Rev Wilfred has been an Anglican priest for 27 years. He says he’d love to open a restaurant church. Jon suggested he could call it “Feed my flock.”

THE LADY IN THE FISH MARKET

I have been gutting fish here for more than 40 years. My mother brought me here to start work.

(I asked if she’d mind if I took her photo and she said ” yes but I don’t like looking at photos of myself.. I’m always conscious of the dark skin under my eyes.” )

“I was kidnapped at gun point in Johannesburg in 2010. These men wanted my car.. It was on a list of car makes to take. We think they had been watching me for some time and knew my movements. So one day when I was collecting my daughter from pre school these men surrounded me, put a gun to my head and drove me away, they threw me into the back of one car and then swapped me into the back of another.. These kind of things don’t usually end well. Another mother saw what happened and I was speed dialling Steve but I couldn’t have told him where we were going.

It was like everything became 4 dimensional and it was not an issue about whether or not I believed in Jesus.. It was like.. I.. Experienced him. It came from outside of me and enveloped me, the certainty, the calm assurance that no matter what happened to me they couldn’t hurt me.. It was like having an out of body experience. One of the men had a continual cough and I asked him can I pray for you? Not to make him like me, or so he would not hurt me but because I knew that God wanted to heal him. Later on I was lying face down in the back seat of the car and I was aware that my shirt was right up exposing my back.. But I had no fear.. And I felt this guy gently pull it back down to cover me.

In the end they put me put of the car, didn’t harm me and even gave me 50 rand to help me get home. One of the guys said I was the first person they ever felt bad doing this to. People ask me “why did you not have counselling” but I wasn’t afraid you see, I had no fear then and I have none now.”

I came to faith as a young man who lived a bit of a wild life and for a long time afterwards everything was amazing.. He literally turned my life around. But there was a time not too long ago when spiritually things seemed harder, emptier somehow. I think I had forgotten that God loves me and that his love isn’t dependant on what I do for him. I think I was working harder and harder to earn what he wanted to give me for free. But eventually I remembered again that he is the good Father who loves me. Now I try to enjoy all of it.. Everything. Knowing I’m loved is the game-changer. It makes sense of everything else.

I have 4 kids and I’m an imperfect parent but I love to give good things to my children, I love to see them succeed in what they are trying to do, love to see them laughing.

I came to South Africa from Namibia 50 years ago. There was a big change in me. I’m 89 years old M’am and I came because one morning God told me to take the gospel into all the world. He changed me that day. So I came here. Now I tell each person that parks that God loves them, that he smiles over them.. And then they give me a coin for watching that their car is safe while they go to the bank.

(Jon and I were driving along and we saw a parking space.. a gap with enough space for about 4 cars.. You could have parked a bus or two in this parking space.. And there was Joseph beaming and smiling and waving at us as if we were his long lost friends. And as we drove in we could see all the signs said free parking for up to two hours. And Joseph waved us in.. He directed us as if he we’re bringing in a helicopter to land, flight signals, arms out extended, he guided us into this enormous parking space and then he beamed at us and congratulated us on our skill.)

A post from Ella.

We are hoping to post separately but we haven’t yet worked out how to differentiate the tabs or whatever they are called so at the moment if it’s me I’ll say so at the beginning of the post!! I am planning mainly to post photos and small pen portrait type notes about the people we meet..

On the plane on the way over I was reading a book by James Hollis who is a psychotherapist.

Apparently the etymology of the word psychotherapy is “to observe or attend the soul” In which case I think we should all be psychotherapists.

Over the years I have loved hearing the stories of those who have observed, listened and attended to what is stirring within them. Those people who have faced a fear or realised something about themselves or their history and who can now say,
I am no longer afraid of…
I have grown in wisdom and understanding.
I don’t know all things and I have no need to pretend I do, but I do know a few things about myself and I can live with ambivalence.
I am no longer defined by my family,
I’m no longer ashamed of my past, or afraid of the future.
I am no longer carrying the guilt from my mother or living out an inherited script in my work.
I had a fairly crappy childhood but I am an adult now and I will face the fear of stepping out on a previously untried route.

I love spending time with people who have attended to their souls, who have observed the repeated patterns of their actions, noticed their own habits and rituals, their hangups and prejudices and have intentionally chosen to challenge their own assumptions and live another way. I am fascinated by people who have changed their minds about something no matter how small.

The book I read on the plane said, “The second half of life presents a rich possibility for spiritual enlargement, for we are never going to have greater powers of choice, never have more lessons of history from which to learn, and never possess more emotional resilience, more insight into what works for us and what does not, or a deeper, sometimes more desperate, conviction of the importance of getting our life back. We are already survivors, and that counts for a lot. How, or even whether, we finally use these accumulated strengths to redeem our life from our history will count for even more.” James Hollis

These are some of the people we’ve met along the way..