Your will be done

Only Believe

Only Believe, all things are possible if we can only believe…

Colleen was a young twenty year old when her sister asked her to come to church with her. She was young and beautiful and received a lot of attention everywhere she went.

Although she went mostly to school and home and to the bioscope with her friends sometimes, these were times when it was open or if they had the 20 cents to pay the entrance fee.

They lived in a coloured township in the province called the Transvaal. This was during the apartheid era in South Africa where White people had their own areas. These were normally the best areas. The best schools, best health care, best jobs and their children were able to go to university and become anything they wanted to be. Coloureds were next on the scale and were treated a little better. Their children were allowed to attend school up to standard 8 and become teachers or nurses. The same was true for Indian people, who were next on the scale. Black people were last on the list and their children could go to school up to standard 6, but the education system and education level was so poor, most of them turned out to be just garden boys and kitchen girls. All three these lower classes of people received the same health care at hospitals, waited in long queues; they also had to enter at a special gate from the back marked “Blacks only.” White people could enter from the front where there were no queues and service was better, medicines prescribed and used for patients was also better.

General classification into either of these groups were done according to hair type and skin colour.

Colleen came from a large family of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and they lived together and supported each other. Colleen liked to have fun but she was not into smoking and drinking and was a quiet girl with long black hair, light amber coloured eyes and brown skin, with a beautiful figure. She was also bright at school but sadly she could not go to college and study for a nurse or even a teacher because her parents could not afford it. There were still 5 younger siblings that followed her and she found herself a job with the white people and worked in the clothes shop in town. She was sure that because of her looks she was allowed to assist with selling clothes in the front of the shop and not just make tea from the back like the other girls.

It was natural for her to go and help her elder sister who was married with five kids already. The boys were busy and her sister and husband both worked long hours. Her own job was only half day and she had time to get the boys from school, give them lunch and make sure they were looked after until her sister got home.

Going with her sister to church was the obvious next move. Her sister’s husband got saved recently and her sister’s life improved in the sense that her husband no longer came home drunk or had drunken parties with his friends at home. Her sister was overjoyed at the change in the man she loved and took the step to get saved as well.  She served God full time and told everyone she met of the change in her husband’s life and her own. She encouraged Colleen to get baptized and invited her to church often. Colleen’s decision to go to church was more because she felt she needed to help her sister with the kids at church as her sister was more and more involved with church meetings.

The first time she went was quite nice. She was able to focus on the preaching because by that time the boys were asleep on the floor of the classroom that was being used to have the church service. Colleen found that she enjoyed the worship, the singing as well because she was a singer herself and was proud of her strong alto voice. Her sister and husband used this as the inspiration they needed and encouraged Colleen to join the small singing group they had in their local church. Colleen did not need much encouragement and was soon a part of the saved group of Christians serving their God in the classroom of the primary school. She learned about serving God in a special way and found it came natural to her. She threw herself into the singing and arranged for the group to meet at her sister’s house for practices. Once a month there was a combined meeting for all the local churches in the surround and they travelled to the big city in her brother in law’s little car for the church service that will be held 2 hours away.