Young Trevor Noah on God’s Will
Posted on Aug 5, 2017 by Trevor in Religion
In his memoir Born a Crime, Trevor Noah tells the story of his upbringing in South Africa. Born a mixed-race child during apartheid, his upbringing was a wild mix of religion, racism, and danger. In one segment I’m highlighting here, Trevor argues about interpreting God’s will with his mother.
As context for the below audio clips, he and his mother attended church all day every Sunday, and like most nine-year-olds in such a scenario, Trevor wasn’t completely keen on the practice. One Sunday morning when their beat-up Volkswagen broke down, he warned his mother it was a sign from God.
First audio clip:
After a long day travelling on mini buses and attending various church meetings in remote locations, the pair’s faithful persistence was rewarded with a terrible turn of events.
They found themselves alone on a mini bus with a hostile driver who intended to take them away and do very bad things with them. Trevor’s mom eventually concluded the only way to escape was to jump from the bus as it was moving and somehow evade the driver. So when the driver slowed down a little to cross an intersection, without warning she shoved her son out the mini bus door and jumped out after him. They hit the ground hard and tumbled head-over-heels. Luckily, although scratched and bruised pretty badly, the impact didn’t harm them enough to prevent them from getting up on their feet and running. Once the awe-struck bus driver realized what was happening, he pulled over and took after them on foot as well.
Fortunately they were both great runners and the adrenaline pumping from their veins helped them escape the driver.
Had God’s intervention been at play again? After narrowly escaping a horrible fate, they each arrived at opposite conclusions here as well.
Second audio clip:
