Sitting at a table tonight I heard the love story of a venerable man and his wife. Pastor Vusi Radebe, married to Busi, shared how lightning struck when he first saw this Pedi girl walking home with her friend. Busi shared how she told him to wait after he immediately proposed, but then answered him in just two days. The two courted for a time, then married, and then Vusi was arrested for being part of a student uprising in the late 70s.
The story of being detained, taken handcuffed like a man who had murdered 7 people (not just drawn posters for a student march facilitated by the local drama group at his university)... driven in a blue light brigade from town to town until thrown into prison, beaten, tortured for 2 months, labelled a terrorist, forced to making a confession (he didn't). The night that he gave his heart to Jesus in a cell, not knowing whether he would survive the second confession attempt by the authorities the next morning.
Amazingly, the warden who came in did not beat him, but asked him if he could get him anything. Vusi replied: "A bible". The warden had never had a prisoner ask him for a bible before.
Vusi was released a few months later because the witnesses who were meant to testify about his supposed terrorist activities had all been brutalised and beaten. On his release he found that his wife had become a Christian too. As he arrived home, he was greeted by his student friends who had a whole car of liquor and a major welcome home party arranged for him. At the same time, the church who had been fasting and praying for him for 3 days showed up to invite him to a thanksgiving service. Both parties started at the same time! Vusi excused himself and got on his knees in a bathroom to ask God what to do. And a little voice whispered: "Who was with you in the prison cell? Were these friends with you? If you want to go and drink with them, then you may go." And so Vusi, the Zulu student, courageously went to his friends and told them that the "Vusi who went into prison is not the Vusi who came out. I follow Jesus now. We are two different people." Vusi laughed as he told us of standing in the church service, clapping like those around him, wondering what on earth he was doing with these people who were so different to him!
Several years, later, burnt out and hurt by the many refused job applications because of his prison time, the physical implications of his beatings, the harassment of his family by police, the indignities of being refused travel permissions, he agreed to accompany a friend who was preaching at Rhema Church. The friend preached on forgiveness, then asked people to find someone of another race and pray with them. Vusi headed for the far corner of the auditorium, knelt and hid. And then a big white hand landed on his shoulder, and an Afrikaans voice said: "Brother, the Lord says that you need to forgive the whites for what they have done to you, for their brutality and for what they have taken from you." And the arms held him in an embrace. In that moment, Brother Vusi felt something break inside him and he wept like a child. And when he finally stood, he was healed emotionally and physically from the hurts of his past.
This quiet, kind-hearted, gently-spoken man shared of the challenges of becoming part of a white-led organisation, of finding family and acceptance, of walking with his close friend Danie through so many parts of life. Through divorce as a result of placing church before marriage, and then reconciliation to his wife. Into leadership and service. Parenting. He shared about facing kidney failure, but still having hope and faith. He asked us to pray for him as he goes through dialysis and lives each day humbly.
Tonight I sat in the presence of a man who the world will not know. But whose story I heard. This is one of the heroes of the faith. They don't have Superman status. They are the men whose sandals we are not worthy to tie. Because they have followed our God, and will follow Him into eternity.
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