Written by: Charlene Pauw
Article source: JOY! Magazine

Earlier this year, we had various people contacting us saying that we should make a documentary about the story that Michael Cassidy documented in his book, A Witness Forever, of how the Lord led South Africa through our peaceful transition in 1994 and spared us from a civil war that was predicted to be the worst bloodbath that Africa had ever seen.

Putting feet to our faith
We contacted Frans Cronje from Global Creative Studios to find out if he knew of people who make documentaries. He said that his company would love to make the documentary and they happened to have a 2 month gap in which they could do it. After our conversation with him, a lady phoned him from Shelley Beach to arrange to show one of his movies. As she was about to put the phone down, she said to Frans, “By the way, you should really make a movie about Michael Cassidy and the 1994 election.” We felt that all these independent voices were guidance from the Lord and confirmation that we should go ahead with the project. Our funding came in relatively easily, and when we wanted to set up interviews with people we also felt God’s hand over the process. Our heart is that telling this story would be a gift to South Africa to inspire us to look to God collectively again for the future of our beloved country.

Front: Frans Cronje, Aleksandra Surogina;
Michael Cassidy; Behind: Charlotte Huisamen; Charlene Pauw, Carol Cassidy, Mark Chipps

Our heart is that telling this story would be a gift to South Africa to inspire us to look to God collectively again for the future of our beloved country.

Please join hands with us
Please consider investing generously to the ongoing work of African Enterprise. Your financial support empowers us to create evangelism opportunities in our country and continent. We pray that you have a wonderful, Christ-filled festive season.

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi

Dr FW De Klerk – ex South African President

Frans Cronje speaks about the project:
It has truly been a remarkable experience working on this documentary about the ‘94 elections and the miracles that took place around that time. I obviously lived during that time, but two of my fellow crew members, Charlotte Huisamen (Director) and Aleksandra Surogina (Production Manager), were only born the year before the elections. They have really only lived post-apartheid and it has been very interesting to hear their comments on the documentary and how insightful they have found it.

Life lessons to be learnt
There are so many life lessons locked up in the history of what happened during that time – the men and women who changed the course of history and how God intervened in the process. We discovered how important and applicable these lessons are to us today. We seem to be making some of the same mistakes again in South Africa, 25 years later. That’s probably the most important reason to document this story – so that people can learn from it and hopefully avoid making the same mistakes. This documentary will help us navigate through the perilous times that we are facing in South Africa again at this stage.

Frans Cronje (Producer); Aleksandra Surogina (Production Manager) Charlotte Huisamen (Director) and Michael Cassidy (Christian Leader and Author of A Witness Forever)

South Africans all want the same thing
Our first interview was with Prince Buthelezi. Our last interview, thus far, was with President De Klerk. It has just been life-changing to listen to these people speak. People with such a wealth of experience, knowledge, and wisdom. One thing that came out very strongly in all of these interviews was that, in general, people want the same thing. They want peace in South Africa. They want the country to prosper. It’s just their methods that are so different. It’s only when people begin to sit down and speak that they realise that we can align our methods to get to the same end goal. I think that is one of the main things that African Enterprise managed to do during that time – to get the role players together in dialogue.

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Date published: 14/11/2019

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