Palesa Madisakwane: I Was in Hell Before Returning to Faith

South African actress and media personality Palesa Madisakwane says she was told she had a sangoma calling, went through a period she described as feeling like she was "in hell", and then stepped away from that path and returned to Christianity. She shared her story on the "Engineer Your Life" podcast in an October 2026 episode hosted by Lungelo KM, and she put her decision in plain words: "I have taken it upon myself to say I am going the Jesus way."

There was no shouting in her voice, at least not in the clips that spread online. She spoke the way someone speaks when they have already made up their mind.

That calm tone is part of why the interview travelled so far. A clip shared on X by @EngineerYLPod on 6 October 2026 carried her words beyond the podcast's regular listeners.

Palesa Madisakwane Sangoma Calling: "I Was in Hell"

According to the Apex News report, Madisakwane said she was told she had a calling to become a sangoma, a traditional healer. She did not present it as a small detail from her past. She described it as a season that weighed on her heavily, a time she summed up in words that stopped listeners in their tracks.

"I was in hell," she said, describing how that period felt to her.

The report does not say how long that season lasted. What she made clear was the ending of it: she stepped away from that path.

For many listeners in South Africa, where questions of calling, ancestors and faith sit close together in everyday life, her honesty landed differently than a debate would have.

Born Again at 16: Palesa Madisakwane's Return to Christianity

Madisakwane said she became a born-again Christian at 16. That early faith did not hold steady through the years that followed, and she drifted away from it as life moved on.

The turn back began quietly, around 2021, when she started watching sermons online and reading the Bible again. Instead there was a slow return: sermons on a screen, pages of Scripture, and a faith she had known as a teenager coming back into focus.

Stories of return often begin that quietly. Singer Mike Posner has spoken openly about how following Christ changed his life, as covered in Mike Posner Baptism Testimony 2026: 'Following Christ Has Changed My Life', and his testimony also turned on a personal decision rather than a public event.

Doctors once gave a woman three months to live, and her story took a very different turn, as told in Miracle Healing Testimony 2026: Doctors Gave Her 3 Months to Live — God Had Other Plans. Madisakwane's story is not a healing story, but it shares the same shape: a life headed one way, then a turn nobody on the outside saw coming.

Palesa Madisakwane Christian Faith: "I Am Going the Jesus Way"

The line people keep quoting is the one she used to settle the question for herself. "I have taken it upon myself to say I am going the Jesus way." It is a sentence that leaves no room for doubt about where she stands now.

She was careful about one thing, though, and it matters. She stressed that the choice was personal faith, not an attack on traditional healing or on anyone who walks that path. She was speaking about her own life, not passing judgement on anybody else's.

That distinction is easy to miss when a clip travels fast online, and it is worth holding on to.

Personal loss has pushed other beleivers toward the same kind of public honesty about faith, as in the story of Kentrell Ragin Turns Personal Loss Into a Testimony of Faith. And when doctors said there was nothing more they could do, one woman's faith carried a very different ending, as told in Inoperable Brain Tumor Dissolved: Evelyn Cartwright's Miracle Testimony.

Madisakwane's interview also arrives at a time when faith is very much part of public conversation in South Africa. Pastors there have raised concerns about a church regulation framework they say could threaten religious freedom, as reported in South Africa Church Regulation Warning: Pastors Say CRL Framework Threatens Religious Freedom. Her story is personal rather than political, but it lands in a country where questions of belief are never far from the surface.

What she has not done, at least in the material shared so far, is lay out a plan for what comes next. She simply told the story of where she has been and where she is now, and left it there.

A testimony does not need a next chapter written in advance. Sometimes the statement itself is the whole point.

South Africa has seen that same quiet weight before. More than 200 people dedicated their lives to God at a revival in Dan Tloome, as reported in More Than 200 People Dedicate Lives to God at Zion Centre Revival in Dan Tloome South Africa, while Cape Town mourned a gospel voice when Cape Town Gospel Legend Simon Seekoei Dies at 70 After Cancer Battle. And a Saudi doctor who lost 13 teeth for his faith told his own story of conversion in Jesus Dream Muslim Convert Testimony: Saudi Doctor Lost 13 Teeth for Christ.

Whether Madisakwane speaks about her faith again in public, and what "the Jesus way" looks like for her day to day, is still unknown. For now there is only her voice on a podcast, a sentence that keeps being quoted, and a question hanging in the air for anyone who heard it: what does it take for someone to walk away from one path and choose another, and mean it?

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.