Category Archives: South Africa

May14

Post 67. Around the world

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Asha was 6 months old and Betty was desperate to see her.  She sent us money to buy tickets to New Zealand.  We found “around the world tickets” which were the same price as going straight there.   We were on a very low budget but we had so many friends all over the world.  The plan was to stop and visit them on the way.

The cheapest tickets we could find were with Alitalia.  Our first stop was Rome.  We stayed with someone who knew someone.  They wanted to take us to see the wonders of the city but we chose to potter around the local markets so see how they lived.

The trip was long and we had a few bad flying experiences that led to 5 years of aerophobia for me.   As we were taking off from Rome, the plane screeched to a halt on the runway.  The airhostess came running to the exit right near me and found that the door wasn’t closed properly.  I spent the entire flight worrying about all the other doors.

We met our dear friend Robin Glass and his lovely Brazilian wife Tati in London.  We stayed with them for few days.  Tony and Robin made lots of music and sang all their old songs from their Doulos days.  Our take off from London was amazing; straight up into the air and so smooth.  Everyone was smiling and commenting on how good it was when suddenly it was as if we had hit a wall in the sky.  The plane dropped and everyone screamed.  There was no explanation or apology from the captain and I sat in “stiff position” the whole way to Auckland.

Being with Betty and Tony’s family was amazing.  Ben was the one who had prayed for Tony during his hippy, India, searching days.   I had heard so much about him and it was nice to finally meet him.  Tony’s sister Jan and her husband, Allan had two gorgeous little girls, Hayley and Libby.  They loved their new little cousin, Asha.  Betty had found life in South Africa and it was so lovely to see how much she had changed.

Betty babysat one night while we went to see the movie “Cry Freedom.”  I cried from beginning to end.  Watching how black South Africans lived while I was climbing trees and swinging in the park was too much for me.   So many husbands and wives were separated from each other.  Children lived on farms with their grandparents while their parents tried to make a living in the cities.  Kids grew up not knowing their fathers.  Husbands found new wives in the cities and no longer felt at home in their villages.  I knew it was happening but had never seen a movie on it.  I was beside my self by the time we got home.  Before I went to bed I wrote some words, which I titled “African Woman.”   I imagined her singing something like this to her estranged husband.

African Woman* 

Haven’t seen you in a while

And the firelight in your eyes

Can’t melt the coldness I find growing there

It’s been so long and things have changed

No longer do you love the sun

On your naked skin

Or the rough ground under your feet

My fire can’t warm you anymore

You’ve found more and I’m losing you

Things have changed

See the wide eyes in the dark

Small hearts beating strong

Wondering where you’ve been so long

Growing fear it’s been so long

And things have changed

It rained for weeks in Auckland. We didn’t have much money to travel around but we spent lots of time with Tony’s family.  There were lots of tears when we left.

Our next stop was California.  Some of our Doulos friends had planned a reunion in Lake Arrowhead.  Brock Grigsby’s friend gave us the use of their huge house right on the lake.  There were twenty of us and we had so much fun.  We sat around the fireplace at night and sang old songs and shared memories that made us laugh and cry.

From there we flew to New York and visited Mike and Debbie.  There was a lot to catch up on and it was fun hearing about how things had worked out for us all.

Ash was such a good traveller.  She slept in suitcases and drawers and wherever else she was put.  As long as she was with us, she was happy.  When we got home, she had no idea we had been in the sky or circumvented the earth.

* Tony put music to this-  also on our Colours  album/cassette

May13

Post 66. Paying baby off

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Tony had his heart set on an Ovation guitar.  They weren’t available in Johannesburg so he got another make he liked.  Around the time Asha was born,  he went back to the music shop to have a look around.  The guy was surprised to see him.  The exact Ovation Tony had been looking for had been brought in the day before.  He had no way of contacting Tony to let him know.

It was good and so pleasing.   It just wasn’t perfect because he didn’t have the money for it.  It was R 1,500. He told the guy he would get back to him.  It was taken off the shelf and he was given 24 hours to decide.  That day someone gave him R500.00 and Peter bought his old guitar from him for R500.00.  Another friend gave us R500.00 towards our hospital bill but he was happy for us to use it however we needed to.  We were on the lowest rung of income earners so the hospital agreed that we could pay R 50.00 a month.   That meant that Tony could go to the music shop and pay for the guitar.   It all happened in 24 hours and Ash was going to be paid off in instalments.

Walking out of the hospital with our baby was one of our proudest moments.  Tony, known for driving on the wild side, drove about 20 kms an hour along the highway.  I sat there smiling and wondering how long it would last.  It lasted until we got home.

Tony took two weeks off work and people from the church brought us meals every day.  We were so spoilt.  We didn’t have a TV but we watched the series “Roots” from beginning to end whenever Ash was asleep.  The midwives had taught me how to get her to sleep four hours at a time by fully feeding her.  I never fed her without my clock right next to me and I was determined that she was going to sleep through the night by 6 weeks.   Between bouts of mastitis and happy hour every day from 5-6 pm we didn’t give up.  When she struggled to sleep we put her in her carrycot on top of the tumble drier.  She thought she was in the car; it worked every time.  She was sleeping through the night, in her own room, by the time she was 6 weeks old.  It was nice to have our room back.

Life was stretching.  Tony got busy with his prison and church work.  He was a great dad but somehow I got resentful of his freedom to come and go as he wanted to.  I wasn’t used to being left out of anything.  Suddenly I couldn’t attend meetings and when I did, I had to take my crying baby outside.  I couldn’t see the point.   I started to withdraw and lose my intimacy with God.  I was consumed with feeding, bathing, consoling and sleeping.  I loved it all and I loved my baby, but I just couldn’t seem to love anyone or anything else.  I became more and more negative and spiritually disconnected.

The community in Buccleuch wasn’t working.  No one was prepared to really commit to it so we shut it down and we all went back to Waverley.  We had made some good friends.   It was good to experience what it was like to start a new community but we were very aware that there was so much more we needed to learn before we tried it in India.

May10

Post 65. Asha

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My check ups had been going well at the Johannesburg General Hospital. The only concerns were my low sugar levels and the combination of our blood groups.  They were incompatible.  I didn’t understand it all, but went for lots of injections and blood tests.

I had decided to be a “midwife’s patient” and to have a natural birth in the active birth unit.   It was a lounge area with lots of big cushions, comfy chairs.  There was also an area for tea, coffee and snacks and we couldn’t wait to try out the jacuzzi.

One Sunday evening we were all in Bryanston listening to a very funny preacher called Gerald Coates.  I laughed so much that my waters broke.   We went home to pack my things and to wait for the right moment to go in.  Tiffany was staying with us at the time and she helped to calm us down.

We went in too early but the room was ready for us.  It was lovely lounging around between contractions.  Tony found it so comfortable that he fell asleep.  I wasn’t happy with that and I let him know.  He saw a different side to his lovely, sweet wife.

The midwife kept checking on me and insisted that I drink a litre of Pepsi before I could give birth.  During one of her examinations she found that the baby wasn’t in the right position.  I got into the Jacuzzi with the jets right on my back and it wasn’t long before it turned around.  Tony serenaded me with his guitar while I went from one contraction to another.

It was a sixteen hour long process.  When the time came, all the pretty décor disappeared and before I knew it I was on a sterile bed with 6 medical students watching me giving birth.  At that stage I didn’t care who was watching.  All my dignity had long gone.  I just wanted to see my baby.  Tony stayed calm while I told him his breath stank.

Our little girl was born on 21 September 1987 weighing 3.23 kgs.  She was beautiful.  Her eyes were unusually huge.  They were like pools.  We were so happy,  we cried more than she did.

Tony liked the biblical name “Asher” but thought it sounded like a boy’s name.   He changed it to Asha thinking he had made it up.  Her second name was Christy.  Like mine.   An Indian friend was staying with us and asked what we were naming our baby.  When Tony said “Asha” he said, “Oh do you know that’s an Indian name?  It means ‘Hope.”

We had no idea.  NO idea.

Song for Asha:

“Two swirling pools of life swim in front of me,

Drawing me into caring for you

Am I given an option, maybe a choice?

What if sometimes I don’t feel like meeting the demand?

Would it make a difference?

Would this tug towards you go away?

The memory of pain is dying

The depth overwhelms

I want to swim

I want to dive

I want to get into the deepest part

The source of the great demand

And live there always

(Song written by me.  Tony put music to it and recorded it on his album – Colours)

May9

Post 64. Prime cuts and prison

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We had run out of money again.  There was enough for a few litres of petrol and one more meal.  To make it to the end of the month, we needed R 400.00.

We went to church, secretly hoping that someone would take us out for lunch or bless us with some money.  Neither happened.   I asked Tony to ask Rig to lend us some.  His response was, “One day we are going to be in India and there will be no-one to ask.  We have to learn to trust God now.”  After the meeting, we stopped at a supermarket.   There were lots of people from church buying lots of lovely things to eat.  Tony had heard a story of someone who had no money but filled up their trolley anyway.  As they got to the till someone offered to pay for their groceries.  He didn’t have such faith so he came out with a loaf of bread.

We got home, made sandwiches and lay down to have an afternoon nap.  It wasn’t long before the phone rang.  It was someone from our church.

“Hi Tony.  I have been trying to rest, but the figure of R 400.00 is going round and round in my head.  I am going to bring it to you now, so I can get some sleep.”

The church couldn’t pay us a salary so Tony taught guitar and applied for a position as a prison chaplain.  He had studied at a Baptist Bible College in New Zealand so he approached the Baptist Union to ask about being a prison chaplain for them.   He was accepted.  To our surprise, the Prison Services of South Africa paid him to do it.

South Africa had the second largest prison population in the world next to Russia.  Tony got a chaplain post in Leeuwkop Maximum Security Prison.   There weren’t many white chaplains applying for jobs in there.  Most of the men were political prisoners.

On his first day, Tony was taken through one gate after the other and led into an open courtyard where 300 men were waiting for him.  Some were on death row. There were guards with machine guns patrolling the walls but there was no safety in that.   He knew that men sentenced to death have no fear of dying twice.  They could have killed him right then and their consequences would have been the same; death.  He was really scared.   He prayed.  God took the fear away and replaced it with love.

Every day he went in and out of the many hospitals, solitary confinement cells and wards sharing his story.   He shared the story of Jesus for four months without asking for a response.  The men kept asking what they needed to do and he would tell them to wait.  On the 1st Jan, they knew all they needed to know and Tony asked them to respond.  150 men gave their broken lives to Jesus.  It wasn’t long before Maximum Security was the best section to be in.

Prisoners from all sections signed up to do a Bible Correspondence course and Tony had 1,500 students to take care of.   He was in his element.

In the meantime, I was nauseous and in my element.  I loved our new house.  We even had a baby room.  Someone gave us some bright yellow curtains, which fitted perfectly.  We were too poor to be fussy.  Things started pouring in.  Before we knew it, we had everything we needed for our baby and we hadn’t bought a thing.

Food was still a bit of an issue.  One day we put our hands on our fridge and asked God for some vegetables.  We didn’t want to be too demanding.  Only vegetables.  That afternoon a friend called us to say they were moving house.  Could we pop in to pick up some things?  They opened their deep freezer and told us to help ourselves.  We drove home with so many bags of frozen vegetables there was no room for them in our small freezer.  We started to think of who we could give them to.

While we were happily boiling our vegetables, another friend knocked on our door.  She was standing there with a huge prime fillet in her hands.  “ I thought you might enjoy this.”   She had NO idea how much we were going to enjoy it.

We were sitting at our little dining table, tucking into our prime fillet and yummy vegetables and the God who knows hearts so well whispered, “You can have vegetables, but you can also ask me for meat.”

May8

Post 63. Amazed

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Tony’s job at Legends came to an end.  It was sad saying goodbye to the kitchen staff who he had prayed with every morning.   He started to do more work at Waverley and it wasn’t long before he was part of the staff.

In December we went on holiday to Southbroom with the Brabys.   It was hot and I spent way too much time in the sun without sunscreen.  We got home one afternoon after a really long day out.  My legs went like jelly and I passed out.  I had sun-stroke for three days; delirious, dehydrated and nauseous.

When we got back to Johannesburg, we decided to move out of our little cottage into an area called Buccleuch.   We already had some friends living there and the plan was to see if we could start a new community.  First we had to find a house.

Our budget was R 500.00 a month.  That wasn’t much.  We looked at so many places.  Everything was way above what we could afford.  Friends of ours took us to see a lovely 3 bedroomed house with a big garden for R 2000.00.  We went along just for fun.  It was newly built and never lived in.  The landlord was friendly and smiled when we told him what our budget was.  Without any discussion he said, “Ok, you can pay R 500.00 and I’ll pay for water and electricity.”  We couldn’t believe it.  We were going to move into an empty, brand new house.

We needed to get some furniture.  The only thing we had bought was a second hand washing machine.  We had been putting our washing in the bathtub, filling it with soapy water and trampling on it.  It was fun for a while but then we got bored.   We were the only form of entertainment in the cottage, so when the machine was set up, we sat on the floor and watched our washing going round and round.

Friends started giving us furniture and before we knew it our house was full.   There was so much space and once again, we were amazed at all the blessings coming our way.

A very well meaning friend felt we needed a puppy.  She arrived at our door with a big smile and tiny white ball of Maltese Poodle.  We had mixed feelings but it wasn’t long before we were in love.  We named him Pooky.  It wasn’t too much longer before we realised we had a big problem on our hands.   He was a nut case.  Every couple of days we had to pick him up from somewhere.

Finances were always tight.   One month was particularly bad.  We were supporting a friend who had joined a mission organisation.  The amount we were sending to her was the amount we needed to make it to the end of the month.   We were tempted.  After much deliberation, we knew we had to send it.

Within a few days, the lady who had given us our puppy, popped in with an envelope.   It was enough money to cover all Pooky’s injections.   His next one was only due in two months.  When she left, we looked in the envelope and it was exactly the amount we had just given away.   Once again, we were amazed.  God and Pooky had saved the day.

We got our house on a Sunday.  That same evening, Tony was ordained as an elder. That afternoon I wee’d on a stick.  I was pregnant.

May7

Post 62. Change of plan

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Before we got married we told people not to give us gifts because we were going to India within 6 months.  That was the plan.

In New Zealand, Tony had been going to a church led by tattoo-covered George, a wild Pacific Islander.  He had been a gang leader and got radically converted.  He was tough and didn’t take any nonsense.  He met with his people in pubs and cafes.  Sunday mornings would start with,

“Ok you, come up here.  Tell everyone what I preached last Sunday and what you have done about it.”

A young guy who had a problem staying away from brothels, went to see him in his office for the hundredth time to confess.  George was fed up.  He knocked him to the ground; lights out.  He got up and never went back to a brothel.

Tony wanted to learn from someone not so heavy handed. Rig became his second best friend.  They spent hours together talking about theology, life and India.  Rig was supportive of our call but a bit concerned about our readiness and the timing of it all.

I signed up for a diploma course in Public Relations and loved it.  I had also completed a course in Journalism.  I knew both courses were somehow going to be helpful in the future.

Within a few months, things were looking clearer and we both knew what we would be doing in India; Community planting.  Tony was still relatively new to it. He knew if we were going to have anything to do with pioneering, he would need to learn as much as he could.  We also knew we would need lots of friends to help us on our way.

Tony went to see Rig to talk about our plan.  We had been married for 4 months and we needed to get going.  Rig could see our eagerness and passion but his advice was to wait.  He had some good perspectives.  Tony struggled with it but he knew Rig was a wise soul.  His response was, “Ok, I submit, but now its’ on your head.”

So, we settled it.  We were going to be in South Africa for as long as we needed to be and we were going to make the most of it.

We had been married for 5 months.  I was on the pill and it wasn’t helping me to be a nice person or a loving wife.  I was emotional, negative and just not myself.    Enough was enough.  I was going to come off the pill.  One night we looked at each other and said,

“Let’s have a baby.”