33 years ago, Holger and I met in Muizenberg. 24 years ago we returned to Muizenberg, to launch our ministry debut back into South Africa. I was pregnant and a mom of a beautiful little girl already. If you have heard my story before, you will know that this mommy was struggling, but doing her very best.
We soon
joined Beautiful Gate in Crossroads and in the December after that first
engagement with work in Cape Town with vulnerable children, I gave birth to a
beautiful baby boy.
The birth
of this boy, also marked the season of my exit from YWAM. It was all too much for me. I needed to focus on being a mom and studying
again. I had identified some gaps in my
knowledge and wanted to grow.
I embarked
on my counselling studies when Daniel was a year old. I was a mom of two young kids, studying and
working in a preschool to help pay for my studies. The tension between work and motherhood was
always present for me. My journey in ministry with this, had not been easy and I was still trying to figure out, how to
be missionary, mom, enough and happy.
My babies needed extra support… Moriah-Jane was clearly gifted and needed
support around her speech and her gross motor co-ordination, while Daniel
was clearly developing differently and was diagnosed as moderately autistic at
2. I am not going into all of that in this
blog, but it was journey trying to be the best
mom to my little ones I could be, while trying to stay relevant to the call and please the
sponsors and be enough!
We finally
seemed to start getting a handle on it all when Daniel was about four and he
started showing signs of being highly functional as people like to call autistic kids
when they learn to speak. Moriah-Jane
was adapting well to school and showing an aptitude for music and creativity and she was performing well at school.
Holger and
I decided our plate was full, we were
going to have no more kids and I would finish my studies, I was almost
there. I was volunteering in a church at
this time trying to do all my practical hours for my counselling course. It was one of the happiest seasons of my
life.
It was in
this season that the sweetest thing ever happened to me… I found out I was pregnant with
Jessica. The year was 2004 and our
lives, that had just seeming found a new normal was about to change more.
Jessica brought so much joy to our little family and I often find myself as a
mom, thanking God that he disrupted my plans with another baby. I was so happy to get another chance to be a
mom of a baby. It genuinely felt like a
gift!
Now I had
three kids, still studying, trying my best to be relevant, volunteering at a
church… while trying to figure out how to best parent my little family. They were my pride and joy, but it was a
challenging experience for me. I had to
parent out of the box a lot, because of the
diagnosis of Daniel, the sensitivity of Moriah-Jane and beautiful chaos of
Jessica in our lives.
We were trying our best to give our kids the best education...
Fast
forward to 2019. I managed to get Moriah
and Daniel to the finish line of school with a Cambridge Matric… our dream was to give them the best
education we could freeing our children up to study what ever they wanted where
ever they wanted. We had worked hard to
give them what we thought was the best at the time.
With
Moriah-Jane it paid off, she was able to move to Germany with her skill in
music, work immediately, study and 7 years later, after her being in Germany she has made the best of it and we are so proud of her and how hard she worked to get her dreams
and her life currently.
With
Daniel, it turns out that his journey on the other side of school and venturing into tertiary
education would be difficult. I was not
prepared for this. His dream was to be a
history teacher. He did a gap year in
2020 doing performing arts and then we started on the journey of embarking on
getting him into a teachers course in SA.
Turns out that Daniel can not study teaching in a South African
University because he only has one language.
He needed a second language. We
tried a few different options. Trying to
work with USAF for three years to get them to help us get his university
exemption matric, that he had to have to
apply. The lack of the second language
was a real problem. It is hard to shift
a dream you have in your heart and Daniel started getting very
discouraged. At the start of 2023 and no
help from USAF and us trying to look at different options with him, he started
doing an online Bible School and the idea of doing a baseline degree
in Theology emerged as his passion for history could be approached from that
angle. In the course of the year Daniel
identified that he really could and wanted to study Theology and could see
himself applying for a course in that.
He started checking out Bible Schools and making enquiries. By the end of last year, he had so many
choices and it felt so promising.
He applied
for a Bachelor of Theology, and he got in, a second language was not a prerequisite, after all he has to learn Greek now.
It was not at a university and he did not have the USAF certificate at application, they were happy with his Cambridge Matric. He made his choice of the college that he
felt best suited him and his needs by the end of last year, after exploring a few different options.
He started
at George Whitefield on Monday with Orientation. The way it has worked out, the detail of it all
and the fact that he finally got a USAF letter on Tuesday after 3 years of trying and this on the day he had to hand in all
his transcripts in person after the online application, he had a matric
exemption letter freeing him up to study a degree.
I guess I
am writing this down in my blog, to remind myself in years to come that
trusting the process is better than ticking the boxes. Our journey is different, Daniel took longer
to get to start his studies than all his peers.
They are finishing their studies already, but his maturity, his resolve
and his readiness to take on this challenge, meant we all needed a few years to
prepare for this. My mature student is
faring well in his dorm, orientation week and he is adjusting to living away
from home for the first time in 23 years of life. The college is aware of his ASD and his high
functioning and the welcome and support is something I will be very grateful
for as long as I remember it.
I am full
of gratitude for how it has all worked out and that Daniel is still able to move towards the
dream he carries in his heart. He is in
Muizenberg in a dorm just across the road from the beach, a dining room with
a view of the sea. I am blown away about
all these incredible details in his story so far.
Daniel I am here for you, proud of you and believe with all my heart that you have got this!
To parents reading this remember to trust the
process in parenting, especially if you are parenting special needs children as
a special needs mother. Follow the dream!
Waiting for orientation to begin in the dining hall with amazing windows looking straight onto Muizenberg Beach.
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