Mom Forgives The Unforgivable To Bring Hope To A Desperate Community

One of the most remarkable stories of forgiveness had its beginning 25 years ago last week, when a bright, determined Stanford graduate sacrificed her life to create positive change for a beautiful yet brutal country, leading her parents to do the same.

Amy Biehl ventured to South Africa on a Fulbright scholarship to work in the anti-apartheid movement during its explosive final months before Mandela would become president. She worked alongside her black comrades to register voters, and she longed to address the poverty of their squalid townships, believing that economic change was critical for any meaningful transformation.

She was giving two of them a ride home when the blue-eyed blonde became a target for four angry youths who stoned and stabbed her to death on a road in Guguletu township on the very corner that her parents would soon be calling ‘The Spot of Hope’.

Peter and Linda Biehl left their gated community in wealthy Orange County, motivated and haunted by reading Amy’s diaries. They flew to Cape Town and toured the townships where Amy worked and talked with her friends about the unemployment problem. Peter was a businessman, and with money pouring in to honor their daughter's noble cause, they began to organize one development project after another—welding, sewing, a print shop, a bakery, a construction company, sports facilities, and adult literacy programs.

But the most startling development of all was the loving relationship that developed between Amy’s parents and her killers.

Good News Network interviewed Linda last week about the remarkable story of forgiveness and reconciliation, and the difference between these two steps that she and her husband took to liberate themselves from the pain and create positive change for thousands of South Africans...