Author: Primadonna Ngosa

There are no words to express our gratitude. The last two months (February and March) have been drastically eventful. From surprising provision to faith-filled arsenal prayers…we have been in a valley of an incredible army. Before today, we would have simply said that it has felt like we are in a “valley of dry bones.” We would also have added that we’ve witnessed the “valley of the shadow of death.”

But we will be inexplicit about the distinctive events personal to the people close to us who must have the privilege of telling their own God-Stories. And I (Prima) will focus on telling our own. Well, the last time we wrote, we had just returned from Zambia and were quite drained (emotionally and physically) from helping to care-give for our Mother who had suffered a third stroke resulting in amnesia and loss of sight. Fast track two months on since February, we have been meeting our children who attend the Beats and Books programs 3 days a week until last week when we met hostility.

As some of you who have visited us may know, we met from a small hall measuring about 5 by 10 meters (16.4 by 32.8 feet) room in a community hall in the heart of the township. This was graciously offered to us for free last year when we were in dire need of a bigger facility to host our After-School and Music initiatives to the local children. It was a big move from meeting the 30-40 something kids in Gogo’s 3 by 3 square meters (9.8 by 9.8 square feet) little shack. But the complaints and opposition against us meeting the kids from this communal facility have intensified to the point of being withheld access to the premises by one of the local groups that meet there too. We are trusting that they will have a change in heart and see the value of what we bring to these children through the Love of Christ. And that they will accord this emergent generation a chance to re-write their future. How do you speak into the heart of an elderly person who chooses to see their Rights to social above the right for a child to have a decent educational support? What about their basic need to play and their desire to make music, it’s like trying to stop a butterfly in its erratic flight…or closing a chirping baby birds’ beak. We are the voice for the children, but for now when our plea seems unheard, all we hold onto is Hope in Christ and the faith that we will have the resources to purchase the building for the Library Dreams Project and Music Academy, which would secure a permanent meeting place for our Children.

„…all we hold onto is Hope in Christ and the faith that we will have the resources to purchase the building for the Library Dreams Project and Music Academy,.

So, if it was such a whirlwind of a time, what is there to be thankful for? Well, I have a new revelation on God’s Mercy. As I look around at the horrific and potentially questionable events surrounding us and the fellow Saints here, I see an army of God’s elect. I see those who have been called and chosen to live ordinary lives in extraordinary ways; To do common things uncommonly. The people opposing us are not wrong when they call our children rowdy and all sorts of names. They are not wrong because through eyes of limited vision, one can only see dry bones where lies a mighty army.

I still believe in our children. Today, I miss the 8 year-old who has been caught with a knife several times at our Ministry. *Sipho has a learning disorder and never turns up without causing disorder. But when you take the time to listen to the cry of his wounded heart, he is starving for love and acceptance. These children fight with one another, hurling stones and grabbing each other’s shirts in threat. They are not a brood of vipers! They are little children – the church of today and the founding fathers of tomorrow’s world. If forsaken and forgotten they have no hope, but to walk in the broken footsteps of bloodshed, discrimination and hostility. Of which I am thankful that the Lord is re-writing this Story, and we, you (yes, YOU dear one…reading this at this very moment) are already the link with which their Story is re-written. That’s the Mercy of God. In the midst of this chaos, our hearts have been so at rest. Our spirits are calm. We are doing cartwheels to worship our King in the midst of this chaos.

This year, we felt strongly that we needed to stay in Country (South Africa) to strengthen and oversee Ministry hands-on even more. In the last 3 years, we had the privilege of being invited to minister and raise support in the US towards the purchase of a building to house the Library and Music Academy for the children of Jeffreys Bay. This has had an effect on the momentum we built which needs to be revamped. We are currently brainstorming and believing for fresh support raising ideas as well as how to forge ahead with the Library Dreams Project. Please join us in prayer, will you?

*Name withheld to protect child’s identity.

They sat in the back seat of the minibus, clenching each other like two peas in a pod. She had dressed them smartly in identical dresses. The rest of the bus was seated with older women from the community, all dressed very well. They had fancy hats and an array of headwear. On first glance, you would mistake this brightly clad bunch for a party bus. Somewhat the Mamas had quite an atmosphere of bliss. As my husband and I were picked up and welcomed in, the high-pitched lively voices chit chatted all the way.

It was after 6am. We would be driving about half an hour to a neighboring town where he grew up and was going to be buried. This would be my first attendance at a Xhosa funeral, so I knew nothing about the schedule and being African too, I obliviously assumed the culture was closely similar to ours.

I expected to be greeted with wailing and loud mourning as is the norm in some ‘African’ cultures. And at least, this is true of my experiences at some Zambian funerals. But it was quiet. We entered the funeral home where men and women immediately had their designated areas to cluster.

I sheepishly followed Gogo into a room where a group of women sat listening to another woman read from the Bible. The coffin lay at the front of the room close to my seat. At first, it appeared like she was a preacher. But it soon dawned on me that the women were all taking turns to share scripture, and speak about death, the deceased and whatever else they could. This was done by standing up and singing songs before and after each speaker.
I neither knew the songs nor fully understood what all the women were talking about. To say the least, my Xhosa language skills are still very minimal. My mind could only think of what the kids understood by all this. I longed to sit close to them. But someone had given them seats away from Gogo.

Suddenly, a woman who had traveled with me on the bus ushered me to the front of the room. The eyes in the room all fell on me. I searched around the room for the kids, as if to find some unknown courage in gazing onto their innocent faces. When the singing stopped, I walked to the front and shared from Psalm 71. I kindly asked her to translate what I shared, wrecked with nerves at being called upon to speak before these older women of someone I never knew, someone important to ‘our kids’ but whom they never knew. I was thankful for the gesture. I kept it short, encouraging them all to be united in supporting the raising of the two girls who had been left behind.

Up to now, the two girls were fidgeting around in their seats seemingly oblivious that we were at their father’s funeral. All I could think about was how we could at a later stage help them process what had happened. I could only trust that they would get through this well. But still, the question of how to walk through it with them bugged me. Sometimes, you meet young adults or grownups who have carried pain for years because they didn’t know how to deal with it properly. Or that no one around them could process things with them. I prayed that our kids would heal from this, that they would be thankful that they had a father, despite not knowing him well. And that they have a chance at life.

Gogo, as we call her, has been their guardian since they were barely 4 and 2. They are now 10 and 8. When we got the news of their fathers’ death, Gogo emotionally narrated to us how she first took the kids in. She spoke of their mother abandoning them with their father while they were still infants. She has never supported them or acknowledged their existence as her children since then. Their mother and father never married and besides being their biological mother, the girls neither know her or about her. After hearing this, it was not a surprise that she was not at their father’s funeral.

A teary-eyed Gogo had also told us of the scar on one of the girls’ nose from her flesh being torn as she carried her younger sister through a barbed wire fence on her back in desperate search of food. They were both under five, vulnerable and neglected.
Motherless at infancy, the older sister learnt early and quickly to survive their harsh reality and to parent her younger sister. Their heart-wrenching story is unfortunately often a common one here. And yet, something sparkles in their eyes that speaks a hope for every despair of their past. And this keeps the fire burning in us to be their voice and to seek resources on their behalf that will change their circumstances and help transform their lives in view of their cruel predicament.

What seemed like hours later, the body viewing happened and the kids were taken in line along with the adults who bade farewell to their father. The older sister came out crying; she fell into Gogo’s arms and then immediately paced over into my lap. Cornelius, Felix, the two girls and I sat there patiently listening as speaker after speaker spoke. The crowd stood up each time after every speaker and broke into song before the next person spoke. For the next few hours, she lay there as I held her. My heart was sad. Here was the ten-year old sister who neither knew her mother nor her father, and now she was meeting him in a coffin.

It was a bizarre sight. The younger girl sat next to me, trying to wipe her older sister’s tears. She, seemingly unaffected by this event, eating the snacks Gogo had packed for them. They both eventually fell asleep in our arms. Both tired from the long speeches and the scorching heat. I wondered if the younger girl fully understood what was occurring. How could she even connect emotionally because she never really knew the dead man as her father? I prayed that the difficult feelings of being the ‘strangers’ who were helping with the welfare of these kids would escape me. It was rather awkward when their father’s relatives came up to greet the kids and some to take pictures with them. The kids stood so aloof and almost tried to clinch onto us. My heart couldn’t help but hurt that the kids did not know them.

As per tradition, Cornelius led the children in the procession to grab some soil from a passing spade and throw in on top of the lowered coffin in the grave. They both peered at their father’s coffin as the grave was buried. Again I was struck by their innocence, and confused as to whether they interpreted the symbolism of what they had just done. Like two little lambs, they happily hopped away from the crowd with us as the funeral came to an end. I was grateful they had a chance to pay their last respects to their father as well as meet some of their aunts and uncles.

On the drive back home after 4pm that afternoon, I let the views of the mountainous landscape and fresh breeze seep into my soul. I was filled with peace and absolutely glad we came. It didn’t matter now that there had been no flowers on the grave, or even that there was clearly no bond between these children and their father’s family. What mattered was that we came to support Gogo and especially our kids.

Gogo Hester is a selfless woman bursting with love and compassion for these kids. She is their rightful guardian. And our ‘woman of peace’ as we like to refer to her. To know that the kids could experience the assurance that they are not alone, that they are loved in Gogo’s care, and with us, they ‘belong’ was enough.

I was extremely humbled to think that I am now the woman married to their ‘Father Cornie’ as all the kids fondly call him. And this exceptional woman we all call ‘Gogo’ (translated as granny but she is actually not at all that old)…is our partner in what we believe are truly God-inspired Dreams for children such as these two girls.

We dream of these gifted singers being disciples of Jesus and becoming spirit led worshippers. We dream of them having access to quality literacy, excelling in education and life. We dream of them having hope and a bright future. We dream of them being brilliant leaders in their community and positively influencing their peers. We dream of them impacting Nations and leaving a mark on their generation. Somewhere in those dreams, for the ones who are fatherless or have absent parents, we must trust that God will enable us and give us the capacity to joyfully pour our lives out in that regard too.

I am learning that Ministry is not necessarily ‘full-time or part-time’ as it is often defined. Ministry is complete obedience, whenever and however God calls. Sometimes He calls us to just experience Him in the mundane tasks of everyday life. He can also ask us to do some daring things to stretch our faith and grow our willingness to obey. Therefore, partial obedience is no obedience. I am thankful that making the choice to support our kids through such an unpredictable situation on a day which is typically our day of rest to teach me such a difficult and uncommon lesson. I am more determined now to do common things uncommonly.