What I am about to say, I feel ashamed about. I should have had a better grip on myself long ago. I was confronted many times on my Afrikanership. I could not handle it. I could not say who or what I am. For a long time in my life I suppressed the fact that I come from an Afrikaner background. The weight of the collective guilt of the oppressor-Afrikaner is too difficult to face. For a long time, I lived in the naive assumption that I would be accepted by the congregation that I tried to serve by being a sort of neutral person. But it avenged itself. It did not fool them. Neither am I myself, nor am I accepted. I belong nowhere. This void of identity has burnt me out more than I realised. One or two times on my overseas tour I felt a fleeting moment of acceptance, of forgiveness for being an Afrikaner. What freedom, even if only for that moment!

With Mpho Ntoane, I was brought to some understanding of my untenable position as a white, middle class, privileged minister in a poor, oppressed, discriminated-against black/coloured congregation. What I had been feeling for a long time, namely that I was in no position to preach to them either of sin or salvation, because each word out of my mouth must have been false, was articulated clearly by Mpho. Do I have any role to play in a black congregation at all? Isn't it racist thinking to reason in terms of ‘white’ and ‘black’?

Through our discussions and having thought of it ever since, I came to the understanding that, for the moment, I am standing in the way of the Gospel in my present situation. As a matter of fact, it has become an unbearable tension to step onto the pulpit. I just cannot face the congregation any more. As can well be imagined, the church work has gone backwards these months, I have made some serious mistakes that I would not have made in previous days and alienated people. I have lost my nerve. I frustrate the congregation because I just cannot lead any more. As my eyes see clearer, I am astonished by the way they have tolerated me for so long. But, we must and will leave as soon as either Ydalene or I can find another situation.