Today I looked into the eyes of a mother who was broken. She has three children; Hope, Kamogeho, and Tstiamo, aged ten, twelve, and sixteen. Tidimalo Ahonuno, their mother, is from Zimbabwe and she moved from there to Kya Sands about ten years ago for work. Kya Sands is one of the many communities that exists on the outskirts of Johannesburg. It overflows with people, drug abuse, gray water (various chemicals), and children.
As I moved to sit down with this mother the men crowding around her created a semi circle and the rest of my team filtered into the group and began conversations with some of them. Beer bottles strewn the dirt and everyone around me seemed to have had a couple of the beers already in them; it was about half past noon. I asked Tidimalo how she was doing, how the holiday had been, and what work had been like for her recently. She looked me in the eye and paused for a long moment. I could feel the emotions in her chest rising up as if someone had turned a water pressure gage onto full blast. She took a deep breathe and with as much defiance as she could muster, she met my gaze again and said, “I’m a sex worker.”
I was taken aback and I realized that the house that we were sitting outside of had two hallways and multiple doors that men and women were continuously rotating through. My team realized that we were talking with prostitutes and their clients outside of a brothel. I took a deep breath and gazing back at her questioning eyes I asked, “Well, do you like the work that you do?” and I smiled at her. Her bottom lip begin to quiver when she didn’t hear judgement in my voice she began to tell me about her life. Tidimalo has been a sex worker for the past ten years to provide for her children in a country where jobs are scarce and the government offers little to no support. Growing up, Tidimalo and her sister heard Bible stories from their mother and grandmother but as time had passed she had felt increasingly distant from God. She had come to know a God that did not provide for her family, a God that may walk with her everyday but never gave her an escape from her pain. As I talked with this mother her eyes filled with tears and her hands reached out to mine as if she was desperately searching for an anchor. I prayed in my heart, God help me. I’m out of my depth, Lord help me love and share truth with this beautiful woman.
I began to share scripture with Tidimalo about God’s love and purpose for our lives. About how in Mathew 7:7 Jesus says that we can “ask and receive” and that what we seek we will find. I shared testimonies about when I had personally prayed with young women like her looking for work and how by the end of the day or the week God had provided a new job for them. I told her that God loved her more than anything in the world and I shared the parable about God leaving the 99 sheep for the one. We discussed hearing God’s voice and understanding the purpose he has for our lives and the beautiful treasures he has put inside each of us. Tidimalo is a beautiful, broken mother who needed to hear how much the Lord loved her, how there was no longer a need to walk in shame, and how today she could be free of the life that she despised.
My team was given the opportunity to talk with multiple women today walking in and out of the rooms of the prostitution house. We prayed with the men outside; for God to break the power of addiction, for Jesus to step in and provide them new work, for the Holy Spirit to transform their hearts and minds. Today was a day of salvation. Today the Holy Spirit moved to recapture the hearts and minds of men and women who believed that there was no other way to live.
This is why we are here, why I am here in South Africa. Today was one of the hottest days yet; I was sweaty and tired, doing door to door evangelism on a Saturday morning, knowing I had an hour and a half of kids ministry following this ministry. And yet in my humanness and exhaustion God stepped in and allowed me to be a vessel of love to a mother and a group of men and women who needed to here about Jesus’ grace. Everyday I am learning that there is truly nothing that resides above sharing the gospel of Jesus’ love; not comfort, not preference, not sickness, nothing. We lay everything at the foot of the cross and bend down to pick up our own because there are hundreds of people each month in these slum communities who may not be there a day, week, or month from now due to addiction, sickness, and violence. I have never felt the urgency of the gospel more. Jesus is transforming lives, giving mothers like Tidimalo a way out that is filled with love, grace, healing, and provision.
There are women like Tidimalo in every country and every city. Women driven to their breaking point with no financial or family support. There could be a Tidimalo a few neighborhoods over from yours. Be aware, be love and grace. Reach out into your communities and tell the broken people living next door to you that there is hope and a life that can be lived outside of pain and regret. Recognize the urgency of the gospel because “now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2)
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Hebrews 6:19
