Article November 28, 2005 Issue

A BUSINESS REBOUNDS THROUGH LOVE

By Cecil Lekhuleni

I own a hairdressing salon in Soshanguve township near Pretoria, South Africa. All was running very smoothly in the salon until one day a few years ago when, for no apparent reason, three of my employees, including the main stylist, walked out on me. They started their own salon about 500 meters [about a third of a mile] away from mine. I could not understand why they did this, as we had worked well together for quite some time.

Soon afterward, misleading information about my business was passed to some of our clients by the former employees—that my business was no longer in operation, or that their new business was a branch of my salon. As a result of the main stylist's absence, fear of an immediate downfall of our business began to mount. Two of the former employees began walking by our salon with increasing frequency, whistling, and shouting unkind remarks. One of my employees was threatened with assault while he was out for lunch. This turn of events devastated me and made day-to-day running of the business very difficult.

I saw that this challenge called for more determined digging for wisdom in my two favorite books, the Bible and Science and Health. And the outcome was worth digging for.