29/07/2026
I have never written my testimony out before, but Serene from Woman of Valour SA pushed me hard to get it published. It took a lot of soul searching, but happy that it is out, not for me, but for another woman who needs to break free from strongholds and their past and present. Help is always a phone call away.
See our new story.
Peculiar Angel: Covered in the fingerprints of God.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CTcMNVbti/
Or
http://www.womenofvalour.co.za/stories
We'd love to welcome you on 15 Augus for a great Womans Conference!
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My Testomony:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EFdnTg5Yk/
My Testimony
Ankarien Oelofse — 2026
Ephesians 6:10–18 NKJV — The Whole Armor of God
A few years ago, my pastor gave me a nickname: Peculiar Angel. I looked it up, and the modern meaning is “unusual” or “strange.” But when I searched the KJV, I found the older, biblical meaning: a “treasured possession.” That’s what God has called me, and it’s the name I carry into everything I write and share — not because I’m special, but because He treasures the broken.
Seven years ago, when I was water baptized, the charity I had been running changed into a ministry. He took something I had built and turned it into something He had purpose for. Despite years of abuse, homelessness, gender-based violence, r**e, addiction, and mental illness, He has been rebuilding what was torn down. Jesus placed His armor on me and called me to the front line of a battle I never asked to fight. And His blood had already won it.
I am not telling this story to highlight myself. I am telling it because I want people who are still broken to see what God can do with the pieces.
The years the enemy tried to destroy me
As a child, I lay awake listening to my parents fight. My father left when I was ten; I never saw him again except for one brief conversation of forgiveness before he died. Gender-based violence and alcohol had already begun to unravel my family.
At thirteen, it got worse. My mother remarried, and for five years my stepfather abused me physically and emotionally — fists, bruises, scars I learned to hide. I was bullied into silence. I had been Born Again at sixteen, but looking back, I was searching for Jesus in the dark while the enemy delighted in my pain. I kept asking: where was God?
I left home for university, then for a job in another city — and the patterns followed me. I stopped going to church. I couldn’t see God anymore, and I let other things fill that space. Drinking became a problem.
One night, walking home from work, a man grabbed me from behind and strangled me until I nearly died. Someone intervened and I survived — but the spirit of death had its hand on me. Not long after, another man broke into my flat with a knife and stole everything, including a saxophone my grandmother had given me. I felt worthless, ashamed, unlovable. A voice — not God’s — kept telling me everything was my fault.
I left for the UK, thinking I could escape. I couldn’t. I was a functioning alcoholic by then. One night I was r**ed by someone I trusted enough to walk with, and the only way out was through a window the next morning. I carried the shame of that night in silence for years, blaming myself, believing I had lost a part of my soul I’d never get back.
I found a relationship that felt stable for a while, but the same darkness returned. He came home high one night, and during the fight that followed, he pushed me down a flight of stairs. I woke up in hospital with broken bones and a face I didn’t recognize. He took what little money I had and disappeared. With nothing — no money, no support, in a foreign country — I ended up on the streets of London for seven months.
During that time, I attempted su***de eight times and turned to self-harm. I believed the enemy had won. I believed my life was over.
Where God stepped in
After six years in the UK, I came home to a mother who loved me enough to take me straight to rehab. I relapsed three times. I went through three rehab programs. And finally, in AA, surrounded by people talking about a “Higher Power,” I recognized Him. I knew Jesus was my Higher Power — but I wasn’t ready to give Him control. Not yet.
When I finally did, everything changed. By His grace, I am 22 years sober today. Not because I was strong enough on my own, but because He never stopped pursuing me, even when I had nothing left to offer Him.
I am not over what happened to me. I don’t think that’s the point. What I know is that the One who should be held accountable for all of it has already been overcome. Time doesn’t erase what happened — but Jesus has redeemed it. He has taken what the enemy meant to destroy me with and turned it into the very thing He now uses to reach others.
What God built from the ashes
Fourteen years ago, God woke me at midnight and gave me two words: “Table View Angels.” I didn’t understand it then, but that night, He started something. Out of my pain — the abuse, the addiction, the homelessness, the mental illness — He raised up a ministry to reach people walking through the same darkness I once knew.
In 2025 alone, through this work, He allowed us to reach:
1,790 families
1,800 individual adults
2,370 children
1,190 teenagers
249 seniors
210 homeless individuals
1,275 emergency trauma cases
None of that is a credit to me. It’s evidence of what He can do with a life surrendered to Him — even a life as broken as mine was.
Along the way, He has also opened doors I never could have opened myself — recognition from places like the IIWA Awards, She Inspires Global, and the Mayor of Cape Town’s Woman Empowerment Award, among others. I share these not to boast, but because they are proof of what He can do when a broken vessel says yes to Him. Every accolade is really His fingerprint on a life He chose to redeem.
Living with mental illness, by His grace
For 22 years I have also lived with Bipolar II, Borderline Personality Disorder, and anxiety. These haven’t defined me — Christ has. Mental illness is part of my story, not my identity. I am a child of God, held by Him, walking in healing and growth one day at a time. I want other women to know they don’t have to carry the stigma or the silence alone. He meets us in our struggles, not despite them.
Looking ahead — to His glory
I dream of a Family Place of Safety, and I’m trusting God for R3,000,000 to bring it to life — not because I have the means, but because He has shown me again and again that He provides for what He calls us to. I dream of an autobiography and a podcast, not to elevate my name, but as platforms to point back to His faithfulness.
If there’s one thing I want every woman reading this to know, it’s this: Jesus won. Not me — Him. Whatever you’ve survived, whatever you’re still carrying, He can take it and make something out of it. You can know Him too. He died for your sins, and through Him you’ve been made righteous before God. All it takes is asking Him into your heart.
“Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
— Ephesians 6:14–17 NKJV
