View more photos of the Life Champs Day Camp and the Forest Hills team

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — She was raped at 8 years old by a man she still sees walking the streets of Nyanga township, the murder capital of South Africa.

Thandeka Siyobi knows the pain of sexual abuse all too well. In this township in Cape Town, children are murdered, raped and pulled into a world of drugs, alcohol and gangs every day.

“There is a lot of violence around here,” Siyobi said. “As young as the age of 12 years old they start getting into drugs and violence.”

Siyobi, a member of the local Baptist church, does not allow the pain of the past to keep her from helping young girls today deal with what she has endured herself. She shares her testimony with girls in the church and community, many of whom have experienced the same pain as Siyobi.

“I was raped by a guy who I trusted,” Siyobi said. “At that time I did not know what was happening in my life; I thought that God did not love me anymore, that maybe I deserved what happened to me.”

After she was raped, Siyobi began having problems, questioning her self-worth, finding it hard to concentrate on schoolwork, and withdrawing from friends.

“I kept telling myself I was raped so why [should] I, as a young girl, keep myself pure,” Siyobi said. “… My life was messed up.”

Siyobi struggled with these problems until she was 18, but now finds herself healed from those feelings of worthlessness and hurt. When she openly shares her testimony with girls in the township, she finds they are more willing to open up to her about their own problems.

Siyobi recently worked with volunteers from Forest Hills Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, during a Life Champs Day Camp held at a school in Nyanga. As a result of this camp, Siyobi sees a change in the girls’ attitudes, and many are coming to her house every day with an eagerness to study the Bible and grow in their faith.

“A parent called me and told me her daughter has really changed, because [before] she was really disrespectful and was starting fights at home,” Siyobi said. “As the week went on, she was really starting to change because she had trust in her life in the Savior.”

Another girl came to Siyobi to tell her she was almost raped. As Siyobi and the girl read through the Bible together, the girl began to understand that God protected her and saved her from being raped and gave her the strength to fight and escape from her attacker.

Siyobi is pouring her life into these girls and hopes many will pray together for the youth in Nyanga township.

“I think it would be very nice if this nation would come together and hold hands, to pray this violence would stop in South Africa,” Siyobi said.

Jacob Alexander is a writer for IMB’s Global Communication Team. He enjoys sharing God’s stories from all over Africa and is becoming more of a soccer fan from being in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup.