“The more I shared my stories with others, the more I received healing.”
The Road to the Runway The world of beauty pageants was an unexpected turn for me. In my final year of high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Several people told me I would be like Esther of the Bible – I would use my beauty to save a nation. At first, I didn’t quite understand (I thought I needed to marry a prince, and South Africa doesn’t have royalty!). I heard about the Miss Deaf South Africa pageant, and it occurred to me that Esther also partook in a pageant: the Miss Persia pageant. I took this as a sign that I should enter. Pageants have been a positive experience for me. I am sure there are those who look at supermodels and think, “How can that be positive?! The girls are anorexic, they smoke, and they have such low selfesteem.” There are those experiences as well, but for some, much good can come of the pageant world. If it weren’t for my title as Miss Deaf South Africa, I probably never would have had the motivation or opportunity to step into the public to motivate and inspire others. I speak a lot about overcoming my disability, but another event had a drastic impact on me. When I was 14 years old, I was accidentally shot with a gun – the bullet entered me at the back of my shoulder and exited in the front. This accident changed my whole life – in a good way. Before this happened, I always thought that my life was about me, about what I wanted, what
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I needed. I also struggled with depression. After the accident, my attitude toward life changed. I decided not to be selfish anymore and not to feel sorry for myself. Life owes you nothing – it’s your responsibility to make something out of it. The more I shared my story with others, the more I received healing. When something traumatic happens, we tend to withdraw and keep it to ourselves. This isn’t healthy – if you don’t talk about it, you will die within yourself. Since winning the crown, I have had numerous opportunities to speak with young people of South Africa, sharing with the younger ones about how I struggled to be good in drama and ballet, and with the older youth, sharing my testimony of how I came to the Lord after the shooting accident. If I am blessed to win the Miss Deaf World 2011 crown, I will reach out to young people internationally. I know I can, because of Him who first believed in me. Even as a kid, I knew that God had a great purpose for my life. I just didn’t know what that purpose would be. As I grew older, I realized that life is not about what I want and what I need; it’s about others. Whenever I meet people, and they tell me that I have changed their lives, I know that I’m right on track in my own life. It’s not about how many times I’m on TV, or how many articles are written about me – it’s about all the