Audrey Brummer - Safe House Mother

                         Audrey Brummer - Safe House Mother


Most women are nurturers by nature, but not every woman feels able to give quite as completely of herself as does Audrey Brummer. Audrey runs a safe house for children who have been removed from their natural families for reasons of abuse or neglect.

A Heritage of Service

Growing up in Zimbabwe with her mother, Lorna Casson, Audrey was exposed to an example of service – true charity – continually. Lorna was truly a ‘woman of God’ in her dealings with people. She took in children, just as Audrey is doing now, and just as Audrey’s sister does in Australia. The sisters learnt at their mother’s knee that it is not enough to give empty promises and beautiful words alone. They learnt to give of themselves.

When Audrey moved to South Africa as a young woman, and got married to Ruan Brummer, Lorna lived with the young family. Audrey and Ruan were blessed with three children of their own – Dominic, Ashleigh and Ethan. They live in Cape Town and for many years, Lorna worked at a pharmacy in the area. This was the perfect setting for her to continue her life of service. She was at the hub of people’s needs, and was always giving of herself, and arranging service for others. Before she passed away three years ago, she was involved in helping with the abused and neglected babies who were starting to make their way into the Brummer home. Despite being in a wheelchair after the amputation of a leg due to her diabetes, Lorna helped with looking after these little ones.

A Safe House for One Abused and Neglected Baby

Ruan is a police detective, working in what was the Child Protection Unit, and which is now called the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit. He has been with this unit for many years and has seen many unhappy situations and distressed children. On occasions he has to speak publicly at meetings at which social workers are present. Six years ago, he took Audrey with him to such a meeting, and this was where the work of what was eventually to become ‘Malachi Place of Safety’, was begun. A social worker spoke to Audrey and told her of a baby boy for whom she was desperately looking for a safe house. The baby was very sick because of the abuse and neglect, and the removal was essential and urgent. Softhearted Audrey immediately offered to take him. He was supposed to stay just for a couple of weeks, and ended up staying a year. This little boy changed everyone’s lives in the family. He was theirs, as far as they were all concerned.

                          Audrey and Ruan - Safe House Parents

The sad part of caring for these little ones is that at some stage they will be taken – either back to their natural parents or to a permanent alternative. When the time came for this first baby to be returned to his parents, Audrey thought that her heart would break. Her greatest distress was worrying that she could no longer protect him. But the law has the final say, and there was nothing that Audrey could do about it.

A Safe House for Many Abused and Neglected Babies

Fortunately for another 60 children, the social workers came back to Audrey and asked her to take in a pair of twins. These babies’ mother was supposed to be just getting onto her feet, by finding a job. Well, Audrey and Ruan subsequently permanently fostered those twins, and they are now 5 years old. Their mother never did get her act together – and her visits to the children became less and less frequent, and finally stopped.

Audrey gets called on to care for little ones in many situations, and in varying states of health. The youngest baby she has been given was one day old. This little one was found discarded in a rubbish bin at a taxi rank. She has had a number of babies who are older in terms of time since birth, but were born at as young as 27 weeks – gestational age. Audrey then might be given the baby straight from the hospital, as soon as it can leave the incubator.

With these babies coming from such diverse circumstances, Audrey never knows what she might be called on to deal with. One of the most frightening for her has been two babies with apnoea – they would stop breathing intermittently because of immature brainstems. After the first one gave them a severe scare, they realized that they needed to have apnoea monitors, and so the sound of a ticking monitor is quite standard in the house. The first baby, who they were convinced had died when they found her blue the first time, is now a year old and looks like any healthy happy baby girl. No one would look at her and imagine that she had nearly died – repeatedly.

With that little one, as with many others, Audrey has spent many long hours sitting in hospitals – Karl Bremmer and Tygerberg. Both are provincial hospitals, because, obviously medical aid doesn’t pay for these little ones. So the only alternative is the government system, which means long hours of sitting and waiting.  But that isn’t the only place that she has done a lot of sitting and waiting. When the babies’ cases go to court, she has to take the baby and sit, again for hours, in the courthouse, waiting for the case to be heard. When the judge has assessed the fitness (or lack thereof) of the parents to care for the child, she might just be given another date to come back, when the judge will again consider the fitness of the parents.

The judge needs to assess the fitness of the parents regarding various potential problems, including drug addiction, violence in the home, sexual abusiveness, alcoholism, mental state, etc. One of the greatest fears that Audrey still has, as with her first little one, is that they will be sent back to parents who are not actually fit to care for them, but who manage to convince the judge that they are.

The Exhausted Caregiver

Over the last 6 years, the Brummers have taken in about 60 babies. Some have been for no more than a day or two. But others, as with the twins have become a permanent part of the family, being fostered by Audrey and Ruan.

All this takes a lot of work. One never sees Audrey but that she is tired – and yet with a ready smile and a laugh, except when she is worried about one of her babies. Her day starts at 05h30, when she gets up to start with bottles and breakfast for the children. The older ones go to a nursery school in the mornings, so Audrey runs them off there, and then she has to get the oldest one to preschool a bit later. During the morning, with her helpers, she cares for the babies still at home, cleans up, does mountains of washing, washes mountains of dishes and bottles, and then it’s time to fetch the older ones home for lunch. And so the day continues – one continuous round of nappy-changing, feeding, washing, bathing, more nappy-changing, more feeding, and on and on.

By the time most of the children are in bed, most of us would be in a state of collapse, but Audrey just keeps going. There is always at least one child who needs ongoing care – possibly all through the night, and Audrey might not get more than a couple of hours of sleep – and then it’s time to get up and start all over again.

                  Audrey - Multi-tasking With Her Continuous Responsibilities

The children tend to go through three phases when they arrive at a safe house. Initially they will be perfect – perhaps they are too scared to behave differently, as they are accustomed to bad consequences, even for normal crying. Then they might enter a stage of being extremely difficult – fighting and screaming a lot. And then finally, they will enter the stage of accepting the safety and love and security that “Mommy Audrey” provides. Of course, there are other problems which don’t go away as readily. For example, if a baby’s mother is a drug addict and used the drugs through the pregnancy, then the baby goes through withdrawal, which makes it thoroughly miserable. 

At the present time, she has 11 little ones, as well as her two older sons, 23 and 18. Her married daughter has a baby who comes to Audrey during the day while his mommy is at work.

Financial Help for the Safe House

Obviously running a safe house takes a lot of money, and with a policeman’s salary to survive on, it doesn’t matter how good your intentions may be, you will not cope. For this reason, a Non Profit Organization was established, which they called Malachi Place of Safety. Malachi was the Old Testament Prophet who said that the hearts of the fathers would turn to the children and the hearts of the children would turn to their fathers. A most appropriate name for a home, in which the heart – the mother – is completely turned to the children.

The wonderful things that companies have done for this safe house since they have known of its existence, have helped not only the safe house. Audrey has also been able to set up a feeding scheme at a local school, as well as providing 10 food parcels for the Department of Social Development to give to needy families each month.

The Heritage of Service Continues

Just as Audrey and her sister learned service from their mother, Audrey’s children, and her sister’s children, are learning the same thing. It is a wonderful thing to see young men and women so willing to help with little ones and to sacrifice their own comforts in doing so. They have learned to sacrifice from their parents. Audrey could never do what she does if she didn’t have the sustaining she has, firstly from her extremely supportive husband, and secondly, from her children.

Her faith in Jesus Christ and her testimony of His restored Gospel help Audrey to serve with the great love that she does. There is a special place in heaven for people who make sacrifices to serve, especially when the service they give is helping any who cannot help themselves.