And I will soar with you Part 1 April 2019

And I will soar with you Part 1 April 2019

Foreword                                                                                                                                            

1. On the go already from an early Age

2. Rosemarie’s Childhood and Youth

3. My Teenage Years

4. A Teenage Secondary School Teacher

5. An African Missionary in Germany?

6. Home sweet Home                                                                                                   

7. Roaming Rosemarie                                     

8. Run-up to an extraordinary Honeymoon

9. An Exile to all Intents and Purposes

10. Becoming Radically Activist

11. Hunger for Justice

12. Tears and Anxiety

13. Heimat or Hearth?

14. Back in our “Jerusalem”

15. A Period of great Uncertainty

16. Stepping out into the Unknown

17. Flexing Missionary Muscles

18. Nudges towards forward Movement

Part 2

19. Called to serve Cape Muslims?

20. Back to ‘School’

21. The Backlash

22. New Initiatives

23. Under Attack

24. The Strong Wings at Work

25. A targeted Ministry to Foreigners

26. Isaac and Ishmael Reconciled?

Instead of a Foreword

Dear Lolita, our oldest grandchild!

As you enter the teenage years, I would like to tell how we, Oupa and Oupa, experienced God’s mighty hand in so many wonderful ways. You may have already read What God joined together, our love story until our wedding in 1975 and the special aftermath. In this booklet I am now trying to fill in some gaps in the run-up to that, adding some facts about our childhood and youth. The bulk of this narration tries to take you through to what happened thereafter.

The title of the book alludes to a line from one of the ‘Eagle songs’ – printed on the next page - that you surely also know. How we had been carried on the divine eagle’s wings was the theme of our wedding sermon. The more complete story of our lives and ministry is told at On Eagle’s Wings.  You know where to find this, we trust.  I do want to stress that His wings that have been carrying us. To God all the glory for what could be achieved!!

We have sent the first rendition of this manuscript to you on your 12^th birthday, realising that it may be too difficult for you to grasp fully. I hope that we can abridge it a little bit more in due course so that you could ‘devour’ it hopefully next year on your 13^th birthday completely.  Do have a try with Part 1 in the meantime, which takes our story till we left for South Africa in 1992.

Blessings,

Oupa (and Ouma)

Lord I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace
That I've found in You
Lord I've come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love

Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side
And as I wait
I'll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love

Lord unveil my eyes
Let me see You face to face
The knowledge of Your love
As You live in me
Lord renew my mind
As Your will unfolds in my life
In living every day
By the power of Your love

Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side
And as I wait
I'll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love

1. On the go already from an early Age

            When I was born in the St Monica’s Maternity Clinic in Cape Town on the 31^st of December 1945, God seems to already have laid His hand on me, because just under 50 years later the Father used the institution in a grand mosaic of ‘co-incidence’. It location in Bo-Kaap would give us a foothold in the residential area which would become an Islamic stronghold via apartheid group areas legislation. This discovery sparked in turned a prayer effort in excess of 27 years. Our family was living in the slum-like District Six on the other side of Cape Town's CBD that would become another Islamic stronghold via clever manipulation by Muslims and Church indifference after 1994 when a democratic government took over.

         From an early age I was ‘on the go’.  Before I entered primary school I could be found in places as a roaming kid where I was not supposed to have been, in spite of a sound Christian home background.   

When ‘Aunty’ Bertha Roman – our next door neighbour of Combrinck Street - wanted to bring me home at one such occasion, I had the audacity to encourage one of the many roaming dogs: ‘sa! Byt haar! (Charge, Bite her!). Long before I could read I was roaming through the area, knowing the name of almost every street. When I turned six I detested the idea of going to school, fearing that my freedom would be curbed. It surely was God’s grace in my life that we moved from there at an age where I was very receptive to wrong influences.

         (Photo: In front of our house in 30 Combrinck Street, District Six with some relatives, holding the hand of my favourite ‘Aunt’ Patsy Roman, our neighbour.)

Hunger for Justice impregnated

The Moravian Church tradition, from which both of my parents hailed, served as an effective foil to the immoral and filthy sur­roundings of my early childhood. It was logical that we as children would attend the Zinzendorf Primary School and the Sunday school at the same venue. Strangely, certain injustices did not cause immediate anger in the little street-wise four or five year old when I was sexually abused by a gangster-type young man and a vagrant upon promises of money. In both cases the promises were not honoured.

         My hunger for justice did erupt at another incident when I was much older. We were playing with our spinning tops in the street. Motor cars were seen in our area only very few and far between in those days. (We expected vehicles to hoot before we would get out of the way.).          I received a brand new red blue and white spinning top from Aunty Dorie Ulster, the eldest sister of our mom. During our street game an older boy took mine, claiming that my new spinning top was his. I did what any aggrieved boy would do - going to my mom to complain. She knew after all that I had received the toy, a new one at that!  (New toys we only got at Christmas time until we discovered they had not been brought by Father Christmas.)

I could not appreciate our mom’s application of Solomon’s wisdom when she came to the street, requesting both spinning tops. She kept them in her hands behind her back. The other boy and I had to make our pick. My opposite promptly picked the new spinning top. My passionate plea for justice – pointing out to my mom that she knew that I had just received the new tol from our aunt – got no reprieve from my Solomon. That was of course profound wisdom                                                                                                                                     

A hunger for justice was triggered

in my receptive juvenile soul                                                                                                  This incident somehow triggered a hunger for justice in my receptive juvenile soul. (Many decades later she vividly remembered the incident when I reminded her of it. She then explained that she knew that I was duped but she also deemed it important that we would learn to suffer injustice with grace already from childhood.)

         At school I was in the combined Standard 1 and 2 (Grade 3 and 4) class in 1954.  My cousin, ‘Aunty’ Helen Ulster, was our teacher. In this way I picked up quite a lot of the material of Grade 4. 

Living in a Brick House                                                                                                                                   At the end of that year we moved to the northern outskirts of the Cape Peninsula. There we now took possession of a house on 8 plots at 46 Northway Road in Tiervlei, as the Cape suburb Ravensmead was called in those days. (Our dad had far-sightedly entered a rotating scheme of the African People’s Organisation. He had been paying a small monthly fee until our turn came to buy property.)

         In our community we were regarded as ‘affluent’ because we were one of only a few families that were the proud owners of a brick house. The outside walls did not even have a single layer of colour and our kitchen looked horrible because of black soot – we had no electricity. Almost everybody used a primus stove and very few had a coal stove. Almost all the other people who resided in that area lived in shacks of some sort.

            Tiervlei was still quite rural at that time. There were many sandy roads. Daddy’s passion for gardening turned the property into a small holding with all sorts of vegetables, chickens, goats and pigs in due course.                                               

The school up the road that my siblings and I attended was linked to the Volkskerk, the first indigenous Cape denomination. There we learned the anthem ‘Protea, protea. ..blom van ons vaderland’ (Flower of our fatherland).

. 

2. Rosemarie’s Childhood and Youth

           In Southern Germany’s railway junction town of Mühlacker the two Göbel children witnessed their parents very often in conflict in the early 1950s. Their father, Franz Göbel, had been a refugee in the aftermath of the Second World War, having grown up in an environment where Adolf Hitler was held in high regard. He hailed from Sudetenland, a part of Germany that later became a part of Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia. Their mother, Erika (néé Marte), came from the city of Stuttgart with a completely different upbringing. Erika Marte lost her mother when their house was bombed in the Second World War and her father subsequently died from cancer.   Erika was one of the best in the class, privileged to attend school right up to Abitur,[3) but she was not allowed to proceed for further training to become a school teacher because her parents did not belong to Hitler’s National Socialist party, generally known as the Nazi’s. Erika Marte was evangelisch, i.e. she was a member of the Lutheran State Church. Whereas Rosemarie’s father had been raised as a Roman Catholic - and very much influenced by the indoctrination of the Nazi’s – Erika’s family was critical of Adolf Hitler and his regime.

Accommodation at the Monastery of Maulbronn                                                                                                   Because accommodation was at a premium after the war, Erika and Franz very happy to find a few rooms at the monastery of Maulbronn, with the understanding that any children in the marriage would be raised evangelisch, not as Catholics. (Usually it was the other way round when one party of a married couple is Roman Catholic.)                                                                                                                   Both of Rosemarie’s parents came from small families so that they have very few cousins. At the monastery accommodation typical sibling rivalry could have had serious consequences when her envious older sister pushed Rosemarie down the high staircase.

Rosemarie’s Home Situation                                               

In post war Western Germany that was supported by the US sponsored Marshall Plan, it was natural that both parents would work, making Rosemarie and her older sister Waltraud ‘key children’. Each one of them would have a key around their necks, with nobody at home to welcome them when they came from school. The two sisters experienced this as quite traumatic. Both Waltraud and Rosemarie were determined not to do the same to their own children. Like so many other Southern Germans, the family was building their own house, in their case in Albert Schweitzer Street, Mühlacker.

When she was about four years old flower loving Rosemarie had taken some from a neighbour’s garden, thereafter giving it to her mom, saying that she had picked it on a field nearby. Mama Göbel accepted them without reacting oertly suspiciously but knowing full well from where they originated. That evening little Rosemarie, overpowered by feelings of guilt could not sleep immediately, crying bitterly. When her mom came to hear what was the matter she confessed that she had taken the flowers from the neighbour’s garden. “I knew it all along that those flowers don’t grow on the field. I was just waiting on you to confess the theft.’

The World War and its ramifications was a topic that came up in the conversations at home very often. It created a constant fear in Rosemarie that war could break out again. Parallel to this was her child-like belief that the police knew everything. To her they were like God. She would hide in the cellar of their house for fear at the flimsiest of infringements.

Her mom found the guilty little girl in her hide out where she now confessed her delict. Her mom’s response was completely forgiving: ‘I know of course that those flowers don’t grow on the field. I hoped that you would confess that you had taken them from a neighbour’s garden’.

Rosemarie’s ‘guardian angel’

would continue to have its hand on her

Rosemarie’s ‘guardian angel’ would continue to have its hand on her when she and a girlfriend could have been harmed seriously by a young man with evident evil intent. He had already been on top of her little girlfriend when Rosemarie’s screaming caught the young man unawares, scaring him off. He cycled away quickly.

A nagging Nightmare                                                                                                                                    In a general atmosphere of mutual distrust between the two big German ecclesiastic denominations, their parents had dared to get married. However, vast differences would flare up again and again.   Rosemarie and her sister Waltraud were troubled by the constant nagging nightmare as children that their parents might one day would get divorced.                                                                                                               The neighbourhood girl became the catalyst for the Göbel daughters to get into the environment of the Süddeutsche Gemeinschaft, an evangelical grouping within the Lutheran Landeskirche, the evangelical state Church. An invitation to a Christian camp to which they went as a family, proved to be decisive. There Rosemarie not only accepted the Lord as her personal Saviour, but there she also received a challenge to become a missionary one day.                       

Rosemarie as a Teenager                                                                                                                       

As she approached fourteen years, attending the confirmation classes belonged to normality for all teenagers of the Landeskirche. The classes were not very challenging.                                                       For the actual confirmation service the pastor requested them to pick a Bible verse from a box. That would become their respective Konfirmandenspruch (Confirmation verse) on the special day. Psalm 93:4 was the one Rosemarie chose, a verse that would become very meaningful to her: ‘Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!  She was reminded of these words and comforted again and again when it seemed as if she would ‘drown’ in yet another wave of life’s storms.

With this background it was quite natural for her to join the Jugendbund für Entschiedenes Christentum (EC), the Christian Encounter youth group. However, some backsliding followed in the course of time when worldly attractions started to pull at the teenager.

Rosemarie’s secondary school teacher of Religious Studies seemed to attempt consciously to oppose any divine influence in his learners. It was not easy at all for the teenager to stand firm in her faith when the teacher peppered them with Biblical criticism and the like. What he did achieve in her however, was a lot of sympathy for the Jews, countering any influence her father tried to exert, such as defending the Nazis and pointing to what he termed ‘the exaggerated numbers said to be killed’ in the gas chambers. This teacher was also a counterfoil to the general taboo in German society of speaking about the terrible history of Hitler and his third Reich. Rosemarie’s inquisitive mind brought her to the library quite often to find out more. The biography of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager of Amsterdam, especially gripped the imagination of the teenager, triggering sympathy and forging a great love for the Jews. 

         Rosemarie wanted to study physiotherapy, but her father did not like the idea that she should go and study in Tübingen, because there were too many foreign students. He had his own ideas about a future son-in-law. Any foreigner would have been the worst in this regard. When Papa Göbel wanted her to promise that she would not marry a teacher or a pastor, she however would also not oblige. This was of course very good for me that she did not promise that! After finishing the secondary Realschule, she did a gap year of household training with relatives who were living in Wangen near to Lake Constance.

         On another score the Lord had his hand on Rosemarie. Her second choice vocationally, the course for ‘Erzieherinnen’, would qualify her to become either a Kindergarten teacher or a tutor for a chil­dren’s home. This brought her to Stuttgart in 1967, the very city where I would spend much of 1969. There she and Elke Maier became good friends. Elke came from the village Gündelbach, not very far from Mühlacker. Unlike the latter town which was a main railway junction of Southern Germany at the time, Gündelbach had no easy commuting connections to the Schwabian capital. Thus Rosemarie commuted daily whereas Elke would only go home over week-ends. Elke was a regular at the YMCA-owned Brenzhaus, attending the Christian Encounter youth group that I had also started attending

3. My Teenage Years 

My grandfather, Oupa Joorst, living as a retired Moravian school principal and minister on the Elim Mission Station, asked my parents in January 1957 whether I could come and help him and Aunty Maggie, our mom’s sister. She had come to Elim to look after oupa after the death of his wife. As an errand boy I was required to fetch water, go to the shop for them and empty the toilet buckets. Although the idea did not really appeal to me to go to the country-side, I agreed fairly readily to go to the Moravian mission station Elim as their ‘stuurding.’ 

Gospel Seed into my Heart

In the mission school quite an amount of Gospel seed was sown into my heart. The memorizing of Bible verses would come in good stead in later years. A special Scripture portion was the first verses of Isaiah 53. We had to memorise how the prophet wrote about an unknown suffering person who was compared with a lamb taken to be slaughtered. We were taught that this part of scripture was a prophecy about Jesus as the Lamb of God. He, the Lamb, did not open His mouth when He was falsely accused and thereafter innocently crucified.

            Towards the end of February 1958 ‘Oupa Joorst’ became very ill. The district doctor stated that he was not going to live very long. A clear impact transpired when I returned from school for the noon break on 8 March 1958. I went straight to Oupa’s bedroom, where the neighbour, Ta’ Stienie Daniels, tried to push me out of the room. But alas! Her effort was too late! She could not stop me experiencing something very special! I was privileged to see the radiant joy on the face of the aged saint going ‘home’.

I was privileged to see the radiant joy

on the face of the aged saint going ‘home’.

He had evidently seen something which no one at his bedside saw. He stretched out his arms expectantly, as if he was being fetched, with his face lighting up for a moment. And then it was all over... This left an indelible mark on me as I saw that oupa obviously rejoiced to be ‘taken’ home.                                                                                                                                                 I was however simultaneously terrified because I was nowhere certain where I would go if I would die someday. How I detested the enforced Sunday midday nap which Auntie Maggie foisted on my younger brother Windsor and me. (He had later also joined me there in Elim.) But God used that circumstance to speak to me. The afternoon practice of the church brass band - while I was waiting for the church bell to toll for 2.30 p.m. so that we could go and play - frightened me. I had learned that a trumpet call would signal the return of the Lord. I was not yet ready to meet God if I would die or when the trumpet sound would usher in the return of Jesus at his second coming.

Changes in Tiervlei    

The situation back home in Tiervlei had changed significantly in the interim. Our Dad had been retrenched as a blocker at a millinery factory where they produced female hats. After Daddy had become unemployed, no factory in the clothing industrial union wanted to employ a middle-aged worker on top wages. To put bread on the table for the family ur mom ultimately took employment as nanny of the children of Professor Beinart from the UCT Law Faculty.

         When Daddy eventually did get work as a night porter at Mupine, the hostel for workers of the insurance company Old Mutual, the situation at home left Mom without peace. The financial situation at home continued to deteriorate. My parents saw no other way out than to take our sister Magdalene ultimately out of school as the eldest of the four siblings. Still a 14-year old teenager, she co-operated willingly to help augment the family budget.

Secondary School Challenges                                                                                                        

 For my secondary school training I had to return to the Cape Peninsula from the Elim Mission Station, attending Vasco High School, one of three secondary teaching institutions in the northern suburbs designated for ‘Coloureds’.

         I felt myself inferior to my English-speaking learner colleagues, but yet challenged. In spite of not really working hard, I managed to do well enough to be among the top four learners at Vasco High School in Standard Seven (Grade Nine) after six months. That I was put in a class with Woodwork as a subject – without Mathematics - proved to be something of a handicap. (When I went to ask the principal at the beginning of 1959 whether I could do Latin and Maths, he chased me out of his office. I was too scared to push through my request to be put in a class with Maths as a subject.)

         Nicholas (Klaas) Dirks was my best friend, the only one in my class who resided fairly near to us. In the morning we would walk the few kilometres down Jopie Fourie Street to Tiervlei station, where we boarded the train to Elsies River. From there we walked another kilometre or two to the ‘Acres’, where our school was situated in Wiener Street.

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine!                                                                                                         

Our school principal, Mr Braam, was a fervent Methodist lay preacher who challenged us time and again with the song ‘Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.’ He would stress the certainty he had experienced when he accepted Jesus as his personal Saviour. This made me quite envious because I did not have that assurance. 

I was envious because I did

not have slavation assurance     

            Nicholas Dirks was a member of the Boys’ Brigade of his church. One day he invited me to an event staged by the Sendingkerk (Dutch Reformed Mission Church) Boys’ Brigade at the Goodwood Showgrounds to be held on 17 September 1961. The preacher was a certain Dr Oswald Smith from Canada. The Lord used the Canadian evangelist to challenge me to consider seriously that Jesus did not only die for the sins of the world at large, but also for my sins. The first part was not new to me at all. How often we had been repeating in the church on a Sunday in one of the liturgies Lam van God wat die sonde van die wêreld wegneem…[1). I accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour that day, without however receiving any spiritual discipling thereafter.

            For Standard Eight (Grade Ten) Richard Arendse had shifted into Nicholas Dirks’ place as the best friend in the class. (I had requested successfully to be put into the class that had Mathematics as a subject, dropping Woodwork in the beginning of that year).

Interest in Politics

The Sharpeville and Langa racial upheavals of 1960 were felt all over the Western Cape.  (In fact, the burning of the discriminatory ‘dompasses’ by ‘Blacks’ caused turmoil around the country. Only ‘Blacks’ were required to have such an identity document in their possession at all times.)                                     The indoctrination of Apartheid cemented a racially discriminatory society. An oppressive government aggravated an all-pervasive climate of racial prejudice. Thus I was thoroughly influenced to look down upon ‘Blacks’, who were derogatorily called ‘kaffers’ in our community. I started hating Apartheid but not ‘Whites’ as such.

            At the time of the Sharpeville shootings and the march of thousands of ‘Blacks’ from Langa to the Caledon Square Police Station in March 1960, I was one of the first to leave the Vasco High School premises when a rumour went around that the ‘kaffers’ were coming. With fear and trepidation we bangbroeke quickly left the building.

            I displayed more courage soon thereafter – still a 14 year old teenager - in writing a letter to the Prime Minister, Dr Verwoerd. In my draft letter of protest I addressed the perceived inequalities and injustice of the political system. However, I did not post the letter immediately. When my father discovered the draft letter in my school blazer when it had to be sent for dry cleaning, a serious reprimand followed : “Do you also want to go and squander years of your life on Robben Island?”

            I was not really sad at his discovery, because I did not fancy that prospect at all. (It was well-known that Robben Island incarceration was the fate of people who got too involved in resistance politics.) I had no intention to join the league of Robben Islanders where I might have been joining the likes of Nelson Mandela. That prospect was not attractive at all, to say the least. I loved my freedom far too much.

Medical Studies at UCT?      

One of our high school teachers thought that I should apply for a bursary to the University of Cape Town (UCT) for medical studies. (My father also mentioned the possibility of a bursary. The news of my first class pass at Junior Certificate level (Grade 10) as the only learner from our school – one with only inferior facilities and few qualified teachers – impressed one of the residents of the Mupine hostel where Daddy was working. This person expressed interest in sponsoring me for medical studies at the prestigious UCT.)

         But I never even considered that possibility. I felt myself much too inferior to attend a ‘White’ university. I was however also determined not to go and study at the Apartheid-tainted 'Bush' University College that had just started for 'Coloureds' in Bellville South!

An improved financial Situation at Home                                                                                                

By this time our family had progressed materially somewhat. We were now for example the proud owners of two bicycles. Our sister Magdalene received a new one on her 16^th birthday with which she cycled to the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics factory in Parow. (In the interim she had opened the door for our mother to get employment at Footmaster, the factory near to the Parow train station where they manufactured socks of all shapes and sizes.  Every day the same bicycle which Daddy had been using served as my means of transport after he had returned home from Mupine in the morning. I would then cycle to school and back.  

A Financial Crisis at Home yet again

At this time our mother was forced to stop working because of arthritis - aggravated by the factory work, where she had to be on her feet all day. In those days when only few people possessed a washing machine, Mom would also do the washing for relatives who took pity on us as a family.                                                I matriculated at the end of 1962, with the understanding that I could finish my teacher training after a year of any other employment that I could find. The financial situation at home was not such that all three boys could be kept in educational institutions. Kenneth, the oldest of the sons, had started studies at Hewat Teachers’ Training College, at that time a two-year post Matric course.

God's higher Ways impacting me

After a few unsuccessful attempts at getting clerical work that was as a rule reserved for ‘Whites’ in those days, I settled for a menial job at Nasionale Boekhandel in nearby Parow, cleaning the machines. Returning to our Tiervlei home from the printing works in Parow in the late afternoon of early January 1963, I learned that I had been accepted to study at Hewat Teachers’ Training College in Crawford. This was already very special because annually only about 100 male applicants from the whole Cape Province and Namibia were accepted by Hewat.

         I was quite surprised when my parents disclosed that they felt that I should proceed to ‘Hewat’. Encouraged by the ‘Watchword’ from the Moravian textbook for the day, Isaiah 55:8: “My ways are not your ways ...”, my parents decided to send me to college by faith.

My parents decided to send

me to college by faith

Holy Spirit Conviction          

In the first quarter of 1963 I was deeply challenged by the personal testimony of Dominee Piet Bester, the new minister of the local Sendingkerk congregation, which also used the name Moria. He came to Tiervlei in 1962 (later called Ravensmead). The testimony of Dominee Bester pierced my heart. He discerned that his love for folk dancing was idolatrous. I was challenged: Was I actually idolizing sport? I recommitted my life to the Lord, deciding to break all my ties to sports quite radically.

Preachers from different Denominations      

At this time there was also a lot of movement ecumenically in the circles in which we moved. Thus we had preachers from various denominations on the pulpit of our small church in Tiervlei. Our sister Magdalene invited Chris Wessels, a young Moravian assistant minister at that time.   Chris challenged me to take up theological studies, but I was adamant that the Lord should call me personally to serve Him as a pastor.  The conviction had grown stronger within me that I should experience a divine calling from the Lord before engaging in such studies.

The conviction had grown stronger within me

that I should experience a divine calling

          (Photo: My ID card, which one could apply for at the age of 16)

         As I went into my second (in those days final) year of teacher training, I did not feel comfortable and capable at all to go and teach straight away the following year. Thus I was quite happy that a new third year of teacher training had just started at Hewat. I still looked like a school kid myself. I genuinely feared that the learners would run over me because of my youthful appearance. Alas, the ‘door’ did not open for me to proceed to the third year straight away due to an insufficient number of applicants. I was thus more or less forced to apply for a teaching post.                                                                                     When Kenneth started teaching we could add a second-hand bicycle – but notably a third to the fleet. I was using this one predominantly, hereafter hardly to be found at home over the week-end because of diverse activities.

A Challenge to Missionary Work

God used Ds. Piet Bester to get me interested in sharing the Gospel with others, which included missionary work. Since I was racially classified and raised as a ‘Coloured’ in Apartheid South Africa, I never however considered in my wildest dreams that I would ever get to another country for missionary purposes.

 I never however considered in my wildest

dreams that I would ever get to another country

for missionary purposes.

I started serving as a volunteer at a small open air Wayside Sunday School in someone’s backyard. The run-up to my involvement with the Wayside Mission was actually rather interesting. In the Sunday school of our congregation, I had led a few children to a personal faith in Jesus as their Saviour. I also encouraged them to tell others about their decision to become a follower of Jesus. One of the children from the Sonnenberg family did just this at their home. The staunch Moravian parents promptly complained to the church leadership about the 'un-Moravian' way in which I was conducting the Sunday School classes. To get ‘converted’ to faith in Jesus was regarded to be sectarian by the rank and file Moravian Church member at the Cape, also on the mission stations.

        Our minister, who was also a relative, came to Tiervlei one Sunday every month. At the next opportunity I was called to book. I was however not prepared to budge, deciding to rather stop my Sunday school teaching there. My brother Kenneth took over from me.

        This typified the defiant, rebellious and arrogant spirit of that era of my life. I joined the above‑mentioned Wayside Mission instead.

        When a new Sunday School started in a new municipal housing scheme that was started for people who had been forcibly removed from Parow North, I went to assist there at a daughter Moravian institution while I retained simultaneous links to the Wayside movement. I continued attending Moravian Sunday school conferences.

\I bought a small tape recorder with two reels. Recording the singing of the children and playing it back to them was ever so thrilling and exciting for them, a novelty of the time. Machines that used small cassettes would soon howevter replace that gadget.

An ecclesiastical Misfit

In the Moravian Church I was quite a misfit at this time, linking up with two other young Sunday School colleagues with the name Paul who had the typical Cape Moravian surnames Engel and Joemat. (The latter was a distant relative. Oupa Cloete and his grandmother had been siblings in Elim.) At Sunday School conferences the three muskateers would often launch out in an arrogant way to ‘get the Moravian Church back on track’ in evangelical terms. The two Pauls and I sometimes used unconventional means. Bible choruses were regarded as sectarian in those days, but we had the respected Chris Wessels on our side. (Chris had been in Holland and Germany before he returned to the church’s service. Thereafter he became travelling secretary of the Christian Students’ Association.) 

Teenage Preachers                                                                                                                                  

At our local youth services, I went a step further than my sister, inviting not only experienced (lay) preachers from other churches, but also teenagers like myself to come and preach in our congregation in Tiervlei.

            Thus Allan Boesak came to preach soon after he had started with his theological studies. Coming from what we regarded as far away Somerset West, Allan slept at our home the Saturday evening prior to the youth service the following day. This gave me 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.)

   I eagerly grabbed the occasion to                                sound Allan Boesak out about the                          christening of infants.             

Allan couldn’t really convince me, but I was satisfied that he was honest, that he believed that infant christening is the sign of the new covenant, a substitute for the Jewish ritual of circumcision. (He explained that the latter is the visible sign of the old covenant of God with Israel.)

A major turning Point in my Life

Allan Boesak’s dedication to the Lord made a deep impression on me. When he spoke about the ‘stranddienste’, the beach gospel services of the Students Christian Association at Harmony Park, Allan sowed seed in my heart. This seed germinated when my Moravian soul mate Paul Engel joined us at Hewat Training College. Paul also spoke about that beach outreach. I was soon ready to join the Harmony Park evangelistic outreach.

         The Christmas of 1964 had me spiritually in tatters. I was getting ready for the Harmony Park evangelistic ‘stranddienste’ (beach outreach services), but I was feeling spiritually completely barren. In desperation I called to the Lord to meet me anew. I had nothing to share with anybody, unless He would fill me with His Spirit. And that He did. The Harmony Park outreach of 1964/65 would change my life radically.

Impacted by other Followers of Jesus

For the other participants it might not have been so significant, but the unity of the believers there at Harmony Park who had been coming from different church backgrounds, left an indelible mark on my mind. I did not know the statement yet that God commands his blessing where unity exists (Psalm 133:3). But I did see the Holy Spirit at work there as I had not experienced before.

         Jakes, a young pastor. came to join us after a long drive through the night from far-away Umtata in the Transkei (The town was renamed to Mthatha). We became close friends. Along with my new friends Jakes and David Savage from the City Mission, I started learning more about the power of prayer there at Harmony Park. When Jakes came into the tent one night after an intense discussion with a Muslim, he quoted Jesus’ words about prayer and fasting. This was my introduction to spiritual warfare. Soon I came quite close to Jakes in a sort of David and Jonathan friendship, forged via correspondence. (Occasionally I saw David Savage hereafter as he worked as librarian at the University College of the Western Cape.)

In Harmony Park I received                                                           an urge to collaborate with other                                                        members of the body of Christ

         In Harmony Park I was not only spiritually revived, but there I also received an urge to collaborate with other members of the body of Christ, with people from different denominational backgrounds.

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4. A Teenage Secondary School Teacher

There were surprisingly not enough applicants for the third year “academic” teachers’ course at Hewat Training College for 1965. Thus I had to try and get one of the rare teaching posts for ‘Coloured’ primary school teachers.                           

A few days before the re-opening of schools in January 1965 my old high school principal, Mr Braam, who had just started a new secondary school in Bellville South the year before, ‘by chance’ discovered that I was still available to help him out. The increase in enrolment at his school required more teachers. In those days ‘Coloured’ academically qualified teaching personnel were just not available for the secondary educational institutions. I had just turned 19, but I still looked like a 14 or 15 year old. Thus I would now have to teach children almost my own age. The prospect of being only a few miles from home was however quite attractive.

 Completely unbalanced                                                                                                                      

 I was very much a child of my surroundings and spiritually completely unbalanced. I initially frowned upon lengthy degree studies because I 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 ideologically Apartheid-tainted ‘Bush’ College.

   I conveniently forgot my reservations to study                  at the ideologically Apartheid-tainted ‘Bush’ college.

Soon I was cycling to the school in the morning, and from there to the afternoon and to evening classes. Not knowing that it would come in good stead at a later stage, I had included German Special in my degree curriculum. Often I would utilise the time on the bicycle with a book on the steering bar, e.g. while I memorised the various forms of the German strong and irregular verbs.

        The missionary zeal of Harmony Park, where I participated in an evangelistic outreach just a few weeks before the reopening of schools, was still very much part and parcel of me. It was only natural that a branch of the Student Christian Association (SCA) would be established at the school where I commenced my teaching career. I displayed a lapel badge “Jesus Saves” on my jacket and I challenged people everywhere to accept Jesus as their Lord.  I also started to attend the early prayer meetings every Sunday morning at six o’clock at the Tiervlei Sendingkerk where Piet Bester, the new young Dutch Reformed dominee, became my mentor

I became thoroughly materialistic

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, perhaps even becoming a secondary school principal at a later stage. 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 alma mater, this was quite a tempting option.[2)

Activism as a Teacher                                                                                                                                                In 1966 I was subtly nudging my secondary school learners to boycott the celebrations for 'Coloureds' at the Goodwood Showgrounds. I also challenged my teacher colleagues - as a form of protest - that we as ‘Coloureds’ should request the lower salaries of the ‘Blacks’. That would have demonstrated our seriousness about racial equality. Not surprisingly of course, no colleague was interested in such a proposal, human nature being what it is. Everybody was only eager to get parity salaries with the ‘Whites’.

A Significant Moravian Funeral                                                                                                    Next to my friend Jakes, the relatively young Reverend Ivan Wessels was my other hero at this time. At the beginning of 1968 he suddenly contracted leukaemia - merely 43 years old. Ivan Wessels passed on after a few weeks in Groote Schuur Hospital. Instead of the usual Sunday School Conference at the Pella Mission Station that had been scheduled for the week-end following his death, almost the whole Moravian Church establishment gathered in Lansdowne for the funeral of one of its greatest sons.

         Bishop Schaberg challenged the funeral assembly: “Who is called to fill the gap caused by our deceased brother?” I felt supernaturally and personally addressed.

I was supernaturally and personally addressed

Back home in Tiervlei after the funeral, it was not difficult at all for me to say‘Lord, I’m prepared to be used by you to help fill the void.’ I understood this to mean that I should take up theological studies.

A Bursary for Studies in Germany

The next day we went to Pella for our condensed Sunday School Conference. I was completely surprised when Rev Habelgaarn, a member of our church board, approached me with the question whether I would be interested in a bursary for theological studies in Germany.[4)

            I was very happy to tell Rev Habelgaarn that I saw this as clear confirmation of the call of the Lord the previous day. I was overawed by the perfect timing of the Lord! The temptation to study abroad would have been very attractive. I wanted to be absolutely sure that it was God calling me. My decision to obey God's call would change the course of my life. At that point I did not know that this would take me to Germany the following year and that it would put an end to my career and academic ambitions.

         After another few months of preparations, I had advanced significantly towards my leaving for Germany at the beginning of 1969. There things would happen that would ultimately lead to an exile of just under 20 years.

(Photo: Some of the people who came to see me off at the quayside of the Cape Town Docks: From left to right (front row): my friend Jakes, my Brother Kenneth, nephew Clarence on the arm of our dad, Brother-in-law Anthony Esau, Bishop Schaberg, Mommy, my sister Magdalene and sister-in-law Malie, Back Row: V.C.S. student camp friends John Tromp, Martin Dyers and Richard Stevens. John was also a local Tiervlei Calvinist church youth friend, Martin was a fellow student at Hewat, and Richard a class mate at Vasco High School)

Hearing about Persecuted Christians

Just before I left South Africa in January 1969, I bought a booklet at the bookshop of Nic de Goede, the leader of the Wayside Mission. The autobiographical booklet ‘Tortured for Christ’ by Richard Wurmbrand, in which the author described how he had been maltreated in communist Romania, made a deep impression on me. In Germany I soon had the opportunity to listen to the testimony of the Romanian pastor himself and hear about the experiences of Christians in the Communist countries.

Hereafter I received the periodical of the organization founded by Wurmbrand regularly. I also started a practice of fasting on Friday mornings, praying especially for imprisoned Christians behind the iron curtain. Initially this was more or less merely faceless and untargeted prayer. This would change in later years when we received photographs of the persecuted Christians. Nevertheless, I never really proceeded to become an intercessor in the best sense of the word.

5. An African Missionary in Germany?

         Romances started to play a bigger role in my life. I had just turned 23 when I left South Africa. All around me my peers were getting married. I was however determined from the outset not to marry a German girl because that would have prevented me from returning to South Africa due to of the laws of the country at the time. Rationally, I considered that I would be of more use inside South Africa than outside of the beloved country.

Studies at Tübingen University?       

I regarded the stay in Europe from January 1969 in the first place as an opportunity to study, but it was also combined with some missionary zeal. Fairly at the beginning of my stint in Germany, I opposed Marxist theological students, although I still could not yet express myself sufficiently in German, thus needing an interpreter. At that occasion a German lady exclaimed quite shocked that their ‘Christian’ country now seemed to be in need of mission­aries from Africa!

         From the outset I regarded myself a ‘short term missionary’. In those days this terminology was still fairly unknown. The possibility of a missionary coming from Africa to ‘Christian’ Europe was unheard of. But I was also determined to return to my home country to serve the Lord there.                 

I was determined to return                                                              to my home country                                           

The almost two years in Germany, during which I learned much about youth work in the first year, were very enriching. The last of the two years was devoted to studies in Greek, Hebrew and Latin.[5) 

         I had to guard myself against falling in love if that were possible at all. I had to learn the hard way (well, really?) that also my emotions had to be brought under God’s rule! His ways were indeed higher, also with regard to my future marriage partner. I still had to learn that it was not right to prescribe to the Lord the race to which my future wife should belong. 

Stay clear of Politics! 

Before I left South Africa, Bishop Schaberg warned me to stay clear of politics, because agents from the Apartheid government were also well represented overseas. As a speaker from Africa, I was something of a celebrity in certain quarters, notably on the German countryside. In my talks on South Africa, I spoke about the unique problems of the country. I defined them as the government policy of racial segregation, the disunity of the churches and alcoholism. Individually these issues were not unique of course. However, in the way they were blended in South Africa, they definitely were.  As a solution to the problems, I suggested much prayer because I believed in the power of prayer as a result of the mentoring of Ds. Bester.

I heeded Bishop Schaberg’s warning initially, without however really making a conscious effort. A letter from my parents in June 1969 changed all this. It shocked me out of my wits to hear that our family had been served with a notice of the expropriation of our property in Tiervlei. (Before I left South Africa we had heard that the building on 8 big housing plots – was offered to a Bellville South businessman. Considering that our solid brick house nowhere resembled one of those that qualified for slum clearance, we had initially taken that snippet of information to be an unfounded rumour.)

What really enraged me there in Europe was that my mother mentioned in her letter something about ‘the will of the Lord.’ I could not perceive the move of the Parow Municipality as anything else than a new version of the jealousy of Naboth in respect of the vineyard of a poor man (1 King 21:1-15). In my anger I stopped just short of considering joining the armed struggle against the Apartheid government.

I stopped short of joining the armed struggle                                          against the Apartheid government

The wanton act of the Parow Municipality was of course just an extension of the racist government policies. From abroad I wrote a strong letter of protest to the Parow Municipality, with copies to some people in Tiervlei. But it was all of no avail.  A few months later, while I was still in Germany, my parents were forced to move to the Elim Mission Station.

Theological Studies in Germany?

Rev Rolf Scheffbuch, the leader of the Evangelische Jungmȁnnerwerk in Schwabia, had studied at the Moravian Seminary in the US. He quite readily offered to assist me to study either in Germany or in the USA. Our church leadership in South Africa opposed this however as they felt I could get estranged from my country if I stayed away too long. They did finally allow me however to stay on for another year to study biblical Hebrew and Greek, in preparation for further theological studies.

I became almost reckless

My parents moved to Elim, with my father becoming a ‘migrant labourer’, going there one week-end per month. Health-wise it however became too much for him. It affected his heart. He had to go on early retirement at the age of 58.

Hereafter I became almost reckless in my opposition to the South African government policies. I was very critical of the regime, now also in public utterances. Much of my initial missionary zeal decreased substantially. Resentment towards the Apartheid regime took hold of me. I thought that I had every reason to feel that way. 

The only constraint with regard to the content of my talks about South Africa was a moral and religious one. I wanted to act responsibly as if to God in everything I did. For the rest I couldn’t care less if the government wanted to withdraw my passport or not. In my letter to the Parow Municipality, I had almost invited the folk there to pass the information on to Pretoria. This could have caused major problems for me had they done that at the renewal of my passport.

         At this time I resided at the Christian hostel from where I got in touch with the young people of the ‘E.C.’, the Jugendbund für Entschiedenes Christentum. I became a regular at the ‘Brenzhaus’ every Wednesday evening when I studied Greek and Hebrew. Rosemarie’s student colleague and close friend Elke Maier, who rented a room in the city, had been attending regularly. Rosemarie however, commuted from Mühlacker every day to their training course. She hoped to become an ‘educator’, a teaching qualification for Kindergarten and carer at children’s homes.

Run-up to a special Relationship       

When Rosemarie entered the Jugendbund für Entschiedenes Christentum with her student colleague and friend Elke Maier in May 1970, I experienced something as close to a ‘love at first sight’ as ever there was one, especially after I had spoken to Rosemarie afterwards.

         I was quite disappointed when she stepped just as suddenly out of my surrounds as she had entered. We had no opportunity to exchange addresses or telephone numbers.

         Almost simultaneously with my examination in Greek - two weeks before my scheduled return to South Africa - Rosemarie re-entered my life.

         The most important moment for me during this time was probably Rosemarie’s reaction when I invited her telephonically to join me for an evening with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. Her response was: ‘already from childhood I wanted to become a missionary.’ To me this was the firm confirmation that I wanted nobody else as my future wife.

Opposition to our Friendship

When Rosemarie told her mother that she had fallen in love with an African student, Mrs Göbel immediately opposed the relationship. Fearing an even harsher reaction from her husband, Mrs Göbel disallowed Rosemarie to meet me again. But we could phone (and write to) each other. My darling agreed not to tell her father about the African boyfriend. (He had told her clearly never to marry a teacher or a pastor! This is apart from the indoctrination of Mr Göbel’s own upbringing. That had been an important reason for him to oppose her wish to study in Tübingen where there were known to be many foreign students.).

         Rosemarie was not allowed to attend my farewell at the Christian Encounter evening, but she later learned the chorus “My Lord can do anything ...” We made a recording of the proceedings via one of the recent technological advances, using an audio cassette. At my farewell evening I taught the German young people this chorus as well as ‘By u is daar niks onmoontlik Heer [13]. These two choruses would mean such a lot to us in the months hereafter.

         A foretaste of the miracle that was still to happen occurred just prior to my departure. When she went home the next week-end, Rosemarie’s mama allowed her to see me once more and then also to accompany me to the airport a few days later. I was so happy when she agreed to join me to a performance of Händel’s Messiah when I went to meet her at the train station. 

(Photo: ticket for the Messiah)    

         Everything seemed hopeless with regard to any future for our intense mutual love. We had no option but to stick to the content of the chorus: My Lord can do anything... We really trusted that our Lord could do anything and every­thing.

         We were thoroughly blessed, when we attended a performance of the Messiah. As we listened to the words from the prophet Isaiah: ‘Every valley shall be exalted...’, we looked at each other eagerly and lovingly, adapting the prom­ise to our personal circumstances! How we longed for the fulfillment of the application of the verse from Scripture!

Love grows where my Rosemary goes

I returned to Cape Town in October 1970. The plan was initially that I would attend the Moravian Seminary as a full time student from the beginning of 1971. In the first few weeks after my return, letters flew to and fro between Cape Town and Stuttgart in quick succession. I wrote about every­thing I did, writing on railway stations, reading and re-reading her letters in all sorts of places.  At the Alexander Sinton High School where I taught for a term immediately after my return from Germany, I received letters from my darling. (I resided with my sister her family in Sherwood Park, near to the township Manenberg where mail was not yet being delivered.) Some of the learners would tease me with the pop song that was in vogue at the time ‘Love grows where my Rosemary goes’.

I had no doubt that Rosemarie Göbel was the girl I wanted to marry. My original resolve  ‑ not to get involved in a special relationship with someone from the opposite gender in Germany that could lead to marriage ‑ was thus effectively dashed. On the South African side of the ocean there was furthermore the ominous ‘Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act’ that prevented any marital union between a ‘White’ and someone from another race.

6. Home sweet Home

            My opposition to the government of my home country received a personal touch with my new resolve. A law was prohibiting me from getting married to Rosemarie Göbel. I could not accept that.

            I was terribly in love and was soon telling our wonderful love story to all and sundry. At one of these occasions I blurted out my feelings towards Rosemarie to my cousin, Rev. John Ulster. He was the minister of the Elim Mission Station and a member of the Moravian Church Board. He pointed out to me the obvious, that I had to choose between South Africa and Rosemarie.  But I wanted both. This must have looked really stupid and naive because a marriage to a (‘White’) German was just not a runner at that time. But I was too much in love to accept that. I was determined to marry Rosemarie, ready to fight to get her into South Africa. To everybody around me that idea sounded quite crazy.

Swept along by Race Politics

After my return to Cape Town in October 1970, I was soon swept along by the politics of the day. Thoroughly influenced by books of Martin Luther King and the autobiography of Albert Luthuli during my stay in Germany - literature that was either unavailable or declared banned literature in South Africa - my interest in politics was more than merely aroused. I was ablaze in opposition to Apartheid, regarding this as my Christian duty. One of the first things after my return to the Cape was to join the Christian Institute (CI), an organisation founded by Dr Beyers Naudé.

            At the CI in Mowbray I linked up with Paul Joemat, my old rebel Moravian Church soul mate. There we teamed up with other young people who also had the vision that Christians should be actively engaged in opposing the diabolical Apartheid policies.

            Paul and I were quite disappointed however when we discovered that the ‘White’ members of the CI were not prepared to fall foul of immoral Apartheid laws. I had suggested that we should board a train together and then walk through the different racially designated train coaches. All of us would then probably have been arrested for the infringement. Paul and I were quite prepared to embarrass the government in that way. However, the ‘White’ members hid behind the excuse that it was not CI policy to do illegal things. Paul and I stopped attending the CI young adult events thereafter. (Paul and his wife Rhoda subsequently got involved with other activities which incurred the displeasure of the government. Because of that he was imprisoned at Caledon Square and at Victor Verster prison. Rhoda subsequently became a Member of Parliament, serving there for many years.)

Part time Theological Studies                                                                                    

In January 1971, I bumped into my former Afrikaans teacher, Mr Adam Pick. He was now the principal of Elswood High School in Elsies River. He promptly asked me to come and teach at his school. This came as a bit of an unexpected temptation, as prior to this I had already made the decision to resign from the teaching profession to pursue theological studies. Being a Moravian Church member himself, however, Mr Pick knew that the seminary I was about to attend had just moved to Cape Town after the Group Areas expropriation of the church’s property in Port Elizabeth. He sowed seed into my heart, suggesting that I could also study theology part-time. This is exactly what I decided to do.

I soon took up a full-time teaching post at Elswood High School in Elsies River, making it clear though that I would only be teaching for a year.                                                          

My parents were now living on the Elim Mission Station and my sister and her family resided quite far from the school in Elsies River where I started teaching. I would not have been able to commute from there daily. I thus needed accommodation in the vicinity of Elsies River. There another Esau family d a 3 by 3 metre outside room with one double bed that I shared with my brother Windsor. On the inside of the door I hung my most important possession, a photograph of my beloved Rosemarie. I especially made use of the picture for our regular Sunday 10 p.m. rendezvous. (We had set this time aside to pray for each other exclusively.) What special times we experienced in divine union although we were so many miles apart.

One major Snag

There was still one major snag ever since my departure from Germany: Rosemarie’s father still didn’t know about our friendship. She was at this time doing her qualifying year of teaching at the School for the Blind in Stuttgart, where she also resided.

We could correspond without Rosemarie’s                                              parents getting upset

            Thus we could correspond without her parents getting upset by it. Rosemarie had to promise to keep the information as a secret from her father. She did share it with Waltraud, her only sister. But she knew beforehand that she could not expect any support from that quarter. Waltraud was engaged to her young man Dieter Braun, getting ready for their immanent wedding.

Rosemarie deemed it wise to go home less frequently. The secrecy of our relationship was starting to take its toll, particularly on her mother, who was deeply torn between her love for her husband and the allegiance to her daughter with her ‘wayward’ choice of a boyfriend. She however reckoned with the possibility that I would return to Europe in the future. In a letter to Rosemarie she wrote very wisely:

... I feel that if Ashley were to come to Europe one day, it would be the opportunity to get to know him should you still think about it as at present. Think about how many people have had to experience a time of parting. Sometimes God requires of us a time of testing.  In the meantime, you can learn some additional things for His service, should you serve Him together one day, He will surely make your way clear...

A deplorable Effort to ‘assist God’

Rosemarie’s mom had agreed that the two of us could continue corresponding but her father still did not know about our friendship. A few months into 1971 the secrecy affected Mrs Göbel so much that she landed in hospital with a serious gall ailment. Rosemarie had to face the fact that the tension because of our friendship was the cause of her mother’s hospitalisation. But she also knew that she could no longer keep the secret away from her dear father. The tension at home had become unbearable.

The tension at the Göbel home became unbearable

                        Rosemarie splashed it out to her father when Mrs Göbel was in hospital, causing excessive pain to him. Subsequently she wrote to me about the quarrel she had with her father regarding our friendship.

            I deemed it appropriate to write a formal letter of apology to Mr Göbel. But rather than leaving it at expressing regret, I insensitively requested permission to correspond with his daughter. He replied equally formally, giving the reasons why I should terminate the friendship with his daughter. Ultimately it boiled down to this: He had nothing against me personally, but he didn’t want any of his daughters to marry someone from any country than Germany.

I should have left it at that. Instead, I stubbornly requested him to allow me to continue the correspondence with Rosemarie at festive occasions. Ethically, this was deplorable. I more or less attempted to twist Mr Göbel’s arm in this way. He was too angry to reply, instructing Rosemarie to write me one final letter terminating the friendship! As a result, the tension at the Göbel home in Mühlacker increased to breaking point. Rosemarie decided to stop going home over the week-ends. She did not respond to her father’s request however, leaving me with the hope of receiving another letter at Easter.

I was not aware of this development, going ahead with the writing of a thick epistle. Via my Passover letter I wanted to make sure that my darling would have enough material to read and re-read until Pentecost!! Passover 1971 would have been the next occasion of our mutual exchange of letters in my manipulated reckoning.   Her letter didn’t arrive at the expected time.

A letter arrived that should have alarmed me

After some delay, a letter came that should have alarmed me. She had written about the overtures of a certain young man to whom she was quite sympathetic. But she also wrote that she loved me too much to consider his suit seriously. I felt naively flattered instead of alarmed by her confession.

Getting Rosemarie racially reclassified?                                                                                         Instead of waiting on God’s intervention to enable our marital bond, I decided to ‘assist Him’. I had read in a local newspaper about someone who had been racially reclassified! This seemed to be my big chance. I would not accept the ‘realistic’ choice of either Rosemarie or South Africa that my cousin 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, namely if ‘non-White blood’ (sic) 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. I brushed aside the reservations of one of my lecturers. That I would give recognition to the immoral racial laws of the country by doing so could not deter me. I was too much in love. I wanted to get married to Rosemarie, and I was more than ready to do whatever it might take. 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?

Despite my active pursuit to bring her to South Africa, Rosemarie 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 a big hindrance. In one of her letters she 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 due course. I pushed ahead with my ideas in a rather headstrong way. I seemed to have conveniently forgotten the lesson completely that His ways are higher than our own.

A Confession with grave Consequences

I confessed in one of my letters to Rosemarie that I had kissed another girl. This behaviour was of course absolutely unacceptable. I was claiming to be so deeply smitten with Rosemarie (which I was!), yet somehow I managed to rationalize kissing another girl. I really made some foolish mistakes in the span of my youth! However, I had no notion what a world of cultural difference there existed in this regard. I hardly suspected what consequences my confession could evoke.

Rosemarie’s world almost broke down

Upon reading my disclosure, Rosemarie’s world almost broke down. Her initial reaction was anger, which quickly turned into a deep lingering sense of disappointment. A flood of questions about my character entered Rosemarie’s mind. Had she misjudged me?

Just at that vulnerable moment, a young man who had been interested in her for some time, started courting her. When he asked her if she would like to go on a date with him, she agreed. She was confused and hurt by my actions, and felt that one date couldn’t do much harm.

In Rosemarie’s Passover epistle to me she wrote on pages 7-11 about going out with the handsome young man. The rest of the letter (through to page 18) was however full of so much love for me that I had no great difficulty to accept the fact that she had gone on a date with another man. I was under the impression that this was some sort of episode which was now over. I was too much in love to consider that I could have a serious rival. Not alarmed by her letter whatsoever, I saw in her reply only an honest response, at most some revenge for my confession.

The young man was interested in more than just a single date. An internal wrestle in Rosemarie’s heart began to unfold. Her father had 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 the new suitor 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 the adorable young man. 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 however began to look like a pipe-dream.

Completely oblivious to what Rosemarie had intimated in her Passover letter, I continued writing my next epistle that was intended to arrive at Pentecost. I had elevated this church feast to the next ‘big occasion’. I was of course just looking for an opportunity and an excuse to write a letter to my ‘Schatz’.

Pentecost came and went, but no letter arrived from my bonny over the ocean. I was sure that the South African government had intervened. Our post had to have been intercepted. I surmised that my enquiry after the procedure to get someone reclassified might have alarmed the government. This became a conviction to me, much more than merely an assumption or deduction. Practices like this belonged to the day-to-day occurrences of Apartheid South Africa. If the powers that be could stop our contact in this way, they would definitely not have hesitated. Mixing across the colour bar - especially interaction between the sexes - was utterly resented and rejected by ‘White’ Afrikaners generally.

Nevertheless, I was also very worried that something could have happened to my darling. In unrealistic naivety I still did not even consider the possibility that she could be involved in another romantic relationship. If ever there was any proof needed that love could blind someone, I was definitely a perfect example.

Rosemarie had told the young man of her long-distance relationship with me. She knew that he was very serious about her and thus did not want to mislead him. The confusion in her heart grew rapidly. She knew that he was just the kind of man that her parents would have wished for as a son in-law. He was German to the bone, intelligent and cultured, a prim-and-proper gentleman. She just could not see a realistic future with me, and overwhelmed with sympathy for her new friend after his mother had died, she made the choice that seemed to be the right thing to do, namely getting ready for a formal engagement.

            At this time she wrote a loving parting letter to me that still moves me to tears when I read it: Here is an excerpt of the letter that is printed in its entirety in What God joined together:

… Especially when you experience such a drastic change in your life and

dreams, you should know that God never makes a mistake. But we

must also trust Him firmly. You know, precisely this is what I have

really had to learn. I, too, wanted to lead my life as I wanted to. I could

not understand why my ideas of my future life with you were taken

away one after the other. Yes, Ashley, I believe now that much of what

we thought about in our dreams was really our wishful thinking. You

know how every part of me has lived in this dream. It went so far that

I could not imagine my life in Germany, and especially my life without

you, anymore. But you also know that I wished for God’s blessing for

our future life together above all else. No, I simply don’t want to do

anything without His blessing. I know that such a bond could only be

proper when there would be a conscious blessing on it. Therefore I clung

ever more to our motto (when the doubts came) of which you always

reminded me: WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. Yes,

I really wanted to believe that God would bring us together despite all

the problems.

That’s why I was so disappointed that God gave us so few

confirmations. I often asked, “Why does God allow so much strife in our

family because of this matter if we belong together?” Only when my

mother became so ill - the doctor said that it resulted solely from stress,

i.e. because of the tensions - I started to doubt whether our plan really

had God’s blessing. Thereafter, this doubt never left me...

Divine Interventions

A set of interventions would follow over the next weeks. Rosemarie never posted the letter; not because she did not mean to. The intention was always there! It was simply a delay for practical reasons, as there was no post box in the section of Stuttgart where she stayed. She intended to send it as soon as she was able to get into town. For about two weeks, the letter lay on her desk, inducing feelings of guilt every time she saw it.

I had no clue of what had occurred in Germany, though. Completely oblivious to all of this I continued to await Rosemarie’s Pentecost letter fervently. Day after day, I was hoping for an airmail envelope with the familiar handwriting to arrive. Those few weeks seemed to me like an eternity. I was now convinced that the South African government had abused the letter in which I had asked for information about racial reclassification. I firmly believed that ‘they’ wanted to stop our love affair in this way.

Months before this, I had formally resigned from teaching to go into full-time pastoral work. Just at this point in time, I received a cheque from the government as repayment of money that I had paid into the State Pension Fund. The amount of the cheque was more or less just what I needed for the cheapest return air ticket to Luxembourg. After some intense prayer, I expediently perceived the government cheque to be divine provision to fly to Europe in the June vacation of 1971. Any doubts about the correctness of such a drastic step as going to Germany were dispelled when I heard from Trek Airways that the flight just after the start of the school holidays was fully booked and that I was waitlisted. This, in my opinion, was a very convenient way of testing to see if it was right to use my pension cheque in this way. Two-hundred-and-sixty odd Rand meant a lot of money in those days. I argued that, “if it is the will of the Lord that I should go, then He would get me a place on that flight”.

When I received a phone call only a few days before the departure date that one seat was free, I saw this as a clear indication that I should go. I had considered the venture prayerfully enough! So I finalized the booking, and headed for Luxembourg in June 1971. If Rosemarie had however posted the letter, I would possibly not have boarded the flight heading for Luxembourg.

The ensuing trip did not end with ‘… happily ever after.’I soon was also aware of the disappointment of the likeable rival that I got to meet at an event of the Offener Abend in Stuttgart. The Hospitalhof had been the same very special venue where Rosemarie and I had attended the eventful evening with the Wycliffe Translators a few months prior to that.

Emotional Pain

But of the three of us, Rosemarie surely experienced the excruciating emotional pain the most. When I now appeared so suddenly, she knew whom she loved most of the two suitors. At this time she wrote to me:

If God has really led us together again, and given us a new love, then I can’t do anything else to believe than that I belong to you.

         She knew full well that the problems at home would flare up again. After an intense struggle in prayer, Rosemarie decided to part with both of us. Everybody had understanding for her decision, even her parents. I had full empathy for her decision, but my own faith was also tested to the full.

         The last time Rosemarie and I were together, the Lord comforted us in a special way. Although we had the inner conviction as never before that we belonged to each other, we reticently agreed to part, committing our future into God’s hands. We more or less put the ball ‘into God’s court’. He had to unite us again if it was His will that we should marry one day. I for one knew that it had been wrong for me to try and assist Him through letters to the South African authorities or the like. But I did know now that we adored each other as always. That was ample consolation for the moment.

         The next few days I still had serious trouble to release Rosemarie completely. I did not fly back to South Africa in high spirits. But something did happen through my coming. I saw a fraction of the riddle, God’s mosaic with us. If I had not come all this way to Germany, she would have become formally engaged soon thereafter and that would have meant the tragic end of a special romance.

         I did however return to Cape Town with an added maturity.

Divine Intervention

We faithfully still kept to our mutual promise, our ‘rendezvous’- to pray for each other every Sunday evening at 21h mid-European time (10 p.m. South African time). I was sharing a small 2 by 2 metre room with one bed with my brother Windsor at this time.

         For the rest, Rosemarie and I heard about some of each other’s activities and whereabouts through the faithful Hermann Beck, my Stuttgart room-mate, whom I had dubbed Harry. Almost like clockwork he would return my post. He was studying in Tübingen, where Rosemarie now worked as an occupational therapist with terminally ill children.

         God intervened in Rosemarie’s life a few months later when it became clear to her that she loved me too much. It came as quite a shock to me when Rosemarie wrote directly:

                                                                                                Tübingen, 7th November 1971

            “MAY THE LORD BE BETWEEN YOU AND ME”

... You must know that it was the love, but also the trust in our Lord that led me to write this letter to you to tell you of my decision. Precisely because I want to love Jesus above every­thing, I want to be absolutely obedient to Him. You know, out of a genuine love must also grow a complete trust. Out of this trust I want to take a step in faith that will lead both of us into a genuine inner freedom. Yes Ashley, I know now clearly that it is God’s will that we part. More I can’t and should not tell you now. You may expect more particulars through Harry. May you experience the compassionate love of God!

         She felt that her love to me was obstructing her relationship to God. Later she described this as her Isaac experience, comparing it with the Bible narrative of Abraham, who had to sacrifice his son. Rosemarie thought that she had to sacrifice me completely.

         The Lord had prepared me for this shock. Just prior to this letter, I received a letter on behalf of Dr Theo Gerdener, the Minister of the Interior, informing me that the government could only reclassify Rosemarie once she was in South Africa. This was of course logical. This letter helped me to release her completely, even though this was only temporarily.

Jakes comes to the Cape!

In the meantime, my close friend Jakes had accepted a call to the Cape. I was elated. He would be responsible for ministry in the newly started township of Hanover Park, where many of the former residents of District Six were moved to.[18] Our old Jonathan and David relationship flared up. Over the weekends I often went to his home after the Sunday evening service, when we would have long discussions, often about a possible wife for him. He was a bachelor of long standing and I was determined to become one, at least until my 30th birthday. Of course, I was still hoping that one day my wife would be ‘Rosemarie Göbel aus Mühlacker’. In spite of my activism on more than one front, my heart was still aching. This was foremost in my prayers. We ‘communicated’ supernaturally, with glorious hours of ‘fellowship’ as we continued to pray for each other every Sunday evening at a agreed time.

      

Immersed in the Politics of the Day            

I was completely  immersed in the politics of the day at that time. Literature that was banned in South Africa for political reasons that I had been reading overseas had already stimulated activism in me. My interest was more than merely aroused by the inequalities and injustices I was seeing all around us. When I returned from Germany, I actually xpected to land in jail because of non-violent protest quite soon.

         The Moravian Seminary already had a bad name with the government because people of all races were coming there. Even students from Stellenbosch University with their conspicuous maroon striped blazers visited us. In those days racial mixing was regarded as subversive. Clearly influenced by the emerging Black Theology, I was fond of wearing my ‘Black is Beautiful’ T-shirt defiantly, especially after I heard that its sale had been banned. With Koki chalk I wrote ‘Civil Rights’ at the back of another T-shirt and Reg en Geregtigheid - rights and justice - at the front. (This meant of course that I couldn’t wash this T-shirt for many months, but this didn’t trouble me much, as long as I could posture these sentiments, knowing full well that it could bring me into trouble.

Also in church politics we gave the denominational leadership a rough time. From our perspective the older ministers emulated the government in their dealings with opposition to traditionalism in the church. In spite of my activism on more than one front, my heart was still aching that I couldn’t write to my Rosemarie directly. This was still foremost in my prayer

   7. Roaming Rosemarie

            After finishing her training Rosemarie had to choose where she would do her practical year as intern to become an Erzieherin. She could have chosen to go to the prestigious Karlshöhe in Ludwigsburg. Instead she chose to go to the school for the blind in Stuttgart. Because she came from there, I met her again just prior to my return to South Africa. I was sending my letters to that address. What a blessing it was that we had a very reliable postal service on both ends! Every week I wrote a letter and every week I received one of the familiar airmail ones.

Correspondence with Stuttgart Roommate                                                                                       There would be quite a few changes for Rosemarie over the next few years in terms of location. The choice of the children’s hospital in Tübingen for her first job was surely not the easiest. But it was very convenient for her and me. My Stuttgart roommate Hermann Beck was now studying there. Hermann and I corresponded quite avidly, with him now a sort of middle man through whom Rosemarie and could keep abreast of the whereabouts of each other.                                                                                     Formally Rosemarie and I had parted in mid-1971, but in our heart of hearts we still prayed for the miracle to happen to get reunited despite the notification from the Minister of the Interior that Rosemarie could only be reclassified in South Africa.

In the beginning of 1972 Hermann wrote in a letter that he thought that Rosemarie still loved me. About the same time my sister Magdalene said more or less the same to me. I knew intuitively that Hermann was right because I was longing for a miracle to happen that God would bring us together again. Hermann’s faithful letters through which I could still keep abreast of what was happening in Tübingen, kept that hope alive. Reunification looked impossible.

In Tübingen Rosemarie had to keep little patients company. The bulk of them were terminal. At this time we had started planning for Rosemarie to come to South Africa.  

Spiritually Miles apart                                                                                                                                 

Hereafter we could start counting the days to the beginning of March 1973, when Rosemarie was due to arrive in Cape Town. Great was the disappointment when March came and went without any news of the work permit and her visa. At first we thought that this would be a mere formality. I was therefore completely stunned when Rosemarie phoned me via the direct line from Germany. She had received a terse letter from the South African Consulate, informing her that she had been refused a work permit.               We deemed it quite important that Rosemarie should at least get to know South Africa and my family. Therefore she applied again, this time for a tourist visa. For the second time a visa was refused. (Neither of us was aware that she had by now actually been blacklisted in respect of entry into the country.)

            As for me, I now had to face the fact that my resolve to have both Rosemarie and the country I loved and in which I felt so strongly called to serve, was looking more and more like an unrealistic dream. I had to choose.                                                                                                                                 

I wavered for some time, very unsure what I should do. However, our Church Board cooperated optimally. They suggested generously to assist that I could go and work with the Moravian Church in Germany at the end of that year after the completion of my theological diploma.                                      Looking back, we saw that the Lord was very gracious to us. Our brittle love would have been put under extreme pressure by the compulsory sphere of secrecy caused by Apartheid laws. But also theologically and spiritually Rosemarie and I were miles apart at that moment. I had become rather liberal under the influence of  activist ‘Black Theology’, a variant of ‘leftwing Liberation Theology’.Rosemarie had been impacted in Tübingen by American missionaries who had been trained at Bob Jones University in the US, an institution that was notorious for racist attitudes and legalist theology.

Picture: Rosemarie baptized by immersion

Interaction with the Jesus People     

The Lord was clearly also working in my life, chiselling away many a rough edge. My student colleague Fritz Faro had a lot of interaction with the Jesus People, a group of young men and women with close links to the hippy movement. That caused a mini revival at the Cape at the time. Many of those young people who got converted from an anti-Christian life-style subsequently became leaders in Church and society in South Africa and elsewhere. We seminarians appreciated their radicalism, but we had problems with their a-political stance.

         Spiritually, the radicalism of the Jesus People did rub off on us. It reminded me of the days with the VCS/SCA student movement of which I had become estranged, possibly because of the activist liberal theological phase through which I was going.  

A Letter from Germany

On my return from a political protest event with other tertiary students for equal education for all to the seminary in District Six, there was a letter from Germany. It had come completely unexpectedly, directly from my darling!

         I could hardly believe what I saw there in black and white. Her mother had given us permission to resume our correspondence. Mrs Göbel had been challenged by the Old Testament ‘Losung’, the Watchword on her own birthday: “…love the stranger in your gates.” Ahead of Rosemarie’s 21^st birthday, her mother was comforted and encouraged by another word from Scripture “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Rosemarie’s mother understood that to mean that she had to accept me as a prospective son-in-law. She reacted positively, giving Rosemarie permission to write to me again! This was very courageous of Mrs Göbel, knowing that she was actually opposing her husband. She had however also set out simultaneously to win him over to accept our relationship.

We could now proceed to attempt bringing my bonny to South Africa, so that she could be racially ‘reclassified’. That was a condition for a possible marriage according to a government directive.                         I spent the last part of the June holidays of 1972 with my parents in Elim. There I had a frank discussion with them about my political activism.

My parents were prepared to sacrifice                                                     me going to Europe

In Elim I also discussed the issue of my love for Rosemarie at length. I spoke of my hope to get her racially reclassified. In response, they stated clearly that they would be prepared to sacrifice me if I went to Europe, rather than seeing me bring Rosemarie into the humiliations and injustices of an Apartheid-permeated South Africa. I was too much in love to appreciate their generous gesture appropriately.

I disregarded the objections of my parents. At the same time, we were not aware that Rosemarie’s mother also attempted to get the consent and blessing of her husband to our union. She was trying to win Papa Göbel over, sharing this in correspondence with Anne Schlimm, the wife of our seminary director.

         Encouraged by this development, my mentor, Reverend Henning Schlimm, facilitated a teaching post for Rosemarie at the ‘Kindergarten’ (Pre-school) of St. Martini, the German Lutheran Church in Cape Town. I was unaware of the great courage the local German minister, Pastor Osterwald, had displayed to appoint her. Knowing on the one hand the background of the appointment, but on the other hand also aware of the racist attitude of some of his congregation members, he asked Rosemarie not to disclose anything about the appointment in her letters to me. Pastor Osterwald advised: ‘I want to tell you that your decision to start this daring venture will lead you into many a conscientious conflict...’

Farewell South Africa!

Other things kept us busy at the seminary, such as preparations for a youth rally with the theme ‘Youth Power’ in the Old Drill Hall.[6) 

A youth rally with the theme ‘Youth Power’                                  had Dr Beyers Naudé,as high-profiled speaker

Dr Beyers Naudé, the leader of the Christian Institute, was our high-profiled speaker. The theological seminary played a major role in organizing this event. Apart from playing the trumpet in our small band, I was not fully involved in the run-up to the event because of the preparations for my pending departure for Germany.  Dr Naudé lodged with the Schlimm family, where he heard about the background of my departure. 

         There were all sorts of other things to see to like bidding farewell to friends and relatives.prior to my departure. Fol­lowing in the footsteps of my cousin Hester Ulster, who married Tubby Lymphany and who was living in the UK, we expected this to become my final fare­well to South Africa, most probably never to return.

From yet another side, I was squeezed. In the months prior to the scheduled departure, various leaders of the Christian Institute (CI) had their passports confiscated just before their respective departures from Jan Smuts Airport, Johannesburg. Although I was only a very inconspicuous member of this organization, one could never know. The presence of Dr Beyers Naudé at our youth rally did not augur well for me. I wrote to Rosemarie that I would phone her from Johannesburg should the government prevent me from leaving the country.

Wasn’t I just running away

Yet, there was also the nagging uncertainty whether my decision was God’s will. Or was it my own way? Wasn’t I just running away like the biblical Jonah? I couldn’t muster the courage (or faith?) to apply for the extension of my passport in time! (My passport would have expired soon.) I bought a round-trip ticket, although I didn’t intend to return to my fatherland. I booked a ticket to leave fairly soon after the completion of my theological examinations in November 1973.

8.  Run-up to an extraordinary Honeymoon

         All the anxiety with regard to my getting out of the country proved to be unnecessary.  Rosemarie and I were soon enjoying every minute of being together after the years of involuntary separation. It was however not easy for my darling that I made no secret of the fact that I regarded my return to Germany as a sacrifice.

First Visit to Rosemarie’s parental Home   

I was due to visit to Rosemarie’s parental home in Mühlacker for the first time soon after my arrival. Besides a disapproving remark of her father about the cheap wind breaker I was wearing, our encounter could not be described as a clash. However, I had no clue of what was going on in his mind. Agreeing to meet me had been a big deal for him. And now, upon seeing me in person, he was confronted with the fact that I was serious about his daughter; serious to the point that I wanted to marry her. This thought must have plagued him tremendously. Mama Göbel still treasured the command from Scripture, but her husband had too many inculcated hang-ups around the matter.

Mr Göbel could not accept a foreigner as a possible future son-in-law. In the weeks that followed, there was once again much stress and debate in their home because of my relationship with Rosemarie. The tension escalated to the point that my darling’s parents requested her to leave the home.

My darling’s parents requested                                                       her to leave the home

Coming from South Africa with all its racial prejudices, I could cope with these developments much better than Rosemarie. She really struggled with the fact that she had been requested to leave. Understandably, this was very hurtful to her. She did, however, also know that she was not expelled because her parents didn’t love her any more.

Elke Maier’s parents in Gündelbach lovingly took Rosemarie into their home, treating her like their own daughter.

Engaged for Marriage

Rosemarie and I became engaged for marriage in March 1974, albeit with no family from either side present. A week later I was all set to leave for West Berlin, where the main part of my vikariat (working as a curate) would take place.

For the 31st of March I was booked on the night train to far-away West Berlin, to serve as an assistant pastor in the Western part of the divided city. In the morning I delivered an unconventional sermon, putting an evangelical challenge to the congregation in the form of an advertisement.

With the Underdogs

With my luggage packed, I went to the local soccer field in the afternoon where the local team was due to play against a team of ‘Gastarbeiter’, i.e. guest workers from southern European countries. While the visitors were waiting for more players to arrive, I joined in the fun, kicking the ball around. When the guests noticed that I possessed some ball skill, I was promptly picked to join them for the game. After all, I was also a guest worker in Germany! Looking back at that experience of almost 45 years ago, I see how God aligned me with the foreigners of another country, so to speak in support  of the underdogs.

Just after half time during the soccer match I heard a funny sound as I stepped into a hole on the uneven surface. I immediately stopped playing. I cycled home but noticed some pain. When my ankle got swollen, I still did not suspect that I had actually fractured my ankle. A local doctor immediately sent me to the hospital for an x-ray. They hospital kept me. In fact, instead of taking the train the same evening as scheduled - to travel through the night -  I spent quite a few more days thereafter in the hospital in Villingen, the nearest town.

          In far-away West Berlin the members of the church brass band were getting ready to welcome the new African vikar the next morning. When they received the news early in the morning that I

                                                Everybody thought that                                                                                     it was an ‘April Scherz’

had broken my ankle, everybody thought that it was April fool, an ‘April Scherz’.                                         Neither Rosemarie nor I was really sad, because this meant that we would be much nearer to each other at least a little longer...

A few weeks later the West Berlin Moravian congregation enjoyed the privilege of an inaugural sermon of a new vikar with a difference: I walked to the pulpit with my leg still in plaster of Paris!

Service in Transkei?

At a German Moravian pastors’ conference shortly thereafter, I shared the room a few months later with Eckhard Buchholz, a missionary from the Transkei in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Unlike so many other people, he was not skeptical at all about the fact that the South African government intended to grant independence to a ‘homeland’. Transkei was one of the enclaves by means of which the Apartheid regime attempted to reduce the numbers of ‘Blacks’ in ‘White South Africa’. Eckhard challenged me to come and work in the Transkei after the commencement of independence of the ‘homeland’. This was expected to happen in 1976. Eckhard was confident that Transkei would not take over the prohibition of racially mixed marriages. I gladly accepted the challenge, encouraging him to send me audio cassettes so that I could start learning Xhosa. (My language learning effort in this regard was however lost when I never had opportunity to practice this skill thereafter.)

Going behind the Iron Curtain

In West Berlin I became involved in the practical support of the East European Christians in their struggle against Communism. Time and again I would take Christian literature to the Eastern part of the city when we met the Moravians who were suffering under the Communist regime. This was not completely without risk, because I was always picked out from the queue either because of my external features or my South African passport. Once, I was very surprised when the officials actually looked into my satchel with the illegal Christian literature openly displayed. Yet, no action followed. God must have closed their eyes.

            For the rest, our support of Christians in the Eastern part of the divided city was low-key. One incident was quite quite hilarious. Every year there was a meeting at the end of the year of young people from the West, meetings their peers from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Language was no barrier because all of us spoke German.

Before going with the other young people of other congregations in West Germany I took a letter from my Schatz from the letter box. It would have been very impolite to start reading the letter while I was with the others in the tube or while we stood in the queue at the border of the tube station in Friedrichstrasse, the entry into the Communist part of the divided city. It was no surprise any more when I was ‘randomly’ picked for scrutiny. The female interrogator soon found out that I had a letter with me. She was not impressed when I told her that the letter I had with me was from my girlfriend. ‘Open the letter! Read!  She might even have been touched because Rosemarie’s letters to me were always so very special.

At a visit by Bishop Ulrich to Berlin he invited me cordially to visit them in Prague. So seldom they had visitors from the West. Having someone from South Africa would have been such a treat to them. Various factors added up that I was never able to oblige. 

Determined to return to the African Continent                                                                                

I was quite determined to return to the African continent as soon as possible. Taking for granted that Rosemarie wanted to be a missionary one day, I expected that she would join me as my wife, going to the Transkei. During her visit to West Berlin soon thereafter, I vocalized my intention to return to Southern Africa with her after our marriage.

I vocalized my intention

to return to Southern Africa

I was completely taken by surprise to hear that she was not at all ready to join me in returning to ‘Africa’!

Neither of us was prepared for this turn of events. What could we do now? On the issue of our future abode, we seemed to be miles apart - both figuratively as well as literally! In our utter despair, we cried to God for help! We loved each other so intensely. We didn’t want to part, yet this was a matter we had to agree upon. We knew that it had to be sorted out quickly. We loved each other far too much. In complete desperation we prayed together, asking God to guide us through His Word.

Divine Intervention needed                                                                                                        

Divine intervention seemed to be the only possibility for saving our union. Both of us knew that it would not be the ‘proper’ way to handle Scripture randomly. In our desperation we sought God’s will by prayerfully opening the Bible, not knowing what else to do. When the Word of God fell open at the verse where Ruth said to Naomi, “I shall go where you go,” we were filled with awe and thankfulness. We were elated as we eagerly accepted this as God’s special word for us. We could go into the unknown future together, and that’s what both of us dearly longed for!

Had we discussed the issue further, we might have encountered a big problem; both of us interpreted the Bible verse subjectively. I trusted that this meant that Rosemarie would join me in going back to Africa. She thought that I would now stay in Europe at least a number of years. Thankfully, we didn’t pursue the matter further. For that moment, parting was not an issue any more. We were overjoyed at this confirmation that we would be serving the Lord together, wherever He would lead us!

Back in Southern Germany                                                                                                                           In September 1974 I was back in southern Germany, joining the ‘Predigerseminar’ (preachers’ seminary). In the tiny village of Bad Boll, at the headquarters of the European continental province of the Moravian Church, I was now studying there with three other ‘Vikare’ (curates) in preparation for ordination and independent pastoral service.

            During this time I was preaching in many a church, sometimes in villages on the countryside where I was a sort of celebrity . At one such an occasion there was major disappointment because they had been expecting a ‘real’ African, it is one who was black. Preaching at the church of Karl Schmidt was quite special. He had been ministering in Shiloh in the Transkei where I hoped to go to with Rosemarie after our marriage. He was a pioneer for the Free Mandela campaign in Germany. From him I took along stickers which I posted on letters to South Africa

I looked at working in Germany for three years or so at the maximum, hoping to return to Southern Africa with my wife Rosemarie. It became clear to Rosemarie and me however that the time for living together in Southern Africa was not yet ripe for us as a married couple. We nevertheless wanted Rosemarie to get acquainted with my country and, if at all possible, that she would get to know my family. For the third time, but with increased hope, Rosemarie applied for a visa to enter South Africa. Along with the application she sent an explanatory letter, mentioning the fact that I was now living in Germany. We reasoned that a major obstacle to a visa should have been eliminated because of this.

The Moravian Church Board in South Africa cooperated optimally once again. Rosemarie was invited to come and work as a volunteer at the Elim Home for children with severe disabilities for a period of two months. The institution on the mission station was the first of its kind in the country for people of colour.

Rosemarie was invited to work                                                       at the Elim Home

She would thus be serving on the same mission station where my parents lived. Theoretically, my darling and my parents would thus be able to get to know each other well over this time.

Plans and Preparations for the Wedding                                                                                            

At the same time, we also started to make plans and preparations to get married after Rosemarie’s return from South Africa in May the following year. We were greatly encouraged when we were informed that the Special Branch (of the police) had left a message in Elim, stating that Rosemarie and I could come to South Africa together, on condition that we would not alert the press. We had no intention whatsoever of going to South Africa as a couple. Therefore it really took us by surprise when instead of the requested two months, Rosemarie received a visa for only two weeks. A ticket for two weeks would have been quite expensive.

            We were nonetheless quite happy that she managed to get a visa at last! That was progress in our eyes. And hadn’t the Special Branch given us an idea? The thought of spending our honeymoon in South Africa was so enticing! We decided to bring our original wedding date forward, to be in South Africa for the Passover holidays.

      The activism which had taken hold of me ever since my return from Europe in 1970 and which had been substantially fed during my seminary days, was re-ignited. The stress I caused for my darling when I prompted her to write a letter to the Consulate was not what I bargained for.

          The Consulate in Munich had been notified fairly promptly by the Minister in Pretoria that Rosemarie should get a conditional visa for four weeks. But all this was not conveyed to her. Plagued by the uncertainty of whether the visa would be extended or not, Rosemarie decided to phone the South African Consulate in Munich directly. The lady on the other side of the telephone line was rather impolite in her dealings, deeming it necessary to point out to Rosemarie very rudely that her fiancé should know the South African laws.

A Visa with a strange Condition                                                                                                        This phone call led to nerve-wrecking correspondence with the authorities in Pretoria. In the end we felt compelled to get clarity by undertaking the 200 kilometer drive to Munich to see if we could get the matter sorted out. We did this in February 1975, about a month before our proposed new wedding date. In Munich we discovered that Pretoria had already notified the Consulate in January that Rosemarie had been allocated a visa for four weeks, albeit with the condition that she would “not travel to South Africa accompanied by your future husband.” The lady at the Consulate warned us not to try and circumvent this condition. Unwittingly, she gave us an idea.

 Initially I didn’t see any problem with the condition. I was so elated that Rosemarie had received a visa at last to visit my home country!

In her Renault R4 on our way back from Munich, my darling had an apt but vexing rhetorical question for me:

 “What sort of honeymoon is that?”

She wasn’t prepared to go to my ‘heimat’ (fatherland) alone any more.

All the arrangements for our wedding had more or less been finalized by this time. Rosemarie’s question hit me by surprise and I had no answer ready!

With a fearful heart I agreed to fly to South Africa separately. We would thus defy the warning of the Consulate official. We knew that I could be arrested. She had received a letter to certify that she was aware that our marriage would not be recognized by the South African government.                           The prospect of spending my honeymoon in prison was not so wonderful, but I agreed to take the risk nevertheless. The idea that I would be able to see my country and loved ones was just too enticing. When I had left the Cape in November 1973 this seemed impossible!

I became untruthful                                                                                                                            

To ensure that our plans would not be wrecked at Jan Smuts Airport, Johannesburg, I became untruthful. I gave the impression in my correspondence to my parents and friends that Rosemarie would come alone. I felt that the risk would be too great to inform anybody of our intention to circumvent the condition of the visa. It would have been quite easy for the government to send one (or both) of us back with the next flight or to lock me up. I still held a South African passport.

Henning Schlimm to marry us                                                                                                      Our friend and confidant from my seminary days, Reverend Henning Schlimm, had just returned from South Africa with his family. He was due to take up a post as minister of the Moravian Church in Königsfeld (Black Forest). It seemed almost obvious that we should marry there and ask Henning to perform the ceremony. (We could not consider marrying from Rosemarie’s parental home, although her mother had participated fully in all the preparations. When I came from South Africa in November 1973 I had started my vikariat there in Königsfeld.) I had not met her father again since that day soon after my arrival in November 1973, after which Rosemarie had to leave her parental home. Nevertheless, we kept on praying, hoping that a miracle might still happen and that Papa Göbel would change his mind to attend our wedding.

                                    Rosemarie wrote a loving letter to her father

Rosemarie wrote a loving letter to her father, apologizing for the hurts caused by our relationship and pleading with him to attend our wedding. Sadly, he would not be swayed to come to Königsfeld. He did not see his way clear to attend the wedding. We were grateful that he gave his wife full freedom to act in line with her own convictions.

On Thursday the 20^th March 1975 (two days before the church ceremony), we became husband and wife legally in Rosemarie’s home town, Mühlacker. We deemed it a special blessing that her mother agreed to serve as witness, along with Elke Maier, who had such a big part in the run-up to this moment. Nonetheless, a cloud was still hanging over the proceedings because my parents and family were not represented, Furthermore, Papa Göbel had no liberty as yet to attend. Rosemarie got a new passport with a new name. She was now Rosemarie Cloete.

On the Saturday, the stage was set for our church wedding ceremony. I was quite content with the simplicity which the German wedding custom allows. It does not prescribe bridesmaids and best men, or special clothing for the flower girl and page boy. That suited our pocket perfectly in the light of our honeymoon plans.

The wintry conditions in Königsfeld could not mar our joy. Virtually until the last minute we were busy with preparations and chores like removing ice from the windows of our wedding ‘limousine’, Rosemarie’s tiny Renault R4.

The Königsfeld church choir rose to the occasion with a splendid performance of ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s desiring’, giving the service a festive touch. The highlight of the church ceremony was undoubtedly the sermon. Our friend and mentor Reverend Henning Schlimm understood magnificently to intertwine parts of the thorny road up to our marriage with the biblical verse that we had requested him to speak on, the Moravian watchword for that day: You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself (Exodus 19:4).

Many a tear was shed; we were overawed by God’s goodness and grace. Hadn’t we experienced through the years clearly enough how He bore us ‘on Eagle wings’?

The Father bore us ‘on Eagle wings’

Our hearts were filled with gratitude and joy towards the mighty God whom we would serve together, joined in marriage.

Despite the indescribable joy we experienced that day at finally uniting in marriage, and the sense of gratitude towards God for his favour on us, there were still unresolved issues. For one, Rosemarie’s father did not attend the joyous celebration and he had not given our marriage his official blessing. And then, the laws in South Africa were still against us. What would happen during our honeymoon? What if I would get arrested? What would be the consequences if we would we be caught out together seeing that I was not supposed to have been in South Africa

?Photo: Henning Schlimm marrying us with Rosemarie’s godmother Helena (??) Gösele Hermann Beck and his wife Gerda in  the baskground

 9. An Exile to all Intents and Purposes

         Three days after our church wedding Rosemarie and I parted for the start of our honeymoon. I left on a Lufthansa flight and Rosemarie was ready to fly the following day with South African Airways.

Untruthfulness coming Home to roost

My untruthful correspondence with family and friends was however coming home to roost soon. I had been misleading all and sundry that Rosemarie would be coming alone. From Johannesburg I phoned Wolfgang Schäfer, our Seminary lecturer, asking him to pick me up me at the Cape Town airport.[24] My sister and her family were not at home when we arrived in Sherwood Park.[25] Thus I requested Wolfgang to drop me at my friend Jakes’ home. What deep sorrow I felt when I saw how my dear darkish-complexioned friend turned completely pale when he opened the door. He was so completely unprepared for this turn of events!

         Soon it was agreed that I would be sleeping at Jakes’ house the first night after Rosemarie’s arrival. I was quite happy with this arrangement because I could thus catch up on the latest church news at the Cape. Jakes had become quite an ecumenical figure since our days in the Student Christian Association through which we had met. He had been a member of the CI almost since its inception and later he did some spadework - along with Dr Beyers Naudé - for the erection of the Broederkring, an organization where ministers of the 'Black' (non-'White') Dutch Reformed Churches met informally for fellowship.

         There was however one big hurdle. My parents still did not know that I had come to South Africa as well. I thought of sending them a telegram – these were short messages that one could send to people who had no telephone at home. But in the end I didn’t do it. Telegrams were delivered via the local Post Office. In a small village like Elim one had to be very careful, especially since the (police) Special Branch had been there with clear instructions for our stay.

         The next morning I utilized the opportunity to go to the Newlands Cricket Ground.[26] To see the likes of Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock in action was just too great an opportunity to miss. But I couldn’t stay there as long as I would have liked, because my darling was scheduled to arrive in the afternoon.

         On the spur of the moment I decided to go along to D.F. Malan Airport to welcome my bride on home territory. On her arrival at D.F. Malan airport, I was there to welcome her with:

         “Das ist ein richtiger Hochzeitstrauß!” (This is a proper wedding bouquet.). She could however not really appreciate my gesture. She was too much shocked that I had come along and on top of it, kissing her there publicly! That was not a wise move on my part. Thankfully, there were no negative consequences.

                                    *                                  *                                  *                     

         Coming from a cold, wintry Europe with Königsfeld covered in snow at our wedding, we could not have given Rosemarie a better treat than to go to the beach the very same day. Here the problems could have started with all the racially segregated beaches, but the Esau’s – the family of my sister - had a good solution. He took us to a beach that had not (yet) been racially classified!

A “real” Welcome?   

On Good Friday, the 200-kilometre trip to Elim Mission Station was on our programme. When we arrived there, I thought impulsively that Rosemarie should get a “real” welcome by my parents and not in my shadow.  After all, I was not supposed to be in the country. I instructed Rosemarie to go inside while I hid myself in the car outside. This idea was not good at all. A few minutes later I regretted my version of ‘surprise’ very much.

         From the car I could hear the warm welcome given to my wife, coupled with general relief with regard to Rosemarie’s ability to speak English. (Jakes – who had also met her in Germany the previous year - had left almost everybody with the impression that she could hardly speak any English, albeit that he did it in jest. Now it turned out - as the Esau’s have of course already discovered – that it was not such a big problem after all.) The first few questions about the journey and so forth didn’t pose any problem, but then the crunch came:

         “How’s Ashley?”.... I had put Rosemarie in a real predicament. I salvaged the situation for that moment by appearing “from nowhere”, but this was too much for our dear mom. She burst out in tears hysterically....

         This was to be expected. Not only had I misled them through my letters, but they also did not expected to see me again. That was Apartheid reality. Now I was standing there in front of my parents, so unexpectedly.

         In this unforgettable - close to sacred moment - I could only embrace my parents and my newly wedded wife, also as a consolation. This treasured moment still belonged to our wedding cere­mony.

        

Honeymoon Adventure

Rosemarie and I tried not to provoke anybody through our presence, but on the other hand, we had now set ourselves the goal to be ourselves as much as possible. We would simply do the most convenient thing with regard to notice boards and the like. We would act as if we were in any other country. This meant in concrete terms that we had to ignore the notices indicating the facilities for the different races.

         Initially there was no necessity to appear in public. But now I also wanted to show my wife some things of Cape Town. One of the first areas that she just had to see was District Six, or more correctly, what was left of it. This slum area of Cape Town with its beautiful setting between Table Mountain and the sea had been declared a 'White' area in 1966. In the years thereafter, many houses have been demolished. District Six was the part of Cape Town where I had spent my first and last years in South Africa. While I was studying at the theological seminary just prior to my leaving South Africa for good, we witnessed the bulldozer at work - demolishing one house here, and a shop there.

I took Rosemarie to the vicinity of my childhood, but unfortunately our parental house at 30 Combrinck Street had already been flattened. The two houses to the left and the right in the row were still standing there. Thus she could get some idea of what the area looked like. However, she could still see the Zinzendorf Primary School where I had my first years of schooling as well as the seminary building, previously the old parsonage where the German missionaries lived..

On that particular Saturday morning Wolfgang Schäfer was actually teaching at the seminary. Quite conspicuous was the presence of lady students like Rica Goliath and Angeline Swart. In our days that was not possible. The group coming together in this way was actually pre-empting a synod decision to accept female students at the seminary.  (Rica and Angeline were to become leaders in the denomination at the turn of the millennium.)

For the Sunday a visit to our church in Tiervlei where ‘Boeta’ John Ulster was now the minister, was almost obligatory. (When he was minister in Elim in 1970 he had put the obvious choice before me, either Rosemarie or South Africa. I had however not given up on the hope to return to my fatherland with my family) The two Blue Gum trees that stood forlorn on both sides of our gate in Northway Street in Tiervlei reminded me where we once lived, where we spent so many happy days as a family.

I also took Rosemarie to the two schools where I had last taught - Elswood High School and Alexander Sinton High School. At the latter institution I had received letters from my dear darling immediately after my return from Europe because post was not yet being delivered in Sherwood Park where my sister resided with her family. At this school there were still a few Matric learners who immediately wanted to know whether my wife is Rosemarie. (With the pop song ‘Love grows where my Rosemary goes’ in vogue at the time, it was not so difficult for them to remember her name.) A visit to Elsies River had to include meeting the family from where I wrote many a letter and where I had her photo on the door of the tiny buitekamer (outside room).

Be Normal in an abnormal Society?

After the week or so in the South African sun, Rosemarie had tanned quite a bit. Her general looks were not such that she could not have been ‘Coloured’. In my company this would probably have been the usual deduction because “Black and White together” still did not belong to South African way of life - it was just not seen or done.[29] But behaving normally entailed of course speaking to each other. Exactly this caused some disquiet, because now it immediately became clear that she is no national. But here Mr Vorster’s 6-12 months speech[30] came to our rescue! One could almost read the minds as we conversed in German, probably something like:

         “Obviously these are foreign tourists, part and parcel of the new South Africa the Prime Minister has promised.”

         Our “normal behaviour” caused some uneasiness at the 'White' counter of a bank in Strand. Requesting the lady to change German money, I said:

         “Mag ek asseblief die geld omruil?” My counterpart was totally flabbergasted! We used the counter for Whites to change foreign money, but I addressed her in Afrikaans. Clearly she could not hanle this. When she disappeared - most prob­ably to find out whether she could serve me - I was wondering what her reaction would be on her return.

Six months after Mr Vorster’s Speech          

But it is the year 1975, six months after Mr Vorster’s speech. The lady could not quite hide the emotion of uneasiness when she now tried to serve us as polite as possible. Treating a ‘Coloured’ as an equal if you have been educated and inculcated otherwise, was not easy after all. She did it dutifully but clearly shaken.

         After visiting various friends and family in the Western Cape, we travelled through the Eastern Cape, via the Transkei to Natal, spending only a night here or there at various homes. After a wonderful weekend in Pietermaritzburg that was forced upon us in a way because of petrol rationing, we moved via Zululand to Johannesburg. The whole journey was very adventurous, because we were not supposed to be together, let alone driving as a couple in a car. We experienced many a close shave. The one in Johannesburg was perhaps the most striking.

         We arrived in the “golden city” at about midnight. It was clear that we could not go to the Potbergs, the family of the befriended Moravian parsonage at that time of the night without their knowing of our coming. (From different places along the route I had tried in vain to reach them telephonically). I knew that there was a hotel for ‘Coloureds’ in the suburb Bosmont[31] where they lived. But we had no idea where this suburb of the second largest city of Africa was. We could not think of a better option than to get information at a police station - of course very fearfully. Now it was Rosemarie’s turn to hide in the car. The police explained the way to Bosmont more or less. After having driven some distance, we became unsure whether we were still on track. At a traffic light I tried to check it out with another motorist. How happy we were when the Indian gentleman explained that he was going in the same direction. We should just follow him. We never doubted that he would bring us to the hotel as he had said. (Being a born and bred Capetonian, we had been brought up with so many negative ideas about the criminality in Johannesburg that fearful doubting could have been normal.)

            The last day or so in Johannesburg were quite special.

You can call me Papa!

Having fulfilled the condition of the visa - not to enter the country together as a couple and after our honeymoon with a difference - we returned to Germany with thankful hearts that nothing happened that could have spoilt the memorable trip. However, the honeymoon did bear a stamp of finality regarding my new status: I was an exile to all intents and purposes.

One of the first things back in Germany 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 visited their home was still vivid. After the tragic occasion one and a half years prior to this, Rosemarie had to leave her parental home. On this bright sunny afternoon we however experienced one surprise after the other. Our faith had been too small, because God had wonderful things in store for us.                                                                    Papa was 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 would 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 him 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 once again!

A Lack of Christian Virtue     

My conscience didn’t leave me in peace because we had circumvented the condition of Rosemarie’s visa. However, I also felt that we should encourage the South African government towards real democracy. A letter to the Prime Minister served this double purpose well enough, but I went too far when I tried to justify our actions. In this letter, I displayed a lack of Christian virtue by hitting back quite hard at the officials because of the bureaucratic blunders made by the Consulate in Munich.

I was courting trouble by sending a copy of the letter to the Consulate. I “earned” the jitters a few days later. An element of revenge on my part had clearly played a role. I should not have been surprised when my activist attitude sparked an angry response.

The consul twice tried to contact me telephonically but on both occasions unsuccessfully. He had discovered the name of Breyten Breytenbach in my correspondence. (I used the precedent of an illustrious Afrikaner, who had been allowed to visit South Africa with his Vietnamese wife. I tried to use that as a lever to get Rosemarie into the country.) This now turned out to be an unfortunate move. Breytenbach had been arrested in the meantime in terms of the law concerning the suppression of Communism. By mentioning Breytenbach’s name, I made myself suspect.

When the consul phoned the second time, he threatened with disciplinary measures, under which we understood the confiscation of my passport. Therefore I just had to be available at 18h when he would phone again.

Rather fearfully I went to the phone at the set time. I suspected that it would be about our visit in South Africa and my letter to the authorities. It was very reassuring that I knew that Rosemarie and other friends were praying, while I was on the phone with the consul.               

The Lord worked mightily: in the course of a few minutes the tone of the consul changed 180 degrees from tough to cordial. In the end he actually offered his aid in a very friendly tone. If ever I would encounter problems in Europe, I could call on him. (It was never necessary to use his offer).

This experience encouraged me to work towards achieving reconciliation and democracy in my home country.

Traumatic End to a Pregnancy

Rosemarie’s first pregnancy, a sequel of our trip to South Africa, was not normal at all. The gynaecologist in the Schwabian village Boll, where I was doing the last part of my theological and pastoral training, should have monitored the pregnancy better.  We were not only completely inexperienced, but also very unwise. Soon after the pastoral ordination in September 1975, we travelled in an inconvenient truck to Berlin with our meagre possessions. There I was returning to the same congregation where I had been assistant to the pastor the year before.

An extremely emotional experience followed soon after our move to Berlin. The very first time Rosemarie went to the gynaecologist there, he discovered problems. He diagnosed placental insufficiency. She was sent to hospi­tal, but the baby couldn’t be saved. Even though we had not ‘planned’ to get a baby in the first year of our marriage, we had really looked forward to the birth of our first child. Our little David came stillborn into the world.

Even more traumatic for Rosemarie was that she was alone in her grief. I had to preach on the Sunday when the hospital gynaecologist decided to ‘fetch’ the lifeless foetus. The staff of the institution, the ‘Neuköllner Krankenhaus’, was hardly interested in her as a person once it was known that the baby had died.

I should have asked someone else to preach in my stead to be with my wife in her distress to help share the pain. Only the Turkish lady cleaner showed any compassion to a young mother who had lost her first born!

The Stewardship Issue

As a teacher I had already battled with the discriminatory racial income disparity of South Africa. Having been on the receiving end of injustice was in fact some consolation because I knew that we as ‘Coloured’ teachers were earning almost double that of our ‘Black’ counterparts. And we had much smaller classes to cope with to boot!  But I also felt uncomfortable that I was earning so much more as a single male – being a graduate - than breadwinners who had to make do with so much less in monetary terms and with whole families to feed.

         Before I left the South African shores in 1973, I had been influenced indelibly at the theological institution in Ashley Street in the heart of District Six in yet another way. The Moravian Seminary not only increased my awareness of political (in)justice, but during the three years from 1971-1973 I also became very sensitive to structures that perpetuate economic inequality. From 1 December 1973 I had become an unmarried assistant minister of the Moravian Church in Germany, getting a salary that was a multiple of what my colleagues with families and with many years of experience were earning in my home country.

         It was crystal clear to me that the annual salary increases in Germany were only possible because of the disparity between rich and poor countries. This bugged me. Suddenly I started seeing ‘White’ South Africans in a different light. I discovered that they were similarly enslaved and imprisoned by a rotten system of injustice.

         Come January 1974, my guilt syndrome was driving me nuts when our salaries were increased by almost 10%. During the first months of our marriage from March 1975, I felt very much alone in this regard. I could not even speak freely about this with my wife. Our very first Christmas in Berlin as a couple highlighted my dilemma. We received a fat bonus – in many parts of the world it is called a 13^th monthly salary - in a spiritual climate where the birth of Jesus Christ almost disappeared in the wake of the commercialized atmosphere all around us.

The Christmas of 1975 changed things when the extreme ‘Weihnachtsrummel’ (Christmas commercial hype) of Berlin was in such sharp contrast to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the Transkei. (I had kept up correspondence contact with Reverend Willy Mbalana, who was the Moravian minister in Sada. The latter village was an Apartheid creation, a ‘resettlement area’ where redundant people were dumped - such as those who returned with diseases from the goldmines.) Rosemarie came to the party brilliantly by making a doll house out of ginger bread and all sorts of sweets like smarties. The house was accumulatively auctioned, thus harvesting quite a few Deutsche Mark. All the proceeds went to the struggling Moravian church of Sada. (Of course, in Cape Town the commercialization at Christmas had not been that much different. Already there I had my problems with the abusive commercialism, but in Berlin it was too much for me. At first, Rosemarie couldn’t understand my emotions, but gradually she became more sensitive to my feelings in this regard.)

Special Guests

A major strain of our marriage occurred after we had taken a young drug addict into our home. Rather inexperienced about the challenge such a step would involve, we had little hesitation when we were asked to consider accommodating him. In the end Rosemarie threatened to move out unless I send the young man away who made our lives so miserable. Nevertheless, the Lord started to birth compassion in our hearts for drug addicts.

         Mona Godefroy from Swaziland was the first of another category of guests who stayed with us for some length of time. She approached us after ANC guys had expected special favours from her in exchange for a study bursary. Over the years we would give accommodation to many a person who had become destitute because of unfortunate circumstances. 

Low-key Protest against Church Tradition                                                                                           My personal protest against senseless church tradition was fairly low-key.  I still had to internalize the better application of protest, viz from the root meaning from the Latin pro testare, to witness positively. The West Berlin congregation was notorious for its conservatism.

           I did not deem it important enough to stick to my guns on what I regarded peripheral issues, finding compromise the loving and wise thing to do. I was thankful to have been fairly successful in breaking down barriers of tradition and prejudice, such as against foreigners, notably through our attitude to the Turkish youth who came to play on the grass at the church. I also helped paving the way for a female as my successor the Passover week-end of 1977, by highlighting in my sermon at Passover that Mary Magdalene, a formerly demon possessed female, was the first person to share the good news of the resurrection of the Master according to the Gospel of John.

Straddling the Christian World

In the city of Berlin itself I straddled the Christian world. Because of my anti-Apartheid stance, some leftist pastors invited me to preach in their church. On the other hand, I worked alongside the organizers of an evangelical campaign with Ulrich Parzany, who was up and coming as an evangelist. In those days it was rather unusual to be evangelical and at the same time radical in one’s opposition to Apartheid. Not everybody had understanding that this was perfectly possible. Some people probably regarded me as a foreign misfit. Some might have been very upset if they knew that I also attended the occasional Pentecostal service with Pastor Volker Spitzer at Nollendorfplatz.

Towards a non-racial Set-up in South Africa!                                                                                   Various anti-Apartheid groups started pulling at me after my return to Berlin after our marriage. They seemed to hope getting a 'real' Apartheid victim who was fluent in German! I was however determined to retain my independence, definitely not prepared to be put in front of the cart of any group.

The fear of a serious backlash after a takeover by a ‘Black’ government in the 1970s and 1980s was quite pervasive among ‘White’ communities of South Africa and very understandable. There had been warning voices from the side of individual ‘White’ South African clergymen because of the country’s oppressive race policy, but these went unheeded. The role of ‘Black’ spokesmen like Bishop Desmond Tutu was even less appreciated in the 1970s, especially when they referred to the bondage of ‘Whites’ by racial prejudice.

Seed sown towards racial Reconciliation         

Yet, valuable seed was sown towards racial reconciliation by ‘Black’ clergy who had a good track record. One of them was Bishop Alpheus Zulu, who hopefully opened the eye of many a ‘White’ person when he stated: ‘… Some black people... refuse consciously and deliberately to retaliate…’

         He however also warned: ‘At the same time it would be a grave mistake to presume to think that such attitudes will survive callous white discrimination.’ 

Every week I still received the airmail edition of the International Star. Thus I remained informed about developments in South Africa. I had been reading how trouble was brooding in Soweto, with learners demonstrating against what they perceived as the enforced imposition of Afrikaans.

The uprising of the 16^th of June still took us all by surprise. The deaths of young people in Soweto in 1976 threw me into an inner turmoil, into trepidation that the expected eruption of civil war in my home country was now dawning.

With Pastor Uwe Holm, a local leader of the Lutheran State Church, I got spontaneously involved in organizing a protest meeting in the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis’ Church in central Berlin. The 16^th of June 1976 catastrophe made even more of an activist out of me. I feared an escalation of violence that could lead to the widely expected bloodbath of cataclysmic proportions in my beloved South Africa.

Starting a Front for peaceful Change?         

I now set out to start a front for peaceful change to use non-violent means to get the racist South African structures dismantled. I wrote letters to various people but support was not forthcom­ing. All bar one of those persons whom I approached had given up on South Africa. Only Rachel Balie, a distant relative (my grandmother’s maiden name was Balie) who had come to study in Berlin, supported us in this venture so that it was virtually still-born. The reaction of the government to the peaceful protest of the students was to almost all and sundry the proof that the days for boycotts and the like were over.                                                At this point in time I saw boycotting South Africa as one of the remaining options short of the armed struggle that I opposed. Yet, from within I was not completely happy. How could I suggest some­thing where others back home had to bear the brunt? Of course, there were also Christians who were opposed to boycotts for different reasons. (It is repugnant that some of them received money and perks from the South African government for their defense of apartheid!)

         Rachel Balie told us about a meeting by Christians who were to all intents and purposes supporting the apartheid government. Professor Bart Oberholzer, the moderator of the South African ‘Hervormde Kerk’, visited Berlin 1977 in the spurious company of right-wing evangelicals. He was translated by the local Professor Wintherhager. Because of the support to apartheid of his denomination, I put some uncomfortable questions to him in the public meeting. The guest painted an idealistic picture of the South African ‘Blacks’ and their beautiful music. At question time, I asked why they do not worship together with the ‘Blacks’ and thus get mutually enriched. This made our guest quite uncomfortable.

(Photo sporting an Afro)

         My Afro hairstyle did not help our cause however. Herr Motschmann, one of the renowned protagonists of the opposite group referred to the Communist onslaught in Cambodia, while he looked askance at me. To all and sundry the message was clear: I was obviously to be regarded as one of those Communist guys who infiltrated church meetings. (In those days it seemed that many German Christians expected that one could either embrace ideas pertaining to the Communist/socialist block or one had to be an apartheid-supporting evangelical.) Thus, each and every one could deduce that I had to be a Communist. The propa­ganda machine of the South African government worked perfectly!

An Attempt to apply my Stewardship Conviction                                                                        

 My fight against Apartheid got a new direction. I hereafter challenged various leaders of the Apartheid state with letters to set the example to the rest of the world through a voluntary sharing of resources with the poor of the country. My role models at this time were Bishop Jan Amos Comenius and Count Zinzendorf, who took their cues from the Bible. That Bishop Comenius had stated that we can erect signs pointing to the reign of the coming King, inspired me. Thus it is not so important if one does not see any immediate fruit of one’s actions. Similarly, the example of Count Zinzendorf - including his ‘Umgang mit dem Heiland’, his day-to-day intimate relationship with the Lord, next to his high view of the Jews. - challenged me in a deep way.

 An Africa-styled Wedding in Berlin  

The West Berlin Moravian congregation had no qualms when Eckhard Buchholz, my missionary friend from Transkei, wanted me to marry him and Cathy Ncongo there. The authorities in Pretoria would surely have fainted if they had attended the Africa-styled wedding in Berlin in October 1976. Not only was it very special to see the beautiful black bride narrate the African customs with great self-consciousness, but also to hear a racially mixed group of South Africans - including a few of them exiles - singing Nkosi sikelel i’Afrika. In those days that anthem was regarded as subversive inside the beloved country. The West Berlin Moravian congregation soon discovered that Africa also had a lot to give. With Cathy’s Roman Catholic background, it was fitting that Alan Boyles, a ‘Coloured’ Natalian who studied for the priesthood when he met his German -background wife Helga, translated my sermon into English for the sake of the bride.  The church people had no idea how special and meaningful it was for a South African contingent to sing ‘Nkosi Sikelel I’Afrika together as a racially mixed choir.                                     But the Germans did enjoy the ‘bring and share’ church celebration, a community occasion which was unknown over there at that time for a wedding. (Normally only a few people would have been invited.) This was a completely new experience for the German congregation.

Birth of Danny

Great was the joy a few months later when we had my parents with visiting us in Berlin. Soon thereafter, Rosemarie was pregnant once again.                                                                                                         Tension arose when a complication set in again. She was therefore closely monitored in the highly- rated Steglitz Hospital. All the more we were happy when Rosemarie gave birth to Danny on 4 February, 1977. However, she had to deliver by way of a caesarean in far-away Spandau - in the opposite corner to Neukölln in the metropolis of West Berlin. In the end it was touch and go or we could have lost our baby son as well. The umbilical cord around his neck prevented him entering the world in the normal way.

        Rachel Balie, a distant relative (my grandmother’s maiden name was Balie) came to study in Berlin. She soon became a friend of the family. She and Elke Maier were logical choices to be godmothers along with Waltraud, Rosemarie’s sister.

Difficulties encountered       

Rosemarie got involved with various aspects of the church life like the children’s club and the church choir. At home our little Danny kept her quite busy enough although I helped to give him the bottle and cleaning him. I never got to relish the latter chore though!

In our own church I encountered difficulties. Because of our clear stand on moral issues and through my preaching, during which I would challenge the very traditional Berlin-Neukölln Moravians to submit completely to the claims of Christ, the younger generation especially couldn’t appreciate Rosemarie and me anymore. The lack of compatibility of my voice with the microphone in the church also created some tension. Older people with hearing problems had difficulty understanding me.

The Moravian Church Order allowed for infant dedication, so that a child could be baptized at an age when he/she could understand what was done. We had a battle with the local church council when we wanted to dedicate our son instead of christening him according to the tradition. We were upsetting the applecart. The dedication of infants turned out to be only a theoretical possibility. This caused quite a furor, with someone in the church council putting it quite bluntly: ‘How can the son of the minister walk around as a heathen?’ Normally I would have fought the issue to the hilt, but at that point in time we didn’t want to blow up the matter out of proportion. When another couple wanted to have their infant christened over the same Passover week-end as we had planned, we decided to budge instead. Our colleague, Albert Schönleber, was prepared to accommodate two separate ceremonies with the different modes. I did not want to force the issue.         

Called to Holland                                                                                                                             The Moravian European continental church authorities needed a pastor who could learn Dutch quickly. Because Afrikaans is my native language, they approached us. (We had earlier indicated that we were open for a call to work among the Surinamese people in Holland.            )                                                           We received a phone call from our church head office in Bad Boll (Germany) with the question whether we would consider pastoring the Moravian congregation of Utrecht in Holland. We had no hesitation to accept the call after we had visited there on orientation. Before this we had been planning to go to South Africa in February 1978 to show our son Danny to my parents. We had to postpone these plans when we accepted the call.                                               

Mediator in a Dispute

Reading the books of Martin Luther King in Germany in 1960/70 helped to make me a radical activist.

After my ‘Soweto’ speech in the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis’ Church in Central Berlin, I was catapulted into the role of mediator in a dispute between foreign African students and the local authorities. After listening to my effort of mediation, Heinz Krieg, who was connected to Moral Re-armament, made an appointment with me. A friendship started with him and his wife Gisela. When we left for Holland in September 1977, he gave me a challenging book as a parting gift with the title: South Africa, what kind of change? I was challenged once again to become even more of an activist for racial reconciliation in my home country. This was also the start of a stint with the Moral Re-armament movement.

A Visit to Herrnhut                                                                                                                           A highlight of the last few months in Berlin was a visit to Herrnhut in August 1977 at the 250^th year celebration of the revival that kick-started world missions like nothing else ever since. Normally those people who would go into the German ‘Democratic’ Republic proper – as opposed to only going to East Berlin, were very thoroughly checked at the borders. Having our baby Danny with us, we of course also had to take nappies and other baby utensils along. This helped a lot that the scrutiny at Checkpoint Charlie was not as stringent as it otherwise would probably have been.

It was a special privilege to lead the Bible Study at a family camp that coincided with the celebrations. Just as memorable was an evening meeting where Christians from neighbouring socialist countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia also attended.

At that occasion I was allowed to give a short ‘Grusswort’, a word of greeting, That meant usually that it had to be short and to the point.  The believers from Poland were very disappointed that I didn’t speak longer. The Polish Christians were obviously more starved than the East Germans from meeting people from outside the Soviet Block. At a time when I was personally struggling with the materialism of the church in the West, I was really blessed by the convincing walk with the Lord of some of those believers in the Socialist part of Germany.

Our hosts regarded it their special privilege to have us lodge at the church’s Gästehaus. We had a big fright however when I slipped on the stairs of the guest house with Danny on my arm. Our six-month old son had an ugly blue scar on his bum. After a thorough examination nothing serious was detected. The answer to a question by the doctor was reassuring: the blue mark was due to my Asian ancestry – the so-called Mongolian birth mark.

                                               

10. Becoming Radically Activist

            In September 1977 we moved to Broederplein in the historical town of Zeist in Holland. From there Rosemarie and I would serve the Moravian congregation of Utrecht of which the bulk of the congregants had origins in Surinam (Dutch Guyana, South America).                                                        

Advocacy on Behalf of Friends         

Soon after our arrival in Holland we received a letter from our friend Rachel Balie, who had returned to South Africa after the completion of her studies. She wrote that Chris Wessels, a minister colleague and long-time friend in whose home Rosemarie and I had been on our honeymoon journey, had been imprisoned. Nobody from his family knew where he was incarcerated. He was never formally accused or brought before a court of law. Later we understood that his main 'offences' were his involvement and role in the formulation of a hard hitting statement at the conference of the South African Council of Churches and that he helped to care for the families of political prisoners on behalf of that body.

         Shortly before this, on 12 September 1977, Steve Biko died while in police custody. We feared that the same thing could happen to Chris Wessels.

         Egged on by Rosemarie, my activist spirit was aroused. I moved into action mode, attempting to nudge the Moravian Church leaders to intervene on behalf of our brother in detention. Initially it involved something of a battle to get our church authorities in Bad Boll (Germany) on board, but they subsequently also urged Moravian church leaders in other countries to write to the respective S.A. Embassies. We heard later that this move possibly saved Chris’s life.

         We were still settling down in Zeist when all of us were shocked by more bad news from South Africa soon thereafter. Dr Beyers Naude was banned along with the Christian Institute and a few other organisations that opposed apartheid. He had been our high-profiled speaker in a public rally on ‘Youth Power’ in the Old Drill Hall just before my exile-related departure for Gemany in November 1973 to marry Rosemarie. (Our theological seminary had played a major role in organizing that event).

Difficulties in Holland

In Holland itself my radicalism harvested difficulties. Soon after our arrival there in September 1977 a local Moravian church member who was responsible for organising lay theological training heard me mentioning rentmeesterschap (stewardship). Promptly he deemed it fit to invite the young minister of Utrecht to give teaching on the subject to his students. Hardly anybody was possibly fully happy that I also included church traditions for scrutiny and possible eradication.

That I invited folk from Moral Rearmament[9] to come and use a slide show on Christmas Day 1977, instead of having a normal traditional sermon, was not a wise move however. No Broederraad (Church Council) meeting would pass hereafter without fierce criticism aimed at me. Rosemarie initially also attended these meetings in our home. When we relocated the meetings to the church building in Utrecht, she had a good excuse not to attend them, because of the need for care of our baby boy. This saved her the unfair attacks on her husband.

Yet, in the beginning of 1978 I was not even remotely contemplating christening of infants as one of the traditions to scrutinize. Only a few lay people attended the Saturday lay training classes. Nobody there seemed to take offense at the radical[12] statements initially. I had derived them from my private biblical studies. Hereafter however the water heated up. I challenged the church practices on every level, suggesting that we should scrutinize all the traditions of the Church with the Bible as measuring stick.

A terrible Fright                                                                                                                            

We had started making preparations for a second visit to South Africa when we got the fright of our lives. Rosemarie went to our home doctor in Zeist, because she noticed a lump at her throat. Dr Wittkampf suspected a tumour! We feared the worst upon his reaction, when he phoned the hospital straight away!

I hurt Rosemarie immensely when I was so insensitive to verbalize her possible passing on as an opportunity to return to my Heimat. What a strain this brought to our marriage, the first really serious disagreement in our blissful marriage because I dared to express this rather indiscreetly. Years later she explained to me that she interpreted that as wishing her to die so that I could return to South Africa. (After the traumatic experiences in the run-up and aftermath of our honeymoon, she was not yet ready to return with me to my fatherland, resisting this idea fiercely.) She did not want to live in South Africa permanently. To raise children in such a racist environment was the last thing she wanted to do. Her prayers thus went along the line of “Lord, I’m prepared to serve you anywhere in the world, but not in South Africa!”

Reprieve from a very unexpected Source                                                                                        

In our utter despair we turned to the Lord in prayer. A Bible verse, John 16:20, comforted us wonderfully: “Your grief will turn to joy!”

          A positive element of the detection of a tumour in Rosemarie’s throat was that we were given some reprieve from the malice and accusations in our Utrecht Broederraad. Suddenly it seemed as if everybody rallied around us. In those days having cancer was like a death sentence. The Lord somehow spoke to Rosemarie through this experience. She now became prepared to serve the Lord in South Africa if He would spare her life. But she did not share this with me.

A few weeks later the tumour was removed in an operation. The laboratory examination showed that the tumour was benign! Indeed, our grief turned to exceeding joy!

Life as a Couple                                                                                                  

How we rejoiced at the new lease of life together as a couple! Our next newsletter, in which we testified of the blessings of Rosemarie’s recovery, caused ripples in many a quarter. We had written the letter in two parts. The first part was written before it was discerned that the tumour was benign and the last part reflected the joy we experienced. Amongst others, a copy of the newsletter landed up at the ANC head­quarters in Lusaka. However, I was still not prepared to climb onto any political bandwagon. Instead, I challenged the ANC leaders there on some issues.                                                                                                  Our personal newsletter had also found its way to the anti-Apartheid Movement in England. A copy of the newsletter was possibly sent to them via folk from the Moral Rearmament ranks. But I was not interested in currying favour with people. Instead of supporting the Anti-Apartheid Movement, I wrote to them a critical letter. Referring to the root of the word protest in Latin, viz pro testare - to testify positively for something - I wrote to them that I prefer to fight for justice, rather than protest against something bad.

Hunger after Justice                                                                                                                                         As a radical activist I had started collating the documents and correspondence pertaining to our struggle with the authorities in South Africa, giving the manuscript the title Honger na Geregtigheid [8] (Hunger for Justice). As a matter of ethical principle I hoped the work to be published in Afrikaans first.

         I received special permission to visit my home country with my wife and our one and a half year old son. This permission can be regarded as an achievement via quiet diplomacy. It was possible after we had written an accompanying letter to the government. I still hoped that we could bring the Cabinet to scrap petty Apartheid laws gradually so that I could return from exile sooner rather than later. My pragmatic approach would change substantially in due course.

         In correspondence with the Moravian Church leadership back home and with the government, I still tried to fight my way back into the country, initially with the intention of serving in the Transkei. My hope in this regard - which was not fully shared by Rosemarie – was interrupted when we were called to serve in Holland. It never became relevant again because the continuation of our service in the Moravian Church got very much in the balance hereafter.

General Indifference to Injustice                                                                                                      

In September 1978 we left for South Africa on a six-week visit. During this trip experiences with the Moravian Church leaders and with the folk of Moral Rearmament were quite traumatic.  We moved to and fro between the township and shack surroundings of Sherwood Park, Manenberg and Crossroads on the one hand and the posh residential areas like Glenhaven and Fish Hoek on the other hand. The stark differences were hitting us like never before.

And then there was the general indifference to the injustices of South African life that seemed all-pervading, along with the rationalizing of it by people from whom I least expected it. I was especially very disappointed in my church leaders and their reaction to the imprisonment and restriction of Chris Wessels, our friend                                                     .                                                                       At a meeting of the Moravian Church Board that I was privileged to attend, I challenged the advocacy of the denominational leaders on behalf of Chris when he was imprisoned the previous year. It was not wise. I merely got the Church Board members in opposition. When I furthermore also suggested to come and work in South Africa for three years and thus cause another crack in the Apartheid edifice, I was put in my place in no uncertain terms. My activism was possibly too much for the South African Church Board. My subsequent disappointment and anger thereafter was misplaced. It was caused for a great deal by my provocative arrogance.

My activism led to estrangement from the Moravian South African leaders. My conclusion may have been overdrawn that I was not welcome to return to my home church. But wasn’t our Lord also rejected by his own people time and again? Looking back, my suggestions must have sounded unrealistic to the bulk of them. Nevertheless, I was furious!

Apartheid had the Beating of me

With our cash running out towards the end of our stay, we decided to go and enquire at the central train station when we noticed an advertisement for cheap train fares. Our pride was still very much of a deterrent to approach our family for money to fly back to Johannesburg. Entering the ‘White’ part of the train station to enquire – and thus trespassing one of the prevalent petty Apartheid laws - was much less of a hindrance. We were not really sorry when the young Afrikaner behind the counter at the station was embarrassed by our request to travel to Johannesburg by train as a family. His face turned completely red as he stumbled to find the right words, ultimately stuttering the honest answer: “We discriminate here, you know, I have to ask my boss.” After a few minutes the station master himself came to explain that he had to ask the System Manager of the Railways. We should phone back the following day.

         When we phoned to hear whether we would be allowed to travel together in the same train compartment, we heard that the matter had to be dealt with at Cabinet level.  My deep disappointment turned into anger.

         A few days later, we drove from Grabouw as fast as possible, where we had celebrated Daddy’s birthday on 30 October, to get to the city before 16.30h, the closing time of the railways’ office.  I decided to go to the station without phoning again. If they would have had no news yet from Pretoria, we would then just have travelled third class. (For third class travel no booking was required.)

         We got caught in the peak hour traffic and therefore delayed. ‘Alas, oh dear!’ We arrived just after 16.30h! But we had been noticed. Excitedly, some employee came to us. ‘Are you Mr Cloete?’ Interestingly, he was so elated to share the good news that our request has been approved. We could travel together in the same compartment! Perhaps the Prime Minister and his colleagues wanted to appease us in this way and at the same time prevent us telling bad tales about South Africa overseas. Perhaps I might go and share how ‘enlightened‘ the government had become!

         Their response harvested the opposite effect in me however. I did not feel honoured to be treated as a VIP at all. I fumed in anger! When we finally heard that the required permission had been issued at Cabinet level, I had already made up my mind never to return to South Africa again!

Apartheid Bureaucracy adding Insult to Injury                                                                                    

Petty Apartheid bureaucracy added insult to injury. A Cabinet decision was necessary to give clarity whether we could travel in the same compartment as a family. I had thus become an ‘honorary White’ for the duration of that train trip! Incidents of blatant racism on the long train trip from Cape Town to Johannesburg rubbed more salt into the wounds of my bleeding soul.

        Terribly angered at first by the Moravian Church Board  a few days earlier and thereafter by the government handling of what I regarded as a trivial matter, I was furious as never before. I was now determined never to put my foot on South African soil again. I was rather unfair in my judgment, but nevertheless severely hurt.

         Howard Grace, a British Moral Rearmament (MRA) full-time worker, fetched us from Park Station in Johannesburg. He had to bear the brunt of my anger. When I was still inwardly fuming, Howard shared on the car trip to Umdeni (the villa of the movement, where we were scheduled to stay in the rondavel - a hut outside the house - for the next few days) that he wanted to introduce me to the influential Professor Johan Heyns. The moment of his kind gesture was the worst one the MRA man could have chosen. At that point in time I was definitely not prepared and interested to meet the chairman of the Broederbond, the Apartheid think tank!

Extreme Disappointment and Anger

Apartheid had knocked me out to all intents and purposes. I had simply resolved to throw in the towel, to give up the fight. There was only one thing that I still wanted to do before departing from South Africa! I yearned to worship with Dr Beyers Naudé, the banned leader of the Christian Institute.

              On that November Saturday the MRA people of Johannesburg were definitely not encountering a happy Christian. I relished whipping an old lady who clearly had her sympathies with the government. I shared forcefully how the various agents of the Apartheid government maltreated me and our family. There was little wonder that Howard and others vocalized later that evening their suspicion that I was after sensation when I phoned Dr Beyers Naudé to find out where he was worshipping. There was ample reason for them to surmise that I was not sincere in my wish to worship with Dr Naudé as one of my last actions in the country I loved so passionately! I was very determined about this. Rosemarie was not discouraging me whatsoever. (I was unaware of the secret vow she had made when she had the tumour that turned out to be benign.) After some fierce interaction Howard Grace agreed to join Rosemarie and me to the Dutch Reformed Church where Dr Naudé worshipped. Sam Pono, a ‘Black’ MRA worker, also wanted to come along.

A Farewell Gesture of Solidarity                                                                                                        I intended the visit to Dr Naudé’s congregation to be my farewell gesture of solidarity with the politically oppressed of the country. Rosemarie and I, along with the believers linked to Moral Rearmament, were privileged to visit the congregation that the Naudé couple attended regularly. (Dr Beyers Naudé entered there as the last person just before the church bell would toll a third time. In those days the minister and his church council would thereafter step out of the vestry in procession. Dr Naudé was required – indirectly by government decree - to leave the building as the first congregant at the end of the service because he was not allowed to speak to more than one person at a time.

         What a welcome we received at the church! Dr Naudé had phoned his pastor, Dr van Rooyen. The latter asked Ds Cloete uit Duitsland after the formal welcome to introduce the rest of our group. (Dr Naudé obviously merely remembered that I had left for Germany in 1973. He surmised that Rosemarie and I had come from there.) The courageous sermon of Dr van Rooyen, critical of government policy, was very powerful indeed.

         Tannie Ilse, the wife of Dr Naudé, came to us after the service, having arranged that we could follow Dr Naudé in his car to their home while she was still teaching at the Sunday School. 

         The Father hereafter used the well-known Oom Bey Naudé powerfully in my life, someone who was loved by many who were not ‘White’ and hated by those who supported Apartheid -. While I was alone with him in his office, a miracle started to happen in my heart that Sunday.

Changed from within 

Someone - or perhaps even more than one person - must have been praying for me. I was changed supernaturally from within through the visit to the Naudé home. The secret meeting with Dr Beyers Naudé, in combination with the visit in the evening to the Dutch family of Ds. Joop Lensink, changed my attitude completely. I returned to Holland with a new resolve to work towards racial reconciliation in my home country.

            God used the banned Dr Beyers Naudé and the congregation where he worshipped to bring me to my senses. Without him even knowing it, God used them to cure me of my intense bitterness and anger towards the country that I was loving - paradoxically - so dearly.

         After the red-letter Sunday I desperately wanted to make amends for my racist bias. Heeafter, I set out to work quietly for the lifting of the ban of the Dutch Reformed Minister who had meant so much to me.[10]

11. Hunger for Justice

On our return to Holland after the six‑week visit to South Africa I regarded a ministry of reconciliation even more as a duty to my fatherland. I had already started collating personal documents and letters, hoping to get it published under the title ‘Honger na Geregtigheid’. In this manuscript I included and commented my correspondence with the regime of the day.

Someone with a real Servant Attitude

Hein Postma was the principal of the local Moravian primary school in Zeist, whom I got to know when he addressed the local congregation at a love least. We met soon hereafter and got befriended. Rosemarie and his wife Wieneke struck a close friendship. I sensed that Hein Postma had a kindred spirit, radiating the real servant attitude and spirit of the 19^th century Herrnhut Moravians. When he invited us to a weekly Bible study with other local Christians that he was leading with Wim Zoutewelle, a biology teacher at the local Christian high school, I accepted without any ado. Through this influence I regained some of my evangelistic zeal that I had lost in the course of my anti-Apartheid activism. Rosemarie and I were very happy to find real soul mates in Hein and Wieneke when the tension in our church council became almost unbearable.

 An Overdose of Medication?

God had to humble me at this time as I was still very much an anti-Apartheid activist exile who longed to return to my beloved South Africa. Hein Postma blew my bubble with his loving but honest assessment of  Honger na Geregtigheid. He opined that it was too critical, not loving enough. He compared it to an overdose of medication to a sick patient. I toned the manuscript down, planning to write three smaller booklets, of which the first one would concentrate on issues around a South African law titled The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. I gave the resultant manuscript the title ‘Wat God saamgevoeg het.’[11] (‘What God joined together’).

Determined to fight the demonic Apartheid Ideology                                                                                                In His sovereign way God used the events of that last Sunday in Johannesburg to make me more determined than ever to fight the demonic Apartheid ideology from abroad. The Moral Rearmament practice of writing down thoughts fueled my activist attitude. As part of this effort in a ministry of reconciliation in South Africa, I continued to collate personal documents and letters with more verve. I hoped to win the government over, rather than expose their practices abroad. As a means to this end, I targeted Dutch Reformed theologians whom I believed could play a pivotal role.

After reading in a Dutch newspaper that a church delegation from the influential (‘White’) Dutch Reformed Church - including the Professors Johan Heyns and Willie Jonker - would attend some church synod in Lunteren (Holland), I took the initiative to meet them. I saw this as a possibility to make amends for my headstrong refusal to meet Professor Heyns the previous year when Howard Grace wanted to introduce me to him. At that occasion I was not interested to meet the chairman of the Broederbond.

 In my resolve to help forge some racial reconciliation, I now went out of my way to meet Professor Johan Heyns and the South African delegation that attended a church synod in Lunteren. The delegation furthermore included Dr O’Brien Geldenhuys and Professor Willie Jonker from Stellenbosch. I knew the latter from my seminary days. I arranged to meet them again at the Amsterdam airport Schiphol on their return to South Africa. (These three clergymen would be quite instrumental to bring about significant changes in the Dutch Reformed Church in the years hereafter.)

Attempting to get a Ban lifted          

I made the DRC church leaders very uncomfortable by referring almost at the outset of our airport rendezvous to Dr Beyers Naudé. I stated quite bluntly that I thought it would be wonderful if they could assist to get his ban lifted. I had taken with me the draft manuscript of ‘Honger na Geregtigheid’ in a big open envelope. Taking for granted that Naudé’s mail was being fiddled with, I naively requested one of them to take the envelope along with them and hand it over personally.  Just as foolishly I expected that theologians of that stature should play a role in repentance of the Apartheid practices. Somehow God nevertheless used my feeble injudicious attempts.

I was elated to read later that the one or other of the DRC leaders had responded positively, that they were attempting - albeit without initial success - to get the ban of Dr Beyers Naudé lifted.  An inter­esting sequel to my meeting with the Dutch Reformed ministers was that Mr van Tonder, a top official of the South African Embassy in The Hague, who was also at the airport, visited us in Zeist shortly hereafter. (Only a few weeks before that, Mr Reg September, who was at that time an influential ANC offi­cial in Lusaka, came to our humble abode on the Broederplein of Zeist.)

The Love for my Home Country cemented

Our two visits to the ‘heimat’ in 1975 and 1978 cemented my love for my home country. A direct result of the 1978 visit was that I had a new determination to work towards racial reconciliation back home. This was not completely without risk.  I for example refused to take sides when a group of South African ‘Blacks’ who visited us in Zeist, threatened me. I managed to stand my ground saying: “I am neither solely ‘for White’ nor ‘for Black’, I stand for justice.” Cathy Buchholz, a Zulu, who was visiting us at the time with her German husband Eckhardt and their daughter Irene Nomsa, cou­rageously supported me. (I had married the couple in Berlin in 1976.).

In typical activist fashion, I also campaigned for global ‘signs of the coming Kingdom of the Messiah’. (I had been impacted by this tenet through my study of the teaching of the renowned Moravian Bishop Amos Comenius. I verbalized quite widely that the small Moravian Church - as a microcosmos of the global economic disparity - should attempt to do something to rectify the global economic imbalances. I went much too fast, suggesting naively and unrealistically for example a voluntary lowering of salaries. In addition, I proposed a fund to be established that would enable Moravian missionaries from the third world to come and serve in Europe. I also expressed that the Europeans were underdeveloped in certain areas such as hospitality.  That was obviously too arrogant and obviously not appreciated, much too radical.

   In due course I also got involved in the drafting of synod resolutions and reports. Thus I also actively participated in a small lobby to formulate a Moravian synod decision for a boycott of Shell, a Dutch-based multi-national petrol company, because of its perceived role in supporting Apartheid structures and practices. I aimed much too high. Our denomination was not ready for such revolutionary stuff. It was no surprise that I was now regarded by many in the church as an infante terrible. Strange things happened like the disappearance of the radical proposals that we had prepared for the 1979 synod in nearby Driebergen.

A tragic Misunderstanding

A tragic misunderstanding occurred shortly hereafter when I mentioned casually to one of my Broederraad member, that I would like to teach Mathematics again - even if it would be only for a few hours per week. He thought that I hoped to augment my salary in that way. The aspect of an extra earning had however never even entered my head. I was just longing to teach my favourite subject again.

Driven by activism, I got up at two o’clock in the morning after perhaps three hours of sleep, toiling at Honger na Geregtigheid or writing letters. I would then return to bed at five for another quick dose of sleep, but before 8 o’clock I was again behind my desk where our son Danny would join me, sitting on my lap until breakfast.

         When I shortly hereafter stated that I was prepared to take a lower salary to be able to have more time available for my fight against Apartheid, I had gone too far with my activism.  The rift between me and the Broederraad became almost unbridgeable. My defence that I was doing the bulk of my advocacy for justice in South Africa between two and five in the morning merely angered them. My Broederraad colleagues would have liked me to rather use that for the Surinam cause in the Netherlands. The temporary reprieve when Rosemarie’s tumour was detected, was blown out of the window!

An untenable Situation                                                                                                                                      

When a vacancy for a post came to my attention at the headquarters of the Dutch Scripture Union in the village Noordwijkerhout , I promptly applied, seeing this as a possibility to get away from the untenable situation at our church. I was sick and tired of the bickering in my church council, frustrated at the fighting over what I regarded as peripheral issues.

On a wintry Saturday at the end of January 1979, I was about to leave for Noordwijkerhout for an interview with the Bijbelbond (Scripture Union) folk, when a freak slippery condition on the roads set in. Ice started to pour down - a very rare phenomenon. I was already in our car when the road became increasingly slippery and hazardous. It would have been suicidal to attempt to drive in these conditions. I decided to leave the car at the Driebergen-Zeist train station and travel by rail instead. When I phoned the Scripture Union folk, they suggested that we should postpone the interview because there were similar climatic and road conditions in Noordwijkerhout. We never experienced something like this before or after that day.

                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!              

Discouraging News from S.A.                                                                                                                             Other discouraging news coming from South Africa carried political implications. From the MRA people in Johannesburg I heard that the South African authorities had intercepted the Dutch MRA periodical Nieuw Wereld Nieuws in which I had written an article about our previous visit. In the same periodical there was also a radical article under a pseudonym by Kgati Sathekge, one of the youths from Atteridgeville, whom we had met on our previous visit to South Africa. Kgati had been among the leaders of the riots and the school boycott of Black townships like Soweto and Atteridgeville in 1976 as a 16-year old. He was arrested thrice, beaten and put into solitary confinement for a long time.

Kgati and his friends decided to start a back-to-school campaign. That however led to threats to his life. Howard Grace and other MRA people supported them.

In his article in the 9 December 1978 edition of the Dutch MRA periodical, Kgati sharply attacked apartheid as an un-Christian policy, stating bluntly that ‘we have hunger yes, but we especially hunger after ‘de volle schotel van gerechtigheid’ (the full measure of justice). (In January 1979, Kgati stayed with us in Zeist for some time.)

I referred in my article to the unjust incarceration, banning and wanton arrest of innocent people like Beyers Naudé and Chris Wessels. I also stated that ‘I look forward to the day when great people like Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Beyers Naudé and other great South Africans may be seen and heard on South African TV and radio.’

Attempts at Mediation                                                                                                                                    Henk Esajas, a Surinamese background member of my congregation, was a member of the national Centrale Raad of the denomination, but not a member of our Broederraad. Rather ironically, he was appointed as mediator between me and my Broederraad. He did this quite efficiently.

As a part of my perceived personal ministry of reconciliation I also aimed at trying to heal rifts where I discerned them. A round of correspondence followed with different role players on the South African scene.

            I continued receiving the international weekly edition of the ‘Star.’ There I read one day about a major clash between my friend Dr Allan Boesak and Bishop Desmond Tutu. The Boesak camp was angry that the likes of Tutu were still prepared to talk to President Botha. I promptly attempted to mediate unsolicitedly between (the later Arch)bishop Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak.  In letters to both church leaders, I appealed to them to get their act together because it was absolutely counter-productive in the opposition to the abhorrent race policies. I was happy to read later that they were on speaking terms again. In fact, in due course they were seen sharing the same platform.

            The issue at stake however also affected me personally when my correspondence with the government estranged me to some extent from my close friend Jakes.

         I knew from our common student days how Allan Boesak had been raving about Dr Johan Heyns, his lecturer in Biblical Studies at the University College of the Western Cape.  In an article of Pro Veritate, the organ of the Christian Insititute, there was however absolutely no evidence of that past veneration. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. My effort to bring Boesak and Heyns to talking to each other or corresponding was however unsuccessful.

            I continued corresponding with Dr Heyns. He would become one of the instruments of change in the country, leading the Dutch Reformed Church gradually from their heretical position. (It is generally accepted that a right wing extremist, who could not come to terms with Heyns’ role in the dramatic turn-around of the denomination, was responsible for his assassination in November 1994.)

12. Tears and Anxiety

A pleasant ‘aftermath’ of our second visit to South Africa in 1978 was that Rosemarie was pregnant once again. It was fitting that the addition to the family was conceived just before our return to Holland, after I had been reconciled to my home country. However, the pregnancy proceeded with many a tear and quite a lot of anxiety.

A misformed or handicapped Child?                                                                                                            A few months after our return to Holland, Rosemarie was diagnosed with Hepatitis. Both she and Danny had contracted it in South Africa. In January 1979 both of them had (yellow) jaundice. We were not overjoyed at all when the doctor felt compelled to suggest an abortion, intimating that this was advisable because of the great risk to the foetus. The possibility was great that we would have to cope with a deformed or handicapped baby. But we would not have anything of that. As a matter of principle we decided that we would accept the baby in whatever state it would come into the world as God’s gift to us.  For the next six months we had to live with the real possibility of a misformed or handicapped child to be born in August 1979.

Renewed Commitment to work towards Reconciliation      

The crowning of my renewed commitment to work towards reconciliation in my home country was the birth of our second son! On August the 4^th our baby boy was born healthy - against the prognosis of the doctor. Fittingly, we gave him the name Rafael. This means God, the healer. With my brother Windsor about to visit us with his wife Ray and their baby Kevin shortly hereafter, an infant christening service was scheduled for a September Sunday. Rosemarie’s sister Waltraud with her family also visited us for that occasion.

Problems with Infant Christening                                                                                         Two other infants were due to be christened the same day. A serious problem arose when one couple took exception at my asking questions about their relationship to Christ. The discussion at the home of the couple was not cordial at all. The husband argued that they paid their church dues, expecting me to simply perform my ‘duty’ as a pastor. They wanted me to christen their baby without asking any questions. I was nowhere willing to oblige.

 Nevertheless, the idea of a quarrelling couple pitching up at the church service at which our son Rafael was due to have been christened, literally haunted me. Although I had my church council supporting me on the issue, it gave me a sleepless night. The prospect of a scene at the church in the presence of our family from South Africa and Germany was not pleasant, to say the least!

I experienced a genuine sigh of relief when the ‘difficult’ couple with their baby stayed away that Sunday. But the issue of infant christening would flare up soon hereafter.  I suppose that the occurrence at our church made me very sensitive. Shortly hereafter I was seriously challenged from Scripture about this church practice. This was happening when I was still suggesting that stewardship should include the scriptural scrutiny of all church traditions. 

(Photo: The Brauns of Lienzingen and the Cloetes from Grabouw visit us)

A Substitute for Circumcision?                        

Rosemarie and I attended the Bible Studies with other local believers of Zeist fairly regularly every alternate Thursday evening. During a Bible Study with Hein Postma, Colossians 2:11,12 was read: “In him you were also circumcised... with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith...” Although baptism was not discussed at all that evening, the Holy Spirit convicted me.

I was deeply moved, discerning that ‘circumcision of the heart’ - conversion to faith in Jesus Christ - was the actual basis of baptism according to the context of the above-mentioned Bible verse. My own rationalizing of the christening of infants was pulled from under me. (Subconsciously I was still somehow influenced by a Calvinist argument for the christening of infants. According to that view, this ‘sign of the new covenant’ was a substitute for circumcision. The latter was widely regarded in protestant churches as the visible ‘sign of the old covenant’ of God with Israel.} Now I was reading there in Colossians about the circumcision of the heart. The seed was sown in my heart for opposition to so-called Replacement Theology, whereby the Church is said to have taken the place of the nation of Israel.

In the preceding years and following in the footsteps of Count Zinzendorf, a love for Israel and the Jews grew in my heart. As I considered the matter more intensely, the lack of biblical support for infant christening struck home. How could the Church substitute circumcision, a practice so sacred to the Jews?

In the course of my participation in a liturgical commission of the denomination, I had already been deeply troubled by the formulation in the Moravian (infant) christening liturgy whereby eternal life is apportioned to babies when they are christened. As I studied the liturgy used at the christening of babies, I knew that I couldn’t continue with a practice which had indeed become a tradition that nullifies the power of God (Mark 7:13).

The last Straw                                                                 

This was now really the proverbial last straw to me. How could I continue the practice with a good conscience? I promptly put the problem to my church council. They were very sympathetic, especially after our common experience only weeks prior to this. They suggested that I should discuss it with my minister colleagues.

Also here I initially found a surprising amount of understanding because my colleagues also encountered irresponsible fatherhood among the Surinamese church members. It was decided that we would organize a week-end to discuss the issue in depth with the various church councils in the Netherlands because also in other congregations there were similar problems.

Taken to Task                                                                                                                                     

My objection to infant christening was however maliciously conveyed to the church board in Germany. I was taken to task and eventually referred to the bishop for counselling. This transpired in a very cordial spirit. I was impressed that Bishop Reichel – walking in the footsteps of Zinzendorf on the issue - was convinced of the matter for himself as he highlighted the grace of God operating ahead of us. But it didn’t solve my problem. I was not convinced at all.                                                                                                                   In the end we found a compromise: I could continue as a minister without having to christen infants. We also agreed that I could terminate my services in the denomination at the end of 1980. This was no rebellious stint. It was the result of months of soul searching, an inner tussle of mind and heart.

Opposition and Ostracism                                                                                                           

Rosemarie and I now experienced the opposition and ostracism in the church quite intensely. But the Lord encouraged us supernaturally. We thus received a telegram from South Africa from our dear friend Kathy Schulze, who was working with Scripture Union in Cape Town at the time. (These were short messages that one could send to people to convey messages when international phone calls were very expensive.) She had no idea what we were going through. Kathy felt an inner urge to send us the telegraphic message: ‘I pray for you!’ What an encouragement that was to us!

I still sensed a strange heaviness whenever I preached in Utrecht. It was as if I was speaking against an unseen wall of dark opposition.

More Special Guests

At Broederplein we had a surplus of accommodation in the big parsonage with our only child Danny at the beginning. This was for Holland a very special situation.            

We therefore had no problems to react positively at the request of our pastoral predecessors to allow their two children to continue living there and renting rooms to finish their Kindergarten teacher training and schooling respectively. In the case of the son, he even stayed on after finishing school. His drug abuse would end tragically when news reached us that he had died in India under strange circumstances.

We continued to sublet at least one of the top floor rooms of the parsonage for the rest of our stay in Zeist. Over the years we had so many guests - many of them from South Africa and Germany - that we were later even surprised when people would tell us that they had stayed with us there.                                              Among the very special guests there was the Frick family from Ruit near Stuttgart in Southern Germany. I had attended the wedding of Hermann and Mechthild in 1970. Rosemarie and I would pop in or lodge in Ruit with our family many a time thereafter. The Frick family - that eventually consisted of seven children - would also happily be with us in Zeist more than once. Whenever we were in Germany on home assignment or visits as missionaries after 1995, Ruit would be one of our obligatory stops, quite often also with lodging included.

Nerve-wrecking Weeks                                                                                                                     In mid-1980 Rommel Roberts, whom we had originally met at Caux, the main centre of Moral Rearmament in Switzerland in 1977, had just fled the country.[13] The S.A. police was hunting him because of his involvement with the bus and school boycotts at the Cape earlier that year (1980). After Rommel’s studies to become a Catholic priest, he sensed a calling to engage himself in social work with the Modderdam ‘squatter camp’ (informal settlement) community. In the course of this involvement he and Celeste Santos, a ‘White’ nun met and fell in love with each other. Rommel and Celeste got married, flouting all local customs and the law that prohibited marriage between a ‘White’ and someone from one of the disadvantaged races. Yet, unlike other couples in the same predicament, they did not go and marry outside the country. (Such couples would thereafter either live in exile like us or in a double life of secrecy).   

Their marriage was thus of course ‘illegal’ in terms of the prevalent law. Rommel and Celeste were very courageous, flouting many South African race mores, continuing their ministry as a racially mixed couple and thus defying the Apartheid government. When Rommel was imprisoned in the course of the ‘struggle’, Celeste would just go and visit her husband at the Victor Verster prison in Paarl as if this was the most normal thing to do. (This is the same prison from which Nelson Mandela was released in 1990).

More Drama!

 When the couple came to visit us in Zeist, Celeste was pregnant. While they were with us, she became seriously ill. A complication in the pregnancy not only extended their stay in Zeist, but Celeste also came close to losing her life because of it.

            Because of her illness and hospitalization, Celeste stayed with us much longer than they had originally intended. That was the factual situation in August 1980 when we received sad news from South Africa. My sister Magdalene had contracted leukemia. She had played such an important part towards the education of us, her three younger brothers.

            While Celeste was recuperating in top floor guest room, Rosemarie and I were waiting on the phone call from Rommel when I would pick him up at the Driebergen-Zeist railway station three kilometers away.

            Suddenly she saw smoke coming from below, praying that the firemen would soon come to evacuate her.

            Rosemarie had something on the stove that heated up a wax ornament about half a meter above the stove on the wall. I had been putting our son Danny to sleep and fell asleep myself, while we were still waiting on the phone call. Rosemarie watched TV in the lounge when the fire started in the kitchen. (The extended time of heating caused the wax to fall on one of the stove plates, igniting a fire. This caused a fuse to trip and a resultant black out. Rosemarie’s alarmist shout when she came out of the lounge into the smoke-filled darkness woke me. I rushed towards the kitchen, opened the window and managed to extinguish the fire. We sensed thankfully that the eagle’s wings had been at work once again.

Seed sown into our Hearts

Celeste ‘sowed seed’ into our hearts so that we started enquiring after the cheapest possibility to go to South Africa as a family. (We initially thought that I could go to South Africa alone to be at the same time there for my mother’s pending 70^th birthday on 28 December). But the date was far from convenient. There were so many other complicating factors militating against it. I still had two weeks of holiday due to me. But one could hardly expect any church council to allow their minister to leave just before Christmas. 

         We decided finally to go to South Africa as a family as a step of faith. The special circumstances around my sister’s condition changed matters so much that the Broederraad released me compassionately from duties at Christmas time. We booked in faith with little left in terms of savings. Another problem cropped up. The visa for Rosemarie and the children did not arrive in time. This would become quite a challenge.

Remaining in our Jerusalem?

By October 1980 I still had no new employment and we had nowhere to go after the termination of our ministry in the church. It was understood that we would vacate the parsonage at the end of the year.

   At this stage we called to the Lord for a word, for guidance. We were surprised when Luke 24:47 spoke to us strongly. The verse mentioned ‘…beginning in Jerusalem’. We immediately understood that Zeist was meant with this word. But this seemed impossible! We could not expect to continue residing there after the termination of my service as a minister.

From two different groups we had firm promises that we could join them if we would have no place to go to. This would have been ministry with accommodation included. But nothing was forthcoming when it came to the push.

Our friends who prayed with us backed us firmly in support. To us this was very much of an encouragement. They knew that my decision to resign as pastor was not done glibly. It was a step of faith for us all the way.

Another Visa Application       

Rosemarie was much more realistic with her suggestion that we should write another accompanying letter with her visa application. She thought that my sister’s disease in such a letter would surely have been reason enough to expect a positive reply.

         My stubbornness – by not assisting her to write an accompanying letter - however helped us to get clarity whether we should venture to go to South Africa as a family or not. Financially it amounted to a major risk. The granting (or refusal) of the visas could be a test whether it was right to start on this risky venture.

Agonizing Days         

 Together with Celeste we experienced the agonizing days of waiting in vain for news about the visas. We were so thankful that the travelling agency finally gave us an extension of an extra day to get the visas. Otherwise the booking with Luxavia would have to be cancelled

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 thankful that it was a Thursday. Now we could share our burden in the evening with our Bible Study and prayer group.

My friend Jakes (Ds Jacobs), whom I had 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 in a terminal stage...”

Of course, the pole cat 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:

“Sir, I will investigate the matter straight away. I’m sure it will come in order.”

         On Friday the 28^th of November we were required to phone the travelling agency before 4 p.m. We agreed that if we didn’t get positive notification from the South African Embassy by then, we would have to cancel our bookings. Finally, four o’clock arrived without any phone 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 in The Hague, while Rosemarie prayed that God’s will might become evident:

Visas granted

A friendly voice greeted me from the other side of the line:  “I have good news for you, meneer! The visas have been granted...

         We needed this fillip because not everybody was happy with our intended six-week trip to South Africa, with nothing to fall back on after our return to the Netherlands employment-wise. We could understand the reasoning of those who were concerned so well. In so many words, the spokesman of the Church Board wrote to me that it was very careless of me to do this. “It has nothing to do with faith...”  I had given the dear brother, the church board member who wrote these lines, such a hard time through my activism when he tried very hard to mediate between me and my Broederraad. I knew his viewpoint was well meant out of concern. In the same letter, our brother affirmed that I would remain a minister of the denomination and that he would love me to come back and take up a church post in the field of representation.

The stage was set for our next trip. In the following three weeks the big priority was to get a job. I hoped to take up teaching again after our return from South Africa. Some posts for Religious Instruction seemed fitted to my previous experiences, but the expanding unemployment was also taking its toll in Holland. When we left for South Africa, my hopes were pinned onto one single application where I had survived the first round of nineteen applicants.

A humorous incident brightened the tense atmosphere when our little Rafael –a year and a few months at that time - utilised a moment of complete freedom without a napkin, to leave a nice bundle in our lounge in the middle of the floor. I had instructed three and a half years old big brother ‘very wisely’ to just keep an eye on him.  When I reprimanded Danny for not watching Rafael carefully, he defended himself astutely:  ‘I told him that he should go and do it in Papa’s study!’

13. Heimat or Hearth?

         We experienced a few nerve-wrecking few weeks until we finally received the visas for Rosemarie and our two boys literally on the last minute. We could thus finalize our travelling plans. Unfortunately, all seats on the connecting flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town were already booked by that time – a week before Christmas.

We had no option than to sleep over in Johannesburg. The conditions under which the visit to the Cape would took place, were nevertheless stressful in the extreme. We were basically visiting my dying sister. We had no idea what would happen on our return to Holland because we had more or less used our last savings for the air fares and I had resigned as pastor.

From the manse of Martin October, my seminary colleague in the Johannesburg suburb of Bosmont, I made a few phone calls. When I heard from Dr Naudé that he had never received the manuscript that I had sent with the delegation of DRC theologians the previous year, I was very disappointed. All the more I was keen to meet him and Bishop Tutu.

A sad Welcome

After our arrival at D.F. Malan Airport in Cape Town we heard that my dear sister had passed away the previous evening. She had played such an important part towards the education of us, her three younger brothers. That we had arrived in time for the funeral was some consolation.

Mom’s 70^th jubilee celebration on Sunday the 28^th of December was clearly over-shadowed by the loss of their only daughter. Ever since the terminal situation of Magdalene became known, our mother’s health deteriorated rapidly. After my parents’ 40^th wedding anniversary on the 5^th of January 1981, the nervous strain of the preceding months took its toll on both our parents.

Should I stay on in South Africa?                                                                                                      

In a series of subsequent events, we discerned God’s hand clearly. At a visit to Genadendal en route to the mission station Elim I had a long chat with my friend Chris Wessels until deep in the night. Quite emphatically, Chris tried to convince me that I should stay on in South Africa with my family, advising me to consider taking a teaching post in Mathematics. Rosemarie’s visa could however still have become an obstacle. We needed to apply for an extension of the visa.

         The Holy Spirit ministered to me very clearly the next day during the evening devotion of 19 January 1981 in Elim. From the Moravian textbook Daddy was reading the scriptural Macedonian challenge for the day: ‘Kom oor en help ons’ (Come over and help us).

         Our mother was quite ill. Her passing away seemed to be imminent. In addition to that, there was Daddy’s heart condition, which caused him to take early retirement in 1971. Just prior to our return to Holland – with a week scheduled to lodge in Johannesburg - it was a big question whether I would see one or both of them alive again. 

         On the way back to the city from Elim, Rosemarie and I spoke about how we were touched by the words from scripture the previous evening. Rosemarie appealed to me to change my planning, to cancel the week we had planned to spend on the Reef prior to our return to Holland. Couldn’t we rather stay in the Cape? However, remembering the wonderful time on our last visit - where my intention not to visit South Africa again was changed so dramatically in Johannesburg into a resolve to work for peaceful change in my home country - I was not inclined to miss this planned week at all.

Pride in my Way

By this time I had become even more committed to fight Apartheid. The only constraint I had was that I waged my opposition from a religious platform. I thought to have discerned that the unity of believers was all-important, linking the notion to opposition to the Apartheid-related theology.

Rosemarie was deeply moved when she saw how our brother‑in‑law Anthony was struggling after the death of his beloved wife. She could not understand why I insisted to go to Johannesburg in the remaining week before our departure for Holland.

Anti-Apartheid Activism made me hard                                                                                         Anti-Apartheid activism had made me hard and uncompassionate. When people heard that I had no employment in Holland on our return there, some of them naturally asked me why we didn’t try to stay longer. According to certain trusted people to whom we turned for advice,  it was confirmed that I could easily get a post with my good reputation as a Mathematics teacher and the dearth of qualified colleagues in ‘Coloured’ schools for that subject. This was duly confirmed. But I was not yet ready to stay longer in Cape Town. I wanted to proceed to Johannesburg. Not even the possibility of my mother passing on soon - and that I might not see any of my parents alive again - could move me significantly.

Divinely Cornered

On the afternoon that had been scheduled for our final time together, our friend Jakes was at hand, ready to take us to the Strandfontein beach. A strong wind was blowing there. In the evening we were due to take the train to Johannesburg. (This time we had received government permission to travel in the same compartment as a family without any ado, albeit that it bugged me that one still had to ask for permission.)

When we arrived in Sherwood Park at the home of the Esau family in the late afternoon, the train tickets were however nowhere to be found. I had possibly lost them in Strandfontein. With the strong wind blowing there, it would have been futile to go back and try and find the small tickets. It was clear that I was divinely cornered.

Softened up by the Holy Spirit                                                                                                                

The Holy Spirit had thankfully softened me up by now. Reticently I agreed to stay in Cape Town for another week. My parents were pleasantly surprised when we pitched up in Elim once again. This time we had interesting news for them. We had decided to extend our stay in South Africa, unless I would get a Religious Instruction teaching post in Holland for which I was still in the running as an applicant.

After the extra week in Cape Town, everything was cut and dried. Via a phone call to the Netherlands it was confirmed that we would try and stay for another six months. The Moravian Church in Holland graciously agreed that we could leave our furniture in the parsonage in Zeist. The accumulating rent could be paid off at a later stage.

Trying to fill a Void

The first weeks in the Esau home were not easy at all. We could see so clearly how the loss of the wife and mother was impacting the family. Most of all we saw how our brother-in-law was struggling. We attempted to support the bereaved Esau family through practical assistance. Rosemarie assisted especially with the cooking, but the family also had a domestic worker for other chores. Accommodating two families in the small cottage was a challenge.

Richard Arendse, my classmate of high school days and a later teacher colleague, immediately obliged by allowing us to use their caravan. Thus we could now sleep in the caravan in the backyard of the Esau home.

There I did my little bit by telling devotional stories to the children in the evening in the form of a few serials. Thus I narrated episodes of the biblical Joseph or from the life of Count Zinzendorf, always ending on an exciting note and leaving the children curious how it would continue.

My brother Windsor and his wife Ray from Grabouw generously put the use of one of their cars at our disposal so that we could frequently visit my sickly and ageing parents in Elim, 200 Km away. It was very special to see our ailing mother recovering slowly. The diminishing strain was evidently also doing our Daddy a lot of good.

Teaching in Hanover Park

I took up a teaching post at Mount View High School in Hanover Park. I knew that this was one of the two schools where the boycotts had started the year before. I felt somewhat uneasy when the relevant person in authority at the Wynberg regional office of the Department of Coloured Affairs expressed his satisfaction to have a clergyman to take over at the school where a teacher had been dismissed for ‘unprofessional conduct.’

         The suspicion was almost tangible at the school that I was a government informer. The reason was clear. My predecessor also had the surname Cloete. In addition, my story would have been quite strange to them - having come from Holland and a sister who had passed away. All this must have sounded very suspect. On top of it, the widely read tabloid-styled newspaper of the ‘Coloured’ Community, The Cape Herald, reported shortly after I started teaching in Hanover Park that Matthew Cloete, my predecessor, had been sacked for disseminating African National Congress (ANC) pamphlets. (The powers that be had been very successful to label the ANC as a sinister ungodly force. On the other hand, that created a sort of hero-worshipping element – the agency that opposed the regime. It would have been logical for the Mount View school fraternity in Hanover Park to regard the Cape Herald news snippet as confirmation that I was an informer, a collaborator with the hated regime. Fortunately for me, the practice of ‘necklacing’[14] was not yet in vogue.

Involvement in ‘political’ Matters     

We had requested the extension of the visas of Rosemarie and the children. That could still be turned down. With my track record of opposition to the government, the granting of visas for them could not be taken for granted at all.

Celeste Santos, who had stayed with us in Zeist, approached Rosemarie as a qualified educator for retarded children to assist a ‘Black’ teacher with the teaching of as a volunteer in a Catholic school in Nyanga. In those days it was illegal for a ‘Coloured’ or a ‘White’ to go into the ‘Black’ residential areas without a permit. Expecting that it would have been refused any way, we never even considered attempting to get one. Rosemarie obliged without any ado. However, every day she was shadowed intimidatingly by a red car.

            At this time I attended one of the Broederkring meetings at the home of my friend Jakes in Penlyn Estate. This was the parsonage of the local Sendingkerk congregation. I was not aware that I was shadowed and that my movements were being monitored closely. 

Soon thereafter – it could have been the very next day – my brothers blue Chevrolet that I was using, would not start. Anthony, my brother-in-law, dropped me at Mount View Senior Secondary School before dropping off our son Danny and his children at their respective educational institutions – Danny and his cousin at the Salvation Army crȇche in Lansdowne and the boys at Turfhall Primary School. (Anthony was lecturing at Hewat Training College). Rosemarie noticed a strange car with a driver waiting at their home at the time when I would have arrived. The sinister driver finally drove off. When I took the car to be checked out later the same afternoon, the car mechanic could not find anything amiss. We wondered what would have happened if I had arrived at the normal time. We were very much aware that we had entered a period of our lives where we possibly needed some more divine protection than before!

Accommodation Challenges                                                                                                               

As the nights became colder, it became imperative to move out of the caravan, that was lovingly put at our disposal by my dear friend Richard Arendse. Our one-and a half-year-old Rafael was suffering from a constant cold. We thus needed alternative accommodation quite urgently. 

         We initially declined the repeated invitation of Rommel and Celeste to come and live with them. They were not only known as political activists, but just like us they were a racially mixed couple. To accept their offer would have meant inviting trouble with the police. (Everybody else that we had approached for accommodation who could have helped seemed to fear falling foul of the racist customs and laws.) We finally had no other excuse available to turn down the generous offer of Rommel and Celeste. Very hesitantly we moved into the three-bedroom Cape Flats cottage in Haywood Road, Crawford with our two small boys - joining Celeste, Rommel and his two brothers.

I bought a second-hand bicycle with which I travelled to Hanover Park so that Rosemarie could use the blue car for the children and her volunteering service in Nyanga.

Cross‑Cultural Contacts

In Crawford I was now living for the first time in my life in my home country in a ‘White’ residential area. We started attending Living Hope Baptist Church  - a church fellowship that I would possibly not have picked voluntarily. That it was purported to be non-racial attracted us but it was quite a struggle for me to remain there, especially during the first few weeks when I felt rejected at this so-called non‑racial fellowship. I turned out to be the only person with a darker skin pigmentation. It nevertheless became a healthy personal experience when I had to discover that I was not yet completely free from my own racial prejudice.

            At the very next Sunday I decided to drop my family there and attend the Moravian Church in Bridgetown where my seminary student colleague Kallie August was the pastor. I was like Jonah once again. The Lord stepped in. When I wanted to drop Rosemarie and Danny at St Giles in Mowbray, where the Living Hope Baptist fellowship congregated, our four-year son Danny cried bitterly. I sensed that the Lord was speaking to me. This time I was obedient.                                                                                  I nevertheless missed out on a golden opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to racial reconciliation via this church through my disobedience in the following weeks. It would have been more convincing that my political stance was not my main driving motive if I had also attended the mid-week prayer meetings of the church.  Nevertheless, I did learn a valuable lesson: that apartheid had brought all the races in South Africa under spiritual bondage. 

Tense weeks                                                                                                                                       

In a newsletter Bishop Tutu called on churches to make August the month of compassion,[15] giving special attention to forced removals. The newsletter called on the government to stop hunting ‘Blacks’ like animals. He also suggested special prayer and fasting during that month. The spiritual dimension of Bishop Tutu’s letter encouraged me greatly.

         Because of my own involvement in ‘political’ matters at school or our supporting Rommel, Celeste and Alan Roberts in the volatile Crossroads community with harassed ‘illegal’ ‘Black’ women,[16] there was the real fear that anyone of us could be imprisoned. Of course, we were basically working towards racial reconciliation. But there was also a price to pay for it – constant tension and fear!

         Rosemarie and our children valiantly joined me during dangerous ventures, such as going with me one Sunday afternoon to Crossroads on Ascension Day as part of a church delegation in support of the women who had defied the government by returning from the Transkei to where they had been forcibly taken a few days prior to that. Military ‘Caspirs’ (vehicles that were transporting soldiers) were driving along Lansdowne Road at this occasion. They reminded us that a massacre at our open-air meeting with these women and others in Crossroads, in which we could lose our lives, was not out of the question. The presence of a British TV crew probably saved the day for many of us.

Evangelical Pastors shunning social Action

Yet, it was sad that I could not get evangelical pastors interested. Generally they seemed to shun social action and community work, which was regarded as ‘political’ and ‘unspiritual’. For us it was special that we could phone our friend Kathi Schulze to intercede for this situation, as well as for what was happening in Hanover Park at Mount View High School, where I was now teaching. She would relay our requests to believers at Scripture Union, those at the Claremont Methodist Church to which she had links to the Anglican Church in Factreton where she was an elder in the congregation of Rev Clive McBride. In this way we at least got believers to pray for the situation which looked so hopeless.

Spadework for the Battle of Nyanga                                                                                            

The separation of ‘Black’ families developed into a strange tradition in South African society because of government policy. We got involved with the spadework that prepared ‘the battle of Nyanga’. Alan Roberts, the brother of Rommel, interviewed the Xhosa ladies who had been taken out of their shack homes forcibly.  They were thereafter housed compassionately in the Langa Roman Catholic Church through the intervention of Celeste and her friend Nomangezi. There these hapless homeless ladies lived for more or less a week. I was deeply moved as I typed the stories of these suffering people whom the government was trying to remove forcibly to the Transkei. It was strategic that I had copies of these stories after the originals had mysteriously disappeared at the court hearings.                                 But also producing these copies did not help. One after the other the women were found guilty of being in the city illegally, due to be ‘deported’ to the Ciskei - a region where some of them had never been before. By government decree that was regarded as their ‘homeland’. These women had been ‘illegally born’ at the Cape. The bulk of them had never been to the Eastern Cape. They were born and bred in the Mother City.

         The life stories of the women were not the only material that disappeared. A manuscript that I had written at this time about false political alternatives was also nowhere to be found. (I had left it at the school in Hanover Park during the boycott crisis around June 16/17.)       

Hope for Change in Government Policy

The threats of the ‘Bantu Administration Board’  put all of us who were living under the same roof in Haywood Road in Crawford under severe pressure. Even more so this was the case with the ‘Black’ women of Crossroads. Yet, we still had high hopes that our intervention on behalf of the Crossroads women would lead to some change in government policy.                                                             We were not completely surprised when there was such an extremely prompt response on the application for a telephone connection. In that way they could monitor our movements. When a phone call informed us that a busload of women returned to the Cape through secret compassionate assistance of the South African Council of Churches under the leadership of Bishop Tutu. The police was there to prevent them leaving the bus after its arrival.  A crisis followed. This sort of defiant opposition was happening of course very much against the wishes of the government.

Bitter once again                                                                                                                           

In the meantime I had become quite bitter once again. Celeste mentioned that someone wanted to organize an interview with Mr P.W. Botha, the Prime Minister. But I was not interested any more. Our involvement with the ‘Blacks’ created in me a resistance of another sort. As I saw how ‘Black’ families were forcibly separated, I was not interested any more to go to the government begging for the ‘privilege’ to live in my home country with my wife and children. Why should I get a special privilege to live in South Africa when thousands of other families were being ripped apart?

         Rosemarie had only one prayer left at this time: ‘Lord, I am prepared to serve you anywhere in the world as long as it is not South Africa’. The tension of the preceding months was more than what she could take. Her vow of 1978 when a tumour was detected near to her thyroid gland – to join me coming to Africa if God would spare her - seemed to have become irrelevant.

         Yet, I still had to learn that God was more interested in my relationship with Him than in my activism. I regarded my political activism as a part of my service for the Master, part and parcel of an effort to get the races in South Africa reconciled to each other.

Negotiations with the ‘Bantu Administration Board’

It was quite strategic that we could enlist the services of the ‘White‘ DRC Sendingkerk minister of Wynberg, Ds Jan de Waal. He became part of a clergy delegation in ongoing negotiations with the ‘Bantu Administration Board’.  On a Friday morning a few weeks before we returned to Holland, a group of pastors met the responsible official of the ‘Bantu Administration Board’. The official who had been bullying Celeste and Nomangezi started off very apologetically, saying that he had to see that the laws of the country were being obeyed. This prompted one of the colleagues to interject that God’s law should get greater priority.                   

          Temporary reprieve for the hapless women was nevertheless achieved. The Anglican archbishop would get an audience with Mr Piet Koornhof, the responsible Cabinet Minister.

Indeed, after the audience of Archbishop Bill Burnett with Mr Koornhof, our friends Celeste and Nomangezi received ‘confidential concessions’ from the government on June 15, 1981 - allowing the Crossroads women to remain at the Cape. At least this skirmish seemed to have been won. 

An old Wound opened

Towards the end of our stay Rosemarie had more than enough of the turmoil and uncertainty.  This was a scar that caused tension in our marriage.

As we got ready to return to Holland, Rosemarie and I were quite divided on the issue of where we to live ultimately - an old wound had been opened: I still yearned to return to my fatherland despite the stressful months. I longed to return permanently although I knew that it was well-neigh impossible at that point in time.  But we knew that God had brought us together and that we had to be called as a couple and as a family to whatever country the Father would choose. Both of us were nevertheless relieved that we could get out of the threatening hearth more or less unscathed.

One problem we took with us back to Europe. Four year old Danny had been attending the Salvation Army pre-school in Lansdowne where he picked up a mixture of English and Afrikaans. We had been trying to keep the German language intact in the family, but already in Holland the Dutch influence at the crèche and the environment made it very difficult. One and a half year old Rafael apparently had no problems, clicking away at the sounds of the unrelated Xhosa which he had picked up when he joined Rosemarie in Nyanga every day.

When Danny would use four languages in one sentence – obviously confused – we felt that we had to get to an environment where he could concentrate on one language. Germany or the part of Switzerland where German is spoken came into contention as possibilities to relocate to. However, after a few employment interviews no ‘door’ opened. All efforts to get employed in Germany or Switzerland were unsuccessful. As we shared our experiences in South Africa, we completely forgot the divine injunction to ‘remain in our have to Jerusalem’- Zeist in Holland.

Church Defiance of Apartheid

We had returned to Europe, unaware of the effect that our peripheral involvement in Crossroads and Nyanga would continue to have. The homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads would score one moral victory after the other after our departure, encouraging many other ‘Blacks’ to resist the oppressive race policies. The compassion and concern of individual Christians like Celeste Santos and her friend Nomangezi were major catalysts to this end, albeit that Nomangezi’s shack was subsequently burnt down by hate-filled ‘Blacks’ who could not palate her friendship to a ‘White’.

            Thankfully the ‘Battle of Nyanga’ and the subsequent first major defeat inflicted on the Apartheid government’ shortly thereafter got into the international media headlines anyway.[17]

Churches started to take a clearer Stand

The plight and determination of the women of KTC, Nyanga and Crossroads probably played a significant role in another sense. Certain churches now started to take a clearer stand once again in opposition to Apartheid laws. Thus Rev. Rob Robertson and our friend Rev. Douglas Bax played a crucial role in the political stand of the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa as a denomination (PCSA).[18]  Soon thereafter newspaper posters lined the streets with massive black letters: CHURCH TO DEFY MARRIAGE LAW.                     

A few Presbyterian ministers started marrying racially mixed couples. The marriages were registered and kept in the central office of the PCSA. When other Churches also supported the Assembly’s decision on the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, this sparked a political debate that eventually led in 1985 to the abolition of this keystone of apartheid legislation.

         We are very thankful that we could thus contribute in a small but significant way towards the repeal of this law, as well as the one against influx control that prohibited ‘Black’ women to be with their husbands in the cities of South Africa. It gave me great satisfaction to hear that Church opposition to Apartheid increased also in other parts of the country.        

14. Back in our “Jerusalem

          My interest in fighting apartheid was definitely not completely altruistic. In order to achieve my heart’s deep desire to return to South Africa, the racist laws had to be dismantled. Rosemarie on the other hand was relieved that we got out of the threatening hearth more or less unharmed. On more than one occasion we experienced from close range how the political climate in the country was heating up to near boiling point. Our personal experiences and involvement in political turmoil during the first half of 1981 caused fierce resentment in Rosemarie towards South Africa. During tense weeks before our departure for Europe we had to reckon with the possibility of being killed or arrested all the time.

The months preceding our visit were furthermore not easy at all, as we had to struggle through all sorts of apartheid-related issues. Then there had been the attitude of locals and that of the churches in South Africa! But we knew that God had brought us together, and that we had to be called together to whatever country He would choose.

Another child?                                                                                                                             Back in Holland, a very difficult period in our lives started. We very much wanted another child - preferably a daughter - but the timing of another pregnancy was very inconvenient indeed. Furthermore, I was still unemployed with little prospect of anything coming up.

         Time was running out because my work permit was due to expire soon. Yet, the word from Scripture to stay in our “Jerusalem” did not enter our minds again.

         And then it happened. Virtually on the last minute, I got a temporary teaching post in nearby Utrecht. Simultaneously, I applied for a position with a new mission agency EZIN,[54] to function as a pioneering church planter in Almere, a new polder area where land had been regained from the sea and where there were hardly any churches as yet. For some reason or another, I never heard from the EZIN people again after sending them a report of previous experience. Probably the evangelical group found my political activism (or my views on the christening of babies) too extreme. I never had a proper reply, let alone receive an invitation for an interview.

A new Fellowship

We had no intention of joining another church when we left Zeist for South Africa at the end of 1980. When we returned in July 1981, we found that a few believers had decided in our absence to start a new fellowship. Our friends Hein Postma and Wim Zoutewelle had been having talks with other evangelical church leaders like Jan Kits (sr.) and Albert Ramaker in an attempt to start a new non-denominational evangelical fellowship in Zeist. I was not opposed to the idea of joining a Bijbelgetrouwe (true to the Bible) fellowship, but I was not very happy that they decided to have the meetings also on Sunday mornings. I did not like the idea at all of competing with other Christian groups.

Closed Doors

With little conviction Rosemarie allowed me to write to the Dorothea Mission to enquire about possibilities and lodge an enquiry to teach at a school in Lesotho, an enclosed mountainous country, came up. But in neither case a door opened. For work among street children in Brazil we did not have complete unity as a couple.  I still hoped to return to Africa at the very least. What appeared to us like a stalemate situation was of course not impossible for God! In a sovereign way, He would turn the impasse around to bring us back to South Africa in 1992.

The Tragedy of Church Disunity                                                                                                      

Yet, it was still a long way off before I learned that church disunity and a competitive spirit among the various fellowships were actually strongholds of the arch enemy. I preferred to join a fellowship on a Saturday evening where everybody could still attend a church of their choice on Sundays if they wanted to do so. (I also had not discerned yet how 4^th century Emperor Constantine had high-jacked the Church, estranging us from our Jewish roots, by making Sunday a compulsory day of rest. If we had taken note of this consciously at that time, our decision to join the new group might have followed a different course.)

The tragedy of denominational division really hit home on Sunday mornings when we left for the new fellowship where I had been asked to join the leadership team. With some hesitation I agreed to serve on the Broederraad and also lead the young people’s group with Tom, the son of Wim Zoutewelle. The minute evangelical fellowship moved to a new location at Panweg from where it significantly impacted the region in the 1980s. In due course the church adopted the name Ichtus. It became the base from which we recruited many a worker for the Goed Nieuws Karavaan ministry that Rosemarie and I subsequently started and led.

My South African Nationality made me suspect

At this time I applied for many teaching posts in Holland. My South African nationality however made me suspect because I purposely refrained from mentioning my race in all applications. I did not want to be employed because of sympathy. On the other hand, not being Dutch, i.e. having a foreign accent, was not to my advantage either. Amid the uncertainty of permanent employment, our daughter Magdalena Erika - named respectively after my late sister and Rosemarie’s mother - was born on 17 March 1982.

Very surprisingly, Rosemarie did not protest at the prospect of a return to South Africa after we had heard from Hein Postma that the Dorothea Mission was looking for missionaries to work among the youth of Soweto. I had little hesitation to apply. However, I clearly mentioned that racial reconciliation was dear to us. The Dorothea Mission probably regarded this stance as too political because we never received any reply from them. (Via friends we heard a few years later that our application had actually been fiercely debated. With us being a racially mixed couple, this was of course quite a hot potato in a mission agency that was very close to Afrikaner thinking.)

Divine Orchestration in Zeist

The town of Zeist and its surroundings has been impacting the Netherlands significantly since World War II and it was continuing to do so.  The evangelist Jan Kits had been deeply involved with the support of persecuted Jews. The Moravian Church of Zeist was an important hub of that activity at that time. Jan Kits was closely befriended to the Heijnk couple of Driebergen that had been impacted at the TL Osborn campaign on the Malieveld of The Hague in 1958. At a time when secular liberalism and humanism had diluted the power of the Gospel, the churches of the Netherlands were impacted by that campaign and the ministry of Youth for Christ of which Dr Billy Graham had become a rising star.               

Jan Kits, director of the Brandpunt Conference Centre in Doorn, linked up with Albert Ramaker and Jacob Klein Haneveld to start a Bijbelgetrouwe Bible School in nearby Doorn. The Evangelische Omroep, an evangelical radio and TV station used Francis Schaeffer from the L’ABri ministry in Switzerland to counter the spreading liberalism.                                                                                            In due course the Heijnks moved the Full Gospel Church that they had started to the Figi Cinema in Zeist in the mid-1970s, which soon came the congregation that name. Brother Andrew of Kruistochen/Open Doors and Floyd Mc Clung became regular speakers there. Floyd and his wife Sally started a ministry on behalf of Youth with a Mission in Amsterdam. (Floyd McClung and Brother Andrew would become household names in the evangelical world thereafter.) We could ride on the crest of that wave.

While he was still at high school Rens Schalkwijk returned with his parents from Jamaica in 1978. The teenager joined the Moravian weekly prayer group. This was the one link to the denomination that I kept intact throughout our period of ministry in Zeist.

         With Rens I felt spiritually very much on the same wave length. In mid-1982 he suggested that the two of us should come together for early morning intercession in the nearby forest. This we put into practice, soon joined by Peter van Veldhuyzen, a member of the Ichthus fellowship of Panweg in Zeist. Before Peter left for his work, we prayed.

The Start of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan                                                                                           Because I was unemployed in Holland after our return from the stint in South Africa, I was approached to take over the leadership of the ‘Kinderkaravaan’, a local evangelistic endeavor. It turned out to be no salaried position, but we nevertheless volunteered to lead the venture. I immediately put forward my vision for a broadly based evangelistic outreach - also to the youth, the unemployed and to the Huis van Bewaring of Utrecht (a sort of Detention centre where criminals with less serious delicts were detained). I had been ministering there during my work as a Moravian pastor. Within a few months the ‘Stichting Goed Nieuws Karavaan’ (GNK) was a reality with workers from many local fellowships and others in the region.

We had as yet no clue that our prayerful involvement with the GNK in Zeist was part and parcel of God’s preparation for an increased role in the loving outreach to Muslims.  

Three board members of the local tent evangelism group agreed immediately to join in this venture. In Alie Kreulen, Joop Mook and Wout de Raad we had extremely committed believers who had evangelism at heart. Coming from different local fellowships including a person who was a member of the mainline Hervormde Kerk, the composition of the Board clearly depicted the message of the unity of the Body of Christ that we wanted to convey. Within a matter of months we had workers from a diversity of denominations that was unique for Holland, even a children’s worker from the Roman Catholic Church that was led to the Lord in the run-up to her involvement. That believers from different church backgrounds could work together locally was completely new to the bulk of the co-workers.   

Just at this time Campus Crusade – led by Jan Kits (jun) was pioneering a campaign called Er is Hoop (There is Hope), with which we also linked up. Quite a few co-workers of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan later ventured out into missionary work over the years. One of our team would return from the tropics as a casualty. Mirjam Christiaanse was a soldier honourably wounded in the battle for souls, subsequently going home to be with the Lord.

A special Vehicle

At the inaugural meeting of the Stichting Goed Nieuws Karavaan’ (GNK) towards the end of 1982, we had the old 80 year old Sister Kooy present. (In earlier years she was actively involved in the support of the persecuted Jews, along with stalwarts such as Jan Kits (sr.).                                                                 After I had given an overview of the various possibilities of evangelism like weekly conversational participation in the Huis van Bewaring of Utrecht, outreach to foreigners and the unemployed that we could get engaged with, sister Kooy, who lived near to us on Broederplein, reacted dryly: I have been listening to you folk. I can’t participate in the children’s work or the like. I want to offer my home for a weekly bidstond (hour of prayer). That weekly time of prayer turned out to become the mainstay of the activities of the GNK until the Lord took Zuster Kooy home when she was in her nineties.

            In one of the first circular letters that I wrote on behalf of the new evangelistic agency, I referred to the intention of purchasing a vehicle with which we could evangelise in the various parts of Zeist. We especially hoped to reach out to Moroccan children and youth. We had already linked up with Herman Takken and the group Gospel for Guests that invited Moroccan young people for games and low-key interaction.                                                                                                                                             At one of our first GNK meetings Wout de Raad announced that someone had donated 25 guilders towards the purchase of a vehicle for that purpose. This was quite special to me, seeing this as a seal of our faith. Soon thereafter we heard of a ‘SRV wagen’, one of those unique Dutch mobile grocer vehicles, that was for sale. We announced this at one of our meetings. What another special moment it was when Wout phoned me shortly thereafter that an anonymous  amount has been donated to enable the purchasing of the vehicle that was soon converted into the Goed Nieuws Karavaan where so many lives would be touched in the years thereafter. The identity of the giver was carefully kept as a secret. When Wout retired years later on account of ill health as treasurer, we discovered that he meticulously covered that transaction that that we could only guess who that benefactor could have been.

Next to the outreach to children which remained the core of the GNK ministry, we included various other facets of evangelistic outreach. A children’s choir turned out to be a speciality that would serve the community for decades thereafter, blessing senior residents in many an old age home.

15. A Period of great Uncertainty

After ceasing to function as a minister of the Moravian Church, a period of great personal uncertainty and financial insecurity followed for us as a couple. It was not easy at all to get employment as a teacher of Religious Instruction and it turned out furthermore that the Dutch Education department did not recognise my South African Bachelor of Arts degree and teacher’s diploma. I decided to resume studies in Mathematics, not only as a way of getting a post more easily, but also as a vehicle with which I could return to Africa doing ‘tent-making’ missionary work. We really wanted to get involved with missions, but no ‘door’ seemed to open.

A Joseph Experience’         

A return to Southern Africa was still high on my list of priorities.  My South African passport constituted an important obstacle, a liability to get into many African countries. South Africa was the skunk of the world, especially in the view of African and Asian countries. After a ‘Joseph experience’ during personal devotions the Lord had by now thoroughly dealt with my craving after a return to South Africa. Like Just Joseph had been taken to Egypt, never seeing his native country Israel again. I was in the meantime prepared to serve the Lord anywhere in the world if that was the confirmed divine guidance - ready never to return to South Africa. However, the African continent was still my silent preference.

In the mid-1980s a speaker from OM (Operation Mobilisation) addressed one of our Ichthus church meetings. I sensed a challenge to venture into one of the Middle East countries as a missionary. A simple comparison of the number of missionaries in Islamic countries brought home to me the dire need to share the gospel there. It was clear that I could not go into one of the closed countries as a Christian minister of religion. I was hereafter highly motivated to get an updated Mathematics teaching qualification for this purpose.

Baptismal Consequences                                                                                                                 

Rens Schalkwijk invited me to a meeting in a local church by a certain Reverend Bennett, a British evangelist, who preached a series about the prophet Jonah. Without the speaker mentioning it as such, I was convicted one evening that Jonah actually requested to be thrown into the sea. I saw in this move a pristine form of believer’s baptism. (Earlier I had immersed myself in our bathtub after being challenged by the story of Bilquis Sheikh, a Pakistani believer.) I knew already that Jesus also requested John to baptise him.                                                                                                                            

Soon thereafter I asked to be immersed. Hein Postma baptised me at the fellowship led by his father-in-law in Baarn, a few kilometres away. I knew that this step could cut me off completely from the Moravian Church, but I wanted to be obedient to the Lord primarily.

Support for evangelistic and missionary Work

Our diminutive evangelical fellowship at the Panweg in Zeist maintained a great interest in missions. From the word go the fellowship supported various missionaries. Liesbeth Walvaart and Bart Berkheij had been to the local believers before they went to England where they studied at All Nations Bible College in preparation of ministry via the Red Sea Mission. In the loving low-key missionary outreach of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan team that Rosemarie and I were leading, we now started ministering to many Moroccan children and the youth of Zeist. Friday evening was special to our own children when ‘Tante’ Hilda le Poutre would always come to us first, before joining the Goed Nieuws Karavaan coffee bar team. Although she was already about 60 years old at the time, the young folk apparently had no problems to relate to her easily.

We had a fairly close friendship to Bart Berkheij, praying with him through many obstacles before he was finally accepted as a Red Sea Mission candidate. How elatedly he introduced us to his British fiancée Ruth! A special bond developed between Ruth and Rosemarie after their marriage. The two were pregnant almost at the same time when we expected our three youngest children. How we empathised with the Berkheij family as they struggled for many years to go through all sorts of preparations until they could finally go to Mali with the Red Sea Mission! They knew how I yearned to return to Africa and how no door seemed to open for us.

Spiritual Warfare highlighted                  

 When we came to Holland in 1977 we were fairly ignorant with regard to unseen things happening in the spiritual realm. However, we should have known better in the mid-1980s because we had learnt of occult realities through reading material of Kurt Koch, a German theologian.

We were so thankful when we were spared a severe calamity at this time. Someone rang the bell of our home to ask if I knew anything about a baby left on the street in front of our house. Just a few minutes prior to this I had placed the baby basket with our daughter Magdalena behind the car, finding the boot door of our 5-door vehicle locked. I trusted that Rosemarie would see it there.

It was Rosemarie’s habit to first reverse our car from where we used to park it. I did not think about this when I put the baby basket at the back of the car. When she came to the car, she thought the baby was already in the vehicle. She drove off, without looking, and without first reversing as she used to do. Only at the destination, the woman’s group of the Ichthus fellowship, Rosemarie discovered that there was no Magdalena. In the case of the habitual custom she could have driven over the basket with the precious content.

Also in other ways we soon knew that we were back on the battlefront. In the run-up to the birth of our son Samuel in July 1984 we were clearly confronted with occult forces. We hoped to have four children from the outset. (In fact, at a conference of the Offensive Junger Christen in 1978 in Germany the participants were asked to come up with their vision for the future 10 years hence. I envisaged having four children and being back in my home country. In Germany it was regarded as a-social and crazy at that time to have more than two children). Ultimately we even surpassed the first part of my ‘dream’ with one child extra. The second part of my vision was realized in January 1992, namely to be back in South Africa.)

Special Provision

Financially we were just about making ends meet at this time. Rosemarie was troubled for some time by the black and white blocks linoleum on a passage upon entering our home from the staircase. She thought that it would be great if we could cover that corridor with a green carpet. We definitely had no money for a carpet. Someone suggested that one can also be very concrete with prayer requests - that God even gives us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). I was not aware that Rosemarie had been praying along these lines for a green carpet.

Shortly hereafter Alie Kreulen, one of our Goed Nieuws Karavaan workers, mentioned that they had replaced their carpet. She had the old one in their shed. I was the regular driver of the vehicle at this time, probably unemployed once again. When I told Rosemarie about the carpet, intending to pick it up and bringing it to our home, she was not excited. The prospect of perhaps getting some inferior and worn carpet was not something that one looks forward to. What was her surprise great when she saw the carpet – it was of good quality and the colour was green!

At this time we had new neighbours living below us after the old Rapparlie couple had gone to an old age home. The lady had a nervous condition which caused them complaining about the noise created by us just above their bedroom. Even the slightest sound, for example the sound of a falling spoon on the wooden floor above their bedroom would give her a fright.                                                                                    Gert Noorlander, a dear friend from the Ichthus fellowship, worked for a furniture shop. One day he informed us that they had a redundant piece of green carpet. It turned out to be of the very same texture as that which we now had on our passage next to the dining room.

A Battle in Rosemarie's Womb                                         

Rosemarie had excruciating pains in her back during the next pregnancy, with that of our son Samuel. She feared that the arch enemy was trying to kill the foetus. We had learned more about generational curses and influences in the meantime. Rosemarie heard from her father why he never wanted a son. Over generations some curse had rested on their family coming via the sons.[19]One night when she had this heaviness and fears again, she woke me. When she told me this, we immediately prayed, breaking the curse in Jesus name! That was the last time that Rosemarie had these problems, albeit that the actual birth of Samuel was not plain sailing at all.

Also at the time of his birth a battle raged. Rosemarie’s prenancy was well overdue. Mama Göbel had already arrived from Germany to come and assist the family, but the baby apparently decided to keep us in suspense. Rosemarie decided to join the summer holiday fun when our Goed Nieuws Karavaan friends decided to go and pick blue berries in the forest together. As was the custom, we cycled as a group. The exercise was especially good for the mother in spe. While we were engaged in the blue berry picking activity, our Sammy announced that he wanted to leave the confines of Rosemarie’s womb. We stopped our activity in the field immediately. When we landed at the maternity ward of the Zeister Ziekenhuis, Rosemarie had harvested a nickname. She was the ‘blueberry mom’.

Samuel’s birth brought Brigitte Röser, a Dutch friend who has been visiting us from Germany from time to time, closer into the family frame. We asked her to become his godmother. In later years she would become our contact person for the distribution of our newsletters in Germany.

Sammy almost drowned                                                                                                                                     Little Samuel was playing in the sand of Henschotermeer, the lake to which we often went as a family. Danny, our oldest son, was swimming when he suddenly saw black hair on the water near to him. He quickly grabbed the baby, only to discover that it was no less than Sammy, his baby brother.

Knowing that we were now in the front-line of missionary outreach, we were not surprised any more by all sorts of spiritual attacks. Yet, we still had not discerned mutual links between Communism, Islam and other anti-Christ forces. 

Birth of Tabitha

Around this time Rosemarie was deeply impressed when she read a book about natural birth control using her menstrual cycle. We were initially quite happy when it seemed to work very well. But then it happened. The suspicion turned to be true. Rosemarie was pregnant yet again. We had some difficulty accepting this, but even more difficult was the clear rejection from other people. After a while we could eventually also start looking forward to the birth.

Once little Tabitha was there, she proved to be such a blessing. For one, she helped Magdalena to accept her role as a girl. Growing up with her two older brothers, Maggie was a real tomboy. Before Tabitha’s birth Magdalena objected stubbornly when required to wear a dress. This changed hereafter when she saw the cute little dresses that her little sister received as gifts. Decades later she is such a blessing to us as the only child in this country because the four other children are serving elsewhere.

         From her own German background where their father would go on hikes with them on Sundays, Rosemarie was rather disappointed with me. I could never get excited to go on walks. On the other hand, I enjoyed playing football with our boys. Also I gladly went cycling with the whole family to some recreational playground, especially when we did it together with another family or when we visited friends.

Relishing Dutch Customs 

We relished the Dutch custom of celebrating all sorts of occasions. Thus the twelve-and-a-half year wedding anniversary - it being the half of 25 years of marriage - was unforgettable for children and parents. Two and a half years prior to this we had been blessed when our Goed Nieuws Karavaan workers took care of our children, enabling Rosemarie and me to attend a marriage enrichment week-end in the Dutch province of Zealand. And then there were the indelible memories of the unique annual Dutch Sinterklaas celebrations where the children would be busy for weeks before 5 December in some secretive corners of our big house to make ‘surprises’. These artifacts had to match the poems that were specially written to fit to the person for whom the humorously wrapped gift is meant. Rosemarie would add her special touch to make every celebration extremely festive.

                                                16. Stepping out into the Unknown

My studies in Mathematics caused a lot of frustration at home because I had so little time available for Rosemarie and our children. One evening per week every fortnight there was the Broederraad (church council) meeting. We were also leading the city-wide evangelistic work of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan that we had started at the end of 1982. From 1985 I attended lectures in Mathematics on two evenings per week and often thereafter I still studied or worked after coming home. (I was also teaching simultaneously, substituting for teachers as I was deemed to be ‘unqualified’ by the Dutch education department.)

Going to a Muslim country?

Rosemarie was not impressed by my hope of wanting to serve in a country like Egypt. But she agreed - initially patiently but definitely not enthusiastically - that I could continue with my studies in Mathematics, in order to use that as an entrance into one of the Islamic countries that were closed for Christian missionaries. I had just turned 40 when our fifth child Tabitha was born on 25 April 1986. The information in one of the Operation Mobilization leaflets effectively nailed the 'door' to me to proceed with any procedure for that mission agency: ‘Don’t wait until you are 40 or when you have five children.’  This was quite a disappointment to me.

Testing the Waters back Home

I sensed great satisfaction when the law in South Africa that prohibited people from disadvantaged races to get married to those classified as ‘Whites’, was finally repealed in 1985. Our visit there in 1981 had played a significant role in the run-up to it. This caused me to test the waters back home with regard to take up a teaching post in South Africa. The Group Areas Act, which prescribed where the respective races were required to reside, was however still operating as a major hurdle. 

My participation in the politics of 1981, notably my supportive role in a school boycott while teaching at Mount View High School, surfaced as a big hindrance. I was required to commit myself to non-involvement in all political issues. I could not agree to anything of that nature. I wanted to be free to operate with a clear conscience, without Apartheid constraints.

Sending Clothing for the needy                                        

I was always highly motivated to meet people who had some link to South Africa. Various missionaries who worked in South Africa would visit us when they were on home assignment. Thus we got to know Dick and Rie van Stelten, a missionary couple from the small Northern Natal town of Josini.                   A visit to our Panweg fellowship by Shadrach Maloka, a well-known ‘Black’ evangelist from South Africa, spawned the sending of clothing to needy evangelists who were linked to his ministry. Rosemarie was sensitive to a divine nudge. Financially we were just making ends meet at this time, but we had a surplus of clothing because we received used clothing from different people. This became the spawn to start distributing clothing to missionaries, evangelists and other needy people. In our spacious home, the former parsonage, we almost always either sub-rented at least one room or assisted someone with accommodation - and yet we had space to spare. A part of a big upstairs room that was previously used as a guest facility, was changed, using a part of it for a little clothing ‘boutique’. Missionaries from overseas could come and make their pick there. Salou and Annelies,[20] a befriended YWAM missionary couple, could even fill a vehicle that they had received as a gift. The vehicle was shipped to Cameroun with clothes and all.

Supporting the persecuted Christians        

The next chapter of my involvement with the fight against the Communist wall started at this time. Holland had played a big role in support of persecuted people down the centuries. Especially at the persecution of the Jews by the Nazi’s, Dutch Christians played a leading role in support.  I got to know a few of these Dutch Christians personally because the Moravian congregation of Zeist had been a hub of this support for persecuted Jews. We had our weekly prayer meeting at the home of one of them, the dear old sister Kooy on Broederplein.                                                                                                           Anne van der Bijl, who had his Bible School training at the WEC missionary training College in Scotland has been the most prominent pioneer for the persecuted Christians in recent decades. (Outside of Holland he is called Brother Andrew who founded Open Doors). Anne had a long relationship with Brother and Sister Heijnk, the founders of the Full Gospel ‘Figi’ fellowship of Zeist. This was the church we started attending regularly in 1989.

         The seven years of prayer for the Soviet Union from 1984 were integrated in our family prayers while we were praying for God to lead us into overseas missions. It was always a thrill to remove the one or other person from the little Kruistochten/Open Doors card box. Each card had the name and photograph of some persecuted Christian for whom we had been praying. The removal of a card from the little box indicated that the believer had been released from prison. We would praise God who had answered the prayers for these people.

          In the children’s clubs of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan that we had started in the little town of Zeist with Christians from different church backgrounds in 1983, the children were learning a song about the persecution of Christians in Russia and China.

Run-up to a mini Romania Fever in Zeist         

The German village of Tieringen would become the beginning of the next phase of our low-key battle against atheist Communism. In 1987 we ventured out in faith with the prayer that the Lord would use the period of holiday for His purposes. (This camping facility was heavily subsidized by the German government to enable big families to go on holiday once per year.) Our family holiday in Tieringen led to compassionate outreach to Romanian Christians. There we met Erwin and Sina Klein and their children, who had just come out of Romania legally because of his German ancestry. Through them we not only received valuable inside information, but we also got addresses from Christians in that Communist stronghold.

         After September 1987 we extended our charity service, also sending clothing to Romania. The Holy Spirit was evidently orchestrating things. From the little Dutch town of Zeist a mini ‘Romania fever’ broke out in support of the persecuted Christians there. Of course, this made the regime of the dictator Čeauçescu quite nervous because their nationals were officially not allowed to have contact with foreigners. Parcels with clothing and articles that were scarce in that country were sent to different addresses supplied to us by Sina Klein, Erwin’s wife. Clandestine visits to Romania followed hereafter from different parts of Holland. Various organizations that brought aid to the Communist world intensified their aid to Romania although this was apparently not formally agreed upon. The Dutch town of Zeist would become quite a supporting hub to those persecuted Christians in this process. This was seemingly part of God’s master plan to break down the Communist stronghold.

Involvement in the International Prayer Movement

While we were in Germany an international conference took place in Zeist around Christianity and Islam. In the spiritual realm this was quite significant. Islam would take over from Communism as the next ideological force opposing biblical faith.

Our family friend Rens Schalkwijk had been entering and leaving our home often - so much so that he was a natural choice to become the godfather of our youngest daughter Tabitha in 1986. One day he came along with the suggestion that we should resume our times of prayer, but perhaps in a different way.  In January 1988 we started a Sunday evening prayer meeting at our home. Rens brought along another couple, students at the local Pentecostal Bible School.

            Out of these prayer times Rens was ‘delegated’ to attend a meeting with David Bryant, an international speaker who had come to challenge Dutch Christians with regard to Concerts of Prayer. In August 1988 - through the active urge of Rens Schalkwijk and his contacts with Pieter Bos, a YWAM leader, the prayer movement in Holland got a significant push. Rens and I were soon leading the first unit of the ‘Regiogebed’ of the Netherlands - that of Driebergen-Zeist. Via the Regiogebed we got linked to the international prayer movement that ultimately also influenced my home country significantly.

Impacting the unreached Nations            

A visit to Singapore in 1988 by Gerda Leithgöb, at that stage a virtually unknown prayer warrior from Pretoria, became a spur for worldwide prayer for South Africa. This would be a part of the run-up to a big conference in Manila the following year that was attended by Rens Schalkwijk. There the terms 10/40 window and the AD2000 movement started to become household words in the evangelical world. This would become a significant thrust to impact the unreached nations in respect of the Gospel. With her prayer team Leithgöb had been involved with spiritual warfare, amongst other things with confession at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. In South Africa itself she became a pioneer for spiritual mapping, using the results of research for informed prayer.

            When Michail Gorbachov took over as the leader in the Kremlin, God had evidently put the right man in place for the season. It was fitting that the avalanche towards the removal of the Berlin wall in November 1989 started with Anne van der Bijl of Open Doors. He offered one million Bibles to the Russian Orthodox Church on the occasion of their 1000 year Jubilee commemoration. David Hathaway from Britian and a few less known faith heroes – many of them in East Europe – were divine instruments to usher in the ideological demise of Communism with the smuggling of Bibles and other Christian literature.

            The battle was however far from over with the Orthodox Church’s acceptance of the gift of Bibles to which Gorbachov and his government surprisingly agreed. The praying Christians around the world knew of course that this had been painstakingly prepared, bathed in prayer. George Otis (The Last of the Giants, 1991:49) described the cause of the miracle of Eastern Europe in 1989-90 aptly: ‘With so many intercessors having petitioned God faithfully with respect to the burden of Communism, the circumstances were reminiscent of the Israelites’ crying to Jehovah during the Egyptian captivity.’      

 Suffering from spiritual Suffocation                                                                                           

 Locally I got involved in an ecclesiastic skirmish. I ran into problems with a few members of our Ichthus fellowship because Roman Catholic nuns had participated in the ‘Regiogebed’. Some believers had obviously been so brainwashed by anti-Catholic indoctrination that they could not accept that there were born-again people in the ‘Church of the Pope’. The unity of the body of our Lord was an issue on which Rosemarie and I felt that we could not compromise. Other simultaneous tensions in the Ichthus fellowship brought matters to a head. We soon suffered from spiritual suffocation.

         It was very special when we received a letter from Dick van Stelten, our missionary friend in Josini (South Africa), which confirmed to us that we should consider moving on. Dick had no clue what we were experiencing. He sensed a divine nudge to write to us.

         To all intents and purposes a split occurred in the Ichthus fellowship. We were slandered and unfairly criticised, but we nevertheless hoped that matters could be resolved and that reconciliation could be achieved.

         We decided to attend the nearby ‘Figi’ congregation - the Full Gospel fellowship, initially temporarily. Reconciliation with the folk of the Ichthus fellowship did not come about until much later, when the children were already settled in the new church environment of ‘Figi’. It took some time for me personally to get warm in the much bigger new congregation, but once we joined a home cell, things improved considerably. We nevertheless yearned to return to the fellowship with which we had so many happy memories over the previous seven years.

The Unity of the Body in Action

We had proved a point in the meantime with the ministry of the ‘Goed Nieuws Karavaan’. This local evangelistic ministry was going well with around 30 workers from different local church fellowships and Bible schools in the area, involved in a wide range of evangelistic activities. We had demonstrated to Dutch Christians that it was indeed possible for people from different church backgrounds to work together if doctrinal tussles were not allowed to cause quarrels, if the workers would only concentrate on the uniting person of Jesus.

         Other families were also ‘suffocating spiritually’ for different reasons at their respective fellowships. Harmen and Fenny Pos, our faithful ‘Goed Nieuws Karavaan’co-workers were among those. In due course quite a few of us found ourselves together at the fellowship that was congregating in the Full Gospel fellowship in the ‘Zinzendorf Mavo’ of Zeist, the Moravian Secondary School.

Movement on the Mission Front                                                                                                             As a couple Rosemarie and I kept praying for a ‘door’ to open to some African country.  But nothing happened.  We had been attending the annual mission day of the Evangelical Alliance regularly. Year after year we went there, hoping that the door to foreign missions would open up. When we went to Amsterdam in 1988 we had more or less given up the possibility to enter missionary work. Our eldest son Danny was about to start secondary school and there were four more to follow. When Tabitha, our youngest, would be finished with her education I would be almost at pension age. On top of it, it seemed as if hardly any mission agency was prepared to accept a family with five children into their ranks.

            In Amsterdam I nevertheless took along a leaflet of Africa Inland Mission (AIM) that struck a chord with me. The mission agency was looking for teachers at their boarding school for the children of missionaries in Nairobi, Kenya. When we spoke to the representatives of AIM subsequently, they encouraged us, even seeing other possibilities for us with my training and background. In their view the only problem was my South African passport. But seeing that I had been in Holland so long, they suggested that I should apply for Dutch citizenship. The “door” to missionary endeavour seemed to open at last.

         The visit of the Dutch AIM leaders was the catalyst to start using Patrick Johnstone’s book Operation World to pray with our children through all the African countries at meal times. In this way we hoped to discern in which country the Lord wanted to use us. The effect of these prayers was initially not positive at all, if not counter-productive. Our children did not seem excited at all at the prospect of having to leave Europe for what they perceived as primitive Africa. But they now noticed that we meant business in respect of missionary involvement.

Pulling out my own Roots?   

Applying for Dutch citizenship was easier said than done. My main problem was the feeling of despair at the prospect of having to pull out my own roots as a South African. Would I now also have to lose citizenship of the country I loved so intensely? (Dual citizenship was fairly unknown at that time.)

         I nevertheless buried my pride, sensing that a step of obedience was required. We had been praying all the years for the opportunity to return to Africa for missionary work. How could I opt out now? Didn’t I repeat in my prayers that I was willing to serve God anywhere in the world?

            The problem that I would have to apply for a visa to visit my parents and my home country did not even enter my mind at that stage. My main problem was the anxiety at having to cut off my own roots. It had been traumatic already that not only our home, school and church in District Six had been razed to the ground, that my high school in the suburb Vasco suffered the same fate because of the Group Areas Act and that our home in Tiervlei/Ravensmead had to be vacated and demolished under the guise of Apartheid-related slum clearance. Would I now also have to lose citizenship of the beloved country?

            A few months later God confirmed the move in a supreme way. It all started when our black and white TV set that we had bought in Berlin in 1975, packed up just prior to the Olympic Games of 1988. When the set started giving trouble, we decided not to replace it. However, the pending Olympic Games were something that we thought could also have some educational value for our children. Our quest to buy a second-hand model - following up a newspaper advert - got us into agreeing to take one on loan via a befriended family from their aged mother who was not using her set much in the old age home. We agreed that we would retain the TV set only for the duration of the Olympic Games.

Dutch Citizenship?    

A letter from The Hague regarding my application for Dutch citizenship mentioned an administration fee of 400 guilders, (the guilder was the Dutch currency that preceded the Euro). This was occurring at a time - the only occasion during our 14 years in Holland - when our banking account was in the red, although we had been scraping the barrel financially for the bulk of our time there. On top of this our old VW microbus needed an expensive repair.

            Rosemarie and I went to the Lord with the letter. I had turmoil in my heart, still struggling with the prospect of losing my South African citizenship. 

            God intervened in a clear way via the befriended Heemsbergen family. When Piet Heemsbergen came to collect his mom’s TV set, he announced that he and his wife wanted to bless us with 800 guilders to buy a new TV set. I was overawed that God had apparently sent in exactly double the amount that I needed for my Dutch citizenship application! Piet was just as surprised when I showed him the letter of the Ministry of the Interior. He agreed that we could use the money for that purpose and other more urgent needs instead of the TV set.[21] I could now apply for Dutch citizenship – to be followed by a two-year waiting period.  I was reassured at the same time that God was in the move when I had to return my passport to the S.A. Embassy. However, I still did this rather reticently.                                        

         The summer of 1988 however brought a terrible shock when we heard that our friend Bart Berkheij had lost Ruth his wife in a car accident. Their children lost the young mother. The family had been in Mali only for a very short time! We had been feeling ourselves so close to that family.

A Dispute turning into a Blessing

As we drove from Lienzingen back to Holland - after having spent a few days with our family in the European summer of 1988 - Rosemarie and I were involved once again in a subdued dispute that had been a cause of anxiety and tension in the family – namely my studies. I now possessed a Mathematics qualification for Dutch schools, but I also considered adding another year of studies to upgrade my teaching diploma so that I would have more options for getting permanent employment in Holland.

         We finally agreed that I would only do that extra year of study if God would give us a worker who would take responsibility for the driving of the vehicle to the various Goed Nieuws Karavaan children’s clubs of Zeist. For the very same evening our Friday ‘coffee bar’ outreach was scheduled.               Harmen Pos came of his own accord to tell me that God had laid on his heart to take over the driving of the vehicle that gave its name to the organisation. He became not only the driver of the vehicle, but also the maintenance man. Harmen cared for the missionary truck like his own baby until we sold the blessed evangelistic tool in 1991, just prior to our entry into full-time missionary work.

17. Flexing Missionary Muscles

         We ended 1988 full of hope. I finally got a teaching position in Huizen, a post that could become permanent after a three month probation period. After filling many temporary teaching posts in Holland, I yearned to settle down. I now had an updated secondary Maths teaching certificate and I was on the verge of getting an even higher qualification. I had no intention of continuing academic studies as such, but the idea of venturing into missions was somehow blocked out of my mind by November 1988.               After all the dark years of employment uncertainty and scores of applications, light seemed to break through at last. The prospect of having a rented home of our own soon in the picturesque little town Huizen - with a permanent teaching post in the offing - was rather attractive. It all but nullified my vision for missionary involvement.

Struggle and Turmoil…

The year 1989 started with turmoil. We had been praying regularly with our neighbours, the old brother and sister Rapparlié until they went to an old age home once a week. Thereafter our friend Martje van Dam had been coming to us every Saturday evening with another believer from the Ichthus fellowship for a time of prayer. But Martje, who had survived the death sentence of breast cancer for almost 11 years, was now terminally ill. Her cancer had recurred.

The news that breast cancer was detected with Els van Wingerden came completely out of the blue. We were very close to the Van Wingerden family. Hans and Els had five children around the same age as our children. As the recipients of clothing from loving benefactors for the children, we often had exchanges and on many a Sunday we would do things together as families linked to Ichthus fellowship. Like us they were also suffering spiritual suffocation there and Hans was one of the regulars attending the Regiogebed.  

A Day not to forget   

We treasured a family tradition to wake the birthday boy or girl early in the morning by singing the prayer of Martin Luther “Führe ihn (sie) O Herr und leite...” (Guide o Lord and lead him/her). When we performed the meaningful ritual for our eldest son Danny on the 4^th of February, we had no clue that multiple blows would hit our family that day. First of all the news reached us that Martje van Dam passed away. But we knew that this could happen any day.

As I travelled home on the 4^th of February1989 from the secondary school in Huizen in the car with a teacher colleague, I heard that my teacher predecessor intended to return to the school in my post. It was exactly the time when the decision on my probationary three months was due.   We were also not prepared for a phone call from Mühlacker, informing us that Papa Göbel died in his car after a heart attack.

Running away from my Calling?                                                                                                          

The Lord used the disappointment regarding the promising teaching position to throw us back into exploring a possible involvement in missions. I had almost forgotten that I had applied for Dutch citizenship in order to get to Africa as a missionary. The possibility of getting some financial stability had become so tempting.

Information that we received during the funeral of our father (-in-law) in Germany comforted us. For years we had prayed that he would come back to the Lord. (At a Christian camp the whole family committed their lives to Jesus, but thereafter Papa Göbel gradually got back-slidden, basically because he had no spiritual nourishment.) It was very special when our dear Mama Göbel told us that he carried a letter in his wallet that was found in his pocket at his death. Rosemarie wrote that letter to him just before our wedding. (In it she apologised for the trauma she had caused them as parents through her friendship to me.) She also pleaded with Papa Göbel in that letter to attend our wedding. Although he did not oblige on that score, he evidently treasured the letter.

An impactful Family Camp                                                                                                            After we had read in the German WEC (Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ) periodical Weltweit about a recreational and devotional family camp to be held in the little town of Braunfels, we decided to book in faith. We had no money for such luxuries as holidays at that stage, but we definitely needed a break. The Lord provided the finances for us as a family miraculously once again.

We had hardly arrived there, when the news reached us that Rosemarie’s mother had contracted a stroke, that she had been committed to hospital. This was only a few months after her father had passed on. Rosemarie left by train for Mühlacker, starting a period in our life that would require more visits to her mom. The family camp at Braunfels brought WEC  International into focus as a possible mission agency with which we could work, although we still had AIM (Africa Inland Mission) as a back burner when I expected to get my Dutch passport the next year, i.e. 1990. At our application for Dutch citizenship the accompanying letter stated that we had to reckon with a two-year waiting period.

Africa, here I come!                                                                                                                 

 October 1989 would become a very special month in our lives. From 1989 the annual Dutch national mission day of the Evangelical Alliance was held in the small town of Barneveld. We were challenged when Marry Schotte of WEC International shared there about a mission school in Vavoua (Ivory Coast) where the agency needed teachers. We  arranged for her to come and visit us in Zeist. 

            Marry Schotte brought along a video presentation of the mission school in Côte d’Ivoire. (The big video cassettes were still something special in those days.) The attitude of our children in respect of Africa changed drastically when they saw the video presentation. Suddenly the children caught the vision to go with us to the African continent that they had previously despised as primitive and backward.   

         The needs of the WEC school in Vavoua seemed geared to what I could offer, viz. teaching Mathematics via the three language media of Dutch, English and German. We were required to do the WEC candidates’ orientation course that was not yet offered in Holland. At our extended weekly family devotions on Sunday evening even the little ones now started to pray fervently for a teacher to accompany us to England.                                                                                                                       

Prayer that changed Countries         

At the interdenominational prayer meetings of the ‘Regiogebed’ in Zeist (Holland) we prayed for local issues, for missionaries who left from our area but also for other countries. In 1989 we prayed especially for Communist countries, notably for the German Democratic Republic, Hungary and Romania. We were really encouraged by the news that came through from Leipzig in East Germany. Christians there seemed to have become the vanguards of the surge towards real democracy.

God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform! Unwittingly I was preparing my return to Africa, to my dear Heimat at that. On 4 October 1989 I wrote a letter of confession to President De Klerk, the newly inducted president, after I had become inwardly convicted because of my activism and arrogance. (Over the years I had written quite a few letters to the presidential incumbent’s predecessors and to some of the Cabinet ministers. Rosemarie felt that I was wasting my time. She was very sure that my letters would never reach the likes of Mr P.W. Botha. I prodded on nevertheless, but after 1982 the letters became very sparse compared to the years 1978-80.)

                                                The prayer meeting was devoted to

                                        praying for my beloved country.

At our ‘regiogebed’meeting of 4 October 1989, I mentioned in passing to someone that I had posted a letter to President De Klerk that day.  Spontaneously Mr van Loon, a teacher from the nearby town of Doorn, who was no regular at our prayer meetings,  overheard this. He promptly suggested that we devote more time that evening to pray for South Africa. Nobody objected. That must have been supernatural guidance. The whole prayer meeting was hereafter devoted to praying for my beloved country. That was the only occasion when we prayed so intensely for a single country.                                                                          

            Nobody present at the prayer meeting was aware that President De Klerk was to meet Archbishop Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak the following week. That strategic meeting became in a sense a watershed in the politics of the country, the prelude to the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid. In other countries also, but  especially in South Africa, people had been praying for a change in the suicidal direction of the political system.[46]

Declining special Invitations                                                                                                           

I hardly had opportunity to digest this challenge when along came our friend Wil Heemsbergen. She relayed an invitation of the mission agency The Underground Church.[22]” They wanted me to join a touring bus trip to Romania to assist on the pastoral side to the Communist stronghold. I had no liberty to reply positively, finding it ethically incorrect to plan this while I was still hoping to get a teaching post.

Very soon thereafter our friend Bart Berkheij, who had lost his wife in a car accident the previous year, phoned us with a special request. He wanted me to join him on a trip to Mali at the end of January 1990. Someone had generously offered to pay all expenses for him and a friend, to go and wind up things in Mali. He and the chidren left soon after the funeral, leaving many personal belongings behind, without proper closure. He also wanted to dig a grave there in memory of his late wife.

         I declined Bart’s initial invitation to join him because I was still unemployed. It sounded very attractive to get a feeling of West Africa in the light of our own preparations to go to Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Everything looked cut and dried when I heard that someone else was due to join him on his trip to Mali.

When Jan van de Bor approached me a second time to assist with pastoral duties on the touring bus going to Romania, my most recent application for a teaching post had been very discouraging.  The unqualified incumbents of the Maths post at the school in Gouda to which I had applied were opposing my appointment. Now I seemed to be over qualified. My hope of getting an appointment as a Maths teacher in Holland was thus all but dashed.

It was already well into October . I was now theoretically be free to join the group to the communist stronghold Romania. But there was still another hurdle - my possession of a South African passport. I was very uneasy about it, after my experiences every time I had to cross a border into East Berlin in the mid-1970s when South Africa was very much the skunk of the world. I explained to Wil Heemsbergen my predicament that I feared that I did not want to cause discomfort or problems for the rest of the group. Wil promptly relayed my reservation to Jan van de Bor, the Dutch leader The Underground Church, the organiser of the trip. Although the organisers wanted to give it a go with me on their bus - in spite of my South African passport - I was still quite uneasy.                         

Dutch Citizenship confirmed!

And then it happened! I unexpectedly received a letter from the office of the Dutch Queen out of the blue, informing me that I was qualifying for a Dutch passport. My application for Dutch citizenship was successful, without any test of language proficiency required. I had expected that as the next step. Furthermore, this was much earlier than what everybody had anticipated. Within a few days I had my passport. I was ready to be off to Hungary and Romania! Many believers in Zeist covered us in prayer for the trip to Romania, one of the prime Communist strongholds of the time.

The journey to the Eastern Block countries Hungary and Romania was quite exciting. We delivered the bulk of our special load at a Reformed Church in Budapest – Russian Children's Bibles and other literature that was forbidden in almost all the Soviet Block countries. We slept one night with families from the congregation ahead of the main intention of our mission – to make a small dent in the Communist stronghold where the dictator Nicolae Andruţă Ceauşescu was ruling with an iron hand.         While we were driving towards the Romanian border the next day one of the bus passengers - a Hungarian national who married a Dutchman - picked up on the news via the radio that a warning was broadcast against a bus with tourists from the West.  As we had dumped our 'dangerous' material already in Budapest, the scrutiny of Romania's Securitate at the border was nerve-wrecking but it transpired without a hitch.

         I was a rookie on a trip of this kind!  All the ‘genuine’ tourists were instructed to stay in the hotel. The Dutch leader of the “Underground Church” and a few regulars were engaged in clandestine operations of which we were not aware.  The next day we took clothing in suitcases to certain addresses. (Romanians were not allowed to have contact with anybody from the West. If we were stopped by the police we would enquire after the way to the hotel where we had been sleeping.) Nobody at the address where we delivered the suit case with content could speak a Western language.  And yet, we had such wonderful supernatural fellowship in the Lord with our Romanian 'siblings'.

On our return to the West, the atmosphere was quite tense at the border. The Securitate folk did not like the possession of a film camera with one of the participants. They abused that as a reason to examine our luggage very intensely. They had done their homework very well. They knew exactly who had been involved in the clandestine stuff, to be taken for stern interrogation. One of the ‘specialist’ participants did not do her homework properly. She did not memorize all the addresses. She thought that one given to her would be safe in her underwear. Another participant was taking a letter destined for some relative in the West. We all feared for the author of that letter who would of course have to bear the brunt of Nicolae Andruţă Ceauşescu and his cronies. 

The result of all this was that our return journey to the Netherlands was full of gloom. All the more there was joy all round when we could participate a few months later in intense prayer when the regime of Ceauşescu was toppled. Christians from Timisoara played a big role in the resistance. Knowing that believers in Zeist across denominational boundaries had contracted that ‘Romanian fever’ not so long before that, we had a great feeling of gratitude and satisfaction.

A Trip to West Africa.

I had hardly returned from the trip to Romania, when Bart Berkheij approached me again to accompany him to West Africa. The friend, who would have gone with him to Mali, had pulled out. I still had no new teaching appointment. This time I was ready to accept the invitation to join him to go to Mali on condition that he would join me to Côte d’Ivoire. In the latter country I hoped to explore the situation at the WEC mission school where I hoped to go and teach. To that end I started learning French, using audio tape cassettes.

         The itinerary could soon be finalised. He agreed that I would join him on the trip to Mali for two weeks. In the third week he would accompany me on an orientation trip to the Ivory Coast.

Viva Mandela!

After completing the original target of our mission in Djonkoulane in the desert of northern Mali, Bart and I set out for the Ivory Coast. Via BBC radio we had heard of President de Klerk’s special speech at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town and the subsequent release of Nelson Mandela from prison. After a long wait in Bamako, the capital of Mali, for the bookings for the bush taxi to fill, we heard at last that the taxi was ready for departure.                                                                                                            I was rather surprised when the driver regarded it necessary to fill up petrol soon after leaving Bamako on Sunday the 11^th February. We would drive through the night.                                              The reason for the ‘double fuel fill-up became clear after a few hours.  We had run out of petrol and everyone on deck was required to push the vehicle up a hill that was luckily not too steep.                           The driver announced reassuringly that a refuelling station would be ‘just over the hill’.  But just as we got to the top I lost my shoe during the pushing exercise. The vehicle started to pick up speed, going downhill. I was thankfully still fit enough to catch up. As the other passengers lifted me in, they shouted excitedly ‘Viva Mandela!’ They had heard from Bart that I came from ‘Afrique Du Sued’. Earlier that day Nelson Madela had been released! I was quite sad that I could not even witness the event via a TV set as we had been travelling through rural Africa!

Travelling rather adventurously over the next few days to the WEC mission school in Vavoua, we slept in a mosque one night. God had obviously startedpreparing me for a role in another major battle – against the Wall of Islam.             

We were scheduled to fly back from Abidjan, the capital city of Côte d’Ivoire on 16 February, 1990. The last day in the West African metropolis was exceptional.

Bart and I spent the morning doing some sightseeing and shopping – buying small artefacts to take along for the families at home! When I saw a few mosques, it so much resembled the old District Six, the Cape Town slum area where I had spent much of my childhood.                                                                  I had thought that South Africa was out of my mind in terms of a return there! But in a fleeting moment I was overcome by nostalgia. It was strange that my trip was supposed to be an orientation for us as missionaries to West Africa. But I was now also ambivalently longing to return to my home country once again. Nelson Mandela had just been released from prison.

         Was a way opening up for me to return to my home country after all? At that moment however, I was firmly set on returning to Côte d’Ivoire to teach in the WEC mission school in Vavoua.

18. Nudges towards forward Movement

With the ‘iron curtain’ of Communism and the edifice of Apartheid all but shattered by February 1990, supernatural intervention occurred in Abidjan to nudge me to tackle the daunting wall of Islam. A deep impression followed at our ‘visit to a mosque’, in which we landed by accident. When all the shops were closing for the lunch time and it being Friday, we had no opportunity to continue our shopping spree. We simply took a seat next to the road, waiting for the shops to reopen. Suddenly prayer mats were rolled out all around us. Bart was sitting obliquely behind me. Somehow I had the impression that he was also doing the obligatory raka’ts, the Islamic cycles of body movements accompanying the prayers. Thus I simply joined in, imitating the people in front of me. Suddenly I heard an angry stifled shout-whisper: ‘Ashley, wat doe je daar!’ (Ashley, what are you doing!) ‘and you want to become a missionary?’ What a bashing he gave me hereafter for going through the Islamic motions. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel remorse from within. This amounted to a significant nudge to tackle the daunting Wall of Islam

Doors opening!                                                                                                                         With Campus Crusade I had started to do some voluntary work in Holland with their devout worker Bram Krol. Also from that side we were challenged with regard to full-time work. I had learned to use the four spiritual laws and we also started seriously to contemplate buying a house in Zeist from where we could operate. (Rosemarie’s parents always wanted to assist us towards this end).

         I also got to know Cees Rentier and David Appelo through our outreach. Cees worked with us in our Goed Nieuws Karavaan outreach and subsequently he would lead a major ministry of loving outreach to Muslim migrants from different countries in the Netherlands, Evangelie en Moslems.  David Appelo would play a big role in helping me to prepare a manuscript for the Golden wedding anniversary of my parents on 5 January, 1991. David subsequently edited that and even had a few copies printed with the title Involuntary Exile.

The Yoke of ritual Bondage                                 

As the years went on, we discerned that many Muslims were wrestling under the yoke of ritual bondage. The question became even more pressing: How will all those millions of people ever get rid of the thick veil over their eyes? When Rosemarie and I read 2 Corinthians 3 once again, we were reminded that Martin Luther only got into the freedom of Christ when he discovered that he needed a Saviour. This occurred when he developed a deep sense of urgency about his own sin. We also realised anew that this is something that only God can accomplish in a sovereign way. God doesn’t need us, but we can be instruments in His hands to change the world, especially through prayer.

         The three weeks in West Africa were sufficient to excite me about possibilities to share the Gospel there under the auspices of WEC International. The discussions at the school in Vavoua, Ivory Coast, were promising. I foresaw teaching there however merely as a prelude to get into other missionary activity in Cote I’voire after a few years. But I still had to get fluent in French (Rosemarie had not even started learning that language).

Preparation for missionary Training                                                                                                  

As a next major step in our planning and praying as a family, Rosemarie and I had to do the WEC International candidates’ training course. But before that, we needed a Dutch teacher to join us at Bulstrode, the international headquarters of WEC! At our extended weekly family devotions even the little ones now started to pray fervently for a teacher to accompany us - it seemed so unlikely to find someone who would be prepared to volunteer as a teacher to pay his/her own way to get to England and contribute towards the overheads at Bulstrode, near to Gerrards Cross, a suburb of London.

         While I was in West Africa, our long-standing friend Geertje Rehorst visited Rosemarie one evening. When Geertje heard that we were praying for a teacher, she asked all sorts of questions. Because she had accepted early retirement from teaching just prior to this, we never even seriously considered Geertje as a possible candidate.

         When her son Peter visited us with his wife Annelies soon after my return from West Africa, we told them of our predicament, our need of a teacher to accompany us to England. Peter promptly responded with ‘Have you thought of my mother?’ At the school for the blind Geertje had been teaching children of different age groups. When we invited her over one evening to put the question to her, Geertje confirmed that she knew all along that the Lord wanted her to go with us. She was only waiting on us to approach her.

Come over and help us! 

On my return from West Africa there were quite a few letters awaiting me, two of which were challenges to new areas of ministry. Most of all I was surprised that Rosemarie appeared quite tense about my response to a letter from South Africa. Out of the blue there was a hand-written letter from Pietie Orange, 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. The release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC created a new expectation in South Africa.

         I was however quite perplexed and somewhat confused. The 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?

Which Door to enter?

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 my personal quiet time the Lord had by now thoroughly dealt with my craving after a return to South Africa. (I had discerned that Joseph never returned to Israel during his lifetime.)

         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 that ‘door’. And just that happened so clearly. Jean Barnicoat, the directress of the WEC mission school of Vavoua, 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 when this reply came. I had started to look forward so much to go and serve in Cȏte I’voire.

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, our missionary friend in the village Josini in South Africa, near to the Mozambican border. He invited us, challenging us to come and take over their work.

         Through a process of elimination we had been 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 about to turn 80 at the end of that year and the golden wedding anniversary of my parents was due shortly thereafter. Another visit to South Africa looked so enticing but how could that be realised in these daunting circumstances?

         After all the trips to other countries in the preceding months, we hardly had liberty to share our vision with other Christians that we 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 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 opined that conditions regarding violence in Natal were worse than those in Lebanon and Northern Ireland put together. Was this the sort of environment into which we wanted to take our children? It was scary, but we also wanted to be obedient to any calling of our Lord.

Obediently we planned to start our visit to South Africa in Pretoria, visiting the Lugthards, a Dutch missionary couple linked to the Dorothea Mission. From there we trusted that we would get to the Van Steltens in Josini somehow.

A Sense of Home-coming

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 in a school for Zulu children in Ubombo. When I mentioned in passing to the Van Steltens that I intended to publish our story, Ann felt implored to warn me. Attempting to procure funds in that way would be a slippery road. I buried that warning in my heart. I possibly went overboard by writing too many unpublished material thereafter. I was wary of incurring costs of having books printed that would not be read.  Looking back, that was still the lesser evil. By remaining fairly obscure from the prying eyes of the media kept our family life protected and it allowed me to be much more effective to be God’s instrument in the decades thereafter.

         When we joined the national conference of WEC International in Durban, we experienced a sense of home-coming. Although we did not know anybody present there and in spite of a hick-up or two, we felt that we belonged. Durban was the ideal preparation for our candidates’ orientation at Bulstrode in England, which would follow soon after our return from South Africa. It was agreed that we could return to Cape Town at the beginning of 1992 with a role in representative work and possibly for evangelistic work among students.)

The WEC International Stint almost still-born

Although we felt so much at home in Durban among the missionaries there, two clashes with older missionaries almost wrecked our intention to join WEC International. The one especially led to deep introspection.

We arrived there 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 Vow at that time.

         I wrote 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. I suggested that they should get together as a sign of reconciliation and that the public holiday be renamed to Day of Reconciliation.

         When I showed the draft letter to the acting leader of the mission agency, he lashed out at me viciously.  He wanted me to understand that WEC was a-political, pointing to a right-wing activist whom they had to expel because of his political inclinations. WEC could not accept a left-wing activist as I had obviously been branded.

         The views of the acting leader led to some deep soul searching. I had displayed a very clear activist position against Apartheid, but I also deemed my sentiments to be Bible-based. Was this the mission we could join? Soon hereafter we were scheduled to go to Bulstrode near to London, to the international headquarters for our candidates’ orientation course. A cloud was now hanging over our joining the agency.

A Golden Wedding Anniversary                                                                                                         It was great to be present for the 80^th birthday of our mom and the Golden Wedding Anniversary of our parents. We hereafter linked up with old friends like Juttie and Florrie Bredekamp. They not only assisted us with contacts which helped us to consider the future schooling of our children, but they also put a car at our disposal that we could use during our week or so at the Cape before our return to Europe. The link to a couple that had a child at the German School looked promising because our children could speak neither English nor Afrikaans. We knew now that this would be the best option at least for the two oldest boys.

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. We thought of 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 subsequently became the 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 underway when we suddenly became very uncertain. We asked ourselves what would happen if WEC turned us down or if we 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. 'Would such a step be responsible with our five kids?' 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.

         We actually found a couple that had no children and both of whom were lucratively employed. They were youth workers of a local church. That sounded wonderful to us, looking like God’s perfect provision. However, it panned out quite differently.

         The Lord used the time in Bulstrode, the international WEC Headquarters near London, to bring our friend Geertje Rehorst back into missionary endeavour. When we worked in Zeist among Moroccan and Turkish children, the Lord had started to prepare us for future ministry among the Muslims of Cape Town.[23] And then there was of course the visit to Mali and the Ivory Coast that had struck a chord in my heart to reach out to those who were suffering under Islamic bondage.

Come January 1991 we were already in Bulstrode for the missionary candidates’ orientation course. The Lord used this time to continue moulding 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 I had practised it before. (We did this for example in Zeist, together with other believers, without giving it a fancy name.)

Instruments towards change the World?

We had hardly arrived in Bulstrode when news shocked the whole community there. Jill Johnstone, the wife of Patrick who had written the best seller book Operation World, was diagnosed with cancer in a terminal stage. (Patrick’s seminal book with updated information of every country in the world had arguably influenced spiritual matters worldwide second to only the Bible. Jill had just been concluding a children’s version of the book, giving it the title We can change the World.

             Our children were now the guinea pigs in the Bulstrode children’s club where they prayed for one country after the other, starting alphabetically with Albania.  

              Before leaving for Bulstrode I had been able to arrange for Gesina Blaauw to come and speak at a Regiogebed meeting. The physically small dynamic believer would play a big role in Albania where she had pioneered -initially behind the scenes - as coordinator of the Albanian Encouragement Project. (As Gesina Blaauw Secka she has been internal director of both God Loves Albania Ministries(GLAM) and Ground Breaking Services (GBS) for decades.

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. We decided that Rosemarie could study the politics, economy and related issues, while I would be looking at the history of and issues pertaining to the South African Indians. This led me into studying Hinduism and Islam, the two major religions of Indians. My experience in West Africa influenced me in yet another way. I now also thought of the ‘Black’ South Africans as potential missionaries to the Muslim countries of the continent. I furthermore discerned how I was impacted and blessed 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 in their home countries. In the months hereafter I started jotting down my thoughts about these matters, which ultimately led me writing a manuscript that I called A Goldmine of Missionary Recruitment (I changed the title later to A Goldmine of another Sort. The treatise is accessible at www. isaacandishmael.blogspot.com). During my field study I discovered that Bo-Kaap, the residential area below Signal Hill, had become even more of an Islamic stronghold because of Apartheid. A seed was sown into my heart.                                                        

                  The schooling of our children at Bulstrode belonged to the highlights of their educational career. Tante Geertje would often take them into the spacious grounds of the castle-like area and a special relationship developed to Joyce Scott and her husband Chris. How we all rejoiced when just before leaving Bulstrode that the stronghold of Albania was also crumbling. The children were leading the way exclaiming “Wow, we are changing the world!”

Accepting Injustice joyfully

Financially we experienced sublime provision again and again. We paid our rent in Holland and simultaneously also contributed towards the overheads and lodging at Bulstrode while the folk who lived in our home did not do the same. International phone calls were not cheap in those days, but they were of no avail.

To aggravate matters we received a letter from The Hague, claiming that we had received too much state rental subsidy in 1989. Because I started teaching in Huizen from November - but was only paid for November and December in January 1989 - a substantial difference arose between the annual income for 1988 and 1989. This brought the authorities to the conclusion that we had received an incorrect rental subsidy in 1989.

Because the documents to show the reason for the discrepancy were in Zeist and we were in England, I was in a quandary. At this point I had just been reading Hebrews 10:34 (…and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property…).  I can’t recall whether I was reminded at that point of the unjust expropriation of our property in Tiervlei in 1969, but I just decided to accept this relative injustice. I did not do it joyfully, but I nevertheless decided not to fight it. I had just received a similar amount from the Dutch tax authorities using that money for the required repayment of the rental subsidy.

Missionary Orientation in Emmeloord         

When we returned to Holland from England, we went for two months to the town Emmeloord, to the Dutch HQ of WEC. In our correspondence with 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 had planned 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 be predominantly involved in administration and representation. We did not see that as our gifting.

         We needed clarity before leaving for South Africa in January 1991 whether we would have freedom to evangelise there. We continued however with the negotiations for relocating to South Africa. Thankfully, the differences could be resolved and a few months later we were accepted as WEC missionaries. It was agreed that we would help our colleague Shirley Charlton in Cape Town with representation in the first year and thereafter we would see how the Lord would lead us.

         We celebrated Rosemarie’s 40^th birthday in Emmeloord. My personal gift to her was the manuscript ‘Op adelaars vleugelen ’ (On Eagle’s Wings), alluding to the text Henning Schlimm used at the occasion of our wedding in Königsfeld.

Hurdles and Afflictions          

We had decided that a container would be the most economical way to get our belongings to Cape Town, even though the bulk of our furniture was quite old and tattered already and some appliances had been bought second-hand in Holland. The Lord helped us sovereignly in these major steps of faith.

         The issue that we had considered as a ‘fleece’ became quite an affliction and challenge. The couple that stayed in our home in Zeist for six months did not pay the rent. After we had approached their pastor, thus going the biblical route of Matthew 18, the couple finally paid the rent in a lump sum. We thus experienced once again how God carried us through. Not even once did we have to delay the payment of our rent and we always had sufficient funds to contribute towards our stay in Bulstrode and Emmeloord.

         With the belated lump sum payment of the rent we now suddenly also had sufficient finances - not only for the airfares to South Africa for the seven of us, but also for the shipping and rental of a container with our possessions!   

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[1) Translation: Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world …

[2) In the educational field quite a few of my student colleagues became school inspectors and others become rofessors in their respective fields of studies. One of them, Jakes Gerwel, became the rector of the university and still later President Mandela’s choice to be his top advisor.

[3) The German equivalent of A-level school leaving exams.

[4) Later the programme was changed to a practical year with theEvangelische Jungmännerwerk in Stuttgart.

[5) The latter subject I did by correspondence with the University of South Africa in Pretoria.

[6)  In recent years the building complex was renovated and changed to house the City’s Library.

[11)The other two manuscripts, Sonder my kan julle niks doen nie and As God die Huis nie bou nie did not get much further than the collating and commenting stage of documents.

[12] I loved to use the Latin word for root – radix – as my motivation to be radical. Certain trees with bad fruit had to be uprooted, I would explain.

[13] Rommel was never brought before a court of law for his role in the bus and student boycotts, but they feared a new arrest. Detention without trial was a practice used by the regime randomly. Therefore they jumped at the opportunity to get out of the In the church council there were in fact more females than brothers.

[8) The title alludes to one of the biblical Beatitudes, Matthew 5:6.Geregtigheid in Afrikaans has the double meaning of righteousness and justice.

[9) In 2001, the MRA movement changed its name yet again, to Initiatives of Change [IofC).

[10) A fuller report of our 1978 visit to South Africa can be found in Home or Hearth/ Involuntary Exile.

country for a few months when it arose.

[14] In the mid-1980s a motor car tyre was put around the neck of any person suspected of conniving with the government, petrol would be poured over such a person and set alight. It was a sort of people’s court where the suspect had little or no opportunity to defend himself.

[15] St Francis of Assisi is said to have inaugurated this tradition.

[16] ‘Blacks’ were only allowed to be in the ‘White’ cities and towns under restricted conditions if allowed at all 

[17] The actions in Crossroads, KTC and Nyanga played a significant role as part of the run-up to the repeal of influx legislation.  In 1985 the Pass Law was scrapped.

[18] Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa. Proceedings and Decisions of General Assembly 1981, p.180ff.

[19]Papa Göbel had a spinal defect himself.

[20] Annelies, Surinam-background believer was the sister of Lesley Reiziger. Lesley and his wife Wil, a medical doctor, left for Ghana as missionaries on behalf of Wycliffe Bible Translators with their son Samuel.

[21] Soon hereafter we bought a second hand TV for 50 guilders that we left in Holland when we came to South Africa in 1992.

[22] Richard Wurmbrand called his organization to support Christians in communist countries The Underground Church

[23]We invited Herman Takken, who was doing this work in Holland full-time - to come and give us, the volunteers of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan’, some teaching on Islam. I was however not remotely thinking of using it one day in the city where I was born and bred.