Lifting their voices to the heavens is the aim of the Soweto Gospel Choir.

The choir?s show is filled with international spirituals including ?Oh Happy Days? and ?Paradise Road?. Besides African spirituals, the choir also performs R&B Gospel and contemporary music.

When Sipokazi Luzipo joined the Soweto Gospel Choir she imagined herself as a member of the chorus ? not one of the lead singers and certainly not a narrator.

She was a young naive girl from Port Elizabeth, who had a dream of one day becoming something bigger than she was. But ?maybe? wasn?t always in her cards.

Not unlike many in Bermuda, she and her four siblings were raised by a single mother and when she graduated from high school the family had little money.

But as a girl, Miss Luzipo would look up at the sky and as planes would pass overhead, she dreamt that one day she would travel, learn and earn.

This, as in some sort of religious or spiritual context, has come to pass.

There is a show called ?Popstars? in Johannesburg and during its first year, she decided to audition.

?I went there hoping that I would get some sort of exposure, but the thing is that I am a big girl, so I knew that I would never fit the criteria,? she said.

?But I was hoping that the minute I opened my mouth someone would spot me and probably go crazy ? and that is exactly what happened.?

She was put in a programme called ?Siya Phezulu?, a sort of professional music camp, but designed for soloists that do not fit the criteria of a pop star.

There she wrote her CV and in it she expressed an interest gospel music. That?s when she was noticed by Beverly Bryer, one of the executive producers of the Soweto Gospel Choir.

?When she saw that I had an interest in Gospel, she rang me up and she invited me to the auditions,? she said.

?The minute she called me I was screaming, I was going crazy. I rang my mom and I was telling her that I was going to Australia. I hadn?t even auditioned yet. I didn?t even know where the auditions were, but I knew that I was going to make it on time.

?So, the next morning I made it to Yoeville and there were long queues. There were people that I had seen on TV with really good vocal capabilities. We all had our chance to sing and I sang my favourite Gospel song, ?His Strength is Perfect?.

?The next morning (Ms Bryer) called me and told me to come in the afternoon for a meeting. Since then I have been with the Choir and it has been absolutely fabulous.

?That was the first step of greater things for me.?

But when asked whether she believed that she would have become one of the lead soloists in the Soweto Gospel Choir, she said: ?Never, never, never, ever, ever!

?Our choir is mixed with people who have been in the field for a number of years ? some really good singers ? really professional sisters and brothers.?

The choir has enjoyed success and even though it is only three years old has already travelled the world.

?I never knew that we as a group would make it this far, because Australia was just a try out to see if people liked the African sound or would like African Gospel,? said the 22 year old.

?But then from Australia, promoters started buying our show, and we went from there to the UK, from the UK we went to the US, and from there we went to Singapore, to all over the world.

?Our success has been major! It is like waking up in a dream! And at such a young age I am seeing more than I ever anticipated.

?I have been meeting different people and making friends and singing on some of the world?s greatest stages.

?When you perform at the Sydney Opera House or Carnegie Hall you know you have been blessed and I know we have been blessed, but this blessing is big ? it could only have been the Lord.?

True ambassadors for their country, choir members also give generously of their time while at home.

?When we come back home there are still the AIDS orphans, there are still the homeless kids, there are still people who have nothing and so as a choir we feel that we should give back to our community. At every show we collect donations and these go towards organisations with little or no government funding.

?We buy them groceries, books, medical supplies and it really feels good. We put on our Soweto Gospel Choir T-shirts and our jeans and we go to those orphanages and we hug those children, we make them feel loved. We paint homes that need to be painted we help them in anyway that we can as a group.

?It feels quite spiritual. We are not just a group standing on stage, we are ambassadors for our nation as well.?

The young woman, whose name Sipokazi means ?Big Gift?, got her name because she was very small and thin when she was little.

But she is not small any more and like many other divas she commands a sound all her own. Asked about her musical influences, she said: ?Because I am a big girl and that whole low self-esteem thing, I always admired big women with beautiful voices.

?Women like Aretha Franklin, Jill Scott, Angie Stone, Yolanda Adams, some local stars that internationally people would never know, but abroad it would be all Ce Ce Wynans and all of the Gospel singers ? powerful women with big voices.?

Her other influences are Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which is an all-male group.

As far as the future is concerned, she sees herself not as a pop star, but as a solo artist.

?I always see God as a provider in my life, I believe that the sky is the limit and I move or I go with whatever the Lord has given me and the choir has been one of those things in my life.

?I used to look up into the sky and I believed that one day I would be there. I knew that one day I would be someone great.?