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Joybelle, from shoplifter to voluntary worker: ‘I’m a new person’
Joybelle September, 59, has
three daughters, seven grandchildren and lives in Grassy Park. She works as a volunteer with prisoners in Pollsmoor Prison, and also helps rehabilitate ex-offenders. Here she talks of the impact the Alpha Course made on her life.
was born in the apartheid years and my parents divorced when I was three. My mother was a live-in domestic worker in Plumstead. I lived with her when I was young but when I got to school age, my brother and I went to live with my mother’s aunt who had 13 children of her own.
There wasn’t enough space for everyone to sleep! My mother also had another aunt with three school-teacher daughters, and my brother and I moved between the two families. It seemed that we were always packing up to go to Auntie Frances or back to Auntie June.
pregnant Money-wise, my mother provided for us and we never went hungry but she wasn’t there to comb my hair or tuck me in at night. Living with the three school-teachers, I had a bed of my own and a good life. All the daughters and their mother were very creative and could make me outfits and crochet me socks, but I was always empty inside and looking for a place to belong. I was very rebellious. Authority and me didn’t go well together. At a very young age I rebelled, ran away, got involved with a boyfriend, started smoking… I got sent away at 15 to a place of safety, then discovered I was pregnant with twins and was put into a home for unmarried mothers. I was very naïve, I had only had sex once, and thought that babies are brought by the doctor! I still didn’t believe I was pregnant when the
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Alpha has been attended by 15 million people and is supported by all major church denominations ‘The Alpha Course is intelligent, biblically based, and incredibly interesting. I am convinced that when historians look back on the last few years of church history in the twentieth century they will have to acknowledge that the Alpha Course became a significant instrument in bringing thoughtful people to a faith in Christ and into the church. For the inquiring mind, there is nothing better around than the Alpha Course.’ Tony Campolo, Professor of Sociology, Eastern College, Pennsylvania, USA
Alpha is run in 163 countries worldwide thislife | issue 4
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