Rev Kym Bishop writes:
This year in the Methodist Church we are celebrating 50 years of the Ordination of Women into the ministry of Word and Sacrament. The first woman ordained was Rev Constance Oosthuizen, on 17th Oct 1976.
Rev Oosthuizen grew up in Pietermaritzburg, but was working in Botha’s Hill when she first experienced a calling into ministry. At that stage, women could serve as deaconesses but not as ministers, so she served as a Deacon at a Methodist church in Durban and later on in Johannesburg.
The story says she was sitting in an air raid shelter in Israel during the six day war, in 1967, when she knew God was calling her into sacramental ministry. She fought the system for 10 years before finally being admitted as an ordinand in 1976, and she was sent to the Methodist church in central Pietermaritzburg. After ordination she served as a minister until 1997 when she formally retired, but she kept serving until 2016 when she passed away at the age of 85
Her life and ministry is a witness to a God who calls and equips all of us for service, and a reminder to all of us to say yes to God's call. It is also a reminder to all of us to widen the doors for those whom God continues to call and to live lives of faithful service wherever God call us.