Moving Moments
Chapter 10
Turning 21 – Life takes an unexpected Twist
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Doug Cornish
1972 Artist's Rendition |
Around about this time Dad reached his official retirement age with Anglo
American. Mom and he were not yet ready to call it quits and they had no idea
where they were going to retire. We all loved Zambia and the lifestyle, but
realized it wasn’t going to be the place for Mom and Dad to settle down long
term. South Africa was the obvious place, but we were loath to return to apartheid
South Africa with all of its political problems. We had come to enjoy the more
easy going approach to race relations in Zambia. Dad found a job with Edward L.
Bateman, an engineering company with a branch operation in Kitwe. Dad was well
connected and it was a good fit for him. We had to move out of the Anglo
American house at 668 Rodean Drive and move into 3 Pamo Avenue, which was to be
our last house in Zambia. This house had tons of character. It was double story
which for us was quite a novelty and prize above prizes it had a proper pool.
No more slumming it with our plastic lined pool at the previous house. More on
the role of this pool later in this chapter.
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| Shaka - our ever alert watchdog |
3 Pamo Avenue had lots of happy memories for us. Life in Zambia was good.
All of our needs were more than taken care of. Two memories spring to mind. Our
dog Shaka was our guard dog. Security in Zambia had taken a turn for the worse.
Break ins were common. Shaka’s job at night was to stay outside and be awake
and alert and bark at the sound of anything amiss. In fact he used to sleep on
his blanket in the garage. In addition to Shaka the company paid for us to have
an overnight watchman to fend off would be bad guys. One cold winter night Mom
was wakened by Shaka whimpering and crying outside. On investigation she found
the night watchman asleep on Shaka’s bed and Shaka had been tossed out to watch
for the bad guys. On another occasion although our household was not very
religious we would always say grace before meals. The wording never changed, so sometimes it just flowed off the tongue and the words never made it
out via the head or heart. One day it was Dad’s turn to say grace. Distracted, he
paused and then said aloud “Cornish speaking”. This was how he usually answered
the phone. Thankfulness for the food clearly wasn’t on his mind. It took quite
a while before Dad lived this one down.
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| Post Colonial Southern Africa |
At the beginning of 1973, Al and I were ready to head back to university.
At that stage Al had the use of Mom and Dad’s Austin 1800 which was a grand old
car which was a dream to drive. Our route back to South Africa always took us
through Rhodesia. By that stage Rhodesia was eight years into their self-declared
independence (UDI) and despite their common history and reliance on each other
economically, Zambia and Rhodesia had become arch enemies. With relations
deteriorating the border had recently been
closed between Zambia and Rhodesia. We realized belatedly that we had lost our
route back to university. We were basically trapped in Zambia unless we flew
out, but we needed our cars in South Africa. We got out the map and tried to
figure out an alternative route. There was no internet so our exercise was more
guesswork than anything. Malawi was our closest neighbor to the East, but they
were surrounded by Mozambique, which shared borders with Rhodesia and South
Africa. If we could get out via Malawi and Mozambique we would be free and
clear. Mozambique, had no drivable shared roads with Malawi and furthermore was
in a full scale war between the colonial Portuguese and Frelimo who were
seeking to throw off foreign rule. There was a railway line between Malawi and
the port of Beira in Mozambique. At that stage the railway line was being blown
up by Frelimo quite regularly. Eventually we decided it was our only choice, so
we hatched our plans accordingly. Phil Hodgson decided to join us in his brand new
Subaru and then Ian Kelly decided that he would join us in his decrepit old
Kombi which was pretty suspect considering the out of the way places we would
be visiting. So the great day came and us modern day adventurers took off to
try our luck at escaping the confines of Zambia.
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| African store along the way |
We took off with great enthusiasm and headed east the five hundred miles
or so toward Malawi. This was a very deserted road with not much more than the
occasional African store where we could get a cold drink. We felt we were
venturing into realms unexplored and it was all very exciting.
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The whole team swings into action to
rescue the damsel in distress |
Out in the
middle of nowhere we came across a broken down car with a hapless young white woman
standing by it looking dejected. Her wheel had come off of her car. In those
parts it is unthinkable not to stop to help a fellow traveler and there was no
telephone let alone handy Automobile Association to call for. We stopped to see
what could be done. We discovered that the wheel nuts had come off of the wheel
and of course were nowhere to be found. It didn’t take long before we were
surrounded by an interested group of local villagers. When they realized what the problem was
someone was dispatched to the village and returned shortly with two wheel nuts.
Two was better than none and we refitted the wheel with two out of four nuts
fastened tightly onto it and hoped for the best. Though not a recommended
solution, amazingly this stop gap measure worked. The young lady, was a foreign
aid worker and was so grateful for our help, she invited us to her home close
to the Malawian border for supper and to sleep wherever we could stretch out.
I’m guessing we were her insurance against breaking down again.
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Posted women's dress code instructions
were posted everywhere |
The next day we passed through into Malawi en route to the capital of
Blantyre where we planned to put our vehicles on the train to Beira in
Mozambique. Malawi was a very conservative society and they had taken a strong
stand against the modern fashions of long hair and scantily clad women favored
by foreign visitors to their country. There were dire warnings at the border
threatening significant penalties for those ignoring the dress code. We were
all quite long haired at the time, and reluctant to lose it, so we went the
route of wetting our hair and slicking it back to look as short as possible.
Well by mid-day our hair had gone back to being long, dry and windblown. At
that point we were stopped by an inevitable roadblock. The polite young
policeman gave us and our papers a cursory glance and then looked keenly at our
hair. He very politely told us that he was in a good mood and for that reason
would not arrest us on the spot, but he expected us to stop in the next town
and each have haircuts. We readily agreed to this unmerited display of
mercy. Once free of the road block we
decided to ignore our promise and risk getting to the capital city Blantyre
where we figured attitudes about dress code and hair length would be a bit less
uptight. As it turned out we were proved correct.
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L. to R. Rob, Ian, Al, Phil
sporting our slicked back look. |
I didn’t fancy spending a
night in a Malawian jail though so never quite relaxed until we got out of
Malawi. One of the things about Malawi which struck me was how many people
there were walking three or four deep on either side of the road. This made
driving very risky as the only safe place to drive was down the middle of the
road. I’ve never understood why this tiny little country in the heart of
Central Africa was characterized by such high population density.
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| Pristine Lake Malawi |
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| Phil, chilling in Lake Malawi |
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| Phil had the capacity to sleep anywhere, anytime |
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L.to R. Rob, Phil, Al
Limited change room facilities |
We spent an overnight at one of the tourist lodges on Lake Malawi and
enjoyed freshening up in this large lake. We were assured that all of the
crocodiles in the area had been recently shot by a Rhodesian hunter. We swam a
bit gingerly nevertheless. We bought some food at the hotel and then slept the
night on the beach. We didn’t have much of a budget for this trip so every cent
counted.
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Al, loading the Austin 1800 onto the train in
Blantyre, with Ian in his suspect Kombi |
The next day we put our cars on the train and found ourselves seating
in the passenger section with the rest of the population of Malawi who hadn’t
been walking down either side of the road. They were to be our ever present
company for the next twenty four hours. We had often travelled on South African
and Rhodesian trains. We were now on the Portuguese Mozambican equivalent,
which was a much less upmarket version. It served the purpose of moving bodies
from A to B but that was about it. It was stinking hot, severely overcrowded
and most of the small windows in the carriages were jammed shut. The toilets
were indescribable. There was no such thing as a refreshments carriage or
friendly staff coming by offering hot tea and cakes. It was survival of the
fittest and if you didn’t have food and water with you, it was tough. Part of
the trip involved crossing the Zambezi River. This is the same river that disgorges
over the Victoria Falls but much bigger by this stage being closer to the sea. The
river was exceptionally wide. I’m guessing the bridge was a mile or two long.
Crossing it we wondered if Frelimo had ever considered blowing it up and if
today might be the day. I didn’t fancy becoming breakfast for the Zambezi
sharks which purportedly patrol this part of the river. Despite all of the
discomfort of the trip we made it to Beira unscathed and decided to stay for a
day or two to enjoy the sights and sounds.
Ian Kelly’s suspect Kombi had been guzzling oil all the way through
Zambia and Malawi and it was now apparent that it needed some serious attention
which would involve taking the whole engine out. Of course money was in short
supply for all of us so professional help was unthinkable. Al had taken out his share of car engines by
that stage and he felt he could do it for the Kombi. So with no real plan we
parked the Kombi on the beach and proceeded to take out the engine. We got the
repairs done and the next day put it all back together again. There were great
shouts of joy when the engine turned over and there was no sign of undue oil
consumption or leakage. We decided to go out to celebrate and visit some local
pubs that night to see if Portuguese beer matched up to our familiar Zambian
and South African versions. The first pub we went into was a bit of a dive. The
place was seething with people of all shapes, sizes and colors. A large
attractively dressed black woman came by, and slid her hand into Phil’s trouser
pocket causing him to jump and spill his beer. In the light of the unnecessary
waste of beer we decided we should turn in for the night as tomorrow was a big
drive back to the relative comfort and civilization of Rhodesia. Such
forwardness by the ladies was more than we were used to.
The next day we travelled due west back into Rhodesia via Umtali. The
trip was a bit nerve wracking. Land mines and Frelimo attacks were commonplace.
We made it through unscathed. Once in Rhodesia we felt safe. We decided to
travel south from Umtali, via Melsetter in the Chimanimani Mountains, home of
Outward Bound, to the South African border. We had never travelled the route before
and we were keen to see this part of the country. We discovered later that the
area was also a hotbed of terrorist activity at that stage, but at that time we
were blissfully unaware and on we went.
We “knew” that the Rhodesian security forces had everything under
control. History tells us that wasn’t necessarily the case.
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| Site of the Kazangulu ferry |
When we got to the South African border on a Friday afternoon, we were on
the last lap but we were met with an unexpected problem. South Africa at that
time had very strict censorship rules covering books and movies. One of us had
been reading a fairly innocuous book which was on the censored list. The
disapproving customs official offered us a choice. Plead guilty, pay a fine and
surrender the book or wait at the border over the weekend to speak to a judge
on Monday morning and plead our case. Of course we had no choice and paid the
fine. The customs official, now looking a lot happier waved us through. He had
something to read on the weekend and we were free and clear. Paying the fine
had left Al and I with not much more than gas money to get back to Durban. We
limped into Durban not having eaten much a day or so later, but we had survived
the wilds of Africa and we had lots of stories to tell. The irony of this story
is that shortly after our trip a ferry over the Zambezi opened up at Kazangulu
between Zambia and Botswana about an hour’s drive from Livingstone in Zambia.
From there it was a short drive to the Zimbabwe border and back to Victoria
Falls across the bridge from Livingstone. What had just taken us two weeks of
blood sweat and tears to do could now be done easily in a couple of hours. Such
was life in unsettled Africa in those days.
The four of us, Al, Phil, Ian and I moved into a residential hotel while
we looked for apartments to rent. Our room was perched right over a main route
into Durban city. In the mornings, the busses would get going around four in
the morning and go roaring past our window much to our delight. We were being a
bit fussy about our choice of apartments and weren’t rushing our decision. One
day we were eating lunch in our hotel, when Ian found something unexpectedly
crunchy in his mouth. On further
investigation he found he was chewing on a cockroach leg about two inches long.
Durban is famous for its massive cockroaches but this one took the cake, especially
being included in the hotel menu in this way. We shortened our shortlist of
apartments, made a decision and checked out of our hotel. We had rented two
apartments at 10 Colenmore Drive as there were six of us wanting to share
together. We were ready for a new year of hard studying and life was good.
Arrangement at our apartments soon got settled. We all acquired furniture
for our own rooms from used stores. Phil, Al and I shared one apartment while
Ian, Charlie Summers, a friend from our
Falcon days, and Kevin Cornish shared the other one. We hired Beauty, a buxom
Zulu girl, to do our laundry and cleaning. She took turns to cook a meal for
each apartment and on the alternate days one of us would cook a meal for the
other two guys. Being well brought up colonial boys we had never seen the
inside of a kitchen before, so this was a novel experience. We each had our
specialty meal which we repeated weekly for the enjoyment of our flat mates.
Mine was sausages and mash potato. I even figured out how to make gravy. It’s
these kinds of real life experiences that start sharpening the focus of guy’s
minds. Slowly the realization begins to dawn, that it would be really nice to
have a wife one day so that the whole household management issue can be
resolved once and for all as we were definitely fish out of water in this
sphere. I realize that by today’s standards this is a pretty radical statement.
The fact is its pretty much how we thought in those days. Guys needed wives to
care for them and girls needed guys to protect and provide. Life was
straightforward and for better or worse we weren’t confused about our roles.
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| 10 Colenmore Drive, where we lived for two years |
Life living under our own roofs started to take shape and we got back to
our studies. I was now a bit cut off from my party buddies at Louis Botha Hall
but we still managed to get together on weekends and live it up a bit. I had
taken up karate during my first year at UND. Very quickly I realized that
despite being a 150 pound weakling I had the potential to become a fighting
machine. Where I skipped a point in my logic was that I had not in fact yet
attained that status. I found that as my karate lessons advanced I had gained a
new confidence and was now carrying myself with something of a swagger. Combine
that with overindulgence in alcohol and I was heading for a reckoning of some
kind. I vividly remember through the fog of being plastered, being at a club
one night. We were making our way home and out of the parking lot which was
very congested, when the guy driving the car behind me started honking his
horn. It didn’t take too long before I started to give him hand signals
indicating he should cease and desist. The next thing we were both out of our
cars and wrestling each other on the ground. He had a firm grip of my long hair
and I had my foot firmly fastened into his crotch before our mutual friends
managed to separate us and move us homewards. Another time we had been at
Father’s Mustache a pub at one of the brand new hotels on the Durban Beach
front. As we came out of the pub, I was standing at the top of the stairs when
a guy walked up to me and kicked me in the crotch. I was so sozzled I didn’t
feel a thing. I’m not sure what I had done to offend him but the next thing the
hotel bouncer arrived and unceremoniously threw this guy down about ten stairs.
I left satisfied that justice had been done. I was beginning to realize that
something was amiss in my world if I was literally facing these kinds of
assaults so often. Another time, late at night, I was driving my car with a
bunch of other guys to a party one night in Westville. I must have been under
the weather and weaving a bit on the freeway A police car pulled us over and
the burly Afrikaner officer got out and came to the passenger side of the car
and indicated for my friend to wind the window down. Without any more ado the
policeman punched my friend in the face and told us in Afrikaans to “stop
fooling around” and left us to carry on our way.
These experiences were beginning to stack up on me leaving me with a deep
sense of unease. My world was not adding up or making sense. Why was I so
unhappy and why did so many of my attempts at “fun” end up in anything but? I
was turning 21 in March of 1973. Symbolically this was the age that someone is
now old enough to stand on their own two feet in the world. I found myself
asking what the purpose of my life was. I looked at my folks. They were in
their mid-sixties. They had cars, a house for shelter and enough to eat. I
already had that and yet my life felt so lost and meaningless. I had this sense
of desperation. I was turning 21 and I had not achieved much, nor did I know
where I was going or even wanted to go.
Alison had planned to come down from Zambia to visit me for a week or so
in our March break. I knew before she arrived that I was going to break up with
her. In my bones I sensed that whatever lay in my future it wasn’t going to be
with her. At the end of our week, I broke the news. Alison had arrived at the
same conclusion, so she was ok with this and our parting was amicable.
Something was stirring in me, but I didn’t know what. Mom and Dad came down to
Durban and gave me a nice 21st birthday party with friends at the
Oyster Box hotel in Durban. I remember getting up to make a brave speech about
my future and how my whole life was ahead of me, but in my heart I was falling
apart.
With my newfound status of now being 21 and responsible for my own future
I began to wrestle with what I could do about my deep feelings of
disquiet. I had pretty much run the
gamut of so called solutions to life. I had partied to the full, travelled,
tried with the girls albeit not with much success. Nothing had lifted the
feeling of despair I felt within myself. In the back of my mind I think I knew
all along that what I had not tried was giving God a chance in my life. I had
resisted this idea over the years. I did not want to turn out “weird” like Rose had done and life had
offered so many other opportunities, as yet unexplored. Eventually I realized
that nothing else I had tried had delivered me what I was looking for and I
decided to look into what being a serious Christian would mean.
Rose had said to me years earlier, “Rob when you are ready to go to
church, make sure that you go to a church that preaches the gospel”. I had
known what she meant. I had attended Anglican services from my youngest days
and although there was truth to be found there, it wasn’t expressed in the same
clear way that Rose had explained it. So, it seemed to me that the first thing
to do was to find a church that preached the gospel. I had no clue where to
start, but I spoke to God and said “God I need to find a church that preaches
the gospel. If you are there, please direct me to one”. I got in my car and
drove down the route I travelled on every day to get to university. About half
way along I saw a sign to Bulwer Road Baptist church that I had never noticed
before. Baptist sounded pretty
gospelish, so I decided to give it a try. The pastor’s name was Pastor
MacPherson. I sat up on the top level where most of the younger folk sat. The
songs were not the Anglican ones I was so accustomed to but were more like the
ones we used to sing at Eureka Missionary School when I was seven years old. I
found myself reading the words and they were stirring my heart. Pastor Mac was
like a character straight out of a movie. He would work himself up into a frenzy,
thump the pulpit with his fist, go red in the face and then give powerful voice
to the gospel message. It was like music to my ears. I knew that what he was
saying was true. It was like rain falling on dry ground. I felt an excitement
mounting deep inside of me. After about three weeks of listening to Pastor Mac
I knew I was ready. I went home to my room and dug out something which Rose had
given me years earlier and I had carried it around with me since then, knowing
in the back of my mind that I might need it one day. It was the Campus Crusade
“Four Spiritual Laws” booklet. It took one through the steps one needed to
follow to invite Jesus into one’s life to be Lord and Savior. I said the simple
prayer at the end and meant it. I knew that my life was about to change for the
better. I knew why I was here on this earth. All of my fear, anxiety and unease
left me and I was filled with a great feeling of excitement about what my
future might hold.
One of the steps in the Four Spiritual Laws was that one should start
telling people straightaway what Jesus had done for me. I started by writing to
Rose and Roy who were studying at bible college in Toronto at the time. They
wrote back to say that they had been praying for one additional person in the
family to make a decision to follow Jesus that year. I was amazed that God
could hear a prayer in Canada and answer it in South Africa. Next on my list
was my flat mates, Al and Phil. They couldn’t help but notice that something
had happened to me. I had stopped smoking and drinking overnight and had
started going to church. My party buddies from Louis Botha were the hardest to
tell. They thought I had lost my marbles. They were not too hard on me, but
those friendships waned fairly quickly as our lives and interests diverged.
Next on my list were Mom and Dad. Mom kept my letter dated June 15, 1973 in
which I broke my news as follows:
“ I must tell you about a new
development in my life. I’ve become a Christian. Don’t pass out with the shock.
I’ve been feeling pretty unsettled for a while this year. My life has had no
aim or direction and up to now I seem to have been just passing the time. There
must be more to life than just existing and I know that God will provide that
extra dimension to living. I can feel the difference in my life already. Phil
is thinking along the same lines, but I don’t think he is quite so sure yet.”
I had found what I was looking for and my life and interests changed
dramatically. Along with attending church and youth group regularly at Bulwer
Road Baptist, I joined the Student Christian Association (SCA) on campus. This
vibrant group became my second home as I soaked up new ideas and learnt the
basics of living the Christian life. Someone said to me “now that you’ve become
a Christian you’ll need to start reading the bible every day. You’ll need to
use Scripture Union (SU) Notes”. SU Notes were daily bible reading guides. I found
my way to the SU office in downtown Durban to get my bible reading notes and
saw that SU also ran camps for kids which caught my interest.
I was so on fire, I wanted my life to count for God. I wanted to do
something – there’s my A type personality coming through. I asked God to give
me a task – anything. I was willing to do anything. The next Sunday in church
Pastor Mac stood up and berated the congregation because “no one is willing to
do anything in this church… and the Sunday School desperately needs teachers”.
This was it. This was the job God wanted me to do for Him. I volunteered to be
a teacher. What I have discovered over the years is that if one wants to
understand something properly one must teach it to someone else. It forces one
to understand it first. As I taught children Sunday School each week I was on a
steep learning curve myself.
One day at church an older man came up to me and said “God has told me
that you are going to be my friend”. I was a bit taken aback. His name was Sid
Webber and he seemed to be in need of a friend. He introduced me to his wife
Marion and their two daughters Jean and Linda who were 10 – 12 years younger
than me. It wasn’t long before I was being invited over to their house for
meals and our friendship grew. A few years later Sid and Marion would get
involved with SU camps along with me. Sid passed away a number of years ago,
Linda has gone to Australia, but I still try and see Jean and Marion whenever
I’m in Durban. This God ordained friendship has gone on for well over forty
years now.
My frenetic Christian involvements didn’t do much for my studies, but I
knew where my new priorities needed to lie and as long as I was passing my exams
I was content. It was now mid-year and time to return to Zambia for our midyear
vacation. Little did I know it, but my life was about to take another dramatic
twist in Zambia.
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| Sunken Lake - not far from Luanshya |
Our gang of young folks, who were all home for the vacations, were always
planning something to keep life interesting. A camping weekend had been planned
at the Sunken Lakes near Luanshya. I was all set to go. On checking I found
that Cheryl Tobin, who I’ve mentioned before, for the first time in a long
time, was no longer dating anyone but for some reason she was not planning on
coming on the trip to Sunken Lakes. Something told me I needed to opt out of
the camping trip. I made my excuses and once everyone was out of the way I
screwed up my courage, called Cheryl and invited her to the movies. She readily
agreed which was a nice surprise. We went to the Astra movie house. It might
have been to a Kung Fu movie. This should have been a clue to me that Cheryl
was at least a bit interested in me as this type of movie is not high on her
priorities. As we walked into the movie
house I was sweating profusely. I had had Cheryl in my sights for years. I had
always liked her and wished she was not “taken”. This was my chance. I mustn’t
blow it. Eventually I summoned the courage and I tentatively touched her hand
and then grabbed onto it for all my life. Amazingly she responded warmly and
gave my hand a squeeze. My heart lifted and my spirit soared. This was the girl
of my dreams. I just knew it. When our friends came back from Sunken Lake they
found that Cheryl and I were an overnight sensation. We were already head over
heels in love and were a going concern.
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Cheryl - she still has that wonderful smile
and doesn't look a day older |
As I fell totally for Cheryl there was a disquieting thought going on in
the back of my head. I could see and hear Pastor Mac. He was wagging his finger
at the young people in the congregation and saying “You young people. Do not go
out with non-Christians. They will pull you away from the Lord”. I knew he was
right but I was stuck on the horns of a dilemma. I had found the girl of my
dreams. I already knew I wanted to marry her, but she was definitely not a
Christian and smoked and drank along with the rest of our crowd and was known
to make disparaging remarks about the “God Squad people” in her residence at
university. What was I going to do? If I told her I’d become a Christian this
might totally push her away. One day, we went to an agricultural show in
Luanshya. There were a bunch of young folks from Campus Crusade there handing
out leaflets. I made no comment but later we were watching TV and this same
group of young folks was being interviewed and talking about their faith. I
figured God was giving me the opportunity to open the conversation. I
tentatively asked Cheryl what she thought of what they were saying. To my
surprise Cheryl was not disparaging and we had a good conversation in which I
admitted that I had begun to “take God seriously”. Cheryl took a deep breath
and had a lot to think about. She had sensed that I had changed and this
explained it.
We both returned to our respective universities, me to UND and Cheryl to
University of Cape Town (UCT). We were head over heels in love and the letters
back and forth were almost daily. In the back of my mind I knew that I was
going to have to make a choice at some point between following Cheryl or
following Jesus. I couldn’t do both. I couldn’t put any pressure on her to
become a Christian. She had to make that decision for herself. I was praying
frantically that somehow she would “see the light”.
I was beginning to solidify as a Christian as time went on and with my
involvement in SCA and Sunday School teaching. In my heart I had found the true
love of my life. It was Jesus. He fulfilled the deepest needs of my soul. I had made the decision to be baptized and
one Sunday took the plunge as it were. I wrote to Mom and Dad:
“I was baptized on Sunday. Al, Phil,
Steph and Ian came along to the service. Baptism has no significance in making
one a better Christian. It is a public testimony that one has committed one’s
life to God. About 20 people were baptized. All the crowd from SCA were there
and they came and congratulated me afterwards. It was tremendous and I’m glad
I’ve made the stand.”
I had decided that I was going to have to give up Cheryl as her life and
goals were not aligned with the direction I knew I was going in. She had also
conquered my heart, but nothing could fulfill me more than Jesus had done. After
the baptism service I braced myself to call her and break the news that I was
going to have to back out of the relationship. The next thing the phone rang.
It was Cheryl. She was in tears and told me that she had just that day made a
decision to put God first in her life. Gill Mossop her very good friend from
their Arundel High School days in Salisbury was one of the God Squad in her
residence and had invited Cheryl to church that day. The minister had made a
low key appeal. After months of observing me grow in the Lord from a distance,
our conversations by letter, and all of my prayers, Cheryl was primed and ready
to respond which she did. My joy was complete. I wrote this letter to Mom and
Dad the next day:
"I had the most tremendous news last
night from Cher. She has become a Christian. She went to church on Sunday with
two Christian friends and made a genuine commitment and asked the Lord to take
over in her life. Boy well I can’t explain in words how happy I am. I have been
praying so hard for her to be saved and the Lord has been so good to me and
answered my prayer so wonderfully.
I was so excited after the phone call I
told Al and then Phil – I felt like standing in the road and screaming as I
came back to my room to say a quiet prayer thanking God and I broke down and
the tears flowed freely. I was just so happy. I felt a bit of an idiot when
Phil walked in and caught me bawling my eyes out and smiling at the same time!
I love Cher so much and now we have nothing coming between us anymore."
 |
Rob - life was taking shape nicely
and all the stars were aligning as they should |
I now had a much better sense of where my life was taking me. My spiritual
relationship was resolved with God and my primary relationship on the ground
with Cher, was about as good as it could be. I was about as settled as I was
ever going to be, but of course life continues with its ups and downs.
 |
| Some our ex Falcon and other Rhodesian friends |
Around that time Phil, Al, Ian and I had arranged to go off to the Wild
Coast in the Transkei with a bunch of other young folks for a weekend away.
True to its name, the roads leading to the Wild Coast were dirt roads. Phil was
driving his all-wheel drive Subaru when he got into a skid and rolled his car.
Fortunately no one was hurt but his car was squished downwards and sideways and
the windscreen was smashed. Amazingly it was still drivable. At that time
Subaru had no dealerships in South Africa so there was no way of getting the
car repaired. Phil parked the car until the end of the year and then he and I
decided that we would drive it the 1500 miles or so back to Zambia. We bought a
piece of flat Perspex which we fastened onto the front of the car, to keep the
wind out or our faces and headed off home looking a lot like a crab out for its
morning constitutional. We had to drive 1500 miles and go through South
African, Rhodesian, Botswanan and Zambian border posts. Not once were we
stopped by police or anyone else for that matter to enquire as to the roadworthiness
of the vehicle, which it definitely was not. Such is life in Africa and one of
the reasons that many people enjoy its easy going attitude.
 |
Phil's squished Subaru. Amazing
that it drove at all. |
In the Christmas vacation of 1973 Al found himself a girlfriend. She was Rose Robbins who was the sister of a friend of Kev Cornish’s.
She had been working in Zambia. Al never expressed smittenness but
from that time on he and Rosie were inseparable and they went on to date for a
few years until marrying in November of 1976. Cher and I were delighted to be
together again and life was good.
 |
Rob, leading SCA Camp 1974
A time to get outdoors and reflect |
In 1974 I was in the final year of my B. Comm. I was continuing on with
my SCA involvement. At one point in the year, I was asked to help lead a camp
which was being run. I had no idea that I had been asked to actually lead the
camp. When we got there, everyone looked at me and said “what’s happening next”?
Whew! Talk about going into a cold sweat. I took a deep breath and got on with
it. As it turned out it went quite well, but I was way out of my comfort zone.
I’m a structured kind of a guy and I like to be well planned and prepared. That
kind of surprise is hard on my nerves.
 |
| SU Camp - this would be the first of many |
That year too, I volunteered to help at a Scripture Union mini camp. This
involved working with about 120 boys and girls aged about 9- 12. The sleeping
was all in old fashioned army tents. The main purpose was to have fun and teach the kids about Jesus and help them to meet Him for themselves. The SU staff worker started talking
about grooming me for a possible staff position with SU. I wasn’t ready to talk
about that, but it had given me an idea of how God might use me down the line.
In the June vacation of that year, a few months short of my final exams.
I decided the time had come to pop the question to Cher. In those days there
were none of the elaborate proposal stunts that one hears of these days. It was
more straight and to the point. After an evening out I sat Cher down by the
pool at 3 Pamo Avenue and asked Cher if she would marry me. There was no hesitation
from Cher – the answer was yes! Thankfully we were of one mind on this subject.
 |
| Toby and Daphne Tobin |
The next hurdle was to ask permission from Cher’s parents for her to
marry me. I didn’t relish the prospect. I wasn’t too sure that my overly zealous religious profile, which I knew they
were leery of, along with my lack of plans for the future would fit into their
idea of what was the best thing for their daughter. Cher and I are not known
for holding back once we have an idea in our heads, so we decided we’d better face
the music sooner rather than later. We arranged that I would pop in to see her
and then she would distract her Mom with something in the kitchen while I made
my pitch to Toby. Cheryl was a year and a half away from finishing her degree
and I’m guessing the idea of her getting married was the furthest thing from
their minds. It didn’t take too long before Daphne got wind of what was
happening and we ended up with a four way conversation. It wasn’t all plain
sailing as they had some significant concerns about how I was going to provide
for Cher in the manner to which she was accustomed. Cher and I had spoken about
there being a good chance that I would end up in a full time ministry role of
some kind in the future so this was something of a hurdle. Fortunately Cher’s
parents and my parents were good friends. Toby and Daphne guessed that
somewhere beneath that long hair and religious zeal of mine there must have been
something resembling my folks. And so it was that we received their blessing
and we were set to make our plans.
 |
| Rob and Cher with niece Kerry and nephew Ian |
The plan was that I would finish my degree in 1974 and then I would move
to Cape Town, find a job and be close to Cher while she was finishing her physiotherapy
degree. This plan made complete sense, until horror of horrors I failed
Accounting 3 in my final exam. The university granted me a Supplementary exam
allowing me to rewrite it a few weeks later. I came out feeling that if I had
ever done well in an exam, that was it. Well blow me down, but I failed it
again. By that stage I was already in a job in Cape Town and I couldn’t bear
the thought of another year away from Cher. We decided we would sit out the
year in Cape Town and I would go back the following year to complete my degree.
Looking back I think God intended me to return to Durban. He had some other
training in mind for me over and above Accounting 3.
