I walk through the airport security and greet the guards on duty—they know me by name. The voice on the intercom announces the last boarding call for a flight to Johannesburg.

Two of my employees greet me as I enter the shop. They wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t lost my previous job. I’m learning that life is like a map, and only God sees the full picture of where he is taking us. I thought I knew the full picture.

But that was
before I lost my job.

I came home that day, overwhelmed by disbelief and fear, unaware that God was orchestrating a series of events that would go far beyond what I dreamed possible.

Unable to find employment but needing an income, my hands busied themselves making beaded jewelry that I began to sell. Then, the year before the World Cup came to South Africa, there was a contract available at the Durban International Airport to open a shop selling African crafts.

It was a leap of faith.

I didn’t have the money or the experience to open a formal shop in an airport as busy and important as Durban’s. But God was working behind the scenes. He brought people who were able to help me in the areas of business that were new for me.

When every bank rejected my request for a loan, a woman I barely knew felt God tell her to give me the loan I needed to open the shop. And I did open it—just before the 2010 World Cup.

In just the first month,
I had turned over more money than I’d made in the
previous 10 years combined.

Today, I purchase products from 50 other entrepreneurs to sell in my shop. I never dreamed that I would be able to impact so many lives. With every step of my journey, I see how God has always been one step ahead of me.

He is the one who
takes us beyond what
we can even dream of.

MANDISA
African Souvenir
Business Owner, Durban

How You Can Help

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We came from
two different worlds,
though they were only
a few miles apart.

Nokusa lived in a tin-roofed shack in a community where rats raced across the dirt roads, bypassing the scattered litter. Like most in her community, she lived without electricity and running water as she grew her little business, trying to climb her way out of poverty and help support her grandchildren.

I lived in a neighborhood of homes with crowded pantries, flat-screen TVs and well-kept gardens. But on Saturdays, I would pick Nokusa up and we’d go out for tea. We’d talk about God, family, business. We challenged each other and laughed together. At first, she was shy and unsure.

I was the first
“white friend”
she ever had.

Slowly, our friendship grew.

I found myself struggling to reconcile the joy and gratitude that shined from Nokusa when I considered the challenges and circumstances she lived with every day.

And then Nokusa got sick—very, very sick.

Not long after visiting her in the hospital, I got a call from Nokusa. Her voice was weak, but still carried a sense of strength. I held the phone close as she thanked me so sweetly for the time we’d spent together over the past year.

With my heart heavy, I choked out a cheery goodbye.

It was the last
time we spoke.

Nokusa passed away the next day. Nokusa’s strength and faith have left a mark on my life. I was Nokusa’s mentor, but she taught me much more than I taught her.

There are people that we know all our lives who never leave an impact. And then there are people, like Nokusa, who briefly enter our lives and leave us changed forever.

GLENIS
Businesswomen, Johannesburg
Volunteer

How You Can Help

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I know what it’s like
to wake up hungry.

I came to South Africa to ensure that my children wouldn’t wake up with hunger pains. But it was hard to find work here. Eventually I found myself standing in lines at soup kitchens, just trying to survive, and having nothing to send home to my family.

It wasn’t the pain of hunger that pushed me to persevere, or even the shame of standing in line at the soup kitchen. It was my children’s futures that I needed to secure. I’m their dad. It’s my responsibility.

Some Christian businessmen at my church saw my discouragement. They were fathers—they understood the weight of responsibility that a father feels to provide for this family. With their encouragement, I started a small business. I’d never run a business before, but they took time to teach me how to run a business.

There were long days and nights I’d lie awake worrying what the next day would bring. There are no guarantees when you’re running a business, but I pressed on. And slowly, my business grew.

Now I find myself back in my home country, Zimbabwe, looking into eyes that hold the same traces of fear that mine once held.

It is time to give back.

It’s time to take everything that I’ve been taught about running a business and offer it to my countrymen in Zimbabwe. Their challenges and fears are ones I’ve known well. Now I can share with them from the other side, just like the men from my church did with me.

My story—my struggles
and successes—
are not mine alone.

God is using them to strengthen the shaken confidence of other fathers and mothers.

PAUL
Car Wash Owner in
Benoni, Johannesburg

How You Can Help

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The post Shaken Confidence appeared first on Paradigm Shift.

“Yes, I did,” I say with a shy smile.

I think back to that
morning, waking up
with a hangover.

I had been used to waking up with a hangover. I’d sat on the edge of my bed, rubbing my head. My hands pressed into my temples as if trying to rub away the emotional fog I lived in. I couldn’t remember the last time a real smile had spread across my face—the last time I felt happy.

Something snapped in me that morning and I finally realized—that no amount of partying, no drug, no boyfriend could give me an escape from this fog.

I’ ve tried everything—let me try God today. That was my thought as I stumbled to put on my shoes.

Inside the small church,
something rushed
over me and swept
away the fog.

The presence of Jesus was new to me.

“So who is he?” my customer asks, and I’m brought back to the present.

Like I always do when my customers and friends ask me what’s changed, I tell this customer about the day I met Jesus.

Everyday at noon, I close the doors to my business and pray with a few other business owners. With passion, we pray for our community. There are witch doctors, drug dealers, gangs and many people struggling to find food to eat. Every day I see others walking with eyes clouded over, trying to overcome the fog they’re trapped in.

I now know that there is hope.

I have dreams for my
community and of
how God can change
this place.

He has done it in my own life. I know he can do it here.

Veliswa
Hair Salon Owner
Khayelitsha, South Africa

How You Can Help

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The post Surprised By Joy appeared first on Paradigm Shift.

I close my eyes, slowly inhaling the fresh morning air. The events from the previous day play over in my mind.

I can still hear
their yells.

Picketing near the tourist market was a group of people on strike. Uneasy, I watched as some of them grew restless. I knew I was unwelcome and unwanted in this country. With so much unemployment already in South Africa, other African immigrants coming to compete for jobs only made it harder to find work.

Fleeing the violent war in my Central African country, I was one of the lucky ones who made it to South Africa in hope of peace and a fresh start.

But the battle to
survive didn’t end,
it just took on a
difference face.

Most of the venders in this market are foreigners. Unable to find work, we have each taken what little we came to South Africa with and started a small business.

Panic rose in my chest when I saw some of the strikers break away from the large group and come running toward our stalls, yelling, “Makwerekere, hambani khaya!” [Foreigners, go back home!].

I ran—abandoning
my stall.

They stole or broke almost everything. They took all of our goods while the police in the area watched the rioters steal our businesses, our livelihoods.

South African or foreigner, we’re all fighting for the same things—a life free of poverty, hunger and fear. But lines have been drawn, and yesterday I was on the wrong side of one of those lines.

Around me, the other venders are also cleaning up their vandalized stalls. We’ve done this before, this starting over. Today we will do it again.

We will pick up
the pieces and just
start again.

NTUMBA
Souvenir Business Owner in
St George’s Mall, Cape Town

How You Can Help

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The post I Will Build Again appeared first on Paradigm Shift.

Fire—my house
was on fire!

I instinctively grabbed something from under my pillow. In a daze, but with oddly sharpened senses, my wife and I pulled our sleeping children out of their beds and stumbled into the cold night air.

Shivering, we stood and watched as everything we owned was reduced to ashes.

I felt defeat sweep over me. Only then did I look down to see what I’d grabbed from under my pillow.
It was my Bible.

In that moment of
realization, I felt
a flicker of hope.

Our home was gone. But we hadn’t lost everything.

A year ago I would
not have reached
for my Bible.

My faith was something only for Sundays, but it had nothing to do with my life the rest of the week.

Yet in the last year, I found my relationship with Jesus affecting every aspect of my life—from my business to my family.

In the weeks following the fire, I began to see how the fire was a blessing in disguise. In the midst of this loss, I felt God closer than I ever had before.

But more than that, I now know that whatever I go through, God will be with me. Everything that the fire destroyed, God has replaced through the help of friends and even strangers.

JOSEPH
Pottery Artisan in
Randburg, Johannesburg

How You Can Help

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I stop the machine and hold up the shirt, examining the seams and admiring the even lines. I take out a pair of scissors and cut off a stray thread.

Fabric, thread, skilled eyes and trained hands—these four things have gone a long way in creating opportunity in an area where second chances seem as scarce as money.

I remember the many days I woke to the sounds of my seven children. Seven children—and no father to walk through the door at the end of the day.

I found myself with only
one open door—sewing.

I know about sacrifice. I remember how, at 16, I left school to provide for my five siblings. I learned to sew at a factory. Then I slowly developed an eye to create patterns and trained my hands to make those patterns realities in fabric.

When I started my business, I knew how to sew, but managing a business was a new skill I had to learn.

I needed customers. After I printed my first business cards, I went to a trade expo. Hand to hand, I passed out all my business cards.

When you have hungry
mouths at home,
you just can’t quit.

And God opened a door.

One of the hands I pressed my card into was a representative from Coca-Cola, who soon gave me an order for half a million aprons embroidered with their logo.

I now hang the shirt on a hanger and smile. My business continues to grow, employing more than 10 others in my community. Running a business is hard work. Some days I come home empty-handed, barely able to pay my workers. Other days, like today, we work late into the night finishing an order.

As I blink the needed sleep from my eyes, I watch the sun rise from the small window in my factory. There’s a joy in my heart as I look around the room and realize that I’ve created opportunity—not just for myself, but for others, too.

How You Can Help

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As I stood to offer words of hope and peace at this funeral ceremony, I closed my eyes. In my mind I imagined the scene, replaying the visits I used to make to the sangoma (witch doctor).

The smoke would sting my eyes as I’d enter the room. Rubbing them, my eyes would gradually adjust to the dim lighting. The walls were always covered in red scribblings and painted masks—the stale smell of herbs and ashes permeated the room. There were wooden bowls filled with animal bones and a small stone altar in the corner—the source of the smoke.

I always felt an eerie blend
of fear and power when
I visited the sangoma.

Is this what my “friends” felt when they’d gone to the sangoma to curse me—an understanding that the power they appealed to could work for them or against them?

When I started following Jesus, I stopped going to sangomas. How could I seek the power of a sangoma when I’d discovered that true power comes from Jesus?

There is a lot of jealousy in my community. When my daycare began to grow and become successful, other daycare owners in the community became jealous. Two of them went to a sangoma to put a curse on my life. But within a couple of weeks, both women passed away of “natural causes.”

They didn’t know what I know—that the power of a sangoma can’t succeed over the power of Jesus. I’m un-targetable.

Because Jesus’ power is
over my life, no curse of
a sangoma can touch me.

I wish these two women had known this. If they had experienced the power of Jesus, they would have realized how weak the power of a sangoma really is. They would have known that animal bones and stone altars don’t give access to true power.

There’s so much darkness
in my community.
But I don’t fear it.

The darkness can’t overcome the light that’s in me.

Phumeza
Daycare (Creche) Owner in Khayleitcha, Cape Town

How You Can Help

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I couldn’t move. In a daze, I heard frantic voices. My eyes couldn’t seem to focus. There was the smell of burned rubber and gunpowder.

The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed. The adrenaline was gone from my body, but I felt panic rising as the realization hit me.

I cannot move.

Pieces from the event that brought me here were slowly coming together. I had been riding in a taxi when the taxi driver was shot. The vehicle, now unmanned, veered off the side of the road and began rolling.

The doctors told me I’d never again move from the neck down. But after a miracle from God, I regained movement in my upper body.

I couldn’t change what had happened to me, but I could choose my response to the outcome.
I lost my legs, but
I hadn’t lost the
ability to choose.

I could still choose the direction my life would take. So I chose to use what I had and started a business making wire and bead crafts to sell outside of an entertainment arena.

Every day, I wheel myself around the busy traffic. What my body can or cannot do won’t steal the passion I have for life.

The accident hasn’t
stolen my joy.

My business is growing. For the first time, I’ve been able to save money and I now have my own specialty car. I have skilled hands that can create. I have a beautiful wife, two children and a sharp mind.

I hope that when people see me, when they see my smile, they don’t see what I‘ve lost—but what I’ve gained.

Musa
Wire & Beads Business Owner in Cosmo City, Johannesburg

How You Can Help

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The post The Accident appeared first on Paradigm Shift.

“We need to cut this off,” I said.

Kendi’s* hands went protectively to the red thread tied around her leg. We made eye contact. It wasn’t stubbornness that prevented Kendi from letting me cut off the string—it was fear.

A few weeks earlier when Kendi became very sick, her leg began to swell. She was told that people in her community had put a curse on her because they were jealous of how well her business was doing. As is the tradition in many communities, Kendi sought the advice of a spiritual leader—someone who mixed Christianity with the traditions of African spirituality. The woman tied a red thread around Kendi’s leg, promising that the thread would protect her and ward off evil spirits. Instead, Kendi’s leg grew more inflamed.

Now she lived in fear of
what would happen
if she cut the thread.

My heart was filled with both frustration and compassion. I’d seen how this dangerous kind of “spirituality” had woven its way into these communities, invoking fear and suspicion. Kendi, like all of us, was just seeking a way to make her life work.

She continued to listen to the counsel of this spiritual leader, refusing to rely on the power of Jesus.

We eventually lost touch
with each other.

It’s midday as I walk through Kendi’s community, the tires of taxis stirring up the dry ground into small puffs of dirt. The streets are lined with hair salons, repair shops and meat stalls.

I’ve witnessed the transformation of communities like this, just as I’ve seen people in Kendi’s situation break free from superstition. Slowly, this community is changing. Violence is decreasing. People are letting go of apathy and taking ownership of their lives.

When I think of Kendi,
I don’t lose hope.
Her story isn’t over yet.

EVE
Diepsloot, Johannesburg

How You Can Help

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