. That had struck a special chord in my heart to reach out to those who were suffering under Islamic bondage. The Gulf War Paradigm Come January 1991, we were already in Bulstrode, the headquarters of WEC International, for the candidates’ orientation course. The Lord used this time profoundly to mould us for our future ministry in Cape Town. There we were clearly confronted with the concept of spiritual warfare more intensely than ever before. Never before had we heard about terms like ‘prayer walks’, ‘strategic and targeted prayer’ – although we had practised it before. We had already done this in Zeist, together with other believers, without giving it a specific name. The Gulf War at the beginning of 1991 made things very practical. In one of the devotionals, the assistant of Patrick Johnstone at the international office of WEC demonstrated why it was necessary for the allied aeroplanes. They had to prepare the area for the onslaught of the artillery. I should have known more about spiritual warfare because Count Zinzendorf, the founder of the renewed Moravian Church, had introduced a term like ‘Streiterehe’ - the warrior marriage - centuries ago. (According to this concept the married partners sacrificed to be separated from the spouse for extended periods.) But all of this I had perceived as not valid for our time. At Bulstrode this changed, because the Gulf War made the issue so practical. Furthermore, fundamentalist Islam became ever more clearly visible as a threat to world peace. During our candidates' training in London, Islam came quite strongly into focus as many a missionary on home assignment, were serving in Islamic countries. Instruments Towards Changing the World? Our children were the guinea pigs in the Bulstrode children’s club where they prayed for one country after the other, starting alphabetically with Albania. After the Berlin Wall had come down in November 1989, one Eastern Block Communist country after the other changed with a domino effect. Only Albania had shown no change in this regard. The schooling of our children at Bulstrode was a highlight of their educational career. Tante Geertje Rehorst would often take them into the spacious grounds of the castle-like area and a special relationship developed with Joyce Scott and her husband Chris. How we we all rejoiced when just before leaving Bulstrode, we heard that the stronghold of Albania was also crumbling. The children were leading the way, exclaiming “Wow, we are changing the world!” Field Study As part of our missionary training at Bulstrode we had to write an assignment called a ‘field study’ about the country where we intended to go to. Rosemarie and I agreed that I would be looking at the history of and issues pertaining to the South African Indians. This led me into studying Hinduism and Islam, their two major religions. My experience in West Africa also influenced me in yet another way. I now also saw 'Black' South Africans as potential missionaries to the Muslim countries of the continent. Furthermore, I discerned how I was impacted positively while in exile, hoping that we could one day also inspire foreigners in South Africa in a similar way - to go and be a blessing to their home countries. Missionary Orientation in Emmeloord When we returned to Holland from England, we went for two months to Emmeloord, to complete our orientation at the Dutch HQ of WEC International. In the occasional sermon, such as one in the village Steenwijk, I challenged Christians to send their prayer ‘batteries’ to the Muslim stronghold of Bo-Kaap in the city where I was born and bred, to bombard the area before we as missionaries could go in as the infantry. The Holy Spirit had obviously started to prepare me for ministry in the prime Muslim area of the Mother City, the cradle of Islam of South Africa. In our correspondence with the leaders of WEC South Africa, we mentioned that we would like to have our hands free to spread the Gospel among the Cape Muslims. However, the South African WEC leadership wanted to use me for representation in the Western Cape. The stated strategy of WEC in SA was to focus on recruitment, and not to start new ministries. We, on the other hand, were not inclined to get involved very much in administration and representation. We did not see that as our gifting. Thankfully, the differences could be resolved. A few months later we were accepted as WEC missionaries. It was agreed that we would help our colleague Shirley Charlton with representation in Cape Town in the first year and thereafter we would see how the Lord would lead us. Chapter 6 A BUMPY START TO CAPE MINISTRY If Shirley Charlton had still been alive, we would have flown her from East London to come and celebrate with us. Shirley arranged accommodation for us at a Bible School and through her we got to know Ireni Stephanis through Shirley when we were homeless as a family soon thereafter. In the following excerpt from Tears. Tests and Testimonies, her name features prominently. Called to Minister to Cape Muslims? The Master used our first days in Cape Town to make it unambiguously clear to all and sundry that we were called to minister to the Cape Muslims. When we came from Holland we didn’t have any accommodation. We were already considering approaching my faithful friend and teacher colleague Ritchie Arendse for the use of his caravan again when, just before our departure to South Africa, we heard that we could be accommodated in a Bible School in Athlone during the month of January. The first morning after our arrival we were awakened by a shock, a deafening roar at half past four. The cause was the seven mosques within a radius of two kilometres of the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute.11 This was the first indication that the Lord was perhaps calling us to get involved with the Cape Muslims. But we were not starkly aware of it as yet. Involvement With Drug Rehabilitation? Almost from the word go we got in touch with a big problem of the Cape communities - drug addiction. On the first Sunday after moving to Kenilworth, we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church with Ireni Stephanis. A couple at that fellowship 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 Cape Muslim community. (Our mission agency WEC had significant success in Spain. Many former addicts started out as missionaries to other countries.) This was thus yet another nudge that we should get involved in compassionate outreach to the Muslim sector 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. This now became our model for the drug addicts of Cape Town. We were yearning to share this vision with Capetonian Christians. However, the initial response was general indifference. Focus On Outreach To Cape Muslims? To get more information about the German school, we were referred to the Pietzsch family. Horst Pietsch was also involved with the SIM Life Challenge missionary outreach, which had a focus on Cape Muslims. Without making any special effort, we got in touch with converts from Islam. (This was quite special because there were only a few of those around who openly confessed their new faith. Many of them had quietly returned to Islam, e.g. after the lack of follow-up at a big tent campaign by Reinhard Bonnke, a German-background evangelist in 1984.) A clear confirmation along these lines came when we were able to rent a house in Tamboerskloof, almost a stone’s throw from Bo-Kaap, the prime stronghold of Islam in the Western Cape. This happened a few weeks after our arrival in the Mother City. God had evidently started fitting things together in his perfect mosaic. As a couple, Rosemarie and I decided to do prayer walking in Bo‑Kaap once a week from there, praying for the area and asking the Lord to lead us to those people where the Holy Spirit had already done some preparatory work. More Supernatural Guidance At the beginning of our stay in Tamboerskloof I joined Manfred Jung's SIM Life Challenge team in Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. However, I soon felt very uncomfortable with the method of knocking at strange people’s doors, to speak to them about my faith. This period coincided with the termination of the SIM Life Challenge outreach effort in Bo-Kaap soon thereafter. A positive result of the door-to-door ministry with the SIM Life Challenge team was that I discovered that my knowledge of Islam was completely inadequate. When I heard from our colleague Shirley Charlton that a post-graduate course in Missiology, with a special focus on Islam, was about to start at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) in Kalk Bay. I immediately requested permission from our WEC leaders to do this. A Prayer As Part of Evangelistic Outreach Prayer had been used quite substantially in the outreach to Cape Muslims. Under the leadership of the German missionary Gerhard Nehls, the founder of Life Challenge, the team had people praying while co-workers visited Muslim homes. In the mid-1980s, his German missionary colleague Walter Gschwandtner had his group praying in the home of the Abrahams family in Bo-Kaap, where the Muslim head of the home came to faith in Jesus as his Lord just before he died in 1983. The information about these Bo-Kaap prayer meetings almost went amiss when the Gschwandtner family left for Kenya. After a few weeks, we sensed that we should not be alone in our prayer venture. We needed the backing of other Christians. As a family we were attending the city branch of the Vineyard Church. Dave and Herma Adams, the local leaders, had a vision to reach out to the Muslims, although the denomination in general had no affinity as yet in that direction. Targeted Prayer Prayer walks in Bo-Kaap resulted in the resumption of a fortnightly prayer meeting in mid-1992 in the home of Cecilia Abrahams, the widow of a Muslim background believer from Wale Street. The prayer meetings focused on reversing the effect of apartheid on Bo-Kaap. An interesting facet of this prayer meeting was the high percentage of Afrikaners, Next to Hendrina van der Merwe, an old intercessory stalwart, two young females and Sybrand de Swardt became regulars. From Hendrina we learned to pray strategically for difficult people: reg of weg. God had to change or remove them. Representation Work The Western Cape Missions Commission, to which Shirley Charlton took me quite soon after our arrival at the Cape in January 1992, proved very valuable in terms of contacts. For some of the Western-orientated missionaries it might have been rather surprising to hear me speak about potential missionaries from the 'New' South Africa, suggesting that ‘Blacks’ would theoretically be able to perform so much better than Europeans or Americans because they knew African culture. Yet, the folk listened to me with grace and a few of them even reacted with some enthusiasm. But this was easier said than done. South African ‘Blacks’ still have to become involved in cross-cultural missionary endeavour substantially after another 34 years.         A few months into 1992 I represented WEC at a missionary event in the Afrikaner bastion of Wellington. It was already revolutionary that the main speaker was an Indian, Dr Lesley James from Durban. I noticed some very surprised 'White' faces when I suggested that South African churches should start considering to support missionaries of colour. It proved, however, very difficult to sell the idea to the 'White' churches, who were still trapped in the apartheid mind-set. They only wanted to support their own 'White' missionaries. Over thirty years later, some change has happened. Our friend Bruce van Eeden, one of the first Cape pastors with whom we networked closely was mightily used to achieve this with his Mitchell's Plain-based Ten Forty Outreach. Many a former exclusively 'White' congregation now also have a few members from the former disadvantaged communities or believers from non-'White' countries. More Focused Ministry After a few months, Rosemarie and I started asking the Lord where we should start with more focused ministry. By June 1992 our ministry was too thinly spread over various areas. As I was speaking during a phone call to Val Kadalie, the matron of the G.H Starke old age home in Hanover Park, I sensed confirmation that this township, where I had been teaching in 1981, was the place to get more intensely involved with ministry. Soon I linked up with Norman Barnes, a former gangster and drug addict, a convert from Islam. He was leading the prayer group at the G.H. Starke Home, a City Mission institution, on Saturday afternoons. It was agreed that once a month it would have a strong missional input, with me coming for this purpose. Strategic Contacts It was agreed, furthermore, that we would assist our colleague Shirley Charlton with representation in Cape Town for the first year. Thereafter we would see how the Lord would lead us. After our permanent return to the country as a family in January 1992, we soon got involved with the prayer movement and Muslim evangelism, operating as missionaries of WEC (Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ) International. The need of accommodation for us as a family in Cape Town brought us to the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute (CEBI) in Surrey Estate. We were allowed to remain there until the students would arrive for the new academic year. At the very first morning there, a roar woke us up at half past four. We discovered that it was the thundering sound of minarets from the seven mosques in a two-kilometre radius from the Bible School. The few weeks there were quite strategic in terms of contacts. A visit to the Living Hope congregation, that we had been attending in 1981, there was a Greek lady, whom we only later got to know as Ireni Stephanis as well as a 'Coloured' couple from Mitchell's Plain. During out time at the Bible School we also met Alan de Cerff and his American wife Jennifer. They served at UCT under the banner of Campus Crusade. The De Cerff couple took us to the Community Bible Fellowship at the Baker House in Crawford. There we got to know a few other people. On the last Sunday of January, we shared our housing predicament with the Community Bible Fellowship in Crawford. We had still not found any house to rent after looking at different options. That we have five children, had been proving to be a major impediment. The believers there promised to pray for us in their all-night event the coming Friday. In Dire Straits Our sending church in Holland pledged to support us monthly with the equivalent of R1500. Rosemarie and I decided to use that monthly contribution as the basis for our rent. We would trust the Lord for provision for all other daily needs like food, transport and funds for the education of the children. 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 little 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 very 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 quite a few times how the Father answered out prayers, a few times very profoundly. 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 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... Two Priorities The number one priority remained to get permanent accommodation. Issue number two was to get the schooling of the children sorted out. Already during the occasion of our spying the land in December 1990 we thought that our two eldest children should attend the German school. There they ultimately enrolled all five children. Also Tabitha was accepted for the first grade although she was only five years old. That the government had published its intention to scrap the Group Areas Act, made matters a lot easier, giving us more options to find suitable and affordable accommodation. We followed up all sorts of advertisements in line with our 'budget', the equivalent of R1500. We hoped to find a four bedroomed house so that we could also have a guest room. We almost had one in Gardens at 'our price', after all. Finding suitable accommodation 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 child-like 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!) Further Search for Accommodation After moving over to Kenilworth, we resumed our search for a house to rent. One Sunday afternoon we decided to just go and have a look at a house in Brunswick Road, in the upmarket suburb Tamboerskloof. Normally we would not even have considered living in the relatively expensive residential area. But this would be quite near to the German School. Not to scare the home owner too much from the outset, we left the three young ones nearby in our ugly-looking Microbus that we managed to buy in the meantime. We liked the town house but because of the rental tag, we never gave it serious consideration. It would have been suitable, but it was a bit small for a big family. A special bonus was that the town house was within walking distance of the German school. The monthly rental would be about 15% above the monthly pledged gift from our home church in Holland. We heard that the lady owner, whose children had also been attending the German school, had remarried. Thus the house in Tamboerskloof had become redundant for them as a couple. Nevertheless, more out of courtesy and because we had no other option, I gave the phone number of Ireni Stephanis to the husband. Rosemarie was quite surprised when the German gentleman phoned us the next day. She was not aware that he got the telephone number from me. We were over-awed when the owner ultimately gave us the option of renting the house at the price that we could ‘afford’, although they could have received much more, the price advertised, from another interested prospective tenant. When Rosemarie was asked what we were prepared to pay, it was clinched – at 'our price'! We could not do otherwise, than seeing this as a special gift from the Lord! Just at this point in time we heard that the container with the furniture had arrived. Our new landlady agreed that we could move in, almost a week before the end of the month - without any extra cost! Thus it was not necessary to leave the container in the docks for any length of time. That would have amounted to added costs for the storage. We could just praise the Lord for his wonderful provision. And just under two years later, we moved into a house with a big swimming pool in Vredehoek, another story of divine provision! How many people from many nations have been baptised there subsequently... Shirley Charlton introduced me not only to many different Bible Schools, where I shared or lectured subsequently, but also to pastors that would become strategic contacts for our ministry. Among them one of the most important in this regard was Pastor Walter Ackermann, in whose church I met the future president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, in the run-up to the 1994 elections. Shirley also nudged me to enrol for a post graduate course. My studies and research, that I continued after my graduation in Islamic studies in 1992 and 1993 at the Bible Institute of South Africa, gave me more compassion for Muslims. I became aware of how they have been deceived by the father of lies (John 8:44). In Muslim Evangelism teaching we emphasised ISLAM as an acronym for I Shall Love All Muslims. My discovery of the true demonic nature of the origins of the religion put my initial inter-faith leaning as Abrahamic religions out of bounds. When I discerned in 1995 that the Islamic Jibril was actually a demon, not identical to the Angel Gabriel of the Bible, it triggered a personal paradigm shift. I sensed the need for more compassionate prayer, so that many from Muslim ranks might be set free from the religious bondage. The first months at the Cape laid a firm foundation for the rest of our service over the next 30 plus years, recorded in Tears, Tests and Testimonies thus: Ministry Pointers in Quick Succession More ministry pointers would follow in quick succession in the first months, notably introduction to MBBs (Muslim background believers), co-workers and missionaries who were linked in some way to the loving outreach to Cape Muslims. After hearing the moving story of Majied Pophlonker, a Muslim background believer from a rich Indian Muslim family, who had been ostracised and almost killed by a family member, seed was sown into my heart to write down the testimonies of converts from Islam. Op Soek na Waarheid, my first printed publication in 1995, became Search for Truth in translation in due course. The necessity to disciple new believers was a direct result. I heard from one of the converts, whom I had interviewed in the course of the compilation of the anthology, that she had come to faith at the evangelistic campaign of Reinhardt Bonnke in Valhalla Park in 1984. At the massive tent she was one of hundreds of Muslims with their koefias (fezzes) and scarves who responded to the altar call. (Subsequently I only met one other convert from that campaign over a long period of time.) The discipling of new believers would become a main focus of our ministry in ensuing years. A young girl was troubled by the calls from the minarets An eight year old girl from the suburb Gardens had been terribly troubled by the calls from the minarets in the nearby mosques of Bo-Kaap. Her father, an elder of the Cape Town Baptist Church, suggested that she should start praying for the Muslims. Soon thereafter, a group from that congregation arrived one Monday evening at our prayer meeting in Bo-Kaap. Just at that time we heard that Louis Pasques and his wife Heidi, two members of that fellowship, were interested in ministering to the Muslims. Louis was a student at the Baptist Seminary, and a leader of one of the three daughter congregations of the Cape Town Baptist Church, one that congregated at the Jan van Riebeeck High School. This nudged us to to become members of the fellowship. Activity in the Spiritual Realm A low-key prayer event with Bennie Mostert and Jan Hanekom at the kramat (shrine of Sheikh Yusuf in Macassar in October 1992 seems to have triggered significant activity in the spiritual realm. Two MBBs, Esme Orrie and Majied Pohplonker, who had suffered intense persecution and who were intimidated because of that, hereafter received boldness to start sharing their testimonies in churches and later even via the Christian station Radio Fish Hoek/CCFM. Our 'field studies' at Bulstrode, the international HQ of WEC International and ministry to foreigners in Holland had already nudged me towards writing a manuscript that I ultimately called A Goldmine of Another Sort. During my preaching in the first few months, notably at the tiny Woodstock Baptist Church in Mountain Street, an insight grew around my sermon series on John 4 there.12 I made myself unpopular among expatriate missionary colleagues by highlighting too much that the Master teacher saw the value of using folk from the Samaritan culture. I suggested that Cape Muslims, could reach out much better to share the Gospel to their family and friends. Genesis 22 would become another favourite scripture that I used quite a lot after I had discovered that Muslims think that Ishmael was sacrificed on Mount Moriah. I used it even more after the Holy Spirit had opened our eyes via the Lamb that did not open his mouth (Isaiah 53:7). We discerned this as a key to the hearts of Muslims during our attendance of Islamic sheep slaughtering in 1994. Assignments from my post graduate Islamic studies at the Bible Institute of South Africa in Kalk Bay thrust me into performing in-depth research, long after my graduation. The history of Cape Islam and comparative studies around the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Islam and Judaism13 were predominant themes. Many a treatise ensued, but not a single one properly completed. I relished the availability of the many libraries. Next to those at the three Cape universities, our colleague Shirley Charlton introduced or brought me to many Bible Schools. I was also frequenting the Islamic Library of Gatesville and the Jewish Gitlin Library in Gardens. Children’s Work in Hanover Park 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. She had been 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 though 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. A few months later Shahida14 became the very first Cape Muslim that we were privileged to lead to the Lord, and one of a group of five MBBs to be baptised on 22 March 1995. Our vision to train children’s workers of the township, however, never came off the ground. We had no solution to counter the lack of discipline and perseverance of gifted potential workers. That seemed to be part and parcel of human nature, but even more so with regard to the township sub-culture. So many good ventures petered out after a while. Mugged On a Beach A miracle happened: the crime-ridden Hanover Park experienced its ‘most quiet Christmas ever’, according to an older resident. On the other hand, the message of the crime and violence of the townships hit home to us in a personal way at the end of 1992. 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. Damaris Frick, the daughter of our friends, whose wedding I attended in May 1970, was one of the two German volunteers, She and our son Rafael got married in 2010). Hereafter I preached regularly the City Mission of Hanover Park from 1993. It was great to see the vision of the minute fellowship growing to become a sending church for missionaries and full-time church workers. Unfortunately the vision faded, however, after our home assignment in 1995. Hanover Park would become the township where we served for the rest of the decade predominantly, next to the ministry to MBBs in general. Denominational Disunity – a Demonic Stronghold! We had experienced the power of united prayer and action often, notably in the ministry of the Stichting Goed Nieuws Karavaan in Zeist till 1992. Furthermore, I learned that the denominational disunity was actually a demonic stronghold. As a result, I attempted to give as much support as possible to help churches to work together, especially in the realm of combined prayer. As coordinator of twenty Jesus Marches in 1994 and while serving a ministers' fraternal in the City Bowl in this capacity, I got quite involved in the prayer for the 10/40 window. From 1995, the prayer drives and other initiatives also addressed the PAGAD threat in 1996. Started by Roman Catholic Rev. Clohessy in Manenberg, it was high-jacked by Muslims soon thereafter. In 1997 there were city wide prayer events, as well as the Franklin Graham campaign at Newlands and on November 1, 1997 a very special one at the Moravian Church in District 6 with a touch of reconciliation with national ramifications. At this occasion God brought together folk from different races in a sacred moment of remorseful prayer. 'Discoveries' from my studies would impact our ministry deeply. I unpacked this in manuscripts such as The Cinderella of Christian Missions and The Unpaid Debt of the Church. There I documented how the Church in general failed Islam and Judaism, suggesting that we should also confess this corporately. To implement this, however, turned out to be a completely different kettle of fish. 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. Regular prayers at Rhodes Memorial fitted into the pattern of spiritual warfare. These venues had been strongholds of Satanists. Next to the battle against the lie and deception of Islam as religion and ideology the attempt to renaming of ‘Devil’s Peak’ to ‘Disciples' Peak’ would be among the biggest hurdles to surmount after Communism and Apartheid. A few thousand Christians prayed over the city from Table Mountain. The event inspired a new initiative whereby a few believers from diverse backgrounds would come together again for prayer on Signal Hill on Saturdays every fortnight at 6 a.m.  Quite a close relationship developed to Richard Mitchell and his family after we had started the early morning prayer meetings on Signal Hill. When the opening arose for a regular testimony programme on Friday evening on Radio CCFM, Richard Mitchell was a natural choice. The programme ‘God Changes Lives’ with him as presenter was naturally also used to advertise the citywide prayer events. More Attempts to Rename Devil’s Peak Twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unity on 2 September 1998, 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. Wisely, 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.)           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 the big prayer rally on September 26, 1998 thousands of Christians prayed along the contour road of Table Mountain in an effort to rename the adjacent reviled peak ‘God’s Mountain.’ The event inspired a new initiative, whereby a few believers from diverse backgrounds started to come together at 6.a.m. for prayer on Signal Hill on Saturdays every alternate weeks.[44] Soon early Saturday morning prayer meetings also commenced at Tygerberg, Paarl Rock and on the Constantia Heights.  Christians from different churches thus demonstrated the unity of the body.            Murray Bridgman, a Cape Christian advocate, felt God’s leading to perform a prophetic act in District Six. He had previously researched the history of Devil’s Peak. Along with Eben Swart, Bridgman provided some research that encouraged Dr Henry Kirby to lobby Parliament to change the name of Devil’s Peak to Dove’s Peak. (Duivenkop had been an earlier name.) Kirby’s role as the prayer coordinator of the African Christian Democratic Party resulted in a motion tabled in the City Council in June 2002. The motion was unsuccessful, fuelling suspicion that satanists may have significant influence in the City Council.           In 2009 God brought it back to memory. The battle goes on with Murray Bridgman as the main human pivot, with Barry Isaacs and I in supportive roles. The following year Marcel Durler joined us. He started NEMO, an internet network, to foster the unity of the body of Christ Let's go back to the spiritual warfare of 1996. Remorseful repentance is a powerful tool in spiritual warfare. I didn't discern, however, that carnal activism against injustice is actually being used as an instrument myself. I was guilty in this regard myself in my Honger na Geregtigheid, becoming hard and uncompassionate in this process. Church leaders have been misled down the centuries, starting already in the 2nd century with Justin, who became a martyr for his faith Through his dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, he laid the basis for what later became known as Replacement Theology. In our day and age Christians and churches organise interfaith and so-called ecumenical meetings but suggesting that the Church replaced Israel is a scourge, causing a rift that was widened by the October 7 event in Israel in 2023. I verbalised the guilt incurred as follows in Jumping Over Walls: Our Corporate Guilt Regarding Islam When some of these issues were raised in a confession, and forwarded to me by Bennie Mostert of Jericho Walls in commemoration of the millennial anniversary of the Crusades in 1996, I duly forwarded this to our missionary colleagues of the Western Cape Forum of Christian Concern for Muslims (CCM). This was, however, rejected without any discussion. I found the group's excuse rather flimsy, viz. that it was an European matter, not valid for us in South Africa. In fact, I found our corporate guilt in respect of Islam quite compelling, notably when I 'discovered' that Muhammad was misled by Waraqah bin Naufal, an Ebionite priest.15 According to this generally accepted narrative, Muhammad himself believed that he was demon-posesssed. Waraqah is said to have deduced from Muhammad's experience on Mount Hira above Mecca that Muhammad was like Moses who received his ten commandments on a mountain. I had by this time probably already discovered how the respectful, but haughty and arrogant anti-semitism of 1st century theologian Justin Martyr, did the spadework for the replacement notions of other Church Fathers of East and West. (Sadly, our revered North African Augustine is among the early replacement theologians. Similarly, our other great North African scholars, Tertullian of Carthage and Origin of Alexandria, did the Church universal a disservice with their example of semantic bickering).16 The call ‘back to basics’ which resounded throughout South Africa during the early 1990s, is still valid. Perhaps we should say ‘Back to the unadulterated Word of God’. Didn't Paul already teach that we should not go beyond what is written? (1 Corinthians 4:6). With deep regret I took note how my theological training had subtly infused a haughty attitude towards Judaism. We have been unwittingly indoctrinated to look down condescendingly on the 'Old' Testament, hardly ever listening to a sermon from the 'minor' prophets other than Jonah. (I have already highlighted how my 'discovery' of circumcision of the heart in Colossians 2:11,12 triggered my ultimate resignation as a pastor of the Moravian Church.) A Satanic Attack We saw the need of extra discipling for Shahida from Hanover Park. Predominantly for this specific purpose we had put our car at the disposal of Josephine and Adiel Adams, the leaders Friendship Ministries, while we were overseas. However, we discerned the necessity to secure more regular fellowship and spiritual nurturing for Shahida. Her husband is a builder by trade, but he was often unemployed. Thus the financial needs of the family were severe. We invited her to come to us once a week to do household chores for which we had no time.          On one of these occasions she was ironing in the kitchen while I was deliberating with Manfred Jung, our SIM missionary colleague, in the living room. The Holy Spirit ministered to her so strongly that she almost wanted to interrupt our meeting. She knew for certain that she should dedicate her children to God in a church. Just like the baptismal service in March that had been performed on a Wednesday morning, she hoped that the dedication service could be done inconspicuously. We arranged with Charles Kadalie, the pastor of the City Mission fellowship in Hanover Park, to have a special service on a Sunday afternoon. The 5th of November 1995 was earmarked for the special occasion.          Satan would not sit still of course. A few days before the scheduled dedication service - she came along one morning with her son Muhammed.17 He was the first child of the family to believe in Jesus as Saviour, one of a few at the children’s club who had accepted the Lord. For months he had been reading a pocket 'New Testament' secretively.     Another Memorable Day and Its Aftermath The memorable day when Shahida came along with her son had an interesting sequel. Rosemarie gave the boy a copy of the comic strip Jesus Messiah to read while his mother was working. We had brought the picture books along from Holland. (These books are the brainchild of Wim de Vink, a member of our home church in Zeist. Someone from another fellowship in the Netherlands had donated us some copies to take along to South Africa).          What a privilege it was to be present at the dedication of the five children of Shahida on the 5th of November, 1995 at the G.H. Starke Centre with Pastor Charles Kadalie. A few weeks later, Shahida told us what had transpired after her husband had discovered the comic strip Jesus Messiah in their home. Angrily he enquired from Muhammed: “Where did you get it?” Fearing the worst, the boy replied timidly: “I got it from Aunty Rosemarie!”          In a harsh commanding tone the dad responded: “Give it here, I want to read it!” This brought Rosemarie to a brilliant idea. She bought a copy of the full picture Bible at the Scripture Union bookshop in Rondebosch. It was not so cheap at all, but we regarded this as an investment in the Kingdom. When we invited the whole family over for Christmas lunch, they also received a family present. This was spot on. Hereafter, Shahida’s husband went to bed with the picture Bible and arose the next morning with it before he would go to work. This continued unabatedly until the fasting month of Ramadan 1996. Networking Between Various Agencies and Churches We got a personal link to the new 30 day Ramadan Prayer Focus booklets. I had been quite disappointed when Bennie Mostert, who conducted the international contacts for the booklet, announced that they had to cancel the printing of the new edition because they couldn’t find up-front funding.           I was amply consoled when Manfred Jung encouraged me to continue the negotiations with Bennie Mostert. It ended with us printing a few thousand copies in Cape Town. My hope, to see information about Islam in South Africa being spread and prayed for, was gradually being realised when we inserted a page to that effect in this edition. In the school holidays our whole family and a few other young people from the Stellenberg Chapel, Manfred’s home fellowship, were called in to assist with the collating by hand of the booklets.  The move secured the uninterrupted publication of the 30 day Prayer Focus in South Africa until the age of the internet made the method redundant. An electronic version called Light in the Darkness became its successor. We would see a very powerful effect of the 1996 Ramadan Focus, opening the eyes of many Christians in South Africa for the demonic nature of Islam at a time where Interfaith and Ecumenical had made great strides. In these circles the reality of spiritual warfare is either downplayed or completely denied. We were blessed to see the warfare very concretely in one family over a period of thirty years where we saw many a victory for the cross but also demonic backlashes. Chapter 7 A Very Stressful Period After our experiences of the previous year, we knew now that the spiritual battle would increase during the Islamic fasting month. We put ourselves more consciously under the blood of Jesus and also requested prayer covering from many quarters. This is how I recorded it: The Spiritual Battle Heats Up Once Again At Shahida’s home in Hanover Park, her husband could get into a frenzy over anything. He noticed that she would go to the shop on Sundays wearing her kitchen apparel, but staying away unusually long. Her husband knew that he could hurt her terribly when he threatened to tear up the picture Bible.          We were quite excited to hear that he was still reading the Bible with the pictures every morning when he woke up. Finally however, what we all feared, happened: getting into a rage for some flimsy reason, he tore the picture Bible in two.          Alan Kay resigned his well-paid job at Telkom to become the administrator of the Cape Town Baptist congregation. He became the leader of a church home ministry group. As Alan was living just a street away from us, we joined his group on Wednesday evenings after our return from Europe.          We told the group the story of the torn picture Bible. Gershon Philander, a local believer and a participant of the home ministry group, worked at the printing department of the University of the Western Cape. He suggested that we bring the torn parts of the Bible to him. He hereafter repaired the Bible in such a wonderful way that one could still read the book without too much of a problem. How surprised Shahida's husband was when his wife returned the restored Bible to him after a few weeks. Start of New Facets of Ministry         At one of the first Friday lunch hour prayer meetings of early 1996 Freddie van Dyk, a believer from the Logos Baptiste Gemeente in Brackenfell, joined us. I got to know him when I was organising Jesus Marches in 1994. At this Friday lunch hour prayer meeting we prayed about our vision to get into the hospitals to visit people outside of the regular visiting hours. Freddie mentioned a training course in pastoral counselling that his wife had attended. When we followed up on this information, it resulted in Rosemarie attending such a course, along with other befriended ladies. Dr Henry Dwyer, who headed up the pastoral work at the hospitals in the Cape, was an old friend of mine from our connections in the VCS, the student Christian movement in the 1960s.          Rosemarie was quite impressed by the commitment and quality of the participants at the course. One of the ladies aired the bright idea of having a teaching course in Muslim Evangelism at the same venue in Lansdowne. Dr Dwyer welcomed the suggestion of giving me a slot at one of his teaching sessions, to invite the participants to our proposed course. However, we made a serious mistake with the name given to the course, calling it ‘Sharing your faith with your Muslim neighbour’. A National Day of Prayer Spurs a Backlash Already in the early 1980s the Libyan President, Muammar Khaddafi, had been a major champion of worldwide Islamic expansion. In October 1995 the Sunday Times published a report about the Islamic conference held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. Africa to be Islamised by the end of the 20th century? At the Tripoli conference the intention was expressed clearly that Africa was to be Islamised by the end of the 20th century. To bring this about, the South African infrastructure would be used. The strategy of making the country ungovernable – which had been fairly successfully implemented in the 1980s to bring the apartheid government to the negotiating table - was to be repeated. The Western Cape, with its favourable infrastructure, and the presence of well over a quarter of a million Muslims, was regarded as the ideal springboard from the South. In the spiritual realm this attempt was, however, frustrated by the 30 Days of Prayer during the fasting month of Ramadan in the first term of 1996, as well as by a National Day of Prayer. The 1996 Day of Prayer with the theme “Healing the Land” was preceded by the fifth national 40-day fast. Some 100,000 people participated. The culmination of this fast was a national assembly in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where about 20,000 people gathered. Christians were challenged to fast and pray in the 40-day period leading to the National Day of Prayer on July 7, 1996. All in all, seven national fasts were completed in the decade from 1990 to 1999. Then God broadened the focus to include the continent. Satan was bound to respond in some way. Almost Unbearable Conditions In 1995/6 living conditions in the township of Manenberg were almost unbearable for the local people, and things seemed completely out of control. Rev. Chris Clohessy, the local Roman Catholic priest, had earned the trust of many people there, moving fearlessly also in gangster territory. PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) was initiated by a group of Muslims in 1996 - striving to create a gangster-free and drug-free Society - and joined by Father Chris Clohessy. However, in the ensuing inter-faith venture, Muslims were dominating proceedings. PAGAD developed anti-government and Western sentiments, as the organisation believed that the South African government posed a threat to Islamic values. It also aims to create better political representation for South African Muslims. Prominent figures like Imam Achmat Cassiem were reported to have performed a palace coup. As the leader of Qibla, Achmat Cassiem subtly changed the anti-drug, anti-crime movement into an organisation that sought to bring Islamic rule into the Western Cape by any means. PAGAD radicals saw this move merely as part of the plan to implement the October 1995 decision in the Libyan capital Tripoli, to attempt Islamising the African continent from the South. Rashaad Staggie was burnt alive in full view of television cameras PAGAD became known publicly on 4 August, 1996. That was the occasion when an influential gang leader and drug lord, Rashaad Staggie, was burnt alive in full view of television cameras. The crisis that followed the PAGAD eruption of August 1996 presented the churches with a challenge, an opportunity to touch the problem areas of the Cape townships. Moving Towards a Lebanon Scenario? A Lebanon-type civil war scenario became quite real. Many people at the Cape feared that the gangsters might hit back with a vengeance. A meeting for church leaders and missionaries was organised at the Scripture Union buildings in Rondebosch, followed by a wave of prayer by evangelical Christians. Christ-centred drug rehabilitation was also suggested. Spiritual strongholds became a focus of prayer drives. Pastor Edson from Mitchell's Plain and intercessors launched a convoy of vehicles from different churches from 1996 on the last Friday of each month. The prayer drive of July 1996 started at the strategic Gatesville mosque. (This was the same venue from where a fateful PAGAD car procession started out a week later. The latter procession left for Salt River on August 4th, the date of Rashaad Staggie’s public burning. The prayer drives only had a short lifespan. Another initiative of Pastor Edson, which lasted much longer, was the monthly pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meetings. However, when the crisis subsided, pastors simply resumed building their own ‘kingdoms’. It took decades before the racial divide was bridged, and even then, these prayer meetings still never really took off multi-racially. Nevertheless, they prepared the soil for the start of the spiritual transformation of the city. The Spiritual Battle Heats Up Once Again After our experiences of the previous year, we knew now that the spiritual battle would increase during the Islamic fasting month. We put ourselves more consciously under the blood of Jesus and also requested prayer covering from many quarters.          At Shahida’s home in Hanover Park, her husband could get into a frenzy over anything. He noticed that she would go to the shop on Sundays wearing her kitchen apparel, but staying away unusually long. Her husband knew that he could hurt her deeply when he threatened to tear up the picture Bible.          We were quite excited to hear that he was still reading the Bible with the pictures every morning when he woke up. Finally however, what we all feared, happened: getting into a rage for some flimsy reason, he tore the picture Bible in two.          Alan Kay resigned his well-paid job at Telkom to become the administrator of the Cape Town Baptist congregation. He became the leader of a church home ministry group. As Alan was living just a street away from us, we joined his group on Wednesday evenings after our return from Europe.          We told the group the story of the torn picture Bible. Gershon Philander, a local believer and a participant of the home ministry group, worked at the printing department of the University of the Western Cape. He suggested that we bring the torn parts of the Bible to him. He hereafter repaired the Bible in such a wonderful way that one could still read the book without too much of a problem. How surprised Shahida's husband was when his wife returned the restored Bible to him after a few weeks. Assistance from Germany towards the purchase of a house for this family could unfortunately not be used for that purpose when the husband wanted to use the money for a car. That money became the first major 'instalment' towards the purchasing of the Discipling House for those believers from Muslims who were evicted and persecuted because of their decision to become followers of Jesus. A National Day of Prayer Spurs a Backlash Already in the early 1980s the Libyan President, Muammar Khaddafi, had been a major champion of worldwide Islamic expansion. In October 1995 the Sunday Times published a report about the Islamic conference held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. Africa to be Islamised by the end of the 20th century? At the Tripoli conference the intention was expressed clearly that Africa was to be Islamised by the end of the 20th century. To bring this about, the South African infrastructure would be used. The strategy of making the country ungovernable – which had been fairly successfully implemented in the 1980s to bring the apartheid government to the negotiating table - was to be repeated. The Western Cape, with its favourable infrastructure, and the presence of well over a quarter of a million Muslims, was regarded as the ideal springboard from the South. In the spiritual realm this attempt was, however, frustrated by the 30 Days of Prayer during the fasting month of Ramadan in the first term of 1996, as well as by a National Day of Prayer. The 1996 Day of Prayer with the theme “Healing the Land” was preceded by the fifth national 40-day fast. Some 100,000 people participated. The culmination of this fast was a national assembly in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where about 20,000 people gathered. Christians were challenged to fast and pray in the 40-day period leading to the National Day of Prayer on July 7, 1996. All in all, seven national fasts were completed in the decade from 1990 to 1999. Then God broadened the focus to include the continent. Satan was bound to respond in some way. Here now more excerpts from 1996 and 1997, one of the most stressful periods in our ministry. Looking back, they were however, among the most pivotal: A church service in the Moravian Church of Elsies River in the northern suburbs on Sunday, 28 July 1996, would have world-wide ramifications. Our friend Chris Wessels18, whose wife Nabawaya, widely known as Nabs, was a Muslim background believer whose story I had included in Op soek Na Waarheid anonymously, was the pastor there An Egyptian academic who had to flee from his country when he became a follower of Jesus, shared his testimony in that congregation at a combined youth service on the Sunday evening. This event added a new dimension to the Cape Muslim ministry effort. The Egyptian’s printed testimony had just been published in South Africa under the pseudonym Mustapha with the title Against the Tides in the Middle East. Within a few days, the booklet which contained his story was in the hands of a Muslim leader. From Cairo to the World! A Capetonian Muslim academic that we knew well, correctly suspected that the Egyptian had contact with local missionaries. Threateningly he enquired after him on Wednesday 31 July. The Egyptian was doing the practical part of his Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Crossroads Discipleship Training School with us at this time. The Egyptian was forced into hiding Reminiscent of the situation when Martin Luther was taken to the Wartburg castle for safety,19 the Egyptian was thus forced into hiding. The televised Staggie 'execution' by PAGAD, as a part of the national news on 4 August 1996, reminded the Egyptian of Muslim radicals of the Middle East. He now started with significant research of jihad (holy war) in Arabic Islamic literature, finishing his manuscript at the end of in 2001 in Orlando (Florida, USA), where he had moved to in the meantime. The September 11 event of that year made the Egyptian's book on the topic a best-seller when it was published at the beginning of 2002. It came out under the title Islam and Terrorism. That book became a major factor in the exposure of the violent side of Islam in due course. (Subsequently the book was translated into more than 50 languages). Start of New Facets of Ministry At one of the first Friday lunch hour prayer meetings of early 1996, Freddy van Dyk, a believer from the Logos Baptiste Gemeente in Brackenfell, had joined us. At this Friday lunch hour prayer event we prayed about our vision to get into the hospitals to visit people outside of the regular visiting hours. Freddie mentioned a training course in pastoral counselling that his wife had attended. When we followed up this information, it resulted in Rosemarie attending such a course, along with other befriended ladies. June Lehmensich and Arina Serdyn had been regulars at our Friday prayer meeting. Dr Henry Dwyer, who headed up the pastoral work at the hospitals in the Cape, was an old friend of mine from our connections in the 1960s in the VCS, the student Christian movement. Rosemarie was quite impressed by the commitment and quality of the participants at the course. One of the ladies aired the bright idea of having a teaching course in Muslim Evangelism at the same venue in Lansdowne. Dr Dwyer welcomed the suggestion of giving me a slot at one of his teaching sessions to invite the participants to our proposed course. However, we made a mistake with the name given to the course, calling it ‘Sharing your faith with your Muslim neighbour’. We changed it subsequently to Love your Muslim Neighbour. Arson Attempt on a Church The 10-week teaching course Love your Muslim Neighbour, in which we worked closely with Renate Isert, a German missionary, emphasised prayer as integral to ‘spiritual warfare’. A Lebanon type scenario with Christians and Muslims fighting appeared even more ominous The PAGAD issue highlighted the fear of and resentment (sometimes even hatred by some Christians) towards Muslims. The veiled threat of a Muslim state was now mentioned more often than was healthy for good relations between the adherents of the two major religions at the Cape. On Friday 16 August 1996, unknown arsonists broke into the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne. The arson attempt on the church building was thankfully downplayed in the press. Satanists were accused of the arson attempt. Thankfully the damage was not too extensive. When Pastor Walter Ackermann phoned me, after reading the article in the newspaper, we were seriously challenged. We had unwisely initially called the course ‘Sharing your faith with your Muslim neighbour’ in the pamphlets that we had printed to advertise the course. A ten-week course, one evening per week, was due to have started at that church soon hereafter, on the 27th of August, 1996. It could not be ignored that some intolerant Muslims tried to destroy the venue and thus trying to intimidate us. This was possibly the reason for the church building, where we were going to have the course, to be targeted for an attack. We were unaware that Lansdowne was actually a PAGAD stronghold! With the arson attempt occurring only two weeks after the Salt River execution, the frightful possibility of a Lebanon scenario where the Christians and Muslims would fight each other, drew scaringly close. It challenged followers of Jesus to get their act together. A wave of prayer followed, after which we decided to put out another ‘fleece’. It was decided to test the famous but ill-fated St James Church in Kenilworth, that had been attacked in July 1993, as a possible venue for our course, instead of cancelling it outright.20 The name of the 10-week course that eventually did take place at the St James Church in Kenilworth, was changed to ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’. For the Love your Muslim Neighbour’ course I used my devotional teaching on John 4, the interaction of Jesus with the Samaritan woman - for the first time as a ten-part series.21 A Difficult Month Rosemarie and I were prayer walking through Bo-Kaap, still in October 1996, after nobody else had joined us for the Friday lunchtime prayer. (This was the only time when this happened.) We had also noticed how the churches around the Muslim stronghold had been ransacked in the period before that. We were blessed to discern how the Lord brought restoration, but we still did not see it as our duty to get more involved in any attempt at unifying the body of Christ in the city. This only started to happen slowly at the end of 2003. But we made very little progress. (The most successful attempt in this regard was years later in the run-up to the Soccer World Cup in 2010, but thereafter it petered out again.) The month of October in 1996 was one in which Rosemarie and I were tested severely. I had resumed journalling events. It went as follows: ‘... the attack starts not only very early in the month. 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 had to concede that I also felt very depressed. This was the culmination of quite a few attacks in the months prior to this... An Attack Via a Child The risk of spiritual warfare became very evident when the arch enemy tried to attack us via our children. This seemed for Rosemarie to be the signal for us to abort our ministry. She argued that the price was too high for her to have to sacrifice anyone of our children. She was, of course, referring to the obvious spiritual warfare during which we had been thrust into the front-line. I was blessed with a thought at that moment, reminding her of the false alternatives that I had to face years ago when my cousin suggested that I should choose between my love for her and that for my country in 1970. Together we went to the Lord in a new commitment in unity. This evident spiritual attack was not an isolated experience. Other attacks were not so stark, but nevertheless very real. It was, after all, no secret by this time that we were reaching out to Muslims with the Gospel. How often we experienced the Lord bringing us through, sometimes clearly supernaturally. We are so thankful for intercessors in different parts of the world who were praying for us. We would otherwise hardly have been able to survive all the onslaughts mentally and spiritually... Intercessors From Various Areas June Lehmensich, a regular at the Friday prayer meetings and an office worker for the City Council, had taken the pastoral clinical training course with Dr Dwyer in Lansdowne. She also attended the ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’ course at St James Church (Kenilworth) in 1996. Subsequently she became a pivotal figure as she spread the vision for prayer, taking it right into the Provincial Chambers and the National Parliament. June was simultaneously the personification of faithfulness and perseverance, as well as a link to a prayer group with a long tradition at the Cape Town City Council. I organised the launch of the 30-day Muslim Prayer Focus booklets in the historic St Stephen’s Church of Bo-Kaap for November 1996 . Bennie Mostert, the leader of NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa)22 arranged the annual countrywide distribution, ensuring that the vision of countrywide prayer for Muslims once a year was guaranteed. However, the bulk of agencies linked to Christian Concern for Muslims (CCM), which were in some way involved with Muslim outreach, never fully adopted the vision. Intercessors were coming together from different places once a month at the Sowers of the Word Church in Lansdowne, where the veteran Pastor Andy Lamb was the leader. Sally Kirkwood, a Cape intercessor of note, had already been prepared by the Lord. She had started a prayer meeting at their home in Plumstead at her home for Cape Muslims in the mid-1990s with Arina Serdyn, an Afrikaner retired teacher. Along with other intercessors she became God’s instrument for increasing prayer awareness in the Mother City. Cynthia Richards from Africa Enterprise, and later a pastor of Camp Bay United Church, was another important cog in this regard. She visited many a Ministers Fraternal of the Peninsula, organising prayer meetings in preparation for an evangelistic campaign with Franklin Graham, the son of the renowned evangelist Billy Graham (I had given Cynthia the phone numbers which I used for the Jesus Marches of 1994). The Franklin Graham campaign was scheduled for April 1997. Ramadan Attacks In previous years we were on the receiving end of major spiritual attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In 1994 I twice had the experience that our car had to be towed away but no fault found afterwards. The year thereafter Rosemarie was almost killed in a car accident and during the same period we were together in a car that skidded on the high way and miraculously we came out of the incident unscathed. In 1997 we experienced it almost as a satanic taunt when Rosemarie had symptoms of being pregnant just after Ramadan. That would have ruled her out for much of our ministry. Prior to this, we were quite thankful when a daughter of a befriended Bo-Kaap family brought Rosemarie in touch with a home-craft club in the area. A pregnancy would have meant an abrupt end to her involvement with the new friendships. A subsequent scan did not show any foetus. A month or two later, when she was admitted to hospital for a suspected miscarriage, there was no trace of any pregnancy when the gynaecologist scraped the womb. What was this all about? It was too strange to be mere chance. Assisting a Pregnant Young Woman The request to help Nadia (not the real name) a pregnant young woman who was expecting a child from a nominal Christian, seemed to be a pretty straightforward case. We fairly promptly visited the eloquent Muslim young mother of two other children. After hearing that she had already been divorced twice, we could never advise a marriage. The recipe for disaster was there for the taking. Rosemarie and I were almost on our way leaving the house where she was renting a room, when the conversation took another turn. A religious topic was mentioned and we were able to share the Gospel in some way. We combined the next visit to her with the collecting of our MBB Egyptian friend from the airport. The original idea was merely to pop in, but soon Rosemarie and Nadia were deeply involved in a discussion. We decided that I would go and pick up the Egyptian friend at the airport in the meantime, enabling them to conclude the conversation. When we returned, Rosemarie and Nadia were still very much in the middle of their conversation. Utilising the story of the adulterous woman of John 8 intelligently, our MBB friend was divinely used to bring Nadia under evident conviction. More Knocks, But Not Knocked Out An unprecedented sequence of knocks would take us to no less than a burn out of Rosemarie. I moved to the verge of one as well. Just prior to the Christian Concern for Muslims (CCM) conference in Wellington on the Resurrection week-end, we got a phone call from my brother Kenneth in the Elim Mission station that our Dad had been admitted to the hospital in the nearest town of Bredasdorp. Preparations had been made already for him and our Mom to be admitted to an old age home in Grabouw, where my younger brother Windsor and his family resided. A second phone call notified us that Daddy had taken a turn for the worse and that his passing away was anticipated. Rosemarie and I drove straight to Bredasdorp. When we arrived there, he had already passed on to eternal glory. A few days later, we buried Daddy on the Elim mission station. We were still recovering from this shock when Rosemarie had some premonition while she was doing a chore in the kitchen that her mother was passing away. She was not surprised when her sister phoned hours later that this was indeed the case. Rosemarie flew to Germany for the funeral of her mother. I was encouraged when I visited my dear friend Jakes - breaking away for a few minutes from the CCM conference in Wellington over the Resurrection week-end. He shared his resolve to go on pension soon. Thereafter he wanted to get involved with Muslim outreach again. That made me quite happy, but it was not to be... Another Ramadan Backlash Another 1997 version of the Ramadan backlash appeared not as obvious. The trauma was nevertheless, very real when the sale of the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute to a Muslim buyer came up during a prayer conference with our friend Gerda Leithgöb of Herald Ministries. This was the very same building complex at which we had been called into Cape Muslim Outreach in January 1992. It was doubly sad that a dear brother and friend, Bill Parker23, was the administrator and possibly someone who had no clue of the spiritual dynamics involved. With sadness I recall this fact now. Perhaps it could have changed matters if I had gone to speak to him about it. Next to WEC International, I knew of other Christian institutions like the Methodist Pastor Rev Cecil Begbie that were interested in purchasing the property. Looking back over the three decades since then, I get rather tearful at what happened to the Bible School thereafter. Very few of those who graduated after the many relocations became pastors at the institution which changed its name ultimately to Cornerstone Institute. While Rosemarie was in Germany, I spoke to Nadia (not the real name of the person) telephonically. She manipulated cleverly, so that I soon felt compelled to arrange with Rosemarie on the phone that we would take Nadia into our home after her return from Germany. Louis and Heidi Pasques, our pastor and his wife, agreed to accommodate Nadia until Rosemarie would be back. This we did subsequently. That was a big mistake. We had to learn the hard way that we should not take important decisions like this as a couple, without having prayed together sufficiently. The short phone call, with Rosemarie in Germany was the only consultation we had, and possibly with very little prayer. A little more than a month later, Ann, the wife of my dear friend Jakes, phoned to inform me that her husband had contracted a stroke. When I went there immediately, to pray with him and Ann in hospital, he was in a coma. There was little hope given that he would survive. The next day our dear Jakes went to be with the Lord. Completely Exhausted... When Rosemarie and I arrived at the church for his funeral, there was not a single seat available. I did not mind at all to sit on the wooden step just next to the coffin, which contained my late friend. At the funeral I met many old friends from the VCS days. 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. Rosemarie Burnt Out After Rosemarie's return from Germany, Nadia moved into our home, soon joined by her two children. This was accompanied with quite a lot of turmoil and stress. On the same evening of Jake’s funeral, Nadia manipulated in such a way that Rosemarie felt compelled to drive her to friends in the township Silvertown, 15 Kilometeres away. Joyce Scott, our missionary colleague from England, accompanied her to Silvertown. When Rosemarie arrived home from there, she collapsed. She had symptoms of having had a serious stroke. (Temporarily she could not see anything. We feared that she had become blind.) We phoned Ekkehard Zöllner, a befriended doctor and the father of children who also attended the German School. He referred us to a Christian specialist, who diagnosed that it was a stress related nervous breakdown, a burn-out. I was very near to burn-out 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. Rosemarie and I were very thankful that our missionary colleague Joyce Scott from the UK was available to be with our children while we broke away to the holiday house in Betty's Bay that belonged to the Edwards family from the Cape Town Baptist Church. We would go there many times as a family over the years. The events of this day highlighted the need for a discipling house for new believers from another faith stronger than ever before. A couple that attended our Golden Wedding anniversary are John and Avril Thomas. They became the in-laws of our son Sam. A personal link to them started in the early 1990s when they had just started Radio Fish Hoek. Trefor Morris, one of their church members, had been a regular of our Friday midday prayer meetings in the city. Trefor enkindled in my heart a special love for the history of old Cape churches. Here follows now an overview of my involvement with Radio CCFM till 2004: A Closer Link With Radio CCFM Radio Fish Hoek was renamed to Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM) in due course. At the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the Directress of 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 me, 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 some of the history of the compilation of the Qur’an and the demonic background, the challenge was how I could share 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 at all. During one of our prayer walks in Bo-Kaap it became clear to me that I should not speak over the airwaves myself. I decided to operate behind the scenes, with someone else reading my 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. Subsequently, however, I presented many a programme from there, including the interviewing of believers and devotional messages for midday transmission every Tuesday. A new programme director of the station decided to replace local preachers for the midday devotionals. Pastor Hendricks and I, who had weekly slots, had to make way for Joyce Meyer, who brought US dollars with her daily programmes. This coincided with funding of the 24h transmission of the radio station. (Before this, CCFM and Tygerberg radio operated on basis of weekly rotation of 12-hour every day.) Our blessed weekly popular Friday evening programme God Changes Lives, during which I interviewed a Muslim background believer once every month, was replaced with the US produced Unshackled (??). Only in mid-2025 I discerned that this was not co-incidence, that it was another case of His Higher Ways. This was the end of my season for radio work. After 2004 I was interviewed a few times by Helen Philips via CCFM, but I never sensed a calling again to return to radio ministry, albeit that I tested the waters a few time. Avril Thomas wanted me to go on air again, after speaking to the present director. On two emails I did not get a reply. At Tygerberg Radio I had a good meeting with the programme manager and other staff members, expecting a call at least for a once-off interview after Brother Tertius Bezuidenhout had paved a way for me to meet those in charge of programmes there. The phone call never came. I was, however, not really disappointed. I had come to learn that there is such a thing as God's perfect timing, in this case for not getting interview for radio transmission. Chapter 8 AN IMPACTFUL PRAYER MEETING May I take the reader back to a special prayer meeting in District Six, recorded in Seeds Sown For Revival: Moravian Hill Hosts a Strategic Prayer Meeting As part of a visit from Gauteng, a prayer meeting of confession was organised for November 1, 1997, in District Six, in front of the (former) Moravian Church.24 Sally Kirkwood not only had a vision for the desolate District Six to be revived through prayer, but she also informed Richard Mitchell and Mike Winfield about the event. I asked Eben Swart to lead the occasion. That turned out to be very strategic. Eben Swart’s position as Western Cape Prayer Coordinator of Herald Ministries, was cemented since he was now able to link up with the pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meeting, that was led by Ps Eddie Edson. The event on Moravian Hill in District Six 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 materialise (and abused for election purposes in 2004). A District Six Watershed For Many A Participant 1 November 1997 became a watershed for quite a few participants. Afterwards Gill Knaggs, Trish and Dave Whitecross became burdened to become missionaries in the Middle East. Sally Kirkwood received a more prominent role among Cape intercessors. 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. The confession ceremony in District Six closed with the demolition of an altar that satanists or other occultists had probably erected there. The booklet Search for Truth with short stories of Cape Islam converts, as well as tracts with testimonies that narrating how they came out of Islamic bondage, was eroding a prevalent Cape Muslim notion that if one is born a Muslim, one must die one. With the aid of a WEC missionary colleague in Kwazulu Natal, some of these tracts found there way into many a prison. We trust that those tracts served as gospel seed that might have germinated in many a heart. Hendrina was a special intercessor whom we met quite soon after our move to Tamboerskloof at the end of January 1992. She and our dear friend Bev Stratis played a special role in the forging of some visible expression of the unity of the body of Christ: An Elusive Visible Expression of Church Unity A local visible expression of the unity of the body of Christ remained elusive. A semblance did occur, however, in the City Bowl at the end of the millennium. Two members of Cape Town Baptist Church, the intercessors Hendrina van der Merwe and Beverley Stratis, did some precious spade work to forge this. After trying hard from September 1995 to get a ministers’ prayer group going in the City Bowl, a weekly meeting with a prayer emphasis gained ground slowly after a Jericho Walls- initiated 40 day prayer effort from April to May 1998. I was blessed to be able to co-ordinate a weekly pastors' fraternal hereafter for more than a decade. Three annual combined events and some pulpit exchange took place during this period. Support for Converts From Islam The accommodation of converts from Islam who have been ostracised and threatened by eviction, became an acute problem in the second half of 1998. The Dorcas Trust was formed with initially three churches of the Cape Town City Bowl with the purpose of creating an infrastructure to help those who became destitute because of their faith in Jesus. The intention all along was that converts from Islam would support each other mutually. The aid of the churches was initially only minimal. I was given permission to have a gift from Rosemarie's family in German to be initially deposited into the account of the Cape Town Baptist Church, because I did not want this in our private account while the Dorcas Trust was still formed. This would later be maliciously called 'money laundering'. The special prayer event on 1 November 1997 outside the Moravian Chapel of District Six triggered a groundswell of prayer that culminated in the unprecedented Newlands Rugby Stadium prayer event on 21 March, 2001. To Pastor Richard Mitchell whom I got to know on 1 November 1997, Rosemarie and I got in a special networking and close friendship relationship to this day. This included his wife Elizabeth and their two children. I was blessed to network closely with Richard Mitchell in the Cape Peace Initiative where he was my presenter at the impactful testimony programme God Changes Lives via the CCFM Radio Station: Prayer on Mountain Tops and Stadiums Led by Pastor Richard Mitchell, Christians prayed at Signal Hill early on Saturday mornings. After the citywide prayer event on Table Mountain in September 1998, organised by Eben Swart of Herald Ministries, the vision of praying on the mountain was revived. At one of the Saturday morning prayer times at Signal Hill in 1999, the idea of Cape Town as a spiritual gateway to the continent was shared. The prayers resulted in a surge towards transformation in the country after Richard Mitchell had seen the Transformation video at a pastors’ prayer meeting in Mitchell's Plain. Within months, the vision of praying in sports stadiums became a reality Within a matter of months the vision of praying in sports stadiums became a reality. There followed significant combined prayer events, time-wise not far apart: at Bellville’s Velodrome on a Sunday morning; the Athletics Stadium of the University of the Western Cape; at the Vygiekraal Stadium and at the Athlone Stadium. But there were many other obstacles to overcome before that fell into place. Citywide Prayer Events 1998 brought significant steps to effect more unity in the body of Christ city-wide through the initiatives of NUPSA and Herald Ministries. Regular prayer meetings at the Mowbray Baptist Church ensued, with believers coming from different parts of the Peninsula and from diverse racial and church backgrounds. The meetings carried a strong message of unity. However, the suggestion to continue on local level in different areas, never took off. Nevertheless, the Mowbray exercise brought together two racial groups for prayer. It became the forerunner of citywide events. A prayer event on the Grand Parade almost floundered after a bomb threat A well-publicised prayer event on the Grand Parade almost floundered after a bomb threat. Prior to this, churches across the Peninsula had initially been requested to cancel their evening services on Sunday, 19 April 1998 and join this service. In sheer zeal, a Christian businessman had thousands of pamphlets printed and distributed. Unwisely, he did not consult with the organising committee about its content. The flyer and poster that invited believers to a mass prayer meeting against drug abuse, homosexuality and other moral concerns, unfortunately also referred to Islam in a context that was not respectful enough for some radical Muslims. It was, however. also sad that certain City Bowl churches had not been prepared to close their doors even on a one-off basis for this event. A PAGAD member apparently regarded the flyer as an invitation to disrupt the meeting, passing on a threat to that effect. The event was subsequently announced as cancelled, but a few courageous believers showed up nevertheless. These included Pastor Danny Pearson, who had been deeply involved with the preparation of the prayer occasion. He believed that we should not give in to the intimidation, and that, if need be, Christians should be willing to die there for the cause of the Gospel. The meeting proceeded with far fewer participants than it otherwise would have been. The service included confession for the sins of omission to the Cape Muslims and to the Jews. (This was my first public Isaac Ishmael speech.) And there was no PAGAD disruption of the meeting! Blessings at City-Wide Events The Pastors' and Wives' prayer initiative of the mid-1990s, led by Ps Eddie Edson of the Shekinah Church of Beacon Valley in Mitchell's Plain, played a significant role in opposing the PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) effort to destabilise the country. From 1996 PAGAD was used in a sinister plan to attempt Islamise the continent of Africa by AD 2000. They terrorised the Cape Peninsula, trying to overthrow the government of the Western Cape. Pastor Walter Ackerman from the Docks Mission Church in Lentegeur, was one of the first pastors I was introduced to. He phoned us after the venue of our planned Love Your Muslim Neighbour course in Lansdowne was arsonised, possibly PAGAD-relatedly, in August 1996. In the wake of the PAGAD–related killing in April 1999 of Glen Khan, a Hard Livings gang leader, the Cape Peace Initiative was birthed. In due course, PAGAD was marginalised. This was part of a divine response and the run-up of Graham Power, a prominent businessman to be used by our Father to organise the big Newlands Stadium prayer events from 21 March 2001 and the Global Prayer Day in May 2005. Background involvement in the run-up to the stadium events of the new millennium harvested great blessing. Prayer meetings on Signal Hill and at Rhodes Memorial, where participants often came from distant suburbs and townships – as well as from the rural villages of Melkosstrand and Eendekuil - gave more pronounced visible expression of the body of Christ. Promising networking at UCT, notably with His People Ministries and YMCA in the first months of 2001, was scuppered by the 11th September Twin Tower event in New York. Muslim students with whom some dialogue had been started via lunch hour meetings, crept into their shell thereafter. Subsequently Muslim students were not open any more for further dialogue. The 7-DAYS Initiative As a follow-up strategy of Transformation Africa prayer in stadiums all over Africa in 2004, a ‘7-Days initiative’ was launched. Daniel Brink of the Jericho Walls Cape Office distributed the following communiqué: ‘...From Sunday May 9th thousands of Christians all over South Africa will take part in a national night and day prayer initiative called ’7 Days’. The goal was to see the whole country covered in continuous prayer for one year from 9 May 2004 to 15 May 2005. On relatively short notice, believers in communities, towns and cities in South Africa were challenged to pray twenty-four hours a day for one week apiece. The prayer initiative started with the Western Cape taking the first seven weeks. Daniel Brink invited believers of the Cape Peninsula to ‘proclaim your trust that, when we pray, God will respond. Declare your trust that if we put an end to oppression and give food to the hungry, the darkness will turn to brightness. Pray that houses of prayer will rise up all over Africa, as places where God’s goodness and mercy is celebrated in worship and prayer, even before the answer comes.’ Global Prayer Watch, the Western Cape arm of Jericho Walls, filled the first seven days with day and night prayer at the Moravian Church in District Six, starting at 9 o’clock in the evening on May 9, 2004. Every two hours, around the clock, a group of musicians would lead the ‘Harp and Bowl’ intercessory worship, whereby the group would pray over Scripture. In another part of the compound, intercessors could pray or paste prayer requests in the adjacent ‘boiler room’. What a joy it was for Hendrina van der Merwe, the fervent Afrikaner intercessor, to be present on that opening evening in the Moravian Chapel. However, she would neither experience a spiritual breakthrough towards new church planting in Bo-Kaap nor the start of a 24-hour Prayer Watch in the City Bowl. On the 31st of December 2004, with her Bible in her hand, she went to be with her Lord! Chapter 5 DIVINE CORRECTION I shared some of the costly mistakes that I made in my life in chapter 2, and how the Father corrected them. All too often this happened via a detour. I lost precious time in human terms. I see this differently now. Joseph languished for two years extra in prison. God used that to prepare and mould him for his task as a ruler in Egypt. Similarly, the Father had to keep Moses for 40 years in the desert. I now regard the many 'wasted years' as the time that Father needed to cut away so many carnal traits in me like my rebellious critical spirit and misguided activism. In the manuscript I was like Jonah I shared a few more examples of where I erred and where God in His mercy gave me a second or third chance. God used a Dutch Reformed Sendingkerk pastor to get me enthusiastic for missions, but divinely also halted me from overreach: Here follows the report of this major correction when I could have gone over board in my rebellious attitude and the run-up to what I perceive as one of the most influential events of my life: Ready to be Ex-Communicated Allan Boesak came to preach in our fellowship soon after he started with his theological studies. Allan had to come from Somerset West, 30 kilometres away. He slept with us on the Saturday evening. Allan Boesak’s dedication to the Lord made a deep impression on me. This afforded me with a good opportunity for theological discussion. I eagerly grabbed the occasion to sound Allan out about the christening of infants. (On the issue of believer’s baptism a Pentecostal friend had been influencing me. If the friend had pitched up on the arranged day to immerse me in a lake, that would probably have meant my expulsion from the Moravian Church.) I was definitely no Jonah on that score. But the Lord apparently still wanted to use me in that denomination a little longer. Allan Boesak couldn’t really convince me, but I was satisfied that he was honest enough about it, that he believed that infant christening is the sign of the new covenant, a substitute for circumcision. According to him at that time, the latter is the visible sign of the old covenant of God with Israel. Neither did the arguments used by Ds. Piet Bester of the local Moria Sendingkerk make a big impression. In other ways, Ds. Bester was such a big influence in my life at that time. Allan's dedication to the Lord did, however, make a deep impression on me. When he mentioned the ‘stranddienste’ [beach services] of the SCA (Students Christian Association), he sowed important seed on the fertile soil of my heart. (The SCA got Christians from different denominations together to evangelise. One of their big projects involved students sharing God’s love to guests at beach resorts during the Christmas holidays.) ‘Coloured’ students and young teachers served there in Harmony Park near Gordon’s Bay. I had no hesitation in signing up for this event, which started every year on Boxing Day (26 December). For the other participants it might not have been so significant, but the unity of the Christians coming from different church backgrounds there at Harmony Park left an indelible mark. I did not know the divine statement yet that God commands his blessing where unity exists. But I saw the Holy Spirit at work there, as I had not experienced before. Along with my new friend Jakes and David Savage from the City Mission,25 I started learning the power of prayer there at Harmony Park. When Jakes came into the tent one night after a fierce discussion with a Muslim, he quoted the words of Jesus about prayer and fasting. This was my introduction to spiritual warfare. Looking back at that special 'stranddienste', there is only one regret. At that occasion we missed out to serve the nation there corporately, albeit that I only learned the Biblical principle of servant leadership many years later. In Harmony Park the teenager Alec Dammert, David Savage and I, as the juniors, had to carry the heavy amplifier that we had in those days from the tent to the beach a few hundred yards away. (We still used the British imperial measuring in those days.) What a powerful message we could have given to our nation, and perhaps to the continent, if the likes of Franklin Sonn, Abel Hendricks and Chris Wessels, - they are all now with the Lord – would have joined us in this chore. Completely Unbalanced After my special encounter with the Lord ahead of and at my first Harmony Park beach outreach, I started to attend the early prayer meetings every Sunday morning at six o’clock at the Tiervlei Sendingkerk. One Sunday morning a mini-revival erupted there when suddenly everybody started praying simultaneously. That was quite revolutionary for the time, causing some disquiet among the traditional reformed believers. It was significant that women from different denominations started to meet each other regularly for prayer at this time. This confirmed for me the special blessing of united prayer. Years later we would put this to good effect in Zeist (Holland) in the 1980s and back in Cape Town since our return in 1992. Yet, I was also very much a child of my surroundings and completely unbalanced. Not long before starting my teaching career, I frowned upon lengthy degree studies because I really expected the Lord to return very soon. However, when I heard that extra-mural courses would be started at the University College of the Western Cape, I jumped at the opportunity to start degree studies, conveniently forgetting my earlier reservations to study at the ‘Bush’ college. Soon I was cycling to the school in the morning, and from there to the afternoon and evening classes. Often I utilised the time on the bicycle - e.g. holding a book on the steering bar while I memorised the various forms of the German strong or irregular verbs. Not knowing that it would come in good stead at a later stage, I had included German Special as one of my degree courses. I was sad that they could not offer Mathematics as a subject extra-murally straight away. Only in my final year of the degree I included Mathematics in my curriculum, doing it through correspondence with UNISA. Being thoroughly materialistic at this time, I only had eyes for the opportunity to get in line for promo­tion as a teacher in later years, so that I would be able to earn more. But there was also the academic field that beckoned. Posts at the new 'Coloured' University were waiting to be filled by people from our racial grouping. As one of the better students and also the youngest of the extra-mural ones, this was quite a tempting option. The christening of infants and being not prepared to compromise on radical stewardship, combined to let me resign as pastor of the Moravian Church in 1980, rendering us homeless to all intents and purposes. A profound series of divine interventions happened at that time. When I heard in August 1980 that my sister Magdalene had contracted leukaemia, I had already resigned as pastor, due to end my service in the Moravian Church at the end of that year. Here now follows how I narrated this series of events in I was like Jonah: Remaining in Jerusalem Through our connection to Moral Rearmament, we got befriended to the work of the ‘Offensive Junger Christen’ in Bensheim, Germany. Their working method sounded very much along the lines of our own thinking. Soon we were seriously considering moving house to Germany. To our disappointment, nothing came from our application to join the ‘Offensive’. No clear reason for the refusal was given, although we suspected that my critical attitude towards the christening of infants might have been the problem. By October 1980 we still had no new position and nowhere to go after the termination of our work in the church. It was understood that we were required to vacate the parsonage at the end of the year. From two other groups we had firm promises that we could join them - with accommodation included - if we would have no place to go to. But nothing was forthcoming from either of them when the rubber hit the road. At this stage we called to the Lord for a word, for guidance. We were surprised when Luke 24:47 almost jumped out. The verse mentioned ‘beginning in Jerusalem’. It was not clear to us how to see it. We interpreted it to mean that we should remain in our Jerusalem, Zeist. But this seemed impossible! Our friends who prayed with us, stood firmly in support. To us this was such an encouragement. They knew that my decision to resign as Moravian pastor was not taken easily, that it really had been a step of faith for us. Sudden Visit of a Racially Mixed Couple Rommel Roberts and Celeste Santos, a racially mixed couple from South Africa, suddenly popped up at our home in Zeist (Holland) in mid-1980. We had met Rommel in Caux (Switzerland) at a conference of the Moral Rearmament (MRA) in December, 1977. Rommel Roberts had undergone theological training to become a Catholic priest before he met Celeste Santos, an ex-Dominican nun, in Hanover Park, a township near Cape Town. There Rommel and Celeste enjoyed training as community workers under Reverend Des Adendorff. The two Catholics would become a couple in due course, teaming up in service at informal settlement camps with close links to the Quakers. Rommel and Celeste had broken all the normalities of South African “way of life” to marry in South Africa. (Racially mixed couples who did this would, as a rule, exchange marriage vows and then live in another country as we also did.) Mixed Marriages Act to be Scrapped? Rosemarie was much more realistic than me with her suggestion that we should write another accompanying letter with her visa application as we did in 1975 and 1978. She thought that my sister’s disease in such a letter would surely have been reason enough to expect a positive reply. Encouraged by a speech of Prime Minister Botha in Upington and other reports in the press, I was, however, very much under the impression that the govern­ment actually was ready to change or scrap the law pertaining to the prohibition of racially mixed marriages. The Prime Minister intimated that the ('White') Dutch Reformed Church was the big culprit. Later I had to recognise that this was too simplis­tic a view. I naively thought, furthermore, that they would not dare to refuse Rosemarie a visa again, knowing that I could publish the documents abroad to their detriment. Thus an element of unhealthy, arrogant pride and subtle blackmail combined in my behaviour. I even thought - although I had no concrete proof to this end - that my initiative could have played some role in the government’s inten­tion to change or scrap 62 discrimina­tory laws. My idea not to write an accompanying letter, however, helped us to get clarity whether we should go to South Africa as a family or not. Financially it amounted to a major risk. We also considered that the granting or withholding of the visas could be a test whether it was right to start on this risky venture at all... The heavenly Father was obviously continuing to break me down to fit into His plan with us. Thus I could return to the travelling agency to book seats on a flight just before Christmas. There the lady greeted me with the words “Mr Cloete, I have a nice surprise for you!” She had just received news that Luxavia offers a special air fare on the occa­sion of the airline, starting to use the big Jumbo jets. We saw in this “co-incidence” another confirmation to proceed with our plans. I had no hesitation any more to book for 18th December. Letters from South Africa with regard to the illness of Magdalene, our sister, encouraged us to quite an extent. We knew that we should not get excited too soon, even though we believed always that “My Lord can do anything”. And didn’t God prove it so often in our lives? The fact that we could plan to go to South Africa was already a miracle to us. Agonizing Days One of the mysterious divine ways was that God would use calamity in the lives of Rommel and Celeste to bring us to South Africa at a most unlikely time. Celeste was back with us after visiting some other people. Together we experienced the agonising days of waiting in vain on the visas. We shared our uncertainty with Celeste in respect of our going, because we would be using just about our last savings for the trip and I still had no employment after our return from South Africa. On the day, on which we were required to pay the deposit to reserve our seats,26 I phoned the Embassy once more. The official suggested that I phone someone in South Africa to contact Pretoria. It was fortunate that the travelling agency gave us an extension of an extra day extension to get the visas. I couldn’t phone my relatives of course, because we didn’t want to cause any more anxiety because of our problem with the visas. But we were happy that it was a Thursday. Now we could share our burden in the evening with our Bible Study and prayer group in Zeist. Our friend Jakes whom I phoned, used a method with which I would not have been happy if I had known it. On the other hand, I had only myself to blame because I was the cause that the accom­panying letter with the visa application was not written. His phone call to Pretoria went along the following lines: “I am a friend of Reverend Ashley Cloete in Holland. I want to contact the press straight away, but I just want to check out whether it is true that you don’t want to allow him and his family to come and visit his sister who has cancer...” Of course, the government could not allow such an embar­rassment without any ado, especially since we were still abroad. Therefore it was not surprising when the answer came promptly: “No sir, I shall investigate the matter straight away. I’m sure it will come in order.” * * * * Not aware of this telephonic conversation, we were still anxiously waiting on the call from The Hague on Friday, the 28th of November. Before 4 p.m. we had to phone the travelling agency. We agreed that if we didn’t get positive notification from the Embassy by then, we would have to cancel our bookings. Finally, four o’clock arrived without any call from The Hague. I had given up hope but Rosemarie prodded me to phone the Embassy once more before cancelling our seats. I dialled the now so familiar telephone number, while Rosemarie prayed that God’s will might become evident: A friendly voice greeted me from the other side of the line: “I have good news for you. The visas have been granted. However, I must still read the full text of the telex. Please phone me on Monday.” It has been quite a humbling, but blessed experience, to discern divine over-ruling in my own life more than once. I made some grave mistakes, the bulk of them unintentionally. The one or other had tragic consequences, causing intense pain for certain people. In His mercy, our Father thankfully not only rectified those errors, but He would all too often over-rule them and even use them sovereignly. Before enumerating a few mistakes where the Father over-ruled, I want to thank Him for His sovereign guidance in bringing me to the love of my life and that He helped me to make decisions that spared me a lot of agony. One of the most profound of the latter type was when I was really like Jonah, ready to run away from a difficult situation in my congregation in 1979. I recorded it as follows: Almost Unbearable Tension The tension in my church council became almost unbearable. When I saw a vacancy advertised at the headquarters of the Dutch Scripture Union, I promptly applied, seeing this as a possibility to get away from the untenable situation. I was sick and tired of the bickering in my church council, the fighting over what I regarded as peripheral issues. On a Saturday at the end of January 1979, I was almost on my way to Noordwijkerhout for the interview for the Bijbelbond post, when a freak slippery condition on the roads set in - ice starting pouring down - a very rare phenomenon. We never experienced something like this before or after that day. I was already in our car when the road became increasingly slippery. I decided to leave the car at the station and travel by train. When I phoned the Scripture Union people, they suggested that we should postpone the interview because there were similar weather conditions in Noordwijkerhout. The interview never took place. I knew that it was a Jonah experience par excellence. I was trying to run away from the difficult church situation! Furthermore, I have to mention some regrets. The above situation arose after the evolving of a mistake that I made early in my pastorate along, with insensitivity to the culture of my Surinamese congregants. I made a major change at the Christmas service of 1977, after being there only three months. That was very unwise. My own arrogant anti-apartheid activism of October/November 1978 resulted initially in self-inflicted extreme anger that I had neither experienced before nor after that. Divine over-ruling led to interaction and correspondence with Dutch Reformed Church leaders of that time a few months later. In turn, that would become a catalyst for pivotal changes of apartheid legislation and ultimately assisted towards my return from exile in January 1992. Diagnosis of prostate cancer in October 2003 was the direct trigger for bringing many an incomplete manuscript to completion after Rosemarie's nudge. She pointed out that all my research over many years would have been lost. The clear evidence of personal involvement in spiritual warfare transpired at a heart attack in the night of 30/31 January 2012, a few days ahead of my scheduled speech at an event on Rhodes Memorial. That would have taken me out. Two known intercessory prayers saved my life. I shared that in more detail. This was part of an effort to get the geographical elevation Devil's Peak changed. My first involvement in that attempt started in 1994. We were not spared tears because of unfair attacks and false accusations in the ministry. The Father used them divinely more than once. They strengthened and prepared us for future storms. Occasionally He used the storms to move us on, as it would happen again in via a tearful period in from the end of 2005 to mid-2007, the end of our precious missionary stint with WEC International. In due course, I came to appreciate that adversity and suffering seem to be among God's prime instruments to bring about significant change in the lives of people. We perceive it as quite significant that God used difficulties to move us forward in terms of ministry involvement. Thus, the problems I had encountered around the christening of babies became a significant catalyst towards my resignation as Moravian pastor of Utrecht, Netherlands. However, it ushered in the founding, on the other hand, of the Stichting Goed Nieuws Karavaan, a blessed regional expression of followers of Jesus that operated almost unprecedentedly for that country in a special unity in the Dutch town Zeist. Misunderstandings, after we sensed a calling to serve foreigners from other African countries predominantly, ushered in tear-filled months and a near burn out situation for us. This ultimately led to our resignation from the mission agency WEC International in 2007 on the one hand, but it also led to the start of the blessed Friends from Abroad outreach to foreign nationals. Chapter 6 SOME NEW YEAR REFLECTIONS As the end of my birthday always moved into a new calendar year, it was appropriate to consider targets for the new year. There had been big relief when our Pakistani brother requested his children to join him in Kuwait. We had been very concerned because their mother, who was not in a good space in many ways, contemplated leaving them alone in a flat for months when she would leave for Pakistan. We were thankful that the remaining young man at our discipling house, W., was keen to get some education at a night school in Wynberg. (He had been taken out of a state school after only three years to attend a Qur'anic one. There he ultimately became the pride of the family as a hafiz who can recite the Qur'an verbatim. We continue to pray that he may get some suitable employment. At our birthday celebration, W. was sitting at the same table with our house parents, Arend and Maretha du Preez, Theo Dennis and Maria van Maarseveen. When I introduced the guests to each other at the beginning, Matie October and Douglas Bax had been showing interest hearing his story. After the formalities of the toast, Daily Texts, Prayer, and the singing of Hoe kan ek u prys, 'Happy birthday' and 'He's a jolly good fellow', I asked Rosemarie to swap seats with W. When he shared with the folk at that table, he had a captive audience. When I heard anew how his father, a highly respected Islamic sheikh, got a stroke and had to be taken to a hospital, I was reminded of Rosemarie's story. He had to leave his parental home thereafter, just as she was asked to leave, after I had come to their home in 12 Albert Schweitzerstrasse in Mühlacker the first time, in December 1973. Elke Maier’s parents in Gündelbach lovingly took care of Rosemarie, took them into their home and treated her like their own daughter. Here in Cape Town we were blessed to give W. a new home at our Discipling House. How both Rosemarie and I were blessed to have the whole Maier family at our wedding who took her into their home back then: (On the photo below: Elke Maier and her mother are helping Rosemarie with her bridal attire) With W. there had been a similar struggle in the township home of Tafelsig, Mitchell's Plain to the one that led to the sad day when he had to leave his home because he had become a follower of Jesus. I narrated a snippet of Rosemarie's inner battle as follows: There was, of course, also that other rather large snag: Rosemarie’s father still didn’t know about our relationship. The secrecy became almost unbearable to my darling. We so much desired to live as children of the Light. She knew that sooner or later, she would have to tell her father the truth. On Christmas Day 1970, Rosemarie wrote: I had thought I’d wait to tell my father about us until certain things would have changed in his life. However, I can’t wait any longer because I can’t bear this responsibility. I know how he thinks. It could very well be that he will forbid me to write to you. There was a foretaste of the possible reaction from her father a few days later, when Rosemarie was all set to leave for a week long youth conference in the village of Liebenzell taking place at the end of 1970. The village, situated in the Black Forest, is well known in Southern Germany because of the mission agency located there. Her father warned her; “Just see to it that you don’t fall in love with a missionary. Otherwise you may still end up in Africa or who knows where, just to be thrown out by the native inhabitants.” She expected him to explode if he heard that his daughter was already in love with someone interested in missionary work, and one who is in fact a native African! My darling was in complete desperation as she left for the conference. At the conference itself, her desperation worsened. My Schatz [darling] thought that she had no choice but to let go of me. The last day at the short conference in Liebenzell was a red-letter day for her. On the 5th of January, 1971 she wrote: There are many letters which I had started to write but tore up again, because I discovered that I wasn’t being honest. Then I started to pray, but I somehow couldn’t get further than “Lord, you see how I love him. Surely you can’t expect me to release him?” But I knew that this was exactly what God wanted from me; to be prepared to let go of you. In the night, I couldn’t sleep because I was completely frustrated. The mere idea of a sacrifice almost drove me to insanity. And yet I knew, to find peace again, I had to get through all this. Then she went on to write victoriously: … I sensed the power of Jesus so that at last I could say: “Yes, Lord, I want to be completely obedient to you. I will give Ashley back to you if you require this from me.” Thereafter I found inner peace and I knew that I would tell my father about you the same day. With this sense of peace at heart, Rosemarie returned to their home in Mühlacker, determined to tell her father about our relationship that same day. As much as the thought of possibly losing me hurt her, she knew that choosing her own ways over those of God was ultimately going to hurt her even more. But somehow, she could not bring herself to act on her intention to tell her father about her love for me, an African theological student, right away. Another portion of W's story had a similar happy ending than ours. Theo Dennis, a missionary colleague, had initiated a process so that W. could attend the week of Missions Mobilisation Training (MMT) of Operation Mobilisation (OM) in Pretoria in August, 2025. There he was deeply impacted, just as Rosemarie had been moved and challenged to go and share the secret of her love to her father in January 1971, after returning from the week-long conference in Liebenzell. Soon after his return from Pretoria, W. decided to surprise his family: The moving reunion with his family after 17 months and especially that with his father, resembled our story upon our return from our honeymoon, as I recorded it in What God Joined Together: 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! Another commonality between W. and Rosemarie was an apology that turned the tide. After initially being completely ignored by his father, a highly respected Islamic clergyman, W asked him for a minute, whereupon he asked for forgiveness for the hurts he had brought to the family through his decision to follow Jesus. His dad broke down and hugged him lovingly. A letter was found in Papa Göbel's wallet on 4 February, 1989 after he had contracted a fatal heart attack. Rosemarie had sent it to him just prior to our wedding. In that letter she had 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 clearly treasured that letter. Chapter 7 A NEW SEASON LOOMING Rosemarie and I are looking forward to work with the new leaders of Born Again Believers Network (BABN), praying that we may be able to take the movement to another level. As one of our goals for 2026 we want to be more intentional regarding our focus on District 6. Furthermore, we intend getting the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19,20) more into the centre of our activities, without compromise. We also want to stimulate and facilitate local and city-wide networking as much as possible. In the evening of 31 December 2025 I looked again at some of the birthday messages that I had been receiving. It was a 'no brainer' not to go to a meeting at the Cape Town Castle with a Deputy Minister upon the invitation of Bishop Thom Tamaga on my birthday. Bishop Tamaga was the successor of our Messianic Jewish friends Baruch Rudnick and his late wife Karen. He became the organiser and motivator of South Africans to attend the annual consultation of the International House of Prayer in Jerusalem. (Rosemarie and I attended the consultation in 2011 as part of the South African delegation. In 2018/9, I took Yoav Elkaram, a Jewish young man to Thom's 'Church Without Walls' in Khayelitsha. Upon hearing and seeing Yoav, a Xhosa congregant exclaimed at some point: “ I saw Jesus in a dream. You look like him.” A few days before that, the same thing happened at our home during a meal with N., a Pakistani believer whom we had taken into our home. When she shared that she had a dream of Jesus, Yoav casually asked: “How did he look like in your dream?” (Obviously this must have happened at least a few times before that.) Immediately she responded, pointing to him: “He looked like you!” With his concern and heart for Israel and the articles that Bishop Tamaga had been writing, I feel very close to his thinking. As various international rigours transpired, I started considering making another effort to bring more visible unity in the body of Christ nationally. (I was asked to try and mediate between the two 'camps', a big rift between Church leaders, in the wake of the October 7 event in Israel. Some consternation transpired when we discovered by chance that Rosemarie's passport was not in its usual place. In a new version of God's higher and better ways, Rosemarie 'unearthed' two special artifacts as she turned the house upside down in search of her passport. (I had looked in the envelope towards the end of the year without any reason, really. I can only attribute this to some divine nudge. Initially not alarmed by it, I discovered that Rosemarie's passport was not in the envelope where we had been keeping the three passports, two European ones and my South African passport.) One article was a 2005 book of our friend Charles Robertson: We briefly looked at the reprinting of the booklet that had received so much new actuality politically, but he could not find the electronic version immediately and also had no time and liberty to revise and reprint it. Around the end of 2023, Br Charles Robertson put the challenge to me of trying to collate a small Church delegation to go and speak to our State President in the wake of our government 's taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This would be reminiscent of the apartheid era when Church leaders went to speak to President Botha. The timing seemed to be divine. A few weeks prior to this, we started speaking anew about going to speak to the president when a naval practice with BRICS countries was about to take place near Simonstown. Our government was clearly taking our nation into a confrontation with President Trump's US, our main trading partner. The ANC and the government was quite obviously not acting in the best interest of the nation. When I received a phone call on behalf of Barry Isaacs on Monday, 12 January, an attempt to address city-wide Church unity, I was very excited, albeit that I had to inform Barry that I was going to be quite late because of another commitment. (I was not going to miss our first BABN meeting of the year.) I was even more excited at the meeting in Parow the next day to see the wide spectrum and quality of leaders who had been coming to that meeting. During the question and answer time which was already well in progress, I started by apologising for my late arrival and then pointed to Ephesians 3:10 as one of my favourite verses and expressing my joy in seeing in front of me an expression of that. I also included a suggestion to drop the titles that had become such a sickness in Church circles. (Ephesians 3:10 speaks of the Church radiating the multi-faceted wisdom of God.) A week later, at our monthly plenary extended prayer session of Born Again Believers Network, Tertius Bezuidenhout, my successor as leader, shocked many a participant during his devotional message when he started by saying that he was a Stellenbosch-trained theologian. “I am a Dutch Reformed dominee...” Halfway through his short homily I interrupted him: “I want to challenge you on this!” Very beautifully he continued thereafter, however, to expound that the highest title we can use for each other is brother and sister. That was how he wished to be addressed. I had great liberty to interject again. “Now I don't have to challenge you any more.” The penny dropped, so that it has become customary among our folk to speak of Brother Bruce and Brother Tertius. On Saturday, 17 January 2026, we went to the police station in Mowbray to get an affidavit as the first step towards getting a new or duplicate passport for Rosemarie. Two days later, on Monday, the 19th , she started the online application, getting an appointment at the German Consulate. The next morning, as we started getting ready to go to our plenary extended session with our new leaders of Born Again Believers Network, Rosemarie made my day when she entered the study excitedly: “Ashley, look what I found!” In her hand was not only her German passport, but also my new Dutch passport, that I had acquired prior to our previous trip overseas. I had been looking at an expired one unknowingly. At the place where both of us had looked how many times, she had decided to pull the drawer out completely. The two passports must have fallen out inexplicably, lying at the bottom of the drawers where no one could have looked. Two days before that, Rosemarie surprised me with another discovery: the original copy of Op Adelaars Vleugels with the first page type-written in A4 and the rest on some old printer in the antiquated folio size. The tattered 19-page document to which something must have happened to the a terrible first page and never finished in Dutch, is of course, very precious to us. Later the same day, I bragged unceremoniously at testimony time in Montague Gardens at our First Century Vineyard Fellowship, what she had found: 'the longest love letter ever written': It was my gift to Rosemarie on her 40th birthday: A challenge arose during our first Friends of District Six meeting of the year when one of our participants pointed to the six houses of Searle Street, from where the residents have to leave soon by court order. (It so happened that Elroy Lawrence lived there in 1978. Together with a multi-racial group of young Moral Rearmament teenagers he visited us in Zeist.) I was thrust into advocacy that ultimately brought me to a request to the executive mayor to attempt putting the eviction on hold, to facilitate a conversation between the new owner and the Catholic Church, the original seller many years ago. This has, of course, an odour of forced removals of the apartheid era around it. I was reminded of a wonderful meeting in the Church Hall of Holy Cross on 11 February 1981 where my seminary colleague presented such a powerful sermon, highlighting how Jesus looked up to Zaccheus, the collaborator with the hated Roman oppressors, when the rest of Jewish society despised the tiny chief tax collector. We have come full circle. The Dutch intercessor Erna Goedhart and I had started praying for our widely criticised State President twice a week via the telephone. Ahead of his State of the Nation address on Thursday, 12 February 2026, I drafted an email to 'Dear President Ramaphosa' which I didn't send off, however. (Way back in October 1972, I wrote a letter to Liewe Mnr Vorster as a young theological student from Ashley Street in District Six, challenging him to lead the country in Godly ways as President Lincoln had done in the US). As I finish this first draft to present this to my wife, our children and a few close friends for comment and correction, I look forward to the seven minute talk Rosemarie and I are due to give on afternoon Sunday 22 February with a good dose of trepidation. The occasion in the church hall of the Dutch Reformed Church in Bellville East is the handing over the baton of leadership to our brothers Tertius and Bruce. Recently I got so emotional when I shared stories from the past. ( I am nevertheless reminded of a previous occasion where I was given seven or eight minutes. Back then, I had no problems whatsoever to lead an Ascencion Day congregation in the Groote Kerk in a confession for the treatment meted out to slaves. That opened the way for Islam to grow in our country at the end of the 18th century.) Rosemarie and I continue on the Twin Track of our journey, the Isaac Ishmael Ministry and District Six. We do it with so much gratitude for what God has done since May 1970 when we met. SOLI DEO GLORIA! (A Painting of our friend Leigh Telli of a Jew and Muslim in Conversation)