Cover Story

ST. GEORGE'S CATHEDRAL was packed to overflowing. A rally had been planned to launch the newly formed Committee to Defend Democracy, a committee hastily put together by church leaders to protest the South African government's recent assault on democratic groups. But just hours before, the meeting was banned, along with the three-day-old organization itself. Quickly, a service was called to take place in the cathedral at the same hour the banned mass meeting would have been held.

Despite government efforts to obstruct communication, word of the service had gotten around. Police roadblocks had been set up to keep the young people from the black townships from getting to the church service in downtown Cape Town, but many made it anyway, surging into the sanctuary like a powerful river of energy, determination, and militant hope.

There was no more room to sit or stand in the church. People were everywhere--in the aisles, the choir lofts, and the spaces behind and in front of the pulpit. People of all human colors waited for the worship to begin and the Word to be preached. Outside the cathedral, the riot police were massing.

It was our first day in South Africa. The March 13th cathedral service provided a dramatic introduction to our 40-day sojourn in this land of sorrow and hope. Indeed, the notes struck in St. George's that day would be the recurring themes in the weeks that followed.

A Portrait of Anguish and Hope

Joyce Hollyday 8-01-1988

"THE LORD ANSWER YOU in the day of trouble! The name of God protect you!...Some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall; but we shall rise and stand upright."

Allan Boesak Jr., age 9, read slowly from Psalm 20 at the conclusion of the family dinner. The words that appeared in the lectionary reading that night were particularly poignant. Just the day before, Allan's father had publicly announced to a packed cathedral that the Botha regime had signed its own death warrant.

Three nights before that, a large brick came flying through the Boesaks' living room window, sending shattered glass in all directions; a death threat over the phone followed. Allan Jr. and his 12-year-old sister, Pulane, had decided to sleep on the floor of the large walk-in closet in their parents' bedroom for a few nights, while a group of theology students kept watch through the night outside the house.

But conversation at the dinner table that evening was anything but somber. In spite of the threats that surrounded it, the Boesak home was full of joy and life. There was fear, to be sure, but laughter was a more frequent expression.

What I remember most about that evening, our second in South Africa, was not the spicy curry or the swelling background music of "Mozart's Hornpipe Concerto," but the faces around the table—the delight on Pulane's, mirrored in her father's; the compassion in Dorothy's; and the warmth from Leineke and Belen. But especially the intent look on Allan Jr.'s face as he read from the psalm the promises of God to us all in a difficult time.