Clare in Durban, SA: The Wedding Party

Today we celebrated Beauty and Sizwe’s marriage. Beauty is one of the kitchen staff at the centre. They have wanted to marry for about four years but in their culture this involves a sizeable amount of money that has to be exchanged and also obtaining family approval. This big issue for them was that beauty isn’t a Zulu and so Sizwe’s family didn’t approve and so wouldn’t agree to the marriage. It makes no difference to the family that these two live together and have two children they still wouldn’t agree. Beauty and Sizwe and the seed of hope staff have been praying that they would be able to marry even though there seemed no hope and so it was a real answer to prayer when Sizwe’s father agreed last week. They were married straight away during their church service on Sunday and so had no reception/celebrations. So we at seed of hope held a wedding party for them today to celebrate their marriage and God’s answer to prayer. We did everything they would do at a zulu wedding reception and we as God’s family celebrated together. It was a real joyous occasion with singing, dancing, speeches and a special cake! It was such an honour to be a part of. So many Zulu couples are not married and have men have many women, children group up in dysfunctional families because of all the traditions around marriage. Beauty and Sizwe are therefore making a stand for God and in the community to show marriage is important so we definitely wanted to bless and celebrate with them in choosing the way of the kingdom.

The Bride and Groom