October 10 — Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mamma: The Memorial Opens Tonight

Last night, strikes on energy infrastructure silenced much of the city. Generators hum faintly in the distance; the rest is still. Yet even here, in the quiet and the cold, the promise stands: Jacoba.org must go live before midnight.

Today would have been her seventy-eighth birthday, the fourth she celebrates in Heaven since October 2021. Though the streets around me are dark, her light feels near, unwavering as ever.

Yesterday I spoke with her eldest sister, Aunty Heleen, now eighty-one. We remembered South Africa, her laughter, her letters, her faith that crossed oceans. It was also my sister Mariette’s fiftieth birthday, another circle of life intertwining with this one. While the family gathered back home to celebrate, I was here, preparing for tonight.

Now the hour has come. Battery low, light flickering, but the work continues.The urgency is real. The line must be held.The promise will be kept.

Before midnight strikes, Jacoba.org will be live.

Not a project, a promise.

Not just a monument, a living voice.

This is the beginning of a digital meeting place of grace:

• A Legacy Circle for those who wish to share a memory or verse.

• A Guestbook of Gratitude, open for words that keep her story company.

• Soon, a Letters & Legacy Archive, beginning with her letters from Amanzimtoti, Israel and Japan from 1967 to 1972, nearly 60 years ago, still burning with conviction and love.

Mamma taught that faith is not loud. It is endurance, light learning to stand when everything else falls silent.

So tonight, as Kyiv lies in shadow, her light will find its home. Her story will be anchored. Her voice will not fade, because what began in her faith continues in the lives she shaped and the work still being done.

The memorial stands as witness, not to one life ended, but to a faith that endures.

To God be the glory, great things He has done.