Hijacked for a reason.

This testimony goes back to 1989 in the old South Africa when apartheid still existed. The Black people of South Africa lived in townships, often under trying circumstances. White people feared the townships as crime was rife and violent.

I was a young “on Fire” Christian and trusted implicitly in God. I had little or no fear and had no problem in entering the township area’s. Having been a policemen in the past, I realised that whilst there was a high incidence of crime in the area’s, especially against white people who dared to enter their domain, there were also many needs in the townships. Due to the scarcity of decent shops in the black area’s, most shopping was done at little spaza shops, which are small shops set up in rooms in the owners house. The prices at these spaza shops were nothing short of daylight robbery, but yet they thrived due to the black peoples predicament of lack of transport and expensive transport to take them to the shops in the white area’s.

God had opened many doors in my business career, and at this stage I was selling soap powders at rock bottom prices, and making good profits as well. I had been venturing into the black area’s to sell these products, and because of the good value I offered in my products, I was generally well received in the townships.

There was a black area that consisted of three townships that had grown so big that they had merged into one large black township. This was the area that was mainly known as Katlehong. Katlehong was also known as being a very dangerous township.

I had done a lot of selling in the area and had also been marketing the fact that I would be selling at a particular taxi rank in the area on the month end saturday. Many prospective customers were only in a position to purchase their goods on payday at month end. This month end was promising to be a day of fantastic sales and great profits for me.

The friday of the month end, I went into the township again. There was a Zulu hostel at the far side of Katlehong, that I used to sell at every friday afternoon. Sales were good there and because of the relationship that I had built up with the people of the hostel, I was well protected from criminals. The hostel dwellers were mostly Inkatha members and most of the criminal element feared them.

With my usual routine, I would pray before I entered the township area, and cover myself, my assistant, my car and my stock with the Blood of Jesus for protection . Although I trusted in God totally, I also knew that this was a bad area and anything could happen when entering. I was also driving a V.W combi at that stage, which was highly sought after as a Taxi.

On my way through the area, I would usually stop at one or two small taxi ranks and sell to some of the people there. This was quite usual and I was also already well known at these small taxi ranks. At the first small rank, I stopped and started to get ready for selling. I opened the back of the car to offload some of the soap powder and as I started taking the first item out, I sensed something wrong.

Three young black guys were around me. Two in front and one behind. I immediately recognised them as being a gang of three that customers had previously warned me about.

Two of them pulled out guns and pointed them at me while the third grabbed me around the neck whilst punching me a couple of times. I did not resist as this would have been fatal. They emptied my pockets of all money I had on me and grabbed the car keys. All the time they were shouting that they were going to shoot me. My assistant, a young black lady, had dissapeared.

One ran and tried to start my car but failed, due to my immobilser giving problems at that stage. They forced me to the drivers side of the car and told me to start the car. I was also having problems starting the car. The whole time they were holding the gun to my head and threatening to pull the trigger.

I remember a tremendous calm being upon me, I stopped trying to start the car, turned to them and told them that they had previously seen me battling to start the car, and I would try to start the car for them, but that they should stop threatening to shoot me and if they were going to shoot me then they must shoot.

They kept dead quite and I manged to start the vehicle. They jumped in and sped off in my car, leaving me in a highly unusual condition for that area, “Alive”.

Even when I reported the matter to the police, they looked at me in disbelief and some thought that I had lied about the incident because I had not been shot dead. It is very seldom that any white in this area was not shot and killed whilst being robbed.

I was happy with being alive, but I was not happy with God.

I fought with God and wanted to know why, when I had covered my stock and my car with the blood of Jesus, did He allow this to happen? The loss that I had just suffered would set me back immensly. Needless to say, I had also done a lot of work to promote my month end sale scheduled for the taxi rank the following day. I would lose all those sales as I now had no suitable vehicle to sell from. I was really angry with God about the whole incident.

Saturday arrived and I was stranded at home, nothing to do, no car, and unable to go and sell. I spent the day watching television and relaxing.

In the afternoon, the news caught my ear. There had been a drive by shooting in Katlehong. A car had driven past a busy taxi rank, and the occupants had opened fire with automatic rifles killing dozens of people.

This drive by shooting was at the exact same taxi rank where I was scheduled to be selling my goods. If I had been there that day, I probably would have been a prime target and would have been killed.

Nothing could have stopped me from going to the taxi rank that day, except if I could not get there. I realised that the hijacking of my car was the only thing that prevented me from being killed that day.

I repented to God for my anger at Him and for my ignorance of His ways, and from that day forward, I knew that God has a purpose for all that happens in  our lives, good or bad, and when bad things, like this hijacking and robbery, happen in out lives, there is a good reason.

Give glory to God in all things good and bad and know that there is always a purpose and reason. What we sometimes see as a curse may well be a blessing in disguise.