Dibeela, CherylCherylDibeelaDibeela, PrincePrinceDibeela2024-07-232024-07-232024978-3-98989-000-8https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/96513This article is a social biographical approach in its intent. The chapter explores the intersection of boundary crossing, homelessness, alienationand in between spaces with race, gender and religion as I have experienced it both in my adopted home in Botswana and my home of birth, which is South Africa. I met my husband at the Federal theological Seminary in 1989. Our meeting was fateful because it led to our marriage. In our youth we did not see any potential hurdles on the way ahead. All we saw was hope, blissful love and a coming together of two different cultures. However, this meeting led to cultural and spiritual turbulences which this article reflects on. The people I have been married into became my people. Yet at the same time I have always been aware of othering innuendos. The article focuses on belonging yet feeling a sense of being in a ‘strange land.’By the same token the article reflects on the strangeness of being home. Being away from family and the community in which I (Cheryl) was hewn, has had its cultural disconnect. Returning home to the so called coloured community always brought contradictions in my life. I would always be looking forward to returning to my folks in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.Yet for some reason after a couple of days there, I would want to return to my adopted home Botswana. In this chapter, I explore the persistence of feeling like a stranger in both homes/countries—the sense of alienation and living in between spaces and belonging nowhere. Utilizing the gender category, I explore how marriage is an act of self limitation for the woman, for it is them who must be uprooted and transported to a new culture, and sometimes a new country. It is the woman who should learn the new culture, who should say ‘your people will be my people and your God will be my God.’.engBoundary-crossinghomelessnessalienationapartheidwomen leadersAfrican ChristianitymarriageAfrican studieshomein-between spacesrace and gender300bookpart