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The Refuge Seekers #1
14 June 2008
Brave stories from Claremont Seventh-day Adventist church, Cape Town, South Africa Note: Between 1999 and 2005 I sent out 90 “Nutshell News” stories from the VOP Bible School in Cape Town. In 2006 and 2007, 15 “Bana Ba Rona” newsletters about the needy children in the Maluti Adventist Hospital Health Service Area in Lesotho were sent. This year, 2008, I have taken a “sabbatical” in order to (hopefully) complete a course of study which is more demanding than I thought it would be! My “home church” is in the suburb of Claremont, Cape Town. The demographics of our congregation have recently changed from there being mainly middle-aged and elderly parishioners to having many dedicated people from all over Africa rapidly filling up the pews. Their brave journeys across our continent have been journeys of faith. I thought I would share some of their experiences with you.
Gladys – always a glad smile
Gladys is from Zimbabwe. She is a qualified Primary School teacher and was hoping to find a teaching post in South Africa so that she could support her three children in Harare, Zimbabwe. When she arrived in South Africa she was amazed to find thousands of others also desperately looking for work, not only those from sub-Saharan Africa but also unemployed South Africans. Gladys rejoiced when Barbara Lander, her good friend from Claremont church, found her employment: looking after a doctor couple’s baby girl and doing the housework. Her day began soon after 6 am and often ended at 8:30 pm after the baby had been bathed and put to sleep. While the remuneration was not what she had hoped for, she was grateful. However, her employers soon stated that they were not happy that she wanted Saturdays off so that she could attend church, and threatened to find someone else to take her place. Gladys tried to explain to them how important church attendance was to her, but, although devout Muslims, they were somehow not able to see her point of view. Recently I went to fetch Gladys from her place of employment to take her to Constantiaberg Hospital where Barbara is manager of the emergency unit. Barbara had arranged for Gladys, a diabetic, to be given a blood glucose monitor. We were a little early for the appointment so I asked Gladys for her permission to tell her story and she gladly gave it. She shared that her employers had now found someone else to replace her and that she has to “teach” the new person how to clean house, wash dishes, care for the baby etc. She has to vacate her small room behind the house by the 19th June, so she will have no work and nowhere to stay as from that date. Her reaction to this amazed me: “You know, Heather, I am glad for this experience because it has driven me to my knees – I am very close to God, more than I have ever been in my life and I know He will care for me.” Gladys went on to tell me more about herself: “I was born at Rusapi and attended the local Seventh-day Adventist school there until I reached Grade 7.” We compared notes and found that she was well 2 acquainted with a number of the teachers whom my late husband, Andries, and I had taught while we were teachers at the then Lower Gwelo Teacher Training College in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I could visualize the neat school surrounded by gardens, each child with his or her own little rectangle of vegetables which they personally planted and tended. Gladys continued: “Then I went to Inyazura Mission from Form I to Form IV.” “Did you perhaps know the teachers, husband and wife, who were murdered there?” I asked quietly. There was a long pause and she spoke very softly: “I was there”, she said. “It was after independence and we could not understand why this terrible deed was done. These were wonderful teachers who had come to help us. We thought that our country was now at peace. It was a time of great sadness.” We stopped talking for a while treasuring the memory of these teachers and thinking of their children who had grown up without parents. After Form IV Gladys taught at different schools. She and her husband were married at Mutare and had three children. Gladys took her formal training at Gwanda Teacher Training College, graduating in 2002. Her husband was a mechanic at Khami Prison and Gladys taught at the Khami Prison school. In 2003 a severe blow hit the family when her husband died. They had placed their children in the best boarding schools they could find but now it was very difficult for her to manage on her own. She had to give up her studies with the Open University even though she had only one year left to complete her degree in counselling. Last year when the children came home to her for the holidays, they were surprised to find the fridge empty and no oil, no salt, no rice on the shelves – not even toothpaste in the bathroom. Gladys explained, “These items are not available in the shops at present, and, even if they were, I would not have the money to pay for them – every bit of money goes into your schooling – furthermore I am in debt.” And that is when she took the long road South. “God is my refuge and strength,” she said, “a very present help in time of trouble.”
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