Seeds sown for Revival January 2016 Part 1
Seeds sown
for Revival
Updated January
2016
Text relating
to the front Cover
The picture of a big tidal wave is a reproduction of a
painting of our daughter Tabitha - depicting the vision of a wave of
opportunity, people coming to South Africa from other countries. At the same time it has the form of a sheaf -
representing the harvest for the Kingdom here at the Cape and taking the Gospel
to the ends of the earth. The arid African soil in the background at a Cape
sunset has been wetted over many years by tears.
Back Cover
The book in your hand highlights how the Cape has impacted world events because
of revival, especially the special one in the rural Boland in 1860, which
included a major contribution of Dr Andrew Murray. It takes the reader up to
the spiritual renewal of 2012 and the impact of Angus Buchan, a Natal farmer
who became world famous through the film Faith
like Potatoes.
Contending that revival is much more
than “happy clappy” church services where people just carry on unchanged after
the event, the author suggests that concern to address injustice towards the
poor and needy - along with compassionate sensitivity to those who are
persecuted for the sake of the Gospel - could be a good litmus test to discern
how deep and effective a ‘revival’ has been. The book concentrates on
events at the Cape since 1980, but it also briefly covers fore-runners over a few
centuries prior to that.
The author
was born and raised in Cape Town but lived in Germany and Holland for many
years. He met his wife Rosemarie while studying overseas in 1969 and 1970.
After their return as a family in January 1992, the couple was involved with
the prayer movement and Muslim evangelism. Since 2003 they have been focusing
on compassionate outreach to refugees and other foreigners. They were involved
in the founding of the missionary organization Friends from Abroad in the process.
ISBN
978-0-620-48748-1
Contents
Page
Preface iii
The longed for Revival has already
begun
v
Main abbreviations ix
Introduction xi
CHAPTER 1
Evangelism Explosion in the Mother City
CHAPTER 2
The Impregnation of
the New South Africa
CHAPTER 3
A Cape Power Encounter with great
Ramifications
CHAPTER 4. African Roots of the Global
Prayer Movement
CHAPTER 5
Compassionate Cape Outreaches of the
modern Era
CHAPTER 6
Rebels against the Status Quo
A Cape Power
Encounter with great Ramifications
CHAPTER 9
Prayer erupts in different Places
CHAPTER 10
A Calling for Ministry among Cape Muslims
CHAPTER 11
Europe and Africa in Concert
CHAPTER 12
Repression breeds spiritual Renewal
CHAPTER 13
The Clock Starts
Turning back
14. Prayer for Cape Muslims and Jews
CHAPTER 15
Historical Changes in answer to
Prayer
CHAPTER 16
Anarchy or Transformation?
CHAPTER 17
New Ground broken in the Mother City
CHAPTER 18
Cape Town City Bowl Prayer
CHAPTER 19
Transformation Vibes from the Cape
CHAPTER 20
The religious Climate changes in Cape
Townships
CHAPTER 21
The Run-up to the great Newlands
Event
CHAPTER 22
The Stranger in our Gates
CHAPTER 23
Diverse Revival Rumblings
CHAPTER 24
Grabbed by the Scruff of the Neck
CHAPTER 25
A 'new Thing' Sprouting
CHAPTER 26
Christians Respond to Xenophobia
CHAPTER 27
The Starting Gun of the Revival?
CHAPTER 28
Revival Seeds Germinate
CHAPTER 29
Conclusion
Appendix 1 Calling upon Cape Town
Appendix 2 Poem
Appendix 3 Excerpt
from a Family Policy Institute Newsletter
Those
who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who goes forth weeping, bearing seed for
sowing, shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him (Psalm 126:5 and
6).
Seeds sown for Revival
- Personal Observations on
Prayer Movements in Cape Town
Preface
Already at the early versions of the manuscript I
regarded the Cape revival of 1860 as a pristine origin and forerunner of
spiritual renewal that was starting to manifest itself at the Cape in recent
years. I have also looked into the revivals leading up to that event
separately, using the title The Cape 1860 Revival – its Run-up and
Aftermath. This is to be accessed at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com.
I was involved in the Prayer movement
and in Muslim evangelism in Cape Town, the city of my birth over the last
decades. These issues continue to be at
the centre of the ministry to which God has called me and my wife. I believe
they are also at the heart of what we need more than ever in Cape Town, a
genuine revival. Increasingly we started
looking forward to a revival that has been prophesied for
one hundred vears. God had been giving a picture to believers
all around the world of which the details may have differed slightly, but the
core truth was always the same. Africa would become a light to the world. new
revival would start at the tip of Africa and move across the continent.
Gleaning to
a great extent for the following lines from Graham Power's book Not by Might
nor by Power, I recall that some of the first records of these prophetic
messages can be traced back to 1910. Stories have been told of a young man in
Sweden disrupting a traditional morning service when he stood and described to
the people a vision he was receiving from God. He had seen a revival starting
at the tip of Africa and spreading over the entire continent.
In 1929 the
founder of All Nations Gospel Publishers, the Swiss missionary J.R.Gschwend,
woke in the early hours of the morning. He could clearly see a map of the world
on his bedroom wall. Gazing at the map he was surprised when suddenly the
southern tip of Africa burst into flames. It only took a few minutes and the
entire continent was ablaze.
While these
visions had all been pointers toward a move of God that would start at the tip
of Africa, there is little doubt that men such as Andrew Murray (1828-1917)
played a foundational role in chartering the history of South Africa's prayer
movement.
Andrew
Murray had a vision of winning the African continent for Christ. This vision
motivated his desire to pray and live a life that was totally surrendered to
God. In his book With Christ in the School of Prayer, Murray presents
New Testament teaching on prayer and encourages the reader to move past
simplistic prayers that are ineffectual. He longed that the church would know
that 'God rules the world by the prayers of His saints, that prayer
is the power by which Satan is conquered, and that by prayer the church on
earth has disposal of the powers of the heavenly world.' Firmly living from this belief, Murray inspired the church
to access the powers of heaven through prayer and to bring the gospel to the
ends of the earth through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Andrew
Murray's words were important seeds in the history of the prayer movement. Much
fruit would be seen in following generations. His personal vision of Africa
for Christ would eventually become the mission statement for the Transformation
Africa prayer movement.
Born and raised in Cape Town I have lived in Germany and
Holland for many years. I met my wife
Rosemarie while studying in Germany in 1969 and 1970. When she was prohibited to enter this country
because of our friendship, and knowing that we would be husband and wife, I
chose to emigrate. I knew that this was tantamount to voluntary exile. (We
discovered later that Rosemarie was actually blacklisted for entry to South
Africa because of our relationship). We
were married in 1975 and lived in Germany and Holland until we returned to
South Africa as a family in 1992.
From January 1992 until July 2007, Rosemarie and I
served as missionaries of Worldwide
Evangelization for Christ (WEC)
International. Now we are linked to Friends
from Abroad and All Nations
International, and work predominantly with foreigners. However, through all
of this time we have been involved with the prayer movement and Muslim
evangelism at the Cape.
Over the years, we have experienced special answers to
prayer and have seen lives and circumstances deeply changed. Prayer was the
instrument par excellence that God
used to bring this about. In my view,
revival is much more than “happy clappy” church services where people simply
carry on unchanged after the event. A
concern to address injustice towards the poor and needy and compassionate
sensitivity to those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel is, in my
view, a good litmus test to discern how deep a ‘revival’ has been. Over the
years I have jotted down some of the significant changes in people and society
which we have experienced.
In the course of my hobby – historical research – I
furthermore discovered how the Cape has impacted world history due to special
revival in the Western Cape. I contend furthermore that the two major changes
of the recent decades – how legal apartheid became past tense and how the
thrust of atheist communism was stopped – occurred essentially as answers to prayer. Similarly, we could discern
how the ideology of Islam – which is essentially based on religious deception
because its founder Muhammad was misled by a Christian (if we take his evidence
on face value) – has been deeply impacted as a result of intensified prayer
since 1990.
Throughout this book, I speak about 'Coloured' people. In a country as ours where
racial classifications has caused such damage, I am aware that the designation
'coloured' has given offence to the
group into which I have been classified.
For this reason, I put ‘Coloured’ consistently between inverted commas
and with a capital C when I refer to the racial group. To the other races I
refer as 'Black' and 'White' respectively, with a capital B and W, to denote
that it is not normal colours that are being described.
Having
noticed that some copies of the initial printing of this book landed into the
hand of foreigners, I have chosen to distinguish between a minister of the Dutch
Reformed Church (DRC) and other English-speaking churches, by retaining the
title ‘Ds.’ before the name of a DRC pastor. It stands for Dominee
(derived from the Latin dominus meaning Lord), which is the equivalent
of Rev. (Reverend) in English.
For bibliographical detail and quotes I refer to my
unpublished manuscripts Mysterious Ways of God and The Mother of the
Nation, to be accessed at >
The present treatise concentrates on events at the
Cape since 1980 to the present. The reason for the inclusion of relatively much
information about Muslim evangelism and, to a much lesser extent, the outreach
to Jews at the Cape, is my conviction that a genuine revival as I define it,
would impact both Judaism and Islam.
I came very strongly under the
impression once again of the need of remorse over over
our role as Christians in the West in respect of Judaism and Islam.
Already at the beginning of 2010 I was deeply moved when I discerned that Isaac
and Ishmael, the two eldest sons of Abraham, had actually buried their father
together (Genesis 25:9). The evident reconciliation must have been preceded
by confession and remorse.
I started to pray more intensely that a
representative body of Christians might express regret and offer an apology on
behalf of Christians for a) the side-lining and persecution of Jews by
Christians b) that Christian theologians misled Muhammad at the foundations of
Islam.
As
I continued with my research and study of earlier revivals, I discerned the
'missing link'. They were as a rule by accompanied by deep remorse over
personal and national sins. This resulted in rivers of tears being shed. I
still pray as at the first edition 'Oh God, send this revival!', but I
now also pray: 'God, give me and my fellow Capetonians genuine tears of
remorse because of the unpaid debt of the church in respect of Judaism and Islam!'
Ashley Cloete
Cape Town, May, 2012
The longed for Revival has already begun
I’m excited about Ashley
Cloete’s book on revival. We are living in the time of the greatest revival in
the history of the Church. The revival for which we long has already begun. We
realise there are many people praying for revival. There are also many
unfulfilled dreams in the hearts of God’s children for revival, but if we fail
to give thanks and acknowledge what God has already done and is busy doing in
answer to our prayers, we will be amiss. We must be careful not to define
‘revival’ in a way that only fits a very specific and narrow definition. I
believe revival starts with God’s people but it impacts every aspect of life
and touches people who are outside the church walls.
Why do I believe the
great revival we have prayed and longed for has already started? Here are a few
reasons:
1. More people have come to Jesus in the last fifty
years than the rest of Christian history combined. Over 50,000 people come to
faith in Jesus every day in China, India and Africa. And the numbers are
increasing yearly, faster than the population growth. I know when we pray for
revival we’re asking God to revive the Church, see believers repent of sin and
apathy and society transformed. But is there any greater miracle than someone
coming to faith in Christ? Is there any more profound act of repentance or
transformation than for one person to be redeemed by God’s love and assured
they will spend eternity in the Father’s presence? That is the greatest form of
revival and it is happening on an epic scale across the globe. People working
amongst the Dalits (the outcasts) in India say that literally ‘massive’ numbers
of people are coming to Christ every week. The number of Christians in India doubled
in the last 15 years (and that after more than 2 centuries of intensive mission
work and efforts by the Indian Church itself).
2. In many parts of the world we see revivals (in
the way they were seen during the first and second Great Awakening in the 1740’s
and the 1850’s, the revival in Wales in 1904, and so forth): China, Fiji,
India, places in Africa, Latin America. There was an ebb and flow of revivals
over the last two decades, but they are happening nevertheless in many
countries.
3. Church planting movements have begun in many nations that
have swept millions of people into the Kingdom of God. Hundreds of thousands of
small churches led by ordinary people have been started all over the world.
That is revival!
4. Most of the unreached people groups in the world have been
penetrated with the Good News of Jesus, many of them over the last 2-3 decades.
5. Millions of Muslims have come to faith in
Christ in the last 25 years. Reliable statistics state that more Muslims came
to Christ in the last 10 years than in the previous 1,300 years.
6. The Berlin wall fell
and the Communist world was rocked by God’s sovereignty; He removed and
replaced kings in a matter of days, not years or centuries, but days. Many
oppressive governments lost their grip and have been busy losing their grip on
people over the last 15 years. This opened the following nations up for the
preaching of the gospel; Cambodia, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Central Asia,
China and Nepal among others.
7. The Church is more conscious than ever of the need to serve
the poor and bring justice to the oppressed.
8. We are not just preaching the gospel of personal salvation,
but we are teaching and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God.
9. Business people are advancing the Kingdom of God in their
businesses and in the nations of the earth and women are being recognized as
equals in God’s kingdom in greater and greater numbers.
10. In many nations
Christians in the market place are rising up as ‘market place ministers’,
understanding their role as witnesses of the salvation of Christ and caring for
the needs of people in the market place.
11. Millions of people are praying and the momentum is
increasing. In the 70’s, there was a call in the United States and many other
nations for people to fast for 40 days for revival. Tens of thousands of people
responded and fasted for 40 days, many for the first time in their lives. This
spread over the whole world. In the decade of the 90’s, thousands of 40-day
periods of prayer and fasting took place all over the world. Also in the 90’s
there was a call to pray for the 10/40 Window - and look what has happened
there! Millions of Christians prayed during Praying
through the Window initiatives. In the 90’s there was also a call to fast
and pray during the month of Ramadan for Muslims and millions of followers of
Jesus responded and have kept responding every year.
12. Prayer movements and national prayer networks have begun all
over the world. There are Houses of
prayer, 24/7 prayer and boiler rooms of prayer. Prayer teams travel the globe,
and there is prayer for the 10/40 Window and the Global Day of Prayer.
Stadiums of people are praying and prayer walking. Yes, people are praying like
never before in history. In at least 160 nations of the world at least one or
more 24/7 prayer watches are functioning. Many new and creative prayer
initiatives are being started every year. There is an amazing prayer awakening
among young people and also children.
Prayer is a cry from the heart of God’s people
who are desperate for more of God and it is the Holy Spirit stirring the hearts
of people to expect the Father to move His hand in history. God does not call
us to pray to frustrate us or defeat us. We have prayed and God has answered.
Let us not ignore what God has done or be ungrateful. Let us give thanks for
answers to prayer, and for the revival that has begun. Let us continue with t[1]hanksgiving,
to express the deep yearnings of our hearts for God to do more, much more. You
must read this very perceptive and challenging book, particularly if you have a
heart for revival and you long for God to break into our nation. Ashley Cloete
is a man of wisdom, insight and a diligent understanding of Church history. He
has hope for South Africa.
Main Abbreviations
AE - Africa
Enterprise
ANC -
African National Congress
CCM -
Christian Concern for Muslims
CCFM -
Cape Community FM (radio)
CODESA
– Convention for a Democratic South Africa
CSV - Christen-Studentevereniging
DRC -
Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk)
Ds – Dominee (equivalent of Reverend)
DTS -
Disciple Training School
GCOWE -
Global Consultation for World Evangelisation
LMS - London
Missionary Society
OM - Operation
Mobilization
PAGAD - People
against Gangsterism and Drugs
PAC – Pan African Congress
SACC -South African
Council of Churches
SAMS - South
African Missionary Society
SIM - Society of
International Ministries/Serving in Missions
TEASA - The
Evangelical Alliance of South Africa
UDF - United
Democratic Front
UNISA - University
of South Africa
UCT - University of
Cape Town
UWC - University of
the Western Cape
WEC -Worldwide
Evangelization for Christ
YWAM - Youth with a
Mission
Z.A. Gesticht - Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (South African Foundation)
Introduction
Ever since
the beginning of being a follower of Jesus more consciously, prayer has
been fairly central to my life and ministry although I would not dare to call
myself a devout intercessor. In 1961 I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal
Lord and Saviour at a public evangelistic event. A major turning point in my
life occurred when two teenage friends invited me to the evangelistic outreach
of the Students’ Christian Association
(SCA) at the seaside resort of Harmony Park that was scheduled to start just
after Christmas at the end of 1964.
At the
beginning of 1963 I had recommitted myself to serving the Lord, but I still
felt spiritually empty and bankrupt before the 1964 evangelistic beach
outreach. How could one go and share the gospel with others in such a state? In
desperation I cried to the Lord to equip me! He heard my heart’s cry and
divinely touched me. I sensed the power of the Holy Spirit taking hold of me.
Now I was ready for the outreach there in Harmony Park! To me this was revival;
I was spiritually revived!
After one of
the evangelistic evening services I received my introduction to ‘spiritual
warfare’ when a young pastor, Esau Jacobs, widely known as Jakes, entered the
tent after he had a long conversation with a camper. He said that we would not be able to make any
head‑way in such confrontations without prayer and fasting. Subsequently Jakes
became my best male friend.
The Harmony
Park evangelistic outreach influenced my life in yet another way: There I received an urge to network with the
Body of Christ, with people from different church backgrounds.
Two Dutch
Reformed Mission Church ministers, Jakes and Ds. Piet Bester of the Moria Sendingkerk
in Tiervlei (Ravensmead), became my role models and mentors during the next few
years. I still had to discover the true Moravian heritage into which I had been
born and bred.
After my
special divine encounter before my first Harmony Park beach outreach, I started
to attend the early prayer meetings every Sunday morning at six o’clock at the Moria Sendingkerk
where Ds. Piet Bester was the minister. One Sunday morning a mini-revival
erupted there when suddenly everybody started praying simultaneously. That was
quite revolutionary for the era, causing some disquiet among the traditional
Reformed believers. It was significant that women from different churches were
meeting each other regularly for prayer thereafter. This confirmed for me the
special blessing of united prayer. Years later we would put this to good effect
in Zeist (Holland) in the 1980s and back in Cape Town since our return in 1992.
I have also discerned ever more clearly with the
passing of time, that racial and ecclesiastical divisions were hampering a deep
work of the Holy Spirit. The need for racial reconciliation and the attempt to
help close the gap not only between ‘ecumenicals’ and ‘evangelicals’ but also
between the rich and the poor, became quite important to me. Opposing the
demonic tenets of church rivalry and competition by stressing the unity of the
Body of Christ and fighting the diabolical economic disparity and structural
injustice in a low-key manner, were to become other facets of my personal
ministry.
Finally,
I thank God especially for a wonderful wife and supportive children, whom God
has used in different ways in my life.
For the
material that I have been able to collate over the years there are so many
people from whom I gleaned it.
Individual acknowledgement would be almost impossible. I wish to thank all
of those involved generally, but
nevertheless very cordially. A special note of thanks is hereby extended to
Wendy Ryan, a Christian from Trinidad (West Indies), who edited the manuscript.
She came into our frame at just the right moment with invaluable advice. A
great ‘thank you’ also to Heidi Pasques and Claudia Herrendoerfer who assisted
with earlier manuscripts, predecessors of the present book. Claudia was also responsible for
proof-reading the early manuscript of Seeds sown for Revival in 2010.
I would also
like to add a word of special appreciation for Vincent Abrahams, who patiently
prepared the manuscript up to May, 2009 .
It was
to me quite providential to discover that Mr Tanhindi Sanneberg, a Moravian
Sunday school and youth group friend from my childhood and youth days in
Tiervlei (Ravensmead), is the Director of The Printman. Due to his generous collaboration this book
can see the light in its present form. A cordial thanks to him and his family
in the firm, especially to Shireen, his daughter-in-law, who patiently put up
with the many changes the manuscript undertook since May. I would like to express our sincere
appreciation towards our nephew Uli Braun and son-in-law Mike Mee for their
contribution regarding the front and back covers of the book and Mike for the
work on the map with Cape suburbs and townships at the end of the book.
I am
very grateful for Jericho
Walls and to Floyd McClung, the leader of the church
planting agency All Nations International, for permission to reprint and
amend his article in the September to November 2008 edition of their prayer
manual slightly, instead of the more usual foreword.
1. Evangelism
Explosion in the Mother City
Around 1990 spiritual warfare was widely but wrongly regarded
as a modern fad. The great missionary Paul passed the paradigm on to us in
Ephesians 6. The 18th century Moravian pioneer Count Zinzendorf
already practiced the ‘warrior marriage’ and John Booth started the Salvation
Army with all its military ranks at the end of the 19th century.
Precursors of 20th century spiritual warfare started from South
Africa when Andrew Murray brought the issue into focus through his emphasis on
prayer and the interest he aroused in the work of the Holy Spirit. Revivals in
different parts of Africa were initiated from Cape Town after Murray’s founding
of the South African General Mission
in 1889. His booklet The Key to the
Missionary Problem really set the scene for great things, also in Africa.
Hans von Staden, the founder of the Dorothea Mission, was born of German parents in the Free State town
of Winburg. The family moved to Stellenbosch in 1920 where he developed a close
friendship with Andrew Murray, the grandson of the well-known theologian with
the same name. The writings of Dr Andrew Murray, especially The Key to the Missionary Problem, were
destined to have a profound influence on Von Staden. In 1942 he experienced
God’s call to his life-work, the founding of the Dorothea Mission: ‘I discerned His
commission: we were to dedicate our lives to the evangelization of the people
in the dark city townships of South Africa’.
The Origins of the Cape Town City Mission
Mr Frederick George Lowe came to Cape Town in 1896 as a
concerned Anglican and a businessman who sold low-priced clothing. He soon
became involved with the poor and needy, especially at the time of the Bubonic
plague in 1901. Lowe started what he called the City Slum Mission in
1902. This outreach remained fairly obscure, until the Bubonic plague hit the
Mother City once again in 1915 - especially affecting the residential areas of
Salt River and Woodstock. The compassionate work of the City Slum Mission
now became more widely known. After Lowe’s death the mission received its
present name, the Cape Town City Mission. Over the years churches and
all sorts of charitable and compassionate institutions were established all
over the Cape Peninsula. The combination of evangelism and compassionate
outreach became an integral element of the ministry of the City Mission.
They took this model from the Salvation Army, which had already started
operating at the Cape in 1883. (The evangelistic arm of the City Mission
was integrated into Kingdom Ministries in
the mid-1990s, led by Pastor Alfie Fabe, which soon started sending out
missionaries to different countries.)
Evangelistic Expansion
Probably the first
indigenous church planting move at the Cape started in the slum area called
District Six.[2] A strong element of ‘Coloured’ Nationalism
was present when Rev. Joseph J. Forbes
started his ‘Volkskerk van Afrika’ on 14 May 1922. This visionary had
the courage of his conviction to start a denomination for the upliftment of the
poor from the Cape to Cairo, giving his church a continental name. In only 14
years there were already 13 branches, 6 normal schools (as opposed to night
schools) and the orphanage at Jonkersdam, which was later transferred to the Lawrencia
Institution, Kraaifontein. Very significant about this denomination is that
they have a special anthem, which was sung at their annual commemoration that
hails the protea, ‘blom van ons vaderland.’[3] The denomination made
inroads into geographical areas where the traditional churches had become
slack. They even started a fellowship in Genadendal, the first mission station
of the Moravians. (However, this congregation broke
away from the Volkskerk van Afrika that was governed from Stellenbosch.
The denomination expanded to places like Oudtshoorn and far-away
Kimberley.)
Spiritual Vitality of
praying Women
The spurning and suppression of Black women with regard to
leadership did not harden them. Instead of becoming bitter and resentful, Black
women especially appeared to have accepted male leadership gracefully. Until the late 1940s these women
organised activity among themselves independently. They would often allow the
men to formally open meetings, in which they participated as speakers.
Manyanos turned out
to be instruments
of
Black empowerment
The manyanos (the
Xhosa word for prayer unions) turned out to be instruments of Black empowerment
virtually second to none. Here women leaders would not only pray and preach,
but here their dignity and political awareness was also developed.
The practices and hurts inflicted by the apartheid society
was possibly the reason that determined resistance in the 1950s. They
reshaped their meetings to provide more practical instruction and opportunities
for community activism.
Whereas White and some ‘Coloured’ church women’s groups
concentrated on fund raising, Black women soon amended their name to Prayer
and Service Union. The social and mutual support offered by prayer groups
helped to compensate for the isolation and poor social structures, which
Western missionaries held up as models. Testimonies, preaching and spontaneous
prayer became the lifeblood of Black Christian groups. In the prayer groups
they could develop their potential as orators without first having to be
literate. In accepting a role in the moral teaching of their adolescent
children, Black Christian women turned their backs on pre-Christian norms, by
which female relatives other than the mother had provided sex education. In general,
the spiritual life of manyano women
appears to have been more creative and vital than that of the other racial
groups. Dawn prayer and nights of prayer were quite common. The confidence
gained in the manyanos would stand
the women in good stead in the struggle against sexism and racial oppression.
South Africa now has one of the highest ratio's of females in government
worldwide, very much due to this influence.
A new Fire for
Evangelism
The depression of the early 1930s appears to have caused a
new fire for evangelism. The start of the Docks
Mission is a case in point. When John Crowe listened to an open-air service
of the Salvation Army in Adderley
Street in 1932 as a young man, he was touched.
How happy his prayerful mother was when he shared that he had decided to
follow Jesus! The ‘slightly Coloured’ family - as those with a fair complexion
from that racial group used to be called - attended the Baptist Church in the Mother City’s Wale Street. Almost immediately
the 18-year old Crowe wanted to share the gospel with other people in the
neighbourhood of Roggebaai - the area where the famous Dr Andrew Murray had
also evangelized. He soon struck a partnership with his namesake John Johnson,
becoming involved in open-air services at different places. Later they were
especially active on the Grand Parade[4], Cape Town’s equivalent to
Hyde Park Corner,[5] where various political
groups and others had their meetings. Harold, John Johnson’s brother, joined
them at a later stage. When people started committing their lives to Jesus
through their ministry, the young men asked for permission to conduct meetings
in one of the Railway cottages that soon became too small. They then rented a
wood and iron construction that was called the ‘Tin Shanty.’
Starting
their outreach in the Dockyard, the church group, which started operating from
the ‘Tin Shanty’, called themselves the Docks
Mission. From its earliest years prayer and fasting became a custom of the Docks Mission.
Praise, Worship and Fasting
A Bible verse, which is rightly quoted
quite often, is Zechariah 4:6, ‘Not by
might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty’. This is
basic to revival, but it is unfortunate that the context is usually not
considered when the verse is quoted. Other basic principles are contained in
this prophesy (Zechariah 4), namely that of the power of the weak and the ‘few’ in the erection of the temple. ‘Shouts of thanksgiving’ declare that ‘all was done by grace alone’ (v.6-8).
Praise is used in the ‘OT’ a few times
in the attacks on God’s enemies. Probably the most well-known of them is Joshua
and the seven trumpets. The gathering marched around Jericho, augmented by the
united shout after the seventh time on the seventh day. (We note the repetition
of the number seven, the biblical number for completion and perfection).
Sometimes fasting, prostrating worship and praise occur in close proximity in
Scripture (e.g. Nehemiah 9:1+4; 2 Chronicles 20:3ff).
Fasting as a tool in spiritual warfare
lost its initial purpose. It was either completely neglected, or it became a
‘work’ to earn God’s favour like fasting during Lent. Jesus himself fasted and
prayed for forty days and nights before he started his ministry (Matthew 4:2).
When His opponents pointed to the fact that His disciples were not fasting, the
Master did not cancel the feasibility of it. He merely stated that the
disciples would be doing it when he, ‘the bridegroom’, would have been taken
away (Matthew 9:15). (At the return of Christ there will be the ‘Marriage
Supper of the Lamb’ with his 'Bride' - the Church as the Body of Christ.)
Jesus did however attack fasting as an outward show to impress others (Matthew
6:16; Luke 18:12). The Master was operating fully in line with ‘OT’ teaching,
where we read for example that God rejects fasting when those who are fasting
are living in evil pleasures and oppress (underpay?) their workers (Isaiah
58:3). But the Hebrew Scriptures teach just as clearly that fasting can be a
sign of penitence (2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Jonah 3:5; Daniel 6:18; Joel
2:15). It was also used as a weapon in fighting the enemy (Esther 4:16). All
three of these prayer elements - praise, worship and fasting - were employed
profitably in these early 20th century Cape ventures. (Paul Billheimer noted in 1975
in his booklet Destined for the Throne how praise caused an
international spiritual turn around once again via the Pentecostal movement. )
Docks Mission Prayer leads to Growth
At the ‘Tin Shanty,’ many a Friday night was used for an
all-night prayer meeting. No wonder that God gave the new denomination
phenomenal growth. Not only were new churches started on Brown’s Farm
(Ottery) and Factreton Estate, a new housing scheme, but also further
afield at Wellington and Grabouw. In due course they conducted gospel meetings
in the Community Centre of the Bloemhof Flats in Constitution Street, District
Six, and in the YMCA building in Chiapinni Street, Bo-Kaap. On every third
Saturday of the month a combined prayer meeting was held, first in the church
building of Belgravia Estate, and later it was rotated to the other branches.
From their early beginnings the Docks Mission also started outreaches at the prison in Tokai, at
the nearby Porter Reformatory, at the
Brooklyn Chest Hospital, and later at another institution for
delinquents in Wynberg called Bonnytown. Many lives were changed through
these ministries. After the services at the Docks on Sundays, some members went
to Somerset Hospital to pray with
nurses there. A branch of the Hospital
Christian Fellowship (now called Health Care Fellowship).
which operated at Somerset Hospital for many years, benefited greatly
from this assistance. Docks Mission
members made a national impact through ministry to prisoners on Robben Island. Docks Mission's Pastor Walter Ackerman
thus witnessed to and challenged Nelson Mandela. (After his release in 1990,
Mandela often referred to the Christian teaching that he received over the
years as an important contribution to his emphasis on forgiveness and
refraining from revenge.)
2.
The Impregnation of the New South Africa
Despite the times
of great spiritual sensitivity in a nation where leaders were willing to
acknowledge the presence of God, South Africa created a legal system that
devalued the God-derived dignity of people, classing them according to the
colour of their skin. It was called apartheid and it would last for more than
forty years. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning 'separate'. So successful
was this form of governance that people lived separate lives, with no reason to
cross the great color divide. Formulated in 1948, apartheid was the legal
government of the nation until 1994. Those forty-plus years were turbulent ones
in the history of South Africa. Many inhumane deeds were done, some even in the
name of God and the Church. For fear of being labelled as 'political,' the
Church for the most part was silent. But God had not forgotten the prayers of
His people as they cried to Him for mercy and deliverance.
Prisons as Places
of Reform and Renewal
All over the world
prisons have been serving as places of reform and renewal. South Africa is no
exception. The transformation of our country has quite a few prominent examples
of political activists who experienced a divine touch while they were
incarcerated. I mention only a few of them.
Chief Albert
Luthuli, definitely one of the greatest of all South Africans, was isolated in
a prison cell in Pretoria while he was testifying during the Treason Trial
in 1959. He was accused of incitement because he had burned the hated pass,
which he dubbed 'an instrument of slavery, a weapon and humiliation of us as a people, a
badge of slavery, a weapon used by the authorities to keep us in a position of
inferiority'.[6] There he had a
special experience as he testified: '... Frail man that I am, I humbly
pray that I may never forget the opportunity God gave me to re-dedicate myself,
... and above all to be quiet in His Presence. My white-washed cell became my
chapel, my place of retreat.' In the Pretoria court room many people were turned
away because of congestion. Luthuli was enthralled by the spectators from
different races, vocalizing a special vision: 'There, in embryo, was a portrayal of
my new South Africa, a company of goodwill, yearning to begin work on the
building of a structure both permanent and real.'
The impact of
Nelson Mandela's incarceration on Robben Island is well known. A few sentences
are nevertheless appropriate, taken from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's book No
Future without Forgiveness (p. 39f.). 'Nelson Mandela did not emerge from
prison spewing words of hatred and revenge. He amazed us all by his heroic
embodiment of reconciliation and forgiveness... Those twenty- seven years and
all the suffering they entailed were the fires of the furnace that tempered his
steel, that removed the dross.'
Stanley Mogoba was
originally a teacher and merely just a passive adherent of the Pan African
Congress whom young people approached before his arrest. The main evidence
against him was that he was alleged to have advised the young people to burn a Dutch
Reformed Church whereas in his own words ‘I had strongly advised the young
people against this. So I went to gaol for having saved a Dutch Reformed Church
… part of the time in isolation. During that time I prayed and read the Bible
from cover to cover for it was the only literature (available)…’[7]On
Robben Island Mogoba[8]
received a book from a fellow prisoner with the title The Human Christ. It touched Mogoba very deeply to encounter the
sorrow of Christ when he saw the young man of Matthew 19 depart sadly, ‘unable to take the
final step to true fulfilment.’ Mogoba was himself very
unhappy, pondering what all that meant, thinking that he should serve Christ in
a new way once he left the island. ‘But it was only when I said “I will follow
you now, I am prepared to give my entire life to you and enter the ministry”
that my sorrow left me and I experienced a sense of joy…’
The most effective church opposition
against
apartheid came initially from
the Dutch Reformed Church.
Dutch Reformed
Church Opposition against Apartheid For many it will be surprising to
hear that arguably the most effective church opposition against apartheid
ironically came initially from the Dutch Reformed Church. The Anglican
Bishop Trevor Huddleston and others were making some inroads through their
stand against the race policies that became official after 1948, but the most
effective counter came surprisingly from within the ranks of the Dutch
Reformed denomination. I do not refer to the warnings by people like Ds.
Ben Marais and Professor Keet, but specifically to the stand of a ‘Coloured’ Dutch Reformed clergyman. He was Eerwaarde (Reverend) I.D. Morkel, who in
turn influenced a dynamic mover, a young clergyman, Ds. David Botha of the Wynberg Sendingkerk.
These ministers opposed the apartheid
policy long before the famous Dr Beyers Naudé.
The Sendingkerk Ring (circuit) of Wynberg agreed
unanimously with the motion tabled by the dynamic Rev. I.D. Morkel, to oppose
apartheid on scriptural grounds. The participants at this meeting included
quite a few Afrikaner dominees because
there were still very few ministers of colour ordained in the 'Coloured' sector
of the denomination around 1950. The Sendingkerk
Ring protested against the
proposed legislation of the new regime, appealing to the government urgently
not to implement apartheid laws.[9]
That the Malan Cabinet ignored their
protests was not as deplorable as the fact that the very same dominees who voted in October 1948, did
not pitch when all Sendingkerk ministers were
invited to a meeting to discuss the legislation. Although 28 congregations were
represented, only two white dominees attended
this meeting. Another meeting on 14 October 1949 resolved to encourage
believers to retreat into a day of prayer on 16 December 1949 ‘to be relieved from
the apartheid affliction.’
Confession
as a Revival Instrument
Confession is an important element of prayer as a vital
ingredient towards revival. The rebirth of the Jewish nation after the exile
was prepared by the intercessory prayers of Nehemiah (1:6-9), Ezra (9:6-13) and
Daniel (9:9-19). All three of them concentrated on the spiritual condition of
the nation, and confession of sins.
In revivals through the ages, prayer
has always been the basis. In these cases prayer brought about a consciousness
of sin, which invariably led to confession and restitution. Andrew Murray opined: ‘an essential element in a true
missionary revival will be a broken heart and a contrite spirit in view of past
neglect and sin’. In the most widely known recent
revival in South Africa, in Kwa Siza Bantu (Natal), Erlo Stegen, the
founding leader, had been observing an extended period of prayer. However, the
Holy Spirit only broke through when Stegen confessed his racial pride. He
discerned that he was lacking neighbourly love towards the Zulus.
In recent
years a biographical film Faith like
Potatoes depicted
how Angus Buchan, an ordinary Natal farmer, experienced an
amazing personal revival and then began to impact the lives of many others. His
Mighty Men Conferences and other revival events would impact thousands
in subsequent years (see pages 323ff).
Early Impact of Student Christian Outreach
A significant spiritual influence at the Cape was John Mott’s
Student Christian Movement, along with the Edinburgh meeting of
evangelicals in 1910 that became the forerunner to the World Council of
Churches. All this looked set to spawn worldwide evangelisation. The Cape
was in the thick of things through the presence of the aging Dr Andrew Murray.
John Mott, the renowned preacher and leader of a global divine work among
students, who mobilised many of them for missions, spoke at the Huguenot
Hall in Orange Street on the outskirts of the City Centre at the beginning
of the century. This ushered in the establishment of the Students’ Christian
Association (SCA). The work of the
SCA at Victoria College, which was to become the University of
Stellenbosch and at the South African College, the forerunner of
UCT, had a significant impact on individuals. One of the most notable
influences was on Jan H. Hofmeyr, who was poised to become the successor of Jan
Smuts as Prime Minister, had the Nationalists not started to govern in 1948.
Hofmeyr, who attended the Cape Town Baptist Church in Wale Street, was a
fervent supporter of the SCA.
A related ministry in the
1920s was the Oxford Group, started by Frank Buchman, an American with a
German Black Forest background. Edgar Brookes, one of South Africa’s
greatest liberal politicians of the apartheid era, described the influence of
the Oxford Group as follows: ‘Undoubtedly its first impact on South Africa was that
of a genuine religious revival, and this made itself felt quite remarkably in
the field of race relations.’ In the 1960s and 1970s the group played a significant if not so overt
role in racial reconciliation under its new name Moral Rearmament. Ds.
George Daneel, who died at the end of 2004 in Fransch Hoek, a Dutch Reformed
Church clergyman and a former rugby Springbok, was the face of the movement
for many years, the group operated low-key to bring people from different races
together.[10]
Ministry amongst Youth
and Children During and after World War II concern was raised for young
people whose families had been broken up by fathers serving overseas on
military assignments. The absence of a positive father figure (male role model)
in the home led to other social problems. The then typical church structures
were not catering for these young people. This compelled some Christian leaders
to develop programmes specifically geared to reach out to these young people.
The new initiative brought dynamic young evangelists into the frame, who
started using revolutionary methods, conducting lively mass rallies in more
than a dozen US cities under the name Youth for Christ (YfC). With the
rapid expansion of the work there soon became a need for leadership and
organization and in 1944 Chicago pastor Torrey Johnson was elected YFC’s first
president, with Billy Graham as YfC’s first full-time worker.
These initiatives became a movement and the pioneers started
to travel to other countries. Jimmy Ferguson came to South Africa as a
missionary, running rallies alongside local South Africans.
Youth
for Christ (YfC) became an international Christian organization with
its core mission and vision that of communicating the life-changing message of
Jesus Christ to young people. Jimmy Ferguson pioneered YFC’s ministry at
the Cape where the organization started nationally already in 1946. YFC
South Africa in its early years was born out of a middle class ministry to
White high school learners, also providing a valuable service to predominantly
suburban churches through training, rallies and camping. Bill Parker and Nico Bougas[11]
were two prominent YFC members during the 1950s and 1960s at the Cape, who were
also very much involved in ministry at the insurance pioneers Old Mutual, where they worked. The
slogan Youth for Christ would find emulation in different ways like Cops
for Christ, Jews for Jesus and Athletes for Christ.
Scripture
Union started amongst English-speaking White high schools. The
Catholic and Anglican schools were the first to bridge the racial divide, with
the Diocesan College in Rondebosch
(Bishops) and St Cyprian’s in
Vredehoek amongst the first countrywide.
At
the Cape the Moravian Church was among the first denominations to
organize their youth work nationally. Out of their Sunday School Union
which started at the Cape already in 1942, a national Youth Union grew
that was formally started in 1958. From the mid-1960s that denomination broke
new ground once again with multi-racial work camps at Langgezocht, Genadendal,
with the intention of building a camp site there.[12]
Recruitment from the Christian Student
Ministry
The Christen-Studentevereniging (CSV), the
Afrikaner sector of the SCA, produced many prominent leaders in church and
society. In the latter part of the 20th century many organisations
developed out of the Christen-Studentevereniging (CSV). Stellenbosch
University played a prominent role with the annual mission week at the Studentekerk. This was emulated at other
tertiary institutions all around the country. Jan Hanekom (at the Hofmeyr Centre and linked to South African Association of World Evangelisation
SAAWE), influenced scores of
students.
Cassie Carstens came to international prominence as
the executive head of the CSV from 1990 to 2000. He was the chaplain of the
national rugby team that won the World Cup in 1995. Here he caught the
eye of the international media. This led to the founding of the International
School for Sports Leaders in Stellenbosch.
The work of the parallel student ministry among
‘Coloureds’ only really came into its own in the second half of the 20th
century where ‘Mammie’ le Fleur pioneered this work with Nic Apollis as the
next itinerant secretary until the early 1960s, followed by Chris Wessels from
the Moravian Church.
At a camp for theological students, a tokkelok from the Sendingkerk, Esau Jacobs, was deeply moved with regard to
ecumenical work, notably for the work of Ds. Beyers Naude and the Christian
Institute.
He started his pastoral ministry in the Transkei.
Jakes, as he became widely known, also had a definite vision to reach out to
the Muslims. He inspired many a young student, including the author. At the
student evangelistic outreach at Harmony Park in 1964/5, Jakes exposed the
group to ‘spiritual warfare’ when he joined the students and young teachers on
New Year’s Day, 1965.
The student outreach at Harmony Park
in the mid-1960s contained seed for spiritual revival. It also contributed to
the spiritual maturing of leaders such as Rev. Abel Hendricks, who led the
1964/5 camp along with Rev. Chris Wessels. In later years Abel Hendricks became
President of the Methodist Church and
Chris Wessels became a respected leader in the Moravian Church. Allan Boesak, Jattie Bredekamp, Esau Jacobs,
Franklin Sonn and David Savage are but a few young men from these Harmony Park
outreaches who subsequently became influential members in their respective
denominations and in society at large. To this generation also belonged Harry
Booysen, a young teacher from Retreat on the Cape Flats, who later became the
full-time secretary of the Vereniging van Christen Studente (VCS), the
'Coloured' branch of the student movement.
Hippies radiate Revival
Under
John Bond and Paul Watney’s ministry, the Harfield Road Assembly of God,
situated halfway between the Cape suburbs of Claremont and Kenilworth,
experienced a mighty revival known as ‘the Hippie Revival’. In 1971 it was very
much of an orthodox lone ranger of the denomination among the Whites at the
Cape. This would change drastically within a few years because of the Hippie
movement, young people who followed an alternative life-style of sex and drugs.
The congregation welcomed drugged hippies with sandals or bare feet that no
other church would have allowed to enter. Many of them were supernaturally
delivered from their addiction.
The
Jesus Movement was the major Christian element within the hippie
subculture. Members were called Jesus
People, or Jesus Freaks. It came to Cape Town from Johannesburg in
the early 1970s. Brian O’Donnell and Dave Valentine soon became the prime
movers here. Back-slidden to all intents and purposes, Brian took Dave, a
nominal Methodist young man, along to their church.
Impacts
on Society
The
bubbling young believers would go to Thibault Square with a loud hailer.
At the altar calls many would kneel there on the square committing their lives
to the Lord. The special move of the Holy Spirit would ultimately led to an
invitation to Nicky Cruz, the former Mau-Mau gang leader of New York, who was
challenged by David Wilkerson to share at a meeting at Green Point Stadium.
At this occasion Graham Power was divinely addressed and challenged for the
first time. (Decades later Graham Power would be God's channel to initiate the
prayer event of Newlands on 21 March, 2001.)
Dave
Valentine enjoyed not only the vibrant singing there, but he was also divinely
touched at that occasion by the singing and speaking in tongues at the
Pentecostal church. At least two of the hippies of the revival became leaders
in their own right.
Former
drug addict Marge Ballin started
ministering to drug addicts after her conversion. When she discovered how many
females became prostitutes because of this addiction, she soon started to
minister to them intensely. A link to Youth with a Mission brought her
to Amsterdam where she ministered among prostitutes for five years. After her
return to the Cape she resumed the ministry to prostitutes which highlighted
the need for a holistic ministry, becoming the divine instrument for the
establishment of a safe house for the rehabilitation of females from this
background.
Herschel
Raysman, another former hippie, became the leader of the Beit Ariel Messianic Jewish congregation in
Sea Point at the turn of the millennium.
Charismatic Renewal erupts at the Cape In
1964 the Cape-born David du
Plessis, nicknamed ‘Mr Pentecost’, introduced
the charismatic renewal to the Roman Catholic Church. Before he came to Cape Town, the high profile Archbishop Bill
Burnett had a spiritual conversion experience. This influenced his subsequent
thinking. The charismatic renewal thereafter also started to impact individuals
of other mainline churches. When
Archbishop Burnett came to the metropolis' Anglican Cathedral in 1974, the movement received a major push. More and
more clergymen experienced a similar spiritual renewal. Dean King, a clergyman
at St George’s Cathedral at the time,
describes the ensuing situation in the Anglican
Church as follows: 'Real
Christians now became Bible-carrying Christians and the exorcism of demonic
spirits and healing of the sick became experienced realities. The hills were
alive with the sound of music, guitars appeared in churches everywhere;
testimonies astounded us; lives were undoubtedly changed; faith became alive
for people…Young men developed vocations to the ministry in fairly large
numbers, and the criteria for this were often their acquaintance with the
Spirit and their certainty that they had found the way.'
A negative element of the movement was that many
believers, for example those who did not practise speaking in tongues, were
confused and left outside, questioning the depth and reality of their own
faith. The turmoil in his bishopric however did not affect the clear witness of
Archbishop Burnett with regard to the government. Apartheid
was now rightly seen as the worship of a false god.
The
charismatic renewal played a significant role in breaking down the racial
barrier. Thus it would ultimately become no exception for a few Whites to
regularly visit the Roman Catholic Church
in the ‘Coloured’ township of Bonteheuwel in the 1990s.
While apartheid continued to rule the country, the charismatic movement
had made important breakthroughs in opposition to it. Those denominations which
blocked the move of the Holy Spirit on doctrinal grounds suffered greatly as
scores of young people started leaving their ranks. Some of them joined the new
charismatic fellowships that started from the 1980s.
Surprising
Results of 'Group Areas' Legislation Already
in 1940 the report of E. Beaudouin, which was presented to the Cape Town City Council, envisaged ‘Slum
Clearance Projects’, viz. (a) District
Six (b) The Malay Quarter (c) The Docks Area. With regard to the latter area,
also called Roggebaai, the eviction of ‘Coloured’ inhabitants caused no
significant upheaval. As a result of this, the Baptist Church in Jarvis Street in due course became the home of
the Cape Town Photographic Society.
After
the passing of legislation by Parliament in 1950 to divide
residential areas along racial lines however, many ‘Coloured’ communities
living around Cape Town were destroyed. In 1961 large areas of the city were
declared ‘White’ residential zones. This resulted in many ‘Coloureds’ moving
into District Six, where overcrowding worsened. Many people who did not know
anything about Islam, now came to know Muslims, who somehow spread the
confusing message that ‘we have the same God’.
On
May 7, 1961 Muslims gathered in the City Hall of Cape Town to launch the Call
of Islam. This umbrella body of different Muslim organisations – founded by
Imam Abdullah Haron – had the aim of opposing the Group Areas Act. In 1965 the Minister of Community Development
and 'Coloured' Affairs, P.W. Botha – who was later to become Prime Minister
– called District Six a ‘blighted area’. Talk of slum clearance started doing
the rounds, setting the scene for events to follow. On 11 February 1966
District Six was declared a White residential area. In the insecurity that
followed, landlords allowed buildings to go unrepaired, causing the District to
become even more of a neglected residential area.
The
opposition to the District Six declaration reverberated until well into the
1980s, which was one of the reasons that caused the government to slow down on
the demolition of Bo-Kaap, which was deceptively called the ‘Malay Quarter’.
'Group Areas'
Legislation promotes Islamic Expansion
The Group Areas legislation probably contributed more
to the regional spread of Islam than any other factor. In the 1950s Cape
Muslims were still living in a predominantly concentrated area, in District Six
and Bo-Kaap. The relatively slow growth of Islam of the 1950s was easily
eclipsed by that of the three decades following 1970.
Group
Areas legislation contributed
significantly
to the regional spread of Islam
The combined effect of the Group Areas legislation and other repressive laws, passed by
the perceived Christian government, boiled down to a major boon to the spread
of the religion. Bo-Kaap became even more of an Islamic stronghold. Those
churches below Buitengracht Street that chose to stay put, namely St Paul’s (Anglican)
and St Stephen’s (DRC), merely survived.
Many of their members hereafter had to travel big distances to attend
services.
The apartheid
ideology favoured Islam in three more ways: a) Christians who were involved in
evangelism skipped Muslim homes, because the ‘Malays’ were considered to have
their own religion; b) The entire Bo-Kaap was declared a residential area for
‘Muslim Malays’ already in 1952. The enforcement however only took place in the
late 1960s and in the 1970s. By 1990 the area had become a Muslim stronghold
without its equal anywhere in the country. c) Christians were the first to move
out of District Six, also allowing their churches to be bulldozed. The Muslims
stuck to their guns, not permitting anybody to demolish their sacred buildings.
The seed of the fallacy was sown in this way that District Six had been Islamic
all along.
A Prayer Campaign
in Resistance to Removals
By the mid-1980s
District Six was a tract of wasteland because of the undermining of the implementation
of the Group Areas legislation by a group that called themselves the Friends
of District Six, an offspring of the District Six Ministers’ Fraternal.
Resistance with regard to the removal of ‘Coloureds’ from District Six was
started by a prayer campaign. The vehicle to carry the campaign was the District
Six Ministers’ Fraternal, an energetic group of clergymen from a few local
churches. Father Basil van Rensburg, who was based at the Holy Cross Roman
Catholic Church and who came to District Six with advertising skills in
September 1978, launched a fund-raising initiative, along with the new prayer
campaign: ‘our aim is to start in a small way with Holy Cross as a nucleus and
gradually to build a forceful campaign of prayer and action until official
thinking on District Six changes’.
The parish priest
of St Philip’s Anglican Church expressed some of this commitment as he
invited other congregations to join in prayer: ‘May we all by the Power of His Holy Spirit seek nothing else but a
miracle from the Lord.’ Lay people were well-represented in
the Friends of District Six movement. The campaign was not only
successful in getting Whites to refrain from buying property in the ‘stained’
residential area, but it also helped to prevent Bo-Kaap suffering the same fate
of being declared an area ‘for Whites only’.
Conversions
amongst Cape Gangsters
An evangelistic
outreach gradually picked up via Bo-Kaap and District Six, two residential
areas predominantly inhabited by people of colour in the first half of the
twentieth century. Open-air services were prominent in this drive - with the Salvation Army, the Docks Mission, the Cape Town
City Mission and the Baptists of Wale Street and Sheppard Street (District
Six) in the forefront.
Cape Town had its own version of
gangsters who were changed by the power of the Gospel. Because James Valentine
had been a gangster, his conversion in 1957 created quite a stir, and
consequently a lot of interest. Soon he was a celebrated preacher on the Grand
Parade. Subsequently he became a dynamic leader of the Assemblies of God Church. He became known even internationally.
Andy Lamb is another pastor with a similar background who preached - in his own
words - ‘on almost every street corner of
District Six’ and on many a train.
As the minister of the Sowers of the Word Church of Lansdowne,
Pastor Andy Lamb was very much involved in the prayer drives and meetings of
intercessors, which met at his church once a month in 1996, and in the planting
of churches. One of the most well known from this category is Pastor Eddie
Edson, a previous pastor of the Shekinah
Tabernacle Full Gospel congregation. He had been involved in the
Woodstock gangster activities and became converted under Pastor Lamb’s
ministry. Pastor Eddie Edson became a
very consistent leader of the prayer
movement at the Cape in the 1990s.
Influences on non-Christian Religions
A big
impact on non-Christian religions was made through ministry in the Cape
commuter trains. For example, many a
Muslim was challenged, even though the daring preaching done there was not
always sensitive. Train preachers indirectly affected the city in a significant
way. Many a convert from Islam
attributes these challenges as an important catalyst in their decision to
follow Jesus. The Salvation Army, along with Pentecostal evangelists
like James Valentine and George McGregor, held open-air services on the Grand Parade, attended by good crowds.
Because of Valentine’s reputation, many people stopped to hear him and also
Muslims attended these occasions, listening to the lunchtime sermons on the Parade.
Even in the traditional ‘Malay Quarter’ (Bo-Kaap) evangelistic outreach was
taking place. There was a Wayside Sunday
School in Helliger Street run by the Baptists, and
one in Chiappini Street. Pastor Gay, a tireless Scottish missionary, laboured
in Bo-Kaap and District Six, not without success until his death in the early
1990s. In the similar atmosphere of
aggressive evangelism Pastor Richard Clarence was a big mover on the Cape
Flats, pioneering the Sharon Assemblies of God denomination. In
subsequent years churches were planted in Hanover Park, Mitchell’s Plain,
Vrygrond and Delft.
Open-air services were held
in Bo-Kaap under a lamp post
Open-air
services were also held in Bo-Kaap, sometimes under a lamp post in Chiapinni
Street. (Much of this information was gathered from old Bo-Kaap residents like
Ms Maria Masaking-Bedien, a retired midwife who had lived there all her life,
as well as Mrs Frances Peters, an aged member of St Paul’s Church in
Bree Street, which was regarded in pre-apartheid days as a part of Bo-Kaap).
3. A Cape Power Encounter with great
Ramifications
When Ds. Davie Pypers commenced work in 1956 as a
minister of the St Stephen’s congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in Bree Street, he discerned the need for
increased prayer for the Muslims of the area. Soon he initiated praying for
Bo-Kaap and the Muslims living there. Together with two other pastoral
colleagues, he interceded every Monday for the area that became even more
pronouncedly Islamic in the wake of the envisaged implementation of Group Areas
legislation.
Ds. Pypers
appears to have been one of the very few ministers at the Cape of his era who
had any notion of spiritual warfare. It was by far not common practice
yet. And satan was definitely not going
to release his gains so easily.
A
significant Power Encounter
Davie Pypers was called to become the missionary to
the Cape Muslims on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church, linked to the
historical Gestig (Sendingkerk)
congregation in Long Street. It is the church where once people from different
denominations worshipped, the cradle of missionary outreach in South Africa.[13]
Ds. Pypers had hardly started with his new work when a challenge came from a
young imam, Mr Ahmed Deedat, to publicly debate the death of Jesus on the
Cross. As a young dominee David Pypers prepared himself through prayer and fasting in
a tent on the mountains at Bain’s Kloof for the event which was to take place
on 13 August 1961 at the Green Point Track.
Because of publicity in the media, 30 000 people of
all races jammed into the Green Point sports venue. The stadium quivered with
excitement like at a rugby match. In the keenly contested debate, Imam Deedat
started with the assertion that Jesus went to Egypt after the disciples had
taken him from the Cross. He thoroughly ridiculed the Christian faith,
challenging Pypers to give proof that Jesus died on the Cross. The young dominee rose to the challenge by
immediately stating that Jesus is alive and that his Lord could there and then
do the very things He had done when He walked the earth.
Dr David du Plessis, who was nick-named ‘Mr
Pentecost’, reported on the event: ‘Taking a deep breath, he (Pypers) spoke loud
and clear, ‘Is there anybody in this audience that, according to medical
judgement, is completely incurable? Remember, it must be incurable...’ Of course, the stadium was abuzz by now. And then
several men came along, carrying Mrs Withuhn, a White Christian lady, with
braces all over her body. She was completely paralyzed. Then Pypers went ahead,
asking whether there were any doctors present who could examine her and vouch
for her condition. ‘Several doctors came forward, including her own physician, and they
concurred in pronouncing her affliction incurable.’
Pypers simply walked to her and without any ado prayed
for her briefly and proclaimed: ‘In the name of Jesus, be healed!’ Immediately she dropped her crutches and began to
move.
The Green
Point Aftermath
The Green Point Track event resulted in a
victory for the Cross, with Mrs Withuhn being miraculously healed in the name
of the resurrected Jesus Christ.
Many Muslims were deeply moved, but an unfortunate
thing also happened. The booklet The
Hadji Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself (in
an Afrikaans translation) was
re-issued. Its distribution at the
gates of the Green Point Track was definitely not helpful. Actually it
was quite unfortunate and insensitive. The booklet refers negatively to the
Qur’an and Muhammad, the founder of Islam.[14]
The Cape Muslim community was enraged by the re-publication of this 19th
century pamphlet.
What was perceived as the defeat of Ahmed Deedat, and
thus of the Muslims at Green Point, inspired a call for revenge. Deedat stated
publicly that the original motivation for public debates was his humiliation at
the hand of Christians. He was not willing at all to accept defeat lying down.
The effect of the Green
Point Track miracle was almost nullified by news that came from another
part of the world on that same day. The report of the building of the Berlin
Wall resounded throughout the world!
The ‘Cold War’ erupts
A new type of battle was cemented - the ‘cold war’
between Soviet Communism and Western Capitalism!
However, it was nearly just as bad that Ds. Pypers was
heavily criticized by his denomination for undertaking the confrontation
without getting prior synod approval. Furthermore, the leaders of his
denomination were still clinging to an untenable interpretation of divine
healing – that it belonged to a past age - to the times of the apostles.
Islam
linked to Communism?
As the ensuing cold
war increasingly became the focus internationally, the enemy of souls abused
Communism with its atheist basis, attempting to stifle the spreading of the
victorious message of the Cross, as it had been proclaimed at the Green
Point Track.
Was there a subtle link
to Communism
in opposition to the Cross?
I surmise that the
event of 13 August 1961 had great importance in the spiritual realm. One
wonders whether the Islamic Crescent was not probably subtly linked to
Communism in opposition to the Cross at that occasion. (This was to happen
again in reverse in 1990 after the demise of Communism. Islam took over the
mantle from the atheist ideology as a threat to world peace when the Iraqi army
marched into Kuwait. That event became the catalyst for many Christians to
start praying for an end to the bondage and deception at the base of the
ideology of Islam as a destructive spiritual force.)
In his denomination, Ds. Pypers was still a lone
ranger. In some quarters he was vilified
after the Green Point event, although he had actually been challenged by the
literature on faith healing, which had been written by Dr Andrew Murray, a
revered hero of his church. Pypers was
out on a limb in the Dutch Reformed Church. At the Kweekskool in Stellenbosch, the theological seminary of the
denomination, it was officially taught that faith healing was a doctrinal tenet which pertained to
biblical days.
Life Challenge begins
In the mid-1970s the missionary effort to the Muslims at the
Cape was revived through the pioneering work of Gerhard and Hannelore Nehls.
The German couple laboured hard for many years without seeing much in terms of
fruit or local recognition. Nehls started with regular outreach to Muslims in
the suburb of Salt River in 1980, later calling his work Life Challenge.
Churches remained rather
indifferent
to Muslim Outreach
Support from the Cape churches was almost non-existent at the
time. In fact, the churches remained rather indifferent to Muslim outreach in
general. Even denominations that were very much involved in evangelism, like
the Docks Mission and the City Mission, had little vision for the
Muslims on their doorstep. Suburbs like Woodstock and Salt River had become
increasingly Islamic, due in part to this indifference. Prostitution, drug
abuse and the sale of houses to Muslims who had been tenants, were however the
major factors, which pushed many Christians out of these residential areas
during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Life Challenge and the initiative from the Dutch Reformed Church, started by Ds. Davie Pypers, seemed to
network quite well, especially while Ds. Chris Greyling was still the Sendingkerk man as successor of Ds.
Pypers. Neville Truter became a follower of Jesus and later a co-worker from Dutch Reformed Church ranks after he was
touched by a tract that was given to him by Gerhard Nehls when he sold his car
to the German missionary in 1976.
A major contribution by Gerhard Nehls was that he linked up
with Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson,
who respectively came from Madagascar and the island Reunion as Bible School
students. John Gilchrist (Jesus
to the Muslims) and Fred Nel (Eternal Outreach) joined
forces with Nehls, Alain and Nicole in 1982 under the umbrella of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims). They
later held annual conferences for all co-workers, in addition to a leadership
consultation once a year.
A Xhosa-speaking female started Muslim outreach in
Bo-Kaap
as preparation for missionary work
Significantly, one of the founder members was Gloria Cube, a
Xhosa-speaking female, started with Muslim outreach in Bo-Kaap as preparation
for missionary work with Africa
Evangelical Fellowship.[15]
More Missionaries get on Board
Gerhard Nehls became God’s instrument for the recruitment of
a string of German and Swiss missionaries. These Christian workers made little
impact on Cape Islam, but they kept the consciences alive of those churches that did not jump on
the inter-faith bandwagon with regard to their missionary duty to the Cape
Muslims. Alain and Nicole
Ravelo-Hoërson joined Youth for Christ in 1984, later becoming
independent missionaries on behalf of TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission).
The Board of Youth For
Christ agreed that a Muslim Outreach Department should be started.
Alain Ravelo-Hoërson headed it. It had the support of the youth leaders of
Athlone churches, and many dynamic Christian leaders like Peter Tarantal,
Freddy Kammies, Selwyn Page and Wesley van Graan deepened their missionary
vision in that ministry. Alain’s office in Kewtown played a big part in
rallying together the churches in the area. That ministry got the commendation
of the local Police station as it caused a significant drop of the crime rate
in the area.
From 1992 prayers
were held in the Shepherd’s Watch at 98 Shortmarket Street for the
reversal of the apartheid effect on Bo-Kaap every Friday between one and two
o’clock in the afternoon, as well as for
the Cape Muslims in the Straatwerk
Koffiekamer from the mid-1990s.
4. African Roots of the Global Prayer Movement
At
the end of the booklet The Key to the
missionary Problem, Andrew Murray advocated the observing of Weeks of
Prayer for the World. Patrick Johnstone comments: ‘So
far as I know this was not taken up earnestly until 1962 when Hans von Staden,
the Founder and Director of the Dorothea Mission inspired the launching of a
whole series of Weeks of Prayer for the World in both Southern Africa and
Europe.’ It was the Weeks of
Prayer that made the provision of prayer information so important. They led
to Von Staden’s challenge to Patrick Johnstone, to write a booklet of
information to help in these Weeks of Prayer. Hans von Staden also
proposed the name “Operation World”
in 1964. The very first booklet, with basic information which covered 30
countries, was printed by the Dutch missionary Cees Lugthardt at the presses of
the Dorothea Mission in Pretoria.
In Johnstone’s own words:
‘So the book was South African-born, but then went global.’
Operation
World has been published in whole or in
part, in many languages. Johnstone met his first wife Jill,[16]
in Pretoria, while both were in training to become missionaries with the Dorothea Mission in Southern Africa.
Sadly however, the initial promise of Dr Andrew Murray’s vision never came to
fulfillment. Satan hit back through his favourite weapon: divide and rule.
Racial pride and discrimination - legalized after 1948 in South Africa - wrecked
the promising beginnings of spiritual renewal.
Prayer in the Process of Change
Prayer was very much part of the
process of change in the country. This
is demonstrated by times of prayer and fasting in St George’s Cathedral. Father Bernard Wrankmore
had been a chaplain to seamen when he was especially challenged to pray for the
beloved country. Just at that time
Wrankmore saw the dossier of Imam Abdullah
Haron, who had died while in police custody on 27 September 1969. The Imam Haron case highlighted for Wrankmore
the fact that South Africa was now misled by a similar delusion as the Germans
under Hitler. He decided to retreat for prayer and fasting to St George’s
Cathedral for the situation in the country. However, Wrankmore was refused
permission to do so by the Archbishop and the Dean of the Cathedral.
Wrankmore came into the frontline of
opposition to Prime Minister Vorster, when he requested an inquiry into the
death of Imam Haron. He added weight to
his protest through a drawn-out fast at the Islamic
shrine near to Lion’s Head.
The authorities of St
George’s Cathedral had evidently repented after the negative response to
Rev. Bernard Wrankmore in 1971. Rev. David Russell and Dr Ivan Toms, a young
doctor who served at the
South African Christian Leadership
Assembly (SACLA)-initiated clinic in Crossroads, were two persons who were
tolerated to pray there, with some publicity given to their endeavour.
Towards the end of 1974
and for several months thereafter, a large number of Black student leaders were
arrested and detained without trial by the security police. Some were held in
solitary confinement
for long periods. During
that time a prayer vigil was held at St George’s Cathedral, where
various people committed themselves to prayer within 24-hour sessions by name
for some student. The reflection of Professor Francis Wilson for 13 February
1975 has been printed, including notes on Nyameko Barney Pityana, who went on
to become a top academic and the registrar of UNISA: ‘For such a man as he to be incarcerated
is a judgement not upon Barney but upon the society which has acted so
violently against him’. All students were finally released without being
charged of any crime.
Dr Francis Grim, a
committed Christian and prayer warrior, was the worldwide leader of the Hospital
Christian Fellowship for many years from the Cape suburb of Pinelands. Dr
Francis Grim initiated a National Day of Prayer, called for 7 January
1976. However, this was not perceived by people of colour as something to join.
In fact, few people from these ranks knew about the day of prayer. The
all-White organizers had still not recognized the need to draw in people from
other racial backgrounds. Yet, this move may have stemmed the tide of
Communist-inspired violent revolution, to which the Soweto June 16 upheavals in
1976 could easily have led. Grim gave a challenging title to a
booklet that was published by his organisation: Pray or Perish. At any
rate, God was already at work. On that very June 16, 1976 Johan Botha, a young
policeman, was posted in Soweto. Supernaturally God would use him 18 years
later to bring many in the nation to pray.[17]
A Cape
Example has worldwide Impact
Dr Andrew Murray brought the Keswick Convention to Wellington towards the end of the 19th
century. Arthur Rowland was a committed believer who had a close friendship
with Murray when he started teaching as a young man at the Boys’ High School in Wellington in 1912. He had a deep interest and
involvement in prayer, evangelism and missions and started a Cape Town Keswick Convention. His son
Noel displayed similar sentiments. Father and son retained their interest in
prayer and missions - based at the Cape Town Baptist Church - until ripe
old age, the father dying in 1973 at the age of 102. Noel Rowland died just
short of the century mark at the turn of the millennium. Rev. Roger Voke kept
the fire of the Keswick movement alive at the Cape for many years.
World
Literature Crusade launched their Change the World School of Prayer.[18]
The South African prayer manual was published in Cape Town in 1981. It seems as
if this manual was not very widely distributed. World Literature Crusade’s publication
might nevertheless have been the advance guard for the seven years of
prayer for the Soviet Union, defeating atheist Communism at the end of the
1980s. The group in California (USA) documented some of their experiences,
praying systematically over 40,000 continuous hours. The Change the World School of Prayer suggested that believers pray
strategically, and that they pray for 100 unevangelized Chinese and Arab-Muslim
nations. Rev. George Buckley, Vice President of World Literature Crusade, a
New Zealander, ministered powerfully at the Cape. The first school held in Cape
Town was attended by 1,130 people over two week-ends. The vision of the school
of prayer was ‘to
see a million Christians in South Africa pray for revival and world evangelism
by the end of 1986.’ At one of these events in
Windhoek, Ds. Bennie Mostert was moved. He would become a major mover of the
prayer waves that started from the Cape in 1981, which sent powerful ripples
throughout the continent in the following decades.
International Moves
In 1983 Open Doors
called Christians worldwide to pray for a period of seven years for the
collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism. At conferences in Germany and
Holland, missionaries started praying more intensely for the truth to be
revealed to Muslims from 1987.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 ushered in the
collapse of the Soviet Empire. This was the equivalent of a spiritual
earthquake, also for the Muslim world. Yet, Christians were generally not interested in Muslims at this time, let alone
concerned enough to pray for them. Until the 1990s only very few missionaries
volunteered for work in Muslim countries.
All this changed after Iraq’s troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.
The run-up to the Gulf War sparked off the call by Open Doors for ten years of
prayer for the Muslim World.
It
is appropriate that the revived prayer movement started at the Cape where
Andrew Murray had written his School des
Gebeds in 1885. The Change the World
School of Prayer appears to have inspired the initiators of a booklet,
published by Hospital Christian
Fellowship (HCF, later called Healthcare
Christian Fellowship).
A
little booklet motivated Christians towards
a
month of prayer for selected Muslim countries,
The Dutch section of the Hospital Christian Fellowship in Voorthuizen, which had South
Africa’s Dr Francis Grim as its worldwide leader, was probably a special divine
instrument, motivating Christians towards a month of prayer for selected Muslim
countries, with the publication of a little booklet in the early 1990s. They
referred to specific needs in the 31-day prayer guide.[19]
In turn, this appears to have been the model for the 30-day Muslim Prayer Focus that went around the globe during
Ramadan in the years after 1993. (Since 2002 the Jewish Prayer Focus
became an annual feature.)
1992 was the year during which mission leaders decided
to call Christians worldwide to pray for Muslims during Ramadan. Floyd McClung
and other YWAM leaders had retreated to a secluded place in Egypt in 1991.
There the Lord gave them the vision for prayer mobilization during Ramadan,
printed as booklets that caused an unprecedented change in the Muslim world.
This
was a natural follow-up to the call by Open
Doors for ten years of prayer for the Muslim world in 1990. Everybody still
vividly remembered the spectacular result of the seven years of prayer for the
Soviet Union. The little 30-day Muslim
Prayer Focus was printed and distributed around the Globe with information
on different issues relating to Islam. This was repeated for many years until
the internet option made its actual printing almost redundant.[20]
5. Compassionate Cape Outreaches of the modern Era
The different ministries of compassion in the Cape in recent
decades included people from a wide spectrum of religious persuasions going
through their ranks at one stage or another. Just like the 20th
century advance guard of compassion at the Cape, the Cape
Town City Mission, other agencies and organizations like Alcoholics Victorious and The Ark in Westlake (now in Faure) all
had workers from a wide variety of churches amongst them. Some agencies like Youth with a Mission (YWAM), Straatwerk
and Hudson McComb with Beth Uriel in Salt river have been reaching
out in love to street children for decades. Many kids have been empowered at
the Beautiful Gate in Muizenberg, spear-headed by a Dutch YWAM
missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer. A problem which the bulk of these
institutions experienced, was that
local churches never really bought into their vision. It remained the ‘baby’ of
individuals. Another valid critical note is that the evangelistic work amongst
the ‘down and outs’ has been very uncoordinated and fragmented, making it
difficult for churches without any compassionate outlet, to respond regularly.
An element of competition and unhealthy rivalry sometimes wrecked good
intentions.
Compassionate Outreach
in Nightclubs
A special
outreach with compassion into the city nightclubs from the early 1970s was
based at St Stephen's Church until 2008. The old Tafelberg Hotel of District Six was for some years utilized as a
home for new converts. This ministry started amongst the youth of the White Dutch Reformed Church congregation of
Wynberg and was birthed in prayer when the question arose whether the original
spontaneous outreach should become a permanent feature. Ds. Pietie Victor,[21] who began his theological training in
Stellenbosch in 1964, founded the endeavour with his wife Annette, a social
worker. Only four young people of the fairly big youth group were
initially prepared to join Pietie and Annette Victor for outreach on the
streets and in the nightclubs on Friday and Saturday nights, but many of them
came for Bible Study and prayer before the group left for the outreach that
would take them into the early hours of the morning. This eventually grew into
an outreach of many part-time workers on Friday and Saturday nights. Many of
these workers were students who traveled from various quarters to join the
regular outreaches. Yearly training camps for part time workers drew great
numbers (up to 200 attending, and a good percentage of them joining the regular
outreaches).
One of the criticisms thrown at Pietie Victor, who finished his
theological studies at the end of 1971, was that he was a liberal. The reason
for this was that they were serving people from all races in their mobile
'coffee bar' - a Microbus, which they parked in front of St Stephen’s Dutch Reformed
Church in Bree Street under a street lamp. There they served those whom
they had brought from the streets with sandwiches and coffee. St Stephen’s
invited them into their premises, offering two of their cellar rooms for the
use of the coffee bar. What an irony of history followed. The ‘Coloured’
congregation that was still linked to the Groote
Kerk, now hosted White young people. Even a greater irony followed when the
premises that had been the source of racial conflict in 1842, now functioned as
a Straatwerk coffee bar in a ministry
of compassion and love. (It had been a section of the school where a little
more than a century before this, manumitted slaves learned to read and write.
That had been the main bone of contention - the reason for the church receiving
its name, after being pelted with stones by angry White colonists.) For many
decades, the Straatwerk Koffiekamer at
108 Bree Street remained a blessing to many destitute people.[22]
Loaves and Fishes
A special exception was a project to serve the homeless, which developed
in the Observatory/Salt River surrounds. The ministers’ fraternal of this area
started a holistic shelter that they called Loaves and Fishes, which
obviously took its cue from the biblical narrative where Jesus multiplied the
contribution of a little boy among the multitude. Opposition came promptly from
Muslims in the residential area that is not called klein Mekka ((small
Mecca) for nothing. (Possibly it still is second as a Muslim stronghold only to
Bo-Kaap, with a strong Islamic presence and a weak Christian witness.) In stead
of retreating - as it happened in a few other cases of the mid-1990s because of
the PAGAD threat - Christians reacted with a two-pronged reply. A few believers
went to go and pray at the appointed venue and Ds. Ben Kotze approached the Muslim
Judicial Council on behalf of the Ministers’ Fraternal to explain what they
were about to do in respect of ministry to the destitute.
Black
Families fight to be together[23]
Strictly speaking, one would not expect to find the
work of the rather secular Black Sash in a book of this nature, but
their contribution in the scrapping of influx control - where Black married
couples could be prohibited from living together as husband and wife - should
be duly honoured. Mr Veli Komani, a resident of Gugulethu township, qualified
for living in the Cape because he had lived in the city for more than 15 years
and he could prove that he worked for the same employer for ten years. He
proceeded to challenge the vicious influx control laws when he took action on
behalf of his wife, Noceba Komani, so that she could come and live with him in
Gugulethu. When she came to the Cape in 1974 she was given permission to live
with Veli Komani temporarily. She had to get a lodger's permit but first had to
get employment. In a typical catch 22 situation she however had to be in
possession of a residence permit to get the lodger's permit. When she failed to procure this, she was required to leave. Mr Komani
proceeded to the Cape Supreme Court. It took him a further three years to get a
judgement, which upheld the decision of the authorities. Upon intervention by
the Athlone Office of the Black Sash, a young Mr Geoff Budlender, an
attorney linked to the Legal Resource Centre, was to make his mark. A
brilliant performance by Advocate Arthur Chaskalson turned the tables on the
government at the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein. 'It was a dramatic victory, a triumph for the lawyering
of Chaskalson, Kentridge and Budlender and the tenacity of Komani'.
For quite a few years hereafter government bureaucrats sought to subvert
the effect. But seed was sown. A blow
was struck against the pass laws, ultimately to be repealed in the mid-1980s.
Social Challenges to Apartheid
The bungling and red-tape of government officials made the run-up to our
honeymoon in South Africa in 1975 rather traumatic and ultimately risky.
Further visits to the country in 1978 and 1981 became harbingers of quiet acts
of defiance and opposition to two sorts of laws, viz. those around racially mixed
relationships and those around so-called Influx Control. The latter type
of laws restricted Blacks severely if they wanted to come to the cities,
disrupting Black family life in a big way. Thus women from the ‘homelands’ were
not allowed to join their husbands. The care for ‘illegal’ Black women by
Celeste Santos, a White nun gave dignity
to the shack dwellers of the informal settlements of Modderdam, KTC and
Crossroads. (Celeste ‘illegally’ married Rommel Roberts, a ‘Coloured’ candidate
for the Roman Catholic priesthood. The couple had only been married in church
and not legally in terms of South African Law, which prohibited marriage across
the racial divide. Thus she could not adopt his surname.)
The visit of Rommel and Celeste to Holland in 1980, the pregnancy of
Celeste and the loss of their first baby combined to get my wife Rosemarie
deeply involved in the plight of the ‘illegals of Nyanga and Crossroads’ during
our six-month stay in South Africa. (That stint followed the death of my sister
in December 1980, who had contracted leukaemia.)
SACLA Clinic in Crossroads
In 1980 a young physician, Dr Ivan Toms, launched the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) Clinic in Crossroads as a sequel to the big
inter-denominational event in Pretoria in 1979. This was the first of its kind,
after various denominations had started their own ministries of compassion in
the Crossroads informal settlement.
Some Stellenbosch Missiology students under Professor Nico Smith were
worried that their denomination, the Dutch
Reformed Church (DRC), seemed to be unperturbed by what was happening in
Crossroads. Prof. Smith became very controversial when he heeded their request
to take a group of DRC (White) theological students to the informal settlement
in 1981. After being called to book in an aftermath of the event, Professor
Smith agreed to refrain from making a statement to the secular press. He did
subsequently, however, publish his statement in what became a front-page report
of the Kerkbode. In his statement,
Professor Smith criticized the government for its handling of the Nyanga
‘squatters’. Even more unconventionally, he lashed the Church for its
non-involvement in the situation. He and his students challenged the Dutch
Reformed Church to highlight the ‘painful policy’ of resettlement and
migratory labour. The influence of
Professor Smith reverberated later across the country via his students,
even to far away places like Ermelo in the former Eastern Transvaal.
Homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads
scored one moral victory after the other
We returned to Germany and Holland in June 1981, unaware of the effect,
which our involvement in Crossroads and Nyanga would continue to have. Only
many years later did I read of how the homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads
had scored one moral victory after the other, encouraging many Blacks to resist
the oppressive race policies. The compassion and concern of individual
Christians like Celeste Santos and her friend Nomangezi, whose shack was
subsequently burnt down by hate-filled Blacks who could not palate her
friendship to a White, were major catalysts to this end.
Church
Defiance of Apartheid The
plight and determination of the women of KTC, Nyanga and Crossroads probably
played a role in another sense. Churches now started to take a clearer stand in
opposition to apartheid laws. Rev. Rob Robertson and our friend Rev. Douglas
Bax played a crucial role in the political stand of the Presbyterian Church
of Southern Africa as a denomination (PCSA).[24] In the end newspaper posters lined the
Johannesburg streets with massive black letters: CHURCH TO DEFY MARRIAGE LAW. A
few Presbyterian ministers married a number of racially mixed couples. The
marriages were registered and kept in the central office of the PCSA. When
other Churches also supported the Assembly’s decision on the Prohibition of
Mixed Marriages Act, this sparked a political debate that eventually led
in 1985 to the abolition of this keystone of apartheid legislation and with it
the notorious section 16 of the Immorality Act which prohibited sexual
intercourse between Whites and any other race.
Church Involvement increased
We are very thankful that we could contribute in a small way towards the
repeal of these laws, as well as the one against influx control that prohibited
Black women to be with their husbands in the cities of South Africa. It gave me
great satisfaction to hear that Church involvement increased also in other
parts of the country. Thus Patrick Nooman, a Catholic priest, reported how ‘informal and illegal political meetings were taking place in homes and
churches across the Vaal triangle.’ This became the run-up to the
smouldering human rage that exploded in a cluster of townships south of
Johannesburg on Monday, 3 September 1984. At least seventy men, women and
children died during the violence that spread across those five townships. That
ultimately led to the trial of the Sharpeville Six, young men between 24 and 32
years old, which was due to get known around the world.
Church opposition to Apartheid, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr
Allan Boesak, would ultimately lead to a big conference in Rustenburg in
November 1990, which became a major
catalyst of change in the country at large.
Rev. Michael Cassidy was an important role player in the convening of this
event.
A wide Spectrum of Ministries
In Salt River Hudson McComb was moved by compassion for
street youths, starting Beth Uriel, a
facility at which believers would care for unfortunate homeless young people.
In the City Bowl a church-related ministry for street children called Homestead was started as one of the
first of its kind, soon followed by Ons
Plek, a similar refuge for girls by the Methodist Church. (We linked
up with the former ministry during our first few months at the Cape. The
ministry to street children was however not confirmed. Instead, there had been
many indications that we should move into Muslim Evangelism.)
The Haven was another
church-initiated ministry to the homeless. In this case it was later taken over
by the City Council, with daughter institutions at new venues.
Prostitution became a big problem amongst the Cape
population, notably in Woodstock and Hanover Park. It also started to affected
previously protected communities like Bo-Kaap. Christians had been challenging
some of these prostitutes. One such group was led by Marge Ballin, who was
linked to YWAM. In due course she started an independent ministry with a safe
house called Balm of Gilead Ministries. In this compassionate outreach
to prostitutes she networked closely with Madri Bruwer of Straatwerk, who led a similar ministry.
Hannes van der Merwe, a former school
teacher, has been connected to the ministry of Straatwerk for
decades. His OPHELP Projekte became the pivot of Straatwerk’s
efforts to minister compassionately to street people. OPHELP Projekte
was specially devised to give some dignity to the homeless, by supplying them
some income on a basis of job shifts. Many workers, including refugees from
various African countries, would proclaim the message Jesus Saves[25] in the streets of Cape Town from the early
years of the new millennium.
A Ministry for Homosexuals and sexual Abuse Victims
A much needed and blessed ministry for a tendency
towards homosexuality and people who had suffered under sexual abuse was based
at Cape Town Baptist Church. The border between being discreet and
veiling everything in secrecy was understandably not easy to maintain. All too
often whole families were duped in the process. Just like it had been the case
with Freemasonry and the Afrikaner Broederbond[26]
in the past, this provided the arch enemy with fertile 'soil'. In 2001 all
Church activity was thrown in disarray at Cape Town Baptist Church, the
congregation that had been a bastion of evangelism in the Mother City over many
decades. The fellowship from which so many seeds for revival were sown, still
has to recover fully from the setback of that period.
A Bergie
becomes a Pastor
Pastor Willie Martheze, a
qualified welder from Mitchells Plain, was still a so-called bergie, a vagrant, when he was initially
ministered to.
Jesus found me first!
Humorously he would
recollect how he had been such a good-for-nothing alcoholic that his own mother
sent the police and the gangsters after him. ‘But Jesus found me first’, he proclaimed. Willie
Martheze was radically delivered by the Gospel after attending an evangelistic
service on the Grand Parade in
February 1974, where the Scottish missionary Pastor Gay preached. Soon hereafter, the latter got a job for
Martheze at the Arthur’s Seat Hotel in Sea Point. The prayerful ministry
of Pastor Gay in District Six caused him to attend an evening course at the Bethel Bible School in Crawford.
Obedient to God’s voice after seeing a very destitute vagrant, Martheze followed a
call to work with homeless people, with the intention of ministering healing to
them. One of the aims was to empower the
homeless, to enable them to return to the homes they had left. In the spiritual
realm it was significant that Pastor Martheze was allowed to use facilities at
the Azaad Youth Centre, one of the
few buildings that remained intact from the old District Six. (This complex was
the former Preparatory School in Upper Ashley Street.) He and his wife were
blessed to see quite a few of the homeless changed dramatically for the better,
and some of them returned to their families.
Outreach to Cape Jews
The Dutch
Reformed Church pioneered the ministry to Cape Jews in the 20th
century, remaining apparently to this day the only denomination that formally
had missionaries consistently set aside to minister to the Jews. The Mildmay Mission appointed E. Reitmann
for work among the Jews. As many as 200 Jews attended the Mission Hall in Sea
Point. In 1929 Peter Salzberg, a converted Jew from Poland, came to the Cape
via the Mildmay Mission to the Jews in London, joining
up with the Hebrew Christian Alliance, the worldwide movement of
Messianic Jews. He was not here at the Cape very long when he passed away. His
son Peter, who had just started as a missionary doctor in Angola, came in his
place, working here until his retirement in 1972(3). Salzberg (junior) led many
a Jew to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. (The Mission returned to the Cape in
2003 under their new name The Messianic
Testimony.)
The world
was stunned in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed. Suddenly it was realized
that what was regarded as one of the most unlikely biblical prophesies, was
actually being fulfilled. Jews started planning to return to Israel as never
before. Cape Town also played a role in a new turning to the ‘Old Testament’
when the first heart transplant world-wide was performed on 3 December 1967 on
Louis Washkansky, a Jew. The prophecy of Jeremiah that the Almighty wants to
substitute the repentant hearts of stone with a heart of flesh, received a new
actuality in evangelism. The world-wide acknowledgement by Jews - to regard
Jesus as their Messiah - suddenly became more of a possibility. The Six-Days
War of the same year had brought massive land gains to the Jews, a fact which
had already fanned eschatological flames. This was followed with Jerusalem
becoming the capital of Israel in 1980.
The
Dutch Reformed Church appointed various ministers in their Mission
to the Jews until 1983 when Dr Francois Wessels became their man. He is
still linked to this ministry. Cecilia Burger was appointed in 1975 to reach
out to Jewish women and to help create awareness within the denomination
regarding their responsibility of bringing the Gospel to the Jews.
Peter
Eliastam, a very creative Messianic Jewish believer, reached out to Jews
through an exhibition called Homage to the Messiah. Rodney Mechanic, a
Jew, came to faith in Jesus as Messiah under his ministry and influence. Later Rodney Mechanic became a minister in the Anglican Church. After
coming to the Cape, Rodney started an outreach ministry to Jewish people called
Messiah’s People under the
auspices of Church’s Ministry among Jewish People (CMJ). Doogie St. Clair-Laing took over from Rodney
Mechanic when Rodney left for the UK and Edith Sher later joined this ministry.
Over the
years a number of Jewish people came to recognize Jesus as their Messiah.
Services with believers were held in homes until they began regular services.
After a few changes of location, the fellowship moved to the Three Anchor
Bay Dutch Reformed Church where they had Friday evening services for a
number of years. From the word go people from Gentile background attended the
services with the Messianic Jewish component in the minority. From the 1980s
annual conferences with prominent speakers were held. Christians came from far afield to attend
these occasions. For many of them it was very special to discover the Jewish
roots of their faith.
In
2008 Messiah's People hosted their first mini-conference at Christ
Church in Kenilworth called Roots and Shoots. The former associate minister
of Christ Church, Rev. John Atkinson, is the director of Messiah’s
People (South Africa) and the International Director of CMJ, the organisation’s parent body.
For ten years Doogie St. Clair-Laing broadcast a fortnightly half hour
programme on CCFM Radio called Messiah’s People. John Atkinson and Edith Sher took over from
Doogie five years ago upon his retirement.
It became an hour long weekly show and Edith now hosts the programme on
her own. Herschel Raysman, who came from a Jewish
background, came to believe in Jesus as his Messiah when he linked up with the Jesus
People in the 1970s. In later years he was to lead the Beit Ariel
Messianic congregation in Sea Point. From
2007 Cecilia Burger, as area coordinator for the international Lausanne
Consultation on Jewish Evangelism
(LCJE), became a link
between the various Christian agencies reaching out to Jewish people.
Impact of
Prison Ministry
An evangelistic effort that has mushroomed over the
past decades has been the prison ministry. A few role-players deserve special
mention. Among the early pioneers of brave compassionate evangelistic outreach
to the political prisoners at Robben Island and prisoners at the Roeland
Street Prison, Pastor Walter Ackermann of the Docks Mission and Rev.
Theo Kotze, the Methodist minister of Sea Point in the 1960s and 1970s, were
quite prominent. Pastor Ron Hendricks, a Baptist clergyman, ministered at Pollsmoor
Prison from his church base at Silvertown, a township near Athlone, since
its early days.
Eric Hofmeyer summarized his life as ‘a disaster changed by the Master, and now
serving Him as a pastor.’ He had been a gangster when he came to faith in
Christ. In the 1990s Hofmeyer counselled many inmates in the massive Pollsmoor
Prison. Quite a number of these inmates came to a personal faith in Christ
over the years.
Muslims touched in Prison
Johaar Viljoen, who had won over many Christians to
Islam, came to faith in Jesus in the prison of the rural town of Caledon. His
conversion in 1992 - a demonstration of the power of prayer - shook many
Islamic inmates who regarded him as their prison imam. Viljoen was
well-versed in the Bible and the literature of Ahmed Deedat, who had been his
hero. Before his conversion in the Caledon prison, Viljoen frustrated the evangelistic
efforts of Christian workers there.
Three of those workers decided to respond to him with spiritual warfare
through prayer and fasting.
Imam Viljoen was overwhelmed when
he
compared the narration of the
near-sacrifice
of Isaac in Genesis 22
When Viljoen studied the Bible - in order to fight the
Christians better - he was overwhelmed when he compared the narration of the
near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 with the Qur’anic version.
Prisoners have also been impacted in the countryside,
such as those at the youth prison near Wellington, where young inmates
voluntarily started to attend Bible studies. David Bliss was prominent there in
outreach to these young people.
Next
to many other inmates, Pastor Ron Hendricks challenged Rashied Staggie at
Pollsmoor. The conversion of Staggie in 1999 would cause a major stir among
Cape Muslims. Eric Hofmeyer discipled Rashied Staggie’s brother Sollie while he
was imprisoned.
Shona Allie, a Seventh Day Adventist from
Muslim background, has been powerfully and divinely used in prisons around the
country. Shona Allie angered many Muslims when she honestly stated her
conviction - in a mosque of all places - that Jesus is indeed the Son of God,
and that he died on the cross for our sins. Throughout the country, prisons
have been influenced by her ministry. Ruweyda Abdullah is another Muslim
background believer who became involved in the ministry at Pollsmoor. Initially unskilled with no tertiary
education, she was part of a pilot project in the training and rehabiliatating
of inmates in 1998. This led to ultimate
national implementation. She also studied via UNISA, earning a position on the Parole
Board on a contract basis when this was established in 2004.
A former Inmate became a Prison Chaplain
A former prisoner at Pollsmoor Prison, Jonathan
Clayton, developed a special concern for prisoners. His conversion was the
fruit of the prayers of his family and friends, including his future wife Jenny
Adams, an Africa Evangelical Fellowship missionary. Clayton attended the
Cape Town Baptist Seminary after his release, and, while he was still a
theological student, started to minister in Pollsmoor Prison on Saturday
mornings. Members of the Strandfontein
Baptist Church, the home congregation of his wife, assisted him. In 1999
Clayton became a prison chaplain.
A special ministry started with Pastor Emmanuel
Danchimah, a Nigerian national when he networked with Marius Boden to beam
Gospel messages with a car radio at Pollsmoor. This developed into fully
fledged in-house radio and television transmissions, which impact many inmates
as some of them discovered their giftings in the process.
Ministry to AIDS/HIV patients
At
a time when AIDS was still being mentioned covertly, there was almost no
ministry to people who suffered from HIV and AIDS. A ministry with close links to the Cape Town City Mission started when Val
Kadalie, a trained nurse, had a deep concern for young people who contracted
sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). She was invited to speak in many churches
and schools - to warn young people about the dangers of promiscuity and
encourage them to abstain from pre-marital sex. After Ms. Kadalie became the
matron of the G.H. Starke Centre in Hanover Park, the institution also
started functioning as a hospice for terminal patients. She warned her staff in
the late 1980s that they might soon have to treat AIDS patients. Her colleagues were thus ready for that, trained to care for people with HIV and AIDS long before they
received their first request.
The
test came when she and her husband, Charles Kadalie, were approached to take
care of a four-year old boy, Jason, who was HIV positive. One day, when Charles
put the phone down at the electric power plant in Athlone where he was working,[27]
he sensed that God was challenging them as a couple to practise what they
preached. Jason was the first of four children they cared for in succession,
until all but one died from AIDS.
Val Kadalie
became a pioneer
fighter for
AIDS awareness
In
the process Val Kadalie became a pioneer fighter for AIDS awareness throughout
the country, responding to calls from churches and groups of the most diverse
backgrounds.
Nazareth
House, a Roman Catholic institution in the
City Bowl, performed the same work during this period, as the occurrence of
HIV-positive babies started to increase. At the building in Vredehoek where the
Roman Catholic Church had already
started caring for orphaned children and destitute elderly since 1888, they
pioneered with the care of HIV-positive/AIDS babies in 1992, possibly the first
outreach of this nature in South Africa.
Toby and Aukje Brouwer, a Dutch YWAM missionary
couple, soon took on the care of AIDS babies after their successful pioneering
ministry amongst street children called Beautiful
Gate. In 1999 they started to care for HIV-positive and AIDS-infected
little ones with government aid in Crossroads, a Black township. Since then,
their ministry has expanded to neighbouring countries. On 8 December 2004 a new
centre was opened in Lower Crossroads. Broken lives were restored and in the
case of at least one young man, a desire was born to enter missionary work.
In the southern suburbs of the metropolis, Pastor John
Thomas and his wife Avril were moved in 1999 to start with HIV and AIDS-related
ministry. They soon built a hospice to care for people with HIV and AIDS,
beginning a ministry of prevention and support which today reaches thousands of
people.
A special
Vision for abandoned Babies
Zulpha Morris, a Muslim lady who became a follower of
Jesus after receiving supernatural visions in July 1998, had much opposition
when she was divinely called to take care of abandoned babies. However, within
less than two years Zulpha and her husband Abdul cared for more than 30
children in their township home in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain. This led to
a few extensions to their house. The garage was converted for accommodation
purposes and the yard at the back became a sewing workshop for women. A
container, in which diverse goods and furniture had come from Holland, was part
of God’s special provision to get this project off the ground. (The original
content of the container was intended for our discipling house in which
persecuted and evicted new believers would be accommodated.) In due course a
dilapidated building in the crime and drug-infested Woodlands township in
Mitchells Plain was purchased. Her husband Abdul did the renovations there
mostly alone. In April 2011 a new philantropic group named New Kidz on the
Block undertook a complete renovation of Heaven Shelter.
An updated Hole in
the Wall
At the beginning of the new
millennium Rosalia ‘Rosie’ Mashale started taking in abandoned babies after a
newborn baby boy had been left on her doorstep in Khayelitsha. A high-tech baby
flap with cot, camera and alarm constituted an updated ‘hole in the wall’. As
soon as a baby is placed through the hole in the wall, a ‘baby detector’ alarm
is immediately triggered inside the main house of the Baphumelele Centre,
that was started 23 years ago by Rosie Mashale. The babies had been thrown away
in bushes, toilets, on railway tracks and in rubbish bins. She tries to find
adoption homes for all the babies.
An
Afrikaner Woman is changed Dr Elize Morkel grew up as an Afrikaner on an apple
farm in the Grabouw area, very much influenced by Dutch Reformed theology.
While at Stellenbosch University she
sensed a calling to serve the Lord full-time, but she was turned down for being
female.[28] Instead, she studied
Psychology and Education, and set up a successful psychiatric practice for
affluent patients in Somerset West.
In the course of her work, Dr Morkel met colleagues
who grew up in disadvantaged communities such as District Six. Increasingly she
became very unsure of the ideological and theological legacy of her own
Afrikaner upbringing. Parallel to that, powerful feelings of guilt developed in
her around everything that apartheid - and the subtle indoctrination linked to
it - had caused. She resolved to compensate for it by putting aside one day in the
week for service to the poor. However,
the result of all this
was an
overwhelming sense of complete inability. Dr Morkel experienced one sleepless
night after another as she became so deeply aware of the needs of the poor and
her own helplessness. Extreme depression and finally burn-out followed. It was
two years before she was healed. She was determined not to return to her old
environment. She took a big step of faith, giving away her psychiatric practice
to her former colleagues.
A new Beginning
Dr Morkel decided to practice restitution by getting
involved in education among the economically and socially disadvantaged. Her
offer to a school inspector resulted in her having to minister to five
delinquent kids at a Muslim school in Rusthof, the ‘Coloured’
residential area of Strand.
The problem was like a mountain to Dr Morkel and she
was only too happy that it happened just before the winter school
holidays. A visit by an educationist
from New Zealand to the Cape at that time was to her like a gift from heaven.
The gentleman agreed to work alongside her to tackle the bad reputation of the
boys. She was very much encouraged when Mr Fanie, the school principal,
assisted her by winning over the local community’s co-operation in the attempt
to tackle the reputation of the five learners. It subsequently became a
significant success story in the lives of four of these boys.
At first, Dr Morkel and her husband were challenged,
but then blessed when a close bond developed with Mr Fanie and his wife.
Friendships across the racial and religious divides were still far from common
in their environment around the turn of the millennium. For Dr Morkel, the
exercise in itself was therapeutic and she learned a technique that she now
calls ‘compassionate witnessing.’ During this process she listens carefully to
her clients to discern what God was trying to teach her. She then shares this
with her clients that truth to the person or people from whom she had learned
it.
The harmony displayed in the course
of her interaction with the community of Rusthof augured well for the
future. It sowed seeds that were to germinate in the xenophobia events of May
2008 when the Helderberg area played a significant role in pioneering the way
towards reconciliation between some displaced refugee Africans and the local
communities.
8.
Rebels against the Status Quo
Rev. George Buckley, Vice President of World Literature Crusade, a
New Zealander who also ministered powerfully at the Cape, cited prayer as legitimate rebellion against the status quo. Dr Charles Robertson used
this tenet for a chapter in his booklet ‘South
Africa: the miracle of little waves.’ For most of the 20th
century, racial separation was the major dividing factor in the country,
possibly deterring spiritual renewal more than anything else. The third quarter
of the century fortunately had many rebels against the apartheid status quo in different parts of the
country. One of the ways in which they undermined the apartheid regime was
through benevolent ministries.
Low-key Compassion
Through the centuries spiritual renewal was
accompanied by charitable involvement with the poor and needy. The Cape Town City Mission, with its
modest start at the beginning of the 20th century in District Six,
soon had no less than four congregations in District Six.
Pastor
Fenner Kadalie was destined to become
the key to the massive expansion of the
city’s
most well-known institution of compassion
Pastor Fenner Kadalie, a son of the famous trade
unionist Clements Kadalie, became one of the most well-known sons of the
mission. Impacted by the missionary work in District Six when he was seven
years old, Kadalie was destined to become the key to the massive expansion of
the Mother City’s most well-known institution of compassion. When the community
was forced out of District Six by the demonic Group Areas legislation, Fenner
Kadalie and his right hand, the young Bruce Duncan, gathered the scattered
remnants of the District Six fellowships, ministering to their needs in their
new homes on the Cape Flats. Kadalie was a catalyst for the birth of many
upliftment projects in and around Cape Town.
Under the inspiring leadership of Pastors Bruce Duncan
and Fenner Kadalie, the denomination grew rapidly in the 1970s, and was
involved in various ministries to those in need. Bruce Duncan became an unsung
hero of the ‘struggle’ against apartheid. He was not formally involved with
politics, but he dared to speak out against the injustice of it and
communicated at the same time 'with anyone from Constantia to
Hanover Park and gained credibility with gang lords that few others have
achieved’.
Meeting places of the Cape Town City Mission
developed into fully-fledged churches. The
story has been told of a young man with an 'afro' hair style who walked into one of these
churches while Pastor Barry Isaacs was preaching. The young man, Lorenzo
Davids, kept coming back until he eventually committed his life to Christ, serving together with
Pastor Isaacs as leaders of The Cape Town City Mission in the new
millennium. By organising early Saturday morning
prayer meetings in the chambers of the metropolitan Civic Centre, Barry Isaacs
would play an important role in spiritual renewal in the city from October
2007.
Susan Benjamin represents one of the many success
stories of the City Mission and its’
role in her life made her one of the featured women in the book, Women who changed the heart of the City. She and her husband had been heavy drinkers
when Jesus rescued them through the ministry of the City Mission. When the family was forced to leave District Six,
Benjamin asked the City Mission to
hold meetings in her home. That became the start of many new congregations
across the Western Cape. And her children became stalwarts in the denomination.
Abraham Lincoln’s
Example affects a Key Leader
After
he was converted through a Billy Graham sermon in 1955, Robert Footner[29]
reasoned intensely with Southern African student Michael Cassidy in their
dormitory at Cambridge University.
During his return voyage to Cape Town on board a steamer in February 1959, Cassidy was deeply moved by a quote from John
Foster Fraser: 'When God desires to shake, shock or
shape any age to save sinners, he always chooses men.' The Holy
Spirit challenged Cassidy to be that man for Africa, more especially for South
Africa. Immediately after his arrival in Cape Town, God used Archbishop Joost
de Blank to refer to the neglect of evangelicals regarding ‘incarnational
responsibilities’: ‘Then Joost said if only a man would
arise who could confront the country with the necessity of synthesising the
spiritual as well as political and social responsibilities of the gospel, the
Church would make real progress here. He added: “perhaps you are the man to
do this”.
The Holy
Spirit challenged Cassidy to be that man for Africa, more especially for South Africa. Cassidy took up
that challenge.
The Bible verse starting with ‘if my people humble themselves and pray …’
(2 Chronicles 7:14) became one of Michael
Cassidy’s favourites. He used the example of Abraham Lincoln, the
great 18th century American President, to challenge John Vorster and
Ian Smith, the prime ministers of South Africa and Rhodesia[30] (for much of the 1970s), to
do the same, by giving them a copy each of Lincoln’s biography with the title Abraham Lincoln, Theologian of American
Anguish. Cassidy himself would be God’s special instrument in the turbulent
period of our country since 1985.
A personal Touch
The example of President Abraham Lincoln also had a personal touch for the author. A side
effect of my studies at the Moravian
Seminary in District Six was that I lost much of my zeal for evangelism.
Gradually that zeal was substituted with political activism, which however did
not exclude a prayerful attitude. Thus, early one October
morning in 1972, as I was praying for the country, I felt constrained to write
a letter to the Prime Minister. In this letter, I addressed him with ‘Liewe’
(dear). That was something extraordinary. My natural feelings towards Mr
Vorster were definitely not charitable. In my letter I challenged Mr Vorster to
allow himself to be used by God like President Lincoln in the USA, to lead the
nation in the ways of God. Basically however, it was a letter of criticism that
could have catapulted me into hot water. I was fortunate that I only received a
reprimand from Mr Vorster. It was the standard reply to people who objected to
the racial policies of the country on religious grounds. In this reply, which
was actually a superficial document into which only the name of the recipient
was inserted cleverly with an electric typewriter (computers were still
generally unknown), the Prime Minister implied that I was ‘making politics’ under the guise of religion.[31]
The Role of the Church in
Reconciliation
The fear of a serious backlash after a takeover by a Black government in
the 1970s and 1980s was quite pervasive among White communities and very
understandable. The sparsely populated Botswana was the only country in Africa
at that time where there had been a fairly smooth transition to democracy, a
country with very few Whites. There had been warning voices from the side of
individual White South African clergymen because of the country’s oppressive
race policy, but they went unheeded. The role of Black spokesmen like Bishop
Desmond Tutu was even less appreciated in the 1970s, especially when they
referred to the bondage of Whites by racial prejudice.
Yet, valuable seed was
sown towards racial reconciliation by Black clergy who had a good track record.
One of them was Bishop Alpheus Zulu, who had been one of the few delegates of
colour at the WCC-convened consultation in Cottesloe, a suburb of Johannesburg
from 7-14 December, 1960. In his T.B. Davie Memorial Lecture at UCT in
1972, Bishop Zulu hopefully opened the eye of many a White person when he
stated: ‘… Some black people... refuse consciously and deliberately to retaliate…
Long before the Soweto
uprising he however also warned in the same lecture: ‘At the same time it
would be a grave mistake to presume to think that such attitudes will survive
callous white discrimination.’
Warnings by him and Bishop Tutu were however not heeded by the
authorities.
Cape Build-up to
Soweto June 1976
Thousands of Blacks continued to come into the Western Cape in the 1970s
in spite of the government intention to finally remove Blacks from the region.
About 100 shacks were built secretively at Werkgenot,
near to the University of the Western Cape, but unknown to almost
everyone except the ‘squatters’ themselves. Selected shacks were knocked down
and women arrested while their husbands were at work. Finally two ‘squatters’
brought a suit against the Bantu Affairs Administrative Board for
destruction of property. The judge ruled in favour of the ‘squatters’,
lecturing the officials to respect the little possessions the ‘squatters’
had. The Board did not contest the
ruling, but their officials continued to harass the ‘squatters’. Pretoria would
of course not allow itself to be challenged by Blacks.
Someone must have been praying for me
While we were visiting the Cape – having come
from Holland as a racially mixed small family with our one- and a-half year-old
son Danny in November 1978 - I was terribly angered
by the reaction of the Moravian Church Board chairperson to my
suggestion to come and work in South Africa. This coincided with the response
of the government when we wanted to travel in the same train compartment as a
family of three from Cape Town to Johannesburg. My expectation in both cases
was actually unreasonable and unrealistic, but all the same I was hereafter
determined not to put my foot on South African soil again.
I
had one last carnal wish - to worship with Dr Beyers Naudé, the gigantic rebel against the apartheid status quo, who was basically under house arrest. (He was only allowed
to attend church at that time.)
Determination
to fight the demonic Apartheid Ideology
With a few believers linked to Moral Rearmament,
Rosemarie and I visited the church that the late Dr Naudé and his wife
attended. I had intended that visit to be my farewell gesture of solidarity
with the politically oppressed of the country.
After the church service we also met Ds. Joop Lensink,
a Dutch national, who ministered to Blacks in the mining compounds! A miracle
happened that Sunday when I was changed from within through the visits to the
Naudé and Lensink homes.
I became more determined
than ever to fight the
apartheid ideology
In His sovereign way God made me more determined than
ever through these visits to fight the apartheid ideology, endeavouring to
bring about racial reconciliation in my home country.
After our
return to Holland following the six-week visit in 1978, I saw a ministry of
reconciliation even more as my personal duty to the country of my birth. After
reading in the newspaper that a church delegation from the influential (White) Dutch
Reformed Church - including Professors Johan Heyns and Willie Jonker - was
in Holland to attend some church synod in Lunteren, I took the initiative to
meet them. I saw this as a possibility to make amends for my stubbornness and
headstrong refusal to meet Professor Heyns on our visit to Johannesburg the
previous year. However, the only possibility that Dr Heyns could offer me was
to meet him and the delegation at Schiphol Airport just before their
return to South Africa. This I did. These Church leaders would be quite influential in
bringing about significant change in the Dutch
Reformed Church in the following years.
Aftermath of my Schiphol Airport Rendezvous
From my airport rendezvous stemmed a superficial correspondence
with Professor Heyns in which I encouraged him to include
theologians of colour like Dr Allan Boesak in the plans of the denomination for
overhauling a booklet on race relations in the church.[32] Indirectly I also tried
to reconcile the two theologians, who were respectively leading the influential
“Broederbond” and “Broederkring”.
(I knew from our student days how my friend Allan had been raving about Heyns,
his lecturer in Biblical Studies at the University
College of the Western Cape).
Personal Attempts at Reconciliation
My personal understanding of a ministry also aimed at trying to heal rifts where I discerned them. Next to the
attempt to bring together Professor Johan Heyns and Dr Allan Boesak, I also
tried to reconcile Bishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak. The latter, along
with his Broederkring colleagues, were angry at the likes of Tutu - who
was still prepared to talk to President Botha. My effort to bring Boesak and
Heyns together was unsuccessful, but I was happy to hear later that Bishop
Desmond Tutu and my former evangelism buddy Allan Boesak were again operating
in tandem. Professor Heyns went on to become one of the instruments of change
to lead his denomination away from apartheid thinking and attitudes. It is
generally accepted that a right wing extremist, who could not come to terms
with Heyns’ role in the dramatic turn-around of the denomination, was
responsible for his assassination in November 1994.
9.
Prayer erupts in different Places
In the early 1970s Brian O’Donnell owned the Hippie Market of the
city as well as a night club called The Factory. When he was spiritually
revived, he decided to conduct an outreach on Monday nights and later also at Green
Point Stadium. A supernatural intervention occurred when Brian asked Dave
Valentine to pray about assisting him in some way at his Hippie Market.
Dave misunderstood this completely. After prayer about the matter he had liberty
to resign from his well-paid job as engineer to work full-time for the Lord, trusting God
for the needs of his family with four children.
Revival Vibes resound from the Cape
The Holy Spirit moved mightily among the young people, ultimately
leading to the Hippie Revival that paved the way for ten new Assemblies
of God (AoG) congregations among Whites and five among ‘Coloureds’. With
‘Coloured’ AoG pastors like James Valentine and Eddie Roman working closely
alongside their White colleagues, this was a significant contribution to the
breaking down of the racial barriers of the apartheid era on grassroots level.
Cape Revival vibes
radiated
to the ends of the Earth
The revival vibes
radiated even much further afield. In Grahamstown the ‘charismatic renewal’ as
it was called, moved into the Anglican Church where Bishop Bill Burnett
was impacted. The Holy
Spirit movement flowed via a big national church event with Dr Billy Graham in
1973. Held in Durban in March 1973, the Congress was attended by 630 delegates
and observers from 31 different denominations, 36 Christian service groups, and
13 different African and overseas countries. The original idea of the Congress on Mission
and Evangelism in Durban came however from Michael Cassidy of Africa Enterprise
and John Rees, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC).
At the Congress on Mission and
Evangelism the racial barriers came
down in a significant way for the first time in this country. Dr
Graham's insistence on the absence of any segregation among the audience played
no small role. Durban also was an important forerunner for Lausanne the
following year when the evangelical-ecumenical schism was addressed as well as
the unbiblical separation of evangelism and compassionate outreach.
Personal Impact of the
Hippie Revival
My
two years of full-time study at the Moravian seminary included a good mix of
evangelistic activity and ecumenical activism. Our full-time student colleague
Fritz Faro really got enflamed by the evangelistic zeal of the Jesus People.
Along with Gustine Joemath my other full-time student colleague, we tried to
accommodate that issue, but at the same time we deemed it necessary to
challenge the apparent Jesus People acceptance of the racist South
African way of life.
We
also sharpened our axes for White liberals who professed to be against
apartheid, but who were not prepared to suffer for their convictions. Thus we
decided to challenge the St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Green Point.
Outside this church complex a notice board welcomed all races. In our own
denomination we were also fighting racist traditions simultaneously. Reverend Douglas Bax and his St Andrews
Presbyterian Church passed the test with flying colours. Thereafter he
became a close friend of our seminary.
A Revival among
District Six Youth
The flip side of
the Islamic resurgence in the wake of the Group areas legislation was a
mini-revival amongst young people of District Six. Under the leadership of
Clive and Ursula Jacobs at the Sheppard Street Baptist Church bubbling
youth work developed which included a youth week with the charismatic Pastor
Andy Lamb as the preacher. At this occasion the former gangster Eddie Edson came to faith in Jesus as his Lord. Pastor Andy Lamb
discipled and mentored Edson, seeing him turning into a devout follower of
Jesus. (Edson became a major role player in the run-up to the city wide
prayers of the 1990s and the subsequent Global Day of Prayer).
The use of the bigger Church Hall of Holy Cross displayed that there was a non-denominational flavour of the movement. That this was no superficial 'happy clappy' occasion can be easily discerned. Youth rallies were also held in neutral venues like the Palace Bioscope (Cinema), which even turned out to be too small.
The use of the bigger Church Hall of Holy Cross displayed that there was a non-denominational flavour of the movement. That this was no superficial 'happy clappy' occasion can be easily discerned. Youth rallies were also held in neutral venues like the Palace Bioscope (Cinema), which even turned out to be too small.
Young people turned from
drugs and gangsterism to Christ. Some started cottage meetings, others held
open air services. Prayer meetings were conducted in the surrounds of
Woodstock, Salt River and District Six. Eddie Edson was pivotal in all this.
From this movement many young people went to night Bible Schools and colleges.
Many of them became pastors and leaders in their churches. No less than 50
young people from this revival became pastors or pastors' wives.
Worldwide Ripple Effects of the
Hippie Revival
This Durban Congress on Mission
and Evangelism of 1973 birthed PACLA (Pan African Christian
Leadership Assembly) in Nairobi in 1976. At the Durban event
Genadendal-born Rev. Chris Wessels played a significant role in the formulation
of nine resolutions on behalf of the Black caucus that were ‘splashed in all the major newspapers of the country’. The Durban event furthermore led to the influential SACLA in Pretoria in
1979 where the German-born Reinhardt Bonnke was divinely touched. In subsequent
years Bonnke would take the Gospel to many African countries and even further
afield.
Whereas earlier congresses apparently
hardly seemed to touch the Cape, the Durban event did it in no uncertain way. One of the leaders, Professor Nico Smith, was based at Stellenbosch
University with its hallowed theological faculty.
The Run-up to the Koinonia Declaration
The banning of the Christian
Institute and its leader, Dr Beyers Naudé on 19 October 1977, along with
many other organizations that were perceived to be in opposition to apartheid,
unleashed unexpected forces against the government.
Dr Nico Smith,
Professor of Theology in Stellenbosch, played a significant role in starting Koinonia,
a movement that organised inter-racial weekends in different towns and cities.
Participants would always lodge with someone from a different ethnic group.
Christians of different races started meeting socially as families in order to
get to know and understand each other. From their ranks the Koinonia Declaration followed in 1977
when three Dutch Reformed Church leaders in the Western Cape reacted
against a government ruling which made agitation against detention without
trial unlawful. They also called for transparency regarding ‘the handling of matters relating to the security of the state' (e.g. the
prior series of bannings, detentions and arrests on October 19, 1977). The prayerful attitude of these clergymen was revealed in the first
sentences of the Koinonia
Declaration: ‘…We also
believe that the prayers of just men have great power. We therefore urge all
Christians to pray without ceasing for those in authority that…they may not be
led astray by unbiblical ideologies…’
In another move,
Professor Smith took his theology students to the informal settlement of
Crossroads. This courageous move shook the Afrikaner establishment throughout
the country. To have one of their Church leaders at Stellenbosch University,
with its hallowed theological faculty, was completely unacceptable to the state
and university authorities. This led to Professor Smith’s virtual banishment
from the White segment of the Dutch Reformed Church.
A spiritual Earthquake in Pretoria
Since 1978, Gerda
Leithgöb, an Afrikaner believer, has been directing spiritual warfare in
Pretoria. She and her prayer team
offered confession at the Voortrekker
Monument. Their prayers and confession surely helped to cause a change in
the spiritual complexion of the country’s capital that made true democracy
possible. That prayer ministry for the city of
Pretoria was the prelude to the South African
Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) event in the national
capital the following year. This
conference was the equivalent of a spiritual earthquake. Professor David Bosch,
a giant rebel against apartheid, was its leader. SACLA influenced the whole country deeply in
a positive way and the conference was evidently part of God’s plan to transform the apartheid
stronghold and capital of South Africa. Pastor Ed Roebert
initiated a gathering of like-minded pastors with the purpose of fellowship and
mutual encouragement. Soon he met regularly with Reinhardt Bonnke, Ray
McCauley, Fred Roberts, Tim Salmon and Nicky v.d. Westhuizen. In due course
many new charismatic churches were established and men with unusually anointed
ministries appeared on the scene.
A Gale catapults an Evangelist into
Prominence
With his engineering skills the former hippie
Dave Valentine operated in many evangelistic campaigns in the background,
including the famous one of Valhalla Park in 1984. The destruction by a gale of a
gigantic tent in the mid-1980s in which the German-born evangelist Reinhardt
Bonnke was to hold an evangelistic campaign in the Cape Township of Valhalla
Park, created much interest for the event. The organisers were forced to
conduct the campaign in the open. Thousands attended who would never have
fitted into the gigantic tent. In stead of the planned 15 nights, four extra
nightly services were added amid clear skies in mid-June which is known to be
part of the Cape rainy season.
There was an unprecedented networking
of Cape township churches
The networking of township churches
in the run-up to this campaign was unprecedented, with a corresponding response
at the altar calls. Many Muslims gave an indication that they wanted to become
followers of Jesus. However, lack of proper follow-up by the churches prevented
a massive spiritual turn-around at the Cape. This lack, combined with a brutal
apartheid clampdown at the time, drove many nominal Christians to Islam. To
become a Muslim was regarded as part of the struggle. Marriage swelled the
numbers of Cape Muslims when the Christian partner converted to Islam, staying Muslim even after divorce.
An interesting sequel of the Valhalla Park campaign was that Reinhardt Bonnke
became a household name throughout the African continent and beyond.
Bliss Brings Blessings
Under the auspices of Africa Enterprise (AE) David Bliss came
to South Africa in 1967 from the USA as a student. The relatively young
missions and evangelistic agency AE started by Michael Cassidy in 1962, had such a profound effect on Bliss
that he decided to postpone his return to Princeton University for a
year. After his marriage to Deborah (Debby) in 1972, the couple came to South
Africa in 1979 as AE workers on the Wits University campus in
Johannesburg. That year the South African Christian
Leadership Assembly (SACLA) took place in Pretoria, an event that
changed their lives. The Holy Spirit confronted them with the issue of
unreached people groups and the possibility of sending South Africans as
missionaries.
The next year the couple participated
in the students’ conference in Edinburgh, which ran parallel to the 70th
anniversary celebrations of the founding of the World Council of Churches. The 1980 event brought the use of
non-Westerners as missionaries into focus. For Dave and Debby Bliss this was a
natural follow-up to SACLA in Pretoria the previous year.
A Wave of Prayer starts at UWC
Charles Robertson, a lecturer at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) from 1971-76, became part of the
prayer emphasis in 1983. After his father’s death in 1979, he was thrust into a
quagmire of spiritual turmoil. The business he had started was failing. The
combination of these experiences brought him to his knees. Hereafter he broke
through into a living faith in Jesus as his Lord.
Dr Robertson was approached to help
fund the hiring of a bus to take participants to a prayer service at the
historical Sendingsgestig Museum in the Mother City’s Long Street, which
coincided with a Frontiers Missions
Conference at UWC. (The venue was the former DRC
‘Coloured’ Gestig church building, that had been ‘saved’ by Dr Frank R.
Barlow, a Jewish academic with a keen sense of history. The congregation had to
move because of the Group Areas Act, and thereafter the former church
was turned into a museum). An interesting ‘resurrection’ transpired when the Gestig
congregation was revived in Belhar. There the synod hall of the Sendingkerk
was ultimately built. The controversial and influential Belhar Confession was
passed there in 1986.
A national Prayer
Awakening erupts
The
Sendingsgestig Museum itself was to become the venue for Concerts of
Prayer. That event would reverbarate
throughout the country, ushering in the prayer movement. In 1983 a prayer awakening started in a few congregations all
around South Africa. One of these was a small group of intercessors led by
Gerda Leithgöb in Pretoria that helped set them on a path previously unexplored
in this country. Simultaneously, Bennie Mostert, a Dutch Reformed Church
minister, started a newsletter to mobilize prayer in Namibia. Mostert dubbed
his newsletter for Namibia Prayer Action
Elijah.
In 1987 the Lord led
the group in Pretoria to do more intense research into spiritual matters. In
that same year, a similar initiative started spontaneously all over the world.
The Lord also called pastors in South Africa to start writing on prayer. Books
appeared concerning this issue.
Gerda Leithgöb requested prayer warriors from other
countries at a conference in Singapore in 1988 to pray for South Africa, which
had been in constant crisis since 1985. Ds. Bennie Mostert founded a national
prayer network known as NUPSA (Network
for United Prayer in Southern Africa) which became closely linked to the
spiritual transformation of the continent. In 1993 the first teams started
praying through information gained from serious research. During 1993 South
Africa also participated in the Pray
through the Window[33]
initiative, that was launched internationally by the AD 2000 Prayer Track.
Community Disruption leads to Missions
BABS (Build a Better Society) was a local community organisation of Kewtown, a gangster-ridden Cape Township. In 1982 the gangs of Kew Town killed seven people in 3 months. After approaching other organisations without success, BABS asked the local Docks Mission Church to do something about the situation. A coffee bar was started specially for the gangsters, led by Rodney Thorne and Freddy Kammies. Every Sunday evening between 60 – 80 of them attended. challenged many of the gang leaders to put down the weapons and guns. Soon the crime rate came down. As a denomination the local Docks Mission faithfully prayed for the ministry which continued for quite a long time.
The ministry sowed seed for missions. Eugene Johnson was the first missionary sent out by Docks Mission in 1978 on one of the Operation Mobilisation (OM) ships already in 1978.[34] He was followed by Peter Ward, Freddy Kammies, Theo Dennis and his wife Norma, as well as Peter Tarantal from the same denomination.
BABS (Build a Better Society) was a local community organisation of Kewtown, a gangster-ridden Cape Township. In 1982 the gangs of Kew Town killed seven people in 3 months. After approaching other organisations without success, BABS asked the local Docks Mission Church to do something about the situation. A coffee bar was started specially for the gangsters, led by Rodney Thorne and Freddy Kammies. Every Sunday evening between 60 – 80 of them attended. challenged many of the gang leaders to put down the weapons and guns. Soon the crime rate came down. As a denomination the local Docks Mission faithfully prayed for the ministry which continued for quite a long time.
The ministry sowed seed for missions. Eugene Johnson was the first missionary sent out by Docks Mission in 1978 on one of the Operation Mobilisation (OM) ships already in 1978.[34] He was followed by Peter Ward, Freddy Kammies, Theo Dennis and his wife Norma, as well as Peter Tarantal from the same denomination.
Cape Prayer
Endeavours of the early 1990s
In the late 1980s the Concerts of Prayer - inspired by David Bryant - drew good crowds to
the Sendingsgestig Museum, a fitting
commemoration of the inter-denominational work that started there in 1799. On one occasion, Dr Robertson was asked to chair a Concert of Prayer meeting as an
Afrikaner. That was not to be the last time for him to do this. He led the Concerts of Prayer
hereafter not only at the monthly meetings at that venue, but also later when
the event relocated to the Presbyterian
Church in Mowbray. (These Concerts of Prayer were held there for
many years.) It was very fitting that Robertson
and his wife Rita would donate the property where the first NUPSA School of
Prayer was to be erected in 2000.
At the Presbyterian
Church in Mowbray, the monthly meetings were also led for many years by
Rev. James
Selfridge, an Irish missionary of the Metropolitan
Church. Around the turn of the millennium
the monthly meeting was moved to Grassy Park.
The Concerts of Prayer were
thereafter held in the Bethel Bible
School in the former ‘Coloured’ sector of the suburb Crawford.
The Western Cape Missions Commission, to which our WEC colleague
Shirley Charlton took me soon after our arrival at the Cape in January 1992,
proved very valuable in terms of contacts. Here I met strategic people from the
Cape mission scene like Jan Hanekom, Martin Heuvel and Bruce van Eeden. One of
the events organised in 1993 by the Western
Cape Missions Commission was a workshop with John Robb of World Vision. I used the list of
participants at this event to organize the Cape Jesus Marches the following year. In this way I updated my contacts
for further mission endeavour in the Western Cape.
Local
Churches spearheading foreign Missions The Cape led the country in local church involvement
with foreign missions. Until the 1970s it was however only a church here and a
church there that was sending out missionaries. It is probably not surprising
that a congregation from the Docks
Mission with its strong emphasis on prayer spearheaded the foreign
missionary endeavour.
Peter Tarantal
became a national leader of OM and Theo Dennis was appointed as the Western
Cape regional co-ordinator of the mission agency. Theo’s sister married Dennis
Atkins who was the principal of the Bethel Bible School until his
retirement in 2006. Freddy Kammies, who
grew up in the adjacent notorious township of Kewtown, came to the Lord at this
church and he was discipled through the ministry of the Gleemoor congregation.[35]He
and his German wife Doris[36]
later left the shores of the Mother City as OM missionaries. After their return
to South Africa in 1997, the couple pioneered the WEC ministry amongst sexually
broken people. They joined YWAM in
2009 in a similar capacity.
Another Cape congregation that caused a stir in missions is the
Rondebosch Dutch Reformed Church. In the apartheid era that congregation was
one of the few White Dutch Reformed churches in the country where people
of colour could enter without the real fear that they would be prevented entry
(or worse, evicted, as it actually happened in isolated cases). When Dr Ernst
van der Walt came to pastor that congregation in 1982, the church was
supporting a few ‘children’ from the congregation who were involved in
missions. The denomination as such was iniitally only supporting missionaries
linked to the Dutch Reformed synod.
This was to change
drastically when David Bliss, the OM missionary based at the Andrew
Murray Centre in
Wellington, visited the church. After his visit,
the Prayer Concert concept got off
the ground with an early morning meeting every Sunday. The believers would
start praying for their ‘Jerusalem’, for the activities and concerns of their
church, and then move on to pray for matters and people further away until they
would finally pray for various missionaries in different parts of the world.
When the minister’s son Ernst went to the William
Carey School in Pasadena in the USA, it meant an intensification of the
church’s involvement in missions. This was even more so when Ernst van der Walt
(jr.) became the personal assistant of George Verwer, the international leader
of OM.
A special Move of God’s Spirit
A special move of God’s Spirit occurred when Alfred West was turned down
for military service because of a heart ailment around 1949. He always wanted
to do foreign missionary work. The young
White man was divinely redirected, starting to minister as a Wayside Sunday
School teacher in the Cape township-like suburbs of Kensington and
Windermere in 1955, where in due course he fell in love with Jessica, one of
the local young girls.
The prayerful Pastor West had to wait
for
twenty
five years to marry his sweetheart
Jessica
because of the country’s racial laws.
The prayerful Pastor West had to wait for twenty five years
to marry his (‘Coloured’) sweetheart Jessica because of the country’s racial
laws. In this way he was of course a quiet rebel against the status quo.
When Jessica and her famly moved to
Bonteheuwel, the mission-minded young man started a prayer-centred church that
sent forth missionaries to different parts of the world. Diane Guta, one of his
congregants who left to work in Paraguay, thus causing another small crack in the apartheid
wall.[37] She thereafter served the
Lord in Bolivia,
retiring in 2008.
Long before church planting movements became fashionable,
Pastor Alfred West became involved in this way. Having led Godfrey
Martin, an impressive young teacher, to the Lord, Pastor West thereafter
mentored the young man to become the pastor of a home fellowship in
Stellenbosch..[38]
A special
trophy of Pastor West’s ministry was when the gangster Percy Jephtha became converted, and proceeded to
become a pastor of a home church. The
special thing about Pastor West’s ministry was that he regarded the new home
church not as competition, but as an extension of his ministry, keeping close
contact with them. Various missionaries visited the two churches in Bishop
Lavis, and quite a few congregants went from there to minister in other parts
of the world.
All law-abiding citizens of the
township
appreciated Pastor
West’s
challenge to shebeens
In the late
1980s Pastor West was in the forefront of a prayer move when gangster violence
threatened to turn the township of Bonteheuwel into anarchy. All law-abiding
citizens of the township appreciated West’s brave challenge to shebeens
(illegal private liquor outlets).
Peter Barnes, a protégé of Pastor West, underwent training at
the nearby Cape School of Missions in
Ravensmead. He became a missionary to the Transkei where the vision was
expounded to prepare missionaries for other African countries.
The Start of an
innovative Township Bible School
The Cape School of Missions
commenced in 1987 innovatively as a video school - the Urban Missions School. Martin Heuvel started the one-year programme in his home in
Belhar with ten of his congregants. The following year they moved to the
projector room of a cinema in Ravensmead, which became a prayer room.
Subsequently they bought the building, which later became the Fountain Christian Centre.[39]
When a few students of the Urban Missions School wanted to continue their studies, it was decided to start the
Cape School of Missions.
Gielle (Deon) Daniels is a special
former student of this institution. He was only in Standard Six (Grade 8), when
he was expelled from school in 1980 for boycotting and political activity. He moved into gangster-type activity in Port
Elizabeth until he came to know Christ, and experienced a call to full-time
service. No Bible school was willing to accept him, because he only had a Grade
Seven school report. Daniels applied to the Cape
School of Missions, which had advertised in Rapport, an Afrikaans
nationally-distributed newspaper. He excelled, faring better academically than
student colleagues who had already attended university. After marrying a lass
from Ravensmead, he returned to the Eastern Cape, and continued with
theological studies.
Until 1994 Martin Heuvel was the principal of the Cape School of Missions. He was succeeded
in 1995 by Rev. James Selfridge, an Irish missionary of the Metropolitan Church, who led the
teaching and proceedings there until the school was disbanded and merged with
the Bethel Bible School in 2004.
9. A Calling for
Ministry among Cape Muslims
We were in Bulstrode near London as a family at the beginning of 1991
for a part of our missionary training with WEC International. Things had
changed so much in South Africa in the months prior to this that we could now
prepare ourselves to come to Cape Town the following year. Rosemarie and I had
to complete an assignment, called a ‘field study’ about the country we intended
to go to. During my field study I ‘discovered’ that Bo-Kaap, a residential area
below Signal Hill, had become an Islamic stronghold.
In the occasional sermon, such as one in the little Dutch town Steenwijk
in 1991, I challenged Christians to send their prayer ‘batteries’ to the Muslim
stronghold Bo-Kaap, to bombard the area before we as missionaries could go in
as the ‘infantry.’ This was quite special because we were initially required by
the mission agency to get ready to become their Western Cape representatives.
It amounted to quite a crisis for us as a couple when we perceived that we were
expected not to get involved in actual missionary outreach at the Cape.
The Holy Spirit had obviously started to prepare me for ministry in the
prime Muslim residential area of the ‘Mother City’ of South Africa. I was not
aware at that stage that a SIM (Serving In Missions) Life Challenge team was already active there with door-to-door
outreach. But Rosemarie and I had no concrete plans for involvement there while
we prepared to return to the Cape in January 1992.
When we were
getting ready to leave
Holland, we had no guaranteed accommodation in Cape Town. We were already
considering approaching my faithful friend and former teacher colleague Ritchie
Arendse for the use of his caravan as we had done in 1981, when just before our
departure to South Africa we heard that we could move into a Bible School in
the Cape suburb of Athlone during the month of January.
On the first morning
after our arrival
in
Cape Town at half-past four, we
were awakened by a
deafening roar
Called to minister to Cape Muslims?
On the first morning after our arrival in Cape Town at half-past four, we were awakened by a deafening roar. The cause
was the prayer calls from the seven mosques within a radius of two kilometres
of the Cape
Evangelical Bible Institute.[40] This was the first
indication that the Lord was perhaps calling us to get involved with the Cape
Muslims.
During our orientation at the end of 1990 we had
decided that we had to enroll our two older boys at the German School. Once we
were at the Cape in January 1992, we finally enrolled all five of them there because
of other circumstances like the fact that the young ones could neither
understand nor speak English, let alone Afrikaans. To get more information
about the German school, we were referred to the Pietzsch family. Horst
Pietzsch was involved with the SIM Life Challenge missionary outreach.
A clear confirmation along these
lines could have been when we were able to rent a house in Tamboerskloof,
almost a stone’s throw from Bo-Kaap. God had evidently started fitting things
together in his perfect mosaic.
Our lack of transportation brought us into touch with Manfred Jung, a
German missionary, and the late Alroy Davids. Both of them were involved with
the Life Challenge outreach to
Muslims. (The 13-year old minibus that looked horrible had previously belonged
to Walter Gschwandtner, another German missionary, who ministered in Bo-Kaap
before he sold the vehicle to Manfred.)
The Master clearly used our first weeks in Cape
Town in January 1992 to make it unambiguously clear to all and sundry that we
were called to minister to the Cape Muslims. But we were not starkly aware of
it as yet ourselves.
A Focus on Cape Muslims? Without making any special effort, Rosemarie and
I very soon came to know converts from Islam at the Cape. We met Adiel Adams
and Zane Abrahams through our representation ministry with WEC International,
our mission agency. My late Aunt Emmie Snyers spontaneously gave us the phone
number of Majiet Pophlonker, another Muslim
background believer (MBB) with a special testimony. It seemed as if different
people were divinely instructed to challenge us to focus on Cape Muslims. The
idea came up of writing down their stories, and to use them for evangelistic
purposes.
The
idea came up of writing
down the
stories of converts
As I was speaking telephonically to Val Kadalie, the
matron of the G.H Starke Home for the aged in Hanover Park, I sensed
confirmation that this township, where I had been teaching in 1981, was the
place to get more intensely involved with ministry. Soon I linked up with
Norman Barnes, a former gangster and drug addict and also a convert from Islam.
On Saturday afternoons he led the prayer group of the City Mission fellowship.
Personal Challenges confront us
At
the outset, we encountered a further problem that was associated with the
Muslim community - drug addiction. On
the first Sunday that we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church,[41]
a couple there told us that their daughter, who was addicted to drugs, had
become a Muslim as a result. We were immediately reminded of the successful Betel outreach to drug addicts by our
mission agency WEC International in
Spain. Gradually we came to see this as a possible avenue of loving service to
the local Muslim community.
At the beginning of our stay in Tamboerskloof I
joined Manfred Jung’s Life Challenge team
in Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. I felt however quite uncomfortable
with the method used, to knock at strange people’s doors to speak to them about
my faith. This coincided with the cessation of the SIM Life Challenge
outreach effort in Bo-Kaap. (Through apartheid legislation the ‘Malay quarter’ of Bo-Kaap was greatly
extended, churches there were closed down and some Christians became Muslims to
continue living there.)
A positive result of the door-to-door ministry
with the SIM Life Challenge team was
that I discovered that my knowledge of Islam was completely inadequate. I
received permission from our WEC mission leaders to do a post-graduate course
in Missiology at the Bible Institute of
South Africa (BISA) in Kalk Bay with a special focus on Islam. As part of my part‑time studies I had to
produce various assignments. This led me studying the spread of Islam at the
Cape and Jesus in the Qur'an among other topics. I continued with my research,
writing various unpublished treatises thereafter. I used the result of my studies in other
ways, notably in the run-up to the Jesus
Marches of 1994 and a prayer seminar in Rylands in 1995.
A cross-cultural Choir
In
the course of the next few months Shirley Charlton, our WEC missionary
colleague, took me to various Bible schools in the Cape Peninsula. I also had
my own contacts like the Moravian
Theological Seminary, which had moved to the township Heideveld while I was
overseas. There my seminary student
colleague Kallie August was now the director.[42]
He hails from the Elim Mission Station, having attended primary school
simultaneously with me. At the Chaldo
Bible School in Wittebome, the theological training institution of the Full Gospel Church, Dr David Savage, my buddy from the Harmony
Park ‘stranddienste’ in 1964, with whom I had subsequently corresponded for
a long time, was now the principal.
Through our attending the Cape Town
Baptist Church, a regular annual slot at the Baptist Seminary ensued.
Here I could challenge students during their weekly chapel hour.
At one of the events to which Shirley took me, I heard Joyce Scott
reporting. She was a missionary of AIM, using her gift of music in ministry and
lecturing at the Cape Evangelical Bible
Institute. This was the catalyst
for us to start a choir with singers coming from different cultures, a vision I
had brought along from Holland. (In Zeist I had attended a performance of a
culturally mixed group from New Zealand.) At different
occasions to which I was invited as speaker, I took along the cross-cultural
choir that we had formed. Apart from Grace Chan, our colleague from Mauritius,
we also had people from different races in the choir - including a Zulu and a
few Xhosas. We recruited the choir members predominantly from Capetonian Bible Colleges.
Rosemarie and I realized that we needed to get the
backing, moral and prayer support of other Christians. At the same time we
prayed, asking the Lord where we should start to serve him. By June 1992 our ministry was still not focused
at all. We had not discerned properly that we were meant to focus on Muslims.
Centre for Missions at BI
When our renowned British missionary colleague Patrick
Johnstone visited South Africa in 1994, he also spoke in the Moravian Chapel
in District Six, where a student ministry from the Church of England had started, conducting services on Sunday
evenings. At that occasion Dr Roger Palmer, the leader of the YMCA branch at
UCT and a board member of the Bible
Institute of South Africa (BI) in Kalk Bay, shared his vision with me to
have a centre for missions at BI. I had
already been in discussion with Manfred Jung of SIM to bring the teaching of
Muslim Evangelism to different Bible Schools. In fact, I had already approached
various Bible Schools to find out what was taught about Islam at these
institutions, remembering the lack we had in our own curriculum at the Moravian Theological Seminary. This
research resulted in the start of annual intensive two-week courses in Muslim
Evangelism at BI from January 1996, which led in turn to a teaching session of
Rosemarie and me at the YWAM base in Muizenberg.
Prayer undergirds
Evangelism
From oral reports of earlier Life Challenge workers like Neville Truter, who later became a SIM
associate missionary, I heard that the Muslim evangelistic work was accompanied
from the start by an emphasis on prayer. For many years Muslim outreach at the
Cape and SIM Life Challenge were
almost synonymous. The mission continued with an annual prayer initiative
during Ramadan when they usually stopped their actual door-to door weekly
outreach for that month.
Under the leadership of the German missionary Gerhard
Nehls, his team had people interceding while co-workers would be visiting
Muslim homes. In other cases, groups prayed before they would go on outreach.
In the mid-1980s, Nehls’s German missionary colleague Walter
Gschwandtner got believers praying in the home of the Abrahams family at 73 Wale Street
in Bo-Kaap. The Muslim head of the home came to faith in Jesus as his Lord just
before he died in 1983. The knowledge of the Bo-Kaap prayer
meetings got almost lost when the Gschwandtner family left for Kenya in the
early 1990s.
At the Cape Town Baptist Church a few believers, including Hendrina van
der Merwe, prayed at the church when outreach groups would go to nearby Muslim
areas like Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. That congregation was
well-known for its pioneering work in various places including District Six,
Roggebaai and Woodstock. The fellowship has however yet to bridge the cultural
gap to the Muslims.
Gerhard Nehls, the old pioneer, did
not sit still after his retirement from active mission work in 1997. In conjunction with Trans World Radio,
he became the master mind behind a video series, using the most important
Islamic apologists of our day.
The result was The Battle for the Hearts. In due course the video series (later also available as DVD in
different languages) went around the globe making a significant impact wherever
it was used. Already in his
early seventies, Nehls also delved into the modern electronic technology,
starting with a data base of all materials for Muslim evangelism. In the age of
the internet many Muslims would be impacted in the new millennium through this
medium.
Breaking new Ground
My first major attempt at uniting churches of the city area
was trying to get them to pray for Muslims. We organised for converts from
Islam and various missionaries to speak in different churches on the Sundays
during Ramadan 1993. When I observed that this merely resulted in entertainment
- with no subsequent commitment - I aborted the practice. Hereafter I would
challenge churches towards loving outreach to Muslims whenever they invited me
to come and preach. But this did not deliver the goods. The only result was
that I received far less invitations to come and preach subsequently.
We found that the WEC prayer group
that met in our Tamboerskloof home, was so much more committed and interested.
Margaret Curry, a member of this monthly group of a few elderly ladies,
introduced us to the matron of St Monica’s Maternity Home in Bo-Kaap. (Margaret Curry had been a missionary
with the Hospital Christian Fellowship).
In Hanover Park we started the first cell
group
with male Muslim background believers. In
Hanover Park we started the first cell group consisting of male Muslim
background believers. There we studied biblical personalities that also figure
in the Qur’an. (This cell group ceased in September 1993 after our old VW
Microbus was stolen and we had been conned – all in one week-end! Personally we
went through a very difficult patch at this time, the result of an obvious
demonic attack.) In this research and
studies I was very fascinated and humbled to see how biblical figures that are
mentioned in the Qur’an, foreshadow Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures and Talmudic
sources. I also discovered that many pointers to the Cross and Jesus’
crucifixion had been omitted in the Qur’an.[43]
11. Europe and Africa in Concert
In 1983 Rose McKenna, a 50
year old White woman from Zimbabwe, took three steps in one week that would forever
change her life. She was baptised by full immersion, and left for
South Africa. In passing
through Johannesburg she was confronted with the Gospel, which sent her on a
search after truth. Her eagerness to get to know more about Jesus however led
to one frustration with church people after the other. McKenna’s search included a Cape Bible School
where she was regarded as too old and unsuitable for training. The Holy Spirit
became her teacher as she now dived into the Word.
Black Street Children Ministry born
At the Cape, McKenna found employment at the big insurance
company Old Mutual in Pinelands. Soon her heart was drawn compassionately
to the Black children she had seen roaming the streets. In those days that was definitely not the
in-thing to do. For eighteen months she cared for a few of these boys, unable
to find a children’s home for them. When
she heard of an institution in the township Hanover Park, she was told that the
facility was meant only for ‘Coloureds’. Bruce Duncan, the house father there,
suggested that she should take her story to the newspapers, which she did.
Irving Steyn, a journalist of The Weekend Argus, admirably brought
the plight of the ‘hole-in-the-wall’ children to the attention of the broader
public. Workers linked to the Salvation
Army assisted in the daily needs of clothing, food and exercise.
The first Cape Institution for Black
Street Children
At the end of 18 months, the children were rounded up and placed in the
cells of the Wynberg Magistrates Court, destined ultimately to be
brought to Pollsmoor Prison. Rose was directed to a certain
magistrate, who kindly phoned a friend for advice. A series of phone calls
ended in Pretoria, where someone was contacted in Cape Town to help Rose in
whatever way she needed assistance.
The outcome was that a dilapidated migrants’ hostel in Langa was donated as
a home for the children. Besta Recta,
a building firm, undertook to completely renovate the door-less, windowless and
roofless building. Eventually, Captain
Farrington Notshati from the Salvation
Army was seconded to the home, which he named Khayamandi.
This became the first children’s home for Black street kids in the Cape,
and still operates there to the glory of God. The institution was later taken
over by the Baptist Union.
A gardening Project starts in
Khayelitsha
When McKenna set up a gardening project in
Khayelitsha under the auspices of Food
Gardens Unlimited , Captain Notshati joined her. (The Black township of Khayelitsha had
been started a few years earlier, in 1984, when the apartheid regime attempted
to evict Black people from Crossroads. This shack township was evidently too
near the airport for comfort and an eyesore to those arriving and departing.)[44]
God intervened in Rose’s life again in 1986 when she was told about a
competition being run by the Standard
Bank. Prize money of R50000 was offered for a seed project. While
contemplating the fact that the gardening had really only commenced in
Khayelitsha’s Site B, and that the group of helpers was so small, a voice
boomed from nowhere, saying WALK! She perceived this to be a divine challenge
to take steps in faith. A group of five workers in this project included
Professor Frank Robb, a UCT academic in Microbiology who sensed a divine
command to humble himself before the mighty hand of God.
Rose duly put together a professional project proposal, which she
submitted. They won the competition. With the prize money, the group bought and developed an acre of ground.
Food
from this acre helped to feed the
informal community during traumatic times
Food from this acre helped to feed the informal community during the
traumatic times when the “Witdoeke”, migrants
who were donned with white head bands, were terrorizing the area. Scores of people would flee
into their property, hiding in the long grass. In the volatile situation they counted
no less than sixty burnt-out cars in Zola Budd Drive in one weekend. (In
rare irony this road was named after Zola Budd, a White barefoot-running
teenage prodigy, who had broken a long distance world record.)
The group received special permission from the regional leadership of the
left-wing Pan African Congress (PAC)
and other groups opposed to the government of the day, to distribute a donation
of mushroom soup from Old Mutual.
That weekend only army tanks came into the area, where not even the police
would come. After being engaged in Khayelitsha for eight years, the long walk of Rose
McKenna took her to Israel. That led to a life-changing epoch.
Seeds of Confession start to
germinate
In the early 1980s Dr Nico Smith - from Crossroads and
Stellenbosch fame - visited Holland. He
resided in Bilthoven, only a few kilometres from Zeist where the author and his
family were living at the time. (Smith had been more or less forced to resign
from his post as professor, and saw the call to the Black congregation from
Mamelodi near Pretoria as a special blessing. Living in the township as pastor
of that church was a powerful witness, defying the prescript of apartheid Group
Areas legislation.) I visited him in
Bilthoven after reading in a newspaper that he was in Holland. This resulted in
some correspondence, among others with him and Professor Johan Heyns.
The metamorphosis of Prof. Johan Heyns
continued
dramatically in the ensuing years
The
metamorphosis of Prof. Johan Heyns continued dramatically in the ensuing years,
when he chaired a synod commission called Church and Society. At the
1986 White General Synod in Cape Town, the report of this commission
almost brought the White sector of the Dutch Reformed Church to a 180
degree change with respect to apartheid. At the synod the seed of confession
appeared to have started to germinate. In the policy document ‘Church and Society’ it was formulated in
so many words that ‘a forced separation and division of
peoples cannot be considered a biblical imperative. The attempt to justify such
an injunction as derived from the Bible must be recognized as an error, to be
rejected.’
Yet, this position was not supported by rank and file
church members. Right-wing elements were perturbed that Church and Society actually included confession of sin with regard
to the part played by the churches - for example - in causing suffering through
the implementation of apartheid. In 1987 the reaction, formulated under
Professor W. J. G. Lubbe in a document called ‘Geloof en Protes’ (Faith and
Protest), laid bare a weakness of the majority decision: ‘It is also the question whether this confession of sin
is really derived from true remorse or whether it is derived from a desire to
please certain churches … and thus evoking an artificially created
consciousness of guilt’. The 1986 synod thus ushered in the
formation of a right-wing racist break-away denomination, the Afrikaanse
Protestantse Kerk.
In a
parallel move the Anglican Church of the
Province lost many members after the outspoken Bishop Desmond Tutu became
the Archbishop of the country. Many of them joined the conservative Church
of England in South Africa (CESA). The St James Church in
Kenilworth, where Bishop Frank Retief ministered, was to be targeted by
left-wing Blacks in an attack in July 1993.
Pentecostals
usher in Transformation
Evangelicals in general and Cape Pentecostals in particular were not known for radical change. In fact, they were regarded as reactionary, supporting the racist structures of Cape society.
Evangelicals in general and Cape Pentecostals in particular were not known for radical change. In fact, they were regarded as reactionary, supporting the racist structures of Cape society.
The Pentecostal
Protestant Church (PPC), much better known in the Afrikaner version, the Pinkster Protestantse Kerk (PPK), was
regarded as a stronghold of apartheid practice in the 1960s and 1970s in the
northern suburbs, the ‘Boerewors curtain’ of the City. No one would have suspected
that one of the most radical changes of Cape society would emanate from this
denomination.
Pastor Walter Snyman, better known as Walti Snyman, had been a pioneer of the church from the days when the fellowship had been in Tiervlei next to the railway line, until it moved to 5th Avenue in Parow. Snyman finally moved with a number of believers into the premises of the Lantern, a former cinema in Parow. At that time his brother was a leader of the denomination.
Pastor Walter Snyman, better known as Walti Snyman, had been a pioneer of the church from the days when the fellowship had been in Tiervlei next to the railway line, until it moved to 5th Avenue in Parow. Snyman finally moved with a number of believers into the premises of the Lantern, a former cinema in Parow. At that time his brother was a leader of the denomination.
Snyman
had already caused something of a stir by marrying Irish background Colleen, a’rooinek’. She started learning Afrikaans in
Bloemfontein, where the couple had met. Yet, when they left the denomination to
start a new non-denominational fellowship, this was still no earthquake.
However, there was a significant ripple effect, because as a part of their new
emphasis, Snyman started using English instead of Afrikaans in his teaching and
preaching. The new fellowship had been a White Afrikaner congregation, but
Walti Snyman understood that the church was to be there for all people, challenging
the traditional racial and language prejudices of the early 1980s.
Pastor Snyman was
obviously sensitive
to the post-Soweto situation
Pastor
Snyman was obviously sensitive to the post-Soweto (1976) situation, where
Afrikaans was seen as the language of the oppressor in many communities. The
fellowship linked up with a national move of the Holy Spirit through other
charismatic Pentecostal preachers. All over the country fellowships were
established which called themselves ‘Christian Centre’. In 1982 the church
became known as the Lighthouse Christian
Centre. (The group however did not regard themselves as part of a Rhema
denomination.) The congregation would play a pivotal role in the run-up to the Global Day of Prayer after the first Transformation
video of George Otis was screened there in October 1999.
Student Ministry flourishes
Julia Swain, was at UCT from 1981- 1984 wrote about that
time: '… there was just a handful of students who met every week to pray
through the night on a Friday for God to move on the campus. We also held
prayer walks, vigils etc. At that stage UCT was completely unreached with I
think only a portion of a percentage of students claiming to be Christians. I
know that the prayer seeds we sowed at that time and the prayer seeds sown by
previous and subsequent faithful intercessors opened the way for Paul and Jenny
Daniel to establish the His People work in 1988.'
In July 1981, Paul
Daniel, a young final year Rhodes
University (Grahamstown) student, had recently been dramatically converted
in answer to the prayers of his grandmother after the death of his younger
brother. Daniel married Jenny after he left Rhodes
University and, in obedience to a divine call, the Daniels couple sold
their house and moved to Milnerton in the Cape. (Interestingly and
providentially, this house was previously owned by the family of the late Dr
D.F. Malan, one of the architects of apartheid.) There was intense spiritual
warfare during the time of the church operating from this house as His People.
The group was destined to become a fore-runner in a much needed
multi-racial expression of the Body of Christ in Cape Town. After a year of
pioneering a local church in their home and evangelising students at UCT in
1988, the Daniels couple brought this fledgling student ministry and local
church under the covering of the Lighthouse
Christian Centre and Paul Daniel became their Youth Pastor.
Outreach work developed from the Lighthouse Christian Centre in a hostel of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) led by Dean Carelse, who came
to the Lord as a young lad from Muslim background, when his father became a
Christian. From other students Carelse had heard about the non-racial
fellowship that had started at the former Lantern cinema.
The Lighthouse
soon had a flourishing student ministry, both at UCT and at UWC. Colleen Snyman
introduced Carelse, the UWC leader, and Paul Daniel to each other. The first His People service was soon held at UCT
in 1989.
Soon
the biggest lecture
hall
of UCT was too
small
for the congregation.
The ministry grew rapidly, and soon the biggest
lecture hall of UCT was too small for the congregation. In the mornings
students would come to the Lighthouse
for the Sunday service in Parow. They soon moved to the Baxter Theatre for afternoon services. Members of the Lighthouse Youth band under the
leadership of Peter Snyman, the son of Walti and Colleen, pioneered the His
People worship team at UCT. (Peter was to succeed his father as the senior
pastor of The Lighthouse in May 2007.)
From Cape Town to the Nations
In the years that followed, His People Ministries established
local church based campus ministries on virtually every major university campus
in South Africa. While fasting and praying with the students, Paul Daniel
sensed God’s leading to pursue a vision to take the Gospel to the nations.
Every Nation London was started when Wolfi and Alison Eckleben responded to
what they sensed as “God’s call to the nations”. This resulted in them being
sent out from the His People church in Cape Town, South Africa, to start the
work in London. Having never been to the UK before Wolfie and Ali knew no-one,
they arrived at Heathrow Airport on 4 September 1993 with their two backpacks
and a vision. A great adventure was just beginning… today Every Nation
London has five venues and is responsible for many church plants from
Europe to Asia.
Seed
sown for Bless the Nations
David Bliss and his family had
relocated to Pietermaritzburg when the American Dave Bryant came to the country
in 1983. (The Concerts of Prayer
initiative with David Bryant helped to bring people together on a city-wide
level. Thousands were coming together to pray. Millions of intercessors were
mobilized in this way.) David Bliss organized a bus load of people from Natal
to attend the prayer and revival conference in 1983 at the Cape that would have
a deep effect on many young people.
The visit to the Sendingsgestig
Museum in Long Street with Dave Bryant - along with his visit to Wellington -
paved the way for Bliss and his family to move to the Boland town, which held
so much of the stamp of the renowned Dr Andrew Murray. At the missions museum
in the City Bliss was deeply touched by the original vision of Dr Helperus van
Lier to see slaves trained to become missionaries. At a Concert of Prayer in Wellington the hearts of David and his wife
Debby had been already prepared when Bryant proposed a Consultation on Prayer and World Missions in the town. Valuable
seed was sown in the soil of their hearts to bless the nations.
Valuable seed was sown into the soil
of
their hearts to bless the nations
All this occurred at a time when the
Mother City and the wider surroundings of the Peninsula were influenced by a Frontiers Missions Conference, organized
at the University of the Western Cape
(UWC) with David Bryant as speaker. The
conference at the UWC spread waves of prayer throughout the country.
Much of the prayer endeavours of the early 1990s were
connected to missionary work when Dave Bliss put the Cape on the map missions-wise
with his Bless the Nations
conferences.
Thrust into the Struggle
When his Indian family was evicted
from their home near to the city centre of Durban, the life of the twelve year
old Richard Mitchell was completely uprooted. Although quite intellligent, he
had no interest in school any more thereafter, failing twice in subsequent
years. The Hindu practices of his devout grandmother had never really impressed
him, nor did Christianity with the god of the Whites, its blond Jesus. (His
sister had become a born again Christian but he would have none of that. The
change in her life did impress him after she had become a follower of the White
man's god). Already at high school his resentment for the apartheid politics
reared its head. With a few learner colleagues Richard sawed down the pole at
night that had been erected for the fiercely hated birthday celebration of the
Republic of South Africa. His life disrupted, he soon became a drug addict to
boot.
After Richard left high school it was
almost natural that he would join SASO, the protest student movement of the
day. He was not only thrust into the struggle, but also landed behind prison
bars. There torture was the daily bread for him and 21 other young students,
including the likes of Ahmed Timol and Steve Biko. When one of his Muslim jail colleagues
introduced Islam to him, he was interested enough to give Islam a go, reading
the Qur'an soon from cover to cover. The deep search for truth however
prevailed. He decided to give Christianity a try as well. With his body paining
excruciatingly because of the terrible torture he had been experiencing, he
decided to pray something like the following: Ok blond Jesus, you White man's
god, I will really consider following you if you get me out of this place.
The Snippet from the Book of Acts
re-enacted
When a warden came to wake him in the
early morning hours to tell him that he can leave, he would at first not
believe him. He thought this was another chapter of these tormenting episodes
coming up, now disrupting their sleep which was not a real pleasure anyway.
Only when he got outside in the cool fresh air it broke through that he had
been discharged, the only one from the group of 22. With the body aching all
over, he struggled to their home. Whoever opened the door could not believe it,
and yet. A group of Christians had been having an all-night prayer meeting. One
of the major topics was their prayer for him in prison. The political anti-apartheid activist
and former drug addict not only came to personal faith after this interaction,
but soon he was on fire for the Lord, preaching in public all over the show.
A
political anti-apartheid activist
and
a drug addict came
to
faith in Jesus
When Richard heard of the possibility
to attend evening Bible School, he enrolled, soon becoming a pastor in the Full Gospel Church in due course.
An Indian couple from Durban impacts
the Cape
As a young Indian pastor Richard
Mitchell came by bus from Natal to the Frontiers Missions Conference in
1983. At
the Frontiers Missions Conference Richard Mitchell met a young man from
the Cape, Roland Manne, who had a heart for missions. Manne’s yearning to serve
the Lord abroad remained unfulfilled. He contracted cancer of the bowels, and
died in 1984. Roland's commitment had however by then sown seeds that were
germinating in the hearts of many young people. Richard Mitchell was one of those changed by the
testimony and commitment of Manne to missions and prayer.
When Richard Mitchell came to the
Cape two years later to plant a church in Rylands Estate, he felt challenged by
his background in the struggle against apartheid to bring prayer into the
matter as well. He approached Pastor Ron Hendricks of the Silvertown Baptist
Church to gather a few evangelical pastors for regular weekly prayer. In
later years the practice was powerfully emulated in Mitchells Plain. Pastor
Richard Mitchell became an important catalyst for citywide prayer in the late
1990s.
6.
Repression breeds spiritual Renewal
Without
expressing it in so many words, the booklet ‘South Africa: the miracle of little waves’ by Dr Charles Robertson
suggests that little waves of revival from the Cape might have started in the
tumultuous year of 1985. At that time racial separation was still the major
dividing factor in the country and racial
tension was escalating towards a major climax in the mid-1980s.
Any
scenario of upheaval calls for intense prayer. After giving some examples of
‘little waves’, and of individuals who rebelled against the status quo of racial separation,
Robertson summarized: ‘The changes ... were rooted in concerted prayer for revival and prayer
for change in the nation.’
The Cape saw the beginnings
of an activist type kind
of prayer
The
Cape Aftermath of Soweto 1976
The Cape aftermath of the events in
Soweto in June 1976 saw the beginnings of a new kind of prayer - the activist
type. Gugulethu High School learners requested to pray for their peers in Soweto at the general assembly, which was duly refused
(Hirson, 1979:??). Blanket refusals of permission for peaceful
demonstration – along with brutal repression of any protest - made the young
people only more resolute. Young people saw the need of addressing the addition
to alcohol of the adults. The single men
in the hostels especially were heavy drinkers. A country-wide ban on liquor was
declared on 11 October 1976, but it was only successful in Soweto. The Cape shebeen
(illegal liquor outlets) owners oopposed the ban heavily, although a
number of shebeens had been destroyed and many
bottle stores gutted. The duped liquor sellers enlisted their customers -
especially the migrant labourers - to
fight the young revolutionaries. Soon the township war between the migrants,
donned with white head bands and dubbed the Witdoeke, were pitted against
the Comrades. All of this just had to lead to a further escalation,
which only got subdued after many months, to erupt with more boycotting and
violence in 1979 and 1980. In 1986 the war between Comrades and Witdoeke
– the latter group egged on and assisted by the police - was to claim many
casualties.
We
can safely surmise that more people were agonizing in prayer for an end to the
killings and violence than before these years. Some of the increased prayer
awareness became known only later, such as businessmen and other believers who
interceded in the mornings and during lunchtime at Syfrets in Wale Street in
the Mother City.
Upheaval after a Call for Prayer
The year 1984 could be regarded as the start of a new
season of significant spiritual upheaval.
Many Black Christians supported the call of Dr Allan Boesak at the SACC
national conference of 1984 to pray for the ‘abolition of all apartheid structures’ and for ‘the end to unjust rule’. A year later, in the run-up to the anniversary of
the 16th of June Soweto tragedy, Christians were summoned to pray
via a statement prepared by the Western Province Council of Churches,
that was called a ‘Theological Rationale’. This was in essence a
cautious moderate document with an inclusive character, intended to achieve
consensus, ending with a pledge to work for Lukan liberation (Luke 4:18,19) -
an invitation to pray for a new and just order in South Africa. The words ‘that God will replace the present structures of
oppression with ones that are just, and remove from power those who persist in
defying his laws...’ were however taken out of this
context in an alarmist fashion by a Witwatersrand university professor,
coupling it with ‘downfall’, ‘overthrow’ and (violent) ‘revolution’.
The yoke of repression appeared to increase. Racial
tension escalated towards a major climax. Amidst brutalities and repression
which took place nearly every day, a group of pastors and theologians in Soweto
came together to reflect on Christian ministry in such a situation.
Through a process of discussion and consultation with
an ever widening group of Christians of all races, a document took shape that
was issued on 25 September 1985 as the Kairos Document.
Some people interpreted this document as a blanket endorsement of
violence. On the other hand, it
encouraged many of those who had abandoned the Church as an irrelevant
institution that supports, justifies and legitimizes this cruel apartheid
system. They began to feel that if the
Church becomes the Church as expounded in the Kairos Document, then they
would return to the Church.
Initiatives for
Reconciliation
Another mighty move of God in the mid-1980s was the National
Initiative for Reconciliation. In a sense this was a spin-off of SACLA
(1979), but it was also a result of the political tension of 1985 - when the
country seemed to be rushing towards the precipice of civil war. This initiative ran
concurrently with the run-up to the Kairos
Document. Michael Cassidy, the leader of Africa Enterprise, had issued a
‘Statement of intent’ on 18 July 1985.
From 10-12 September 1985, four
hundred Christian leaders, drawn from 48 denominations, cleared their diaries
and cancelled engagements to come to Pietermaritzburg for three days of
consultation and the inauguration of the National Initiative for
Reconciliation (NIR).
The call for a national day of prayer by this group to
be held on October 9, was fairly widely followed, but not yet across racial
barriers. The Kairos Document caused some confusion, especially among
people of colour.
More than thirteen hundred people
gathered
in a lunch-hour service
at
Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral
Nevertheless, on 9 October 1985 more than thirteen
hundred people gathered in a lunch-hour service at Cape Town’s St George’s
Cathedral and there were reports of Christians of all denominations meeting
in one another’s churches to pray together. ‘In Cape Town we broke out of our
islands as never before.’ However, the harsh repression by
the government and its agents continued unabatedly.
A Black group of ‘concerned evangelicals’ met in
September 1985 to discuss how the crisis in South Africa affected their lives.
They produced a shattering critique of the evangelical tradition, asserting
that ‘born again’ believers have turned out to be the ‘worst racists, oppressors and exploiters.’ The document which became known as the ‘Evangelical
Witness’ was emphatic that there can be no peace without justice. Yet
another evangelical gathering was organised, this time by the Evangelical
Fellowship of South Africa (EFSA) at Hekpoort in Gauteng in October, with
the purpose of providing guidelines for evangelical action in the midst of the
crisis in the country. The rift among theologians – more or less along racial
lines – appeared to be as wide as ever before.
The Belhar Confession of October 1986 was the
next document to reverberate throughout the country, well beyond its original
constituency, the Dutch Reformed Church family. Its stated intent was to
initiate ‘a continous process of soul-searching
together’ and a ‘readiness to repent for the sake of reconciliation and
unity in the Dutch Reformed Churches’. However,
the polemic elements in the document jeopardised any intention of stimulating
repentance and remorse. In fact, decades later it was still a bone of
contention in the Reformed family of churches.
Funerals
become Catalysts for Change
Funerals
clearly contributed to bring about change throughout South Africa. Few incidents
hightened political awareness as the funeral of four Cradock United Democratic
Front (UDF) activists, Matthew
Goniwe, Sparrow Mkhonto, Fort Calata and Sicelo Mhlauli. They had been abducted
while returning to Cradock from a meeting in Port Elizabeth. They were then
taken to Olifantshoek Pass and later to Port Elizabeth where they were
assaulted and killed on June 27, 1985. Their bodies and the vehicle in which
they were travelling were burnt. The funeral of the four men turned into a
massive affair with buses travelling not only from Port Elizabeth but even from
far away places. The run-up and aftermath of the Cradock funeral ignited a
chain reaction of spiritual waves of prayer that finally led to the release of
Nelson Mandela on 11 February 1990.
In Cape
Town the killing of the Cradock four sparked off a school boycott in the Black
townships that soon spread to 'Coloured' schools. A whole series of marches
were held, two at universities and also from one school to another.
The
government completely over-reacted to preparations for a funeral in Gugulethu
by deploying the Defence Force for the first time for such an event. A
door-to-door search in the township Langa and the prohibition of anybody
outside the Black townships to attend the funeral was the sort of measure to
let the anger rise all around the Cape. The arrest of a few religious leaders
including Dr Allan Boesak and Imam Hassan Solomons ahead of the funeral further
hightened the tension. The Wynberg Court was cordoned off by riot police the
same day. (By word of mouth the news was spread that they would be taken to that
court).
The next major event was a mass march to be held on 28
August 1985 to Pollsmoor Prison, to underline the UDF call for the
release of Nelson Mandela. Three days before the
planned march, police arrested United Democratic Front leader Dr Allan
Boesak once again. This sparked off widespread defiance. On August 28, the army
and police surrounded the Athlone Stadium, where protesters were
scheduled to gather before proceeding to Pollsmoor Prison. Access to the
stadium and to any other open area within a five Kilometer radius was however
summarily banned until midnight by the government and roadblocks were erected
on access routes.
Police brutality conscientised the masses in an unprecedented
way. Groups of people trying to join the march were forcibly dispersed by
police in a series of baton charges. In Athlone, members of the religious
fraternity, including imams and nuns, followed the wide-spread defiance of the
ban. (Various efforts were made to start the march, such as from UCT, UWC and Hewat
Training College in Crawford. Fearing tragic confrontation, Rev. Abel
Hendricks, by now a highly respected
Methodist minister, went to the commanding officer, requesting him to withdraw
the police.
Leading a march of about 4000 people,
the group was hereafter however confronted by police and given
three minutes to
disperse. The refusal to oblige was followed by rubber bullets in all
directions. Women and children were randomly beaten and the forty clergy
members who had formed the front line of the march were arrested and taken to
the nearby Athlone Police Station.Subsequently
they were jailed for seven days by a Wynberg magistrate.
The march triggered bloody clashes between police and
residents of Athlone, Philippi, Manenberg, Guguletu and Nyanga. By August 30, the death toll had risen to 28, with
more than 300 others injured. The deaths were followed by funerals, which were
all too often highly politically charged events. A big Muslim funeral followed
the death of Ebrahim Carelse, a young man who was shot by police in
mid-September. At this occasion a
policeman was besieged in a car, and trampled to death by the angry crowd.
The Burial of eleven Victims of Police Action
Possibly the second biggest funeral ever at the Cape
took place on 21 September 1985 in the township of Gugulethu. It was the burial
of eleven victims of police action, including Ayanda Limekaya, a two-month old
baby, who died after inhaling too much teargas.
The run-up to this special event on Saturday 21 September 1985 was
described as follows: 'This is no mob. This is a
disciplined, motivated crowd determined to bury their dead as a celebration of
a liberation to come, not as a remembrance of defeats in the past.' At the start of the traditional burial march, the crowd
increased dramatically. 'Within ten minutes it has swollen to
between twenty and twenty five thousand. Then it became impossible to estimate
the numbers.' This transpired in spite of many
roadblocks put up by the police and army in an effort to stop people from other
places joining the funeral.
The
roadblocks could not prevent the
consciences
of Whites being touched
Behind the scenes, God was at work. The roadblocks
could not prevent the consciences of some Whites being touched. Events followed
each other in quick succession. A tragic demonic incident occurred in Thornton
Road, Athlone - less than a week after the national prayer day. On 15 October 1985 police jumped suddenly out
of a parked truck, shooting indiscriminately at passers-by. Willem Steenkamp, a
conservative writer, reported about the event: “Film taken on the scene shows railway policemen laying down a heavy
column of indiscriminate shotgun fire...”
An eye witness described a similar scene three days later in Crossroads, not
far from Gugulethu where the massive funeral had taken place. In the Cape Times it was reported as follows: “Suddenly the police jumped out and opened fire, but
they did not shoot the people who had thrown the petrol bomb, they shot two men
(dead) who … were walking down the road. One was standing still when they shot
him, and when his friend tried to run away, they shot him too.”
Tragic
Consequences begin to unfold
The clinic in Crossroads continued to do fine work
under Dr Ivan Thoms, a young doctor, but when the proverbial chickens came home
to roost in the resistance against the tri-cameral system of government,
Crossroads was one of the first to erupt at the Cape. Worse was to come in
1986, when the place was virtually in a state of civil war.
On 9 June, 1986 the Community Centre of Crossroads, which had sheltered over two
thousand refugees on the chilly night before, was torched. Dr Di Hewitson and a
nurse, Dorcas Cyster, risked their lives as committed Christians in their
service to the battered and bruised. The SACLA clinic was located in the Witdoeke area, while many of the
clinic’s workers came from the opposing Comrades’ turf. Even as they
came to work, the benefactors were accused of only tending to the wounds of the
enemy. In a prayer, Michael Cassidy summed up the situation, which epitomised
the dilemma of the country at that time: ‘O God, only you can resolve all this. And
without the power of prevailing prayer, our land will never be healed or saved.’ Cassidy sensed that ‘the Lord needs his people not just in
prayer but in active peacemaking in such polarised contexts.’
A young Pastor gets his Hands ‘soiled’
When John Thomas and his wife Avril came to Fish Hoek
in 1987, the young Baptist minister soon became immersed in the tragic state of
our country. At an informal settlement known as
‘Green Point’ in Noordhoek (later to become Masiphumelele when the people were
moved), Rev. Thomas wanted to see for himself what was happening there. (He had
heard rumours that the police were maltreating the people who lived there.)
Having studied at the Bible Institute of
South Africa in Kalk Bay and at the University
of Pretoria, Thomas was bilingual, but like the majority of
White South Africans, he was also politically ‘innocent.’ He, along with a
young white lady who was linked to the Black Sash, were the only Whites
who witnessed how the Black people who lived peacefully in the informal
settlement, were treated like dirt. What he saw came to be - so to speak - the occasion of his second
conversion. (As a typical evangelical,
Pastor Thomas had been believing firmly that the so-called Social Gospel was
almost demonic, and that Christians simply had to toil for people’s salvation
from eternal damnation.) He now experienced a proper paradigm shift. He became
a pioneer among evangelicals, to get their hands ‘soiled’ in the dirty racial politics of the country, becoming an advance guard of
the transformation of the city.
Run-up to the Start of a local
Christian Radio Station
John Thomas’ Zimbabwe-born wife Avril was a visionary
from the word go. Closely befriended to Patrick and Jill Johnstone
who were working as missionaries with the Dorothea
Mission, the entire family was mission-minded. (The Thomas family in Pretoria was directly
linked to the Andrew Murray tradition through the Dorothea Mission. While Patrick and Jill were still courting
(secretly, because the mission did not permit overt signals of affection in the
initial stages), they often met in the Thomas family home. Whenever they were
in Cape Town, Patrick and Jill would stay with John and Avril and their two
children.)
From
their early days in the Cape, Avril Thomas initiated a multi-racial prayer meeting for women in the city, many of whom
came in by train. When they had a guest speaker, her
husband John would also come along. One of their visions that they shared for
prayer at different venues - like in the boardroom of the defunct Cape of Good Hope Bank in
St Georges Street - was for a Christian radio station to be started.
Radio Fish Hoek became a prime force
in stopping the Islamization of the Cape
Six years after the Thomas family came to the Cape,
they started Radio Fish Hoek in 1993. It was to become the first
Christian community radio station of the country. The radio station became a
prime force in stopping the Islamization of the Western Cape when PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs)
attempted to do this by force from 1996.
The radio station was
later renamed Cape
Community FM
(CCFM).
It was soon followed by Radio
Tygerberg, which started as an Afrikaans language station. The two stations
alternated on a twelve-hour basis until 2004, when both stations received
twenty four-hour transmission status.
13. The Clock Starts Turning back
September 1989 can be seen as the time when the death throngs of apartheid
became discernable.
State President P.W. Botha missed a wonderful opportunity to get the
glory for the release of Nelson Mandela. He suspiciously demanded from Mandela
a public renunciation of violence which Mandela could not make without
consulting his constituency. In August 1989 Botha was succeeded by Frederik
Willem de Klerk after a ‘well-staged cabinet coup’. The tide was turning towards
real democracy in the apartheid state.
Opponents of the
pariah rule were in the numerical ascendancy throughout the Cape Peninsula in
1989, notably also among Whites, with the exception of the northern suburbs.
Cape Town’s mayor, Gordon Oliver and his City councillors had come out in
favour of an ‘open city’. On 11 June 1989, together with two thousand other people,
he walked from Rondebosch to District Six for the cause – keeping just within
the law.
A defiance Campaign with a Difference
With the likelihood of considerable White support the pro-ANC Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) –
successor to the banned UDF – launched a new defiance campaign against
remaining social segregation on August 2. The campaign intensified as
parliamentary elections, scheduled for 6 September, drew close. P.W. Botha
suddenly had become a liability. On 14
August Mr F.W. De Klerk, a low-key Cabinet Minister but the leader of the
Transvaal NP, ousted P.W. Botha. Yet, nobody expected much in terms of
concession from a Prime Minister who had been known to be on the verkrampte side,[45]very conservative.
On 1 September several
groups of clerics and academics gathered to demand the right to protest. De
Klerk appeared to be no different to his predecessor, when all the protesters
were arrested and some of the clergymen badly beaten by the police. So were
many members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) as
they demonstrated against a new labour Relations Act. On 2 September attempted
marches to parliament were broken up by police using tear gas, quirts and a
water canon. In the White general election on 6 September the PFP’s successor,
the Democratic Party (DP), won all the city, southern and Atlantic
suburban seats. On election night
itself, many of the Cape Flats townships were turned into battlefields. 23
people were killed.
All this changed at a
mammoth march on Wednesday 13 September 1989 in the Mother City. After a short
service of ‘peace and mourning’ at St George’s Cathedral, thirty
thousand people packed the streets en route to the Grand Parade. The
city was witnessing its largest and most peaceful march since the one led by
Philip Kgosana in 1960. Unlike most demonstrations since 1960, not a single
uniformed policeman was in visible attendance. At the head of the march were
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mayor Gordon Oliver, Dr Allan Boesak, Sheikh Nazeem
Mohamed (president of the Muslim Judicial Council) and Professor Jakes Gerwel
(rector of the University of the Western Cape). Archbishop Tutu declared
victoriously: ‘We are a new people, a rainbow people, marching
to freedom’ Amid cries of ‘Long live the mayor!’ and deafening applause, Gordon
Oliver announced, ‘Today Cape Town has won. Today we all have the
freedom of the City.’
This event set off
demonstrations all over the country, which must have given the new South
African president, Mr F.W. De Klerk, food for thought. These events were made possible by national
and international developments. De Klerk’s turn around – to allow the march -
was prepared by 13 years of urban turmoil and economic recession, all of which
spawned illegal strikes, unemployment and a more militant trade unionism.
Internationally the era of perestroika had arrived in Eastern Europe. It
would have been fool-hardy for De Klerk to try and stem the tide. The march to
freedom looked unstoppable. But what few were aware of – a wave of prayer for
the country had been set in motion already in 1978.
Ominous signs however also appeared on the
horizon. In the election of the same month, it must have become clear to De
Klerk that a solution had to be found to stop the ongoing cycle of violence,
rebellion and oppression. This had been a major characteristic of South Africa
in the second half of the 1980s. In the election his party lost support to both
the left and the right.
Reconciliation and Confession topple
Apartheid
It would probably be safe to say that the 40 years of apartheid
oppression - combined with prophetic actions between 1948 and 1988 - helped to
conscientise the poor and the oppressed. Thus the situation was radicalised
towards the inevitable conflict. The
revolutionary situation after 1985 possibly influenced the pragmatic new
presidential incumbent - F.W. De Klerk - towards a more reasonable approach.
Such a scenario also normally calls for more prayer. We can safely surmise that
more people were praying for an end to the killings and violence than at other
times.
Prayer that changed Countries
At the interdenominational prayer meetings of
the ‘Regiogebed’ in Zeist (Holland) we prayed for local issues, for
missionaries who left from our area but also for other countries. In 1989 we
prayed especially for Communist countries, notably for the German Democratic
Republic, Hungary and Romania. We were really encouraged by the news that came
through from Leipzig in East Germany. Christians there seemed to have become
the vanguards of the surge towards real democracy.
God works in mysterious ways
his wonders to perform! Unwittingly I was preparing my return to Africa, to my
dear Heimat at that. On 4 October 1989 I wrote a letter of confession to
President De Klerk, the newly inducted president, after I had become inwardly
convicted because of my activism and arrogance. (Over the years I had written
quite a few letters to the presidential incumbent’s predecessors and to some of the Cabinet
ministers. Rosemarie felt that I was wasting my time. She was very sure that my
letters would never reach the likes of Mr P.W. Botha. I prodded on
nevertheless, but after 1982 the letters became very sparse compared to the
years 1978-80.)
The prayer meeting
was devoted to
praying for my
beloved country.
At our ‘regiogebed’meeting
of 4 October 1989, I mentioned in passing to someone that I had posted a letter
to President De Klerk that day.
Spontaneously Mr van Loon, a teacher from the nearby town of Doorn, who
was no regular at our prayer meetings,
overheard this. He promptly suggested that we devote more time that
evening to pray for South Africa. Nobody objected. That must have been
supernatural guidance. The whole prayer meeting was hereafter devoted to
praying for my beloved country. That was the only occasion when we prayed so
intensely for a single country.
Nobody present at the prayer
meeting was aware that President De Klerk was to meet Archbishop Tutu and Dr
Allan Boesak the following week. That strategic meeting became in a sense a watershed
in the politics of the country, the prelude to the release of Nelson Mandela
and the end of apartheid. In other countries also, but especially in South Africa, people had been
praying for a change in the suicidal direction of the political system.[46]
President
de Klerk invited church
leaders to assist the government
President De Klerk soon showed
that he was serious by not only releasing eight of South Africa’s most
prominent political prisoners, including Walter Sisulu, but also having the Separate
Amenities Act repealed on 16 November 1989. In his first Christmas address
to the nation as State President, De Klerk invited Church leaders to assist the
government. The Church leaders were distrustful
– this was very understandable after the many broken promises of the
past. They insisted that he would leave the churches alone in such a venture.
De Klerk not only graciously accepted this, but he also proved his credentials
in his momentous speech to Parliament on 2 February, paving the way for Nelson
Mandela to be set free a week later.
On 15 June 1990 a wide range
of church leaders met at Khotso House in Johannesburg, the start of the
road to Rustenburg in November, where a momentous church conference was held!
(see p.???)
Soon it became only a
matter of time for the slated Group Areas legislation was to be scrapped. On an
orientation trip in December 1990 we were encouraged sufficiently to return as
a family just over a year later.
New Mega Churches established
In 1988 His People Ministries started at UCT with Sunday afternoon services
in the Robert Leslie Building and later on in the Baxter Theatre, usually led by Paul
Daniel. In due course this institution became a blessing to many a country as
missionaries left the Cape shores to plant fellowships abroad. Glen Robertson,
a young musician, also became converted at the Lighthouse. At His People
he developed an extensive music ministry and he was to play a pivotal role in
the Newlands mass events from 2001. His People Ministries grew into a
multi-congregation church in the city with its main meeting venue a complex
seating 4000+ at N1 City, Goodwood, which was opened in 2000.
In a parallel move of the Holy
Spirit, Neville McDonald was affected. Groomed by his father-in-law, he came to
Cape Town in 1984 as a young pastor with his wife Wendy, to start a church.
They hired a cinema, the Three Arts Theatre, put an advertisement in the
newspaper and began to preach and pray for the sick.
Along with the Cape-born Derek Golding, who soon joined McDonald, a fellowship was started at the former Three Arts complex. After a few years this building became too small. A large new facility around a warehouse in Ottery became known as the Good Hope Christian Centre, with daughter fellowships of their own in due course.
Along with the Cape-born Derek Golding, who soon joined McDonald, a fellowship was started at the former Three Arts complex. After a few years this building became too small. A large new facility around a warehouse in Ottery became known as the Good Hope Christian Centre, with daughter fellowships of their own in due course.
A group of charismatic
believers branched off amicably from the Wynberg Baptist Church, to form
the Vineyard Church. Pastor Simon Petit, the fellowship
grew rapidly, moving into the Waverley blanket factory, with satellite congregations at
other venues, such as in the Cape Town High School and in
Khayelitsha. The new denomination, with
its links to Terry Virgo from Britain and his New Frontiers team.
They received a request to change their name
to Jubilee Church in 1993. They received a request to that effect, to
distinguish them from the fellowship, which had links to the internationally
known John Wimber, and which also used the name Vineyard Church.
There were also Cape congregations linked to so-called
mainline denominations which grew significantly. The two Apostolic Faith
Mission (AFM) churches of Goodwood and Bellville belong to this category.
Surfing
the spiritual Waves
In 1991 a Christian surfing club was started at the Cape Town Baptist Church in an attempt to reach unchurched surfers.
Mike Geldenhuys, a young believer who proceeded to study theology at the Cape Town Baptist Seminary, invited Roy
Harley, a devout surfer from Durban, to come and challenge the youngsters at a
camp. Nathan, the son of Graham Gernetsky, the pastor, invited his friend
Terran Williams. Under the impact of the Word, Terran was the first to commit
his life to Christ. Demitri Nikiforos and Nathan Gernetsky were two other
teenagers who, like Terran, later went into full-time ministry. Demitri and Roy
Harley became the co-leaders of the Christian surfing club when Roy came to
study theology at CEBI (that later became Cornerstone
Christian College).
The Cape Town surf
ministry linked with two similar groups in East London and Port Elizabeth. Soon
Sun Surf became the national brand
name for ministries all over the country linked to a local church. At this time
God raised similar ministries among surfers in Australia and the US. Roy Harley
relocated to Jeffrey’s Bay, the Mecca of surfing in South Africa. Roy Harley
became the continental co-ordinator in due course.
Demitri Nikiforos became
a pioneering pastor of Calvary Chapel in
the Mother City after studies in the USA. Nathan, a graduate from Cornerstone
Christian College, joined the leadership team of Friends First Church
after leading churches in Hermanus and Hout Bay. Terran Williams served with Scripture Union after his studies at Cornerstone
Christian College. He joined the leadership team of Friends First (renamed
Common Ground Church in 2008), which has since then grown to be a large
church with a strong reach into the city.
Prayer
guides the difficult Transition
Already in February 1990 President F.W. de Klerk put
into place the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa). From
the earliest meetings the good rapport he seems to have with the leader of the
unbanned ANC, the freshly released Nelson Mandela, augured well for the future
of the country. There was however a big gulf between De Klerk and his Afrikaner
constituency, which manifested itself in a humiliating defeat of the ruling NP
at the hands of the Conservative Party in a Potchefstroom by-election at
the beginning of 1992. The pragmatic State President, who was clearly bent on
preserving White power, decided to flee forwards.
In the negotiations that followed Nelson Mandela’s
release from jail in February 1990, Mandela described the Cape's Colin Eglin as
‘one of the architects of our
democracy’. This was definitely no
overstatement. In the memoirs of Colin Eglin two clear instances are mentioned
where the intervention of Eglin contributed to salvage the negotiations. In the
one instance he challenged Nelson Mandela to bury their petty differences in
the national interest when deadlock occurred and in the second case he asked
for an interview to see De Klerk where he suggested that Roelf Meyer be asked
to take over the bilateral negotiations with the ANC's Cyril Ramaphosa. Eglin
continued to make his impact in parliament over the first 10 years of South
Africa’s transition to democracy.
Sensitivity grew among Whites, which would finally lead to President F.W. de Klerk
being enabled to take the risk of asking the White electorate for permission to
vote themselves out of power in a referendum.
When President F.W. de Klerk announced a Whites-only
election on 20 February 1992, it was still unclear in which direction the
country would go. The possibility of unprecedented civil war could definitely
not be ruled out. The Whites were asked to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question: ‘Do
you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began
on February 2, 1990 and which is aimed at a new constitution?’
The success of the Proteas
possibly
influenced the referendum.
The success of the national cricket team at the World
Cup tournament in Australia at that time possibly influenced the vote
decisively. A ‘no’ vote would most certainly have sent the country back into
the sporting wilderness. The latter possibility was for many in the sports
loving country just as ghastly to contemplate! (This formulation was a dictum
coined by Mr B.J. Vorster, a previous Prime Minister, for the civil war
option.) With a resounding ‘yes’ - 68% -
from all corners of the country, Mr de Klerk was given a mandate on 17 March,
1992, to negotiate a new constitution with African
National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela.
The Goodwill of promising Beginnings seemed to
evaporate
Much of the goodwill of the promising beginnings
seemed to evaporate after 1992 during the transition to democratic government.
In Kwazulu, a simmering condition of civil war had been prevailing for years.
The tension between ANC followers and those of the Inkatha Freedom Party
(IFP) was just waiting for the final igniting of the proverbial powder keg. The apparent if perhaps not intentional
simultaneous side-lining of Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi and his IFP in the Codesa
talks spelled danger. At the infamous Boipatong massacre on 17 June 1992 in the
Vaal triangle 46 township residents were massacred by local Zulu
hostel-dwellers. The latter were taken
to have been Inkatha followers of Dr Buthelezi, highlighting how volatile the
situation still was. Over the Easter weekend of 1993, the country seemed to
have been pushed to the precipice of major racial conflict. On 10 April, 1993,
the news reverberated throughout the country that the outspoken communist Chris
Hani, who had been groomed for a top position in a possible ANC-led government,
had been assassinated. The fact that a White woman provided information leading
to the prompt arrest of the alleged perpetrators, two right-wing activists,
helped to lower the political temperature momentarily, but the situation
remained extremely tense.
But satan had overplayed his hand. The St James Church massacre
of July 1993 turned out to be the instrument par excellence to impact
the movement towards racial reconciliation in the country. Those family members
who lost dear ones received divine grace to forgive the brutal killers. The
killing of innocent people during a church service sparked off an unprecedented
urgency for prayer all around the country.
Freedom via the Cross
By the end of 1993, South Africa stood on the
verge of her first democratic elections. But despite the political significance
of this watershed moment, frustration was high in the Black communities and
morale low in White communities. The future was unclear. Questions and doubts
plagued the business community. Would the economy withstand a new government?
Would a Black government simply turn the tables on the Whites in revenge? Would
violence escalate and security deteriorate?
By far not everybody was happy with the
negotiated settlement as the country approached the elections. Thus there were
some who felt their cause betrayed. On the Friday evening of 31 December 1993,
four masked men entered the Heidelberg Tavern of Observatory, a Cape
suburb which was frequented by many students. The embittered men fired several
rounds of AK47 bullets into the crowd, injuring many and killing a few. Among
the dead there was Lyndi, the daughter of Ginn Fourie, who was challenged by
the rage into doctoral research on the background of the massacre. Her thesis
in Sociology around the motives of the perpetrators contained the very personal
question: ‘I want to find out whether or not we can become reconciled
to each other.’
The adage of the great Albert Luthuli to attain freedom via the Cross
received a new actuality: (Luthuli
said this after he had been elected as President of the ANC and then dismissed
as chief by the South African government in November 1952): 'It is inevitable that in working for freedom some individuals and some
families must take the lead and suffer: the road to freedom is via the Cross'.
Taking back what satan had stolen?
The
indifference of the churches to evangelistic outreach has always been a problem
all around the Peninsula. The situation in Woodstock and Salt River had no good
record in this regard. The two crime- infested suburbs, made up of people of
lesser means, had become predominantly Islamic within a few years in the early
1990s.
In
March 1994, Pastor Graham Gernetsky, the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, organized a
missions week with theological students from the Cape Town Baptist
Theological Seminary.
The author was asked to teach at this week-long event along with Bobby Maynard, who was linked to Veritas College, then still in its embryonic stage. Reverend Gernetsky reacted positively to my suggestion to engage in prayer warfare with the students not only in Bo-Kaap, but also in Woodstock. This would be tantamount to an attempt to take back what satan had stolen through drug abuse, prostitution and gangsterism.
The author was asked to teach at this week-long event along with Bobby Maynard, who was linked to Veritas College, then still in its embryonic stage. Reverend Gernetsky reacted positively to my suggestion to engage in prayer warfare with the students not only in Bo-Kaap, but also in Woodstock. This would be tantamount to an attempt to take back what satan had stolen through drug abuse, prostitution and gangsterism.
During a prayer walk by the students - which formed part of
the missions week - a local Woodstock resident mentioned Pastor William Tait
and his fellowship. This led to contact with the local Assemblies of God congregation there. When Pastor Tait started his
ministry in 1989, that suburb was becoming completely Islamic, albeit not for a
reason that made Muslims proud.
Christians were leaving Woodstock as gangsterism and prostitution took
the area by storm. By 1990 it had become
the drug hub of the metropolis.
By 1990 Woodstock had become
the
drug hub of the metropolis
The
1994 missions week was also the start of closer co-operation between the Assemblies of God fellowship[47] and the small local Baptist
Church. I had been preaching occasionally at the Baptist fellowship, which
had no pastor at that time.
The Face of Woodstock changed
Towards
the end of the decade, the notorious suburb slowly changed its religious
complexion. The centre of drug-peddling
and prostitution moved to more lucrative areas. Pastor Tait and his church were
ably assisted by the small local Baptist
Church under the inspiring and pioneering sickly new minister, Pastor Edgar
Davids. Sadly, Davids died in March 1998 after his body rejected a transplanted
kidney.
The
two buildings where these churches met, visibly demonstrated the need for
change in the area. Both structures had become quite dilapidated by 1995. The Baptist
Church bought the ruin of the old Aberdeen Street Dutch Reformed Church, and soon they started to restore it with
financial and practical aid from North Carolina believers in the USA.
The Fountain
of Joy Assemblies of God
initially rented a delapidated building which they
subsequently tried to buy from the Woodstock
Presbyterian Church in 1997. The Presbyterian
Church found it difficult to survive in the deteriorating suburb. (Almost
all their members had either left the area or passed away.) The Fountain of
Joy Assemblies of God fellowship
was in many ways an exception to the general indifference. From 1994, they
conducted five o’clock prayer meetings every morning on weekdays.
Almost before our eyes we could see God starting
to use these two fellowships of Woodstock - to gradually change the face of the
suburb. The
restored churches, respectively in Clyde and Aberdeen Streets, that once had
been the shame of local Christianity, now stood there as a visible testimony to
God’s renewal power in that suburb. We prayed that something similar would happen in
the spiritual realm.
Involvement in Walmer Estate and Salt River
Our involvement in the adjacent suburbs of Walmer
Estate and Salt River started with prayer walking. In the latter instance it became
the prelude to a children’s club that we began with Marika Pretorius - a SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague
- after our return from ‘home assignment’ in Europe in 1995. (Marika had been
used by God to introduce us to families in Bo-Kaap, and as a link to the Alpha
Centre in Hanover Park, where we also conducted children’s clubs from 1993
to 1995). In our absence she did further spadework work with a holiday club in
Salt River in the Burns Road Community
Centre.
At some stage Marika brought along her roommate
and co-worker from their Dutch Reformed congregation
in Panorama, Jenny van den Berg. When Marika left for Germany to work among
Turkish people, not only did Jenny become our valued co-worker in Salt River,
but in due course she was to become one of the regular lecturers at the annual
Muslim Evangelism course at the Bible
Institute of South Africa that we started in 1996 under the umbrella of Christian Concern for Muslims (CCM).
After we had handed the children’s work in Salt River to Eric Hofmeyer, Jenny
van den Berg pioneered a similar ministry in Woodstock, based at the local Baptist
Church, where she ministered until 2009.
Can an angel bring a false message?
Lessons learned in
spiritual Warfare
My teaching at the missions week with the seminary students
‘backfired’. It became one big lesson in spiritual warfare. We included early
prayer times with the students, starting at 5 a.m. One morning my wife
Rosemarie shared what she had ‘discovered’ in Galatians 1:8,9 – that even an
angel could bring a false message if that would deviate from the original
Gospel revealed in Scripture. This amplified to us the origins of the Qur’an.
We had learned that Muhammad later believed – after thinking initially that it
was God himself - that an angel brought to him the Surah (chapter)
starting with the words that man was made out of clotted blood. (Muslims
believe that these revelations were brought to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel.)
We were filled with more compassion towards the Muslims as we realized that
they have been deceived without even knowing it. This became to me the pristine
beginnings of an in-depth study of the Angel Gabriel in the Bible, the Qur’an,
the Talmud and the Ahadith.[48] (Islamic traditions of
Muhammad’s words and deeds are regarded as equal in authority to the Qur’an).
The consistent omission of the Cross
in
the Qur’an could not be coincidence
I furthermore discovered how deceptive the arch-enemy was,
that he had indeed been masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14),
and that the consistent omission in the Qur’an of everything alluding to the
Cross could not be coincidence. The latter discovery came about as I prepared
myself for teaching Muslim background believers.[49]
One of the lessons of the missions week was quite painful to
me. As I taught the theological students about the history of Islam in the
Western Cape, I broke down in tears. I discovered how deep in my heart there
was still resentment towards the Dutch
Reformed Church. I suppose that it developed when I had been reading how
the denomination opposed the government when Mr P.W. Botha and his Cabinet were
ready to repeal the Prohibition of Mixed
Marriages Act. (This was the law that caused my exile of almost two decades
in Germany and Holland.)
The increasing number
of expatriates in
Cape
Town came into focus as future
missionaries
to their own people.
Black People seen as future Missionaries
Two
of the student participants at the mission week were Kalolo Mulenga and Orlando
Suarez, respectively from Zambia and Mozambique. The seed had already been sown
in my heart to see African Black people as future missionaries during an
orientation visit to the Ivory Coast in 1990, where we had hoped to go as a WEC
missionary family. Now the increasing number of expatriates in Cape Town came
into focus as future missionaries to their own people, just like the Samaritan
woman of John 4 in the ‘New Testament’. Orlando Suarez was to become one of the
first of those foreign Africans to return to their home country, albeit that in
his case it was not completely voluntarily. The lessons in cross-cultural
outreach that the Master Teacher passed on to us through chapter 4 from John’s
Gospel, would guide us during the next few years. I not only used the
conversation of our Lord Jesus with a woman from another culture as a prime
example for the outreach to Cape Muslims, but we were now concentrating our
work on the local converts from Islam. We noticed how much more effectively
they were reaching out to their own people.[50]
Two missionaries from the Cape to Malawi helped prepare the
way for an attitudinal change of Cape Christians. Bobby Maynard attended the Cape Town Baptist Church before he left
the Mother City for Malawi, touching the young (future) Baptist ministers during
the missions’ week in March 1994 just before he left. Braam Willemse, another
Cape missionary, ministered to the predominantly Muslim Yao tribe when he died
at a fairly young age. Willemse did stalwart pioneering work among that tribe
in the mid-1990s, but when the first mosque became a church in Malawi -
probably the first on the African continent to do so, he had already gone to be
with the Lord. (The opposite happened more often – churches becoming mosques.)
A special call to Service
God called
Hester Veldsman in a very special way. She resigned her well-paid employment
promptly, starting to go into the informal settlements around Paarl and
Wellington – giving soup to the children and also going door-to-door, just
serving and responding to needs. One day, when the children prayed to say
thanks for their soup, little Emile challenged her with a question: Auntie
Hester, who is this Jesus that we must give thanks to? She was challenged
with the reality that on our doorstep – in spite of so many churches around -
that there are still children and adults who have no idea who Jesus or God is.
She went for training in Children’s Ministry to equip herself better. Her main
teacher however was the Holy Spirit, who taught her day-by-day and
step-by-step. Hester also identified responsible mothers, for whom she arranged
Educare training. These ladies would take in a number of children into their
homes as an informal “crèche”, where working mothers could leave their
pre-school children. (Most of these crèches are still running today, of course
much more professionally than in those early years).
In 2003
Hester was challenged once again with the need of intelligent children from
indigent families to have proper education. With the help of the more affluent
of her surrounds and friends, she succeeded in bringing a plan to fruition
which resulted in holistic education and the vision of community
transformation. A bunch of young individuals were transformed into a group that
were later to be used also in evangelisation. They were dubbed in due course The
Dream Team.
Spiritual Complexion of residential Areas changed
The influx of exploited Black Africans who sometimes shared their
accommodation
with other refugees who work at night[51] in
Woodstock and Salt River, helped to change the spiritual complexion of the
suburbs which had become Islamic in the early 1990s. Small churches with
especially French speakers sprang up all over from Woodstock to Maitland and
Observatory. These refugee believers brought into the area the practice of
all-night prayer from Friday to Saturday, a phenomenon that had become common
in Central Africa. The sad side of this is that the seed of Prosperity
Theology that entered the country in the 1980s, manifested itself amongst
the new small churches in the most wicked and evil ways. Eloquent ‘pastors’
sprang up all over who were merely seeking a convenient life-style, abusing the
national or language affinity of their refugee compatriots. This made their
days of fasting and all night prayer meetings hypocritical, the sort of thing
that God hates (Isaiah 58).[52]
As the Black Africans moved into these
residential areas, racist ‘Coloureds’ started moving out. Seed for a new South
Africa was nevertheless sown. Tolerance towards our African brothers and
sisters germinated. During the violence in 2008 there was not a single serious
xenophobic incident in these suburbs.
8.
Prayer for Cape Muslims and Jews
After our move to Tamboerskloof at the end of
January 1992, we started reaching out to street children and vagrants. Soon Rosemarie and I decided to do
prayer walking in the adjacent Bo-Kaap, asking the Lord to lead us to those
people where the Holy Spirit had already done preparatory work. But we
sensed very soon that we should not be alone in this venture. We discovered
that we needed the prayer backing of other Christians. As a family we were
attending the city branch at the Cape Town High School of the Vineyard Church, as the Jubilee Church was called.[53] Dave and Herma Adams, the
local leaders of the fellowship at the Cape
Town High School, had a vision to reach out to the Muslims, although the
new denomination in general had no special affinity as yet for such outreach.
Covert Power Encounters
More covert power encounters were to follow in
the 1970s under the ministry of Ds. Pietie Victor’s Straatwerk. Thus
Esther Dunn, a former drug addict, was supernaturally delivered. She went to
the Glenvar Bible School that is linked to the Africa Evangelistic
Band, thereafter becoming the first full-time worker of Straatwerk.
Drug addicts were among those who were set free through the power of the
Gospel. Many a Satanist or person under occult bondage discovered that there is
indeed quite a lot of power in the blood of Jesus, especially when believers
stand together in prayer.
Many a Satanist or
person under
occult bondage discovered that
there
is power in the blood of Jesus
From
oral reports of Life Challenge workers of yesteryear, the ministry was
accompanied by an emphasis on prayer. For many
years Muslim outreach at the Cape and SIM Life Challenge were almost
synonymous. WEC International missionaries who came to the Cape in 1992,
likewise endeavoured to emphasise prayer. Regular prayer meetings focused on
Bo-Kaap.
Ministry in Bo-Kaap
Somewhere
along the line I heard my mother mentioning that I was born at St Monica’s
Maternity Clinic in Bo-Kaap. The institution subsequently played a special
role in our getting to know quite a few Cape Muslims. After initial scepticism
because of her skin colour and foreign accent, Rosemarie would immediately get
complete trust from the patients when she mentioned that her husband was born
at the self-same maternity clinic. Our Bo-Kaap prayer walks resulted in the resumption of a fortnightly
prayer meeting in the home of Cecilia Abrahams, the widow of a Muslim
background believer from Wale Street. (These prayer meetings had been initiated
and led by Walter Gschwandter (SIM Life Challenge) until
his departure for Kenya. The prayer meetings focused on reversing the effect of
apartheid on Bo-Kaap. From the outset
Daphne Davids, a member of the Cape Town
Baptist Church and also a Bo-Kaap resident, attended the prayer meeting
regularly. When Cecilia Abrahams encountered problems with her hearing ability
after a few years, the meeting was relocated to Daphne’s home across the road,
and it later became a monthly event.[54]
Intensified Prayer in a
Muslim Stronghold
Two members of the city Vineyard
Church fellowship, Achmed Kariem, a Muslim background believer and
Elizabeth Robertson, who had a special love for the Jews, joined us for the
Wale Street prayer meetings in Bo-Kaap. We had as an ultimate goal the planting
of a simple church[55] in the most extreme
Islamic stronghold of the Cape Peninsula. In 1992 it was regarded as quite a
daunting challenge.
In mid-1993 the fellowship of believers from the Vineyard Church stopped gathering at the
Cape Town High School. The Lord seemed to lead us to the Cape Town Baptist Church, using the
8-year-old daughter of one of the elders of the church.
A young girl was troubled by
the calls
from the minarets
The
girl had been terribly troubled by the calls from the minarets in the nearby
mosques. Her father suggested that she should start praying for the Muslims.
Soon thereafter a group from the church arrived one Monday evening at our
prayer meeting in Bo-Kaap.
Just at that time we heard that Louis Pasques and
his wife Heidi were interested in ministering to the Muslims. Louis was a
student at the Baptist Seminary, and
a leader of one of the three daughter congregations of the Cape Town Baptist Church. This eventually led us to join the
fellowship.
A special Impact on (Cape) Jewry
When the Bo-Kaap prayer meeting in the Abrahams’
home in Wale Street was changed to a monthly meeting, it made room for a prayer
event where intercession for the Middle East was the focus. The new monthly
meeting - at our home in Tamboerskloof and later in the suburb Vredehoek from
1994 - also included prayer for the Jews, those in Israel as well as those in
Cape Town. The catalyst for the Jewish part of the prayer meeting was Elizabeth
Robertson, whom God had used to stir the Jews of Sea Point in 1990. She had
been confronted at that time with a very difficult choice when she was about to
convert to Judaism, in preparation for her marriage to an Israeli national. Her
autobiography The Choice made an impact on Cape Jewry when it was
published in 2003. In the same year it was read on the programme Story
Teller via CCFM radio. Elizabeth writes about the predicament into which
the rabbi put her in the final interview of the procedure before she was about
to convert to Judaism. She described the turmoil with the following words:
I
cleared my throat to speak, when unexpectedly an anointing fell upon me, and I
found myself asking if I might go on my knees. A holy boldness overtook me and
in a loud, firm voice, with an authority that shocked even me, I heard myself
saying: “To me Jesus Christ is the Son of God! He is the one who died for me,”
then, pointing at the rabbis one by one, “and for you and for you and for you.
He is the Messiah. He was born of a virgin, and His blood cleanses all of our
sins. This is who I believe Jesus Christ is!”
I then collapsed onto the floor in a sobbing heap.
The unexpected choice of Elizabeth Robertson shook Cape
Jewry. Surprisingly, she was encouraged by
Jews to publish her special story.
Start of a Missions Prayer Meeting
Preparations for the start of a prayer meeting
for missions in Hanover Park progressed well. The City Mission congregation
of the township was prepared and willing to have one of their weekly prayer
meetings changed to be used for praying for missionaries once a month.
With Norman Barnes, a Muslim background believer
and former drug addict as the leader, it was easy to share the burden of
praying for the problematic groups from where he came. The vision to see
missionaries going from their area was gladly taken on board. The idea was
completely new to the intercessors, but the Lord soon started answering the
prayers miraculously. From the Lansdowne/Hanover Park/Manenberg area there were
within a few years more or less as many missionaries somewhere in the world
than from the rest of the Cape Peninsula put together over a limited period.
An Operation gets going in Hanover Park
The Bless the Nations
conferences influenced the Cape very deeply. Bruce van Eeden, a pastor from
Mitchells Plain who was powerfully touched in 1990, started Great Commission Conferences in
‘Coloured’ areas. After ministering at one of these conferences in 1992,
Rosemarie and I became involved with children’s ministry at the Newfields
Clinic where Van Eeden was pastoring an Evangelical
Bible Church congregation.
Law enforcement agents could
not
handle the criminality
At this time I participated in the establishing of Operation Hanover Park. The stimulus for
the latter operation was given by Everett Crowe, a police officer, who approached the churches in a last-ditch effort to secure peace in Hanover Park,
because the law enforcement
agents could not handle the criminality in the area any more. Operation Hanover Park was formed with Pastor Jonathan Matthews of the Blomvlei Baptist Church[56] as the main driving force
behind the initiative. The City Mission
Saturday afternoon prayer meeting was the precursor to the monthly prayer
meeting of Operation Hanover Park
towards the end of 1992.
Operation Hanover Park involved believers of diverse church backgrounds
who prayed together. Dean Ramjoomia, a Muslim background believer, was eager to operate among
the gangsters as the local missionary of the churches. Blomvlei Baptist Church offered the Ramjoomia family accommodation
on the church premises and a few other churches pledged financial
contributions. Things looked quite promising. It seemed as if the Hanover Park churches were
finally getting out of their indifference with regard to community involvement.
Our idea of solving the gangsterism problem in the long term, by starting
Christian children’s clubs in different parts of the township, made many local
believers excited. Furthermore, it looked as if our vision - to get local
churches networking in missions and evangelism - was coming to fruition. At
least, this was how it seemed! At the same time, this would also give an
example
to believers in other
parts of the country to combat criminality and violence – through united prayer
and action! That was however not to be. Operation Hanover Park was on the verge of achieving an early
version of community transformation at the beginning of 1993 when a leadership
tussle stifled the promising movement.
The
first Love Southern Africa Conference was held in Wellington in 1993,
with the Nigerian Panja Baba and OM's international leader George Verwer as the
main speakers. This co-incided with the renovation of the OM ship the Doulos
in the Cape Town harbour. The ship's
young people were hosted all over the Cape Peninsula and spreading blessings.
Some of these young people were ministering in Hanover Park.
Gangster Violence spilling over to the Countryside
Gangster violence spilled over to the Cape countryside. By the late
1980s the Roodewal township of Worcester, a country town about 100 km from Cape
Town, resembled the notorious townships of the Cape Peninsula. The Lord had
raised a choice instrument through Hanna, the nurse maid of the Van Deventer
family in the Worcester area. Hanna radiated the love of the Lord. Little Erena
responded by loving Hanna to bits, hugging her at all times. Not having a clue
of the realities of apartheid until she was 21, Erena could not understand why
her nanny Hanna always said that her mother should not know about her hugging
the maid she loved so much.
God
used the special relationship to Hanna, their domestic aid, to sow affection
for the ‘Coloured’ people in Erena’s heart. Parallel to this, the Lord put in
her a love for Israel and the Jewish people. Her work as probation officer,
gave her an unusual yearning in 1980 to help gangsters with whom she had been
working. She shared this with Charlotte Cass, who had just been starting up a
base of Youth with a Mission in Worcester. Charlotte gave her the wise
counsel to give this desire back to God. Erena heeded this advice, but she
could not forget it. A few years later God intervened when she was appointed as
a social worker with the Department of Coloured Affairs. God would use
her in a profound way in the years hereafter.
On
11 January 1985 a special Disciple Training School of Youth with a
Mission started in Strandfontein. One of the participants was David, a
former gangster who became a valued farm worker through the support of Erena. A
vision was born in her heart to see gangsters transformed and used as
missionaries.
A Kibbutz
in the Boland
The Cape Town Scorpions, a Cape Flats gang, made an unprecedented
move to set up their headquarters in the Roodewal
township of Worcester. Gangsters from the township Elsies River started
training new recruits there. When gangster violence rocked Roodewal in 1986, Erena van Deventer was called into action. She
was only partly satisfied with the peace that was brought about by the
concerted prayer of believers. In response to the gangster activity, the Lord
birthed in her heart the idea to set up a Kibbutz.
She began to fast, cry and pray with new zeal for Roodewal. She wrote in her autobiographical booklet about this
period of her life: ‘My life became a prayer to God’.
Her failure to secure the
purchase of the Shalvah Chavonnes property for the purpose of starting a
Kibbutz there, only made Erena more
determined. A link to Hudson McComb, who had started the ministry Beth Uriel
for street children in Salt River, brought the vision for her Kibbutz into greater focus. When she was
given a tract of property near Roodewal Township, she was ready to start her Kibbutz - South African style.
This became the beginning
of El Shammah Ministries. The Kibbutz was used as a venue for the Discipleship
Training School (DTS) of Youth with a
Mission. The first DTS was held there in 1998, followed by an outreach to
Malawi. Many a gangster was impacted in Roodewal. Some who had little formal
schooling, came into a living relationship with Jesus. A few of them left the
Cape shores as short term missionaries, using drama and other modern forms of
ministry in different countries.
Friday
Lunchtime Prayer Meetings
As
a direct result of our prayer walking in Bo-Kaap, regular prayer meetings in
the home of the Abrahams family at 73 Wale Street were resumed. At one of these
meetings, Achmed Kariem suggested a lunchtime prayer meeting on Fridays, at the
same time that Muslims attend their mosque services. Such prayer events started
in September 1992 in the Shepherd’s
Watch, a small church hall at 98 Shortmarket Street near Heritage
Square. When the building was sold a few
years later, the weekly event switched to the Koffiekamer at 108 Bree Street (The venue was used by Straatwerk for their ministry over the
week-ends to the homeless, street children, and to certain night clubs.) In addition to prayers for a spiritual
breakthrough in the area, a foundation and/or catalyst for many evangelistic
initiatives was laid at the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. The vision, to
get prayer groups formed all over the Peninsula - so that the spiritual eyes of
Muslims might be opened to Jesus as the Saviour of the World and as the Son of
God - never took off. Here and there a prayer group started and petered out
again. Two prayer groups operated in Plumstead and Muizenberg for a few years
apiece. The leaders of the respective prayer groups, Sally Kirkwood and Gill
Knaggs, later got involved with the Cape prayer movement. The only prayer group that continued
functioning over many years was the one in the Abrahams' home in Bo-Kaap's Wale
Street. The Friday lunch hour prayer meetings persevered in the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk until July
2007, when it was relocated to our Discipling House in Mowbray and moved to
another day of the week.
Global Ramifications
Gill Knaggs went on to become one of the first
students of Media Village that had been started by Graham and Diane
Vermooten in Muizenberg, a ministry linked to Youth with a Mission. The
founders, Graham and Diane Vermooten, committed their ministry to train
believers for media work and also to tell the stories of God around the Globe.
Gill wanted to make a documentary of our ministry at that time as a part of her
practical work. Looking back, we are quite happy that it did not materialise.
It could have jeopardised our sensitive ministry at a moment when it would have
been quite dangerous too, if the footage had come into the wrong hands. Her
documentary on Robben Island that was subsequently used on the ferries to and
from the renowned island, may have assisted to put Media Village on the
map.
In
later years the Media Village DVDs and stories would carry the story of Transformation
Africa and the Global Day of Prayer around the world.
Slaughtering of Sheep in Bo‑Kaap
In our loving outreach to Cape Muslims it seemed as if we
could never penetrate to their hearts. We had been reading how Don Richardson
had a similar problem in Papua New Guinea until he found the peace child as a
key to the hearts of the indigenous people. We started praying along similar
lines, to get a key to the hearts of Cape Muslims.
Muslims
commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son at their Eid-ul
Adha celebration. This made me realise how near the three world religions
Christianity, Judaism and Islam actually are to each other. The narrative of
Abraham and the near-sacrifice of his son is central to all three faiths.
One day our
Bo-Kaap Muslim friends invited us to the festivities around the Korban, the slaughtering of
sheep. Attending initially with some
trepidation and prejudice, the occasion became such a special blessing to my
wife and me.
The Lord gave us a key to the
hearts of Cape Muslims
Five sheep were slaughtered that Sunday afternoon. Vividly we
saw how one sheep after the other went almost voluntarily to be killed. To see
how the sheep went to be slaughtered brought back the childhood memories of
Isaiah 53. Rosemarie and I looked at each other, immediately knowing that the
Lord answered our prayer. He had given us the key to the hearts of Cape
Muslims. The ceremony
brought to light the biblical prophecy of Isaiah 53 that I had learned by heart
as a child in the Moravian liturgical church practice, referring to the Lamb of
God that takes away the sins of the world.
A few minutes later the message was amplified when a little
girl came into the kitchen where Rosemarie was talking to the ladies. (I was in
the living room according to prevailing custom). The animal-loving child sought
solace from her mother. ‘Why do the innocent sheep have to be slaughtered
every year?’ The answer of the mother was special: “You know, my dear,
it is either you or the sheep.” We
were amazed how the atonement concept was thus actually passed on in their
religion.
It was wonderful to discover somewhat later that
according to Jewish oral teaching traditions Isaac was purported to have
carried the firewood for the altar on his shoulder, after Abraham saw Moriah on
the third day - just like someone would carry a cross. In many a church I not
only hereafter preached how resurrection faith was birthed in Abraham’s heart,
but we also shared the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus to many
eager-listening Muslims, usually without any objection (Officially Muslims were
not supposed to believe that Jesus died on the cross, let alone that He died
for our sins!)
Prayer Warriors respond
A divine response followed when individual prayer warriors
from different communities were raised. A fourth national 40-day fast was
organised in conjunction with an international initiative called A Day to Change the World. Thousands of
people participated in this fast, which culminated in Jesus Marches all over the country on 24 June, 1994.
The country
lapsed back into its traditional
racial
and denominational divisions
Although much of the mutual distrust was temporarily
overcome, the country lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational
divisions. The recipe of Pete Grigg, an American prayer leader, was very
appropriate: ‘If there is not significant unity,
the first step is to bring together the believers in prayer or in renewal and
teaching until there is reconciliation and brokenness.’
Contact with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre
and SAAWE in Stellenbosch was quite strategic. I linked up with the countrywide
prayer movement through Jan Hanekom, a spiritual giant of South African
missions and prayer movement. (He was prayerfully preparing entry into Bhutan
as a tent-making missionary when he died a few years later after contracting
some mysterious disease.) Local Christians joined Bennie Mostert when he led a
group to pray at the Islamic shrine of Macassar. In October 1992 the group interceded at the
shrine of Shaykh Yusuf, the man generally acknowledged to have brought Islam to
South Africa. At this occasion Bennie encouraged us to concentrate on uplifting
Jesus. Just under twenty years
later, I was reminded of this occasion, which I used prayer colleagues to join
me in singing Jesus, we enthrone you as King...
A
Breakthrough in the spiritual Realm
Something significant happened on that day of
intercession in October 1994 at the shrine. The ‘martyr seed’ – the son of Ds.
Ali Behardien - might have played some role in the spiritual realms as well.
Together these factors may have signalled a breakthrough in the heavenlies.
Individual Christians started showing more interest in praying for Muslims,
although in general, the churches remained indifferent.
A new brand of convert from Islam emerged nevertheless,
people who were bold and willing to suffer ostracism and persecution for their
faith in Jesus Christ. One example is Esmé Orrie. For a long time after her conversion in July
1992, she was very fearful and suspicious. However, from 1994 she started to
testify boldly in churches and on the radio. (On 10 March 2000, listeners to
the CCFM Christian radio station were invited to react by telephone to the
programme God Changes Lives after she
shared her testimony.) On a memorable Wednesday morning, 22 March 1975, we baptized five
converts who had come from Islam, including two connected to our ministry. At
that occasion we also heard about Johaar Viljoen, who had won over many Christians
to Islam in his Islamic hey-day. (This former imam came to faith in Jesus in the prison of Caledon. His
conversion in 1992 - a demonstration of the power of prayer - shook many
Islamic inmates who regarded him as their religious leader.) Johaar Viljoen
hereafter also shared his conversion story in churches fearlessly, in spite of
quite a few threats.
A Cape fellowship
ushered
in
spiritual dancing, using
visible
artifacts in worship
A link to the Cape Flats township intercessors existed through
the fellowship in Greenhaven which was
led by Mercia and Vincent Pregnalato.
This couple held the fort in an area that was becoming Islamic at an
alarming pace in the late 1980s. They also ushered in spiritual dancing, using
visible artifacts like flags as part of worship. This spread in due course to
audiences throughout the country.
My connection to the countrywide prayer movement was expanded
when I met Gerda Leithgöb. She had introduced the use of research for prayer in
South Africa in different cities. I promptly invited her as the guest speaker -
along with Ds. Davie Pypers - for a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January
1995, that focused on Islam.
Publications assist a
networking Effort
In
June 1992, Majiet Pophlonker and Zane Abrahams, two Muslim-background believers
and their families, visited our home. After hearing Majiet’s moving story, seed
was sown in my heart to write down the testimonies of converts from Islam.
At
one of the first discussions with Manfred Jung, a SIM missionary colleague, the
idea was mooted to publish the testimonies as a networking effort. I enjoyed
collating the testimonies from some of the Muslim-background believers,
sometimes making notes at meetings and once I took a tape recorder to a house.
Eleven of the stories were finally selected. The result was Op soek na waarheid, a booklet that we
planned to launch at the prayer seminar in January 1995. Elizabeth Robertson,
one of our Bo-Kaap and Vredehoek prayer meeting regulars, painted a beautiful
cover for the booklet, a typical Bo-Kaap scene.
The
development of the publication of the booklet proceeded quite well during the
first half of 1995, but we experienced serious demonic attacks in our family.
These included the mysterious disappearance of the money in cyberspace,
somewhere between Holland and Durban, that was earmarked for the printing of
the booklets.
I was very eager to see the publication as a combined
effort of various mission agencies. But because of its sensitive nature, not a
single one of my missionary colleagues was prepared to stick his neck out.
Converted Muslims could be exposed to persecution if the testimonies would be
published. Furthermore, the person(s) responsible for the publication of the
booklet would have to reckon with the same treatment. In the end, Ihad no other
option but to use the mission agency WEC International to which we are
linked, as the publishers. The compiler and the names of the converts remained
anonymous. This was a weak link in the publication. However, we had to protect
the converts, some of whom had reason to be quite afraid because of threats and
intimidation.
Prayer
Results after new Efforts
The Lord used the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah
60 as part of a devotional in a Friday lunch hour prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s
Watch to call Gill Knaggs into the mission to the Muslim World. She
attended the prayer meeting on a once-off basis, but this was enough to set her
in motion, to pray about getting
involved in full-time missionary work.
Gill
helped to start translating (from Afrikaans) and editing the testimony booklet
as Search for Truth.[57]
For a number of years she also hosted a prayer group for Muslims at her home. When Cape Community FM (CCFM)
started a radio programme aimed at Muslims in 1998, she was available to write
the scripts - something she continued to do for many years.
As a result of the 1994 Jesus Marches, some Cape churches got to learn more about the local
missionary work of WEC International
among Muslims. One of these churches was the Logos Christelike Kerk in Bellville. Not only did this church
become a major distributor of the Ramadan
Prayer Focus, but Freddy van Dyk, an elder of the church, who worked at the
Cape Town City Council, also joined
the Friday lunchtime prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch. This
participation led to some members of that prayer group eventually taking a
course in pastoral clinical counselling by Dr Henry Dwyer in the second quarter
of 1996 to strengthen their ministry.
Spin-offs of the Jesus Marches
As the Jesus Marches
approached, the vision grew in me to start a prayer network throughout the Cape
Peninsula to effect a spiritual breakthrough among the Cape Muslims. I was very
much aware that concerted prayer was needed. We were able to start a few prayer
groups, but the majority petered out. In
the mid 1990’s, Sally Kirkwood led a prayer group for the Cape Muslims at her
home in Plumstead. Later she played a
more prominent role among Cape intercessors. Another group was formed by Gill Knaggs in Muizenberg after she had attended our Friday
prayer meeting. She
had been involved in a close relationship with a Muslim young man before she
became a believer in Jesus as her Lord. Soon God used Gill to get the YWAM base in Muizenberg more
interested in reaching Muslims. Concretely, an Egyptian connection was
established, with YWAM starting to network with the Coptic Church via
links through Mike Burnard of Open Doors. My wife and I were asked to teach at a YWAM Discipleship Training School (DTS)
in Muizenberg in 1996. This culminated in a close friendship with Mark Gabriel, a former shaykh
from Egypt, who had changed his name from an Islamic one when he became a follower of Jesus.
A Base for new
Initiatives?
In September 1996 we suddenly received access to St Paul’s Primary
School, Bo-Kaap, through a teacher, Berenice Lawrence, to whose home I had
taken Mark Gabriel. Berenice’s husband Elroy had been at our home in Holland in
1978, while he was attending Spes Bona High School.[58] Now Berenice came with
the request to bring people like Mark Gabriel and others from different
countries to their school. I jumped at
this idea to broaden the minds of the Bo-Kaap children, to open them up to the
Gospel in a loving and non-threatening way.
I was overwhelmed that the Lord might
want
to use our church to minister to
Africans
from other parts of the continent
On Sunday October 6, 1996, I preached at the Cape
Town Baptist Church. Towards the end of the sermon my emotions got the
better of me and I could not finish. I
broke down in tears when I was overwhelmed by the idea that the Lord might want
to use this fellowship to minister to Africans from other parts of the
continent. When I invited the congregation to join in the venture, there was
hardly any visible response. Yet, seed was sown.[59] (Within a
few years there were more people of colour – the bulk of them foreigners -
attending the church than Whites.)
A
few days later, during our lunchtime prayer meeting with City Bowl ministers,
Bruce Rudnick - a Messianic Jew - joined us. Bruce was the leader of the Beth
Ariel Fellowship of Messianic believers in Sea Point. (I had been attending
the Beth Ariel meetings on Friday evenings occasionally). In the prayer
time with Louis Pasques and Bruce Rudnick, I felt quite strongly that Messianic
Jews should play an important role in the leadership of the world missionary
movement and ideally, that this should also start happening in Cape Town. However, this visionary idea would only get
off the ground after the return of the Maayan family in September 2010. (During
their stay in Israel Bruce Rudnick changed his name to Baruch and his surname
to Maayan.)
Africa as a Body with its Feet in
Cape Town
In
1997 Bruce Rudnick attended the ‘All Africa Prayer Convocation’ in Ethiopia.
The prophetic word that came strongly at this time was 'A Highway up Africa
from Cape Town to Jerusalem.' This theme was not new. It had arisen both in
spiritual and in secular contexts. 'We
also saw as it were a spiritual body that needed to be awakened on the Continent
of Africa with the feet in South Africa, knees in Kenya, Uganda for birthing,
with the heart in Ethiopia. The head is Egypt. One hand reaches over to Morocco
and the other hand to Jerusalem. This was, as it were, the Body of Christ in
Africa. This body needed to be awakened to come into its calling and function.'
Back in South Africa, through the
Messianic congregation Beit Ariel, as well as in
other meetings Bruce shared the Highway vision. Bruce and Karen
Rudnick felt challenged to make aliya, finally emigrating to Israel in
1999.
Mitchells Plain Pastors in a Prayer
Offensive
In the early 1990s various Mitchells
Plain pastors – with Pastors Henry Busch, Eddie Edson and Theo Roman leading
the way - met for prayer every Friday morning. The ministers’ fraternal of
Mitchells Plain succeeded in bringing well-known evangelists like Reinhard
Bonnke to the area. That gave them a lot of credibility among the churches
there. When I approached the ministers’ fraternal in 1994 to join in the Jesus
Marches, they were immediately eager to do so, organising a separate march
in no time.
During prayer drives believers would
target
strongholds of the arch-enemy
The ministers’ fraternal was also the
driving force of the pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meetings which took
place every second Thursday of the month from the mid-1990s. This prayer
meeting soon included church leaders from all over the Peninsula. Pastor Edson
of the Shekinah Tabernacle was also pivotal in the formation of prayer
drives where believers would target strongholds of the arch-enemy and go there
and pray against them every last Friday evening of the month. (Edson had
already pioneered transport for the needy at his church in Mitchells Plain,
purchasing buses to transport his congregants.)
In due course, strategic marches
followed in other areas, such as Hanover Park, where combined prayer marches by
churches on a Saturday afternoon would especially stop at places of vice, such
as the homes of drug merchants. The seed
sown in Hanover Park germinated when various attempts were made after 2005 to
tackle the ‘tik’ drug problem.[60]
When Victory Outreach commenced with ministry at the Cape in 2006,
Hanover Park was one of the first townships to see a vibrant church planted
under their auspices. It is quite fitting that the former Bruce Duncan
Children's Home in that township now hosts the offices and a drug
rehabilitation centre of Victory Outreach.
9. Historical Changes in Answer to
Prayer
Jim Wilson had already written his booklet Principles
of War in 1964 to revive evangelical interest to attack strongholds. But it
hardly seemed to make any dent in the spiritual realm. Paul
Billheimer’s book Destined for the Throne
(1975) approached the matter of prayer in a revolutionary manner. Although this
book had a few printings, the content was probably not distributed globally by
way of translation before 1989. Thus it did not mobilize believers
significantly to use either praise or prayer - let alone both - to break down
demonic strongholds in spiritual warfare.
A Forerunner of the ‘Boiler Room’ Concept
Paul
Billheimer had close links to the World
School of Prayer, whose founder and leader, Dick Eastman, was deeply
influenced by the work of Andrew Murray. Billheimer made some profound
statements about the role of the prayerful church that might have influenced
world history deeply, had his book been taken seriously.[61]
He suggested for example that the church wields the balance of power ‘in overcoming disintegration and
decay in the cosmic order’. (This has
become especially relevant at the beginning of the new millennium, with
increasing moral decay and an almost universal increase of (organized) crime
and violence.) In the above booklet Billheimer
does not only refer to the Moravians and their 24 hour prayer chain, but he
also included notes from Dick Eastman. These were added as an appendix in Destined for the Throne. There one can
also read about the start of ‘The Gap’, based on Ezekiel 22:30 (I
sought for a man to stand in the gap for me for the land). In this venture
young people committed their lives to the Lord for a year during which they
would intercede for two hours a day in an ‘upper’ room. This was indeed a
harbinger of the ‘boiler room’ concept at the turn of the 21st century.[62]
Prayer
was the biggest factor in the start of new ministries at the Cape in the 1990s,
undergirding the events that led to the birth of the new South Africa.
Results of
Seven Years of Prayer
Open Doors invited Christians around the globe to pray for the
Soviet Union for seven years. Things changed dramatically when the results of
those prayers became known. There is nevertheless
no cause for triumphalism - this never behooves a believer any way. Yet, the
new opportunities for the spreading of the Gospel were there to be utilized.
The demise of Communism received its major impetus from the crashing of the
Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. This had been preceded by mass prayer rallies
at different churches, for instance in the East German cities of Leipzig and
Dresden.
Also
in 1989, Edgardo Silvoso and Tom White presented papers at the Spiritual Warfare Track workshop of the
Lausanne II Congress in Manila. White’s paper on spiritual warfare there set
the evangelical world on course for the biggest missionary decade of the 20th
century. The outcome was the founding of a Spiritual
Warfare Communication and Referral Network. In the 1990s, Ed Silvoso would
influence many countries with his teaching and example of bringing churches
together in unity and practising restitution as part of genuine repentance. The
additional emphasis on the market place resulted in the city of Resistencia
(Population 400,000) in Argentina becoming the first city to be reached for
Christ. From a mere 5,143 believers in 1988, it grew within a matter of a few
years to over 100,000 in the entire city.[63]
With
the increased awareness of spiritual warfare in Christian circles, the power of
occult strongholds was also recognized more and more. Things started to change
dramatically on a worldwide scale after the results of such prayer became
known. The effects of seven years of
persevering prayer for the Soviet Union were already quite apparent towards the
end of 1989. The spadework had been done through Patrick Johnstone’s book Operation World. For the first time in the modern era thousands of prayer warriors were
mobilized globally.
Communism was exposed as a spent force.
Worldwide
prayer brought it down.
It is probably due to the faithful prayers of many over the
years, that South Africa did not fall into the communist camp. By the time
Nelson Mandela was freed in February 1990, Communism had been exposed as a
spent force. Worldwide prayer brought it down. The demise of the atheist
ideology was ushered in by mass prayer rallies at different East German
churches, but especially also prepared by the faithful prayers of believers
around the world.
Spiritual Warfare gets
off the Ground
Only
in the last two decades has it been acknowledged - and not even generally as
yet - that occult forces are at work, which hamper the spread of the Gospel.
‘Spiritual warfare’ as such had been either completely neglected or was fairly
unknown up to about 1990. Of course, the example of Hur and Aaron in the Bible
might have been noted. Their holding Moses’ arms aloft was often taught as a
model for intercessory prayer. Occasionally, lessons were taken from the battle
of Gideon against the Midianites. But it was hardly emphasized that the ‘sword
of Gideon’, which brought such awe in the camp of the Midianites in the end, turned
out to be a torch. In biblical context the Word is the (two-edged) sword
(Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). Furthermore, Psalm 119:105 describes the Word
as a light and a lamp, the equivalent of a torch.
Cape-based Ministry in Central Sudan
In recent decades, the Cape-based
mission agency Frontline Fellowship has been working in restricted
access areas, frequently having to smuggle Bibles illegally, across hostile
frontiers into Marxist or Muslim areas.
Long before the international community took note of the atrocities in
Sudan, Frontline Fellowship was there to assist the poor and the
persecuted Christians. Sometimes they had to charter aircraft to fly into
no-fly zones, to deliver Christian literature in the Nuba Mountains of
Central Sudan - an island of Christianity in a sea of Islam. They had to trust
the Lord for protection in defying flight bans in countries where a
shoot-on-sight policy was maintained. On
one occasion the Sudan Air Force dropped eight bombs around a church
where they were holding services on a Sunday morning. All eight bombs landed within a hundred
metres of the church. On this and many other occasions covert evangelists
experienced the reality of Psalm 91 fulfilled, that being the promise that the
believer may expect, to be covered by the protection of the Almighty.
Truth and Reconciliation
The other side of the coin is that
the South African military was also inflicting terrible atrocities. Thus it has
been revealed that the plane crash in which Samora Machel, the President of
Mozambique was killed, was orchestrated by the South African Defence Force.
Michael Lapsley is a clergyman who
came to South Africa from New Zealand. He joined the ANC, but after
three-and-a-half years, he was deported. He thereafter fulfilled a pastoral
role for ANC members in exile. Lapsley testified during the hearings of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a process which contributed so much to
the healing of the wounds of apartheid. There he shared how he lost both hands
because of a letter bomb on 28 April 1990, two days before the first talks
between the government and the ANC. As a representative of the many who
received grace to forgive their torturers, and simultaneously usher in the
spirit of forgiveness, his words carry much weight: ‘I was faced with some important questions and one of
them was: Do I allow my life to be consumed with hatred, bitterness, self-pity
and desire for revenge? I was saved from that by the prayer and love of many
people… That enabled me to make the bombing redemptive, to bring life out of
death and good out of evil…’
Conciliatory
Church Moves recorded
The revolutionary situation after 1985 apparently
influenced Mr F.W. De Klerk, who had become the pragmatic new presidential
incumbent in 1989. Before this he was known to be one of the ‘verkramptes’, a conservative politician.
De Klerk shifted towards a more conciliatory approach.
Signals
of reconciliation throughout
the
country augured well for the future.
Furthermore, the seed sown through the author’s
correspondence with Dutch Reformed theologians from 1979, appeared to
have been germinating.
Rustenburg 1990 and its Impact
The Rustenburg meeting of church leaders in November
1990, where delegates from 97 denominations had gathered, sent signals of
reconciliation throughout the land that augured well for the future. There,
Professor Willie Jonker[64]
of the University of Stellenbosch started the tide of confession
rolling: 'I confess before you and before the
Lord, not only my own sin and guilt, and my personal responsibility for the
political, social, economic and structural wrongs that have been done to many
of you and the results (from) which you and our whole country are still
suffering, but vicariously I dare also to do that in the name of the NGK,[65]
of which I am a member, and for the Afrikaans people as a whole.' Archbishop Desmond Tutu
accepted the confession in a spirit of forgiveness. It was also very
significant that Professor Potgieter of the University of Stellenbosch, well
known to be an arch conservative theologian, stressed the next day that
Professor Jonker had spoken on behalf of the denomination. (He retracted much
of it however when challenged by the journalist Allistair Sparks soon
thereafter.)
The Rustenburg
Declaration, the document issued after the event, contained specific and
concrete confession like the misuse of the Bible by some church people. It
noted also that many of the delegates had been ‘bold in condemning apartheid but timid in resisting it’. The confessions were not one-sided at all. Apartheid
victims acknowledged for example their ‘timidity
and fear, failing to challenge our oppression.’ The conference finally resulted in the signing of the Rustenburg
Declaration, which moved strongly toward complete confession, forgiveness,
and restitution.
The government of the day and
Afrikaners in general nevertheless slammed the Rustenburg confessions, implying
that the theologians at Rustenburg were not representing the bulk of them. Were
they forgetting that it had been President F.W. de Klerk himself who had
originally initiated the idea of such a national church conference, or were
they too surprised at the outcome? Be it as it may, a deep impact was
definitely made in the spiritual realm.
Two years later the Dutch
Reformed Church (DRC) response to the observations and
resolutions of the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC) in Athens (May-June
1992) demonstrated that the DRC was unequivocal in its rejection of apartheid.
It helped them to take back from Athens the message to their Afrikaner
compatriots that rejection of apartheid does not mean to turn your back to the
Afrikaans language and the Afrikaner heritage and culture. The obvious
repentance and change in the denomination was achieved at a great price. It
is generally accepted that a right wing extremist, who could not come to terms
with Professor Johan Heyns’ role in the dramatic turn-around of the denomination, was
responsible for his assassination in November 1994. This highlights the fact
that reconciliation is not cheap.
A massive
Prayer Effort gets underway
On 2 January 1994, the first of three consecutive
40-day fasts started - to coincide with preparations for the general elections.
Before this, the concrete fear of civil war inspired prayer across the racial divides.
At
this time Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Methodist Bishop Stanley Mogoba convened
a meeting between Dr Nelson Mandela and Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi,[66]
trying to resolve the deadlock posed by Inkatha Freedom Party’s threat
to boycott the elections. Foreign missionaries were seriously considering
leaving South Africa because of the escalation of violence.
Africa
Enterprise enlisted prayer assistance from all over the world.
Rev.
Michael Cassidy and his Africa Enterprise
enlisted prayer assistance from all over the world. Few other countries
participated in the international prayer effort like Kenya and Nigeria. In a
special move of God’s Spirit, Pastor Willy Oyegun from Nigeria and a group of
prayer warriors from that country were led to come and intercede in South
Africa in February 1994. It was a risky move as they could have been sent back
from Johannesburg International Airport without entering the country. But God
intervened sovereignly. Pastor Oyegun
subsequently became God’s choice instrument for healing and reconciliation at
the Cape in the post-apartheid era.
In
East Africa God laid it on the heart of many Kenyans to pray for our country as
we were heading for the general elections on 27 April, 1994. God used Rev. Michael Cassidy and his team to
get a massive prayer effort underway, combining it with the negotiating skills
of Professor Washington Okumu, a committed Kenyan Christian. God's sovereign
ways became evident, not only through the way in which the Kenyan negotiator
got involved, but also that he had met Dr Buthelezi,
the leader of the IFP, already in 1972.
The country was very
close to a civil war.
God
furthermore called a police officer, Colonel Johan Botha, to recruit prayer
warriors. The press took up his story, reporting how God supernaturally came to
him in a vision. An angel stood before him on 23 March, 1994 with the message:
“I want
South Africa on its knees in prayer”.
A national prayer day was announced for 6 April, 1994 - a national holiday at
that time called Founder’s Day. The
country was very close to a civil war, which surely could have sent many
foreigners and other Whites fleeing in all haste just before or after the
elections.
Nelson
Mandela attempts to placate extremist Groups
In the frantic months leading to April 1994, Nelson
Mandela engaged in various attempts to placate extremist groups. His efforts
seemed futile. On the one hand the ANC entered into negotiations with General
Constand Viljoen, the former head of the South African Defence Force.
(Viljoen wanted to establish a Volkstaat,
an enclave in which Afrikaans religion, culture and language would be
preserved.) On the other hand, the ANC took quite a hard line against Dr
Buthelezi, the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), who appeared
quite stubborn. His negative attitude
might have been caused though by the way he had been unjustly maligned by the
ANC and the liberal press in the prior years and months.
The ANC’s attempt to diminish the power of regional
governments could have led to a perilous civil war when Viljoen decided to move
into Boputhatswana - one of the former homelands - with 4,000 troops.
Nominally, this intervention was projected as an effort to preserve the
independence of an ally and it would have given the government a base into
which Viljoen and his army could move much of their sophisticated equipment.
From there they would have been able to challenge a new ANC-led government.
Viljoen’s
well-disciplined forces were however joined by the Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging, a party from the extreme right-wing
which shot Blacks for the fun of it. This led to a mutiny in the Boputhatswana
Army.
Reputable Negotiators brought in
Two reputable negotiators were brought in, along with
the more or less internationally unknown Professor Washington Okumu. Lord
Carrington was a former British Foreign Minister, who had brokered an accord
for Zimbabwe at Lancaster House in London in 1980. Dr Henry Kissinger, a
former US Secretary of State, headed off a major crisis in the Middle East
through his shuttle diplomacy in the 1970s. The distinguished group of three
negotiators had great difficulty however in their attempt to induce the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) to
participate in the elections.
An ominous Civil War looms
After both President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela had
refused to postpone the elections, along with other difficulties during the
negotiations, the two prominent gentlemen from the UK and the USA left the
country, acknowledging their failure to achieve a settlement. This happened on 13
April, 1994 - only two weeks before the elections were due. The scene was set
for the outbreak of civil war of massive proportions. Journalists flew in from
all over the world to witness and record the carnage that was expected to
follow the elections.
God intervenes spectacularly
Soon
hereafter, on 16 March 1994, Constand Viljoen severed the close link with Dr
Buthelezi through the Freedom Alliance. Viljoen formed his
own political party, the Freedom Front, and
agreed to participate in the elections. I believe that this was the result of
the many prayers offered in various places at this time, making the feared
civil war less ominous - for that moment at least.
Professor
Okumu heeded the request of Michael Cassidy to stay behind when his prominent
Western colleagues left. On 15 April,
Okumu rushed to meet Dr Buthulezi by taxi at the Lanseria Airport to explain a new proposal to be presented to the
Zulu King, but he was too late. He could only see the aeroplane taking off.
Divine intervention occurred. Some
strange navigational
reading caused
the pilot to return to
the small airport.
Divine
intervention occurred when it was announced that the aircraft was returning.
Some strange navigational reading caused the pilot to return to the small
airport. (Afterwards no fault was discovered with the machine). God indeed had
to intervene supernaturally to get the aeroplane, in which Dr Buthelezi was
sitting, to return unexpectedly to the airport for a divine appointment with
Professor Okumu.
Under
the spiritual leadership of Dr. Michael Cassidy, founder of African Enterprise,
thousands gathered in a stadium in Natal to pray for peace. It was with godly
wisdom and insight that Dr. Cassidy and
other Christian leaders negotiated for peaceful elections and community
with support from all peoples. The world expected a bloodbath, but the Church
got to pray in all urgency.
The
request to Professor Okumu coincided with a special prayer event at Durban’s King’s Park Stadium on Sunday 17 April.
In spite of warnings and the risk of bombs exploding, 30,000 Christians
gathered for that occasion. There Okumu’s proposal was passed to leaders of the
IFP, the ANC and Danie Schutte of the Nationalist Party. In frantic
negotiations almost around the clock it was finally agreed not only to add the
picture of Dr Buthulezi to the ballot papers, but also to get the process in
motion to do this on 80 million of them and surmounting other huge logistic
hurdles.
Media
teams from every major network around the world descended on the country, but
as millions of people stood in long lines waiting to cast the first vote of
their lives, it soon became evident that a miracle was happening. Within
twenty-four hours, media teams were called home because there was no story,
seen from the normal journalistic perspective that concentrates on calamities
and catastrophes.
To
God Be the Glory!
How
wrong the international media were! What was to follow was in fact a miraculous
story. This was God answering the cries of His children; this was as Graham
Power wrote: 'the church assuming its rightful
position as intercessor and gatekeeper for the nation' (Power and
Vermooten 2009: 7). This was a miracle happening in our
generation.
Many
Kenyans had been praying for South Africa in its period of crisis. It was very
fitting that God used Professor Okumu to broker the accord with the IFP and Dr
Buthulezi. It was a move that literally steered the country away from the
precipice at the eleventh hour. Millions of ballot papers had already been
printed. Hurriedly a similar number of stickers were prepared to be added to
the ballot papers to give the new South African electorate the added option of
voting for the IFP. Believers in different parts of the world, including
Kenyans and thousands of South Africans - gave God the honour for divinely
guiding the country to an unprecedented four days of peaceful revolution, as
the election process was dubbed.
In answer to the prayers of millions, God brought
about the miracle elections that might have gone awry if satan had his way. It
was clear that in the end it was primarily neither military actions nor
boycotts which toppled apartheid. It was God’s sovereign work.
Satan
must have worked overtime
to
counter God’s plans of
redemption
for the country
Satan must have worked overtime almost to the last
minute to counter God’s plans of redemption for the country. In the wake of so
much positive publicity to the honour of God, Satan was ‘honour-bound’ to hit
back with a vengeance. But for that moment, God’s purposes had been
accomplished.
An instrument used by God in a special way to bring
about healing was the government-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC). Professor Kadar
Asmal suggested such a commission originally in his inaugural lecture as
Professor of Human Rights Law in 1993 at the University of the Western Cape.),
as opposed to a process like the Neuremberg trials in Germany where retribution
or punishment was the central motive.
The main purpose of the
South African version of the commission was to achieve restorative justice - an
attempt to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator. The emphasis and
goal would be healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. These goals were achieved by and large in the
succeeding years as a process of restoration and transformation of our country
unfolded, albeit that the TRC was not perceived as completely effective in
bringing out the truth. The success of the Commission must be
attributed to the input and integrity of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One of the
commissioners was Alex Boraine, a former pastor in the Cape suburb of Pinelands
and a former president of the Methodist
Church before becoming a Progressive
Party Member of Parliament. He described Archbishop Tutu’s role as follows:
'I don’t think the Commission could
have survived without the person and leadership of Desmond Tutu… He assisted
the Commission tremendously in every possible way to become an instrument for
healing…'
16. Anarchy or Transformation?
By
the time of the 11 May 1994 inauguration of the new President, Nelson Mandela,
the stage was already set for a secular
humanist government. When the African National Congress (ANC) came to power, all religions were given equal
status. Increasingly, occult elements became fashionable. Witchcraft was
accepted by many uncritically, and some people regarded Satanism as just
another religion. It was not surprising at all when the new government made no
secret of their wish for secular humanist rule to replace the racist apartheid
style of the former regime. The use of a
praise singer at the presidential inauguration might have looked very
African, but unintentionally occult notions and ancestral worship were thus
simultaneously ushered in.
A demonic
Reply ensues
The new government of national unity did not bargain
with the dramatic increase of Satanism in certain areas. It was uncritically
taken on board that human beings could be ‘sacrificed’ by satanists. The weak
argument was that so many people are also killed in political and other forms
of violence, so what! A spokesperson for the South African Council of Churches (SACC) rationalised the issue,
stating that Satanism is a matter of personal conscience.
The
pervasive negative influence
of
television proceeded unchecked
The pervasive negative influence of television - with
the poisoning of young minds - proceeded unchecked. Violence, extra-marital and
same-sex relationships were depicted in many a substandard film as ‘normal’,
thus encouraging promiscuity. Satanism had a field day at the Cape.
In the opinion of many people the new government
appeared to be bending over backwards to accommodate sexual immorality. The
legalization of abortion by the new regime in February 1997 was not surprising
because the ANC had already envisaged that as future policy.
Whereas the racist elements of the previous era
rightly had to be eradicated, the new government was probably not aware that
they were opening the gates to evil. Human rights became the premise on which
problematic laws from a moral point of view were liberalised much too easily.
Obviously with the best intensions, President Nelson Mandela granted amnesty to
many criminals. Some of the released prisoners resumed their criminal lifestyle
as soon as they were discharged.
Crime increased
and Drug Trafficking spiralled
One of the first liberal new laws was the possibility
of ‘easy bail.’ Hardened criminals, who
usually had easy access to cash, took full advantage. Drug lords had no problem
coughing up bail money. The new inexperienced government appeared to allow all
sorts of criminality to spiral out of control. The regime inherited a problem
from the previous one. (During the 1980s the
apartheid rulers covertly assisted gangsters. An expert on gang affairs
referred to an ‘alliance’ between gangsters and the police. Gangs would report
on clandestine anti-apartheid operations, with the understanding that the police would turn a blind eye to their
illegal activities. By the 1990s the situation had become almost anarchic in
certain townships because of this arrangement. In the proceedings around the Amnesty
Committee of the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, it
surfaced that the government had been flooding the townships with drugs like
Mandrax - a rather bizarre way of chemical warfare!)
An ideal
opening for Satanism
Crime increased and drug trafficking spiralled! The
warfare from the enemy of souls was conducted in the Cape Flats townships
mainly through drug addiction, gangsterism and prostitution. During recent decades
these vices proved the ideal opening for Satanism.
In the mid-1990s the drug- and gang war kept the
Mother City of South Africa in suspense for months. Violence, rape and gangster
activity grew rapidly. (These triplets of vice still remain unsolved problems
of the City and the country as a whole.) A situation developed by the end of
the 20th century that could only be countered with spiritual warfare
on a national scale.
Preparation for Jesus
Marches
At a workshop with
John Robb of World Vision at the Cape Town Baptist Church in 1993 I met
Trefor Morris, who was closely linked to Radio Fish Hoek, a pioneering Christian Cape radio station. Trefor
became a regular of our Friday lunch time prayer meeting while he was assisting
with the work done on the OM missionary ship the Doulos in the City
dockyard. He was also the link to get Rosemarie and me invited to the radio
station to give some advice and teaching to the ‘prayer friends’. These were the people who had to advise those Muslims who phoned CCFM
for telephonic counselling. Trefor became my Fish Hoek link for the
1994 Jesus Marches and a hopeful for
the envisaged prayer network in the Cape Peninsula. (My vision of a prayer network came to
fruition partially in the new millennium when the Consultation of Christian
Churches (CCC) in the Western Cape, in conjunction with Jericho Walls,
attempted to stimulate the formation of houses of prayer across denominational
barriers.)
A National Day of Prayer spurs a Backlash
Already in the early 1980s the Libyan President, Muammar Khaddafi, had
been a major champion of worldwide Islamic expansion. In October 1995 the Sunday
Times published a report about the Islamic conference held in Tripoli, the
capital of Libya.
Africa to be Islamized
by
the end of the 20th century?
At the Tripoli conference the intention was expressed clearly that
Africa was to be Islamized by the end of the 20th century. To bring
this about, the South African infrastructure would be used. The strategy of
making the country ungovernable – which had been fairly successfully
implemented in the 1980s to bring the apartheid government to the negotiating
table - was to be repeated. The Western Cape, with its favourable
infrastructure, and the presence of well over a quarter of a million Muslims,
was regarded as the ideal springboard from the South. In the spiritual realm
this attempt was however frustrated by the 30 Days of Prayer during the
fasting month of Ramadan in the first term of 1996, as well as by a National Day of Prayer.
The 1996 Day of Prayer with the theme “Healing the
Land” was preceded by the fifth national 40-day fast in which some 100 000
people participated. The culmination of this fast was a national assembly in
front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where about 20,000 people
gathered. Christians were challenged to
fast and pray in the 40-day period leading to the National Day of Prayer on July
7, 1996. All in all, seven national fasts were completed in the decade
from 1990 to 1999. Then God broadened the focus to include the continent. Satan was bound to respond in some way.
Conditions
in Manenberg became almost unbearable
In 1995/6 living conditions in the township of
Manenberg were almost unbearable for the local people, and things seemed
completely out of control. Father Chris Clohessy, the local Roman Catholic
priest, had earned the trust of many people there, moving fearlessly also in
gangster territory. PAGAD (People against
Gangsterism and Drugs) was initiated by a group of Muslims in 1996 -
striving to create a gangster-free and drug-free Society - and joined by Father
Chris Clohessy. However, in the ensuing inter-faith venture, Muslims were soon
dominating proceedings. PAGAD developed anti-government and Western sentiments,
as the organisation believed that the South African government posed a threat
to Islamic values. It also aims to create better political representation for
South African Muslims. Prominent figures like Imam Achmat Cassiem were
reported to have performed a palace coup.
As the leader of Qibla, Achmat
Cassiem subtly changed the anti-drug, anti-crime movement into an organization
that sought to bring Islamic rule into the Western Cape by any means. PAGAD
radicals saw this move merely as part of the plan to implement the October 1995
decision in the Libyan capital Tripoli, to attempt Islamising the African
continent from the South.
Rashaad Staggie
was burnt alive
in
full view of television cameras
PAGAD became known publicly on 4 August, 1996. That
was the occasion when an influential gang leader and drug lord, Rashaad
Staggie, was burnt alive in full view of television cameras. The crisis that followed the PAGAD eruption
of August 1996 presented the churches with a challenge, an opportunity to touch
the problem areas of the Cape townships.
Are we
perhaps in Lebanon?
A
Lebanon-type civil war scenario became quite real. Many people at the Cape
feared that the gangsters might hit back with a vengeance. A meeting for church
leaders and missionaries was organised at the Scripture Union buildings
in Rondebosch, followed by a wave of prayer by evangelical Christians.
Christ-centred drug rehabilitation was also suggested. However, when the crisis
subsided, pastors simply resumed building their own ‘kingdoms’.
Spiritual
strongholds became a focus of prayer drives.
Pastor Edson from Mitchells Plain and intercessors launched a convoy of
vehicles from different churches from 1996 on the last Friday of each
month. The prayer drive of July 1996
started at the strategic Gatesville mosque. (This was the same venue from where
a fateful PAGAD car procession started out a week later. The latter procession
left for Salt River on August 4th, the date of Rashaad Staggie’s
public burning.
The prayer drives only had a short lifespan. Another initiative of
Pastor Edson, which lasted much longer, was the monthly pastors’ and pastors’
wives prayer meetings. Yet, it took years before the racial divide was bridged,
and even then these prayer meetings still never really took off multi-racially.
Nevertheless, they prepared the soil for the start of the spiritual
transformation of the city.
From Cairo to the World!
Sandwiched
between the two above-mentioned processions that left the Gatesville mosque, a
church service in the Moravian Church
of Elsies River in the northern suburbs, was to have world-wide ramifications.
Mark Gabriel shared his testimony in that church at a combined youth service on
Sunday evening, 28 July 1996. This event added a new dimension to the Cape
Muslim ministry effort. Gabriel’s printed testimony had just been published in
South Africa under the pseudonym Mustapha with the title Against the Tides
in the Middle East. (Mark Gabriel was previously forced to flee his home
country where he narrowly escaped assassination.) Within a few days, the
booklet which contained his story was in the hands of a Muslim leader. Maulana
Sulaiman Petersen correctly suspected that Mark Gabriel had contact with local
missionaries. Threateningly he enquired after him on Wednesday 31 July. (Mark
Gabriel was doing the practical part of his Youth
with a Mission (YWAM) Crossroads Discipleship Training School
with us at this time.)
Mark Gabriel was forced into hiding
Reminiscent of the situation when Martin Luther was
taken to the Wartburg castle for safety,[1]
Mark Gabriel was forced into hiding. The televised Staggie 'execution' by PAGAD
as a part of the national news on 4 August reminded Mark Gabriel of Muslim
radicals of the Middle East. He now
started with significant research of jihad
(holy war) in Arabic Islamic literature, finishing his manuscript in 2001 in
Orlando (Florida, USA), where he had moved to in the meantime. The September 11
event of that year made Mark Gabriel's book on the topic a best-seller when it
was published at the beginning of 2002. It came out under the title Terrorism and Islam. That book became a
major factor in the exposure of the violent side of Islam. (Subsequently the
book was translated into more than 50 languages).
Arson
attempt on a Church
A 10-week teaching course ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour,’ in which we worked closely with Renate
Isert, a German missionary, emphasised prayer as integral to ‘spiritual
warfare’. Just before the course was
scheduled to begin, there was an arson attempt on the intended venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne,
where Dr Henry Dwyer was one of the pastors.
A
Lebanon type scenario with
Christians
and Muslims fighting
appeared
even more ominous
When Muslims offered to help with the repair of the
damage, the suspicion was confirmed that satanists were not really behind the
arson attack as had been suggested by a Cape Argus reporter. A Lebanon type scenario with Christians and
Muslims fighting each other now appeared even more ominous. (We did not know at
that time that Lansdowne was a big PAGAD stronghold).
The reason that the ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour’ course was relocated to the St James Church in Kenilworth from 3
September to 5 November 1996 was exactly because we wanted to use it as a
‘Gideon’s fleece’ (compare Judges 6:36-40) - a test to make sure that we were
in God’s will. That congregation had experienced a vicious attack in July 1993,
which God used to get South Africans to pray as never before. For the Love your Muslim Neighbour’ course in
Kenilworth I used my devotional teaching on John 4, the interaction of Jesus
with the Samaritan woman - for the first time as a ten-part series.[2]
A potentially dangerous development was the
resuscitation of Afrikaner right-wing resistance. On Sunday 5 January, 1997, in a series of
bombings, a mosque was savagely damaged. These atrocities were linked to a
group that called themselves the Boere
Aanvalstroepe. Thankfully, in answer to urgent prayer, the other right-wing
Afrikaner groups distanced themselves from them and the dangerous situation was
defused momentarily.
Churches from many Denominations
joining Hands
It was truly significant for the Cape
Town Metropolis in April 1997 when churches across the city and from many
denominations joined hands for a big campaign on the Newlands Cricket Stadium
with the evangelist Franklin Graham, the son of the renowned Billy Graham. Pastor Walter Ackerman from the Docks
Mission Church in Lentegeur and Pastor Elijah Klaassen from a Pentecostal
church in Gugulethu/ Crossroads, worked tirelessly to enlist people from the
Cape Flats and Black churches for this event. Transport from the townships was
provided free of charge. This served as a model for the Transformation stadium
events of the new millennium.
In the Western Cape, Eben Swart
became the coordinator for Herald Ministries. He worked closely with the Network of United Prayer in
Southern Africa (NUPSA), which had appointed Pastor Willy Oyegun as their
Western Cape coordinator. Together they
did important work in research and spiritual mapping, along with Amanda Buys
who counselled Christians with psychological problems.
A closer
Link with Radio CCFM
Radio Fish
Hoek was renamed to Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM) in due course.
At the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the Directress
of Radio CCFM, was challenged to use the station to reach out to Cape
Muslims, the main unreached people group of the region in terms of the
Gospel. She phoned the author, offering
airtime for a regular programme to this end.
We had to warn Avril of the unsuccessful arson attempt on the Lansdowne
church building where we wanted to stage a Love
your Muslim Neighbour course the previous year. She and the CCFM Board were
prepared to take the risk for the sake of the Gospel.
I wrote a radio series on biblical figures in the
Qur’an and the Talmud, which was transmitted towards the end of 1997. The consistent
denial of the Cross in the sacred book of the Muslims had struck me. It was
more than compelling. It was just too subtle to be man-inspired. Knowing the
history of the compilation of the Qur’an, the question was how I could share
this potentially devastating information in a loving way. The fact that I would
possibly be addressing Christians and Muslims via the radio simultaneously
would of course not make things easy.
During one of our prayer walks in Bo-Kaap it
became clear to me that I should not speak over the airwaves myself. I preferred to remain behind the scenes, with someone else reading my script. CCFM agreed to the suggestion. After a gradual increase of occasional programmes
geared to address the Cape Muslim population, we felt challenged to start
utilising the CCFM offer to use the
medium on a regular basis.
The Battle of the Airwaves escalates
In the meantime, Gill Knaggs, our co-worker from
Muizenberg, offered her services to CCFM.
Gill had previous experience in commercial scriptwriting. Soon she was ready to
write the scripts for Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers, two
followers of Jesus with an Islamic upbringing. At a meeting on 7 January, 1998, it was decided to start with a regular
programme on CCFM, and use two
converts as presenters. On the same day the radio station Voice of the Cape published their intention in the Cape Argus to use a convert from
Christianity as one of their presenters.
The
precedent created space
for CCFM
radio to follow suit
The precedent created space for CCFM radio to follow suit - with less fear of PAGAD reprisals for
putting Muslim converts on the airwaves.
The two Muslim background believers soon started with a weekly
programme, beginning with the theme the woman of two faces. Gradually many women, some of them Muslims,
started responding with phone calls, giving evidence that the radio programmes
were making an impact. Life Issues,
the women’s programme on CCFM on a
Thursday morning with Muslim background Christians, went from strength to
strength. (It was unfortunately aborted in the second half of 2004 when CCFM
restructured their programmes for 24-hour transmission.)
The Response to an Attack on Community Radio Stations
On August 20, 1998, a white paper was rushed through
Parliament which contained a veiled threat: to close down community radio
stations. There had previously been an attempt to close down Radio Pulpit, a Christian radio station that
broadcasts nationwide. The ill-fated government white paper on public
broadcasting - whatever its original intention - spawned a mass march to the
houses of Parliament on Wednesday, 2 September, 1998. The perception could not
be denied that the government wanted to regulate the airwaves in such a way
that the freedom of religious broadcasting would be severely curtailed.
Twenty thousand Cape Christians from
different
races and denominations
marched
in unity for religious freedom
Twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races
and denominations marched in unity, fighting for religious freedom and that its
expression would be retained. One of the
banners proclaimed 'United we stand'. This was a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main
slogan. Wisely, the government dropped their plans. (Behind the scenes God had
used an ANC Member of Parliament, a believer, to share the relevant information
with Rev. John Thomas of CCFM. In this way, amendments could be affected to the
Bill that allowed the government not to lose face on the issue.)
The Aftermath of the unofficial Renaming of Devil’s
Peak
The unofficial renaming of ‘Devil’s Peak’to ‘Disciple's
Peak’ - led by the pastor of the Vredehoek Apostolic Faith Mission
Church - and regular prayers at Rhodes Memorial, fitted into the
pattern of spiritual warfare. At the former occasion a big cross was planted on
the summit, over-looking the city. These venues had been strongholds of
Satanists.
The mass march to Parliament on 2 September 1998 in
response to the perceived government attack on community radio stations was
followed by a big prayer event on Table Mountain a few weeks later. At
the big prayer rally on September 26,
1998 thousands of Christians prayed along the contour road of Table Mountain in an effort to rename
the adjacent reviled peak ‘God’s Mountain.’ The event inspired a new
initiative, whereby a few believers from diverse backgrounds started to come
together at 6.a.m. for prayer on Signal
Hill on Saturdays every alternate weeks.[3]
Pastor
Richard Mitchell and his wife Elizabeth were instrumental in the resumption of
these meetings on Signal Hill. When the ‘door’ opened for a regular
testimony programme on Friday evenings on Radio CCFM, Richard Mitchell was a
natural choice as presenter. The programme ‘God
Changes Lives’ was also used to advertise citywide prayer events such as
those at the Lighthouse, an important part of the run-up to the big Newlands
events. In due course I also produced a programme for the midday devotions
every Tuesday with a link to Islam.
The Road to
Anarchy paved?
A bomb explosion at the Planet Hollywood Restaurant at Cape Town’s V& A Waterfront on
25 August, 1998 shook the Cape in more than one way. PAGAD activists were suspected of being
behind the bombing. It had surfaced that the group intended to make the Western
Cape ungovernable. (This was the example set by anti-apartheid radicals in the
late 1980s.) Now this was an integral part of the strategy agreed to by
extremists, in order to create the platform for an Islamic take-over. However,
the Planet Hollywood bombing resulted
in more confusion in the Muslim community. Many Capetonians breathed more
easily when it seemed as if Ganief Daniels, a Muslim police officer,[4]
was managing to get PAGAD under control with a new initiative, Operation Good Hope.
A
law to legalise abortion spawned
an increase of promiscuity
The cause for disquiet shifted to the gangsters when
rape appeared to have become rife. Morally the city seemed to spin into a
downward spiral. A law to legalise
abortion, which took effect on 1 February 1997, appeared to cause an increase
of promiscuity. Teenage pregnancies flourished. To make matters worse, there
was a strong lobby in the Western Cape provincial government to make Cape Town
the gay capital of the world. It seemed
that sexual immorality was now being permitted.
The legalising of prostitution was expected sooner rather than later.
With cases of rape reported in the City Bowl and other formerly White
residential areas and even in trains, along with the simultaneous spiralling of
HIV/AIDS, Christians from all races were forced to wake up. There was a
clear reason for more prayer. During a church leaders’
meeting on 7 October 1998 at the Atlantic Christian Assembly (later the
name was changed to Life Church),
many churches in Cape Town decided to
‘join hands’ in an attempt to take the City for Jesus! There was however little
evidence of the implementation of this resolution.
The road to anarchy seemed paved as the year 1999
opened with a car bomb on the Cape Town
Waterfront. It was a miracle that only three cars were damaged, with no
loss of life. The first results of police investigations linked the atrocity to
Muslim radicals. However, no group claimed responsibility for the bombing. One
shudders to think what could have developed from this senseless act if many
people had been killed during the high season of tourism at that venue!
Fireworks
of a different Kind detonate
More ‘fireworks’ exploded at the beginning of the
academic year 1999. A Muslim background
believer shared his testimony on the radio. He also began attending the Evangelical Bible School in
Strandfontein. A tea-time prayer group was started at the George Whitefield Bible College in Muizenberg, to coincide with the
time of the special Life Issues
broadcast. Gill Knaggs, a new student at
the George Whitefield Bible College
and the programme’s scriptwriter, started the prayer meeting. The combined
efforts did not miss its mark, and somehow managed to neutralise the PAGAD attempt
to Islamise the Western Cape.
On March 1, 1999, the battle of the airwaves took a
nasty turn when a petrol bomb was thrown at the CCFM Radio studio. Mercifully, the missile did not detonate. The
cowardly action was repeated a few weeks later on March 18. This time the perpetrators smashed a window
pane, and also made sure that a burning ‘torch’ was dropped inside the
building. Miraculously, there was neither an explosion of the petrol bomb, nor
was the studio gutted that housed the expensive equipment. God surely protected
the building. The second attempt occurred only hours before the scheduled
broadcasting of the Life Issues
programme with one of the Muslim background believers. This threw the suspicion
on the radical PAGAD corner of Islam as the possible perpetrators. On various other occasions that group had
indicated that they were very unhappy about people turning their back on
Islam.
PAGAD was very unhappy about people
who
turned their backs on Islam
The perceived resistance of Muslims to the Gospel –
along with the lack of success in Muslim evangelism - deterred many Christians
from actual loving outreach. This changed quite significantly after the
conversion of Rashied Staggie, the famous drug lord. The public burning of his twin brother and
co-gang leader Rashaad catapulted Rashied into prominence.) However, the
violence of PAGAD also added an element of fear.
11. New Ground broken in the Mother City
Because of his own background in drug
addiction, it was natural to the family of Pastor Richard Mitchell that their
home in Rylands Estate, a traditionally Indian suburb of the Cape, would be
used simultaneously as a sort of drug rehabilitation centre. Tony Ramiah became
their first convert from the drug community and soon the church also had a
vision to impact the Muslims and Hindus of this residential area. Rasheeda
Davids was the first of the former group, and over the years quite a few Hindu
background believers were added. New ground was broken when Richard Mitchell
became the pastor of the fellowship in Taronga Road, Crawford. The believers
worshipped in a building that had formerly been a White Dutch Reformed
Church.[5]
In the new fledgling church that was
pioneered by Richard Mitchell on the Cape Flats, church members took over the
vision for prayer. When very few people
at the Cape had a vision for praying on mountain tops, Pastor Mitchell
succeeded in getting believers to congregate at Rhodes Memorial on
Friday evenings from 1989.
Intercessors from
different Areas
June Lehmensich, a regular at the
Friday prayer meetings and an office worker for the Cape Town City Council,
had taken the pastoral clinical training course with Dr Henry Dwyer in
Lansdowne, and the ‘Love your Muslim
neighbour’ course at St James Church of England (Kenilworth) in
1996. She became a key figure to 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 Dutch Reformed Church of
Bo-Kaap. Bennie Mostert and his NUPSA arranged the annual countrywide
distribution, ensuring that the vision of countrywide prayer for Muslims once a
year was guaranteed. However, the majority of agencies that were involved with
Muslim outreach did not fully adopt the vision at that stage.
Sally Kirkwood, a Cape intercessor,
had already been prepared by the Lord when she started a prayer meeting at her
home in Plumstead. Along with other intercessors she became God’s instrument
for increasing prayer awareness in the Mother City. In 1997 she asked God how
to mobilise prayer for each community at grass roots level. 'While I was praying, I saw the shape
of a honeycomb cell.' This
became the beginning of a strategy to get more prayer covering for the city.
When Sally attended a Woman's Aglow Conference in Stellenbosch the
following year she heard how cross pollination brings out the best in fruit and
flowers. She subsequently started prayer cells in neighbourhoods. 'In forming these cells across
denominations, it brings out the best in us and brings unity.'
Cynthia Richards from Africa
Enterprise was another instrument in this regard. (I was able to give her
the contact details that I still possessed from the Jesus Marches of 1994). She visited the various ministers
fraternals of the Peninsula, while organising prayer meetings in preparation
for the Franklin Graham campaign at the Newlands Cricket Stadium.
Prayer on Mountain Tops and Stadiums
Led by Pastor Mitchell, Christians
prayed from Signal Hill early on Saturday mornings. After the citywide
prayer event on Table Mountain in September 1998, organized by Eben Swart of Herald
Ministries. The vision of praying on the mountain was revived.
At one of the Saturday morning prayer times at Signal Hill in 1999, the idea of
Cape Town as a spiritual gateway to the continent was shared. The prayers
resulted in a surge towards transformation in the country after Richard
Mitchell had seen the Transformation video at a pastors’ prayer meeting in
Mitchells Plain.
Within months, the vision of praying
in sports stadiums became a reality
Within a matter of months the vision
of praying in sports stadiums became a reality.
There followed significant combined prayer events: at Bellville’s
Velodrome on a Sunday morning; the Athletics Stadium of the University of
the Western Cape; the Vygiekraal
Stadium and at the nearby Athlone Stadium. The well-publicised
transformation meetings started in March 2001 at the Newlands Rugby Stadium. But there were many other obstacles to
overcome before that fell into place.
Attempts at Reconciliation
of Jews and Muslims
In 1992/3 we started a monthly prayer meeting for the Middle
East, which evolved from the fortnightly meeting in Bo-Kaap. The vision grew to
see Jews and Muslims reconciled through common faith by working with followers
of Jesus Christ from those backgrounds. This vision received fresh inspiration
from September 1998 when we prayed on Signal Hill, which is situated just above
Tamboerskloof, a ‘Christian’ suburb, and Bo-Kaap, the Muslim stronghold. Sea
Point, situated just below Signal Hill on the other side, is home to the
majority of Cape Jews.
For many years the expression of our love for the Jews was
limited to friendship with the leaders and occasional visits to Beth Ariel,
a fellowship of Messianic Jewish believers in the suburb of Sea Point. This
could to be stepped up in 2004.
During 2004 our
missionary colleague Edith Sher organised a prayer breakfast in Sea Point
during which a Cape Muslim background
believer shared his testimony. God sent other people to help us in this
effort. Lillian James is a long-standing
contact and one of our prayer partners. She grew up bilingually in Woodstock
among people of different cultures. After she had become a committed follower
of Jesus, she grew to love Jews and Muslims. She had been one of the believers
who attended our prayer meetings for the Middle East where we prayed for both
groups and she introduced us to Leigh Telli and her husband. Leigh loves the
Jews and her husband comes from North Africa. All this served to confirm our calling
of ministering to foreigners and linking our ministry to Messianic Jews.
A Seminar on Reconciliation
The next step was a seminar on
reconciliation on February 19, 2005. It was our vision to attempt achieving
reconciliation under the banner of Jesus, using Messianic Jews and other
followers of Jesus – also those from Muslim background.[6]
In our preparation for the seminar we worked closely with Leigh Telli. She
shared in her contribution the role of the descendants of Isaac in the last
days, and I did the same for Ishmael.
Subsequently a manual of our papers was printed, in which some of
Leigh’s paintings also featured.
Soon
thereafter there was an open-air service in Camps Bay that was dubbed ‘Shalom
Salam’, signifying the intention to reach out to both Jews and Muslims. These
efforts became the start of a close friendship between Rosemarie and Leigh
Telli, and a strengthening of the ties to
Edith Sher who later started a weekly radio programme on Sunday afternoons via
CCFM under the auspices of Messiah’s People. (Edith Sher became an important additional
source of information for my manuscript Pointers to Jesus, in which I
highlight how the Hebew Scriptures point to Jesus .)[7]
A Cape
Mission Catalyst into the Ten Forty Window
Pastor Bruce van Eeden passionately wanted to see
South Africans involved in missionary work. The Lord laid India and China on
his heart. When one of his daughters found employment as a stewardess with South African Airways, he saw that as
his chance to get involved personally. He was now able to procure drastically
reduced airfares to travel to Asia. In 1995 he started a Mitchell’s Plain-based
mission agency called Ten Forty Outreach,
which concentrated on sending out short-term workers to India. For three months
a year Pastor van Eeden went to India to minister, partnering with Indian
believers and taking with him volunteers from South Africa. There are now many
Indian national evangelists and pastors who are linked to the mission agency.
From the outset Van Eeden made it clear to the Christians in India that they
should not expect funding from outside their own country. He did not want to
see the dependency syndrome repeated as it happened in so many African
countries.
Efforts
to minister to Drug Addicts
One of the first efforts of Cape
Christians to reach out in love to drug addicts in a structured way happened
more or less by chance. John Higson, a member of the evangelical St James
Church of England in Kenilworth, requested the allocation of a different
residential area where they could do their door-to-door outreach as Life
Challenge co-workers. He had become frustrated after the lack of success of
their endeavours in the suburb of Lansdowne. The drug-infested Salt River was
hereafter assigned to him. During the second week of prayer for Salt River,
Higson was confronted with the major drug problem in the township-like suburb.
This was the start of a St James Church endeavour among the drug addicts
of Salt River under Higson’s leadership. The outreach to Salt River from the
Kenilworth church ceased in 1995 - without much result.[8] The co-workers were disheartened - yet
another case of Christians honourably wounded in the spiritual warfare at the
Cape. Yet, their
contribution was important in slowing down the moral deterioration of the area.
In due course the seed germinated that was sown there.
[1] From May 1521 until March 1522,
Martin Luther stayed at the Wartburg castle, after he had been taken there for
his safety at the request of Frederick, the Wise, following his ex-communication by Pope Leo X and his
refusal to recant at the Diet of Worms. It was during this period that Luther,
under the pseudonym Junker Jörg (the Knight Jörg), translated the ‘New
Testament’ into German.
[2] The latest version
of these studies – expanded to thirteen chapters - can be read as A Revolutionary Conversation - Lessons from
the Master teacher to share the Gospel cross-culturally at www.
isaacandishmael.blogspot.com
[3] This was later changed to a
monthly event.
[4] In the new millennium Daniels
became the deputy to the provincial police commissioner.
[5] The church complex there later
became the base from which the Vineyard Church (later the new
denomination became the Jubilee Church) was launched.
[6] Our
co-worker Rochelle Malachowski who had been working in Palestine, reported on
the ministry of Musalaha in the Middle East.
[7] For quite a few
years Esther Krüger, an Afrikaner, produced a programme for Jews on Radio
Tygerberg called Israel Kaleidoscope on which Leigh Telli featured
frequently.
[8] Two small churches, a City Mission
congregation in Burns Road, Salt River and the Shiloh Sanctuary in
Robins Road, Observatory held the evangelical
fort in a sea of Islam called small Mecca until the Jubilee Church moved
into the changed Italtile factory in Nelson Street, Observatory
at the beginning of the new millennium.
This
was however long after similar moves among marginals of their societies had
already been started in West Africa in Liberia and Sierra Leone by returning
emancipated slaves from America and Jamaica.
[3] Translation: flower of our
fatherland. This flower became the preferred
national emblem because an apartheid odium was attached to the Springbok,
previously labelled 'for Whites only'.
[4] This is a big square in the City
Centre where military parades were conducted in earlier days.
[5] A tradition evolved on Hyde
Park Corner in London where anybody can publicly share views on any topic.
[7] The quotes are taken
from Mogoba’s autobiographical article He
visited me in prison in the chapter Christ on Robben Island in the
anthology Cry Justice by John de Gruchy.
[8]When the country was still teetering on the brink of violent revolution
in January1994 because of ANC and IFP rivalry, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and
Methodist Bishop Stanley Mogoba convened a meeting between Dr Nelson Mandela
and Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
[9] Ds. D.P. Botha later became the
moderator of the Sendingkerk, the
‘Coloured’ sector of the denomination.
[10]After the Second World
War, Buchman, its leader, renamed the organization a movement for Moral and
Spiritual Rearmament. The spiritual side appears to have diminished
proportionately towards the increase of an inter-faith element when other
religions were taken on board. In 2001, the MRA movement changed its name yet
again, to Initiatives of Change (IofC).
[12]The camp site was
never completed. Participants experienced hassling from the Special Branch of
the police because the young folk came from races other than ‘Coloured’.
[13] The building is the premises at
which the SAMS started. Later it was turned into the Missionary Museum.
[14] Some of the insensitivities are
listed in Gerrie Lubbe's article Wit Afrikane en Afrika se ander godsdienste
(page 60.) in Wit Afrikane?, an anthology to commemorate Professor Nico
Smith’s 70th birthday.
[15] She ministered
thereafter in Mozambique, probably one of the
first female Xhosa missionaries after Wilhelmina Stompjes, who worked as
translator to German Moravian missionaries in the Eastern Cape. (A fuller
version of the contribution of Wilhelmina Stompjes can be found in Mysterious ways of God, accessible at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com).
[16] Jill Johnstone
wrote the first children’s version of the book called “You can change the World.” She had already contracted terminal
cancer when she finalized the publication of the book.
[17]The supernatural
intervention by God in the run-up to the miraculous elections in April 1994 is
beautifully described in Cassidy, Michael: A
Witness for Ever, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1995.
[18]In the most recent
republication of the translation of Andrew Murray’s School des Gebeds,
Dick Eastman, the founder of World
Literature Crusade, conceded that he had received his inspiration from the
prolific Cape Scottish writer.
[19] Internationally Dr
Andrew Murray was the big model, pioneering with writing 31-day or 365-day
devotionals.
[20] In South Africa CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims)
printed
their own version of the Ramadan Muslim
Prayer Focus for 2003 with national prayer fuel. The 2008 version was
called Light the Darkness. Due to
sponsorship via adverts the latter booklet was distributed much more
widely. From 2002 Shnat Razon
Ministries (Australia) published the Jewish Prayer Focus, preparing material for
the annual festive season.
[21] Rev. Victor was shot and killed by intruders in broad
daylight in 2004 when he rushed to assist the original victim of the intrusion.
[23] A full report of the cases of the
Komanis and Mehlolo Rikhoto, which both went to the Appeal Court in
Bloemfontein, as well as the far reaching consequence of the victories, can be
read in Davis and le Roux, Precedent and Possibility, Double Storey
Books, 2009, pp 62-78.
[24] Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa. Proceedings and Decisions of
General Assembly 1981, p.180ff. The Assembly also recognized ‘the bona fides of those Christians who in
good conscience before God took up arms to fight either for “liberation” or for
“law and order” in South Africa’—and paid tribute to conscientious objectors.
[25]
The words 'Jesus Saves were
written on the jackets that the workers wear when they are on shift in their
teams.
[26] The secret organization to which only male Afrikaners were
allowed to join by invitation, was started with good intentions for the
upliftment of the group when they were discriminated against by the British
colonial government. All too soon however, the Broederbond became a
secret clique where apartheid ideology was cooked and then served to the near
peril of the nation.
[27] Charles Kadalie contracted asbestosis
in the course of his work there which could have led to cancer. His condition
thankfully remained stable. In the new millennium he became the manager of
lighting for the metropolis.
[28] At that time only males were
admitted to study theology at all Afrikaans theological faculties in the
country.
[29] In later years Robert Footner came to Pretoria for training as a missionary with the Dorothea Mission, where he linked up in a
close relationship with Patrick and Jill Johnstone. This period was also the
start of a close relationship to the family of John Thomas, who later became
the long-standing pastor of Fish Hoek
Baptist Church, which later changed its name to King of Kings Baptist Centre.
[30] The country’s name was changed to
Zimbabwe after attaining negotiated independence from Britain.
[31] Literally his private secretary
wrote to me – dated 2 November 1972 - on his behalf: ‘dat hy mense wat onder
die dekmantel van godsdiens politiek maak verafsku.
[32] In translation it received the
title Human Relations and the South African
Scene in the Light of Scripture.
[33] The so-called 10/40 Window denotes
a geographical area between 10 and 40 degrees north
latitude, where the main unreached people groups with respect to the Gospel can
be found.
[34] Along with the Anglican priest
Trevor Pearce, Peter Ward and Eugene Johnson boarded one of two Operation
Mobilisation ships, the Doulos, in 1978 as the first missionaries of
colour with an international mission agency, to be followed by two young people
from the Cape, Caroline Duckitt from Bishop
Lavis Township in 1979 and June Domingo of Steenberg in 1980. The latter two
women became WEC International missionaries.
[35]Anni Percent, Priscilla Masala and
Yvonna Masala were other missionaries from the Docks Mission who joined
OM.
[36] Doris had originally
come to South Africa to work on the Moravian mission station Elim in the Home
for Spastic children. Later the couple joined WEC International after we got to
know them in Germany.
[37] Long before this,
people of colour were driven overseas because of apartheid constraints. The Baptist Church appears to have been the
first in South Africa to use female missionaries of colour when Julia Forgus
went to work among the under-privileged Muslim and Hindu Indians in Durban
after her graduation in 1959.
[38] Pastor Godfrey Martin
left the teaching profession in 1996, later joining the new mission agency Free to Serve, that now has missionaries in five countries.
[39] This venue has a
personal nostalgic touch. The shopping complex and the adjacent cinema were
built on land from where the author’s family was evicted in an
apartheid-related expropriation under the guise of slum clearance in 1970.
[40] The institution, later called Cornerstone Christian College, was
regarded as a parallel Bible school for ‘Coloureds’ to the renowned Bible Institute of South Africa in the
White suburb of Kalk Bay, where only Whites had been allowed to study.
[41] We attended this fellowship in
1981 during a six-month stint in the country, after we had been given the
impression that the church was multi-racial. This turned out to be a fallacy.
[42] After further studies Kallie
August went on to become a professor at the University of Stellenbosch.
[43] I continued with my research long
after the Hanover cell group had been disbanded,
using the material later for a series on CCFM Radio. I also tried
unsuccessfully to publish it under the title Pointers to Jesus. The studies can now be accessed on our internet
blog.
[44] The resistance of the Blacks of
Crossroads and the KTC informal settlement against the discriminatory influx
control measures, which prohibited women to be with the husbands in the cities,
was to inflict the first significant defeat to the apartheid regime. This
ultimately led to the repeal of the repugnant pass laws in 1985.
[45] His brother Willem de Klerk, long
time editor of the influential Afrikaans daily Die Transvaler and later of the Sunday newspaper Rapport, pointed out in a profile of
him, (F.W. de Klerk Die Man en sy Tyd)
that the new State President always saw himself as a middewegman (e.g. p.120).
[46]
I do not want to minimize the political efforts, e.g. the moves behind the
scenes sponsored by the Swiss government or by Dr van Zyl Slabbert’s IDASA, but
I maintain that it was ultimately the concerted prayer that made the difference.
[47] The fellowship later adopted the
name Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God.
[49] The updated version of these studies can be found as Pointers to Jesus - a comparison of biblical personalities in
the Qur’an and Talmud at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com. There was
surely some supernatural element at work because a book with similar content, The
Great Deception, was published in Villach (Austria) in 1995.
[50] The latest version of these studies
can be read on our blog as A Revolutionary Conversation -
Lessons from the Master teacher to share the Gospel cross-culturally.
[51] Not able to pay the inappropriate
rents - along with meager incomes - those who work at night sleep in the same
beds during the day time.
[52] Before the influx of refugees the Universal
Church had already perfected the art of
abusing Prosperity Theology to get money from the poor to build big
complexes – along with deficient financial accountability.
[53] An
arrangement was made to that effect after the original Vineyard Church denomination of John Wimber started to have congregations of their own at the Cape.
[54] Cecilia went to be
with her Lord in the beginning of 2008 after contracting cancer.
[55] We yearn to see our vision implemented to be part again of a
congregation that has the unity of the Body of Christ as a priority, where
mutual close fellowship and outreach on more than only one day of the week is a
reality. This was partially realized during our time in Zeist, Holland, where
we had real fellowship with local believers from different
denominational backgrounds as we ministered together with the Goed Nieuws Karavaan initiative from
1982-1991.
[56] This church came into being as the
continuation of the Sheppard Street Baptist Church of District Six in
the wake of Group Areas legislation.
[57] This can be found on our internet
blog.
[58] This was a Moral Re-armament link
via Mr Franklin Sonn, a friend of the Harmony Park SCA outreach of 1964/5. Franklin
Sonn subsequently became quite well-known later as national leader of a
Teachers organisation. Still later on, he became the country’s ambassador in
the USA. I met Elroy Lawrence at the 60th anniversary of Alec Patel,
a Muslim convert and a member of the Moravian Hill congregation.
[60] Tik or methaphetamine, part of the amphetamine
group of drugs, is very potent and easy to make. It’s still legally produced in
the United States in the guise of medication prescribed for weight loss, as a
nasal inhalant and even for narcolepsy and attention deficit hyperactivity
disorders.
[61] A serious flaw of the booklet is in my view that Billheimer
assigned too much authority to satan. He said for instance: ‘As a slave
of Satan, Adam lost all of his legal rights, not only to his person but also to
his domain. This gave Satan legal authority to rule over man and the earth.’
[62] This might also be the origin of the term ‘gap year’ when teenagers engage in some
sort of ministry after leaving high school. In 1979 Dave Bryant published the
influential book In the Gap, premiered before 20,000 university students as
at that year's URBANA 79 (the national, triennial student missions conference
sponsored by Inter Varsity Christian
Fellowship).
[64] It was Dr Jonker who took me aside
at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to explain
that he was not a member of the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond.
[66] It was sad to discern that someone
of Dr Buthelezi’s stature - he had been nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize and he had been regarded as a rebel against
the apartheid status quo - appeared to stall negotiations because of
personal ambition. In research that was published recently, Dr Anthea Jeffreys
however also revealed how the ANC pulled out all stops to demonise Dr Buthelezi and the IFP so that they could rule almost unopposed after
the first democratic elections.
posted by Ashrose at
7:30 PM
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