Straatwerk

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." 2 Corinthians 4:16-17

During the first seven years of Candice's life, she lived with her devout Muslim grandmother.  During those years, she often attended muslim activities with her grandmother and there she learned the Muslim prayers.  When her mother came and took her to live with her, at the age of seven, everything in Candice's life changed.  Her life became miserable.  For the next seven years of her life she was sexually abused by her stepfather. Candice tried to talk to her mother about it, but her mother, who was addicted to smoking mandrakes, refused to listen to or believe her.  Feeling hopeless and desperate, Candice wanted to die and even attempted suicide at the age of 14.  When she was 15, she became pregnant by her stepfather, and embarrassed and ashamed, not wanting anyone to find out, she ran away and began living on the streets of Cape Town.  Pregnant and homeless, the only way Candice could survive was by selling her body.  People she met urged her to give her baby up by getting an abortion, but she didn't want to kill her child, and continued to prostitute in order to survive.  On her 16th birthday, she gave birth to a baby girl.  She knew nothing about babies or how to take care of them, but a woman living nearby helped her with her child and watched her while Candice worked on the street.  When her daughter was 1 ½ years old, she went back to her mother's house.  Again she tried to talk to her about her stepfather, but again her mother refused to listen and seemed only to care about her drugs.

Candice returned to the streets, leaving her daughter with her mother. She found it easier to make money without a baby around, and she also discovered that the more she earned, the more she wanted.  She used to buy whatever she could for her daughter and send it to her mother, not wanting her child to go without anything.  After a while, she  found a place to stay and wanted to take her child back to stay with her, but her mother refused and threatened to tell people who's baby it was if she tried to take her.  Candice didn't want to face that kind of disgrace, nor bring that upon her daughter, so she left her child with her mother. 

After several court cases, it was finally proven that Candice's stepfather was the father of her child and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.  Even so, Candice's mother refused to acknowledge that her stepfather had done anything wrong, and only seemed to blame and hate Candice all the more.  Off and on her mother would allow her to come and stay at home, as long as she had money to help support her drug habit.  If Candice didn't have money, she wasn't welcome at home. Eventually Candice couldn't take it anymore and ran away again, difficult as it was for her to leave her daughter behind.  

In 2000, Candice's younger brother was shot and killed and so she returned home again for the funeral and the 100 days of prayer for the dead that the Muslims observe.  When it was completed, she returned again to the streets, but having faced her brother's death, she began to really think about her life and the future of her child.  

In the early 1990's, while Candice lived on the street, she met a group of Christians who had a coffee room in town and she began visiting them often.  There she and her friends from the street heard stories from the Bible, played games and received food.  It was there that Candice said she learned to pray and began to learn about God, though at the time she didn't feel ready to give her life to the Lord.  When these Christians would talk to her on the street corners while she was prostituting, she would tell them that she didn't want to hear it because she was busy.  That was always her story – that she was busy.  Until one day.

Candice was hungry and tired that day and they wanted to talk to her about the Word of God.  They invited her to hear more and she went with them to the coffee room with two of the other girls from the street. Candice began to get more of a hunger for the Word of God and she started going to the coffee room often, every time learning a little bit more about the Lord.  She found that the more she heard, the more she wanted to hear.  No one had ever talked to her before the way these Christians did and yet, still, she didn't feel ready to give her heart to the Lord.  But the more she heard and learned about God, the more she began thinking about her life and her daughter's life.  She felt guilty about leaving her daughter and began worrying about what might be happening to her now that she was getting older.  Candice had a boyfriend at the time, but she realized that she needed to make some changes in her life, so decided to leave him and leave the streets and go back home.  She didn't know where to begin in wanting to change her life, but decided that leaving the streets would be a good start.  When she returned to her mother's home, she discovered that she was pregnant and in 2001, she gave birth to her second daughter.

Candice admits that all her life she had hated her mother more than anything and blamed her for everything that went wrong in her life.  She had heard quite a bit about forgiveness from the group of Christians she had met, but she didn't feel like she could ever forgive her mother and stepfather, and for this reason, she felt she couldn't give her heart to the Lord.  However, as time passed, she learned how important forgiveness is and she realized that since she herself had sinned and done wrong against others, she couldn't point her finger at anyone else.  She began to realize that she had to make peace with herself and God and forgive others.

By this time, Candice was ill and knowing she was HIV+, she felt she didn't have much time left.  She didn't want to die without the Lord and she knew she had to make a choice.  One day, in May 2005, while she was lying at home, unable to eat and feeling very weak, she felt like there was a battle going on in her mind.  There was one side of her that was telling her to bow her knee and pray to the Lord, but another part that resisted and told her to just give up on life.  Finally Candice cried out to the Lord asking that He would help her and show her what she must do to give her heart to Him.  She got on her knees and prayed and when she looked up she saw that a Christian neighbor was standing in the doorway.  Her friend came and prayed with her and invited her to go to church with her that night.  Candice went along and that night, when the pastor asked who wanted to give their heart to the Lord, Candice responded.  Going forward for prayer, she experienced a touch from God that left her full of joy and life.  When she woke up the next morning, she felt like a new person and as if she had new blood in her veins!  A few days later, when her Christian friends from the ministry came to visit her, she told them about the decision she had made to give her heart to the Lord. Even while Candice felt like a new person and was full of joy, this was the beginning of many challenges she faced with her family because of the decision she had made.

Because her family is Muslim, Candice struggled with feeling like she had turned her back on her whole family by becoming a Christian.  In their eyes, she was dead, and they refused to accept the decision she had made.  Candice's oldest daughter, Berenice, attended a Muslim school and it was difficult for Candice to see and hear that her daughter was teased and picked on because her mother had become a Christian.  Even though this was painful for her to see, she realized that she had to make her own decision and that she had made the right decision to choose to follow the Lord.

Another challenge came during the month of Ramadan, the Muslim fast.  She wondered what would be the right thing to do now that she was a Christian.  Should she fast with the rest of her family or not?  Candice began fasting with them, but later felt guilty and talked to an older Christian about her dilemma.  It was then that she learned how to fast as a Christian and how it is different from fasting as a Muslim.  From then on, Candice chose not to observe the Muslim fast with her family, and though it was a difficult decision for her to make, she believes it was the right decision.

Finding a church where she could belong has been another challenge for Candice.  In the 9 months since she received the Lord, she has been in three different churches.  She found that she had to leave the churches she visited because of people gossiping and talking about her background.  Candice wants to feel free to talk to people about her past and to testify in church about where the Lord has brought her from, in the right time.  She doesn't want her daughter to hear about her past from others, but would rather tell her herself.  It is difficult for Candice to know how to approach the subject with her daughter, and she prays that she will know what to say to her and how to say it, when the time comes.

While she has faced many difficulties in the 9 months since her conversion, Candice has also experienced the Lord changing her and helping her to grow spiritually.  When she came to the Lord, Candice gave up using drugs and alcohol, knowing that she couldn't do these things and serve the Lord at the same time.  She experiences that the Lord took the desire for these things away from her, as well as her desire to go to the clubs and engage in nightlife.  Perhaps one of the biggest changes is that she has been able to forgive her mother and she no longer hates her like she did in the past.  Candice is grateful to her Christian friends and neighbors who have encouraged her and helped her to grow in the Lord.

Candice would like to encourage others to give their lives into the Lord's hands. She says, "Without God you are nothing, but with God on your side, you are everything.  God gave His Son for our sin, so why don't you serve the Lord?"