NOSIPHO'S TESTIMONY- LIFTED OUT OF DESPAIR

My name is Nosipho Makhathini. I am a 22 year old black South African female, a former prostitute thief and drug addict.

My life was on the upward. I was blossoming. I had passed my university entrance exams [called matriculation exams], and I was heading off to university. My heart was leaping inside me as I saw myself studying, passing my exams and getting my degree. Through the degree I would get a job that would break the mire of poverty my family was gripped by. There was a spring in my step and a smile on my face. My brain was overloaded with hope, vision and bright expectation.

I began the year of 2006 so well, passing my exams easily and learning from one module to another. But this would all be cruelly robbed from me towards the end of the year. Instead I would give up my education in exchange for a life of robbing people, smoking crack cocaine, prostituting in the middle of the night and in the searing winter cold. I would be a victim of repeated violent beatings from a man who told me he loved me with the sincerity of satan, the master deceiver. You would have though that I would learn from my BA Psycology course. But I, the learner, would be a victim of a master manipulator.

How could I give up a life of hope, security and confidence in exchange for such a miserable life? It all started in November 2006 when I met a charming man. He acted as though he was overwhelmed by my beauty, shapely figure and innocent charm. He claimed he was totally in love with me. Our destinies had met and it was appointed for us to meet, love and live a life of intoxicating love until death seperated us after many many years of happiness. He showered me with gifts, with devoted love and attention for only me. I was his queen, his princess, the girl of his dreams he had prayed and waited for.

I believed him and gave myself to him body, spirit soul and life. I was madly in love. Nothing was as important as the love we had for each other. No sacrifice was too great. No pain of suffering would ever be able to rise so high as to put me off this man who filled me with utter completeness fulfillment and joy.

My love for him was tested when he sincerely explained to me that in order to for 'us' to survive, I had to start getting money through prostitution. In order to dull the shame and humiliation, he offered me crack cocaine. Crack cocaine is highly addictive. Once you have the first pipe, you just have to have it again and again. I believed him and sacrificed my body for him. I just had to have the crack, so he began selling it to me. Soon I went out on the streets to get money to take another hit of crack, but it was never enough. Each pipe promised the ultimate high, but always disappointed me, and demanded another try. Soon he asked me to steal in order to have cash.

He got money from my prostitution, from selling drugs to me and from the proceeds of my thieving from clients. He would always demand more and more money-shouting, cursing and condemning me. Somehow I felt that he was right. I was wrong. I was not doing enough for him. He was the benefactor even though my life was rapidly being destroyed and he was using the money I got for him to entertain and sleep with other girls.

I pliunged into depression. The love of my life was unsatisfied. The love of my life was unhappy with me. The love of my life needed more and more and more and I was failing and failing and failing. Nothing was good enough for him. He often looked at me with disgust and went to entertain and seduce other women. I became thin, did not wash, and was very frail. All hope was gone. Expectation was gone. Faith in my future was gone. The vision of feeding my family, of bringing respect to my father was completely erased. All was despair. What I craved was one word of encouragement or love, but it did not come. What i also craved was one more hit of crack that would lift me out of despair into hope and confidence, but instead the after-effects of crack gave me terrors and paranoias, unimaginably terrifying that would take ages to dissipate.

Then three angels came in the form of Petra Luna, Pastor Steve Blomefield and Pastor Christine van Straaten of Grace Family Church, Umhlanga. The night they rescued me I will never forget.

It was a dreadfully cold night on the 31st July, 2009, 3 years after my first encounter with drugs. I had been parading around the streets of the point, Durban, in a skimpy skirt, sleeveless top and artificial braids. I was suffering from the cold, biting wind, but the craving to please my master drove me on. I kept chasing one particular client around and around, trying to make him notice me above all the other girls on the pavement. I failed.

The time was 11 pm and I was close to calling it quits. As I crossed the street a woman [Petra] with a mantle approached me. 'Jesus loves you sister'. Those words aroused bitter anoyance in me. How could Jesus love me when I was stuck in this predicament? If that was the love of Jesus I would rather he keep it to himself. She handed me a tract and I took it, shoving it into my pocket. I had no intention of reading it, only getting rid of her. I continued trawling for clients.

Three blocks down the road, a blue car stops for me and inside is an older white man. I had hit the jackpot! My luck had come in. I jumped in only to be met by a sad compassionate eyes [Pastor Steve]and a warm hand from a woman in the back seat [Christine]. They were not clients but Christian workers. I was deeply angered and spoke derrogatory things in anger. I thought I would put them off, but they persevered. Finally I agreed to pray with them and I surrendered to Jesus Christ. I felt a calmness envelope me and I was free.

Nosipho went through the program and obtained a job. She started work as a secretary but after just one week went back to drugs and the man who inspired her to start using them. Please pray for her.

NOTANDO'S TESTIMONY - REJECTION, ABUSE AND RESTORATION

I am a Xhosa girl from Cape Province, South Africa. I am from the rural area where people are very poor. I decided to come to Durban to seek brighter, better things-AND MORE MONEY!!!!!!!!! . I believed that this would be for my good, but I was wrong, so very wrong

When I arrived in Durban I got a job and life was relatively easy. I was working and a boyfriend soon followed. I fell in love with him hook, line and sinker. He was my one true love and life seemed good.

Two months later I found out that he had a girlfriend/wife he was staying with. He had a child with this woman. I was merely an amusement-some plaything on the side. I was torn apart. How could a man I loved so deeply betray me so immensely? I fell into adeep depression and my life fell apart. I then lost my job. I now had no man and no job-and no money, no food and hunger in my belly. What now?

I met some girls in the Point, Durban who told me how to make money by selling my body. No qualifications needed. No tools to buy. No experience needed. Simply stand on the street corner and sell your body to interested clients!

They gave me hope. I only had to treat sex as though it was nothing, and get paid for it!

The life was disgusting and degrading, but I needed to eat. Also I had to send money to help my mother and my child survive at home. A little bit of meaninglessness, humiliating sex wouldn't hurt- right? WRONG!

Commercial sex work stripped me of my life and my soul, my dignity as a women, my pride as a young girl. My self esteem crashed. I felt as though I was worthless. .........But life was to soon change. ....................

I met House of life workers one lazy afternoon, standing with my friends in the sun in Fisher street, waiting for clients. I was approached and begged to go to a church meeting nearby to hear the Word of God. I hesitated, but since I was promised some free food and clothing at the end of the service, so I decided to go.

The church service was held in an unfinished, unpainted warehouse, but strangely, as I entered the church, I felt a warmth I had never felt before. It was as though someone had their hand on my shoulder. I felt a presence around me and felt compelled to give myself to Christ. I resisted for a while, but soon I submitted to the Holy Spirit and received jesus Christ into my heart. ..... and my salvation.

At the end of the service I asked to go to the HOUSE OF LIFE to be rehabilitated from the abuse I received, and the evils I was committing. I was interviewed and went to the HOUSE.

At the HOUSE OF LIFE I have first of all surrendered my life totally to Jesus. Then I received divine peace, understanding that all things work out for blessing in my life.

Part of the HOUSE OF LIFE program is training in skills, with excellence. I will soon be going to commercial college. At the end of this I will do an exam and receive a certificate. With this certificate I will get a job and start rebuildinging my financial and educational life. I will also be able to send clean money home to my mother and for my child. Halleluia! Thank you Jesus for you are so good to me.


Notando went to college, passed her certificate and returned home to where her parents and children are. It is beleived that she is working now, and providing for her children and bigger family.

ASSASINATION HIJACKING AND TB

The HOUSE was asked what were the dangers of the HOUSE OF LIFE MINISTRY.

The dangers include assassination by pimps angry that their girls have been removed from their influence; mugging as the streets are walked at 2 am in the morning, where drug users are desperate for cash for their next 'hit'; rape of the women who are witnessing the streets; violence against workers; hijacking of the car as it goes from one crime-ridden area to another [in Durban at night red lights are routinely crashed so that the car is not stationary and become vulnerable for hijacking].

But this is only the beginning of the dangers. The girls who come off the street are often infected by Tuberculosis; hepatitis B; HIV; often skin diseases, diarrhea; gonorrhea, and many other diseases that can be spread in a person to person contact in a house.

Some girls who come off the street have pent up anger and may become violent in the house. Twice there have been incidents of attempted violence- one with a knife and one with a pair of scissors.

The staff regularly pray for protection from disease and safety from sudden explosive anger by girls in the house.

The advantages? As serious as the dangers are, so also is the depth and breadth of reward in living in the HOUSE. To see women who are professional sex workers, some hijackers, fraudsters, liars, deceivers, thieves come to Jesus Christ and submit to his rule, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, then change comes and gracious Godly women emerge from the awfulness of sin. Then comes the voice of the Holy Spirit within. 'Well done you good, faithful servant'. After that there is a peace, a joy, a satisfaction, that comes to the worker. Our reward is not in money, property, cars, bank balances but our reward is stored in heaven where we will see girls who have been plunging towards an eternity in hell- come into eternity with Jesus.