Sondra Berry Young had been bedridden with the flu for a week and was running a fever of 104 degrees the day before she was due to leave Johannesburg, South Africa to go and minister at a conference in a village in Malawi.

The following day, with only a slight fever, Sondra boarded a plane for Malawi and went to minister at the conference in the village. God moved powerfully at the conference, healing a child who had swallowed poison. There was no clinic nearby and no transportation available for the child’s mother to take the child to hospital.

The day after, Sondra drove near the Mozambique border and saw a child on a donkey near a village they were passing through. She was led to witness to the boy, who, it turned out, could speak and understand English. Not only did the boy accept Jesus Christ as his Savior, he was soon translating for Sondra to the other children and teens around him and the villagers who gathered around them. The entire village accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Not having any money, Sondra drove back into town, pawned all the jewelry she had on her and used the money she got to buy about one hundred Bibles for the villagers. She also bought them fruit, bartered her watch for a handmade truck for the children to play with and bartered her two favorite rings with a different set of shop owners to get a soccer ball for the villagers. As Sondra turned to leave this last stored, the store owners returned her rings after a discussion among themselves and gave her the soccer ball for free.

The young villagers were all excited when Sondra got back to them with the gifts. Even the adults came out running, excited at the chance to play with the soccer ball. Although the Bibles, fruit and soccer ball may seem like little things, they were a tremendous blessing to the villagers in Malawi. More importantly, the blessing of salvation was also theirs because of Sondra’s obedience to the call of Christ in her life.

Sondra Berry Young got saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, and healed through the ministry of Hymie Rubenstein, a South African evangelist, in 1972. Because a native of South Africa shared the gospel with her and led her to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, Sondra has always desired to minister to the people of that nation any way she can.

Sondra’s testimony has been aired on national and international programs, such as, the 700 Club, TBN, the California Tonight Show, and even secular television and radio. Her testimony can also be found on her website: www.sondraberryyoung.org.

One of the stories Sondra shares is of an incident where she was kidnapped, raped and nearly burned alive in California when her children were still young. As Sondra told it to the "Hope for Hollywood" Magazine, she had made a routine trip to a grocery store and was stowing the groceries away in her car when a man suddenly approached the rear of her car and ordered her to get into her car at gunpoint. She started backing up and was suddenly grabbed from the rear by a second man, who stuck a knife in her side.

The two men threatened her into silence, forced her into the car and drove her to a high hill overlooking the city. On the drive, they threatened to kill her and offer her as a sacrifice once they got to the mountains. God gave Sondra supernatural calm and she kept responding to them with declarations like, “The blood of Jesus is against you,” “You cannot take my life, in Jesus’ Name,” and “No weapon formed against me shall prosper!”

Nevertheless, the men pulled off the road on the hill facing the city and brutally raped her repeatedly. Finally, Sondra screamed, “God is in me, and when you do this to me you do this to God!” The men backed off at that and began listening to her. She negotiated with them to take her back to town in exchange for some money. They agreed and started back towards town but then they soon realized that their fingerprints were all over the car. They decided to burn the car with her in it.

While the men were still debating over this, Sondra prayed that God would send the police quickly. Miraculously, a police car appeared behind them and the car was pulled over. Sondra was rescued; the men were arrested and later sentenced to life in prison.

Sondra immediately chose to forgive the men for what they did to her and saw one miracle after another as a result. For example, despite the immense psychological torture she had endured during the rape, the nurse that attended to her at the hospital that night remarked that she had never seen anyone in such good emotional shape after a rape.

Even the judge presiding over the court case could see that “her absolute faith in God” had carried her through the ordeal unscathed. Sondra herself testifies that while she was being sexually abused it was as if it was not happening. She felt no fear and knew God was with her the whole time, and the incident resulted in a testimony of the power of forgiveness.

Sondra has an international ministry and has traveled to twenty different countries as an Evangelist and a Teacher of the Word of God. Her burden for Africa has meant frequent trips to the continent, where she now has a Prayer and Outreach Center based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has lived in South Africa since 1987, where she ministers to people from all walks of life.

In addition to ministering in churches, Sondra shares Christ with people on the streets of Johannesburg and has worked with street team ministries for many years. They have seen up to 250 people per come to salvation in one day on the streets. Over three million gospel tracts have been sent through Sondra’s ministry for distribution throughout South Africa.

Sondra has started several projects in South Africa, one of which is known as Mama’s Homes. In these homes, up to seven orphans are placed with a mother who takes care of them in a family setting. The children grow up with love, hugs and mama’s warm meals, rather than within the sterile and isolated confines of an impersonal orphanage. Others projects include food distribution to churches, soup kitchens and orphanages, among others; clothing distribution; giving toys to teens and tots free of charge; as well as outreaches through theater, circus, to children in schools and a leper colony. A complete listing of her projects can be found on her website, www.sondraberryyoung.org.

Sondra was presented with the Flame Award & Trophy for Woman Evangelist of 1987 honorable mention. As a woman she has reached out to pastors’ wives and women in ministry and held monthly meetings for them for almost 4 years before doing more extensive ministry in South Africa. She was listed in Who’s Who In Women In Ministry as a noted Evangelist and Bible Teacher.

Among the many evangelistic outreaches Sondra attends, she has coordinated over 100 churches for over 20 years in an outreach to the Tournament of Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA. The parade draws an annual 1.5 million people every year. She has had up to 1500 people on the streets in teams sharing the love of Christ, obtaining more than 750,000 pieces of gospel literature for a single outreach.

Sondra came back to the U.S. early in 2008 for a few months of fund raising before returning home to South Africa; however, a series of events and the economic downturn have caused her to be stranded in the U.S. due to a lack of finances. Her ministry headquarters and residence in South Africa have fallen into delinquency and Sondra is now being threatened with lawsuits and a loss of her status as a permanent resident of South Africa, which she only recently attained.

Chris Gonzales writes that Sondra is “in jeopardy [of losing] 20 years of labor and her reputation as an upright, responsible, woman of integrity. Sondra left the security and safe environment of the U.S. to relocate to a country that is unsafe even for its own citizens, let alone a single white woman, putting her life and ministry on the line with the burning desire to win the people of South Africa to Christ.”

She has needs for her ministry and has been a blessing to the people in the continent of Africa. From the Leprosy colony in Nigeria, to many parts of East and South Africa.

Please contact Sondra at 626.627.9172 or at sondraberryyoung@hotmail.com to let her know what you can do to help her at this time. You may also use the PayPal feature located on her ministry website to make a donation.