Finally, a female voice

One of the things I loved about the Men's Fellowship at Christian Action Fellowship (CAF) at Wits, was the quality of talks we had. I enjoyed the vigour with which we tackled issues. We had many options for which we could have opted in conducting our meetings. But we always tended to choose the unconventional route.

When we had planned on our calendar to have a “brothers' night”, instead of just having fun watching movies (and there's nothing inherently wrong with this), we would choose to rather spend the night talking on things that we felt were vital to us. No, I'm saying it wrong, "we deliberated on issues, mchana", we would say in our "comrade" speak.

One day, a guest speaker we had invited to come address us on one or another topic suddenly dropped us at the last minute. It was late on a Monday afternoon, the 21st March 2005 to be precise. Thinking on their feet, the committee decided to quickly call on one of our fellow members of CAF to come speak to us. What was revolutionary about the committee making this call were 3 things. First, the person, was our peer - (normally we invited outside speakers, veterans with years of expertise in their fields). Second, the peer we decided to call on as a replacement was a lady. Finally, she was going to speak to us on, wait for it.......fatherhood. Yes!!! A young lady, unmarried let alone childless (at least at that stage) - invited to speak to a bunch of gents (mostly her age), about fatherhood. Hey?

Sibongiseni came on such short notice but her address was as if she had been preparing for years. She really just blew our minds away. I remember after the meeting I kept asking her, "where have you been? Where did you come from?". Sibo, as we called her, had always kept a very low profile. In an organization like ours where noise and shouting the highest "hallelujahs" were the norm, it would be hard to notice her other than when she took the microphone -  and when she did, we all paid attention. She had a presence.

Sibo is now a prolific lawyer doing great things in corporate. Apart from that, she is now a mother raising a family with her husband, Hape Lefalatsa. Hape is also a former member of CAF.

Sibo is very passionate about issues which we normally deal with on "Chronicles of a Builder". Hers, and many others, are voices we need as we continue to grapple with how we can heal this country, South Africa. It is my hope that as we continue to talk and engage each other, we will come up with constructive ways through which we can build our country for our children, and our children’s children.

Sibo has graciously agreed to come on as our very first guest blogger on "Chronicles of a Builder". So, in the not-so-distant future, she will take over this space, albeit for just a stint, so we can finally hear from the heart of a fellow female builder, Sibongiseni Lefalatsa.