CHAPTER 37
Rustenburg Crisis
Saturday, 3 December 2011 — I’m traveling towards Rustenburg by car with my friend Martin. Staring through the passenger window, I notice blackened details across a landscape dusted with dirty dark browns and grays, littered with various kinds of mining ventures, trucks, massive machinery, some with conveyor belts stockpiling raw material in gigantic heaps.
In defiance of this dreary landscape is our mission of pleasure; we’re driving to the house of a newspaper staffer who arranged the after-hours pick up of Martin’s prize. He’d entered a crossword puzzle in hopes of attending the Nedbank Sun City 2011 Golf Challenge and won two tickets, with golf shirts and caps, and invited me along.
As the town of Rustenburg became visible, I was suddenly struck with a pang of concern for its people. With recent Word and visions from God about violence coming to South Africa, I quietly inquired:
Lord, what will happen in this place?
08:40 My son, these regions will not be unaffected with violence when it comes. This land will shake and tremble. People will cower in their houses. They will suffer hunger in their houses because they will not dare to venture to try and buy food. Do not consider this land as safe. People will reach out their arms to help others just to find their arms cut off and unable to help. Some people will die of heartsore because of the anguish of the times. Do not be fooled by the relative calm and prosperity which you see now with your natural eyes, but see as I see and know the storm is coming.
Less than a year later, during August of 2012, the Marikana massacre took place at the Lonmin platinum mine in Rustenburg, leaving 34 killed and 78 miners seriously injured. The strikes resulted in close to 20,000 workers losing their jobs. Several mines closed. The shockwave of these huge strikes ripped through other sectors of Rustenburg. Carrying the world’s richest platinum reserves and scores of mines, an estimated 70% of Rustenburg’s economy depends on mining.
Reportedly, this is what had happened: Fuel supply was crippled. Food shortages. Children went to school hungry. Charities had to step in. People feared for their lives. Loan Sharks took advantage, and law enforcement intervened. With so many jobless miners as clientele, shops and businesses closed. I have no doubt at least one person died of “heartsore” because God said it would happen.
On 20 October 2012, the Christian minister Angus Buchan was brought to a Rustenburg stadium to hold the “New Beginning” crusade; however, nearly a decade later, ripples from the 2012 violence have not yet calmed.
As recently as February 2020, a 52-year-old retrenched miner was reported to say:
Rustenburg is not a place of hope any more.
Doing research of what happened on the ground in Rustenburg confirms that God’s dire Word spoken to me that day came to pass.
And that was just one city in South Africa. A part of God’s Word speaks of South Africa in its entirety. Come to think of it, rereading His Word in the context of the late 2019 to early 2022 pandemic, the message is also eerily fitting . . .
People will cower in their houses. They will suffer hunger in their houses because they will not dare to venture to try and buy food. Do not consider this land as safe. People will reach out their arms to help others just to find their arms cut off and unable to help. Some people will die of heartsore because of the anguish of the times.
One may wonder if perhaps God’s Word was so general that it could fit nearly any catastrophe, which are bound to happen from time to time. However, the Word clearly contains specifics relating to large-scale events that indeed came to pass in both Rustenburg’s mining crisis and South Africa’s version of the pandemic—now thoroughly detailed in our local news reports. Our all-knowing God is able to use apt wording referring to both future crises, even though they happened a decade apart.
With our new golf shirts and caps, we entered Sun City for a beautiful day out in nature between the curated golfing greens, interesting people, and dimpled white balls being knocked about. Elaborate television broadcast facilities had technicians and camera operators scurrying about. We enjoyed luxury car exhibits and a generous buffet lunch. It was enough of a diversion to make me momentarily forget about the suffering yet to come.