Ronald Abels (39) committed his first armed robbery at the age of 16 and by the time he reached his final year of school was a 'top' gangster in his community, a South African township called Capricorn Park. Ronald's mother was a single parent and he was brought up largely by her parents. Today he is the father of two girls and lives in the Cape Town suburb of Kirstenhof

"I was quite a switched-on kid. I taught my older brother to read properly, and my older sister to tell the time. My brother went to live with another relative when he was six but my sister and I lived with our mom's parents.

When I was little I wanted to be a policeman but when my hormones kicked in, I noticed the gangsters attracted the coolest girls and decided to become the greatest gangster of all. So at the age of 15 I started fighting with the oldest boys in my school, Lavender Hill High. I was trying to make a name for myself because your name is all that matters as a gangster.

Top gangster

It wasn't long before I was noticed and took over an existing gang. I committed my first armed robbery in grade 11, then started selling drugs. I wasn't taking them at that stage—my thing was alcohol and partying—but I was making money. By the time I got to grade 12, I was one of the top gangsters in the Lavender Hill community.

When I hit 20, I was living what I thought of as the high life. Then the first white missionaries came to Capricorn. I'd never seen a white person up close before and suddenly this white English woman walked right up to me and just hugged me. I didn't understand why! Later, when I got to know Julie, she told me when she noticed me standing there in my fake leather jacket and gangster attitude, she simply saw someone who needed love.

That was the first time someone had hugged me. I loved my grandparents. They were good to us and looked after us well, providing everything we needed, but they weren't affectionate people.

Julie and her husband Mike had a Christian home group in Muizenberg and I started attending. One Friday night they invited me for supper, but when I arrived they said they had to go away for the weekend. They handed me their house keys and said I should spend the weekend there. Again, they'd taken me by surprise and I didn't understand how they could trust me.

Double life

My first thought was that I'd steal everything of value, but I was so completely captivated by their love and trust that I didn't even smoke cigarettes in their yard. I wanted to please them. I quit the gangster life and converted to Christianity, went to church and tried to be a good guy. But eventually I took up alcohol again and started living a double life. I realise now that I was just subscribing to a set of religious rules at this stage and Jesus had not yet become real to me.

I'd done a lot of damage as a gangster and there were still old grudges against me in the community. When you first become a gangster you think you've got it made. There's money, fame, girls, excitement. And then the bad times come. You're always fighting other gangs, always trying to hang onto power, always living in fear. I was arrested about five times. I was never convicted but I was always guilty.

Twice I escaped plots to kill me. The first time I was hijacked and held captive over a weekend while I was made to dig my own grave. I persuaded them to let me join them when they were smoking tik [methamphetamine, or crystal meth] and they started to see me as one of them. The second time, I refused to go somewhere I was supposed to be and someone else was mistaken for me and shot dead.

The worst thing is that you have lots of 'friends' but you're always lonely. Sitting around drugging, everyone would talk of the good old days. Not me! I was waiting for the good days to come. I always wondered what I was doing there, always wished for something different. This was how it was for 14 years of my life. Gangsterism is a constant, exhausting, stressful hustle, day and night.

Smoked the profit

Once I started living my double life, I quickly spun out of control. I started smoking tik and hid away from all my church relationships. I reconnected with my old gang for protection and went back to selling drugs. I made money but smoked all the profit and couldn't buy drugs to sell. I lost my swagger and my friends and couldn't even work for other drug dealers because I'd smoke all their profits too. I became homeless, hanging around drug houses and sleeping wherever I could. Everyone was tired of me. I worked for food and stood in soup lines. I was a wreck"... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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