My recent two-week trip to South Africa was full with dispensing of our goods, lots of opportunities to preach the gospel and teach the Bible, and numerous experiences of God answering prayer along the way. I spoke or led almost 20 individual sessions and meetings, which was physically tiring, but I sensed the Lord sustaining me and clearly assisting me at various times. Upon reflection, I wanted to highlight the following five encouraging experiences I had while in South Africa.
1. One particular, big answer to prayer
Alfred is a Malawian man who lives in a squatter’s camp in the area of Ruimsig. He is one of three baptized believers in a church there that I served in various ways for about three years. He has been without full-time work for almost two years now, and good employment for even longer. His last full-time job was challenging as his boss would take advantage of him by overworking and underpaying him. This made it hard for him both financially and spiritually, as he was not able to make church meetings consistently. So he quit in hopes of finding gardening work, but that never materialized into anything consistent as he gained and lost “piece-jobs” several times.
We began to pray that the Lord would provide better employment, with a fairer and more flexible boss (maybe even a Christian who would understand the priority of him attending the weekly church meeting and Bible study), and consistent pay. The first answer to prayer came as I learned of a Christian man who had a security company and was willing to take Alfred on as a security officer! But, he needed to complete proper training first. In order for this process not to be excessively long, Alfred would need to focus the majority of his time on studying, which meant he wouldn’t have as much time to work.
This next challenge was met with another answer to prayer when a couple families and a church committed to help support Alfred for a good period of time while he pursued his certification, so he decided to begin. English is Alfred’s third language and he is an older man who hasn’t done serious studies in decades. I wasn’t sure that he would be able to complete his training. But this next hurdle was met with the next answer to prayer. Though it took Alfred almost six months, and there were a few challenges along the way, we prayed and by God’s grace he finally finished his three grade levels.
The next step in the process was getting all his background checks, documents, and paperwork submitted for his certification. He needed to secure one of these documents at the Malawian Embassy, and the others through South African agencies. In a country saturated with corruption, such an endeavor can take a long time and/or extra money, especially for a foreigner, even if you are trying to obtain documents you should have access to. We waited together on the Lord in prayer, as one document took abnormally long — another three to four months. But these difficulties were overcome by God and he was granted that document in February.
Now Alfred was at the place where he could be hired by the brother with the security company. And he was willing to hire Alfred, but at the time he didn’t have any openings for him just yet. He told me he would need to land a new site in order to have shifts that Alfred could work and that he had put a bid in for one. So we prayed for that and the Lord granted him the site. In fact, I was with Alfred during my trip when he got a message from the owner of the security company asking him for his uniform and boot sizes, which he would wear at this new job site!
Alfred starting his job earlier this week. This has been something I’ve prayed about for about two and a half years now. And it has been sweet to see the Lord answering that prayer and to be able to be there in person and rejoice with Alfred as the final pieces fell into place and God provided this job for him. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24).
2. The Lord’s provision of my needs through believers
For all of my time in Johannesburg, I stayed with a sister in the Lord, Maria Bounds. She is a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church, an established congregation where Laura and I took up local membership for a couple years during my most recent stint of lengthier missionary work. She is an older widow who stays on her own in an area that was perfectly located to be a base of operations for me. When she learned that I was coming back she offered part of her home for me to stay in and work from. I accepted and she prepared “prophet’s quarters” for me like the Shunnamite did for Elisha (2 Kings 4). She was a great help to me during my stay, a widow worthy of commendation and honor, who was full of good works by showing me hospitality and “washing my feet” (1 Timothy 5:9-10).
And then for part of my trip I travelled to Westonaria, about a 45 minute drive southwest of Maria’s place, where I stayed for a weekend of teaching at a church. The pastor and his wife wonderfully hosted me and a brother I brought along for mentoring purposes, and I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with their three younger children. Two of them were similar age to my Abigail and Matthew, so it was a nice experience in absence of my kids. And then along the way I had several individuals treat me to meals and a few couples invite me into their homes for food and refreshments.
Though I was some 9,000 miles away from my wife, children, home, and other biological family, I had mothers taking care of me, children to enjoy, houses to stay in, and more food than I needed. Isn’t this exactly what Jesus told his disciples he would do for his servants? “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands . . .” (Mark 10:29-30).
3. A heightened sense of the urgency to tell people about Jesus
During my trip I experienced an elevated awareness of the unique window of opportunity I had to talk to people about the gospel. There is something about a short term trip embarked on with the intention of proclaiming the gospel that helps put things into proper focus. Time is short, people are hopelessly lost without Christ, eternity is coming, and in reality we don’t know if we will see or talk to any given individual again. When we’re at home, in the normal routines of weekly life, we can lose focus on intentionally engaging people around us with the gospel and assume we will have other opportunities.
I prayed for opportunities to speak to people about Christ, and the Lord assisted me to see individuals as those who needed to hear about the Savior who could rescue them from their sins and death. My days in South Africa were numbered and he helped me to be sensitive to his Spirit’s leading and to recognize my circumstances as open doors to talk to people I would have otherwise not crossed paths with. I had no certainty that I would see them again on this trip, let alone the next time I returned, whenever that would be. All this led to a sense of urgency in my interactions with them. I had to at least try to speak to them about Christ, and trust God with how it went.
4. A couple providential opportunities for the gospel
I also had a couple experiences where it seemed the Lord had clearly ordered things for me to cross paths with people for the purpose of talking about Jesus. Let me recount these for you.
First, there was J, an Afrikaner who works as an evaluator for a company that buys used cars. On a Saturday, I contacted his company, trying to sell our van. After providing them with information on our car, I thought it took longer than usual for them to reach out to me. Then the man who finally did wasn’t able, after a couple unsuccessful tries, to schedule a time to come check out the car in person. On Wednesday, I was supposed to meet a brother for coffee. He didn’t show up. It turned out he completely forgot about our meeting. So I decided to use the free time to go to a location where J’s company evaluates cars to ensure that I got an offer from them.
There J greeted me. As he test drove the van, we got to know each other a bit. When he learned that I was a Christian missionary, he shared that he was raised in a professing Christian home but now identifies as an agnostic who wants to investigate Christianity for himself by reading the Bible from Genesis onward (although he’s also going to read the Qur’an alongside of it). As he circled my car numerous times, taking photos and noting things, we had a really good conversation. He felt the freedom to speak honestly and ask sincere questions on various subjects. I felt the freedom to speak confidently about the resurrection of Jesus and J’s rebellion against the King, and to thoughtfully engage some of his questions and thinking. I gave him a copy of Pursuing God (by Jim Elliff), my contact info, and recommended a local church for him to visit. It just so happened to be the church that his ex-wife, ex-mother-in-law, and a co-worker all attend!
Then, there was D. On my travel home I left Johannesburg late Thursday evening. We arrived in London early Friday morning but the connecting flight to Dallas was cancelled. I was not informed why, so I stopped at the airline service desk to inquire and make sure I was rebooked, could get boarding passes, and that my luggage would be rerouted. As I walked away and toward the terminal, D was a bit ahead of me on the left. I struck up conversation with him. As he spoke, I heard what sounded like an African accent, so I asked him where he was from. It turned out he is a Shona man from Harare, Zimbabwe, who had immigrated to the United States and lives in Dallas now. We continued getting to know each other and I learned that he is Seventh-day Adventist. At some point I decided to directly ask him if he had assurance about where he would spend eternity. His answer showed that his hope was ultimately in his own efforts to keep the commandments of God.
By now we had stopped walking and were just standing in the middle of the terminal talking. We continued our discussion while sitting down in a couple of the seats. I had a great conversation with him for a total of about 90 minutes. We looked at Romans chapters 3 and 4, focusing on how we are forgiven of our sins and made right with God not by religious works but by faith in Jesus Christ, received as a free gift based on his death and resurrection. The man was so steeped in a works-based understanding that he asked, “How strong does my faith have to be to know that I am forgiven and will have eternal life?” Romans 3 references the redemption that comes through the blood of Jesus, so we looked back at Exodus 12 (the Passover) where the Lord emphasized that it is when he sees the blood, not the strength of our faith, that we will be protected from his judgment. D saw clearly what the Scriptures were saying, and how different it was from where his hope was. He expressed he was very thankful for our time, acknowledged God’s orchestration of things for us to talk, eagerly received a copy of Wasted Faith, and we exchanged numbers.
5. A profitable time in a Bible intensive with a church of hungry believers
Over my final weekend I had basically five sessions (Friday night, all day Saturday, and then Sunday morning) of inductive Bible study with about twenty people from a Church in Westonaria. We sought to observe, interpret, and apply Romans 14:1-13 which is about how to relate to believers when we differ in areas of Christian liberty. The group consisted of some people who had been at the church (and possibly believers) for many years and others who were very new to the church and were likely newer believers. The method we employed encouraged them to dig into the Bible for themselves and to believe that they could understand the Scriptures in a simple but personally meaningful way.
During the study, there were lively discussions at the tables and as a large group. The topic itself stirred up many questions and good conversation about how to know what is an area of Christian liberty, what it means to be strong and weak in the faith on issues, how to develop personal convictions about issues from the Scriptures, and how to engage with each other over areas of difference. There was a lady who shared privately with me and the pastor that she has a husband that drinks and she doesn’t know how to relate to him. And there were a couple of individuals who weren’t committed to forming their convictions based on Scripture and relating lovingly to people who differ with them, so it was good to have discussions with them and their pastor.