Day 9: Baptizing 87 in the River from African Missionary Devotional Stories 2

Day 9: Baptizing 87 in the River

Quote of the Day: “God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply” -Hudson Taylor

Verse of the Day: “Therefore put on God’s complete armor, that you may be able to resist and stand your ground on the evil day of danger, and, having done all the crisis demands, to stand firmly in your place.” Ephesians 6: 13

            The invitation arrived from my dear friend Jerome Ndayisaba. He wanted me to accompany him on a scouting trip. I prayed and felt that this was God’s will for my Saturday even though it involved quite a drive. I jumped into my Toyota Hilux pick-up paid for by the youth of Oklahoma and headed into the hills of Burundi.

We sped off down a bumpy road into the heart of Africa. Our destination was the little town of Nyabihanga situated in the literal middle of nowhere. After driving down a dirt track for about an hour we arrived at an outcropping of random buildings.

We found a rented mud building comprising two rooms—the roof was corrugated iron sheeting with tarps stretched taunt as an awning. The two rooms could accommodate about 40 people. As we pulled in, I was surprised to see over a hundred people sitting patiently on the ground awaiting our arrival. I assumed we had come to investigate the possibility of assisting with a new building project. Clearly, the church building was in trouble; by contrast, the congregation seemed alive.

It was a Saturday and I wasn’t expecting anyone but the pastor and a few key leaders in the congregation to turn out. As we approached, they began to sing and dance. Pastor Daniel greeted us: “Welcome! We are now ready to start the evangelistic meeting.”

I looked at Jerome, “Evangelistic meeting?”

“Missionary Steve we want you to preach.”

“Preach?”

“Then we will have the baptismal service.”

“Baptismal service?” I asked out loud.

“Then we will eat a meal together and go look at new properties for the church.”

“New properties?”

Things had clearly evolved significantly—this was going to be an all day event and maybe then some. Praise and worship started. People danced and sang with great enthusiasm under the tarps. News had spread throughout the area of our arrival. People started coming from everywhere. I knew that I would soon need to preach the word.

I felt the Lord whisper to my heart, “Speak on the Second Coming.”

It would be the first time in my life I had preached on the Second Coming. I launched into the Word God had placed in my heart from I Thessalonians chapter 4. I spoke in Swahili; Jerome translated into Kirundi. The message was very short, lasting less than 25 minutes.

It was so cool to see God work. I had never really spoken much in a mass evangelism context. This was my first time. It was so amazing to feel the Spirit of God sweep through the crowd. As we closed in prayer and gave the invitation, Pastor Jerome made it clear, “We are going to baptize those of you who are responding.”

Less than five minutes later we were headed towards the nearby river. Hundreds stood on the riverbanks to watch as Jerome and I divided those desiring to be baptized. He took half and I took half. We stood in the frigid mountain stream up to our waists. After a prayer of instruction, people waded into the river one after the other.

“Muri zina ya Data. Muri muzina ya Mwana. Muri zina ya Mpwemu.” In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Down they went one after the other. For at least 45 minutes it continued unabated. Jerome handled one side of the river as I baptized the other side. After all was said and done 87 people had made a public declaration of their faith in Christ. I have no idea how many were already members of the church and how many had responded in the evangelistic meeting.

All I know is that it was awesome: one of the most rewarding afternoons of my entire life.  I felt so energized—doing God’s will that Saturday had fired me up. We changed clothes in the bushes underneath a little tarp and headed back into Nyabigina to look for pieces of land for the church.

We never found anything. To my knowledge no missionary ever went back. It wasn’t too much after this that I had to leave the country. I never saw Pastor Daniel again and I think that the church is still meeting in the two little rooms. Someday I want to go back and facilitate the construction of a permanent structure.

Obviously, God’s will that day wasn’t to build a church; it was to build the Church!

Question of the Day: What is God’s will for your life? Does this thought scare you or excite you?  How do you search out God’s will for you?  

Musings: “What is the will of God for my life?” Have you ever asked that question? From an early age I constantly thought about it. Growing up the enemy tried everything possible to convince me that the will of God for my life was something heavy, difficult, dull, and dreadful. 

Have you ever felt that way? Once I started doubting God’s intentions towards me the enemy would capitalize on my insecurity. He threw every lie in the book my way—trying to get me off track with God’s purpose for my life.

Thank God I never explored these options very far simply because Holy Spirit was so faithful to show me the lies and the danger awaiting me on the other side of them. They were nothing but a scam to steal and destroy my God given purpose.  One day the light came on for me as I was reading Romans 12:2.  “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” 

Sounds good, but why do I need to have my mind renewed? The answer hit me between the eyes, “then you will be able to discern what is the good, pleasing, and acceptable will of the Lord.” Since that moment I have never doubted that His intentions and plans for my life are for my good! His will, when accepted with a renewed heart and mind, is pleasing and acceptable! God has good things in store for you. Don’t fall for the enemy’s scams and lies. Let your heart, mind, and spirit be renewed in His Word and Presence and soon you will be able to see clearly again.  

Militia on the Runway

Here is another entry from my forthcoming devotional "African Missionary Devotional Stories Part 2". This is one of my favorite stories from my Madagascar experiences.  

Day 20: Militia on the Runway

Quote of the Day: "I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came at some time; no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape, probably the least I would have devised, it came” -Adoniram Judson

Verse of the Day: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.  And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. John 14:12-14

            Our helicopter had been parked overnight at the Manakara airport. It was a small mold ridden building a few hundred feet from Madagascar’s Eastern coastline. It had once been fully operational with direct flights to Antanarivo a couple of times a week for French tourists desiring to get a little R&R. Economic sanctions coupled with political instability changed this drastically. The airport saw only a few chartered flights a year now.

When we had landed the day before, a well-dressed man had come running out of the airport to see the strange sight of several white people disembarking from the iron bird. His tone and attitude were both hostile as well as combative.

“Who gave you permission to land here?”

The pilot of the helicopter was a former French military Special Forces who had seen action in some hairy corners of the world. He had already regaled us with stories of the Kosovo War back in 1999. As such he didn’t take kindly to the cold reception.

“We filed papers in Antanarivo. They called ahead to tell the airport that we were coming.” He retorted.

“I wasn’t alerted of your coming. They never called.”

“I was in the air traffic control office when they called,” he shot back.

Since he had no official uniform, badge, or identification of any kind we brushed past him to meet our contacts waiting for us on the ground. 

We had planned an evangelism, fact-finding, medical trip to several small villages in the surrounding forested areas of Manakara. The plan was to spend the night in Manakara so we could pick up three additional passengers for the mission. It would require two trips to each village as the helicopter could handle 5 people including the pilot and we now had a team of 8 people. 

Since the villages were so close to Manakara it wouldn’t be difficult to use the airport as a central hub to ferry people back and forth throughout the following couple of days.

Early the next morning we all assembled at the airport.  There wasn’t a person to be seen anywhere except an elderly watchman whose sole responsibility in life was to clear the runway for the few flights that visited Manakara. He used a whistle to chase people and sometimes goats off the landing strip. It was pretty funny to watch, but I digress.

As the helicopter warmed up and the first part of our group was whisked away to the interiors of Madagascar’s rain forest, I noticed this man on his cell phone.  He seemed rather excited in his communication.

A few minutes later the helicopter roared back into sight and myself, my friend Aaron, and a Malagasy medical doctor known as Dr. Fils jumped on board the waiting chopper. Our pilot had to find a restroom before taking off and went into the airport building for a few minutes. As we waited the chopper blades screamed above us in full rotation. Suddenly, I noticed a several jeeps speeding down the airport road.

It looked like military personnel. As they neared, the turret of a mounted M-60 became evident. Several heavily armed Malagasy soldiers jumped off the back of one of the jeeps. All weapons were pointed in our direction as the helicopter pilot emerged from his potty break. It looked like big trouble.

Aaron and Dr. Fils jumped off the helicopter and headed in that direction. I could see soldiers yelling as gun barrels pointed directly at my team members. The gentleman from the day before emerged from one of the jeeps now clothed in full military regalia. The insignia on his uniform indicated he was a colonel in the Malagasy army.

“You are spies!” He yelled.

“We are not spies.” Our French pilot yelled back.

“You have no clearance to be here and you are under arrest.”

“We filed paper work yesterday!”

“That’s not true. I’m impounding the helicopter and taking you all to jail.”

It was a heated argument to say the least. I started praying at the top of my lungs in the Spirit. The helicopter rotors screamed so loud that no one could hear me, except hopefully the Lord.

Our pilot reached into his pocket. “I’m going to call the General of the Malagasy Armed Forces.”

The colonel scoffed in total disbelief.

Both men were at tipping point. The tension was so thick that I feared what would happen if he was bluffing.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

I prayed more fervently hoping that this wasn’t some paramilitary stall tactic. I yearned for the General to actually pick up.

No response.

“I told you that you are under arrest.” The colonel lost no time in capitalizing on the change in momentum to take advantage in the argument.

I sighed. This wouldn’t be pretty.

The cell phone started to ring.

“Yes? Hello? General? Yes, this is Jean-Christophe. We are in Manakara and we need your help. I’m talking to one of your men that is out of order in full violation of Malagasy domestic air travel code.”

“He wants to talk to you.” The pilot smugly handed the phone to the colonel.

I couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Yes? Sir? What?”

The phone hung up. Within moments all weapons were withdrawn and official apologies were issuing forth. We were promised full protection while in the area and that no one would be allowed so much as to get within a kilometer of the helicopter while it was parked on the runway. 

“You really know the General that well?” I later asked my new friend.

“Oh yes. This kind of stuff happens all the time here in Madagascar and he gave me his personal cell phone number in case there is ever any trouble.”

I was impressed to say the least.

“How do you know him?” I asked one final question.

“We go to church together.”

Question of the Day: What does prayer look like to you? How do see your interactions with God in this area?

Musings: Besides missions and spiritual awakening, prayer is probably my favorite subject to talk about. I think the three go together. If we pray we will have spiritual awakening and develop a heart for missions. If we are connected to missions we recognize the need for spiritual awakening and so cry out in prayer. These three pursuits are essential for the work of God to go forward with any kind of effectiveness in our generation. 

Prayer is a deep subject that many authors have written on very extensively. My thought on prayer for today is that we must have awareness that we are not wasting our time. In other words, prayer is a productive endeavor.

This is basically what faith entails in this area. We believe that God wants to hear us. We believe that He has the power and authority to do something about what we are asking. And we believe that He will release His power and authority on our behalf, both in us and around us. Without these three convictions prayer becomes a meaningless religious activity.

Truthfully, I think this is part of the reason why so many Christians have so little time to seek Jesus. They simply don’t believe that there are any results from their praying. We could talk about motivation, perseverance, holiness, etc… as factors of prayer. At the end of the day though the bedrock condition for prayer is faith—a confidence that when we get on the phone to the General of the Armies of Heaven and Earth there will be a response. It may not be immediate, but at the right time there will be a corresponding intervention from heaven as a result of our prayers.

Hidden Treasure

I'm finishing my fifth book, "African Missionary Devotional Stories Part 2." It has been a very rich and rewarding experience as I relive some incredible moments of my life as a missionary and then connect them to quotes, scriptures, and life lessons. I want to share of few of the entries here on the blog over the course of the next week to give others a feel for what is in the book.  

Day 16: Hidden Treasure

Quote of the Day: Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.” — C.T. Studd

Verse of the Day: Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk and live in Your truth; direct and unite my heart [solely, reverently] to fear and honor Your name (Psalm 86:11)

It was one of those things that I felt I had to do before I left Burundi. There was a little wildlife reserve just outside of Bujumbura, the capital city. When I say little I mean little. You could easily walk across this piece of land in 20 to 25 minutes. It had once boasted quite an array of wildlife species: all different kinds of antelopes, primates, birds, hippos, crocs, as well as other plains animals such as zebra. I was there to find treasure of the animal variety. 

Rumor had it that the world's largest crocodile once lived there. From the only video footage ever captured of the legendary Gustav by a Belgian herpetologist, Patrice Faye, this monster croc is said to be between 25 and 30 feet long. Throughout the city of Bujumbura people say that he has eaten hundreds of people and even taken direct flank machine gun fire as he skirts the banks of Lake Tanganyika. 

Is it just urban legend?  Hard to say.  I once met Patrice Faye high in the mountains of Burundi in a pygmy village. I think he was as surprised to see me as I was him. We were distributing clothes and sharing the message of the cross in a pygmy village. I'm not quite sure what he was doing, but he was convinced that Gustav was a very real crocodile, very much alive, at least as of 2008.  After watching the video of this massive croc, I wanted to see him. I expressed my desire to see the giant reptile to some friends. 

They suggested I visit Gatumba Nature Reserve the last place he had been seen.  So just months before I moved out of Burundi I jumped into my vehicle and drove to the front gate. It was no more than a twenty minute drive from where I used to live. There I found the entrance fee quite reasonable because hardly anyone visited the park anymore.

Most of the animals had been wiped out during the war. People needed food and anything that moved was served on the menu. It was still standard policy that a guide accompanies the car, not so much for the African wildlife as for the human wildlife hiding with guns in the bushes. 

Having grown up in Kenya, where the animal varieties are endless, I was reluctant to have a guide. Especially a drunk one who reeked of the local brew, but rules are rules, and maybe this was the right man to help me find Gustav. 

We started the drive down the sandy trail.  Ironically enough, my guide's name was Stephen.  I found out that he was a Congolese refugee who had been living in Burundi for several years to escape the pillaging rebels in his home area. He lived in Gatumba the little town on the Congolese Burundian border.

We talked about Congo, his family, and why he had turned to the local brew. He was hurting deeply from wounds of the past, poverty of the present, and hopelessness for the future. He saw no way out. As he shared his sob story I suddenly remembered my mission for the day: Find Gustav. Remembering my real quest I shared my desire to see the legendary monster. 

He laughed. The croc hadn't been seen in years and he speculated he either had died from old age or was on a circuit around the longest lake in the world and might reappear in the future. 

Disheartened, I asked what other animals there might be to see. His prognosis wasn't too optimistic. There were egrets and hippos. I laughed to myself. In Kenya, we had egrets in our backyard and hippos in almost every river and lake in the country. Not to mention that just a few months earlier a hippo had interrupted our volleyball game right there on a beach in Bujumbura (another story for another day). 

I turned the vehicle around to exit the park.  Nearing the gate, I felt as though I had wasted a day chasing after imaginary crocodiles in the heart of Central Africa. Then it happened, very slowly, but surely. My heart became aware of a greater purpose in my visit. My steps had been orchestrated of the Lord, not to find a crocodile but a prodigal. 

I asked my new friend if he knew anything of Christ and His great love. He had heard the message years before, but it had never really made much sense. I shared about my own battles with hopelessness and feeling bound by sin until Jesus intervened.

Just moments later heaven came near and Stephen began to cry. We prayed together. Before parting company I told him about a little church we had just planted in Gatumba pastored by my dear friend from Congo Doctor Gerard Cizungu. He promised to check it out.

A couple of weeks later I called Cizungu. We talked about several different matters. 

"A strange thing happened recently missionary."

"What was that Cizungu?" I asked politely.

"A man that we have been praying for the past several months came to church this past Sunday and said that he met a muzungu (white man) who told him about Jesus."

"What do you mean you had been praying for him?" I asked rather surprised. 

"His wife comes to church here and we have been praying for him to find Christ."

My heart leapt inside of me. I had been searching for a hidden treasure: Gustav. Heaven had been searching for a different treasure: Stephen the animal guide who had a handful of faithful believers praying for him.

Question of the Day: Is there a besetting sin in your life that you haven’t been able to overcome? How has it affected your relationship with the Lord?

Musings: I had fallen into the same sin yet again. I kept promising the Lord that I wouldn’t do it.  I had fasted, I had prayed, I had wept, I had sought godly counsel, and I had memorized scripture—over and over again. Yet, I kept returning to the same place. Why couldn’t I overcome this area?

As I meditated on the issue, I finally realized that part of me, somewhere deep down inside just didn’t want to let to go. Most of me wanted to live for Jesus and keep His word, but there was still a dissident movement lurking beneath the surface. I had a divided heart.

I had no clue, though, on how to move forward. I felt like a hypocrite even though I loved the Lord and desired to serve Him. As I read Psalm 86:11 the light bulb went on. For the first time in my life I saw the connection between a whole heart and the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the reverential honor and respect of God’s holiness that makes us hate anything that would keep us from Him.

Only when we reverence a Holy God and fear being separated from His glorious presence more than we love our sinful secrets can we experience freedom. I saw David’s cry in a new light. He is praying for a whole heart so that he can experience the fear of the Lord.

I have become convinced that the most important element in our personal relationship with Christ after salvation and the power of the Holy Spirit is the fear of the Lord. Exodus 20:20 tells us not be afraid as the Lord places His fear on our lives. Sound contradictory? The verse continues by saying that His fear enables us not to sin. Did you know it’s possible to live free from sin? Jesus didn’t save us to leave us enslaved in bondage. He saved us for glorious freedom. He saved us to triumph over compromise. He saved us to overcome and know the sweetness of victory. 

I will never forget the day the Lord broke the power of the sin that had controlled me for so many years. He placed His fear on my life and since that day by God’s grace I haven’t gone back! He gave me a whole heart so I could fear Him. And His fear keeps my heart whole. I would invite you to do a study on the fear of the Lord.  It is one of the most wonderfully enriching Word studies in Scripture. Check out the many references in Proverbs and Psalms that list the promises connected to it.

Yes, you can be free! Yes, you can know victory. And yes, once you are free there is a whole new dimension of authority and intimacy waiting for you.