Sample Woman’s Story

My ministry partner Barbara and I are writing a book of women’s stories from South Africa. We have interviewed seven women, from the township and the city. Each woman comes from a different place and has different struggles, hopes, and dreams. Each woman’s story is worthy of being told. This is one sample of the book to come, which will show each woman’s “story”- the story she most wants us to tell- and a corresponding photograph of that woman. Each woman’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

“Caroline”

When I think of Caroline, I think of spirit. Of tenacity. Of an impossible yearning for what is right. She paints her childhood in Cinderella terms. Her mother and stepfather made her stay home with the maid during family trips and, unlike the other children, Caroline had to work to earn money for any field trips she went on. Her body configured differently from most due to a mild form of polio, Caroline likely grew up in an atmosphere of extreme prejudice. In a culture in which AIDs is commonly thought to be the result of evil spirits or witchcraft, Caroline’s disability was seen similarly. Her family, says Caroline, often referred to her as a “parasite,” and to one with a fighting spirit, this was not taken lightly.

Most of her life, Caroline seemed to be fighting. She remembers picking fights at school and constantly getting into trouble, especially with whites in her interracial school during times of great racial tension. At age eight she tried to run away from school. Later, as a teenager, she stole her parents’ car and drove off with it, only to end up in a ditch. She was full of a lot of anger, she says. As far as faith went, she was brought up in the Anglican church, but as Caroline describes, “it was a well-to-do family, but there were things, okay. . . clothes they would buy, but the thing is I needed love, and I never had that. So I told myself there’s no God. There’s no God.”

Today Caroline is at The Potter’s House in downtown Pretoria, a Christian shelter for women and children in transition. Despite the prejudice she’s encountered all her life, she managed to matriculate in the South African educational tradition, get married, go to university, and even work in the military air force. What really happened between all these things and how she ended up at Potter’s House remains a bit hazy. After a helicopter crash, Caroline says, her condition worsened, and her husband soon left her. Her five-year old daughter, she says, is with her brother in the U.K., and it is her dream to visit her in December of 2008.

Caroline’s impossible yearning for what is right will no doubt spur her on long into her years. Caroline professes a deep desire to fight for women’s rights, especially those who are disabled. “If I could have the power and get there in Cape Town and be a member of parliament, I would really change the life of South African women- white AND blacks,” she says. She speaks of this fighting spirit being passed down from her father, whom she discovered later on in life after growing up not knowing she had a father. As it stands today, I see Caroline at a clear crossroads. Such a spirit could either lead her to unprecedented success or to her downfall. In the movie “Girl, Interrupted,” Dr. Wick quotes a line from Hercules to Susanna, her psychiatric patient. “What world is this? What kingdom? What shores of what worlds?” It is a question I think Caroline has been facing all her life and continues to be the decision she faces today.

Is she going to step up to the plate and face her own demons? Is she going to let others in, even if in the past, this has meant rejection for her? Is she going to take responsibility for her own life as opposed to living from handout to handout? These are hard decisions. I know they have been for me, though in a slightly different context. In some ways, we all face these questions, even those of us of privilege. Are we going to choose a life of comfort and self-solace, or, as Jesus said, “put our lives on the line for our friends?”

Since coming to Potter’s House, God has shown up in her life, Caroline says. The director at Potter’s House took her under her wing and has not stopped giving her encouragement since. Caroline has begun to feel empowered by the staff there, and has made friends with some international interns. She describes these as answers to prayers she hasn’t even prayed. “You know, I never used to wake up in the morning and pray and thank God that I’m alive and am seeing today. Now I do that. . . God has sort of proved me wrong. He made me feel like a fool.”

I applaud Caroline for her perseverance, her bravery, her passion to defend the rights of others. I hope she clings to what God has recently done in her life. To what He’s told her. To those gifts and seeming “coincidences” that happened at exactly the right time. I affirm Caroline in her bold courage to ask for what she needs. Like the serenity prayer, I pray for her for “the wisdom to know the difference” between that she should seek to change and that she should let go of.