Seeds sown for Revival (2)

December 27, 2010


Seeds sown for Revival (2)


Text relating to the front Cover

The picture of a big tidal wave is a reproduction of a painting of our daughter Tabitha - depicting the vision of a wave of opportunity, people coming to South Africa from other countries. At the same time it has the form of a sheaf - representing the harvest for the Kingdom here at the Cape and taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The arid African soil in the background at a Cape sunset have been wetted over many years by tears, notably during the xenophobia mob attacks of 2008.
Back Cover
The book in your hand highlights how the Cape has impacted world events because of revival, especially the special one in the rural Boland in 1860, which included a major contribution of Dr Andrew Murray. It takes the reader up to the spiritual renewal of 2008 near to Cape Point and the impact of Angus Buchan, a Natal farmer who became world famous through the film Faith like Potatoes.
Contending that revival is much more than “happy clappy” church services where people just carry on unchanged after the event, the author suggests that concern to address injustice towards the poor and needy - along with compassionate sensitivity to those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel - could be a good litmus test to discern how deep and effective a ‘revival’ has been. The book concentrates on events at the Cape since 1980, but it also briefly covers fore-runners over a few centuries prior to that.
The author was born and raised in Cape Town but lived in Germany and Holland for many years. He met his wife Rosemarie while studying overseas in 1969 and 1970. After their return as a family in January 1992, the couple was involved with the prayer movement and Muslim evangelism. Since 2003 they have been focusing on compassionate outreach to refugees and other foreigners. They were involved in the founding of the missionary organization Friends from Abroad in the process.


Contents
Page
Preface iii
The longed for Revival has already begun v
Main abbreviations ix
Introduction xi

CHAPTER 1
A Cape Power Encounter with great Ramifications 66
CHAPTER 2
Compassionate Cape Outreaches of the modern Era 75
CHAPTER 8
Rebels against the Status Quo 95
CHAPTER 9
Prayer erupts in different Places 103
CHAPTER 10
A Calling for Ministry among Cape Muslims 114
CHAPTER 11
Europe and Africa in Concert 122
CHAPTER 12
Repression breeds spiritual Renewal 131
CHAPTER 13
The Clock Starts Turning back
14. Prayer for Cape Muslims and Jews 149
CHAPTER 15
Historical Changes in answer to Prayer 163
CHAPTER 16
Anarchy or Transformation? 173
CHAPTER 17
New Ground broken in the Mother City 186
CHAPTER 18
Cape Town City Bowl Prayer 193
CHAPTER 19
Transformation Vibes from the Cape 202
CHAPTER 20
The religious Climate changes in Cape Townships 212
CHAPTER 21
The Run-up to the great Newlands Event 216
CHAPTER 22
The Stranger in our Gates 226
CHAPTER 23
Diverse Revival Rumblings 241
CHAPTER 24
Grabbed by the Scruff of the Neck 252
CHAPTER 25
A 'new Thing' Sprouting
CHAPTER 26
Christians Respond to Xenophobia 274
CHAPTER 27
The Starting Gun of the Revival? 336
CHAPTER 28
Revival Seeds Germinate 352
CHAPTER 29
Conclusion 370
Appendix 1 Calling upon Cape Town 376
Appendix 2 Poem 380
Appendix 3 Excerpt from a Family Policy Institute Newsletter 382
Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him (Psalm 126:5 and 6).
Seeds sown for Revival
- Personal Observations on Prayer Movements in Cape Town


Preface
(words deleted) Already at the early versions of the manuscript I regarded the Cape revival of 1860 as a pristine origin and forerunner of spiritual renewal that was starting to manifest itself at the Cape in recent years. Quite providentially it seems, the present record of revival traits of the last decades – the collation of which started in 2008 - ushered in the 150th anniversary of the tremendous spiritual revival. This year we thus commemorate this event. I have also looked into the revivals leading up to that event separately, using the title The Cape 1860 Revival – its Run-up and Aftermath. This is to be accessed at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com..

I have devoted much of my time to prayer and Muslim evangelism in Cape Town, the city of my birth over the last decades. These issues continue to be at the centre of the ministry to which God has called me and my wife. I believe they are also at the heart of what we need more than ever in Cape Town, a genuine revival. Increasingly we starting looking forward to a revival that has been prophesied for
one hundred vears. God had been giving a picture to believers all around the world of which the details may have differed slightly, but the core truth was always the same. Africa would become a light to the world. new revival would start at the tip of Africa and move across the continent.
Gleaning to a great extent for the following lines from Graham Power's book Not by Might nor by Power, I recall that some of the first records of these prophetic messages can be traced back to 1910. Stories have been told of a young man in Sweden disrupting a traditional morning service when he stood and described to the people a vision he was receiving from God. He had seen a revival starting at the tip of Africa and spreading over the entire continent.
In 1929 the founder of All Nations Gospel Publishers, the Swiss missionary J.R.Gschwend, woke in the early hours of the morning. He could clearly see a map of the world on his bedroom wall. Gazing at the map he was surprised when suddenly the southern tip of Africa burst into flames. It only took a few minutes and the entire continent was ablaze.
While these visions had all been pointers toward a move of God that would start at the tip of Africa, there is little doubt that men such as Andrew Murray (1828-1917) played a foundational role in chartering the history of South Africa's prayer movement.
Andrew Murray had a vision of winning the African continent for Christ. This vision motivated his desire to pray and live a life that was totally surrendered to God. In his book With Christ in the School of Prayer, Murray presents New Testament teaching on prayer and encourages the reader to move past simplistic prayers that are ineffectual. He longed that the church would know that 'God rules the world by the prayers of His saints, that prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered, and that by prayer the church on earth has disposal of the powers of the heavenly world.' Firmly living from this belief, Murray inspired the church to access the powers of heaven through prayer and to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Andrew Murray's words were important seeds in the history of the prayer movement. Much fruit would be seen in following generations. His personal vision of Africa for Christ would eventually become the mission statement for the Transformation Africa prayer movement.

Born and raised in Cape Town I have lived in Germany and Holland for many years. I met my wife Rosemarie while studying in Germany in 1969 and 1970. When she was prohibited to enter this country because of our friendship, and knowing that we would be husband and wife, I chose to emigrate. I knew that this was tantamount to voluntary exile. (We discovered later that Rosemarie was actually blacklisted for entry to South Africa because of our relationship). We were married in 1975 and lived in Germany and Holland until we returned to South Africa as a family in 1992.
From January 1992 until July 2007, Rosemarie and I served as missionaries of Worldwide Evangelization for Christ (WEC) International. Now we are linked to Friends from Abroad and All Nations International, and work predominantly with foreigners. However, through all of this time we have been involved with the prayer movement and Muslim evangelism in the Cape.
Over the years, we have experienced special answers to prayer and have seen lives and circumstances deeply changed. Prayer and what I call revival in its deeper meaning was the instrument par excellence that God used to bring this about. In my view, revival is much more than “happy clappy” church services where people simply carry on unchanged after the event. A concern to address injustice towards the poor and needy and compassionate sensitivity to those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel is, in my view, a good litmus test to discern how deep a ‘revival’ has been. Over these past years I have jotted down some of the significant changes in people and society which we have experienced.
In the course of my hobby – historical research – I furthermore discovered how the Cape has impacted world history due to special revival in the Western Cape. I contend furthermore that the two major changes of the recent decades – how legal apartheid became past tense and how the thrust of atheist communism was stopped – occurred essentially as answers to prayer. Similarly, we could discern how the ideology of Islam – which is essentially based on religious deception because its founder Muhammad was misled by a Christian (if we take his evidence on face value) – has been deeply impacted as a result of intensified prayer since 1990.
Throughout this book, I speak about 'Coloured' people. In a country as ours where racial classifications has caused such damage, I am aware that the designation coloured has given offence to the group into which I have been classified. For this reason, I put ‘Coloured’ consistently between inverted commas and with a capital C when I refer to the racial group. To the other races I refer as 'Black' and 'White' respectively, with a capital B and W, to denote that it is not normal colours that are being described.
Having noticed that some copies of the initial printing of this book landed into the hand of foreigners, I have chosen to distinguish between a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) and other English-speaking churches, by retaining the title ‘Ds.’ before the name of a DRC pastor. It stands for Dominee (derived from the Latin dominus meaning Lord), which is the equivalent of Rev. (Reverend) in English.
For bibliographical detail and quotes I refer to my unpublished manuscripts Mysterious Ways of God and The Mother of the Nation, to be accessed at
The present treatise concentrates on events at the Cape since 1980 to the present. The first five chapters cover forerunners over a few centuries prior to that. The reason for the inclusion of relatively much information about Muslim evangelism and, to a much lesser extent, the outreach to Jews at the Cape, is my conviction that the genuine revival as I define it, would impact both Judaism and Islam.
As I started preparing this second edition of the manuscript just prior to Lausanne III Conference, I came very strongly under the impression once again of the need of remorse over our role as Western Christians in respect of Judaism and Islam. Already at the beginning of the year I was deeply moved when I discerned that Isaac and Ishmael, the two eldest sons of Abraham, had actually buried their father together (Genesis 25:9). The evident reconciliation must have been preceded by confession and remorse.
I started to pray more intensely that a representative body of Christians might express regret and offer an apology on behalf of Christians for a) the side-lining and persecution of Jews by Christians b) that Christian theologians misled Muhammad at the foundations of Islam.
As I continued with my research and study of earlier revivals, I discerned the 'missing link'. They were as a rule by accompanied by deep remorse over personal and national sins. This resulted in rivers of tears being shed. I still pray as at the first edition 'Oh God, send this revival!', but I now also pray: 'God, give me and my fellow Capetonians genuine tears of remorse because of the unpaid debt of the church in respect of Judaism and Islam!'

Ashley Cloete

Cape Town, January, 2011



The longed for Revival has already begun

I’m excited about Ashley Cloete’s book on revival. We are living in the time of the greatest revival in the history of the Church. The revival for which we long has already begun. We realise there are many people praying for revival. There are also many unfulfilled dreams in the hearts of God’s children for revival, but if we fail to give thanks and acknowledge what God has already done and is busy doing in answer to our prayers, we will be amiss. We must be careful not to define ‘revival’ in a way that only fits a very specific and narrow definition. I believe revival starts with God’s people but it impacts every aspect of life and touches people who are outside the church walls.
Why do I believe the great revival we have prayed and longed for has already started? Here are a few reasons:
1. More people have come to Jesus in the last fifty years than the rest of Christian history combined. Over 50,000 people come to faith in Jesus every day in China, India and Africa. And the numbers are increasing yearly, faster than the population growth. I know when we pray for revival we’re asking God to revive the Church, see believers repent of sin and apathy and society transformed. But is there any greater miracle than someone coming to faith in Christ? Is there any more profound act of repentance or transformation than for one person to be redeemed by God’s love and assured they will spend eternity in the Father’s presence? That is the greatest form of revival and it is happening on an epic scale across the globe. People working amongst the Dalits (the outcasts) in India say that literally ‘massive’ numbers of people are coming to Christ every week. The number of Christians in India doubled in the last 15 years (and that after more than 2 centuries of intensive mission work and efforts by the Indian Church itself).
2. In many parts of the world we see revivals (in the way they were seen during the first and second Great Awakening in the 1740’s and the 1850’s, the revival in Wales in 1904, and so forth): China, Fiji, India, places in Africa, Latin America. There was an ebb and flow of revivals over the last two decades, but they are happening nevertheless in many countries.
3. Church planting movements have begun in many nations that have swept millions of people into the Kingdom of God. Hundreds of thousands of small churches led by ordinary people have been started all over the world. That is revival!
4. Most of the unreached people groups in the world have been penetrated with the Good News of Jesus, many of them over the last 2-3 decades.
5. Millions of Muslims have come to faith in Christ in the last 25 years. Reliable statistics state that more Muslims came to Christ in the last 10 years than in the previous 1,300 years.
6. The Berlin wall fell and the Communist world was rocked by God’s sovereignty; He removed and replaced kings in a matter of days, not years or centuries, but days. Many oppressive governments lost their grip and have been busy losing their grip on people over the last 15 years. This opened the following nations up for the preaching of the gospel; Cambodia, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Central Asia, China and Nepal among others.
7. The Church is more conscious than ever of the need to serve the poor and bring justice to the oppressed.
8. We are not just preaching the gospel of personal salvation, but we are teaching and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God.
9. Business people are advancing the Kingdom of God in their businesses and in the nations of the earth and women are being recognized as equals in God’s kingdom in greater and greater numbers.
10. In many nations Christians in the market place are rising up as ‘market place ministers’, understanding their role as witnesses of the salvation of Christ and caring for the needs of people in the market place.
11. Millions of people are praying and the momentum is increasing. In the 70’s, there was a call in the United States and many other nations for people to fast for 40 days for revival. Tens of thousands of people responded and fasted for 40 days, many for the first time in their lives. This spread over the whole world. In the decade of the 90’s, thousands of 40-day periods of prayer and fasting took place all over the world. Also in the 90’s there was a call to pray for the 10/40 Window - and look what has happened there! Millions of Christians prayed during Praying through the Window initiatives. In the 90’s there was also a call to fast and pray during the month of Ramadan for Muslims and millions of followers of Jesus responded and have kept responding every year.
12. Prayer movements and national prayer networks have begun all over the world. There are Houses of prayer, 24/7 prayer and boiler rooms of prayer. Prayer teams travel the globe, and there is prayer for the 10/40 Window and the Global Day of Prayer. Stadiums of people are praying and prayer walking. Yes, people are praying like never before in history. In at least 160 nations of the world at least one or more 24/7 prayer watches are functioning. Many new and creative prayer initiatives are being started every year. There is an amazing prayer awakening among young people and also children.
Prayer is a cry from the heart of God’s people who are desperate for more of God and it is the Holy Spirit stirring the hearts of people to expect the Father to move His hand in history. God does not call us to pray to frustrate us or defeat us. We have prayed and God has answered. Let us not ignore what God has done or be ungrateful. Let us give thanks for answers to prayer, and for the revival that has begun. Let us continue with thanksgiving, to express the deep yearnings of our hearts for God to do more, much more. You must read this very perceptive and challenging book, particularly if you have a heart for revival and you long for God to break into our nation. Ashley Cloete is a man of wisdom, insight and a diligent understanding of Church history. He has hope for South Africa.

Floyd McClung
All Nations International
www.floydandsally.org

Main Abbreviations
AE - Africa Enterprise
ANC - African National Congress
CCM - Christian Concern for Muslims
CCFM - Cape Community FM (radio)
CODESA – Convention for a Democratic South Africa
CSV - Christelike Studentevereniging
DRC - Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk)
Ds – Dominee (equivalent of Reverend)
DTS - Disciple Training School
GCOWE - Global Consultation for World Evangelisation
LMS - London Missionary Society
OM - Operation Mobilization
PAGAD - People against Gangsterism and Drugs
PAC – Pan African Congress
SACC -South African Council of Churches
SAMS - South African Missionary Society
SIM - Society of International Ministries/Serving in Missions
TEASA - The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa
UDF - United Democratic Front
UNISA - University of South Africa
UCT - University of Cape Town
UWC - University of the Western Cape
WEC -Worldwide Evangelization for Christ
YWAM - Youth with a Mission
Z.A. Gesticht - Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (South African Foundation)



Introduction
Ever since the beginning of being a follower of Jesus more consciously, prayer has been fairly central to my life and ministry although I would not dare to call myself a committed intercessor. In 1961 I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour. A major turning point in my life occurred when two teenage friends invited me to the evangelistic outreach of the Students’ Christian Association (SCA) at the seaside resort of Harmony Park that was scheduled to start just after Christmas at the end of 1964.
At the beginning of 1963 I had recommitted myself to serving the Lord, but I still felt spiritually empty and bankrupt before that evangelistic outreach. How could one go and share the gospel with others in such a state? In desperation I cried to the Lord to equip me! He heard my heart’s cry and divinely touched me. I sensed the power of the Holy Spirit taking hold of me. Now I was ready for the outreach there in Harmony Park! To me this was revival; I was spiritually revived!
After one of the evangelistic evening services I received my introduction to ‘spiritual warfare’ when Esau Jacobs, a young pastor, known as Jakes, entered the tent after he had a long conversation with a camper. He said that we would not be able to make any head‑way in such confrontations without prayer and fasting.
The Harmony Park evangelistic outreach influenced my life in yet another way: I received an urge to network with the Body of Christ, with people from different church backgrounds.
Two Dutch Reformed Mission Church ministers, Jakes and Ds. Piet Bester of the Moria Sendingkerk in Tiervlei (Ravensmead), became my role models and mentors during the next few years. I still had to discover the true Moravian heritage into which I had been born and bred.
After my special divine encounter before my first Harmony Park beach outreach, I started to attend the early prayer meetings every Sunday morning at six o’clock at the Moria Sendingkerk where Ds. Piet Bester was the minister. One Sunday morning a mini-revival erupted there when suddenly everybody started praying simultaneously. That was quite revolutionary for the era, causing some disquiet among the traditional reformed believers. It was significant that women from different churches were meeting each other regularly for prayer at this time. This confirmed for me the special blessing of united prayer. Years later we would put this to good effect in Zeist (Holland) in the 1980s and back in Cape Town since our return in 1992.
I have also discerned ever more clearly with the passing of time, that racial and ecclesiastical divisions were hampering a deep work of the Holy Spirit. The need for racial reconciliation and the attempt to help close the gap not only between ‘ecumenicals’ and ‘evangelicals’ but also between the rich and the poor, became quite important to me. Opposing the demonic tenets of church rivalry and competition by stressing the unity of the Body of Christ and fighting the diabolical economic disparity and structural injustice in a low-key manner, were to become other facets of my personal ministry. Although success was hardly visible on the shorter term, we have been blessed to discover that our efforts were not completely in vain.
Finally, I thank God especially for a wonderful wife and supportive children, whom God has used in different ways in my life. For the material that I have been able to collate over the years there are so many people from whom I gleaned it. Individual acknowledgement would be almost impossible. I wish to thank all of those involved generally, but nevertheless very cordially. A special note of thanks is hereby extended to Wendy Ryan, a Christian from Trinidad (West Indies), who edited the manuscript. She came into our frame at just the right moment with invaluable advice. A great ‘thank you’ also to Heidi Pasques and Claudia Herrendoerfer who assisted with earlier manuscripts, predecessors of the present book. Claudia was also responsible for proof-reading the early manuscript of Seeds sown for Revival last year. I would also like to add a word of special appreciation for Vincent Abrahams, who patiently prepared the manuscript up to May, 2009 .
It was to me quite providential to discover that Mr Tanhindi Sanneberg, a Moravian Sunday school and youth group friend from my childhood and youth days in Tiervlei (Ravensmead), is the Director of The Printman. Due to his generous collaboration this book can see the light in its present form. A cordial thanks to him and his family in the firm, especially to Shireen, his daughter-in-law, who patiently put up with the many changes the manuscript undertook since May. I would like to express our sincere appreciation towards our nephew Uli Braun and son-in-law Mike Mee for their contribution regarding the front and back covers of the book and Mike for the work on the map with Cape suburbs and townships at the end of the book.

I am very grateful for Jericho Walls and to Floyd McClung, the leader of the church planting agency All Nations International, for permission to reprint and amend his article in the September to November 2008 edition of their prayer manual slightly, instead of the more usual forward.


1. Evangelism Explosion in the Mother City

Around 1990 spiritual warfare was widely but wrongly regarded as a modern fad. The great missionary Paul has been passing the paradigm to us in Ephesians 6. The 18th century Moravian pioneer Count Zinzendorf already practiced the ‘warrior marriage’ and John Booth started the Salvation Army with all its military ranks at the end of the 19th century. Precursors of 20th century spiritual warfare started from South Africa when Andrew Murray brought the issue into focus through his emphasis on prayer and the interest he aroused in the work of the Holy Spirit. Revivals in different parts of Africa were initiated from Cape Town after Murray’s founding of the South African General Mission in 1889. His booklet The Key to the Missionary Problem really set the scene for great things, also in Africa.
Hans von Staden, the founder of the Dorothea Mission, was born of German parents in the Free State town of Winburg. The family moved to Stellenbosch in 1920 where he developed a close friendship with Andrew Murray, the grandson of the well-known theologian with the same name. The writings of Dr Andrew Murray, especially The Key to the Missionary Problem, were destined to have a profound influence on Von Staden. In 1942 he experienced God’s call to his life-work, the founding of the Dorothea Mission: ‘I discerned His commission: we were to dedicate our lives to the evangelization of the people in the dark city townships of South Africa’.

The Origins of the Cape Town City Mission
Mr. Frederick George Lowe came to Cape Town in 1896 as a concerned Anglican and a businessman who sold low-priced clothing. He soon became involved with the poor and needy, especially at the time of the Bubonic plague in 1901. Lowe started what he called the City Slum Mission in 1902. This outreach remained fairly obscure, until the Bubonic plague hit the Mother City once again in 1915 - especially affecting the areas of Salt River and Woodstock. The compassionate work of the City Slum Mission now became more widely known. After Lowe’s death the mission received its present name, the Cape Town City Mission. Over the years churches and all sorts of charitable and compassionate institutions were established all over the Cape Peninsula. The combination of evangelism and compassionate outreach became an integral element of the ministry of the City Mission. They took this model from the Salvation Army, which had already started operating at the Cape in 1883. (The evangelistic arm of the City Mission was integrated into Kingdom Ministries in the mid-1990s, led by Pastor Alfie Fabe, which started sending out missionaries to different countries.)
Evangelistic Expansion
Probably the first indigenous church planting move at the Cape started in the slum area called District Six.1 A strong element of ‘Coloured’ Nationalism was present when Rev. Joseph J. Forbes started his ‘Volkskerk van Afrika’ on 14 May 1922. This visionary had the courage of his conviction to start a denomination for the upliftment of the poor from the Cape to Cairo. That is the reason that he gave his church a continental name. In only 14 years there were already 13 branches, 6 normal schools (as opposed to night schools) and the orphanage at Jonkersdam, which was later transferred to the Lawrencia Institution, Kraaifontein. Very significant to this denomination was that they had a special anthem, which was sung at their annual commemoration that hailed the protea, ‘blom van ons vaderland.’2 The denomination made inroads into geographical areas where the traditional churches had become slack. They even started a church in Genadendal, the first mission station of the Moravians. (However, this congregation broke away from the Volkskerk van Afrika that was governed from Stellenbosch. This group expanded to places like Oudtshoorn and far-away Kimberley.)
Spiritual Vitality of praying Women
The spurning and suppression of Black women with regard to leadership did not harden them. Instead of becoming bitter and resentful, Black women especially appeared to have accepted male leadership gracefully. Until the late 1940s these women organised activity among themselves independently. They would often allow the men to formally open meetings, in which they participated as speakers.
Manyanos turned out to be instruments
of Black empowerment
The manyanos (the Xhosa word for prayer unions) turned out to be instruments of Black empowerment virtually second to none. Here women leaders would not only pray and preach, but here their dignity and political awareness was also developed.
The practices and hurts inflicted by the apartheid society was possibly the reason that determined resistance in the 1950s. They reshaped their meetings to provide more practical instruction and opportunities for community activism.
Whereas White and some ‘Coloured’ church women’s groups concentrated on fund raising, Black women soon amended their name to Prayer and Service Union. The social and mutual support offered by prayer groups helped to compensate for the isolation and poor social structures, which Western missionaries held up as models. Testimonies, preaching and spontaneous prayer became the lifeblood of Black Christian groups. In the prayer groups they could develop their potential as orators without first having to be literate. In accepting a role in the moral teaching of their adolescent children, Black Christian women turned their backs on pre-Christian norms, by which female relatives other than the mother had provided sex education. In general, the spiritual life of manyano women appears to have been more creative and vital than that of the other racial groups. Dawn prayer and nights of prayer were quite common. The confidence gained in the manyanos would stand the women in good stead in the struggle against sexism and racial oppression. South Africa now has one of the highest ratio's of females in government worldwide very much due to this influence.

A new Fire for Evangelism
The depression of the early 1930s appears to have caused a new fire for evangelism. The start of the Docks Mission is a case in point. When John Crowe listened to an open-air service of the Salvation Army in Adderley Street in 1932 as a young man, he was touched. How happy his prayerful mother was when he shared that he had decided to follow Jesus! The ‘slightly Coloured’ family - as those with a fair complexion from that racial group used to be called - attended the Baptist Church in the Mother City’s Wale Street. Almost immediately the 18-year old Crowe wanted to share the gospel with other people in the neighbourhood of Roggebaai - the area where Andrew Murray had also evangelized. He soon struck a partnership with his namesake John Johnson, becoming involved in open-air services at different places. Later they were especially active on the Grand Parade3, Cape Town’s equivalent to Hyde Park Corner,4 where various political groups and others had their meetings. Harold, Johnson’s brother, joined them at a later stage. When people started committing their lives to Jesus through their ministry, the young men asked for permission to conduct meetings in one of the Railway cottages that soon became too small. They then rented a wood and iron construction that was called the ‘Tin Shanty.’
Starting their outreach in the Dockyard, the church group, which started operating from the ‘Tin Shanty’, called themselves the Docks Mission. From its earliest years prayer and fasting had become a custom of the Docks Mission.
An evangelistic outreach was gradually picking up via Bo-Kaap and District Six, two residential areas predominantly inhabited by people of colour in the first half of the twentieth century. Open-air services were prominent in this drive - with the Salvation Army, the Docks Mission, the Cape Town City Mission and the Baptists of Wale Street and Sheppard Street (District Six) in the forefront. In the latter fellowship the former gangster Eddie Edson came to faith in Jesus at a youth week where Pastor Andy Lamb was the speaker. Pastor Andy Lamb discipled and mentored Edson, seeing him turning into a devout follower of Jesus.
Praise, Worship and Fasting
A Bible verse, which is rightly quoted quite often, is Zechariah 4:6, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty’. This is basic to revival, but it is unfortunate that the context is usually not considered when the verse is quoted. Other basic principles are contained in this prophesy (Zechariah 4), namely that of the power of the weak and the ‘few’ in the erection of the temple. ‘Shouts of thanksgiving’ declare that ‘all was done by grace alone’ (v.6-8).
Praise is used in the ‘OT’ a few times in the attacks on God’s enemies. Probably the most well-known of them is Joshua and the seven trumpets. The gathering marched around Jericho, augmented by the united shout after the seventh time on the seventh day. (We note the repetition of the number seven, the biblical number for completion and perfection). Sometimes fasting, prostrating worship and praise occur in close proximity in Scripture (e.g. Nehemiah 9:1+4; 2 Chronicles 20:3ff).
Fasting as a tool in spiritual warfare lost its initial purpose. It was either completely neglected, or it became a ‘work’ to earn God’s favour like fasting during Lent. Jesus himself fasted and prayed for forty days and nights before he started his ministry (Matthew 4:2). When His opponents pointed to the fact that His disciples were not fasting, the Master did not cancel the feasibility of it. He merely stated that the disciples would be doing it when he, ‘the bridegroom’, would have been taken away (Matthew 9:15). At the return of Christ there is the ‘Marriage Supper of the Lamb’ with his 'Bride' - the Church as the Body of Christ.
Jesus did however attack fasting as an outward show to impress others (Matthew 6:16; Luke 18:12). The Master was operating fully in line with ‘OT’ teaching, where we read for example that God rejects fasting when those who are fasting are living in evil pleasures and oppress (underpay?) their workers (Isaiah 58:3). But the Hebrew Scriptures teach just as clearly that fasting can be a sign of penitence (2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Jonah 3:5; Daniel 6:18; Joel 2:15). It was also used as a weapon in fighting the enemy (Esther 4:16). All three of these prayer elements - praise, worship and fasting - were employed profitably in these early 20th century Cape ventures. (Paul Billheimer noted in 1975 in his booklet Destined for the Throne how praise caused an international spiritual turn around once again via the Pentecostal movement. )

Docks Mission Prayer leads to Growth
At the ‘Tin Shanty,’ many a Friday night was used for an all-night prayer meeting. No wonder that God gave the new denomination phenomenal growth. Not only were new churches started on Brown’s Farm (Ottery) and Factreton Estate, a new housing scheme, but also further afield at Wellington and Grabouw. In due course they conducted gospel meetings in the Community Centre of the Bloemhof Flats in Constitution Street, District Six, and in the YMCA building in Chiapinni Street, Bo-Kaap. On every third Saturday of the month a combined prayer meeting was held, first in the church building of Belgravia Estate, and later it was rotated to the other branches.
From their early beginnings the Docks Mission also started outreaches at the prison in Tokai, at the nearby Porter Reformatory, at the Brooklyn Chest Hospital, and later at another institution for delinquents in Wynberg called Bonnytown. Many lives were changed through these ministries. After the services at the Docks on Sundays, some members went to Somerset Hospital to pray with nurses there. A branch of the Hospital Christian Fellowship (now called Health Care Fellowship). which operated at Somerset Hospital for many years, benefited greatly from this assistance. Docks Mission members made a national impact through ministry to prisoners on Robben Island. Docks Mission's Pastor Walter Ackerman thus witnessed to and challenged Nelson Mandela. After his release in 1990, Mandela often referred to the Christian teaching that he received over the years as an important contribution to his emphasis on forgiveness and refraining from revenge.
Despite the times of great spiritual sensitivity in a nation where leaders were willing to acknowledge the presence of God, South Africa created a legal system that devalued the God-derived dignity of people, classing them according to the colour of their skin. It was called apartheid and it would last for more than forty years. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning 'separate'. So successful was this form of governance that people lived separate lives, with no reason to cross the great color divide. Formulated in 1948, apartheid was the legal government of the nation until 1994. Those forty-plus years were turbulent ones in the history of South Africa. Many inhumane deeds were done, some even in the name of God and the Church. For fear of being labelled as 'political,' the Church for the most part was silent. But God had not forgotten the prayers of His people as they cried to Him for mercy and deliverance.

The Impregnation of the New South Africa All over the world prisons have been serving as places of reform and renewal. South Africa is no exception. The transformation of our country has quite a few prominent examples of political activists who experienced a divine touch while they were incarcerated. I mention only a few of them.
Chief Albert Luthuli, definitely one of the greatest of all South Africans , was isolated in a prison cell in Pretoria while he was testifying during the Treason Trial in 1959. He was accused of incitement because he had burned the hated pass, which he dubbed 'an instrument of slavery, a weapon and humiliation of us as a people, a badge of slavery, a weapon used by the authorities to keep us in a position of inferiority' .5 There he had a special experience as he testified: '... Frail man that I am, I humbly pray that I may never forget the opportunity God gave me to re-dedicate myself, ... and above all to be quiet in His Presence. My white-washed cell became my chapel, my place of retreat.' In the Pretoria court room many people were turned away because of congestion. Luthuli was enthralled by the spectators from different races, vocalizing a special vision: 'There, in embryo, was a portrayal of my new South Africa, a company of goodwill, yearning to begin work on the building of a structure both permanent and real.'
The impact of Nelson Mandela's incarceration on Robben Island is well known. A few sentences are nevertheless appropriate, taken from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's book No Future without Forgiveness (p. 39f.). 'Nelson Mandela did not emerge from prison spewing words of hatred and revenge. He amazed us all by his heroic embodiment of reconciliation and forgiveness... Those twenty- seven years and all the suffering they entailed were the fires of the furnace that tempered his steel, that removed the dross.'
Stanley Mogoba was originally a teacher and merely just a passive adherent of the Pan African Congress whom young people approached before his arrest. The main evidence against him was that he was alleged to have advised the young people to burn a Dutch Reformed Church whereas in his own words ‘I had strongly advised the young people against this. So I went to gaol for having saved a Dutch Reformed Church … part of the time in isolation. During that time I prayed and read the Bible from cover to cover for it was the only literature (available)…’6 On Robben Island Mogoba7 received a book from a fellow prisoner with the title The Human Christ. It touched Mogoba very deeply to encounter the sorrow of Christ when he saw the young man of Matthew 19 depart sadly, ‘unable to take the final step to true fulfilment.’ Mogoba was himself very unhappy, pondering what all that meant, thinking that he should serve Christ in a new way once he left the island. ‘But it was only when I said “I will follow you now, I am prepared to give my entire life to you and enter the ministry” that my sorrow left me and I experienced a sense of joy…’

Missed Chances for significant Change
The suburb of Pinelands - adjacent to Langa, the hub of Cape Black resistance to apartheid during the 1950s and 1960s - missed chances for significant change. The first 'Garden City' of the country had started off so well with inter-denominational services in the new Civic Hall already in the 1920s. The combined services in the morning for children and similar ones in the evening for adults pioneered an unprecedented testimony of unity of the Body of Christ.
However, in 1926 the Anglicans built the foundation stone for their St Stephen's parish sanctuary, to be followed soon thereafter by the Methodists. In due course one denomination after the other built its own church building, mirroring the tragic divisions which made the suburb no different to any other in the country in ecclesiastical terms.
A second chance was missed after the politician Colin Eglin had been deeply moved by a speech of Chief Albert Luthuli in 1956, and a letter that the devout leader of the ANC had written to the Prime Minister in 1957 in which he had expressed 'an ardent desire to see human conduct and relations motivated by an over-riding passion for peace and friendship in South Africa.' Eglin pondered this challenge one Sunday evening from a back row in the Pinelands Methodist Church. He decided to approach the head of the denomination in South Africa, Rev. C.K. Storey, who was the pastor in nearby Rosebank. He put to him the proposal that each White family should be brought in touch with a Black family and vice versa.
After a few weeks the answer came: '...taking relevant factors into consideration, he would not be able to implement it... if he attempted to extend their experience and faith to include persons from the non-European community, it was likely there would be resistance from members of the congregation...' Colin Eglin was sad that the Church was putting racial exclusiveness ahead of Christian inclusiveness.
The most effective church opposition against apartheid came initially from the Dutch Reformed Church.
Dutch Reformed Church Opposition against Apartheid For many it will be surprising to hear that arguably the most effective church opposition against apartheid ironically came initially from the Dutch Reformed Church. The Anglican Bishop Trevor Huddleston and others were making some inroads through their stand against the race policies that became official after 1948, but the most effective counter came surprisingly from within the ranks of the Dutch Reformed denomination. I do not refer to the warnings by people like Ds. Ben Marais and Professor Keet, but specifically to the stand of a ‘Coloured’ Dutch Reformed clergyman. He was Eerwaarde (Reverend) I.D. Morkel, who in turn influenced a dynamic mover, a young clergyman, Ds. David Botha of the Wynberg Sendingkerk.
These ministers opposed the apartheid policy long before the famous Dr Beyers Naudé. The Sendingkerk Ring (circuit) of Wynberg agreed unanimously with the motion tabled by the dynamic Rev. I.D. Morkel, to oppose apartheid on scriptural grounds. The participants at this meeting included quite a few Afrikaner dominees because there were still very few ministers of colour ordained in that denomination around 1950. The circuit protested against the proposed legislation of the new regime, appealing to the government urgently not to implement apartheid laws.8
That the Malan Cabinet ignored their protests was not as deplorable as the fact that the very same dominees who voted in October 1948, did not pitch when all Sendingkerk ministers were invited to a meeting to discuss the legislation. Although 28 congregations were represented, only two white dominees attended this meeting. Another meeting on 14 October 1949 resolved to encourage believers to retreat into a day of prayer on 16 December 1949 ‘to be relieved from the apartheid affliction.’
Conversions amongst Cape Gangsters
Cape Town had its own version of gangsters who were changed by the power of the Gospel. Because James Valentine had been a gangster, his conversion in 1957 created quite a stir, and consequently a lot of interest. Soon he was a celebrated preacher on the Grand Parade. Subsequently he became a dynamic leader of the Assemblies of God Church. He became known even internationally. Andy Lamb is another pastor with a similar background who preached - in his own words - ‘on almost every street corner of District Six’ and on many a train. As the minister of the Sowers of the Word Church of Lansdowne, Pastor Lamb was very much involved in the prayer drives and meetings of intercessors, which met at his church once a month in 1996, and in the planting of churches. One of the most well known from this category is Pastor Eddie Edson, a previous pastor of the Shekinah Tabernacle Full Gospel congregation. He had been involved in the Woodstock gangster activities and became converted under Pastor Lamb’s ministry. Pastor Eddie Edson became a very consistent leader of the prayer movement at the Cape in the 1990s.
Influences on non-Christian Religions
A big impact on non-Christian religions was made through ministry in the Cape commuter trains. For example, many a Muslim was challenged, even though the daring preaching done there was not always sensitive. Train preachers indirectly affected the city in a significant way. Many a convert from Islam attributes these challenges as an important catalyst in their decision to follow Jesus. The Salvation Army, along with Pentecostal evangelists like James Valentine and George McGregor, held open-air services on the Grand Parade, attended by good crowds. Because of Valentine’s reputation, many people stopped to hear him and also Muslims attended these occasions, listening to the lunchtime sermons on the Parade. Even in the traditional ‘Malay Quarter’ (Bo-Kaap) evangelistic outreach was taking place. There was a Wayside Sunday School in Helliger Street run by the Baptists, and one in Chiappinni Street. Pastor Gay, a tireless Scottish missionary, laboured in Bo-Kaap and District Six, not without success until his death in the early 1990s. In the similar atmosphere of aggressive evangelism Pastor Richard Clarence was a big mover on the Cape Flats, pioneering the Sharon Assemblies of God denomination. In subsequent years churches were planted in Hanover Park, Mitchell’s Plain, Vrygrond and Delft.
Open-air services were held
in Bo-Kaap under a lamp post
Open-air services were also held in Bo-Kaap, sometimes under a lamp post in Chiapinni Street. (Much of this information was gathered from old Bo-Kaap residents like Ms Maria Masaking-Bedien, a retired midwife who had lived there all her life, as well as Mrs Frances Peters, an aged member of St Paul’s Church in Bree Street, which was regarded in pre-apartheid days as a part of Bo-Kaap).
African Roots of the Global Prayer Movement
At the end of the booklet The Key to the missionary Problem, Andrew Murray advocated the observing of Weeks of Prayer for the World. Patrick Johnstone comments: ‘So far as I know this was not taken up earnestly until 1962 when Hans von Staden, the Founder and Director of the Dorothea Mission inspired the launching of a whole series of Weeks of Prayer for the World in both Southern Africa and Europe.’ It was the Weeks of Prayer that made the provision of prayer information so important. They led to Von Staden’s challenge to Patrick Johnstone, to write a booklet of information to help in these Weeks of Prayer. Hans von Staden also proposed the name “Operation World” in 1964. The very first booklet, with basic information which covered 30 countries, was printed by the Dutch missionary Cees Lugthardt at the presses of the Dorothea Mission in Pretoria. In Johnstone’s own words: ‘So the book was South African-born, but then went global.’
Operation World has been published in whole or in part, in many languages. Johnstone met his first wife Jill,9 in Pretoria, while both were in training to become missionaries with the Dorothea Mission in Southern Africa. Sadly however, the initial promise of Dr Andrew Murray’s vision never came to fulfillment. Satan hit back through his favourite weapon: divide and rule. Racial pride and discrimination - legalized after 1948 in South Africa - wrecked the promising beginnings of spiritual renewal.
Confession as a Revival Instrument
Confession is an important element of prayer as a vital ingredient towards revival. The rebirth of the Jewish nation after the exile was prepared by the intercessory prayers of Nehemiah (1:6-9), Ezra (9:6-13) and Daniel (9:9-19). All three of them concentrated on the spiritual condition of the nation, and confession of sins.
In revivals through the ages, prayer has always been the basis. In these cases prayer brought about a consciousness of sin, which invariably led to confession and restitution. Andrew Murray opined: ‘an essential element in a true missionary revival will be a broken heart and a contrite spirit in view of past neglect and sin’. In the most widely known recent revival in South Africa, in Kwa Siza Bantu (Natal), Erlo Stegen, the founding leader, had been observing an extended period of prayer. However, the Holy Spirit only broke through when Stegen confessed his racial pride. He discerned that he was lacking neighbourly love towards the Zulus.
In recent years a biographical film Faith like Potatoes depicted how Angus Buchan, an ordinary Natal farmer, experienced an amazing personal revival and then began to impact the lives of many others. His Mighty Men Conferences and other revival events would impact thousands in subsequent years (see pages 323ff).
Impact of Student Christian Outreach
A significant spiritual influence at the Cape was John Mott’s Student Christian Movement, along with the Edinburgh meeting of evangelicals in 1910 that became the forerunner to the World Council of Churches. All this looked set to spawn worldwide evangelisation. The Cape was in the thick of things through the presence of the aging Dr Andrew Murray. John Mott, the renowned preacher and leader of a global divine work among students, who mobilised many of them for missions, spoke at the Huguenot Hall in Orange Street on the outskirts of the City Centre at the beginning of the century. This ushered in the establishment of the Students’ Christian Association (SCA). The work of the SCA at Victoria College,which was to become the University of Stellenbosch and at the South African College, the forerunner of UCT, had a significant impact on individuals. One of the most notable influences was on Jan H. Hofmeyr, who was poised to become the successor of Jan Smuts as Prime Minister, had the Nationalists not started to govern in 1948. Hofmeyr, who attended the Cape Town Baptist Church in Wale Street, was a fervent supporter of the SCA.
A related ministry in the 1920s was the Oxford Group, started by Frank Buchman, an American with a German Black Forest background. Edgar Brookes, one of South Africa’s greatest liberal politicians of the apartheid era, described the influence of the Oxford Group as follows: ‘Undoubtedly its first impact on South Africa was that of a genuine religious revival, and this made itself felt quite remarkably in the field of race relations.’ In the 1960s and 1970s the group played a significant if not so overt role in racial reconciliation under its new name Moral Rearmament. Ds. George Daneel, who died at the end of 2004 in Fransch Hoek, a Dutch Reformed Church clergyman and a former rugby Springbok, was the face of the movement for many years, The group operated low-key to bring people from different races together.
Recruitment from the Christian Student Ministry
The Christelike Studentevereniging (CSV), the Afrikaner sector of the SCA, produced many prominent leaders in church and society. In the latter part of the 20th century many organisations developed out of the Christelike Studentevereniging (CSV). Stellenbosch University played a prominent role with the annual mission week at the Studentekerk. This was emulated at other tertiary institutions all around the country. Jan Hanekom (at the Hofmeyr Centre and linked to South African Association of World Evangelisation SAAWE), influenced scores of students.
Cassie Carstens came to international prominence as the executive head of the CSV from 1990 to 2000. He was the chaplain of the national rugby team that won the World Cup in 1995. Here he caught the eye of the international media. This led to the founding of the International School for Sports Leaders in Stellenbosch.
The work of the parallel student ministry among ‘Coloureds’ only really came into its own in the second half of the 20th century where ‘Mammie’ le Fleur pioneered this work with Nic Apollis as the next itinerant secretary until the early 1960s, followed by Chris Wessels from the Moravian Church.
At a camp for theological students, a tokkelok from the Sendingkerk, Esau Jacobs, was deeply moved with regard to ecumenical work, notably for the work of Ds. Beyers Naude and the Christian Institute.
He started his pastoral ministry in the Transkei. Jakes, as he became widely known, also had a definite vision to reach out to the Muslims. He inspired many a young student, including the author. At the student evangelistic outreach at Harmony Park in 1964/5, Jakes exposed the group to ‘spiritual warfare’ when he joined the students and young teachers on New Year’s Day, 1965.
The student outreach at Harmony Park in the mid-1960s contained seed for spiritual revival. It also contributed to the spiritual maturing of leaders such as Rev. Abel Hendricks, who led the 1964/5 camp along with Rev. Chris Wessels. In later years Abel Hendricks became President of the Methodist Church and Chris Wessels became a respected leader in the Moravian Church. Allan Boesak, Jattie Bredekamp, Esau Jacobs, Franklin Sonn and David Savage are but a few young men from these Harmony Park outreaches who subsequently became influential members in their respective denominations and in society at large. To this generation also belonged Harry Booysen, a young teacher from Retreat on the Cape Flats, who later became the full-time secretary of the Vereniging van Christelike Studente (VCS), the 'Coloured' branch of the student movement.
Other Ministry amongst Youth During and after World War II concern was raised for young people whose families had been broken up by fathers serving overseas on military assignments. The absence of a positive father figure (male role model) in the home led to other social problems. Young people were generally left to work out their own moral education. The then typical church structures were not catering for these young people; this compelled some Christian leaders to develop programs specifically geared to reach out to these young people. The new initiative brought dynamic young evangelists into the frame, who started using revolutionary methods, conducting lively mass rallies in more than a dozen US cities under the name Youth for Christ (YfC). With the rapid expansion of the work there soon became a need for leadership and organization and in 1944 Chicago pastor Torrey Johnson was elected YFC’s first president, with Billy Graham as YFC’s first full-time worker.
These initiatives became a movement and the pioneers started to travel to other countries. Jimmy Ferguson came to South Africa as a missionary, running rallies alongside local South Africans.
Youth for Christ (YfC) became an international Christian organization with its core mission and vision that of communicating the life-changing message of Jesus Christ to young people. Jimmy Ferguson pioneers YFC’s worked at the Cape where the organisation started nationally already in 1946. YFC South Africa in its early years was born out of a middle class ministry to White high school learners, also providing a valuable service to predominantly suburban churches through training, rallies and camping. Bill Parker and Nico Bougas10 were two prominent YFC members during the 1950s and 1960s at the Cape who were also very much involved in ministry at the insurance pioneers Old Mutual, where they worked. The slogan Youth for Christ would find emulation in different ways like Cops for Christ, Jews for Jesus and Athletes for Christ.
Scripture Union started amongst English-speaking White high schools. The Catholic and Anglican schools were the first to bridge the racial divide, with the Diocesan College in Rondebosch (Bishops) and St Cyprian’s in Vredehoek amongst the first countrywide.
At the Cape the Moravian Church was among the first denominations to organize their youth work nationally. Out of their Sunday School Union which started at the Cape already in 1942, a national Youth Union grew that was formally started in 1958. From the mid-1960s that denomination broke new ground once again with multi-racial work camps at Langgezocht, Genadendal, with the intention of building a camp site there.11
Hippies radiate Revival
Under John Bond and Paul Watney’s ministry, the Harfield Road Assembly of God, fellowship halfway between the Cape suburbs of Claremont and Kenilworth, experienced a mighty revival known as ‘the Hippie Revival’. In 1971 it was very much of a pretty orthodox lone ranger of the denomination among the Whites at the Cape. This would change drastically within a few years because of the Hippie movement, young people who followed an alternative life-style of sex and drugs. The congregation welcomed drugged hippies with sandals or bare feet that no other church would have allowed to enter. Many of them were supernaturally delivered from their addiction.
The Jesus Movement was the major Christian element within the hippie subculture. Members were called Jesus People, or Jesus Freaks. It came to Cape Town from Johannesburg in the early 1970s. Brian O’Donnell and Dave Valentine soon became the prime movers here. Back-slidden to all intents and purposes, Brian took Dave, a nominal Methodist young man, along to their church.
Impacts into the Future
The bubbling young believers would go to Thibault Square with a loud hailer. At the altar calls many would kneel there on the square committing their lives to the Lord. The special move of the Holy Spirit would ultimately led to an invitation to Nicky Cruz, the former Mau-Mau gang leader of New York, who was challenged by David Wilkerson to share at a meeting at Green Point Stadium. At this occasion Graham Power was divinely addressed and challenged for the first time. Decades later he would be God's channel to initiate the prayer event of Newlands on 21 March, 2001.
Dave Valentine enjoyed not only the vibrant singing there, but he was also divinely touched at that occasion by the singing and speaking in tongues at the Pentecostal church. At least two of the hippies of the revival became leaders in their own right.
Former drug addict Marge Ballin started ministering to drug addicts after her conversion. When she discovered how many females became prostitutes because of this addiction, she soon started to minister to them intensely. A link to Youth with a Mission brought her to Amsterdam where she ministered among prostitutes for five years. After her return to the Cape she resumed the ministry to prostitutes which highlighted the need for a holistic ministry, becoming the divine instrument for the establishment of a safe house for the rehabilitation of females from this background.
Herschel Raysman became the leader of the Beit Ariel Messianic Jewish congregation in Sea Point at the turn of the millennium.

Charismatic Renewal erupts at the Cape In 1964 the Cape-born David du Plessis, nicknamed ‘Mr Pentecost’, introduced the charismatic renewal to the Roman Catholic Church. Before he came to Cape Town, the high profile Archbishop Bill Burnett had a spiritual conversion experience. This influenced his subsequent thinking. The charismatic renewal thereafter also started to impact individuals of other mainline churches. When Archbishop Burnett came to the metropolis' Anglican Cathedral in 1974, the movement received a major push. More and more clergymen experienced a similar spiritual renewal. Dean King, a clergyman at St George’s Cathedral at the time, describes the ensuing situation in the Anglican Church as follows: “Real Christians now became Bible-carrying Christians and the exorcism of demonic spirits and healing of the sick became experienced realities. The hills were alive with the sound of music, guitars appeared in churches everywhere; testimonies astounded us; lives were undoubtedly changed; faith became alive for people…Young men developed vocations to the ministry in fairly large numbers, and the criteria for this were often their acquaintance with the Spirit and their certainty that they had found the way.”
A negative element of the movement was that many believers, for example those who did not practise speaking in tongues, were confused and left outside, questioning the depth and reality of their own faith. The turmoil in his bishopric however did not affect the clear witness of Archbishop Burnett with regard to the government. Apartheid was now rightly seen as the worship of a false god.
The charismatic renewal played a significant role in breaking down the racial barrier. Thus it would ultimately become no exception for a few Whites to regularly visit the Roman Catholic Church in the ‘Coloured’ township of Bonteheuwel in the 1990s.
While apartheid continued to rule the country, the charismatic movement had made important breakthroughs in opposition to it. Those denominations which blocked the move of the Holy Spirit on doctrinal grounds suffered greatly as scores of young people started leaving their ranks. Some of them joined the new charismatic fellowships that started from the 1980s.

Sports as a Tool
When the farm boy Fanie Richter was in his penultimate year of his school career in 1968, he was determined that he was not just going to assist with mundane tasks at the upcoming athletics school meeting. Being fairly fit because of work on their farm in the Eendekuil district near the Boland town Piquetberg, he decided to enter the 800 meter race where stamina rather than speed was required. To his own surprise he finished second, only a meter behind the age group provincial champion of their school, who was older. Fanie decided to take up athletics more seriously.
After matric his parents decided that he had to go and earn some money. On the Reef, where he went to, he had the idea of running from Beit Bridge in the extreme north of the country to Cape Town to raise funds for the Southern Cross Fund. This fund was widely supported in Afrikaner communities in aid of the men ‘defending the country on its borders.’ Soon however Fanie thought that it would be much better to raise funds for missionary work instead of supporting the war effort.
A series of circumstances saw him coming back to the Cape as a theological student of the renowned Stellenbosch Kweekskool. There he met Norman Burger who had a similar idea, viz. to travel the country with a choir. Richter and Burger did not lose time to speak to other athletes and students of their dream. God’s hand was evidently on the venture. Atlete vir Christus was born, started by a race from Cape Town to Beit Bridge in 1975. The fund raising event became an annual event, still operating after well over 30 years. The team of 23 members consist of ten athletes, ten singers and three spiritual advisors. Then there is also a father figure who holds the reins spiritually. The funds raised are used for the printing of Bible Studies of a correspondence course and the distribution among prisoners. Atlete vir Christus was the first of many ministries in sport to be started in Stellenbosch.
Eric Hofmeyer, a former gang leader, became a pastor after four years’ training at the EBC Bible College in Strandfontein. (He subsequently became the first youth pastor of colour in the DRC church of Tulbagh where Ds. M.C. Vos had been the minister and who once discipled the slave Maart van Mozambiek). Hofmeyer, became a South African and World weight-lifting champion over an extended period after starting off practising with broomsticks and bricks (Martindale, 2002:73). He used sports extensively to minister to young people when he started the ministry from the Burns Road Community Centre in Salt River in 1998. Eric Hofmeyer used the City Mission facilities to get into many a school with his Adullam Ministries and from 2009 he penetrated many city schools evangelistically with sports in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup.
The idea of walking or running big distances for God had a sequel in 2004 when relay races or walks would be undertaken. Jericho Walls integrated a Walk of Hope into the Global Day of Prayer programme, e.g. during the 7-days initiative of 2004. This initiative would take Ben Marais, a young theological student of Bloemfontein, out of his narrow Dutch Reformed world. For the first time he was confronted with devout believers of other denominations. The ensuing paradigm shift came him the courage to confront Afrikaner platteland (rural) communities to use soccer as an evangelism tool in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup when he became a co-ordinator for The Ultimate Goal (TUG). In 2009 he would be God's instrument to change the indifference and lethargy of City Bowl Ministers Fraternal after I had been struggling to get the colleagues interested to use the World Cup as an outreach tool in the run-up to the 2009 Global Day of Prayer.

6. A Cape Power Encounter with great Ramifications

When Ds. Davie Pypers commenced work in 1956 as a minister of the Dutch Reformed St Stephen’s Church in Bree Street, he discerned the need for increased prayer for the Muslims of the area. Soon he initiated praying for Bo-Kaap and the Muslims living there. Together with two other pastoral colleagues, he interceded every Monday for the area that became even more pronouncedly Islamic in the wake of the envisaged implementation of Group Areas legislation.
Ds. Pypers appears to have been one of the very few ministers at the Cape of his era who had any notion of spiritual warfare. It was by far not common practice yet. And satan was definitely not going to release his gains so easily.
A significant Power Encounter
Davie Pypers was called to become the missionary to the Cape Muslims on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church, linked to the historical Gestig (Sendingkerk) congregation in Long Street. It is the church where once people from different denominations worshipped, the cradle of missionary outreach in South Africa.12 Ds. Pypers had hardly started with his new work when a challenge came from a young imam, Mr Ahmed Deedat, to publicly debate the death of Jesus on the Cross. As a young dominee David Pypers prepared himself through prayer and fasting in a tent on the mountains at Bain’s Kloof for the event which was to take place on 13 August 1961 at the Green Point Track.
Because of publicity in the media, 30 000 people of all races jammed into the Green Point sports venue. The stadium quivered with excitement like at a rugby match. In the keenly contested debate, Imam Deedat started with the assertion that Jesus went to Egypt after the disciples had taken him from the Cross. He thoroughly ridiculed the Christian faith, challenging Pypers to give proof that Jesus died on the Cross. The young dominee rose to the challenge by immediately stating that Jesus is alive and that his Lord could there and then do the very things He had done when He walked the earth.
Dr David du Plessis, who was nick-named ‘Mr Pentecost’, reported on the event in his autobiography: ‘Taking a deep breath, he (Pypers) spoke loud and clear, ‘Is there anybody in this audience that, according to medical judgement, is completely incurable? Remember, it must be incurable...’ Of course, the stadium was abuzz by now. And then several men came along, carrying Mrs Withuhn, a White Christian lady, with braces all over her body. She was completely paralyzed. Then Pypers went ahead, asking whether there were any doctors present who could examine her and vouch for her condition. ‘Several doctors came forward, including her own physician, and they concurred in pronouncing her affliction incurable.’
Pypers simply walked to her and without any ado prayed for her briefly and proclaimed: ‘In the name of Jesus, be healed!’ Immediately she dropped her crutches and began to move.
The Green Point Aftermath
The Green Point Track event resulted in a victory for the Cross, with Mrs Withuhn being miraculously healed in the name of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.
Many Muslims were deeply moved, but an unfortunate thing also happened. The booklet The Hadji Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself (in an Afrikaans translation) was re-issued. Its distribution at the gates of the Green Point Track was definitely not helpful. Actually it was quite unfortunate and insensitive. The booklet refers negatively to the Qur’an and Muhammad, the founder of Islam.13 The Cape Muslim community was enraged by the re-publication of this nineteenth century pamphlet.
What was perceived as the defeat of Ahmed Deedat, and thus of the Muslims at Green Point, inspired a call for revenge. Deedat stated publicly that the original motivation for public debates was his humiliation at the hand of Christians. He was not willing at all to accept defeat lying down.
The effect of the Green Point Track miracle was almost nullified by news that came from another part of the world on that same day. The report of the building of the Berlin Wall resounded throughout the world! A new type of battle was cemented - the ‘cold war’ between Soviet Communism and Western Capitalism!
However, it was nearly just as bad that Pypers was heavily criticized by his denomination for undertaking the confrontation without getting prior synod approval. Furthermore, the leaders of his denomination were still clinging to an untenable interpretation of divine healing – that it belonged to a past age - to the times of the apostles.

Islam linked to Communism?
As the ensuing cold war increasingly became the focus internaationally, the enemy of souls abused Communism with its atheist basis, attempting to stifle the spreading of the victorious message of the Cross, as it had been proclaimed at the Green Point Track.
Was there a subtle link to Communism
in opposition to the Cross?
I surmise that the event of 13 August 1961 had great importance in the spiritual realm. One wonders whether the Islamic Crescent was not probably subtly linked to Communism in opposition to the Cross at that occasion. (This was to happen again in reverse in 1990 after the demise of Communism. Islam took over the mantle from the atheist ideology as a threat to world peace when the Iraqi army marched into Kuwait. That event became the catalyst for many Christians to start praying for an end to the bondage and deception at the base of the ideology of Islam as a destructive spiritual force.)
In his denomination, Ds. Pypers was still a lone ranger. In some quarters he was vilified after the Green Point event, although he had actually been challenged by the literature on faith healing, which had been written by Dr Andrew Murray, a revered hero of his church. Pypers was out on a limb in the Dutch Reformed Church. At the Kweekskool in Stellenbosch, the theological seminary of the denomination, it was officially taught that faith healing was a doctrinal tenet which pertained to biblical days.
Anglican Mission to Muslims
The first known appointment of an Anglican of colour for full-time outreach to Muslims occurred after Rev.(later Bishop) George Schwarz had approached Archbishop Joost de Blank in 1959 with a pastoral problem. One of Schwarz’s parishioners had fallen pregnant by a Muslim patient at the Brooklyn Chest Hospital. De Blank now told him that Miss Leslie, the church’s only remaining missionary to the Muslims, would be retiring soon. The Archbishop challenged Schwarz to become involved with this work.
Schwarz’s calling to the Muslim Outreach was confirmed at a ministers’ retreat in 1960, after which he was given a special appointment as full-time priest for the ‘Mission to the Muslims’. In order to be better equipped for this work he was sent to Canterbury in England, where he was trained for a year at St Augustine’s by the renowned Bishop Kenneth Cragg. A stint of nine months in Jerusalem to minister among Arab Christians was intended to make him acquainted with the Middle East setting.
Back in Cape Town, Schwarz was linked to the St Mark’s parish in Athlone with the full-time charge of ministering to Muslims in the whole diocese of the Mother City. His work centred around the counselling of marriages or other people where a marriage was considered, in which one of the parties was a Muslim. Soon the Archbishop approached Schwarz to move to the parish of St Philip’s in District Six in 1963 in a caretaker capacity. Here he also conducted seminars on Islam and Muslim Evangelism for the whole diocese. For seven years Rev. Schwarz laboured in District Six, but increasingly the parochial responsibilities devoured his attention. By his own admission, 90% of his time was devoted to parish work by 1970. In that year Schwarz was called to take charge of the Anglican congregation in Bonteheuwel. To all intents and purposes, this signalled the end of all formal Muslim outreach by the denomination.

Prayer in the Process of Change
Prayer was very much part of the process of change in the country. This is demonstrated by times of prayer and fasting in St George’s Cathedral. Father Bernard Wrankmore had been a chaplain to seamen when he was especially challenged to pray for the beloved country. Just at that time Wrankmore saw the dossier of Imam Abdullah Haron, who had died while in police custody on 27 September 1969. The Imam Haron case highlighted for Wrankmore the fact that South Africa was now misled by a similar delusion as the Germans under Hitler. He decided to retreat for prayer and fasting to St George’s Cathedral for the situation in the country. However, Wrankmore was refused permission to do so by the Archbishop and the Dean of the Cathedral.
Wrankmore came into the frontline of opposition to Prime Minister Vorster, when he requested an inquiry into the death of Imam Haron. He added weight to his protest through a drawn-out fast at the Islamic shrine near to Lion’s Head.
The authorities of St George’s Cathedral had evidently repented after the negative response to Rev. Bernard Wrankmore in 1971. Rev. David Russell and Dr Ivan Toms, a young doctor who served at the
SACLA-initiated clinic in Crossroads, were two persons who were tolerated to pray there, with some publicity given to their endeavour.
Towards the end of 1974 and for several months thereafter, a large number of Black student leaders were arrested and detained without trial by the security police. Some were held in solitary confinement
for long periods. During that time a prayer vigil was held at St George’s Cathedral, where various people committed themselves to prayer within 24-hour sessions by name for some student. The reflection of Professor Francis Wilson for 13 February 1975 has been printed, including notes on Nyameko Barney Pityana, who went on to become a top academic and administrator of UNISA: ‘For such a man as he to be incarcerated is a judgment not upon Barney but upon the society which has acted so violently against him’. All students were finally released without being charged of any crime. Dr Francis Grim, a committed Christian and prayer warrior, was the worldwide leader of the Hospital Christian Fellowship for many years from the Cape suburb of Pinelands.
Dr Francis Grim initiated a National Day of Prayer, called for 7 January 1976. However, this was not perceived by people of colour as something to join. In fact, few people from these ranks knew about the day of prayer. The all-White organizers had still not recognized the need to draw in people from other racial backgrounds. Yet, this move may have stemmed the tide of Communist-inspired violent revolution, to which the Soweto June 16 upheavals in 1976 could easily have led. Grim gave a challenging title to a booklet that was published by his organisation: Pray or Perish. At any rate, God was already at work. On that very June 16, 1976 Johan Botha, a young policeman, was posted in Soweto. Supernaturally God would use him 18 years later to bring many in the nation to pray.14
A Cape Example has worldwide Impact
Dr Andrew Murray brought the Keswick Convention to Wellington towards the end of the 19th century. Arthur Rowland was a committed believer who had a close friendship with Murray when he started teaching as a young man at the Boys’ High School in Wellington in 1912. He had a deep interest and involvement in prayer, evangelism and missions and started a Cape Town Keswick Convention. His son Noel displayed similar sentiments. Father and son retained their interest in prayer and missions - based at the Cape Town Baptist Church - till ripe old age, the father dying in 1973 at the age of 102. Noel Rowland died just short of the century mark at the turn of the millennium. Rev. Roger Voke kept the fire of the Keswick movement alive at the Cape for many years.
World Literature Crusade launched their Change the World School of Prayer.15 The South African prayer manual was published in Cape Town in 1981. It seems as if this manual was not very widely distributed. World Literature Crusade’s publication might nevertheless have been the advance guard for the seven years of prayer for the Soviet Union, defeating atheist Communism at the end of the 1980s. The group in California (USA) documented some of their experiences, praying systematically over 40,000 continuous hours. The Change the World School of Prayer suggested that believers pray strategically, and that they pray for 100 unevangelized Chinese and Arab-Muslim nations. Rev. George Buckley, Vice President of World Literature Crusade, a New Zealander, ministered powerfully at the Cape. The first school held in Cape Town was attended by 1,130 people over two week-ends. The vision of the school of prayer was ‘to see a million Christians in South Africa pray for revival and world evangelism by the end of 1986.’ At one of these events in Windhoek, Ds. Bennie Mostert was moved. He would become a major mover of the prayer waves that started from the Cape in 1981, which sent powerful ripples throughout the continent in the following decades.
It is appropriate that the revived prayer movement started at the Cape where Andrew Murray had written his School des Gebeds in 1885. The Change the World School of Prayer appears to have inspired the initiators of a booklet, published by Hospital Christian Fellowship (HCF, later called Healthcare Christian Fellowship).
A little booklet motivated Christians towards
a month of prayer for selected Muslim countries,
The Dutch section of the Hospital Christian Fellowship in Voorthuizen, which had South Africa’s Dr Francis Grim as its worldwide leader, was probably a special divine instrument, motivating Christians towards a month of prayer for selected Muslim countries, with the publication of a little booklet in the early 1990s. They referred to specific needs in a 31-day prayer guide.16 In turn, this appears to have been the model for the 30-day Muslim Prayer Focus that went around the globe during Ramadan in the years after 1993. (Since 2002 the Jewish Prayer Focus became an annual feature.)
International Moves
In 1983 Open Doors called Christians worldwide to pray for a period of seven years for the collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism. At conferences in Germany and Holland missionaries started praying more intensely for the truth to be revealed to Muslims from 1987.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 ushered in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. This was the equivalent of a spiritual earthquake, also for the Muslim world. Yet, Christians were generally not interested in Muslims at this time, let alone concerned enough to pray for them. Until the 1990s only very few missionaries volunteered for work in Muslim countries.
All this changed after Iraq’s troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. The run-up to the Gulf War sparked off the call by Open Doors for ten years of prayer for the Muslim World.
1992 was the year during which mission leaders decided to call Christians worldwide to pray for Muslims during Ramadan. Floyd McClung and other YWAM leaders had retreated to a secluded place in Egypt. There the Lord gave them the vision for prayer mobilization during Ramadan, printed as booklets that caused an unprecedented change in the Muslim world. The new prayer initiative was called Ramadan, a 30-day Muslim prayer Focus.
This was a natural follow-up to the call by Open Doors for ten years of prayer for the Muslim world in 1990. Everybody still vividly remembered the spectacular result of the seven years of prayer for the Soviet Union. The little 30-day Muslim Prayer Focus was printed and distributed around the Globe with information on different issues relating to Islam. This was repeated for many years until the internet option made its actual printing almost redundant.17



Surprising Results of 'Group Areas' Legislation

Already in 1940 the report of E. Beaudouin, which was presented to the Cape Town City Council, envisaged the following ‘Slum Clearance Projects’: (a) District Six (b) Malay Quarter (c) Docks Area. With regard to the latter area, also called Roggebaai, the eviction of ‘Coloured’ inhabitants caused no upheaval. Thus the Baptist Church in Jarvis Street in due course became the home of the Cape Town Photographic Society.

'Group Areas' promotes Islamic Expansion
After the passing of legislation by Parliament in 1950 to divide residential areas along racial lines however, many ‘Coloured’ communities living around Cape Town were destroyed. In 1961 large areas of the city were declared ‘White’ residential zones. This resulted in many ‘Coloureds’ moving into District Six, where overcrowding worsened. Many people who did not know anything about Islam, now came to know Muslims, who somehow spread the confusing message that ‘we have the same God’.
On May 7, 1961 Muslims gathered in the City Hall of Cape Town to launch the Call of Islam. This umbrella body of different Muslim organisations – founded by Imam Abdullah Haron – had the aim of opposing the Group Areas Act. In 1965 the Minister of Community Development and 'Coloured' Affairs, P.W. Botha – who was later to become Prime Minister – called District Six a ‘blighted area’. Talk of slum clearance started doing the rounds, setting the scene for events to follow. On 11 February 1966 District Six was declared a White residential area. In the insecurity that followed, landlords allowed buildings to go unrepaired, causing the District to become even more of a neglected residential area.
The opposition to the District Six declaration reverberated until well into the 1980s, which was one of the reasons that caused the government to slow down on the demolition of Bo-Kaap, which was deceptively called the ‘Malay Quarter’.
Group Areas legislation contributed
significantly to the regional spread of Islam
The Group Areas legislation probably contributed more to the regional spread of Islam than any other factor. In the 1950s Cape Muslims were still living in a predominantly concentrated area, in District Six and Bo-Kaap. The relatively slow growth of Islam of the 1950s was easily eclipsed by that of the three decades following 1970. The combined effect of the Group Areas legislation and other repressive laws, passed by the perceived Christian government, boiled down to a major boon to the spread of the religion. Bo-Kaap became even more of an Islamic stronghold. Those churches below Buitengracht Street that chose to stay put, namely St Paul’s (Anglican) and St Stephen’s (DRC), merely survived. Their members hereafter often had to travel great distances to attend services.
The apartheid ideology favoured Islam in three more ways: a) Christians who were involved in evangelism skipped Muslim homes, because the ‘Malays’ were considered to have their own religion; b) The entire Bo-Kaap was declared a residential area for ‘Muslim Malays’ already in 1952. The enforcement however only took place in the late 1960s and in the 1970s. By 1990 the area had become a Muslim stronghold without its equal anywhere in the country. c) Christians were the first to move out of District Six, also allowing their churches to be bulldozed. The Muslims stuck to their guns, not permitting anybody to demolish their sacred buildings. The seed of the fallacy was sown in this way that the District had been Islamic all along.

A Prayer Campaign in Resistance to Removals
By the mid-1980s District Six was a tract of wasteland because of the undermining of the implementation of the Group Areas legislation by a group that called themselves the Friends of District Six, an offspring of the District Six Ministers’ Fraternal. Resistance with regard to the removal of ‘Coloureds’ from District Six was started by a prayer campaign. The vehicle to carry the campaign was the District Six Ministers’ Fraternal, an energetic group of clergymen from a few local churches. Father Basil van Rensburg, who was based at the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church and who came to District Six with advertising skills in September 1978, launched a fund-raising initiative, along with the new prayer campaign: ‘our aim is to start in a small way with Holy Cross as a nucleus and gradually to build a forceful campaign of prayer and action until official thinking on District Six changes’.
The parish priest of St Philip’s Anglican Church expressed some of this commitment as he invited other congregations to join in prayer: ‘May we all by the Power of His Holy Spirit seek nothing else but a miracle from the Lord.’ Lay people were well-represented in the Friends of District Six movement. The campaign was not only successful in getting Whites to refrain from buying property in the ‘stained’ residential area, but it also helped to prevent Bo-Kaap suffering the same fate of being declared an area ‘for Whites only’.
From 1992 prayers were held in the Shepherd’s Watch at 98 Shortmarket Street for the reversal of the apartheid effect on Bo-Kaap every Friday between one and two o’clock in the afternoon, as well as for the Cape Muslims in the Straatwerk Koffiekamer from the mid-1990s.
Life Challenge begins
In the mid-1970s the missionary effort to the Muslims at the Cape was revived through the pioneering work of Gerhard and Hannelore Nehls. The German couple laboured hard for many years without seeing much in terms of fruit or local recognition. Nehls started with regular outreach to Muslims in the suburb of Salt River in 1980, later calling his work Life Challenge.
Churches remained rather
indifferent to Muslim Outreach
Support from the Cape churches was almost non-existent at the time. In fact, the churches remained rather indifferent to Muslim outreach in general. Even denominations that were very much involved in evangelism, like the Docks Mission and the City Mission, had little vision for the Muslims on their doorstep. Suburbs like Woodstock and Salt River had become increasingly Islamic, due in part to this indifference. Prostitution, drug abuse and the sale of houses to Muslims who had been tenants, were however the major factors, which pushed many Christians out of these residential areas during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Life Challenge and the initiative from the Dutch Reformed Church, started by Ds. Pypers, seemed to network quite well, especially while Ds. Chris Greyling was still the Sendingkerk man as successor of Ds. Pypers. Neville Truter became a follower of Jesus and later a co-worker from Dutch Reformed Church ranks after he was touched by a tract that was given to him by Gerhard Nehls when he sold his car to the German missionary in 1976.
A major contribution by Nehls was that he linked up with Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson, who respectively came from Madagascar and the island Reunion as Bible School students. John Gilchrist (Jesus to the Muslims) and Fred Nel (Eternal Outreach) joined forces with Nehls, Alain and Nicole in 1982 under the umbrella of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims). They later held annual conferences for all co-workers, in addition to a leadership consultation once a year.
A Xhosa-speaking female started Muslim outreach in
Bo-Kaap as preparation for missionary work
Significantly, one of the founder members was Gloria Cube, a Xhosa-speaking female, who started Muslim outreach in Bo-Kaap as preparation for missionary work with Africa Evangelical Fellowship.18
More Missionaries get on Board
Gerhard Nehls became God’s instrument for the recruitment of a string of German and Swiss missionaries. These Christian workers made little impact on Cape Islam, but they kept the consciences alive of those churches that did not jump on the inter-faith bandwagon with regard to their missionary duty to the Cape Muslims. Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson joined Youth for Christ in 1984, later becoming independent missionaries on behalf of TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission).
The Board of Youth For Christ agreed that a Muslim Outreach Department should be started. Alain Ravelo-Hoërson headed it. It had the support of the youth leaders of Athlone churches, and many dynamic Christian leaders like Peter Tarantal, Freddy Kammies, Selwyn Page and Wesley van Graan deepened their missionary vision in that ministry. Alain’s office in Kewtown played a big part in rallying together the churches in the area. Converts from Islam from that era are still serving the Lord. That ministry got the commendation of the local Police station because it caused a significant drop of the crime rate in the area.

7. Compassionate Cape Outreaches of the modern Era

The different ministries of compassion in the Cape in recent decades included people from a wide spectrum of religious persuasions going through their ranks at one stage or another. Just like the 20th century advance guard of compassion at the Cape, the Cape Town City Mission, other agencies and organizations like Alcoholics Victorious, The Ark in Westlake (now in Faure), Total Transformation and Trailblazers all had workers from a wide variety of churches amongst them. Some agencies like Youth with a Mission (YWAM), Straatwerk and Hudson McComb with Beth Uriel in Salt river have been reaching out in love to street children for decades. Many kids have been empowered at the Beautiful Gate in Muizenberg, spear-headed by a Dutch YWAM missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer. (We had met and befriended Aukje and Toby in Holland just prior to their and our departure for South Africa. In Cape Town we started off in 1992 with caring outreach to street children, but a ministry to Cape Muslims was soon dropped into our lap.) A problem which the bulk of these institutions experienced, was that local churches never really bought into their vision. It remained the ‘baby’ of individuals. Another valid critical note is that the evangelistic work amongst the ‘down and outs’ has been very uncoordinated and fragmented, making it difficult for churches without any compassionate outlet, to respond regularly. An element of competition and unhealthy rivalry sometimes wrecked good intentions.

Compassionate Outreach in Nightclubs
A special outreach with compassion into the city nightclubs from the early 1970s was based in St Stephen's Church till 2008. The old Tafelberg Hotel of District Six was for some years utilized as a home for new converts. This ministry started amongst the youth of the White Dutch Reformed Church congregation of Wynberg and was birthed in prayer when the question arose whether the original spontaneous outreach should become a permanent feature. Ds. Pietie Victor,19 who began his theological training in Stellenbosch in 1964, founded the endeavour with his wife Annette, a social worker.  Only four young people of the fairly big youth group were initially prepared to join Pietie and Annette Victor for outreach on the streets and in the nightclubs on Friday and Saturday nights, but many of them came for Bible Study and prayer before the group left for the outreach that would take them into the early hours of the morning. This eventually grew into an outreach of many part-time workers on Friday and Saturday nights, many of these workers being students who travelled from various quarters to join the regular outreaches. Yearly training camps for part time workers drew great numbers (up to 200 attending, and a good percentage of them joining the regular outreaches).
One of the criticisms thrown at Pietie Victor, who finished his theological studies at the end of 1971, was that he was a liberal. The reason for this was that they served people from all races in their mobile coffee bar - a Microbus, which they parked in front of St Stephen’s Dutch Reformed Church in Bree Street under a street lamp. There they served those whom they had brought from the streets with sandwiches and coffee. That was however the reason for St Stephen’s inviting them into their premises and offering two of their cellar rooms for the use of the coffee bar. What an irony of history followed. The ‘Coloured’ congregation that was still linked to the Groote Kerk, now hosted White young people. Even a greater irony followed when the premises that had been the source of conflict in 1842, now functioned as a Straatwerk coffee bar in a ministry of compassion and love. (It had been a section of the school where a little more than a century before this, manumitted slaves learned to read and write. That had been the main bone of contention - the reason for the church receiving its name, after being pelted with stones by angry White colonists.) For many decades, the Straatwerk Koffiekamer at 108 Bree Street remained a blessing to many destitute people.20
Loaves and Fishes
A special exception was a project to serve the homeless, which developed in the Observatory/Salt River surrounds. The ministers’ fraternal of this area started a holistic shelter that they called loaves and Fishes, which obviously took its cue from the biblical narrative where Jesus multiplied the contribution of a little boy among the multitude. Opposition came promptly from Muslims in the residential area that is not called klein Mekka ((small Mecca) for nothing. Possibly it still is second as a Muslim stronghold only to Bo-Kaap, with a strong Islamic presence and a weak Christian witness. In stead of retreating - as it happened in a few other cases of the mid-1990s because of the PAGAD threat - Christians reacted with a two-pronged reply. A few believers went to go and pray at the appointed venue and Ds. Ben Kotze approached the Muslim Judicial Council on behalf of the Ministers’ Fraternal to explain what they were about to do.

Black Families fight to be together21
Strictly speaking one would not expect to find the work of the rather secular Black Sash in a book of this nature, but their contribution in the scrapping of influx control - where Black married couples could be prohibited from living together as husband and wife - should be duly honoured. Mr Veli Komani, a resident of Gugulethu township, qualified for living in the Cape because he had lived in the city for more than 15 years and he could prove that he worked for the same employer for ten years. He proceeded to challenge the vicious influx control laws when he took action on behalf of his wife, Noceba Komani, so that she could come and live with him in Gugulethu. When she came to the Cape in 1974 she was given permission to live with Veli Komani temporarily. She had to get a lodger's permit but first had to get employment. In a typical catch 22 situation she however had to be in possession of a residence permit to get the lodger's permit. When she failed to procure this, she was required to leave. Mr Komani proceeded to the Cape Supreme Court. It took him a further three years to get a judgement, which upheld the decision of the authorities. Upon intervention by the Athlone Office of the Black Sash, a young Mr Geoff Budlender, an attorney linked to the Legal Resource Centre, was to make his mark. A brilliant performance by Advocate Arthur Chaskalson turned the tables on the government at the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein. 'It was a dramatic victory, a triumph for the lawyering of Chaskalson, Kentridge and Budlender and the tenacity of Komani'.
For quite a few years hereafter government bureaucrats sought to subvert the effect. But seed was sown. A blow was struck against the pass laws, ultimately to be repealed in the mid-1980s.

Compassionate Challenges to Apartheid
The run-up to our risky honeymoon in South Africa in 1975 – the result of government bungling and red-tape - and further visits to the country in 1978 and 1981 - became harbingers of quiet acts of defiance and opposition to two series of laws, viz. those around racially mixed relationships and those around so-called Influx Control, which restricted Blacks severely if they wanted to come to the cities, disrupting Black family life in a big way. Thus women from the ‘homelands’ were not allowed to join their husbands. The care for ‘illegal’ Black women by Celeste Santos, a White nun gave dignity to the shack dwellers of the informal settlements of Modderdam, KTC and Crossroads. (Celeste ‘illegally’ married Rommel Roberts, a ‘Coloured’ candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood. The couple had only been married in church and not legally in terms of South African Law, which prohibited marriage across the racial divide. Thus she could not adopt his surname.)
The visit of Rommel and Celeste to Holland in 1980, the pregnancy of Celeste and the loss of their first baby combined to get my wife Rosemarie deeply involved in the plight of the ‘illegals of Nyanga and Crossroads’ during our six-month stay in South Africa. (That stint followed the death of my sister in December 1980, who had contracted leukaemia.)

SACLA Clinic in Crossroads
In 1980 a young physician, Dr Ivan Toms, launched the SACLA Clinic in Crossroads as a sequel to the big inter-denominational event in Pretoria in 1979. This was the first of its kind, after various denomi-nations had started their own ministries of compassion in the informal settlement.
Some Stellenbosch Missiology students under Professor Nico Smith were worried that their denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), seemed to be unperturbed by what was happening in Crossroads. Prof. Smith became very controversial when he heeded their request to take a group of DRC (White) theological students to the informal settlement in 1981. After being called to book in an aftermath of the event, Professor Smith agreed to refrain from making a statement to the secular press. He did subsequently, however, publish his statement in what became a front-page report of the Kerkbode. In his statement, Professor Smith criticized the government for its handling of the Nyanga ‘squatters’. Even more unconventionally, he lashed the church for its non-involvement in the situation. He and his students challenged the Dutch Reformed Church to highlight the ‘painful policy’ of resettlement and migratory labour. The influence of Professor Smith reverberated in later across the country via his students, even to far away places like Ermelo in the former Eastern Transvaal.
Homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads
scored one moral victory after the other

We returned to Germany and Holland in June 1981, unaware of the effect, which our involvement in Crossroads and Nyanga would continue to have. Only many years later did I read of how the homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads had scored one moral victory after the other, encouraging many Blacks to resist the oppressive race policies. The compassion and concern of individual Christians like Celeste Santos and her friend Nomangezi, whose shack was subsequently burnt down by hate-filled Blacks who could not palate her friendship to a White, were major catalysts to this end.
Church Defiance of Apartheid
The plight and determination of the women of KTC, Nyanga and Crossroads probably played a role in another sense. Churches now started to take a clearer stand in opposition to apartheid laws. Rev. Rob Robertson and our friend Rev. Douglas Bax played a crucial role in the political stand of the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa as a denomination (PCSA).22 In the end newspaper posters lined the Johannesburg streets with massive black letters: CHURCH TO DEFY MARRIAGE LAW. A few Presbyterian ministers married a number of racially mixed couples. The marriages were registered and kept in the central office of the PCSA. When other Churches also supported the Assembly’s decision on the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, this sparked a political debate that even­tually led in 1985 to the abolition of this keystone of apartheid legislation and with it the notorious section 16 of the Immorality Act which prohibited sexual intercourse between Whites and any other race.
Church Involvement increased
We are very thankful that we could contribute in a small way towards the repeal of these laws, as well as the one against influx control that prohibited Black women to be with their husbands in the cities of South Africa. It gave me great satisfaction that church involvement increased also in other parts of the country. Thus Patrick Nooman, a Catholic priest, reported how ‘informal and illegal political meetings were taking place in homes and churches across the Vaal triangle.’ This became the run-up to the smouldering human rage that exploded in a cluster of townships south of Johannesburg on Monday, 3 September 1984. At least seventy men, women and children died during the violence that spread across those five townships. That ultimately led to the trial of the Sharpeville Six, young men between 24 and 32 years old, which was due to get known around the world.
Church defiance of Apartheid, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak, would ultimately lead to a big conference in Rustenburg in November 1990, which became a major catalyst of change in the country at large.
A wide Spectrum of Ministries
In Salt River Hudson McComb was moved by compassion for street youths, starting Beth Uriel, a facility at which believers would care for unfortunate homeless young people. In the City Bowl a church-related ministry for street children called Homestead was started as one of the first of its kind, soon followed by Ons Plek, a similar refuge for girls by the Methodist Church. (We linked up with the former ministry during our first few months at the Cape. The ministry to street children was however not confirmed. Instead, there had been many indications that we should move into Muslim Evangelism.)
The Haven was another church-initiated ministry to the homeless. In this case it was later taken over by the City Council, with daughter institutions at new venues.
Prostitution became a big problem amongst the Cape population, notably in Woodstock and Hanover Park, but also affecting previously protected communities like Bo-Kaap. Christians had challenged some of these prostitutes. One such group was led by Marge Ballin, who was linked to YWAM. In due course she started an independent ministry with a safe house called Balm of Gilead Ministries. In this compassionate outreach to prostitutes she networked closely with Madri Bruwer of Straatwerk, who led a similar ministry.
Hannes van der Merwe, a former school teacher, has been connected to the ministry of Straatwerk for decades.  His OPHELP Projekte became the pivot of Straatwerk’s efforts to minister compassionately to street [children] people / destitute and to the [poor] desperate. OPHELP Projekte was specially devised to give some dignity to the homeless, by giving them some income on a basis of job shifts. Many workers, including refugees from various African countries, would proclaim the message Jesus Saves23 in the streets of Cape Town from the early years of the new millennium. Ophelp Projekte was specially devised to give dignity to the homeless, by giving them some income on a basis of job shifts.
A Ministry for Homosexuals and sexual Abuse Victims
A much needed and blessed ministry for a tendency towards homosexuality and people who had suffered under sexual abuse was based at Cape Town Baptist Church. The border between being discreet and veiling everything in secrecy was understandably not easy to maintain. All too often whole families were duped in the process. Just like it had been the case with Freemasonry and the Afrikaner Broederbond24 in the past, this provided the arch enemy with fertile ground. In 2001 all church activity was thrown in disarray at the congregation that had been a bastion of evangelism in the Mother City over many decades. The fellowship from which so many seeds for revival was sown, still has to recover fully from the setback of that period.
A Bergie becomes a Pastor
Pastor Willie Martheze, a qualified welder from Mitchells Plain, was still a so-called bergie, a vagrant, when he was initially ministered to.
Jesus found me first!
Humorously he would recollect how he had been such a good-for-nothing alcoholic that his own mother sent the police and the gangsters after him. ‘But Jesus found me first’, he proclaimed. Willie Martheze was radically delivered by the Gospel after attending an evangelistic service on the Grand Parade in February 1974, where the Scottish missionary Pastor Gay preached. Soon hereafter, the latter got a job for Martheze at the Arthur’s Seat Hotel in Sea Point. The prayerful ministry of Pastor Gay in District Six caused him to at tend an evening course at the Bethel Bible School in Crawford.
Obedient to God’s voice after seeing a very destitute vagrant, Martheze followed a call to work with homeless people, with the intention of ministering healing to them. One of the aims was to empower the homeless, to enable them to return to the homes they had left. In the spiritual realm it was significant that Pastor Martheze was allowed to use facilities at the Azaad Youth Centre, one of the few buildings that remained intact from the old District Six. (This complex was the former Preparatory School in Upper Ashley Street.) He and his wife were blessed to see quite a few of the homeless changed dramatically for the better, and some of them returned to their families.

More Outreach to Cape Jews
The Dutch Reformed Church pioneered the ministry to Cape Jews in the 20th century, remaining apparently to this day the only denomination that formally had missionaries consistently set aside to minister to the Jews. The Mildmay Mission appointed E. Reitmann for work among the Jews. As many as 200 Jews attended at the Mission Hall in Sea Point. In 1929 Peter Salzberg, a converted Jew from Poland, came to the Cape via the Mildmay Mission to the Jews in London, joining up with the Hebrew Christian Alliance, the worldwide movement of Messianic Jews. He was not here at the Cape very long when he passed away. His son Peter, who had just started as a missionary doctor in Angola, came in his place, working here until his retirement in 1972(3). Salzberg (junior) led many a Jew to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. (The Mission returned to the Cape in 2003 under their new name The Messianic Testimony.)
The world was stunned in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed. Suddenly it was realized that what was regarded as one of the most unlikely biblical prophesies, was actually being fulfilled. Jews started planning to return to Israel as never before. Cape Town also played a role in a new turning to the ‘Old Testament’ when the first heart transplant world-wide was performed on 3 December 1967 on Louis Washkansky, a Jew. The prophecy of Jeremiah that the Almighty wants to substitute the repentant hearts of stone with a heart of flesh, received a new actuality in evangelism. The world-wide acknowledgement by Jews - to regard Jesus as their Messiah - suddenly became more of a possibility.
The Dutch Reformed Church appointed various ministers in their Mission to the Jews until 1983 when Dr Francois Wessels became their man. He is still linked to this ministry. Cecilia Burger was appointed in 1975 to reach out to Jewish women and to help create awareness within the denomination regarding their responsibility of bringing the Gospel to the Jews.
Peter Eliastam, a very creative Messianic Jewish believer, reached out to Jews through an exhibition called Homage to the Messiah. Rodney Mechanic, a Jew, came to faith in Jesus as Messiah under his ministry and influence. Later Rodney Mechanic became a minister in the Anglican Church. After coming to the Cape, Rodney started an outreach ministry to Jewish people called Messiah’s People under the auspices of Church’s Ministry among Jewish People (CMJ). Doogie St. Clair-Laing took over from Rodney Mechanic when Rodney left for the UK and Edith Sher later joined this ministry.
Over the years a number of Jewish people came to recognize Jesus as their Messiah. Services with believers were held in homes until they began regular services. After a few changes of location, the fellowship moved to the Three Anchor Bay Dutch Reformed Church where they had Friday evening services for a number of years. From the word go people from Gentile background attended the services with the Messianic Jewish component in the minority. From the 1980s annual conferences with prominent speakers were held. Christians came from far afield to attend these occasions. For many of them it was very special to discover the Jewish roots of their faith.
In 2008 Messiah's People hosted their first mini-conference at Christ Church in Kenilworth called Roots and Shoots. The former associate minister of Christ Church, Rev. John Atkinson, is the director of Messiah’s People (South Africa) and the International Director of CMJ, the organisation’s parent body. For ten years Doogie St. Clair-Laing broadcast a fortnightly half hour programme on CCFM Radio called Messiah’s People. John Atkinson and Edith Sher took over from Doogie five years ago upon his retirement. It became an hour long weekly show and Edith now hosts the programme on her own. Herschel Raysman, who came from a Jewish background, came to believe in Jesus as his Messiah when he linked up with the Jesus People in the 1970s. In later years he was to lead the Beit Ariel Messianic congregation in Sea Point. From 2007 Cecilia Burger, as area coordinator for the international Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism (LCJE), became a link between the various Christian agencies reaching out to Jewish people under the umbrella of the LCJE.

Prison Ministry
An evangelistic effort that has mushroomed over the past decades has been the prison ministry. A few role-players deserve special mention. Among the early pioneers of brave compassionate evangelistic outreach to the political prisoners at Robben Island and prisoners at the Roeland Street Prison, Pastor Walter Ackermann of the Docks Mission and Rev. Theo Kotze, the Methodist minister of Sea Point in the 1960s and 1970s, were quite prominent. Pastor Ron Hendricks, a Baptist clergyman, ministered at Pollsmoor Prison from his church base at Silvertown, a township near Athlone, since its early days.
Eric Hofmeyer summarized his life as ‘a disaster changed by the Master, and now serving Him as a pastor.’ He had been a gangster when he came to faith in Christ. In the 1990s Hofmeyer counselled many inmates in the massive Pollsmoor Prison. Quite a number of these inmates came to a personal faith in Christ over the years.
Johaar Viljoen, who had won over many Christians to Islam, came to faith in Jesus in the prison of the rural town of Caledon. His conversion in 1992 - a demonstration of the power of prayer - shook many Islamic inmates who regarded him as their prison imam. Viljoen was well-versed in the Bible and the literature of Ahmed Deedat, who had been his hero. Before his conversion in the Caledon prison, Viljoen frustrated the evangelistic efforts of Christian workers there. Three of those workers decided to respond to him with spiritual warfare through prayer and fasting.
Imam Viljoen was overwhelmed when
he compared the narration of the
near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22
When Viljoen studied the Bible - in order to fight the Christians better - he was overwhelmed when he compared the narration of the near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 with the Qur’anic version.
Prisoners have also been impacted in the countryside, such as those at the youth prison near Wellington, where young inmates voluntarily started to attend Bible studies, with David Bliss being prominent there.
A former Inmate became a Prison Chaplain
A former prisoner at Pollsmoor Prison, Jonathan Clayton, developed a special concern for prisoners. His conversion was the fruit of the prayers of his family and friends, including his future wife Jenny Adams, an Africa Evangelical Fellowship missionary. Clayton attended the Cape Town Baptist Seminary after his release, and, while he was still a theological student, started to minister in Pollsmoor Prison on Saturday mornings. Members of the Strandfontein Baptist Church, the home congregation of his wife, assisted him. In 1999 Clayton became a prison chaplain.

Next to many other inmates, Pastor Ron Hendricks challenged Rashied Staggie at Pollsmoor. The conversion of Staggie in 1999 would cause a major stir among Cape Muslims. Eric Hofmeyer discipled Rashied Staggie’s brother Sollie while he was imprisoned.
Shona Allie, a Seventh Day Adventist from Muslim background, has been powerfully and divinely used in prisons around the country. Shona Allie angered many Muslims when she honestly stated her conviction - in a mosque of all places - that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, and that he died on the cross for our sins. Throughout the country, prisons have been influenced by her ministry. Ruweyda Abdullah is another Muslim background believer who became involved in the ministry at Pollsmoor. Initially unskilled with no tertiary education, she was part of a pilot project in the training and rehabiliatating of inmates in 1998. This led to ultimate national implementation. She also studied via UNISA, earning a position on the Parole Board on a contract basis when this was established in 2004.
A special ministry started with Pastor Emmanuel Danchimah, a Nigerian national when he networked with Marius Boden to beam Gospel messages with a car radio at Pollsmoor. This developed into fully fledged in-house radio and television transmissions, which impact many inmates as some of them discovered their giftings in the process.
Ministry to AIDS/HIV patients
At a time when AIDS was still being mentioned covertly, there was almost no ministry to people who suffered from HIV and AIDS. A ministry with close links to the Cape Town City Mission started when Val Kadalie, a trained nurse, had a deep concern for young people who contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). She was invited to speak in many churches and schools - to warn young people about the dangers of promiscuity and encourage them to abstain from pre-marital sex. After Ms. Kadalie became the matron of the G.H. Starke Centre in Hanover Park, the institution also started functioning as a hospice for terminal patients. She warned her staff in the late 1980s that they might soon have to treat AIDS patients. Her colleagues were thus ready for that, trained to care for people with HIV and AIDS long before they received their first request.
The test came when she and her husband, Charles Kadalie, were approached to take care of a four-year old boy, Jason, who was HIV positive. One day, when Charles put the phone down at the electric power plant in Athlone where he was working,25 he sensed that God was challenging them as a couple to practise what they preached. Jason was the first of four children they cared for in succession, until all but one died from AIDS.
Val Kadalie became a pioneer
fighter for AIDS awareness
In the process Val Kadalie became a pioneer fighter for AIDS awareness throughout the country, responding to calls from churches and groups of the most diverse backgrounds.
Nazareth House, a Roman Catholic institution in the City Bowl, performed the same work during this period, as the occurrence of HIV-positive babies started to increase. At the building in Vredehoek where the Roman Catholic Church had already started caring for orphaned children and destitute elderly since 1888, they pioneered with the care of HIV-positive/AIDS babies in 1992, possibly the first outreach of this nature in South Africa.
Toby and Aukje Brouwer, a Dutch YWAM missionary couple, soon took on the care of AIDS babies after their successful pioneering ministry amongst street children called Beautiful Gate. In 1999 they started to care for HIV-positive and AIDS-infected little ones with government aid in Crossroads, a Black township. Since then, their ministry has expanded to neighbouring countries. On 8 December 2004 a new centre was opened in Lower Crossroads. Broken lives were restored and in the case of at least one young man, a desire was born to enter missionary work.
In the southern suburbs of the metropolis, Pastor John Thomas and his wife Avril were moved in 1999 to start with HIV and AIDS-related ministry. They soon built a hospice to care for people with HIV and AIDS, beginning a ministry of prevention and support which today reaches thousands of people.
A Father pays a high Price for his Faith
Ali Behardien, a Cape Muslim accountant from Paarl, courted major problems when he became a conscious follower of Jesus in 1985. His own father suggested that he should leave the region. He then went to Mmabatho in Bophuthatswana where he stayed for six and a half years. Thereafter he returned to the Western Cape where he engaged in theological studies, finally attaining a Ph.D. under Prof. Dirkie Smit. In 1994 he addressed the Toringkerk Dutch Reformed congregation in Paarl, sharing his testimony of how he became a follower of Jesus. Soon hereafter his son was shot and killed by an unknown hitman draped in 'Yasser Arafat gear'. That garb soon became known as the PAGAD trademark in the Western Cape. Just like Professor Johan Heyns, a prominent Afrikaner theologian, who was also assassinated at that time, the killers have still to be identified. This was a high price Dr Behardien had to pay for his faith as a father because the young man had actually been raised as a Christian. But perhaps this was also some of the seed of martyrs at the Cape. More Cape Muslims came to the Lord in the years hereafter than before.
A special Vision for abandoned Babies
Zulpha Morris, a Muslim lady who became a follower of Jesus after receiving supernatural visions in July 1998, had much opposition when she was divinely called to take care of abandoned babies. However, within less than two years Zulpha and her husband Abdul cared for more than 30 children in their township home in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain. This led to a few extensions to their house. The garage was converted for accommodation purposes and the yard at the back became a sewing workshop for women. A container, in which diverse goods and furniture had come from Holland, was part of God’s special provision to get this project off the ground. (The original content of the container was intended for our discipling house in which persecuted and evicted new believers would be accommodated.) In due course a dilapidated building in the crime and drug-infested Woodlands township in Mitchells Plain was purchased. Her husband Abdul did the renovations there mostly alone.
An updated Hole in the Wall
At the beginning of the new millennium Rosalia ‘Rosie’ Mashale started taking in abandoned babies after a newborn baby boy had been left on her doorstep in Khayelitsha. A high-tech baby flap with cot, camera and alarm constituted an updated ‘hole in the wall’. As soon as a baby is placed through the hole in the wall, a ‘baby detector’ alarm is immediately triggered inside the main house of the Baphumelele Centre, that was started 23 years ago by Rosie Mashale. The babies had been thrown away in bushes, toilets, on railway tracks and in rubbish bins. She tries to find adoption homes for all the babies.
An Afrikaner Woman is changed
Dr Elize Morkel grew up as an Afrikaner on an apple farm in the Grabouw area, very much influenced by Dutch Reformed theology. While at Stellenbosch University she sensed a calling to serve the Lord full-time, but she was turned down for being female.26 Instead, she studied Psychology and Education, and set up a successful psychiatric practice for affluent patients in Somerset West.
In the course of her work, Dr Morkel met colleagues who grew up in disadvantaged communities such as District Six. Increasingly she became very unsure of the ideological and theological legacy of her own Afrikaner upbringing. Parallel to that, powerful feelings of guilt developed in her around everything that apartheid - and the subtle indoctrination linked to it - had caused. She resolved to compensate for it by putting aside one day in the week for service to the poor. However, the result of all this was an overwhelming sense of complete inability. Dr Morkel experienced one sleepless night after another as she became so deeply aware of the needs of the poor and her own helplessness. Extreme depression and finally burn-out followed. It was two years before she was healed. She was determined not to return to her old environment. She took a big step of faith, giving away her psychiatric practice to her former colleagues.
A new Beginning
Dr Morkel decided to practice restitution by getting involved in education among the economically and socially disadvantaged. Her offer to a school inspector resulted in her having to minister to five delinquent kids at a Muslim school in Rusthof, the ‘Coloured’ residential area of Strand.
The problem was like a mountain to Dr Morkel and she was only too happy that it happened just before the winter school holidays. A visit by an educationist from New Zealand to the Cape at that time was to her like a gift from heaven. The gentleman agreed to work alongside her to tackle the bad reputation of the boys. She was very much encouraged when Mr Fanie, the school principal, assisted her by winning over the local community’s co-operation in the attempt to tackle the reputation of the five learners. It subsequently became a significant success story in the lives of four of these boys.
At first, Dr Morkel and her husband were challenged, but then blessed when a close bond developed with Mr Fanie and his wife. Friendships across the racial and religious divides were still far from common in their environment around the turn of the millennium. For Dr Morkel, the exercise in itself was therapeutic and she learned a technique that she now calls ‘compassionate witnessing.’ During this process she listens carefully to her clients to discern what God was trying to teach her. She then shares this with her clients that truth to the person or people from whom she had learned it.
The harmony displayed in the course of her interaction with the community of Rusthof augured well for the future. It sowed seeds that were to germinate in the xenophobia events of May 2008 when the Helderberg area played a significant role in pioneering the way towards reconciliation between displaced refugee Africans and the local communities.

8. Rebels against the Status Quo

Rev. George Buckley, Vice President of World Literature Crusade, a New Zealander who also ministered powerfully at the Cape, cited prayer as legitimate rebellion against the status quo. Dr Charles Robertson used this tenet for a chapter in his booklet ‘South Africa: the miracle of little waves.’ For most of the 20th century, racial separation was the major dividing factor in the country, possibly deterring spiritual renewal more than anything else. The third quarter of the century fortunately had many rebels against the apartheid status quo in different parts of the country. One of the ways in which they undermined the apartheid regime was through benevolent ministries.
Low-key Compassion
Through the centuries spiritual renewal was accompanied by charitable involvement with the poor and needy. The Cape Town City Mission, with its modest start at the beginning of the 20th century in District Six, soon had no less than four congregations in District Six.
Pastor Fenner Kadalie was destined to become
the key to the massive expansion of the city’s
most well-known institution of compassion
Pastor Fenner Kadalie, a son of the famous trade unionist Clements Kadalie, became one of the most well-known sons of the mission. Influencd by the missionary work in District Six when he was seven years old, Kadalie was destined to become the key to the massive expansion of the Mother City’s most well-known institution of compassion. When the community was forced out of District Six by the demonic Group Areas legislation, Fenner Kadalie and his right hand, the young Bruce Duncan, gathered the scattered remnants of the District Six fellowships, ministering to their needs in their new homes on the Cape Flats. Kadalie was a catalyst for the birth of many upliftment projects in and around Cape Town.
Under the inspiring leadership of Pastors Bruce Duncan and Fenner Kadalie, the denomination grew rapidly in the 1970s, and was involved in various ministries to those in need. Duncan became an unsung hero of the ‘struggle’ against apartheid. He was not formally involved with politics, but he dared to speak out against the injustice of it and communicated at the same time 'with anyone from Constantia to Hanover Park and gained credibility with gang lords that few others have achieved’.
Meeting places of the Cape Town City Mission developed into fully-fledged churches. The story has been told of a young man with an 'afro' hair style who walked into one of these churches while Pastor Barry Isaacs was preaching. The young man, Lorenzo Davids, kept coming back until he eventually committed his life to Christ, serving together with Pastor Isaacs as leaders of The Cape Town City Mission in the new millennium. By organising early Saturday morning prayer meetings in the chambers of the metropolitan Civic Centre, Barry Isaacs would play an important role in spiritual renewal in the city from October 2007.
Susan Benjamin represents one of the many success stories of the City Mission and its’ role in her life made her one of the featured women in the book, Women who changed the heart of the City. She and her husband had been heavy drinkers when Jesus rescued them through the ministry of the City Mission. When the family was forced to leave District Six, Benjamin asked the City Mission to hold meetings in her home. That became the start of many new congregations across the Western Cape. And her children became stalwarts in the denomination.

Abraham Lincoln’s Example affects a Key Leader
After he was converted through a Billy Graham sermon in 1955, Robert Footner27 reasoned intensely with Southern African student Michael Cassidy in their dormitory at Cambridge University. During his return voyage to Cape Town on board a steamer in February 1959, Cassidy was deeply moved by a quote from John Foster Fraser: 'When God desires to shake, shock or shape any age to save sinners, he always chooses men.' The Holy Spirit challenged Cassidy to be that man for Africa, more especially for South Africa. Immediately after his arrival in Cape Town, God used Archbishop Joost de Blank to refer to the neglect of evangelicals regarding ‘incarnational responsibilities’: ‘Then Joost said if only a man would arise who could confront the country with the necessity of synthesising the spiritual as well as political and social responsibilities of the gospel, the Church would make real progress here. He added: “perhaps you are the man to do this”.
The Holy Spirit challenged Cassidy to be that man for Africa, more especially for South Africa. Cassidy took up that challenge.

The Bible verse starting with ‘if my people humble themselves and pray …’ (2 Chronicles 7:14) became one of Michael Cassidy’s favourites. He used the example of Abraham Lincoln, the great 18th century American President, to challenge John Vorster and Ian Smith, the prime ministers of South Africa and Rhodesia28 (for much of the 1970s), to do the same, by giving them a copy each of Lincoln’s biography with the title Abraham Lincoln, Theologian of American Anguish. Cassidy himself would be God’s special instrument in the turbulent period of our country since 1985.
The example of President Abraham Lincoln also had a personal touch for the author. A side effect of my studies at the Moravian Seminary in District Six was that I lost much of my zeal for evangelism. Gradually that zeal was substituted with political activism, which however did not exclude a prayerful attitude. Thus, early one October morning in 1972, as I was praying for the country, I felt constrained to write a letter to the Prime Minister. In this letter, I addressed him with ‘Liewe’ (dear). That was something extraordinary. My natural feelings towards Mr Vorster were definitely not charitable. In my letter I challenged Mr Vorster to allow himself to be used by God like President Lincoln in the USA, to lead the nation in the ways of God. Basically however, it was a letter of criticism that could have catapulted me into hot water. I was fortunate that I only received a reprimand from Mr Vorster. It was the standard reply to people who objected to the racial policies of the country on religious grounds. In this reply, which was actually a superficial document into which only the name of the recipient was inserted cleverly with an electric typewriter (computers were still generally unknown), the Prime Minister implied that I was ‘making politics’ under the guise of religion.29
The Role of the Church in Reconciliation
The fear of a serious backlash after a takeover by a Black government in the 1970s and 1980s was quite pervasive among White communities and very understandable. The sparsely populated Botswana was the only country in Africa at that time where there had been a fairly smooth transition to democracy, a country with very few Whites. There had been warning voices from the side of individual White South African clergymen because of the country’s oppressive race policy, but they went unheeded. The role of Black spokesmen like Bishop Desmond Tutu was even less appreciated in the 1970s, especially when they referred to the bondage of Whites by racial prejudice.
Yet, valuable seed was sown towards racial reconciliation by Black clergy who had a good track record. One of them was Bishop Alpheus Zulu, who had been one of the few delegates of colour at the WCC-convened consultation in Cottesloe, a suburb of Johannesburg from 7-14 December, 1960. In his T.B. Davie Memorial Lecture at UCT in 1972, Bishop Zulu hopefully opened the eye of many a White person when he stated: ‘… Some black people... refuse consciously and deliberately to retaliate…
Long before the Soweto uprising he however also warned in the same lecture: ‘At the same time it would be a grave mistake to presume to think that such attitudes will survive callous white discrimination.’ Warnings by him and Bishop Tutu were however not heeded by the authorities.
Cape Build-up to Soweto June 1976
Thousands of Blacks continued to come into the Western Cape in the 1970s in spite of the government intention to finally remove Blacks from the region. About 100 shacks were built secretively at Werkgenot, near to the University of the Western Cape, but unknown to almost everyone except the ‘squatters’ themselves. Selected shacks were knocked down and women arrested while their husbands were at work. Finally two ‘squatters’ brought a suit against the Bantu Affairs Administrative Board for destruction of property. The judge ruled in favour of the ‘squatters’, lecturing the officials to respect the little possessions the ‘squatters’ had. The Board did not contest the ruling, but their officials continued to harass the ‘squatters’. Pretoria would of course not allow itself to be challenged by Blacks. In the ensuing parliamentary debate Dr van Zyl Slabbert, a former Sociology lecturer of Stellenbosch, valiantly gave an analysis of the situation, defending the ‘squatters’. The government was undeterred. A new law, the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Amendment Act of 1976, came onto the statute books. No longer would a court order be needed to demolish a shack.
The Werkgenot ‘squatters’ would not
take everything lying down
The Werkgenot ‘squatters’ would not take everything lying down. While Parliament was debating the new law, they constructed new shacks in the bushes just off Modderdam Road, not so far from where they had been evicted. The 'squatter camp' of Modderdam soon became a test of the government’s renewed war against Western Cape ‘squatters’. By the end of May 1976 more than a hundred shacks had been erected and the police was now also aware of their presence.
The first heavy winter rain fell during the night of June 2, 1976. This did not deter the police pounding at the doors of the shanties and demanding passes. While policemen with heavy raincoats herded Black women to parked cars, about thirty ‘squatter’ men – armed with clubs, pick handles and stones - surrounded three policemen who stood apart from the rest. The ensuing battle of about half an hour was followed by a procession along Modderdam Road in a strange combination of hymn singing and the stoning of passing cars. At about 1 a.m. the police sealed off the road. The Cape Times reported the next day that 30 ‘squatters’ had been arrested and two policemen were hospitalized. Rev. Louis Banks reacted on behalf of the Western Province Council of Churches, calling the incident ‘a direct outgrowth of the law.’
Someone must have been praying for me
While we were visiting the Cape – having come from Holland as a racially mixed small family with our one- and a-half year-old son Danny in November 1978 - I was terribly angered by the reaction of the Moravian Church Board chairperson to my suggestion to come and work in South Africa. This coincided with the response of the government when we wanted to travel in the same train compartment as a family of three from Cape Town to Johannesburg. My expectation in both cases was actually unreasonable and unrealistic, but all the same I was hereafter determined not to put my foot on South African soil again.
I had one last carnal wish - to worship with Dr Beyers Naudé, the gigantic rebel against the apartheid status quo, who was basically under house arrest. (He was only allowed to attend church at that time.)
Determination to fight the demonic Apartheid Ideology
With a few believers linked to Moral Rearmament, Rosemarie and I visited the church that the late Dr Naudé and his wife attended. I had intended that visit to be my farewell gesture of solidarity with the politically oppressed of the country.
After the church service we also met Ds. Joop Lensink, a Dutch national, who ministered to Blacks in the mining compounds! A miracle happened that Sunday when I was changed from within through the visits to the Naudé and Lensink homes.
I became more determined
than ever to fight the
apartheid ideology
In His sovereign way God made me more determined than ever through these visits to fight the apartheid ideology, endeavouring to bring about racial reconciliation in my home country.
After our return to Holland following the six-week visit in 1978, I saw a ministry of reconciliation even more as my personal duty to the country of my birth. After reading in the newspaper that a church delegation from the influential (White) Dutch Reformed Church - including Professors Johan Heyns and Willie Jonker - was in Holland to attend some church synod in Lunteren, I took the initiative to meet them. I saw this as a possibility to make amends for my stubbornness and headstrong refusal to meet Professor Heyns on our visit to Johannesburg the previous year. However, the only possibility that Dr Heyns could offer me was to meet him and the delegation at Schiphol Airport just before their return to South Africa. This I did. These church leaders would be quite influential in bringing significant change to the Dutch Reformed Church in the following years.
Aftermath of my Schiphol Airport Rendezvous
From my airport rendezvous stemmed a superficial correspondence with Professor Heyns in which I encouraged him to include theologians of colour like Dr Allan Boesak in the plans of the denomination for overhauling a booklet on race relations in the church.30 Indirectly I also tried to reconcile the two theologians, who were respectively leading the influential “Broederbond” and “Broederkring”. (I knew from our student days how excited Allan had been about Heyns, his lecturer in Biblical Studies at the University College of the Western Cape).
Personal Attempts at Reconciliation
My personal understanding of a ministry also aimed at trying to heal rifts where I discerned them. Next to the attempt to bring together Professor Johan Heyns and Dr Allan Boesak, I also tried to reconcile Bishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak. The latter, along with his Broederkring colleagues, were angry at the likes of Tutu - who was still prepared to talk to President Botha. My effort to bring Boesak and Heyns together was unsuccessful, but I was happy to hear later that Bishop Desmond Tutu and my former evangelism buddy Allan Boesak were again operating in tandem. Professor Heyns went on to become one of the instruments of change in his church to lead the denomination away from apartheid thinking and attitudes. It is generally accepted that a right wing extremist, who could not come to terms with Heyns’ role in the dramatic turn-around of the denomination, was responsible for his assassination in November 1994.



9. Prayer erupts in different Places

In the early 1970s Brian O’Donnell owned the Hippie Market of the city as well as a night club called The Factory. When he was spiritually revived, he decided to conduct an outreach on Monday nights and later also at Green Point Stadium. A supernatural intervention occurred when Brian asked Dave Valentine to pray about assisting him in some way at his Hippie Market. Dave misunderstood this completely. After prayer about the matter he had liberty to resign from his well paid job as engineer to work full-time for the Lord, trusting God for the needs of his family with four children.

Revival Vibes resound from the Cape
The Holy Spirit moved mightily among the young people, ultimately leading to the Hippie Revival that paved the way for ten new Assemblies of God (AoG) congregations among Whites and five among ‘Coloureds’. With ‘Coloured’ AoG pastors like James Valentine and Eddie Roman working closely alongside their White colleagues, this was a significant contribution to the breaking down of the racial barriers of the apartheid era on grassroots level.
Cape Revival vibes radiated
to the ends of the Earth
The revival vibes radiated even much further afield. In Grahamstown the ‘charismatic renewal’ as it was called, moved into the Anglican Church where Bishop Bill Burnett was impacted. The Holy Spirit movement flowed via a big national church event with Dr Billy Graham in Durban in 1973. This Congress birthed PACLA (Pan African Christian Leadership Assembly) in Nairobi in 1976. At the Durban event Genadendal-born Rev. Chris Wessels played a significant role in the formulation of nine resolutions on behalf of the Black caucus that were ‘splashed in all the major newspapers of the country’. The Durban event furthermore led to the influential SACLA in Pretoria in 1979 where the German-born Reinhardt Bonnke was divinely touched. Whereas the earlier congresses apparently hardly seemed to touch the Cape, the latter one did it in no uncertain way. One of the leaders, Professor Nico Smith, was based at Stellenbosch University with its hallowed theological faculty.

Congress on Mission and Evangelism
The Holy Spirit movement flowed via a big national church event with Dr Billy Graham in 1973. Held in Durban in March 1973, the Congress was attended by 630 delegates and observers from 31 different denominations, 36 Christian service groups, and 13 different African and overseas countries.The original idea of the Congress on Mission and Evangelism in Durban came however from Michael Cassidy of Africa Enterprise and John Rees, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC).
At the Congress on Mission and Evangelism the racial barriers came tumbling down in a significant way for the first time in this country. Dr. Graham's insistence on the absence of any segregation among the audience played no small role. Durban also was an important forerunner for Lausanne the following year when the evangelical-ecumenical schism was attacked as well as the unbiblical separation of evangelism and compassionate outreach.

Personal impact of the Hippie Revival
My two years of full-time study at the Moravian seminary included a good mix of evangelistic activity and ecumenical activism. Our full-time student Fritz Faro really got enflamed by the evangelistic zeal of the Jesus People. Along with Gustine Joemath our other two full-time student we tried to accommodate that, but at the same time we deemed it necessary to challenge the apparent Jesus People acceptance of the racist South African way of life.
We also sharpened our axes for White liberals who professed to be against apartheid, but who were not prepared to suffer for their convictions. Thus we decided to challenge the St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Green Point. Outside this church complex a notice board welcomed all races. In our own denomination we were also fighting racist traditions simultaneously. Reverend Douglas Bax and his St Andrews Presbyterian Church passed the test with flying colours. Thereafter he became a close friend of our seminary.
A Revival among District Six Youth
The flip side of the Islamic resurgence in the wake of the Group areas legislation was a mini-revival amongst young people of District Six. Under the leadership of Clive and Ursula Jacobs at the Sheppard Street Baptist Church bubbling youth work developed which included a youth week with the charismatic Pastor Andy Lamb as the preacher. At this occasion Eddie Edson came to faith in Jesus as his Lord. (Edson was a major role player in the run-up to the city wide prayers of the 1990s and the subsequent Global Day of Prayer). Youth rallies were held in neutral venues like the Palace Bioscope (Cinema), which even turned out to be too small.
The use of the relatively big Church Hall of Holy Cross displayed that there was a non-denominational flavour of the movement. That this was no superficial 'happy clappy' occasion can be easily discerned.
Many young people turned from drugs and gangsterism to Christ. Some started cottage meetings, held open air services. Prayer meetings were conducted in the surrounds of Woodstock, Salt River and District Six. Eddie Edson was pivotal in all this. From this movement many young people went to night Bible Schools and colleges. Many of them became pastors and leaders in their churches. No less than 50 young people from this revival became pastors or pastors' wives.

The Run-up to the Koinonia Declaration
The banning of the Christian Institute and its leader, Dr Beyers Naudé on 19 October 1977, along with many other organizations that were perceived to be in opposition to apartheid, unleashed unexpected forces against the government.
Dr Nico Smith, Professor of Theology in Stellenbosch, played a significant role in starting Koinonia, a movement that organised inter-racial weekends in different towns and cities. Participants would always lodge with someone from a different ethnic group. Christians of different races started meeting socially as families in order to get to know and understand each other. From their ranks the Koinonia Declaration followed in 1977 when three Dutch Reformed Church leaders in the Western Cape reacted against a government ruling which made agitation against detention without trial unlawful. They also called for transparency regarding ‘the handling of matters relating to the security of the state' (e.g. the prior series of bannings, detentions and arrests on October 19, 1977). The prayerful attitude of these clergymen was revealed in the first sentences of the Koinonia Declaration: ‘…We also believe that the prayers of just men have great power. We therefore urge all Christians to pray without ceasing for those in authority that…they may not be led astray by unbiblical ideologies…’
In another move, Professor Smith took his theology students to the informal settlement of Crossroads. This courageous move shook the Afrikaner establishment throughout the country. To have one of their church leaders at Stellenbosch University, with its hallowed theological faculty, was completely unacceptable to the state and university authorities. This led to Professor Smith’s virtual banishment from the White segment of the Dutch Reformed Church.
A spiritual Earthquake in Pretoria
Since 1978, Gerda Leithgöb, an Afrikaner believer, has been directing spiritual warfare in Pretoria. She and her prayer team offered confession at the Voortrekker Monument. Their prayers and confession surely helped to cause a change in the spiritual complexion of the country’s capital that made true democracy possible. That prayer ministry for the city of Pretoria was the prelude to the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) event in the national capital the following year. This conference was the equivalent of a spiritual earthquake. Professor David Bosch, a giant rebel against apartheid, was its leader. SACLA influenced the whole country deeply in a positive way and the conference was evidently part of God’s plan to transform the apartheid stronghold and capital of South Africa. Pastor Ed Roebert initiated a gathering of like-minded pastors with the purpose of fellowship and mutual encouragement. Soon he met regularly with Reinhardt Bonnke, Ray McCauley, Fred Roberts, Tim Salmon and Nicky v.d. Westhuizen. In due course many new charismatic churches were established and men with unusually anointed ministries appeared on the scene.

A Gale catapults an Evangelist into Prominence
With his engineering skills the former hippie Dave Valentine operated in many evangelistic campaigns in the background, including the famous one of Valhalla Park in 1984. The destruction by a gale of a gigantic tent in the mid-1980s in which the German-born evangelist Reinhardt Bonnke was to hold an evangelistic campaign in the Cape Township of Valhalla Park, created much interest for the event when it had to be held in the open. Thousands attended who would never have fitted into the gigantic tent. In stead of the planned 15 nights, four extra nightly services were added amid clear skies in mid-June which
is known to be part of the Cape rainy season.
An unprecedented networking
of Cape township churches
The networking of township churches in the run-up to this campaign was unprecedented, with a corresponding response at the altar calls. Many Muslims gave an indication that they wanted to become followers of Jesus. However, lack of proper follow-up by the churches prevented a massive spiritual turn-around at the Cape. This lack, combined with a brutal apartheid clampdown at the time, drove many nominal Christians to Islam. To become a Muslim was regarded as part of the struggle. Marriage swelled the numbers of Cape Muslims when the Christian partner converted to Islam, staying Muslim even after divorce. An interesting sequel of the event was that Reinhardt Bonnke became a household name throughout the African continent and beyond as a sequel to the Valhalla Park campaign.

Bliss Brings Blessings
Under the auspices of Africa Enterprise (AE) David Bliss came to South Africa in 1967 from the USA as a student. The relatively young missions and evangelistic agency AE started by Michael Cassidy in 1962, had such a profound effect on Bliss that he decided to postpone his return to Princeton University for a year. After his marriage to Deborah (Debby) in 1972, the couple came to South Africa in 1979 as AE workers on the Wits University campus in Johannesburg. That year the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) took place in Pretoria, an event that changed their lives. The Holy Spirit confronted them with the issue of unreached people groups and the possibility of sending South Africans as missionaries.
The next year the couple participated in the students’ conference in Edinburgh, which ran parallel to the 70th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the World Council of Churches. The 1980 event brought the use of non-Westerners as missionaries into focus. For Dave and Debby Bliss this was a natural follow-up to SACLA in Pretoria the previous year.
A Wave of Prayer starts at UWC
Charles Robertson, a lecturer at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) from 1971-76, became part of the prayer emphasis in 1983. After his father’s death in 1979, he was thrust into a quagmire of spiritual turmoil. The business he had started was failing. The combination of these experiences brought him to his knees. Hereafter he broke through into a living faith in Jesus as his Lord.
Dr Robertson was approached to help fund the hiring of a bus to take participants to a prayer service at the historical Sendingsgestig Museum in the Mother City’s Long Street, which coincided with a Frontiers Missions Conference at UWC. (The venue was the former DRC ‘Coloured’ Gestig church building, that had been ‘saved’ by Dr Frank R. Barlow, a Jewish academic with a keen sense of history. The congregation had to move because of the Group Areas Act, and thereafter the former church was turned into a museum). An interesting ‘resurrection’ transpired when the Gestig congregation was revived in Belhar. There the synod hall of the Sendingkerk was ultimately built and where the controversial and influential Belhar Confession was passed in 1986.
A national Prayer Awakening erupts
The Sendingsgestig Museum itself was to become the venue for Concerts of Prayer. That event would reverbarate throughout the country, ushering in the prayer movement. In 1983 a prayer awakening started in a few congregations all around South Africa. One of these was a small group of intercessors led by Gerda Leithgöb in Pretoria that helped set them on a path previously unexplored in this country. Simultaneously, Bennie Mostert, a Dutch Reformed Church minister, started a newsletter to mobilize prayer in Namibia. Mostert dubbed his newsletter for Namibia Prayer Action Elijah.
In 1987 the Lord led the group in Pretoria to do more intense research into spiritual matters. In that same year, a similar initiative started spontaneously all over the world. The Lord also called pastors in South Africa to start writing on prayer. Books appeared concerning this issue.
Gerda Leithgöb requested prayer warriors from other countries at a conference in Singapore in 1988 to pray for South Africa, which had been in constant crisis since 1985. Ds. Bennie Mostert founded a national prayer network known as NUPSA (Network for United Prayer in Southern Africa) which became closely linked to the spiritual transformation of the continent. In 1993 the first teams started praying through information gained from serious research. During 1993 South Africa also participated in the Pray through the Window31 initiative, that was launched internationally by the AD 2000 Prayer Track.

Community Disruption leads to Missions
BABS (Build a Better Society) was a local community organisation of Kewtown, a gangster-ridden Cape Township. In 1982 the Gangs of Kew Town killed seven people in 3 months. After approaching other organisations without success BABS asked Docks Mission Church to do something about the situation. A coffee bar was started specially for the gangsters, led by Rodney Thorne and Freddy Kammies. Every Sunday evening between 60 – 80 of them attended. challenged many of the gang leaders to put down the weapons and guns. Soon the crime rate came down. The local Docks MISSION as a denomination faithfully prayed for the ministry which continued for quite a long time.
The ministry sowed seed for missions. Eugene Johnson, as well as Theo and Norma Dennis from this denomination left 1970s. Eugene was the first missionary sent out by Docks Mission in 1978 for ministry on one of the Operation Mobilisation (OM) ships already in 1978.32 He was followed by Peter Ward and Freddy Kammies, Theo and Norma Dennis.

Cape Prayer Endeavours of the early 1990s
In the late 1980s the Concerts of Prayer - inspired by David Bryant - drew good crowds to the Sendingsgestig Museum, a fitting commemoration of the inter-denominational work that started there in 1799. On one occasion, Dr Robertson was asked to chair a Concert of Prayer meeting as an Afrikaner. That was not to be the last time for him to do this. He led the Concerts of Prayer hereafter not only at the monthly meetings at that venue, but also later when the event relocated to the Presbyterian Church in Mowbray. (These Concerts of Prayer were held there for many years.) It was very fitting that Robertson and his wife Rita would donate the property where the first NUPSA School of Prayer was to be erected in 2000.
At the Presbyterian Church in Mowbray, the monthly meetings were also led for many years by Rev. James Selfridge, an Irish missionary of the Metropolitan Church. Around the turn of the millennium the monthly meeting was moved to Grassy Park. The Concerts of Prayer were thereafter held in the Bethel Bible School in the former ‘Coloured’ sector of the suburb Crawford.
The Western Cape Missions Commission, to which our WEC colleague Shirley Charlton took me soon after our arrival at the Cape in January 1992, proved very valuable in terms of contacts. Here I met strategic people from the Cape mission scene like Jan Hanekom, Martin Heuvel and Bruce van Eeden. One of the events organised in 1993 by the Western Cape Missions Commission was a workshop with John Robb of World Vision. I used the list of participants at this event to organize the Cape Jesus Marches the following year. In this way I updated my contacts for further mission endeavour in the Western Cape.
Local Churches spearheading foreign Missions The Cape led the country in local church involvement with foreign missions. Until the 1970s it was however only a church here and a church there that was sending out missionaries. It is probably not surprising that a congregation from the Docks Mission with its strong emphasis on prayer spearheaded the foreign missionary endeavour. The Gleemoor Docks Mission fellowship in Athlone, with its close links to OM, thrust forth mission leaders as few other congregations in South Africa.
Peter Tarantal became a national leader of OM and Theo Dennis was appointed as the Western Cape regional co-ordinator of the mission agency. Theo’s sister married Dennis Atkins who was the principal of the Bethel Bible School until their retirement in 2006. Freddy Kammies, who grew up in the adjacent notorious township of Kewtown, came to the Lord at this church and he was discipled through the ministry of the Gleemoor congregation.33 He and his German wife Doris later left the shores of the Mother City as OM missionaries. After their return to South Africa in 1997, the couple pioneered the WEC ministry amongst sexually broken people. They joined YWAM in 2009 in a similar capacity.
Another Cape congregation that caused a stir in missions is the Rondebosch Dutch Reformed Church. In the apartheid era that congregation was one of the few White Dutch Reformed churches in the country where people of colour could enter without the real fear that they would be prevented entry (or worse, evicted, as it actually happened in isolated cases). When Dr Ernst van der Walt came to pastor that congregation in 1982, the church was supporting a few ‘children’ from the congregation who were involved in missions. The denomination as such was only supporting missionaries linked to the Dutch Reformed synod.
This was to change drastically when David Bliss, the OM missionary based at the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington, visited the church. After his visit the Prayer Concert concept got off the ground with an early morning meeting every Sunday. The believers would start praying for their ‘Jerusalem’, for the activities and concerns of their church, and then move on to pray for matters and people further away until they would finally pray for various missionaries in different parts of the world. When the minister’s son Ernst went to the William Carey School in Pasadena in the USA, it meant an intensification of the church’s involvement in missions. This was even more so when Ernst van der Walt (jr.) became the personal assistant of George Verwer, the international leader of OM.

A special Move of God’s Spirit
A special move of God’s Spirit occurred when Alfred West was turned down for military service because of a heart ailment around 1949. He always wanted to do foreign missionary work. The young White man was divinely redirected, starting to minister as a Wayside Sunday School teacher in the Cape township-like suburbs of Kensington and Windermere in 1955, where in due course he fell in love with Jessica, one of the local young girls.
The prayerful Pastor West had to wait for
twenty five years to marry his sweetheart
Jessica because of the country’s racial laws.
The prayerful Pastor West had to wait for twenty five years to marry his (‘Coloured’) sweetheart Jessica because of the country’s racial laws. In this way he was of course a quiet rebel against the status quo.
When Jessica and her famly moved to Bonteheuwel, the mission-minded young man started a prayer-centred church that sent forth missionaries to different parts of the world. Diane Guta, one of his congregants who left to work in Paraguay, became one of the very first South African missionaries of colour, thus causing another small crack in the apartheid wall. She thereafter served the Lord in Bolivia,34
retiring in 2008.
Long before church planting movements became fashionable, Pastor Alfred West became involved in this way. Having led Godfrey Martin, an impressive young teacher, to the Lord, he thereafter mentored the young man to become the pastor of a home fellowship in Stellenbosch..35
A special trophy of Pastor West’s ministry was when the gangster Percy Jephtha became converted, and proceeded to become a pastor of a home church. The special thing about Pastor West’s ministry was that he regarded the new home church not as competition, but as an extension of his ministry, keeping close contact with them. Various missionaries visited the two churches in Bishop Lavis, and quite a few congregants went from there to minister in other parts of the world.
All law-abiding citizens of the
township appreciated Pastor
West’s challenge to shebeens
In the late 1980s Pastor West was in the forefront of a prayer move when gangster violence threatened to turn the township of Bonteheuwel into anarchy. All law-abiding citizens of the township appreciated West’s brave challenge to shebeens (illegal private liquor outlets).
Peter Barnes, a protégé of Pastor West, underwent training at the nearby Cape School of Missions in Ravensmead. He became a missionary to the Transkei where the vision was expounded to prepare missionaries for other African countries. All this started to take place at a time when it was not expected that missionaries would come from the Black and ‘Coloured’ communities.

Cape Pioneers of the Church Planting Movement
At the beginning of the new millennium the City Mission discerned that the emphasis on welfare projects and the good name they won through the various ministries, had not been without a cost: their earlier focus on church planting had fallen away and new leadership was not coming through. Charles, the son of the City Mission pioneer Fenner Kadalie, left the more traditional confines to start work on farms in the Philippi area. His wife Val became the directress of a church planting movement that grew out of their new focus as they searched for men and women of peace. Defining a church planting movement as a church that has planted at least 100 new churches through three generations of reproduced new fellowships in two years, the movement New Generation and their covenant partners has seen many new fellowships started in various African countries throughout the continent. But also in South Africa itself, through the sacrificial ministry of David Broodrijk and from here throughout the continent, new multiplying 'simple churches' mushroomed. The term 'home church' became a misnomer in the movement ably led by the dynamic David Watson, because the groups met in all sorts of venues in the market place and on different days of the week. The strategy was to pray for a 'person of peace' who already had access to some group of unevangelized people in the community that could be reached, evangelised and later discpled.

The Start of an innovative Township Bible School
The Cape School of Missions commenced in 1987 innovatively as a video school - the Urban Missions School. Martin Heuvel started the one-year programme in his home in Belhar with ten of his congregants. The following year they moved to the projector room of a cinema in Ravensmead, which became a prayer room. Subsequently they bought the building, which later became the Fountain Christian Centre.36 When a few students of the Urban Missions School wanted to continue their studies, it was decided to start the Cape School of Missions.
Gielle (Deon) Daniels is a special former student of this institution. He was only in Standard Six (Grade 8), when he was expelled from school in 1980 for boycotting and political activity. He moved into gangster-type activity in Port Elizabeth until he came to know Christ, and experienced a call to full-time service. No Bible school was willing to accept him, because he only had a Grade Seven school report. Daniels applied to the Cape School of Missions, which had advertised in Rapport, an Afrikaans nationally-distributed newspaper. He excelled, faring better academically than student colleagues who had already attended university. After marrying a lass from Ravensmead, he returned to the Eastern Cape, and continued with theological studies.
Until 1994 Martin Heuvel was the principal of the Cape School of Missions. He was succeeded in 1995 by Rev. James Selfridge, an Irish missionary of the Metropolitan Church, who led the teaching and proceedings there until the school was disbanded and merged with the Bethel Bible School in 2004.

10. A Calling for Ministry among Cape Muslims

We were in Bulstrode near London as a family at the beginning of 1991 for a part of our missionary training with WEC International. Things had changed so much in South Africa in the months prior to this that we could now prepare ourselves to come to Cape Town the following year. Rosemarie and I had to complete an assignment, called a ‘field study’ about the country we intended to go to. During my field study I ‘discovered’ that Bo-Kaap, a residential area below Signal Hill, had become an Islamic stronghold.
In the occasional sermon, such as one in the little Dutch town Steenwijk in 1991, I challenged Christians to send their prayer ‘batteries’ to the Muslim stronghold Bo-Kaap, to bombard the area before we as missionaries could go in as the ‘infantry.’ This was quite special because we were initially required by the mission agency to get ready to become their Western Cape representatives. It amounted to quite a crisis for us as a couple when we perceived that we were expected not to get involved in actual missionary outreach at the Cape.
The Holy Spirit had obviously started to prepare me for ministry in the prime Muslim area of the ‘Mother City’ of South Africa. I was not aware at that stage that a SIM (Serving In Missions) Life Challenge team was already active there with door-to-door outreach. But Rosemarie and I had no concrete plans for involvement there while we prepared to return to the Cape in January 1992.
When we were getting ready to leave Holland, we had no guaranteed accommodation in Cape Town. We were already considering approaching my faithful friend and former teacher colleague Ritchie Arendse for the use of his caravan as we had done in 1981, when just before our departure to South Africa we heard that we could move into a Bible School in the Cape suburb of Athlone during the month of January.
On the first morning after our arrival
in Cape Town at half-past four, we
were awakened by a deafening roar

Called to minister to Cape Muslims?
On the first morning after our arrival in Cape Town at half-past four, we were awakened by a deafening roar. The cause was the prayer calls from the seven mosques within a radius of two kilometres of the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute.37 This was the first indication that the Lord was perhaps calling us to get involved with the Cape Muslims.
During our orientation at the end of 1990 we had decided that we had to enroll our two older boys at the German School. Once we were at the Cape in January 1992, we finally enrolled all five of them there because of other circumstances like the fact that the young ones could neither understand nor speak English, let alone Afrikaans. To get more information about the German school, we were referred to the Pietzsch family. Horst Pietzsch was involved with the SIM Life Challenge missionary outreach.
A clear confirmation along these lines could have been when we were able to rent a house in Tamboerskloof, almost a stone’s throw from Bo-Kaap. God had evidently started fitting things together in his perfect mosaic.
Our lack of transportation brought us into touch with Manfred Jung, a German missionary, and the late Alroy Davids. Both of them were involved with the Life Challenge outreach to Muslims. (The 13-year old minibus that looked horrible had previously belonged to Walter Gschwandtner, another German missionary, who ministered in Bo-Kaap before he sold it to Manfred.)
The Master clearly used our first weeks in Cape Town in January 1992 to make it unambiguously clear to all and sundry that we were called to minister to the Cape Muslims. But we were not starkly aware of it as yet ourselves.
A Focus on Cape Muslims? Without making any special effort, Rosemarie and I very soon came to know converts from Islam at the Cape. We met Adiel Adams and Zane Abrahams through our representation ministry with WEC International, our mission agency. My late Aunt Emmie Snyers spontaneously gave us the phone number of Majiet Pophlonker, another Muslim background believer (MBB) with a special testimony. It seemed as if different people were divinely instructed to challenge us to focus on Cape Muslims. The idea came up of writing down their stories, and to use them for evangelistic purposes.
The idea came up of writing
down the stories of converts
As I was speaking telephonically to Val Kadalie, the matron of the G.H Starke Home for the aged in Hanover Park, I sensed confirmation that this township, where I had been teaching in 1981, was the place to get more intensely involved with ministry. Soon I linked up with Norman Barnes, a former gangster and drug addict and also a convert from Islam. On Saturday afternoons he led the prayer group of the City Mission fellowship.
Personal Challenges confront us
At the outset, we encountered a further problem that was associated with the Muslim community - drug addiction. On the first Sunday that we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church,38 a couple there told us that their daughter, who was addicted to drugs, had become a Muslim as a result. We were immediately reminded of the successful Betel outreach to drug addicts by our mission agency WEC International in Spain. Gradually we came to see this as a possible avenue of loving service to the local Muslim community.
At the beginning of our stay in Tamboerskloof I joined Manfred Jung’s Life Challenge team in Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. I felt however quite uncomfortable with the method used, to knock at strange people’s doors to speak to them about my faith. This coincided with the cessation of the SIM Life Challenge outreach effort in Bo-Kaap. (Through apartheid legislation the ‘Malay quarter’ of Bo-Kaap was greatly extended, churches there were closed down and Christians were tempted to become Muslims if they wanted to continue living there.)
A positive result of the door-to-door ministry with the SIM Life Challenge team was that I discovered that my knowledge of Islam was completely inadequate. I received permission from our WEC mission leaders to do a post-graduate course in Missiology at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BISA) in Kalk Bay with a special focus on Islam.
A cross-cultural Choir
In the course of the next few months Shirley Charlton, our WEC missionary colleague, took me to various Bible schools in the Cape Peninsula. I also had my own contacts like the Moravian Theological Seminary, which had moved to the township Heideveld while I was overseas. There my seminary student colleague Kallie August was now the director.39 He hails from the Elim Mission Station, having attended primary school simultaneously with me. At the Chaldo Bible School in Wittebome, the theological training institution of the Full Gospel Church, Dr David Savage, my buddy from the Harmony Park ‘stranddienste’ in 1964, with whom I had subsequently corresponded for a long time, was now the principal.
Through our attending the Cape Town Baptist Church, a regular annual slot at the Baptist Seminary ensued. Here I could challenge students during their weekly chapel hour.
At one of the events to which Shirley took me, I heard Joyce Scott reporting. She was a missionary of AIM, using her gift of music in ministry and lecturing at the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute. This was the catalyst for us to start a choir with singers coming from different cultures, a vision I had brought along from Holland. (In Zeist I had attended a performance of a culturally mixed group from New Zealand.) At different occasions to which I was invited as speaker, I took along the cross-cultural choir that we had formed. Apart from Grace Chan, our colleague from Mauritius, we also had people from different races in the choir - including a Zulu and a few Xhosas. We recruited the choir members predominantly from Capetonian Bible Colleges.
Rosemarie and I realized that we needed to get the backing, moral and prayer support of other Christians. At the same time we prayed, asking the Lord where we should start to serve him. By June 1992 our ministry was still not focused at all. We had not discerned properly that we were meant to focus on Muslims.
Centre for Missions at BI
When our renowned British missionary colleague Patrick Johnstone visited South Africa in 1994, he also spoke in the Moravian Chapel in District Six, where a student ministry from the Church of England had started, conducting services on Sunday evenings. At that occasion Dr Roger Palmer, the leader of the YMCA branch at UCT and a board member of the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) in Kalk Bay, shared his vision with me to have a centre for missions at BI. I had already been in discussion with Manfred Jung of SIM to get a similar venture off the ground, teaching Muslim Evangelism at different Bible Schools. In fact, I had already approached various Bible Schools to find out what was taught about Islam at these institutions, remembering the lack we had in our own curriculum at the Moravian Theological Seminary. This research resulted in the start of annual intensive two-week courses in Muslim Evangelism at BI from January 1996, which led in turn to a teaching stint of Rosemarie and me at the YWAM base in Muizenberg. This initiative had interesting repercussions in the new millennium after Sheldon Allies, a first year student was gripped by my lectures on the History of Islam in South Africa and Muslim Evangelism at the Cape.

Prayer undergirds Evangelism
From oral reports of earlier Life Challenge workers like Neville Truter, who later became a SIM associate missionary, I heard that the Muslim evangelistic work was accompanied from the start by an emphasis on prayer. For many years Muslim outreach at the Cape and SIM Life Challenge were almost synonymous. The mission continued with an annual prayer initiative during Ramadan when they usually stopped their actual door-to door weekly outreach for that month.
Under the leadership of the German missionary Gerhard Nehls, his team had other people interceding while co-workers would be visiting Muslim homes. In other cases, groups prayed before they would go on outreach. In the mid-1980s, Nehls’s German missionary colleague Walter Gschwandtner got believers group praying in the home of the Abrahams family at 73 Wale
Street in Bo-Kaap. The Muslim head of the home came tofaith in Jesus as his Lord just before he died in 1983. The knowledge of the Bo-Kaap prayer meetings got almost lost when the Gschwandtner family left for Kenya in the early 1990s.
At the Cape Town Baptist Church a few believers, including Hendrina van der Merwe, prayed at the church when outreach groups would go to nearby Muslim areas like Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. That congregation was well-known for its pioneering work in various places including District Six, Roggebaai and Woodstock. The fellowship has however yet to bridge the cultural gap to the Muslims.
Gerhard Nehls, the old pioneer, did not sit still after his retirement from active mission work in 1997. In conjunction with Trans World Radio, he became the master mind behind a video series using the most important Islamic apologists of our day. The result was The Battle for the Hearts. In due course the video series (later also available as DVD in different languages) went around the globe making a significant impact wherever it was used. Already in his early seventies, Nehls also delved into the modern electronic technology, starting with a data base of all materials for Muslim evangelism. In the age of the internet many Muslims would be impacted in the new millennium through this medium.
Breaking new Ground
My first major attempt at uniting churches of the city area was trying to get them to pray for Muslims. We organised for converts from Islam and various missionaries to speak in different churches on the Sundays during Ramadan 1993. When I observed that this merely resulted in entertainment - with no subsequent commitment - I aborted the practice. Hereafter I would challenge churches towards loving outreach to Muslims whenever they invited me to come and preach. But this did not deliver the goods. The only result was that I received far less invitations to come and preach subsequently.
We found that the WEC prayer group that met in our Tamboerskloof home, was so much more committed and interested. Margaret Curry, a member of this monthly group of a few elderly ladies, introduced us to the matron of St Monica’s Maternity Home in Bo-Kaap. (Margaret Curry had been a missionary with the Hospital Christian Fellowship).
In Hanover Park we started the first cell
group with male Muslim background believers. In Hanover Park we started the first cell group consisting of male Muslim background believers. There we studied biblical personalities that also figure in the Qur’an. This cell group ceased in September 1993 after our old combi was stolen and we had been conned. Personally I went through a very difficult patch at this time, the result of an obvious demonic attack. In this research and studies I was very fascinated and humbled to see how biblical figures that are mentioned in the Qur’an, foreshadow Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures and Talmudic sources. I also discovered that many pointers to the Cross and Jesus’ crucifixion had been omitted in the Qur’an.40

11. Europe and Africa in Concert

In 1983 Rose McKenna, a White woman from Zimbabwe, took three steps in one week that would forever change her life. She left the Roman Catholic Church after 50 years, was baptised by full immersion, and she arrived in South Africa. In passing through Johannesburg she was confronted with the Gospel, which sent her on a search after truth. Her eagerness to get to know more about Jesus however led to one frustration with church people after the other. McKenna’s search included a Cape Bible School where she was regarded as too old and unsuitable for training. The Holy Spirit became her teacher as she now dived into the Word.
Black Street Children Ministry born
At the Cape, McKenna found employment at the big insurance company Old Mutual in Pinelands. Soon her heart was drawn compassionately to the Black children she had seen roaming the streets. In those days that was definitely not the in-thing to do. For eighteen months she cared for a few of these boys, unable to find a children’s home for them. When she heard of an institution in the township Hanover Park, she was told that the facility was meant only for ‘Coloureds’. Bruce Duncan, the house father there, suggested that she should take her story to the newspapers, which she did.
Irving Steyn, a journalist of The Weekend Argus, admirably brought the plight of the ‘hole-in-the-wall’ gang to the attention of the broader public. Workers linked to the Salvation Army assisted in the daily needs of clothing, food and exercise.
The first Cape Institution for Black Street Children
At the end of 18 months, the children were rounded up and placed in the cells of the Wynberg Magistrates Court, destined ultimately to be brought to Pollsmoor Prison. Rose was directed to a certain magistrate, who kindly phoned a friend for advice. A series of phone calls ended in Pretoria, where someone was contacted in Cape Town to help Rose in whatever way she needed assistance.
The outcome was that a dilapidated migrants’ hostel in Langa was donated as a home for the children. Besta Recta, a building firm, undertook to completely renovate the door-less, windowless and roofless building. Eventually, Captain Farrington Notshati from the Salvation Army was seconded to the home, which he named Khayamandi.
This became the first children’s home for Black street kids in the Cape, and still operates there to the glory of God. The institution was later taken over by the Baptist Union.
A gardening Project starts in Khayelitsha
When McKenna set up a gardening project in Khayelitsha under the auspices of Food Gardens Unlimited as originated by Pauline Raphaely, Captain Notshati joined her. (The Black township of Khayelitsha had been started a few years earlier, in 1984, when the apartheid regime attempted to evict Black people from Crossroads. This shack township was evidently too near the airport for comfort and an eyesore to those arriving and departing.)41
God intervened in Rose’s life again in 1986 when she was told about a competition being run by the Standard Bank. Prize money of R50000 was offered for a seed project. While contemplating the fact that the gardening had really only commenced in Khayelitsha’s Site B, and that the group of helpers was so small, a voice boomed from nowhere, saying WALK! She perceived this to be a divine challenge to take steps in faith. A group of five workers in this project included Professor Frank Robb, a UCT academic in Microbiology who sensed a divine command to humble himself before the mighty hand of God.
Rose duly put together a professional project proposal, which she submitted. They won the competition. With the prize money, the group bought and developed an acre of ground.
Food from this land helped feed the
informal community during traumatic times
Food from this land helped feed the informal community during the traumatic times when the “Witdoeke”, a destabilising third force, were terrorizing the area. Scores of people would flee into their property, hiding in the long grass. In the volatile situation they counted no less than sixty burnt-out cars in Zola Budd Drive in one weekend. (In rare irony this road was named after Zola Budd, a White barefoot-running teenage prodigy, who had broken a long distance world record.)
The group received special permission from the regional leadership of the left-wing Pan African Congress (PAC) and other groups opposed to the government of the day, to distribute a donation of mushroom soup from Old Mutual. That weekend only army tanks came into the area, where not even the police would come. After being engaged in Khayelitsha for eight years, the long walk of Rose McKenna took her to Israel.
Seeds of Confession start to germinate
In the early 1980s Dr Nico Smith, from Crossroads and Stellenbosch fame, visited Holland. He resided in Bilthoven, only a few kilometres from Zeist where the author and his family were living at the time. (Smith had been more or less forced to resign from his post as professor, and saw the call to the Black congregation from Mamelodi near Pretoria as a special blessing. Living in the township as pastor of that church was a powerful witness, defying the prescript of apartheid Group Areas legislation.) I visited him in Bilthoven after reading in a newspaper that he was in Holland. This resulted in some correspondence, among others with him and Professor Johan Heyns.
The metamorphosis of Prof. Johan Heyns
continued dramatically in the ensuing years
The metamorphosis of Prof. Johan Heyns continued dramatically in the ensuing years, when he chaired a synod commission called Church and Society. At the 1986 White General Synod in Cape Town, the report of this commission almost brought the White sector of the Dutch Reformed Church to a 180 degree change with respect to apartheid. At the synod the seed of confession appeared to have started to germinate. In the policy document ‘Church and Society’ it was formulated in so many words that ‘a forced separation and division of peoples cannot be considered a biblical imperative. The attempt to justify such an injunction as derived from the Bible must be recognized as an error, to be rejected.’
Yet, this position was not supported by rank and file church members. Right-wing elements were perturbed that Church and Society actually included confession of sin with regard to the part played by the churches - for example - in causing suffering through the implementation of apartheid. In 1987 the reaction, formulated under Professor W. J. G. Lubbe in a document called ‘Geloof en Protes’ (Faith and Protest), laid bare a weakness of the majority decision: ‘It is also the question whether this confession of sin is really derived from true remorse or whether it is derived from a desire to please certain churches … and thus evoking an artificially created consciousness of guilt’. The 1986 synod thus ushered in the formation of a right-wing racist break-away denomination, the Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk.
Pentecostals usher in Transformation
Evangelicals in general and Cape Pentecostals in particular were not known for radical change. In fact, they were regarded as reactionary, supporting the racist structures of Cape society.
The Pentecostal Protestant Church (PPC), much better known in the Afrikaner version, the Pinkster Protestantse Kerk (PPK), was regarded as a stronghold of apartheid practice in the 1960s and 1970s in the northern suburbs, the ‘Boerewors curtain’ of the City. No one would have suspected that one of the most radical changes of Cape society would emanate from this denomination.
Pastor Walter Snyman, better known as Walti Snyman, had been a pioneer of the church from the days when the fellowship had been in Tiervlei next to the railway line, until it moved to 5th Avenue in Parow. Snyman finally moved with a number of believers into the premises of the Lantern, a former cinema in Parow. At that time his brother was a leader of the denomination.
Snyman had already caused something of a stir by marrying Irish background Colleen, a’rooinek’. She started learning Afrikaans in Bloemfontein, where the couple had met. Yet, when they left the denomination to start a new non-denominational fellowship, this was still no earthquake. However, there was a significant ripple effect, because as a part of their new emphasis, Snyman started using English instead of Afrikaans in his teaching and preaching. The new fellowship had been a White Afrikaner congregation, but Walti Snyman understood that the church was to be there for all people, challenging the traditional racial and language prejudices of the early 1980s.
Pastor Snyman was obviously sensitive
to the post-Soweto situation
Pastor Snyman was obviously sensitive to the post-Soweto (1976) situation, where Afrikaans was seen as the language of the oppressor in many communities. The fellowship linked up with a national move of the Holy Spirit through other charismatic Pentecostal preachers. All over the country fellowships were established which called themselves ‘Christian Centre’. In 1982 the church became known as the Lighthouse Christian Centre. (The group however did not regard themselves as part of a Rhema denomination.) The congregation would play a pivotal role in the run-up to the Global Day of Prayer after the first Transformation video of George Otis was screened there in October 1999.
Student Ministry flourishes
Outreach work developed from the Lighthouse Christian Centre in a hostel of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) led by Dean Carelse, who came to the Lord as a young lad from Muslim background, when his father became a Christian. From other students Carelse had heard about the non-racial fellowship that had started at the former Lantern cinema.
In July 1981, Paul Daniel, a young final year Rhodes University (Grahamstown) student, had recently been dramatically converted in answer to the prayers of his grandmother after the death of his younger brother. Daniel married Jenny after he left Rhodes University and, in obedience to a divine call, the Daniels couple sold their house and moved to Milnerton in the Cape. (Interestingly and providentially, this house was previously owned by the family of the late Dr D.F. Malan, one of the architects of apartheid.) There was intense spiritual warfare during the time of the church operating from this house as His People. The group was destined to become a fore-runner in a much needed multi-racial expression of the Body of Christ in Cape Town. After a year of pioneering a local church in their home and evangelising students at UCT in 1988, the Daniels couple brought this fledgling student ministry and local church under the covering of the Lighthouse Christian Centre and Paul Daniel became their Youth Pastor.
The Lighthouse soon had a flourishing student ministry, both at UCT and at UWC. Colleen Snyman introduced Carelse, the UWC leader, and Paul Daniel to each other. The first His People service was soon held at UCT in 1989.
Soon the biggest lecture
hall of UCT was too
small for the congregation.

The ministry grew rapidly, and soon the biggest lecture hall of UCT was too small for the congregation. In the mornings students would come to the Lighthouse for the Sunday service in Parow. They soon moved to the Baxter Theatre for afternoon services. Members of the Lighthouse Youth band under the leadership of Peter Snyman, the son of Walti and Colleen, pioneered the His People worship team at UCT. (Peter was to succeed his father as the senior pastor of The Lighthouse in May 2007.) In the years that followed, His People Ministries established local church based campus ministries on virtually every major university and technicon campus in South Africa. While fasting and praying with the students, Daniel sensed God’s leading to pursue a vision to take the Gospel to the nations.
Seed sown for Bless the Nations
David Bliss and his family had relocated to Pietermaritzburg when the American Dave Bryant came to the country in 1983. (The Concerts of Prayer initiative with David Bryant helped to bring people together on a city-wide level. Thousands were coming together to pray. Millions of intercessors were mobilized in this way.) David Bliss organized a bus load of people from Natal to attend the prayer and revival conference in 1983 at the Cape that would have a deep effect on many young people.
The visit to the Sendingsgestig Museum in Long Street with Dave Bryant - along with his visit to Wellington - paved the way for Bliss and his family to move to the Boland town, which held so much of the stamp of the renowned Dr Andrew Murray. At the missions museum in the City Bliss was deeply touched by the original vision of Dr Helperus van Lier to see slaves trained to become missionaries. At a Concert of Prayer in Wellington the hearts of David and his wife Debby had been already prepared when Bryant proposed a Consultation on Prayer and World Missions in the town. Valuable seed was sown in the soil of their hearts to bless the nations.
Valuable seed was sown in the soil
of their hearts to bless the nations
All this occurred at a time when the Mother City and the wider surroundings of the Peninsula were influenced by a Frontiers Missions Conference, organized at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) with David Bryant as speaker. The conference at the UWC spread waves of prayer throughout the country.
Much of the prayer endeavours of the early 1990s were connected to missionary work when Dave Bliss put the Cape on the map missions-wise with his Bless the Nations conferences.

Thrust into the Struggle
When his Indian family was evicted from the home near to the city centre of Durban, the life of the twelve year old Richard Mitchell was completely uprooted. Although quite intellligent, he had no interest in school anymore therafter, failing twice in subsequent years. The Hindu practices of his devout grandmother had never really impressed him, nor Christianity with the god of the Whites, its blond Jesus. (His sister had become a born again Christian but he would have none of that although the change in her life did impress her after she became a follower of the White man's god). Already at high school his resentment for the apartheid politics reared its head. With a few learner colleagues Richard sawed down the pole at night that had been erected for the fiercely hated birthday celebration of the Republic of South Africa. His life disrupted, he soon became a drug addict to boot.
After Richard left high school it was almost natural that he would join SASO, the protest student movement of the day. He was not only thrust into the struggle, but also behind bars. There torture was the daily bread for him and 21 other young students, including the likes of Ahmed Timol and Steve Biko. When one of his Muslim jail colleagues introduced Islam to him, he was interested enough to give Islam a go, reading the Qur'an soon from cover to cover. The deep search for truth however prevailed. He decided to give Christianity a try as well. With his body paining excruciatingly because of the terrible torture he had been experiencing, he decided to pray something like the following: Ok blond Jesus, you White man's god, I will really consider following you if you get me out of this place.

The snippet from the book of Acts repeated
When a warden came to wake him in the early morning hours to tell him that he can leave, he would at first not believe him. He thought this was another chapter of these tormenting episodes coming up, now disrupting their sleep which was not a real pleasure anyway. Only when he got outside in the cool fresh air it broke through that he had been discharged, the only one from the group of 22. With the body aching all over he struggled to their home. Whoever opened the door could not believe it, and yet. A group of Christians had been having an all-night prayer meeting. One of the major topics was their prayer for him in prison. The political anti-apartheid activist and former drug addict not only came to personal faith after this interaction, but soon he was on fire for the Lord, preaching in public all over the show.
A political anti-apartheid activist
and a drug addict came
to faith in Jesus
When Richard heard of the possibility to attend evening Bible School, he enrolled and became a pastor in the Full Gospel Church.

An Indian couple from Durban impacts the Cape
As a young Indian pastor Richard Mitchell came by bus from Natal to the Frontiers Missions Conference in 1983.
At the Frontiers Missions Conference Richard Mitchell met a young man from the Cape, Roland Manne, who had a heart for missions. Manne’s yearning to serve the Lord abroad remained unfulfilled. He contracted cancer of the bowels, and died in 1984. Roland's commitment had however by then sown seeds that were germinating in the hearts of many young people. Richard Mitchell was one of those changed by the testimony and commitment of Manne to missions and prayer.
When Richard Mitchell came to the Cape two years later to plant a church in Rylands Estate, he felt challenged by his background in the struggle against apartheid to bring prayer into the matter as well. He approached Pastor Ron Hendricks of the Silvertown Baptist Church to gather a few evangelical pastors for regular weekly prayer. In later years the practice was powerfully emulated in Mitchells Plain. Pastor Richard Mitchell became an important catalyst for citywide prayer in the late 1990s.
12. Repression breeds spiritual Renewal

Without expressing it in so many words, the booklet ‘South Africa: the miracle of little waves’ by Dr Charles Robertson suggests that little waves of revival from the Cape might have started in the tumultuous year of 1985. At that time racial separation was still the major dividing factor in the country and racial tension was escalating towards a major climax in the mid-1980s.
Any scenario of upheaval calls for intense prayer. After giving some examples of ‘little waves’, and of individuals who rebelled against the status quo of racial separation, Robertson summarized: ‘The changes ... were rooted in concerted prayer for revival and prayer for change in the nation.’
The Cape saw the beginnings
of an activist type kind of prayer
The Cape Aftermath of Soweto 1976
The Cape aftermath of the events in Soweto in June 1976 saw the beginnings of a new kind of prayer - the activist type. Gugulethu High School learners requested to pray for their peers in Soweto at the general assembly, which was duly refused (Hirson, 1979:??). Blanket refusals of permission for peaceful demonstration – along with brutal repression of any protest - made the young people only more resolute. Young people saw the need of addressing the addition to alcohol of the adults. The single men in the hostels especially were heavy drinkers. A country-wide ban on liquor was declared on 11 October but it was only successful in Soweto. The Cape shebeen (illegal liquor outlets) owners oopposed the ban heavily, although a number of shebeens had been destroyed and many bottle stores gutted. The duped liquor sellers enlisted their customers - especially the migrant labourers -to fight the young revolutionaries. Soon the township war between the migrants, donned with white head bands and dubbed the Witdoeke, were pitted against the Comrades. All of this just had to lead to a further escalation, which only got subdued after many months, to erupt with more boycotting and violence in 1979 and 1980. In 1986 the war between Comrades and Witdoeke – the latter group egged on and assisted by the police - was to claim many casualties.
We can safely surmise that more people were agonizing in prayer for an end to the killings and violence than before these years. Some of the increased prayer awareness became known only later, such as businessmen and other believers who interceded in the mornings and during lunchtime at Syfrets in Wale Street in the Mother City.
Upheaval after a Call for Prayer
The year 1984 could be regarded as the start of a new season of significant spiritual upheaval. Many Black Christians supported the call of Dr Allan Boesak at the SACC national conference of 1984 to pray for the ‘abolition of all apartheid structures’ and for ‘the end to unjust rule’. A year later, in the run-up to the anniversary of the 16th of June Soweto tragedy, Christians were summoned to pray via a statement prepared by the Western Province Council of Churches, that was called a ‘Theological Rationale’. This was in essence a cautious moderate document with an inclusive character, intended to achieve consensus, ending with a pledge to work for Lukan liberation (Luke 4:18,19) - an invitation to pray for a new and just order in South Africa. The words ‘that God will replace the present structures of oppression with ones that are just, and remove from power those who persist in defying his laws...’ were however taken out of this context in an alarmist fashion by a Witwatersrand university professor, coupling it with ‘downfall’, ‘overthrow’ and (violent) ‘revolution’.
This appeared however to increase the yoke of repression. Racial tension escalated towards a major climax. Amidst brutalities and repression which took place nearly every day, a group of pastors and theologians in Soweto came together to reflect on the Christian ministry in such a situation.
Through a process of discussion and consultation with an ever widening group of Christians of all races, a document took shape that was issued on 25 September 1985 as the Kairos Document.
Some people interpreted this document as a blanket endorsement of violence. On the other hand, it encouraged many of those who had abandoned the Church as an irrelevant institution that supports, justifies and legitimizes this cruel apartheid system. They began to feel that if the Church becomes the Church as expounded in the Kairos Document, then they would return to the Church.
Initiatives for Reconciliation
Another mighty move of God in the mid-1980s was the National Initiative for Reconciliation. In a sense this was a spin-off of SACLA (1979), but it was also a result of the political tension of 1985 - when the country seemed to be rushing towards the precipice of civil war. This initiative ran concurrently with the run-up to the Kairos Document. Michael Cassidy, the leader of Africa Enterprise, issued a ‘Statement of intent’ on 18 July 1985. From 10-12 September 1985, four hundred Christian leaders, drawn from 48 denominations, cleared their diaries and cancelled engagements to come to Pietermaritzburg for three days of consultation and the inauguration of the National Initiative for Reconciliation (NIR).
The call for a national day of prayer by this group to be held on October 9, was fairly widely followed, but not yet across racial barriers.
More than thirteen hundred people
gathered in a lunch-hour service
at Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral
The Kairos Document caused some confusion, especially among people of colour. Nevertheless, on 9 October 1985 more than thirteen hundred people gathered in a lunch-hour service at Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral and there were reports of Christians of all denominations meeting in one another’s churches to pray together. ‘In Cape Town we broke out of our islands as never before.’ However, the harsh repression by the government and its agents continued unabatedly.
A Black group of ‘concerned evangelicals’ met in September 1985 to discuss how the crisis in South Africa affected their lives. They produced a shattering critique of the evangelical tradition, asserting that ‘born again’ believers have turned out to be the ‘worst racists, oppressors and exploiters.’ The document which became known as the ‘Evangelical Witness’ was emphatic that there can be no peace without justice. Yet another evangelical gathering was organised, this time by the Evangelical Fellowship of South Africa (EFSA) at Hekpoort in Gauteng in October, with the purpose of providing guidelines for evangelical action in the midst of the crisis in the country. The rift among theologians – more or less along racial lines – appeared to be as wide as ever before. The Belhar Confession of October 1986 was the next document to reverberate throughout the country, well beyond its original constituency, the Dutch Reformed Church family. Its stated intent was to initiate ‘a continous process of soul-searching together’ and a ‘readiness to repent for the sake of reconciliation and unity in the Dutch Reformed Churches’. However, the polemic elements in the document jeopardised any intention of stimulating repentance and remorse. In fact, decades later it was still a bone of contention in the Reformed family of churches.
Funerals become Catalysts for Change
Funerals clearly contributed to bring about change throughout South Africa. Few incidents hightened political awareness as the funeral of four Cradock United Democratic Front (UDF) activists, Matthew Goniwe, Sparrow Mkhonto, Fort Calata and Sicelo Mhlauli. They had been abducted while returning to Cradock from a meeting in Port Elizabeth. They were then taken to Olifantshoek Pass and later to Port Elizabeth where they were assaulted and killed on June 27, 1985. Their bodies and the vehicle in which they were travelling were burnt. The funeral of the four men turned into a massive affair with buses travelling not only from Port Elizabeth but even from far away places. The run-up and aftermath of the Cradock funeral ignited a chain reaction of spiritual waves of prayer that finally led to the release of Nelson Mandela on 11 February 1990.
In Cape Town killing of the Cradock four sparked off a school boycott in the Black townships that soon spread to 'Coloured' schools. A whole series of marches were held, two at universities and also from one school to another.
The government completely over-reacted to preparations for a funeral in Gugulethu by deploying the Defence Force for the first time for such an event. A door-to-door search in the township Langa and the prohibition of anybody outside the Black townships to attend the funeral was the sort of measure to let the anger rise all around the Cape. The arrest of a few religious leaders including Dr Allan Boesak and Imam Hassan Solomons ahead of the funeral further hightened the tension. The Wynberg Court was cordoned off by riot police the same day. (By word of mouth the news was spread that they would be taken to that court).
The next major event was a mass march to be held on 28 August 1985 to Pollsmoor Prison, to underline the UDF call for the release of Nelson Mandela. Three days before the planned march, police arrested United Democratic Front leader Dr Allan Boesak once again. This sparked off widespread defiance. On August 28, the army and police surrounded the Athlone Stadium, where protesters were scheduled to gather before proceeding to Pollsmoor Prison. Access to the stadium and to any other open area within a five Kilometer radius was however summarily banned until midnight by the government and roadblocks were erected on access routes.
Police brutality was set to conscientize the masses in an unprecedented way. Groups of people trying to join the march were forcibly dispersed by police in a series of baton charges. In Athlone, members of the religious fraternity, including imams and nuns, followed the wide-spread defiance of the ban. (Various efforts were made to start the march, such as from UCT, UWC and Hewat Training College in Crawford. Fearing tragic confrontation, Rev. Abel Hendricks, by now a highly respected Methodist minister, went to the commanding officer, requesting him to withdraw the police.
Leading a march of about 4000 people, the group was hereafter however confronted by police and given three minutes to disperse. The refusal to oblige was followed by
rubber bullets that flew in all directions. Women and children were randomly beaten and the forty clergy members who had formed the front line of the march were arrested and taken to the nearby Athlone Police Station.Subsequently they were jailed for seven days by a Wynberg magistrate.
The march triggered bloody clashes between police and residents of Athlone, Philippi, Manenberg, Guguletu and Nyanga. By August 30, the death toll had risen to 28, with more than 300 others injured. The deaths were followed by funerals, which were all too often highly politically charged events. A big Muslim funeral followed the death of Ebrahim Carelse, a young man who was shot by police in mid-September. At this occasion a policeman was caught in a car, and trampled to death by the angry crowd.
The Burial of eleven Victims of Police Action
Possibly the second biggest funeral ever at the Cape took place on 21 September 1985 in the township of Gugulethu. It was the burial of eleven victims of police action, including Ayanda Limekaya, a two-month old baby, who died after inhaling too much teargas. The run-up to this special event on Saturday 21 September 1985 was described as follows: 'This is no mob. This is a disciplined, motivated crowd determined to bury their dead as a celebration of a liberation to come, not as a remembrance of defeats in the past.' At the start of the traditional burial march the crowd increased dramatically. 'Within ten minutes it has swollen to between twenty and twenty five thousand. Then it became impossible to estimate the numbers.' This transpired in spite of many roadblocks put up by the police and army in an effort to stop people from other places joining the funeral.
The roadblocks could not prevent the
consciences of Whites being touched
Behind the scenes, God was at work. The roadblocks could not prevent the consciences of some Whites being touched. Events followed each other in quick succession at the Cape. A tragic demonic incident occurred in Thornton Road, Athlone less than a week after the national prayer day. On 15 October 1985 police jumped suddenly out of a parked truck, shooting indiscriminately at passers-by. Willem Steenkamp, a conservative writer, reported about the event: “Film taken on the scene shows railway policemen laying down a heavy column of indiscriminate shotgun fire...” An eye witness described a similar scene three days later in Crossroads, situated near to Gugulethu where the massive funeral had taken place. In the Cape Times it was reported as follows: “Suddenly the police jumped out and opened fire, but they did not shoot the people who had thrown the petrol bomb, they shot two men (dead) who … were walking down the road. One was standing still when they shot him, and when his friend tried to run away, they shot him too.”
Tragic Consequences begin to unfold
The clinic in Crossroads continued to do fine work under Dr Ivan Thoms, a young doctor, but when the proverbial chickens came home to roost in the resistance against the tri-cameral system of government, Crossroads was one of the first to erupt at the Cape. Worse was to come in 1986, when the place was virtually in a state of civil war.
On 9 June, 1986 the Community Centre of Crossroads, which had sheltered over two thousand refugees on the chilly night before, was torched. Dr Di Hewitson and a nurse, Dorcas Cyster, risked their lives as committed Christians in their service to the battered and bruised. The SACLA clinic was located in the Witdoeke area, while many of the clinic’s workers came from the opposing Comrades’ turf. Even as they came to work, the benefactors were accused of only tending to the wounds of the enemy. In a prayer, Michael Cassidy summed up the situation, which epitomised the dilemma of the country at that time: ‘O God, only you can resolve all this. And without the power of prevailing prayer, our land will never be healed or saved.’ Cassidy sensed that ‘the Lord needs his people not just in prayer but in active peacemaking in such polarised contexts.’
Sensitivity grew among Whites,which would finally lead to President F.W. de Klerk being enabled to take the risk of asking the White electorate for permission to vote themselves out of power in a referendum on 17 March 1992. But in the years before that there was still many a tumultuous moment.
A young Pastor gets his Hands ‘soiled’
When John Thomas and his wife Avril came to Fish Hoek in 1987, the young Baptist minister soon became immersed in the tragic state of our country. At an informal settlement known as ‘Green Point’ in Noordhoek (later to become Masiphumelele when the people were moved), Rev. Thomas wanted to see for himself what was happening there. (He had heard rumours that the police were maltreating the people who lived there.) Having studied at the Bible Institute of South Africa in Kalk Bay and at the University of Pretoria, Thomas was bilingual, but like the majority of White South Africans, he was also politically ‘innocent.’ He, along with a young white lady who was linked to the Black Sash, were the only Whites who witnessed how the Black people who lived peacefully in the informal settlement, were treated like dirt. What he saw came to be - so to speak - the place of his second conversion. (As a typical evangelical, Pastor Thomas had been believing firmly that the so-called Social Gospel was almost demonic, and that Christians simply had to toil for people’s salvation from eternal damnation.) He now experienced a proper paradigm shift. He became a pioneer among evangelicals, to get their hands ‘soiled’ in the dirty racial politics of the country, becoming an advance guard of the transformation of the city.
Run-up to the Start of a local Christian Radio Station
John Thomas’ Zimbabwe-born wife Avril was a visionary from the word go. Closely befriended to Patrick and Jill Johnstone who were working as missionaries with the Dorothea Mission, the entire family was mission-minded. The Thomas family in Pretoria was directly linked to the Andrew Murray tradition through the Dorothea Mission. While Patrick and Jill were still courting (secretly, because the mission did not permit overt signals of affection in the initial stages), they often met in the Thomas family home. Whenever they were in Cape Town, Patrick and Jill would stay with John and Avril and their two children.
From their early days in the Cape, Avril Thomas initiated a multi-racial prayer meeting for women in the city, many of whom came in by train. When they had a guest speaker, her husband John would also come along. One of their visions that they shared for prayer at different venues - like in the boardroom of the defunct Cape of Good Hope Bank in St Georges Street - was for a Christian radio station to be started.
Radio Fish Hoek became a prime force
in stopping the Islamization of the Cape
Six years after the Thomas family came to the Cape, they started Radio Fish Hoek in 1993. It was to become the first Christian local radio station of the country and became a prime force in stopping the Islamization of the Western Cape when PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) attempted to do this by force from 1996. The radio station was later renamed Cape Community FM (CCFM). It was soon followed by Radio Tygerberg, which started as an Afrikaans language station. The two stations alternated on a twelve-hour basis until 2004, when both stations received twenty four-hour transmission status.

13. The Clock Starts Turning Back

September 1989 can be seen as the time when the death throngs of apartheid became discernable.
State President P.W. Botha missed a wonderful opportunity to get the glory for the release of Nelson Mandela. He suspiciously demanded from Mandela a public renunciation of violence which Mandela could not make without consulting his constituency. In August 1989 Botha was succeeded by Frederik Willem de Klerk after a ‘well-staged cabinet coup’. The tide was turning towards real democracy in the apartheid state.
Opponents of the pariah rule were in the numerical ascendancy throughout the Cape Peninsula in 1989, notably also among Whites, with the exception of the northern suburbs. Cape Town’s mayor, Gordon Oliver and his City councillors had come out in favour of an ‘open city’. On 11 June 1989, together with two thousand other people, he walked from Rondebosch to District Six for the cause – keeping just within the law.

A defiance Campaign with a Difference
With the likelihood of considerable White support the pro-ANC Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) – successor to the banned UDF – launched a new defiance campaign against remaining social segregation on August 2. The campaign intensified as parliamentary elections, scheduled for 6 September, drew close. P.W. Botha suddenly had become a liability. On 14 August Mr F.W. De Klerk, a low-key Cabinet Minister but the leader of the Transvaal NP, ousted P.W. Botha. Yet, nobody expected much in terms of concession from a Prime Minister who had been known to be on the verkrampte side,42 quite conservative.
On 1 September several groups of clerics and academics gathered to demand the right to protest. De Klerk appeared to be no different to his predecessor, when all the protesters were arrested and some of the clergymen badly beaten by the police. So were many members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) as they demonstrated against a new labour Relations Act. On 2 September attempted marches to parliament were broken up by police using tear gas, quirts and a water canon. In the White general election on 6 September the PFP’s successor, the Democratic Party (DP), won all the city, southern and Atlantic suburban seats. On election night itself, many of the Cape Flats townships were turned into battlefields. As many as 23 people were killed.
All this changed at a mammoth march on Wednesday 13 September 1989 in the Mother City. After a short service of ‘peace and mourning’ at St George’s Cathedral, thirty thousand people packed the streets en route to the Grand Parade. The city was witnessing its largest and most peaceful march since the one led by Philip Kgosana in 1960. Unlike most demonstrations since 1960, not a single uniformed policeman was in visible attendance. At the head of the march were Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mayor Gordon Oliver, Dr Allan Boesak, Sheikh Nazeem Mohamed (president of the Muslim Judicial Council) and Professor Jakes Gerwel (rector of the University of the Western Cape). Archbishop Tutu declared victoriously: ‘We are a new people, a rainbow people, marching to freedom’ Amid cries of ‘Long live the mayor!’ and deafening applause, Gordon Oliver announced, ‘Today Cape Town has won. Today we all have the freedom of the City.’
This event set off demonstrations all over the country, which must have given the new South African president, Mr F.W. De Klerk, food for thought. These events were made possible by national and international developments. De Klerk’s turn around – to allow the march - was prepared by 13 years of urban turmoil and economic recession, all of which spawned illegal strikes, unemployment and a more militant trade unionism. Internationally the era of perestroika had arrived in Eastern Europe. It would have been fool-hardy for De Klerk to try and stem the tide. The march to freedom looked unstoppable. But what few were aware of – a wave of prayer for the country had been set in motion already in 1987.
Ominous signs however also appeared on the horizon. In the election of the same month, it must have become clear to De Klerk that a solution had to be found to stop the ongoing cycle of violence, rebellion and oppression. This had been a major characteristic of South Africa in the second half of the 1980s. In the election his party lost support to both the left and the right.

Reconciliation and Confession topple Apartheid
It would probably be safe to say that the 40 years of apartheid oppression - combined with the prophetic WCC and SACC actions between 1948 and 1988 - helped to conscientise the poor and the oppressed. Thus the situation was radicalised towards the inevitable conflict. The revolutionary situation after 1985 possibly influenced the pragmatic new presidential incumbent - F.W. De Klerk - towards a more reasonable approach. Such a scenario also normally calls for more prayer. We can safely surmise that more people were praying for an end to the killings and violence than at other times.

Prayer that changed Countries
At the interdenominational prayer meetings of the ‘Regiogebed’ in Zeist (Holland) we prayed for local issues, for missionaries who left from our area but also for other countries. In 1989 we prayed especially for Communist countries, notably for the German Democratic Republic, Hungary and Romania. We were really encouraged by the news that came through from Leipzig in East Germany. Christians there seemed to have become the vanguards of the surge towards real democracy.
God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform! Unwittingly I was preparing my return to Africa, to my dear Heimat at that. On 4 October 1989 I wrote a letter of confession to President De Klerk, the newly inducted president, after I became inwardly convicted because of my activism and arrogance. (Over the years I had written quite a few letters to the new presidential incumbent’s predecessors and to some of the Cabinet ministers. Rosemarie felt that I was wasting my time. She was very sure that my letters would never reach the likes of Mr P.W. Botha. I prodded on nevertheless, but after 1982 the letters became very sparse compared to the years 1978-80.)
The prayer meeting was devoted to
praying for my beloved country.
At our ‘regiogebed’meeting of 4 October 1989, I mentioned in passing to someone that I had posted a letter to President De Klerk that day. Spontaneously Mr van Loon, a teacher from the nearby town of Doorn, who was no regular at our prayer meetings, who overheard this suggested that we devote more time that evening to pray for South Africa. Nobody objected. That must have been supernatural guidance. The whole prayer meeting was hereafter devoted to praying for my beloved country. That was the only occasion when we prayed so intensely for a single country.
Nobody present at the prayer meeting was aware that President De Klerk was to meet Archbishop Tutu and Allan Boesak the following week. That strategic meeting became in a sense a watershed in the politics of the country, the prelude to the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid. In other countries also, but especially in South Africa, people had been praying for a change in the suicidal direction of the political system.43
President de Klerk invited church
leaders to assist the government
President De Klerk soon showed that he was serious by not only releasing eight of South Africa’s most prominent political prisoners, including Walter Sisulu, but also having the Separate Amenities Act repealed on 16 November 1989. In his first Christmas address to the nation as State President, De Klerk invited church leaders to assist the government. The church leaders were distrustful – this was very understandable after the many broken promises of the past. They insisted that he would leave the churches alone in such a venture. De Klerk not only graciously accepted this, but he also proved his credentials in his momentous speech to Parliament on 2 February, paving the way for Nelson Mandela to be set free a week later.
On 15 June 1990 a wide range of church leaders met at Khotso House in Johannesburg, the start of the road to Rustenburg in November, where a momentous church conference was held! (see p.189f)
Soon it became only a matter of time for the slated Group Areas legislation was to be scrapped. On an orientation trip in December 1990 we were encouraged sufficiently to return as a family just over a year later.

New Mega Churches established
In 1988 His People Ministries started at UCT with Sunday afternoon services in the Robert Leslie Building and later on in the Baxter Theatre, usually led by Paul Daniel. In due course this institution became a blessing to many a country as missionaries left the Cape shores to plant fellowships abroad. Glen Robertson, a young musician, also became converted at the Lighthouse. At His People he developed an extensive music ministry and he was to play a pivotal role in the Newlands mass events from 2001. His People Ministries grew into a multi-congregation church in the city with its main meeting venue a 4000+ seating auditorium at N1 City, Goodwood, which was opened in 2000.
In a parallel move of the Holy Spirit, Neville McDonald was affected. Groomed by his father-in-law, he came to Cape Town in 1984 as a young pastor with his wife Wendy, to start a church. They hired a cinema, the Three Arts Theatre, put an advertisement in the newspaper and began to preach and pray for the sick.
Along with the Cape-born Derek Golding, who soon joined McDonald, a fellowship was started at the former Three Arts complex. After a few years this building became too small. A large new facility around a warehouse in Ottery became known as the Good Hope Christian Centre, with daughter fellowships of their own in due course.
A group of charismatic believers branched off amicably from the Wynberg Baptist Church, to form the Vineyard Church. Pastor Simon Petit, the fellowship grew rapidly, moving into the Waverley blanket factory, with satellite congregations at other venues, such as in the Cape Town High School and in Khayelitsha. The new denomination, with its links to Terry Virgo from Britain
and his New Frontiers team, decided to change their name to
Jubilee Church in 1993.
They received a request to to change their name to Jubilee Church in 1993. They received a request to that effect, to distinguish them from the fellowship, which had links to the internationally known John Wimber, and which also used the name Vineyard Church.
There were also Cape congregations linked to so-called mainline denominations which grew significantly. The two Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) churches of Goodwood and Bellville belong to this category.

Surfing the spiritual Waves
In 1991 a Christian surfing club was started at the Cape Town Baptist Church in an attempt to reach unchurched surfers. Mike Geldenhuys, a young believer who proceeded to study theology at the Cape Town Baptist Seminary, invited Roy Harley, a devout surfer from Durban, to come and challenge the youngsters at a camp. Nathan, the son of Graham Gernetsky, the pastor, invited his friend Terran Williams. Under the impact of the Word, Terran was the first to commit his life to Christ. Demitri Nikiforos and Nathan Gernetsky were two other teenagers who, like Terran, later went into full-time ministry. Demitri and Roy Harley became the co-leaders of the Christian surfing club when Roy came to study theology at CEBI (that later became Cornerstone Christian College).
The Cape Town surf ministry linked with two similar groups in East London and Port Elizabeth. Soon Sun Surf became the national brand name for ministries all over the country linked to a local church. At this time God raised similar ministries among surfers in Australia and the US. Roy Harley relocated to Jeffrey’s Bay, the Mecca of surfing in South Africa. Roy Harley became the continental co-ordinator in due course.
Demitri Nikiforos became a pioneering pastor of Calvary Chapel in the Mother City afters studying in the USA. Nathan, after studying at Cornerstone Christian College, joined the leadership team of Friends First Church, followed by leading a church in Hermanus and then Hout Bay. Terran Williams, after years of serving with Scripture Union and after his studies at Cornerstone Christian College, joined the leadership team of Friends First (renamed Common Ground Church in 2008), which has since then grown to be a large church with a strong reach into the city.
Prayer guides the difficult Transition
Already in February 1990 President F.W. de Klerk put in place the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa). From the earliest meetings the good rapport he seems to have with the leader of the unbanned ANC, the freshly released Nelson Mandela, augured well for the future of the country. There was however a big gulf between De Klerk and his Afrikaner constituency, which manifested itself in a humiliating defeat of the ruling NP at the hands of the Conservative Party in a Potchefstroom by-election at the beginning of 1992. The pragmatic State President, who was clearly bent on preserving White power, decided to flee in a forward direction. In the negotiations that followed Nelson Mandela’s release from jail in February 1990, Mandela described the Cape's Colin Eglin as ‘one of the architects of our democracy’.
This was definitely no overstatement. In the memoirs of Colin Eglin two clear instances are mentioned where the intervention of Eglin contributed to salvage the negotiations. In the one instance he challenged Nelson Mandela to bury their petty differences in the national interest when deadlock occurred and in the second case he asked for an interview to see De Klerk where he suggested that Roelf Meyer be asked to take over the bilateral negotiations with the ANC's Cyril Ramaphosa. Eglin continued to make his impact in parliament over the first 10 years of South Africa’s transition to democracy.
When President F.W. de Klerk announced a Whites-only election on 20 February 1992, it was still unclear in which direction the country would go. The possibility of unprecedented civil war could definitely not be ruled out. The Whites were asked to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question: ‘Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on February 2, 1990 and which is aimed at a new constitution?’
The success of the Proteas
possibly influenced the referendum.
The success of the national cricket team at the World Cup tournament in Australia at that time possibly influenced the vote decisively. A ‘no’ vote would most certainly have sent the country back into the sporting wilderness. The latter possibility was for many in the sports loving country just as ghastly to contemplate! (This formulation was a dictum coined by Mr B.J. Vorster, a previous Prime Minister, for the civil war option.) With a resounding ‘yes’ - 68% - from all corners of the country, Mr de Klerk was given a mandate on 17 March, 1992, to negotiate a new constitution with African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela.
The Goodwill of promising Beginnings seemed to evaporate
Much of the goodwill of these promising beginnings seemed to evaporate after 1992 during the transition to democratic government. In Kwazulu, a simmering condition of civil war had been prevailing for years. The tension between ANC followers and those of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) was just waiting for the final igniting of the proverbial powder keg. The apparent if perhaps not intentional simultaneous side-lining of Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi and his IFP in the Codesa talks spelled danger. At the infamous Boipatong massacre on 17 June 1992 in the Vaal triangle 46 township residents were massacred by local Zulu hostel-dwellers. The latter were taken to have been Inkatha followers of Dr Buthelezi, highlighting how volatile the situation still was. Over the Easter weekend of 1993, the country seemed to have been pushed to the precipice of major racial conflict. On 10 April, 1993, the news reverberated throughout the country that the outspoken communist Chris Hani, who had been groomed for a top position in a possible ANC-led government, had been assassinated. The fact that a White woman provided information leading to the prompt arrest of the alleged perpetrators, two right-wing activists, helped to lower the political temperature momentarily, but the situation remained extremely tense.
But satan had overplayed his hand. The St James Church massacre of July 1993 turned out to be the instrument par excellence to impact the movement towards racial reconciliation in the country. Those family members who lost dear ones received divine grace to forgive the brutal killers. The killing of innocent people during a church service sparked off an unprecedented urgency for prayer all around the country.
Freedom via the Cross
By the end of 1993, South Africa stood on the verge of her first democratic elections. But despite the political significance of this watershed moment, frustration was high in the Black communities and morale low in White communities. The future was unclear. Questions and doubts plagued the business community. Would the economy withstand a new government? Would a Black government simply turn the tables on the Whites in revenge? Would violence escalate and security deteriorate?
By far not everybody was happy with the negotiated settlement as the country approached the elections. Thus there were some who felt their cause betrayed. On the Friday evening of 31 December 1993, four masked men entered the Heidelberg Tavern of Observatory, a Cape suburb which was frequented by many students. The embittered men fired several rounds of AK47 bullets into the crowd, injuring many and killing a few. Among the dead there was Lyndi, the daughter of Ginn Fourie, who was challenged by the rage into doctoral research on the background of the massacre. Her thesis in Sociology around the motives of the perpetrators contained the very personal question: ‘I want to find out whether or not we can become reconciled to each other.’
The adage of the great Albert Luthuli to attain freedom via the Cross received a new actuality: (Luthuli said this after he had been elected as President of the ANC and then dismissed as chief by the South African government in November 1952): 'It is inevitable that in working for freedom some individuals and some families must take the lead and suffer: the Road to Freedom is via the Cross'.

Taking back what satan had stolen?
The indifference of the churches to evangelistic outreach has always been a problem all around the Peninsula. The situation in Woodstock and Salt River had no good record in this regard. The two crime- infested suburbs, made up of people of lesser means, had become predominantly Islamic within a few years in the early 1990s.
In March 1994, Pastor Graham Gernetsky, the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, organized a missions week with theological students from the Cape Town Baptist Theological Seminary.
The author was asked to teach at this week-long event along with Bobby Maynard, who was linked to Veritas College, then in its embryonic stage. Reverend Gernetsky reacted positively to my suggestion to engage in prayer warfare with the students not only in Bo-Kaap, but also in Woodstock. This would be tantamount to an attempt to take back what satan had stolen through drug abuse, prostitution and gangsterism.
During a prayer walk by the students - which formed part of the missions week - a local Woodstock resident mentioned Pastor William Tait and his fellowship. This led to contact with the local Assemblies of God congregation there. When Pastor Tait started his ministry in 1989, that suburb was becoming completely Islamic, albeit not for a reason that made Muslims proud. Christians were leaving Woodstock as gangsterism and prostitution took the area by storm. By 1990 it had become the drug hub of the metropolis.
By 1990 Woodstock had become
the drug hub of the metropolis
The 1994 missions week was also the start of closer co-operation between the Assemblies of God fellowship44 and the small local Baptist Church. I had been preaching occasionally at the Baptist fellowship, which had no pastor at that time.
The Face of Woodstock changed
Towards the end of the decade, the notorious suburb slowly changed its religious complexion. The hub of drug-peddling and prostitution moved to more lucrative areas. Pastor Tait and his church were ably assisted by the small local Baptist Church under the inspiring and pioneering sickly new minister, Pastor Edgar Davids. Sadly, Davids died in March 1998 after his body rejected a transplanted kidney.
The two buildings where these churches met, visibly demonstrated the need for change in the area. Both structures had become quite dilapidated by 1995. The Baptist Church bought the ruin of the old Aberdeen Street Dutch Reformed Church, and soon they started to restore it with financial and practical aid from North Carolina believers in the USA.
The Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God initially rented a delapidated building which they subsequently tried to buy from the Woodstock Presbyterian Church in 1997. The Presbyterian Church found it difficult to survive in the deteriorating suburb. (Almost all their members had either left the area or passed away.) The Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God fellowship was in many ways an exception to the general indifference. From 1994, they conducted five o’clock prayer meetings every morning on weekdays.
Almost before our eyes we could see God starting to use these two fellowships of Woodstock - to gradually change the face of the suburb. The restored churches, respectively in Clyde and Aberdeen Streets, that once had been the shame of local Christianity, now stood there as a visible testimony to God’s renewal power in that suburb. We prayed that something similar would happen in the spiritual realm.
Involvement in Walmer Estate and Salt River
Our involvement in the adjacent suburbs of Walmer Estate and Salt River started with prayer walking. In the latter instance it became the prelude to a children’s club that we began with Marika Pretorius - a SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague - after our return from ‘home assignment’ in Europe in 1995. (Marika had been used by God to introduce us to families in Bo-Kaap, and as a link to the Alpha Centre in Hanover Park, where we also conducted children’s clubs from 1993 to 1995). In our absence she did further spadework work with a holiday club in Salt River in the Burns Road Community Centre.
At some stage Marika brought along her roommate and co-worker from their Dutch Reformed congregation in Panorama, Jenny van den Berg. When Marika left for Germany to work among Turkish people, not only did Jenny become our valued co-worker in Salt River, but in due course she was to become one of the regular lecturers at the annual Muslim Evangelism course at the Bible Institute of South Africa that we started in 1996 under the umbrella of Christian Concern for Muslims (CCM). After we had handed the children’s work in Salt River to Eric Hofmeyer, Jenny van den Berg pioneered a similar ministry in Woodstock, based at the local Baptist Church, where she ministered till 2009.
Can an angel bring a false message?
Lessons learned in spiritual Warfare
My teaching at the missions week with the seminary students ‘backfired’. It became one big lesson in spiritual warfare. We included early prayer times with the students, starting at 5 a.m. One morning my wife Rosemarie shared what she had ‘discovered’ in Galatians 1:8,9 – that even an angel could bring a false message if that would deviate from the original Gospel revealed in Scripture. This amplified to us the origins of the Qur’an. We had learnt that Muhammad later believed – after thinking initially that it was God himself - that an angel brought to him the Surah (chapter) starting with the words that man was made out of clotted blood. (Muslims believe that these revelations were brought to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel.) We were filled with more compassion towards the Muslims as we realized that they have been deceived without even knowing it. This became to me the pristine beginnings of an in-depth study of the Angel Gabriel in the Bible, the Qur’an, the Talmud and the Ahadith.45 (Islamic traditions of Muhammad’s words and deeds are regarded as equal in authority to the Qur’an).
The consistent omission of the Cross
in the Qur’an could not be coincidence
I furthermore discovered how deceptive the arch-enemy was, that he had indeed been masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), and that the consistent omission in the Qur’an of everything alluding to the Cross could not be coincidence. The latter discovery came about as I prepared myself for teaching Muslim background believers.46
One of the lessons of the missions week was quite painful to me. As I taught the theological students about the history of Islam in the Western Cape with, I broke down in tears. I discovered how deep in my heart there was still resentment towards the Dutch Reformed Church. I suppose that it developed when I had been reading how the denomination opposed the government when Mr P.W. Botha and his Cabinet were ready to repeal the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. (This was the law that caused my exile of almost two decades in Germany and Holland.)
The increasing number of expatriates in
Cape Town came into focus as future
missionaries to their own people.
Black People seen as future Missionaries
Two of the student participants at the mission week were Kalolo Mulenga and Orlando Suarez, respectively from Zambia and Mozambique. The seed had already been sown in my heart to see African Black people as future missionaries during an orientation visit to the Ivory Coast in 1990, where we had hoped to go as a WEC missionary family. Now the increasing number of expatriates in Cape Town came into focus as future missionaries to their own people, just like the Samaritan woman of John 4 in the ‘New Testament’. Orlando Suarez was to become one of the first of those foreign Africans to return to their home country, albeit that in his case it was not completely voluntarily. The lessons in cross-cultural outreach that the Master Teacher passed on to us through chapter 4 from John’s Gospel, would guide us during the next few years. I not only used the conversation of our Lord Jesus with a woman from another culture as a prime example for the outreach to Cape Muslims, but we were now concentrating our work on the local converts from Islam. We noticed how much more effectively they were reaching out to their own people.47
Two missionaries from the Cape helped prepare the way for an attitudinal change of Cape Christians by their ministry in Malawi. Bobby Maynard attended the Cape Town Baptist Church before he left the Mother City for Malawi, touching the young (future) Baptist ministers during the missions’ week in March 1994 just before he left. Braam Willemse, another Cape missionary, ministered to the predominantly Muslim Yao tribe when he died at a fairly young age. Willemse did stalwart pioneering work among that tribe in the mid-1990s, but when the first mosque became a church in Malawi - probably the first on the African continent to do so, he had already gone to be with the Lord. (The opposite happened more often – churches becoming mosques.)

A special call to Service
God called Hester Veldsman in a very specific way. She resigned her well-paid employment promptly and started to go into the informal settlements around Paarl and Wellington – giving soup to the children and also going door-to-door, just serving and responding to needs. One day, when the children prayed to say thanks for their soup, little Emile challenged her with a question: Auntie Hester, who is this Jesus that we must give thanks to? She was challenged with the reality that on our doorstep – in spite of so many churches around - that there are still children and adults who have no idea who Jesus or God is. She went for training in Children’s Ministry to equip herself better. Her main teacher however was the Holy Spirit, who taught her day-by-day and step-by-step. Hester also identified responsible mothers, for whom she arranged Educare training. These ladies would take in a number of children into their homes as an informal “crèche”, where working mothers could leave their pre-school children. (Most of these crèches are still running today, of course much more professionally than in those early years).
In 2003 Hester was challenged once again with the need of intelligent children from indigent families to have proper education. With the help of the more affluent of her surrounds and friends she succeeded in bringing a plan to fruition which resulted in holistic education and the vision of community transformation. A bunch of young individuals were transformed into a group that were later to be used also in evangelisation. They were dubbed in due course The Dream Team.
Spiritual Complexion of residential Areas changed
The influx of exploited Black Africans who sometimes shared their accommodation with other refugees who work at night48 in Woodstock and Salt River, helped to change the spiritual complexion of the suburbs which had become Islamic in the early 1990s. Small churches with especially French speakers sprang up all over from Woodstock to Maitland and Observatory. These refugee believers brought into the area the practice of all-night prayer from Friday to Saturday, a phenomenon that had become common in Central Africa. The sad side of this is that the seed of Prosperity Theology that entered the country in the 1980s, manifested itself amongst the new small churches in the most wicked and evil ways. Eloquent ‘pastors’ sprang up all over who were merely seeking a convenient life-style, abusing the national or language affinity of their refugee compatriots. This made their days of fasting and all night prayer meetings hypocritical, the sort of thing that God hates (Isaiah 58).49
As the Black Africans moved into these residential areas, racist ‘Coloureds’ started moving out. Seed for a new South Africa was nevertheless sown. Tolerance towards our African brothers and sisters germinated. During the violence in 2008 there was not a single serious xenophobic incident in these suburbs.
14. Prayer for Cape Muslims and Jews

After our move to Tamboerskloof at the end of January 1992 we started reaching out to street children and vagrants. At this time Rosemarie and I decided to do prayer walking in the adjacent Bo-Kaap, asking the Lord to lead us to those people where the Holy Spirit had already done preparatory work.
Somewhere along the line I heard my mother mentioning that I was born at St Monica’s maternity clinic in Bo-Kaap. The institution played a special role in our getting to know quite a few Cape Muslims. After initial scepticism because of her skin colour and foreign accent, Rosemarie would immediately get complete trust from the patients when she mentioned that her husband was born at the self-same maternity clinic.

Start of Prayer Walking in Bo-Kaap
Soon we were walking through the Bo-Kaap as a couple, praying for the area. But we sensed very soon that we should not be alone in this venture. We discovered that we needed the prayer backing of other Christians. As a family we were attending the city branch at the Cape Town High School of the Vineyard Church, as the Jubilee Church was called.50 Dave and Herma Adams, the local leaders of the fellowship at the Cape Town High School, had a vision to reach out to the Muslims, although the new denomination in general had no special affinity as yet for such outreach.
Our Bo-Kaap prayer walks resulted in the resumption of a fortnightly prayer meeting in the home of Cecilia Abrahams, the widow of a Muslim background believer from Wale Street. The prayer meetings focused on reversing the effect of apartheid on Bo-Kaap. From the outset Daphne Davids, a member of the Cape Town Baptist Church and also a Bo-Kaap resident, attended the prayer meeting regularly. When Cecilia Abrahams encountered problems with her hearing ability after a few years, the meeting was relocated to Daphne’s home across the road, and it later became a monthly event.51


Covert Power Encounters
More covert power encounters were to follow in the 1970s under the ministry of Ds. Pietie Victor’s Straatwerk. Thus Esther Dunn, a former drug addict, was supernaturally delivered. She went to the Glenvar Bible School that is linked to the Africa Evangelistic Band, thereafter becoming the first full-time worker of Straatwerk. Drug addicts were among those who were set free through the power of the Gospel. Many a Satanist or person under occult bondage discovered that there is indeed quite a lot of power in the blood of Jesus, especially when believers stand together in prayer.
Many a Satanist or person under
occult bondage discovered that
there is power in the blood of Jesus
From oral reports of Life Challenge workers of yesteryear, the ministry was accompanied by an emphasis on prayer. For many years Muslim outreach at the Cape and SIM Life Challenge were almost synonymous. WEC International missionaries who came to the Cape in 1992, likewise endeavoured to emphasise prayer. Regular prayer meetings focused on Bo-Kaap.
Intensified Prayer in a Muslim Stronghold
Two members of the city Vineyard Church fellowship, Achmed Kariem, a Muslim background believer and Elizabeth Robertson, who had a special love for the Jews, joined us for the Wale Street prayer meetings in Bo-Kaap. We had as an ultimate goal the planting of a simple church52 in the most extreme Islamic stronghold of the Cape Peninsula. In 1992 it was regarded as quite a daunting challenge.
In mid-1993 the fellowship of believers from the Vineyard Church stopped gathering at the Cape Town High School. The Lord seemed to lead us to the Cape Town Baptist Church when he used the 8-year-old daughter of one of the elders of the church.
A young girl was troubled by
the calls from the minarets
The girl had been terribly troubled by the calls from the minarets in the nearby mosques. Her father suggested that she should start praying for the Muslims. Soon thereafter a group from the church arrived one Monday evening at our prayer meeting in Bo-Kaap.
Just at that time we heard that Louis Pasques and his wife Heidi were interested in ministering to the Muslims. Louis was a student at the Baptist Seminary, and a leader of one of the three daughter congregations of the Cape Town Baptist Church. This eventually led us to join the fellowship.
A special Impact on (Cape) Jewry
When the Bo-Kaap prayer meeting in the Abrahams’ home in Wale Street was changed to a monthly meeting, it made room for a prayer event where intercession for the Middle East was the focus. The new monthly meeting - at our home in Tamboerskloof and later in the suburb Vredehoek from 1994 - also included prayer for the Jews, those in Israel as well as those in Cape Town. The catalyst for the Jewish part of the prayer meeting was Elizabeth Robertson, whom God had used to stir the Jews of Sea Point in 1990. She had been confronted at that time with a very difficult choice when she was about to convert to Judaism, in preparation for her marriage to an Israeli national. Her autobiography The Choice made an impact on Cape Jewry when it was published in 2003. In the same year it was read on the programme Story Tellseth Robertson writes about the predicament into which the rabbi put her in the final interview of the procedure before she was about to convert to Judaism. She described the turmoil with the following words:
I cleared my throat to speak, when unexpectedly an anointing fell upon me, and I found myself asking if I might go on my knees. A holy boldness overtook me and in a loud, firm voice, with an authority that shocked even me, I heard myself saying: “To me Jesus Christ is the Son of God! He is the one who died for me,” then, pointing at the rabbis one by one, “and for you and for you and for you. He is the Messiah. He was born of a virgin, and His blood cleanses all of our sins. This is who I believe Jesus Christ is!” I then collapsed onto the floor in a sobbing heap.
The unexpected choice of Elizabeth Robertson shook Cape Jewry. Surprisingly, she was encouraged by Jews to publish her special story.
Through Elizabeth, the author and his wife met Renette Marx and Lorraine Fleurs, two Christian workers, who were ministering covertly among the Jews of Cape Town. Later we also met Edith Sher, a Messianic Jewish believer.
Start of a Missions Prayer Meeting
Preparations for the start of a prayer meeting for missions in Hanover Park progressed well. The City Mission congregation of the township was prepared and willing to have one of their weekly prayer meetings changed to be used for praying for missionaries once a month.
With Norman Barnes, a Muslim background believer and former drug addict as the leader, it was easy to share the burden of praying for the problematic groups from where he came. The vision to see missionaries going from their area was gladly taken on board. The idea was completely new to the intercessors, but the Lord soon started answering the prayers miraculously. From the Lansdowne/Hanover Park/Manenberg area there were within a few years more or less as many missionaries somewhere in the world than from the rest of the Cape Peninsula put together over a limited period.
An Operation gets going in Hanover Park
The Bless the Nations conferences influenced the Cape very deeply. Bruce van Eeden, a pastor from Mitchells Plain who was powerfully touched in 1990, started Great Commission Conferences in ‘Coloured’ areas. After ministering at one of these conferences in 1992, Rosemarie and I became involved with children’s ministry at the Newfields Clinic where Van Eeden was pastoring an Evangelical Bible Church congregation.
Law enforcement agents could
not handle the criminality
At this time I participated in the establishment of Operation Hanover Park. The stimulus for the latter operation was given by Everett Crowe, a police officer, who approached the churches in a last-ditch effort to secure peace in Hanover Park, because the law enforcement agents could not handle the criminality in the area any more. Operation Hanover Park was formed with Pastor Jonathan Matthews of the Blomvlei Baptist Church53 as the main driving force behind the initiative. The City Mission Saturday afternoon prayer meeting was the precursor to the monthly prayer meeting of Operation Hanover Park towards the end of 1992.
Operation Hanover Park involved believers of diverse church backgrounds who prayed together. Dean Ramjoomia, a Muslim background believer, was eager to operate among the gangsters as the local missionary of the churches. Blomvlei Baptist Church offered the Ramjoomia family accommodation on the church premises and a few other churches pledged financial contributions. Things looked quite promising. It seemed as if the Hanover Park churches were finally getting out of their indifference with regard to community involvement. Our idea of solving the gangsterism problem in the long term,by starting Christian children’s clubs in different parts of the township, made many local believers excited. Furthermore, it looked as if our vision - to get local churches working together in missions and evangelism - was coming to fruition. At least, this was how it seemed! At the same time, this would also give great impetus to the rest of the country to combat criminality and violence – through united prayer and action! That was however not to be. Operation Hanover Park was on the verge of achieving an early version of community transformation at the beginning of 1993 when a leadership tussle stifled the promising movement.
The first Love Southern Africa Conference was held in Wellington in 1993, with the Nigerian Panja Baba and OM's international leader George Verwer as the main speakers. This co-incided with the renovation of the OM ship the Doulos in the Cape Town harbour. The ship's young people were hosted all over the Cape Peninsula and spreading blessings. Some of these young people were ministering in Hanover Park.
Gangster Violence spilling over to the Countryside
Gangster violence spilled over to the Cape countryside. By the late 1980s the Roodewal township of Worcester, a country town about 100 km from Cape Town, resembled the notorious townships of the Cape Peninsula. The Lord had raised a choice instrument through Hanna, the nurse maid of the Van Deventer family in the Worcester area. Hanna radiated the love of the Lord. Little Erena responded by loving Hanna to bits, hugging her at all times. Not having a clue of the realities of apartheid even until she was 21, Erena could not understand why her nanny Hanna always said that her mother should not know about her hugging the maid she loved so much.
God used the special relationship to Hanna, their domestic aid, to sow affection for the ‘Coloured’ people in Erena’s heart. Parallel to this, the Lord put in her a love for Israel and the Jewish people. Her work as probation officer, gave her an unusual yearning in 1980 to help gangsters with whom she had been working. She shared this with Charlotte Cass, who had just been starting up a base of Youth with a Mission in Worcester. Charlotte gave her the wise counsel to give this desire back to God. Erena heeded this advice, but she could not forget it. A few years later God intervened when she was appointed as a social worker with the Department of Coloured Affairs. God would use her in a profound way in the years hereafter.
On 11 January 1985 a special Disciple Training School of Youth with a Mission started in Strandfontein. One of the participants was David, a former gangster who became a valued farm worker through the support of Erena. A vision was born in her heart to see gangsters transformed and used as missionaries.

A Kibbutz in the Boland
The Cape Town Scorpions, a Cape Flats gang, made an unprecedented move to set up their headquarters in the Roodewal township of Worcester. Gangsters from the township Elsies River started training new recruits there. When gangster violence rocked Roodewal in 1986, Erena van Deventer was called into action. She was not completely satisfied with the peace that was brought about by the concerted prayer of believers. In response to the gangster activity, the Lord birthed in her heart the idea to set up a Kibbutz. She began to fast, cry and pray with new zeal for Roodewal. She wrote in her autobiographical booklet about this period of her life: ‘My life became a prayer to God’.
Her failure to secure the purchase of the Shalvah Chavonnes property for the purpose of starting a Kibbutz there, only made Erena more determined. A link to Hudson McComb, who had started the ministry Beth Uriel for street children in Salt River, brought the vision for her Kibbutz into greater focus. When she was given a tract of property near Roodewal Township, she was ready to start her Kibbutz - South African style.
This became the beginning of El Shammah Ministries. The Kibbutz was used as a venue for the Discipleship Training School (DTS) of Youth with a Mission. The first DTS was held there in 1998, followed by an outreach to Malawi. Many a gangster was impacted in Roodewal. Some who had little formal schooling, came into a living relationship with Jesus. A few of them left the Cape shores as short term missionaries, using drama and other modern forms of ministry in different countries.
Friday Lunchtime Prayer Meetings
As a direct result of our prayer walking in Bo-Kaap, regular prayer meetings in the home of the Abrahams family at 73 Wale Street were resumed. At one of these meetings, Achmed Kariem suggested a lunchtime prayer meeting on Fridays, at the same time that Muslims attend their mosque services. Such prayer events started in September 1992 in the Shepherd’s Watch, a small church hall at 98 Shortmarket Street near Heritage Square. When the building was sold a few years later, the weekly event switched to the Koffiekamer at 108 Bree Street (The venue was used by Straatwerk for their ministry over the week-ends to the homeless, street children, and to certain nightclubs.) In addition to prayers for a spiritual breakthrough in the area, a foundation and/or catalyst for many evangelistic initiatives was laid at the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. The vision, to get prayer groups formed all over the Peninsula - so that the spiritual eyes of Muslims might be opened to Jesus as the Saviour of the World and as the Son of God - never took off. Here and there a prayer group started and petered out again. Two of them operated in Plumstead and Muizenberg for a few years apiece. The leaders of the respective prayer groups, Sally Kirkwood and Gill Knaggs, later got involved with the Cape prayer movement. The only prayer group that continued functioning over many years was the one in the Abrahams' home in Bo-Kaap's Wale Street. The Friday lunch hour prayer meetings persevered in the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk until July 2007, when it was relocated.
Global Ramifications
Gill Knaggs went on to become one of the first students of Media Village that had been started by Graham and Diane Vermooten in Muizenberg, a ministry linked to Youth with a Mission. The founders, Graham and Diane Vermooten had committed their ministry to not only training but also to telling the stories of God around the globe. Gill wanted to make a documentary of our ministry at that time as a part of her practical work. Looking back, we are quite happy that it did not materialise. It could have jeopardised our sensitive ministry at a moment when it would have been quite dangerous too, if the footage had come into the wrong hands. Her documenatary and Robben Island that was subsequently used on the ferries to and from the renowned island may have assisted to put Media Villag on the map.
In later years the Media Village DVDs and stories would carry the story of Transformation Africa and the Global Day of Prayer around the world.

Slaughtering of Sheep in Bo‑Kaap
In our loving outreach to Cape Muslims it seemed as if we could never penetrate to their hearts. We had been reading how Don Richardson had a similar problem in Papua New Guinea until he found the peace child as a key to the hearts of the indigenous people. We started praying along similar lines, to get a key to the hearts of Cape Muslims.
Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son at their Eid-ul Adha celebration. This made me realise how near the three world religions Christianity, Judaism and Islam actually are to each other. The narrative of Abraham and the near-sacrifice of his son is central to all three faiths.
One day our Bo-Kaap Muslim friends invited us to the festivities around the Korban, the slaughtering of sheep. Attending initially with some trepidation and prejudice, the occasion became such a special blessing to my wife and me.
The Lord gave us a key to the
hearts of Cape Muslims
Five sheep were slaughtered that Sunday afternoon. Vividly we saw how one sheep after the other went almost voluntarily to be killed. To see how the sheep went to be slaughtered brought back the childhood memories of Isaiah 53. Rosemarie and I looked at each other, immediately knowing that the Lord answered our prayer. He had given us the key to the hearts of Cape Muslims. The ceremony brought to light the biblical prophecy of Isaiah 53 that I had learned by heart as a child along the Moravian liturgical church practice, referring to the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
A few minutes later the message was amplified when a little girl came into the kitchen where Rosemarie was talking to the ladies. (I was in the living room according to prevailing custom). The animal-loving child sought solace from her mother. ‘Why do the innocent sheep have to be slaughtered every year?’ The answer of the mother was special: “You know, my dear, it is either you or the sheep.” We were amazed how the atonement concept was thus actually passed on in their religion.
It was wonderful to discover somewhat later that according to Jewish oral teaching traditions Isaac was purported to have carried the firewood for the altar on his shoulder, after Abraham saw Moriah on the third day - just like someone would carry a cross. In many a church I not only hereafter preached how resurrection faith was birthed in Abraham’s heart, but we also shared the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus to many eager-listening Muslims, usually without any objection (Officially Muslims were not supposed to believe that Jesus died on the cross, let alone that He died for our sins!)
Prayer Warriors respond
A divine response followed when individual prayer warriors from different communities were raised. A fourth national 40-day fast was organised in conjunction with an international initiative called A Day to Change the World. Thousands of people participated in this fast, which culminated in Jesus Marches all over the country on 24 June, 1994.
The country lapsed back into its traditional
racial and denominational divisions
Although much of the mutual distrust was temporarily overcome, the country lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational divisions. The recipe of Pete Grigg, an American prayer leader, was very appropriate: ‘If there is not significant unity, the first step is to bring together the believers in prayer or in renewal and teaching until there is reconciliation and brokenness.’
Contact with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre and SAAWE in Stellenbosch was quite strategic. I linked up with the countrywide prayer movement through Jan Hanekom, a spiritual giant of South African missions and prayer movement. (He was prayerfully preparing entry into Bhutan as a tent-making missionary when he died a few years later after contracting some mysterious disease.) Local Christians joined Bennie Mostert when he led a group to pray at the Islamic shrine of Macassar. In October, the group interceded at the shrine of Shaykh Yusuf, the man generally acknowledged to have brought Islam to South Africa.
A Breakthrough in the spiritual Realm
Something significant happened on that day of intercession in October 1994 at the shrine. The ‘martyr seed’ – the son of Ds. Ali Behardien - might have played some role in the spiritual realms as well. Together these factors may have signalled a breakthrough in the heavenlies. Individual Christians started showing more interest in praying for Muslims, although in general, the churches remained indifferent.
A new brand of convert from Islam emerged nevertheless, people who were bold and willing to suffer ostracism and persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. One example is Esmé Orrie. For a long time after her conversion in July 1992, she was very fearful and suspicious. However, from 1994 she started to testify boldly in churches and on the radio. (On 10 March 2000, listeners to the CCFM Christian radio station were invited to react by telephone to the programme God Changes Lives after she shared her testimony.) On a memorable Wednesday morning, 22 March 1975, we baptized five converts who had come from Islam, including two connected to our ministry. At that occasion we also heard about Johaar Viljoen, who had won over many Christians to Islam in his Islamic hey-day. (This former imam came to faith in Jesus in the prison of Caledon. His conversion in 1992 - a demonstration of the power of prayer - shook many Islamic inmates who regarded him as their religious leader.) Johaar Viljoen hereafter also shared his conversion story in churches fearlessly, in spite of quite a few threats.
A Cape fellowship ushered
in spiritual dancing, using
visible artifacts in worship
A link to the Cape Flats township intercessors existed through the fellowship in Greenhaven which was led by Mercia and Vincent Pregnalato. This couple held the fort in an area that was becoming Islamic at an alarming pace in the late 1980s. They also ushered in spiritual dancing, using visible artifacts like flags as part of worship. This spread in due course to audiences throughout the country. Martha Pekeur was another stalwart intercessor from the Cape Flats community.
My connection to the countrywide prayer movement was expanded when I met Gerda Leithgöb. She had introduced the use of research for prayer in South Africa in different cities. I promptly invited her as the guest speaker - along with Ds. Davie Pypers - for a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995, that focused on Islam.
Publications assist a networking Effort
In June 1992, Majiet Pophlonker and Zane Abrahams, two Muslim-background believers and their families, visited our home. After hearing Majiet’s moving story, seed was sown in my heart to write down the testimonies of converts from Islam.
At one of the first discussions with Manfred Jung, a SIM missionary colleague, the idea was mooted to publish the testimonies as a networking effort. I enjoyed collating the testimonies from some of the Muslim-background believers, sometimes making notes at meetings and once I took a tape recorder to a house. Eleven of the stories were finally selected. The result was Op soek na waarheid, a booklet that we planned to launch at the prayer seminar in January 1995. Elizabeth Robertson, one of our Bo-Kaap and Vredehoek prayer meeting regulars, painted a beautiful cover for the booklet, a typical Bo-Kaap scene.
The development of the publication of the booklet proceeded quite well during the first half of 1995, but we experienced serious demonic attacks in our family. These included the mysterious disappearance of the money in cyberspace, somewhere between Holland and Durban, that was earmarked for the printing of the booklets.
I was very eager to see the publication as a combined effort of various mission agencies. But because of its sensitive nature, not a single one of my missionary colleagues was prepared to stick his neck out. Converted Muslims could be exposed to persecution if the testimonies would be published. Furthermore, the person(s) responsible for the publication of the booklet would have to reckon with the same treatment. In the end, the author had no other option but to use the mission agency WEC International to which we are linked, as the publishers. The compiler and the names of the converts remained anonymous. This was a weak link in the publication. However, we had to protect the converts, some of whom had reason to be quite afraid because of threats and intimidation.
Prayer Results after new Efforts
The Lord used the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 60 as part of a devotional in a Friday lunch hour prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch to call Gill Knaggs into the mission to the Muslim World. She attended the prayer meeting on a once-off basis, but this was enough to set her in motion to pray about getting involved in full-time missionary work.
Gill helped to start translating (from Afrikaans) and editing the testimony booklet as Search for Truth.54 For a number of years she also hosted a prayer group for Muslims at her home. When Cape Community FM (CCFM) started a radio programme aimed at Muslims in 1998, she was available to write the scripts - something she continued to do for many years.
As a result of the 1994 Jesus Marches, some Cape churches learned more about the missionary work of WEC International. One of these churches was the Logos Christelike Kerk in Bellville. Not only did this church become a major distributor of the Ramadan Prayer Focus, but Freddy van Dyk, an elder of the church who worked at the Cape Town City Council, also joined the Friday lunchtime prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch. This participation led to some members of that prayer group eventually taking a course in pastoral clinical counselling by Dr Henry Dwyer in the second quarter of 1996 to strengthen their ministry.
Spin-offs of the Jesus Marches
As the Jesus Marches approached, the vision grew in me to start a prayer network throughout the Cape Peninsula to effect a spiritual breakthrough among the Cape Muslims. I was very much aware that concerted prayer was needed. We were able to start a few prayer groups, but the majority petered out. In the mid 1990’s, Sally Kirkwood led a prayer group for the Cape Muslims at her home in Plumstead. Later she played a more prominent role among Cape intercessors. Another group was formed by Gill Knaggs in Muizenberg after she had attended our Friday prayer meeting. She had been involved in a close relationship with a Muslim young man before she became a believer in Jesus as her Lord. Soon God used Gill to get the YWAM base in Muizenberg more interested in reaching Muslims. Concretely, an Egyptian connection was established, with YWAM starting to network with the Coptic Church via links through Mike Burnard of Open Doors. My wife and I were asked to teach at a YWAM Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Muizenberg in 1996. This culminated in a close friendship with Mark Gabriel, a former shaykh from Egypt, who had changed his name from an Islamic one when he became a follower of Jesus.
A Base for new Initiatives?
In September 1996 we suddenly received access to St Paul’s Primary School, Bo-Kaap, through a teacher, Berenice Lawrence, to whose home I had taken Mark Gabriel. Berenice’s husband Elroy had been at our home in Holland in 1978, while he was attending Spes Bona High School.55 Now Berenice came with the request to bring people like Mark Gabriel and others from different countries to their school. I jumped at this idea to broaden the minds of the Bo-Kaap children, to open them up to the Gospel in a loving and non-threatening way.
I was overwhelmed that the Lord might
want to use our church to minister to
Africans from other parts of the continent
On Sunday October 6, 1996, I preached at the Cape Town Baptist Church. Towards the end of the sermon my emotions got the better of me and I could not finish. I broke down in tears when I was overwhelmed by the idea that the Lord might want to use this church to minister to Africans from other parts of the continent. When I invited the congregation to join in the venture, there was hardly any visible response. Yet, seed was sown.56 (Within a few years there were more people of colour – the bulk of them foreigners - attending the church than Whites.)
A few days later, during our lunchtime prayer meeting with City Bowl ministers, Bruce Rudnick - a Messianic Jew - joined us. Bruce was the leader of the Beth Ariel Fellowship of Messianic believers in Sea Point. (I had been attending the Beth Ariel meetings on Friday evenings occasionally). In the prayer time with Louis Pasques and Bruce Rudnick, I felt quite very strongly that Messianic Jews should play an important role in the leadership of the world missionary movement and ideally, this should also start happening in Cape Town. However, this visionary idea still has to get off the ground.

Mitchells Plain Pastors in a Prayer Offensive
In the early 1990s various Mitchells Plain pastors – with Pastors Henry Busch, Eddie Edson and Theo Roman leading the way - met for prayer every Friday morning. The ministers’ fraternal of Mitchells Plain succeeded in bringing well-known evangelists like Reinhard Bonnke to the area. That gave them a lot of credibility among the churches there. When I approached the ministers’ fraternal in 1994 to join in the Jesus Marches, they were immediately eager to do so, organising a separate march in no time.
During prayer drives believers would
target strongholds of the arch-enemy
The ministers’ fraternal was also the driving force of the pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meetings which took place every second Thursday of the month from the mid-1990s. This prayer meeting soon included church leaders from all over the Peninsula. Pastor Edson of the Shekinah Tabernacle was also pivotal in the formation of prayer drives where believers would target strongholds of the arch-enemy and go there and pray against them every last Friday evening of the month. (Edson had already pioneered transport for the needy at his church in Mitchells Plain, purchasing buses to transport his congregants.)
In due course, strategic marches followed in other areas, such as Hanover Park, where combined prayer marches by churches on a Saturday afternoon would especially stop at places of vice, such as the homes of drug merchants. The seed sown in Hanover Park germinated when various attempts were made after 2005 to tackle the ‘tik’ drug problem.57 When Victory Outreach commenced with ministry at the Cape in 2006, Hanover Park was one of the first townships to see a vibrant church planted under their auspices. It is quite fitting that the former Bruce Duncan Children's Home in that township now hosts the offices and a drug rehabilitation centre of Victory Outreach.
15. Historical Changes in Answer to Prayer

Jim Wilson had already written his booklet “Principles of War” in 1964 to revive evangelical interest to attack strongholds. But it hardly seemed to make any dent in the spiritual realm. Paul Billheimer’s book Destined for the Throne (1975) approached the matter of prayer in a revolutionary manner. Although this book had a few printings, the content was probably not distributed globally by way of translation before 1989. Thus it did not mobilize believers significantly to use either praise or prayer - let alone both - to break down demonic strongholds in spiritual warfare. Paul Billheimer had close links to the World School of Prayer, whose founder and leader, Dick Eastman, was deeply influenced by the work of Andrew Murray.

A Forerunner of the ‘Boiler Room’ Concept
Billheimer made some profound statements about the role of the prayerful church that might have influenced world history deeply, had his book been taken seriously.58 He suggested for example that the church wields the balance of power ‘in overcoming disintegration and decay in the cosmic order’. (This has become especially relevant at the beginning of the new millennium, with increasing moral decay and an almost universal increase of (organized) crime and violence.) In the above booklet Billheimer does not only refer to the Moravians and their 24 hour prayer chain, but he also included notes from Dick Eastman. These were added as an appendix in Destined for the Throne. There one can also read about the start of ‘The Gap’, based on Ezekiel 22:30 (I sought for a man to stand in the gap for me for the land). In this venture young people committed their lives to the Lord for a year during which they would intercede for two hours a day in an ‘upper’ room. This was indeed a harbinger of the ‘boiler room’ concept at the turn of the 21st century.59
Prayer was the biggest factor in the start of new ministries at the Cape in the 1990s, undergirding the events that led to the birth of the new South Africa.

Results of Seven Years of Prayer
Open Doors invited Christians around the globe to pray for the Soviet Union for seven years. Things changed dramatically when the results of those prayers became known. There is nevertheless no cause for triumphalism - this never behooves a believer any way. Yet, the new opportunities for the spreading of the Gospel were there to be utilized. The demise of Communism received its major impetus from the crashing of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. This had been preceded by mass prayer rallies at different churches, for instance in the East German cities of Leipzig and Dresden.
Also in 1989, Edgardo Silvoso and Tom White presented papers at the Spiritual Warfare Track workshop of the Lausanne II Congress in Manila. White’s paper on spiritual warfare there set the evangelical world on course for the biggest missionary decade of the 20th century. The outcome was the founding of a Spiritual Warfare Communication and Referral Network. In the 1990s, Ed Silvoso would influence many countries with his teaching and example of bringing churches together in unity and practising restitution as part of genuine repentance. The additional emphasis on the market place resulted in the city of Resistencia (Population 400,000) in Argentina becoming the first city to be reached for Christ. From a mere 5,143 believers in 1988, it grew within a matter of a few years to over 100,000 in the entire city.60
With the increased awareness of spiritual warfare in Christian circles, the power of occult strongholds was also recognized more and more. Things started to change dramatically on a worldwide scale after the results of such prayer became known. The effects of seven years of persevering prayer for the Soviet Union were already quite apparent towards the end of 1989. The spadework had been done through Patrick Johnstone’s book Operation World. For the first time in the modern era thousands of prayer warriors were mobilized globally.
Communism was exposed as a spent force.
Worldwide prayer brought it down.
It is probably due to the faithful prayers of many over the years, that South Africa did not fall into the communist camp. By the time Nelson Mandela was freed in February 1990, Communism had been exposed as a spent force. Worldwide prayer brought it down. The demise of the atheist ideology was ushered in by mass prayer rallies at different East German churches, but especially also prepared by the faithful prayers of believers around the world.

Spiritual Warfare gets off the Ground
Only in the last two decades has it been acknowledged - and not even generally as yet - that occult forces are at work, which hamper the spread of the Gospel. ‘Spiritual warfare’ as such had been either completely neglected or was fairly unknown up to about 1990. Of course, the example of Hur and Aaron in the Bible might have been noted. Their holding Moses’ arms aloft was often taught as a model for intercessory prayer. Occasionally, lessons were taken from the battle of Gideon against the Midianites. But it was hardly emphasized that the ‘sword of Gideon’, which brought such awe in the camp of the Midianites in the end, turned out to be a torch. In biblical context the Word is the (two-edged) sword (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). Furthermore, Psalm 119:105 describes the Word as a light and a lamp, the equivalent of a torch.
(words deleted)
Cape-based Ministry in Central Sudan
In recent decades, the Cape-based mission agency Frontline Fellowship has been working in restricted access areas, frequently having to smuggle Bibles illegally, across hostile frontiers into Marxist or Muslim areas. Long before the international community took note of the atrocities in Sudan, Frontline Fellowship was there to assist the poor and the persecuted Christians. Sometimes they had to charter aircraft to fly into no-fly zones, to deliver Christian literature in the Nuba Mountains of Central Sudan - an island of Christianity in a sea of Islam. They had to trust the Lord for protection in defying flight bans in countries where a shoot-on-sight policy was maintained. On one occasion the Sudan Air Force dropped eight bombs around a church where they were holding services on a Sunday morning. All eight bombs landed within a hundred metres of the church. On this and many other occasions covert evangelists experienced the reality of Psalm 91 fulfilled, that being the promise that the believer may expect to be covered by the protection of the Almighty.

Truth and Reconciliation
The other side of the coin is that the South African military was also inflicting terrible atrocities. Thus it has been revealed that the plane crash in which Samora Machel, the President of Mozambique was killed, was orchestrated by the South African Defence Force.
(words deleted)Michael Lapsley, a clergyman who came to South Africa from New Zealand. He joined the ANC, but after three-and-a-half years he was deported. He thereafter fulfilled a pastoral role for ANC members in exile. Lapsley testified during the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a process which contributed so much to the healing of the wounds of apartheid. There he shared how he lost both hands because of a letter bomb on 28 April 1990, two days before the first talks between the government and the ANC. As a representative of the many who received grace to forgive their torturers, and simultaneously usher in the spirit of forgiveness, his words carry much weight: ‘I was faced with some important questions and one of them was: Do I allow my life to be consumed with hatred, bitterness, self-pity and desire for revenge? I was saved from that by the prayer and love of many people… That enabled me to make the bombing redemptive, to bring life out of death and good out of evil…’
Conciliatory Church Moves recorded
The revolutionary situation after 1985 apparently influenced Mr F.W. De Klerk, who had become the pragmatic new presidential incumbent in 1989. Before this he was known to be one of the ‘verkramptes’, a conservative politician. De Klerk shifted towards a more conciliatory approach.
Signals of reconciliation throughout
the country augured well for the future.
Furthermore, the seed sown through the author’s correspondence with Dutch Reformed theologians from 1979, appeared to have been germinating. The Rustenburg meeting of church leaders in November 1990, where delegates from 97 denominations had gathered, sent signals of reconciliation throughout the land that augured well for the future. There, Professor Willie Jonker61 from Stellenbosch University started the tide of confession rolling, which helped to birth the new South Africa. The document issued after the Rustenburg event contained specific and concrete confession like the misuse of the Bible by some church people. It noted also that many of the delegates had been ‘bold in condemning apartheid but timid in resisting it’. The confessions were not one-sided at all. Apartheid victims acknowledged for example their ‘timidity and fear, failing to challenge our oppression.’
The government of the day and Afrikaners in general slammed the Rustenburg confessions. Were they forgetting that it had been President F.W. de Klerk himself who had originally initiated the idea of such a national church conference, or were they too surprised at the outcome? Be it as it may, a deep impact was definitely made in the spiritual realm.
A massive Prayer Effort gets underway
On 2 January 1994, the first of three consecutive 40-day fasts started - to coincide with preparations for the general elections. Before this, the concrete fear of civil war inspired prayer across the racial divides.
At this time Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Methodist Bishop Stanley Mogoba convened a meeting between Dr Nelson Mandela and Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi,62 trying to resolve the deadlock posed by Inkatha Freedom Party’s threat to boycott the elections. Foreign missionaries were seriously considering leaving South Africa because of the escalation of violence.
Africa Enterprise enlisted prayer assistance from all over the world.
Rev. Michael Cassidy and his Africa Enterprise enlisted prayer assistance from all over the world. Few other countries participated in the international prayer effort like Kenya and Nigeria. In a special move of God’s Spirit, Pastor Willy Oyegun from Nigeria and a group of prayer warriors from that country were led to come and intercede in South Africa in February 1994. It was a risky move as they could have been sent back from Johannesburg International Airport without entering the country. But God intervened sovereignly. Pastor Oyegun subsequently became God’s choice instrument for healing and reconciliation at the Cape in the post-apartheid era.
In East Africa God laid it on the heart of many Kenyans to pray for our country as we were heading for the general elections on 27 April, 1994. God used Rev. Michael Cassidy and his team to get a massive prayer effort underway, combining it with the negotiating skills of Professor Washington Okumu, a committed Kenyan Christian. God sovereign ways became evident, not only through the way in which the Kenyan negotiatior got involved but also that he had met Dr Buthelezi, the leader of the IFP already in 1972.
The country was very close to a civil war.
God furthermore called a police officer, Colonel Johan Botha, to recruit prayer warriors. The press took up his story, reporting how God supernaturally came to him in a vision. An angel stood before him on 23 March, 1994 with the message: “I want South Africa on its knees in prayer”. A national prayer day was announced for 6 April, 1994 - a national holiday at that time called Founder’s Day. The country was very close to a civil war, which surely could have sent many foreigners and other Whites fleeing in all haste just before or after the elections.
Nelson Mandela attempts to placate extremist Groups
In the frantic months leading to April 1994, Nelson Mandela engaged in various attempts to placate extremist groups. His efforts seemed futile. On the one hand the ANC entered into negotiations with General Constand Viljoen, the former head of the South African Defence Force. (Viljoen wanted to establish a Volkstaat, an enclave in which Afrikaans religion, culture and language would be preserved.) On the other hand, the ANC took quite a hard line against Dr Buthelezi, the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), who appeared quite stubborn. His attitude might have developed though by the way he had been unjustly maligned by the ANC and the liberal press in the prior years and months.
The ANC’s attempt to diminish the power of regional governments could have led to a perilous civil war when Viljoen decided to move into Boputhatswana - one of the former homelands - with 4,000 troops. Nominally, this intervention was projected as an effort to preserve the independence of an ally and it would have given the government a base into which Viljoen and his army could move much of their sophisticated equipment. From there they would have been able to challenge a new ANC-led government.
Viljoen’s well-disciplined forces were however joined by the Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging, a party from the extreme rightwing which shot Blacks for the fun of it. This led to a mutiny in the Boputhatswana Army.
Reputable Negotiators brought in
Two reputable negotiators were brought in, along with the more or less internationally unknown Professor Washington Okumu. Lord Carrington was a former British Foreign Minister, who had brokered an accord for Zimbabwe at Lancaster House in London in 1980. Dr Henry Kissinger, a former US Secretary of State, headed off a major crisis in the Middle East through his shuttle diplomacy in the 1970s. The distinguished group of three negotiators had great difficulty however in their attempt to induce the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) to participate in the elections.
An ominous Civil War looms
After both President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela had refused to postpone the elections along with other difficulties during the negotiations, the two prominent gentlemen from the UK and the USA left the country, having acknowledged their failure to achieve a settlement. This happened on 13 April, 1994 - only two weeks before the elections were due. The scene was set for the outbreak of civil war of unbelievable proportions. Journalists flew in from all over the world to witness and record the carnage that was expected to follow the elections.
God intervenes spectacularly
Soon hereafter, on 16 March 1994, Constand Viljoen severed the close link with Dr Buthelezi through the Freedom Alliance. Viljoen formed his own political party, the Freedom Front, and agreed to participate in the elections. I believe that this was the result of the many prayers offered in various places at this time, making the feared civil war less ominous, for that moment at least.
Professor Okumu heeded the request of Michael Cassidy to stay behind when his prominent Western colleagues left. On 15 April, Okumu rushed to meet Dr Buthulezi by taxi at the Lanseria Airport to explain a new proposal to be presented to the Zulu King, but he was too late. He could only see the aeroplane taking off.
Divine intervention occurred. Some
strange navigational reading caused
the pilot to return to the small airport.
Divine intervention occurred when it was announced that the aircraft was returning. Some strange navigational reading caused the pilot to return to the small airport. (Afterwards no fault was discovered with the machine). God indeed had to intervene supernaturally to get the aeroplane, in which Dr Buthelezi was sitting, to return unexpectedly to the airport for a divine appointment with Professor Okumu.
Under the spiritual leadership of Dr. Michael Cassidy, founder of African Enterprise, that thousands gathered in a stadium in Natal to pray for peace. It was with godly wisdom and insight that Dr. Cassidy and other Christian leaders negotiated for peaceful elections and community with support from all peoples. The world expected a bloodbath, but the Church got to pray in all urgency.
The request to Professor Okumu coincided with a special prayer event at Durban’s King’s Park Stadium on Sunday 17 April. In spite of warnings and the risk of bombs exploding, 30,000 Christians gathered for that occasion. There Okumu’s proposal was passed to leaders of the IFP, the ANC and Danie Schutte of the Nationalist Party. In fractic negotiations almost around the clock it was finally agreed not only to add the picture of Dr Buthulezi to the ballot papers, but also to get the process in motion to do this on 80 million of them and surmounting other huge logistic hurdles.
Media teams from every major network around the world descended on the country, but as millions of people stood in long lines waiting to cast the first vote of their lives, it soon became evident that a miracle was happening. Within twenty-four hours, media teams were called home because there was no story, seen from the normal journalistic pespective that concnetrates on calamities and catastrophes.

To God Be the Glory!
How wrong the international media were! What was to follow was in fact a miraculous story. This was God answering the cries of His children; this was as Graham Power puts it 'the church assuming its rightful position as intercessor and gatekeeper for the nation' (Power and Vermooten 2009: 7).This was a miracle happening in our generation.
Many Kenyans had been praying for South Africa in its period of crisis. It was very fitting that God used Professor Okumu to broker the accord with the IFP and Dr Buthulezi. It was a move that literally steered the country away from the precipice at the eleventh hour. Millions of ballot papers had already been printed. Hurriedly a similar number of stickers were prepared to be added to the ballot papers to give the new South African electorate the added option of voting for the IFP. Believers in different parts of the world, including Kenyans and thousands of South Africans - gave God the honour for divinely guiding the country to an unprecedented four days of peaceful revolution, as the election process was dubbed.
In answer to the prayers of millions, God brought about the miracle elections that might have gone awry if satan had his way. It was clear that in the end it was primarily neither military actions nor boycotts which toppled apartheid. It was God’s sovereign work.
Satan must have worked overtime
to counter God’s plans of
redemption for the country
Satan must have worked overtime almost to the last minute to counter God’s plans of redemption for the country. In the wake of so much positive publicity to the honour of God, Satan was ‘honour-bound’ to hit back with a vengeance. But for that moment, God’s purposes had been accomplished.
An instrument used by God in a special way to bring about healing was the government-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Professor Kadar Asmal suggested such a commission originally in his inaugural lecture as Professor of Human Rights Law in 1993 at the University of the Western Cape.), as opposed to a process like the Neuremberg trials in Germany where retribution or punishment was the central motive.
The main purpose of the South African version of the commission was to achieve restorative justice - an attempt to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator. The emphasis and goal would be healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. These goals were achieved by and large in the succeeding years as a process of restoration and transformation of our country unfolded, albeit that the TRC was not perceived as completely effective in bringing out the truth. The success of the Commission must be attributed to the input and integrity of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One of the commissioners was Alex Boraine, a former pastor in the Cape suburb of Pinelands and a former president of the Methodist Church before becoming a Progressive Party Member of Parliament. He described Archbishop Tutu’s role as follows: 'I don’t think the Commission could have survived without the person and leadership of Desmond Tutu… He assisted the Commission tremendously in every possible way to become an instrument for healing…'

16. Anarchy or Transformation?

By the time of the 11 May 1994 inauguration of the new President, Nelson Mandela, the stage was already set for a secular humanist government. When the African National Congress (ANC) came to power(delete words), all religions were given equal status. Increasingly, occult elements became fashionable. Witchcraft was accepted by many uncritically, and some people regarded Satanism as just another religion. It was not surprising at all when the new government made no secret of their wish for secular humanist rule to replace the racist apartheid style of the former regime. The use of a praise singer at the presidential inauguration might have looked very African, but unintentionally occult notions and ancestral worship were thus simultaneously ushered in.
A demonic Reply ensues
The new government of national unity did not bargain with the dramatic increase of Satanism in certain areas. It was uncritically taken on board that human beings could be ‘sacrificed’ by satanists. The weak argument was that so many people are also killed in political and other forms of violence, so what! A spokesperson for the South African Council of Churches (SACC) rationalised the issue, stating that Satanism is a matter of personal conscience.
The pervasive negative influence
of television proceeded unchecked
The pervasive negative influence of television - with the poisoning of young minds - proceeded unchecked. Violence, extra-marital and same-sex relationships were depicted in many a substandard film as ‘normal’, thus encouraging promiscuity. Satanism had a field day at the Cape.
In the opinion of many people the new government appeared to be bending over backwards to accommodate sexual immorality. The legalization of abortion by the new regime in February 1997 was not surprising because the ANC had already envisaged that as future policy.
Whereas the racist elements of the previous era rightly had to be eradicated, the new government was probably not aware that they were opening the gates to evil. Human rights became the premise on which problematic laws from a moral point of view were liberalised much too easily. Obviously with the best intensions, President Nelson Mandela granted amnesty to many criminals. However, some of the released prisoners resumed their criminal lifestyle as soon as they were discharged.
Crime increased and Drug Trafficking spiralled
One of the first liberal new laws was the possibility of ‘easy bail.’ Criminals, who usually had easy access to cash, took full advantage. Drug lords had no problem coughing up bail money, and hardened criminals usually had no problem to pay big amounts. The new inexperienced government appeared to allow all sorts of criminality to spiral out of control. The regime inherited a problem from the previous one. (During the 1980s the apartheid rulers covertly assisted gangsters. An expert on gang affairs referred to an ‘alliance’ between gangsters and the police. Gangs would report on clandestine anti-apartheid operations, with the understanding that the police would turn a blind eye to their illegal activities. By the 1990s the situation had become almost anarchic in certain townships because of this arrangement. In the proceedings around the Amnesty Committee of the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium it surfaced that the government had been flooding the townships with drugs like Mandrax - a rather bizarre way of chemical warfare!)
An ideal opening for Satanism
Crime increased and drug trafficking spiralled! The warfare from the enemy of souls was conducted in the Cape Flats townships mainly through drug addiction, gangsterism and prostitution. During recent decades these vices proved the ideal opening for Satanism.
In the mid-1990s the drug- and gang war kept the Mother City of South Africa in suspense for months. Violence, rape and gangster activity grew rapidly. (These triplets of vice still remain unsolved problems of the City and the country as a whole.) A situation developed by the end of the 20th century that could only be countered with spiritual warfare on a national scale.
Preparation for Jesus Marches
At a workshop with John Robb of World Vision at the Cape Town Baptist Church in 1993 I met Trefor Morris, who was closely linked to Radio Fish Hoek, a pioneering Christian Cape radio station. Trefor became a regular of our Friday lunch time prayer meeting while he was assisting with the work done on the OM missionary ship the Doulos in the City dockyard. He was also the link to get Rosemarie and me invited to the radio station to give some advice and teaching to the ‘prayer friends’. These were the people who had to advise those Muslims who phoned CCFM for telephonic counselling. Trefor became my Fish Hoek link for the 1994 Jesus Marches and a hopeful for the envisaged prayer network in the Cape Peninsula. (My vision of a prayer network came to fruition partially in the new millennium when the Consultation of Christian Churches (CCC) in the Western Cape, in conjunction with Jericho Walls, attempted to stimulate the formation of houses of prayer across denominational barriers.)
A National Day of Prayer spurs a Backlash
Already in the early 1980s the Libyan President, Muhammad Khaddafi had been a major champion of worldwide Islamic expansion. In October 1995 the Sunday Times published a report about the Islamic conference held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
Africa to be Islamized
by the end of the 20th century?
At the Tripoli conference the intention was expressed clearly that Africa was to be Islamized by the end of the 20th century. To bring this about, the South African infrastructure would be used. The strategy of making the country ungovernable – which had been fairly successfully implemented in the 1980s to bring the apartheid government to the negotiating table - was to be repeated. The Western Cape, with its favourable infrastructure, and the presence of well over a quarter of a million Muslims, was regarded as the ideal springboard from the South. In the spiritual realm this attempt was however frustrated by the 30 Days of Prayer during the fasting month of Ramadan in the first term of 1996, as well as by a National Day of Prayer.
The 1996 Day of Prayer with the theme “Healing the Land” was preceded by the fifth national 40-day fast in which some 100 000 people participated. The culmination of this fast was a national assembly in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where about 20,000 people gathered. Christians were challenged to fast and pray in the 40-day period leading to the National Day of Prayer on July 7, 1996. All in all, seven national fasts were completed in the decade from 1990 to 1999. Then God broadened the focus to include the continent. Satan was bound to respond in some way.
Conditions in Manenberg became almost unbearable
In 1995/6 living conditions in the township of Manenberg were almost unbearable for the local people, and things seemed completely out of control. Father Chris Clohessy, the local Roman Catholic priest, had earned the trust of many people there, moving fearlessly also in gangster territory. PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) was initiated by a group of Muslims in 1996 - striving to create a gangster-free and drug-free Society - was joined by Father Chris Clohessy. However, in the ensuing inter-faith venture, Muslims were soon dominating proceedings. PAGAD developed anti-government and Western sentiments, as the organisation believed that the South African government posed a threat to Islamic values. It also aims to create better political representation for South African Muslims. Prominent figures like Imam Achmat Cassiem were reported to have performed a palace coup. As the leader of Qibla, Achmat Cassiem subtly changed the anti-drug, anti-crime movement into an organization that sought to bring Islamic rule into the Western Cape by any means. PAGAD radicals saw this move merely as part of the plan to implement the October 1995 decision in the Libyan capital Tripoli, to attempt Islamising the African continent from the South.
Rashaad Staggie was burnt alive
in full view of television cameras
PAGAD became known publicly on 4 August, 1996. That was the occasion when an influential gang leader and drug lord, Rashaad Staggie, was burnt alive in full view of television cameras. The crisis that followed the PAGAD eruption of August 1996 presented the churches with a challenge, an opportunity to touch the problem areas of the Cape townships.
Are we perhaps in Lebanon?
A Lebanon-type civil war scenario became quite real. Many people at the Cape feared that the gangsters might hit back with a vengeance. A meeting for church leaders and missionaries was organised at the Scripture Union buildings in Rondebosch, followed by a wave of prayer by evangelical Christians. Christ-centred drug rehabilitation was also suggested. However, when the crisis subsided, pastors simply resumed building their own ‘kingdoms’.
Spiritual strongholds became a focus of prayer drives. Pastor Edson from Mitchells Plain and intercessors launched a convoy of vehicles from different churches from 1996 on the last Friday of each month. The prayer drive of July 1996 started at the strategic Gatesville mosque. (This was the same venue from where a fateful PAGAD car procession started out a week later. The latter procession left for Salt River on August 4th, the date of Staggie’s public burning. The event catapulted his twin brother and co-gang leader Rashied into prominence.)
The prayer drives only had a short lifespan. Another initiative of Pastor Edson, which lasted much longer, was the monthly pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meetings. Yet, it took years before the racial divide was bridged, and even then these prayer meetings still never really took off multi-racially. Nevertheless, they prepared the soil for the start of the spiritual transformation of the city.
From Cairo to the World!
Sandwiched between the two above-mentioned processions that left the Gatesville mosque, a church service in the Moravian Church of Elsies River, a township-like Cape northern suburb, was to have world-wide ramifications. Mark Gabriel shared his testimony at the same church at a combined youth service on Sunday evening, 28 July 1996. This event added a new dimension to the Cape Muslim ministry effort. Gabriel’s printed testimony had just been published in South Africa with the title Against the Tides in the Middle East under the pseudonym Mustapha. (Mark Gabriel was previously forced to flee his home country where he narrowly escaped assassination.) Within a few days, the booklet which contained his story was in the hands of a Muslim leader. Maulana Sulaiman Petersen correctly suspected that Mark Gabriel had contact with local missionaries. Threateningly he enquired after him on Wednesday 31 July. (Mark Gabriel was doing the practical part of his Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Crossroads Discipleship Training School with us.)
Mark Gabriel was forced into hiding
Reminiscent of the situation when Martin Luther was taken to the Wartburg castle for safety,63 Mark Gabriel was forced into hiding. The televised Staggie execution by PAGAD on 4 August reminded Mark Gabriel of Muslim radicals of the Middle East. He now started with significant research of jihad (holy war) in Arabic Islamic literature, finishing his manuscript in 2001 in Orlando (Florida, USA), where he had moved to in the meantime. The September 11 event of that year made his book on the topic a bestseller when it was published at the beginning of 2002. It came out under the title Terrorism and Islam. That book became a major factor in the exposure of the violent side of Islam. (Subsequently the book was translated into more than 50 languages).
Arson attempt on a Church
A 10-week teaching course ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour,’ in which we worked closely with Renate Isert, a German missionary, emphasised prayer as integral to ‘spiritual warfare’. Just before the course was scheduled to begin, there was an arson attempt on the intended venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne, where Dr Henry Dwyer was one of the pastors.
A Lebanon type scenario with
Christians and Muslims fighting
appeared even more ominous
When Muslims offered to help with the repair of the damage, the suspicion was confirmed that Satanists were not really behind the arson attack as had been suggested by a Cape Argus reporter. A Lebanon type scenario with Christians and Muslims fighting each other now appeared even more ominous. (We did not know at that time that Lansdowne was one of the big PAGAD strongholds).
The reason that the ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour’ course was held at the St James Church in Kenilworth from 3 September to 5 November 1996 was exactly because we wanted to use it as a ‘Gideon’s fleece’ (compare Judges 6:36-40) - a test to make sure that we were in God’s will. That congregation had experienced a vicious attack in July 1993, which God used to get South Africans to pray as never before. For the Love your Muslim Neighbour’ course in Kenilworth I used my devotional teaching on John 4, the interaction of Jesus with the Samaritan woman - for the first time as a ten-part series.64
A potentially dangerous development was the resuscitation of Afrikaner right-wing resistance. On Sunday 5 January, 1997, in a series of bombings, a mosque was savagely damaged. These atrocities were linked to a group that called themselves the Boere Aanvalstroepe. Thankfully, in answer to urgent prayer, the other right-wing Afrikaner groups distanced themselves from them and the dangerous situation was defused momentarily.
Churches from many Denominations joining Hands
It was truly significant for the Cape Town Metropolis in April 1997 when churches across the city and from many denominations joined hands for a big campaign on the Newlands Cricket Stadium with the evangelist Franklin Graham, the son of the renowned Billy Graham. Pastor Walter Ackerman from the Docks Mission Church in Lentegeur and Pastor Elijah Klaassen from a Pentecostal church in Gugulethu/ Crossroads, worked tirelessly to enlist people from the Cape Flats and Black churches for this event. Transport from the townships was provided free of charge. This served as a model for the Transformation stadium events of the new millennium.
In the Western Cape, Eben Swart became the coordinator for Herald Ministries. He worked closely with the Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa (NUPSA), which had appointed Pastor Willy Oyegun as their Western Cape coordinator. Together they did important work in research and spiritual mapping, along with Amanda Buys who counselled Christians with psychological problems.
A closer Link with Radio CCFM
Radio Fish Hoek was renamed to Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM) in due course. At the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the Directress of Radio CCFM, was challenged to use the station to reach out to Cape Muslims, the main unreached people group of the region in terms of the Gospel. She phoned the author, offering airtime for a regular programme to this end. We had to warn Avril of the unsuccessful arson attempt on the Lansdowne church building where we wanted to stage a Love your Muslim Neighbour course the previous year. She and the CCFM Board were prepared to take the risk for the sake of the Gospel.
I wrote a radio series on biblical figures in the Qur’an and the Talmud, which was transmitted towards the end of 1997. The consistent denial of the Cross in the sacred book of the Muslims had struck me. It was more than compelling. It was just too subtle to be man-inspired. Knowing the history of the compilation of the Qur’an, the question was how I could share this potentially devastating information in a loving way. The fact that I would possibly be addressing Christians and Muslims via the radio simultaneously would of course not make things easy.
During one of our prayer walks in Bo-Kaap it became clear to me that I should not speak over the airwaves myself. I preferred to remain behind the scenes, with someone else reading my script. CCFM agreed to the suggestion. After a gradual increase of occasional programmes geared to address the Cape Muslim population, we felt challenged to start utilising the CCFM offer to use the medium on a regular basis.
The Battle of the Airwaves escalates
In the meantime, Gill Knaggs, our co-worker from Muizenberg, offered her services to CCFM. Gill had previous experience in commercial scriptwriting. Soon she was ready to write the scripts for Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers, two followers of Jesus with an Islamic upbringing. At a meeting on 7 January, 1998, it was decided to start with a regular programme on CCFM, and use two converts as presenters. On the same day the radio station Voice of the Cape published their intention in the Cape Argus to use a convert from Christianity as one of their presenters.
The precedent created space
for CCFM radio to follow suit
The precedent created space for CCFM radio to follow suit - with less fear of PAGAD reprisals for putting Muslim converts on the airwaves. The two Muslim background believers soon started with a weekly programme, beginning with the theme the woman of two faces. Gradually many women, some of them Muslims, started responding with phone calls, giving evidence that the radio programmes were making an impact. Life Issues, the women’s programme on CCFM on a Thursday morning with Muslim background Christians, went from strength to strength. (It was unfortunately aborted in the second half of 2004 when CCFM restructured their programmes for 24-hour transmission.)
The Response to an Attack on Community Radio Stations
On August 20, 1998, a white paper was rushed through Parliament which contained a veiled threat: to close down community radio stations. There had previously been an attempt to close down Radio Pulpit, a Christian radio station that broadcasts nationwide. The ill-fated government white paper on public broadcasting - whatever its original intention - resulted in a mass march to the houses of Parliament on Wednesday, 2 September, 1998. The perception could not be denied that the government wanted to regulate the airwaves in such a way that the freedom of religious broadcasting would be severely curtailed.
Twenty thousand Cape Christians from
different races and denominations
marched in unity for religious freedom
(delete words) Twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unity, fighting for religious freedom and that its expression would be retained. One of the banners proclaimed 'United we stand'. This was a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main slogan. Wisely, the government dropped their plans. (Behind the scenes God had used an ANC Member of Parliament, a believer, to share the relevant information with Rev. John Thomas of CCFM. In this way, amendments could be affected to the Bill that allowed the government not to lose face on the issue.)
The unofficial renaming of ‘Devil’s Peak’ to ‘Disciple's Peak’ - led by the pastor of the Vredehoek Apostolic Faith Mission Church - and regular prayers at Rhodes Memorial, fitted into the pattern of spiritual warfare. At the former occasion a big cross was planted on the summit, overlooking the city. These venues had been strongholds of Satanists.
The mass march to Parliament on 2 September 1998 was followed by a big prayer rally on September 26, 1998 when thousands of Christians prayed over Table Mountain in an effort to rename the adjacent reviled peak ‘God’s Mountain.’ The event inspired a new initiative, whereby a few believers from diverse backgrounds started to come together at 6.a.m. for prayer on Signal Hill on Saturdays every two weeks.65
Richard Mitchell and his wife Elizabeth were instrumental in the resumption of these meetings on Signal Hill. When the ‘door’ opened for a regular testimony programme on Friday evenings on Radio CCFM, Richard Mitchell was a natural choice as presenter. The programme ‘God Changes Lives’ was also used to advertise citywide prayer events such as those at the Lighthouse, an important part of the run-up to the big Newlands events. In due course I also produced a programme for the midday devotions every Tuesday with a link to Islam.
The Road to Anarchy paved?
A bomb explosion at the Planet Hollywood Restaurant at Cape Town’s V& A Waterfront on 25 August, 1998 shook the Cape in more than one way. PAGAD activists were suspected of being behind the bombing. It had surfaced that the group intended to make the Western Cape ungovernable. (This was the example set by anti-apartheid radicals in the late 1980s.) Now this was an integral part of the strategy agreed to by extremists, in order to create the platform for an Islamic take-over. However, the Planet Hollywood bombing resulted in more confusion in the Muslim community. Many Capetonians breathed more easily when it seemed as if Ganief Daniels, a Muslim police officer,66 was managing to get PAGAD under control with a new initiative, Operation Good Hope.
A law to legalise abortion spawned
an increase of promiscuity
The cause for disquiet shifted to the gangsters when rape appeared to have become rife. Morally the city seemed to spin into a downward spiral. A law to legalise abortion, which took effect on 1 February 1997, appeared to cause an increase of promiscuity. Teenage pregnancies flourished. To make matters worse, there was a strong lobby in the Western Cape provincial government to make Cape Town the gay capital of the world. It seemed that sexual immorality was now being permitted. (delete words) The legalising of prostitution was expected sooner rather than later. With cases of rape reported in the City Bowl and other formerly White residential areas and even in trains, along with the simultaneous spiralling of HIV/AIDS, Christians from all races were forced to wake up. There was a clear reason for more prayer. During a church leaders’ meeting on 7 October 1998 at the Atlantic Christian Assembly (later the name was changed to Life Church), many churches in Cape Town decided to ‘join hands’ in an attempt to take the City for Jesus! There was however little evidence of the implementation of this resolution.
The road to anarchy seemed paved as the year 1999 opened with a car bomb on the Cape Town Waterfront. It was a miracle that only three cars were damaged, with no loss of life. The first results of police investigations linked the atrocity to Muslim radicals. However, no group claimed responsibility for the bombing. One shudders to think what could have developed from this senseless act if many people had been killed during the high season of tourism at that venue!
Fireworks of a different Kind detonate
More ‘fireworks’ exploded at the beginning of the academic year 1999. A Muslim background believer shared his testimony on the radio. He also began attending the Evangelical Bible School in Strandfontein. A tea-time prayer group was started at the George Whitefield Bible College in Muizenberg, to coincide with the time of the special Life Issues broadcast. Gill Knaggs, a new student at the George Whitefield Bible College and the programme’s scriptwriter, started the prayer meeting. The combined efforts did not miss its mark, and somehow managed to neutralise the PAGAD attempt to Islamise the Western Cape.
On March 1, 1999, the battle of the airwaves took a nasty turn when a petrol bomb was thrown at the CCFM Radio studio. Mercifully, the missile did not detonate. The cowardly action was repeated a few weeks later on March 18. This time the perpetrators smashed a window pane, and also made sure that a burning ‘torch’ was dropped inside the building. Miraculously, there was neither an explosion of the petrol bomb, nor was the studio gutted that housed the expensive equipment. God surely protected the building. The second attempt occurred only hours before the scheduled broadcasting of the Life Issues programme with one of the Muslim background believers. This threw the suspicion on the radical PAGAD corner of Islam as the possible perpetrators. On various other
occasions that group had indicated that they were very unhappy about people turning their back on Islam.
PAGAD was very unhappy about people
who turned their backs on Islam
The perceived resistance of Muslims to the Gospel – along with the lack of success in Muslim evangelism - deterred many Christians. This changed quite significantly after the conversion of Rashied Staggie, the famous drug lord. However, the violence of PAGAD added an element of fear.

17. New Ground broken in the Mother City

Because of his own background in drug addiction, it was natural to the family of Pastor Richard Mitchell that their home in Rylands Estate, a traditionally Indian suburb of the Cape, would be used simultaneously as a sort of drug rehabilitation centre. Tony Ramiah became their first convert from the drug community and soon the church also had a vision to impact the Muslims and Hindus of this residential area. Rasheeda Davids was the first of the former group, and over the years quite a few Hindu background believers were added. New ground was broken when Richard Mitchell became the pastor of the fellowship in Taronga Road, Crawford. The believers worshipped in a building that had formerly been a White Dutch Reformed Church.67
Intercessors from different Areas
June Lehmensich, a regular at the Friday prayer meetings and an office worker for the Cape Town City Council, had taken the pastoral clinical training course with Dr Henry Dwyer in Lansdowne, and the ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’ course at St James Church of England (Kenilworth) in 1996. She became a key figure, spreading the vision for prayer, taking it right into the Provincial Chambers and the National Parliament. She was simultaneously the personification of faithfulness and perseverance, as well as a link to a prayer group with a long tradition at the Cape Town City Council.
In November 1996, the launch of the 30-day Muslim Prayer Focus booklets took place in the historic St Stephen’s Dutch Reformed Church of Bo-Kaap. Bennie Mostert and his NUPSA arranged the annual countrywide distribution, ensuring that the vision of countrywide prayer for Muslims once a year was guaranteed. However, the majority of agencies that were involved with Muslim outreach did not fully adopt the vision at that stage.
Sally Kirkwood, a Cape intercessor, had already been prepared by the Lord when she started a prayer meeting at her home in Plumstead. Along with other intercessors she became God’s instrument for increasing prayer awareness in the Mother City. In 1997 she asked God how to mobilise prayer for each community at grass roots level. 'While I was praying, I saw the shape of a honeycomb cell.' This became the beginning of a strategy to get more prayer covering for the city. When Sally attended a Woman's Aglow Conference in Stellenbosch the following year she heard how cross pollination brings out the best in fruit and flowers. She subsequently started prayer cells in neighbourhoods. 'In forming these cells across denominations, it brings out the best in us and brings unity.'
Cynthia Richards from Africa Enterprise was another instrument in this regard. (I was able to give her the contact details that I still possessed from the Jesus Marches of 1994). She visited the various Ministers fraternals of the Peninsula, while organising prayer meetings in preparation for the Franklin Graham campaign at the Newlands Cricket Stadium.

On the Mountain Tops
In the new fledgling church that was pioneered by Richard Mitchell on the Cape Flats, church members took over the vision for prayer. When very few people at the Cape had a vision for praying on mountain tops, Pastor Mitchell succeeded in getting(delete word) believers to congregate at Rhodes Memorial on Friday evenings from 1989. Led by him, the Christians prayed from Signal Hill early on Saturday mornings. After the citywide prayer event on Table Mountain in September 1998, organized by Eben Swart of Herald Ministries, the vision of praying on the mountain was revived.
At one of the Saturday morning prayer times at Signal Hill in 1999, the idea of Cape Town as a spiritual gateway to the continent was shared. The prayers resulted in a surge towards transformation in the country after Richard Mitchell had seen the Transformation video at a pastors’ prayer meeting in Mitchells Plain.
Within months, the vision of praying
in sports stadiums became a reality
Within a matter of months the vision of praying in sports stadiums became a reality. There followed significant combined prayer events: at Bellville’s Velodrome on a Sunday morning; the Athletics Stadium of the University of the Western Cape; the Vygiekraal Stadium and at the nearby Athlone Stadium. The well-publicised transformation meetings started in March 2001 at the Newlands Rugby Stadium. But there were many other obstacles to overcome before that fell into place.
An attempt at Reconciliation of Jews and Muslims
In 1993 we started a monthly prayer meeting for the Middle East, which evolved from the fortnightly meeting in Bo-Kaap. The vision grew to see Jews and Muslims reconciled through common faith by working with followers of Jesus Christ from those backgrounds. This vision received fresh inspiration from September 1998 when we prayed on Signal Hill, which is situated just above Tamboerskloof, a ‘Christian’ suburb, and Bo-Kaap, the Muslim stronghold. Sea Point, situated just below Signal Hill on the other side, is home to the majority of Cape Jews.
For many years the expression of our love for the Jews was limited to friendship with the leaders and occasional visits to Beth Ariel, a fellowship of Messianic Jewish believers in the suburb of Sea Point. This could to be stepped up in 2004.
During 2004 our missionary colleague Edith Sher organised a prayer breakfast in Sea Point during which a Cape Muslim background believer shared his testimony. God sent other people to help us in this effort. Lillian James is a long-standing contact and one of our prayer partners until she relocated to Johannesburg. She grew up bilingually in Woodstock among people of different cultures. After she became a committed follower of Jesus, she grew to love Jews and Muslims. She had been one of the believers who attended our prayer meetings for the Middle East where we prayed for both groups and she introduced us to Leigh Telli and her husband. Leigh loves the Jews and her husband comes from a Muslim background, hailing from North Africa. All this served to confirm our calling of ministering to foreigners and linking our ministry to Messianic Jews.
A Seminar on Reconciliation
The next step was a seminar on reconciliation on February 19, 2005. It was our vision to attempt achieving reconciliation under the banner of Jesus, using Messianic Jews and other followers of Jesus – also those from Muslim background. In our preparation for the seminar we worked closely with Leigh Telli. She shared around the role of Isaac in the last days, and I did the same for Ishmael. Our co-worker Rochelle Malachowski who had been working in Palestine, reported on the ministry of Musalaha in the Middle East. Subsequently we printed a manual of our papers, in which some of Leigh’s paintings also featured.
Soon we were invited to join an open-air service in Camps Bay that was dubbed ‘Shalom Salam’, signifying the intention to reach out to both Jews and Muslims. This became the start of a close friendship between Rosemarie and Leigh Telli, and a strengthening of the ties to Edith Sher who later started a weekly radio programme on Sunday afternoons via CCFM under the auspices of Messiah’s People. (Edith Sher became an important additional source of information for my manuscript Pointers to Jesus.)68
A Cape Mission Catalyst into the Ten Forty Window
Pastor Bruce van Eeden passionately wanted to see South Africans involved in missionary work. The Lord laid India and China on his heart. When one of his daughters found employment as a stewardess with South African Airways, he saw that as his chance to get involved personally. He was now able to procure drastically reduced airfares. In 1995 he started a Mitchell’s Plain-based mission agency called Ten Forty Outreach, which concentrated on sending out short-term workers to India. For three months a year Pastor van Eeden went to India to minister, partnering with Indian believers and taking with him volunteers from South Africa. (In 10 years they were involved in the planting of over 300 churches.) There are now 160 Indian national evangelists and pastors who are linked to the missionary agency. From the outset Van Eeden made it clear to the Christians in India that they should not expect funding from outside their own country. He did not want to see the dependency syndrome repeated as it happened in so many African countries.
Efforts to minister to Drug Addicts
One of the first efforts of Cape Christians to reach out in love to drug addicts in a structured way happened more or less by chance. John Higson, a member of the evangelical St James Church of England in Kenilworth, requested the allocation of a different residential area where they could do their door-to-door outreach as Life Challenge co-workers. He had become frustrated after the lack of success of their endeavours in the suburb of Lansdowne. The drug-infested Salt River was hereafter assigned to him. During the second week of prayer for Salt River, Higson was confronted with the major drug problem in the township-like suburb. This was the start of a St James Church endeavour among the drug addicts of Salt River under Higson’s leadership. The outreach to Salt River from the Kenilworth church ceased in 1995 without much result.69 The co-workers were disheartened - yet another case of Christians honourably wounded in the spiritual warfare at the Cape. Yet, their contribution was important in slowing down the moral deterioration of the area. In due course the seed germinated that was sown there.
18. Cape Town City Bowl Prayer

International intercession began in earnest with the identification of the ‘10/40 Window’. These are Asian and African countries situated between the 10th and 40th degree lines of latitude of the northern hemisphere. They gave a geographical focus to pray into a divinely-inspired ‘window’ given to Christians by Luis Bush, an American prayer leader. It was also used by Peter Wagner, a colleague, to rally the evangelical world in united prayer for the peoples who were still unreached with the Gospel.
Prayer Initiatives of the North affect the Cape
What happened through Gerda Leithgöb and Bennie Mostert in 1987 are examples of divine callings received by individuals. A visit to Singapore in 1988 by Leithgöb became a spur for worldwide prayer for South Africa. In the country itself she became a pioneer in using the results of research for informed prayer. She taught and implemented research on spiritual strongholds quite effectively. The biblical models come from the twelve spies who were sent to Canaan and the reconnaissance work that Nehemiah performed before the actual building of the wall around Jerusalem.
Confidence in South Africa's ability to lift herself from the constraints of apartheid were low, the economy was sliding. Fear was a constant companion to people from every racial group. It was in this time of despair that the body of Christ began standing in the gap for the nation. Even in remote parts of South Africa people were praying because of the escalating, explosive situation in the country. Thus vastly different groups, like those in the Mother City which gathered on a weekly basis, as well as Black women in the Soutpansberg Mountains, interceded fervently that the country might be spared massive bloodshed, and for an end to the misery caused by apartheid.
Kjell Sjöberg, a Swedish pastor, visited South Africa in 1989 on an assignment to pray at ‘the ends of the earth’. He led a group of intercessors at Cape Agulhas, the most southern point of Africa. A national prayer network was formed that started linking with international intercessors. All of this happened fairly quietly and unnoticed.
Several of these initiatives included fasting. In recent decades fasting and praise have been profitably rediscovered. In May 1990, David Mniki, a pastor from the Transkei, called the first national 40-day fast. It was here, as people waited on God, knowing that the situation was hopeless, that God clearly spoke from the book of Isaiah. It was localised, and not so many people participated, but it was spiritually significant. During the fast God gave the intercessors a scripture from Isaiah - ‘Can a nation be born in one day?’ (Isaiah 66:8). This was the word that spurred the church onward to believe that a new South Africa, a new nation, could be birthed and that God wanted His church to pray and believe in Him for the kairos moment in the land. As prayer initiatives sprang up around the country, Christians started to believe that with God the impossible could become possible!
This was the word that spurred the church onward to believe that a new South Africa, a new nation, could be birthed and that God wanted His church to pray and believe in Him for the kairos moment in the land. As prayer initiatives sprang up around the country, Christians started to believe that with God the impossible could become possible! This was also the beginning of several more fasting initiatives and in 1992 the second national 40-day fast took place.
A difficult Month
Personally I had to discover anew that if a spiritual breakthrough, a revival were to occur in the Mother City of South Africa, it would be God’s sovereign work. Our personal experiences showed us the need for more prayer. The necessity for the unity of the Body of Christ became very clear to me in different ways.
The month of October 1996 was one in which we were tested in every way, when we were very much involved in spiritual warfare. I started keeping a diary that went as follows at one time: ‘the attack starts not only very early in the month, but also early in the day. Neither Rosemarie nor I was able to sleep properly. For Rosemarie it was the second sleepless night in a row. She shares her concern that we were getting nowhere with our ministry: “For almost five years we have toiled here in Cape Town. And what have we achieved? Almost nothing! We might as well go back to Holland.” I concede that I also feel completely depressed.’
When Rosemarie and I were prayer walking through Bo-Kaap in October 1996 once again, we discerned how the churches around the Muslim stronghold had been ransacked in the period before that. We were blessed to see how the Lord brought restoration, but we still did not see it as our duty to get more involved in an attempt at the unification of the body of Christ. This only started to happen slowly at the end of 2003. (As our youngest daughter Tabitha was approaching the end of her schooling career, we were open to relocate. We initially thought about leaving Cape Town as a distinct possibility, but no ‘door’ appeared to open.)
Regret expressed for Christian Folly?
It had come really as a special boon that Christians overseas started organising a Reconciliation Walk in 1996 following the path of the Crusades. Bennie Mostert of Jericho Walls faxed the lengthy confession of the organisers through to our Western Cape CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) Forum on the very day that we had one of our meetings. It looked to me as if God had his hand in it. But it was not easy.
The lengthy confession was rejected
In our meeting the lengthy confession was rejected because it was regarded as not relevant for us in South Africa. I managed to salvage the idea, suggesting that we should write our own confession. At our Easter CCM Conference 1997 at Wellington I had to remind the missionary leader colleagues about the confession. They were clearly not keen, promptly giving me the homework to write a draft and then pass it on to all the colleagues in preparation for our leaders’ meeting in October. It was obvious that they were just procrastinating, but I did not want to let them off the hook so easily. To me the matter was much too important.
Prayer Seminar at CEBI
What a difference I experienced at the prayer seminar led by Gerda Leithgöb at the former Cape Evangelical Bible Institute (CEBI) soon hereafter, still in April 1997. The news of the sale of the former CEBI to Muslims coincided with the prayer seminar. What a sense of unity we experienced in spite of the proverbial 'Sword of Damocles' hanging over us as we gathered there! Pastor Danny Pearson led the believers of the fellowship, using the premises for church services. He also organised prayer walks in the area. That was definitely a seed for revival because the march of Islam continued unabatedly as Muslims bought up one property after the other in the area.
Leithgöb approached me to become the co-ordinator of Herald Ministries for the Western Cape, but I had no peace to accept the position. Eben Swart turned out to be a much more suitable person for that function. The visit by Cindy Jacobs, an intercession leader from the USA, brought a significant number of ‘Coloured’ and White intercessors together at the Shekinah Tabernacle in Mitchells Plain. She confirmed the need for confession with regard to the troubled District Six. Sally Kirkwood played a pivotal role, taking this burden on her shoulders. When she approached me in October 1997 in this regard, I had already started preparing a visit of intercessors from Heidelberg (Gauteng), scheduled to come to the city the last week of that month. (This was included in the two-yearly initiative, interceding for breakthroughs in the so-called 10-40 window.)

Visitors to the Cape
At the sending of prayer teams to different spiritual strongholds in 1997, a team from the Dutch Reformed congregation Suikerbosrand inHeidelberg (Gauteng) followed the nudge of NUPSA to come and pray in the Mother City.
A team from Heidelberg
(Gauteng) pray in Bo-Kaap
This was spiritually significant because Heidelberg had once been the cradle of the racist and rightwing Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). That the AWB town was sending a team to pray for Bo-Kaap, might have hit the headlines had it been publicised! But all this was undercover stuff. This was transpiring at a time when PAGAD was still terrorising the Cape Peninsula. The Bo-Kaap Islamic stronghold was not geographically situated in the 10/40 window, but Bennie Mostert correctly discerned that it was the case ideologically. It had become a Muslim bastion because of apartheid.

Moravian Hill hosts a strategic Meeting
As part of this visit from Gauteng, a prayer meeting of confession was organized for November 1, 1997, in District Six, in front of the (former) Moravian Church.70 Sally Kirkwood not only had a vision for the desolate District Six to be revived through prayer, but she also informed Richard Mitchell and Mike Winfield about the event. The Cape prayer movement received a major lift. I asked Eben Swart to lead the occasion. That turned out to be very strategic. Eben Swart’s position as Western Cape Prayer Coordinator was cemented since he was now able to link up with the pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meeting led by Eddie Edson. The event on Moravian Hill in District Six attempted to break the spirit of death and forlornness over the area, so that it would be inhabited again. However, it would take another seven years before that dream started to materialise (and abused for election purposes in 2004). Sixteen years later not much has happened in terms of new inhabitants coming to District Six.
A watershed for participants
November 1997 nevertheless became a watershed for quite a few participants. Afterwards Gill Knaggs, Trish and Dave Whitecross became burdened to become missionaries in the Middle East. Sally Kirkwood received a more prominent role among Cape intercessors. Richard Mitchell, Eben Swart and Mike Winfield linked up more closely in a relationship that would have a significant mutual effect on the prayer ministry at the Cape in the next few years, and on transformation in the city at large.
Mike Winfield belonged to the Anglican congregation in Bergvliet, which had Trevor Pearce as their new pastor. (This Anglican parish later took a leading role in the attempts towards the transformation of the Mother City through the prayer rallies at Newlands.) The confession ceremony in District Six closed with the stoning of an altar that Satanists or other occultists had probably erected there.
Citywide Prayer Events held
1998 brought significant steps in the right direction through the initiatives of NUPSA and Herald Ministries. Regular prayer meetings at the Mowbray Baptist Church, with believers coming from different parts of the Peninsula, and from diverse racial and church backgrounds. The meetings carried a strong message of the unity of the Body of Christ. However, the suggestion to continue on local level in different areas, never took off. Nevertheless, the Mowbray exercise brought together two racial groups for prayer and became the forerunner of citywide events.
A prayer event on the Grand Parade
almost floundered after a bomb threat
A well-publicized prayer event on the Grand Parade almost floundered after a bomb threat. Prior to this, churches across the Peninsula had initially been requested to cancel their evening services on Sunday, 19 April 1998 and join this service. In sheer zeal, a Christian businessman had thousands of pamphlets printed and distributed. Unwisely, he did not consult with the organizing committee about its content. The flyer and poster that invited believers to a mass prayer meeting against drug abuse, homosexuality and other moral concerns, unfortunately also referred to Islam in a context that was not respectful enough for some radical Muslims. It was however also sad that certain City Bowl churches had not been prepared to close there doors even on a one-off basis for this event.
A PAGAD member apparently regarded this pamphlet as an invitation to disrupt the meeting, passing on a threat to that effect. The event was subsequently announced as cancelled, but a few courageous believers showed up. These included the late Pastor Danny Pearson, who had been deeply involved with the preparation of the prayer occasion. He believed that we should not give in to the intimidation, and that, if need be, Christians should be willing to die there for the cause of the Gospel. The meeting proceeded on a much smaller scale than originally planned. The service included confession for the sins of omission to the Cape Muslims and to the Jews. And there was no PAGAD disruption of the meeting!
More Prayer Efforts in the City Bowl
Some churches in the City participated in a forty-day period of prayer and fasting from Easter Sunday to Ascension Day 1998. Rev. Louis Pasques of the Cape Town Baptist Church spearheaded this endeavour. A weekly meeting with a prayer emphasis gained ground slowly after the 40-day effort from April to May 1998. Later that year, combined evening services were held once a month in the City Bowl in participating churches, with the venue rotating very time.
A corresponding period of prayer and fasting in 1999 - this time for 120 days - was concluded in the Western Cape in the traditional Groote Kerk celebration of the Lord’s Supper when pastors from different denominations officiated. This was a visible sign of a growing church unity. At that Ascension Day event, Dr Robbie Cairncross was divinely brought into the situation. He came to the Mother City with a vision to see a network of prayer developing in the Peninsula. His prayer for an office for his Christian Coalition/Family Alliance near to Parliament was answered in a special way when he moved into the premises of the Chamber of Commerce (SACB), a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament. Cairncross’ plan became quite strategic when Islamic convert Achmed Kariem, with a vision for distributing prayer information, joined the SACOB staff. Cairncross’s vision bore fruit.

A link forged with Community Transformation elsewhere
Pastor Eddie Edson of Mitchells Plain organised two all-night citywide prayer events on 25 June and 15 October 1999. By this time White pastors started to attend the monthly pastors' gathering more regularly, even at places like Die Hok in Manenberg, a former drug den.
Rev. Trevor Pearce, an Anglican minister from the township Belhar who had also grown up during the apartheid years, started joining these prayer meetings. He was no stranger to the pain and hardship of discrimination and violence, yet his gentle disposition was often used by God to fulfill the role of peacemaker. To many, Trevor became known as the 'man of peace.' In Trevor Pearce attended a Sharing of Ministries Abroad (SOMA) retreat in Richmond, Virginia. It was at this conference that he heard a new story that gripped his heart and mind. Retreat director John Guernsey told the miraculous story of God at work in the city of Cali, Columbia. Reports of saved lives, community transformation, and national influence resounded so deeply in Trevor's heart that he felt broken, thinking of his own home country. Was it possible that South Africa could ever experience this kind of transformation?
He sat and listened to every word, not missing a detail of the incredible story. It felt as though the words were exploding into his soul, and in an instant he knew that God was birthing something of such importance and significance that he could not wait to return home. He was burning with a desire to ignite the flame, inspire his people, and believe that the Cali, Columbia, miracle could become a South African miracle as well.
Flying home to South Africa, Rev. Pearce guarded his most prized treasures - an audio copy of the retreat and a bound copy of the soon to be published book Informed Intercessions by George Otis, jr. This documented account of what happened in Cali (Columbia) also included principles for successful community transformation.
Trevor Pearce wasted no time in meeting with Eddie Edison, who was already praying with a group of pastors for the city and the nation. As the group listened to the recorded voice of George Otis and watched the stories of transformation and redemption, they too felt that deep stirring deep within their hearts. There seemed to be so many similarities between the two countries. Drugs, death, and despair had all been part of daily life for the residents of Cali, Columbia, until the Holy Spirit brought transformation through the praying church. What Satan had intended for evil, God was using for good.
At the city-wide prayer event at the Lighthouse Christian Centre on 15 October 1999 the Transformation video was viewed by the audience.
Attacks made on spiritual Strongholds
That God works in mysterious ways was of course known to all of us. A special instance of the divine ways occurred when we conducted a ten-week teaching course on Muslim Evangelism at the Logos Baptist Church in Brackenfell.
There appeared to be no immediate result. Nobody joined our ranks as co-workers. Yet, a few of the participants were deeply influenced. Among the participants there were for instance Johan Groenewald and his wife Christine, as well as Cheryl Muller, whom we took along every week from District Six. The Groenewald couple took the message to distant Eendekuil (well over 100 Km from the city) where they found a willing ear in Ds. Chris Saayman, the local Dutch Reformed minister. The Muller family in District Six was challenged to go full-time into the ministry of the Church of the Nazarene. They were however heavily attacked spiritually when Glen, the husband, had a mental burn-out while they were in Johannesburg at the theological seminary of the denomination. Glen nevertheless retained a prayerful interest in District Six. Johan and Christine Groenewald, along with Deon Geldenhuys, would play a significant role in the new millennium to get the Lighthouse Christian Centre into the missions’ mode.
Prayer walking once a month was another method used to break down the one or other stronghold of the deceiver at the Cape. A few Christians joined from as far afield as Melkbosstrand and Eendekuil to pray in Bo-Kaap. Results might not have been spectacular, but the lifting of a spiritual heaviness could definitely be discerned. The group from Melkbosstrand, spearheaded by Celia Swanepoel and her husband Abrie, had been coming to pray in Bo-Kaap every year at Ramadan even before this.
Intermittent prayer at the Tana Baru cemetery, with its important kramats (shrines), especially during prayer walks in Bo-Kaap, included intercession against drug abuse and prostitution emanating from the Cape Town Docks. We could not discern whether an informal settlement in Hout Street just below the former Muslim cemetery was an answer to our prayers. Certain inhabitants of the squatter camp brought prostitution, alcoholism and drug peddling to Bo-Kaap. The residential area had been morally quite upright before its existence.
The dark spirit over the
area clearly diminished
Be that as it may, the dark spirit over the area clearly diminished towards the end of the century. In 2006, an Afrikaner linked to the Logos Christian Church of Brackenfell, became deeply burdened to pray for Bo-Kaap.
In 2009 we started working more closely with Anaclet Mbayagu from Burundi in the outreach preparations for the Soccer World Cup, attempting to organise accommodation for evangelistic teams. (By this time he was one of the stalwarts of the Calvary Chapel fellowship.) In due course Anaclet showed interest in outreach to Bo-Kaap, along with Ruan Snyman, another Calvary Chapel member.
It was also a special blessing to discover that Dr. Chris Saayman, had retained his affinity for the Muslim suburb, trying to get his city congregation of Tafelberg Dutch Reformed Church interested and taking along church members on random visits there. (He started ministering at Tafelberg from the beginning of 2007).
19.Transformation Vibes from the Cape

In the Western Cape, where most commuters travel by taxi, the taxi wars were escalating. These wars were the fights between taxi associations and individual minibus taxi drivers. At the same time an organization called PAGAD (People Against Gangs and Drugs) began to fight against the high incidence of drugs and gangsterism among the young people of Cape Town. Originally started as an inter-faith civic group, their ranks soon became infiltrated by Islamic fundamentalists and radicals. As the group began to move toward militancy, Christians and moderate peace-loving members began to distance themselves from the organization. The first series of bombs were intended to warn and frighten drug dealers. Later the bombs were laced with nails and sharp objects that killed and maimed innocent people.
A famous Cape Drug Lord hospitalised
Through the late 1990s, twenty-two bombs exploded, killing and maiming hundreds of men, women, and children who happened to be in the path of this nameless cruelty. Ordinary citizens became fearful, numerous lives were lost, and as chaos ruled the streets the church continued to pray.
In March and April 1999 dramatic things happened in quick succession. Rashied Staggie, by this time a famous Cape drug lord, was shot and hospitalised. Staggie made the news headlines from his bed in the Louis Leipoldt Clinic in Bellville through his public confession of faith in Jesus Christ. Once again, the Cape was setting the pace in the aftermath of the violence by extremists, which might eventually prove to have paved the way for the possible ultimate demise of Islam as a political force. The attempt to assassinate Staggie ultimately marginalized PAGAD, the criminal extremist group which had tried to eliminate him. Two-and-a-half years later Al Qaeda, a similar group based in the Middle East, became a household name worldwide through the twin tower disaster in New York on September 11, 2001. This incident highlighted the violent roots of Islam in an unprecedented manner. These two events definitely dramatically slowed down the growth and expansion of Cape Islam during the 1980s and 1990s.
Eddie Edson, a pastor from a poor community in Mitchells Plain and a former gangster, had first hand experience of conditions as he lived in the heart of the troubled areas. He had not only been gathered pastors to pray every month, but he had also started to disciple gangsters. Believers started to pray with a new fervour and determination. intentionally turning to God in prayer, wanting to access the powers of heaven for the transformation of South Africa and all of Africa.

A Drug Lord shot and killed
On Easter Sunday 1999 one of our co-workers called us, telling us that Glen Khan had been shot and killed. The Mitchells Plain gang leader and drug lord whose wife had been a secret Christian believer for some months, was assassinated on Easter Sunday - only a few days after he had committed his life to Jesus as his Lord. The next morning we rushed to Mitchells Plain to assist with the funeral arrangements because a crisis had arisen. The Muslim family was claiming to have the corpse for an Islamic funeral that was to happen within 24 hours! The young widow - still a secret follower of Jesus - insisted that he should have a funeral from the Shekinah Tabernacle where he made that commitment under the ministry of Pastor Eddie Edson.
The new babe in Christ gave a powerful
message to the packed church
When ‘Brother Rashied’ was called up to give a tribute at the funeral service, it caused quite a stir because the media had evidently been tipped off that the changed drug lord would be there as well. Almost overnight he had become a celebrity of a different sort. The new babe in Christ gave a powerful message to the packed church. Many were listening outside to the service that was relayed via the public addressing system. The funeral audience included a significant contingent of gangsters. Staggie, who had been avidly reading the Bible in the preceding weeks, challenged his followers present, quoting from Scripture that the Lord was the one to take revenge: ‘My kom die wraak toe’. He emphasised: 'We are not going to retaliate!' Coming from someone who had virtually escaped death after an assassination attempt, the message could hardly miss the mark.
Churches brought together
The Glen Khan assassination was divinely used to bring churches together, not only for prayer, but to some extent also with a vision to reach out to Muslims in love. Following Khan’s death, some churches showed renewed interest in the lives of gangsters. Pastor Eddie Edson discerned the need to disciple them, starting a programme of special care for gangsters who wanted to change their life-styles.
The gang war spawned a significant increase in evangelistic ministry, notably at Pollsmoor prison. After operating from Tygerberg Radio, the sister Afrikaans station of CCFM in its early days, the Pentecostal Pastor Christopher Horn started working with gangsters who had turned to Christ. He is now the main chaplain in the police force for the Western Cape.
It was evident that the Holy Spirit was at work. Supernatural visitations came to the fore in March 1999. A Muslim woman phoned CCFM after she had different visions of Jesus, receiving instructions from the Lord to read portions of the Bible that very clearly related to her life. Soon thereafter she accepted Christ as her Saviour. The phone-in programmes of Radio CCFM and the sister Afrikaans station, Radio Tygerberg, proved very effective. A number of Muslims, as well as converts and secret believers were phoning in. Elsa Rain, the CCFM worker responsible for the prayer ministry, faithfully passed on to us all Muslim-related calls for follow-up. A very special result was when a Muslim lady who had phoned the station in 2003, could be ministered to. She later also became a co-worker, responding to the calls of Muslim enquirers.
PAGAD marginalised
In the wake of Glen Khan’s assassination and Staggie’s powerful testimony at Khan’s funeral, a trickle of Cape Muslims started turning to Christ. Suddenly PAGAD was threatened. It was not surprising that the group thereafter frantically sought for credibility. When ‘Muslim leaders’ wanted to speak to Pastor Edson, a confrontation was feared because reports were coming in of Muslims who turned to Christ, some of them in trains. Intercessors were called in to bathe the proposed meeting in prayer. A general crisis was feared once again.
Pastor Edson was surprised when the ‘Muslim leaders’ turned out to be representatives of PAGAD. This was a major turn-around on the part of the extremists. It was however quite unexpected that they had become willing almost overnight, eager to speak to church leaders. This was evidently God supernaturally at work, but Edson and other church leaders were not immediately aware of it. A few weeks prior to the meeting on 13 April 1999, PAGAD had still refused to meet any Christians or other mediators. A direct result of the 13 April meeting was the birth of the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI) - church leaders trying to mediate between PAGAD and gang leaders.
An agenda for a bigger consultation scheduled for 22 April, was agreed upon. This was arranged to take place at the Pinelands Civic Centre. There were also discussions with gang leaders on the same day. At both meetings prayer warriors interceded for the discussions, and other believers helped to serve the delegations at meal-times.
A tense moment developed when the issue of violence was addressed. The PAGAD leaders asked for permission to discuss the matter separately. It was evident to the CPI delegation that God had intervened powerfully.
PAGAD was suddenly ready to
speak to the government - unarmed!
PAGAD was hereafter suddenly ready to speak to the government together with them - unarmed! This was an answer to the prayers of the warriors around the country who had been interceding for the proceedings.

A new Season of spiritual Combat
The last quarter of 1999 turned out to be a new season of spiritual combat. A pattern of traumatic incidents happening during my absence from home continued when Rosemarie and I attended our WEC International conference in Natal in October 1999. When we phoned our home, we heard that our 21-year old son Danny had to counsel a Muslim background believer whom we had taken into our home. She was threatening to commit suicide.
Shortly after our return from our conference in Natal, I received an invitation to attend an international conference on Muslim Evangelism in Nairobi as the South African delegate, with all expenses to be paid by TEAR FUND, a British development and charity agency.
I had furthermore heard just prior to this that I would lose my Dutch citizenship and passport unless I interrupt my residence in South Africa before January 2002. We thought that a guest lecturing period at the Cornerstone Christian College, a WEC International institution in Holland, could be the solution. We thus considered the possibility of going to discuss the matter in Beugen (Holland) en route to Nairobi.71 Knowing that travelling in Africa by air is very expensive, I enquired how much a ticket to Nairobi via Europe would cost.
Rosemarie pointed out to me that a visit to Madrid would be more important to get some movement towards a Jesus-centred Cape drug rehabilitation centre, something for which we had been praying so long. The international headquarters of the WEC-related Bet-el ministries is in Madrid. Without much more ado the itinerary was finalized. I was to fly with the Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) to Nairobi via Holland and Spain.
Making extensive use of our new communication medium, the e-mail, it was soon finalized that I would be stopping over in Amsterdam and Madrid en route to Nairobi. The first and third venues turned out to be quite strategic for our ministry on the short term.

Our Son Danny rushed to Hospital
The TEAR FUND-sponsored conference in Nairobi was linked to a traumatic event at home. While I was still in Europe in November 1999, our son Danny was rushed to hospital after his appendix had burst. In addition, he displayed allergic reactions to the medication given to him there. It was touch and go or we could have lost him. Rosemarie sensed that this was an attack from the arch enemy while I was absent.
It was touch and go or we
could have lost our son
Also on another score we sensed that the attack on Danny's life was demonic. At this time our second eldest son Rafael returned from Germany where he had been evangelising with Youth for Christ in a mobile bus for the greater part of the year. After his return from overseas an interdenominational youth ministry called + culture (cross-culture with the emphasis on the emblem) was about to flourish. With his music talent, Danny was quite pivotal in this movement. Petty interference by one of the local pastors who had no vision for the unity of the Body of Christ brought the promising movement amongst youth to naught.
Two strategic Days in Holland
The violence of Muslim extremists was quite intimidating. One of the agencies we approached for the funding of a discipling house, cited the fear of Islamic reprisals as a reason for not being prepared to support our proposed building. Yet, my two days in Holland were very special. An evening was organised on short notice for me, to speak to some of our friends and prayer partners. Martie Dieperink, one of our friends, had lost her mother. After hearing of the need for a discipling house in Cape Town where persecuted or new believers coming from Islam could be nurtured- some of them having been evicted from their homes because of their faith - she immediately offered to help us with a substantial amount as an interest-free loan. This set a process in motion for what became quite a strategic building. The furniture from the house of her mother was part of the contents of a container that was sent in 2001.

High-powered Spiritual Warfare When someone at the conference in Nairobi tried to share something about spiritual warfare, I had the opportunity to chip in. The impact was tangible when I reported how I had just heard how our son escaped death by a narrow margin. In the months hereafter we heard from different people how they had been praying to save Danny's life. I got the news at a strategic moment in Nairobi, when we were not making much headway in getting a draft on paper, to be used for reporting back to our respective sending bodies.
The detour via Europe was
pivotal in procuring funds
for our discipling house
I discovered that the invitation to the international conference in Nairobi was God’s strategy not only to keep me out of the limelight of the praying around the World Parliament of Religion, but even more important – the detour via Holland and Spain was destined to be pivotal in procuring funds for our discipling house.
At home the news of Danny’s fight for his life caused some Christians to recognise the need for the simultaneous urgency to pray for the World Parliament of Religions.72 God turned around the attack on Danny’s life and on our ministry for his sovereign purposes.
Satanic Deception sparks Prayer Effort
All this was happening on the eve of the World Parliament of Religions, scheduled to run from 1 to 8 December 1999. The event in the Mother City was a spur for churches to get some idea of the spiritual threat to the country. Ironically, the opening took place at the very spot in District Six where our prayer occasion of confession had taken place on November 1, 1997 (See Chapter 17) .
It soon became clear that the uniqueness of Jesus Christ was under attack at the World Parliament of Religions summit. Dr Henry Kirby, a medical doctor with close links to YWAM, joined up with Brian Johnson. (Since 1989 Johnson had been challenging the New Age religion. That movement has been putting man in centre stage, as opposed to the Creator God.) A prayer event at the Moravian Church in District Six on 27 November 1999 brought together a broad spectrum of Christian churches. That in itself was a memorable occasion. One of the groups of the World Parliament of Religions definitely went too far when participants concluded from a discussion that Jesus was a fool. This also upset many local Muslims.
Fire, Wind and Water
On the first of December, the Parliament of World Religions dedicated the land of South Africa to the elements of fire, wind and water. The question was raised what the source was of the powers that were unleashed. A destructive trinity seemed to be let loose over the subcontinent because hereafter the Cape experienced the worst fires in memory in January 2000. Furthermore, Southern Africa had unprecedented floods at the beginning of March 2000 that were linked to the hurricane Eline. The biblical Trinity is all about life and not death and destruction.
Dr Kevin Roy, a lecturer at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Athlone ‘cooled the fires’ when he spoke at this occasion. He pleaded for the right to change one’s religion, requesting that it would be more than merely a human right on paper - that it would be practiced universally. This had already been happening at the Cape in both directions between Christianity and Islam before the PAGAD element brought the city to the brink of civil war. This tension had the potential to upset the traditional mutual cordial relations. People were turning to Islam amid the perception that it is easier to get employment when one is a Muslim. This concept has some clout at the Cape. Muslims who got into positions of influence, appointed their co-religionists as a matter of preference. (On the other hand, Muslim people were turning to Christ more than before at the beginning of the 21st century.)
In the PAGAD trials of Ebrahim Jenneker and Abdusalaam Ebrahim in January 2000, deceit and lies were thrown around, demonstrating that the origin of the movement was clear, namely with the father of lies. When the files of the five accused in the PAGAD trial on January 25 disappeared, it was just confirming that the group was part and parcel of the crime syndicate and a corrupt judicial system.

Spiritual Conflict continues
The season of spiritual combat appeared to come to a head when conflict escalated between the notorious minibus ‘taxi’ drivers and the Golden Arrow Bus Company, both of which were transporting commuters from the townships. Nobody suspected that the shooting of a Golden Arrow bus driver would bring the Black townships to the brink of anarchy once again.
May 2000 seemed predestined to lead to the temporary pinnacle of spiritual combat, with the police force not only in disarray, but they were also frustrated by a judiciary that was perceived to be corrupt.
On Friday evening the 19th of May 2000 a citywide half-night of prayer, attended by 6,000 people, took place at the UWC Sports Grounds in Bellville. Here the unity of the Body of Christ was emphasised once again! In the spiritual realm it was a powerful moment when Pastor Martin Heuvel apologised on behalf of about 40 pastors present, for - among other things - their lording over their churches, for being dogmatic, and for the lack of a servant attitude. Most importantly, the proceedings were translated into Xhosa,73 thus demonstrating that the presence of Capetonian Blacks was important to the organizers.
The proceedings were translated into Xhosa,
thus demonstrating that the presence of
Blacks was important to the organizers
There was ample evidence from different quarters that demonic warfare was increasing once again. Satanist traits surfaced notably when the decapitated head of a mentally handicapped young man was abused to instil fear into people. The arrest of nineteen PAGAD members in Tafelsig, a violence-ridden part of Mitchells Plain on 21 May 2000, after a shoot-out with police, was publicised as a major breakthrough. Only three gangsters were arrested, and that not even immediately. Hence the suspicion was strengthened that the police force was siding with criminals. The necessity for transformation through revival was thus highlighted once again.
The spiritual War heats up in the City Bowl
In June 2000 the fight in the spiritual realms was raging in the City Bowl as never before. A television report depicted how the Mother City drew gay tourists from around the world. Satanists were also staking their claims to impact the city.
While preparations were being finalized for a Jesus March on 10 June 2000, it almost seemed as if satan wanted to foil the event through a bomb at the New York Bagles Restaurant in Sea Point, a few kilometers away from the City centre, and not many days before the march.
A bomb in a plastic bag was
discovered by a homeless man
At the famous and well-patronized eating place, the bomb - hidden in a plastic bag - was discovered by a homeless man who was probably looking for food in the refuse bin. However, the bomb was defused before any damage was done.
God clearly intervened at the internationally-initiated Jesus March. After a series of weather forecasts of rain, Pastor Lazarus Chetty used CCFM Radio to ask Christians to pray for dry conditions. In spite of the negative weather prediction, ten thousand Christians from across the religious landscape converged on the City business district.
While the Jesus March crowd was praying in the historical Dutch Company Gardens, an elderly Muslim lady committed her life to Jesus at the famous Groote Schuur hospital a few kilometres away. Christian workers had ministered to her after she had confessed that she had a dream of the broad and narrow way, with Jesus standing at the top of the steep narrow way waiting for her. This dream had been plaguing her for 50 years. The first drops started falling well after the crowds had dispersed.
(delete words)
A satanic Backlash and divine Response
Satan seemed to mock the prayer march after he had failed to foil it by other means. On the same evening, a car bomb detonated in Sea Point. The stolen car was strategically parked between the well-known Jewish and American restaurants New York Bagles and McDonalds. Miraculously - one should say supernaturally - the damage to people and property was minimal. Satan thus lost the round.
An unheralded meeting at the Suid-Afrikaanse Gestig Museum a few days later on 15 June 2000 looked bound to be strategic in the spiritual realm. Thea van Schoor, a Christian worker from Durbanville, had met Louis Pasques, minister of the Baptist Church at the prayer meeting of pastors and pastors’ wives at the Atlantic Christian Assembly in Sea Point a week prior to this event. On short notice the City Bowl ministers’ fraternal decided to join the prayer occasion organised by Van Schoor. This was part of a tour by an American church group from Waco, Texas. In preparation of their two-week visit to the Mother City, the American group of young people had been praying for Cape Town for six months. The event of June 2000 at the historical venue also featured David Bliss, the director of the Andrew Murray Centre, and a group of young people from their centre in Wellington.
20. The religious Climate changes in Cape Townships

With regard to Islam, Gerda Leithgöb had already introduced research into spiritual influences at the Cape at a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995. Such research especially investigates the demonic or anti-Christian nature of these influences. It has been dubbed spiritual mapping. It seems that the exercise was only significantly implemented in 1999 at the Cape. Manenberg was a Cape township where it was practised with visible results. This township depicted a change in the religious climate more than any other at the Cape within a matter of months.
The Start of two special Churches
An off-sales liquor distribution centre, the Green Dolphin, changed hands dramatically when it became a church. The name Green Pastures was suggested by a resident. Even more dramatic was the turn-about of Die Hok, the former national headquarters of the Hard Livings Gang, which also became a church. The new name was Shekinah City Life Centre. In due course a fellowship was formed there under the capable leadership of Pastor Henry Wood. Almost all the elders there had been former gangsters. Pastor Eddie Edson, who had been a gangster himself in earlier days, spear-headed the Manenberg outreach. The spiritual revolution in the notorious township received countrywide prominence through the television programme Crux on Sunday 25 July 1999.
Manenberg gang leaders hit back by forcibly recruiting young boys into their midst. In April 2000 Manenberg was still making negative news headlines with the innocent killing of children in gang crossfire. Much prayer was still needed if the crime and violence was to be stopped. Pastor Edson discerned that Manenberg was a key township in the spiritual warfare in the Peninsula. He not only requested the venue for the monthly pastors and pastors’ wives prayer meeting for July 2000 to be relocated to ‘Die Hok’, but he was also the driving force in getting a 10,000-seater tent campaign into that township.
More rays of light started to break through. Here and there, remorse and repentance by Christians for their negative attitude towards Muslims surfaced.
Cape Muslims started to abandon
much of its confrontational approach
At the turn of the millennium, there were signs that Cape Muslims had started to abandon much of its confrontational approach towards Christianity, an attitude so typical of the PAGAD era (August 1996 to April 1999). In the township of Bonteheuwel, the same building was for instance used by Muslims and the Assemblies of God fellowship. This was also favourably reported in February 2000 in the Athlone News, a newspaper that is distributed free of charge in homes in that area.
Start of a new Turning to Christ?
The year 2000 saw a turning to Christ by Cape Muslims as never before. This happened especially in the Mitchells Plain area. Prominent in the evangelization was the witness of converts from Islam and the radio ministry via CCFM, with the Thursday morning programme of Life Issues to be singled out.
Furthermore, two terminally ill Muslim patients were not only led to the Lord, but missionaries also had quality time with them before they passed on. One of the two patients was a woman from Bo-Kaap whose husband had died because of AIDS in 1999. Her conversion to Christ was significant, because this was the first known one in the suburb for many years. Another spiritual breakthrough occurred when one of the less prominent female founder members of PAGAD accepted Jesus as her Saviour on 30 July 2000. Neither she nor the woman from Bo-Kaap professed their new faith openly.
New Manifestation of the Spirit of Violence
Eben Swart, the Western Cape prayer coordinator - in a brochure that he titled Bridging the Gap - addressed the danger of fragmentation; different groups were doing their own thing very independently. He also addressed the rift between various Christian factions. While he was praying, the words ‘spirit of violence’ came through in a strong way. He passed the challenge on to church leaders to address the issue head-on at the Manenberg citywide prayer event.
This meeting took place in Manenberg on September 2, 2000. It was followed by a big evangelistic campaign immediately thereafter. The adjacent township of Hanover Park, along with nearby Gugulethu and Nyanga, had been significant localities not only for killings and muggings, but also in terms of spiritual warfare. John Mulinde of Uganda was the speaker at the Manenberg prayer occasion. In spite of continuous rain that certainly had kept many away, about 3,000 gathered in the big tent. The occasion was very meaningful, especially because over a third of the audience consisted of Whites, who were thus braving racial and other prejudices. In the spiritual realm intense warfare was raging. Many tears of repentance and mutual acceptance flowed freely among the multi-racial crowd.
Tears of repentance and
mutual acceptance flowed freely
Changes in Manenberg
Prophecies about Manenberg becoming a blessing to the city started to come to fruition when many gangsters helped fill a tent with 10,000 seats from Sunday 10 September 2000 - an event that was facilitated by Jerome Liberty and his team. It was perhaps problematic that he introduced the various gangs present in the big tent night by night as special guests, but if there is a case to be made for ‘die doel heilig die middele’ (the goal sanctifies the methods), here was one. The method bore fruit.
The follow-up and discipling of gangsters
was a daunting task for the churches of
the notorious crime-ridden township
The follow-up and discipling of those gangsters who went forward in an act of commitment, was a daunting task for the churches of the notorious crime-ridden township. A secular radio station, KFM, noted the short-term result, reporting on 15 September that there was not a single incident of violence in the notorious suburb in the week of the big evangelistic tent campaign.
The healing of Manenberg continued hereafter. On May 7, 2004 a young participant in a Youth with a Mission Discipleship Training School, with their outreach linked to the local branch of the Salvation Army, wrote about this time: ‘It is also wonderful to see what God has done regarding gangsterism and crime. The entire month that we were there we did not hear a single gun shot, which is considered a miracle when comparing the situation to about 13 months ago.’ In subsequent years there was some relapse but thankfully it did not deteriorate to the levels of the 1990s.

The Church falls asleep once again
With the PAGAD crisis seemingly abating, it looked as though the Church at the Cape was falling asleep once again. It was nevertheless quite meaningful that the proposal of a Jesus-centred drug rehabilitation centre, as part of a repentant service to the Islamic community, was accepted in principle. The prayer meeting with ministers and church members from the Southern Suburbs of the Cape Peninsula was surely strategic in the spiritual realm. Confessions were made when representatives of each of the four major South African races stood in the centre of the circle, also in confession for the debt of the Church with regard to the global spread of Islam.
Father Clohessy, a Roman Catholic priest, was another representative from the churches who got involved with the effort to solve the social problems related to gangsterism and drug addiction. Indian shop owners, like those from Gatesville - some of whom had a stake in the lucrative drug trade - went to a pastor for counselling after a PAGAD hit list had been leaked. The suggestion was put forward to get a rehabilitation centre off the ground according to the model of the Betel centres which had proved so successful in Spain. At these centres a relationship to Jesus Christ is encouraged as central. However, when the crisis subsided, pastors simply continued with the building of their own ‘kingdoms’.

21. The Run-up to the great Newlands Event

By 1998, stories of violence were regular headlines on the front pages of South African newspapers. That Satanism was making headway surfaced not only through reports of ritualistic use of human foetuses and babies, but also in the satanic strategy of targeting the marriages of clergymen. Nationally the divorce of the well known Pastor Ray McCauley, whom God had used so wonderfully in the preparation of the Rustenburg event of 1990, was a national setback to the evangelical cause. At the Cape the moral failure of certain ministers of influential churches threatened to bring the growing city-wide prayer movement to a halt.
Because of the situation in the Middle East in mid-1999, natural prayer fuel was provided by the possibility of an escalation of tension between Muslims and Jews in the Mother City. In an initiative by Pastor Eddie Edson of Mitchells Plain a series of all-night citywide prayer events started on 25 June 1999.
A special encounter followed when someone was raised from the business world. – Graham Power

A successful Businessman gets converted
Just over a year prior to all this, on 20 February 1998, the successful businessman committed his life to the Lord. He had been challenged at a prayer breakfast with Peter Pollock as speaker. (Peter Pollock is a famous cricketer of yesteryear, the father of a contemporary national cricket icon.) At that occasion he came to faithin Christ. Hereafter he was faithfully discipled first by his pastor, Dr Dion Forster and later by Adolf Schulz, who was linked to the prayer breakfast for business people.
After attending an Alpha Course at there church and the formation of a cell group, Dion Forster showed the Transformation video to the group, which included the story of Cali in Columbia. There and then Graham felt a stirring deep within, wondering 'if it was possible in Columbia, why not Cape Town?'

Transformation Videos distributed
In early 1999 Ernst van der Walt jr. started working closely with Reverend Trevor Pearce, an Anglican clergyman, in the sphere of the transformation of communities. They distributed copies of a video produced by George Otis. The transformation video’s first screening to a big audience in Cape Town took place at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow on 15 October 1999. Already in the short term this showing brought about substantial change in some churches. By this time White pastors started to attend the monthly pastors’ and wives’ occasion more regularly, also at venues like Die Hok in Manenberg, a former drug den.
A 24/7 Prayer Room started
„Sooispit” - the turning of the soil – in preparation for the building of a prayer room in the Western Cape, took place on February 9, 2000. Charles Robertson, a Cape Christian businessman with a heart for prayer, along with his wife Rita, generously donated resources towards a venue for the work of NUPSA in the Western Cape. The premises in Bellville were earmarked to become a 24-hour prayer room for intercessors from the entire continent.
Daniel and Estelle Brink were called to lead the NUPSA initiative to get a 24-hour Prayer Watch off the ground at the Cape. That this was spiritual warfare of a high degree became evident when Daniel Brink became critically ill shortly after commencing his new function. The Lord touched and healed him in answer to the prayers of many intercessors.
Support Comes from Abroad
Susan and Ned Hill, a couple from Atlanta (USA) and leaders of Blood ‘n Fire Ministries, visited the Mother City on an orientation visit after they sensed a call to come and minister to the poor and needy in South Africa. While they were visiting Table Mountain as tourists, their eyes were supernaturally fixed on a piece of empty desolate ground that they soon learned was called District Six. They visited the District Six Museum, housed temporarily at that time in the Moravian Chapel while the permanent locality, a former Methodist Church, was being renovated. There they heard the tragic story of the former cosmopolitan slum area of Cape Town that was demolished in the wake of apartheid legislation. Two years later they brought a team of Blood ‘n Fire Ministries to minister in the Mother City.
The evident spiritual warfare around the World Parliament of Religions turned out to be fuel to set up a half night prayer meeting on the Grand Parade on fairly short notice. Just at this time Cees Vork and Pieter Bos,74 two prayer leaders in Holland, started praying about coming to Cape Town. It was clear that God was at work, orchestrating things when Mike Winfield and others were simultaneously busy with ‘Closing the Gates’ meetings, where we would pray around the sinful roots of our society. It was special that we could gain information from an Indonesian, as he shared what had been happening in his home country with regard to the persecution of Christians.
The Body of Christ made visible
The unity of the Body of Christ became visible to some extent at a mass half-night of prayer on 18 February 2000 on the Grand Parade, an event organised at short notice. On the same weekend Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, representing the prayer movement in Holland, joined local Christians in confession and in praying against anti-Christian spiritual strongholds in the Cape Peninsula. Four thousand Christians from a wide spectrum of denominations gathered there.
Denominationalism, materialism
and other evils were confessed
Denominationalism, materialism and other evils of South African society in which the church had played a role in the past, were confessed. In a moving moment just before midnight, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork confessed the catastrophic contribution of their forefathers to the evils of Cape society.
A prayer network evolved towards a preliminary climax in the half-night of prayer on the Grand Parade. Since then, prayer events proliferated countrywide through the prayer watches. Here the electronic media played a big role. What a blessing it is to see how the ‘seeds’ that we have been sowing from 1992 at the Cape were starting to germinate.
The event on the Grand Parade was followed during the next days by strategic ‘Closing the Gates’ prayer occasions. Other meetings like a combined church service on the Bellville Velodrome gave the impression that revival was in the air.
The moving confession of Pieter Bos because of Dutch colonial guilt at the shrine of Sheikh Yusuf at Macassar, the pioneer of Cape Islam, moved an Indonesian brother deeply. Hereafter we went to Vergelegen, the farm of Willem Adriaan van der Stel, a notorious 17th century Cape Dutch governor. At Vergelegen I also met Dr Lovejoy Tiripei, a national of Zimbabwe, who had been a freedom fighter before he came to faith in Jesus as his Lord. He started Grace Fellowship Africa, an agency that was to impact our own ministry significantly.75
Remorse expressed with Tears
The visit by the two Dutch intercessors spurred powerful prayer moves in the second half of February 2000. Divine guidance was evident at the events(delete words) initiated by NUPSA, addressing the sinful roots of slavery. Pieter Bos and Cees Vork highlighted the roots of a number of evils that originated in their country.
Prayers were offered at satanic strongholds in the Peninsula that have their roots in Holland and Indonesia. Freemasonry and slavery were singled out for special confession. The Holy Spirit moved mightily as Pieter Bos and Cees Vork repented on behalf of their forefathers for their role in the slave trade. Their ancestral forebears had perpetrated ungodly malpractices that were known to be evil. At the moving occasion on 19 February 2000 at the Cultural Museum (the former slave lodge), there was hardly a dry eye around as the Holy Spirit moved through the room. The awesome presence of God was evident when two descendants of the San and Khoi tribes (respectively the so-called ‘Bushmen’ and the ‘Hottentots’), were completely overcome by remorse for the actions of their ancestors. Tears flowed freely as descendants of a few other people groups asked each other for forgiveness.
Church Unity addressed again
The roots of materialism - typified by Simon van der Stel, an early Cape governor - were addressed through prayers of confession later the same month at Van der Stel’s farm Groot Constantia. At a meeting with intercessors in Stellenbosch, Pieter Bos challenged the church at the Cape to get their act together since, as a rule, revival only takes place in a unified church.
Much of the week’s events were organised on short notice - here and there things happened on the spur of the moment. This gave rise to a great expectation that the Holy Spirit was at last ushering in the long-awaited revival. It was very appropriate that Art Katz, a Christian with roots in the Jewish faith, challenged the believers from similar background in Sea Point and Somerset West. In prophetic style Katz did not mince his words, urging his audience - especially those from Jewish stock - to take their role seriously. He also warned that they had to be prepared for suffering.
Katz stated categorically that the Cross and resurrection are central tenets of Scripture - rather than celebration. This message was of course not so readily palatable, but definitely a word in season, a challenge to the church at large.
Satanists at Work
The arch-enemy would not remain idle in the wake of such activity. It was discovered that satanists had been distributing cursed audio and video cassettes to various parts of the country. Subsequently, vehicle accidents occurred at these locations. The Cape Town City Bowl was confronted with the possibility of satanist activities after paint had been spilt on roads at night. The white lines formed in this way could have led to confusion that in turn would have resulted in motor vehicle accidents. Prayer was mobilised, which effectively opposed this demonic device and the spirit of death. The tool of intercession has since then been used effectively for prayer at national roads over each December festive season.
In the spiritual realm
something snapped
In the spiritual realm something snapped. One missions organisation after the other ran into problems. The number of missionaries at the Cape with a link to CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) decreased substantially by 2007, when the alliance ironically celebrated its 25-year existence, with further relocations and one case of retirement soon thereafter.
Anarchy looming once again
Ramadan 2000 was accompanied by conversions to Christ, not only in other parts of the world, but also in Cape Town on an unprecedented scale. However, the enemy of souls blurred the picture at this time by reports to the contrary. Thus the deceit was there for everyone to see, as the impression was given that District Six had always been Islamic. The return of the former slum area to the original residents was abused in the run-up to the local elections of December 5, 2000. The Democratic Alliance – an arrangement of convenience between the Democratic Party (DP) and the New National Party (NNP) - had little to defend in respect of the ANC attacks. It is indisputable that the political parents of the NNP had been responsible for the forced removals of the inhabitants from District Six. It is ironic that the reversal of apartheid - which caused Bo-Kaap to become a Muslim stronghold in the 1970s - was now attempting to do the same to the former slum area. Muslims had been even more evidently in the minority in District Six before the February 1966 Group Areas Declaration. On 11 February 2004 the ANC made election capital out of the visit of President Nelson Mandela in person at the handing over of the keys to the first residents who were about to return to District Six. By May 2004 the new residents had however not yet moved in. And also thereafter the building of houses proceeded painfully slow indeed! The few houses that have been built are of inferior quality to boot!
Demonic forces tried to
create havoc and anarchy!
PAGAD was prematurely given the blame for a bomb explosion at the car park of Cape Town International Airport on 18th July 2000. Obviously, there were demonic forces at work trying to create havoc and anarchy! The protracted violent conflict between taxi drivers and the Golden Arrow bus company resulted in quite a number of people dead or wounded. This was a reminder that a miracle was needed to turn the tide.
In October 200 PAGAD members were arrested and some of their leaders tried. The tension in the Middle East hadoff, when big Islamic rallies were held. The one on 14 October 2000 at the Green Point Stadium was counter-productive in respect of the Islamic faith when supporters damaged cars and property such as at McDonald’s. The crowd had been hyped up at the rally against Americans and Jews.
The prayers of God’s people - for instance that the tension between Muslims and Jews locally would not spiral out of control - were surely answered when a time bomb under the car of a Jewish man was discovered and defused before the device could cause any damage. However, a bomb explosion near to the offices of the Democratic Alliance in Kenilworth on 18 October kept the tension alive because the leader of that party, Tony Leon, was known to be a Jew. Was PAGAD getting a new lease of life? Muslim unity at the Cape seemed to be resuscitated in the wake of the Middle East conflict.
A Documentary Moves Graham Power
Graham Power, a well-known Cape businessman, who is a member of the board of Directors of the Western Province Rugby Football Union, saw the Transformations documentary video in March 2000. It impregnated him with a strong desire to bring a prayer event to the Newlands Rugby Stadium. The story of the Mafia-style drug lords who exercised such a dominating presence in Cali (Columbia) reminded him of Cape Town.
Graham Power Received a Supernatural Visitation
During their annual holiday in Spain, Graham Power had a very special dream. He had a supernatural visitation, during which he was challenged to approach the Western Province Rugby Board for the use of their stadium at Newlands for a mass prayer event. This was foremost in his mind when he returned to his office after his holiday to the extent that he initially did not even notice the presence of two ladies, Barbara Cilliers and Annamie Munnik. Barbara was the coordinator for the 24/7 prayer watch in the Helderberg Basin. In NOT BY MIGHT, NOR BY POWER ((Power and Vermooten 2009:32) the interaction is narrated as folllows:
'Their conversation quickly moved to prayer and to hearing the voice of the Lord. .. God was calling the Church to prayer twenty-four hours, seven days a week. .. Cape Town intercessors firmly believed that this was the time for the awakening of the prayer watchmen over communities and the city.'
As Graham listened to their talk about faith and prayer watches. he decided that he would tell the morning group about the vision he received a few days previously on his annual holiday in Spain. As he recalled the dream, he remembered every detail. He told them about the stadium, the people. the prayers for repentance, the maroon armband with white letters, the goodie bag, and the invitation to the rest of South Africa.
The details just seemed to pour from his mouth. As he spoke, Barbara and Annemie cast a knowing look between themselves, and as they did, both women remembered a prophetic word that had been written down when a group of intercessors had prayed together on the twelfth of August 1998. This prayer meeting had been two years previously.'
He promptly approached his co-directors for the use of the biggest sports stadium of the Mother City.

Opposition by the Body of Christ
Knowing that this sort of thing had never been done before 'in one hundred years', at the Newlands Stadium, Graham Power did not expect an easy ride to get permission for a mass prayer event on 21 March 2001, but what he did not envisage was massive opposition by the body of Christ. Numerous meetings were scheduled, but the response had been yery encouraging. 'Standing and sharing his yision with a particular group of pastors in the city, Graham once again felt the resistance and quietly prayed for a breakthrough. Surely this could not be the state of the church?'... With time slipping away, he was beginning to doubt whether it was eyen a vague possibility that the church could put aside its differences, support the vision, and actually gather for a time of repentance and prayer ' ((Power and Vermooten 2009:38).

This was still the situation when he set off for a meeting in the Black township of Langa where he narrated about the momentous meeting (p.39f): 'No sooner had he finished sharing his story than he began receiving quick and vehement opposition. Concerns over insufficient time, logistics. and planning came quickly...The room got hotter, and for a moment his mind wandered away from the debate until he was sharply brought back at that moment by a yoice that broke through the questioning crowd.
Slowly standing to her feet, a woman called Mamela, spoke with conviction and authority. The room seemed to settle in an instant as her voice cried out, 'What is this thing? When God gives a vision. we are not to question, we are to come alongside and support.'
Was this the moment that Graham and the Transformation Africa committee had been waiting
for? It only lasted a few seconds, but it could be said that while God had conceived the vision in the heart of Graham Power in Spain, this moment marked the beginning of the labor pains. Could the vision finally become reality in the hearts of the people of Cape Town?
The first man to courageously stand to his feet was Reverend Willem Malherbe. It had only been 1 week before that Willem had attended a presentation as a member of the Dutch Reformed Fraternity in Durbanville.
This fraternity had initially expressed strong reservations against the idea of a united day of prayer. Willem stood tall among the crowd, and with a voice that tilted with his Afrikaans accent, humbly said, 'I want to support Mamela. 1 do now believe that this is a vision from God, and 1 want to support it.'
As he sat down, he too had a sense that this was a significant moment for the church in ,Cape Town, but never could he have imagined the impact that this day would have as a catalyst in the global story of transformation and prayer. One by one, other leaders started to nod, and then as the Holy Spirit sealed the issue in their hearts, they too stood to their feet and voiced their approval and agreed to stand in unity. '(Power and Vermooten 2009: 40)

A Flourish of Prayer and missionary Activity
A flourish of prayer and missionary activity towards the end of 2000 looked set to influence the country as a whole.
A few City Bowl ministers who had been praying together on Thursday mornings since October 1995 approached the office of Mr Mark Wiley,76 the minister responsible for law enforcement in the Western Cape. They offered to pray for him, promising not to take more than ten minutes of his time. Wiley responded positively, whereupon a delegation of the pastors went to pray with him. A few months later however, Wiley resigned due to his inability to resolve the protracted dispute between taxi operators and the Golden Arrow Bus Company. This dispute had kept the Cape Black township dwellers in suspense for months. Everything pointed to the fact that the spiritual battle was again raging at a high pitch.
On 27 October 2000 the Ministers’ Fraternal of the Atlantic Seaboard organised a half-night of prayer. Wiley’s successor was Hennie Bester, who had been a school friend of Eben Swart, the Western Cape coordinator of Herald Ministries. The new provincial Cabinet minister’s request - prayer from Christians - was a catalyst to send intercessors into action(delete words). In answer to prayer, the people responsible for the bombs that had been plaguing the region, were apprehended soon thereafter.
Rev. Trevor Pearce was instrumental in bringing the Sentinel Group, Sharing of Ministries Abroad (SOMA) to Cape Town. This included George Otis, the initiator of the well-known Transformation videos. The group staged a three-day conference at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow with international speakers from 3 November 2000. This was followed by a citywide prayer meeting at the UWC Athletics Stadium in Bellville on Sunday, 5 November. The meetings in Parow and Bellville were preceded by prayer events that not only coincided with a round of spiritual warfare against the occult satanist Halloween celebrations, but they were also part of a country-wide 40-day offensive of prayer and fasting for the continent.
Bombs were discovered and defused
Bombs Defused
And then the miracle happened. The breakthrough the praying Christians had been waiting for, finally came. On Friday 3 November 2000 two potentially destructive bombs at a well-known shopping centre in Bellville were discovered and defused. The bombs could have caused massive loss of life, had they detonated at the intended time a few kilometres from the venue of the prayer conference in Parow. Later that very day the men who had planted the bomb were arrested and put in custody.
God had heard the cries of his people. Today it is a documented fact that since the discovery of that unexploded bomb there has not been another PAGAD bomb explosion in the City of Cape Town. Prayer was making a difference. It could hardly have been co-incidence that the arrest of the surmised culprits happened at the time of the conference and that the 18 bombs, which had exploded in the preceding months, did not result in any loss of life. Nor could it have been mere chance that pipe bombs were discovered under a snooker table at a house in Grassy Park on 6 November 2000, a day after the citywide prayer event in Bellville. Since then not a single PAGAD pipe bomb has detonated at the Cape.77
Transformation of the Mother City of South Africa received a major push on 3 November 2000. After the Parow and Bellville events, the stage was soon set for a major occasion at the Newlands Rugby Stadium.
On the local level churches also seemed to be playing a role in bringing about peace. On Sunday 25 February 2001, it was reported on national television that local church leaders had brokered a peace accord between two Bonteheuwel gangs, the Cisko Yakkies and the Americans.
The Newlands Event of 21 March 2001
The Transformation programme was closely linked to intercession from the outset. It is no surprise that the 24-hour prayer watch was connected to a big prayer occasion scheduled for the Newlands Rugby Stadium on 21 March 2001. In the 21 days prior to the event more than 200 congregations joined in a prayer effort for the stadium meeting on a 24-hour basis.
A satellite connection and
big screens allowed more
people to participate
The 21 March 2001 event was extraordinary in the extreme. Because Newlands was too small for all the people who wanted to attend, several local churches used a satellite connection and big screens to allow more people to participate. Radio CCFM and Radio Tygerberg radio stations also broadcast the unprecedented occasion live. Because it was a public holiday, many followed the prayers at home via radio and TV.
Involving the Youth
Frans Cronje. a member of the Transformation AFRICA committee. who had been actively involved in mobilizing the youth to help with the logistics of the first prayer day, firmly believed that the youth would play an important role in the growth of this movement. Frans headed up a youth sports ministry called Sport for Christ Action South Africa (SCAS). He was always on the lookout for meaningful mission opportunities for the young sports people. In June 2001, just a few months after the Newlands Day of Prayer, Frans believed that God gave him a vision to mobilize Christians to run across the country, carrying a message of hope through salvation to be found in the person of Jesus Christ. The run would be called The Walk of Hope. Not only would this walk encourage peopk on the highways and byways of the country, but it would also serve to be an important tool in raising the awareness of this significant day. It was decided that as the city of Bloemfontein is at the heart of the nation, teams would all depart from that city and then move toward the eight stadia where a Transformation Africa Prayer Day would be held in 2002.

An immediate Spinn-off of the Newlands Event
An article in the Cape Times, a local newspaper, gave wings to the prayer movement with the headline '50,000 Christians Pack Newlands—Asmal Slams ‘Sectarian’ Rally.' The article cited Minister Kadar Asmal as launching an attack on the ‘divisive’ mass Christian rally at Fedsure Park Newlands Rugby Stadium attended by more than fifty thousand people. Asmal reportedly said that the mass meeting constituted the gathering of a 'sectarian body' was responsible for enhancing divisions in South Africa.1
While nothing could have been further from the truth, all the main TV stations and news broadcasters led with that story in the evening news.
God was thus using the media to spread the story. This event had received far more coverage than could have been given otherwise. What Satan had intended for evil, God was turning to good.
As the media debate continued, the Transformation Africa Committee received hundreds of calls of support, encouragement, and promises of prayer from churches and businessmen around the country.
Graham Power - a major mover of the Newlands event - had a dream in February 2002 that encouraged him to bring the stadium prayers to Southern Africa. The Newlands event started to spread throughout the subcontinent in 2002: eight stadiums were involved with some 160,000 people attending. In 2003 and 2004 mass prayer services were held in over 100 venues throughout the African continent.
An interesting dynamic started to get off the ground. Missionaries who had been working in other Southern African countries, started encouraging believers from the Cape Peninsula to become involved in evangelistic work. Locals like Georgina Kinsman from Mitchell’s Plain, who does not belong to the young generation, hardly needed any nudge to get involved in missionary work. In fact, she gave a major push for the Baptist Union in South Africa to become active in reaching out to the under-evangelised and forgotten peoples of Namibia and the Northern Cape.
In a sequel to the 2006 preparation to the law to legalise same sex marriages, evangelical spokesperson and advocate for a biblical stance on Homosexuality, Pastor Errol Naidoo, left the pastorate at His People Church to launch the Family Policy Institute. On 15 May 2008 the Institute took occupancy of its new headquarters at Parliament Chambers, 49 Parliament Street, Cape Town. This was as near to Parliament as one could wish, just outside the gates of Parliament.

Real Transformation?
In October 2006 Graham Power was once again supernaturally challenged to take another part of 2 Chronicles 7:14 to the nation, viz '... and turn from their wicked ways'. He clearly interpreted this to include not only violence and murder, but also actions which are socially condoned or exonerated like abortion and same-sex marriages. Also white collar crime and all sorts of unethical behaviour had to be out-lawed.
In 2007 Transformation launched an independent initiative to promote ethics, values, and clean living among business and individuals called Unashamedly Ethical. It is broad-based, challenging people to make a personal pledge to ethical living, and encouraging others to do the same. In doing so, an attempt is made to turn the tide on corruption and poverty. Those companies and professionals signing the Unashamedly Ethical pledge commit themselves to the highest integrity to produce and deliver quality products and services, purposefully connecting with other companies, professions and individuals to impact the world.
22. The Stranger at our Gates

Our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting became the start of yet another venture in 1996 after Daniel, a believer from Eerste River, a distant suburb in the north of our city, who had been a regular participant in the beginning of these prayer meetings in 1992, popped in again one day. He challenged us, referring to the many French-speaking Muslim street traders from West Africa, who had been moving into the city: ‘Have you ever considered doing something about bringing the Gospel to them?’
In the meantime Louis Pasques, who was raised in an Afrikaner environment, had become the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church in 1996. He had not only become a regular participant at the Friday prayer meeting in the Koffiekamer, but he also speaks French.
A public confession was made
on behalf of Afrikaners for the hurts
meted out to people of colour
When Blacks started attending the church increasingly and because of a brave sermon in which Louis made a confession on behalf of Afrikaners for the hurts meted out to people of colour during the apartheid era, a few White people left the church. This triggered the gradual change of the complexion of people attending the church.
Forerunners of Returnees
In 1839, soon after the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies,Thomas Keith sensed God calling him to work his passage back to Africa to bring the Gospel to his own people. He was one of many former slaves from the Caribbean and America who brought the Gospel to the so-called Dark Continent. Due to their contribution, West Africa increasingly 'lightened' in respect of the Gospel. In this way they effectively blocked the march of Islam from the North of the continent, notably in Liberia and Sierra Leone, working unwittingly in tandem with missionaries who pioneered in Sudan and East Africa. (delete words)
I had been impacted myself while in voluntary exile in Holland when a brother there challenged me to be more loving and compassionate toward the apartheid regime, after he had read my manuscript Honger na Geregtigheid. Apart from that, I always had a burning desire to return to my beloved country. This was not easy to handle for the displaced Surinamese in the Moravian Church that I served in Holland (and also for others around me). But it helped me many years later as we started to ministering to diverse foreigners.
When we returned to South Africa in 1992 I hoped that I could serve foreigners in a similar way as that in which I had been blessed in Europe.

Outreach to Foreigners
When we started to pray about the possible outreach to foreigners at our Friday lunch-hour meeting, God surely used these occasions to prepare Louis Pasques’s heart. When the destitute Congolese refugee teenager Surgildas (Gildas) Paka pitched up at the church, Louis and his wife Heidi sensed that God was challenging them to take special care of the youngster. One weekend Louis and Heidi had their parents over for a visit. They asked Alan Kay, an elder and the administrator of Cape Town Baptist Church, to provide accommodation to the destitute teenager. Gildas captivated Alan’s heart. This was the beginning of an extended and unusual adoption process. One thing led to the other until Alan Kay not only finally adopted Gildas, but he also got more and more involved in compassionate care of other refugees. Soon the Cape Town Baptist Church became a home to refugees from many African countries. Gildas and our son Rafael, who was now 17 years old, became quite close friends.
Allain Ravelo-Hoërson (T.E.A.M.) played a big part in establishing the ministry among Francophone Africans at the church, along with other missionaries who had been working in countries where French is the lingua franca. Allain ministered there faithfully from 1998 to August 2001, when he and his wife left to study in London. He was supported by Ruth Craill, an SIM missionary, who had ministered in West Africa. She played the piano and took care of providing meals after or before the services. Moreover, the weekly Bible studies held in the Ravelo-Hoërson home for several years helped to strengthen that ministry.
Many a homeless person was transformed by the
power of the Gospel
The Koffiekamer, once rejected as the venue for a 24-hour prayer watch, suddenly became a major channel of blessing when an Alpha Course was started there. A special role in the transformation of the city was accorded to it when many a homeless person was transformed by the power of the Gospel, and prayer meetings for the city started at that venue on every last Wednesday of the month. This is where we had increased contact with Vlok and Lynne Esterhuyse. Vlok was to become one of our stalwart intercessors at the Cape Town Central Police Station.
A positive Change towards Refugees
The attitude of Whites in the Cape Town Baptist Church hereafter gradually changed positively towards refugees. Before long, quite a few refugee-background Africans started attending our churches services, especially when special ones in French were arranged monthly, and later twice a month, as an effort to equip the Francophone believers for loving outreach to the Muslim French-speakers from our continent. The word spread quite well, so that in due course also other churches started opening their doors to refugees.
The need for refugees to get employment was the spawn for the English language classes at the church to be revitalised. (Before this, Carol Günther, an American missionary, and Heidi Pasques had been giving English lessons to paying foreign students.)
This inspired the offer of free English lessons to many of these refugees, ultimately leading to the resumption of English language classes at the church (delete words) as an aid to help refugees find their way in the city. The simultaneous need for a discipling house for Muslim converts and a drug rehabilitation centre gave birth to the Dorcas Trust. I hoped that the city churches could take ownership of these ventures. (That turned out to be easier said than done. )
Work among Refugees in the northern Suburbs
Bellville Baptist Church was established in 1946 to reach English-speaking people in the predominantly Afrikaans language area. The congregation has had a heart for other minority groups ever since. In the 1970s a small wave of Portuguese-speaking refugees from Angola and Mozambique began to swell the Portuguese-speaking community of greater Cape Town. Among these was a man who was trained in Theology in Pretoria through the Dutch Reformed Church. Pastor Jose de Araujo initially established a Portuguese-language Dutch Reformed Church in Parow. After being convicted about believers’ baptism, he joined Bellville Baptist Church. From there he conducted Portuguese services and engaged in outreach to the Portuguese community. This group developed to become the First Portuguese Baptist Church, located in Goodwood.
As the country changed after 1994, many Angolans entered the country. With the arrival of Cleber Balaniuc from Brazil and the implementation of a clear discipleship strategy, the congregation grew and developed to a point where 90% of ministry functions were performed by former Angolans. While Portuguese-speaking refugees were directed to Parow/Goodwood, the Bellville congregation opened their arms to French-speaking foreigners.
The outreach to refugees became one of the most blessed aspects of the life of the Bellville Baptist Church. The church leadership also discerned the important responsibility to develop and train Christian leaders. The Bellville church assimilated French speakers within the existing structures of the church. These have been expanded to provide Bible studies in French, English lessons and computer classes for refugees. In 2002 the congregation recognized the pastoral gifts of one of the French-speaking members, Leandre Okehi, and sent him to do theological studies at the Cape Town Baptist Seminary. After he graduated, he was called to the pastoral staff of the church.
Lima Zamba fled to South Africa from Angola in 1994. He became a follower of Jesus a few years later and married a South African. Recognizing his leadership potential and spiritual gifting, the Bellville church supported Lima through the four years he spent as a student at the Cape Town Baptist Seminary. After completing his studies in 2006, Lima served as pastoral assistant at the Parow Portuguese Baptist Church. He had a strong call to serve as a missionary in his home country Angola. At the end of 2007 he left to serve there as a missionary.
Angolan Refugees find their Niche
In 1999 five Angolan refugees left Upington for Cape Town where they had no friends or family. At the City office of the Department of Home Affairs the group slept outside the first night. They were then taken to the township Langa where all their belongings were however stolen. Back in the city, they ended up at the Catholic Welfare that helped them with food and accommodation for a few days. There they met another Angolan, Simao, who had met Adrian Khon, a friendly gentleman who had assisted him. Simao took them to Master Keys where Adrian was the boss. The latter gave them R20 each and told the young men to come back later as he wanted to speak to his brother Colin. The end result was that Adrian Khon took three young men to work in the city and Colin took another three Angolans to the Woodstock branch of their company where they were taught to cut keys. They were also given accommodation in Brooklyn at the Head Office in a house that Master Keys was also using for storage.
The compassionate Beverley Stratis, our friend and prayer partner at Cape Town Baptist Church, somehow got to hear about the Angolans. Because she was receiving an abundance of bread from a German bakery, she decided to pay the group a visit. She was met by six wide-eyed scared young men.
When the Angolan refugees saw the
bread they were just over the moon
When they saw the bread however, they were just over the moon. Bev thereafter dropped a large black bag of bread at their home every second day or so. The Angolans attended Bible Study every Wednesday evening at 'Loaves and Fishes', an interdenominational ministry in Observatory where they also learned the basics of the English language.
The six young men lived in Brooklyn for five months, whereafter they found themselves another house in Maitland. The six were also taken to the Portuguese Baptist Church in Goodwood where Pastor Mendez and his wife Nessie ministered. The Brazilian couple were like a Mom and Dad to the Angolans. Luis Xiribimbi (Xiri) and Julio Fransisco are the only two still working for Master Keys. Xiri now runs the stamp making section in Cape Town. In 2007 Julio was able to take over the Rondebosch branch of Master Keys.
Both Xiri and Julio definitely met the Lord here at the Cape. Bev Stratis also had a lot of fellowship with the young men at her big flat in Vredehoek where Julio met Yuki from Japan. She was having board and lodging at Bev's home. Julio will be marrying Yuki soon.
Xiri attends Cape Town Baptist Church and Julio attends Mowbray Baptist Church, along with many other refugees.
A Vision partly fulfilled
In October 2000 our prayer walk group in Bo-Kaap was very much encouraged. We met a Congolese Bible School student who was on the verge of returning to his home country as an evangelist after being impacted and trained in Cape Town. This had been one of our long-time visions.
Alan Kay, the administrator of Cape Town Baptist Church, had been studying Theology part-time, ultimately graduating at the Baptist Seminary. After he left the Cape Town Baptist Church, he linked up with the Salvation Army,where he soon accepted a pastoral post. He also attended a newly formed fellowship of the Calvary Chapel in the hall of one space too many St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.
Alan Kay had been very much involved with the ministry to foreigners since its inception in 1996 by a few missionaries from various agencies who were fluent in French. Some of the
refugees left Cape Town Baptist Church. Anaclet Mbayagu from Burundi was one of them. He later became one of the stalwarts of the Calvary Chapel fellowship. The Calvary Chapel congregation, at which foreigners were fully integrated, soon had more members from other countries than South Africans.

Emulation in other Churches
The example of the two Baptist churches in the City Centre and in Bellville found emulation in other Baptist congregations, not always with an easily discernible link – notably in Meadowridge and Fish Hoek - but also in spiritually-related ones like the Life Church (formerly Atlantic Christian Assembly, ACA) of Sea Point and the Jubilee Church in Observatory. Alongside these ‘mainline’ churches, nationalist ones sprang up and others along language lines, where foreigners could cultivate their home culture and speak their own language or dialect. As a direct effect of the xenophobic violence of May and June 2008, many local Christians started appreciating foreigners and the contribution they were making to our economy. However, the negative attitude towards Black Africans continued almost unabatedly in some townships. The Common Ground fellowship (formerly Friends First) was one of those churches that were positively impacted through those difficult months. Many a foreigner was accommodated in their church complex and in homes. The church consciously launched a programme of providing employment via their cell groups. The formerly almost completely 'White' church – i.e. consisting of predominantly English-speaking Caucasians - became a haven for many a new sojourner at the Cape, especially after Andre Ntambwe, a Congolese believer, was appointed to co-ordinate the outreach to the African foreigners.
A ‘global Church’ in the City Bowl
Jeff and Lynn Holder, who had been missionaries in Botswana on behalf of the Southern Baptists of the USA, came to Cape Town as the missionary co-ordinators for Southern Africa in 2002. The multi-national character of the Cape Town Baptist Church appealed to them. Despite a leadership crisis there, they decided to join the congregation, rather than join another fellowship nearer their home in the suburb of Claremont. Due to Jeff’s dedicated ministry, the city congregation in due course became the catalysts for new missionary work to the Northern Cape and the ‘forgotten’ tribes of Namibia. (It was special to me that the Lord in his mercy allowed me to see some of these Remaining Unreached People Groups now getting evangelised.78)
A group of young people from Botswana came to study in the City, staying in a hostel near to the Baptist Church. This was of course up the ally of the Holder couple who had ministered in Botswana in earlier years. Soon a whole bunch of Tswana-speaking youngsters were attending the church, some of them getting special teaching from Jeff and Lynn Holder, who used the Experiencing God material of Henry Blackaby.
A Ministry to Foreigners
During 2003 it seemed as if the Lord was leading us more and more into a ministry to foreigners. As Jeff Holder preached one Sunday, Rosemarie received a vision of our Moriah Discipling House to be used for refugee-type sojourners. In our recruiting for a couple to become house parents of the facility, the Lord had to correct us however, because we originally thought that a Cape ‘Coloured’ couple would be ideal, since we perceived that they understood the culture of the Cape Muslims the best.
Around the turn of the millennium Rosemarie was battling with the load of work around the discipling of new Muslim background believers (MBB’s) and general convert care. The majority of them were females who had been nominal Christians before their marriage to a Muslim.
We were glad that we could hand over the responsibility for the medical/hospital side of our ministry to Maria van Maarseveen, our Dutch colleague. She continued with the outreach at Groote Schuur
on Saturday mornings long after she had left our team. She joined the Living Way (delete word) team to minister full-time to HIV/AIDS patients.
At the end of 2002 we were praying fervently again that the Lord would give us more assistance for the general convert care. Unbeknown to us, Lynn Holder had been praying about how she could get involved.
I approached the Life Church (formerly Atlantic Christian Assembly, ACA) as part of an effort to promote the hand-made 3D greeting cards, which the MBB ladies had been making. (The Lord had undertaken wonderfully so that we could pay these ladies, giving them some regular income, although we could hardly sell the cards.) By 2003 Anthony Liebenberg had become the senior pastor of the ACA.
Pastor Liebenberg had good memories of the time when he was youth pastor of the ACA. Our son Danny had joined his cell group and he also played in the music group of their church on Sunday evenings. The prophetic word spoken about Danny to be a link to other believers on the day we had our valedictory service in Holland in January 1992, had obviously already been partially fulfilled. The Lord wonderfully used him at the Deutsche Schule (German School) to bring new spiritual life to the Christian Union there, especially when a youngster, Chris Duwe, came to the Cape in 1996 during their Abitur (A-level) year.
Pastor Anthony Liebenberg and the congregation was rather reticent to allow people from outside to come and promote their ministry during a slot in their church services. Anthony agreed however to advertise our material, especially the 3D cards - produced by the ex-Muslim ladies - on our behalf. Because of the good rapport we had with him and the link via our son, Pastor Liebenberg did it much better than I could have done. Anthony also spoke a prophetic word over us, that we would get assistance soon. This was fulfilled when Lynn Holder joined Rosemarie with the making of the 3D cards, to be followed by Rochelle Malachowski, a YWAM missionary from the USA, soon thereafter. Rochelle was introduced to us by Gill Wrench-Knaggs.
The Going gets tough
Rosemarie and I were blessed to take a holiday break at Carmel Christian Farm in July 2003. At this occasion she had been taking some photographs of beautiful waves at Sedgefield and Knysna. In that vicinity we found Psalm 93:4 engraved on a stone. That was exactly the Bible verse that Rosemarie received on the day of her confirmation in Germany as a teenager, way back in the 1960s. ‘Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!'
A medical checkup was due a year after my stress-related temporary loss of memory in March 2002 (see chapter 23). This led to a period that seemed to lead to the last lap of my race on earth after prostate cancer had been diagnosed.
The Lord gave me a ‘second wind’
after the prostate operation
Looking back over my life, it seemed as if my (semi-)academic studies and anti-apartheid activism did not bring me anywhere. But the Lord gave me a ‘second wind’ after the prostate operation in December 2003. He also blessed Rosemarie and me to discern some of the pieces in the mosaic, the puzzle of our chequered lives that were fitting so perfectly into each other. It encouraged me to prod on, although the road ahead could not be discerned that clearly. Rosemarie challenged me with regard to my chaotic research and writing activity. I had so many unfinished manuscripts on my computer. 'What would happen if something happens to you? All that work would be in vain', was her wise counsel. The testimonies of a few Cape Muslims had been on my computer already for about two years. Some of them we had printed as tracts. The result of Rosemarie’s prodding was that Search for Truth 2 could be printed within a matter of weeks.
A Wave of Opportunity
At this time Rosemarie and I were seriously praying about relocating. After almost 12 years at the Cape in the same work, we thought that we should have a change of ministry for the last stretch before possible retirement. With our youngest daughter about to finish her schooling at the end of 2004, we even considered relocating internationally. But no ‘doors’ opened with regard to a move overseas.
We felt increasingly challenged to
reach out to refugees and foreigners
Instead, we felt increasingly challenged to reach out to refugees and foreigners who had been coming to Cape Town, for example by using English teaching even more as a compassionate vehicle. We prayed that the Lord would give us more clarity with regard to our future ministry by the end of 2003.
In October of that year Rosemarie had a strange dream cum vision in which a newly married couple, clad in Middle Eastern garb, was ready to go as missionaries to the Middle East. Suddenly the scene changed. While the two of us were praying over the city from our dining room facing the Cape Town CBD, a massive tidal wave came from the sea, rolling over Bo-Kaap. The next moment the water engulfed us in her dream, but we were still holding each other by the hand. There was something threatening about the massive wave, but somehow we also experienced a sense of thrill in the dream. Rosemarie woke up, very conscious that God seemed to say something to us through this vision-like dream.79 What was God saying?
The day after Rosemarie’s dream we heard about a conference of Middle Eastern Muslim leaders in the newly built International Convention Centre of Cape Town. We decided on short notice to take our Friday prayer meeting there instead of having it in the regular venue, the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk.
Because of some miscommunication about the change of venue, Rosemarie went back to the Koffiekamer. This resulted that we could just pray together for a short time near to the Convention Centre. While I brought back a few others to the Koffiekamer with our Microbus, Rosemarie, Rochelle, Denise Crowe, one of our co-workers and a Muslim background believer went into the Convention Centre where they surprisingly had access to the interior of the building without any security check. Here they walked around, praying for the delegates to the conference and for the building.
The same afternoon Rosemarie and our YWAM colleague Rochelle went to the nearby Waterfront Mall where they now literally walked into a bunch of ladies in oriental garb. The outgoing Rochelle had no hesitation to start a conversation with one of them. Having resided for a period among Palestinians in Israel, she is fluent in Arabic. Soon the two Christian ladies were swarmed by Arab women, who were of course very surprised to be addressed in their home language by a White woman with an American accent. A cordial exchange of words and email addresses followed.
(addition to fill the page) We sensed that God might be sending a wave of people to Cape Town from Muslim countries. We should get ready to send young missionaries to the Middle East when it opens up to the Gospel.
On the personal front it seemed as if the Lord was confirming a ministry to refugees and other foreigners. In November 2003 we baptized a Muslim background refugee from Rwanda. The Lord used a co-worker from Pakistan quite prominently at this time. He led a few people from the group of refugees, as well as vagrants, to faith in our Lord during the last weeks of 2003. Shortly hereafter, the Lord also brought to our attention various groups of foreigners who had come to the Mother City, including a few from a Chinese minority group.
The Resumption of English Classes
Rosemarie was reminded of her dream, sensing that God might be sending a wave of people to Cape Town from Muslim countries. We should also prepare to send emissaries of the Gospel to the Middle East when it would open up to such input.
Many refugees have been empowered
after having learnt English
Already since 1996 refugees from various African countries had been coming more and more into our focus. Many refugees have been empowered after having learned English at our church. Heidi Pasques, the wife of the pastor, had been heading up the proceedings. In this way it was easier for the refugees to secure employment. Through internal problems at the church the classes were aborted at the end of 2001.
(delete paragraph)
The Net thrown wider
I had already felt myself challenged to attempt to get the City Bowl prayer watch started in the first half of 2004. The unity of the Body of Christ, believers in the crucified and risen Saviour, has always been very much on my heart. We believed that the prayer watch movement could be a decisive vehicle to make this more visible - to be used as a powerful means to take the city for God. Soon we were serving (Uyghur) Chinese and Somalians in loving ways. The latter group in Mitchells Plain stretched our patience. We stopped teaching English to the Somalians after a few months in mid-2005 when it became apparent that they resented being taught by Christians.
English teaching to foreigners in a small church on the corner of Dorp and Loop Street on Saturday afternoons where Gary Coetzee was the pastor, turned into a double blessing. There we could not only help a few new sojourners in our city ourselves, but we also soon found a link to the nearby Boston House for whom we supplied learners from the ranks of refugees and Green Market Square traders for their TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) students. A Cameroonian was one of these students. With him we had on-going contact - one of those who became like additional sons and daughters.
Ministry to Asians
The video version of The Passion of the Christ plus English lessons to Chinese people who were coming to Cape Town in numbers of consequence was the run-up to a very fruitful ministry.
The conversion and baptism of two Uyghur Chinese in the first quarter of 2005 was very special, the result of divine intervention, but also a special answer to prayer for an Indonesian Christian who had been praying for many years for that tribe and now she found some of them in Cape Town. One of the two converts needed a dream of Muhammad, the founder of Islam - after backsliding through a contact to a Cape Muslim man - to convince her that Jesus was indeed the one to follow. The other Uyghur had a similar dream of light and divine presence in his room. I had been teaching German to the young man at our home, when he also wanted to attend the group of young adults who were meeting in our home on Wednesday evenings for Bible Study, led by Danny, our eldest son. In due course the German lessons became Bible Study after the young man had bought himself a Bible. After one of the sessions, I could see how the penny dropped when I explained to him how prophetic the last plague in Egypt was, when the Israelites had to apply the blood of the innocently slaughtered lambs to their door-posts; that this pointed to Jesus who would die centuries later as the Lamb of God.
In 2005 our team received a special boost when Stephanie Lue, a Chinese background US American, joined us for a year. With her (delete word) compassionate heart for Asians, Stephanie assisted a Korean female student with English. Soon enough this also included Bible Study until the Korean also came to know Jesus as her Lord and Saviour. Subsequently she joined a Cape Korean church where she later started teaching in the Sunday School.
No Relocation
In the meantime, Rosemarie and I had been praying regularly with Heidi Pasques, Hendrina van der Merwe and Beverley Stratis. On the last Sunday of 2003 we visited the Calvary Chapel service when we bumped into Heidi. (Demitri Nikiforos, the pioneering pastor there, had married Karen, the daughter of Graham and Dawn Gernetsky. The Gernetsky's had been the pastoral couple at the Cape Town Baptist Church. Demitri had also been the Sunday school teacher of our daughter Magdalena). Heidi hinted that she and Bev had special news for us. They could hardly wait to see us in the evening for our prayer time with them and Hendrina in Heidi's flat.
This was to us the confirmation
that we should not relocate
There Bev and Heidi shared how the Lord had made it clear to them that Bo-Kaap was a strategic stronghold. We were rather surprised that the penny took so long to drop with them. After all, how often had I not been inviting the congregants directly and indirectly to come and join us in the prayers for Bo-Kaap. But we were nevertheless extremely blessed. This was to us the confirmation that we should not relocate, that we could remain in Cape Town! Hereafter the three of them, along with Trevor Peters, the tour guide of the Groote Kerk, became part of the core group for our monthly Signal Hill early morning prayer.

Demise of Islam as a negative spiritual Force?
Islam had not yet recovered from setbacks when Ahmed Deedat, the well-known apologist and Muslim debater, died. Surprisingly, his death on 8 August 2005 was hardly mentioned in the South African media outside of Islamic circles. Soon hereafter, the background of the stroke, which he suffered in May 1996, was published on a website by Dave Foster, a missionary based in Durban. Foster, a SIM missionary from Canada, who had been ministering in the Durban area for many years with his wife Kathy, was well-known for his gentle, friendly and peaceful approach in reaching out to Muslims. In the article he revealed how he had become involved in a highly confrontational encounter with Deedat.
Ahmed Deedat’s spiritual heirs announced at some stage that they would take all his books from the shelves that are offensive to Christians. But it became known that the Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI) had started to actively raise funds to reprint an inflammatory booklet. It had been exactly the full-page publication of this material which brought Foster and Durban ministers to challenge Deedat to renounce his heresy publicly or face God’s wrath. His failure to do this was followed by a medical condition where he could not speak normally for more than nine years, confined to different hospital beds all of the time.
A controversial Visitor
Things heated up at the Cape once again during a visit by the London-based American, Jay Smith, at the end of September 2005. His meeting at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the YMCA of that institution was also attended by Muslims from outside the student body. Jay Smith showed the Qur’an and the Muslim beliefs to be erroneous and based on subjective opinions rather than historical facts. As a result, the Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI), the late Ahmed Deedat’s organization, (which has its headquarters in Durban), was alerted. A representative wrote to the government and to CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims), the hosting organization, calling Jay Smith a ‘hate-filled Islamaphobe’, and demanding that he would refrain from addressing any more public meetings.
CCM refused to back down. Instead, the committee in Johannesburg called for police support, even requesting the bomb squad to be present because rumours were heard that the Muslims would come in force to disrupt the symposium, scheduled for Sunday afternoon on the 9th of October, 2005. There Smith spoke about the difference between the Bible and the Qur’an, introducing some of the controversial historical material with which they had been working in London. The Islamic Propagation Centre International probably shot themselves in the foot with their over-reaction, creating more interest in the event.
Two radio programmes with Jay Smith on Cape Talk, a secular programme - and having him sharing on the midday reflections via CCFM - received great interest. An unprecedented number of listeners requested CD’s of the CCFM recordings.

Modern jihad methods
At an Islamic conference in Abuja, Nigeria in recent times, a new strategy was set out to bring Africa into the Islamic fold completely. Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa would be targeted as strategic countries in the West, East and South of the African. Somalians brought a new version of jihad into play in 2009. Pirates received millions of dollars from the ransom for ships with valuable cargo on board that were sailing past their coastliine. The revenue was partly used for the expansion in Kenya, e.g. for the building of mosques in that country. In Nigeria churches were burned and insurrection stirred up between Christians and Muslims. Around the centrally situated Jos retaliation of certain Christians played into the hands of Islamists, leading to the killing of scores of Christians in the first months of 2010.
At the Cape Islam expanded quietly, e.g. through the use of petrodollars. In the Gatesville-Rylands residential area the Muslims already boasted the biggest mosque at the Cape and a massive Islamic educational institution. In recent times the minute Christian presence took a big blow when the former manse of the Indian Reformed Church was bought up by Muslims. They eagerly spread the rumour that they would buy up all the churches of the area.
Muslims disillusioned with Islam
Despite the fact that Muslims (delete words) are much more reproductive than others, Islam as a religion is not growing but dying(delete word). 
More and more Muslims are discovering that the violence evinced by some of their co-religionists is not an aberration, but that it is inspired by the teachings of the Qur’an. Muslims are becoming disillusioned with Islam. They are finding out that the mechanic ritual of praying five times per day, reciting verses that they do not understand, mean very little. They discern that getting up at taxing hours of the morning and abstaining from food and water until the sunset during Ramadan are not means to becoming more spiritual. These enlightened Muslims do not fear mongering verses of the Qur’an that threaten to roast them in the fires of hell if they dare to think and question its validity.
Every day thousands of Muslim intellectuals are leaving Islam. They find Islam inconsistent with science, logics, human rights and ethics. Millions of Iranians have already left Islam. The enlightened Muslims of other nationalities are not far behind. Islam is facing the beginning of its demise, a mass exodus. It is a movement that is already in motion and nothing will be able to stop it.
However, the exodus from Islam is not reserved to the intellectuals. Also average Muslims are finding that Islam is not the way to God but to ignorance, poverty and wars. They are leaving Islam to embrace other religions, especially Christianity.
Perhaps it is best to listen to the truth coming from the mouth of the horse. The web site aljazeera.net published an interview in 2009 with Ahmad Al Qataani, an important Islamic cleric, voicing alarm at this tendency. Followers of Jesus must now however guard themselves against triumphalism. With compassion we must pray that the disillusioned, despondent and seeking Muslims might find peace at heart via the best way without doubt - through living faith in the One who died also for their sins.




23. Diverse Revival Rumblings

A period of diminished major spiritual conflict seemed to occur hereafter. I suffered a personal setback after I had reacted inappropriately to a manipulative phone call. This set off a negative chain reaction. During the next two and a half months the tension levels in our team remained extremely high. For my part, I was careless. After travelling by bus all night from Durban and having very little sleep, I resumed with my work rather carelessly on Friday, March 15, 2002. This ignited a stress-related loss of memory the next day.80 After a day in hospital and further medical treatment, I was cleared - with the instruction to return after a year. We realised that there were major spiritual forces involved.
Rumblings at the Moriah Discipling House
The remainder of 2002 was a very difficult time in the ministry at the discipling house. More than once we came close to resigning. It was a special blessing when, in October 2003, the relationship to the former house parents could be restored at the wedding of Shubashni, one of the former occupants.81
Mark Gabriel, the former Egyptian academic from the renowned Al Azhar University of Cairo, repeated an invitation for us to come to the USA and assist him with itinerant work. This seemed to us to be just the right medicine, to get away from the stressful situation for a while. The thought also occurred to me to try and promote two of my manuscripts in the USA for which there was no market in South Africa.82
The trip was planned in such a way that we would stop in Germany and Holland en route. But we had to cancel these plans. When our friends in Holland heard this, they invited Rosemarie and me to come to Europe because they knew that we so desperately needed a break.
This visit to Europe turned out to be quite important for our ministry. While we were in Holland, Fenny Pos, our special friend and contact person there, taught Rosemarie how to make three-dimensional cards which they were selling in institutions for the elderly as part of fund raising for missionary work. Back in South Africa, Rosemarie used the skill later to teach some unemployed Muslim background women who had experienced problems because of their faith. Although the income was minimal, it made a big difference to families where there would have been no other income, and it provided regular fellowship for a few women to grow in their new faith. This helped to strengthen the faith of those ladies from Islamic background, keeping them from returning into religious bondage.
A prophetic Move in District Six
Murray Bridgman, a Cape Christian advocate, felt God’s leading to perform a prophetic act in District Six. He had previously researched the history of Devil’s Peak. Along with Eben Swart, Bridgman provided some research that encouraged Dr Henry Kirby to lobby Parliament to change the name of Devil’s Peak to Dove’s Peak. (Duivenkop had been an earlier name.) Kirby’s role as the prayer coordinator of the African Christian Democratic Party resulted in a motion tabled in the City Council in June 2002. The motion was unsuccessful, fueling suspicion that satanists also had significant influence in the City Council.
On June 1, 2002 Susan and Ned Hill, an American missionary couple, joined Murray Bridgman and his wife as they poured water on the steps of the Moravian Hill Chapel in District Six, symbolically ushering in the showers of blessing that we prayed would come. Forcefully the message was confirmed that Messianic Jewish believers should be invited to join in the prayers of welcome to the foot of the Cross, to those who intended to return to the former slum-like residential area District Six.
I discerned the denominational disunity to be a demonic stronghold already very strongly in 1995. At that time we regarded our ministry to Muslims as our duty on which we should continue to focus. I nevertheless gave as much support as possible to all attempts for churches to work together, especially in the realm of combined prayer. (The Jesus Marches of 1994, the prayer for the 10/40 window in 1995, the prayer drives and other initiatives before and after the PAGAD threat in 1996 and in 1997, the city wide prayer events, as well as the Franklin Graham campaign at Newlands of the latter year all belonged to that category.)
Moravian Hill at it again
When we started praying for a 24-hour prayer watch to be started in the City Bowl in 1999, we still prayed for someone else to be the coordinator. I felt that I had too many other responsibilities. As the year 2003 drew towards its close, we were still praying for clear direction for ourselves as a couple with regard to our future ministry.
In 2002 President Mbeki announced that the Moravian Church building in District Six, which had been used as a gymnasium by the Cape Technikon, was to be returned to the denomination. The terminal heart patient Hendrina van der Merwe, a faithful City Bowl Afrikaner prayer warrior, had been praying for many years for a breakthrough towards renewed church planting in Bo-Kaap, and for a 24-hour watch to begin at Moravian Hill. With the origin of the modern prayer movement dating back to the Moravians of Herrnhut in 1727, this would have been very appropriate. Hendrina van der Merwe hoped to be part of this prayer watch before her death.
I was told that I had contracted
prostate gland cancer
On 9 October 2003 I was told that I had contracted prostate gland cancer, which in the past had been like getting a death sentence. However, the Lord had encouraged me with Psalm 117:18 the previous day. I saw that verse as an encouragement to ‘proclaim the works of the Lord.’ Concretely, I discerned in the word from Scripture an invitation and summons that I should attempt to finalise three autobiographical manuscripts.83 I immediately thought that I would not be able to attend the CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) leadership conference in Paarl over the first November weekend of 2003.
I approached the Moravian Church Board formally in October 2003, just after the rather traumatic diagnose, also meeting a few of their leaders shortly thereafter, with regard to the use of the church building. I sensed that their attitude to me had softened. (For many years I had not been invited to preach in a Moravian Church, possibly because I had joined the Baptist Church.) The request to use the Moravian Hill sanctuary was duly approved. We also received permission to have monthly meetings with Muslim background believers in their church building in District Six the following year.
The St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church complex was also considered for the purpose of a 24-hour prayer watch. Hendrina van der Merwe resided there at this time. The church hall was the venue of a half night of prayer on the 2003 Islamic Night of Power. At this occasion, Trevor Peters, who worked as the security guard of the parking lot, played a prominent part. Increasingly, he became burdened to pray for the city.
The Lord had humbled Trevor, a former gangster and drug lord. He later became a tour guide at the historical Groote Kerk. Subsequently God brought him into the main prayer force for the city when he became a stalwart in the praying initiative at the Cape Town Central Police Station in Buitenkant Street.
Seed for Confession germinates
Quite a lot of prayer, including anointing by the elders at our church, encouraged me to be open to divine healing, especially when two further PSA tests pointed to a decrease of my prostatecancer! The seed for confession and prayer with respect to Islam appeared to have started germinating by November 2003 in Paarl at the National Leadership Consultation of CCM. Originally I would not have attended because of the pending surgery, but because I had not been admitted to hospital immediately, I thought that the door was now opened for me to attend the consultation in Paarl. There I was really encouraged!! When Kobus Cilliers, a missionary linked to Overseas Missionary Services (OMS) suggested vicarious collective confession, it was duly accepted by the participants! Western Cape delegates were given the task to work on a joint statement. (The result of this was ultimately a manifesto drawn up a few months later.)84
A Case of DIY
When a further PSA test on 23 November 2003 showed a new increase of cancerous activity, I sensed that I must get serious about the matter, and although I dearly wanted to participate in the continental prayer convocation that was to take place in Cape Town from 1-5 December, I immediately booked myself in for the operation, undergoing surgery on 3 December, 2003.
In the hospital God could speak to me more clearly because I had so much time to pray. I sensed that I should stop attempting to find someone else to co-ordinate an effort to start a 24/7 prayer watch in the Cape Town City Bowl.
I attempted to work towards
a more visible expression of the
unity of the body of Christ
I had been trying for years to work towards a more visible expression of the unity of the body of Christ, with very little success. Billheimer made the following statement, with whom possibly nobody who know anything about spiritual warfare would disagree. ‘Any church program, no matter how impressive, if it is not supported by an adequate prayer program, is little more than an ecclesiastical treadmill. It is doing little more or no damage to Satan’s kingdom.’
(new paragraphThe end of the episode was that I knew that it was a case of D.I.Y. – do it yourself. I should attempt to get 24/7 prayer in the City Bowl myself prayerfully. God confirmed this duly.
Run-up to a Continental Prayer Convocation
It was fitting that the prelude to a prayer convocation for the African continent at UWC, Bellville, from December 1-5, 2003 would also include a visit to Robben Island. This was a follow-up of the ‘Closing the Gates’ event of September 2001. Dr Henry Kirby, a physician at Tygerberg Hospital and a well-known intercessor, ran into problems when he tried to obtain access to the famous island as part of the prayer convocation. Just at this time, a Muslim background believer contacted Radio CCFM. Was it merely coincidence that I was on the spot at the Radio CCFM premises when her fax arrived there?
When I invited the young lady to our home for a preparatory talk with regard to a radio interview, I learned that she had been working on Robben Island for many years. Through her intervention, the necessary arrangements could be made for the prayer warriors, some of them coming from various African countries, to go and intercede on the famous island.
The 7-DAYS Initiative
As a follow-up strategy of Transformation Africa prayer in stadiums all over Africa in 2004, a ‘7-Days initiative’ was launched. Daniel Brink of the Jericho Walls Cape Office distributed the following communiqué: ‘...From Sunday May 9th thousands of Christians all over South Africa will take part in a national night and day prayer initiative called „7 Days”. The goal was to see the whole country covered in continuous prayer for one year from 9 May 2004 to 15 May 2005. On relatively short notice, communities in South Africa were each challenged to take 7 days to pray 24 hours a day. The prayer initiative started with the Western Cape taking the first seven weeks. Daniel Brink invited believers of the Cape Peninsula to ‘proclaim your trust that, when we pray, God will respond. Declare your trust that if we put an end to oppression and give food to the hungry, the darkness will turn to brightness. Pray that houses of prayer will rise up all over Africa as places where God’s goodness and mercy is celebrated in worship and prayer, even before the answer comes.’
Global Prayer Watch, the Western Cape arm of Jericho Walls, filled the first 7 days with day and night prayer at the Moravian Church premises in District Six, starting at 9 o’clock in the evening on May 9. Every two hours around the clock a group of musicians would lead the ‘Harp and Bowl’ intercessory worship, whereby the group would pray over Scripture. In another part of the compound,85 intercessors could pray or paste prayer requests in the adjacent ‘boiler room’.
What a joy it was for Hendrina van der Merwe, the fervent intercessor, to be present on the 9th May 2004 in the Moravian Church. However, she was neither to experience a spiritual breakthrough towards new church planting in Bo-Kaap nor the start of a 24-hour Prayer Watch in the City Bowl. She went to be with the Lord on 31 December 2004 with the Bible in her hand.
Jericho Walls challenged millions of believers all over the world ‘to seek the face of the Lord and ask him to fill the earth with his glory as the waters cover the seas’ (Habakkuk 2:14) from the 6th to the 15th May 2005. Young people were encouraged to do a ‘30-second Kneel Down’ on Friday 13 May, and to have prayer, a ‘Whole night for the Whole World on Saturday 14 May, just before the Global Day of Prayer. ’
A Policeman invites Church Leaders
There were indicators that God was bringing things together at this time. A new man on the block, Superintendent Scanlen of the Central Police Station in Cape Town, invited church leaders to an information session on Wednesday, 3 November, 2004. The aim of this session was 'to inform Christian leaders in Cape Town about the crime situation and to move forward to a solution through ideas that will be tabled during the mentioned information session.' It augured well that the email was titled PROJECT PRAYER AGAINST CRIME. It reminded me of the situation in Hanover Park in 1992 when the police also called in the assistance of the churches. (When Operation Hanover Park was put into place, the effort had prayer as its focus. Within three months, conditions changed drastically in the crime-infested township at that time.) Would the city churches ever rise to the challenge in a similar way? That was still the question as 2004 approached its end. (delete words)Six years later things changed minimally in the run-up to the Soccer World Cup outreach, culminating in a thanksgiving service at the Strand Street Lutheran Church on 15 August 2010.
Prayer at Die Losie
When we were still wondering whether it was feasible to go ahead with plans to have a 24/7 week of prayer in the City Bowl at the beginning of February 2005, Trevor Peters, who prayed with us at St Andrew’s at the half-night of prayer, phoned me. This was just the nudge I needed, just as my own faith in the matter started to wane.
At the monthly prayer for the City on Saturday 8 January (2005), it was decided to press ahead with another week of prayer from 30 January to 6 February as a next step towards the goal of a 24-hour prayer watch in the City Bowl. Trevor Peters, who had contact with Rev. Angeline Swart with regard to the use of the former Moravian Hill manse as a venue for a drug rehabilitation centre, was to find out whether the venue was available for the week of prayer. Our friend Beverley Stratis, who has a prayer burden for the city that stretched over decades, was requested to get in touch with police Superintendent Fanie Scanlen, to see if a room in the Central Police Station in Buitenkant Street was available as an alternative plan.
One thing led to the next within a week, until it was finalized that the week of prayer would be held at Moravian Hill. This would be followed thereafter with weekly prayer at the Central Police Station. Superintendent Scanlen put at our disposal a room called Die Losie, a former Freemason lodge in the complex. This was a significant step.
Michael Share, the founder and leader of Cops for Christ, joined us for prayer there on Sunday 23 January, 2005. We anointed and prayed at the police station as a sign that proclaimed the victory of the Lord in the Mother City.86 In fact, at the beginning of 2005 there were quite a few police stations at the Cape where there was a committed Christian in command. This was a situation which must have enraged the arch enemy. In due course this was reversed.
As we were interceding in the third story board room, I suddenly saw the Tafelberg Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) diagonally opposite me. I was reminded that this was the church from which Dr Koot Vorster, a DRC minister, the brother of a Prime Minister and a high-profile Broederbonder, operated. I had heard that he was the person responsible for certain requests to the government of the day, such as the one to get the prohibition of racially mixed marriages on the statute books.87 When I vocalised my discovery Up there in the ‘blue room’ of the police station, Michael asked me to pray for that church. I knew I had to express forgiveness in a prayer once again. In my heart I sensed hereafter release from some secret grudge which I had still been harbouring inadvertently. It was very special to me when Dr Chris Saayman, formerly the DRC minister of Eendekuil, was called to Tafelberg DRC at the end of the following year.

The Sequel to the Global Day of Prayer
It was not quite surprising that things would start happening in the spiritual realm as a sequel to the Global Day of Prayer. As time went on, it surfaced that little prayer cells were raised in different places. Louw Malherbe, a city lawyer, became burdened to start prayer with a few other believers who were working in the legal field during their lunch hour once a week. (I bumped into this group in 2009, the bulk of whom was linked to the new fellowship Joshua Generation, as I was seeking legal assistance for a refugee taxi driver who was wrongfully arrested and who subsequently lost his job.)
After the week of prayer at Moravian Hill at the beginning of 2005, a few of us continued with prayer every Wednesday morning at the Cape Town Central Police Station. This gave us credibility with the leadership of the police station. A little more than a year later, in May 2006, our request to have 10 days of 24-hour prayer in the Losie prior to the second Global Day of Prayer, was granted without any ado. An interesting addition occurred on Thursday morning 2 May 2009 when we offered our weekly prayer time in the former freemason lodge. The name of Adriaan Vlok, a former apartheid Cabinet minister came up. He happens to be the cousin of Vlok Esterhuyse, our prayer warrior participant.
Additional Disclosure
Adriaan Vlok is the only former apartheid Cabinet minister (of Law and Order) to have testified before the Amnesty Committee of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Former President P.W. Botha had ‘intense interest’ in security. A central role was given to the police to ‘sort out’ unrest. Botha had congratulated Vlok for police operations, including the bombing of Khotso House in Johannesburg where the South African Council of Churches’ has it headquarters. Vlok received amnesty from prosecution for a series of bombings.
An apartheid Cabinet minister apologised to a prominent anti-apartheid activist
In mid-2006 Mr Adriaan Vlok came forward with an apology for a number of acts that he had not disclosed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and for which he could therefore be prosecuted. In a very special gesture, the former apartheid era Minister of Law and Order apologized (initially privately) to Reverend Frank Chikane, a prominent anti-apartheid activist and a trusted adviser to President Thabo Mbeki. As secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches, Rev. Chikane had been targeted by the security establishment for assassination. Subsequently, Adriaan Vlok extended his journey of repentance by washing the feet of 9 widows and mothers of the 'Mamelodi 10', who were lured to their deaths by a police agent. Their bodies were burned and buried in a field in Winterveld, near Pretoria, where the remains were found and identified by the National Prosecuting Agency.
The gesture of former Minister Vlok had a blessed aftermath when he shared his testimony in many a church all around the country.
A 24-hour Prayer Venue at the Civic Centre
In due course Die Losie became our regular prayer venue. As part of the preparation for the 2006 Global Day of Prayer, prayer drives where participants prayed Scripture, converged at the Central Police Station. God used this event to touch at least one person in a special way. Wim Ferreira had been a transport engineer working with the City Council. He was challenged to resign from his position to concentrate on prayer for the City. He was hereafter invited to work with the Deputy Mayor of the metropolis.
When all the groups had arrived at the former freemason lodge, Daniel Brink, the co-ordinator of the event, asked me to share in a few words how God had changed things at the police station. I became too emotional. However, at this moment, Wim Ferreira was deeply moved. He promptly requested a room for prayer in the metropolitan Civic Centre where he had just started to work. This was another divinely orchestrated move. A few months further on, a regular Friday prayer time was functioning in a board room of the Civic Centre. Before long, a trickle of workers from all walks of life was coming to faith in Jesus as their Lord as a result of these prayers. On Wednesdays at lunch time believers from different denominational backgrounds gathered there to pray and intercede for the city. The Lord also challenged Ferreira to start 24-hour prayer facility at the Civic Centre premises. Soon a prayer room near to the parking area on the ground floor was frequented by many people throughout the day. The foundation stone towards 24/7 prayer in the CBD of the metropolis was laid.

Mysterious Ways of God
We all know that God moves in mysterious ways. But I cannot even remember how it happened that we met a young couple from Green Point, Andy and Lizelle Draai. They started praying with us both in the Koffiekamer and at our once a month prayer meetings in Bo-Kaap from the beginning of the millennium. But then they stopped coming and we had no contact with them. Tricia Pichotta had become a recent addition to our Friends from Abroad team after she had an accident in 2007, knocked over as a pedestrian by a motor cyclist.(Her brother, a missionary colleague that we had met in Germany in 2004 at a WEC International Leaders' Training in Germany in 2004, emailed me just after she had been discharged from hospital.)
One day Tricia told us about Paul Black, the minister of a fellowship at the Waterfront. We followed this up to find out that it was a new plant of His People. When we attended there soon thereafter, our friend Tim Makamu was the preacher. He had become quite a senior in the vibrant denomination that had planted quite a few churches in the Western Cape and elsewhere by this time. He immediately spotted Rosemarie and me in the audience and promptly called me to the front. I utilised the occasion to challenge the obviously upper class congregation to get involved with outreach to the refugees at the near-by Home Affairs premises and to come and join us in praying for the Bo-Kaap. After the meeting Andy and Lizette Draai came up to meet us.
Bev Stratis came up with the idea of Bev Stratis came up with the idea of performing a Jericho stint in respect of Bo-Kaap. We got ready to pray up and down Buitengracht Street along the border of Bo-Kaap on six days and doing it seven times on the seventh day.88
On one of these prayer walks we were joined by Andy and Lizette Draai (delete words).

24. Grabbed by the Scruff of the Neck

Sometimes God has to take people ‘by the scruff of the neck’ to bring them into obedient submission, just as he once did with Jonah. This happened to Michael Share, who was challenged to leave his work in the police force to start Cops for Christ at the turn of the millennium.
A cop was stranded in a shack
with bullets flying past him
After being involved in a raid, Michael Share was stranded in a shack with bullets flying past him. He experienced supernatural protection. Not a single bullet hit him. This was to him a wake-up call. Through the ministry of Cops for Christ Michael Share called on policemen throughout South Africa to bring spiritual life and encouragement into police stations, when anarchy was threatening once again. Around 2002 Michael Share challenged Danie Nortje, a Cape policeman, to assist him in getting Cops for Christ off the ground in the Western Cape.
God had to move Nortje supernaturally after initial disobedience. After a boat accident off the coast of Camps Bay, during which he had to be rescued, he was admitted to Chris Barnard Memorial Hospital. At this time Danie Nortje sensed the renewed calling to get involved with Cops for Christ.
Fanie Scanlen was already a Superintendent of the Central Police Station in Buitenkant Street in the Mother City when he was stabbed seven times, narrowly escaping death. This became a turning point in his life.
Personal Challenges
Towards the end of 2003, it was my turn to be taken by the scruff of the neck. During the post-operative period in Kingsbury Hospital after the removal of my cancerous prostate, I was challenged to stop looking for other people to get a 24-hour prayer watch going in the City Bowl. With me in the same ward was Professor Eric Wood, who was quite involved with the leadership of the Students Christian Association. When a missionary colleague visited me in the hospital, it became a divine appointment when I introduced him to Professor Wood. My colleague was hereafter used nationally to make students sensitive to Muslim evangelism and the threat of militant Islam.
Superintendent Fanie Scanlen became an important instrument in our effort to get more prayer into the Central Police Station. That was a significant part of the preparations for the first Global Day of Prayer on 15 May 2005. Scanlen also organised a teaching course with Christian principles at the police station, which allowed us to meet other Christians working there. Trevor Peters and I started building a good relationship with Tania de Freitas, who was ranked captain. Starting in 2006, Tania faithfully attended our Wednesday meetings, becoming God’s instrument for the transforming of many lives in the course of her duties in counselling traumatised people. Along with Vuyani Nyama, another policeman working there, meetings were organised on Fridays which very much had the stamp of revival. People were healed and lives changed. The arch-enemy must have been very unhappy, because thereafter there was fierce opposition at the police station to these meetings.
Captain Tania de Freitas would become a fearless stalwart prayer warrior at the station who challenged the station leadership towards the end of 2009 to uphold absolute ethical norms. This caused her to be hassled and ostrasized by many at the station.
An event film sent
ripples around the world
An eventful Week
When the movie The Passion of the Christ was released in March 2004, it was clear that this would be another event film. Hardly anybody suspected that its ripples would go around the world with so much speed. Objections by individual Roman Catholics and Jews only gave more publicity to the controversial film. Believers in Jesus Christ, ordinary cinema visitors as well as people from different religions around the globe, were deeply moved as they witnessed the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ in the unusual movie.
God used the film to communicate the Gospel as rarely before, also at the Cape. The very opposite spirit that had motivated Muslims to go and view the movie – that of the forgiving Jesus - came through. The message of loving your enemies, and Jesus praying to His Father to forgive his persecutors while still on the Cross, hit many a theatre-goer powerfully. Quite strikingly, many Muslims hereafter seemed to start accepting the death and resurrection of Jesus, doctrines which are denied by orthodox Islam. That Jesus addressed God as his Father surely shook many of them. (In Muslim countries children learn in a nursery rhyme that God neither has a son, nor does he beget.) The effect of the film was one of the most spectacular visible and known answers to the ten years of prayer for the Muslim world. Thousands have been turning to faith in Jesus Christ in Southern Asia and the Middle East since then.

Africa Arise!
Prayer events were held in the 58 nations and African countries with its adjoining islands of the continent were held in May 2004, linked by satellite to the Newlands Rugby Stadium. With thousands of African Christians praying, it left a deep imprint on the continent. The theme for the afternoon was that the time had come for the ‘Dark Continent’ to become a light to the nations. In an inspiring message, Argentine evangelist Ed Silvoso led millions of believers in stadiums across the continent through prayers of repentance, dedication and commitment. Two items that recurred again and again in the prayers were HIV/AIDS and poverty relief. In subsequent years many lives were said with anti-retroviral medication as a result of a government turn around in the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients. New ministries of compassion to the poor and needy have already arisen since the 2001 event at the Newlands Rugby Stadium and its annual repetition. One of the fruits was The Warehouse, which started at St John’s Anglican Church in Wynberg. This NGO would do stalwart work during the 2008 xenophobia-related ministry at the Youngsfield Military Camp.

Transformation begins to take Shape
Trevor Pearce and John Thomas are two clergymen who were in more than one sense the face of Cape Transformation over the years as they became involved on the practical level. As the pastor of the church that began CCFM radio, John Thomas utilised the medium fully already in 1999 to challenge churches, especially those of the Fish Hoek Valley, to get involved with the poor and needy.
Specifically with regard to schooling and HIV/AIDS, Rev. Pearce was very much a pivot in an attempt to get the church and the business world partnering, an effort to change the former squatter camp at Westlake.
Concerted prayer followed by action in the Helderberg area and in Manenberg (of gangster fame) altered the respective communities significantly for the better. The annual Transformation events in sports stadiums were followed by a ‘week of bounty’, where the more affluent churches were motivated and encouraged to share with those on the other side of the economic divide. The suggestion was unfortunately hardly implemented at the Cape.
It was also interesting to see just how traditional churches were affected during the transformation of communities. Already for many years the annual student mission events - such as at the one at Stellenbosch - formed the vanguard for contemporary praise music, to move into some Afrikaans churches. The Dutch Reformed Church of Wellington North drifted quite far from their tradition when they staged a Bambalela Festival at the beginning of 2005. The prayer meeting, which started at 6 a.m. on the Friday morning, was the start of a 50-hour prayer chain. A number of farm workers participated. Urging the congregation to get their lives in order and to start caring for others, Rev. F. J. Human was quoted as saying that the Bambalela Festival was only the beginning of a process.
Ministries to Drug Addicts
The Lord brought in new role-players to reach out lovingly to drug addicts. The Ark was a ministry that was established in Durban. When a few workers came to the Cape in the early 1990s, their ministry focused on the homeless, but drug addicts soon found their way there, where some came to faith in Christ. Teen Challenge, a ministry that was founded by David Wilkerson through a special outreach to gangsters in the USA, was God’s divine instrument from the mid-1990s. This became the case especially after ministry at their premises in the northern parts of the metropolis at Eerste River started operating.
The drug rehabilitation ministry with arguably the greatest impact at the Cape to date is Victory Outreach. This agency was founded by Nicky Cruz, the hero of the Billy Graham-sponsored movie The Cross and the Switchblade. (Nicky Cruz was one of the first converts emerging from the work of Teen Challenge). Pastor James Brady came to the Cape with a small team in 2006. The ministry blossomed and expanded within a matter of months. Many young people have since been delivered from drug addiction in Jesus’ name.
Restitution made practical
Dr Robbie Cairncross helped to organize a visit of Cape church leaders to Argentina in 1999. While he was in Argentina, Pastor Martin Heuvel of the Fountain Christian Centre in Ravensmead was moved to apply the principal of restitution to the situation in South Africa. Pastor Heuvel realized that there was a need to make restitution practical. He began by having shops run by Christian volunteers, where all kinds of second-hand clothing and other utensils could be purchased cheaply. This idea was further developed in different suburbs. Included in this demonstration of practical Christianity were various programmes related to skills training that had been running for some time to help the homeless and the unemployed, such as the initiative The Carpenter’s Shop in the Mother City.
The most advanced venture in this regard was possibly the Living Hope Community Centre in Muizenberg, using the acronym H.O.P.E. - Helping Other People Earn. Apart from providing healthy meals and ablution facilities, spiritual direction was also given, together with life skills training. At the various Living Way ministries medical, social, psychological and spiritual care are given to those people who suffer from HIV and AIDS. The practical Christianity that John and Avril Thomas have been displaying, earned for Rev. John Thomas the World Vision Courageous Leadership Award in 2007.

Two Cape life-changing Musicians
The Cape has given the world many talented musicians. We highlight (delete word) two of those ones whom God has used to change lives.
Restoring the Sound is a project that was birthed by Trevor Sampson, an internationally renowned professional Gospel singer, songwriter, producer and recording engineer who was born and bred at the Cape. Trevor has a vision to empower young school goers who are vulnerable to the surroundings and circumstances to which they have fallen victim. Having grown up in a township, Trevor understands the challenges and difficulties of their lives. Many youngsters, even after being exposed to good role models, fall prey to the strong influence of gangsterism and all the baggage that comes with it. As many of these kids grow up in dysfunctional families, the need to belong is great and gangs fulfill that need. In the gangs, these kids learn street survival skills of all sorts.
Trevor sees music not only as a powerful communicative tool, but also a weapon if used and channeled correctly. His intention is to equip the youth with musical instruments which he collects through his network of friends in organizations abroad. He teaches them how to use these instruments in a proper way to better themselves and, in so doing, uplift their community.
As a special musician in his own right who plays a number of instruments, Trevor Sampson has been musical director in the evangelistic campaigns of Reinhardt Bonnke and Franklin Graham (the son of Billy Graham). He furthermore established a fully fledged community centre and musical institute named Restoring the Sound, based in the heart of Macassar near to Somerset West. Restoring the Sound became the first London College of Music exam centre in South Africa.

A Cape Musician who loves the Jews
The second talented Cape personality and musician from the same geographical region who made a name for himself in changing lives also outside of his own country is Kevin Knott. He developed a special affinity to Jews as a young man when his family fellowshipped at a church in Somerset West on Sundays, also attending the local synagogue on Fridays. Kevin established a good relationship with the rabbi and was invited to sing at Jewish music festivals. He immersed himself in the culture of God's chosen race, in order to reach out in love to Jews. As he discovered how their customs pointed so clearly to his Saviour Jesus, he integrated that content into the lyrics of his theologically rich songs of worship an/d praise.
A part of the journey of him, his wife and three children took them to Israel where they ministered 'underground' to Jewish believers, after they had taken a step of faith, selling almost everything they possessed.
After the season in Israel, they started Apples of Gold Ministries back in Cape Town. The name is taken from Proverbs 25:11 – 'A word spoken aptly is like apples of gold in settings of silver.' Not unsurprisingly, Kevin's first CD music album, which won him the 'Best Newcomer' award from the Christian Booksellers Association, got the title Apples of Gold.
A Caribbean Journalist called to the Cape
In April 2005 Wendy Ryan, who hails from the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean and former director of Communications for the Baptist World Alliance, visited Cape Town. During that time Wendy toured the different Living Hope facilities. She observed this work of mercy and heard testimonies of how God was changing lives because of it. She felt a powerful tug in her heart. Compassion filled her soul as she felt God calling her to come to the Cape. As complex and impossible as it seemed, God put all the plans together and - under the commission of Evangeline Ministries (EM) - Wendy returned to Cape Towbn in January 2006.
Sewing Classes
After listening to women in HIV support groups, the Holy Spirit impressed on Wendy that these ladies, mostly poor and under-educated, needed skills to help them earn a living for themselves and their families. With the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs (ARV’s) they were no longer consigned to death.
With the blessing of John and Avril Thomas, Wendy began a sewing programme. Evangeline Ministries (EM) determined that this would be given free of charge to the women from the Living Hope support groups. Once they began, Wendy was challenged to give to the women a skill and also a tool. EM decided to award each graduate from the sewing class a new sewing machine. By the end of 2009, EM will have given 66 new sewing machines to graduates.
Bags Production and Computer Training
In 2006, Wendy's women started producing shopping bags with African emblems (delete words). These bags have been sold around the world to people who visit Living Hope and have been presented to several famous people. It has also received international television coverage. In 2008, Wendy turned over the entire business to the local women who now operate it under the control of Living Way.
In 2008 Wendy felt the tug of the Holy Spirit that she needed to do more. As a result, Evangeline Ministries started a computer training class for the women who come to the sewing classes. Almost all of them have taken advantage of it since none would have that access because they are too poor and worse, because of the stigma associated with HIV.
Teach One to teach Many
Each woman receives a Bible in the Xhosa language and each class ends with Bible study and prayer. At graduation and other times, special speakers come in to present the gospel message in the proper cultural context and invite them to accept Christ. Some are already believers but others are steeped in traditional spiritual ways and EM believes God when He says, 'The entrance of thy word brings light' (Psalm 119:130).
An additional focus is now to teach women who will in turn teach others in their communities. Three women from another informal settlement, Sweet Home Farms, are already putting their training to use and are showing the women in their HIV and AIDS group and others how to sew. They have inspired Wendy, and the Holy Spirit has used their example to show EM the way forward. 'When we plant the seeds, God gives the harvest!'
An Initiative towards church-led Restitution
Pastor Martin Heuvel attempted to get White church leaders to move beyond mere oral confession and especially towards restitution for the evils of apartheid over a period of more than two years. Some of the personalities whom he approached had been involved with the prayer movement in the country for a long time. In 2002 Pastor Heuvel approached Charles Robertson, long known for his prayer initiatives, and the catalyst of the monthly prayer concerts at the Cape since the 1980s. Here Heuvel found a prepared heart. This finally led to the establishment of the Foundation for Church-led Restitution, where believers from different races and church backgrounds met occasionally. They started to discuss possibilities to nudge the Church towards meaningful restitution, and especially to address and rectify the wrongs of apartheid.
This initiative of Charles Robertson looked like a step in the direction of revival. However, the implementation of real unity on biblical grounds in the spirit of the person and example of Jesus - without semantics and doctrinal bickering around issues like baptism and women in the pulpit – seems to be still some way off. The Church universal still has to acknowledge collective guilt for the doctrinal bickering that led to the establishment and rise of Islam. The maltreatment of Jews by Christians falls in the same category. This appears to remain a major stumbling block to the collective turnaround of Islam or Judaism. One wonders why Church leaders find it so difficult to demonstrate the spirit of Jesus in this regard.
A biblical Paradigm
A biblical paradigm would be the attitude of our Lord to the Samaritan woman of John 4 and Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-11). It was not the condemnation – like the rest of their respective societies – which brought about the change in the adulteress and remorse in the reviled collaborator with the Roman oppressor, the chief tax collector. In fact, in the latter case, when everybody looked down upon the small man – in a double sense – Jesus looked up showing respect, displaying the opposite spirit of his compatriots. He gave Zaccheus dignity, by being willing to join in a meal with the notorious traitor. Jesus not only allowed despised people to serve him, but he even allowed socially repugnant people like lepers and prostitutes to touch and anoint him!
I take liberty to suggest that church leaders – also evangelicals after September 11, 2001 – should use ISLAM as an acronym: I Shall Love All Muslims. Having experienced first-hand how powerfully the principle operated both in the wake of the St James Church massacre of July 1993 and the PAGAD scourge of August 1996 to November 2000, South Africa could show the way. Positive examples in treating groups on the fringes of society in a dignified manner could go a long way to demonstrate the spirit of love, compassion and care. An expression of regret or better still a confession in respect of the omission and neglect towards Muslims and Jews is something that still has to be addressed.
A new Version of Huguenots?
The influx of Black African refugees into the suburbs Woodstock and Salt River has been turning around a situation where gangsters and prostitutes had threatened to make these township-like suburbs hotspots of crime. Because of other reasons however, these new residents were not valued. The flood of refugees – many of them came because of economic reasons - caused xenophobia. South African Blacks saw them as a threat and competition to the already tight employment market. This unfortunately drove some of the expatriates to the lucrative drug trade - and criminals were soon on hand to take control of mafia-style operations.
In contrast to that, the Cape Town Baptist Church turned out to become a model for other congregations, not only by taking care of foreigners, but also in being blessed by them, indeed a 21st century version of the French Huguenots.
The intensive prayer on many a Friday night into the next morning, plus intercession on some Saturday mornings, especially by those coming from the Congo region, was apt to bless the city with spiritual renewal.
A ‘new Thing’ sprouting
Towards the end of 2005 Rosemarie and I went through a very traumatic period as a couple. We decided to resign as team leaders of the Western Cape WEC International evangelism team. We were however personally encouraged by Isaiah 43:18, to forget the past and to expect a ‘new thing’ that had been sprouting.
During the first term of 2006 an Operation Mobilization (OM) missionary started to work more closely with us. He also had a vision to minister to foreigners. In the course of looking for a neutral venue where we could assist the sojourners from other countries with English lessons, the missionary colleague suggested that we pop in at the home of Pastor Theo Dennis, one of the OM leaders in the Western Cape.
I experienced a sense
of home-coming
When Theo shared about their ministry in Coventry some years ago in the UK89 with the title Friends from Abroad, I experienced a sense of home-coming, especially when Theo mentioned that the group no longer operated in the UK under that name. I was reminded of how I was blessed in Holland while ministering alongside a group called Gospel for Guests. All along I had been hoping to be a blessing in a similar way to foreigners coming from other countries.
The very next day I took Rosemarie along to the Dennis home in Maitland, and we started discussions for the establishment of an alliance with other agencies and local churches to be called Friends from Abroad. Both Rosemarie and I felt that this was the new thing that had been sprouting, a renewed challenge to get more intensely involved with foreigners.
Somalians killed in Masiphumelele
While we were in Holland in the summer of 2006 to discuss our possible resignation from WEC, we read about many Somalians who were being killed in the township of Masiphumelele near Fish Hoek. This was because of xenophobia towards them by the Xhosa-speaking original inhabitants, fanned by the traders. (Later we heard how Alan Profitt, a SIM missionary colleague, and a young student, Sheralyn Thomas, the daughter of John and Avril Thomas, were involved with negotiations between the two groups.)
We were still open to the possibility that the ‘new thing’ could still happen within WEC confines. We remained committed to operate in a positive frame of mind until the end of July, while we prayed for clarity about what God had in store for us. We were sure that our ministry in Cape Town had not been completed yet. We discerned that God was possibly using the personal trauma to shake us towards flexibility for change.
When we heard that Floyd and Sally McClung were coming to the Cape with the vision to ‘establish a training and outreach community in Cape Town that impacts Africa from Cape Town to Cairo’ and the vision ‘for a multi-cultural community that exemplifies the kingdom of God’, we became quite excited. This was more or less what we wanted to see happening, even though our vision was somewhat broader, including countries outside of Africa to be impacted from Cape Town. Getting the vision across to local Christians and pastors remains however a big challenge.
Equipping and empowering People from the Nations
One of the new ventures of Friends from Abroad with which we started before we left for Europe in 2006 was fortnightly sessions of fellowship, Bible Study and prayer with new believers in Cape Town from a hitherto unreached people group in respect of the Gospel. (One of the visions of our new endeavour was to equip and empower people from the nations to serve their own people, akin to the way I had been impacted while in (in)voluntary exile in Holland.)
We resumed our contact with Bruce van Eeden, the former pastor of the Newfields EBC, with whom we had started children’s work in 1992. (In 1995 he initiated a Mitchell’s Plain-based mission agency called Ten-Forty Outreach.) We thought that his ministry could be a valuable complement to our Friends from Abroad concept (delete words)- to bless indigenous Christians and be blessed by them.
On Thursday 30 November 2006, we had a Friends from Abroad meeting, the first since our return from overseas. Here the Lord clearly over-ruled. I had invited our friend Bruce van Eeden to come and share for about ten minutes at our meeting. What a blessing it was for those present to hear how God had been using this brother from the Cape Flats in China and India! We heard at the meeting how the Lord had put Africa on his heart in recent years after visiting Uganda in 2003. After the return from there Bruce received the vision to challenge believers of seven countries around the lakes of Central Africa to reach the northern parts of the continent. Another visit to Central Africa in April 2006 led to a conference where steering committees were formed for Burundi, DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda as a gateway to the northern countries of the continent. Since then more African countries got linked to the Africa Arise vision.
For the rest of the evening we discussed the issues Bruce had raised, and we prayed for the Africa Arise missions’ consultation on Saturday 9 December, 2006. The inspiration for this initiative is a contemporary and adapted paraphrase of Isaiah 60:1 ‘Africa arise, your light has come.’ The event in itself was nowhere impressive in terms of numbers, but the participants discerned nevertheless that it was a unique occasion in the spiritual realms.
Through Pastor Theo Dennis we linked up with Ds. Richard Verreyne, pastor of the Soter Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk in Parow. Pastor Deon Malan and his wife Iona, a couple with mission ministry experience in North Africa and our colleague Rochelle Smetherham-Malachowski had become members of our core team of Friends from Abroad (FFA).
Rochelle Malachowski and Tricia Pichotta, an American short-term volunteer, are two valued co-workers who assisted in starting up English classes at the Soter Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk in Parow. It was an added blessing that we had a short-termer from Germany at our disposal to keep the little children of the refugee ladies busy in a good way. This was a forerunner towards a weekly children’s club at the same venue with refugee and local children. Our daughter Tabitha not only assisted there, but she also kept the ministry running all on her own - long after the German short termer had returned to her home country. A jewellery workshop for refugee ladies, to help them earn a few cents and teach English to quite a few of them, was part and parcel of the FFA compassionate outreach to foreigners.
Throwing the Net to the other Side?
In the last quarter of 2006 another word from Scripture became prominent in our lives. We felt challenged to throw the net ‘to the other side’. But what did this imply?
At the end of January 2007 it was clearly confirmed that our ministry days in WEC International (South Africa) were over and we duly resigned, to take effect as from 1 May 2007. (Our hearts were aching however, as we still experienced affinity to the ethos of the mission agency.)
In the meantime we had been hearing of many refugees coming to the Foreshore Home Affairs premises to apply for asylum. After a prayer session there one Friday, we decided to start feeding the refugees and other foreigners there once a week in conjunction with Straatwerk and local churches. This looked to me to be another wonderful opportunity to get local churches involved in a combined effort, demonstrating the unity of the Body of Christ. With Straatwerk we networked excellently, but from the churches’ side only the Stadtmission came on board with two volunteers. (It still troubles me that churches seem to stick to their little cocoon, with so little vision for the bigger Body of Christ). We stopped our feeding scheme when the refugees got served at new Home Affairs premises in Nyanga. But when should we throw our nets out again? And what was ‘the other side’?
Encounter with Corruption
During our compassionate outreach at the Foreshore Home Affairs premises, we heard of the intense corruption at the venue. Mr Mvuso Msimang became the new national Director of Home Affairs, a government department that has been notorious for corruption. As the person who was responsible to engineer wonders in another government department, much was expected of him.
When it came to our attention that Mr Msimang humbly invited people on grassroots level via TV to assist, I volunteered on behalf of Friends from Abroad. After a series of emails – in which I repeated our wish as team to meet him or a representative to give some suggestions on how we think matters could be improved (delete words).
Protests by PASSOP (People Against Suppression, Oppression and Poverty) against the undignified treatment of refugees at the Home Affairs premises where many refugees were now sleeping, highlighted their plight.
We gladly endorsed the vision
to oppose xenophobia and
to fight corruption
I regarded a trip to Pretoria as superfluous when we were invited to meet Ms Martha Mxagashe, the new Acting Home Affairs Provincial Manager of the Western Cape. We gladly endorsed her vision to see the Western Cape take the lead countrywide to oppose xenophobia and fight corruption.
I linked up with Braam Hanekom and other refugee ‘stakeholders’ in trying to address the rampant corruption at the Home Affairs offices. We were very thankful when the national head office of Home Affairs sent Mr Dean Pillay to come and assist with this very task around the refugees. How we rejoiced when corruption at their expense at the Refugee Centre seemed to have been rooted out within a matter of months.
A Pyrrhic Victory? The gay lobby showed exceptional efficiency during 2006, although the odds were stacked against them to get same sex marriages legalised. Almost all the major religious groups - with the lonely exception the spokesman for the SACC – and traditional leaders came out against a law that had no scriptural and popular backing. Very cleverly the gay lobby played their joker - the card of discrimination - which in South Africa found very eager and sensitive ears because of the heritage of apartheid. They managed to get the ANC, which had a massive majority in Parliament, on their side with effective use of bribes.90 Evangelical Christians had organised very well under the leadership of the Marriage Alliance, but they could never win without the backing of the ruling ANC. The law allowing same sex marriages took effect on 1 December 2006. The open question was whether the gay victory was Pyrrhic.
Crime and Violence spiralled once again
In Parliament Rev. Kenneth Meshoe, the leader of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), warned that the country was invoking God’s wrath through the passing of this law. This seemed to get a prophetic dimension when crime and violence spiralled in the first two months of 2007, despite the vitriolic assurance by State President Mbeki that crime was not out of control. On the flip side, this seemed to be God’s way of stirring thousands to prayer in a way reminiscent of 1994 when the country seemed to be heading for a bloodbath of terrific dimensions.
God raised people to pray for
the removal of an abomination
It was good to hear soon thereafter that God had already raised individuals like Cedric Evertson, a young man, to pray for the removal of the gruwel, the abomination, as this prayer warrior saw the new law.
When only Murray Bridgman was there alone with me on Signal Hill for our monthly prayer event of 2 December 2006, I was initially somewhat disappointed. We were in the clouds, but not in a pleasant way. It was cold and wet. Murray had so much wanted to introduce me to Cedric! A cell phone call was enough to get Cedric to join us for prayer simply in the car. How exciting it was to hear from Cedric how the Lord had been leading him. The Holy Spirit touched his heart to stand in the gap like a Moses on behalf of the nation. To this end he would go to Tygerberg man alone to pray there in the morning, three days a week. Two homosexual international leaders - one lesbian and the other 'gay' - turned their back on the movement in 2007 after becoming followers of Jesus Christ. The gay victory to get same-sex marriages legalized in December 2006, had became Pyrrhic indeed.
A masssive blow was inflicted on the gay lobby when Ellen Jordan, a former brothel owner became a follower of Jesus in April 2009. The question was only when the law would go the same road as the old apartheid laws – into the dustbin of history. The road would nevertheless not be easy because everything hinged on the definition of what constitutes a marriage. Nobody would like to be a party to discrimination of any sort – also not discrimination because of sexual orientation. Yet, all major religions would agree that marriage should be defined as an union between a female and male. Such an amendment that would only leave the fringe gay lobby unhappy.

24/7 at the University of Cape Town
Since 2006, young people from different churches, backgrounds and cultures in the Rondebosch area have been coming together to ‘simply’ worship once a quarter. In mid-2006 a Simply Worship service was held in the Jameson Hall of the University of Cape Town (UCT). There our son Sammy was challenged to go forward and call people to prayer at UCT. About ten people came to him afterwards indicating their interest in joining him. They started meeting together to spend time in worship and intercession on a weekly basis, but they also spent much personal time with God in the prayer room at UCT. Eventually they organised an event, where they decorated the prayer room and encouraged people to worship God, using their creative gifts. The students prayed continuously for 77 hours, leading to the next Simply Worship evening. There in the prayer room our son Sammy and Sheralyn Thomas met each other for the first time.
Disasters shake young Christians
Our road would cross that of the young female UCT student quite intensely. The King of Kings Baptist Church had been very much involved in compassionate care to the Somalians at Masiphumelele. Sheralyn Thomas (daughter of John and Avril Thomas) played a major role in the negotiations between the South African Blacks and the Somalians as a young UCT Social Science student, but we were not aware of this. (Sheralyn had been hearing about our ministry to refugees from her mother and taking a keen interest in them, even before she and our son Sammy met each other.)
Towards the end of our stay in Germany in July 2007, where we had gone for the wedding of our eldest son Danny, we received an email from Sammy, who had returned from Germany earlier than us. The subject of the email was ‘pray’. In the email Sammy shared that Rüdiger (Rudi) Hauser, a good German friend who had gone to Austria to study, had been in a mountain cabin with some friends the day before, when a gas explosion collapsed the house. (We had read about the incident in Germany, unaware of a personal link to Sammy.) Subsequently we heard that Rudi and another friend died on impact. His younger brother Norbert was still fighting for his life. The incident shook Sammy very intensely. He had been quite close to Rudi, with whom he had led the Bible group at the German High School.
Students were moved to
contribute sacrificially towards a
deposit for a children’s home.
At a ‘Simply Worship’ event shortly hereafter, the Holy Spirit ministered to Sammy and Brendan Studti,91 another student friend, independently of each other. They were moved to contribute sacrificially, to give savings and a bequest towards a deposit for a children’s home.
A group of UCT students now started to come to our home quite regularly on Fridays, as they prayed and organised on behalf of such a children’s home. One of them was Sheralyn Thomas. We were nevertheless quite surprised when Sammy blessed us with his gift on Christmas Eve of 2007 - wrapped in newspaper and containing a picture of him and Sheralyn!!
Kindred Spirits
My wife Rosemarie and I were encouraged by the arrival of Floyd and Sally McClung at the end of 2006, especially because we detected kindred spirits when we got to read their reasoning for coming to the Cape. We now started to endeavour even more to see a church planting movement established among those foreigners who have come to the Mother City of our country. We longed intensely for the metropolis to become the Father's City at last. With the McClungs, leaders of the relatively new mission agency All Nations International, we had a common experience of seeking God’s will for the next step in our lives. Floyd and Sally had come to a dead-end in the church in Kansas City (USA) that they had been leading. We felt the same way with our mission agency here in Cape Town in respect of outreach to foreigners.
After their arrival, Floyd and Sally linked up with two YWAM missionaries. Soon YWAM and All Nations International joined hands in prayer walks in the two nearby townships Ocean View and Masiphumelele. Many different groups had been involved in the latter township, notably the King of Kings Baptist Church with their various Living Hope Projects. Pastor John Thomas and his congregation had been ministering there for over two decades.
One thing led to the next until Rosemarie and I joined the Church Planting Experience (CPx) course at the beginning of 2008, with the intention of becoming members of the All Nations International family. Along with our Friends from Abroad colleagues we now started to partner with local fellowships, to get believers in home groups from the nations equipped, hoping and praying that they would minister in their countries of origin in a similar way in the future.
Our son Sammy invited Floyd McClung to address the UCT students. This led to the group being invited to come and spend ‘ten days for Jesus’ with our All Nations International team in Capri.
Young White students assisted
admirably to rebuild shacks
The 'Ten Days for Jesus' concept had a special sequel when particiapnts started not only to lead the event in the subsequent years but also got envisioned to take the concept in different formats to all sorts of places. In 2010 'One Day for Jesus' was held in Masiphumelele, but plamns were also made to have 10 'Ten Days for Jesus' in Zambia and India in 2011.

Fires ignite spiritual Renewal
At the end of 2007 - from 10 to 20 December - some UCT students of the 24/7 prayer initiative, including Sammy, engaged in ‘ten days for Jesus’ with All Nations International in the Masiphumelele informal settlement. Their effort hardly started when a fire raged through the township. When the young people, most of whom were White, assisted admirably to rebuild the shacks, it created a lot of goodwill. This proved the ideal preparation for an international group from McClung and Church Planting Experience (CPx) participants to move into the area at the end of January, 2008. (CPx teaches a new dimension of church - whereby simple non-denominational independent fellowships are planted that attempt to come as closely as possible to the practice of the first generation of ‘New Testament’ followers of Jesus.)
After a series of fires in Masiphumelele and a lot of spadework by Timothy Dokyong, an All Nations colleague from Nigeria, a house church was started where the students assisted to rebuild shacks. At one of a few house churches that was started there in 2008, the most notorious alcoholic of Masiphumelele, who got the nick name Black Label (a liquor brand), was totally changed a few weeks later.
The February 2008 CPx All Nations International course had just started when fires destroyed homes in Scarborough and Red Hill, the southern-most communities of the Cape Peninsula. The whole CPx team - ably assisted by local municipalities and other interested parties - got involved in the rebuilding of shacks in the informal settlement of Red Hill.
Vulnerable Children CPx workers have been partnering with a Xhosa woman named Wendy from Masiphumelele, a trusted leader and mother figure for many people. Over the years she has raised many kids who were not her own. Today she continues caring for the children of the community by doing home visits to neglected children, and their often dying mothers. She has allowed the young people from different countries to take part in her weekly and daily walks through the community, getting them to meet these families and spend time with them. The hearts of the All Nations missionaries have been deeply touched and broken for these children and their mothers who don’t even have their basic needs met. Many of these children eat one meal a day, consisting of mealie meal (corn meal). Almost all of them live in small shacks where the roofs are leaky and the floors are perpetually wet.
CPx participants came up with an idea of raising monthly support to help a few of the families in the most desperate situations, by beginning a monthly sponsorship programme for the children.
The young people soon started building new shacks for two of the hurting families, with doors that lock and roofs that don’t leak and where they would not be affected by the standing water. Two different short term teams from overseas participated in these projects.
The young adults from abroad have been networking with Sarah Bultman92 in Grand Rapids (USA), who developed the website (www.vulnerablechildrensa.com), and who did much of the technical work.
The CPxer Missy Weismann wrote in an email: ‘We are aiming to not let these children fall through the cracks. We have connected them with women in the community who have started following Jesus, and who have a heart for their own people. Bible studies are being started in their own language, meeting in their own homes. The group gathers children who have been affected by poverty and AIDS. They try to meet with them and help them with English and make sure that we are aware of pressing needs or changes in their home situations. Wendy acts as a mom to many of these children.’
Diverse CPx Initiatives
By the beginning of 2010 Masiphumelele had become a breeding ground for projects that started to impact the continent.Bethany O’Connor, social worker from the USA and another All Nations member, is not only an integral part of this venture and intimately involved in these families’ lives, but she also started a project with pregnant women who consider abandoning or aborting their babies. Even though the venue at the King of Kings Baptist Church proved unsuitable, the Baby Safe Project took off with leaps and bounds. and thereafter cared for within the context of an adoption programme. The
project caught on to such an extent that Christians in Holland started sponsoring the devices that could be placed in different townships. In due course enquiries came from different African countries.
To enable township pre schoolers to get more ready for education Anna Chan from Hong Kong pioneered a programme during which mothers were training trained.
Networking with the Living Way programme that was linked to the local King of Kings Baptist Church the German Gerald Schwarz utilized his passion to empower gifted young people from disadvantaged communities in entrepenueral and mangagement skills.
The Holy Spirit touched Muslims and Rastafarians
A fire of another sort - drug abuse and addiction among young and old - was destroying the nearby ‘Coloured’ township of Ocean View with its staunch Muslim population. The poor community evolved from its sad beginnings after ‘Coloured’ folk from Simon’s Town had been forcibly removed in the wake of legislation. The theological defence of the demonic apartheid ideology had been fuel for anti-Christian developments, when young people especially rejected the faith of its propagators. In due course a strong group of Rastafarians evolved with drug abuse as part and parcel of their religion. Some of the CPxers from among the 70 participants, nationals from Hong Kong to Alaska, and from Sweden to Lesotho - along with many from the rainbow nation South Africa - started to pray and evangelize there.
Jonathan Morgan from Britain felt drawn to minister in Masiphumelele at the conclusion of the teaching phase of the course. Rastafarians in both Ocean View and Masiphumelele had caught their attention during the prayer walks. They started to befriend them, listening to their beliefs such as their regard for Haile Selassie, a former emperor of Ethiopia, as the King of Kings. After many months the first Rastafarian appeared to see a different light when he started reading the Bible. To his surprise, he discovered that Jesus and not Haile Selassie was the real King of Kings.
Changed drug addicts became
the core of new house churches
Football Training Skills used
As a part of an evangelistic effort, Nash Booysen used his football training skills to train youngsters in Ocean View. The Nash Academy has the goal to help individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to become soccer trainers. A few drug addicts became followers of Jesus. They formed the core of new house churches there. Some of the new believers had been Muslims.
Soon football matches were organised by CPxer Bruce Chitambala, a Zambian linked to the three communities of Masiphumelele, Ocean View and Red Hill. Once again this created a lot of goodwill. These and other communal activities prepared hearts for the work of the Holy Spirit. During our CPx training Rosemarie and I got involved in Masiphumelele, linking up with Somalians whom we still knew from our English teaching stint in Mitchells Plain in 2004/5.

Outreach in a Redhill Shebeen
The compassionate outreach in a Redhill shebeen, an informal liquor outlet, led to regular Bible Studies. Matters accelerated even more when the group was joined by another CPx colleague Godfrey Mosobase, a Lesotho national.
To Rose McKenna, who had attended a Jerusalem-Africa summit in June 2006, the Israeli offer of expertise - rather than funding - had made a big impact. When funds were not forthcoming, she enquired from a Community developer what would be needed for her to share the expertise which she had gained 50 years ago in the then Northern Rhodesia, now called Zambia. Moshe Ledermann, a Jewish expert, felt that a piece of ground the size of a rugby pitch would be a good start. Because fires had decimated the squatter camp, and because the Zimbabwean refugees were housed there, they immediately went to meet the CPx volunteers.
Soon McKenna linked up with the Red Hill CPx team led by Alex and Joanna Campbell, a British couple. There she was blessed when she discovered that her friends from Zimbabwe had been allotted a piece of ground at their shacks, where she could help them grow vegetables. (For two years Rose and two of her Zimbabwean friends had been searching around the Peninsula for the required ground.)
CPx volunteers lived in the
shack of a prison inmate
Together with three short term CPx volunteers, the American couple Nic and Paula Watts, and another American, Liana Bumstead, the group started a garden. As a witness of God’s love, the CPx volunteers lived in the shack of a Red Hill inhabitant who was in prison.
An informal Settlement transformed
Farming God's Way is a divinely inspired method that has been introduced and used in a number of African countries with great succcess. Johan and Nel Knol, former WEC missionary colleagues, shared with us in an email the gist of the method: A main theme is: no burning of shrubs and the like and no ploughing in order to keep the micro-organisms in the soil intact, which e.g. made the rain-paths and are nutrients to the plant. Also important is to keep the soil covered with a mulch. This is called God’s Blanket, which will hinder weed growth and prevents the soil from being beaten too much by the sun and through which 90% of the heavy tropical rains will penetrate the ground - instead of 15% otherwise - besides carrying off 94% of the ploughed or burned topsoil! This way of farming needs still lots of encouragement and a change of mindset. But the harvests are more secured and the yield much higher, whilst costs are limited. We know a Zimbabwean brother who looks after a couple of hundred orphans. He has been implementing this way of farming very carefully. His harvest was huge, much more than the farmers around him!! We learned again, as always: if we want to see God’s results, we have to apply God’s ways!!’
At our CPx course John Scholtz, a pastor from Port Elizabeth, had been teaching on the revolutionary Farming God’s Way. The whole group was very impressed, including the team in Red Hill. Generous gifts of plants by the supermarket giant Pick’n Pay enabled the team and local folk to work together to transform the informal settlement into an environment which duly became something to be proud of.
Gerald Schwarz, who had already empowered many Blacks by teaching them the advantages of saving their money, was one of the CPx participants who not only took the lessons to heart, but who also went for further training towards becoming a trainer himself in Farming God’s Way.
These are but a few examples of what I believe we are now seeing - a significant move of the Holy Spirit among young people who are boldly and radically engaged in prayer and compassion ministries that are always a key to revival.

26. Christians Respond to Xenophobia

In the Weekend Argus of November 3, 2007 it was reported that a Zimbabwean refugee died of starvation in the Cape Town CBD. Even though the facts in the report were not quite accurate, the death of Adonis Musati ignited a flood of goodwill. A Brogneri, an Italian-background Christian, became God’s instrument to launch the Adonis Musati Project. Through this endeavour she started to care for the refugees outside the Department of Home Affairs’ foreshore premises in a holistic way. (We had been feeding foreigners in the preceding months once a week, attempting to get local churches involved. In our case, we had little success in getting the City fellowships interested.) Gahlia got many volunteers involved in the Adonis Musati Project, also assisting the refugees in finding accommodation and employment. They also helped to get people on training courses that included security and fishing.
Two Volunteers attacked by xenophobic South Africans
Because Winter was approaching and the people who live at the Home Affairs premises on the Cape Town foreshore near to the International Convention Centre did not have adequate shelter, Lili Goldberg, a 16 year-old St Cyprian’s High School learner and her mother, brought bags full of clothes and shoes to the refugees on May 9, 2008. The two volunteers of the Adonis Musati Project were suddenly attacked by xenophobic South Africans. Lili was in the back of their 4x4 vehicle, passing clothes and shoes, when a group of ten South African men approached her mother from behind, hitting her. Then they smashed the window, trying to drag Lili through it. She was very badly injured and was subsequently hospitalized for weeks.
When the men attacked her, some Zimbabweans whom they knew rushed forward to fight back. A fight broke out during which their vehicle was badly damaged. Mrs Goldberg remained determined however to continue with their humanitarian godly effort.
Xenophobic Mob Violence spreads like Wildfire
This Cape occurrence turned out to be another forerunner of countrywide xenophobic mob violence, triggered two days later by nationals in the township of Alexandra, north of Johannesburg. Individual incidents of mob violence targeting non-nationals have previously been taking place in every province in the country, including 14 major incidents in different provinces since September 2007. The attacks in Alexandra spread quickly via new ones in Diepsloot and Olifantsfontein, both in Gauteng. Within a matter of days the mob violence had spread countrywide.
On Wednesday 21 May, 2008 mayhem also broke out in the Western Cape. Greater carnage was possibly prevented because the police commissioner of the Province, Mzwandile Petros, had called all stakeholders and station commanders to the police Headquarters in Bishop Lavis Township the previous day, setting up contingency plans.
Thousands of Black foreigners were displaced
In spite of determined efforts by the police, it took days until the situation calmed down. However, by that time thousands of Black foreigners were displaced. Their shops were destroyed and looted by criminal elements and other poor folk who exploited the anarchic situation. We were very sad to hear and read of mob violence and xenophobic behaviour in Masiphumelele and Ocean View, where our CPx colleagues had been ministering.
Xenophilia and Compassion ushered in
On Friday 23 May, 2008 after the xenophobic outburst in the Cape , I wrote in an email to our prayer friends: ‘This is not only a matter for political activists. May I suggest that we … protest in the best sense of the Latin root word: pro testare - to make a positive statement. Let us replace xenophobia with xenophilia93
At this time our CPx colleague Timothy Dokyong from Nigeria, who lives in Masiphumelele, was inundated with phone calls from concerned colleagues. He felt quite safe there as South African Blacks from the neighbourhood rallied around him, promising to protect him. Soon he joined a number of Malawian and Zimbabwians from Masiphumelele in the All Nations team house in the nearby White suburb of Capri. There they entered into intensive intercession for ‘Masi’ and all the people there.
Fore-runners of a Cape Revival? At a well-attended Transformation/Consultation of Christian Churches planning meeting on 31 May 2008 in Parow, it was exciting to hear how various churches enquired how they could join in compassionate action on behalf of the displaced foreigners.
Was all this the forerunner of the revival that is to start in Cape Town, on which believers have been waiting for years? This seemed very much the case when the Lord gave a picture to Rosemarie at our home church in Mowbray on Saturday evening, May 24. (Some of the congregants were refugees from African countries). She saw a big clay jar with a handle that was being filled with the tears of the refugees. Adjacent to the jar there was dry arid earth with many cracks. Thereafter a big hand poured out the content of the jar on the dry earth. The moisture coming from the jar – the many tears that had been flowing all over our country, including those of the refugees among us, filled the cracks. Grass started sprouting all around the area.
Churches and mosques opened
their doors to displaced Africans
Within a matter of hours the vision became alive when reports came in of South Africans donating food, clothing and blankets. Churches and mosques were opening their doors to displaced Africans. The government dropped their resistance to accommodate the refugees in mass quarters temporarily. Many of the displaced folk were taken to the Youngsfield military camp in Wynberg, to mass beach camps erected at Blue Waters (near to Strandfontein), at Silwerstroom (near to Atlantis) and to a camp apiece at Soetwater (near to Cape Point) and Harmony Park. Big marquees were erected at these sites to deal with the emergency.
Personally all this was very special to us. In 2006 and 2007, when many tears were wetting our pillows, the Lord had been comforting us with Isaiah 43:18 and 19. Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will sprout … I will even make … rivers in the desert.
Various prophecies for the continent were given over the years. I am quite aware that prophecies might still sound strange to some people in our day and age. (I include a lengthy excerpt of one of these prophecies as an appendix.)
The Country brought to its Knees
Satan may however have overstepped once again, as the xenophobic mob violence brought the country to its knees in another sense. A call for prayer was issued, asking all denominations and Christian organisations to pray on Sunday, 25 May, 2008 and in the weeks to follow for the ethnic violence in the nation. A suggestion was added to these prayers, intercession for the near-genocide situation in the neighbouring country of Zimbabwe.
There was now a groundswell of
goodwill towards displaced foreigners
In the next few days we were elated to hear of compassionate action by Christians - churches and individuals - indicating that there was now a groundswell of goodwill towards the displaced foreigners all around the country. This included a report of many churches at the southern tip of our Peninsula that have been networking in accommodating refugees. A Somalian refugee friend phoned us that her family had been given refuge in the home of Americans. We were not surprised to find out that the American family was indeed Claude (Themba) and Mary Crosby, our CPx colleagues, who had also ministered previously to these friends of the Black township Masiphumelele. For his part, Themba felt blessed in Fish Hoek where they lived. Their house was soon filled with ten Somalian adults plus children.
Stolen Goods returned
The township Masiphumelele was a big exception countrywide, not caught up in and affected by xenophobic mass hysteria. The spade work of Christian mediators and workers since August 2006, along with the prayers of warriors in the All Nations International team house in Capri, was bearing fruit. When signs of trouble began there, many foreigners started leaving. Pastor Mzuvukile Nikelo, a physically small pastor, decided to tie a loudspeaker to his car. Driving up and down the streets he announced: ‘As leaders of the community we have made a clear decision. We are not attacking anyone... If you see people leaving, don’t make any bad remarks and don’t intimidate them. Let them go in peace.’ The situation in Masiphumelele became national news when stolen goods were returned to the owners. The Xhosa-speakers drafted a declaration, asking for forgiveness and inviting their fellow Africans to return to the township.
A special case for the refugees also occurred at the Pinelands Methodist Church. The pastoral leaders assisted in finding alternative accommodation and employment for the displaced who had been housed at the church complex at the end of July, 2008. The home church of the great Parliamentarian Colin Eglin and the fellowship from where Dr Alex Boraine, a former president of the Methodist Church operated before becoming a Progressive Party Member of Parliament, thus made a great contribution in human relations once again.
Youth Day Celebrations address Xenophobia
Every year on the 16th of June, which is a public holiday, South Africans celebrate what the youth of 1976 had done for the education system of our country. The YWAM-related Beautiful Gate workers in Philippi and Lower Crossroads decided to have their celebrations in a church hall at Philippi, where they had drama, music and dance performances, along with poetry recitals. Their focus on that day was on issues that are faced by young people at schools and in their communities. Their skits addressed the violence at schools, as well as the widespread xenophobia.
Another chance to be given
to people such as ex-convicts
They hoped to teach the community folk to give people such as ex-convicts who have changed, another chance. They would then be required to practise restitution in the communities. The aim was to get the youth talking about these issues and look for possible solutions, also educating them on the effects these matters have on the next generation. Young people from different communities (Philippi, Lower Crossroads, Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Crossroads) congregated, enjoying themselves without the influence of alcohol and drugs. Parents and kids joined to witness and appreciate the performances.
The CCC (Consultation of Christian Churches) Response
The CCC Leaders’ Forum released a statement to the press regarding the xenophobia and violence on behalf of the Church in the Western Cape. The Leaders Forum called on all Christians to pray for the situation in our city and country. All Christians were urged to pray for 2 minutes every day at noon for peace in the communities; that all people’s dignity might be respected and restored. Some believers put a reminder into their cellphones to this effect.
A concrete result of the xenophobia issue was the formation of a think tank to work at a plan and set up structures by which the combined Church could assist the government. Tim Makamu, a leading pastor of His People Ministries and Barry Isaacs - who had just accepted taking over the coordination of the Transformation network from Graham Power - were the main pivots of this initiative. Along with our own interest and work with foreigners, it was natural that I got involved as well. We decided to investigate how the Church could supply capacity and integrity which the government lacked. Along with Andy Hawkins, a British church worker who did stalwart work in the Helderberg area, a plan was divised to give a menue to communities where pastors and community workers would network in 18 areas where we felt that the Church could give valuable assistance. At one of the think tank meetings at the His People Ministries premises Eben Welby-Solomon, one of their elders, attended. Tim suggested that I give my manuscript, a predecessor of the present book, for him to edit. I emailed this to him but I did not hear from him for well over a year.

Human Trafficking addressed
Loraine Wood, the wife of the pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, attended a meeting in Pretoria around the issue of human trafficking. When Loraine mentioned that she and their church members were doing monthly prayer walks, she found a kindred spirit in Denise Atkins of the Kensington Docks Mission. Performing a prayer walk in Green Point would be to the denomination like going to their roots, there where the Docks Mission had been founded in a tin shanty just over seventy-five years ago. A group of women decided to invite other women to come and pray on 14 June 2008 at the site of the new soccer stadium in Green Point that was being built for the 2010 World Cup. They furthermore resolved that the prayer walk was to be staged every third Saturday of the month till 2010. They would especially address human trafficking.
God at Work
Nelis van Rooyen, our All Nations International colleague, forwarded to us an email about fasting that was organised in ‘the Valley’, the geographical area near to Cape Point. Hamilton Stephenson, the local New Covenant Church pastor, had been stirred by the Almighty on Sunday 8 June 2008 when he pondered on Psalm 46:10 that declares “Be still and know that I am God.....” With regard to the situation at the Soetwater Camp, where there had been the threat of mass suicide by drowning, Pastor Hamilton Stephenson was challenged to invite others in his church to join in fasting on Thursday, 12 June. He also asked other faith communities in the area to join them. He wrote: ‘As I contemplated this Scripture and read some comments, I noticed that it speaks of Father declaring a warning to the warring nations, that they are to cease and desist from hostilities. I believe we need to proclaim a cessation of the “enemy’s wars” at this time…
… We feel it right for us to take our stand. I am calling all of us to stand and declare that the “warring” in the heavenlies must cease and be still and know that God is Lord. We have felt the oppression not only in the camp, but in the Valley and also in our local faith communities.’
Some Fish Hoek, Ocean View and Masiphumelele believers from local churches joined the fast on Thursday, 12 June.
A government spokesman called for a national day of healing in view of the xenophobia. This was set for 24 June, but the churches failed to latch on to the opportunity to link prayer and humbling before God to it. The weeks of intense spiritual warfare had apparently taken its toll.

27. The Starting Gun of the Revival?

Would it be too much of conjecture to suspect that the arch-enemy might have special insights with respect to God’s plans for spiritual renewal and revival? Already in biblical times, satan appeared to try and thwart God’s plans to prosper and bless the nations. The Almighty has apparently had some special plans for the African continent for centuries, when large geographical areas of early Christianity like North Africa became Islamic. Christian strongholds like Alexandria and Carthage were turned into historical relics. It is good to remind ourselves that when the Jewish nation, the apple of God’s eye, seemed to be at its absolute lowest point in every sense - devastated and destitute, such as during their 70-year exile - the Almighty gave them special words. The prophet Jeremiah said at this time about divine thinking: ‘… thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope…’ (Jeremiah 29:11).
A Word comes from the Lord
Just like in the hurly burly days of 1985, when waves of violence swept through the country in September and October of that year, the Lord spoke again to Michael Cassidy, the leader of the missions agency Africa Enterprise.94 This time, in March 2008, Rev. Cassidy heard God saying to him during a time of spiritual retreat ‘Jehoshaphat!’ When he consulted 2 Chronicles 20, which reports the escapades of a lesser known king who ‘set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout Judah’, Cassidy saw what God needed him to do. He was especially touched by the prayer of Jehoshaphat in verse 12 of the chapter: ‘we have no power…nor do we know what to do, but we turn to you.’ In an exceptional repeat of the 1985 event, Cassidy convened a conference on short notice, calling it the National Initiative for Reformation in South Africa (NIRSA) to Boksburg, a suburb on the Rand.
In the evening of 12 June Mike Cassidy reported about the inaugural National Initiative for Reformation in South Africa (NIRSA) at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow. His talk on the time bombs of crime, HIV/AIDS and dysfunctional schools was scary, but he encouraged the audience with the divine word to Jehoshaphath: Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord (2 Chronicles 20:17).
The Boksburg event might well have been the birth pangs of the revival that we pray would sweep across the nation. Or was the event a few days earlier in another part of the country in Greytown (Kwazulu-Natal), the beginning? Amazingly, over the weekend of 18 April 2008, 62 000 men attended the Mighty men’s conference with Angus Buchan.95 During that time it was suggested that a mighty shift had taken place in the heavenly realms! Such a claim would be difficult to verify, but it surely was significant that so many men, hungry for the Lord, were content to stay in tents, after travelling for many hours. They came from all over the country and from as far away as Namibia, basically for prayer. (delete words)
The Mighty Men’s Conference was more
than merely a flash in the pan
The Mighty Men’s Conference was more than merely a flash in the pan. Real reconciliation between fathers and sons took place, fathers and husbands returning home as changed men, and families were restored. This was testified to by a South African missionary who had just come back to the country.
Revival rocks South Africa!
After her return from the mission field, Jean-Marié Jooste, a WEC missionary, wrote an article titled, Revival rocks South Africa, along with the following comments: In the last months ... everything I saw on CNN, BBC and heard from visiting friends about my country, seemed to be bad news: corruption charges against political leaders, violence against immigrants, electricity failures, turmoil in Zimbabwe…
Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find a different vibe in the air after my arrival back home: it all started with a film about the life of an ordinary Natal farmer who experienced an amazing personal revival and then began to impact the lives of many others: Faith like Potatoes. For the past three years this man, Angus Buchan, has had a men’s conference on his farm every year and every time the crowd grows: this year sixty two thousand men showed up!
Change should not come out of the Houses
of Parliament but from the kitchens
The Mighty Men’s Conference with Angus Buchan was followed up with a meeting on 19 July 2008 at Pretoria’s Loftus Versfeld Rugby Stadium, which was packed with more than seventy thousand people, the greatest crowd ever to fill the stadium. In a very practical message and using Ephesians 3:14-21, Angus Buchan suggested that change in our country should not come out of the Houses of Parliament but from the kitchens. Christians must be single-minded to take the responsibility and ownership of helping those in need. 55 000 people turned up at the ABSA Stadium in Durban, the 9th of August, 2008
A similar event took place at the Cape’s famous Newlands Cricket Stadium on 12 and 13 September 2008. The Weekend Argus of Sunday 14 September lauded the event with a large caption GOD VISITS THE MOTHER CITY. The event had been sold out weeks before the time. With a reported 8000 persons filling in a card of commitment to Christ on the first night, a third of those attending, one could not help but feeling that revival was in the air. (delete words)Buchan moved to other South African cities and Namibia’s capital Windhoek on his evangelistic tour of the country.
Buchan as good as dead An estimated 200,000 men registered for the 2009 event on 24-26 April in Greytown (Kwazulu-Natal) on an extended camping area of 3 million square meters. Angus Buchan had to be flown to hospital after he had collapsed
On the Saturday afternoon Angus Buchan had to be flown to hospital after he had collapsed. A heart attack was suspected, but after a thorough check in hospital, he was discharged without further ado. The next day he was speaking again, giving Jesus the glory for divine healing. In the SHALOM MINISTRIES Newsletter, (May 2009) he wrote about the incident as follows:
Dear Brethren,
...Words cannot describe what took place at MMC 2009 two weeks ago. We knew that the glory of the Lord was going to come down on that gathering because the Lord had told us very distinctly, in more ways than one, but we would never have dreamt in a million years how he was going to do it. I thought maybe it would come through the music or maybe the camp fires and the fellowship of the thousands of men that were there. I thought maybe even through the preaching, but no, God had a specific plan and He wanted to teach us about the brevity of time. If you look at that word ‘brevity’, I have always wondered what it really meant, it is derived from the word ‘brief’ and one thing that God showed us at this conference is that we are not here on this earth forever. There is a shortage of time and we need to use it in the best way possible.
What is man’s chief purpose on this earth but simply ‘to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever’. That is all that the Lord wants us to do. He has told me in no uncertain terms to shelve all MY PLANS and start to do what He has told me to do, and He will do the rest. In the space of that weekend we saw relationships, I am talking in my own personal life, restored forever. I have never seen or experienced such a magnitude of love from the men towards me and towards each other, never in my life! When that helicopter airlifted me off the farm to Pietermaritzburg, I saw a multitude of hands reaching up towards the helicopter as the men prayed for me. I was as good as dead when they put me in that helicopter and ten minutes later when we touched down at Medi-clinic (a young lady pilot flew us straight there), I was totally and completely healed and that is nothing short of a miracle! I believe in miracles and I believe in them more today. Our God is a miracle working God and He is a good God! He is nobody’s debtor and He is there for you and me. No matter what your problem or your need is, He will do it. I have preached that for 30 years but I am telling you that I lived it two weeks ago. He is on your side. A very dear brother said to me that he saw, or heard, in the Spirit, angels coming down to take me away - that is what he thought, only to realise that the angels were sent by God to protect me from any forces of darkness. We just stand amazed at the goodness of God. Remember, if the Lord Jesus Christ is your Saviour, you have nothing to fear. Paul said in Phillipians 1:21, ‘for me to live is Christ, and to die is but gain’, and I can honestly say amen to that.’
Prayer Warriors invade Chambers of Government
Other interesting things had also been happening at the Cape. After Pentecost 2007, I joined Wim Ferreira and other prayer warriors in a board room at the Cape Metropolitan Civic Centre for prayer every Friday.
The Lord put the unity of
the Body of Christ on our
prayer agenda once again
The Lord had put the unity of the Body of Christ on our prayer agenda once again. We continued with efforts to get Capetonian believers to pray together. This was to us an important step towards the revival we yearned for.
Wim Ferreira linked up with Pastor Barry Isaacs, the new co-ordinator of the Transformation Committee. As a result of their deliberations, prayer meetings started in October 2007 at the Uni-City Council Chambers on the third Saturday morning of every month at 5.30 a.m. Wonderful answers to prayer were subsequently experienced month after month. At one of these occasions, the lack of the availability of the Civic Centre Banqueting Hall for a combined prayer event on Ascension Day touched Peter Williams, the secretary of the Provincial Parliament. He promptly extended a provisional invitation to the group to come and pray there as well.
On 31 May 2008 more than 100 believers gathered in the legislative house of the Western Cape for prayer at 6 a.m. Three days later there was a hush – and no mocking - as two Christians shared their biblical convictions at the same venue, as part of normal parliamentary procedure. This was for Peter Williams a direct result of the united prayer at that venue!.
Corruption flares up once again
The sheer satisfaction to see corruption all but stamped out at the Cape Town Home Affairs offices, was short-lived and replaced by sadness and anger. Dean Pillay had hardly turned his back, leaving Home Affairs to take up a vocational position outside of government, when corruption flared up once again. Within weeks it was worse than ever before.
We battled in vain a few weeks later to try and get refugee status for someone. This was the result of corruption at the Nyanga Home Affairs Refugee Centre.
I was so sad that things had deteriorated such a lot since March 2008 when we thought that the corruption and the duping of the destitute and hapless refugees at the Home Affairs offices had been stamped out. Now it was much worse.
A special spiritual Victory
But there were also spiritual victories. One of them happened when I was called in because a refugee lady from Burundi had collapsed at our bead workshop.96(A year prior to this occurrence she had been one of my English learners.) I took her to Somerset Hospital where she was admitted and treated for about a week. After her improvement and discharge she was taken to relatives to recuperate. When however some medical backlash occurred, the relative deemed it fit to involve a sangoma, a witchdoctor. Hereafter she became completely crazy and had to be taken to a mental clinic in Stikland in the extreme northern suburbs of the city. From the mental clinic she was transferred to the psychiatric ward at Tygerberg Hospital where she was soon regarded as terminal. Family members started with preparations to take her body to Burundi for the funeral there.We discerned that we now had an extreme case of spiritual warfare. After a day of prayer and fasting we took along with us Arsene Kamptoe, our All Nations colleague, who prayed there in the name of Jesus in Tygerberg Hospital.
The terminal patient recovered
dramatically as a trophy of God’s grace
She not only recovered dramatically as a trophy of God’s grace, but she also returned to the workshop a few weeks later.

Special Healings
In revival times divine healing usually takes place. Two special cases came to our attention when we visited the Agape Centre in the rural town of Grabouw. Jessica had come to the centre as a few months old baby with hydrocephalous and cerebral palsy. The doctors told Gerrit and Ammie Coetzee, the founder-leaders, that there was little brain function and she would be like a vegetable, unable to walk or talk. Today she is a very active little girl that runs around and knows exactly what she wants, a clear result of divine healing.
Samuel came to them when he was three months old, diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and Bulbar Palsy (the nerves in his brain stem was damaged so that he could not swallow.) He arrived with a PEG, a feeding tube where his food goes directly into the stomach. The doctors gave him little chance of survival. So many times when they rushed Samuel to hospital with an ambulance they only had prayer to hold onto, trusting the Lord for a miracle. Today Samuel runs around, climbs on everything and is a real outdoor boy.
Country Drug Addicts and Gangsters reformed
How powerful a loving environment can be has been amply demonstrated at the self-same Agape Centre. Drug addicts or youngsters who had just come from prison became part of the youth ‘year of your life’ programme there. From the 2007 group a former prisoner who was incarcerated for five years for murder went to Bible College. Another participant went to university and a few of them entered Eagle’s Rising, a transformation/prayer farm near to Somerset West.
To hear of a drug peddling hub becoming a church sounds very much like revival. This happened in September 2008 when Kaldumalla Madatt, popularly known as ‘Dimes’, repented in prison. He had been jailed for drug and diamond deals. Just like Zacchaeus of old, he donated a former ‘tik den’ at 18 North West Street in Rocklands, a part of Mitchell’s Plain, for the use of the Eternal Life Pentecostal Church. The former drug peddling facility became a thriving church. In January 2010 however (delete words) his repentance proved not to have been very deep. ‘Dimes’ moved back to the premises, evicting the church and starting selling liquor from the building under the pretense of a a store for fast foods.
The Government in serious Turmoil The serious turmoil which resulted from Judge Chris Nicholson’s ruling on Friday 12 September 2008 which implicated President Thabo Mbeki in the NPA’s corruption investigation of Jacob Zuma, the President of the ANC, turned into quite a saga. A week later, Mbeki was ‘recalled’ from office by his party. The ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) didn’t take long to reach the decision to remove him. The deplorable way in which that came about cannot be exonerated. Known for Mbeki's close links to sangoma's and ancestor worship, this might nevertheless have been a blessing in disguise. However, Jacob Zuma had not shown any remorse for the evident link to corruption, such as the one leading to the conviction of Shabir Shaik in a big arms deal with a French company. Thus there was no real joy for godly citizens of the country. A future Zimbabwe scenario, an ogre of terror and reprisals against White farmers called for serious prayer.
As South Africa hobbled from one political crisis to the next, the United States of America battled with a major global financial crisis.
Dire Need for Prayer
God put it on the heart of NUPSA leader Dr Bennie Mostert to invite Christian leaders for a ‘Solemn Assembly’ in Pretoria. Pastors, youth leaders and also other community leaders in all sectors of society were challenged to come together for a day of prayer on 15 October 2008. ‘We are inviting Christian leaders from all 650 towns and cities and from all denominations and ethnic groups in the country...’
The preparation to the Pretoria event would also touch me personally when I started praying about attending the annual Leadership Consultation of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) having now changed its name to Partners’ Consultation (PC). The ‘door’ opened for me to attend both events. At the PC of 2008 in Port Elizabeth there was an item on the programme on Sunday 21 September called Frustrations and Encouragements. I perceived the contribution of one of the participants as the God-given sign to share my own frustrations with CCM, notably the handling of our proposed declaration of 2004 regarding Jews and Muslims, into which I had put so much effort together with other missionary colleagues. In the ensuing discussion of 21 September 2008 someone suggested that TEASA should be speaking to the churches in the country with regard to such a declaration.
I used this cue to challenge the CCM executive to send an updated version of our proposed declaration of 2004 either to TEASA or Jericho Walls. I also expressed my preference for Jericho Walls, because this group does not only represent Evangelical churches.
Solemn Assembly in Pretoria
This ultimately led to Bennie Mostert inviting me to pray publicly for Jews and Muslims at the Solemn Assembly at the Moreleta Park Dutch Reformed Church in Pretoria on 15 October 2008.
Seven hundred believers from all over
South Africa converged on Pretoria
That the country was in serious need of prayer was undisputed. Seven hundred believers from all over South Africa converged on Pretoria on that day. Mostert announced the plan to work towards a national day of prayer for the parliamentary elections of 2009 on 20 March. The extent of participation was bound to affect the future course of the country. The question now was: would the events leading to the elections be like seed for revival or would we experience a further moral slide – or ultimately even have a situation that could be likened to Zimbabwe? It was in our own hands to work with God in this way or not.
Resumed Fight against Corruption
On 21 October 2008 I was devastated after witnessing the depth of the level of the corruption at the Nyanga Home Affairs (Refugee Centre) offices from close quarters. After seeing how one of the culprits was pretending to sell plastic sheets for the documents of the refugees, I was able to ‘arrest’ him with the aid of a security official. The Home Affairs officials inside the building confirmed that the documents in his possession were probably printed outside of their offices. However, an official note had been attached to it. The connexion to some inside official was all too clear and more or less promptly confirmed. An hour or so later I had to discover that the offender had been allowed to leave the building, without even a single charge laid against him. The officials were merely anxious because they thought that I was a policeman and that I could expose their involvement.
In deep despondency I felt very
much like throwing in the towel
In deep despondency I felt very much like throwing in the towel. But then I happened to bump into an incomplete copy of my manuscript ‘Honger na Geregtigheid’ that I had written about 30 years ago. I was reminded of my feelings of the time in the light of the injustice perpetrated by the government of the day. Dr Tutu verbalised so well at the Rustenburg conference in November 1990 how I was feeling once again, ‘God appeared to be quite inept and unable to bring justice and freedom... He worked to inspire the State President to act in an unexpectedly courageous manner... If anyone had predicted in September 1989 that in November 1990 virtually all the churches in South Africa would be gathered together in a national conference, most of us would have been convinced that that man must be mad. There can be no question that this conference... is a miracle’. Now able to look back at the divine intervention, I took courage to wait on God to give us the victory over the pervasive corruption at the Refugee Centre of the Department of Home Affairs.

Fruit of the Commuter Train Ministry
From time to time we heard of people who were touched during the evangelistic ministry on commuter trains. Many a Muslim who came to faith in Christ had been impacted in some way or other in this way, sometimes trying to evade a preacher in one carriage, only to bump into another one in a different carriage. A believer from Islamic background who studied at Wesley Training College in Salt River in the late 1980s, relished the preaching as a valuable supplement to her Bible knowledge to her studies. She however contemplated suicide in a difficult marriage when she was so gripped by the preaching that she missed the place where she wanted to jump from the train. One testimony that blessed us very especially was a female bouncer who hailed from Bo-Kaap that was divinely impacted in this way.
A female bouncer from
Bo-Kaap divinely touched
In 2007 she was drinking in the Gospel messages on the commuter train to and from her work until she finally became a follower of Jesus. Her husband, who had been involved with drugs and alcohol, followed suit. His grandfather, who owned the property in Salt River where they lived, had been a fervent and faithful servant of the Lord. Gospel seeds have already started bearing fruit in that residential area from the turn of the new millennium with the influx of believers and churches from other parts of Africa.

A Role for the revived Church
Home churches led by teams of young people and older folk who have been taught to be(obedient to the Holy Spirit) – as opposed to traditional knowledge-based training – have already started to make a difference in the lives of many people. It may not even take very long for communities to be transformed as new believers share the story of how personal faith in Jesus changed their lives, their outlook and mind-set. The question is what the role of the Church – the united body of Christ - could be in the future. Accommodation to the secular society of our age seems to me the sure way to fade further into irrelevancy. In a society of brokenness where so many carry a heavy burden, scars caused by abortion, alcoholism and drug abuse, the Church faces an immense task. By contrast, the much less expedient and inconvenient road of the Cross – swimming against the stream in self-denial, in sacrificial obedience to divine commands - would contribute to transformation, a possible route to revival. This is the Church that is needed - a new distinctive community that reflects the values of the kingdom of God; a body that is an agent of healing and a place of belonging. Nothing else will suffice. Ian Cowley refers so aptly to a new voice within the possible future role of the Church at large in his book The Transformation Principle: ‘... a model for Christian discipleship that calls women and men everywhere to change their way of thinking and lay down their lives in following Jesus... those who serve the poor and care for the lost and broken-hearted people of our consumerist and self-indulgent age’.
28. Revival Seeds Germinate

The week starting on 29 March 2009 was special in many a way. This was the last day of our All Nations International Conference at Africa House, the property that the mission agency had just acquired. In the afternoon we dedicated the property to the Lord in a ceremony that included ‘sowing’ Gospel seed rather literally when Bible verses were buried on the premises. The prayer included the vision that Southern Africa would become the bread basket of the continent.
Two days later, Rosemarie and her jewellery workshop colleagues were very elated when one of the Muslim refugee women from Burundi and Rwanda declared rather formally on behalf of the group that they all believe that Jesus died for their sins and that He is the Son of God. We continue to pray that this discovery that has grown in them through the weekly spiritual nourishment during the workshop, may filter through to their families.
Love for the Foreigner to be propagated?
Few would disagree with the notion that philiaxenia, love for the foreigner, should be propagated. Hardly anybody would object to the statement that the gifts of all the sojourners from other parts of our continent should be utilized, including those who came to our country as economic refugees. If we accept that any resentment or hatred towards strangers must be outlawed, then it should be made an offense to discriminate against them. That would not only be a biblical mandate, but this would be something that could unite even Muslims and Jews.
The Church of South Africa received another chance in the run-up to the 2009 elections to regain lost credibility. Racial prejudice was still a huge barrier towards the unity of the Body of Christ, thus obstructing the promise of spiritual renewal.
Corruption at all levels of society
brought the country to the
precipice of anarchy once again
Corruption at all levels of society – even in the judiciary – along with laws and practices that encourage sexual immorality, brought the country to the precipice of anarchy once again. But Godly people have the key in their hand. United prayer could once again turn out to be the steering wheel of our vehicle that seemed to be heading for the abyss. We should humble ourselves corporately and pray, and we should seek God’s face (2 Chronicles 7:14), perhaps as never before. We had to pray for godly governance, that we might turn from our sinful, uncharitable and selfish ways, opening the channel for showers of blessing. We needed to latch onto the challenge that God might heal our land if we turn from our wicked ways; that He would command his blessing if we live in peace and harmony (Psalm 133:3).
Breakthroughs at last?
(delete two paragraphs)
On Sunday 7 June I went to Noordhoek to celebrate with Gerald Schwartz, our CPx colleague! Miraculously the Lord had entrusted to him and his colleague Julian George a property in excellent state on the Ou Kaapseweg that had been on auction. The property is adjacent to Africa House, the property of All Nations International that we had acquired just a few months ago. What a special privilege it was to help dedicate the building to the service of the Lord where Julian, Gerald and their team want to empower Blacks with different skills. And what an encouragement it was to me to hear that Julian had been praying for 18 years for the fulfilment of his dream. (It was the 18th year of our praying for a breakthrough in Bo-Kaap.)
Resumption of Prayer in Seats of Government
On Saturday morning 9 May 2009 we were back in the Chambers of the City Council. For all of us this was a clear answer to prayer after political interference caused us to be thrown out of the premises for months. Two weeks later we also resumed praying in the Provincial Parliament. When Barry Isaacs announced that FIFA, the world governing body for the Soccer World Cup, turned down the request for the football stadiums to be used for the Global Day of Prayer in 2010, it was only natural for us to take this on board as a prayer challenge. When it was announced that we would be back at Newlands Rugby Stadium at Pentecost 2010 for the tenth anniversary of the Global Day of Prayer at the venue where the South African 'stadium praying' started in 2001, in combination with a World Prayer Conference at the International Convention Centre, there was nevertheless a sense of growing excitement. God answered our prayers miraculously. Not only did the City Council offer the use of the stadium to Transformation free of charge for a test event on 22 March 2010 - a public holiday - but subsequently other prayer events were organised at all the other World Cup soccer venues for the same day.
On 6 June 2009 our prayer meeting in the City Council Chambers started rather gloomy when it was not only shared that our fervent intercessor Trevor Peters had just passed away the previous evening, but we also heard that the new Speaker of the Provincial Parliament, coming from the liberal DA party, would not honour the dates for our praying there till the end of 2009. This was of course a new challenge.
Inspired by the memory that we could sow seeds in the 1970s and 1980s towards the repeal of ungodly apartheid laws that ripped families apart and which kept me exiled for many years, we continue the battle backstage – for the right of children to have a father and a mother, for the right of unborn foetuses to live; we continue to fight against the discrimination of foreigners. This would in my view also be tantamount to sowing more seeds of revival.
Negative and Positive Developments
Very few knowledgeable people would have become fully excited after hearing that Dr Nkosana Zuma, the ex-wife of our incoming State President, was to be our new Minister of Home Affairs. Having failed miserably as Health Minister under President Mandela, she was strangely 'rewarded' with the special Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After succeeding to turn our country almost into a pariah state by openly siding and supporting some of the biggest abusers of human rights in the world like Myanmar and Zimbabwe, one wondered what would happen to the biggest mess of all among the South African state departments.97 We had been hoping naively that the electoral success of the DA in the Western Cape of April 2009 would lead to new people at the Nyanga Refugee Centre, only to find out afterwards that there would be no change. And then there came the High Court eviction order at the end of June. Complaints of other companies in the area led to the relocation of the Refugee Centre, to be finalised at the end of September. Rumours that the Refugee Centre was to be relocated to Khayelitsha caused a major concern, not only for the sojourners, but also for the stakeholders. Traumatic experiences at the Nyanga premises had been bad enough. Xenophobic vibes were still being experienced in many a Black township.

Encouraging Emails
Against this background, emails which I received in July were quite encouraging. On July 20 Duncan Breen, a co-stakeholder who also works quite a lot with refugees, wrote: I have some very useful info from UCT about positive developments at the RRO (Regional Refugee Office), which I will shortly write up and circulate to all. There was a feeling by some that given that the centre has now been ordered to move shortly, as well as the fact that access has apparently improved with the opening hours being increased from 7 to 7, that it is no longer a need to engage directly with the Director General at this point.
This was congruent with my personal experience at the Nyanga offices, but we did not want to rejoice prematurely - thankful as we were that foreigners were now being treated n a more dignified way.
We were also greatly encouraged by what other concerned Capetonians have been doing among refugees. One of these is the Adonis Musati Project of our friend Gahlia Brogneri and her co-founder Terry Hodson. They were of course also frustrated - like the bulk of us who work with the hapless refugees - by the corruption and mismanagement of Home Affairs officials. But they were also very much blessed by the gratefulness of individual refugees who got a new purpose to their lives, where there had been deep despair. It was a very special answer to prayer when a big improvement in Home Affairs service delivery nationally was announced via television on Tuesday 10 November, 2009.
We were very thankful that the Refugee Centre was not only relocated to a spacious venue in Maitland, but that the service there was so much better. To all of us this was an answer to prayer! When we went there at the end of November 2009, everything was peaceful and orderly.

An Attempt to legalize Prostitution
A serious effort was launched in June 2009 to legalize prostitution before the World Cup. Heading the Family Policy Institute, Pastor Errol Naidoo asked Christians to write letters of protest to the government.
Pastor Errol Naidoo wrote the following in an email on 30 July: Dallene Clark, the lead researcher on adult prostitution at the SA Law Reform Commission (SALRC) informed me they received thousands of submissions from concerned citizens across the country – the majority of whom selected the option that totally criminalises the sex industry.
According to her, the SALRC will now embark on a long and complicated process which must acknowledge every single submission before making recommendations to the Minister of Justice.
Ms Clark estimates the earliest the Minister of Justice can expect to receive the final recommendations for legislation on adult prostitution is early 2011.
If this is correct, it will mean a crushing defeat for those lobbying for legalised prostitution for the 2010 World Cup. And more importantly, it represents a significant victory for women and children!

In the Clouds once again
We were about to depart for our monthly Signal Hill prayer on Saturday 26 September 2009 when Rosemarie and I noticed that Signal Hill was in a cloud. After having picked up Tricia Pichotta and Bev Stratis, one of us prayed in the car: 'Lord, let us be in the clouds once again, we want to experience your special presence this morning!' And how He answered our prayer!
There on the mountain we were joined by Celia Swanepoel and two other believers who came along with her from Melkbosch Strand. Pastor Jack Bruce from the Woodstock Baptist Church joined us for the first time. Although Jack had returned from Johannesburg already some years ago, I had only really met him the previous Sunday morning at a combined service with members of a Salt River fellowship consisting overwhelmingly of Central African refugees. At Signal Hill we engaged in only a short time of prayer because of the drizzle, thereafter resuming the prayer time in our home. There we were indeed in the clouds again – in another way! With Jack Bruce and Stephan van Niekerk98 I experienced a close bond after we had decided to continue the prayer meeting in our home. That morning we also found out that the Lord had given Stephan a vision years ago with regard to the revival that was to start from the Cape.
At the same occasion Celia Swanepoel invited us to a Christian celebration in Melkbosch Strand of the Feast of Tabernacles the following week. Another believer, Sarah Bock, had meticulously put together the big Tabernacle structure, true to size.
What a blessing this celebration was to us! While we were praying, God gave a picture to one of the participants of a torch being ignited like the one for the Olympic Games. In the ensuing days I was deeply blessed by what God was indeed doing. I was especially excited about what was happening amongst young people. New vibrant churches had been starting in recent years in our vicinity with predominantly young people. The new generation would be torch bearers of the Gospel in the years to come. It was very special to hear soon hereafter of more celebrations of the Feast of Tabernacles that had been taking places in different churches, including a special victory over demonic manifestation at Logos Christian Church in Brackenfell the following week.
On a very personal level, the guilt of the Church at large in respect of Islam and Judaism kept me burdened. The disunity of the Body of Christ, along with the lack of networking between churches, remained to me another big heartache despite verbal proclamations to the contrary by certain individuals.
A national outreach effort to coincide with the 2010 Soccer World Cup called The Ultimate Goal (TUG) presented the Church at the Cape with another chance to get out of its indifference and lethargy. We latched onto this effort expectantly.
God's new Thing sprouts
At a prayer breakfast at the Lighthouse in Parow on Friday 2 October, 2009 I was asked to introduce Eternal Goal, the Muslim Evangelism part of TUG. I highlighted from Luke 5 how Peter and the other disciples saved the big fish catch. This was only made possible because they called their colleagues in the other boat. I challenged the pastors present to network, so that the main unreached people group of the Western Cape could hear the Gospel properly.
I was in the clouds again in the days hereafter as I heard here and there how God has been at work not only all over the Peninsula, but especially in the City Bowl, in Bo-Kaap and Sea Point among young people. It was (delete word) special to sense a semblance of unity of the Body of Christ coming about in the run-up to the World Cup.
After our return in September 2009 from a six-week stint in Europe, we heard of quite a few things that God has been birthing in the area of prayer for the city. During 2009 three new vibrant churches had been starting in Sea Point and the fellowship with foreigners in the Schotse Kloof Community Centre in Bo-Kaap was still going strong. Just before our departure in July I heard about a group of Christians linked to the legal fraternity praying in a Wales Street office once a week at lunchtime. We linked up more with a few of them, some of whom were attending new City Bowl and Sea Point fellowships. I also heard of new prayer occasions in the City Bowl that had been running already for some time, including a weekly prayer meeting in Prestwich Street near to Bo-Kaap . Furthermore, it was so good to hear that the family of leading elders of the vibrant Common Ground fellowship of Rondebosch has not only been living in Bo-Kaap for some time. The denomination started with evening services on 18 October 2009 in the historic St Stephen's Church. Prior to that formal start, they met for prayer for the city at large every Thursday at 17.30 p.m. at that venue.
It was also encouraging to hear that a group of young White people (delete words) Joshua Generation were meeting on Monday evenings in prayer for the city at St Barnabas Church in Tamboers-kloof. It did trouble me however that these groups did not seem to have any real interest to come together with other believers for prayer or to link up with other believers who pray on Signal Hill or in the Civic Centre or Provincial Parliament. I continue praying that I may be able forge links in this regard.
On 9 October I got very excited to hear in Khayelitsha about the Dream Team at the regional event of Worldwide Evangelization Network of South Africa (WENSA). The 'Dream Team' is a group of young Blacks, an effervescent ministry and endeavour started by Hester Veldsman in 2003. She attempts to prepare these youngsters for missionary involvement. I had a sense of excitement, a feeling that the torch of revival could have been brought to Khayelitsha in the spiritual realm.
On Saturday 10 October, 2009 at the early morning prayer in the Civic Centre, we were blessed to hear that we can now have a mass pray event on March 22, 2010 in the new Stadium in Green Point once again. This was an answer to prayer. At this occasion in the City Council Chambers God also gave a picture to a brother of a well that was dry originally, but which was filling up until it overflowed. And thereafter people would take the buckets of water from Cape Town to other places. Was this about to happen, that buckets of living water would be taken shortly to the rest of our continent and even further afield?
The following day the metropolitan City Hall was the venue for a special 'countdown' - 369 days to the start of the third Lausanne International Conference. The first event in the city that gave the movement its name in 1974 brought evangelicals and ecumenicals together in holistic mission after it had been proclaimed that it was not necessary any more to send missionaries to Africa. At the City Hall event it was highlighted that the 2010 Lausanne III Conference would have to redress major wrongs of what happened a hundred years previously, namely the disenfranchisement of people of colour at the start of the Union of South Africa and at the big conference in Edinburgh where Africa was not invited. It was still regarded then as the dark continent. How we can now praise the Lord for what he is doing! Africa is now not predominantly a mission field any more, but a mission force - a continent that is sending out missionaries!

Religious leaders' Meeting with President Jacob Zuma
The religious leaders meeting on 17 October 2009 with President Jacob Zuma at Bishopscourt, a posh Cape suburb, gave an interesting perspective on a possible change of government policy on moral issues. It afforded religious leaders the opportunity to hear a first hand account of Zuma's personal ideas on the political and social challenges facing the nation.
Although representatives of all major religions were present, Mr. Zuma repeatedly described himself as a Christian and referred several times to Scripture to underscore his point. The State President challenged the Church to go beyond prayer and to find ways to ‘advise’ government on social and policy issues. He said laws on the nation’s statute books that are not in line with God’s Laws need to be revisited. He even warned South Africa about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Coming from someone whose track record on sexual morality was far from impeccable, this was nowhere credible. He had also not yet given proof of remorse or a willingness to at least acknowledge some of the alleged fraud charges brought against him. Or was this already part of real change, a miracle in answer to prayer? Time will have to tell.

The World Cup looms On Saturday 3 October 2009 we had a brain storming session with a few local Christians with a sense of calling to reach out lovingly to Muslims not only during the upcoming World Cup, but also after the hype of the global event would have passed. A two-pronged strategy was confirmed. Next to the normal training of believers for loving outreach to Muslims, the converts from that background suggested that we attempt to gather all Cape Muslims once again.
Not only positives appeared on the horizon as preparations increased for the World Cup. Thus also in government circles it was highlighted that the country would not have enough prostitutes to meet the expecteddemand of sex tourists. Ahead of the Global sports event, human trafficking started to increase. Cases of children being trafficked were coming to light . We became more aware of prostitutes from Eastern Europe already here in Cape Town, masquerading as dancers, who have to 'pay back' (delete word) R 80,000 to the syndicate who brought them here. It became known that another syndicate (delete word) - using Swahili and other African languages - was operating in the Northern suburbs of the city. They lured teenage school girls for 'week- end pocket money'. Teenagers (delete word) received SMS offers of up to R1000 an hour for sex work. 
Pastor Errol Naidoo and his Family Policy Institute convened a meeting on 27 October 2009 between Western Cape Pastors and the City of Cape Town officials to address the growing threat of the illegal sex industry. Approximately 150 pastors and ministry workers from across the city were briefed by the mayoral Committee Member for safety and security, Mr J.P. Smith, on the purpose of the vice squad, the challenges they face, opposition from the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Task force (SWEAT), and the need for more involvement from the Church. The response from Pastors was overwhelmingly positive. The metropolis was divided into four parts, to facilitate the efficient and effective ministry to prostitutes. Churches in these areas were asked to be responsible for establishing ministry teams to prostitutes and will focus on ‘hotspots’ in their respective areas. Ministry teams are to operate parallel to law enforcement. Marge Ballin (Balm of Gilead Ministries) and Madri Bruwer of Straatwerk, both of whom had been ministering to prostitutes for many years, would be available to assist the churches.
A task force was established to drive the process and asked to meet regularly with government and law enforcement officials.  The task team would also raise funds and develop more safe houses and exit programs for prostitutes.
En route to the Soccer World Cup
It became quite strategic when Anaclet Mbayagu from Burundi asked me to join the The Ultimate Goal (TUG) outreach preparations for the Soccer World Cup. I joined the Western Cape co-ordinating group, happy to link Andre Palmer and his team with people like Barry Isaacs, Errol Naidoo and Loraine Wood.
In another exciting dynamic two American believers, Hope Bushby and Patty Carlson, who attended the prayer walk against human trafficking with Loraine Wood and their team at the Western Cape TUG launch in Three Anchor Bay on 24 October, were inspired to return for the World Cup with a group of believers for around the clock prayer during of the global sports event.
Setbacks for SWEAT That God was answering prayers and working in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform became evident when Pastor Errol Naidoo reported on Thursday 12 November of his interaction with Ellen Jordan, a prominent brothel owner that took her case to legalise prostitution all the way to the Constitutional Court in 2002. The cost for her failed attempt was in the region of R3, 2 million. Ellen Jordan informed Pastor Naidoo that she had a miraculous experience with the Lord in her hospital room in April 2009, committing her life to Jesus Christ! Ellen almost died from complications with a ruptured colon, but God intervened and spared her life. The ex-lesbian, ex drug addict, former brothel and homosexual club owner, who had been responsible for leading the fight to legalize the sex industry in South Africa, was now confessing Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour!
This amounted to a major setback for SWEAT. Ellen indicated that she now wanted to join the fight against legalised prostitution, including 'recruiting women for Jesus because she recruited women for the dark side in the past' (note the font size). She became a powerful ally to help us expose the lies and deception disseminated by SWEAT and the liberal media.
That Ellen Jordan came to personal faith in Jesus as her Saviour already in April 2009, but only surfaced in November 2009, was described by Errol Naidoo as God’s perfect timing. It followed significant developments in the battle against legalised prostitution. He also highlighted the need of the unity of the Body of Christ responding in faith and fulfilling its mandate to be ‘Salt and Light’ to society. 'God shows up in miraculous ways to encourage and strengthen our efforts.'
Saving the World Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke is a great friend, mentor and role model to Jarrod Davidoff, leader of Saving the World Foundation.  Reinhard has graciously given Jarrod numerous opportunities to share in his campaigns.
Jarrod Davidoff was born on 15 December 1972 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born Jewish, to both Jewish parents and attended synagogue where he was taught to follow the Jewish religion and the laws of Moses. At twenty years of age, Jarrod began to research if Jesus was the promised Messiah to the Jewish people. Jarrod finally received Jesus as his personal Lord and Messiah.
Most of his family rejected him because of his faith. He was taken to numerous Rabbis, in an attempt to win him back to Judaism, yet the hand of the Lord was upon him to guide and protect him.
Growing up in a Jewish community had its share of challenges, but Jarrod rose to the occasion and was always compassionate and passionate in sharing the Good News. Jarrod and his team conduct mass city-wide outreach campaigns, which lead tens of thousands of people to Jesus.
Jarrod and the team were in Cape Town from August till the end of 2009. Between 350 000 and 400 000 children and teachers were reached in the Greater Cape Town Schools Campaign, during well over 600 School outreaches. Over the week-ends they conducted Gospel Campaigns in such diverse localities as Kraaifontein, Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha. This has been the largest single outreach initiative in Cape Town's history. In information taken from their website, just under 130 000 students, teachers and principals made decisions to receive Jesus as their Lord and Saviour in school outreaches. The big challenge was the follow-up because many of the children and students do not normally attend a church.
A National Week of Prayer
A national Week of Prayer was announced for the last week of November 2009. In the Western Cape this was to culminate in a star prayer march to Riebeeck Square next to the historic St Stephen's Church. It was no surprise that this seemed to usher in another season of intensified spiritual warfare with the petrol bombing of the offices of Jericho Walls in Stellenberg on the night of Saturday 14 November. God's protecting hand was nevertheless evident as one bomb did not detonate. The water damage of the fire extinguishing operation caused by the other bomb was minimal.  
A task force around Pastor Errol Naidoo and March Ballin met with leaders of the City Council on Tuesday 24 November around the effort to fight human trafficking and prostitution ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Ellen Jordan, the former brothel owner, was pivotal in these discussions and the press conference that followed it. The distortions and deception of SWEAT was exposed in an unprecedented way.


No Sign of Revival Rather by chance we saw a poster of a Muslim-Christian debate to be held in Sea Point on Friday 11 December, 2009. I discovered in the next few days that hardly anybody knew of the debate. I decided to write emails to invite pastors and prayer warriors to a special prayer meeting, stating that Muslims usually rock up in big numbers at such occasions - especially keeping in mind the proximity of Sea Point to Bo-Kaap. In my email to local pastors I furthermore proposed that we should not engage in competition or rivalry in terms of numbers attending the Sea Point event. I also wrote: In stead, we would like you to encourage your church numbers who would want to attend, to come with a loving and prayerful attitude and definitely not seeing Muslims as enemies of Christians or Jews.' The debate did not provide fireworks in any way, but God seemed to have the last word. The electronic projector got stuck while it beamed a slide on the screen of the victorious Jesus standing there with a dove above him, reminding all and sundry of His baptism, where the divine voice proclaimed: 'this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' It was there on the screen for quite a while.
At the moving opening ceremony of the Global Day of Prayer Conference on Wednesday 19 May, 2010 the South African flag was nailed to a big cross in a prophetic act. Prior to this, three leaders prayed in repentance and confession respectively on behalf of the Khoi, indigenous people of South Africa, the Black tribes that arrived later in Southern Africa and for the Afrikaners and the other nations who arrived subsequently. The whole evening was bathed in an atmosphere of contrition and remorse. Humanly speaking, the scene was set for a mighty move of God's Spirit. Seed was sown for the spiritual renewal of the African continent, for it to become a light to the nations. A second theme running through the drama on the stage was a fire - revival fire to be lit. At the closing ceremony a prophetic word through came that God had released his angels to assist in bringing about transformation.
Rosemarie and I were privileged to sense a snippet of the divine work behind the scenes after I had received an invitation to a meeting the following day where we would meet Brasilian policemen who attended the Global Day of Prayer (GdoP) Conference. Jane Flack, a devout prayer warrior who had been leading intercession at the Hout Bay Police Station had met these Brasilian policemen at the GdoP conference. On Saturday morning 22 May 2010 The Brasilians had with them a moving video produced by our very own YWAM-related Media Village in Muizenberg and Kalk Bay, that depicts how the city of Sao Paulo was transformed through prayer. At the same occasion I also heard of a Christian strategy meeting the following Saturday. I took the bull by the horns to remind the policemen present how their Western Cape leader pre-empted a major catastrophe in 2008 after the increase of xenophobic violence.


Chapter 29 Jews First!

After the arrival of Leigh and Rabbah (Paul) Telli in 2003/4, we were very much challenged to get Muslim/Jewish dialogue and reconciliation going here at the Cape, but it never seemed to get off the ground. I feel really addressed and challenged to give this a greater priority.
At the beginning of 2010 I was deeply moved when I discerned that Isaac and Ishmael, the two eldest sons of Abraham, had actually buried their father together (Genesis 25:9). The evident reconciliation must have been preceded by confession and remorse.
I started to pray more intensely that a representative body of Christians might express regret and offer an apology on behalf of Christians for a) the side-lining and persecution of Jews by Christians

Sovereign moves of God
On 11 October the Lord ministered to me three weeks ago from Romans 1:16 when we received the LCJE Bulletin: Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus, highlighted 'Jews first' in his paper delivered as part of the Jewish Evangelism track at Lausanne II in Manila, 1989. In the summary of his paper of 1989 he suggested that 'God’s formula' for worldwide evangelization is to bring the gospel to the Jew first. Highlighting the example of Paul: ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek’ (Romans 1:16), Rosen suggested in the same paper that ‘by not following God’s programme for worldwide evangelisation – that is, beginning with Jerusalem (Israel, and the Jews) – we not only develop a bad theology because of weak foundations, but we also develop poor missiological practices.’ I felt personally challenged to get involved with Jews as well.
The very next day Brett Viviers, a Messianic Jewish believer, a former elder at Cape Town Baptist Church, whose daughter's prayers were instrumental in linking us up with that fellowship in 1993. (He also assisted to renovate the delapidated house in Vredehoek that we were able to buy in 1993, together with Pastor Melvin Maxegwana). I sensed that this was God at work!
As a result of my meeting Brett the next day the resolve was strengthened to meet other Jewish believers and intensify contacts with the few we know. At our meeting Brett was encouraged to read some of my material on the Internet. Hereupon, Brett decided to start Isaac/Ishmael Christian Ministries. After having stopped attending a Sunday congregational church fellowship and rather going on mountain hikes on Sundays, he also started attending our home fellowship on Wednesday evenings.
Achmed Kariem had been approaching me for years to start an equivalent of Jews for Jesus for MBBs. I have been encouraging him to take the initiative and start with it himself. In 2009 the plight of Rifqa Bary, a MBB teenager from Ohio (USA), whose life was threatened because of he decision to follow Christ. Achmed started a Facebook support group which effectively saved the life of Rifqa.
On 19 October we received an email from Liz Campbell, sharing 'that Baruch and Karen Maayan (Rudnick) and their five amazing children are back in Cape Town from Israel.  A quick and sovereign move of God believe me, and worth coming and finding out why! … we have sent this out to not only those who know Baruch and Karen but to those we know will be greatly touched and taught by Baruch's ministry.'
The meeting on the Saturday afternoon of 23 October at a private address in Milnerton with the Maayan family was a special occasion. I was very much embarassed though when I broke down uncontrollably as I was completely overawed by a sense of guilt towards Jews while I felt an urge to apologise on behalf of Christians for the fact that we have been side-lining the Jews as our Christian forbears have haughtily replaced the nation of Israel and the Jews. This was an answer to prayer, but it was nevertheless very embarassing, especially as many others present followed suit. (On Signal Hill at the beginning of the month I stated publicly the need for tears of remorse as a prerequisite for revival and that I was praying for it that I may also genuinely experience this.) The 'sea of tears' however knitted our hearts to the Maayan family. After an ansence of 11 years, the Lord had called them back to be part of a movement to take the gospel via house churches from Cape Town throughout the continent of Africa, ultimately back to Jerusalem. Ethiopia somewhere also featured in his expereinces.

Replace Theology still an Issue?
It was very special for Rosemarie and me to attend the international LCJE Conference on 15 October, for the first time in Cape Town. Folk from all over the world who are somehow involved with outreach to Jews, including of course those who specially came for Lausanne III. It was however very much of a shock to hear that that a few lines in the draft for Lausanne III were supporting so-called 'Replacement Theology,' that the Church had replaced Israel as God's special instrument.
On Sunday evening 24 October I received an SMS from our friend Richard Mitchell whether he could come and stay with us for a few days. (We had been working together so closely in the mid and late 1990s in the prayer movement at the Cape and especially in the fight against the PAGAD onslaught and battle against the effort to Islamising the Western Cape until his departure for the UK in 1999. Richard was also my presenter on the CCFM radio programme 'God changes Lives.') I knew that Richard had been attending Lausanne III, but somehow we could not find a moment to meet each other.
Tuesday 26 October was quite eventful as I took Richard along to Noordhoek where we had a wonderful post-Lausanne report back by Floyd McClung, our leader. He requested me to share as well, knowing that Rosemarie and I attended Connected 2010, the conference specially organised for all those who were not invited to the main event at the International Convention Centre. I spontaneously went overboard in Noordhoek by also sharing our concern that a few lines in the draft for Lausanne III were supporting so-called 'Replacement Theology.' I was promptly called to book in an email the following day, a very painful experience indeed. I had taken for granted that our concern would be shared in that context. The email rattled me quite a lot when I had to discover how deep-seated the effects of Replacement Theology still is among evangelicals. This was even more so when we had to learn that also at the Convention Centre they needed a lot of further deliberation to draft wording which could be included in the final Cape Town Commitment document.

Cape Jewish-Muslim Relations
The Wednesday afternoon we had a meeting lined up to launch Jewish-Muslim Reconciliation under the banner of the Lamb with Achmed Kariem and Brett Viviers. It was very special to have the Hindu back-ground Richard, alongside me. He linked up wonderfully with Brett. We agreed to invite a few followers of Jesus from Jewish and Muslim background to a meeting on Saturday 30 November.
A week prior to this event I received an SMS from Baruch Mayaan who invited me to a meeting in a lunch time Gardens meeting, together with Ahmed Kariem. He informed us of their intention to have evenings of fellowship and prayer in Caleremont as from the following Monday. Brett and I attended from the first one.

Leigh and Rosemarie attended a synagogue service on Friday evening on 3 December. Rosemarie was deeply touched to discover that Yeshua occurred so often in the Hebrew transcription of the liturgy used. We decide to attend synagogue as often as possible. The first opportunity would hav been on 16 December in the course of a 'Reconciliation Walk', which started at St George Cathedral and include visits to the Gardens Shul and the Palm tree mosque in Long Street. I emailed a statement to the organisers, drafted as a document of Ishmael-Isaac Christian Ministries. With three talk alrady scheduled, the organisers felt that they could not accommodate the reading of it. I was at peace wit this decision, sensing that we were not on the same wave length. Perhaps it was also not yet the timing of going public with the confession on behalf of Christians.
For that same day we had a 'Reconciliation Braai' scheduled, with believers from Jewish and Muslim background along with a few others who longed to see 'Following the Lamb' as the route to go forward into2011.
A few days later we attended a prayer meeting at the home of Gay French with Baruch and Karen Maayan where the issue of playing for the veil to be removed. It was highlighted that there are actually more than one veil. Jews have to discern that Yeshuah is the Messiah, Christians that they have been may accept thatthe nation of Israel has been replaced by the Church with protest and Muslims have to discover that Muhammad was no prophet at all. In all cases it would need divine intervention to change the vision within the various groups.

29. CONCLUSION

When I went through the manuscript of this book once again as we continued to pray for the financial confirmation for publication, the issue of general confession by Christian leaders for failings in respect of Islam and Judaism cropped up again. In my view not only Christian theologians, but also many rank and file followers of our Lord and Saviour have been estranging Jews and Muslims, driving them away from personal faith in the Jesus of the Gospels. I sensed however that I had no right to push the issue unless I had genuine deep remorse in my own heart. Using James 5:16 as a cue, I had been sharing my dilemma with our Friends from Abroad team colleagues at our Discipling House and with other intercessors. I started to pray that God would sow seeds for revival into my own heart anew, a genuine love and compassion for the lost, the weary, the needy and the destitute.

I pray that the present book might radiate and verbalise in a loving and unjudgmental way not only my sorrow and disappointment around failures of the Church at large, but also my excitement that God has started to do a new thing in our city and on our continent. Simultaneously I pray: ‘Lord, forbid that the publication would further harden attitudes to these groups. Let it rather serve as seed for revival in our city, our country and our continent!’
All sorts of open-ended questions keep on milling through my head. For example, I have been asking myself how the wider Body of Christ could get involved in transformation in a meaningful way. Through our deficient collective response in June 2008 to the wide-spread xenophobia we may have missed one of the most wonderful chances given to us. Nevertheless, we are thankful that the tragedy of mid-2008 unified the body of Christ to some extent. How are we going to respond to the challenges of 2011?

Special Divine Instruments
We should keep in mind that the Bible is full of examples of pariahs and outsiders of their society that God used in powerful ways. Ever since my studies at the Moravian Theological Seminary in District Six from 1971 to 1973, I have been sensitive to this phenomenon. The greatest instruments in the hand of the Almighty seem to have been repentant people like changed murderers (such as Moses, King David and Paul). He also used a liberated former demon-possessed prostitute like Mary Magdalene. (She became the carrier of the evangel, the Good News of the resurrection of our Lord – John 20:18).
We are still on the lookout for unlikely people from a secular perspective - like the morally despicable Samaritan woman of John 4 - to ignite divine fire on our continent in a big way. After all, didn’t God possibly use her to prepare the revival in Samaria (Acts 8), which in turn moved Philip? (This Greek-speaking deacon was the divine instrument to minister to the Ethiopian eunuch, who became the first known indigenous evangelist to the African continent.) The woman whom everyone in the village of Sychar may have despised, was God’s channel to nudge the villagers towards the discovery that Jesus was indeed the Saviour of the World (John 4:42).

Possible Signs of a genuine Revival
What could be signs of the beginnings of a genuine revival in the Cape Peninsula, which would usher in a massive movement of God on the African continent?
I believe that a significant move of the Holy Spirit among Jews and Muslims at the Cape would be a sure sign that the fervently awaited spiritual renewal has arrived, that a divine visitation is a reality and not a manipulated or hyped-up revival. This would be a miracle of such magnitude that no human being could have brought it into being.
Followers of Jesus could play a special role through intensified intercession and compassionate sharing the love of our Master - that God may reveal himself to Jews and Muslims in places like Sea Point and Bo-Kaap, the respective strongholds of the other two Abrahamic religions in the Mother City of South Africa. It is our vision to get followers of Jesus Christ – including those from Islamic background and Jews whose eyes have been opened to Him as their Messiah – moving forward in a united way. This would be completely in line with Genesis 25, where the two sons of Abraham buried their father together – evidence of true reconciliation. This must have had a run-up where Ishmael and Isaac had put the mistakes and sins of their parents aside. We must take this as a special challenge for the Church to be a catalyst to enable this where possible. I want to remain open for correction but my present conviction is that the provocation of Jews – possibly through expression of regret, remorse, repentance and confession for pride and arrogance of the Church – could just be the trigger to ignite the dynamite. The Church must still discover by and large that the gospel is dynamis, the power of God unto salvation ….to the Jews first
(Romans 1:16). There is enough evidence that the Mother City of South Africa could be the advance guard of a special move of God in this regard. The events of 2010, notably the ripples sent out from Lausanne III into all corners of the earth, might be only harbingers of greater things to transpire.

A possible Catalyst towards spiritual Renewal
I believe that the combined expression of the Body of Christ in remorseful confession and repentance could be a catalyst towards spiritual renewal. It would be great if local churches could muster forces in prayer and action towards godly governance on the short term. This would be but a small - and yet significant – step. How wonderful it would be if church leaders could be the channel, voicing regret which could ignite remorse; that so many of our forebears claimed that the Church came in the place of the nation of Israel; that some of our co-religionists like Waraqah bin Naufal have been misleading Muhammad and because of that, millions are now caught in the web of religious bondage; that the Church via our colonial heritage have also profited from a multitude of power-related transgressions against indigenous peoples.
The acknowledgment that Islam is the result of heretical Christianity and distorted Judaism could be a possible catalyst for spiritual renewal.99 A precedent has been set in Rustenburg in 1990 when White participants confessed their ‘racial arrogance toward Black culture’. It is high time that the Church in this country should follow this up regarding Judaism, Islam and systematic economic exploitation. It is my firm belief that the verbalizing of remorseful regret – along with any restitution that might be appropriate - could go some way towards ushering in a new future for all of us on the African continent and beyond, as followers of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! In Luke 4:18-21 our Lord has set out the path of God’s mission to the world, viz. an evangelizing dimension – Good News to the poor; a healing and liberating dimension - restoring sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed, also to the spiritually blind and those bound with religious chains!
Before the worldwide revival in 1904, which started in Wales, there was a period of 7-8 years where the thrust of prayer began increasing all over the world in many countries. In Wales there was suddenly an increase in prayer since 1897, a hunger for revival and a deep concern about the state of the Church. This was accompanied by a sense of awe at the holiness of God and a deep awareness of sin. This element seems to be present in all genuine revivals.
Believers in Wales prayed for seven years for revival with increasing intensity. Thereafter nations started to prosper; poverty was dealt a severe blow. That is the sort of result we would like to see! Thankfully, something similar to this has started again in different countries, possibly much wider than the one at the turn of the 20th century, but not nearly as deep in remorse over sinful ways.
There is yet another signal that could indicate that revival will have arrived; that is, if local churches start to drop their narrow parochial mind-sets, and begin to radiate the image of the rainbow nation, reflecting a full spectrum of colours of the manifold wisdom of God (Ephesians 3:10).100
However, tolerance of sin might be a stumbling block and obstacle to revival. The acknowledgement and confession of the intolerable weight of guilt has occasionally caused revivals of great proportions. The last time this happened in South Africa was in the mid-1960s. In the tribal 'homeland' of Kwazulu Pastor Erlo Stegen was overwhelmed by his racial prejudice. His confession and restitution ushered in the Kwasiza Bantu revival, impacting the country in a big way breaking down race prejudice in an unprecedented manner. Confession also played a significant role in the start of the prayer movement when Gerda Leithgöb and her prayer warrior colleagues started to offer remorseful confession at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria.
May the Lord give to us deep remorse for the triplets of abomination that plague our country. Arrogance towards people of other religions seems to be very deep-seated. Humility in sharing the Gospel to all and sundry would be appropriate.
Let us pray that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Holiness, may bring about a deep and broad sense of dependence on God, genuine remorse and confession of sinful practices.
The sharing of resources – material and spiritual – and the visible demonstration across the board that all walls of partition have been broken down by the Calvary event, would be a signpost indicating that we are en route to God’s new age, to the reign of the Messiah. The public manifestation of the unity of the Body of Christ, e.g. on the new Cape Town Stadium on 22 March 2010, was such an opportunity. This does not mean that every fellowship would be involved with all these aspects, but as the Church – spelt with the capital C, the Body of Christ- joins and networks, the coming of our Bridegroom could be ushered in. Together we would then be able to cry out with joy and expectation: Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus, our King of Kings!







Weekly Notes 31 October

What a week once again! Even more hectic than last week! And just as wonderful, if not better! Let me jot down some of the highlights while they are still fresh!

Last week I shared about the great meeting with Bruce Rudnick. The Jewish 'thing' had very much of a special note the last few days, interspersed with a lot of interaction with Pastor Richard Mitchell, the father of Sebastian and Candice. Some of you may remember him. In the 1990s we prayed with them on Signal Hill and Richard was my presenter on the programme God changes lives. Sheralyn might have encountered him at CCFM. He was also my informant of much of the action where I was not present myself in the negotiations with the gangsters and PAGAD when civil war was threatening as the drug lords which were masquerading as gentlemen who were fighting gangsterism and drug abuse.
Richard came for the Lausanne conference from England where they have been living the last 11 years.



Appendix 1

Calling Upon Cape Town
Prophecy of Johan Boot 29 August 1998
Isaiah 43:18-20 'Forget the former things. Do not dwell in the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up do you not perceive it? I am making a way! Streams in the wastelands ... to give drink to my people.

I am doing a new thing in the city of Cape Town. Now is the time that I will re-establish her calling. For she has failed many times in what I have called her for. But yet again, I will raise up a people to fulfill this call. Cape Town is called as a cornerstone for the Gospel in Africa. Upon her foundation My Kingdom and good news into Africa was built. Yet she has lifted up her head and has turned from her calling. She has been made drunk with the wine of sinners and has fallen asleep. She is being taken over by the wicked and her calling has been forgotten.

Yet, I am again calling my people to arise and take up the responsibility to fulfill this call. I will shake this city with My anger and flood it with My grace. I will shake it so that all will know that I am not pleased. Yet, I will pour out My grace that those who hear My call will be drawn into My Kingdom. I am raising a new generation who will re-establish my call upon Africa and who will run like men with wings into Africa to accomplish what I have called her to do. I am calling (all) the spiritual fathers in this city to come together to form an army of workers who will re-establish the spiritual foundations of Cape Town.
He lifts up a banner for the (distant) nations. He whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come swiftly and speedily (Isaiah 5:26).
When the foundation of Cape Town are firmly laid in unity upon my purpose for Africa, I will open the gates into Africa. These are spiritual gates that have been locked for ages that I will open when my people will come as one and will walk in unity and humility. (Isaiah 58:12, 'Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and raise up the foundations of many generations and you will be called the repairer of broken walls, restorer of streets with dwellings.') When the spiritual fathers in the city unite, I will open the gates and My people will be released to fulfill the task. I will release the spirit of love and wisdom to operate through My apostles and prophets in this city to lay foundations and to release My purposes into Africa. (Habakkuk 3:2 Lord, I have heard of your fame, I stand in awe of Your deeds. O Lord, renew/revive in our time, make them known in wrath remember mercy.) Isaiah 62:10, Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up the highway, remove the stones, raise a banner for the nations.
When the foundation is established, I will raise up the young ones to go through the gates to build up the highway for the preparation of my coming (Isaiah 5 and Joel 2).
I will raise up a banner to the nations that will be carried along this highway into Africa. My name shall be lifted up in this continent. For those who are first will be last and those who are last will be first. I will use this foundation laid by my apostles and prophets to be an example to the nations.
In the place where satan has tried to divide and destroy, I will lay a cornerstone of unity. Because of the division between Black and White through the ages, My power could not be fully released upon this continent.
(I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them. I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then, they will follow and keep My law. Ezekiel 11;19)
If my people in Cape Town will pray, humble themselves, repent, and come as one people before Me, I will open the gates and My Spirit shall be released upon Africa.
(Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, Your sons and your daughters shall prophecy…)
Many have spoken and prophesied about the revival that will begin in Cape Town. 'this is the key to that revival,' says the Lord. Yet, the foundation may not be selfish, for then the revival will not come. If the foundation is to release my people to go through and build up the highway into Africa I will send the revival. Until that day of unity and the laying of new foundations in unity, I will not release My Spirit and blessing. This is not the call upon one church and one group, but it is the call upon My whole Church in Cape Town. Unless you all come as one, I will not do this.
Therefore reach out to your brother, repent for your pride and arrogance and come in unity before Me, for then I will command My blessing.
I will use the apostles and prophets in this city to gather others and to begin to run into Africa with My purpose and call. As you move up into Africa and build up the highway and remove the stones, the church will move as one. Each one will leave his own house and will begin to build on the house of the Lord.
Yes, many will laugh and will say this is impossible, but I am He Who will act on behalf of My people. And the world shall come to this city and they will learn from the fathers in the city and I will raise up a banner here that will never go down until I return. It will be a place where people of the world shall come to see the power of God as it flows from the foundations of the apostles and prophets. In many places you will find larger churches and revivals in Africa, but in no other place will you find the foundations as pure and strong. The fathers in the city shall walk as one and shall not turn against each other, each one going his own way.
(He is the sure foundation of our time, a rich stone of salvation. Wisdom and knowledge, the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.)
Arise and shine, for My light is upon you! I am waiting for your unity, that I might fulfill My call and purpose in Africa.



Appendix 2

FROM A GOY WITH LOVE – YOU'RE NOT ALONE
by Elizabeth Campbell-Robertson
How odd of God
To choose the Jews
But odder still
A Shikzah
With a lot of Chutzpah.

To sound an alarm
Before any more harm
To awaken the Jews
To their God given queues

For centuries you've been reeling
mocked, hated and left bleeding
Paying the price in full
Seeming so Godless and cruel.

But the end is now near
For your God to appear
You've drunken the cup
So now you mustn't give up.

But return to your God I plead
By remembering His help in past need
For our planet is groaning
And full of bitter moaning.

For the Sons of God to arise
In this hour of great demise
SHEMA ISRAEL – THE LORD YOUR GOD IS ONE
Savior of EVERYONE.
(Please check the next part where I doubled up some lines

So OK  now Abraham's Kids
Both Gentiles and Yids
Lets join hearts very fast
Jerusalem, in Jewish hands must last.
Whether you like it or not
Its always been Gods plot
For together we must go
No matter the foe.

For YOUR God is our Redeemer
Beyachad we can shout “KADIMA!” 



Meanings of Jewish or Yiddish words in the Poem
(in the order in which they occur)

Goy - Gentile (Goyim is plural for many Gentiles)
Shikzah - slang for Gentile girl
Chutzpah - a nerve or a cheek, being cheeky! :-)
Shema - hear!
Yid – Possibly Yidish for a Jewish person
Beyachad - together
Kadima - continue or go forward or advance forward

When I took a young Muslim lady whom we had taken into our home for a few months after rescueing her from a shelter on Monday 1 February, we hoped that we would have a more restful period would start. We should have known that the beginning of February is never restful. We had not envisaged that two torrid weeks would follow.
On Tuesday Emmanuel, a convert from Nigeria phoned if he could come and speak to me. He and his wife were doing the YWAM school of Biblical Studies in Muizenberg. The next day he phoned again, wanting to come and speak to me urgently. This resulted in us hosting him and his wife after there had come a threat from his home country. This was not the first time that we now had to hide a hide a Muslim background believer for fear of him being hunted down for fear of his life. But there was a heavy atmosphere hanging for almost two weeks as we looked for alternative accommodation for them.
Appendix 3
Excerpt from the Family Policy Institute Newsletter - January 2010, written by Errol Naidoo
On Friday 29 January, I presented an oral submission on the Review of Gambling Legislation to the Portfolio Committee on Trade & Industry in Parliament. Significantly, this was my first oral presentation to the 4th Democratic Parliament since it was sworn in during April 2009.
Following my presentation which focussed on the devastating impact of legalized gambling on the family, I nervously waited for the response from the ANC dominated Parliamentary Committee.
I was pleasantly surprised however, when ANC stalwart, Professor Ben Turok, responded by thanking me for what he described as “the best submission he’s heard in that Committee”.
Various members of the Committee, including those from opposition parties agreed and even thanked me for taking a moral and pragmatic approach to addressing legalized gambling.
What's so remarkable about this is the fact that it confirms government’s shift in attitude toward the Church – further supporting the view that you & I will be given unprecedented opportunity to influence the nation this year. Whenever I presented a moral and pro-family argument to Parliament in the past, I was shot down for “imposing my views on others”...
Door opening
On Friday 26 September 2009 Family Policy Institute hosted Project Care’s first major meeting for 2010 at the Cape Town Baptist Church. A broad alliance of 18 Christian organisations linked forces under the Project Care banner to fight human trafficking and legalised prostitution in South Africa.
Some of the ministries involved are, Stop Trafficking Of People (STOP), Justice Acts, Not for Sale, Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA), Christian Action Network (CAN), Victory International, Straatwerk, Inter-outreach Ministries, Feet of Mercy, Grace Outreach and Arts in Action.
Thankfully, many Churches have awakened to the growing threat of human trafficking & are joining the alliance of Church movements & ministries to end the sexual exploitation of women & children.


The Dream: Africa Ablaze with God's Glory

…I had a powerful dream and saw the continent of Africa with fires being lit all over it. East Africa was ablaze and this was the first part of Africa to ignite, but the fire of God was not limited only to the East. It touched Nigeria, the west, and ran like a river of fire down from the north to the south also. The continent changed to a scroll and I was instructed to swallow the scroll in my dream. I did this and my belly became full of the fire of God burning within me. The fire began to flow from my belly and different African nations were discernible in form in the fire. The fire speaks of the coming revival and a move of God in Africa…

… I ... saw again the continent of Africa, and understood I was looking down through many centuries of time into the past. I witnessed nations come from the west to enslave Africans and my heart was broken. Then an amazing thing happened in my dream as we transitioned to present-time revelation: The "tables were turned" and the one who had formerly been enslaved was now no longer a slave; and this African person reached out in mercy to the one from the west who had made them a slave, and immediately bridges of mercy appeared all over Africa.
The release of mercy caused Africa's borders to extend as bridges of God's mercy were sent to reach the nations. The bridges speak of African Believers anointed with the mercy of God to bring restoration to those who are now enslaved to sin in the west. Africa grew in size in my dream as God's mercy was extended—…

… God spoke to me by His Spirit and said, "The Enslaved shall become the Emancipator." Under the anointing described in Isaiah 61, African Believers are being sent out to the nations to bring deliverance to western nations who are now entrenched (and thus enslaved) in sin. …

… Africa is a gateway continent, which means that whatever is bound and loosed in Africa, will therefore be bound and loosed on the earth. Through Africa, the west can receive blessing or cursing, depending on who is doing the binding and the loosing! If the Church in Africa will rise up and take her place in divine destiny, God is going to release mighty waves of His redemptive glory through African ministers and ministries that will bring transformation to the nations.

Time for a Change of Mindset
… it is time for a shift in our mindset. It is not about what the west can bring to Africa; it is about how black and white can come together in the divine purposes of God to execute His will in the nations. May God grant us wisdom and revelation to understand our calling and its context in this hour as we walk in Holy Spirit inspired alliances…

Vision of the White Horse and the Revival Elephant
I received this vision during worship at our conference on Thursday, 21 January 2010:

In a vision I saw a magnificent white horse riding towards me; it was powerful and immediately I thought that this could be the type of horse that Christ might ride upon as the Lord of Hosts. Suddenly, the vision changed and before me was a majestic African elephant running at full speed and with absolute focus. It was a breathtaking picture of beauty and power.
The Holy Spirit said to me, "The western world thinks revival is coming on a white horse, but tell the earth to get ready because revival is coming in an unstoppable 'elephant stampede.'" The elephant speaks of the tribes of Africa as they go forth carrying the glory of God to change the nations. This does not mean that western nations will not be used by God in end-time revival, but God wants us to understand the place of Africa in His end-time destiny for nations…

Email of Errol Naidoo: 14 April 2010
Clive Human from Standing Together to Oppose Pornography (STOP) and I received invitations from Dep Minister Malusi Gigaba to attend the Home Affairs Budget Vote at Parliament on 14 April. I was encouraged by the commitment of Home Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Deputy Minister Gigaba and various senior department officials to eradicate the terrible scourge of child pornography in South Africa and strictly regulate adult pornography in the public domain.

When I met with Deputy Minister Gigaba and Films & Publications Board CEO, Yoliswa Makhasi at Parliament on 11 March, they indicated their desire to introduce legislation to prohibit sexually explicit images in the public domain and strictly regulate its dissemination in adult shops. I am happy to report these are not just empty words. Gigaba is driven by a strong conviction that the rights, protection & dignity of women & children must take precedence over other rights.

In his speech, Gigaba reiterated his department’s commitment to eradicating the scourge of child pornography in South Africa and to strictly regulate the access to adult pornography.

He said “The Law Reform Commission had been asked to investigate whether pornographic material broadcast on TV, carried on the internet and downloaded on to cellphones could also be banned. We are awaiting the report of the Law Reform Commission on our request for advice on the possibility to prohibit pornography in the mass media, public broadcasters as well as on the internet and mobile phones. We are determined to have legislation to protect our children”.

“Those who want to view pornography must do so in the privacy of well-regulated adult shops.” Gigaba said he was delighted that satellite TV provider Multi- Choice had shelved plans to introduce a 24-hour porn channel. “We applaud all South Africans who stood firm in the rejection of this nefarious idea, and regret that MultiChoice even thought of it. “We must continue to steadfastly refuse to accept that pornography be brought into our living rooms.”

Sudan has - the oldest community of Christians in the largest country in Africa
suffering some of the worst persecution, in the longest war of the 20th century
with the fastest church growth
and with more Muslims coming to Christ than possibly anywhere else


I am encouraged by Patricia De Lille’s recent appointment as Western Cape MEC for Social Development. I have been negotiating with her predecessor for the use of a government facility we hope to transform into a crisis centre/ safe house/drug rehab for our Project Care network.
The feisty De Lille may prove to be perfectly positioned to help us in our work to rescue women & children from the illegal sex industry. Helen Zille's cabinet reshuffle may be a blessing in disguise.
I am saddened to receive news that Ellen Jordan has passed away on 17 September. Ellen is the former lesbian brothel madam who spent millions in 2002 challenging the laws on prostitution. She lost that battle in the Constitutional Court – bankrupting herself in the process.
The good news is that Ellen had a miraculous experience with the Lord in her hospital room and gave her life to Christ. She spent a week with me in November 2009, warning about the horrors of the sex industry. She did several media interviews opposing decriminalised prostitution in SA.
Before her redemption, Ellen Jordan was a major figure in South Africa’s illegal sex industry. She had extensive knowledge & experience about the criminal underworld that controls prostitution.
Following her salvation experience, Ellen exposed the terrible abuse and sexual exploitation of women and children in prostitution. I am grateful for the brief time I had with her. More importantly, I thank God she had the opportunity to repent and receive Jesus as her Saviour.
Ellen Jordan’s story is a timely reminder that every single women trapped in prostitution has a chance at redemption and an opportunity for a life of dignity & purpose in Jesus Christ.
I encourage you to get actively involved in or support the work of Project Care in your region. Many women’s lives have already been transformed because a Christian cared enough to take action.


There are some amazing movements that are happening in the world today. More people have come to faith in Jesus in the last sixty years than all the rest of church history combined in the previous two thousand years! Here are some of the movements taking place that are remarkable:

Iran—In the early 1970s there were close to three thousand known followers of Jesus in Iran. Today there are hundreds of thousands of believers—some say there may be as many as a million! That growth has taken place during a time of Islamic fervor and revolution.

South Korea—In the year 1900, Christians were less than 1 percent of the population of South Korea. Today they are nearly 35 percent of the country. Seven of the world’s ten largest congregations are found in its capital, Seoul. The world’s largest Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Assemblies of God congregations are all there.

Nepal—When I first visited Nepal in 1972 there were fewer than 5,000 believers, and today there are more than 750,000 first-generation Christians in Nepal. Several years ago, the movement of people coming to faith grew so large that the Hindu  government was forced to change the constitution to grant freedom to follow Christ. There are quite a few All Nations churches growing rapidly in Nepal.

The Muslim world—I believe the most incredible work of the Holy Spirit is happening in the so-called closed countries of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Indonesia. Literally tens of millions of Muslims in these regions of the world have come to faith in Christ. There has been suffering, and there are many issues of discipleship, but still— we should hold back rejoicing at how the Holy Spirit is drawing so many Muslims to Jesus.

Brazil, Cuba, and Latin America—The explosion of new believers in Brazil almost defies imagination. And the stories of God’s work in that country are repeated over and over again in other Latin lands: Argentina, Costa Rica, and Columbia. Perhaps the book-of-Acts story most hidden from our eyes in the West is the explosion of the church in Cuba. Under the harsh Castro regime the church has grown and flourished, led by simple servants of God who refuse to look to the West for money or models for how to grow spiritually strong church movements.

India—The numbers are almost too much to take in, but one thing must be said: There is a vast movement of Dalits (“untouchables”) that are migrating toward Christ in India today. Whole villages and castes and clans are tired of the abuses of Brahmin Hinduism, so they are seeking hope in Jesus. One medical doctor in North India told me he could not carry on his work because hundreds of people from one village were camping out in the parking lot of the hospital, refusing to leave until he baptized them. Wonderfully, the greatest breakthroughs are happening in North India in states too vast in size to comprehend.

China—One respected journalist who has lived and worked in China for many years recently estimated that the number of believers in the underground church has swollen to over two hundred million.


proposal of an Anti-Internet Pornography Bill by the Justice Alliance of South Africa to the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs as a possible solution to (partly) combating the scourge of pornography in South Africa.
This proposed Bill comes as a result of calls from Deputy Minister of Home Affairs to ban pornography from the public sphere and to ensure the protection of children. Deputy Minister Gigaba has also requested the South African Law Reform Commission to look into this possibility of banning pornography on the internet, cell phones and on television.

Research done by the Film and Publications Board in 2006 found that 64% of teenagers surveyed had been exposed to pornographic images on the internet and 81% admitted they had seen such images on their friends cell phones.
Despite attempts by pro-prostitution groups to downplay the threat of increased prostitution and sex trafficking in the lead up to the World Cup, several articles have appeared in the news recently that exposed their deception. SAPA distributed how '21 Women were Rescued from Traffickers'


Women rescued from alleged brothel

May 30 2010 at 10:57PM






South African police have rescued 21 Thai women believed to be human-trafficking victims from an alleged brothel, a spokesperson said on Sunday.

"We suspect that they may be victims of human trafficking," said Paul Ramaloko, spokesperson for the Hawks specialised crime-fighting unit.

"We really couldn't establish whether they are victims of trafficking or not so what we have done is we have removed them to a place of safety and then we are just going to conduct some interviews with them."

Police acted on a tip-off early on Saturday morning that the women, who range from 23 to 27 years old, had been trafficked and were being sexually exploited in Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg, he said.
The women had all been in South Africa for less than a month.

A South African woman was arrested for allegedly operating an illegal brothel.

Passports belonging to the Thai women were recovered alongside cash and a small amount of heroin, said Ramaloko.

South Africa has beefed up anti-trafficking measures, including proposing its first direct legislation, and has set up regional police co-ordinators and task teams ahead of the Fifa World Cup which starts on June 11. - Sapa-AFP
On Sunday, 24 May 2010, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, during a
public rally, spoke a curse over ANC members. Although professing to be a
Christian and being made an "honorary pastor", the President invoked the
Ancestral spirits to haunt those members of the ANC who dares to leave the
party. The Bible clearly teaches that life and death lies in the tongue
(Proverbs 18:21). This curse opens the door for death into South Africa,
which is already plagued by much violence and corruption.



Highlights:
10.08 After return from Europe book sales (Noeline) and Earl
18.09 Munyaradzi: Brazilians, Angus Buchan (26.09) ,
22.09 Hout Bay DVD Police Change – prayer on 10 October??


July 7 Meeting with Provincial Parliament (Faith based organisations)


26 august
Errol Naidoo's submission on gambling law reform to parliament, his partnership with the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba to ban internet pornography, and my work to inform government about the dangers of legalised prostitution, all bear witness to a more family-friendly environment.

Report of World cup prayers etc??


Errol Naidoo Newsletter 9 Decemberr 2010

I am grateful to God for the many victories this year. Highlights include the successful hosting of the Symposium on Pornography in July in, which consensus was reached that legislation was necessary to ban internet pornography. The “Outoilet” saga helped support our argument.
I am also grateful to God the anticipated increase in prostitution and human trafficking during the World Cup failed to materialise. I attribute this to the fervent prayers of Christians across the country and government’s response to the public awareness campaigns by FPI and its partners.
I thank God for my strategic partners in the fight against legalised prostitution. Our plans for the battle next year is well advanced. We have put everything in place to protect women & children.