FEATURES • SOPHIE WILLIAMS

The Lord´s Call in this Season of my life

In a reality where thousands of homeless people feel abandoned in the streets of Pretoria, Sophie Williams, 62, is dedicating her life to them. Originally from Western Cape, she founded Mountains and Valleys, an organization which serves hundreds of homeless people a day in Eesterust Township

BY Sr M. Marta Vargas CMS | Pretoria

When did you start getting involved with the homeless community?

At the age of thirteen, I already knew the streets. Nobody had taught me what was right and wrong. My mother and father worked most of the time. We would see them on weekends, but my father was often drinking and there were always fights at home. We did not really have a mother and a father.

I left school after grade nine. I made the wrong friends and ran away from home. I ended up living on the streets from the age of 15. And from about 18 years of age, I found myself homeless, in the streets of Marabastad, Pretoria.

So, it all started on the streets. What happened after?

While living there I met a guy, one of the most abusive persons I have ever known. He used to beat, abuse and rape me until I became pregnant with my first child and stayed like a prisoner in his house. I gave birth to a baby daughter and after a few months, I became pregnant again.

The man, after smoking “dagga”, used to beat me until I couldn´t scream any more. After giving birth to the second child, I told myself: “I need to run away from this man because he is going to beat me to death”. One day I did so and left my two children with him.

I went back to the streets and started selling myself as a prostitute to make money so that I could leave Pretoria and take my children to Cape Town. Nobody in my family knew where I was.

How did change come into your life?

When I was a child, on Sundays, my mother would say: “don´t be lazy and go to Church”. I used to go with my siblings. There was a lady there who played the guitar and I loved to see her.

Back on the streets, I became pregnant again. I met a white lady who told me: “You look like somebody who doesn´t know any life outside this. Don´t you want to come and look after my children and I will pay you?”. She took me in at my advanced stage of pregnancy. I know now that it was the Lord opening a door for me so that I could leave the streets.

One morning, while I was looking after her children, I saw that man standing outside. He was going around looking for me all the time and he took me back to his place. He tried many times to murder the baby inside me. He even gave me money for an abortion, but I couldn´t do it because I already felt in love with the living creature inside me. He continued beating me, but I didn´t run away anymore.

One night, after giving birth, he tried to burn the child. That night I prayed: “Lord I don´t know you, I don´t know who you are, but I was in Sunday School and I heard about the God who could help me when I am in trouble. I am talking with that Lord that I heard of when I was a child: if you are there and you know about me, please help me. If you take me out of this mess and take me away with my three children, when I get home, I will serve you”.

Today I serve the Lord by giving my whole heart to the people in the streets where I once was

That is the reason why I serve and love the Lord today; because He helped me in a wonderful way. He took me to a policeman, to whom I explained that my family stayed in Western Cape and I ran away from an abusive man with one baby, but I left two other children behind. So, the police in Pretoria phoned those in the Western Cape and they arranged my trip to go back there, with my three children.

Back home I heard the Lord´s voice: “Isn´t it that you made me a promise?”. I answered: “Lord, I am going to serve you”. I gave my heart to the Lord and I asked for forgiveness and He forgave me. He took me from where I was and brought me to a place where I can be myself and serve Him.

How do you serve Him in your daily life?

Today I serve Him by giving my whole heart to the people in the streets where I once was. I know how they feel, I know their pain in the streets. That is the reason I feed hundred to three hundred people every meal, every day.

This is a passion, a calling, something inside me, to give myself to the people on the streets. That is what I am doing at the moment and I think that I will always do it, because this is not something that somebody puts in your heart, but the Lord called me for such a mission.

You find impatient people, rude or with no empathy; but the ruder they are, the more you love them, the more they do wrong to you, you just want to do good to them.

After all these years of work and transformation, who is God to you?

God is the love of my soul. I love Him, He is my saviour. When everyone rejected me, He became my pillar. I feel like I am His favourite because He saved my soul, and He changed my whole being. I was a wrongdoer and He changed me into a loving person. I was a fighter, but after the Lord found me, I became who I am today. He is my everything, I love Him.

How do you experience His presence in your service to the poor and homeless?

I can see God in what happens every day; the way He provides food, not just for me, but for all people. I experience Him in the people as He opens doors to bring people together. He opens people´s hearts to bring and donate food so that I can go out and live the life the Lord called me to; to feed people wherever I go, to serve Him through giving and through loving them.

I experience Him through His Word and, also, when people are in need and I can pray with them and guide them in the right direction.

What does it help you to remain doing this work of charity in difficult times?

When things are not right, I go to a quiet place and just by being there, in His presence, I know He will sort out all. In His presence I find serenity.

People will disappoint you. Some people will help, but will not walk the whole road with you; when they become tired, they don´t worry if you are sorted out or not, but God will never disappoint you. He will not forsake you or leave you. Even when it is dark you will find in Him the solution.

What is the purpose of Mountains and Valleys, the organization which you founded?

The name Mountains and Valleys comes from what the Lord called me for: “Go to the mountains and valleys and seek the lost sheep, take them and bring them to the house of the Lord”.

It is an organization for homeless people. Homelessness is usually linked with substance abuse, a pattern of behaviour in which even children can be involved. The other day I took a pregnant mother out of the bush, two weeks before giving birth, so we could save the child who is now waiting for foster parents.

Homelessness is usually linked with substance abuse, a pattern of behaviour in which even children can be involved

At our main office, we have the admin staff and people volunteering to prepare food. Three times a day we give out food, from Monday to Sunday. Sometimes it goes up to eight hundred or nine hundred meals per day. Some come to our kitchen, especially mothers with their children, but mostly food is distributed in ´hot spots´.

We also run other programs to reach out to people, pray for them, listen to their situation and try to make it easier for them. There are special times when others will also donate clothes that we will distribute as well.

Many people have lost everything in life, they even lost themselves. Through this organization the Lord gives me the opportunity to serve them, to bring them in and to help them restore their lives.