Guest post: White woman Africa

WHITE WOMAN AFRICAN

Deborah Hancox

Father, you could have ordained

That I be born

Anywhere….

A busy European city

A Himalayan hamlet

A desert camp in North Africa

A mansion in Hollywood

Or on the streets of Calcutta.

I might have been

An Inuit in the snow

A San on a cerise sand dune

A farmer working paddy fields in China

Or a cowboy in Mexico.

But you ordained

That I be born

White

Woman

South African

and therefore African.

Lord, I do not question your wisdom.

Father, you could have ordained

That,

Within my white woman South African African-ness

I be born

Anytime…

When Dutch businessmen saw their need for the abundance of our land,

When refugees from France found freedom from religious tyranny,

Or when the poor, duped fortune seekers arrived from England.

I could have been born in the back of an ossewa moving relentlessly into land not ours,

I could have been born, like my grandmother, the daughter of a Kimberley miner who scratched the earth for riches.

I could have been born and even died, a baby in a concentration camp.

Or like my mother, born on the eve of a foreign war from which her father returned, a stranger.

But you ordained

That I be born

At a time of apart-ness.

At a time of South Africa turned in upon herself.

At a time of South Africa needing to know and love deeply.

Lord, I do not question your wisdom.

So, in my white woman African-ness

I ask

What Lord,

What do you want me

To be and to not be

To do and to not do.

For you know the plans you have for me.

Plans to prosper not to harm.

Plans to give hope and a future.

And you have waiting, waiting, waiting, good works prepared in advance.

So in this intersection of time and place

A fleeting moment –

My moment that you chose for me -

I ask only

That I may marry your eternal purposes

With my actions in this moment.

Lord, be it unto me according to your will.

-----------------------
(This poem was written by my friend Deborah Hancox in 2002 as she started working in the non-profit sector with a heart for the poor, the marginalised and for justice - thank you for letting me share it, Deb).