Vanessa Goosen shares story of hope at Secunda Mall

The 1994 Miss South Africa semi-finalist, Vanessa Goosen, shared her story of hope at Cappuccinos in the Secunda Mall on September 2.

The mall management team invited individuals involved at the mall to hear Goosen’s testimony on September 2, while the mall tenants attended the event on September 3.

Goosen said it was a privilege for her to share her story and to remember no matter what your circumstances are, there is always hope and a way out.

Goosen had a clothing store in Sandton in 1994 and went to Thailand to buy material for her store after following a client’s advice.

She agreed to bring back engineering textbooks to South Africa for a friend of the client but was arrested at the airport on her way back when heroin was discovered inside the textbooks.

“When they cut the books open and that white powder came out of the textbooks, they said: ‘One moment please’. I did not realise that one moment would become years,” said Goosen.

She was pregnant at the time of her arrest and told her audience in detail how she hyperventilated after she realised she was arrested for heroin trafficking. She saw a poster at the airport that read: ‘Heroin = Death Sentence’.

Goosen realised how God protected her when she was taken to the holding cells. Other male prisoners told her to stand against the side of the cell where they were on the other side of the bars to protect her from prison guards who allegedly raped the women at night.

“They protected me day and night until I was taken to court.”

At the prison to which she was taken, she did not qualify to sleep on a bed and had to sleep on the floor between many other prisoners.

“You have to pay for everything in prison, your food, hot water, everything. It was a matter of survival.”

Goosen was moved onto a bed when she was nine months pregnant. She went through a great ordeal when she gave birth because the doctors doing the delivery were medical students experimenting on her because she was a prisoner.

She was not even allowed to have a blanket or pillow when giving birth, as it was a low-class hospital. She was transported from the hospital back to prison on the back of a bakkie with no sponge or anything soft on which to sit.

She collapsed in pain after the bumpy ride and woke up in the hospital. Her baby girl had to leave the prison when she was three years old and Goosen’s best friend from South Africa, Melanie Holmes, flew to Thailand to fetch her.

The alternative for her daughter was to go to an orphanage in Thailand. Goosen tried to prepare herself and her daughter as best she could for the day she was taken away, but after she heard her daughter crying outside the prison after they had said their goodbyes, she had an anxiety attack and collapsed.

During her 16 and a half years in prison, Goosen applied for pardon at court to get a reduced sentence and after many years of letters, applications and struggling, her sentence was reduced from a death sentence to a life sentence and eventually to 16 years imprisonment.

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She went into a deep depression inside the prison and ended up in a hospital, skinny, lonely, on a drip and in a very dark place. It was during this time of her life when an American woman with red lips crossed her path in prison and gave her a book to read about the Holy Spirit.

Goosen gave her heart to Jesus while in prison and began building a relationship with Him. She finally heard she would be released a day before her daughter’s 16th birthday. Goosen’s friend, who raised her daughter, died just before her release and Goosen could never thank her.

Back in South Africa, she had to learn many new things like how to use a cellphone, and how to cook. It was also a long road to rekindle the relationship with her daughter because they were like strangers to one another.

Today Goosen travels anywhere where she is called and testifies about the goodness of God and tells her story of hope.

She also wrote a book about her life, called Drug Muled: Sixteen Years in a Thai Prison. Her daughter, Felicia, also wrote a book called Prison Child.

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