Sister Freaks (11 page)

Manche’s mother told her that she could not attend the Bible classes anymore, but Manche went anyway. By the fall of 1927, her parents realized that words alone would not influence their headstrong daughter, and they began to beat her severely, sometimes twice a day. “Manche’s mother said she would force us to leave the church. She beat Manche every time she returned from church,” Lucia said later. Concerned that the Pedi gods would punish the entire family for their daughter’s choice, Manche’s mother became so angry that she even attacked Manche once with a spear.

But Manche’s faith was stronger than any fear she may have had. She continued to defy her parents by going to church and attending classes for baptism, an important sign of faith to the Anglican church.

Despite her persistence, Manche seemed to know she would never complete her classes. “I will be baptized in my own blood,” she told Father Moeka. She believed that her parents’ abuse would eventually kill her, and she shared her fears with both the priest and her cousin. Yet she continued to travel to Father Moeka’s mission for class and professed her Christian faith openly to the people around her.

In February 1928, her mother had grown desperate to make Manche renounce her Christianity and return to the faith of her ancestors. On the morning of one of Manche’s baptism classes, the older woman hid all of her daughter’s clothes to try to prevent her from going. Although she was naked, Manche fled the house and hid in the barren brushland. Her mother and father searched the hills around the house until they found her. When they did, her parents called a
sangoma,
a spirit priest, and told him their daughter was bewitched. The witch doctor tried to make Manche drink a traditional potion to rid her of the evil spirits her parents believed were controlling her. When she refused, Manche’s mother beat her severely and forced the vile substance down the girl’s throat.

“They went on beating her till she drank it. Then she died,” Lucia reported.

It is not clear whether Manche died that day from the medicine or the beating. Her parents left her body in the remote wilderness, burying her beside a granite rock. Although everyone knew and talked about what had happened to the young Christian girl, her mother and father were never punished for taking the life of their daughter.

A few days after Manche died, her younger sister, Mabule, became ill, and although no one could find out what was wrong with her, she died at the local mission. Her parents buried her near her sister, and the girls’ father planted several native euphorbia shade trees near their graves to mark the site.

Tales of Manche’s faith and suffering spread, and seven years after her death, a group of Christians traveled to her gravesite to pay their respects. Another group came a few years later, and after that more and more Christians made the pilgrimage to the South African wilderness to honor the brave Christian girl. Her story became the foundation on which many African churches were founded, and many people came to know Christ because of Manche’s sacrifice.

In honor of her commitment, the Anglican church recognizes Manche Masemola every year on the anniversary of the day she died, February 4. In 1998, an almost life-size statue of Manche was unveiled with a group of twentieth-century martyrs above a door in the famous Westminster Abbey in London, England.

Perhaps more importantly, though, forty years after Manche’s death, her mother accepted Jesus as her Savior and was baptized, in part because of the witness of her daughter. Manche Masemola—young, uneducated, and raised in extreme poverty—continues to serve as a testimony to what the simple faith and single-minded determination of one girl can accomplish.

LORD
, who may dwell in your sanctuary?

Who may live on your holy hill?

He whose walk is blameless

and who does what is righteous.

(Psalm
15:1-2
)

2

janine ramer

Speaking the Truth

W
henever people in Dalton, Ohio, think about Janine Ramer, the first thing most remember is her smile.

When the popular, active high-school junior died tragically, she left her friends, family, and neighbors plenty to remember. She was president of her class, a varsity cheerleader, member of the National Honor Society, a cross-country runner, and an active church youth group leader. She played softball, participated in short-term mission trips, and maintained an almost 4.0 grade-point average.

More important, Janine was a committed Christian and one of the nicest girls anyone—classmates or adults—ever met. “I’ve probably coached six hundred kids in thirty years,” softball coach George Strong says, his voice catching as he thinks about the bright, energetic girl who lit up his team for two years. “I never coached one like her. She never had a cross word for anyone. She never saw a negative in anyone.”

Janine’s parents, Keith and Florence, remember their youngest daughter a little differently; Flo describes Janine as a normal, happy girl who naturally was bothered by some things. “Of course she had down days. She would be upset if she didn’t get enough playing time [on the field], but she didn’t let it show. In the long run, she realized that’s not what really mattered.”

What did matter to Janine was serving Jesus. She accepted Christ as her Savior when she was young and grew up attending and participating in church regularly. But Janine’s faith was deeper than just getting together with the youth group kids or going to a worship service on Sundays. She was passionate about her personal relationship with Christ and committed to growing as a Christian.

When her parents looked through her well-marked Bible after her death, they found part of Psalm 119 highlighted. They don’t know if Janine saw these words as her life-defining Scripture, but looking back, the verses seem to reflect who she was and how she lived: “How can a young man [or young woman] keep his [or her] way pure? / By living according to your word. / I seek you with all my heart; / Do not let me stray from your commands” (vv. 9-10).

Janine seemed to understand instinctively that the best way to bring others to Christ was not to preach at them, but to show them the love of Christ. “She didn’t push Christ; she wasn’t nagging,” her mother explains. “She was just always caring about other people. People could feel her care.”

If a classmate or friend seemed interested, Janine invited that person to her church’s monthly evangelistic service. But mostly, she just loved everyone around her. She saw her life as a mission field and looked for ways to bring her Christian faith into conversations.

When Janine first considered joining a traveling softball team, she hesitated. The team often played games on Sundays, and she would have to miss church. She talked about the situation with her parents and her youth pastor, and they encouraged her to play and to look at softball as a mission field. Janine took their challenge seriously. When her team went to represent its division in the World Series, she asked her pastor to pray that she would have the chance to introduce Christ to some of her teammates. She never even mentioned the game.

Her passion for Christ and her commitment to ministry brought Janine to a ceremony honoring her youth leaders on a cold January night in 2003. “She had fourteen thousand other things to do,” her mentor and junior-high youth pastor, Dave Graber, says. “She didn’t have time to serve us, but she did.”

Janine and several other members of the youth group waited tables while the attendees ate, then took turns sharing their own testimonies and future plans. When it was Janine’s turn, she sat on a stool at the front of the room and spoke from her heart. Dave remembers, “She talked about her passion for serving Christ. She told us she wanted to be a youth leader—maybe not a youth pastor, but definitely someone who works with youth and helps teens understand who Christ is.”

When she was done speaking, Janine slipped on her coat and left the ceremony early; she still had homework to do. Less than a half mile from the banquet, as she drove through an intersection, a tractor-trailer with faulty brakes ran a red light and hit her car on the driver’s door. Paramedics rushed her to the hospital and did everything they could, but she never responded to medical treatment. Janine probably died instantly.

The entire community mourned with the Ramers. Keith and Florence stood in the receiving line for more than ten hours as hundreds of people waited in the frigid Midwest winter night to share their sympathy with the family. Some of them knew Janine well. Some she had met only once. But Janine was a person who affected people, even in the briefest meetings.

Even in death, Janine’s passion for Christ changed lives. George, her softball coach, struggled with the sudden loss of his favorite player, but he found comfort listening to Janine’s pastor during her memorial service. George began to understand that this positive, generous girl had seemed so different because of her relationship with Jesus Christ. George started to attend the Ramers’ church and eventually became a Christian because of Janine’s influence on his life. “I always believed in God, but I wasn’t a very religious person,” George explains now. “I know that Janine’s in heaven, and [becoming a Christian] is the way that I will get to see her in heaven someday and say thank you.”

Janine’s youth group also looked for positive ways to remember her. As they grieved together, one of the stories about Janine that came up over and over was the way she “met Ray Jameson.” A few years before her death, Janine had traveled to Colorado with several members of the youth group for a national youth convention. Goofing around between the sessions, Janine decided to meet people. She walked up to a complete stranger, another conference attendee, and pretended to think he was “Ray Jameson,” her long-lost friend. She pulled it off so well, and so kindly, that the conference attendee appreciated the joke and became friends with the kids from Ohio.

After her death, a leader in Janine’s youth group launched the Ray Jameson Project. In honor of Janine’s outgoing nature, the church now trains student leaders to strike up conversations with strangers in malls or other public places and guide the discussion to spiritual topics.

Throughout high school, Janine kept a journal that chronicled her spiritual life. When her parents read it after her death, they found a quote that Janine copied from somewhere. It seemed to accurately sum up the way the passionate sixteen-year-old lived her life: “Lots of people may have lots of opinions about you, but you’re only playing for an audience of one.”

Janine Ramer lived so well for her audience of One that she changed a community.

I rejoice in following your statutes,

as one rejoices in great riches.

I meditate on your precepts

and consider your ways.

I delight in your decrees;

I will not neglect your word.

(Psalm
119:14-16
)

3

jaime haidle

Overcoming Insecurity

F
or as long as she could remember, Jaime Haidle’s mind was a giant aqueduct, filled to the brim with other people’s thoughts. At times she was so consumed with what
others
were thinking about her that she couldn’t tell what
she
was thinking. Worry and tension were her constant companions.

From the very start, Jaime was a perfectionist, afraid to mess up in any way. She questioned the purpose of life, and her life in particular. Why was she on earth? She wasn’t sure, but she felt that she must do it right—no, perfectly.

Jaime made a decision before her sophomore year of college that no matter what, she was going to make God a priority in her life. Jaime had grown up in a mainline church, focused on repetition and good deeds, and she believed these were important in serving Him faithfully. She wanted to please God as well as everyone else.

Jaime met Chrisy, a Christian who went to weekly meetings of Campus Crusade for Christ (a national student group with chapters at many colleges and universities). With Jaime’s new commitment to pursue God, she decided to go with Chrisy every week.

During one of the first meetings of the year, they talked about Jesus and having a personal relationship with Him. At the end the speaker said that maybe some of the audience had never asked Jesus to be a part of their lives, and they could do that right then. That night Jaime confessed that she was a sinner and needed Him.

Things began to change. For starters, Jaime was stunned at hearing God’s Word come alive. In her old church, the Bible seemed like a set of good principles, but Jaime was learning that the Word had significance for her every day. She was blown away.

Jaime was excited about her new relationship with the Lord, but insecurities still consumed her. During her freshman year of college, she had gained about thirty pounds, and soon unhealthy eating habits began to control her emotions. Jaime
constantly
thought about what she looked like. She had such a terrible self-image that she didn’t want to walk across campus for fear that someone would recognize her. Jaime tried talking with her mom about her weight and concern about food, but her mom couldn’t recognize the depth of Jaime’s struggle. Repeatedly she said, “Oh Jaime, stop. It’s like you are obsessed.”

Jaime
was
obsessed!

In reality she wasn’t fat, but she truly
was
haunted by her lack of control. Jaime even snuck into her roommates’ food. One night she ate almost an entire bag of gingersnaps. She felt sick and undone emotionally. Jaime had been binge eating for a while, but that one night was particularly horrible. She called her mom, sobbing that she had a problem.

That week Jaime began going to a nutritionist and a counselor on campus. Her eating habits soon became normal again, but her thought life was still a losing battle. Jaime’s insecurities began to hinder her ability to make friendships and reach out to others. Even though she felt worthless much of the time, God continued to work in her life.