Anglican Communion News Service

‘When we were facing a difficult time in Soweto, my husband said that he thought that the children and I should leave. But, I told him that if something happened to him I didn’t want to hear about it by hearsay. So, we sent the children to family in a village outside of the township and I stayed with my husband’. Thus Timeya Seoka, the wife of the Bishop of Pretoria, explained some of their experiences in South Africa.

She had previously spoken of not being able to move with her husband when he was called by the Church to work in Johannesburg, as it was at a time when black people were not allowed freedom of movement in South Africa. She said that, after applying, they were lucky that she was granted the right to move and live with him but that many others were not so lucky. She wondered, she said, if this was the cause of some of the difficulties that there were in her country now.

Timeya was speaking at the Plenary Session of the Spouses Conference in a session on Married Life chaired by Melinda Whalon, from Paris, and in which Lily Lia from Taiwan and Lou Scott Joynt from Winchester, England, also spoke.

Lily Lai spoke of married life in Taiwan and the expectation that wives would live with and look after their in-laws and how many save a little from the housekeeping in order to help their own families. She spoke movingly of the decisions which many have to make between being educated and pursuing a profession and getting married with all the responsibilities that this brings. When Lily had become a Christian, the path which she identifies as leading her to her husband, she had lost contact with her own family completely. On her marriage, too, she had had to move and give up much to follow her husband.

Lou Scott Joynt said that her husband holds up his two hands and says that he wears two rings, one of marriage and one of being a bishop – each representing full-time, whole-life commitments.

All three speakers agreed that, despite the sacrifices that they had made and the difficulties of balancing marriage to a bishop, a career and family time, they all loved and thanked God for their husbands and their lives with them.