“I really want to tell my story, but… who’d want to hear?” The question was asked tentatively by a woman who usually hung in the shadows. Her story was a dramatic one - a drug-induced spiral into an insidious street-life, where pimps and dealers enforced self-made laws, with the occasional run-in with the police thrown in for excitement. The streets were South African, the drug lords our own, and the story of her escape from the living hell around the corner from our schools

SUMMER OF 1987. ZULULAND. It was hot and noisy in the crowded school hall as the one-hundred-and-something kids jumped up and down shouting out the song of Father Abraham. We shook our right arms and left arms and our feet, we nodded our heads and spun around and sat down on the cool concrete floor. I wasn’t sure who this Father Abraham guy was. Apparently he had many sons, and I was one of them, which was news to me. But a little later the person with the mic was offering up

My child had me absolutely stumped. I was beyond frustrated. I had moved onto desperate weeks ago. I just didn't know what to do. I had tried everything. Being gentle, being strong, being understanding, being strict. I had tried to coax, threaten, reason, beg. But I was just not getting through. Nothing changed. I had prayed about the situation, of course, and God had responded but I still didn't know how to effectively implement what He had said. I began fasting a day a week