Mitchells Plain woman who has worked as prison missionary for 31 years celebrates 71st birthday
Shona Allie has been ministering to the incarcerated for more than 30 years. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane/African News Agency (ANA)
Cape Town - Known to to many as “Ma” by previous or current prisoners, Shona Allie, who has been ministering in prisons for 31 years, celebrated her 71 birthday on Thursday.
An intimate afternoon of humble celebration of Allie and her work was held at the Voice of Prophecy Bible School in Claremont with family and “spiritual friends”.
Allie has been working in correctional facilities for 31 years, ministering in prisons in South Africa, New Zealand, England, Brazil, New York, Egypt, Chile, Peru and Thailand.
The Mitchells Plain widow and mother of five retired at the age of 70 but still visits prisons once a week to deliver Bibles and sometimes Qur’ans to inmates. What prompted Allie to follow this path was seeing her youngest son spending time with gangsters.
“I got worried he’d end up in jail. So many times I went out to search for him on the streets at night,” Allie said.
“Many come from difficult, problem homes that affect them and some choose the wrong company as friends, but I always try by God’s help to see and bring out the good in them, saying you can change, if God is for you, who can be against you? And I’ve seen many of them change for the good.”
A spiritual friend of Allie, Eduardo Maro, has been working with Allie in the prison ministry for eight years.
“What I really loved about Sister Shona’s work has been the rebuilding, the restoring of this country.… Pollsmoor is hectic.”
“You walk in there, as a man for example, you hear the guys beating on the things and swearing at you and just seeing sister Shona go in there with no fear, going in there and everything just calms, those waters just calm. She has a presence which is what I noticed and what I saw, which is that boldness of faith,” Maro said.
In 2019, Allie Heather Tredoux released the Shona Allie’s Call to Prison Ministries autobiography, detailing her national and international missionary work in prisons.
Allie said her only wish now was to find accommodation of her own.