Christa Schamberger-Young

Born in Nairobi, Kenya. My father was an adventurous Swiss with a passion for Africa and my mother was born in South West Africa, now Namibia - also with a great curiosity for new places - so we travelled extensively across East and Southern Africa.

Early schooling was in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Mombasa in Kenya and high school was in Windhoek, Namibia. I went to University in Durban and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Drama. I studied briefly at the Laban School of Movement in London and Post Graduate qualifications include a Licentiate in Speech and Drama from Trinity College.

After several years of teaching, acting, choreographing and lecturing in Natal, I moved to Johannesburg in 1985, started working in the film industry and met my husband, Digby Young. We were married at St Luke's in December 1994.

Since then, St Luke's has provided a home from which to base my journey in faith and the St Luke's' community has provided wonderful friends. I have never forgotten how various St Luke's home groups took it upon themselves to provide evening meals for Digby and I when I was shot in an attempted hi-jacking in 1997. It was for me a realisation that the community of St Luke's actually practised Christian love and care for their neighbours. It was all terribly Anglican of course - the food bringers would scurry in bearing wonderful three course meals, give some abstract instructions and dart off before they could be further embarrassed by our effusive thanks! For someone who tends to be fiercely independent, that quiet, unpretentious and unconditional support made an enormous impact on my life. We became readers and tea-makers and in 2008 I was invited to join the lay ministers. Although I had a brief flash of "Who, me? Lord? Are you sure?" I've never regretted it and it remains both a privilege and an on-going challenge to serve at St Luke's in this way.