JAIL PIT TO PULPIT

AS HE watched the smoke billowing out of his brother’s brown leather jacket at a local tavern, Grabouw teenager Ivor Swartz would have known that life as he knew it was about to change forever. 

It was a Sunday night - a couple of decades ago - when Ivor, who left home in search of himself at the age of 13, was confronted by the monster that tormented his family home for years - his older brother Deon and diè se vrinne.

They got into a scuffle and Ivor and his friend shot Deon. 

Dead. 

Ivor recalled: “My brother wore a brown leather jacket and I could see the smoke coming out of it, but hy hou vol ‘dis nie regte bullets nie’ and that he will come back for us.

“Those were the last words I heard from him, he died in hospital that Wednesday.” 

Deon was the monster Ivor wanted out of his life. 

After losing their father when Ivor was just three years old, Deon was supposed to be the man of the house and his younger brothers’ role model. 

Instead, he would come home late at night and hit holes in the roof of the house with an axe, other times he’d set tyres alight in the home, trying to burn it down. 

Once he burned a Shoprite bag and let the plastic drip onto tattoos of their younger brother Peter, who was 10 years old at the time. 

Ivor had had enough of the torment. 

But in his own words: “I thought that if the monster was going to be out of the picture I’m going to be OK, but then I became the monster.” 

Sentenced to six-and-a-half years innie mang for his crimes, Ivor became a 26s gangster in prison. 

His younger brother Peter, who had seen the path taken by his older brothers, was also locked up in the same facility. 

Peter, though, was a 28s gang member and the two brothers refused to communicate with each other because of the nommer. 

They had one thing in common though - they were both caught up in a generational family curse that threatened to completely wipe out all of their lives without making a meaningful contribution to their community. 

But Ivor broke that curse. 

One day a random juffrou doing the Lord’s work approached Ivor while he was still locked up and told him that if he were to die that day, the only thing mense would remember him for is being a 26s gangster who grew up without a father and killed his brother. 

She asked him: “Are those the identity markers you want in your life?” 

That hit him tussen die oë. 

As I sat there listening to his testimony at Athlone Stadium at the Mighty Men Cape Flats event, I could feel the impact he had on the 22 000-odd men gathered to pray for the Kaapse Vlaktes.   

Ivor turned his life around by completing his matric year while he was locked up and going on to study theology. Today, he inspires people all over the world and is the author of a number of books. 

Having sat through that experience and then having to read comments on Facebook saying that prayer is not enough and that all those men at Athlone Stadium should have marched down to the drug dens to confront the drug dealers, I thought I’d give some more insight into what really went down. 

I don’t know how it works in other religions, but for us Christians, testimony of what the Lord has done in your life after being “born again” plays a significant role in bringing others to Jesus Christ. 

Sidenote, we are not born Christians. You can be brought up in a Christian home, but you have to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and follow in His ways to become a ware Christen, therefore testimony plays a big role in our lives. 

So even if only five lives were changed by the testimonies that were heard on that day, coupled with the prayers that went out at the stadium, it would have made a big impact. 

Let’s say five possible future ‘killers’, who between them could easily have murdered 10 people, gave their life to Christ. All of a sudden you have 15 households that would not have been rocked by murder. The key is to win over souls. 

Anyway, when Ivor finally made the decision to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour in his mother’s church, they brought him a sticky note with her prayer requests on it. 

Her request was for the church to continue praying for Ivor to come to the Lord - even when she was gone. And you dare ask, does prayer help?

When Ivor signed off at Athlone Stadium, he did something amazing - he brought a copy of his criminal record and tore it up on the stage to signify renewal, a clean slate, a fresh start, a reset - something offered to all when you are born again. 

So, did prayer for the violence to end on the Cape Flats work? Absolutely. Are there more work to be done? No doubt. Are there physical work to be done? For sure.

And that’s why to truly get the Cape in shape, we need to band together and do what we can in our respective fields to help change the mindset of the mense in our communities.

Duds just the way it is…