An Interview with Deborah Galtere

Reverend Deborah Galtere served as a missioner, pastor, educator, and chaplain during her years of ministry serving in the Caribbean, South Africa/Botswana, and Florida (USA). Highlights of ministry include travel by foot, horse, donkey cart, boat, airplane, truck, and car to reach the congregations in which she lived and served.

Pastor to rural Batswana, Basarwa, and Zulu communities in South Africa/Botswana in Word and Sacrament, her cross-cultural ministry established forty-one mini libraries, thirteen early learning centers, one church, school classrooms, playgrounds, community gardens, and mediator in the truth and reconciliation meetings in her circuits. Deborah ministered in refugee camps during the Mozambique civil war, helping in medical missions and in training indigenous missioners to minister to the refugees. She traveled with her husband Glenn in a circuit of over one thousand kilometers monthly to bring bible school/seminary extension classes to four different tribal regions.

Deborah served two church circuits in Jamaica, British West Indies and helped to establish international seminary classes in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Her ministry in the USA involved pastoring congregations in Hialeah, and Jacksonville, FL and she eventually became a senior chaplain with Vitas Healthcare.

She helped establish Community Chaplains Association, a non-profit that ministered to the elderly home/facility bound and volunteered as a chaplain with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and the Marine Corps League Auxiliary in Martin County. She presently holds membership at the International Conference of Police Chaplains.

Mission and outreach has been the focus of her life and ministry and continues with involvement in local mission outreaches in Port Saint Lucie, Florida, and the Caribbean.

Recently, she helped to establish a new bilingual church (Amazing Grace Global Methodist Church) in Port Saint Lucie, FL.

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What inspired you to start writing this book?

I started to write stories in the late 1990s about the mission experiences I had in Africa for family members. Eventually, I shared some of the stories with friends. Many encouraged me to write a book about my husband Glenn and my journey during a ten-year period in South Africa during the years of apartheid and growing violence in the country. As I started to write some of the stories, it became evident that I was experiencing PTSD as I would cry and literally shake as I tried to type the stories. Many times, more often than not, I would put the story away, not to approach it again till many months and in a few cases years later; as I remembered so often the difficult times, I did find joy in remembering ‘good’ times. It has taken me thirty years to complete this book. So much more could have been written but the stories I share within it are the ones that touched my heart and spirit deeply.

Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

My book’s title is By the Roadside: Our Mission in Africa Answering God’s Call. The first part of the title By the Roadside was my working title when I started to write the stories. Throughout the years, I realized that the title did not convey the heart of the story which was Our Mission in African Answering God’s Call. The sub-title took a long time for me to formulate. It should have been easy because it was what we were actively doing and participating in … but sometimes the simplest answer is the hardest to discover.

Describe your dream book cover.

I thought a lot about my dream book cover. In looking at so many of the covers that grace books today, I had to think, pray, and go through over 4,500 pictures that I had taken in a ten-year period in South Africa/Botswana. I decided that the adage a picture tells a thousand words was true and picked a picture of me in the Kalahari Desert, dressed in my daily clothes, active in my day with one of the villages in the far background. I wanted an authentic image and not one created by someone who’d never heard my story.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

If my book had a soundtrack, the opening song would be Please Don’t Send Me to Africa by Scott Wesley Brown. Followed by a compilation of traditional African music with indigenous voices. Songs like Shosholoza! a mining work song that came to represent unity and hope, or Nkikhokhele Bawo, a hymn inspired by Psalm 23 asking for divine guidance in life’s hardships, or the anthem Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica, which asked God to bless Africa and traditional African instruments.

What books are you reading (for research or comfort) as you continue the writing process?

I am not reading any books for research as my stories are all based on my experiences and interactions with diverse people groups in South Africa and Botswana. I read the Bible for comfort, and it sustained me through many difficult years overseas and each of my book chapters finishes with a verse of scripture that speaks to the story just shared. I enjoy all genre of books. I am a bookaholic! Classics, mystery, adventure, romance— you name it and I have probably read it! And if not, send me the title and author and I will certainly look into it for my next reading marathon.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I started my working career in the late 1960s making bomb fuses in a factory in the small town that I grew up in. I was still in high school and this job (which I worked from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.) provided me with an income to buy clothes and extras which my parents could not afford, as they were helping extended family members financially. After graduating high school, I worked as a teletype operator for a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson company. Eventually working as a bookkeeper, scuba instructor, underwater model, jewelry and clothing designer/manufacturing, and entrepreneur. My journey of work eventually led me to become a missioner, then ordained clergy, Chaplain in Sheriff’s Dept and Hospice Chaplain. Take your pick! I have had a journey of a lifetime and it’s not over yet!

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I have wanted to write since I was in the fifth grade. I would write short stories for myself, to entertain me, as I was the only girl in my neighborhood. By the time I graduated high school, I had been offered a scholarship to attend a small college that produced journalists and writers. I discovered that the scholarship didn’t cover living expenses, books, etc and couldn’t find a job in which I could earn enough to stay in school and manage to work at the same time, so I had to pass on the scholarship and went to work in blue collar jobs. I was able to monitor classes at a small college in my area for the knowledge but not the credits. It was only when I was in my mid to late thirties that I was able to start my college education and eventually my post graduate education. Throughout the years, I wrote for a Christian denomination in the Caribbean for their monthly magazine, and once a month I wrote a Christian themed show for a radio station. This all ended when I went to South Africa. There was no particular person or works that influenced me. I wanted to write but felt inadequate in my literary skills. Eventually I took two different writing courses to better understand the flow of writing. No matter the courses I took, my inward hesitation of my writing skills kept me from moving forward with my book.

Where is your favorite place to write?

My favorite place to write is in my office with the door closed and all quiet. I live in sunny Florida and have a lovely back veranda with a canal behind my house. Bird life, critters, etc would distract me when I would sit out there with my computer or writing pad. I need to close myself off from all distractions.

What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?

I would tell myself, “Don’t be afraid! No one is judging you or your writing! Just do it!” I have been my own worst enemy when it has come to writing. “Don’t let your insecurities stop the creative process that God gifted you with.”

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

The one thing I hope readers will hold close to their hearts and spirits would be, “You are not alone! God is with you no matter what the challenges or difficulties you are faced with. Enjoy the quiet mundane days and find joy wherever you can.”

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