Do you know people who just say it like it is? They don’t pretend to be something they’re not. Sometimes their words can rub you the wrong way, but underneath that there’s usually a nugget of truth that needs to be called out. Those people carry an authenticity through life that’s refreshing, even more so when they walk the talk. And that’s what comes to mind for us when we think about Dorah.
Before we met Dorah, our InnerCHANGE South Africa team was really struggling to recruit and retain women—from participants all the way up through staff. We were doing our best to be good news agents in the community, prayer-walking, serving, working with kids and youth, and building relationships with people who had very little support or hope. Employment and positive activities were both hard to find in our community. We ran a kids’ discipleship club and sports teams where we would do Discovery Bible Study and introduce young people to Jesus. Most of the kids we served came from single-parent homes. Our lack of female staff and volunteers was a huge hole in our ministry. Some of the single mothers didn’t even feel very comfortable with their kids coming to our events because there weren’t female leaders. We prayed for God to open the way for us to connect with more young women who we could develop into leaders, who in turn could open doors for us to minister to more girls and women in the community.
We decided to focus our volleyball initiative on reaching women. Dorah was one of the first women we recruited. She was just looking for a way to stay busy. But we soon recognized her as a “person of peace”—someone with a willing and open heart, who could bring others along with her.
We really invested in Dorah, mentoring her, affirming her strengths, and giving her tasks to do. Her first task was to recruit other women, and she went out and brought back a lot of them! The main goal was to build a community of women where discipleship could take place, with the hope that the women would venture out to build their own discipling networks outside of that initial structure.
Usually in our sports ministries we run a Discovery Bible Study (DBS) during practice, but we could tell that if we did a lot of DBS with this particular group of women, we’d lose the group. Instead, we did DBS with Dorah outside of the volleyball sessions. Dorah—like most young people in our community—wasn’t fond of church, but if we sat down for a meal and talked about the Bible in those settings, she was open to learning. She was also quick to obey what she read—one of the most important factors in a movement of the gospel. Dorah would actually do what she said she was going to do, and tell other people about the truths she was learning.
What impressed us the most about Dorah was that she was 100% real. She had struggles with God and the Bible, and she would talk about them openly with us. She was also very open-hearted toward the miracles she witnessed. One week we were praying a lot about unemployment. Dorah realized that after our prayer, God was flooding her with job opportunities. For eight years before that prayer, no one had been willing to give her a chance at a job, even short-term. Dorah gave the glory to God for what was happening in her life.
Her realness impacted the rest of our team as well. Dorah had a way of holding you accountable to what you said you were about and what you said you were going to do. One time, some of the other volunteers were complaining about our morning prayer time. “Guys, are you for real?” Dorah asked. “They ask you to meditate for 2.5 hours and then you have the whole rest of the day for yourself, and you’re going to complain?”
We pulled Dorah into volunteering at our kids’ discipleship club alongside Moipone (a female staff), who was mentoring her. We wanted Dorah to experience studying scripture for the sake of teaching others. Her relationship with God and understanding of the Bible grew exponentially as a result.
Since we have monthly check-ins with all our volunteers, we called Dorah into our office one day. We asked her how she would assess her growth in the Lord. “How is your relationship with God?” Dorah expressed uncertainty about her readiness to be in a relationship with the Lord but a desire to continue on the journey with us. She still wanted to serve as a volunteer, pointing children toward Jesus.
Dorah was a very talented soccer player, so we invited her to become a coach for our under-15 boys’ team. As she stepped into that role, something amazing happened. Girls started flocking to soccer practice. They wanted to be around Dorah. We went from almost no girls participating in sports to a full girls’ soccer team because of Dorah! Dorah discipled those kids to the best of her ability. She led DBSs with them. Whatever she knew, she passed on to them.
As a single mother, Dorah also had a unique ability to connect with the other mothers. She was able to establish relationships and speak into their lives in ways none of the rest of us could. As a result, more parents started taking an interest in what their children were doing with us and coming to their children’s soccer games. They felt like their children were in good hands. This was a real answer to our prayers.
After a year with us, Dorah decided she wanted to be baptized. We took her through studies of what it means to make a life-long commitment to Jesus. Even though Dorah still had questions, she wanted to move ahead with following Christ. We baptized her last summer along with several others, including two women she had recruited as volunteers!
Where once we had very few female participants in our program, now we have a full girls’ soccer team. Where once we only had two women volunteers, now we have six! We are impacting the women in our community in deeper ways, from young kids to single mothers, and a lot of that is because of Dorah’s faithful obedience and ministry.
Dorah has now joined our InnerCHANGE staff and continues to challenge us by her obedience and genuineness. We are thankful to God for the leader Dorah is to the kids, the ladies she journeys with, and the parents of the children she serves through the soccer initiative.
ABOUT THIS STORY
Thabo Malesa was born in Soshanguve, a township just outside of Pretoria, South Africa. He has been on staff with innerCHANGE South Africa since 2018, and is now the team leader. Previously, he volunteered and apprenticed with them for seven years. He spends the majority of his time mentoring, coaching, and equipping and discipling InnerCHANGE SA apprentices. Thabo studied Analytical Chemistry and worked as an Analytical Chemist and is now in the process of completing his teaching degree. Thabo is an uncle and primary caregiver to two boys, Kagiso (14) and Peter (15).
Moipone Sebatjane has served with InnerCHANGE South Africa for seven years now. She lives in Soshanguve with her aunt. Moipone loves mentoring children and discussing the Bible. She also enjoys using her hands, especially in art. Moipone believes that when you nurture children, you nurture generations, because they will teach the next generation what you taught them and so forth and so on.