"You must get out! You don't belong here." With these words a grandmother was told to leave the Afrikaanse Protestant Church, whose motto reads, "A reformed church under white Afrikaners".
Four months after moving from Mitchell's Plain to Goodwood the priority for Charmaine Manuel, her son Nigel and her mother Rachel Beukes was to find a place of worship.
Manuel decided to visit the Afrikaans Protestant Church Tygerberg, two streets from where she lives.
"As we sat down this older man left the church. We didn't pay him any mind and a young girl even offered us her hymnal. We were all singing hymns with the congregation and about 10 minutes later another man came and tapped my mother on the shoulder."
The man was later identified as church secretary Tienie Nortje.
The words still linger in Beukes's mind: "You must get out! You don't belong here. Do you hear me? You must get out!"
Beukes said: "I told him, 'Jesus stands with open arms in this church and he says come to me all of you who seek comfort and are eager and I will give you rest and peace'. Is it then not here that we find rest and peace?"
But she says Nortje insisted they leave.
"We just took our Bibles and left feeling very disappointed and disgusted. To think that you get put out of a church when you just want to listen to the word of God. You have to ask just what are they preaching in this church," said Manuel.
Nortje disputes this version of events.
"My words were that I was extremely sorry but our church is for members only," he said
He said there was no other reason for asking them to leave and that this policy had been put in place for the safety of the congregation.
"If you want to come into our church you have to apply and we will study the application and make a decision," he said.
A pamphlet printed for the Father's Day service which Manuel and her family attended reads: "All visitors are heartily welcomed and are asked to please sign the visitors' book in the front portal."
The name of the church is printed on top of the pamphlet's pages: "Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk Tygerberg ('n Gereformeerde Kerk van Christus onder blanke Afrikaners)".
"We were the only dark-skinned people in the church," said Manuel. "Before we went, I never knew that this place was for whites only... I thought I could go anywhere to listen to the word of God."
Devout Christians and regular church-goers, the family have decided to continue visiting their old church in Mitchell's Plain.
For the two women, the incident has left them questioning how much has really changed in the new South Africa.
"Under apartheid there were always the signs which told you where you couldn't go but I've never come face to face with racism like this," said Manuel.
Nigel is still shaken at his first encounter with blatant racism: "I just couldn't believe it. I wanted to laugh."
- Forty-five years ago Drum magazine reporters Bloke Modisane and Can Themba visited numerous white churches to see "if the white Christian was willing to pray side by side with his black 'brother'".
They were thrown out of most of the Afrikaans churches, sometimes violently.
Once a church official asked Modisane: "Wat soek jy?" (What are you looking for?).
Modisane replied: "I've come to church."