SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER Part 2

Part 2

                                      10. Prayer and Interaction with Islam

            After our return to Europe in 1981 - after having been at the Cape for six months - Rosemarie and I were divided on the issue of where we should be serving the Lord. In fact, an old wound had been opened: I yearned to return to my home country even though I knew that it was well nigh impossible. 

            My interest in fighting apartheid was definitely not completely altruistic. In order to achieve my heart’s deep desire to return to South Africa, the racist laws had to be dismantled. Rosemarie on the other hand was relieved that we got out of the threatening cauldron more or less unscathed. Our personal experiences and involvement in political turmoil during the first half of 1981 caused fierce resentment in Rosemarie towards South Africa. During tense weeks before our departure for Europe we had to reckon with the possibility of being killed or arrested all the time. The months preceding this event were not easy at all, as we had to struggle through all sorts of apartheid red tape. Then there had been the attitude of locals and that of the churches! On more than one occasion we experienced from close range how the political climate in the country was heating up to near boiling point. But we knew that God had brought us together, and that we had to be called together to whatever country He would choose. With little conviction Rosemarie allowed me to write to the Dorothea Mission to enquire about possibilities and an enquiry to teach at a school in Lesotho came up. But in neither case a door opened. For work among street children in Brazil we did not find complete unity as I still wanted to return to Africa at least. What appeared to us like a stalemate situation was of course not impossible for God! In a sovereign way, He would turn the impasse around to bring us back to South Africa in 1992. We had as yet no clue that our prayerful involvement with the Goed Nieuws Karavaan in Zeist was part and parcel of God’s preparation for an increased role in the loving outreach to Muslims.

Missionary work in West Africa?

Since the early 1980s we attended the annual mission conferences in Holland as a family, but everything still seemed far away. In 1988 it appeared as if the ‘door’s to the mission field were finally opening. The visit of the Dutch AIM (Africa Inland Mission) leaders to our home in Zeist was the catalyst to start using the book Operation World, praying systematically with our children through all the African countries. In this way we hoped to discern in which country the Lord could use us. The effect of these prayers at meal times was initially not positive at all, if not counter-productive. Our sprouts did not seem excited at all at the prospect of having to leave Europe for what they perceived as primitive Africa. But our children now noticed that we meant business.

            All changed when Marry Schotte, a missionary from WEC International, came along with a video of the mission school in Côte d’Ivoire where she was teaching. Suddenly our children caught the vision to go with us to West Africa. At our extended weekly family devotions, even the little ones now started to pray fervently for a teacher to accompany us to Bulstrode in England as part of our missionary training.  There we would have to go and do our WEC Candidates’ Orientation Programme.

A supernatural Challenge to tackle the Wall of Islam

The release of Dr Nelson Mandela ushered in a new era in the country as a whole. He spent twenty seven years of his life in custody at the Cape, namely on Robben Island, as well as at the Pollsmoor and Victor Verster Prisons. In a letter to the Muslim Judicial Council, he wrote about his visits to the Kramat (shrine) on Robben Island. In the spiritual realm he probably forged a link to Islam that impacted his rule later as State President.

            At the time that Nelson Mandela was released, I was in West Africa on an orientation visit with a view to teaching Mathematics at a school for missionary kids. The three weeks there were sufficient to excite me about the possibilities of sharing the gospel in West Africa. The discussions at the school in Vavoua (Ivory Coast) were promising, although I saw that merely as a prelude to getting into other missionary work after a few years.  

            With the 'iron curtain' of Communism and the edifice of apartheid all but shattered by February 1990, supernatural intervention occurred in Abidjan to nudge me to tackle the daunting wall of Islam. With my Dutch missionary friend Bart Berkheij, I landed in a 'mosque’ by accident. When all the shops closed down at lunch time that Friday, we had no opportunity to continue our souvenir shopping spree. We simply took a seat next to the road, when prayer mats were rolled out all around us. Bart was sitting obliquely behind me. Somehow I had the impression that he was also doing the obligatory raka’ts, the Islamic cycles of bodily movements accompanying the prayers. Thus I simply joined in, imitating the people in front of me. Suddenly I heard an angry stifled shout-whisper: ‘Ashley, wat doe je daar!’ (Ashley, what are you doing!) What a bashing he gave me hereafter for going through the Islamic motions. Strangely enough, I felt embarrassed, but I did not feel very deeply sorry from within...

          As I looked at the people in front of me, I experienced a thrill. It was as if the Lord was reassuring me that these bodily movements were no more than meaningless tradition; that someday the Islamic wall would also crash like the communist ‘iron curtain’ had done. The experience of that day helped me to persevere more than two decades with low-key missionary work among Muslims.

            On my return to Holland, I could witness how the Lord had started to answer our children’s fervent prayers for a teacher. While I was in West Africa, our longstanding friend Geertje Rehorst visited Rosemarie one evening. When Geertje heard that we were praying for a teacher, she asked all sorts of questions. Because she had been ruled unfit for teaching a few years before, we never even seriously considered Geertje as a possible candidate to help us out. The Lord had other ideas about the matter. A few months later she was all set to join us in England in January 1991 at the international headquarters of WEC International.

            My terse experience of Mali and Cote I'voire also definitely influenced me. I was starting to think of Black South Africans as potential missionaries to the Muslim countries of West Africa. A seed was sown in my heart when in later years I considered how I was impacted while in exile. In Cape Town this inspired me to challenge refugees and foreigners in a similar way to go and spread the Gospel in their home countries.

The ‘door’ to West Africa however unexpectedly closed for us as a family.  The school in Vavoua turned us down because of the number and age of our children, especially since our eldest son would have had to leave Cote I'voire so soon for Holland. A consolation was that quite a few years later - in 2001 - our daughter Magdalena was able to go to Vavoua to help out as a volunteer at the schoolwhere I had been scheduled to go and teach. The 'door' to South Africa, however, surprisingly opened up shortly after my return from West Africa.

Children helping to change the World through prayer

Jill Johnstone, the wife of Patrick Johnstone, the author of Operation World, had just been diagnosed with cancer when we came to Bulstrode, near London, in January 1991 for our candidates’ orientation to become missionaries of WEC International. Jill still passionately wanted children to be inspired to pray for the world, dreaming of a book that would help them do so. With a group of children at the WEC headquarters in the UK she formed a little club, called the Operation World Children's Club. Her manuscript was first called “Children's Operation World”. As Jill wrote the various sections, she shared the contents with the children. One of the first countries Jill wrote about was Albania.

At that time, Albania’s leaders were still boasting that they were the first completely atheist country in the world, with all religions banned. The children prayed much for that land to be opened to the gospel. A year or so later, when Communism fell, and the news reached the children, one of the girls was so delighted that she shouted out, “We've changed Albania!” It was from that testimony that the title of the book, “You Can Change the World”, came.

At the beginning of 1991, when we were in Bulstrode for a part of our missionary training, our children joined the Operation World Children's Club. Rosemarie and I had to complete an assignment, called a ‘field study’ about the country we intended to go to. I had been giving talks about different aspects of South African life, but felt that I did not know enough about the culture and history of the country’s Indian population. What also played a role in my thinking was the strategy to be used back home to help recruit South African Indians as missionaries.  Thus I suggested that Rosemarie should study the politics, economy and related issues on South Africa, while I would make a study of the Indians of South Africa and their culture. This led me into looking at Hinduism and Islam, the two major Indian religions. During my field study I also discovered that Bo-Kaap, a residential area below Signal Hill, had become an Islamic stronghold. By this time we were preparing ourselves to come to Cape Town in January 1992.

Very soon after our arrival in the Mother City, we encountered a major problem that was associated with the Muslim community - drug addiction. On the first Sunday that we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church, a couple there told us about their daughter who was addicted to drugs, and who had become a Muslim. We were immediately reminded of the successful Betel outreach of our mission agency to drug addicts in Spain, seeing this as a possible avenue of loving service to the local Muslim community.

            A few months later, the Lord himself seemed to lead us to the Cape Town Baptist Church using Vanessa, the 8-year-old daughter of Brett Viviers, one of the elders of the church and a Jewish background believer. Vanessa was terribly troubled by the calls from the minarets in the nearby mosques of Bo-Kaap. Brett, her father, suggested that she should start praying for the Muslims. The result of the child’s prayers was that a whole group from the church pitched up one Monday evening at a prayer meeting in Bo-Kaap that we had initiated after Rosemarie and I had been doing prayer walks there.

A call to Cape Muslims

When we returned to Holland from England in April 1991, I challenged Dutch Christians to send their prayer ‘batteries’ to Bo-Kaap. Even though we had no concrete plans for personal involvement there, I suggested that they ‘bombard’ the area with prayer before we as missionaries could go to the Cape as the ‘infantry’.

Prior to our coming to Cape Town, we had sensed a challenge to work among street children.  Once in the Mother City, the call to the Muslims of the Cape came through ever stronger. The Lord used our need of accommodation in Cape Town in January 1992 to nudge us towards outreach to Muslims. At the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute in Surrey Estate a roar woke us up at half past four the very first morning. It was the thundering sound from the minarets of seven mosques within a two-kilometer radius from the Bible School. The change of the religious complexion of the residential area had happened during the author’s long absence abroad.

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.

            Without our doing much to arrange it, we got in touch with converts from Islam. We met Adiel Adams and Zane Abrahams through our representation work with WEC, the mission agency to which we are affiliated. My late Aunt Emmie Snyers, spontaneously gave us the phone number of Majiet Poblonker, a convert from Islam. It seemed that different people were divinely instructed to challenge us to reach out to Cape Muslims.

A special Answer to Prayer - Accommodation

After staying at the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute (CEBI) in Surrey Estate during January 1992, our faith was tested in the extreme. We were now in dire straits, because we had to vacate the Bible School before the end of the month. We still had no alternative accommodation to go to when the students were about to return after the vacation. Many were praying with us while we were following up one advertisement after the other and quite frustrated, as all our attempts at getting a house had brought us nowhere.

On Friday the 31st of January we started packed all our belongings together, without knowing where we would go the next day. On Sunday the influx of students was expected to start. We were not aware of how many people were praying on our behalf. Soon hereafter we heard about some of them from Shirley Charlton, our missionary colleague. We also knew about believers from the Community Bible Fellowship that we had attended the previous Sunday. They had been praying right through the night from Friday to Saturday, also for us!   

            In the heavenlies something was obviously happening, because somewhere in the suburb of Kenilworth, a Greek lady could not sleep. Ireni Stephanis never had problems with sleeplessness, but this night she constantly had to think about the family from Holland about whom she had heard from our Shirley Charlton, our colleague. Ireni Stephanis did not know if the family of seven had found  accommodation in the meantime. She decided to offer to share her house, because her daughter had just married and left home. Her two adult sons would not be around for some time.

            When we heard this story on the Saturday afternoon from Shirley, we could just marvel at the timely divine intervention. It looked to be the most practical thing to sleep at the Bible School for the last time. Even in this little detail we could see the hand of the Lord when we met brother Cyster, who would help us with getting the container from the ship.

            After moving over to Kenilworth, we resumed our search for a house. Ireni Stephanis said that we could stay at their house as long as we would need to. But we really wanted to get into our own home and of course, we did not want to abuse her hospitality. By this time we had already enrolled our children at the German school that is located in the suburb of Tamboerskloof.

A few more personal Experiences

Almost from the word go we encountered a major problem that was associated with the Muslim community - drug addiction. On the first Sunday that we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church with Ireni Stephanis, a couple there told us about their daughter who was addicted to drugs and who had become a Muslim. We were immediately reminded of the successful Betel outreach of our mission agency to drug addicts in Spain, seeing this as a possible avenue of loving service to the local Muslim community.

            One Sunday afternoon we decided to just go and have a look at a house in Brunswick Road, Tamboerskloof, because it would be relatively near to the German School. We liked the house, but because of the rent tag, we never gave it serious consideration. It would be nice - a bit small, but within walking distance of the German school. The monthly rental would however be well above what we had budgeted for. More out of courtesy and because of our desperate situation, we gave Ireni Stephanis’ phone number to the couple.

            We were taken by surprise when the Germans phoned us the next day. We learned that the owner had remarried, and thus the house in Tamboerskloof had become redundant. Our two boys had made a good impression on the lady owner (We left the three young ones in the Kombi). Money was not really the object with her. She was also positively inclined towards us, because her adult children had also attended the German school. When we had to concede on the phone that the rent was too high, she offered to lower it by R100.  We promised that we would think about it. I had left to fetch the children from school when the telephone rang once again. Originally we had decided that the monthly gift that we were receiving from our home church in Holland should be designated for the rent. For the rest of our cost of living we wanted to trust the Lord to burden the hearts of other believers and/or churches. When Rosemarie was now asked telephonically what we were prepared to pay, the deal was clinched - R200 less than the original sum. We could not do otherwise than seeing all this as a gift from the Lord.

            Just at that point in time we heard that the container with the furniture had arrived. Our new landlords agreed that we could move in, almost a week before the end of the month - without any extra cost! Thus it was not necessary to leave the container in the docks for any length of time, which would have amounted to added costs for the storage. We could just praise the Lord for his wonderful provision. The Lord opened the door to rent a house in Tamboerskloof, almost a stone’s throw from Bo-Kaap, which was still very much of a Muslim stronghold. God had evidently started fitting things together in his perfect mosaic, calling us into the ministry among South Africa’s prime unreached people group in terms of the Gospel.

More supernatural guidance

At the beginning of our stay in Tamboerskloof I joined Manfred Jung's Life Challenge team in Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. I soon felt very uncomfortable with the method of knocking 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.  A positive result of the door-to-door ministry with the SIM Life Challenge team was that I discovered my knowledge of Islam was completely inadequate. I received permission from our WEC leaders to do a post-graduate course in Missiology at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) in Kalk Bay with a special focus on Islam.

            Rosemarie and I decided that we would now do prayer walking in Bo-Kaap, asking the Lord to lead us to those people where the Holy Spirit had already done preparatory work. Soon we were walking through the Bo-Kaap as a couple once a week, praying for the area. But after a few weeks we sensed that we should not be alone in this venture. We needed the backing of other Christians. As a family we were attending the city branch of the Vineyard Church. Dave and Herma Adams, the local leaders, had a vision to reach out to the Muslims, although the denomination in general had no affinity as yet in that direction. Two members from the fellowship, Achmed Kariem, a Muslim background believer and Elizabeth Robertson, who had a special love for the Jews, joined us for prayer meetings in Wale Street, Bo-Kaap. We had as ultimate goal the planting of a church in Bo-Kaap, the most extreme Islamic stronghold of the Cape Peninsula. That was in those days regarded as quite a daunting challenge.

            The fellowship of believers from the Vineyard Church stopped gathering at the Cape Town High School. The small denomination decided to change their name to Jubilee Church. A request had come in to that effect, to distinguish them from the fellowship with links to John Wimber, which also used that tag for their denomination. An arrangement had apparently been made to that effect that they could use the name until such time that the Vineyard Church would have churches of their own at the Cape.

            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 College and leading one of the three daughter congregations of the Cape Town Baptist Church. We had attended a few meetings in a school in Tamboerskloof, where either Louis Pasques or Brent Bartlett, another theological student, was preaching.

Prayer as part of the evangelistic outreach at the Cape

Prayer had been used quite substantially in the outreach to Cape Muslims, though not nearly sufficiently to make an impact spiritually. Under the leadership of the German missionary Gerhard Nehls, the founder of Life Challenge, his team had people praying while co-workers visited Muslim homes. In other cases, groups prayed before they would go on outreach. Thus, in the mid-1980s, his German missionary colleague Walter Gschwandtner had his group praying in the home of the Abrahams family in Bo-Kaap, where the Muslim head of the home came to faith in Jesus as his Lord just before he died in 1983. The information about the Bo-Kaap prayer meetings almost went amiss when the Gschwandtner family left for Kenya.

            As a result of prayer walking in 1992, the mishap was discovered. Thereafter the Bo-Kaap prayer meeting in Wale Street was resumed. At one of these meetings, Achmed Kariem, a convert from Islam, suggested a lunchtime prayer meeting on Fridays while Muslims attend their mosque services. Such prayer events started in the Shepherd’s Watch, a little church hall at 98 Shortmarket Street near Riebeeck Square in September 1992. When the building was sold a few years later, the event switched to the Koffiekamer, the venue used by Straatwerk for their ministry to vagrants, street children, and to certain nightclubs over the week-ends.  In addition to prayers for a spiritual breakthrough in the area, a foundation for many evangelistic initiatives was laid at the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. The suggestion, to have prayer groups 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 really took off. Here and there one started and petered out again. The only prayer meetings that kept functioning over the years was the one in Wale Street on every first Monday of the month and the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings which started at the Shepherd’s Watch in September 1992 ,and which continued in the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk at 108 Bree Street..

          Prayers at Rhodes Memorial continued for some time under the leadership of Reverend Richard Mitchell.  On the other side of the spiritual spectrum, Satanists continued to use the same heights for their rituals.

          Locally the prayer fort was also held by the monthly Prayer Concert, first at the S.A. Gestig and later for some years in Mowbray at the Presbyterian Church. The next big combined move by Christians centred around the Jesus Marches.  In 1994 quite a few of the marches were organized all over the Peninsula and the Western Cape. 

In preparation for these Jesus Marches, many Christians heard for the first time about the Kramats as a crescent wielding spiritual power in the Mother City. Probably for the first time, Cape Christians started to pray concertedly against the occult powers of the kramats, the Islamic shrines on the heights of the Peninsula.

          The hub of the prayer movement in South Africa had moved to Pretoria, which by the mid 1990s had already been transformed from a bastion of racism to a metropolis that was able to invite Christians from all over the world to come to a global consultation on missions in 1997. Gerda Leithgöb had been the leading light in this transformation, practising spiritual warfare since 1978. Bennie Mostert took the prayer challenge from Pretoria to the nation and in the new millennium, to the continent of Africa.

Cape Prayer endeavours of the early 1990s

Arthur J Rowland, a committed believer who had a close friendship with Dr Andrew Murray when he started teaching as a young man at the Boys’ High School in Wellington in 1912, had a deep interest and involvement in prayer, evangelism and missions as was his son Noel, such as starting a Cape Town Keswick. Both kept their interest, based at the Cape Town Baptist Church till ripe old age, the father dying in 1973 at the age of 102 and Noel just short of the century markReverend Roger Voke kept the fire of the Keswick movement alive at the Cape. Dr Andrew Murray had started it in Wellington towards the end of the 19th century. In the late 1980s the Concerts of Prayer - inspired by David Bryant - drew good crowds in the Sendingsgestigmuseum, a fitting commemoration of the inter-denominational work that started there in 1899.  The Concerts of Prayer later moved to the Presbyterian Church in Mowbray.

          Much of the prayer endeavours of the early 1990s were connected to missionary work. David Bliss from Operation Mobilisation (OM) had already put the Cape on the map again with his Bless the Nations conferences.  Love Southern Africa events started in Wellington, taking over from the Western Cape Missions Commission. Pastor Bruce van Eeden coordinated Great Commission conferences and Pastor Paul Manne organized an annual missionary event. All these efforts fizzled out towards the end of the 20th century, while Gauteng grew in importance with regard to missionary-sending from South Africa.

          Bishop Frank Retief and his St James Church in Kenilworth were carrying the evangelical banner for the mainline churches in the early 1990s at the Cape. The Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow was a new growing church, as was His People, which started among students in the Baxter Theatre, Rosebank. The Good Hope Christian Centre became increasingly known when it moved from the Three Arts Theatre in Plumstead, to Ottery. These three originally White churches attracted people of colour while the country was in transition towards the new democracy.

          The lunchtime prayer group at the Shepherd’s Watch at 98 Shortmarket Street in the Mother City, which started in September 1992, targeted the transformation of Bo-Kaap, the residential area that had become an Islamic stronghold through apartheid legislation. Over a period of more than a decade, the group experienced special answers to prayer. Yet, in the natural, it appeared as though Islam was still making great strides, for instance through a proliferation of mosques in residential areas that had formerly been zoned as ‘White’.

At the prayer meeting itself, Daphne Davids, a member of the Cape Town Baptist church and also a Bo-Kaap resident, was a regular from the outset. When Cecilia Abrahams encountered hearing problems after a few years, the Monday meeting was relocated to Daphne's home across the road, which became a monthly event. There it continues to this day.

Prayer initiatives elsewhere that impacted the Cape

In recent times fasting and praise have been prof­itably rediscovered.  In 1990 David Mniki - a believer from the Transkei - called the first national 40-day fast. It was quite localised, and not many people participated. During the fast God gave a scripture from Isaiah - ‘Can a nation be born in one day?’ This was the beginning of several more fasting initiatives. In 1992 the second 40-day fast took place. 

            1992 was the year during which mission leaders decided to call Christians worldwide to pray for Muslims during Ramadan. This was a natural follow-up to the call by Open Doors for 10 years of prayer for the Muslim world in 1990. Everybody still vividly remembered the spectacular result of the 7 years of prayer for the Soviet Union. The prayer initiative was called Ramadan, a 30-day Muslim prayer focus.  A little booklet was printed and distributed around the globe with information on different issues relating to Islam.

            In 1993 Mostert formally started a national prayer network known as NUPSA (the Network for United Prayer in Southern Africa).  That year also saw the first teams praying through information gained from serious research. Teams travelled from Kimberley to Grahamstown and George, to pray through issues concerning Cecil John Rhodes and Freemasonry. This had a major influence in the continent, exposing much of the damage done to society through Freemasonry.  During 1993 South Africa also started to participate in the Pray through the Window initiative, launched internationally by the AD 2000 prayer track. 

            Simultaneously with the call to prayer and fasting, God also moved in other prayer initiatives in South Africa and the continent. During 1992 YWAM organized an international prayer initiative to pray at the extremities of the six continents. (The vision originated with Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM, based on Psalm 2:8: “Ask of Me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession…” The day had four objectives: thanksgiving for salvation, praise for who God is, spiritual warfare and intercession over the lost throughout the continents and nations. The primary goal was to have teams praying at the 24 Cardinal Points of the world’s continents, and beyond that - to go to the extreme points of nations, cities and regions.) At all four cardinal points of Africa believers went to pray namely at Cape Agulhas, West Africa, Tunisia and Somalia.

            South Africa was soon even more in the thick of things when Bennie Mostert, an Operation Mobilization (OM) missionary, initiated the printing of the 30-day Muslim prayer focus booklets in South Africa. Hereafter it became an annual event.

            At least just as great an impact on the country as a whole was the initiatives of African Enterprise (AE) during the transition years from 1991 to 1994.  In April 1993 AE launched a two-year chain of intercessory prayer to go non-stop day and night for two years. Then there was project ‘From Africa with Love’ when small teams went and visited the major political groupings and leaders to pray with them and to pastor them where appropriate. Then there were the Kolobe Lodge Dialogue weekends. At a game lodge north of Pretoria politicians from the far left to the far right were invited to get to know each other informally. This was thus a variation of the Koinonia concept which proved so effective to undermine apartheid. Along with the other prayer initiatives at this time, South Africa’s political leaders of all ideological shades became surely the most prayed for political leaders anywhere.

Some compassionate Cape Christian outreaches of the 1990s

The different ministries of compassion in the Cape, like those of the Cape Town City Mission, Alcoholics Victorious, The Ark in Westlake (now in Faure), Total Transformation and Trailblazers all had people from a wide spectrum of religious persuasions going through their ranks at one stage or another. Various agencies have been reaching out in love to street children, like Youth with a Mission (YWAM).  At the ‘Beautiful Gate’ in Muizenberg, spear-headed by a Dutch YWAM missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer, many kids have been impacted. (We had met Aukje and Toby in Holland just prior to their and our departure for South Africa.) A problem of the bulk of these institutions 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 the good intentions.

          In Salt River Hudson McComb was moved by compassion for street youths, starting Beth Uriel, a home at which believers would care for the unfortunate 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 accommodation for girls. We linked up with the former ministry during the 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.

          A ministers’ fraternal in Observatory and Mowbray initiated a project for the homeless called Loaves and Fishes. 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. The work of Straatwerk in night clubs and the work among French-speaking foreigners received aid from abroad when Freddie Kammies and his German wife Doris, who had worked among street children in Toronto (Canada) under the auspices of Operation Mobilization, joined the team of WEC International in Cape Town at the end of 1997. Freddie Kammies hails from Q'town, a township in the Athlone area. The couple formally linked up with Straatwerk, the pioneering outreach effort of the Dutch Reformed Church to nightclubs, prostitutes and homosexuals. Prostitution has become a major 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. More outreach to prostitutes took place under the ministry of Madri Bruwer of Straatwerk.

            Pastor Willy Martheze, a qualified welder from Mitchells Plain, was still a vagrant when he was initially ministered to. 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 said. He was radically changed by the Gospel after attending an evangelistic service on the Grand Parade in February 1974, with the Scottish missionary Pastor Gay as the preacher. Soon thereafter he got a job at the Arthur’s Seat Hotel in Sea Point. The prayerful ministry of Pastor Gay in District Six challenged the former bergie (vagrant) to attend an evening course at the Bethel Bible School in Crawford. Obedient to God’s voice when he saw a vagrant, Pastor Willy Martheze followed a call to minister fulltime to homeless people, with the intention of bringing Gospel healing to these people. He constantly aims to empower them to return to the homes they had left. At the District Six fellowship at the Azaad Youth Centre, the congregants can clean themseoves before the late Sudnay afternoon service and get a plate of food afterwards. One of his ‘clients’ of gave him the special testimony: ‘you are the only church where the pastor is happy when the members leave, i.e. returning to their homes.

            The commencement of the ministry of compassion to the children who associated themselves with the Hard Livings Gang in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, looked promising.  Ayesha Hunter, a Muslim background believer, was bravely presenting the Life Issues programme via CCFM radio, while at the same time running a soup kitchen for the children of the notorious gang. She gave the group a new name, using the same first letters of the gang - Heaven’s Little Kids - a name of which they were quite proud. Glen Khan, a drug lord, sponsored the project anonymously while he was being challenged and ministered to. He finally accepted Jesus as his Saviour, and was assassinated shortly thereafter. The benevolent ministry ceased with his assassination in April 1999.

The start of a ministry to AIDS/HIV patients

At a time when AIDS was still being mentioned in a hush, there was no competition in compassionate outreach to the hapless sufferers. A ministry with close links to the Cape Town City Mission started when Val Kadalie had a deep concern for young people who contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). She started off as a volunteer in District Six before going for training as a nurse. Back in the apartheid years, she was invited to speak to many churches and schools to warn young people about the dangers of promiscuity and to 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, but her colleagues were not yet ready for that.

            The crunch came when she and her husband were approached to take care of a little 4-year old boy, Jason, who was HIV positive. When her husband Charles put the phone down at the electric power plant in Athlone where he worked, he sensed that God was challenging them as a couple to practice what they preached. Jason was the first of four children they cared for in succession, until all but one died from AIDS In the process Val 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 compassionate work during this period, as the occurrence of HIV-positive babies started to increase. At the building in Vredehoek where the Roman Catholics had already started caring for orphaned children and destitute elderly in 1888, they pioneered with the care of HIV-positive/AIDS babies in 1992, possibly the first outreach of this nature in South Africa. The Dutch YWAM missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer, after their successful pioneering work amongst street children, soon took on the care of AIDS babies. In 1999 they started to care for such little ones with government aid in Crossroads, a Black township. Since then, their ministry has expanded even to the neighbouring country of Lesotho. 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 inculcated to enter missionary work.

            In the meantime HIV/AIDS became a pandemic. This spread of the disease was especially dramatic in prisons where inmates infected almost all newcomers. This challenge has not yet been taken up rigorously. Nevertheless, gangsters were ministered to and many also came to the Lord while in prison.

Personal ministry experiences

We saw the settling in of our children as the top priority of the first six months. The move from Holland was not easy for any of them. Rafael, our second eldest child, especially had a torrid time. In the meantime we prayed that God would show us where we should get involved. We had started praying for Bo-Kaap, but we also wanted to get involved with some hands-on evangelistic work. We thought of going to Hanover Park, where I had taught in 1981. After a phone call to the City Mission there, we sensed a confirmation that this was where we should get more involved.

          In 1992 inter-racial communication was still much of a novelty in South Africa. Many Capetonians from different cultural and church backgrounds became our frienDs We were approached to help train Xhosa young people in children’s work at Camp Joy, a campsite in Strandfontein during the June holidays. The week was strategic, as we got to know the gifted Melvin Maxegwana, who translated the teaching into Xhosa. For the rest, our ministry still had no clear direction.

          Sensing the dire need for racial reconciliation, we formed a racially and internationally mixed choir with our missionary colleague Grace Chan from Mauritius plus a few Bible School students. Our repertoire included a Dutch, a Xhosa and a (Mauritian) Creole song apiece, apart from English and Afrikaans.

Breaking new ground through prayer

Preparations for the start of a missionary prayer meeting progressed well in the City Mission congregation of Hanover Park. They were prepared to have one weekly prayer meeting per month changed to a missionary prayer meeting.

          Later that year the power of prayer was experienced in a special way after Everett Crowe, a police sergeant from the Phillippi police station and a believer, called in the help of the churches in a last-ditch effort when the local police could not cope with the crime situation in Hanover Park.  Operation Hanover Park was formed. The initiative had prayer by believers of diverse church backgrounds as its main component.

          With Norman Barnes, a Muslim background believer and former gangster drug addict as the leader of the City Mission prayer group, it was easy to share the burden of praying for these groups. This Saturday afternoon prayer meeting fused into the monthly prayer meeting of Operation Hanover Park towards the end of 1992. The vision to pray for missionaries called from their area was likewise gladly taken on board. The idea was completely new to them, but the Lord soon started answering the prayers miraculously. Within a few years  there hailed from the Lansdowne/Hanover Park/Manenberg area about as many missionaries as from the rest of the Mother City put together. In Hanover Park we were also due to have the first cell group consisting of male converts from a Muslim background. The operation 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 Western Cape Missions Commission, to which our WEC colleague Shirley Charlton took me soon after our arrival at the Cape, proved very valuable in terms of contacts. An event organised in 1993 with some link to the Western Cape Missions Commission was a workshop with John Robb of World Vision. I later used the list of participants at this event to organize Jesus Marches the following year. At this occasion I also met Trefor Morris from Fish Hoek was one of those attendees. He became not only a regular at our Friday lunch time prayer meeting, but also an important catalyst to study the history of spiritual dynamics at the Cape through a radio series via Radio Fish Hoek,. At one of the mission events I met an AIM missionary who told me about Salama Temmers, a convert from Islam. Her husband Colin soon became one of our regular warriors at our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting. The family was one of the core of our support for converts coming from Muslim background.

Contact with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre and SAWE in Stellenbosch was quite strategic. On the same weekend that our microbus was stolen in September 1993, Hanekom had invited me to address a SAWE camp near Stellenbosch. That same weekend we were conned by a drug addict who purported to have accepted the Lord. As a family, we however sensed a special under-girding through the intercession of friends because we were seriously challenged to return to Europe at this time.

A traumatic Weekend

Black townships like Khayelitsha were no-go areas for anyone who was not Black in the period of transition to a democratic government. Our friend Melvin Maxegwana from the City Mission of Khayelitsh, the township where I had preached in the mean-time, had to flee from the area. The local civic organization had concocted allegations against him. As a pastor with contact to other races, he was the first Christian local radio station of the country accused of linking up with Whites - regarded as a cardinal sin by some Blacks in those days.

            Whereas the violence and turmoil on the East Rand, in Natal or even that of Khayelitsha was still on the periphery of our lives, the weekend starting with the second Friday of September 1993 had us reeling.

            After the children had left for school at about 7.40 a.m., Rosemarie and I had a short prayer session. Just after nine, I had to fetch a few old prayer warriors for the monthly WEC meeting at our house where we would especially pray for our missionaries from South Africa, and for those ministering in other parts of the country.

            The events of the next thirty hours were traumatic in the extreme. Our emotions swung like a very long pendulum, from the heights of elation to the deepest despair. For many years hereafter I tried to complete a report of the events, but I was never able to finish it within a time frame where the memory of the events was still fresh.

On the Friday morning we discovered that our vehicle was stolen; at the one o’clock prayer meeting a new ‘convert’ came to our meeting - a drug addict, who purported to have just been ‘saved’. Thirty hours later we discovered that he was a conman. This fake convert had fooled us terribly. His demonic actions removed our vision for a Christian drug rehabilitation centre almost completely, also bringing our fledgling first male convert cell group to a sudden halt.

          The events of the weekend highlighted the temptation to return to Europe. The Lord however did not give us peace to leave the Mother City as yet. In fact, on that same weekend we were confronted by the challenge to buy a house that had been repossessed. While our emotions were in complete turmoil, we had to make a decision. The Lord used Rainer Gülsow, a family friend and a German builder, to help us make up our minds (The family had originally been impacted by the German-born South African evangelist Reinhardt Bonnke.) His expertise was to us the ‘Gideon’s fleece', the test whether we should buy the run-down house. In his view the property was a very special bargain. Well over eleven years later we are still living in the Vredehoek home that we actually bought. A sequence of special circumstances made the purchase possible, including an inheritance from Rosemarie’s late father.

          Melvin Maxegwana and Brett Viviers, a Jewish background believer who was also unemployed at the time - linked up in harmony with Cameron Barnard, a believer from the Jubilee Church and the son of Frans and Vena, an elderly couple who wanted to go to Turkey as WEC missionaries. The three workers renovated the dilapidated house in two months.  The working together of Melvin and Brett especially was invaluable for the time. The example of a White man working happily under a Black was not so common at all in South Africa. 

Taking back what Satan had stolen

The small Assemblies of God Church fellowship of Woodstock had early morning prayer meetings on weekdays from 1994, starting at 5 a.m. The indifference of the churches with regard to evangelistic outreach was a scourge all around the Peninsula. The situation in Woodstock and Salt River was of the worst in this regard. The two suburbs had become predominantly Islamic within a few years.

            Pastor Graham Gernetsky the Cape Town Baptist Church organized a missions week with theological students of the Baptist Theological Seminary in March 1994. I was teaching at this occasion along with Bobby Maynard, who was linked to Veritas College, which was still very much in its embryonic stage. (In later years, the Correspondence Bible College which started at the Cape, would have a worldwide impact, notably in Egypt among Coptic Christians.) Reverend Gernetsky reacted positively to the suggestion to do 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 inhabitant mentioned Pastor William Tait and his fellowship. This led to contact with the Assemblies of God congregation there. When Pastor William Tait started off as a pastor at the Woodstock Assemblies of God in 1989, that suburb was becoming completely Islamic, albeit not in a way which Muslims were proud of. Christians were leaving the sinking ship of Woodstock as gangsterism and prostitution took the area by storm. It had become the drug centre of the Metropolis.

            The missions’ week was also the run-up to closer co-operation between the Assemblies of God fellowship and the small Baptist Church that had no pastor at that time. The notorious suburb hereafter slowly changed its religious complexion towards the end of the decade. (The hub of drug peddling and prostitution moved to more lucrative areas for their respective trades.) Pastor Tait and his church were ably assisted by the tiny local Baptist Church under the inspiring and pioneering Pastor Edgar Davids, who died in March 1998 after the rejection of a transplanted kidney.

The Face of Woodstock changed

The two buildings, where these churches congregate, visibly demonstrated the need for change in the area. Both buildings had become quite dilapidated by 1995. The Baptist Church bought the ruin of the old Aberdeen Street Dutch Reformed Church, which they started to restore with financial and practical aid from North Carolina believers in the USA.  Among the participants, there were American pensioners who came over to help with the restoration. The Assemblies of God congregation bought their building from the Woodstock Presbyterian Church in 1997. The latter denomination found it difficult to survive in that suburb. Almost all their members had either left the area or passed on. Almost before our eyes we could now see God started using these churches of Woodstock to change the face of the suburb gradually. The Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God rented the dilapidated building from the Presbyterians. They had already started having their fellowship services in this building. 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.

            The Lord was orchestrating things in his own sovereign way. William Tait, the pastor of the minute Assemblies of God Church, had the vision to start early morning prayer meetings in the early 1990s. Soon after Edgar Davids took office in 1995, the two churches organised a combined evangelistic campaign in the Woodstock Town Hall. Our SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague, Manfred Jung, ran a course in Muslim Evangelism with the Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God Church.

            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 commenced with Marika Pretorius, another SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague, in 1995 after our return from Europe. (Marika had been used by God to introduce us to families in Bo-Kaap, as well as a link to the Alpha Centre in Hanover Park, where we also conducted children’s clubs from 1993-1995). In our absence she did further spadework work with a holiday club. In Walmer Estate the prayer walk led to a link to a spiritual lifeline of the area, Trevor Klein and his minute Brethren Fellowship. As a result, members of that fellowship attended a course in Muslim Evangelism at St. Paul’s Church in Bo-Kaap in 1997.

          At some stage Marika brought along her room mate and co-worker from her their Dutch Reformed Church in Panorama, Jenny van den Berg. When Marika left for Germany to work among Turks, Jenny not only became 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 run by CCM. After we had handed the children’s work in Salt River to Eric Hofmeyer, Jenny van der Berg pioneered with a similar ministry in Woodstock, based at the renovated Baptist Church, persevering there for quite a few years.

More lessons from March 1994

The missions' week became one big lesson in spiritual warfare to us. Early one morning - we included prayer times with the students starting at 5 o'clock - 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. (Muslims believe that the first revelations were brought to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel.) It is well-known that the crucifixion of Jesus is denied in the Muslim sacred book. 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 a major study of the Angel Gabriel in the Bible, the Qur’an, the Talmud and the Ahadith.  (The latter are Islamic traditions of Muhammad’s words and deeds that are regarded as equal in authority to the Qur’an.) The more I studied, the more I 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 of everything alluding to the cross in the Qur’an could not be coincidence. The latter discovery came about as I prepared for teaching Muslim background believers. (As yet, I harvested no success in getting any of this research material published.)

            Another lesson of the missions' week was quite painful to me. When I shared with the Bible College students something about the history of Islam in the Western Cape, I broke down in tears. I had to discover that deep in my heart there was still resentment towards the Dutch Reformed Church. I suppose that it developed when I read how the denomination had opposed the government when Mr P.W. Botha and his Cabinet were ready to remove the Mixed Marriages Act from the statute books.

            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. 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. The lessons in cross-cultural outreach that the Master Teacher passed to us through this chapter 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.

            Two missionaries from the Cape helped prepare the way for a major change by their ministry in Malawi. Bobby Maynard attended the Cape Town Baptist Church before he left the Mother City for Malawi, impacting the young (future) Baptist ministers during the missions week in March 1994 just before he left. Bram Willemse, another Cape missionary, who ministered to the predominantly Muslim Yao tribe, died at a fairly young age. Willemse did stalwart pioneering work among that tribe in the mid-1990s, but he was not around anymore when the first mosque became a church in Malawi - probably the first on the African continent to do so.

Gangsters and Drug Addicts changed

On another level, God intervened sovereignly when gangsters and drug addicts were changed in answer to prayer. Nicky Cruz received worldwide fame through his conversion under the ministry of David Wilkerson and his Teen Challenge team. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association produced a winner in the filming of The Cross and the Switchblade. (The use of the Jesus Film, produced by Campus Crusade and translated into many languages, was even more spectacular, with thousands turning to Jesus all around the globe after hearing Jesus speaking in their own language.) The ministries among gangsters and drug addicts by people like Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong and the Betel ministry of Elliot Tepper in Spain became part of the move of God’s Spirit into the 1990s. The use of the Jesus Film, produced by Campus Crusade and dubbed in many languages, was even more spectacular, with thousands turning to Jesus all around the globe when they heard Jesus speaking in their own language. Also at the Cape many video copies of the Jesus Film were distributed in Afrikaans and English from the mid-1990s.

          Cape Town had its own version of gangsters changed - albeit on a much less spectacular scale - when a tract written by Dean Ramjoomia, a converted Muslim, impacted Ivan Walldeck, a gangster from Hanover Park. Ramjoomia had been a PAC anti-apartheid activist before his conversion in 1983. After literally running away from Gospel preachers in trains, he was sovereignly visited by the risen Lord walking through a closed door.

           In the second half of 1992, the criminality and violence in the township of Hanover Park got completely out of hand, but the Lord raised up praying people. In answer to these prayers, police sergeant Crowe approached the churches about the situation in the township. Pastor Jonathan Matthews of the Blomvlei Baptist Church played a big role in the start of Operation Hanover Park. Prayer by believers from different churches had a huge impact on this operation. Operation Hanover Park, under whose auspices Dean Ramjoomia operated, was organized as a combined church effort to fight crime in the township after the police had given up hope.

          Ramjoomia and his wife Susan felt themselves led to minister to different gangs as part of this initiative. Earlier Ramjoomia had been embittered as a boy by police maltreatment, after he had used a ‘Whites only’ toilet. Formerly a Muslim, he was supernaturally ministered to by the Holy Spirit, and thereafter discipled by Pastor Alfie Fabe from the City Mission.  In 1999 he entered Bible School with the intention to get involved with ministering to drug addicts and gangsters on a full-time basis.

            Eric Hofmeyer, a former gang leader, became a pastor.  He not only led many a gangster to the Lord in the infamous Pollsmoor prison, including Sollie Staggie, a less well-known brother of the infamous twins Rashied and Rashaad, but thereafter also discipled many of them. Eddie Edson was another name from the Woodstock gangster world that was to impact the Mother City in a big way in the 1990s. He became a pastor of the Full Gospel Church. The Shekinah Tabernacle in Mitchells Plain was the venue from where prayer drives were to be launched in the mid-1990s, and Edson became the driving force for both the pastors and pastors' wives monthly prayer meetings, and the city-wide prayer events that pioneered the Transformation of Cape Town in the new millennium.

           

Trials in transition

When President F.W. de Klerk announced a Whites-only election on February 20, 1992 it was still touch and go which direction the country would go. The possibility of unprecedented civil war could not be discounted. 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 national cricket team at the world cup tournament in Australia at that time possibly influenced the vote decisively. A 'no' vote would most certainly not only have ushered in civil war, but it would also have sent the country back into the sporting wilderness. The latter was for many in the sports loving country just as ghastly to contemplate, a dictum coined by Mr B.J. Vorster, a previous Prime Minister.  With a resounding 'yes' - 68% - from all corners of the country, De Klerk was given a mandate on 17 March 1992 to negotiate a new constitution with the likes of Nelson Mandela.

          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 (African National Congress) followers and those of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) was just waiting for the final igniting of the powder keg. Over the Easter weekend of 1993, the country seemed to have been pushed over the precipice of major racial conflict. The news on 10 April 1993 reverberated throughout the country that the outspoken communist Chris Hani, who had been touted 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, served to lower the political temperature momentarily, but things remained extremely tense.

            The death of Chris Hani helped not only to get a date set for elections, but also to bring about a climate for reconciliation. Yet, by July 1993 the country was still clearly moving towards the precipice of civil war. In different parts of the Peninsula, Christians from different denominational backgrounds came together for prayer, although this was still mainly occurring within the racial confines. In fact, God had to use the brutal attack of believers in a Capetonian sanctuary to get the Church in South Africa praying fervently.

Divine Intervention

The massacre in July 1993 at the St James Church of Kenilworth caused a temporary brake on the escalation of violence that was threatening to send the country over the precipice - a civil war of enormous dimensions. The event inspired unprecedented prayer all around the country and around the world, bringing home the seriousness of terrorism that would not even stop at sacred places. The attack on the St James Church brought about a new sense of urgency for Christians to leave their comfort zones.

         But Satan had overplayed his hand. The St James Church killings 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. The adage of Albert Luthuli after he had been dismissed as chief by the South African government in November 1952 received a new actuality: 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.

Sovereign divine Moves

A third consecutive 40-day fast – the first of the three started on 2 January 1994 - co-incided with preparations for the general elections. Before this, the concrete fear of civil war inspired prayer meetings across the racial divide. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Methodist Bishop Stanley Mogoba convened a meeting between Dr Nelson Mandela and Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi to try to resolve the deadlock posed by Inkatha Freedom Party’s threat to boycott the elections.

Africa Enterprise enlisted prayer assistance from all over the world in 1993.  Few other countries responded like Kenya and Nigeria. Foreign missionaries were seriously considering leaving South Africa because of the increase in violence. 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 pray in South Africa in February 1994. It was touch and go, or they would have been sent back from Johannesburg International Airport without accomplishing anything. God intervened sovereignly. Willy Oyegun became God’s choice instrument for healing and reconciliation at the Cape in the post-apartheid era. In East Africa God laid on the heart of many a Kenyan to pray for the country as it was heading for the general elections on 27 April 1994.

         In the frantic months leading to April 1994, Nelson Mandela engaged in 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 for the establishment of a Volkstaat, in which Afrikaans religion, culture and language would be preserved. On the other hand, the ANC took quite a hard line with Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi, the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Front, who appeared definitely no less stubborn.        

Danger lurking again

The ANC attempt to diminish the power of regional governments could have led to the much feared 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; it would have given his army a base into which Viljoen could move much of its 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 a party from the extreme rightwing Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging, which was shooting Blacks for the fun of it. This led to a mutiny in the Boputhatswana Army. Almost immediately hereafter on 16 March 1994, Viljoen broke with the Freedom Alliance, forming his own political party. The Freedom Front agreed to participate in the elections. It would probably not be preposterous to suggest that this was the result of the many prayers offered in various places at this time, postponing the feared civil war for the moment at least.

A sovereign answer to Prayer       

God used Rev Michael Cassidy and his Africa Enterprise team to get another massive prayer effort underway by Christians all over the world, along with the skills of Kenyan Professor Washington Okumu, a committed Christian. God furthermore clearly called a police officer, Colonel Johan Botha, to recruit prayer warriors. The press took up his story, reporting on 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 on the verge of a civil war, which surely could have sent many missionaries fleeing in all haste just before or after the elections in 1994.

          Two reputable negotiators were brought in along with the more or less internationally unknown Professor Okumu. Lord Carrington was a former British Foreign Minister, who had brokered an accord for Zimbabwe in 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 group however had great difficulty in attempting to induce Inkatha, the predominantly Zulu party led by Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi, to participate in the elections.  On 13 April 1994 - only two weeks before the scheduled elections - the two prominent gentlemen from the UK and the USA left the country, having acknowledged their failure to achieve a settlement. The scene was set for the outbreak of civil war of unprecedented proportions. Journalists flew in from all over the world to witness and record the carnage that was expected to follow the elections.

          Professor Okumu heeded Michael Cassidy's request to stay behind when his prominent Western colleagues left.  After Okumu had rushed by taxi to meet Dr Buthulezi on 15 April at the Lanseria Airport to explain a new proposal to be presented to the Zulu King, he could just see the machine taking off. Divine intervention occurred when the aircraft returned. Some strange navigational reading caused the pilot to return to the airport. (Afterwards no fault was discovered with the machine). God indeed had to intervene supernaturally to get the machine, in which Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi was sitting, to return to the airport where Okumu had already thought to have missed him.

          Millions of ballot papers had already been printed. Hurriedly a similar number of stickers was prepared to be attached to the ballot papers to give the new South African electorate the added option to vote for the Inkatha Freedom Party.

          It was very fitting that God used Okumu, a Kenyan professor, to broker the accord with the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party) and the Zulu King, a move that literally steered the country from the precipice at the 11th hour. Many Kenyans had been praying for South Africa in its period of crisis. They - as did Dr Mangusuthu Buthulezi and thousands of South Africans - gave God all the honour for divinely steering the country to an unprecedented four days of peaceful revolution, as the election process was dubbed.

           In answer to the prayers of millions, God had brought about the miracle elections that might have gone awry, if Satan had his way. It was clear that it was not the military actions or the boycotts, which toppled apartheid. It was God’s sovereign work. The devil 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.

The Devil’s Reply

When the ANC came to power in 1994, all religions were given equal status. Increasingly, occult elements became fashionable. Witchcraft was accepted uncritically, and some regarded Satanism as just another religion. That people had to be ‘sacrificed’ in the process by Satanists, was uncritically taken on board. The poor argument was: so many are also killed in political and other forms of violence, so what! A spokesman for the SACC even rationalized the issue so much as to state that Satanism is a matter of personal conscience. The pervasively negative influence of television - with the poisoning of young minds - proceeded unchecked; violence, extra-marital and same-sex relationships were depicted in many films as ‘normal’, thus encouraging promiscuity. From some pulpits homosexual relationships were even covertly encouraged.

          Already on 11 May 1994 - at the inauguration of the new President, Nelson Mandela - the stage was set for anti-evangelical government. The use of a praise singer might have looked very African, but new age notions and ancestral worship were simultaneously ushered in. It was not surprising at all when the new government made no secret that they wanted secular rule to substitute the racist apartheid style of the former regime.  But the government possibly did not bargain with the dramatic increase of Satanism in certain areas.

          A fourth 40-day fast was organized 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.

          Although much of the mutual distrust was temporarily overcome, the country more or less lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational divisions. Even though there were many prayer meetings for the 'gateway cities' during October 1995, they were generally either confined to prayer within local churches, or (but this was already the big exception) combined prayer within the respective racial groupings. Initially there was very little change. Yet, Grigg’s recipe is still 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.’

            The church universal would do well to heed Patrick Johnstone’s advice: ‘Courses on prayer are to be incorporated into required curricula of Christian seminaries, colleges and schools.’ Rarely found prayer courses are generally only an elective. A change here could deeply affect the Church and the progress of world evangelization.

Prayer needed for the new Secular government

Next to many positives – notably in the supply of housing, electricity and water - the new secular government unwittingly walked right into Satan’s trap in their effort to appear liberal. Obviously with the best intensions, President Nelson Mandela granted amnesty to many criminals. However, many of these released prisoners continued their criminality as soon as they were discharged. Nelson Mandela’s generosity and love for children became too well known when his parties for street children were televised. This led to a significant increase in children who hereafter found it much easier to leave their homes for very dubious reasons.

Soon the government seemed to be bending over backwards to accommodate sexual immorality. The legalization of abortion by the new regime was not surprising because in the run-up to the 1994 elections, the ANC had already envisaged that as future policy.

Whereas the racist remnants of the previous era rightly had to be eradicated, the new government was possibly not aware that they were opening gates of evil. Human rights became the condition on which laws were liberalized almost indiscriminately. One of the first liberal new laws was the possibility of ‘easy bail’. Criminals went for the gap. Drug lords had no problem coughing up the bail money, and hardened criminals usually had easy access to cash. The new inexperienced government appeared to allow all sorts of criminality to spiral out of control.

Crime increased and especially drug trafficking spiraled! The influx of refugees – many of them for economic reasons - caused xenophobia, as many Blacks saw them as a threat and competition to the already tight employment market. This drove many of the expatriates to the lucrative drug trade, where criminal Nigerians were soon on hand to take control in mafia operations.  A situation developed by the end of the century that could only be countered with spiritual warfare on a national scale.  God was equal to the challenge when he raised prayer warriors from different communities.

The Link to the Countrywide Prayer Movement

Contact with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre and SAAWE in Stellenbosch was quite strategic. I got linked to the countrywide prayer movement in October 1994 via Jan Hanekom, a spiritual giant of the South African mission scene. (He was prayerfully preparing entry into Bhutan as a tent-making missionary when he died after contracting some mysterious disease a few years later.) Local Christians joined Bennie Mostert, in a drive to Macassar. Under Mostert’s the leadership they prayed at the shrine of Shaykh Yusuf, the generally acknowledged founder of Islam at the Cape.

            Something significant happened that day in October 1994. The prayer at Shaykh Yusuf’s shrine probably signalled a breakthrough in the spiritual realm. Here and there individual Christians started showing an interest in praying for Muslims, although the churches in general remained indifferent. 

Soon hereafter, the connection to the countrywide prayer movement was strengthened. Gerda Leithgöb, who had introduced the use of research for prayer in South Africa, was invited as the guest speaker for a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995 that focused on Islam.

           Louis Pasques, had just been appointed as the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, came back from a conference in Pretoria with the Argentinian Ed Silvoso, all fired up to see the church members praying for their neighbours. But it took months before the seed germinated. But it did start happening when a map of the city was put up at the back of the church in September 1996. Pasques now also became a regular to our Friday lunch hour prayer meetings.

Evaluation of Prayers at the Shrines

Every time the Bible speaks about sacred stones, there is a negative connotation. Their erection was forbidden (e.g. Leviticus 26:1) or where they existed, they had to be demolished (e.g. Exodus 23:24). The other common use in Scripture is where they are outlawed either as signs of idolatry or as an indication of apostasy from Yahweh by the Israelites. It is surprising that Muhammad, who had struck so clearly at all forms of idolatry, clung to the black stone at the Ka’ba.  On the other hand, Christianity hardly ever pointed to the fact that the shrines could exert a spiritist influence.  In fact, Islam took its cue from similar places of ancestral veneration by the Christians (and Jews) of the Middle East, notably those of the Coptic believers in Egypt. The ritualistic but spiritually dead church there survived in the Muslim environment. Pagan elements like the obelisk pillars – relics from ancient Baal and sun worship that indicated another creating power via its penis-shaped form – were passed on with hardly any questioning to this day into all the major religions.

           Orthodox Islam outlawed ancestral worship at the shrines, but rank-and-file Muslims could not care - knowing that there was supernatural power available. The source of the power is usually immaterial to them. Spiritism appeals to the emotions and offers physical healing. Both traits make it an attractive alternative to biblical Christianity. That this is often followed by severe depression is either not recognized or glossed over. We should keep in mind that any bondage works like a drug. Cape Islam needs the united offensive of the intercession of Christians, who believe in the power of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, their Lord. 

          Historically, Capetonian Muslims have been much closer to biblical Christianity than those in many other parts of the world. Farid Esack, a Capetonian Muslim theologian, describes the South African Muslim community as ‘one of the most dynamic and exciting in the world of Islam.’  With my concededly limited knowledge in this regard, I have no reason to contradict this statement.  In fact, I tend to endorse it. Possibly more than anywhere else, Islam here - excluding the fringe extremist groups - might be ready to accept correction. White South Africans set a fine precedent when they - with the exclusion of fringe right-wing groups like the AWB - accepted correction to the country's apartheid policies a few years ago, led by the late Professor Johan Heyns, who has to be regarded as a martyr because of his turn around. (Another academic, Willie Jonker, confessed their guilt on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church at the Rustenburg conference in November 1990, an event that was a significant step towards the new democracy.)

Prayer Sequels

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 start calling Gill Knaggs into the mission to the Muslim World. She was attending the prayer meeting on a one-off basis. This set her in motion to pray about getting involved in full-time missionary work.  

            Gill hereafter helped to translate (from Afrikaans) and edit the testimony booklet Search for Truth. She also hosted a prayer group for Muslims at her home for quite a number of years. When Cape Community FM (CCFM) started with a radio programme aimed at Muslims in 1998, she was on hand for the writing of scripts, something she continued to do for many years, also after her marriage.

          As a result of the 1994 Jesus Marches some Cape churches came to know the missionary work of WEC International better. One of these churches was the Logos Baptiste Kerk in Bellville. Not only did this church become a major recipient of the Ramadan booklet, but Freddy van Dyk, a leader of the church who worked at the City Council, joined the Friday lunchtime prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch. At this meeting we prayed about our vision to get into the hospitals to visit people outside of the regular visiting hours. He mentioned a training course in pastoral counselling which his wife had attended. When we followed this information up, it resulted in Rosemarie attending such a course it along with other befriended ladies. June Lemensich and Arina Serdyn, who had been regulars at our Friday prayer meeting, as well as Renate Isert, our SIM missionary colleague, attended the course. Dr. Henry Dwyer, who heads up the pastoral work at the hospitals in the Cape, was an old friend of mine from our connections in the VCS, the student Christian movement in the 1960s. This in turn led to a Muslim Evangelism teaching course scheduled at the same venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne.

          Another sequel to the Friday lunchtime prayer meetings was the resumption of language classes at the Cape Town Baptist Church, even though these lessons differed greatly from classes held before 1999. It all started with a local believer attending the prayer meetings and pointing to French-speaking traders from West Africa in the Mother City, many who were invariably Muslim. "Who would bring the Gospel to them?" was the challenge. At that stage Louis Pasques, who had become the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, was attending the lunchtime prayer meetings fairly regularly.  As one of the few born again French speakers of the Mother City at the time, he was in this way prepared for the challenge posed by refugees from Zaire and the Republic of Congo, who came to his church for some sort of aid. When Gildas Paka, a Congolese teenager, pitched up at the church in 1996, the Pasques family opened their home to him. One thing led to the other until Alan Kay, the church's administrator, finally adopted Gildas. Soon the Cape Town Baptist Church became a home to refugees from many African countries. The need for fluency in English - in order to help them obtain employment - inspired the offer of free English lessons to many of these refugees. This led to the resumption of English language classes at the church, this time not as a service to foreign students, but to refugees.

          An unseen result of the Friday prayer times was the call to missions of Sherna Fortune, who was working at Metropolitan Health in Buitengracht Street in 2001, less than hundred meters from the Koffiekamer. While she was overlooking the Muslim stronghold from her working place, she sensed a strong challenge to share the gospel with Muslims. The following year she resigned her work to be able to work full-time for the Lord. In 2003 she not only became a faithful co-worker in various factories where she ministered to many a Muslim woman, but she also became the link to get the Lighthouse Christian Centre, her home church, closely involved with the outreach to Cape Muslims the year thereafter.

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, a country town about 100 km from Cape Town. 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 a 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 not only came into a living relationship with Jesus, but a few of them left the Cape shores as short term missionaries, using drama and other modern forms of ministry in different countries.

A Reply to New Challenges from Islam

Muslims were perceived as receiving preferential treatment from the new government. This boosted the religion at the Cape substantially. On the other hand, conversions from Islam to a living faith in Jesus Christ increased significantly in South Africa as from Ramadan 1995. The catalyst was definitely an increase in prayer, stimulated by Bennie Mostert through NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa), and Gerda Leithgöb from Herald Ministries. (Leithgöb taught and implemented spiritual mapping quite effectively. This is a tool that had been introduced in 1991 by a well-known American, George Otis). A link to the Cape Flats township intercessors existed via Mercia and Vincent Pregnalato and their fellowship in Greenhaven. The fellowship around 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, flag worship and other visible artifacts not only into the Cape churches as a part of worship, but also quite far afield. Martha Pekeur was another stalwart from the Cape Flats community who put intercession into her banner, even though it was not always targeted and therefore perhaps less effective. During the 1980s spiritual mapping was not yet practised at the Cape.

          A new brand of convert from Islam emerged, people who were bold and willing to suffer ostracism and persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. A case in point is Esmé Orrie. She was very fearful and suspicious for a long time after her conversion in July 1992.  However, since 1994 she has testified boldly in many a church and on the radio. On 10 March 2000, listeners to the CCFM Christian radio station were invited to react telephonically to the programme God Changes Lives when she shared her testimony. Johaar Viljoen, a former Imam, shared his conversion story in many a church fearlessly in spite of threats.

Publications assist a networking effort

Majiet Poblonker and Zane Abrahams, two Muslim-background believers and their families, visited our home in June 1992. 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. The author enjoyed collating the testimonies from some of the Muslim-background believers, sometimes making notes at meetings and once he 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 a prayer seminar in January 1995. Elizabeth Robertson, one of our regular prayer warriors, was on hand to paint a beautiful cover for the booklet, which was also later translated into English as Search for Truth. The development of the publication of the booklet with testimonies of Muslim converts proceeded quite well during the first half of 1995, but we experienced major attacks in the family. One such attack was when the two-monthly allocation via our WEC headquarters from Holland - gifts from churches and friends, disappeared mysteriously between the bank in the Netherlands and the bank of our missionary headquarters in Durban. A major gift, which we had earmarked for the printing of the booklet, now had to be used for air tickets to Europe for the family.  The bank later reimbursed the money.

            At this stage I was very eager to see the publication as a combined effort of various mission agencies. But because of its sensitive nature, none of my missionary colleagues were prepared to stick their necks out. Converted Muslims could be exposed to persecution if the testimonies would be published. Furthermore, the person(s) responsible for 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. I did not mind at all staying in the background in this way, not wanting to endanger myself or my family unnecessarily.

          Special networking took place when Pastor Johnny Louw, a retired Bible School principal from the Apostolic Faith Mission Church, got different missionary colleagues to write a booklet called Share your faith with your Muslim Neighbour. Originally written in Afrikaans, Louw had it translated into English. Thereafter he distributed the booklet in different countries. Elisabeth Robertson made a painting for the cover of this publication as she had also done of our booklet Op Soek na Waarheid / Search for Truth.

            The annual distribution of the Muslim Prayer Focus for intercession during the month of Ramadan became a common effort by CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) members. Bennie Mostert, who had introduced the booklets in South Africa, wanted to abort the effort in 1996 because of financial constraints when Manfred Jung, a SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague and I stepped in to assist. As this action had to transpire at short notice, and in an effort to keep the costs as low as possible, we roped in our children and a few young people from the Stellenberg Chapel in Pinelands to help collate, count and bundle the booklets.

          SIM missionaries wrote a number of other booklets and tracts, which surely made some impact. The author wrote tracts with testimonies of Cape Muslims, networking with Colin Tomlinson of MECO, who assisted with the editing. A nephew of Rosemarie from Germany started with the layout. Renate Isert of SIM Life Challenge put in a lot of effort to get them ready for print. In this way the almost axiomatic belief in Cape Muslim circles that if one is born a Muslim, one must die one, was eroded. It was however definitely not in the spirit of the author when an over-eager Christian distributed tracts outside a mosque.

           Proof of the impact of the written material came through when it was discovered that Muslims were being warned against the testimonies on a website.

A National Day of Prayer and its local backlash

In October 1995 the Sunday Times published a report about the Islamic conference held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. There it was vocalized that Africa was to be Islamized by the end of the 20th century, making use of the South African infrastructure. The precedent of making the country ungovernable – fairly successfully used in the 1990s to bring the apartheid government to the negotiating table - was to be repeated. The Western Cape, with its favourable infrastructure plus the presence of well over a quarter of a million Muslims, was intended to be the springboard from the south. The attempt was frustrated by the 30 Days of prayer during the first term of 1996 and a National Day of Prayer.

The 1996 national 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. Countrywide, Christians were chal­lenged to fast and pray in the 40-day period leading up 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 sure to respond in some way.

In the Western Cape, the initial resultant satanic backlash was traumatic, with the eruption of a near Lebanon-type scenario after People against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD), a Muslim extremist group, started terrorizing the Mother City on 4 August 1996. On that day, Rashaad Staggie, a drug lord, was publicly executed by burning. On the long run however, this event played an important role in the start of the demise of Islam as a religious stronghold. It later became clear that this was part and parcel of the Islamic strategy to Islamize the continent.

A Lebanon-type scenario?

Spiritual strongholds became a focus of prayer drives that were launched by Pastor Eddy Edson from Mitchells Plain and intercessors from different churches on the last Friday of each month in 1996. The prayer drive of July 1996 started at the strategic Gatesville mosque. This was the same venue from where a fateful PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) car procession started a week later. That procession left for Salt River on August 4, the occasion of Rashaad Staggie’s publicly burning. That event catapulted his twin brother and co-gangleader Rashied into prominence.

            The prayer drives, undertaken at the initiative of Pastor Edson, who had been a gangster himself, unfortunately only had a short lifespan. An Edson initiative, which lasted much longer, was the monthly pastors' and pastors' wives prayer meeting. 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.

          Sandwiched between the above-mentioned two processions that left the Gatesville mosque, a church service in the Moravian Church of Elsies River was to have worldwide ramifications. Mark Gabriel, the name adopted by a Muslim background believer from Egypt and a former professor at the famous al-Azar University, shared his testimony there at a combined youth service on the last July Sunday evening of 1996. (Gabriel previously had to flee his home country where he narrowly escaped assassination.) Within days, the booklet with his story was in the hands of Muslims leaders. Maulana Sulaiman Petersen, who suspected that Mark Gabriel had contact with local missionaries, threateningly enquired after him on Wednesday 31 July - i.e. at the time when Mark was doing the practical part of his Crossroads Discipleship Training School at YWAM in Muizenberg with us. He was forced to go undercover once again. The televised Staggie execution by PAGAD a few days later reminded him of Muslim radicals of the Middle East. He was inspired to research jihad, which resulted in a book that possibly influenced US policy on the Middle East in 2002.

            The public ‘execution’ of Rashaad Staggie by PAGAD (People Against Drugs And Gangsterism) was the next major stimulus for prayer. It brought personal relief to us, because in the resulting turmoil the fundamentalist Muslims seemingly forgot to hunt for Mark Gabriel.

            The PAGAD issue highlighted the fear of and resentment - sometimes even hatred of some Christians towards Muslims. The veiled threat of a Muslim State was now mentioned more often than was healthy for good relations between the adherents of the two major religions at the Cape. An arson attempt on the church soon hereafter where our course on ‘Sharing your faith with your Muslim neighbour’ was to be held, was luckily downplayed in the press. Satanists were accused of the arson attempt. Fortunately the damage was not too extensive. The crisis abated after a few weeks.

Start of an Impact on a Bo-Kaap School

In September 1996 we surprisingly gained access to St Paul’s Primary School in Bo-Kaap through Ms Berenice Lawrence, a teacher at the school. The author had introduced Mark Gabriel, the Christian religious refugee from Egypt to her and her husband. Now Berenice asked me whether I could bring people from other countries along to their school. I jumped at this idea to broaden the minds of the children, to try and open them up for the Gospel in a non-threatening way. Soon I became well-known to the kids as I brought Christians from all parts of the world to address the school assembly.

An arson Attempt

The 10-week teaching course ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour’ emphasized prayer as part and parcel of ‘spiritual warfare’.  Just before the course was scheduled to start, there was an arson attempt on the intended venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne. When Muslims offered to help with the repair of the damage done, the suspicion was confirmed that Satanists were not really behind the arson attack as had been suggested by a Cape Argus reporter. The reason that the first course was held at St James Church in Kenilworth from 3 September to 5 November 1996 was exactly because the organizers wanted to use it as a ‘Gideon’s fleece’ (compare Judges 6:36-40), a test to make sure that they had God’s will in it. A Lebanon-type of scenario - with Christians and Muslims fighting each other - appeared to be a very real possibility. The organizers of the course did not know at that time that Lansdowne was one of the big PAGAD strongholds. In fact, PAGAD was virtually unknown before August 1996. Since then, conflicting reports were published about the intention of Muslims - for instance by the radical Qibla faction of PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) - to attempt to start the Islamization of South Africa in the Western Cape. Mark Gabriel left the Cape in the wake of the PAGAD-related threat to his life.

Intercessors from different areas

June Lehmensich, a regular at the Friday prayer meetings and an office worker for the City Council, had taken the pastoral clinical training course with Dr Dwyer in Lansdowne, in addition to attending the ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’ course at St James Church (Kenilworth) in 1996. She became a pivotal figure as she spread 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 Church of Bo-Kaap. Bennie Mostert arranged the annual countrywide distribution, ensuring that the vision of countrywide prayer for Muslims once a year was guaranteed. However, the bulk of agencies that were involved with Muslim outreach never fully adopted the vision. Intercessors were coming together from different places once a month at the Sowers of the Word Church in Lansdowne, where the veteran Pastor Andy Lamb was the leader.

          Sally Kirkwood, a Cape intercessor of note, had already been prepared by the Lord, starting a prayer meeting at their home in Plumstead. Along with other intercessors she became God’s instrument for increasing prayer awareness in the Mother City. Cynthia Richards from Enterprise, was another important cog in this regard as she visited the various Ministers Fraternals of the Peninsula and organising prayer meetings in preparation for the Franklin Graham, the son of the renowned evangelist Billy Graham. (I could give her the phone numbers I still had from the Jesus Marches of 1994).

          It was really significant for the Cape Town Metropolis in April 1997 when churches across the city and from almost every denomination joined hands for a big campaign on the Newlands Cricket Stadium with Franklin 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 respectively for this event. Transport from the townships was provided free of charge. This thus became the model for the Transformation stadium events of the new millennium.

          I had met Elijah Klaassen the first time in 1981 when I was part of a church delegation in Crossroads when the government wanted to send women and children back to the Transkei. I met up with him by chance again in 1992 when he was addressing a group on the Grand Parade. My effort to make use of him to rope Black pastors into a prayer network for the Peninsula was however not successful.

          Eben Swart became the Western Cape coordinator for Herald Ministries, working closely with NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa), which had appointed Pastor Willy Oyegun as their coordinator in the Western Cape. Important work was done in research and spiritual mapping, along with Amanda Buys. Some of her clients had been involved with Satanism. Ernst van der Walt (jr) had ministered in China with OM on short term and Amanda Buys had been involved with the counseling of Christians with psychological problems.

Confession once again

It came really as a special boon when Christians overseas starting organising a Reconciliation Walk following the path of the Crusades. Bennie Mostert (Jericho Walls) faxed the lengthy confession of the organisers through to our Cape CCM Forum on the very day we had one of our meetings. It looked to me as if God had his hand in it. But it turned out to be no cakewalk. In our meeting the lengthy confession was turned down out of hand because it was regarded as not relevant for us in South Africa. I managed to salvage the idea, that we should then write our own confession. At our Easter Conference 1997 at Wellington I reminded the missionary colleagues of the idea at the meeting of the leadership. They promptly gave me the homework to write a draft and pass it on to 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. The matter was much too important for that.

            What a difference the prayer seminar with Gerda Leithgöb at the former Cape Evangelical Bible Institute shortly hereafter, still in April 1997. The news of the sale of the former CEBI Bible Institute to Muslims coincided with the prayer seminar, but what a sense of unity we experienced in spite of the sword hanging of Damocles over all of us.  (Pastor Danny Pearson led the believers of the fellowship that was making use of the premises from there on many a prayer walk in the area.) Gerda approached me to become the co-ordinator for the Western Cape of Herald Ministries, but I had no peace to accept. Eben Swart turned out to be a much more capable person for that function.

            The visit by Cindy Jacobs 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 blot of District Six. When Sally approached me in October 1997, I had started to prepare a visit of intercessors from Heidelberg (Gauteng).

A strategic meeting in District Six

International intercession began in earnest with the identification of the 10/40 Window, which gave a geographical focus to prayer. This was a divinely inspired window passed on by Luis Bush, an American prayer leader and was used by Peter Wagner, a compatriot, to rally the evangelical world in united prayer for the peoples who were unreached with the gospel. At the occasion of the sending of prayer teams to different spiritual strongholds in 1997, a team from the Dutch Reformed Church Suikerbosrand from Heidelberg (Gauteng) followed the NUPSA nudge to come and pray in Bo-Kaap. In the spiritual realm this was significant, because Heidelberg was the cradle of the racist AWB when the town belonged to the Transvaal province of the old South Africa.

            As part of this visit from Gauteng, a prayer meeting of confession was organized on November 1, 1997 in District Six in front of the former Moravian Church. The diminutive Sally Kirkwood, who led a prayer group for Cape Muslims at her home in Plumstead in the mid-1990s, played a pivotal role in this prayer event. Sally not only had a big vision for the desolate District Six to be revived through prayer, but she also informed Richard Mitchell and Mike Winfield about the event. The citywide prayer movement received a major push. Eben Swart was asked to lead the occasion. That turned out to be very strategic.

          The event at the Moravian Church in District Six attempted to break the spirit of death and forlornness over the area, so that it would be inhabited again. It was to take another seven years before that started to be realized and abused for election purposes in 2004. For quite a few participants this event became a watershed. Gill Knaggs, Trish and Dave Whitecross were burdened to become missionaries in the Middle East. Sally Kirkwood came to the fore with a more prominent role among Cape intercessors. Richard Mitchell, Eben Swart and Mike Winfield linked up more closely at this occasion in a relationship that was to have a significant mutual impact on the prayer ministry at the Cape in the next few years, and on transformation in the country at large. Eben Swart’s position as Western Cape Prayer coordinator was cemented when he hereafter linked up with the pastors' and pastors' wives prayer meeting led by Eddie Edson. Mike Winfield belonged to the Anglican congregation in Bergvliet that had Trevor Pearce as their new pastor. (The Anglican Church in Bergvliet later took a leading role in the attempts towards the transformation of the Mother City.)  The confession ceremony in District six closed with the stoning of an altar that Satanists or other occultists had probably erected there.

Churches Working Together

1998 brought significant steps in the right direction through the initiatives of NUPSA (Network of Prayer in Southern Africa) and Herald Ministries. Regular prayer meetings at the Mowbray Baptist Church, with warriors coming from different parts of the Peninsula, and from different racial and church backgrounds, carried a strong message of the unity of the body of Christ. However, the suggestion in 1999 to continue on local level in different areas, never took off. Nevertheless, the Mowbray exercise brought together two racial groupings for prayer. This thus became the forerunner of citywide prayer events.

          In another part of the world the transformation of a Mother City had been prepared. In the Central American Almolonga in the country of Guatemala, God had already performed a miracle. Where old-fashioned idolatry had been practiced and Maximon considered as the patron saint of the many Guatemalan villagers, God intervened in answer to prayer. The documentation of the transformation of Almolonga, along with that of Cali in Columbia, which had been a crime-infested city ruled by drug lords not long before, was recorded by George Otis. The video also includes the record of Transformation in two other cities in answer to prayer.

           In early 1999 Ernst van der Walt (jr) started working closely with Reverend Trevor Pearce, an Anglican cleric, in the sphere of the transformation of communities. They started distributing the video produced by George Otis. The first time it was screened to a big audience in Cape Town was at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow in October 1999. Already in the short term this showing brought about substantial change in some churches. Also, in organizations, the importance of strategic prayer was breaking through. On the longer term the video broke the ground for a citywide prayer event at the Newlands Rugby Stadium on 21 March 2001.The Alpha Course (founded by Nicky Gumble in England) has resulted in many coming to a living faith in Jesus. The Promise Keepers, a movement established among American men, with its emphasis on taking responsibility in the family and commitment to fidelity in marriage, could influence Cape society profoundly. Infidelity and divorce, a hallmark of American television society and which has been exported around the world, had become a major threat to family life all around. The teaching by Black preachers in the Independent churches, ably led by Larry Warren, an American missionary and assisted by local ministers and missionaries, empowered many a pastor in the black communities.

           An open-air campaign by Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke in Mitchell’s Plain in May 1998 - fourteen years after a gigantic tent was blown apart by the Cape South Easter in Valhalla Park - played a significant role in the evangelisation of the gangsters there. Unfortunately, as happens with most evangelistic campaigns, the co-operation amongst churches petered out after the event. Also, the follow-up of new converts was very poor.

Citywide prayer events

A citywide prayer event on the Grand Parade in 1998 almost floundered after a bomb threat. Churches across the Peninsula had initially been requested to cancel their evening services on Sunday, 19 April 1998.  In sheer zeal, a Christian had thousands of pamphlets printed and distributed without proper consultation with the organizing committee in respect of the content of the pamphlet. The flyer and poster that invited believers to a mass prayer meeting against drug abuse, homosexuality and other vice, unfortunately also referred to Islam in a context that was not respectful enough for some radicals.  A PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) member apparently regarded this as an invitation to disrupt the event. The meeting was subsequently announced as cancelled, but a few courageous believers including the late Pastor Danny Pearson, who had been deeply involved with the organization of the event, felt that they should not give in to the intimidation, and that, if need be, Christians should be willing to die for the cause of the Gospel. The meeting actually proceeded on a much smaller scale than originally planned. The prayer event included confession for the sins of omission to the Cape Muslims and to the Jews.

          The unofficial renaming of ‘Devil’s Peak’ to ‘Disciples' Peak’ - led by Pastor Johan Klopper of the Vredehoek Apostolic Faith Mission Church - and regular prayers at Rhodes Memorial, fitted into the pattern of spiritual warfare. These venues had been strongholds of Satanists. A mass march to Parliament on 2 September 1998 in response to the perceived attack on community radio stations was followed by a big prayer event on Table Mountain a few weeks later. The prayer day, this time as an effort to rename the reviled peak ‘God’s Mountain’, was called for 26 September 1998. A few thousand Christians prayed over the city from Table Mountain. The event inspired a new initiative whereby a few believers from diverse backgrounds would come together again for prayer on Signal Hill on Saturdays every fortnight at 6 a.m.  Soon early Saturday morning prayer meetings also commenced at Tygerberg, Paarl Rock and on the Constantia Heights.  Christians from different churches thus demonstrated the unity of the body. 

          Quite a close relationship developed to Richard Mitchell and his family after we had started the early morning prayer meetings on Signal Hill. When the opening came for a regular testimony programme on Friday evening on Radio CCFM, Richard Mitchell was a natural choice. The programme ‘God Changes Lives’ with him as presenter was naturally also used to advertise the citywide prayer events.

Other Attacks on spiritual Strongholds

That God works in mysterious ways was of course known to us. A special version of it happened when we conducted a ten week teaching course on Muslim Evangelism at the Logos Baptist church in Brackenfell. There appeared to be no immediate success in people joining us as co-workers. Yet, a few of the participants were deeply impacted. Among the participants there were for instance Johan Groenewald and his wife as well as Cheryl Müller, whom we picked up every week in District Six. The Groenewald couple took the message to the rural village of Eendekuil where he found a willing ear in Chris Saayman, the Dutch Reformed minister.

          The Müller family in District Six was challenged to go full-time into the ministry of the Nazarene Church. They were however heavily attacked when Glen, her husband, had a mental burnout while they were in Johannesburg at the theological seminary. Glen nevertheless retained a prayerful interest in District Six. He introduced me to Saki Mispach, his neighbour across the road. My friendship to Saki, an avid reader with wide interests and an unheralded hero of the anti-apartheid struggle with people like the La Gumas and Johnny Gomas, was to impact me too as we inter-acted from time to time. As someone who was deeply involved with the Muslim drug rehabilitation programme at Schaapkraal, we had more than enough common ground. Without getting into doctrinal discussions, I sensed how the Holy Spirit was gradually mellowing down his initial strong Marxist-atheist convictions.

          Prayer walking one a month was another method used to break down strongholds of the deceiver at the Cape. A few Christians joined from as far afield as Melkbosstrand and Eendekuil. Results might not have been spectacular, but the lifting of a spiritual heaviness over the Muslim stronghold Bo-Kaap could definitely be discerned.   

          In another move on 25 April 1999, Christians were challenged at the Cape Town Baptist Church and the Eendekuil Dutch Reformed Church to pray for people living in the streets of Bo-Kaap. A few faithful aged prayer warriors of the Dutch Reformed Church in Rondebosch who had been coming to an early morning prayer meeting every Sunday, also became involved in this way.  A 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 important kramats (shrines) and its view over the harbour, 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. The squatter camp brought prostitution, alcoholism and drug peddling to the Bo-Kaap which had been morally quite upright before its entry. Be it as it may, the dark spirit over the area clearly diminished towards the end of the century.

In October 2000 the prayer walk group was encouraged while walking in Bo-Kaap, when they met a Congolese Bible School student. He was on the verge of returning to his home country as an evangelist after being impacted and trained in Cape Town. This was one of my long-time visions. In 2006 Bertie de Jager, an Afrikaner linked to the Logos Christian Church of Brackenfell became deeply burdened to pray for Bo-Kaap.

Prayer efforts in the Cape Town City Bowl

A forty-day fast from Easter Sunday to Ascension Day 1998 included days of prayer and fasting by a few churches in the City Bowl. Rev Louis Pasques of the Cape Town Baptist Church, who also displayed a vision to reach out to the Cape Muslims with love, spearheaded this endeavour. After trying hard since September 1995 to get a ministers’ prayer group going in the City Bowl, this weekly meeting with a prayer emphasis gained ground slowly after the 40 day prayer effort from April to May 1998.

          A corresponding move in 1999 - this time with a prayer period of 120 days - was concluded in the Western Cape in the traditional service of the Groote Kerk on Ascension Day, 1999. In the communion service pastors from different churches officiated, a signal of a growing church unity. Likewise a combined evening service in September 1999 in the Cape Town Baptist Church was significant. Dignitaries from the provincial government were present and prayed for.

          At the Groote Kerk Ascension Day event, Dr Robbie Cairncross was divinely brought into the equation. He had been prepared by the Holy Spirit, coming to the Mother City with a vision to see a network of prayer developing in the Peninsula. After he had listened to the author speaking at the Groote Kerk, an appointment was set up. I was able to introduce him to the leaders of the Cape Peace Initiative, which was formed in the wake of the PAGAD disruptions in 1999. His prayer for an office for his Christian Coalition/Family Alliance near to Parliament was answered in a special way, and he could move into the premises of the Chamber of Commerce at 4 Church Square, a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament. Dr Robbie Cairncross’ plan became quite strategic when Achmed Kariem, a convert from Islam with a vision for taking and distributing prayer information, came onto his staff. Unfortunately the plan faltered somewhat when Robbie Cairncross had to leave the Chamber of Commerce because of financial constraints. Cairncross went on to become an international evangelist with a significant healing ministry.

          In an initiative by Pastor Eddie Edson of Mitchells Plain, occasional all-night citywide prayer events started, one each on 25 June and 15 October 1999. Natural prayer fuel was provided by the possibility of an escalation of tension between Muslims and Jews in the Mother City, because of the situation in the Middle East.

Satanic deception and a backlash

The New Age movement - with the formal variant of inter-faith - seemed to have drowned the evangelical roots at the Cape at the time of the World Parliament of Religions in December 1999. The World Parliament of Religions held from 1 to 8 December 1999 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 the prayer event of confession took place on November 1, 1997.

          It soon became clear that the uniqueness of Jesus Christ was under attack at the World Parliament of Religions. Dr Henry Kirby, a medical doctor with close links to YWAM, joined up with Brian Johnson (Johnson had been targeting the New Age movement since 1989. 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. The participation of Rev Derrick Meyer, a former student colleague of the author, who was now the superintendent of the Moravian Church, at this occasion brought me back into the frame of the church of my childhood and youth. There was however no real interest forthcoming in our ministry from that side as yet.

          The role of drugs has still not been acknowledged sufficiently in spiritual warfare. For centuries the scourge of alcohol obstructed all church and evangelistic work at the Cape. The roots of cannabis (dagga) abuse goes back many centuries, when the Khoisan bartered cattle with Arab traders in Mozambique for the plant that they chewed before they learned to smoke it with a pipe.

          Every year many new converts to Jesus backslide spiritually over the Christmas period when the increased consumption of alcoholic beverages takes its toll. Muslims have taken to drugs in the same manner as they have seen Cape Christians abuse wine.  Mitchell’s Plain Muslims have strikingly been quoted as saying, in an effort to justify their drinking of wine at Lebaran (Eid-al-Fitr): “It is mos our Christmas!” The impact of drugs has had the same devastating result: a tragic addiction that has been wrecking family life. A large part of the population of Cape townships like Tafelsig and Woodlands in Mitchells Plain started regarding all vice related to drug abuse as their way of life. The churches at the Cape became guilty themselves when far too often they hardly made an effort to assist their members who experienced problems related to drug or alcohol abuse.  From the 1980s Satanism received many recruits from the drug scene, making spiritual warfare even more necessary.

Special moves in Woodstock and Salt River

The Woodstock Assemblies of God Church valiantly held the fort under the leadership of Pastor William Tait, also with outreach efforts. On Good Friday 2000 they served the poor and needy with pickled fish and hot cross buns during an open-air service. 

          In a series of Bible Studies held at their church in June 2000, Christians from other churches were invited to come and have a look at Islam as seen through the eye of the Bible. The pastor had a vision for getting more church members involved in evangelism.

          The spiritual battle is still raging in the area. In spite of aid from a White Afrikaans-speaking church - the Logos Baptiste Kerk in Bellville – the Woodstock sister church struggled to survive after the tragic death of their devout Pastor Edgar Davids in March 1998. Jennie van der Berg, who also worked with us in a children’s club in Salt River, started children's ministry in that area, with the local Baptist Church as her base.

          Early in 2000 a Christian businessman bought the Junction Hotel in Salt River, where so many lives had been wrecked through alcohol and drug abuse. He donated the hotel to the City Mission. A vision had grown with the latter mission to use the renovated building - for which big money is needed - for the rehabilitation of drug addicts. Funds were however lacking to renovate the building for this purpose. In the nearby community centre, Eric Hofmeyer had been using the City Mission facilities to get into many a school with his Adullam Ministries.

          It seemed as though the Church at the Cape started to regain its former missionary zeal. There are however only very few indications that the church is at last also awakening to its responsibility towards the Muslims, who still form the prime unreached group of the Cape in terms of the Gospel. Are Christians getting ready to share the Good News in a culturally acceptable manner?

Church-led restitution?

The 1996 visit of Pastor Ed Silvoso of Argentina to South Africa had a significant follow-up at the Cape when Dr Robbie Cairncross was very much of a catalyst in getting a group of church leaders to go to Argentina.

            At this occasion Pastor Martin Heuvel of the Fountain Christian Centre in Ravensmead was challenged to apply the principal of restitution to the South African set-up.  His efforts to get other White church leaders to move beyond mere oral confession and especially towards restitution for the evils of apartheid took more than two years. Some of these personalities who were challenged, had been involved with the prayer movement in the country for many years. In 2002 Martin Heuvel approached Charles Robertson, a prayer warrior of many years standing and the catalyst of the monthly prayer concerts at the Cape, where he found a prepared heart. This finally led to the founding of the Foundation for Church-led Restitution, where believers from different races and church backgrounds met from time to time. They started to discuss possibilities to nudge the church towards meaningful restitution, especially to address and rectify the wrongs of apartheid.. Some of the church leaders, who had been involved with the Cape Peace Initiative in 1999, got involved in this organization. Robertson jotted down some of the results of their deliberations in a book, which also stressed personal intimacy with God. The disparity between poor and rich, which has been growing to great proportions, is a cancer of our society that developed out of the race policies of the previous regime. An interesting suggestion of Robertson is to challenge the church to see the distribution of material goods in restitution of our past as a volksbesnydenis, a circumcision of the nation. After reading one of the author’s manuscripts, Charles Robertson approached me in November 2004, to discuss an effort to implement church-led confession and restitution for the wrongs perpetrated to Muslims and Jews.   But nothing came from it. Every effort to get churches even half-way interested, floundered.

           

                                                         11. PAGAD and its Effects

          The dislocation of the Cape Flats communities because of the Group Areas Act in the 1960s and 1970s had caused a major problem. As people were uprooted from stable residential areas, gangsterism (which had already taken root in District Six), grew almost exponentially in the new townships. In his contribution ‘Violence and Social Life in Cape Town in the 1900s’, Robin Hallet concluded already in 1980: ‘For many of its inhabitants Cape Town has degenerated into an extremely violent and dangerous place in which to live.’ In the list of murders per thousand inhabitants printed, according to information given in Parliament in 1978, Epping (including Elsies River), Retreat, Manenberg and Bishop Lavis (including Bonteheuwel) head the list. These are exactly those townships in which people had been dumped due to Group Areas legislation.

          Another 20 years on, the townships were even more dangerous. A case in point is the well-known Staggie twins. They were forced to move from the respectable suburb Diep River to the Cape Flats township of Manenberg in 1971. Over the years, the Staggies became mighty drug lords with international links. During the 1980s the apartheid regime covertly assisted gangsters. Chris Ferndale, who can be regarded as an expert on gang affairs, referred to an ‘alliance’ between gangsters and the police (The Cape Argus, 15 August 1996). 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 many a local township because of this arrangement.

The Response of the Churches and Missions to Gang-related Activities 

The question was: How long would the churches sit idly by and endure the senseless killings and crime? The occasional pious talk, calling for an end to the violence, was not good enough.

          Fortunately there were some exceptions to the rule. The prayerful Pastor Alfred West was a brave White evangelist. He was mightily used by God to stem the tide of gangsterism, notably in Bonteheuwel in the 1980s. In his open-air campaigns he confronted the shebeen owners (illegal alcohol peddlers, operating from their homes) and dagga (cannabis) smokers. A special spin-off of his work was a missionary prayer fellowship, to which amongst others the missionary Walter Gschwandter (SIM Life Challenge) came from time to time. This resulted in quite a few of Pastor West’s group getting trained in Muslim Evangelism and becoming involved in regular weekly outreach. One of his protégées was Percy Jeptha, a former gangster, who later became a pastor. Peter Barnes, a young man from the fellowship, went on to plant mission-minded churches in the Transkei that have it as their vision to send missionaries to other African countries.

          In recent years a few gangsters from Islamic background became followers of Jesus. Until the early 1990s there was no targeted endeavour to reach the gangsters with the Gospel. Some of them came under the sound of the Gospel at the occasional open-air service.

          Dicky Lewis, who became a missionary with AEF (Africa Evangelical Fellowship) in 1995, grew up among many of the gang leaders. Through his involvement in community structures, Lewis won the trust of many a gangster and drug lord.

Counterproductive Islamic Moves

The relative success of evangelistic efforts in the second half of the 1990s has to be attributed in part to ‘own goals’ by the Muslims.  The general Christian indifference to the spread of Islam was temporarily checked through the report of the above-mentioned Islamic World Conference in Tripoli in October 1995.  The conference resolved that Muslims would now try to utilize South Africa’s excellent infrastructure to islamize the continent from the South.

          Initially the Tripoli announcement was not regarded as a real threat to the Gospel in Southern Africa.  The prospect only hit home a few months later when Louis Farrakhan, a prominent black American Muslim, visited the country.  Fairly soon after his successful mass march to Washington D.C. with his Nation of Islam in October 1995, Farrakhan came to the country amid much fanfare and prominent media coverage. The appeal to the Black masses was evident as he appeared on television together with President Nelson Mandela. That this happened during Ramadan was just the tonic for Cape Christians to pray as rarely before. 

           Whereas the church had been fairly indifferent about its outreach to Muslims until that time, things changed almost overnight. The confident prediction from Tripoli in October 1995 did not sound so preposterous any more by February 1996. Although Ramadan was almost over by this time, there was suddenly a big demand for the 30-Day Prayer Focus booklets.

            The assistance of Muhammad Khaddafi and other oil states was made practical through the provision of Islamic literature in African languages and mosques built in the Black townships. Strategic property was bought up with the aid of oil revenue and funds from Muslim countries, for instance from Libya; new areas in different parts of the country were quitely islamized. (In other Southern African countries like Malawi it was even more pronounced).

           

A crisis following the first PAGAD moves

In 1995/6 conditions in the township of Manenberg were almost unbearable for the local people - completely out of control. Father Chris Clohessy, the local Roman Catholic priest, had earned the trust of many people of the township, moving fearlessly also in gangster territory. PAGAD was initiated by a group of Muslims in 1996 and joined by Father Chris Clohessy. However, in the ensuing inter-faith venture, Muslims were soon dominating proceedings. Prominent figures like Farouk Jaffer and Achmat Cassiem were reported to have performed a palace coup. Cassiem was the leader of Qibla, subtly changing the anti-drug, anti-crime movement into an organization that sought to usher in Islamic rule in 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.

          PAGAD became known publicly on 4 August 1996. That was the occasion when an influential 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 impact the problem areas of the Cape townships. The danger of a Lebanon-type scenario was very real – virtually everybody at the Cape feared that the gangsters might hit back with a vengeance. A meeting for church leaders and missionaries was organized at the Scripture Union buildings in Rondebosch, followed by a wave of prayer by evangelical Christians. Drug rehabilitation where Jesus is central, was also suggested. (The Bet-el centres that had proved so successful in Spain served as a model. Through this ministry, many drug addicts around the world have in the meantime experienced the liberating power of a personal faith in Jesus.)  However, when the crisis subsided, pastors simply resumed building their own ‘kingdoms’.

          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 who called themselves the Boere Aanvalstroepe. Luckily other right-wing Afrikaner groups distanced themselves from this group, so that the dangerous situation was soon defused. Christians have a duty to minister to deluded racist madmen and violent religious fanatics from all persuasions through love.

Islamic Bewilderment

Many Muslims perceived with initial satisfaction that the new government after 1994 was favouring Islam. Farid Esack - widely regarded as an Islamic liberation theologian - was given the gender chair in the new government. This frustrated conservative Muslims and young radicals alike, albeit for opposite reasons, causing rifts in the Muslim community. The conservative group was disappointed that Esack interpreted Islam in a way that enhanced gender equality. At the same time, the radicals considered that the country did not move significantly nearer to the ideal of an Islamic state, the clear aim of the Hamas-Hisbollah related Qibla. The majority of Muslims were nevertheless satisfied with the direction of the ANC- dominated government. Many regarded the new regime to be favourable to Islam as part of its policy of affirmative action. A hero from Islamic ranks, Dullah Omar, the new Minister of Justice, was however regarded to have been responsible for the notorious law on easy access to bail. This caused some unease in Muslim ranks, because many perceived easy bail as the prime reason of the spiraling crime levels. (So typical of human nature, he is not remembered for the ground-breaking Truth and Reconciliation Commission for which he introduced legislation as well. A bigger due for this legislation is however to be given to another Muslim, Professor Kader Asmal, who suggested such a commission originally in his inaugural address some years ago at the University of the Western Cape.)

          A major cause of Islamic bewilderment was the side effects of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD). Quite a few founder and early members of PAGAD left the group because of the violence and the aggressive stance that the Qibla faction radiated. But also dynamic peace-loving Muslims could not palate the new direction.

Gangsterism and Drug Addiction: the Achilles heel of Cape Islam?

The police connivance with gangsters and drug dealers created an immense problem. The groups of gangsters and drug dealers often overlapped, although the drug lords also included businessmen with overseas connections. Amongst other vice, guns and drugs were ‘recycled’ by corrupt policemen. The clash of PAGAD with the gangsters in August 1996 caused a major upheaval in Muslim communities throughout the Peninsula, even throughout the country. In only a few months PAGAD achieved much in order to create awareness that made the use and spread of drugs less attractive. However, the public execution of Rashaad Staggie on August 4, 1996 continued to haunt the movement.  The word was spread that the deceased drug lord had a crucifix around his neck at his 'execution'. In Manenberg he was actually called ‘brother Rashaad’ at the time of his death. The reason given for his punishment was however his drug peddling. Of this he was obviously guilty.  Other Muslim background believers received threats at this time.

The drug dealers hereafter moved to the countryside. Drug peddling was thus actually spread through PAGAD pressure. From Zaire, the former name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), drug peddlers and later a ring of Nigerian nationals with the same purpose, were quick to supply the local market, hardly targeted or harassed. When they moved to Cape Town (from drug centres like Hillbrow and Yeoville in Johannesburg), the Mother City probably became the drug capital of the continent. A drug ring from Nigeria started their activities right in the central area of the city, some of them operating at night on the parking area of the Cape Town Baptist Church.  

Spiritual warfare around drug-related issues

The spiritual warfare from the side of the enemy of souls was conducted in the Cape Flats townships mainly through a related threesome viz. drug addiction, gangsterism and prostitution. Over the last two decades these vices proved the ideal opening for Satanism.

          For months the drug and gangster war kept the Mother City of South Africa in suspense. Violence, rape and gangsterism sky-rocketed. The triplings of vice still remain unsolved problems of the city and the country as a whole. Prayer meetings against the increase in crime were organized in different parts of the Peninsula.

In Cape Town itself there also occurred a shift. Whereas the centre of drug peddling has been ‘Coloured’ areas like Woodstock until the early 1990s, the new huge shopping malls like Tyger Valley Centre took over in prominence for the sale of expensive drugs like heroine and crack cocaine. Another change was the age of the drug users. A few years ago the sale in the townships had more or less been limited to people around 20 years and older, whereas drugs are now being sold at schools, along with sweets and popcorn by street vendors at lunchtime. 

The Battle of the airwaves 

The differing factions of Cape Islam have their favourite radio stations. However, influential shaykhs like Sa’dullah Khan of the Gatesville mosque have been operating on both Islamic stations. Yet, many Muslims perceived Radio Voice of the Cape to be in competition with Radio 786, although the two Islamic stations share the same frequency.  At some stage the rivalry reached such a frenzy that telephone lines were cut. In the mid-1990s, Radio 786 had virtually become the voice of Qibla, the radical faction of Cape Islam.

At the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the Director of Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM), formerly Radio Fish Hoek, was challenged to use the station to reach out to Cape Muslims. She phoned the author, offering airtime for a regular programme to this effect.  At that stage we had only assisted the station with advice and teaching to the ‘prayer friends’ of the station, who had to counsel those Muslims who phoned CCFM. Since the 1994 Jesus Marches and the effort to start a prayer network in the Peninsula, there had been contact with Trefor Morris, who was closely linked to Radio Fish Hoek. Occasionally he joined in the Friday lunchtime prayer at the Shepherd’s Watch in Shortmarket Street. We had to warn Avril Thomas of the unsuccessful arson attempt on the Lansdowne Church where we wanted to stage a Muslim Evangelism seminar in 1996. She and the CCFM board were prepared to take the risk for the sake of the Gospel.

          A series on biblical figures in the Qur’an and the Talmud was transmitted towards the end of 1997. After a gradual increase of occasional programmes geared to address the Cape Muslim population, missionaries felt challenged to start utilising the CCFM offer to use the medium on a regular basis. 

          In the meantime, Gill Knaggs, a co-worker from Muizenberg, offered her services to CCFM in 1997. Gill also had previous experience in commercial script writing. 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 via CCFM, making use of the 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 - with less fear of PAGAD reprisals for putting Muslim converts on air.  Ayesha and Salama soon hereafter 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, hereby giving evidence that the radio programmes were making an impact. Life Issues, the women’s programme on CCFM on a Thursday morning went from strength to strength till it ceased to operate in the second half of 2004 when CCFM restructured their programmes.

          It was evident that the Holy Spirit was at work. Supernatural visitations came to the fore in March 1999, possibly as a direct result of 120 days of prayer and fasting in which many Christians were involved. A Muslim woman phoned CCFM after having different visions of Jesus, receiving instructions from Him 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. Many Muslims including converts and secret believers, were phoning in.  A very special result was when a Muslim who had phoned the station in 2003, could not only be ministered to, but she later became a co-worker, reponding to the calls of Muslim enquirers.

          At some point in time Radio CCFM needed more space. Within days after the public announcement of a day of prayer for this need, a building was bought in Muizenberg.  Provision of the finances was spectacular - clear indication that God was in the move. The new venue is located in an area that has become Africo-cosmopolitan in the wake of many refugees and others from the Northern parts of the continent, who have moved into the suburb.

Threats and attacks on Christian Radio Work

 A white paper was rushed through Parliament on 20 August 1998, which contained a veiled threat: the closing down of community radio stations. There had previously already been an attempt to close down Radio Pulpit, a Christian radio station that broadcasts nationwide. The Communist faction in the government might have been behind these moves.

          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 removed sufficiently that the government wanted to regulate the airwaves in such a way that the freedom of religious broadcasting would be severely curtailed. For the first time twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unprecedented unity. One of the banners proclaimed “United we stand”, a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main slogan. Wisely, the government dropped their plans.

          From time to time, local Muslim background followers of Jesus shared their testimonies on the CCFM programme that started in January 1999 called God Changes Lives. Two consecutive ‘God Changes lives’ programmes by Achmed Adjei - a convert from Ghana - had reverberations as he shared how he and his 28 siblings came to the Lord one after the other. The same programme also made inroads into other religious groups. Thus the testimony of Richard John Smith, a famous Cape singer of the 1980s, who had been a New Apostolic, surely made a profound impact as did the conversion story of Herschel Raysman, who came from a Jewish background. Raysman 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.

Fireworks of a different Calibre detonate

More ‘fireworks’ exploded at the beginning of the academic year 1999.  Dean Ramjoomia, a Muslim convert, shared his testimony on the radio. He also started attending the Evangelical Bible School in Strandfontein. At the George Whitefield Bible College in Muizenberg, a teatime prayer group was started to coincide with the time when Life Issues - the Thursday version of the women’s programme with two converts from Islam - was broadcast. A new student at the College, Gill Knaggs, the programme's scriptwriter, initiated the prayer meeting.

          On March 1, 1999 the battle of the airwaves took a nasty turn when a petrol bomb was thrown at the CCFM Radio studio. Luckily the missile did not detonate. The cowardly action was repeated a few weeks later on March 18.  This time the perpetrators smashed a window pain, 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 or the expensive equipment arsonized. God evidently had his hand protectively over the building. The second attempt occurred only hours before the scheduled broadcasting of the Life Issues programme. This threw the suspicion of the possible perpetrators very much in the proximity of the radical PAGAD corner of Islam.  On various other occasions, that group had indicated that they were very unhappy about people turning their backs on Islam.  However, there was also a Satanist group in Fish Hoek who appeared to be possible candidates for the arson attempts.

            A bomb threat was delivered to CCFM on a Thursday morning, not long before Life Issues was scheduled to start. The police had to be called in, especially as this occurred at a time when the Mother City was being nicknamed ‘Bomb Bay’.  From time to time, the Muslim background presenters received threats of all sorts. God overruled when PAGAD was effectively silenced at the time of a prayer conference at the Light House Christian Centre of Parow, a suburb of Cape Town, in November 2000.

Impact into Africa by Radio

Andrew and Barbara Macdonald have been linked to the prayerful Cape Town Baptist Church, where Andrew later became the organist, since their marriage. They were sent to minister at Trans World Radio, later becoming the leaders of that agency, which would impact the African continent with the Gospel in a big way. The congregation played a further role in that ministry when Brent Bartlett, who worshipped there while attending the Baptist Theological Seminary, joined the team in the late 1990s.

          Networking amongst mission agencies was perhaps nowhere bearing fruit as much as in the radio ministry. The kick-off was given the decisive push at the Global Consultation on World Missions in Pretoria in 1997, where Trans world Radio, HCJB (Radio voice of the Andes = World Radio Missionary Fellowship) and Far East Broadcasting Association on the Seychelles pooled resources and expertise to impact Africa. In 1999, tests were performed among the Yao for a new series of radio talks taking listeners through the Bible. In another networking venture, John Ragsdale of Trans World Radio helped to implement the vision of Gerhard Nehls, a pioneer missionary among the Cape Muslims, with a video series Battle of the Hearts, that was soon used all over the world. During the first decade of the new millennium a children's programme for Africa was developed called Witness at the Waters. This programme deals with issues children in Africa face daily.

From Cairo to the world at large via the Cape

A new dimension was added to the Cape scene when the testimony of a converted former sheikh and lecturer from the Al Azar University of Cairo using the pseudonym Mustapha, was published in South Africa in 1996 under the title Against the Tides in the Middle East. Three assassination attempts in Johannesburg and a veiled threat in Cape Town at the end of July 1996 made it necessary to hide the Egyptian Christian temporarily. He adopted the name of Mark Gabriel. When a Muslim leader was looking for the author of the booklet, he feared for his life.

            The PAGAD public 'execution' of August 4 of that year took the attention away from him. When the second printing of his testimony booklet appeared in 1997, it seemed as if Cape Islam was taking his presence in their stride.

             While he was in hiding at the Cape in 1996, Mark Gabriel started with significant research of jihad in Arabic Islamic literature, finishing the manuscript in 2001 in the USA, where he had moved to in the meantime. The September 11 event of that year made his book on the topic a best seller when it appeared at the beginning of 2002. It came out under the title Terrorism and Islam. The book turned out to be a major factor in the exposure of the tragically violent side of Islam, going into its fourth print in April 2003 in English. Another book just published, with roots at the Cape hammered the same anvil, namely Slavery, Terrorism and Islam by Dr Peter Hammond of Christian Action.

Efforts to minister to drug addicts

One of the first efforts of Cape Christians to reach out in love to drug addicts structurally, happened more or less by chance. John Higson from the evangelical St James Church in Kenilworth requested a different residential area for their door-to-door outreach as a Life Challenge co-worker. He had become frustrated after the lack of success of their endeavour in the suburb of Lansdowne. Salt River was hereafter allocated 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 effort among the drug addicts of Salt River under Higson’s leadership. The actual outreach to Salt River from the Kenilworth church ceased in 1995, without much of an impact achieved. The co-workers were disheartened - yet another case of Christians honourably wounded in the spiritual warfare at the Cape. The seed of Higson’s ministry however germinated towards the end of the century when Judy Tao, a missionary from Taiwan, joined up with Martin Wortley, who had once been mentored by John Higson. They started up AMOS, a new ministry from the church in 2000 AD.

          In November 1997 the gang war erupted once again. This time TEASA (The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa) called a meeting at Baker House in Athlone. There, it was decided that churches would initiate monthly inter-denominational prayer meetings. However, none of the nice-sounding resolutions aired at that meeting were perseveringly implemented. (At that stage PAGAD was however quite headstrong, not willing to talk to anybody).  It was left to individuals like Eric Hofmeyer, Ayesha Hunter and Dicky Lewis to minister to both camps, not without success. Some Muslim leaders who had some dealings in drug peddling became very scared when they heard that PAGAD had a hit list of three pages.

The road to anarchy paved?

A bomb explosion at the Planet Hollywood Restaurant at the Cape Town Waterfront on 25 August, 1998 shook the Cape in more than one way. The perceived threat of closing down community radio stations was effectively arrested as PAGAD activists were suspected to be behind the bombing. Since then it has surfaced that ‘making the country ungovernable’ - the example set by anti-apartheid radicals in the late 1980s - was part and parcel of the strategy agreed to by extremists, in order to create the platform for an Islamic state. The Planet Hollywood bombing resulted in more confusion in the Muslim community. A leading Muslim, the academic Dr Ebrahim Moosa, went on television announcing that he would be taking his family overseas, away from the developing hearth.

          The PAGAD actions definitely did not have the intention of harming the Muslim cause. However, the public statements of a Muslim leader leaving the country - albeit temporarily - might have created the impression that he was leaving a sinking ship. This perception was enhanced when the Cape Times, a local daily newspaper, announced a week later that Sa’dullah Khan, an influential shaykh who was linked to the prestigious Gatesville mosque, was also leaving Cape shores. 

          Many Capetonians breathed more easily when it seemed as if Ganief Daniels, a Muslim, was getting PAGAD under control with a new police initiative, Operation Good Hope. The cause of disquiet shifted to the gangsters when rape appeared to have become rife. With cases reported in the City Bowl and other formerly White areas, along with the simultaneous spiraling of HIV/AIDS, Christians from all races were forced to wake up. More prayer was called for. During a church leaders’ meeting on 7 October 1998, quite a few churches in Cape Town made a decision to ‘join hands’ in an attempt to take the City for Jesus!

          The road to anarchy looked paved as the year 1999 opened with a car bomb on the Cape Town Waterfront. It was seen as 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. 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.

PAGAD involvement in drug smuggling and abuse

Another source of embarrassment in Islamic circles was that the PAGAD saga exposed the extent of Muslim involvement in drug peddling and gangsterism. It was equally embarrassing for PAGAD, an organization that claimed to fight drugs, when some of their leaders and many members were exposed as drug (ab)users.  Of course, there is some clout in the argument that the addicted could possibly be helped if the source of their problem - drug distribution - were removed. Insiders suggested that the skirmish was around the import of drugs, respectively from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. However, whether or not the gangsters could get their stocks from the Caribbean region illegally, imported on yachts - for instance through the harbour at Hout Bay - was immaterial to the rank and file Muslim.  The bottom line was that drug abuse and its spin-offs were creating havoc in so many homes.

The prelude to and aftermath of an Islamic night of power

The adamant showing by a Waterfront cinema of the film ‘The Siege’, which was regarded as highly blasphemous in respect of Islam – and that during Ramadan – brought matters to a head once again. On 8 January 1999 Mr Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was scheduled to hand out medals to countrymen who helped in the democratization of this country at a ceremony at the Castle of Cape Town. Thie occasion was the fusing of the various factions of the defence force. The timing was however unfortunate, appearing like potential for putting fire to a powder keg. 

            A new Muslim extremist splinter group calling themselves Muslims against Global Oppression (MAGO) took the opportunity to steal the limelight from the high British dignitary with a violent, illegal demonstration. They wanted to protest against British assistance in the bombing of Iraq. With Muslims visible and audible, the violent incident reflected badly on Islamic adherents. Yusuf Jacobs, a young Muslim and one of the protesters, was shot in the head by police. When he appeared to be dying in Groote Schuur hospital, the scene was set for ‘Jihad’.  PAGAD promptly called for a holy war if he were to die.    

              A tense situation followed when this happened on 12 January 1999. At Jacobs' funeral the next day a PAGAD leader threatened to make the country ungovernable. In the charged atmosphere he used unfortunate words that could have had dire consequences. Fortunately he retracted these words. That he did apologize (or was he was forced to?), was basically immaterial.

          The ‘Holy War’ became more than words the very day after the funeral. A leading police detective who had investigated the PAGAD related activities, Bennie Lategan, was killed on 14 January 1999. The whole country was alarmed. The ‘War in Cape Town’ became an issue for prayer countrywide when Christians were challenged by Herald Ministries to get together for prayer on the evening of 15 January, the Muslim Night of Power. (This is celebrated annually in remembrance of the first Qur’anic revelations.)  

          A mini-crisis developed when the pre-recorded testimony via the CCFM radio station of Majiet Poblonker, an Indian convert from Islam, was going to coincide with the Islamic Night of Power.  The Muslim background follower of Jesus was understandably uptight. Parts of Poblonker’s testimony about the persecution he had to endure, could fortunately be deleted from the recording just before the transmission., Amidst the volatile atmosphere it would probably have enraged Muslims terribly had the story of how his family almost assassinated him, been aired. The powerful testimony was nevertheless bound to impact Cape Islam, coming only a day after another female convert from Islam had given part of her story on the ‘Life Issues’ radio programme of CCFM.

A special vision for work of compassion

Zulpha Morris, 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. Within less than two years she had more than 30 children in her township home in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain, which underwent a few extensions. 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 was intended for a discipling house for persecuted and evicted converts from Islam. The sacrificial work of Zulpha and her husband Abdul became a challenge to many a foreigner. In one case a student from Switzerland, who came to Cape Town to learn English, was inspired by what he saw in Mitchells Plain. After returning to his home country, he started a home for drug and alcohol addicts there.

The Cape Peace Initiative

During a Church Leaders’ Meeting on 7 October 1998, quite a few churches in Cape Town made a decision to ‘join hands’ in an attempt to take the City for Jesus! Glen Khan, a gang leader and drug lord whose wife had been a secret Christian believer for some months, was assassinated on Easter Sunday, 1999 - only a few days after he had committed his life to Jesus as his Lord. Two weeks prior to Khan’s assassination, Rashied Staggie, a famous Cape drug lord, had been shot and hospitalized. Staggie made the news headlines from his bed in the Louis Leipoldt Clinic in Bellville through his public confession of faith in Jesus. In the wake of Glen Khan's funeral on 7 April 1999 and Staggie's powerful testimony on that occasion, Muslims started turning to Christ more than before.  Suddenly PAGAD was marginalized. It was not surprising that they now frantically sought to get credibility. It was however quite unexpected that they had become willing, almost eager, to speak to churches. This was God supernaturally at work, but Pastor Eddie Edson and his pastor colleagues were not immediately aware of it. When ‘Muslim leaders’ wanted to speak to Edson, a confrontation was feared because reports were coming in of Muslims who turned to Christ in the wake of the Khan funeral, some in the 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 no less than representatives of PAGAD. This was a major turn-around on the part of the extremists. Only a few weeks prior to this meeting that took place on 13 April, PAGAD refused to meet any Christians or other mediators. A direct result of all this was the birth of the Cape Peace Initiative, church leaders trying to mediate between PAGAD and gang leaders .

          At a church meeting on 13 April 1999 in Hout Bay to which Pastor Johnnie Louw had invited the author, the believers present were challenged to pray first for the meeting of Pastor Eddie Edson with the Muslim leaders that evening before moving on to the rest of the proceedings. This was eagerly implemented.

            At the meeting with PAGAD leaders, an agenda for a bigger consultation scheduled for 22 April was agreed upon. This was scheduled to take place at the Pinelands Civic Centre. Discussions with gang leaders took place on the same day. At the meeting, prayer warriors were not only interceding for the discussions, but some of them were also helping to serve the delegations at mealtimes. A tense moment developed when the issue of violence was addressed. The PAGAD delegation asked for permission to discuss the matter separately. It was evident to the church delegation that God had intervened powerfully.  PAGAD was suddenly ready to go with them to the government - unarmed! This was an answer to the prayer of the warriors around the country who were interceding for the proceedings.

Research of Spiritual Influences 

‘Spiritual mapping’ is a term that has been used in recent years for research into spiritual influences, especially those of a demonic or anti-Christian nature. In respect of Islam, Gerda Leithgöb had already introduced the exercise to the Cape at a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995, but only in 1999 was it practiced in Cape Islamic areas. The Cape Reformed Church of Manenberg was possibly the first to use it pointedly. Herb Ward, a lecturer from the USA with links to the Bible Institute in Kalk Bay, was brought in to equip the believers in that church for outreach to the Muslims of the notorious township. 

            Manenberg was the locality that depicted the change in the religious climate in 1999 more than any other. 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 Living gang that also became a church. Pastor Eddie Edson, who had been a gangster himself in earlier days, spearheaded 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. 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 caused 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 to get a 10,000-seater tent campaign into that township.  That he made Pastor Henry Wood responsible for the new fellowship at ‘Die Hok’, proved to be quite strategic. Pastor Wood impressively followed up the converts of the campaign. On 10 February 2001 a national television station, e-TV, reported this success story in their news bulletin. In the report the local police spoke of the former crime-ridden township having become relatively quiet.

          Die Hok and Green Pastures, along with other churches of Manenberg, were to play a prominent role in significantly reducing the crime level of the area in ensuing years.

A Sequel to a funeral - Transformation

The Glen Khan assassination of Easter 1999 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. Before this time the perceived resistance of Muslims to the Gospel, and the lack of success in Muslim evangelism deterred or discouraged many Christians. This changed quite dramatically after the conversion of Rashied Staggie, the famous drug lord, and the revolution at Die Hok in Manenberg became the talk of Cape Flats townships.

          Following Glen Khan’s death, some churches showed a new interest in the lives of gangsters. A week later, on April 28, a report back occasion of the meeting between church leaders and the PAGAD leadership in Pinelands of 22 April 1999 took place at ‘Christ Church’ in Kenilworth. However, only a few pastors attended. 

          Nevertheless, a metamorphosis occurred at the Jubilee Church that had commenced with negotiations to sell their buildings located in Crawford, to Muslims. They hereafter joined up with other churches in the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI). The New Covenant Fellowship of Hout Bay, at which spontaneous prayer for the 13^th April meeting with PAGAD leaders had taken place, also participated in the Southern Suburbs prayer initiative. Both fellowships were represented at the badly attended but strategic report-back meeting in Kenilworth. The two churches got linked up with the Community Transformation movement that took over from the CPI.

          The Jubilee Church was especially challenged when they bought the old Ital Tile factory in Observatory towards the end of 2000. The denomination that hardly had vision for anything else other than the poor and needy, now not only saw a challenge in the neighbouring Islamized suburbs of Salt River, University Estate, Woodstock and Walmer Estate, but they could now also appreciate the work of mission agencies that they had previously negatively labelled ‘para-church’ organizations. With their move back to Observatory, the Jubilee Church was challenged to become involved in outreach to the Muslims. A similar development took place in big churches like His People and the Lighthouse Christian Centre, which had been prominent in the Cape Peace Initiative. In the case of the Good Hope Christian Centre, Salama Temmers - herself a Muslim background believer, whose stories was printed in the first volume of a booklet with testimonies from former Cape Muslims, Search for Truth - became the senior pastor of the satellite congregation in Mitchells’ Plain after the death of her husband at Easter 2003. Since 2000 a good number of Muslims in the Mitchells Plain area came to faith in Christ. Some of them started attending that fellowship.

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 of 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’. The idea of a rehabilitation centre was picked up by the Muslims however, who soon had a facility in place, at Schaapkraal in the farming area of Philippi. This proved to be no success. Drug addicts simply returned to their habits after leaving the institution, because the spiritual void was not sufficiently filled.

            Faiez Abrahams, an ex-Muslim and former drug addict, who is a social worker by profession, became a follower of Jesus with a passion to help drug addicts. In 2002 he and his wife, who likewise had been using drugs in earlier days showed interest in getting trained for WEC's Bet-El related work. In 2004 Faiez Abrahams initiated the formation of a group that helped drug addicts in the Mitchells Plain area. In October 2004 he met Elliot Tepper, the international leader of the Betel Ministries, when he visited the country. In 2005 they were looking at a dilapidated building they intended to renovate and which was to be called Victory Lifestyle Centre. On May 8, 2005 the new ministry, which had a close link to the Heavens Shelter House of Zulpha and Abdul Morris, two other Muslim background believers, was formally going to be launched.

Transformation of Communities

That Cape Town was the venue for the World Parliament of Religions in December 1999 became a spur for churches to get some idea of the spiritual threat to the country.  Prayer initiatives displayed significant strides towards evangelical church unity. Towards the end of 1999, the various mission and prayer initiatives seemed to converge.

          However, ‘Coloured’ pastors verbalized their disquiet to Eddie Edson that the Cape Peace Initiative had the effect of making PAGAD seem fashionable. Some clergymen were unhappy that the CPI leaders had been speaking to PAGAD.

          At this time, Father Trevor Pearce from the Anglican Church linked up with Ernst van der Walt (jr) in a vision to spread the Transformations video that was just being distributed worldwide. Pearce had been impacted by the vision during a visit to Washington D.C. He initiated a move to invite George Otis and Allistair Petrie, two leaders of the international Sentinel Group, to the Mother City for a conference of his denomination from 29 October to November 2, 2000. Soon it was agreed to add another conference, a cross-denominational one, at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in the Northern suburb of Parow from 3 to 5 November of the same year. Trevor Pearce had a vision for citywide prayer. The Transformation concept brought evangelicals from the mainline churches and the Charismatic-Pentecostal traditions together.

          Van der Walt started attending the monthly pastors and pastors' wives prayer meetings occasionally. It was soon decided to put the CPI under the Transformations umbrella. He and Trevor Pearce discerned that they could combine it easily with a vision for the continuation of citywide prayer events. The next occasion of this nature was realized on 25 June 1999. The all-night prayer event at the Lighthouse Christian Centre, Parow on 15 October 1999, included the screening of the Transformations video. The distribution of a video by George Otis on the transformation of four cities became a major catalyst for citywide prayer after it had been screened there in Parow. Within three months, more than 4000 copies were distributed by NUPSA countrywide, inspiring prayer for revival in many places. A result of this video was that a yearning for more mass prayer rallies developed.  The close links to the Cape Christian Radio stations Tygerberg and CCFM proved valuable for the spreading of the news of the citywide prayer events.  Graham Power, a prominent Cape businessman, was deeply impacted at this occasion to initiate a stadium event in the Mother City.

            It is ironic that the violent threat from PAGAD appeared to introduce the transformation of the city. In the process Manenberg - once a black spot of crime and violence - was poised to become the vanguard for transformation of the city and perhaps even further afield.

               12. The pregnancy and birth pains of the transforming Mother City

          The year 2000 was the last of ten years of concerted prayer for ‘the Wall of Islam’. History appeared to start repeating itself, just like it happened from November 1989 in the case of the Communist world, albeit initially not quite as dramatically.  It appeared as if the Mother City was getting pregnant with new spiritual life, possibly also impacting Islam locally and nationally. Denominational and doctrinal disunity however, remained a major stumbling block for revival.

Disunity as a blockage of prayer

Division is the paramount strategy of Satan. If he can use the church and its leaders to bring about division, he will never hesitate. Through the ages, the arch enemy has succeeded in sowing division in so many churches. The blessing that God might have used to bring millions to the Cross in recent years, has become a curse in many a case. The ‘flesh’ in some Christians who wanted to assert themselves in exhibitionism saw to that, for example expressing some doubtful ‘gifts’ as part of the Toronto blessing. The early church seems to have handled the supernatural gifts of the spirit in a more balanced way (see Acts 2:42-47). 

          In South Africa, the concrete fear of civil war before the elections of 1994 led to prayer meetings across the racial divide. However, the Cape Peninsula thereafter more or less lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational divisions. Though there were, for instance, many prayer meetings for the gateway cities during October 1995, they were generally either confined to prayer within the local churches, or limited to combined inter-denominational prayer within the racial groupings. Therefore the recipe of Viv Grigg, an American Christian leader and teacher on prayer, is still 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.’

Explosions of another sort

A ‘bomb’ of another sort exploded on 11 April 2000 when Hansie Cronje, the cricket captain of the South African national team, conceded that he had taken a bribe involving match-fixing. He was known to be an evangelical Christian with links to the Rhema Christian Centre in Johannesburg. With South Africa being the sports loving country it is, the shock waves were definitely not small. On the positive side was Cronje’s confession. He phoned Dr Ali Bacher and Mr Percy Sonn, the top administrators of the country’s cricket board, in the very early hours of the morning. That spoke the clear language of a sensitive conscience.

          The impact of the explosion had not yet settled down when two prominent Christian clergymen received very negative publicity. The divorce of the well-known Pentecostal minister, Ray Macaulay, was blown out of all proportion.  Dr Allan Boesak’s imprisonment rattled the image of the religion. It is ironic that the final demise of Cape Islam appeared now to hinge on the repentance of Boesak. It was still fresh in many a memory how he had marched and prayed alongside Muslim leaders at the height of the struggle against apartheid. If he would return to the evangelical faith of his youth, conceding his guilt in creating a false perception, namely the so-called brotherhood of Christianity and Islam, this might have ushered in a significant turn-around from the Islamic religion at the Cape, possibly even countrywide. But this was not yet to happen!

           

Exposure of the deception of Islam

It appeared just a matter of time for the fuller exposure of the deception of Islam to transpire.  This would have been the most spectacular answer to the ten years of prayer. A hard-hitting book in 1985 by a former high-ranking Iranian former Senator, Ali Dashti, surprisingly received hardly any prominence. The book, 23 Years: A study of the Prophetic career of Muhammad, pulled no punches. It was a very critical study of the life of the major Islamic prophet. Coming from a Muslim, it was really surprising how candidly Dashti portrayed the personality change that occurred from the time that Muhammad went to Medina. Dashti stopped short of suggesting that the unnatural sexual appetite of Muhammad - when he was over fifty years old - was demonic. It is nevertheless a mystery how the book stayed out of controversy.  I can think of only one possible explanation, namely that oil money was used to buy up the bulk of the books, to prevent them coming into the hands of thinking Muslims. What probably saved Dashti from the wrath of people like Ayatollah Khomeini was that he wrote almost just as negatively about Jesus.

            More exposure of the Islamic deception occurred through the worldwide distribution of Islam Unveiled (Abdulah Al-Araby, Los Angeles, 1997) and Behind the Veil (Written and published anonymously in 1998).  The second title especially had the potential to shake Islam in its foundations because it quotes reputable Islamic sources.  These two books - written by converts from the Middle East - however have a common deficiency, viz. a lack of compassion. The books might even have proved counter-productive, if they had fallen into the wrong hanDs

            The 1999 book by the influential South African theologian Dr Farid Esack, On being a Muslim, gives an indication that some honest soul-searching is nevertheless already occurring in Islamic ranks. Amongst other things, Esack bashes the covering up of the discrimination of women in the Qur’an and Hadith. He goes very far in his attack on the Islamic discrimination of women, referring to the usual defences as ‘stock responses’. Esack displays exceptional courage, speaking of ‘spurious sayings of the Prophet’, but adding the respectful ‘Peace be upon him’, as it behooves a good Muslim. Esack cites two sayings about women. The one refers to them as having ‘faulty intelligence’ and the other encourages Muslim men to ‘push them back as Allah has pushed them back’.  Reports about the teaching via Radio Islam in Gauteng on how Muslims should beat their wives - along with the headstrong attitude of the radio station spokesmen about it after October 1997 - had been harming the Islamic cause countrywide. This was followed by controversy around the use of female presenters. 

             A word of warning should be added to those Christians who are tempted to display a triumphant attitude. It should be appreciated that Muhammad was relatively honest about his relationship to women. Humility is called for. Certain secret sinful occurrences in monasteries and parsonages with regard to sexual immorality would also have Christians hanging their heads in shame if they were exposed. Mud slinging between religions and faiths is definitely not called for even though this does not mean condoning shameful behaviour. Humility, confession and mutual forgiveness are much better propositions. 

Search for Truth

Gerhard Nehls, the old Cape missionary pioneer, did not sit still even after his retirement from active mission work in 1997.  In conjunction with Trans World Radio, he became the mastermind behind a video series, Battle for the Hearts, The series that was finally produced with the aid of various experts, provides Christians with much knowledge regarding Islam. Although already in his early seventies, Nehls also delved into modern electronic technology, starting to create a database of important books on Muslim evangelism on CD Rom. Worldwide quite a few missionaries among Muslims appear to be putting high expectation in the academic refuting of Islamic fallacies. Somehow however, the compassion for Muslims still seemed to be lacking. Those who came out of Islam were sometimes not discipled well, all too often appearing to be guided by revenge and legalism.

            A booklet with stories of converts from the Cape, Search for Truth, as well as tracts with testimonies narrating how they came out of Islam, eroded a prevalent Cape Muslim notion.  This was the almost axiomatic belief that if one is born a Muslim, one must die a Muslim. The fearless confessions of converts from Islamic background via the radio helped many a secret believer who feared to take courage to disclose their new-found faith in Christ.  One convert had been a secret believer for seven years before she came into the open with her faith in Jesus. Some of these believers were nevertheless often harassed and ostracized by friends and family on the one hand, and lured with material advantages to return to the Islamic fold on the other. The bold stand of some of them made the Cape Muslim leaders quite nervous by September 2000. A warning was included on their Internet website, referring to ‘so-called’ converts to Christianity. Apparently some converts or Christians were so bold as to disseminate Christian tracts even at the mosques. Life Challenge Africa and WEC International published a second booklet as a joint venture in 2004 with more testimonies of Muslim background believers from the Cape: Search for Truth 2.

Important new Insights from Africa and Asia

Furthermore, African and Asian Christians who had come from a background in the occult, started giving the body of Christ important new insights about things happening in the spiritual realm.  Langton Gatsi from Zimbabwe has, for instance, given important teaching on water spirits. Para-psychology has started to open up rationally minded Westerners to the realities of the unseen world. Christians nowadays are more aware of the existence of evil spirits, but it is even better to reckon with the all-conquering power of the blood of Jesus. Thus we may take the liberty to move into the strongholds of the enemy, but we are also aware that we must guard ourselves against presumption; that we need constant covering in prayer, should we do this.

            The use of supernatural powers by agents of the enemy is nothing new. Already in Moses’ days, the Egyptian magicians initially matched the miracles of Aaron by turning their staffs into snakes (Exodus 7:10-12). Aaron’s snake devoured the snakes of Pharaoh’s magicians. The enemy took the guise of a snake, as he deceived Eve. Paul rightly pointed out that Satan is powerful enough to disguise himself, so that he can appear to be pious.  In 2 Corinthians 11:14 Paul states that he can even appear as an angel of light.  In spite of the warning to check the contents of the messages given by angelic figures (Galatians 1:8, 9), millions have been deceived. For instance, the doctrine of ‘The Saints of the Latter Days’ (better known as Mormons), is based on messages that the ‘angel’ Maroni brought to Joseph Smith.

            The most tragic personality in this regard has been Muhammad. He evidently foresaw that the Qur’an itself would be compiled after his death (see the compilation of the Qur’an, Hadith Vol. 3, p.702).  He seemingly wanted the Qur’anic material to be compared with the Bible (Surah 4:82, 83). Muhammad apparently knew that satan could try to infiltrate. That was the background of the controversy surrounding the 'satanic verses', with the compromised inclusion of three goddesses of the Ka’ba. He unfortunately was not guided to doubt the originator of the bulk of the revelations. Khadiyah evidently found it very nice to be married to a prophet, and it seems that Waraqah bin Naufal, her priestly cousin, was primarily interested in grooming the gifted Muhammad as his successor in a Christian community. At any rate, there is more than enough reason for confession of guilt from a Christian point of view.

            The NT sees spiritual warfare as the continuation of God’s work through the seed of Abraham, especially via the spiritual offspring through faith in Jesus, our commander-in-chief.  We have Messianic prophecy on our side. Ultimately, the seed of the woman will crush the seed of the snake (Genesis 3:15).  Numbers 21:4ff, where Moses was told to hoist the image of a snake on a pole, is therefore very important as the paradigm of the Cross. No wonder that Jesus used that as an example in the run-up to John 3:16. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Conversions among criminals

Many gangsters turned to Islam on discovering that occultic aid via ‘doekums’ (Muslim sorcerers) was available for protection and for getting away with mild sentences after committing serious crimes.  An evangelistic effort, which has mushroomed over the past decade, has been the prison ministry. A few role-players have deserved special mention. 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 counseled many gangsters in the massive Pollsmoor prison. Quite a number of them turned to Christ.

          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 take him on through prayer and fasting. When Viljoen studied the Bible - in order to fight the Christians even better - he was overwhelmed when he compared the narration of the near-sacrifice of Isaac with the Qur’anic version.  Prisons have also been impacted in the countryside, such as at the youth prison near Wellington, where young inmates voluntarily started to attend Bible studies.

            A former prisoner at Pollsmoor prison, Jonathan Clayton, became a pastor with 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 Baptist Seminary after his release, and started to minister in Pollsmoor prison on Saturday mornings while he was still a theological student. Members of the Strandfontein Baptist Church, the home congregation of his wife, assisted him. In 1999 Clayton became a prison chaplain.

            Shona Allie is a third person who has been powerfully used in prisons around the country. 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 impacted by her ministry.

          Ruweyda Abdullah is another Muslim background believer who became involved in the ministry at Pollsmoor, challenging many a gangster there during the process of restorative justice. The Soon Bible correspondence programme of WEC International, under the leadership of Pam Forbes, has been a tool for reaching prisoners all over the country.

Pollsmoor in-house radio service

An evangelical initiative that has impacted Pollsmoor prisoners has been an in-house radio service. Many a gangster and criminal has been challenged and influenced towards change as they have heard the testimonies of others who have come to a living faith in Jesus as their Lord.

            It all started after an affluent young man, Marius Boaden, came to the end of his tether: 'I literally hit rock bottom, and I was faced with a critical decision, whether to return to my former immoral ways, or to return to the Lord. I decided to turn to the Lord in my desperation...' (To-day's Challenge, nr. 13, p.1). He was led into a close walk with the Lord. Hereafter it was not uncommon for him to spend an entire day reading the Bible or in prayer. The conditions at Pollsmoor challenged him so much that he sold his house and car to become involved with the prison ministry on a full-time basis. God directed him to establish a radio station for the juvenile inmates. 'In our first two months violence in the prison subsided and there was a general calm and peace in the prison.'

            Truth Radio in Pollsmoor was broadcasting to all 8,000 inmates at the end of 2004. However, they were still only able to broadcast to all of them at the same time.

            A deficiency of the Pollsmoor ministries is that Cape churches have failed to open their doors in warm welcome to the new believers. Furthermore, abuse of the tag ‘born-again’ made potential employers wary of employing former gangsters. However, far too many fell back into their old habits after being discharged from prison - often as the result of deficient follow-up and discipling.

A new brand of convert

At the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington, David Bliss - the pioneer of the Bless the Nations conferences - became the initiator of yet another novelty when he started with a ministry of Bible Studies in a youth prison. Soon his team was ministering in different prisons of the Boland. It had such an impact that the prison chaplain for the Western Cape wanted them to extend their programme to other prisons in the province. A new aspect of their ministry was the vision that prisoners were seen as potential missionaries.

            With the ministry team to the prisons, an exciting prospect arose - former drug addicts and other hapless young people were being given the vision to share the Gospel in other parts of the world. A former Muslim from Bo-Kaap, was a member of one of the first teams. He had originally been trained in evangelism by Evangelical Enterprise, an interdenominational venture via different churches in the Athlone area, soon after his conversion at an unprecedented service in the Athlone Stadium in 1973. The fact that not everybody persevered with the initial vision, did little to dampen the zeal of the initiators.

International Initiatives impacting the Cape

A group of intercessors from America visited the East German village of Herrnhut in 1993. The group included a believer from St Thomas, the island to which the first two missionaries left in 1732. That group experienced a sovereign outpouring of God’s spirit as they prayed in the prayer tower of Herrnhut. This could possibly be seen as the beginning of the modern wave of prayer that swept around the world since then, especially since 1999.

One of the most pronounced prayer expeditions ever was the repentance for the Crusades that had been perpetrated against Muslims and Jews. This took place from 1996 to 1999, exactly 1000 years after the actual happening. The initiative was launched in Cologne, and took prayer teams on the three main routes where the Crusaders left their bloody trail throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East. At this time a challenge came to the Western Cape Forum of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) to repent publicly for the guilt of Christians to Muslims. After a long drawn-out discussion, no decision was taken, but the seed was sown. The seed appeared to have started germinating by November 2003 in Paarl at the National Leadership Consultation of CCM.

            In March 1997 a group from England came to pray in repentance for the sins of England at the location of Anglo Boer War concentration camps in South Africa. In 1998 a prayer team with international intercessors took a trip from Matopos in Zimbabwe to Cape Town to pray again around the issue of Cecil Rhodes and Freemasonry.

            In 1999 an extensive prayer journey was undertaken with the descendants of some of the first people of Africa, the San or Bushmen, to pray through Africa from Cape Agulhas to Cairo. Representatives of the San and a group of intercessors traversed the entire eastern part of the continent of Africa on a three-month prayer expedition to repent for the idolatry and witchcraft that were still defiling the continent, causing resistance to the spread of the Gospel. Repentance was brought in fourteen countries where the first people built altars to worship the spirit of the rain and waters. This happened simultaneously with 120 days of prayer and fasting by believers in different parts of the country.

            Something very remarkable happened in 1999 in England when Peter Craig challenged young people in England to pray non-stop for 30 days, asking the Lord for this generation of young people to come back to God. It began as the vision of a local church in England based on the model of Count Zinzendorf in Herrnhut in the 18^th century. Bennie Mostert and Daniel Brink attended a conference led by Tom Hess in Jerusalem, bringing the message back to South Africa. In September 1999 this new challenge commenced in South Africa as 24-hour prayer watches. Since then hundreds of new 24/7 prayer watches have started globally.

Input from the Far East and West Africa

Kumla Folly, a national from Togo, married Aye, an ex-Muslim medical doctor from China who belonged to the Muslim Uighur tribe. He was studying in the Far East when he got to know her. She is one of the first (if not the very first) to come to faith in Jesus Christ from her tribe. Originally challenged by an African Christian fellow student, she converted in 1986. After lecturing in Japan, Kumla Folly accepted a post as professor in Engineering at the University of Cape Town, coming to the Mother City in 2000.

            Nursleen Rajagukguk from Indonesia had been working in Hong Kong before her marriage to Nimrot. There she met and befriended Aye Folly. The Lord used the friendship to birth in her heart a burden for the Uyghur. For nine years she prayed for the unreached people group without seeing any spiritual movement as a result. But God works in mysterious ways. In Cape Town Nursleen and Aye revived their friendship.  When Bejing was accorded the Olympic Games for 2008, England and the USA were no longer the top countries for learning English. 11 September 2001 put paid to the popularity of those countries for Muslims. From 2003 individual Uyghurs came to Cape Town. Some of them have already been impacted with the Gospel, about which few of them had heard anything before they came to South Africa.

A Special Month of Prayer

“Sooispit” - the turning of the soil - for a prayer room in the Western Cape took place on February 9, 2000.  Charles Robertson, a 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 be a 24-hour prayer room for intercessors from the whole continent. Daniel and Estelle Brink were called to lead the NUPSA initiative to get the 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 in his new function. The Lord touched and healed him in answer to the prayers of many intercessors.

          In the same month Susan and Ned Hill, a couple from Atlanta (USA) linked to 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 being on a tourist visit to Table Mountain, their eyes were supernaturally fixed on a piece of desolate ground that they soon learned was called District Six. When they visited the museum with that name - housed in the Moravian Chapel at that time while the present locality, a former Methodist Church, was being renovated - they heard the tragic story of the former cosmopolitan slum area of the Mother City that was demolished in the wake of apartheid legislation.

            The unity of the body of Christ became visible at a mass half-night of prayer on 18 February 2000 on the Grand Parade, organized at short notice. On the same weekend two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, representing the prayer movement in Holland, joined local Christians in confession for the sins of the forefathers and in praying against satanic strongholds in the Peninsula.

            Four thousand Christians from a wide spectrum of denominations gathered on the Grand Parade. Denominationalism, materialism and other evils in South African society in which the church had played a role in the past, were confessed. In a moving moment just before midnight the two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork - representing the prayer movement of Holland - joined local intercessors in confession for the catastrophic contribution of their forefathers to the evils of Cape society. (The Holy Spirit had ministered already in 1994 to Cees Vork to come and pray in Cape Town, imploring him to confess the sinful roots of his ancestors around slavery. Bos had been doing intensive research into the slave trade.)

            A prayer network had grown towards a preliminary culmination in the half-night of prayer on the Grand Parade. Since then, prayer events proliferated countrywide through the 24-Hour prayer watches and revival prayer attempts. Here the electronic media played a big role.

            The enemy would not remain idle at such activity. Ribbons of video and audiocassettes on which Satanists had spoken curses, were found at venues where accidents had taken place. It had been discovered that Satanists had been distributing cursed audio and videocassettes to various parts of the country. Subsequently, accidents occurred at these locations. The Cape Town City Bowl was confronted with the possibility of Satanist activities after paint had been spilled on roads at night. The white lines formed in this way could have led to confusion that in turn would have resulted in accidents. During a prayer walk cassette tape ribbons were found in Bo-Kaap - on the same day on which two Muslims were heard performing their version of prayer walks, chanting Arabic prayers. This appeared to be more than mere co-incidence. It was more likely that the fight in the heavenlies for rule in the area had picked up. As the area opened up for people of other races and religious groups, homosexuals were quick to take the gap. The proximity to the nearby Roggebaai - which was fast becoming the ‘gay’ stronghold of the metropolis - enhanced this development. The visit by the two Dutch intercessors spurred significant moves in the second half of the month.

During the early hours one day in February 2000, en route by car from Pretoria to Cape Town, Eben Swart, the Western Cape leader of Herald Ministries, sensed the Lord ordering him directly: “You have to start training prayer leaders in Cape Town.”  After months of consultation with prayer leaders across a wide spectrum of views and backgrounds, the Prayer and Intercessors Leaders’ Training Consultation (PILTC) was born – a completely new, unique attempt to prepare prayer and intercession leaders of a city in a uniform, non-confrontational way for their task.

On the 15th of September 2000, the first course kicked off in the suburb of Parow. Initially, the idea was to present the course only once, and thereafter to dissolve it into the prayer movement. But the first course soon developed into a second, and the second into a third. The need was so vast that Eben Swart only stopped running the PILTC courses four years later.

Remorse and Tears

Divine guidance was evident at the events of 19 February 2000. It was initiated by NUPSA in the process of “closing the gates” of the sinful roots of slavery in preparation for a conference in Pretoria from 22 to 26 March. It coincided with the coming to Cape Town of two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, something that had been planned independently. The two highlighted the roots ofa number of evils that stem from their country. The roots of materialism - typified by Simon van der Stel, an early Cape governor - were also addressed through prayers at van der Stel's farm Groot Constantia.

            In prayers at satanic strongholds in the Peninsula that have their roots in Holland and Indonesia, freemasonry and slavery were singled out for special confession. 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 Spirit of God 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 of repentance flowed freely as descendants of the San and Khoi, slaves, the Dutch, Cape Muslims, British, French and a few other people groups asked each other for forgiveness. 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 Dutch ancestral compatriots had continued with ungodly malpractices even though they knew that they were evil. A participant whose ancestors stem from the Indonesian island Bali, ministered forgiveness to the Dutch brethren in Jesus’ name, but he himself was overtaken by remorse as he discerned that the slaves were party to the stifling of revival at the Cape. (The emancipated slaves were party to incitement when the St Stephen’s Church in Bo-Kaap was started in 1843.)

            It was a special moment when Dr Henry Kirby - a descendant of Dr John Philip, the powerful missionary of the 19th century - was called forward. It was noted that Dr Philip discerned that the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 caused the price of slaves to rise. That led to the enserfment of the Khoisan. In spite of his shortcomings, Dr Philip became a major mover for the eventual formal abolition of slavery in 1834 and its implementation at the Cape in 1838 through his contacts with evangelical British parliamentarians like William Wilberforce.

            On Sunday 20 February, a few thousand Christians from the Northern suburbs of the city gathered for prayer in the Bellville Velodrome in the morning. Various churches from a wide variety of denominations closed their doors to their regular morning services for the occasion. This was quite significant.

Evangelicals in Macassar

A Monday gathering at the kramat of Sheikh Yusuf in Macassar on 21 February attracted 43 prayer warriors from diverse nations. Pastor Willy Oyegun, an intercessor from Nigeria, led the proceedings with Barbara Cilliers, a Western Cape believer. Pieter Bos - the visiting intercessor from Holland - emphasized that there would be no prayers offered against Islam or the like. The participants should only enthrone Jesus, the King of Kings.

          Bos was however overawed himself, as he discerned very deeply the guilt of his ancestors because his countryman, Ds Kalden, the owner of Zandvliet at the time of Shaykh Yusuf and other Christians at the Cape, had not clearly shared the Gospel with the early Muslims. Bos promptly apologized to the group on behalf of his forefathers.

            The group moved over to Vergelegen, the farm of Willem Adriaan van der Stel, the Cape governor and the son of the ruler after whom Stellenbosch was named. The younger van der Stel was connected with much evil, including corruption and the roots of freemasonry in the country. The international group of Christian prayers was about to join in the Lord’s Supper, led by a local pastor and the Nigerian Willy Oyegun, when Nimrot Rajagukguk, an Indonesian participant and Bible School teacher in Grassy Park (a traditional Cape Flats residential area), felt burdened to share his feelings of guilt. He had been deeply moved by the confession of the Dutchmen at the Kramat of Sheikh Yusuf in the light of his own people’s indoctrinated hatred of the Dutch. Rajagukguk’s great grandfather had been betrayed and killed by a Dutchman. He and his brothers had been taught from childhood not to befriend Dutchmen. It was the first time that the Indonesian had now heard a Dutchman apologize for the wrongdoings of his countrymen. His intense remorse was evident.  A few more confessions followed. That spurred a female Zambian participant to address the witchcraft in her country. Prayers for Indonesia, the most populous Islamic country, as well as for Zambia, were a natural result. The meeting was marked by the absence of any accusation or self-righteousness. Instead, those participants whose ancestors had been the victims of brutality, manipulation, oppressive materialism and racism, - and many more sinful actions and attitudes - generously granted forgiveness in Jesus’ name on behalf of their ancestors.

Challenge for Church Unity

At a meeting the following day with a group of 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.    

            As the group prayed at the Stellenbosch Kweekskool, the Dutch Reformed Church theological seminary, they took note of the historical information, for instance that Ds Meent Borcherds, who became a minister in the Moedergemeente in 1786, was a member of the Freemason Order.  The meta-historical significance of the university town of Stellenbosch is clear when one considers that all former South African State Presidents except F.W. De Klerk and Nelson Mandela were graduates of that university.

            Much of the week’s events were organized on short notice - here and there things happened on the spur of the moment. This gave rise to great expectation that the Holy Spirit was at last ushering in the long-awaited revival. It was veryappropriate that Art Katz, a Christian from the Jewish faith, challenged the believers from similar background in Sea Point and Somerset West.  In prophetic style he did not mince his words, challenging his audience - especially those from Jewish stock - to take their role seriously. But they also had to be prepared for suffering. He stated categorically that judgement is intrinsic to the nature of Yahweh, 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.

            More rays of light started to break through. Here and there, remorse and repentance by Christians for their negative attitude towards Muslims surfaced. At the turn of the millennium, there were signs that Cape Islam had started to abandon much of its confrontational approach towards Christianity an approach so typical of the PAGAD era (August 1996 to April 1999). In the township Bonteheuwel the same building was for instance not only used by Muslims and the Assemblies of God Church, but this was also reported favourably in February 2000 in the Athlone News, a newspaper that is distributed free of charge in homes in that area. There even arose an openness to study each other’s scriptures. Prayer is imperative that many will remain open to what God’s Spirit might lead them to - without triumphantalism, and in obedience.

Another Season of spiritual Combat

Conflict was escalating between the notorious minibus 'taxi' drivers, which transport commuters from the townships on the one hand, and the Golden Arrow Bus Company on the other hand. Nobody suspected that the shooting of a bus driver of the bus company would bring the black townships to the brink of anarchy once again. At this time, a drug criminal with spurious links to the police force, was set free much sooner than his sentence had prescribed.

          May 2000 seemed predestined to usher in another season of spiritual combat, with the police force not only in disarray, but also frustrated by a judiciary that was perceived to be corrupt. The conditions in South African prisons were highlighted when inmates threatened to sodomize and kill the well-known activist Allan Boesak as he was about to enter Pollsmoor, Cape Town's major prison.  

            On Thursday 18 May the Islamic Dawa Movement staged a well-advertised public meeting in the Parow Civic Centre with a speaker from India, Dr Zakir Naik. He was billed as an expert on comparative religions namely Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. This event was staged by the Islamic missionary arm, but advertised to non-Muslims - especially to Christians - as an an inter-faith exercise. The title of his talk was ‘Similarities between Christianity and Islam’. In his lecture, Naik initially indeed gave the impression that he wanted to placate the Christians, showing why he deemed Jesus to be a Muslim. But the attack did not stay out, as he stated that Muslims were more ‘Christian’ because of the abuse of alcohol by the latter. During question time, Naik demonstrated why he could be regarded as taking over where Ahmed Deedat had left off, while offending the Christians in a much more refined way. However, if the event was intended as a public relations promotion for the religion, it backfired. Naik demonstrated why many regard the religion as something for the intolerant. He mocked Christians when they asked questions. 

            On Friday evening the 19^th of May, a citywide half night of prayer took place at the UWC Sports Ground in Bellville, attended by 6,000 people. Here the unity of the body was emphasized! In the spiritual realm it was certainly very powerful when Pastor Martin Heuvel apologized on behalf of about 40 pastors present, among other things for lording over their flocks, for being dogmatic, and for the lack of a servant attitude. An important introduction was the ongoing translation of the proceedings into Xhosa, thus demonstrating that the presence of Capetonian Blacks was appreciated.

            At a meeting with converts from Islam on 20 May 2000 a few of them reported ostracism by various people from their previous religious backgrounds. There was ample evidence from different quarters that spiritual warfare was increasing once again, rather than subsiding. Satanist traits surfaced here and there, notably when the chopped-off head of a mentally handicapped young man was abused to instill fear into people. The arrest of 19 PAGAD members in Tafelsig, a violence-ridden part of Mitchells Plain, on 21 May 2000 after a shoot-out, was publicized as a major breakthrough. When only three gangsters were arrested and that not even immediately, the notion 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 once again

In June 2000 the fight in the spiritual realms was raging at 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. At the famous and well-patronized eating place the bomb, placed in a plastic bag, was discovered by a vagrant who was probably looking for food in the refuse bin. The bomb could fortunately be defused before any damage was done. 

            God clearly intervened at the internationally organized Jesus March.  After a series of bad weather forecasts, Pastor Lazarus Chetty, the organizer, asked Christians via the CCFM radio station to pray for dry conditions. In spite of the bad weather prediction, ten thousand Christians from across the religious landscape converged on the CBD of the Mother City. The first drops started falling well after the crowds had dispersed. 

            While the Jesus March crowd was praying in the historical Company Gardens, an old Muslim lady gave her life to Jesus at the famous Groote Schuur hospital a few kilometers away.  Christian workers had ministered to her after she confessed that she has 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.

A satanic Backlash and divine Response

Satan seemed to mock the prayer march after he had failed to foil it. 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 lost the bout.

            An unheralded meeting at the Zuid-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 link up with the prayer occasion organized by Van Schoor at the Zuid-Afrikanse Gestig Museum. This was part of a tour by an American church group from Waco, Texas. In preparation for 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.

            An event with spiritual significance was a combined church service at the Cape Town Baptist Church and the English speaking Dutch Reformed Church on June 11, 2000. This was the culmination of the 10-day Pentecostal prayer meetings in the latter church. These prayer meetings have been such a blessed tradition in the Dutch Reformed denomination ever since they were inaugurated in the 19th century. Five churches of the City Bowl, whose ministers came together on a weekly basis, hereafter decided to have combined evening services from time to time. The evening service of Pentecost could be seen as the ushering in of this effort when the churches joined hands. The next occasion of the kind was scheduled for 10 September 2000. Here members of five City Bowl churches joined in prayer in a combined evening service in the Tafelberg NGK. That was probably the first time that so many people of colour congregated in the church where once Dr Koot Vorster - one of the major apartheid theologians of his denomination - was the minister for many years. Thereafter, the combined Sunday evening church service became a monthly event until 2003. Thereafter it was decided to have only three combined events per year. 

            The church at large seemed to take up the challenge to influence things at the Cape.  One effort was a three-day ‘mini Rustenburg’ from 22 to 24 August at the Huguenot Hall. The stated intention was to ‘turn the tide’ at the venue where Dutch Reformed Synods were usually held. For 30 September a summit was organized in Green Point, with the intention of working at a ten-year plan for the church to get their act together. At both occasions intercessors accompanied (that is covered) the events in prayer. The implementation of the plans left however much to be desired.

            With a lack of perseverance curtailing many promising initiatives, the monthly pastors and pastors' wives prayer meetings - under the leadership of Pastor Eddie Edson - was a sustaining factor of this endeavour, keeping up the momentum for many years. (By 2003 the movement appeared to be running out of steam, especially when Edson's moral failure came to the fore.)

Start of a new Turning to Christ?

The year 2000 saw a turning to Christ by 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. No wonder that Ayesha Hunter, one of the presenters and an inhabitant of Tafelsig - one of the most notorious parts of Mitchells Plain - was threatened more than once.

            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 was a woman of 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 former Muslim stronghold for many years. Another spiritual breakthrough occurred when one of the less prominent 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.

            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. He also addressed the rift between different 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, and was followed by a big evangelistic campaign immediately thereafter. The adjacent township of Hanover Park, along with nearby Gugulethu and Nyanga, have been important localities not only of killing and mugging, but also of spiritual warfare. John Mulinde of Uganda was the speaker at the Manenberg prayer event. In spite of continuous rain that will certainly have kept many away, about 3,000 gathered in a 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 waged. Many tears flowed in repentance and mutual acceptance.  

            Prophecies about Manenberg becoming a blessing to the city appeared 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 when 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 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. On May 7, 2004 our son Samuel, who participated in a Youth with a Mission Discipleship Training School with outreach linked to the local 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.’

The Danger of Anarchy 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 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 apparently doing 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 Nelson Mandela in person at the handling 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 process was painfully slow indeed!

            PAGAD was prematurely given the blame for a bomb explosion at the car park of Cape Town International Airport on 18^th  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 2000 more PAGAD members were arrested and some of their leaders tried.  The tension in the Middle East had a spin-off when big Islamic rallies were held. The one on 14 October 2000 at the Green Point Stadium was counterproductive on the Islamic faith when supporters damaged cars and property such as at McDonald’s, after 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 get 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 Party’s office of Kenilworth on 18 October kept the tension alive because the leader of that party, Tony Leon, is known to be a Jew. Was PAGAD getting a new lease of life? Muslim unity at the Cape seemed to be restored in the wake of the Middle East conflict.

A Flourish of prayer and missionary Activity

With the vision for prayer of the American missionary Susan Hill it was only natural that the couple would be linked up with the prayer watch movement in 2002. Susan Hill came into the picture as a possible coordinator for a prayer watch to be started in the City Bowl. From 2002 we had joint prayer events at the Moravian Church every third Saturday of the month, which she later led. 

          A flourish of prayer and missionary activity towards the end of 2000 looked set to have a major impact on the country as a whole, especially since much of it was happening in the Mother City. Even more specifically, with regard to the unity of the churches in the City Bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard, there was visible evidence of change. Previously it had been very difficult to get the body of Christ to work together meaningfully for any length of time.

          A few City Bowl ministers who had been praying together on Thursday mornings approached the office of Mr Mark Wiley, the minister responsible for law enforcement in the Western Cape. They offered to pray for him, not taking 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. The seriousness of the situation was thus highlighted even more. This dispute had kept the Cape Black township dwellers in suspense for months. Everything pointed to the fact that the spiritual battle was still raging at a significant pitch. 

            On 27 October 2000 the Ministers Fraternal of the Atlantic Seaboard organized a half-night of prayer. Wiley's successor became 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 (see Appendix A). In answer to prayer, the people responsible for the bombs that had been plaguing the region were apprehended soon thereafter. 

Transformations take off slowly

Although the Moravian denomination itself seemed to have dwindled into obscurity, the heritage of the early Moravians was once again at the cradle of a mighty movement of God across the world. The vision of the 24-hour prayer watch - that kept going in Herrnhut for 120 years - was rekindled towards the end of 1999. Like wildfire, the concept spread around the world. At the beginning of the year 2000 African leaders - spearheaded by Bennie Mostert from Pretoria and John Mulinde of Uganda - got together to attempt implementing the example of the Moravians in Africa.

Graham Power, a 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, birthing in him a strong desire to see a prayer event at their headquarters, Newlands. He promptly approached his co-directors for use of the biggest sports stadium of the Mother City. This was approved in August 2000. The Sentinel Group, that included George Otis of the well-known Transformation videos, staged a three-day conference at the Lighthouse in Parow with international speakers from 3 November 2000, followed by a citywide prayer meeting at an 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 bout of spiritual warfare against the occult Satanist Halloween celebrations, but they were also part of a countrywide 40-day offensive of prayer and fasting for the continent.

The November 2000 conference at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow was attended by Graham Power. The story of the Mafia-style drug lords who exercised such a dominating presence in certain cities reminded him of Cape Town. After the Lighthouse event in November 2000 the stage was soon set for a prayer event at the Newlands Rugby Stadium. 

            On Friday 3 November, two potentially destructive bombs were discovered and defused at a well-known shopping centre in Bellville. The bombs could have caused massive loss of life, had they detonated at the intended time a few kilometers from the venue of the prayer event in Parow. On the same day of the start of the prayer conference in Parow, the main alleged perpetrators of the pipe bomb planting were arrested. Reverend Trevor Pearce, who led the Community Transformation prayer initiative, stated that 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 exploded in the preceding months did not result in any loss of life. Nor could it have been be mere co-incidence that pipe bombs were discovered under a snooker table at a house in Grassy Park on 6 November, a day after the citywide prayer event in Bellville. Up to the moment of writing, it is for well over four years not a single PAGAD pipe bomb went off at the Cape. It is possible to say that transformation of the Mother City of South Africa got a major push on 3 November 2000.

            On the local level churches also seemed to be playing a role in bringing about peace. On Sunday 25 February 2001, the national television reported how local church leaders had brokered a peace accord between two gangs of Bonteheuwel, the Cisko Yakkies and the Americans.

           

            The event on 21 March 2001 seemed to usher in a new era. 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. Because CCFM and Radio Tygerberg radio stations also broadcast the event live and because it was a public holiday, many followed the prayers at home.

            The Transformations programme was closely aligned to prayer from the outset. It is no surprise that the 24-hour prayer watch was linked to a big prayer event 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.

Cautious Optimism needed

When the Cape Argus reported on 9 January 2001 that Chika Odimara, alias Jovial Rantao, a Nigerian drug lord had been arrested and deported, nobody got too excited. The report intimated that the syndicate used South Africa as the ‘nucleus of movements of other shipments from drug-processing areas to other parts of the world’.  Hearing that he was believed to control over 80% of the drug trade in South Africa, it was not difficult to deduce that he would just use another name, coming into the country on the next plane on another forged passport.  

            One unfortunately knew only too well that it was much better to exercise caution in optimism when the word was spread that the police was getting the upper hand in the fight against drugs. The news a few days later proved how premature the Cape Argus report was: on 23 April a masked man broke into the house of Judge van Zyl. This judge had been appointed in the PAGAD trial. It was an open secret that the so-called anti-gangsterism and drugs group had a drug-related hidden agenda.

           

                                               13.  Birth pangs of a new era?

            Christians would do well to prepare to enter those countries that are still more or less closed for missionaries with the good news of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the World.  Elizabeth Jordaan of Jericho Walls said in an email of 6 February 2001 ‘...we can see that God slowly but definitely increased the prayer level in the country. God wants to bring revival, more than we want to have it. We are in the beginning of a new millennium. Since 1987 a lot of research was done and much information gained about the history of our country. We have not prayed through this information on a national level. It is time now to finish the old millennium and deal with the sins of the fathers in our country.’

Cleansing the Land

Bennie Mostert and his Jericho Walls team had great plans for 2001. By this time a Cape office and prayer centre was already established in Bellville.  In her email Elizabeth Jordaan summarized the situation from the NUPSA office: ‘God has moved us to focus on prayer at a national level. We are in a desperate situation in this country. The situation is so devastating that one cannot even imagine the impact it will have on the economic and social life of our country. We must not underestimate what is happening concerning the crime and wickedness pouring into this nation. The church is the only body that has the answer. We need God to change this country.’

In her email of 6 February, Jordaan outlined NUPSA's plans, encouraging and challenging prayer warriors throughout the country, stressing that ‘...One of the major things that needs to happen to prepare the nation for repentance is that we need to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of our sin as a nation. Without this conviction there will be no Godly sorrow and no repentance brought about by the Holy Spirit’.  For the second half of the year 2001 NUPSA set out to deal with the whole issue of cleansing the land.  On Friday, 26 January 2001, a meeting was held at the NUPSA premises concerning the proposal of a national prayer project - Cleansing South Africa from offences against God. A period of preparing the nation for repentance was envisaged from February to July 2001 in the run-up to this effort. Material was made available on the sins of the land, how to repent of it, and how to ask for cleansing, and was distributed throughout the country.

During August and September 2001 the atonement of Jesus on the land was called upon. Praying on sites of offense was performed simultaneously in all 9 provinces.  At the Cape, this happened on Robben Island on the first weekend of September 2001. For this prayer exercise Johan de Meyer of the Western Cape office compiled a manual. Former prisoners on the island who had become believers, like Vernon February, and the former hardcore Communist, Dr Crosby Zulu, joined in the programme.

Further items in this prayer venture were ‘Dedicating South Africa to the Lord’ (September to November 2001) as well as a symbolic action of ‘Taking the Gospel to the Nations (November 2001).  All of these actions did not get off the ground properly at the Cape, but in the spiritual realm things were nevertheless happening.

The short-term Aftermath of the first Newlands Prayer Event

The event at the Newlands rugby stadium on 21 March 2001 seemed to usher in a new era. 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. Because CCFM and Radio Tygerberg radio stations also broadcast the event live and because it was a public holiday, many followed the prayers at home.

            The aftermath of the massive prayer occasion proved that Satan must have been very angry. A scathing public attack with little substance by Mr Kader Asmal, a Cabinet Minister, made headlines. For Asmal it turned out to be counter-productive. He was repudiated by many, even by prominent people from his own ranks. Mr Ebrahim Rasool, a fellow Muslim and the ANC provincial leader who became the Western Cape Premier in 2004, was one of them. It counts to Asmal’s honour, greatly enhancing his stature that he apologized a week later, even though the apology was merely worded in terms of regret. It had special significance that Dr Allan Boesak wrote a letter from prison attacking Asmal. The question was whether this would be the precursor to Boesak expressing his personal regret - or better still offering an apology - for the misleading role he had played in the spreading of Islam in the 1980s through the UDF.  Rumours were spread from the Goodwood prison that Boesak had changed completely. But the hopes I had of working alongside him were dashed after his release. He was hardly outside the prison gates, when the confusion was perpetuated. It was reported how he had addressed a group of people the same evening after his release at the His People Church. The next evening he was in Gatesville, a suburb with a clear Muslim stamp, a residential area with a big mosque and an Islamic educational Centre. The impression of the equating of Allah of Islam and the God of the Bible thus continued.

          After the Newlands event, the prayer movement seemed to take off. At the Cape there were 156 prayer watches by the end of April 2001, as well as three houses for prayer, respectively in Bellville, Glencairn and Somerset West. The 2002 event at Newlands and other venues throughout the country did however not spark off the same excitement, but the momentum nevertheless kept going when the date was changed to May Day in 2003.

Table Mountain, one of the major venues of idolatry

The Transformations programme was closely aligned to prayer from the outset. It is no surprise that the 24-hour prayer watch was linked to a big prayer event 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.

In prayer leadership circles, the Newlands event was seen as an excellent opportunity to start repenting of the past idolatry surrounding Table Mountain. When researchers like Eben Swart started to delve into the spiritual history of Cape Town, it became evident that Table Mountain, even since pre-recorded history, had been one of the major points of idolatry in our beloved city. It was shown that Table Mountain is known as “The Altar of the South” in occult circles and that there is an ancient Quena shrine of worship to the sun/moon on Lion's Head/Signal Hill.

          Prayer warriors went to the first group of kramats in the Southern Suburbs. The author had given them historical information, which the intercessors could use for praying at the various sites. Thereafter the warriors went to Bo-Kaap, where they prayed and repented at the Tana Baru kramats. At every instance they went through some prophetic actions, and blew the shophar. Then they set off for the trip around the mountain, during which they experienced a very special anointing of the Holy Spirit. They drove the whole way in a sense of awe, acutely aware that something had snapped in the spirit world. On the Sunday prior to ‘Newlands’ they went around the mountain for the fifth time. The group of twenty four first went to Signal Hill, where they repented of idolatry, overlooking the ancient Quena shrine where the worship to the sun and the worship to the moon had taken place. They also went to Llundudno, overlooking Sandy Bay, where they dealt with the sins of promiscuity, permissiveness and homosexual practice. A converted ex-Sandy Bay-er led the group in repentance.

            Churches seemed to be playing a role in bringing about peace. On Sunday 25 February 2001, the national television reported how local church leaders had brokered a peace accord between two gangs of Bonteheuwel, the Cisko Yakkies and the Americans.

Cape Town’s anchor to the occult cut off?

The 2001 Newlands prayer event was bound to turn out to be a spiritual watershed. A word from God that Amanda Buys (a long-time intercessor who has also been counseling former Satanists) received on 21 March 2001 at the Transformation meeting, says it all:

‘During the prayer time God took me into intercession - I travailed much and I knew something was breaking in the spirit. I asked the Lord, “What is it Lord?”  He clearly showed me the Lady of Good Hope with her anchor. I then saw her anchor being cut off. God said that Cape Town’s soul had been anchored to her, that’s why we turned to drugs, prostitution, gangs, etc.

             Today this anchor was cut off and replaced with God’s anchor. I asked for scripture.  The Lord gave me Hebrews 6:19,20

Now we have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul - it cannot slip and it cannot break down under whoever steps out upon it - a hope that reaches farther and enters into the very certainty of the Presence within the veil. Where Jesus has entered in for us in advance, a forerunner has become a High Priest forever after the order with the rank of Melchizedek.

A lay initiative for united prayer was resumed in June 2001 after believers from the Presbyterian, the Methodist and the Roman Catholic had been challenged at the Alpha Courses at their respective churches. This developed into a monthly event with a number of refugees and other Africans at the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk every last Wednesday of the month. New believers joined the group at regular intervals with Shaun Waris, a Pakistani national, quite prominent in the outreach.

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. In 2002 the prayer day started to spread throughout Southern Africa: eight stadiums were involved with some 160,000 people attending. In 2003 and 2004, mass prayer events were held in sports stadiums throughout the African continent.  In 2003, 77 sports stadiums in South Africa were used for prayer meetings and another 62 in 28 African countries. Some 700,000 people were praying in the stadiums with another 5 million linked through radio and television. 

          An interesting dynamic was starting to take off, namely that missionaries who had been working in other Southern Africa countries, started encouraging missionary work from Cape Peninsula believers. Thus locals were challenged to minster to under-evangelised and forgotten peoples in Namibia and the Northern Cape. Georgina Kinsman from Mitchells Plain was among the first of a new generation to get going with church-planting in a powerful and blessed way. Pastor Jeff Holder

Another prophetic move in District Six

Murray Bridgman, a Cape Christian advocate, was challenged to perform a prophetic act in District Six. He had previously researched the history of Devil’s Peak. Along with Eben Swart, the Western Cape Prayer co-ordinator of Herald Ministries, Bridgman provided some research that encouraged Dr Henry Kirby, a medical doctor who had worked as a YWAM missionary in Mozambique, to lobby Parliament to change the name of Devil’s Peak into 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 by Ivan Kirsten in the City Council in June 2002. The motion was unsuccessful, fueling suspicion that Satanists also had a significant influence in the City Council.

          On June 1, 2002 Susan and Ned Hill, the 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 were to come. Two weeks later a few other Christians joined them. Forcefully the message was confirmed that Messianic believers should be invited to join in the prayers of welcome to the foot of the Cross, of all those who intend to move back into the formerly hapless residential area.

            Pastor Willie Martheze followed a call to minister to homeless people, with the intention of ministering healing to these people. In the spiritual realms it was significant that Martheze was allowed to use facilities at the Azaad Youth Centre, one of the few buildings that remained intact from the old District Six. They were blessed to see quite a few of the homeless impacted. Some of them returned to their homes.

Exposure of the roots of Freemasonry

As a result of Eben Swart's teaching the Dutch Reformed Church of Brackenfell West requested him (in September 2003) to come and address the congregation at the church, since the issue of the church's obelisk tower had been raised in the church board (prior to Eben's presentation). At the church board's request, the wife of Ds. Chris Swart, Kobie, had written a letter to the board concerning the issue. In this letter she gave a brief overview of the occult roots of obelisks, and suggested that the church's tower be removed. The church board's reaction was to call an open meeting of the congregation, so the issue could be discussed.

At this meeting, Eben presented the historical background of obelisks (including the Masonic connection), as well as the Biblical view on it with the aid of pictures and photographs. Some leaders in the congregation were extremely agitated by this presentation, and made no secret of their feelings during question and answer time. Things turned out so nasty that both dominees (Christo Klopper and Chris Swart) eventually publicly apoligised to Eben for the congregation's behaviour. Soon after this meeting, the Freemasons on the church board made sure that the press got hold of the story, who then splashed it on the front pages of newspapers countrywide, crucifying Kobie Swart for (quite correctly) calling the obelisk symbolic of a "phallus of the earth god having continual sexual intercourse with the sky goddess" in her letter. She was innocently referring to the Egyptian creation myth concerning the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut.

Needless to say - this ridicule by the press (having a field day with a "pastor's wife with dirty thoughts") caused the church board to retreat hastily, and the church tower stands tall until this day. Soon after these happenings, disciplinary proceedings were started against ds. Chris Swart (who continued to urge for the tower's removal) about baptism-related issues. This led to Chris Swart eventually leaving the Dutch Reformed Church within months.

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 ministry, we thought that we should have a change 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.

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.[1] 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 Shamielah, a Muslim background believer, went into the Convention Centre where they surprisingly had access to the interior of the building without any security check. 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 rather extrovert 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.

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 Daniel Waris, 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.

Attacks on the Pagan and Buddhist roots of Apartheid

Around this time Amanda Buys, a Cape researcher of the roots of apartheid discovered not only that it went back to Adolf Hitler and his anti-Semitic Nazi party, but that Hitler also sought help from the demonic spirit world in Athens and Nepal. For many people the pagan content of the opening of the 2004 Olympic Games might have been strange. For Amanda it was not. It was therefore natural for her and fellow intercessors that they should counter the new effort to bring pagan influence into South Africa. The entry of the forces of darkness was depicted by the arrival of the Olympic flame at Cape Town’s international airport. Linked with this event was a special show at the Art Scape theatre that was very well advertised. The intercessors discerned that spiritual warfare was needed for both occasions. This was quite effective. For the event at the former Whites-only Nico Malan Opera House hardly a ticket was sold. In desperation the organisers gave away complimentary tickets to have at least some audience for the expensive extravaganza.

            It was probably no mere chance that the Olympic flame was scheduled to arrive at Cape Town international on 12 June, 2004. Cape intercessors were equal to the task. Amanda Buys of Canaan Ministries had already done research, showing how apartheid ideology evolved via Adolf Hitler’s bringing the Olympic flame from Athens to Berlin in 1936. Intercessors learned how Robbie Leibrandt relayed the demonic anti-Semitic spirit via the Ossewabrandwag to Cape Town. Spiritual warfare was engaged into to prevent the apartheid spirit to be re-introduced. (The increase of xenophobia, fear and hate of foreigners, showed that the prayer effort was no luxury.)

            During a visit to Hong Kong, Amanda Buys discovered how in many shops the dearly sought after abalone from the Cape was sold. She soon discerned the link to criminal syndicates. A prayer effort ensued, which led to the arrest of the leaders of a crime syndicate. The police discovered the house factory where the drug ‘tik’ was produced towards the end of 2004, four houses from their home in John Vorster Street, Plattekloof.

            When she shared this at the 24-hour prayer event on February 2004, along with the challenge of an influx of Buddhists into South Africa, we rejoiced to discover how God had pre-empted the demonic attempt by giving the ‘tsunami’ dream to Rosemarie in October 2003. What a blessing it was to discover anew that God definitely still has things under control.

Cancer Diagnosis

It was confirmed on 8 October 2003 that I had prostrate cancer. I was encouraged by the ‘Watchword’ for the previous day. (The Moravians have been calling the Old Testament Scripture traditionally the ‘Watchword’): ‘I will not die but live and proclaim what the LORD has done’ (Psalm 118:17).  This became the cue for me not only to update an unpublished autobiographical ‘open letter’, but also to change the original title 'My spiritual Odyssey' to 'I will not die but live'. Two decreases of the PSA blood count in the following weeks, indicating a very unusual decrease in cancerous activity, encouraged us to expect supernatural healing without the need of an operation.

            When a further PSA test on 23 November showed a new increase, we sensed that we must not play around with the cancer, although I dearly wanted to participate in the continental prayer convocation that took place in Cape Town from 1-5 December 2003. I immediately booked myself in for the operation, undergoing surgery on 3 December. When the post-operative report came through we were overawed once again. The cancerous growth was only 1mm away from the membrane of my prostrate gland. The timing of things gave me so much reason to thank the Lord. The compulsory rest in the wake of the operation was just the opportunity to follow through on the injunction of Psalm 118:17, viz. to ‘proclaim what the LORD has done.’ 

Rosemarie and I had already felt challenged to make the City Bowl 24-hour Watch a matter of priority for the first half of 2004. The unity of the body of Christ, the believers in the crucified and risen Saviour, was (and still is) very much on our hearts. We believe that the prayer watch could be a decisive vehicle to make this more visible - to be used as a powerful means to take the city for God. This was possibly a wave of opportunity for renewed countrywide prayer.

            I worked not only on the above manuscript, but also updated material that I had written on the occasion of my wife’s 40^th birthday under the title ‘On Eagles wings’. I proceeded to try and finalize SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER. We prayed for someone to edit the scripts and get it ready for a possible publication. Quite a few months would pass till further progress could be booked. (An important step happened on 9 May 2004 at the opening of the 7-days prayer Initiative in the Moravian Hill Church of District Six, when Bennie Mostert agreed to write the Foreword and involve Jericho Walls towards a co-publication)

            During the time in hospital and the period of recuperation I was challenged anew to tackle the issue of the 24-hour prayer watch for the City Bowl. On Sunday 28 December we heard that two friends, Beverley Stratis and Heidi Pasques, wanted to speak to us. They shared the same evening that the Lord somehow impressed on them very starkly that the Bo-Kaap and the disunity of the churches in the City Bowl were two strongholds which prevented a spiritual breakthrough. We were surprised on the one hand that the penny dropped with two people who could have heard our challenges in the church over many years. On the other hand, we were encouraged that the Lord now used them to confirm that we should not relocate as yet and that we should tackle the two issues that had been concerns for us so long with even more urgency, viz. church unity including the 24h prayer watch in the City Bowl and a ministry to refugees. At that time the Lord impressed on Beverley Stratis' heart that we should undertake a prayer march along Buitengracht Street, to cut off the spiritual connection that was brought about by the apartheid creation of the Bo-Kaap Muslim stronghold.  Only a year later she shared this with the author.

          It was fitting that the prelude to a prayer convocation for the African continent from 1-5 December 2003 at UWC, Bellville, took place on Robben Island. This was a follow-up of the ‘Cleansing South Africa’ event of September 2001. Just at a time when Henry Kirby and his preparation team ran into problems getting access to the famous island, a Muslim background believer got in touch with CCFM Radio. It was clearly an answer to prayer that the author was present at the CCFM Radio studio 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.

By the Scruff of the Neck

Sometimes God has to take people by the scuff of the neck to bring them in obedient submission as he once did with Jonah. This he did with me a few times, the last time in February 1989 when I wanted to settle into a comfortable position of teaching in a High School in Huizen, Holland after God had clearly started opening doors for me into missionary work in August 1988.

            This also 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 century. After he was involved in a raid, he got stranded in a shack. He experienced supernatural protection. Bullets were flying past him, without one hitting him. This was to him the wake-up call. Through the movement Cops for Christ he was going to challenge Christians throughout South Africa to bring spiritual life and encouragement into the police stations, when anarchy was threatening once again. Michael challenged Danie Nortje, a Cape policeman around 2002 to assist him getting Cops for Christ off the ground in the Western Cape. Supernaturally, God had to grab Danie Nortje after initial disobedience. After a boat accident off the coast at Camps Bay, during which he had to be rescued, he was admitted to Chris Barnard Memorial Hospital. At this time he sensed the renewed calling to be involved with Cops for Christ.

            Fanie Scanlan was already the Superintendent of the Buitekant Street police station in the Mother City when he was stabbed seven times, narrowly escaping death. This became the turning point in his life. Towards the end of 2003, it was my turn again to be taken by the scuff of the neck. During the post-operative period after the removal of my cancerous prostrate gland on 3 December 2003, I was challenged to stop looking for other people to try and start up the 24-hour prayer watch in the Mother City.

           

Things fall in Place

On June 8, 2003 Pierre Hanekom and his wife - a couple that had relocated to the Cape from Pretoria - happened to listen to a sermon by Bennie Mostert. God challenged them to start a 24-hour prayer group in the Bellville area, which they called Kairos. Within a few months, this prayer watch was not only running, but their initiative started to be a blessing to other parts of the city as the word got around. Beverley Stratis got in touch with Pierre Hanekom, inviting him to the first meeting of the effort towards a prayer watch in the City Bowl in the Moravian Church of District Six.

We were furthermore surprised to hear on 16 January 2004 at our monthly prayer meeting with WEC colleagues and other interested people - this happens the third Friday of every month at our regional mission headquarters in Ottery that was already ministering to Somali’s in Bellville. We already knew about many Chinese in Cape Town in order to learn English.

            Martha Meyer, the wife of Reverend Derrick Meyer, showed consistent interest in promoting prayer in the Moravian Church for many years. Her husband Derrick had been a part-time Moravian Seminary student colleague of our common District Six years. He was president of the denomination when we started speaking about the possibility of using the church building in District Six as a venue for the 24-hour prayer watch.

A visit to the Fountains of Joy Assemblies of God parsonage in Woodstock soon broadened the prospective base of the prayer watch to the congregation, which had kept the evangelical fire burning in that residential area for over a decade. When I was referred to Rowina Stanley, their prayer coordinator, the Lord had already prepared her heart. On top of it, she lives in Walmer Estate, the residential area adjacent to District Six. Things seemed to be falling into place for the start of the prayer watch. One thing led to the next till the Moravian Church of District Six was fixed as the venue for the start of the national prayer chain from 9 to16 May 2004. That was scheduled to culminate in a world day of prayer on May 15, 2005.

            The Koffiekamer, once mooted as the venue for a 24-hour prayer watch, suddenly became a major channel of blessing when an Alpha Course started there. A special role in the transformation of the city was accorded to the Koffiekamer when many a vagrant was transformed by the power of the Gospel and prayer meetings for the city held there every last Wednesday of the month. At another fringe of Cape society the faithful ministry of Marge Ballin to prostitutes was blessed when a house was acquired where those women who had committed their lives to the Lord, could be discipled.

A Prayer Watch at last?

In 2002 President Mbeki announced that the building complex, which was used as a gymnasium by the Cape Technikon, was to be given back to the Moravian Church. Hendrina van der Merwe, a faithful aged prayer warrior had been praying for years for a 24-hour watch to begin at the Moravian Church. With the origin of the modern prayer movement going back to Herrnhut in 1727, this would have been very appropriate. Hendrina hoped to be part of the start of the prayer watch before her death. When she was accommodated at the historic St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Green Point, many thought that this should be the venue for the prayer watch. (There is a historical connection in the revival following the setting free of slaves on 1 December 1838.). When this turned out to be unpractical, the Moravian Church Board was formally approached in October 2003. The request was approved, along with permission to have monthly meetings with Muslim background believers in their District Six church building. The St Andrews Presbyterian Church did however become the venue of a half night of prayer on the Islamic Night of Power in 2003. At this occasion, Trevor Peters, who worked as the guard of the parking area at certain times, participated prominently. Increasingly, he became burdened to pray for the city. The fervent prayer warrior Hendrina van der Merwe was not going to experience either a breakthrough towards church planting in Bo-Kaap or the start of a 24-hour Prayer Watch in the City Bowl, before going to be with her Lord on 31 December 2004.

            Unknown to us, Trevor Peters had been corresponding with Reverend Angeline Swart with regard to the use of the Moravian Church for a 24-hour prayer watch. The Lord had to humble the former drug lord and gangster, until he became a car guard and tour guide at the historical Groote Kerk.

On May 2 in 2004 prayer events in the 58 nations and islands linked to the continent of Africa were held in some 1100 stadiums. (This does not include 13 nations where people were not able to gather in stadiums, but met instead in house groups, churches and other venues.) A 10-minute prayer was disseminated, that will have been offered all over Africa at Greenwich Meantime +2 hours. It could be accessed via e-mail in thirteen languages all over Africa.

            The spokesman for the event, Bennie Mostert, reported a few weeks before the 2004 event: “We have confirmation from groups in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Sweden and other places that will join us in prayer for Africa. All this is helping to prepare the way for the Global Day of Prayer on 15 May 2005, Pentecost Sunday.” On the verge of the 2004 event, Daniel Brink  of the Jericho Walls Cape Office sent out the following communiqué: ‘...From Sunday May 9th thousands of Christians all over South Africa will take part in a national night & day prayer initiative called "7Days".  The goal was to see the whole country covered in continuous prayer for one year from 9 May 2004 to 15 May 2005. ‘Teams of praying people, young and old, representing different churches, schools, prisons, campuses and towns throughout South Africa will seek the face of God for spiritual breakthrough, social justice, economic stability and transformation in every community.’

A Case of D.I.Y.

When a further PSA test on 23 November 2003 showed a new increase of cancerous activity, I sensed that I must get serious about this, 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 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 (1975:102) 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.' The end of the episode was that I knew that it was a case of D.I.Y. – do it yourself. I should attempt it myself prayerfully. God confirmed this duly.

Another 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. But nobody suspected that its ripples would go around the world so fast. Objections by individual Roman Catholics and Jews only gave more publicity to the controversial film. Believers in Jesus Christ, ordinary cinema frequenters as well as people from all religions around the globe were deeply moved as they witnessed the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ in the unusual movie. Pirate DVD’s sold like hot cake, at the Cape and throughout the country. For Nur Rajagukguk, a missionary colleague who had worked in China years before, it was very special to watch the video version with two Uyghur women from China. Nur Rajagukguk had a special burden for the Uyghur, a Muslim tribe in the Northwest of the vast and populous country. For years she prayed for those people without seeing any change. And now God brought some of them to Cape Town. Within months both Chinese ladies accepted Jesus as their Saviour.

            The film influenced the Middle East significantly. What is clear is that Satan must have been very angry at the effect of the movie! On Monday, 22 March 2004, Israeli soldiers killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a prominent leader and founder of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance force, bringing the Middle East to the brink of all-out war. Surprisingly, the immediate massive backlash that was expected, did not materialize. The possible reason was the impact of The Passion of the Christ.  Many Muslims went to see the film because they 'heard' that it was anti-Jewish. Since they had been taught to resent the Jews, they wanted to see the film. God used the movie to communicate the Gospel as rarely before. The very opposite spirit that motivated Muslims to go and view the film came through.  The message of loving your enemies, and Jesus praying to his Father to forgive his prosecutors - while still on the Cross - hit many a Muslim theatre visitor in a powerful way.  Quite strikingly, many Muslims hereafter seemed to start accepting the death and resurrection of Jesus as a set of facts, tenets denied by orthodox Islam. That Jesus addressed God as his Father surely rattled many of them. In Muslim countries children learn as a nursery rhyme that God neither has a son nor does he beget.

            At this time we were introduced to Leigh Telli who loves the Jews and whose husband comes from Muslim background. An old vision of us was revived, serving to confirm our calling of ministering to foreigners and linking our ministry to Messianic Jews in an effort towards reconciliation of Jews and Muslims at the Cape. On 19 February 2005 a few believers from both Jewish and Muslim backgrounds were present at a seminar. At that occasion Leigh Telli and the author shared respectively on 'What are God’s purposes for Isaac's and Ishmael’s descendants in these last days?'

            For almost three-and-a-half centuries, Muslims have been a minority at the Cape, but what Patrick Johnstone wrote about another part of the African continent, is still very valid at the Cape: ‘The hardness of the field, the cultural inflexibility of earlier presentations of the gospel, and an over-emphasis on institutions and schools have combined to limit the impact of earlier missionary efforts; many missionaries have been discouraged.’

            A note of caution is necessary. Potential converts from Islam must be shown that there is a difference between nominal Christianity and becoming a follower of Jesus. It is especially those who turned to Islam out of disappointment in Christianity during the apartheid era who may be the first to ‘turn’ back in a people movement. The same thing happened a few years ago, when former apartheid supporters easily changed their tune, without any evidence of remorse for the abhorrent ideology. Christian sensitivity is very much called for.

Seed for Confession seems to germinate

The seed for confession and prayer in respect of Islam appeared to have started germinating by November 2003 in Paarl at the National Leadership Consultation of CCM which I initially would not have attended because of the pending surgery. I was not so keen anymore to be involved with the organisation which was supposed to be a networking body. It appeared to me completely unsatisfactory because coming together only twice a year and have hardly any contact in between was to me too meagre. Whatever I had tried in terms of getting the co-workers together for prayer, it reaped very little response.

Because I had not been admitted to hospital, I thought that I should attend the consultation at Paarl. There I was really encouraged!! It seemed as if the seed of prayer and confession had at last started to germinate. When Dr Cobus Cilliers, a missionary linked to AMS (???) who had come to minister in Strand and a missionary from Mozambique suggested the issue of confession, it was duly accepted by the consultation! After this conference Western Cape delegates could now work on a joint statement.

Much Time to pray                                                                                                                      

Many people prayed for me, including public anointing at our church. This encouraged me to be more open to divine healing, especially when two PSA tests pointed to a decrease of the cancer! When a further PSA test on 23 November showed a new increase, I sensed that I should not play around. Although I dearly wanted to participate in the continental prayer convocation that took place in Cape Town from 1-5 December, I immediately booked myself in for the operation, undergoing surgery on 3 December.

         God could speak to me clearer because I had so much time to pray in hospital. I felt 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 had been trying for years to work towards a more visible expression of the Unity of the Body of Christ, with very little success. The end of the story was that I knew that I should get going myself.

         I worked not only on the above manuscript, but also updated material that I had written on the occasion of my wife’s 40th birthday under the title ‘On Eagles wings’. I proceeded to try and finalize SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER. We prayed for someone to edit the scripts and get it ready for a possible publication.

A Penny drops           

During the time in hospital and the period of recuperation I was challenged anew to tackle the issue of the 24-hour prayer watch for the City Bowl. On Sunday 28 December we heard that two friends, Beverley Stratis and Heidi Pasques, wanted to speak to us. They shared the same evening that the Lord somehow impressed on them very starkly that the Bo-Kaap and the disunity of the churches in the City Bowl were two strongholds which prevented a spiritual breakthrough. Rosemarie and I had been praying for divine confirmation by the end of the year whether we should remain in the Mother City or relocate. Our youngest daughter was scheduled to matriculate at the end of 2004. This seemed to us an appropriate time to move on after 13 years in the city where I was born and bred.

         We were surprised on the one hand that the penny dropped with two people who could have heard our challenges in the church over many years. I could almost laugh at the suggestion of the two intercessors, because the two of them must have heard more than once how I appealed for believers to come and join us for prayer towards the start of a vibrant Church in Bo-Kaap, the residential area that became such a Muslim stronghold because of apartheid after Christians and churches had moved from the area in the wake of Group Areas legislation. In stead of laughing, Rosemarie and I were over-awed. We sensed that this was the Lord at work. We were encouraged that the Lord now used them to confirm that we should not relocate as yet and that we should tackle the two issues that had been concerns for us so long with even more urgency, viz. church unity including the 24h prayer watch in the City Bowl and a ministry to foreigners.

As the co-ordinator of the City Bowl Minister’s Fraternal, it was fairly easy for me to start organising, emailing many pastors and inviting believers at different churches. The Lord had already given us a fairly ‘neutral’ venue for the start of the effort, the desolate Moravian Church in District Six, which had been earmarked for monthly meetings of Muslim background believers. The result of the invitations to the beginnings of a prayer watch was not encouraging, to say the least. Nevertheless, with a few believers we decided to pray every first Saturday of the month in the Moravian Hill church.

I felt very much challenged to attempt a 24-hour prayer watch in the City Bowl the first week of February as Jericho Walls suggested. The first feelers were not positive enough to nudge me into action. However, a phone call by Trevor Peters, a car guard at the Groote Kerk, a former gangster and drug peddler, did just that. I was not aware that he had been in touch for months with Reverend Angeline Swart, the present leader of the Moravian Church. In very short time, I managed to put a programme together and approached various speakers with whom I had been in contact over the years.

         We were blessed to hear a few days before the event that Superintendent Fanie Scanlan of the Cape Town Central Police Station had a room for us for 24-hour prayer. The institution in Buitenkant Street was notorious in the apartheid days as Caledon Square and was thus a neutral venue.[2] After the week of prayer at the Moravian Hill Church, a few of us went to go and pray there every Wednesday morning. At the end of 2006 we were still doing this.

        

Transformation Africa!

The event of 2 May 2004 when African Christians were praying was apt to impact the continent in a significant way. The theme running throughout the afternoon was that the time had come for the Dark Continent to become the light of the nations. In an inspiring message, the international Argentine speaker Ed Silvoso led the millions of believers in stadiums across the continent through prayers of repentance, dedication and commitment. The Lord gave a vision to someone, which he shared with the Newlands crowd. The time for the fulfillment of Isaiah 66:12 has come: Contextualizing the word that refers in the Bible to Jerusalem, he applied it to Africa: ‘For thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream.” Two items that recurred again and again in the prayers were poverty relief and HIV/AIDS

It appears that the church wanted to start delving into the biblical challenge from Isaiah 58:9-10 seriously: ‘...if you give food to the hungry ... the darkness around you will turn to the brightness of noon (Ahead of the prayer day “The Warehouse” of St. John's (Anglican) parish in Wynberg organized a job summit on May 1 to create 1000 sustainable jobs. Noting that about 17% of South Africans still earn 75% of the wealth, they hoped to develop strategies for job creation that can be used by churches in other areas. They challenged Christians to pray for God's guidance and provision, and for a ‘generation of new strategies to address poverty and unemployment'.  Furthermore, they hoped that role players would be able to work together, proclaiming that the church is the salt and light of South Africa.

A Cure for HIV/AIDS?

Research done over the last three years by the University of Stellenbosch now puts South Africa on the forefront of finding a cure for HIV/AIDS A certain plant extract was found that effectively shields cells against the infiltration of the AIDS virus, thus rendering the virus powerless in its destruction of the human body. Its effect is therefore different from anti-retroviral medicine that tries to kill the virus. The research indicated that the possible new cure for AIDS has the ability to kill, in one minute, about 50 million cells infected by a virus. It seems that it slows down and might even stop the division and multiplication of the AIDS virus (Rapport, 25 July, 2004). Should this research prove to be the breakthrough all have been waiting for, it will not be as expensive as current products used. Believers throughout the country were encouraged to pray earnestly for the completion of research into this possible cure. 

Launch of the 7-days Initiative         

The Lord encouraged us when I was asked a few months later to approach the Moravian church leaders for the use of the complex where I had received my theological training from 1971 to 1973 to host the launching of the 7-days initiative.

            At this occasion, on 9 May 2004, I approached Bennie Mostert to write a forward for my researches on the results of answers to prayer at the Cape through the centuries, which I had written as two booklets ‘Some Things wrought by Prayer’ and ‘More things wrought by Prayer.’ Earlier I had already submitted a draft of ‘Some Things wrought by Prayer’ to Elisabeth Jordaan, one of his co-workers. Bennie suggested that I should rather make one volume out of it.[3] That event was the start of the initiative that went around the country till 15 May 2005, the first Global Day of Prayer.

The 7 DAYS Initiative

As a follow-up strategy of Transformation Africa, the 7-Days initiative was launched. On relatively short notice, communities in SA were challenged to each take 7 days to pray 24 hours a day. The initiative started with the Western Cape taking the first seven weeks. Global Prayer Watch, the Western Cape arm of Jericho Walls, filled the first 7 days with day and night Harp & Bowl intercessory worship and a ‘boiler room’ of prayer at the Moravian Church complex in District 6, Cape Town, starting at 9 o'clock in the evening on May 9.  Daniel Brink, the regional organizer, 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.’ The second week was taken over by the West Coast town of Melkbosstrand, and thereafter by five more Western Cape towns. Interestingly, the Moravians were now very much in the thick of things when the hub of the events on the adjacent West Coast took place at the Mission station Mamre and the Cops for Christ group of the nearby Atlantis.

Other places in South Africa could not wait to dive into the 7-Days initiative. At midnight on the 9th of May 2004 various prayer watches started.

           

Police Stations as Prayer venues

It was exciting to see how in different parts of the country, the vision of ‘adopt a cop’ - prayer for the police force - took off. It was surely in answer to prayer that Cops for Christ was started. The group saw themselves as stimulators and co-ordinators for prayer. Already at the City-wide prayer events of the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Captain René Matthee was a regular speaker, challenging believers to pray especially for the police. Danie Nortje and Michael Share challenged churches in the city area and further afield to pray concretely. They developed a system whereby Christians with cell phones are sent a simultaneous prayer request as a SMS. Countrywide the branch of Atlantis on the West Coast was prominent, for example in the organization and implementing of the 24 hour week of prayer from 16 to 23 May 2004 in their area. Crime reported at the local police station dropped significantly in the months hereafter.

          A special variation occurred in the violent suburb of Elsies River. Monica Williams, a compassionate Christian of the area, took it upon herself to see her suburb transformed through prayer. Reacting to a dream, she approached the local police to this effect, caring especially for juvenile delinquents and rape victims. Within months corruption within the local police force was exposed. In nearby Ravensmead, Lea Barends endeavoured to combat crime and domestic violence through prayer. In September 2003 she approached Freddie van Wyk of the local police station, with the request whether she could come and pray for the staff. He was excited and soon the start of a 24-hour prayer watch occurred there with five women attending every Thursday. In due course this expanded to ten women by May 2004. Within months crime in Ravensmead dropped dramatically; many drug lords were apprehended.

            Mqokeleli Mntanga helped to facilitate unified prayer among churches in the township of Mbekweni, Paarl. The churches there started a house of prayer at the local police station.

From time to time drug syndicates were discovered, very often after concerted prayer. Thus a factory where drugs were produced was unearthed in Woodstock at the end of the previous millennium. By the end of 2004, the locally produced drug tik had become a scourge of Cape townships. A Chinese syndicate brought the new drug ‘tik’ to the Cape market. It was significant that they operated from the posh suburb of Plattekloof. Amanda Buys and her team had just been praying intensely around the link between China and crime in the Cape (During a visit to Hong Kong in 2004 she discovered that (possibly poached) South African abalone was sold there in many shops). The police discovered the house factory where ‘tik’ was produced towards the end of 2004, four houses from the Buys home in John Vorster Street, Plattekloof.

Amanda is also a researcher who ministers in prisons. There she showed to prisoners – how the basis of their assumptions around the history of the ‘26’, ‘27’ and ‘28’ gang syndicates, was actually founded on a lie. Exposing the deception of the father of lies (John 8:44) belongs to the kernel of Spiritual Warfare. Her teaching to the prisoners in Malmesbury was going to impact many of them deeply.

 “7 Days” Prayer initiative for the SA Police Service

The Christian Police Association (CPA) prayed from the 13^th to the 19^th of September 2004 for the South African Police Service and its members as well as for the crime situation in South Africa. It followed their annual National CPA conference.  One of the speakers was Amanda Buys from Kanaan ministries. René Mathee, a police captain from Paarl, wrote in her report:  ‘Amanda is one of the forerunners on intersession and spiritual warfare in our nation.  She was a vessel that God used to inspire us enormously!!! We got a Word from the Lord for the Police in South Africa and it is as follows:

The Lord says that the Police are a gift to the nation like the Trojan Horse.

But ….the enemy is hidden inside the horse!!!

Another concern for the South Africa is that ever since South Africa made a covenant with Haiti, the voodoo capital of the world, witchcraft flooded our nation. We experience a great onslaught of witchcraft in the SAPS currently. 

We, as the children of God must learn how to stand against the enemy and all its powers… We as Christians must rise up and take our places as watchmen on the walls!!!  We cannot turn our faces away!!  We must plead God for mercy...

We started to pray very early Monday morning. People from over the whole of South Africa were involved in praying for this very important organization…The community of South Africa also joined us in this prayer initiative.

                In the Western Cape we divided the Province into the four areas.   Every area had a particular day to pray…In the Boland area we prayed for murder and rape, as this is the problem crime in the area. We also prayed for Operation Neptune, a police base in Hermanus that investigates abalone smuggling in the Hermanus – Gansbaai area. We prayed that God would remove this seat of Satan, as “Neptune” is a sea god.  We also prayed for the abalone smuggling that takes place in this area.  We prayed that God would expose the Police members that are involved in these syndicates.  We are glad to report that 7 members of the Police from Gansbaai, Hermanus and area were arrested on Sunday and it hit front-page news in the local newspapers!!!

The Provincial Commissioner said that corruption in the Police will not be tolerated and it will be rooted out!!! We as Christians stand with the Commissioner and we pray that this statement will come to pass in the SAPS … We trust that the Lord will expose and remove more corrupt police members and we will not stop praying that God will purify the criminal justice system!!’

On Thursday, September the 30^th there was a TV documentary programme on Special Assignment, where a number of police members were exposed for their involvement in corruption and bribery regarding prostitution.  A few of the presenters of this programme acted as spies and filmed police members where they bribed people to pay fines, otherwise they would be arrested as they assumed that prostitution is illegal.

A former Freemason Lodge to become a Prayer Room?

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 phoned me. This happened just as my own faith had started to wilt on the matter. It turned out that he had been corresponding for some time with leaders of the Moravian Church about the use of the complex in District Six.

          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 was going to find out whether the venue was available for that event and Bev Stratis was going to get in touch with Superintendent Scanlan to see if a room in the Buitenkant Street Police Station was available as a plan B. From June 2005 this was scheduled to become a regular venue for the monthly prayer meeting. In due course we prayed in his office every Wednesday morning.

          One thing led to the other within a week, until it was finalized that the week of prayer was going to be held at Moravian Hill, to be followed thereafter with a prayer watch at the Buitekant Street police station. Superintendent Scanlan put to our disposal a room called Die Losie, a former Freemason lodge in the police station. This was a significant step in the spiritual realm. On Sunday 23 January, 2005 the station was anointed and prayed over, signalling the ushering in of the victory of the Lord in the Mother City. (Until about 2003 the command structures of the famous/notorious Caledon Square police station had been firmly in the hand of freemasons.) In fact, at the beginning of 2005 there was hardly any police station around where there was not a committed Christian in command.) As we were praying in the third story board room, I suddenly noticed that I had the Tafelberg Dutch Reformed Church opposite me. I was reminded that this was the church from which Ds Koot Vorster, a Dutch Reformed Church minister, the brother of a Prime Minister and a top Broederbonder, operated. I heard somewhere that he was the one responsible for the request to the government in 1948/9 to put the prohibition of racially mixed marriages on the statute books. At some stage the Lord had to deliver me from resentment when I heard that the denomination dug in their heels when the government under Prime Minister P.W. Botha was ready to repeal the law in the late 1970s. (This effectively blocked my possible return to South Africa.) Up there in the police station it was my privilege to express forgiveness in a prayer once again.

          A divine hand possibly operated when Director Booysen came to the same police station with an excellent track record. The new director, who was soon also the acting station commander, came from a background as detective when he was involved in quite a few high profile cases like the murder of Mrs Maryke de Klerk, the ex-wife of a former State President, F.W. de Klerk. Here was a police agent who made no decisions without first praying about it. In his own words he would first ‘discuss the matter with the Lord’. No wonder that the crime in the Mother City dropped to its lowest figure for years by the end of February, 2005. The arch enemy was not sitting still however. In the same week City newspapers blasted out how three women were mugged in Deer Park, Vredehoek, i.e. a mere kilometre away from the Buitenkant Street police station, so to speak just up the road and not far from our home. It was nevertheless significant that not a single one of the victims was hurt and that three suspects of a gang of five were arrested a few days later.

No small Breakthrough

Our joy at the perceived victory to get the Freemason stronghold Die Losie turned out to be premature. A few days later Superintendent Scanlan informed us that Die Losie was not available for our prayer purposes, but that we could have another room. We thus experienced it nevertheless as a victory to invite Eben Swart, an expert on Freemasonry, to lead us in prayer on 11 May 2005 at 6 a.m. in Die Losie. This event highlighted to us the need to inform the church leaders and the church at large of the demonic roots in many a Church building via Freemasonry. It remains a challenge to continue attempting to take back what Satan has stolen. We experienced it as no small breakthrough when Michael Share, the leader of Cops for Christ, informed us that he would be able to address the Christmas celebration of 2005 at the Central Police Station.

         At that occasion Director Booysen, in thanking us, made no bones about the fact that he attributed the relative success of the station to the regular prayers on Wednesday mornings. Beverley Stratis had an inspired idea when she bought a cake on her birthday, had it cut in pieces. Mpo, who regularly prayed with us, distributed the pieces of cake on the logistics floor where we were praying in the office of Superintendent Scanlan.

         Heidi Pasques started a new job in Bellville. Thereafter she could not attend regularly anymore. But the Lord brought in new warriors like Vlok Esterhuyse and his wife Lynn. Theresa Reid, a committed believer, brought in a new touch when she would hug and greet all and sundry. It might not have been appreciated by everybody, but it could have contributed to general acceptancefor us as a group. When we wanted to use Die Losie again for a week of prayer prior to Pentecost in 2006 there was no opposition whatsoever. In fact, thereafter it became the new venue of our weekly events on Wednesday mornings. When the police station and its new commanding Officer, Superintendent Gerda van Niekerk, received quite a few accolades at the end of 2006, we could do nothing else but give God the glory for his faithfulness and answering our prayers.

Christians to get ready

There is the concrete hope that churches and mission agencies might start joining hands. Ideally, this should include Jewish and Muslim background followers in a leading capacity. In fact, the vision to see missionaries from different culture groups leaving the Mother City to different parts of the Islamic world is no pipe dream anymore. This might even include refugees returning to their home countries as evangelists to their own people and some who today are still classified as Muslims.

          The Middle East is ripening to be won back for the biblical Jesus. He has been appearing to thousands of Muslims all over the world in visions and dreams. The movie The Passion of the Christ was supernaturally used by God to prepare hearts to believe in Jesus as their Saviour. The film got an exceptional reception in the Middle East. Thus 130,000 went to see the movie in Abu Dabi in the space of only 10 days.

            With the goodwill that our country has won, amongst other things through the worldwide acclaim that our former President Mandela had been receiving, almost the whole world is now ready to accept all sorts of emissaries from South Africa. While Mandela emphasized that he is no saint, even his errors of judgment may turn into a blessing in due course. His criticism of George Bush in his handling of the Iraq debacle will probably be assessed by history as well-judged, the charge of selectiveness is surely in place with regard to his loyal uncritical support to the hilt of the dictators Castro’s Cuba and Khaddafi (History will likewise judge the church negatively for staying silent on the oil revenue used by Libya to keep Robert Mugabe in the saddle and all efforts to Islamise the continent). Mandela and the South African government’s possible errors of judgement could nevertheless have earned credibility for the country to send missionaries into countries, which today are still Islamic strongholDs

            Worldwide, ex-Muslims mobilized themselves via email and the internet in September 2004 in an effort to expose the militant nature of Islam. After the possible exposure of the deception of Islam, former Muslims from the Cape would already be partly prepared to share the Gospel in the Middle East. In recent years some Cape Muslims have also learnt to speak Arabic, the lingua franca of the Middle East. South Africa is a leader in the movement of non-aligned countries. Just like it happened in the case of the Communist world, Christians should be ready when Muslim countries open up to the good news of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the World. (Of course, there is still hard work to do. Followers of Jesus should first pray the Middle East completely open for Christian missionaries as they once did with regard to the former Communist world.)

          Iran lifted the ‘death penalty’ over Salman Rushdie in September 1998. Could this be interpreted as a sign that Islam has started to get ready to face up to uncomfortable facts, for instance that the (post-) Qur’anic Gabriel is not identical to the biblical archangel with that name or that Muhammad himself doubted for more than two years whether the figure that appeared to him was indeed angelic? Is Islam ready to face that Allah - which merely means the god - is the name that was also given to Hubal, the chief deity of the Ka’ba in Mecca, whose tangible symbol was the black stone? (Muhammad left the stone intact when he cleared the shrine of 360 other idols in 630 C.E.) Sooner or later Islam will have to face the fact that the circumambulation of the Ka’ba is basically idolatrous, a pagan practice that Muhammad continued in disobedience, in spite of being warned against its idolatrous nature. Christians must understand that it is far from easy for Muslim academics and leaders to acknowledge these facts, almost just as difficult for Christian leaders to acknowledge collective guilt, for instance for the side-lining of Jews by Constantine or for the deception into which Muhammad was brought by Waraqah, a Christian priest. All these facts can be found in books on Christian and Islamic History.

Repentance and Renewal

In October 2004 the agricultural sector in the Western Cape was concerned about the prevailing drought. In response to a request by agricultural leaders, the Dutch Reformed Church in the Western Cape called for a Day of Atonement in all their congregations on Sunday, 24th October 2004. It was interesting that the request was expressed for such a day, rather than prayer for rain. The Consultation of Christian Churches invited all churches to join in a time of repentance and renewal of faith and commitment. Prayer was offered because of declining Christian values, moral decay, disintegrating families, crime, corruption and violence. Yet, the call for prayer was not widely heard, let alone heeded.

A similar call went out from Transformation Africa for a Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain for Sunday 20 March 2005 (See Appendix F). Gerda Leithgöb of Herald Ministries supported the call by distributing it around the country inviting believers to ‘Please JOIN our Brothers and Sisters in Prayer for RAIN in the Western Cape.’ Significantly Gerda Leithgöb added: ‘Please add Isaiah 45:8 to your prayers and pray for spiritual rain to fall!’ This verse calls to the heavens:  ‘…rain down righteousness; let the earth open wide, and let salvationthem spring up, and let righteousness grow up with it; I the LORD, have created it.’ It is not known in how far this call was followed up. In the two months hereafter God responded with plenty of rain in the bulk of the Western Cape, but the West Coast was still very much in need of rain by mid-May.

            Martin Heuvel, a minister from Ravensmead, approached Charles Robertson after he had unsuccessfully tried to get various church leaders moving with regard to confession, and especially towards restitution for the evils of apartheid. This finally led to the founding of a Foundation for Church-led Restitution in 2002.

          Charles Robertson approached the author in October 2004 to participate in this initiative. In one of my manuscripts, which I had sent to him by email, he had picked up the suggestion that the church should make restitution for the wrongs against Muslims and Jews. I had also written for example:

          ‘Costly restitution would be a genuine sign of remorse and repentance. One way to prove how serious we are in remorse is to get involved in a corporate, unified way to tackle drug abuse, the scourge that has been plaguing Cape Islam, the Mother City and our country at large for so long already. Another gesture would be to set up a programme to eradicate traditions and practices that contradict the biblical message and even more importantly, it should then be implemented. 

                Mere praying and fasting - without deeds and fruits of repentance - may only achieve getting divine powers lined up against us. As God once spoke through the prophet Isaiah (e.g. chapter 58), He abhors empty gestures and/or activism that do not include heartfelt compassion for the poor and needy. Our racist past with the resulting rift between the poor and the rich would be one of the sad heritages to be addressed. Genuine sharing of resources and imaginative programmes to ameliorate poverty - initiated from the ranks of the churches - would show that we are sincere in our desire to see others becoming followers of Jesus. That might usher in the revival many have been praying for.’ 

               

Prayer against Satanist Infiltration

Whereas the apartheid regime government had an obsession with race laws, the secular government since 1994 legislated against it. The new regime however has taken sexual immorality on board; passing laws that give the impression that homosexuality, abortion and prostitution are the most normal things in the world. Atheist and even Satanist infiltration in the government had to be suspected. The efforts between 1995 and 1998 to get religious broadcasting banished – albeit that the impression was given that all small radio stations were under scrutiny – tend to fuel that suspicion.

         But also within denominations interfaith was gaining ground so that the unique features of Jesus were gradually eroded. Parallel to this, acceptance of homosexuality was gaining ground at a rapid pace, notably in the Anglican and Dutch Reformed Church. A move by concerned pastors of the Cape Town City Bowl led to a declaration to be read in churches at Pentecost 2004 that included the sentence ‘We implore Christians to observe marriage as the ultimate and unique expression of the relationship between one man and one wife.’ It was generally felt that a status confessionis had been reached. The Church had to speak out against the sinful practice of homosexuality as she failed to do with regard to apartheid. So to speak at the last minute, the public reading of the declaration in the churches from pulpits was postponed at the request of the Groote Kerk ministers, not to jeopardize the discussion at their General Synod, which was to be held in October 2004. The decision at that synod in Hartenbos was however nowhere unequivocal, appealing to church members to be loving and not judgmental towards homosexuals. However, the lack of comment on the actual practice was leaving a loophole which was to cause trouble a few months later.

          Matters came to a head when the Constitutional Court ruled shortly thereafter in November 2004 that gay marriages were not a violation of the constitution. Pastors could thus theoretically be charged if they refused to marry lesbians or homosexuals. The spokesman of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) added to the confusion in the television discussion. This troubled Rowina Stanley, the prayer coordinator of the Woodstock Assemblies of God sufficiently to bring this up for prayer at the monthly Prayer for the City event on 4 December, 2004 outside the District Six Moravian Church. We put prayer against Satanist and homosexual infiltration into the Church on the agenda for 2005. Rowina unfortunately pulled out of our regular monthly meetings because of other commitments, but in their church a few prayerful women they herafter started with early morning prayer every Saturday morning. We resumed our sunrise monthly prayer event on Signal Hill.

Another DRC Split?    

In the City Bowl itself the matter was highlighted again in April 2005 when Douw Wessels, a Psychologist, committed suicide. Before he did this, he accused Rev. Laurie Gaum, his homosexual partner and the minister of the controversy-ridden St Stephen’s DRC congregation, in a newspaper report of behaviour not behoving a pastor.

          The City Bowl ministers Fraternal was now clearly challenged to take a stand on the issue. It was decided that the moment had arrived to read the declaration from the pulpits on Pentecost Sunday. Two of the ministers who belonged to the commission of the Ring (Circuit), Dr Francois Wessels and Ds Thys du Toit, felt that they would prejudge the matter by reading the declaration from their pulpit. Another congregation feared an internal backlash. It seemed that only the Cape Town Baptist Church  dared to read the declaration. Die Burger, the influential Afrikaans daily, referred to a looming split when the result of the commission was publicized. It was advised that Ds Gaum should be released from his duties at St Stephen’s but he was not defrocked, leaving it to churches to call him. The gay lobby in the church appeared to fan the fire by giving the impression that the Cape Ring was deviating from the 2004 synod decision. This enforced the church spokesmen to make it clear that the 1986 Church position still stands, namely that the Bible outlaws the practice of homosexuality.

Allan Boesak displays Remorse

The dust had not properly settled on that issue when President Mbeki pardoned Dr. Allan Boesak. His conviction on fraud made it impossible for him to re-enter politics. In a surprise move, Boesak said that he would not return to active politics. His church, the Uniting Reformed Church, followed the presidential pardon up with an offer to re-ordain him. This happened on Sunday 30 January, 2005 in the Boland town of Piquetberg.  In an emotionally charged service, Boesak used Mark 2 to thank God in his sermon for the second chance the Almighty had given him. Frankly admitting that he erred, many were touched. Very significantly, the Kerkbode (11 February 2005) cited his literal words: “And then, in my sinful stubbornness I chose a different path. Without consulting God, without prayer…’ The first step towards a new era in which he could play a leading role in bringing the Cape churches in repentance and restitution, seems to have been taken.

          Boesak added to the doubts about the depth of his repentance when he soon thereafter initiated the Reformed Confessional Movement on the basis of Belhar. A nostalgic touch was added when he was joined by Dr André Bartlett of the Aasvoëlkop congregation of Northcliff in Johannesburg. (It is the same congregation where Dr Beyers Naude once took off his clerical robe in protest against apartheid.) Not only to many Afrikaners the move of Boesak smacked just too much of the old activist. For others outside of the Dutch Reformed Church this was not relevant any more.

          Should not the Body of Christ rather move forward to a combined confession and repentance on the basis of the Bible?  How wonderful it would be if the man who ushered in the confession of Belhar, could become the catalyst of another confession; not only because of his personal role in the equating of Allah with the God of the Bible, but also of the guilt of our Christian forebears, who were misleading Muhammad and therefore keeping millions in religious bondage.

Transformation Action

Rev Trevor Pearce and Rev John Thomas were in more than one sense the face of Cape Transformation down the years, by getting involved with practical actions. As the husband of the directress of CCFM radio station, Rev Thomas uitilised the medium to the full to pass on the good news of churches getting involved with the poor and needy of the Fish Hoek Valley, like schooling and HIV/AIDS Reverend Pearce was very much a pivot of the church and the business world, partnering to change the former squatter camp at Westlake. Also in the Helderberg and in Manenberg concerted prayer was followed by action, which changed the respective communities significantly for the better. The annual Transformation stadium events were followed by a week of bounty where the more affluent churches were challenged and encouraged to share with those on the other side of the economic divide.

            God used Pastor Dean Ramjoomia, a Muslim background believer, who got linked to a City Shelter, to challenge the City Bowl Ministers fraternal on 17 March 2005 to do something about social issues like the many roaming homeless people and street children in a coordinated way. This led to a prayer walk scheduled for 7 May 2005 at the various venues of vice in the City Bowl. Concurrently with an evangelistic campaign with the former Springbok cricketer Peter Pollock at the Tafelberg Dutch Reformed Church, plans were made for a common effort of City Churches to reach out in love to the homeless, utilizing research done by a team from Stellenbosch University under Dr Johannes Erasmus on behalf of Transformation Africa. The soil had been prepared by the homeless themselves, who were attempting to play off some churches against others. Light appeared at the end of the tunnel that there might come a common strategy of aid to the hapless co-citizens.

          Pastor Martin Heuvel of the Fountain Christian Centre in Ravensmead also saw the need to make restitution practical. He initiated shops run by Christian volunteers, where all sorts of second-hand clothing and other utencils could be purchased cheaply. This idea was developed in different suburbs, taking on board various ideas of skills training that were already running for some time to help the homeless and the unskilled unemployed, for instance the one called The Carpenter’s Shop in the Mother City. The most advanced initiative in this regard is possibly the Living Hope Community Centre H.O.P.E. in Muizenberg that used the acronym for Helping Other People Earn. Apart from providing healthy meals and ablution facilities, spiritual direction is given next to skills training. Furthermore HIV/AIDS workshops are run next to clinic services, along with access to social services.

Interesting was also how traditional churches were impacted during the transformation of the communities. Already for many years the annual student mission events, e.g. at Stellenbosch, were the vanguard for other music like choruses and hill songs in some Afrikaans churches.  The Dutch Reformed Church of Wellington North went perhaps furthest when the staged a Bambelela festival in the beginning of 2005. At the prayer meeting which started at 6h on the Friday morning, the start of a 50 hour prayer chain, a number of farm workers participated. Rev Human was quoted as saying that the Bambelela festival was only the beginning of a process for people to get their lives in order and to start caring for others (Die Kerkbode, 11 March 2005).

For 2005 the churches around the globe were challenged to get involved in '90 Days of Blessing' or Community Outreach from 16 May to 13 August. This happened hereafter every year after the Global Day of Prayer, however with rather luke-warm response at the Cape with few exceptions.

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.

Xenophobia towards Somalians

When we were in Holland in the summer of 2006 to discuss with our team leaders our imminent resignation from WEC after serious internal difficulties had arisen in our team, we could read in a newspaper over there about 50 Somalians being killed in the township Masipumelele, near Fish Hoek in the wake of xenophobia towards them by the Xhosa-speaking original inhabitants, fanned by the traders.

24/7 at the University of Cape Town

‘Simply Worship’, an event develped once a quarter, where predominantly young people from different churches, backgrounds and cultures come together to ‘simply’ worship. In mid-2006 a Simply Worship service which was held in the Jamison Hall of the University of Cape Town (UCT) our son Sammy was challenged to go forward and call people to prayer at UCT. About ten people came to him afterwards wanting to join him in prayer. They started meeting together to spend time in worship and intercession on a weekly basis, but also spending lots of personal time with God in the prayer room at UCT.  They also organised an event, where they decorated the prayer room and encouraged people to worship God using their creative giftings. They prayed continuously for 77 hours, leading up to the next Simply Worship evening.

Throwing the net to the other side?

I attended a few meetings in March 2007 with some scepticism. I had been speaking to and phoning Richard Verreyne, pastor of the Soter Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk in Parow, a few times in the last quarter of 2006. He was a mission-minded pastor of a denomination that was generally not known to be evangelical. When he invited me to a meeting of the Consultation of Christian Churches (CCC) in February 2007, to prepare a big event where Floyd McClung was to be one of the speakers, I was in two minds. Through their networking with the Western Cape affiliate of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) the impression had been quite wide-spread that the CCC was also propagating inter-faith notions and supporting the law allowing same sex marriages that took effect on 1 December 2007. I was not prepared to be a party to this set-up. On both scores we were re-assured that – at least what the Western Cape part of the CCC was concerned - its leadership structure and membership was clearly evangelical. We agreed to participate in the proposed CCC event on 20/21 March, 2007.

         We wanted to make sure that the CCC folk would hear about present efforts to reach the continent with the Gospel. To achieve this purpose, I roped in Bruce van Eeden from Ten Forty Outreach and Raymond Lombard from Wheels for God’s Word.

            At the meeting I felt myself more or less pulled into the steering committee of the missions’  department of the Western Cape CCC after declining initially. But I also wanted to be available if God wanted to use me there. (At the end of January 2007 it had been clearly confirmed that our days in WEC (South Africa) were over and we duly resigned, to take effect as from 1 May 2007. Our hearts were still aching however, as we still experienced affinity to the ethos of the mission agency.)

Involvement at the Foreshore Home Affairs                                                                                            The Friday prayer of WEC International/Friends from Abroad on 30 March 2007 led to a once-off relocation of the prayer venue, scheduling the one of 13 April to the Foreshore Home Affairs premises. A crisis was developing there around the issue of bribes and corruption. Some immediate needs were identified. The question arose whether the Body of Christ in the City Bowl could get challenged to address some of the problems and needs. At the Friends from Abroad meeting of 17 April in Parow, the author was encouraged to arrange an ad hoc meeting with a few City Bowl pastors who are involved with foreigners in some way. In a sequel to this meeting, held on 4 May at the Straatwerk facility at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Green Point, it was decided to invite more churches and pastors to get on board as part of 90 Days of compassionate action, after the 2007 Global Day of Prayer.  (Since 2005 the churches around the globe were challenged to get involved in '90 Days of Blessing' or Community Outreach from 16 May to 13 August. This happened hereafter every year after the Global Day of Prayer, however with rather lukewarm response at the Cape with few exceptions.)

            Our involvement at the Department of Home Affairs played some role in reducing the corruption to a trickle by the beginning of 2008. By the middle of the year it was however as bad as ever again.         

Disasters shake young Christians

We were not aware that our roads would cross that of a young UCT student, Sheralyn Thomas, the daughter of John and Avril Thomas, the pastoral couple of the nearby King of Kings Baptist Church. The church had been very much involved with the compassionate care to the Somalians. Sheralyn played a major role in the negotiations between the South African Blacks and the Somalians, but we were not aware of this. From her parents she heard about our minisry to refugees, in which she took keen interest.

                                   

         Towards the end of our stay in Germany in July 2007, where we had gone for the wedding for our eldest son Danny, we received an email from Samuel, our son in Cape Town. The subject of the email was 'pray'.

         He 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 after two weeks.            The event shook our son Sammy, who was quite close to Rudi, with whom he led the Scripture Union group at secondary School. Unaware that he had actually written a sort of diary of these days, I prayed with him on Tuesday 21 August, the very next day after our arrival in Cape Town just before he left for University. I shared with him my hope that young people would be used to assist in bringing the Christians of the Cape together. He indicated that special things had been happening the last few days, but that it would take an hour to share it. However, he had recorded much of it.

            At a ‘Simply Worship’ event shortly hereafter God spoke to Sammy and another student friend of his, Brendan Studti - independently of each other. They were compassionately moved respectively to give savings and a bequest for the start towards a children's home. A group of UCT students came hereafter to our home quite regularly on Fridays as they prayed and organised for this home.  One of them was Sheralyn Thomas.

New Involvement with Somalians

The next chapter with Somalians came via our son Sammy who became involved in the start of a prayer room at UCT after he had a very emotionally meaningful spiritual encounter with the Lord. He had become intensely involved with the start of a children's home and the UCT 24/7 group. As a result, various UCT students including Sheralyn Thomas, the daughter of John and Avril Thomas, the pastoral couple of King of Kings Baptist Church, started visiting us quite regularly.

         We were not very keen to minister to Somalians as such when Rosemarie had a recurring dream one morning which seemed to indicate that we should resume outreach to Somalians. Our previous experience with some of them in Mitchells Plain in 2004/5 ended on a rather disappointing note. By October we had been linked to the All Nations International team for a few months already. They had been doing intensive outreach in Masipumelele near to Fish Hoek already for months. The very next day after the dream of Rosemarie a discussion with the MOB Team (MOB is our appreviation for Masipumelele, Ocean View and Beyond) seemed to confirm our intensified involvement in the Black township where a major clash between Somalians and indigenous Blacks had resulted in 50 people killed in 2006.

         When K., a student from abroad with whom I did Bible Study every week, phoned to cancel because of a test, I thought I had a free evening. But then the bell rang. It was Sheralyn Thomas. It turned out that she had been negotiating in the talks between Somalians and Xhosas the previous year. She furthermore told us about a believer from the East African country who had just been baptized in Bellville. I needed no encouragement to phone the pastor of the Baptist Church there. I knew he had a heart for foreigners. It turned out that Ahmed, who subsequently changed his name, had been baptized at that church on October 7. We had started with 'international Bible Study', intended as foundational teaching for new believers from the nations.

A Second Somalian?

Soon hereafter I received a phone call from a pastor in Sea Point with regard to a second Somalian, who has been coming to faith in Christ from Islam. This sounded to me too good to be true. I had serious doubts whether this was genuine. (Over the years we had a few cases of people who only wanted money, coming with impressive 'conversion' stories.) Initially we were thus rather sceptical about the story of the young man who had purportedly fled his country after his father probably killed his mother because she came up for him after he had become a Christian. In South Africa he was fleeing from other Somalians because he had heard that his father put big bucks on his head if anybody would remove the shame of the renegade who had left their religion, by eliminating him.

         On the other hand, our 'Christian' conscience could not be callous and indifferent to the plight of someone so clearly destitute. He was suicidal. After further checks and balances, we decided to let him sleep in my office. (Marthinus Steyn, a missionary colleague who was on leave of absence from our previous mission agency, was living with us for a few months, teaching English to foreigners from an internet facility.) We saw this co-incidence as a special divine gift because Marthinus speaks - next to a few Western languages - also Xhosa and Arabic.

         The English of our new Somalian brother was still very poor. Thus it was special to have Marthinus available, who could communicate via Arabic. During the next few days we could not only convince ourselves that he was sincere, but we could also witness how his English improved and how he grew spiritually.

A bright future in spite of the general gloom?

The verse ‘If my people humble themselves and pray ... I will heal their land’ (2 Chronicle 7:14), is very much a Biblical promise.  A bright future is therefore nevertheless a real possibility in spite of a pervasive gloom in some quarters. We are thus able to remain positive in spite of a persistent malaise. If we repent as a country of our godless laws and practices - also those of the last decade under our new government - we are apt to witness a new turning to Christ.

          The alternative is the maligned words of Mr John Vorster, a former Prime Minister and State President of the late 1960s and a big part of the 1970s: ‘...too ghastly to contemplate’, mayhem and anarchy.  Many people in townships like Tafelsig have already been experiencing this option, where law enforcement broke down to all intents and purposes. The Cape Argus noted in mid May 2001 that 103 deaths had been reported in the Western Cape since the beginning of that year. New laws with a moral high ground like the one against public smoking have unfortunately become a laughing stock.

          And yet, the church has learnt that there is power in prayer. Prayer is the key to change. Because of prayer, we may still expect a bright future for the Mother City of South Africa. In different parts of the Cape Peninsula, followers of Jesus Christ have tried to keep the momentum of 'Newlands' going. The prospect of Cape Town as a blessing to the continent is real in spite of all the hick-ups. 

            Will the Middle East be ready soon to accept ambassadors of the Gospel? There are signs that the Islamic ideologists have been trying to minimize the damage of extremists to prevent the complete demise of their religion. In South Africa Ahmed Deedat’s spiritual heirs announced at some stage that they would take all his books from the shelves that are offensive to Christians. It is not clear whether the announcement was followed up in practical terms, or whether it was only a propaganda ploy. Many people across the board appeared to have moved towards a new-age position, where Allah and the God of the Bible would become identical.

            On the other hand, the question is also valid whether the church universal is ready to repent of its role in the establishment and spread of Islam globally? Is Christianity ready to acknowledge that the ‘reforms’ of the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century estranged the religion from its Jewish roots; that by enforcing the main day of worship to Sunday, homage was being paid to the pagan sun god; that the example of the big heathen temples cancelled the New Testament paradigm of house fellowships; that the traditions and practices of many a church are a far cry from the examples and teachings of Jesus? Are we willing to start settling the collective debt that has been incurred?

           

Wanted: Brave Religious leaders

Brave religious leaders are called for at this stage, people who would be willing to take flack in their stride - even from the people they represent. We are reminded of the fine precedent set when Professor Johan Heyns led his church into a turn-about to apartheid at the national Dutch Reformed Church synod of 1986, a move that possibly cost him his life. His assassination in November 1994 has still not been cleared up. (However, much of the credibility that the denomination had won through the stand in October 1986 was lost in the first quarter of 1988.  The Dutch Reformed Church attacked church leaders from other denominations, who marched to the Parliament buildings in Cape Town in opposition to the government. This amounted to the Dutch Reformed Church taking a position in support of the apartheid system.) 

          South African churches and theologians could do something with possible worldwide ramifications at this time. A part of the debt of the church is surely to correct the confusion that our Nestorian, Coptic and Maronite Christian forefathers have caused.  It was their bickering and the resulting emphasis put on two completely separate natures of Christ plus the giving to Mary the title of Mother of God that led many medieval Christians to stumble, e.g. to believe in Mary as part of the Holy Trinity.) Doctrinal tussles around these issues prevented Muhammad and the Arabs from understanding the Gospel properly in the first place. A valid question arises: would a combined church leadership - representing the broad spectrum of their faith - be prepared to confess these errors? To be fully credible, such a church submission should ideally include a commitment to scrap every church tradition and custom that contradicts the Bible. Would church leaders be prepared to initiate and implement that in practice and not only on paper?

            Bennie Mostert faxed a document to the Cape in 1996 regarding the reconciliation walk of Christians from Cologne in Germany. The document was discussed in the local forum of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims), without any concrete result towards an effort to demonstrate repentance and remorse for the actions of the misled Christian crusaders 1000 years ago.

            The authors of Jericho Walls, the periodical of NUPSA, took an important step in the required direction in the run-up to the national elections of June 2, 1999. Confession for unbiblical traditions was suggested. This was followed up in February 2000 at the Cape, for instance at the Kramat of Shaykh Yusuf through remorse and confession and at other places like Robben Island. When will this be picked up or will the good start fizzle into oblivion as has happened on previous occasions? To my knowledge, no single denomination has started to implement concrete steps towards a practical repentant turn around - for instance to consciously scrap traditions that are unbiblical. It took a few more years for the next significant step to take place when leaders of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) started working on a declaration addressing some of the issues mentioned. (A draft prepared by a few missionaries was brought to the national leaders’ consultation in November 2004, but not accepted as a CCM document. It is still envisaged to finally pass the ideas to the two national church bodies the SACC and TEASA, the national evangelical alliance, possibly via the initiative for church-led restitution.)

            Also on the Muslim side, brave religious leaders are needed who are willing to concede that Islamic teaching has bred a spirit of hatred, that weird ideas of jihad made a third world war a distinct possibility because of the volatile situation in the Middle East; that the PAGAD/gangster scourge had brought the Mother City to the brink of economic collapse and anarchy during the first months of 1999 when Muslim traders feared for their lives. It might be too radical and idealistic at this stage to expect from Cape Islamic clergy to suggest to their followers a general submission to Jesus, the Prince of Peace? But perhaps they could come up with some intermediate suggestion.

            The initiative of Charles Robertson for church-led restitution may be a possible next step on the side of Christians. The Church's unwillingness to acknowledge collective guilt in the doctrinal bickering that led to the emergence of Islam appears to be a major stumbling block. Such a measure would amount to a significant step in the required direction. The implementation of real unity on biblical grounds in the spirit of the person and example of Jesus - without semantics and quarreling around peripheral issues like baptism and preaching by women - remains some distance away.

Satan gave notice that he was not happy with the prayer offensive. After four-and- a-half quiet years in respect of pipe bombs, a device destroyed a home in Manenberg –of all places – on the eve of the Global Day of prayer. Another one detonated and killed little children in Beacon Valley, Mitchell’s Plain a few days after the event. It gave little comfort that the targeted buildings were major dens of drug merchants.

The need of unity in Christ

Already in 1979 Professor John De Gruchy gave the direction, which is still valid and very much needed: ‘In order for the church to be there for all the peoples of the land, it has to rediscover its unity in Christ. It cannot do this through either cheap reconciliation or superficial ecumenism. It must recognize that the “middle wall of partition” has been torn down in Christ and that …Christ has destroyed the barriers between black and white, Englishman and Afrikaner, rich and poor. The tremendous significance this act of reconciliation has yet to be realized within the South African church… The struggle of the church is impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit, for it is God alone who can liberate the church and equip it for its task. But God requires more than passivity. He requires obedient discipleship; … it requires a spirituality which combines a reliance upon the power of the Holy Spirit with a wholehearted effort to do God’s will in the world through that power.’ The unity created by the prayer movement and the process of transformation augurs well for the future even on the short term. Every South African Christian has reason to praise God that the Global Day of Prayer on 15 May 2005 had its origins in the Mother City of the country.

Off to Israel!

One by one the small band of volunteers around Rose McKenna who had been so faithful in going to Khayalitsha, began to be called away. (Frank went to America, Suzanne back to Holland, Lisa started a now thriving pottery, Farrington to the Vineyard Church, leaving only Rose and Ruth there in Khayalitsha.)

When it seemed to Rose that God was calling her out of the blue to go to Israel, she knew that it had to be confirmed, even though she had a love for the Jews. At the end of visit to Israel in 1989 she donated her ‘shekels’, the leftover coins she still had in her possession on her return, to some agency at the airport, without thinking twice. By 1994 she had completely forgotten about this incident.

            Putting out a ’fleece’ one morning, she bargained with the Lord. She said to Him in prayer that she would see it as confirmation of the divine call if there would be only one letter in her tray of incoming correspondence at Old Mutual that day. There should not only be one letter, but it should come from Israel, and more specifically that it should come from Jerusalem. This was impossible, as it was the time of receiving bursary applications for the Actuarial Scholarship, there would come an average of 35 letters on a daily basis.

            She was flabbergasted – to say the least, when there was indeed only one letter in her tray that day, … from Jerusalem. It was a letter from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, thanking her for her shekel donation of 1989. She now had no hesitation to resign to be off to Israel. (This subsequently turned for her into retirement from fixed employment. In Israel she worked in the area of being a volunteer for three years, to private elderly folk, and a family in dire need.)

            After her return to Cape Town, she has been involved in many projects to do with Israel.

At an Africa-Israel summit in 2006, she was directly challenged by an Afro- American to indict President Robert Mugabe for his genocidal crimes. She was still reeling from this challenge when she was asked to accompany a volunteer at the Holocaust Museum to Cape Point on a fairly rainy winter’s day. In the vicinity five Black traders were sitting under an umbrella. When she discovered that all five of them were born in Rusape, as she had been, and one came from Inyazura, a small town in Zimbabwe where her father had been the Station Master, she knew that this was no co-incidence. This was the run-up to Rose’s involvement in Redhill, an informal settlement where the Zimbabweans were living among South Africans. There she linked up with team members of the first Church Planting Experience (CPx) course in Cape Town, who got involved there after fires had destroyed many shacks in Redhill at the beginning of 2008.

Epilogue

During the first months of 2005 Cape Town experienced significant answers to prayer. The need to minister in love to foreigners got an interesting turn when it became clear that Bo-Kaap residents were selling their properties for good money. This meant that the Muslim stronghold started to crumble as never before. Other spiritual dynamics point to an interesting continuation.

Muslims turn to Christ

A missionary who developed a church planting network in the Middle East and North Africa, reported a growing underground movement of house churches in that region at the beginning of 2005. In the early 90s there were around 1500 churches in the region, but in just ten years time this number has tripled to 4500. Nowhere has the growth possibly been more dramatic in the region than Iran. Christians meet in independent groups which are springing up like mushrooms - with the exception that they are invisible. In contrast to most Islamic nations, new believers are not immediately expelled from their families. Quite the contrary - the relatives often follow the new believers in their change of faith. An Iranian who emigrated to Scandinavia for economic reasons found Christ there. On his first visit to Iran, he was itching to tell his relatives of his new faith. Within one month, 50 of his relatives came to faith. By the time he returned again one year later, the church had grown to over 250 believers. There are now far more than a quarter of a million believers in Iran, according to the Iranian authorities - in a naturally conservative estimate.

A pyrrhic Victory?                                                                                                                             The gay lobby showed exceptional efficiency during 2006. All 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 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. 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 question remained: was the gay victory pyrrhic?                                                                              

     In Parliament Rev Kenneth Meshoe, the leader of the African Christian Demodratic Party (ACDP), warned that the country was inviting 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 the State President 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 the gruwel, the abomination, as Cedric Evertson, a prayer warrior saw the new law.                           

  When only Murray Bridgman was there alone with me on Signal Hill for our monthly prayer event on 2 December, 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 Evertson to join us for prayer simply in the car. How exciting it was to hear from Cedric how the Lord has 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.

          When two leading international 'pink' figures – one apiece from the lesbian and gay background – turned their back on the movement after becoming followers of Jesus – the gay victory into the SA statute book of December 2006 became pyrrhic. The question was only when it would go the same road as the old apartheid laws – into the dustbin of history. The time of such a move was now in the hands of prayer warriors.                                                                                                                       

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.  In quite a providential way for both parties, Achmed Kariem, who had been doing journalistic work at Parliament became his full-time assistant.

Xenophobic mob Violence brings the Country to her Knees

The attacks in Alexandra spread quickly via new ones in Diepsloot and Olifantsfontein, both in Gauteng. Within a matter of days the mob violence occurred countrywide.

On Wednesday 21 May 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 Headquarters in Bishop Lavis Township the previous day and setting up contingency plans. In spite of determined efforts by the police, it took days until the situation calmed down. However, by that time thousands of foreigners were displaced, many shops destroyed and looted by criminal elements and other poor folk who exploited the anarchic demonic situation. We were especially sad to hear and read of mob violence and xenophobic behaviour in Masiphumelele and Ocean View, where our CPx colleagues had been ministering. Worldwide television coverage of the events led to many countries warning their citizens against visiting South Africa. The media reports tended to make one very despondent. The economy suffered a major setback from which it may take a long time to recover.

            Satan may however have overstepped once again because the xenophobic mob violence brought the country to her knees in another sense as possibly never before. 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 disseminated to add to these prayers intercession for the genocide in the neighbouring country Zimbabwe.

Masiphumelele, and Redhill, two special Townships

Young people attending the CPx in two townships in the deep south of the Cape Peninsula, Masiphumelele and Redhill, had hand-on experience and learning how to serve people holistically - materially, spiritually and physically. In these vibrant informal settlements CPx participants were impressed by people in abject poverty from day to day who however have a freedom of spirit that one rarely sees in the west. The spread of HIV/AIDS has been bringing with it another epidemic: child-headed households. CPx participants would be seeking out these children who lead families, finding out how they could support them.

Furthermore, every year it is estimated that 120 babies are abandoned for dead in and around Masiphumelele. Many are found in the large dustbins where people dispose of their garbage. When the storm drains are flushed out (twice a year), counsellors are on hand to help the city workers who uncover the many infant corpses.

A team of CPx, led by Bethany O’Connor, are working to develop a ‘Baby Safe’: an anonymous drop-off where women can leave their babies instead of killing them. From there the babies will be adopted. They will be given the opportunity to live a full life. The team believes that these are the children who will help change South Africa.

            The two special townships Masiphumelele and Redhill are two informal settlements which had been devastated by fires in 2007 and 2008. When fires of violence were raging throughout the country in similar settlements with foreigners in May 2008, these two stood there as beacons of light where the Gospel was spreading like a wild fire. By the end of May 2008 there were eight house churches running in Redhill which had been planted in the previous two months. Also in Masiphumelele a few new churches had been planted through the participants at the CPx.

Xenophilia and Compassion ushered in

In an email on Friday 23, I wrote after the xenophobic outburst in the Cape: ‘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 xenophilia (love for strangers. This is the word that has usually been translated with hospitality.)

            The next few days I was blessed to hear of compassionate action of Christians - churches and individuals - indicating that there was now a groundswell of goodwill towards the displaced foreigners in different areas. 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 - as well as another family from that nation – has 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. Stolen goods were returned to the owners in that township and the fellow Africans were invited to return. It seemed as if the spadework of Christian mediators and workers since August 2006 was bearing fruit.

The CCC Leaders Forum released a statement to the press regarding the xenophobia and violence on behalf of the Church in Cape Town. 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 and that all people's dignity might be respected and restored.

Revival-preparing Action in the City Bowl?                                                                                                             By mid-October 2008 there was still no concrete sign of City Bowl churches prepared to work together. As the wedding of our daughter approached, Rosemarie thought of Maeve Verblun as someone to arrange the flowers at the occasion.  For many years Maeve was responsible for flower arrangements at the Cape Town Baptist Church. When she visited us in the middle of October 2008, I mentioned our monthly early morning prayer on Signal Hill, and that we prayed there for Bo-Kaap and Sea Point. She immediately showed interest to join.

The event on the 4^th Saturday of October on Signal Hill[4] was destined to have interesting ramifications when Maeve invited me to attend the prayer meeting at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Vredehoek, which takes place every last Saturday morning of the month. When I attended their event on 29 November I was deeply blessed to hear what God had already started doing in Sea Point.  The fellowship started with a church planting initiative through Jacques Erasmus. (As a Straatwerk colleague he had already been praying with us at the Ministers' Fraternal in 2007 and I was very happy to hear about their vision to reach out in the City Bowl with the Gospel, if possible together with other churches.) I was furthermore elated to hear that a few artists of the City area were meeting for prayer once a week. (At one of the Saturday early morning prayer events at the Metropolitan Civic Centre someone prayed for an 'escalation' and spread of prayer events to other venues.) A monthly prayer event started at the Malmesbury Town Council on Saturday 8 November, with plans to have one also in the Helderberg area and in the National Parliament.  Remembering that united prayer has been the run-up to revival, we were full of expectation that valuable seed had been sown.

Calamities formed also a reason for various prayer meetings. Thus an inmate of Pollsmoor Prison – situated not so very far from Cape Point, was killed in November after a brawl between gangsters. This was the first unnatural death at the institution for many years. God used this tragedy somehow to bring about a move of the Holy Spirit in the vast complex to which Mandela was sent after his release from Robben Island. A few well known gangsters came to Christ. 

The believer knows that God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. I for one will not be surprised when tragedies like these or bigger ones like the cholera and starvation in our neighbouring country Zimbabwe turn out to become the trigger of a revival that the world has never seen before, one that will reverberate throughout our continent and beyond!

Much of what we were doing the last weeks and also what is lined up for the coming ones, centre around international events - one just before and the other one three months after the Football World Cup next year.  It has been very encouraging to experience networking among city pastors as we have not experienced for many years.  At a brain storming session last month with local Christians who sense some calling to reach out to M'lims, we decided on a two-pronged strategy. a) We want to continue teaching believers in the churches, while b) we also gather Muslim background believers.

What a blessing it has been to discover that one of the MBB's has actually started out on his own with the vision to 'touch the Nations through Faith'.

We sense that there is a major spiritual battle around the World Cup. Human trafficking has already started to disrupt families significantly. There are plans afoot to also 'recruit' children to supply in the 'demand'. We are thankful that the Church has started to wake up to this scourge. We are inviting to an evening on 19 November with Pastor Errol Naidoo (Family Policy Institute) and Marge Ballin (Balm of Gilead Outreach) with the theme. 'United we stand! - what we can do together as the Church.” Venue: Woodstock Baptist Church, Aberdeen Street.

Lausanne and GdoP

The upcoming event of Lausanne III in Cape Town in October has been a big motivation for writing the manuscript CHURCH UNITY AS A TOP PRIORITY. The present stage of this manuscript can be likewise accessed at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com.

Discipling of (new) Believers

Sheralyn and Sammy accepted a call to be Jubilee Church representatives on the UCT campus.  This is surely special to them, the turf where they met each other in the prayer room just over two years ago. We are happy for them that they could gain valuable experience in our Discipling House, where they could also disciple followers of Jesus coming from M'lim background. 

The flip side of things is of course that we now desperately need a couple who could come and assist us with the discipling of the folk in and around the Discipling House. Would you please pray with us for divine provision in this regard!

Home Affairs

The move of their premises of the Refugee Centre to Maitland augurs well in terms of service delivery. We are very happy that the level of corruption at this government department here at the Cape appears to remain minimal.  We pray that clean governance there might prevail. Prompt response to a letter of concern from our side encouraged us after we had noticed things starting to deteriorate again – including recent stick wielding by security officials. Rosemarie and I witnessed an orderly situation this week. We are also looking at possibilities of serving the hundreds of waiting sojourners at the Maitland venue again in a holistic way.

A new Variation of Xenophobia

It is quite sad that we still have to fight xenophobia, all too often under the guise of racism. The most recent occurrence affects the refugee ladies where Rosemarie is giving Bible Study on alternate Saturday mornings. The owner of the house, a compassionate White lady, has just received notice from the City that she has to vacate the premises in a month. There appears to have been no concern about noise levels or the like, only 'because too many people live there'.  It is obvious that the pigmentation of the people is the real cause of the anxiety of the neighbours. The ladies and children who have no other sources of income, have found there a refuge and home because of the generous gesture of Christian compassion. (The big rather delapidated house has been specially changed to house the refugees, the bulk of whom suffered significantly during the xenophobia last year. It is situated in an area that has been residential for decades. But a few businesses have started moving there in recent years). We prayed with that God would intervene to stop the rot, because it could in the long run affect Children's homes and our Discipling House if businesses would get away with that sort of thing.

Appendix A: Letter from Hennie Bester of February 2001 (translation from Afrikaans), Western Cape Minister of Police to Eben Swart, the regional co-ordinator of Herald Ministries, :

Dear Eben

Thanks to everybody who had been praying last year. I can testify to firsthand experience how large volumes of prayer had enabled us and the security forces to have breakthroughs in areas, which formerly seemed to be insolluble. I refer specifically to the termination of the bus violence, as well as the fact that the last bomb explosion in our city had occurred on 18 October 2000. Since then, several people have been arrested, and several had been found guilty on charges related to acts of terror.

During the past month I have noticed a change in the rate and violent nature of crime. In areas like Manenberg, Elsies River, Mitchell’s Plain and others, the mutual fights between gangs have increased in intensity. Many people have already died. Every week there are several extremely bloody armed robberies - many of which leave the impression that the perpetrators have no respect for life or their fellow man. On top of that, common criminals are becoming increasingly defiant and openly challenge governmental authority.

Every day one wrestles with the question - why? What is going on? Our Police Force works very hard under extremely difficult circumstances and are assaulted themselves.

Almost daily the Lord takes me back to Ephesians 6:10 - 18 where it deals with our spiritual battle and clothing ourselves with our armour. I become increasingly aware that the situation, which I am witnessing is actually a kind of volcanic explosion by the forces of evil to suffocate the impact of the prayer meeting on Newlands on March 21 this year. At the least, there is a battle going on in the spiritual realm that manifests itself in a manner on our streets. There is, though, a lot that I do not understand.

In short: An immense need for prayer exists. I hereby request in deadly earnest that all believers would pray in this critical period in time. Everyone should pray in the way that he/she might be led by the Holy Spirit. The following would be some prayer points:

1.    The protection of those who are involved in the battle against crime daily - members of the Police, prosecutors, magistrates, judges, members of the Defence Force, jail officials.

2.    That the truth will come to the light in all the court cases which will take place in the following number of months and which are related to urban acts of terror; also that every plan to plant bombs will be cancelled.

3.    Certain initiatives are underway to make a significant impact in a number of key areas that are effectively ruled by gangs. They must be rounded up, recovered and the life circumstances of inhabitants should be changed. Those people need hope. Pray that the obstructions in the way of these projects would be cleared out of the way.

4.    Pray for wisdom, truth and integrity for every decision-maker involved in security issues.

5.    Pray for the victims of crime and their families.

6.    Pray for the exposure of organized crime syndicates, as well as the exposure of those who should enforce the law, but are involved in crime themselves.

7.    Pray for an explosion of love and care in and amongst our various communities.

8.    Please support our police stations with word and deeds, as well as the men and women serving there.

Thanks a lot for your assistance with this most important part of our battle against crime.

Regards,

Hennie Bester

Appendix B: Email from Elizabeth Jordaan from NUPSA, dated Tuesday, February 06, 2001 (slightly edited)

Through all of this we can see that God slowly but definitely increased the prayer level in the country. God desires to bring revival, more than we want to have it. We are in the beginning of a new millennium. Since 1987 a lot of research was done and much information gained about the history of our country. We have not prayed through this information on a national level. It is time now to finish the old millennium and deal with the sins of the fathers in our country.

At the beginning of the year 2001 God has moved us to focus on prayer at a national level. We are in a desperate situation in this country. The situation is so devastating that one cannot even imagine the impact it will have on the economic and social life of our country. We must not underestimate what is happening concerning the crime and wickedness pouring into this nation. The church is the only body that has the answer. We need God to change this country. From 1 - 21 March 2001 a prayer initiative called Day and Night 21 will run with the aim to mobilize intercessors in at least 70 towns and cities (one tenth of the country) to pray for 24 hours continually for the period of 21 days, and ask the Lord to open the heavens above South Africa. Another prayer initiative aimed at mobilizing the youth in our country will run from 13 to 20th of May 2001 and is called Prayer Storm 24-7, where we would like to mobilize all the high schools to join in praying 24 hours a day for a week.

 In the second half of the year 2001 we want to deal with the whole issue of cleansing the land. In case you have not noticed, we have increased the momentum. There is more power, more unity, and more freedom in the spirit, as well as more trouble, more division and more pressure mounting against the church. If God sees us ready to move into 24 hours of prayer internationally and nationally, we need to pray about where He wants us to go for this new millennium. Let us take hands and join our prayers as we approach the throne of God on behalf of our nation.

“Cleansing South Africa”

If God is increasing the desire of people to pray, then we know that He is ready to unfold more of His divine plans towards us. There is a worldwide cry from the Church for more intimacy with God, and for a visitation of God to our communities in revival. God is, in character, a HOLY God, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). God is still the God revealed in the Bible. He is God of the Old and New Testaments. What He purposed in the Old Testament came to fulfillment in Jesus Christ. What He hated in the days of the Patriarchs of the Bible, He still hates today. The precepts that He laid down for holy living in the days of Noah, Moses and the prophets, are still valid today. The only difference between then and now is Jesus. We are not able to keep God's commandments without the redemption of Jesus. Even with Jesus, we still cannot keep God's precepts on our own. Without Him, we can do nothing. If we are inviting God to draw near to us, there are certain prerequisites demanded by God's holiness. The most important for us is to be cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:6-9). If we say that we want Him and still walk in darkness, then we lie. At the end of His ministry, Jesus gave His disciples the command to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations (Luke 24:47). How can we preach repentance if we do not know what our nations are guilty of? It is only through measuring our nations and the history of our nations, against God's Word, His commandments and precepts, that we know what to repent of, and what we need cleansing from.

When there is sin in a land, then God removes His favour from the land and its people. The removal of His favour results in chaos and destruction, such as what we witness in South Africa today. In Ezekiel 14, God gave four types of judgment for the sin of idolatry: famine, ecological devastation, war and disease. God was very explicit: if people do not follow His ways, then eventually the land will remove them (Lev 18:25). Sin has an effect on the physical environment that we live in. The Bible calls this effect of sin on the land, defilement or pollution. Because of the defilement of the land through sin, the people who live on the land, even though they themselves might not have committed the original sin that caused the defilement, are under God's judgment. There are four categories of sin, according to the Bible, that defile the land: bloodguilt, immorality, broken Covenants and idolatry.

If we look at South Africa in the light of this information, then we surely have reason for national repentance. If this is true and considering the fact that we long for God to draw close to us, we need to remove the darkness, through the confession of our sins, and the sins committed by previous generations. In this way we can prepare a place for God, where He can manifest His holiness in our midst and draw all people unto Him.

In the light of all this knowledge, we have felt that it is time that South Africa comes before God as a in humility, and on a national level ask for cleansing of our land and people, through the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7). In the last 10 years, much has been done. We have accumulated enough research to call the nation for a time of national repentance. On Friday, 26 January 2001, a meeting was held at NUPSA to wait on the Lord concerning the proposal of a national prayer project - Cleansing South Africa from offences against God. Representatives attending this meeting were from the six provinces of Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu Natal, Free State, North West Province and Western Cape. Provinces not in attendance were Northern Province, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape. All representatives were in agreement that we should go ahead with the proposed initiative to call the nation of South Africa to repentance. The following is an outline of the process to cleanse the land:

A. Prepare the nation for repentance (February to July 2001)

We would like to have the whole of South Africa participating in this initiative. Most of the praying, confessing and repenting will happen in and around your own town, city or region. We need however, to have representatives or coordinators in each town and area, to help us coordinate the process, to spread the information, and to help prepare the people to come before the Lord. We have material available on the sins of the land, how to repent of it and how to ask for cleansing. This material must be distributed throughout the country. We also need to map sites where explicit sins have taken place in your areas such as battlefields of the wars, casinos where immorality and gambling take place and so forth. One of the major things that needs to happen to prepare the nation for repentance is that we need to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of our sin as a nation. Without this conviction there will be no Godly sorrow and no true repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10).

The time of preparation will stretch from February to July 2001. During this time, we need to find the following:

a. A representative or coordinator for each town and city in South Africa.

b. A comprehensive list of all the sites where explicit sin has occurred in South Africa.

c. Intercessors and Christians who are willing to carry the burden for South Africa before the Lord in repentance and confession.

d. A communication system to link the different areas with each other and with the office of NUPSA in Pretoria.

e. Each town and city needs to prepare teams that will travel to outlying areas on specific dates, to join in national repentance on site.

B. Apply the atonement of Jesus on the land (August and September 2001)

Praying on sites of offence simultaneously in all 9 provinces.

Confessing and repenting of the sin of bloodguilt: 6th to18th August

Confessing and repenting of the sin of immorality: 20th to 26th August

Confessing and repenting of the sin of broken covenants: 27th August to 2nd September

Confessing and repenting of the sin of idolatry: 3rd to 22nd September

When repentance at the different sites of offence are completed, we would like to call the nation to a National Day of Repentance and Brokenness in every church, to be held in their own areas on the 23rd September, 2001.

C. Dedicating South Africa to the Lord (September - November 2001)

Following the national repentance will be 40 days of rededication of our cities, towns, villages and areas to the Lord. We would like Christians to saturate their areas with prayer through prayer walks in all streets, highways and byways, and to dedicate our schools, businesses, parks and the like to the Lord.

On the 3rd November 2001 there will be a national gathering with a minimum of 2 representatives from each town, city and village of South Africa at a certain site (that is still to be communicated) to dedicate the whole of South Africa to the Lord. The following day, 4th November 2001, will be a day of celebration and worship throughout all the land, with corporate services in all the towns of South Africa.

D. Taking the Gospel to the Nations (November 2001) (symbolic action)

On the 3rd November 2001, six teams will leave for six praise marches, travelling on all the main routes in South Africa, and carrying a banner to represent the Gospel of Repentance, to our six neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho. This will symbolize the redemptive gift of South Africa in opening the way for the Gospel to Africa. On the borders to those countries, the teams will hand over the banners to representatives from those nations to take the Gospel further into Africa. ...

We would like you to pray about being part of this initiative. First of all, pray that the Spirit of God would move over South Africa to convict the Church of sin, righteousness and judgment. Also that He would reveal to us His purpose for this country, and lead us as a nation to repent for His Name' s Sake.

Appendix C

A Prayer of Repentance for Unjust Labour Laws in South Africa, 15^th September 2001

After being very much of a pivot for a prayer event on robben Island in September 2001, Mike Winfield wrote a confession ‘before God as Father and to those who are still victims to the past injustices.’

“Father on behalf of our founding fathers, I confess the sin of acquiring economic wealth and political power through slavery and the perpetuation of inequality in labour legislation and practice.  Well does the words of James speak out against your church in this nation, “Look! The wages you failed to pay your workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you.  The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty (James 5:4).  Father I repent on behalf of the generations of Church leaders and Christians who have taken economic and political advantage through the various laws and accepted social norms in this nation and in particular this city.

Through out the centuries the successive governments in this country stand accused, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people.”  (Isaiah 10:1,2).  Cape Town is a city founded on slavery, which also stands accused, “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!”  (Habakkuk 2:13).  Many of Cape Town’s historic buildings were built by slaves or housed slaves, which it may be said, “The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of woodwork will echo it.”  (Habakkuk 2:11).  This is particularly so for the Slave Lodge where thousands of slaves were held in the most inhumane conditions and many slave women and children sexually abused.

Like the prophets of old I stand before you in your court and confess, “O Lord, we acknowledge our wickedness and the guilt of our fathers; we have sinned against you.”  (Jeremiah 14:20).  “Our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached the heavens.”  (Ezra 9:6).  What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved.  (Ezra 9:15).  Although our sins testify against us, O Lord, do something for the sake of your name.  For our backsliding is great; we have sinned against you.  (Jeremiah 14:7).

Father God although many of us can identify with the oppressor’s actions, I remind you of your promises, “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor”.  (Psalm 72:4).  “For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.  He will take pity on the weak and needy and save the needy from death”.  (Psalm 72:12,13).

I beseech you Father of mankind, “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.”  (Psalm 82:3).  “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”  (Proverbs 31:8,9).

Father I pray that communities oppressed by the past laws and still carry the effects of the injustices of Apartheid may find it in their hearts to pray as Stephen when he was stoned to death, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  (Acts 7:60).  Jesus as you stood to applaud Stephen, will you not encourage the people of this nation to look not at what has happened to themselves, but what you can achieve as we are reconciled to each other.

Appendix D

An autobiographical addition: Prayer in opposition to repressive laws that impacted my life

Before 1948 and the entry of the National Party as sole governing political party, various attempts had already been made to get a law onto the statue books to prevent miscegenation.  It is however especially sad that the church took the initiative in 1948, requesting the new National Party government to pass a law to prevent marriages between Whites and any people of colour. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 has caused a trickle of people to leave the country over the years. Pastor Alfred West, who worked as a missionary in the Cape townships of Kensington, Bonteheuwel and Bishop Lavis, proved the exception when he waited for 20 years before he could marry his ‘Coloured’ darling Gladys.

Before I left South Africa, (Moravian) Bishop Schaberg warned me to stay clear of politics, because agents of the apartheid government were also well represented overseas. I initially heeded this warning more or less, without however really making a conscious effort to do so.

A version of Naboth’s vineyard

Then I received a letter from my parents with shocking information. They had been served with a notice of the expropriation of our property in Tiervlei under the guise of slum clearance. Before I left South Africa at the beginning of 1969 on a study bursary there had indeed been a rumour that our family property - including 8 plots for houses - had been offered to a businessman in Bellville South.

            Considering that our solid brick house nowhere nearly resembled one that qualified for slum clearance, we perceived the move as a local version of Naboth’s vineyard (1 King 21:1-15). What really enraged me overseas was that my mother mentioned in her letter something about ‘the will of the Lord.’ I stopped just short of considering joining the armed struggle against the apartheid government, because this wanton act was to me just an extension of their racist policies. I wrote quite a strong letter of protest to the Parow Municipality from abroad, with copies to some people in Tiervlei. But it was all to no avail. Hereafter, I became almost reckless in my opposition to the South African government policies. I was very critical of the government, also in public utterances. As a speaker from Africa, I was something of a celebrity in certain quarters, especially on the German countryside. With my protest, also much of my initial missionary zeal went overboard.

The only constraint with regard to the content of my speeches on South Africa was a moral and religious one. I wanted to act responsibly as if to God in everything I did. For the rest, I could not care less if they wanted to withdraw my passport or not. In my letter to the Parow Municipality, I had almost invited the recipients to pass the information on to Pretoria. Nevertheless, the Lord blessed me with insights that turned out to be very prophetic. In my main paper on South Africa, I spoke about the unique problems of South Africa. I defined them as the apartheid government policy, the disunity of the churches and alcoholism. As a solution to the problems, I suggested much prayer, because I believed in the power of prayer, the result of the mentoring of Ds Bester, the local sendingkerk minister in Tiervlei.

Initially I was quite determined not to fall in love in Germany. I wanted to return to South Africa to make a meaningful contribution in the one way or another. Marrying a German in those days would have meant not being able to return to my home country. Rationally I just felt I was more needed in South Africa.

The start of a special romance

When a black-haired beauty walked into my life, I was not so determined any more to return to South Africa. She came to the ‘E.C.’, the evangelical Christian Encounter youth group with her student colleague and friend Elke Maier. From my side this was as close to a ‘love at first sight’ encounter as ever. I had great difficulty keeping the excitement to myself. I just wanted to tell my two Stuttgart roommates immediately about ‘Rosemarie Göbel aus Mühlacker’, even though I still hardly knew her.

The disappointment was therefore not so big when she stepped out of my life just as suddenly as she had entered it. We had no opportunity to exchange addresses or telephone numbers.

                                                *                      *                      *

            Just at this time, my parents left Tiervlei as a result of the expropriation of our property, going to the Moravian Mission station, Elim. I experienced for the first time what a prayer backing meant to any missionary. Although nobody spoke about short-term missionaries at that time, I was one of them to all intents and purposes. With my mother not around anymore, the praying women from various churches in Tiervlei were not reminded to intercede for me overseas. I almost tangibly felt the lack of the sustaining intercession that I had experienced in the 18 months prior to this.

Almost simultaneously with my examinations in classical Greek - a mere two weeks before my scheduled return to South Africa - Rosemarie re-entered my life. This time I resorted to some very unconventional methods to make sure that we would not lose contact again. Those two weeks turned out to become crucial in our lives. The miraculous intervention from above so gripped me that I really wanted to shout it from the rooftops. One of the most unusual love stories ensued.

After reading in a local newspaper about someone who had been racially ‘reclassified’ (something like that could of course only take place in the apartheid era), I deemed this as my chance to get my bonny over the ocean to South Africa. Instead of waiting on God’s intervention to enable a possible marriage, I decided to ‘assist Him’.

            I wrote to the Prime Minister, Mr John Vorster, to inquire about the procedure to have someone reclassified. This - along with some other rash actions on my part  - would cause us more problems. I desperately wanted Rosemarie to come to South Africa, rather than me going to Germany again, to marry her. Knowing the objections of her family, Rosemarie was however not yet free from within to come to Africa. In one of her letters, she actually requested me to pray for her inner liberation in this regard. I had no problem with this, trusting God to change that in due time. Had she not told me when I invited her to the evening with the Wycliffe Bible Translators, that she had wanted to become a missionary already from her childhood? Thus I simply pushed ahead with my ideas.

Competition?

Somehow I did not really take her hint in a letter seriously that another young man had come into her life. When no letter arrived hereafter from my bonny, I was ‘sure’ that the South African government had intervened, that our post was being intercepted. Practices like that belonged to the day-to-day occurrences of apartheid South Africa. It was common knowledge that the government would have no qualms in trying to stop our contact in that way. Interracial contact of any sort was not appreciated in government quarters.

Because I had resigned as a teacher to go into full-time pastoral work, I received a cheque from the authorities as repayment of monies that I had paid into the State Pension Fund. The amount of the cheque was more or less just what I would have needed for the cheapest air ticket with ‘Trek Airways’ to Luxembourg. And my passport was still valid.

            I heard from Trek Airways (later Luxavia) that the first flight just after the start of the school holidays was absolutely fully booked out. This was a very convenient ‘Gideon’s fleece’, a test to see if it was right to use the 'pension' money in that way. Two hundred and sixty-odd Rands meant a lot of money in those days. So I argued: “If it is the will of the Lord that I should go, then he has to get a place for me on that flight’.

            When I received a phone call only a few days before the departure date that one seat was actually free, I saw this as a clear indication that I should go. I had considered the venture prayerfully enough! Any doubts about the correctness of such a drastic step as going to Germany for only two weeks were dispelled for the moment.

            The surprise to Rosemarie was complete when I phoned from Trier, the border town in Germany. I was due to take the train to Stuttgart from there.

Incomprehensible naivety

On the phone, she gave an indication that I was in for some disappointment without giving any details. For the first time, I had to come to terms with the possibility that she had another friend. On the long journey of approximately four hours, I had all the time in the world to face up to this eventuality. Due to my incomprehensible naivety - I suppose, love does make some people blind - I was completely perplexed.

            In Stuttgart I had to face the fact that she regarded herself as more or less engaged to marry another young man. When his mother died, she felt that she had to choose him.

            I had many questions. Had it been worthwhile? I could not understand a thing. How could God allow me to come all this way for this experience? Was all this necessary?

            But the other young man was also surprised. He knew that Rosemarie had written a letter to me in which she would have informed me of her decision to part with me.

            The next day I met the likeable young man who was the cause of my coming all this way at the ‘Offene Abend.’ This was the same group of young people that had organized the memorable evening with the Wycliffe Translators less than a year before. I really pitied him, as I discovered how he felt himself misled.

            But of all three of us, Rosemarie surely experienced the excruciating pain the most. When I now appeared so suddenly, she knew whom she loved most of the two suitors. At this time she wrote to me:

If God has really led us together again, and given us a new love, then I cannot do anything else to believe than that I belong to you.

            She knew full well that the problems at home would flare up again. After an intense struggle in prayer, Rosemarie decided to part with both of us. Everybody had understanding for her decision, even her parents. I had full empathy for her decision, but my faith was simultaneously tested to the full.

            The Lord comforted us. Although we had the inner conviction as never before that we belonged to each other, we decided to separate. In our last prayer together, we more or less put the ball ‘into God’s court’ in faith. We committed our future into God’s hanDs He had to bring us together again if it was His will that we should marry one day. I for one knew that it had been wrong for me to try and assist Him through letters to the South African authorities and the like. But I did know now that we loved each other as always, and that was ample consolation for that moment.

            In spite of my activism on more than one front, my heart was still aching at the thought that I could not write to my Rosemarie directly. This was foremost in my prayers. Via Hermann Beck, my former student colleague and roommate in Stuttgart, who was now studying in Tübingen, I still heard of Rosemarie’s whereabouts. She worked there. 

            I had some frank discussions with my parents in Elim during the last part of the June holidays of 1972. I also discussed the issue of my love to Rosemarie openly with them for the first time. I spoke of my hope to get her to South Africa one day. But they made no bones about the fact that they would rather be prepared to sacrifice me to Europe, than seeing me bring Rosemarie into the humiliations of apartheid. I was too much in love to appreciate how magnanimous their gesture was. They knew what they were talking about. My cousin Hester Ulster, who became a British citizen after marrying Tubby Lympany, an English marine sailor from the Simon’s Town naval base around 1950, had not been allowed to visit her parents as yet, after more than 20 years away.

Trapped in activism

Mentally I was almost completely caught up by the racial problems in the country. As a former teacher, the racial discrimination in educational funding and facilities was something for which I felt it worthwhile to go to the street in a protest march, defying police orders to the contrary. On the particular day, I already had a letter in my pocket for Hermann Beck, my faithful Stuttgart roommate. I actually wanted to post this letter before joining in the demonstration. In the aerogramme I stated that we expected to be arrested for our defiance of a ban on a protest demonstration on behalf of equal education for all races.

            But we came away ‘unscathed’: teargas won the day. In this way the crowd of young protesters was scattered. Many activists took refuge in the nearby St George’s Cathedral. This was perhaps the first time that the police brutality was really brought home to local Whites. It was reported in the newspapers how the police pulled a White girl from behind the pulpit by her hair.

A letter from my ‘Schatz’!

Returning to the Seminary in Ashley Street, there was a letter from Germany, not from Hermann, but one directly from my ‘Schatz’! I could hardly believe what I read. Her mother had given permission that we could resume our correspondence. At Rosemarie’s 21st birthday, the Lord had spoken to Mama Göbel through a word from Scripture: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ She understood that to mean that she should give Rosemarie permission to write to me again! This was very courageous of her, because she knew that this was definitely not the wish of her husband.

            Encouraged by this development, along with my mentor and confidante, Henning Schlimm, a teaching post was negotiated for Rosemarie at the ‘Kindergarten’ (Pre-school) of St. Martini, the German Lutheran Church in Cape Town. I was not aware of the great courage that Pastor Osterwald, the local pastor had displayed in appointing her, knowing the background of the application. He had asked Rosemarie not to mention anything about the appointment in her letters to me.

                                                *                                  *                                  *

I had been far from careful when I stated openly in a newsletter to friends in Germany that Rosemarie was about to come and work in Cape Town in February the following year. That was looking for trouble. Oh, sometimes I was so naive!

Rosemarie was pleasantly surprised when a Cape Flats South African, who was introduced as Mr Ashbury from Gleemoor, a part of Athlone - a well-known suburb of Cape Town - pitched up in her vicinity. She did not suspect that he might possibly be linked to the South African security network. (In those days, the Special Branch also had the task of keeping ‘problems’ like our romance across the colour bar out of the country. Rosemarie tried to send me an audiocassette with this particular gentleman. On the cassette she included Pastor Osterwald’s advice: ‘I want to tell you that your decision to start on this daring venture will lead you into many a conscientious conflict...’ The link of the ‘Coloured’ gentleman or his landlady to the South African authorities became quite clear when a certain commissar assured Rosemarie soon hereafter that she would not get a visa to come to South Africa. It was evident that this ‘commissar’ knew the content of the audiocassette. Further enquiry brought to light that the local police in Reutlingen did not know the commissar with the name given by him.

            Back in Cape Town, I was completely unaware of what was going on: a series of events that I might have set in motion through my careless newsletter. Or was Rosemarie’s visa application the cause? This must still be unveiled.

I was still counting the days to the beginning of March 1973, when Rosemarie was scheduled to arrive in Cape Town. Great was the disappointment when the first of March came and went without any news of the receipt of her visa. We had thought that this would be a mere formality. I was completely stunned when she called me on the newly-installed direct telephone line from Germany. She had received a letter from the South African Consulate with the following sentence:

            ‘I regret to have to inform you that your application for permanent residence in the Republic of South Africa has been turned down...’

                                                *                                  *                                  *

            We deemed it important that Rosemarie should at least get to know South Africa and my family. Therefore she applied again, this time for a tourist visa. This was however turned down as well. Neither of us was aware that she had been blacklisted in respect of entry into the country.

          Looking back, we saw that the Lord in His providence was very gracious to us. Our brittle love would have been put under extreme pressure by the compulsory sphere of secrecy caused by apartheid laws. There seemed to be few other options to me than to leave South Africa. I did that at the end of that year. I and many other friends and family thought that I would probably never be able to return to the country.  But my parents and a few other people were praying that things would change in our country, to enable me to return one day.

          One of my ‘final’ actions in South Africa was blowing my own trumpet, literally, at a Youth Rally with Dr Beyers Naudé. The instrument had been donated to me in 1969 in Germany - (Years later, in November 1978, I visited Dr Naudé when he was under house arrest, but I was also determined at that occasion not be return to South Africa. God used him to completely change my attitude in that regard, so that I committed myself to work towards racial reconciliation in my home country from abroad.)

Prayer surrounding our honeymoon

Much prayer and correspondence surrounded our honeymoon in South Africa in March and April of 1975. After Rosemarie finally got a visa on condition, that she would enter the country without me, we circumvented the demonic spirit of the condition by travelling on different flights. Many prayed for our protection, because we knew that we were playing with fire. Our visit to Genadendal included more than only a visit to aged relatives. Going to see the banned Reverend Daniel Wessels was a political act that could have landed us in trouble. Sleeping together in the only hotel for ‘Coloureds’ in Bosmont, Johannesburg, was likewise quite a risky business. We really thanked the Lord that we experienced no major hassles during four very eventful weeks.

          Back in Germany, I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Vorster, confessing our dishonesty.  At the same time, I not only encouraged him to continue on the road of dismantling apartheid, but I also attacked the handling of Rosemarie’s visa at the consulate in Munich. A threat from that quarter thereafter had a few of us praying once again, because I still valued the possession of a South African passport. 

          A few months later, I became the second pastor in a Moravian congregation in Berlin. I stuck to a politically low-key position, but continued trying through correspondence to influence the government back home. Furthermore I sought in Germany to create a front for non-violent change in my home country. The Soweto uprising of 16 June 1976 had a double effect on our lives.  On the one hand, apart from our friend from the Cape, Rachel Balie, who was studying in Berlin, I could not find any interest amongst other people in Germany for a peaceful front. On the other hand, I was catapulted into the limelight during a church service of prayer and protest in the well-known Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche with Pastor Holm from the Berlin Mission. When I was hereafter asked to mediate between African students and their ‘opponents’, the Berlin State church leadership, it led to our getting involved with Moral Rearmament.

Our going to Holland merely got me out of political activism temporarily. We had hardly arrived there in September 1977, when Rachel Balie reported from South Africa that our friend, the Moravian Reverend Chris Wessels, at whose home we had lodged in Port Elizabeth on our special honeymoon, had been arrested. Chris Wessels was incarcerated without any charge laid against him. However, nobody knew where the authorities were detaining him. With Steve Biko, the Black Consciousness leader just having been found dead while in police custody, we prayed for the protection of our friend, while we feared the worst. Rosemarie encouraged me to get our church denomination involved. Soon church protests were sent into South African Embassies around the world and prayers offered, contributing together to the release of Rev Chris Wessels’.

On the personal level, we were blessed to discover a few years later that Dutch Reformed Church ministers with whom I had spoken in Holland in 1979, were endeavouring to secure the unbanning of Dr Beyers Naudé after one of them had initially abused confidential written material, passing it onto the government in stead of to our outlawed friend.

A prophecy concerning Africa

See the Lord rides on a swift cloud.

He is coming to Africa.

The idols of Africa tremble before him,

The hearts of Africa’s leaders melt within them. (Isaiah 19:1)

In that day:

The cities of Africa will make a commitment to serve Jesus.

They will swear allegiance to the Lord Almighty.

(Isaiah 19:18)

In that day:

An altar to the Lord will be built in the heart of Africa.

It will be a sign and a witness of His presence in Africa.

When they cry out because of their oppressors,

He will rescue them.

The Lord will make himself known to the people of Africa.

(Isaiah 19:19-21)

In that day:

They will acknowledge their sin of immorality.

They will repent of all their idolatrous ways.

They will fully commit to obey Jesus in holiness.

Their acts of worship will be pleasing to God.

They will make a commitment and promise to serve Jesus.

And they will keep their promises.

When they will turn to the Lord,

He will heal them of the plague that has struck Africa.

He will respond to their pleas and heal them. 

(Isaiah 19:22)

In that day:

There will be a highway for the Kingdom throughout Africa.

Africa will be a blessing to the nations of the world.

And God will say:

“Blessed Be Africa my People.” 

(Isaiah 19:23-25)

Based on Isaiah 19.

Bosberaad for the Day of Prayer Africa

Shekinah Game Farm, Bela Bela

24^th September 2002.

The above encouraging words were confirmed by Jenny Mc Millan who earlier in the day had read: “On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai.”  (Haggai 2:10).  She with the other intercessors felt that sometime during that day, the 24^th of September 2002, a word of encouragement would come from God concerning Africa.

Appendix F

Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain - Sunday 20 March 2005

We have all taken notice of the terrible drought that is a current reality in the Western Cape. One can have many viewpoints on the causes for the drought, but everyone should agree that God is speaking to us in one way or another – as He has done through the ages, also through droughts.  He is waiting on our response.

We need to approach God in this hour of need. We should ask people to pray about rain, at every occasion. But let us not ask for cheap grace. Let us first do repentance, humble ourselves before God, and then pray for His intervention in this situation.

Let us also pray for a new ecological sensitivity amongst our people. God appointed us as stewards of His creation and of the earth, but we have not done well at all. In fact, the ecology shouts back at us.

This is a call to set aside Sunday 20^th March 2005 as a Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain. Let us give thanks to God for his grace and mercy, let us not miss the good things He has done. It is not the Western Cape’s season for rain yet, and many feel that we cannot expect God to give rains out of season. At the same time He is a God of miracles for whom all things are possible.

If, by an earlier miracle, it rains well before that day, we will have reason to celebrate and sing of God’s glory! Then we can still pray for good and consistent winter rains in the Western Cape.

Transformation Africa (Cape Town Office)

Why are we suffering a drought in the Western Cape? 

Here are a few expanded thoughts based on a similar famine/drought experience of King David as recorded in 2 Samuel 21:1-14.  This passage of scripture is relatively obscure and many people avoid it because of the rather brutal manner in the out-working of the issue.

During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord (2 Samuel 21:1).

In the Western Cape we have had three years of relatively low summer and winter rainfall. The current year is worse than the previous years.  If we do not have significant rains this winter, the drought that has hit the rural communities hardest will most certainly affect the urban areas with devastating consequences.  Already the dams have insufficient water if the winter rains come as late, as they did in 2004.

What could God be saying to us in the Western Cape as we turn to him in prayer?

To David, God said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood –stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.” (2 Samuel 21:1).  The significance of the event is expanded as follows: “Now the Gibeonites were not part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah tried to annihilate them.“ (2 Samuel 21:2)

When God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendents, the Amorites were pre-Israelite tribes who occupied the land of Canaan (Genesis 15:16).

Although the Bible does not recall the event of Saul murdering the Gibeonites, it most likely occurred early in his reign.  This action was motivated by an attitude of excessive nationalism if not excessive tribalism.  Today we would call this racism.  The Gibeonites occupied the territories assigned to the tribe of Benjamin.  Saul being of the tribe of Benjamin may well have sought to consolidate his power by rooting out this Amorite tribe. This attempt to annihilate the Gibeonites was however in direct contravention of a covenant promise made over three hundred years early during Joshua’s conquest of Canaan.  The Gibeonites approached the conquering armies of Israel and sought to make a peace treaty to let them live in the land of Canaan.  The Israelites however did not inquire of the Lord before they made a peace treaty with Gibeonites.  This treaty was an irrevocable promise, which the leaders of Israel ratified by an oath or covenant.  It was only later that the Israelites realised that they had been tricked into making a treaty with this Canaanite tribe (Joshua 9:14-15).

God was essentially drawing to David’s attention that the three-year drought was as a result of an event that occurred forty to sixty years earlier. This incident during Saul’s reign was in direct contravention to a covenant made three hundred years before that.  In this passage God was saying that the national bloodguilt of Saul had interfered with the course of nature.  (D Guthrie et al, 313; NIV Study Bible, 456)

Today the question needs to be asked is it possible for the unconfessed national bloodguilt of previous leadership structures be applicable for the Western Cape?

Brian Mills and Roger Mitchell in their book Sins of the Fathers, gives a very interesting commentary: 

A sin committed a generation ago by someone now dead, breaking a covenant made four hundred years ago, can bring a contemporary famine on a nation.  If this can be true physically and literally, it can certainly be the case spiritually. (Mills & Mitchell, p.32)

For many people in the Western Cape, the comment would be “We have dealt with the sins of the past through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.  There are many who would also say “We have said sorry and there is now a Black government who have been in power for over 10 years.” Their conclusion is effectively to say, “Let the past deal with the past for we must live for today.”

The South African economy has never been more robust and active in over forty years, which is the economic lifetime of most people.  Inflation is down to about 3 to 4% and interest rates are at the lowest in real terms for years, property prices in the Western Cape are increasing at 30% per annum, the Rand has strengthen, which may have caused some industry to be under pressure, but in real terms the whole economy is benefiting by these positive economic stimuli. The reality for many of Western Cape citizens however is they do not have access to a home, let alone a job.

Depending on which side of the political or economic divide one is positioned, there is a view that racism still exists or that reverse racism is being practised. For many people of the Western Cape their views are expressed in the words of the Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, “I am ashamed to say that Cape Town is a racist city!” (Cape Times Friday 4^th March 2005).  Others are saying that reverse racism is being practised.

Now more than ever the Church of the Western Cape is being challenged to say and be the example of Christ’s reconciliation, love and unity.  The clarion call is not for words of heartfelt confession, but active steps of reconciliation, reparation followed by deep and genuine forgiveness and unity.

While the church in South Africa stands on either side of the poverty divide, I believe we should do as David.

David asked the Gibeonies, “What shall I do for you?  How shall I make amends so that you will bless the Lord’s inheritance?”  (2 Samuel 21:3)

Today’s society has the privilege of a New Testament perspective, where the cross of Jesus fulfils the need for atonement and it is no longer necessary for representatives of guilty parties to be physically punished.

As Christians leaders in authority, who are sensitive to the issues facing our society we are called to disclose the injustice of the past and seek positive means of redressing the issues.  We should therefore seek opportunities on the 20^th March (Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain) and 15^th May (Global Day of Prayer) to allow the following:

1. Openly confess and admit to the sins of racism that still exist in our communities to this day.

2. Initiate opportunities where people can pronounce and declare God’s blessing on their neighbours instead of cursing through grumbling and complaining etc. “Bless those who persecute you; and do not curse”. (Romans 12:13-20)

This should be motivated at an individual household level and at an institutional level as in business or churches.

Where people have been offended by what they see as racism or selfishness or anger, frustration and resentment we should be encouraging them to let go of their disappointment, bitterness and anger.  Jesus encourages us to forgive those who have offended us.

3. Initiate actions that are in keeping with genuine repentance that may lead to acts of reparation.

This should be motivated at an individual household level and at an institutional level as in business or churches.  Some examples though not exclusive are as follows:

- Provide a home or contribute towards a home for one’s disadvantaged staff.

- Assist in extra education opportunities for the children of one’s disadvantaged staff

- Provide seed capital or an interest free loan to township entrepreneurs.

References:

Kenneth L. Barker, 1985, The New International Version Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation.

D Guthrie, JA Motyer, AM Stibbs, DJ Wiseman, 1970, The New Bible Commentary Revised, Inter-Varsity Press Leicester.

B Mills, R Mitchell, 1999, Sins of the Fathers, Sovereign World Norfolk.

Possible addition:

The birth of Athletes for Christ

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. Already the next year he had the beating of the other lad.

            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. 

He could not see this dream coming to fruition immediately. 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.

In September 1995 Pastor Raymond Lombard from Cape Town was moved by the Holy Spirit early one morning as he prayed, to initiate a project that would ultimately reach every home, tribe, clan, family, and village throughout Africa with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This outreach that surged through 28 countries in 8 years is known as Wheels for God's Word. During this period of time 2223 bicycles ("rural Mercedes" as these have been named in Africa) have been given to pastors and evangelists in more than sixty-two church denominations. Simultaneously with the first fact finding mission of Wheels for God's Word in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire at that time) - Ferdie Warwick (author of the Discipleship Course Growing in Grace") was inspired by the Spirit to work in conjunction with "Wheels" as Word on Wheels, i.e. to distribute the "Heart of Man" chart and the accompanying booklet wherever a bicycle was released to a preacher of the gospel. The mission and vision inspired by the Lord through these two pastors – while pastoring their own local congregations, challenging them with a burning passion to see souls saved and cared for – got gradually known as Wheels for God's Word and Word on Wheels.

+ Bruce van Eeden, Africa Arise

Jubilee social ministries

Drug Rehabs

AFRICA - land of beauty and splendour ; land of primal mystery, yet a continent lacking in some of the amenities that most Westerners would automatically take for granted. It is therefore, not without some reason that Africa has acquired the unfortunate stigma of being labelled "the dark continent". Yet Africa has largely been neglected by the Christian church in the West,  thus,  allowing other religions to gain a foothold on the continent. As Christians, we labour under the divine injuncture to spread the gospel to the furthest regions of the earth. We are also enabling the life-changing force of the gospel to so transform people, that they too can experience the fulness and joy of life in Christ.

Africa presents a unique challenge to the Christian evangelist. Due to the high illiteracy rate among the African population, the gospel has to be spread orally. However, communities are far-flung which means that great distances have to be covered in the quest to spread the gospel. In addition to this, the terrain is frequently inhospitable and unforgiving, making the lack of a properly developed transport infrastructure more sorely felt. War damage and devastation has left many rivers uncrossable by 4 wheel drive vehicles or by car because bridges have been blown up by civil war or swept away by floods. Most men of God are very poor, living only on edible leaves they have cooked. Sometimes with no more than three meals a week they have little energy and strength in their bodies. Bicycles are the answer. The bicycle is the most practical means of getting the gospel to where it is needed the most. One does not need a license to drive/ride a  bicycle. A bicycle can go where a 4 X 4 cannot go.

Humbled and Ashamed

When I attended the City Bowl ministers fraternal on the first Thursday of October 2007 after a lengthy absence, my mood was basically to say good bye to the colleagues. In my spirit I had given up hope that the Body of Christ could work together locally.

          At the meeting I was humbled and ashamed to hear from Rev Peter Holgate as he invited other churches to join a venture to uplift the community and thereafter especially when Dr Andre Olivier, speaking on behalf of the Groote Kerk pastors. They wanted to suggest to their church council to invite other clergymen to share the pulpit on Robben Island once a month. Following the invitations to minister colleagues to share devotions at Monte Rosa, their old age home, this was a significant move forward. The Groote Kerk congregation had been the most conservative of all with regard to any moves of church unity in the City Bowl, apart from their traditional networking with the Lutheran Church in Strand Street with a children’s home. A further few months down the road Groote Kerk staged a combined Christmas Carol service better than anything in the years prior to this.

          Because I was about to venture into the CPx from the end of January, I could not volunteer to serve on Robben Island soon. Only on Sunday 22 June 2008 I went there with Rosemarie, Sammy and Sheralyn. That only five other church members attended – including the local elder, Frikkie Nel, his wife and two daughters – did not quench our spirits at all. In fact, all of us were challenged in some way or another. This was especially the case when Frikkie showed us around the following morning. We saw the deterioration of the island since we were there at the ‘closing the gates of iniquity’ event in 2001. The more Frikkie Nel shared about the potential of the island, the more I started dreaming. Could this island, a gateway to Africa, perhaps be the place where the transformation of our continent could start? I shared my dream in this regard with Tim Makamu and Andy Hawkins at our think tank meeting around the xenophilia issue on Wednesday 25 June, 2008. For a long time nothing further transpired, not even after our friend Jutty Bredenkamp was appointed as director of the Island museum situation albeit that things seemed to improve.

Interaction with a Holocaust survivor

The same day, Saturday 31 May, 2008, the northern suburb of Durbanville hosted a special event where a Holocaust survivor told his story, followed by that of Rosemarie as the daughter of a German couple who had sported the opposite sentiment in respect of Jews. Rosemarie apologised to David ?? and all Jews present on behalf of the German nation for the misery which had been perpetrated to the Jews. She mentioned how she came to appreciate that Jesus was made a scapegoat - just like the Jews during the Nazi era in Germany. At the end of the meeting quite a few Jews came up to her afterwards, thanking her and hugging her.

Publication at last?

At the occasion of our visit to Germany following the birth of our grandson Josiah in June 2009, we took along a few sample copies of Seeds sown for Revival along for our children. When our nephew Uli Braun saw the book – he had been in the printing trade - he immediately had a suggestion for improvements of the front and back covers.  Further subsequent comment from our children and my wife on Uli's efforts made email networking the name of the game after he had gone to South Korea.  The beautiful final present product was the result. But we were still praying for a financial confirmation to continue with the publication. I preferred to leave my manuscripts on our Internet blog until such time that it was clear that the Lord had given His right of way for the faith venture. The contrary happened when we returned from Europe at the beginning of September. A few letters awaited us including a shocker regarding a backlog of taxes that had to be settled. This was to me the confirmation that the time for publication of the book was not ripe. The consultant who had initially been such a blessing to put us at ease in 2004, had been procrastinating for years.  

            A few days later there was an SMS on my bank, a substantial amount from a church that had been blessing us occasionally. When I mentioned this to Rosemarie, she reacted immediately that we should go ahead with the printing. I envisaged the 21 October as the date when I wanted the book printed

ADDITION

Prayer and Protests

As candlelit prayer vigils and protests spread from Leipzig, through Dresden, to all of East Germany, the East German government was bankrupt and tottering. Gorbachev's Soviet Union was also bankrupt and could no longer bail them out.  So Erich Honecker, the dictator of East Germany, turned to the West Germans (who in the past had always been willing to provide enough to keep East Germany going).  This time, however, the West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was not willing to bail them out.  He demanded reforms.

The Fall of the Wall

While governments negotiated, the people in both East and West Berlin rose up to breach the wall and began to dismantle it physically.  The leaders were overwhelmed by events.  Days after the Berlin Wall collapsed, mass demonstrations broke out in Czechoslovakia.  Vaclav Havel, long time leader of the Resistance movement and prisoner of the communists, rose to power and dismantled communism in Czechoslovakia. 

Street fighting erupted in Romania to overthrow the brutal communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.  Soon resistance spread to Bulgaria where the communists were overthrown in December 1989.  In Hungary the communist government was overthrown in October 1990.  In Albania the first free elections were held in March 1991.  Yugoslavia split into different republics as each broke away from the communist control in Belgrade.  Soon the Baltic Republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - were demanding their independence from the Soviet Union.

The End of the Soviet Union

In August 1991 a coup in the Soviet Union was frustrated in its attempt to return the country to hard line communism.  Boldly waving the white, blue and red Russian flag, Boris Yeltsin abolished the Soviet Union and pulled down the Soviet Flag.  The Cold War had formally ended.

The War on Terror

But even as the Cold War with Soviet Union communism ended, a new war was starting with radical Islamic terrorists declaring war on the West.

Revival-preparing Action in the City Bowl?

By mid-October 2008 there was still no concrete sign that City Bowl churches were prepared to work together. As the wedding of our daughter approached, Rosemarie thought of Maeva Verblun as someone to arrange the flowers at the occasion.  For many years Maeva was responsible for flower arrangements at the Cape Town Baptist Church. When she visited us in the middle of October 2008, I mentioned our monthly early morning prayer on Signal Hill, and that we prayed there for Bo-Kaap and Sea Point.  She immediately indicated interest to join us at the next occasion.

The prayer event on the 4^th Saturday of October on Signal Hill[5] was destined to have interesting ramifications when Maeva invited me to attend the prayer meeting at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Vredehoek, which takes place every last Saturday morning of the month. When I attended their event on 29 November I was deeply blessed to hear what God had already started doing in Sea Point.  The fellowship started with a church planting initiative through Jacques Erasmus. (As a Straatwerk colleague he had already been praying with us at the City Bowl Ministers’ Fraternal. I was also overjoyed to hear their vision to reach out with the Gospel, ideally together with other churches.)

The Triplets of Abomination addressed

At a meeting of the xenophobia think tank on 2 December 2008 at the His People offices I shared my desire to bring the triplets of abomination that plague our country as issues to be addressed. Seen from a biblical point of view I deemed them to be: abortion, sexual perversion and discrimination towards refugees from other African countries. Pastor Tim Makamu shared how he had addressed a high-profile meeting of the ANC while attending the event with other Black pastors of the Godly Governance Network. As the spokesman for the group he cleverly challenged the ruling party at that occasion to return to their biblical roots. Also at our Civic Centre prayer meeting a few days later I repeated the triplets of abomination as a prayer point. The seed sown in this way germinated quite soon.

A few weeks prior to the elections of 22 April 2009 and his Africa Christian Action highlighted biblical values in a comparison of the stance of the various parties on the first two of the ‘triplets of abomination’. This appeared to elicit reaction from the bigger political parties. A spokesman of the ANC even intimated that abortion and same-sex marriages are not ‘holy cows’. The significant amendment or even repeal of these laws suddenly loomed as a possibility. And I was not willing to relent on fighting discrimination against foreigners.

An unprecedented global Initiative                                                                                                                                 In thousands of vigils, rallies and protests, hundreds of thousands of phone calls, and millions of petition signatures from all around the globe, an unprecedented movement rose to prevent climate change which would lead to some islands to disappear. After hearing the result of the talks, one member from Africa wrote to the Avaaz organizers of the protests: 'It takes a lot to get an elephant moving, but when you do it is hard to stop...the elephant is moving...'
Despite the outcome, Copenhagen has built the movement that can win the fight to save our planet. In the last week of the Copenhagen summit, thousands of vigils and events were organized in 140 countries as well as an enormous multi-million person petition. All this generated thousands of news articles, organized peaceful sit-ins at key government buildings.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown requested an emergency conference call with Avaaz members, telling them: 'You have driven forward the idealism of the world...do not underestimate the impact on the leaders here'. Peace Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu personally appealed to the organizers to take up the torch of past causes and never give up.
The organizers summarised after the battle: 'We saw that the fight to save our planet cannot be won at a single summit. But we also learned what we're capable of, when we all come together. If we stay together, nothing can stop us.'

The past week was quite interesting. I should start the story with Thursday, 5 May, while we were on our way to Carmel. During a prayer walk in Bo-Kaap, along with the remaining members of our team, Brett Viviers shared a vision that the Lord had been giving him regarding Bo-Kaap. A stream that started at Signal Hill became broader and broader. This could be easily linked to the FIRE TRAILS initiative that God had given to unite national ministries, movements and churches in South Africa for a period of 40 days (6 March – 16 April 2011).  FIRE TRAILS that were expected to support and serve local communities towards sustainable and biblical transformation, had started on 6 March 2011 at Signal Hill. While exciting things were reported in the wake of the FIRE TRAILS in other parts of the country, it seemed that nothing was happening in the City Bowl.

Yet God was at work all the time. Already last year, in September, Deon Augustyn, a young man who worships at the Cape Town Baptist Church, was impacted at the GdoP/Jericho Walls prayer teaching at the Rocklands conference Centre near Simonstown. He came back all fired up, starting a little prayer group at his home church and organising a 24/7 prayer day last Friday. 

During the above-mentioned prayer walk in Bo-Kaap two weeks ago, members of our Friends from Abroad team became very much aware of the historical guilt regarding the area - very especially in respect of the way in which slaves were pushed away and encouraged to became Muslims. They came to our FFA meeting on Tuesday 9 May with the suggestion to have a night of prayer where this should be highlighted. Trisha wrote some notes with the aid of notes I had written last year on Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations. On Friday 3 June, during the ten days of prayer in the run-up to this year's Global Day of Prayer, we will have a night of prayer. We will of course also pray for the city and our country. Repentance and confession for wrongs of the past, especially here at the Cape, will be fairly central at this occasion. (As Christians we have stained hands regarding what happened to slaves, Jews and Muslims over the centuries. Identificational confession and repentance is surely in place.) The leadership of Cape Town Baptist Church has already offered their Conradie Room for the occasion. The venue is possibly not so important, but I would personally have preferred something nearer to Bo-Kaap. St Stephen's unfortunately already have Pinksterbidure every evening.

Initiated by Tesfaye Nenko, our short termer, a pastor from an Ethiopian congregation in Bellville came here on Tuesday afternoon. Together we deliberated how we could involve some of his Ethiopian and Eritrean congregants in the outreach and mobilization, e.g for reaching out to Somalians. The same evening I was due to attend a meeting in Bellville. The presence of Tesfaye gave new hope to the folk. In the initial reports there was a negative vibe, just highlighting what we all knew, viz. that it was not easy to minister to Somalians. I did not expect that the whole meeting would be about the outreach to this difficult people group. The possibility of utilising the special Ethiopian church in Bellville – worldwide possibly the only one worldwide where Eritreans and Ethiopians worship together in peace and harmony, as well as believers from different denominations – infused new enthusiasm into the group. They are now looking at having a combined prayer meeting on Friday 3 June.

Tesfaye went to that church this morning with Baruch Maayan, who was going to share something of the vision of the African Highway of Holiness to Jerusalem, to initiate the planting of small fellowships. He foresees a central role for the Ethipian Church.

I preached this morning at a home church with Malawians in Brooklyn, hoping to return there on 19 June. It is not clear what the Lord has in store here. We met the leader, a part time student at Cornerstone, during one of our leaders' meetings of All Nations.

            Information has surfaced that the change towards democracy in South Africa was primarily the result of many years of faithful prayer against the demonic apartheid ideology, much of it by less known Christians. Many of the persevering pray-ers were black women and Christians in other countries.

          Some of the prayer in the run-up to the elections has been documented, e.g. by Michael Cassidy,  A Witness for Ever, Hodder and Stoughton, London (1995). The sterling work of others has been surfacing, e.g. in the teaching of Bennie Mostert of the Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa and Gerda Leithgöb of Herald Ministries.  A few Christians from the region of the Dutch town Zeist were led in the Zionskerk to pray especially for South Africa on Thursday, October 4,  1989. They were not aware of it that just a week later the new State President De Klerk was scheduled to have a historic meeting with the theologians Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr. Allan Boesak. The Dutch prayer warriors were thus unwittingly instruments to prepare the way for the release of (the later president) Nelson Mandela in February 1990.  It was very fitting that a Kenyan professor, Washington Okomu, was used by God to broker the accord which staved off civil war just before the first democratic elections in 1994. Many Kenyans had been praying for SA in the run-up to these elections.

Wave cross over into the nation

On 11 June 2014, about 120 leaders, representing 30 communities across the city of Cape Town, gathered in Parow to give feedback on their weeks of prayer.  Many were touched by the work of the Holy Spirit, especially a growing hunger among students in various schools in Stellenbosch.  Delegates were also reminded of the will and desire of God to grant us revival, as many words and promises were received over the last 120 years indicating an eminent outpouring of the Holy Spirit, starting from the Southern parts of Africa.  At the end of this Leadership Summit it was decided to take “Seven Weeks”, 1 September – 19 October, to mobilise the different churches in every community across the city to pray for revival. 

An invitation was then taken to various communities along the Southern Cape. The response was overwhelmingly and unexpectedly positive. More than 400 churches, schools and different groups took part over the “Seven Weeks” from Cape Town to Nelson Mandela Bay. As God responded, many testimonies, breakthroughs, healings and answers to prayer were recorded! Faith is starting to rise among believers that God is at the point of doing something significant in our country.

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[1]    Later we discovered that other people had experienced similar dreams.

[2]    We were less excited when the room turned out to be a small office, where Michael Share, the national Cops for Christ coordinator, slept when he was in Cape Town.

[3]    However, I had no liberty to proceed further with the publication effort in the aftermath, after I had put another fleece before the Lord.

[4]    Because of the prayer meeting in the Civic Centre and Provincial Parliament on other Saturday mornings, we moved our own one to the 4^th Saturday morning of the month.

[5]    Because of the prayer meeting in the Civic Centre and Provincial Parliament on other Saturday mornings, we moved our own event on Signal Hill to the 4^th Saturday morning of the month.