SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER (August 2024)

SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER “Much more is wrought by prayer than this world dreams of ...” Alfred Tennyson Foreword by Dr Bennie Mostert Part 1 1. Impact of Prayer during early Dutch Rule 2. Prayer and evangelical Zeal confront Colonial Mission Policy 3. Prayerful Actions oppose divisive Doctrine 4. Spiritual Warfare at the Cape 5. A spiritual Watershed …………………………………………………………………………………... 6. Significant impact of Prayer on Cape Islam …………………………………………………………… 7. God at work behind the Scenes 8. Cape Church Opposition to Racism 9. More Church Struggle against Divisions ................................................................................................. Part 2 10. Prayer and Interaction with Islam …………………………………………………………………… 11. PAGAD and its Effects 12. The Pregnancy and Birth Pains of the Mother City 13. Birth Pangs of a new Era? Foreword It was with great anticipation that I waited for Ashley's manuscript. I was not disappointed. Here is some good and thorough research. For two decades I have been involved in the prayer movement. And I can honestly say that much of what Ashley wrote I did not know. He combined well known and newly researched information and gives us a clearer picture of the past and the golden thread of what God has been doing and the place prayer has in it. All the information brings new perspective and helps us to understand the deep hurts and humiliation of multitudes of Black and Coloured people in the Cape. The historical facts help us to better comprehend how to pray for the Cape, how to pray more "intelligently", with more passion and compassion. It is important that the whole church, especially in the Cape, take note of this research. It will bring clarity about many issues and build faith while also bringing about a new understanding of the importance of prayer even in the most difficult circumstances. Hundreds of thousands have prayed over the years for Cape Town and the surrounding area. Much has happened in answer to the prayers of the saints. We are living in a time where we need to go beyond defending and accusing, excuses and explanations. It is time for repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, compassionate outreach and balanced Christian action, which include reaching out to the poor and needy and preaching the gospel of salvation. Love covers a multitude of sins. It is time for intensified prayer, laying hold of God (Isaiah 64:7), raising watchmen to pray night and day (Luke 18:7; Isaiah 62:6-7; Lamentations 2:18-19), crying to God for the healing of the land and for the unsaved around us. A close study of Ashley's research will show that we have entered a new stage of prayer: 24 hour day and night prayer. We have to raise prayer watches and as we do this, God will rectify what is wrong (Luke 18:7). Understanding history helps us to know how to go into the future. The danger of history is to "go camping" there and not to deal with it and move on, doing and proclaiming the purposes of God. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of reconciliation and healing. It is there for everyone, for the oppressor and the oppressed, for the abuser and the abused. Thank you Ashley for your service to the church of Jesus Christ in South Africa! Ephesians 3:20 Bennie Mostert Abbreviations AE - Africa Enterprise ACVV - Afrikaanse Vrouevereniging (Afrikaans Women’s Guild) AEF - Africa Evangelical Fellowship AFM - Apostolic Faith Mission ANC - African National Congress AWB - Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging CRC - Coloured Representative Council CCM - Christian Concern for Muslims CCFM - Cape Community FM (radio) CSV - Christelike Studentevereniging DEIC - Dutch East India Company NGK - Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk) Ds - Dominee, equivalent of Reverend DTS - Discipleship Training School GCOWE - Global Consultation of World Evangelization LMS - London Missionary Society MERCSA Muslim Resource Centre of South Africa MJC – Muslim Judicial Council MRA- Moral Rearmament OM - Operation Mobilization PAC – Pan African Congress PAGAD - People against Gangsterism and Drugs PCR - Programme to Combat Racism SACC -South African Council of Churches SAMS - South African Missionary Society SIM - Serving in Missions SPG - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel TEAM - The Evangelical Alliance Mission. TEASA - The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa UCT - University of Cape Town UDF - United Democratic Front UNISA - University of South Africa UWC - University of the Western Cape V.O.C - Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagne = United East India Company WCC - World Council of Churches WEC -Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ YfC – Youth for Christ YWAM - Youth With a Mission YMCA -Young Men’s Christian Association Z.A. Gesticht - Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (South African Foundation) Introduction Prayer is quite widely defined in this book to include prayer walks and prayer drives, fasting, as well as public occasions of confession. I make no apology for the inclusion of much information about two prayerful spiritual giants who laboured here in our part of the world: Georg Schmidt, the first missionary to South Africa and Dr Helperus Ritzema van Lier, a Dutch Reformed minister, both of whom operated only for a short period at the Cape. Schmidt, who was innocently banished to the Cape and pushed from our shores in a very unjust way by church people, influenced the origins of our country deeply, although he was here for not even seven years. His life typifies in a powerful way the adage of Tennyson: “Much more is wrought by prayer than this world dreams of...” It points us to the Lord Jesus, whom Georg Schmidt served in such a committed way. Van Lier, who is fairly unknown, has influenced mission history world wide in a much bigger way than he has been credited for. In the case of Dr Andrew Murray, the information available had to be significantly reduced for the purposes of this book. I am thoroughly aware that Part 1 of the book in your hand is just a fraction of what God has been doing at the Cape through the centuries until February 1990, the release of Mr Nelson Mandela. This part especially contains only SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER. We returned to South Africa as a family in 1992. Being a born and bred Capetonian, I had been in Germany and Holland since 1973, apart from a period of six months in 1980/81, during which I was teaching in the township Hanover Park. On the periphery of our ministry as missionaries of WEC International, we have been involved with the prayer movement at the Cape since January 1992. From close quarters we experienced special answers to prayer, a few of which we record in Part 2. The bibliography and the sources of the quotes can be found in the hitherto unpublished work - SPIRITUAL DYNAMICS AT THE CAPE. Cape Town, August 2011 1. Impact of Prayer during early Dutch Rule The exodus experience of the Israelites - liberated from bondage in Egypt - was the precursor to God’s people around the globe: to be led out of the bondage of sin into liberty. This freedom ushers in a new kind of allegiance, when the doulos (in the related meaning of slave and servant) gives his all in the voluntary committed service of his new Master, the Lord Jesus. In New Testament terms the optimal way to ‘assist’ God is through persevering prayer. In fact, the Father is ‘desperately’ expecting and hoping for our co-operation in this way. He seeks for such prayful people, who worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:23,24). Paul, the apostle and prolific epistle writer of the early church, encouraged the followers of Jesus not to be bonded in a yoke of legalistic slavery (Galatians 5:1). It is no co-incidence that a spiritual battle was revolving around the slaves at the Cape from the outset. The slaves turned out to be an important part of the ideological battleground of the forces in the unseen world. It seems that the vast majority of slaves were initially open to the Gospel, but sinful attitudes - including materialism and racial prejudice on the part of the Dutch colonists, along with authoritarian denominationalism of the church - played into the hands of Satan. Many slaves became Islams as a result. Providence at Work One senses indeed that Providence had a hand in the developments at the Cape of Good Hope at the beginning of the settlement. In fact, even before Jan van Riebeeck set his foot on our shores on 6 April 1652, God had intervened. The Dutch had already intended in 1619 to create a half-way station here between Europe and the East and the British also had similar ideas in the interim. It was however the shipwreck of the Haarlem in 1647 which gave the decisive input. Significantly, in their memorandum to the East India Company in Amsterdam, Leendert Janzoon and Nicolaas Proot, two from the stranded crew, motivated the beginning of such a station with the need of bringing the Gospel to the indigenous Khoikhoi. These primal people had made a very favourable impression on them. The ship-wrecked Dutch were forced to stay here for five months, till another homeward bound ship could pick them up. It is special how the Remonstrantie, which was written by the two, contradicted the common view of the indigenous people of their day and age, referring to ‘a popular error’: ‘Others will say that the natives are savages and cannibals, and that no good is to be expected from them.’ The Khoikhoi at the Cape impressed them as possible candidates for ‘the magnifying of God’s Holy Name and to the propagation of the Gospel.’ Before this, the interest in them was completely mercantile, a time when spices and profits came before souls and patriotism. There were of course economic interests as well, especially when the Dutch discovered that the soil at the Cape was fertile and that the indigenous people, because of their cattle, could be an asset. Prayer for the Sick, at the Table and other Occasions The first Christian worker appointed by the Dutch East India Company, the trade company that governed the Cape from 1652, was Willem Barentsz Wijlant, the zieketrooster (comforter of the sick). He came with Jan van Riebeeck’s group. The teaching of the zieketrooster, who was usually not theologically trained, was often problematic. They for instance made prayer at mealtimes compulsory and the neglect of it punishable. They admonished the people not to sit down to their meals ‘without asking a blessing from God before eating and returning thanks afterwards...’ (Theal, History..., Vol. 3, 1964 [1907]: 58). Those who disobeyed ‘were to be fined ...a shilling for the first offence... two shillings for the second offence and so on...’ Yet, the sick comforters did play a role in setting a standard at the Cape that was going to substantially influence the religious life at the Cape. Wijlant’s successor, Pieter van der Stael, who came in 1656, was described as ‘doing the work of an evangelist.’ Van der Stael was very zealous for the Gospel, opening a school for slave children. He also tried to explain the Christian faith to the indigenous beach rangers. It is interesting that this sick comforter already introduced fasting and prayer during the winter of 1656. Such serious sickness abounded that ‘the council considered this being beyond doubt a punishment inflicted upon them for their sins.’ Thursday, 29 June 1656, was set aside as a day of prayerful fasting, where the early Cape inhabitants beseeched the Almighty to have mercy on them. Slavery as an integral part of the spiritual battlefield of the Cape A sore point, and consequently a matter for confession, was the effect of slavery on family life at the Cape. Between the 15th and 18th century, very few people in Europe and North America had ethical problems with slavery. The inhuman practices of slavery were regarded as reconcilable with Christian norms in spite of the views of early critics, such as the Spanish priest Alfonso de Sandoval in 1627. Furthermore, influential high-ranking people like Queen Isabella of Spain and Queen Elisabeth I of England also had their reservations about the trade in human beings. On the other hand a Dutchman, Reverend Godfried Udemans, wrote a theological justification for slavery, having received payment from the West Indian slave trading company. This could thus be seen as an early variation of Prosperity Theology. This justification enabled the merchants to ride roughshod over the concerns about the negatives of the slave trade. The demonic teaching was so pervasive that a black minister, Jacobus Capitein (1717-47), who had been abducted as a slave from West Africa and who thereafter studied at the renowned University of Leiden, defended the practice of slavery. Through the lack of international communications, sensitivity to the inhumanity of slavery broke through only relatively slowly. The system of slavery at the Cape was similar to that practised in other colonial societies. It was part of the colonial economic and mercantile system, driven by forces outside the Colony. The slaves played a significant part in the internal economic development from a small refreshment station to a relatively established economy by 1795, when Britain became the colonial power at the Cape. Slaves and Religious Persecution The early history of Islam in the Mother City of South Africa runs parallel to the practice of slavery in this part of the world and the extension of Dutch commercial interests in the East. The first known Muslims were brought to the Cape as slaves in 1658, i.e. only six years after Jan van Riebeeck landed here. These Muslims, who were predominantly from the island of Ambon, were called Mardyckers, indicating that they had been free people, i.e. not slaves before they came to the Cape. Even before they left their home soil, many of them had turned to Islam in solidarity with their fellow Ambonese - in opposition to the oppressive Reformed (Dutch) colonizers there. They were promptly discriminated against. As a component of Dutch colonial policy, their religious practices and activities were severely restricted. Any attempts to make converts to Islam were met with the threat of a death sentence. The Cape Mardyckers from Ambon worshipped with a very low profile. The Dutch East India Company (DEIC) - backed by their rulers in Holland - fought Islam in the East by military means. When rebellious Muslim religious leaders offered stiff resistance in the Indonesian Archipelago, the developing refreshment post at the Southern tip of Africa provided a handy place for the banishment of political convicts. The first religious prisoners came with a batch of slaves from the East who arrived on the Polsbroek from Batavia on 13 May 1668. Muslim leaders like Sayyid Mahmud and Sayyid Abdurahman Matebe Shah were not prepared to passively accept the religious repression like the Mardyckers before them. The graves of these revered men later developed into shrines and were given the name Kramats. A plaque at the Constantia Kramat serves as a reminder to visitors that these leading men were Orang Cayen, i.e. ‘men of power and influence who were viewed as particularly dangerous to the interests of the Company.’ They immediately befriended the slave population at Constantia, teaching them the religion of Islam. Thereafter they held secret meetings in the Constantia forest and on the mountain slopes. The repression of Islam at the Cape soon turned out to be counter-productive, especially because the staunch Muslims from the Indonesian Archipelago brought with them special practices. Supernatural powers were at work through Sufism. This is a form of spiritism, during which prayers to the Muslim saints at the Kramats (shrines) became part and parcel of this variation of the religion. The Sufi leaders and doekums (witch-doctors) had spiritual occult powers at their disposal. The cold nominal Dutch Reformed brand of Christianity proved no match in the battle for the hearts of the many slaves who were still open to the Gospel. The spiritually dead church had no credible message. Shaykh Yusuf, an Islamic Sufi resistance leader whose real name was Abidin Tadia Tjoessoep, came to our shores on the Voetboog in 1694. It has been reported that an early Imam at the Cape foresaw prophetically - soon after Shaykh Yusuf’s death in 1699 - that a ‘holy circle’ of shrines would come about. The Islamic prophecy stated that ‘all Muslims who live within the Holy Circle of tombs will be free of fire, famine, plague, earthquake and tidal wave.’ With the arrival of the banished Shaykh Yusuf the battle in the spiritual realms started to heat up. There is no evidence that Reverend Kalden, the first minister, made any attempt to share the Gospel with the Muslim community on his farm that was located at the present-day Macassar near Somerset West. This was thus at quite a distance from the Groote Kerk, with only 18th century transport at Kalden’s disposal. Nevertheless, Reverend Kalden basically had a heart for missions. He was probably the first European who tried to learn the difficult Khoi language with the avowed purpose to be ‘of service to this heathen nation who still abide in such dark ignorance’. In fact, he wanted to study the language for a year or more to master it fully. We should bear in mind that his farm was merely used as a glorified prison. Politically and denominationally it would have been very difficult for Kalden to try and show compassion to a Muslim leader who had been banished to his farm. The Link between Baptism and the Setting free of Slaves Paul, the epistle writer, had already discerned that materialism is idolatrous by stating that greed is a form of idolatry (Colossians 3:5). The link between baptism and manumission - the setting free of slaves - had been clearly expressed at the international Synod of Dordt (1618). In the early beginnings of the Cape Colony this was still widely practised. Thus Catharina, a Bengalese slave, was freed soon after she had been baptized. It is interesting to note the increase in status which was linked to baptism at this time. The view was basically theologically sound that ‘Christians could not be kept in bondage’, especially when one keeps Bible verses in mind like’If the son sets you free, you are free indeed’ (John 8:36) and ‘it is for freedom that Christ set you free’ (Galatians 5:1). Against this background it was quite natural that Catharina, the Bengalese former slave was styled ‘the honourable young daughter’ after her baptism, on a par with the niece of the commander, Jan van Riebeeck. Unfortunately the situation changed at the Cape after only a few decades. The contemporary traveller Kolbe noted that the slaves of the D.E.I.C (Dutch East India Company) were baptized and set free, but that the colonists did not follow suit. It appears that the ministers of the churches in the countryside, Roodezand (Tulbagh), Drakenstein (Paarl), Stellenbosch and Zwartland (Malmesbury) had been baptizing ‘Coloured’ people for much longer than those in the city and had also admitted them to communion. A Slave as God’s divine Instrument Seen against the background of the religious intolerance of the time, the first missionary enterprise by the Moravians was a miracle. The start of their endeavour occurred as a direct result of prayer. It developed out of the revival in the German village of Herrnhut in August 1727, after the laborious counselling and prayers of Count Zinzendorf. He had talked and prayed at length with the quarrelling role players in the village who came from different church backgrounds. The infighting brought the village Christians to the brink of open confrontation and a split was imminent when divine intervention set in. The Holy Spirit prepared the hearts of estranged believers from the different factions in the church of Berthelsdorf (the village adjacent to Herrnhut) on August 13, 1727 where they went for Holy Communion. Tears of remorse and repentance were streaming freely in the service. Two weeks later, on August 27, a few revived members of the congregation started a remarkable ‘hourly intercession.’ 48 believers committed themselves to pray every day in pairs for an hour apiece. That developed into a prayer chain, setting an unparalleled world record of 120 years. After a few years the focus of this prayer movement became missions. The cause for the start of the missionary movement was Count Zinzendorf’s encounter with a Christian slave at the coronation of Denmark’s King Christian VI in 1731. The Holy Spirit was evidently at work when the Count did the very unconventional thing of speaking to Anton, a slave from the Caribbean island of St Thomas, who came for the occasion with his owner, the aristocrat Von Pless. Anton immediately challenged the Count, mentioning his slave compatriots who had not yet heard the Gospel. Zinzendorf invited Anton to repeat the challenge in his home congregation in Herrnhut. There Anton challenged the Moravian believers to help liberate those who were in double bondage, and to take the Gospel to his Caribbean relatives and countrymen. Anton warned the committed believers however, that his slave countrymen were so overloaded with work that there would be no time for sharing the Gospel except during working hours. In the revived Herrnhut congregation the believers were touched by his appeal. Not even the awesome suggestion that potential missionaries would have to share the slave life-style could hold the eager congregation back. The very next year, in 1732, the first two missionaries left for St. Thomas. They were the first of many from the village of Herrnhut to different parts of the world during the following decades - backed by the 24-hour prayer chain at home. Count Zinzendorf’s encounter with a Christian slave was thus the cause of the greatest missionary movement the world - and coming from a single congregation at that! The evangelical awakening in England that came about through John Wesley and George Whitefield from around 1740 was a direct result of the Moravians’ endeavours, as they left Germany to spread the Gospel in the New World. In North America the movement coincided with the first Great Awakening. This itself was the result of a wave of prayer. Georg Schmidt, a Moravian missionary, was ‘banished’ to the Cape in 1737 as punishment for a perceived serious misdemeanor. In the spiritual realm this could be seen as a divine response to the Islamic foundations laid by the exiled Shayk Yusuf, who had likewise been banished to the Cape in 1694. (Schmidt was ‘banished’ by Count Zinzendorf to work amongst the primal Cape ‘Hottentots’ to compensate for the perceived damage he had done to the cause of the Gospel. An unsubstantiated rumour did the rounds that he recanted in order to be set free from imprisonment during Roman Catholic persecution for preaching the Gospel in Bohemia). The counterproductive Application of Calvinism The Afrikaner tradition ‘Boeke vat’, the reading of the Bible and prayer before or after supper, was a custom brought from Holland by the early colonists. In earlier centuries it was not unusual to hear the singing of psalms in some houses before daylight or in the evening. It is not clear when the habit started to deteriorate to such an extent that the farm workers were required to stand in the doorway leading to the voorkamer (the lounge) at these occasions. Being agriculturalists from Holland, the absence of summer rains called for adjustments. Praying for rain was going to become a regular tenet of religious life at the Cape. Although the lives of their slaves were also influenced by the absence of rain, the farmers probably seldom invited their workers to join in these prayers. The uncertainties of storms, plague and fires were calamities which could be attributed to sinfulness. Public days of prayer were held at such occurrences (Worden et al, 1998:75). From a fairly early stage the slaves were not allowed to sit in the pews among the Colonists. They had to sit separately in the church, for example next to the pulpit on the sides or at the back of the church. This was indicative of their lower status. There was also quite a strong undercurrent developing over the years: colonists believed that the Bible was not meant for the Khoisan and slaves. ‘Dutch Calvinist settlers believed themselves to be saved and the heathen, by definition, to be pre-destined to another place’. The historian Elisabeth Elbourne suggest that the ‘doors to family prayer were more often than not firmly barred against slaves and Khoisan in the 1790s and early 1800.’ In substantiation Elbourne quoted an example in the parish of none less than the evangelical and mission-minded Ds Michiel Vos of Tulbagh. Diana, a Khoi woman, was illegally held as a slave. When the slave woman Diana shrewdly contrived to wash the feet of family members just as they were about to have the Bible reading, she was forbidden to enter the room at this particular time. Worse was the distorted interpretation of Calvinism that took root at the Cape. The colonists’ faith drew much of its inspiration from the Old Testament, but they did not see their presence at the Cape as an opportunity to serve the indigenous population and the Muslim slaves. These Europeans derived from Scripture a special destiny as a people with their model being the Israelites. They had to conquer the land – at the expense of the indigeous Khoi who were the descendants of Ham, who were cursed and in their unbiblical interpretation the Hamites were destined to be only drawers of water and hewers of wood. In their view the Muslim slaves had a pagan creed, which they as good Calvinists despised. On that score that religion was fit for slaves and men of colour. On the other hand - in the words of van Imhoff, a Governor-general on behalf of the Dutch India company in 1743 - they as Europeans preferred ‘to be served rather than to serve’, considering it debasing ‘to work with their own hands’. The Ministry of Georg Schmidt Georg Schmidt, the Moravian missionary, was the first cleric outside of the Reformed ranks to operate at the Cape. Theal notes that Schmidt initially experienced ‘nothing but kindness’ from the government at the Cape. Schmidt was a powerful evangelist. Various sailors on his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope were touched and converted. Both corporal Kampen and his successor at the military base at Zoetemelksvlei described Schmidt as their spiritual father. His sense of purpose is demonstrated by the fact that Schmidt moved on from Zoetemelksvlei to the Sergeants River soon after the conversion of Kampen to push through the original reason for his coming - to evangelize the ‘Wilden’, the barbarous Khoi. Slowly the Christian settlement Baviaanskloof came into being. It was however no easy feat. However, Schmidt was handicapped right from the outset after Ds. Kulenkamp, a minister of Amsterdam, issued a pastoral letter of warning against the extreme views expressed by Count Zinzendorf. (Kulenkamp was actually referring to the ‘Blut und Wunden’ [blood and wounds] theology of Zinzendorf’s son Christiaan Renatus, but the warning was now understood to be against the Moravians as such). At Baviaanskloof Georg Schmidt was expected to refrain from starting a new church through his missionary work, although the colonial church officials did not expect any Khoi to be converted. Schmidt was merely tolerated and required to work far away from company settlements. In Kulenkamp’s letter in 1738 (Els, 1971:27), his basic objection against the German missionary was that he had no relationship to the Dutch Reformed Church. Schmidt’s reaction to the ‘whisperings’ that were intended to halt his work, was typical of that generation of Moravians: ‘More than ever Schmidt sought the guidance of the Lord of the harvest and declared that that guidance demanded that he should only continue but renew his efforts with even greater vigour.’ (Gerdener, 1937:20). Worldwide the Moravians were operating in remote places. It is quite telling of the religious intolerance at the Cape that this church group was almost treated as criminals for attempting to reach the indigenous people. It had not always been like that, though. But it was to change significantly in due course, also at the Cape. Schmidt gradually overcame the apathy of his flock with ‘labour of love and patience of hope’. By 1742 Schmidt was very frustrated after long years of toil and with little to show for it, but then the fruit came in the form of three male converts. Schmidt came to the Mother City to greet his compatriots Nitschmann and Eller, two Moravian missionaries en route from Ceylon (the modern-day Sri Lanka), from where they had been deported. The visit to the Mother City with his convert Willem resulted in unprecedented interest among colonists and officials. During this visit Schmidt received his letter of ordination from Count Zinzendorf. Thus at last, in March 1742, he had authority to baptize suitable candidates. The Count encouraged him in the same letter to baptize his converts ‘where you shot the rhino’, i.e. at the river. Schmidt thus succeeded - against all odds and contrary to all expectations - to convert Khoi, baptizing them in or at the Sergeant’s River. To the Cape church authorities this was unacceptable, the ordination having being signed by a foreign denomination. After the baptism of five converts in 1742, he was forbidden to baptize more Khoi. We can hardly comprehend the thinking that caused a government to forbid missionaries to baptize their indigenous converts. This is exactly what happened to Georg Schmidt. He was promptly called to book because he had not heeded the warning, albeit that the Calvinists had a convenient formal excuse: Schmidt was regarded as ‘not properly ordained’. Count Zinzendorf, the leader of their church, had only ordained Schmidt by letter. In the conversion and baptism of the female Vehettge Tikkuie, one of Schmidt’s converts, there was a clear supernatural element. He had initially only attended to males. At first he found only three men suitable for baptism. Schmidt only proceeded to test Vehettge Tikkuie’s Bible knowledge on 4 April 1742. Quite prejudiced against females, he did not expect much, but Schmidt was very surprised by her answers. He had little choice than to baptize the intelligent Khoi woman, giving her the name of Magdalena, surely hoping that like her biblical namesake she would spread the news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This she definitely did. She had been exceptional in every way, progressing quickly from the Dutch ABC manual to reading the New Testament in that language. A Threat to the Church? Schmidt was hereafter regarded as a threat. The three Dutch Reformed dominees at the Cape, Le Seur (Groote Kerk), van Gendt (Stellenbosch) and Van Echten (Drakenstein) referred to Schmidt unbecomingly in a letter to their church authorities as ‘the so-called Hottentot converter’, who pretended to convert ‘the blind Hottentots’. On formal grounds they asserted that the converts were not sufficiently instructed and that Schmidt was not ordained. They referred to Zinzendorf’s letter of ordination in very disparaging terms. Their real problem comes through in a sentence that was added as a sort of afterthought: ‘ook mogen geen bejaarden worden gedoopt, dan in de kerken voor de gantsche gemeente’ (my bold italics. A paraphrase of the sentence is that they could not palate it that Schmidt baptized in the river and not in a church.) Pressure was successfully exerted by the three ministers to get Schmidt sent back to Germany, and Schmidt’s position became extremely unpleasant ‘if not untenable’. Furthermore, neighbouring farmers instigated the indigenous Khoi of Baviaanskloof and surroundings so successfully that many of them left the mission post. The letter sent by the three Cape clergymen, spread like wildfire in Europe. At this time the Moravians had been banished from Saxony, in which Herrnhut was situated. This coincided with Count Zinzendorf’s absence from Herrnhaag where the revolutionary fellowship had found a refuge. Doctrinal excesses by Zinzendorf’s son Christian Renatus aggravated the problem. The Moravians were hereafter villified and branded as fanatics with wild views. Nevertheless, the Cape ministers were reprimanded by the Amsterdam classis (presbytery) of that denomination: ‘You should not have insisted on Schmidt’s departure, but you should first have conferred with him’. When this letter, dated 5 December 1743, was still on the sailing-vessel to the Cape, Schmidt was already waiting in the Mother City for transport to take him back to Europe. It seemed as though Schmidt’s work in Baviaanskloof was doomed, a complete failure. A Christ-like Personality Georg Schmidt’s life story could be described as an 18th century version of that of the Biblical Joseph. Schmidt had been imprisoned in Moravia because of his faith. After his release his name was smeared and slandered. Some even asserted that Schmidt had returned to Roman Catholicism. Schmidt was hardly back in Herrnhut when he returned to the geographical regions from where he hailed to encourage the Protestants there, risking a new imprisonment or even worse. Just like his Lord Jesus, Schmidt appeared not to have made any attempt to defend himself. Without any apparent grudge, he had accepted the unfair punishment to be ‘banished’ innocently to the distant Cape of Good Hope, to minister to the resistant ‘Hottentotten’. Nobody had given Schmidt a chance to succeed among the Khoi. He had a great sense of purpose, not allowing himself to be distracted by his initial successes amongst sailors and colonists. The zealous missionary toiled in far-away Baviaanskloof (the later Genadendal), able to visit the Mother City only occasionally. Overcoming his initial prejudice, Schmidt was obviously very unconventional for his time when he gave women attention who came to him for advice. In the colonial church of the time, women were not supposed to make a substantial contribution, a prejudice that Schmidt had initially shared with his contemporaries. Yet, Schmidt was also honest about his failures and frustrations. This came through in his diary. He was for instance very frustrated at the lack of response to the preaching of the Gospel in the first few years. And his prejudice against women had made him very hesitant to test the Bible knowledge of Vehettge Vittuie. There is nevertheless no evidence that Schmidt endeavoured to start a church. However, the chances would have been very slim that one of the three Cape ministers would have been willing to baptize any of his converts. The letter of ordination from Count Zinzendorf and the encouragement to baptize his converts at or in a river was a great relief to Schmidt. One does not get the impression that he deliberately defied the instructions of the authorities when he proceeded to baptize five converts. He was just as surprised at the fierce reaction of the dominees. Count Zinzendorf possibly also did not expect that the word would spread so quickly. Being reformed and from Dutch origin, the baptism might have conjured up in the minds of the dominees the practice of the Anabaptists, the Wederdopers, i.e. the Mennonites and other groups that do not christen infants. In the view of the Cape ministers, this was in defiance of the instruction not to start another church. Schmidt’s own report on the discussions around his baptism of the five Khoi converts - which can be found in his diary - is quite charitable, completely devoid of bitterness or vengeance against the dominees who had been tormenting him. He still hoped that the differences could be resolved. He returned to Europe with the yearning to get ordained as a Dutch Reformed minister, to enable him to resume working with his flock in Baviaanskloof. Rumours that were going around - about the Moravians being a dangerous sect - made this impossible. Schmidt nevertheless did not become bitter or resentful. He utilized the two months of waiting for a ship to take him back to Europe, evangelizing among the colonists at the Cape. Nachtigal, a historian of missionary endeavour, wrote that through Schmidt’s efforts ‘many came to a living faith at this time’. Schmidt’s Legacy of Prayer It is not difficult to deduce how deeply Schmidt must have impacted the lives of his Khoi congregants in Baviaanskloof. Apart from his remarkable personality, which saw him continuing to influence events at the Cape almost fifty years after he was all but forced to leave, the prayer support of the believers in Herrnhut was evidently the driving force. It has been reported that Schmidt continued to pray for his Khoi flock without a shepherd in Africa until old age in the East German village of Niesky where he went to be with his Lord in August 1785. Schmidt died before he could hear of the resumption of the missionary work in Baviaanskloof in 1792. The seed that Schmidt had sown at the Cape during his stint of not even seven years germinated, both in the Mother City and in Baviaanskloof, the later Genadendal. Schmidt was said to have been ‘a man of strong faith and a prayer warrior’. Apparently this example rubbed off on at least one of his converts – on Vehettge Tikkuie, who got the name Magdalena at her baptism. Khoi Christians reported that she was often found on her knees in prayer. On top of this she taught the believers from the New Testament, which she had received from Georg Schmidt. Andreas Sparrman, a Swedish traveller in the Cape Colony from 1775 to 1776, reported how he heard of an aged Khoi lady, who was building on the foundations laid by a German missionary. On Sundays ‘de oude Lena’ would walk to the pear tree where Georg Schmidt had preached, to read the New Testament and pray with her folk. Almost 50 years after Schmidt had left, Khoi witnesses said that they came together at her home every evening where she prayed with them. If one takes the finance minister of Ethiopia mentioned in Acts 8 as the absolute first indigenous evangelist, we can now say that Magdalena was definitely the first one of Sub Saharan Africa. But she was also the first known indigenous female church planting evangelist of all time. Early prayerful evangelical Beginnings in the Mother City In different parts of the world Christian missionaries played a major role not only in the fight against ideologies and barbarism, but also in protecting the indigenous people against colonial exploitation and of course, in the spread of the Gospel. South Africa was no exception. The first serious effort in the 18th century to evangelize the slaves at the Cape is said to have been that of the Dutch Reformed Ds Henricus Beck, a Groote Kerk minister and previously the minister to the French Huguenots. At Drakenstein (the later Paarl) where he had started in 1702, a new Muslim background believer was confirmed in 1703. It is said that Beck evangelize the slaves at the Cape after his retirement in 1731, the same year in which Count Zinzendorf had his encounter in Denmark with the Caribbean slave Anton. The widow Aaltje van den Heyden, one of Beck’s church members, played an important part in the missionary work to the slaves after the death of her husband in 1740. She supplied the bulk of the funds for what became known as the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht in Long Street. Beck’s pioneering work provided the spade work for the dynamic Georg Schmidt to start lively Christian groups in due course. This would decisively influence the religious life at the Cape for the next decades. It has been reported that Schmidt had a small congregation of 47, and that he was in contact with 39 Whites. The evangelical group in the Mother City formed the foundation of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (Z.A. Gesticht). A few years later in 1742, Cape residents described the impact of Schmidt’s ministry to Nitschmann and Eller, two Moravian missionaries en route from Ceylon (the modern-day Sri Lanka), from where they had been deported. In their assessment they stated that Schmidt had accomplished in three and a half years ‘what others would not have affected in thirty years’ (Du Plessis, 1911:56). The Council of Seventeen in Amsterdam dreaded his possible return, ‘lest another Church than the Reformed should be established at the Cape’. The arrival of three new missionaries in 1792 was the signal for opposition by colonists. They sent a petition to prohibit the missionaries from further instruction to the Khoi. Because many of the Christians in the colony had been debarred from education and thus were more or less illiterate, it was therefore regarded as ‘not fair that the Khoi would advance beyond them (the White colonists).’ How powerful and deep Schmidt had evangelized, is further evidenced by the fact that Hendrik Cloete, the owner of the wine farm Groot Constantia, who had been touched under Schmidt’s ministry as a juvenile, supported the new Moravian missionaries who arrived in 1792 when Cape church people contrived flimsy reasons to attack the missionary work - like the assertion that the bell of the church in Baviaanskloof was being heard in Stellenbosch, more than 50 kilometers away, on the other side of a mountain range. Christian Slaves not to be sold It became very problematic theologically when other issues like citizenship and the right of inheritance were connected to baptism. The link between baptism and manumission (the setting free of slaves) had been clearly expressed at the international Synod of Dordt (1618). As an indirect result, the opposite happened at the Cape. Slaves were not baptized because of the fear that they would have to be set free. In 1775 approximately half of the Cape colony’s population of 12000 was slaves of whom the bulk was Muslims. This was a matter of concern for the Dutch authorities who tried at this time to control their numbers through legislation. In fact, many of the colonists actively encouraged slaves to become Muslims as a direct result of the ‘placaat’ (decree), which prohibited the sale of Christian slaves. In India legislation had been passed that they drew upon at the Cape. In the Chapter on ‘Slaves’ in the Statutes of 10 April 1770, Article nine reads: The Christians are held bound to instruct their slaves... without compulsion in the Christian Religion, and have them baptized,..and such as may have been confirmed in the Christian Religion, shall never be sold... This decree was also applied at the Cape. The slave owners at the Cape interpreted the ‘placaat’ (decree) as a threat, believing that their slaves would become free if they were baptized. In addition, Muslim slaves could be entrusted to the wine cellars on religious grounds, a bonus in trade terms. This was reason enough to encourage the slaves to embrace Islam. The general neglect of the spiritual care of the slaves seems to have continued at the Cape after the arrival of a second batch of slaves from Batavia in 1743. This group consisted mainly of normal convicts from the East brought in to work on a breakwater in Table Bay where many ships had gone aground. A gigantic young Dominee Yet, Christian colonists at the Cape did not compare badly in spiritual terms in relation to what was happening in other parts of the world. This was mainly due to the efforts of a major role player in the evangelization at the Cape, Dr Helperus Ritzema van Lier. He arrived at the Cape in 1786 - merely 22 years old. The conversion of Van Lier was the product of the faithful prayers of his mother. He had narrowly escaped death after breaking through ice. After the sudden death of his fianceé, van Lier sensed the call of God upon his life. Officially Dr van Lier was appointed as the third minister of the Groote Kerk. He found fertile ground among a group of Christians at the Cape, including a group of pietist Lutherans, who were the spiritual descendants of those believers, who had been impacted by the short stint of Georg Schmidt, more than 40 years earlier. Quite soon after his arrival, Schmidt’s legacy worked through into van Lier’s life when he was present at the deathbed of one of the missionary pioneer’s converts. He saw how the Khoi believer died ‘in complete rest and peace and in trust in the Lord.’ It made such a deep impression on Van Lier that he mentioned this in one of his letters to his uncle Professor Petrus Hofstede, an influential academic in Rotterdam, who was at that stage still an opponent of the Moravian brethren. Initially Van Lier had been unsuccessful in convincing his learned uncle Petrus Hofstede to use his influence to have the Moravians resume their missionary work in Baviaanskloof. Hofstede’s attitude to the Moravians and their missionary work would change in due course. Because Van Lier was only the third pastor (in rank) at the Groote Kerk, he had more opportunity to do the spadework for what later became known as the South African Missionary Society (SAMS). Van Lier himself was encouraged and inspired in another way. In 1787 the boat carrying the Moravian Bishop J.F. Reichel en route to Germany from Ceylon made a stop at the Cape. It would have been natural for Reichel not only to share something about the Moravians’ passion for the lost, but also about the 24 hour prayer watch that was still going strong in Herrnhut after 60 years. Van Lier was already deeply troubled that so many ‘heathens fell victim to the Muslims’, a direct consequence of the 1770 decree. Reichel’s visit spurred van Lier and all his followers to do something about the spiritual welfare of the Khoi and the slaves. Conversely, Reichel took the challenge of the resumption of the missionary work in the Cape Colony back to Herrnhut. Local Influence of the prayerful Van Lier As early as 1788 various people in Cape Town and its surroundings set aside one day in the week for the religious teaching of ‘the heathen’. Cape Town evangelicals were among the worldwide leaders in this regard at that time - not far behind the Moravians of Herrnhut in Germany and Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, USA). A local newspaper, the Zuid-Afrikaansche Tijdschrift, Vol.1 (1824) wrote at this time ‘When people in many parts of Europe were still discussing whether slaves and heathen should believe and whether they could be taught, they had already started with that work in this Colony’. The church members met on certain days of the week for prayer and mutual edification, also giving religious teaching to the slaves and Khoikhoi in their service. Van Lier was a world Christian. When he heard in 1790 that the Dutch East India Company contemplated attempting to ‘Christianize the various races in their vast possessions’, he immediately wrote once more to his uncle, Petrus Hofstede, offering to collect 50,000 guilders in South Africa towards the capital required. That speaks a lot for Van Lier’s confidence in the sacrificial giving potential of the Christians of his era at the Cape. A ‘revolution’ for which the Lord used Van Lier was the change in the attitude of many White believers towards slaves and other people of colour. In those days slaves were initially not allowed near the entrance of the church after the closing of services and they were punished if they dared to attend the funeral of one of the colonists. The prejudice against missionaries was still prevalent when Van Lier arrived, but the youthful minister dared to challenge the church through his fiery sermons and personal example. The young dominee literally caused a spiritual revolution at the Cape, shortening the duration of sermons and prayers during church services. He also increased house visitation. Believers were encouraged to get involved with the spreading of the Gospel. The historian Theal reports that when Van Lier was in the pulpit, people hardly dared to sleep in church because ‘at times it seemed as if he would jump from the pulpit’. Furthermore, his preaching was full of earnest appeals and ‘…women were often moved to tears, and sometimes fell into hysterics’. Van Lier was very zealous, spending much of his time visiting people from door to door ‘...holding prayer meetings and encouraging works of benevolence.’ Quite a few Christians who later became prominent in evangelistic outreach got their training under Van Lier. Thus there was for instance Jan Jakob van Zulk, who later laboured among slaves and other ‘heathen’ in Wagenmakersvallei (later Wellington). Then there was Machteld Smit(h), the pioneer of the first Sunday School for slave children and later co-worker of Ds M.C. Vos in Tulbagh. In old age ‘de oude Lena’ (Magdalena) impacted Machteld Smit(h) when the committed missionary helper accompanied Ds Vos to Baviaanskloof in 1797. The education of the youth was dear to Van Lier’s heart. He started classes in Latin and French in 1791 to prepare young men for theological studies in Holland. Jan Christoffel Berrange had already left in 1788 for Leiden to be trained as minister. Many followed him, including Jacobus Henricus Beck, who became the first pastor of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht. Van Lier was a great visionary, seeing the need for learning the heart language of the people to be reached with the Gospel. He was one of the first to start learning Malayu, the trade language, with the object of reaching out to the Cape Muslim slaves. Ds George Thom, another mission-minded Dutch Reformed Church minister, used the example of Van Lier a few decades later to convince the General Meeting of the SAMS as a matter of urgency to get a missionary, who knew the trade language. The international Influence of Van Lier The young preacher Van Lier almost single-handedly set the evangelical world ablaze. His letters from the Cape to Europe were very influential indeed. His testimony - in the form of six letters to Rev John Newton - was originally written in Latin and translated by the well-known poet William Cowper. The title of the booklet is: Power of Grace, illustrated in six letters from a Minister of the Reformed church to the Rev John Newton. (It was published in Edinburgh by Campbell and Wallace, 1792). Van Lier’s story of the influence of divine grace in his life seems to have made a lasting impression on Newton who belonged to the ‘inner circle of (slave) abolitionists’ - especially when one considers that the famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ came from Newton’s pen. Van Lier’s humility came through when he insisted that a pseudonym Christodulus, (slave of Christ) and not his own name would be used with the publication. It is only natural that the prayer chain at Herrnhut would have included intercession for their bishop Reichel on his trip to the East. But no one probably envisaged that this would lead so soon to the resumption of their missionary work at Baviaanskloof, the later Genadendal. This was partly due to Van Lier, the mission-minded new dominee whom Reichel met at the Cape. Various letters of Van Lier had the goal of getting the Moravians back to the Cape. After initially failing to sway his uncle, the Rotterdam clergyman and academic Petrus Hofstede (1716-1803) into action on this score, Van Lier wrote to Ds Hubert in Amsterdam. Van Lier’s letter of 6 September 1791 to the Moravian Jan Swertner in Fairfield, England might have been ‘too late’ to have any direct effect. A decision had already been taken when his letter arrived, to send three missionaries to Baviaanskloof. But his correspondence continued to have an impact in Europe. Through his evangelical zeal Van Lier, along with William Carey’s 1792 book An enquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathens, definitely laid the foundations for a missionary society at the Cape. Van Lier’s letter may have influenced his uncle not only to attack the internal ‘onverdraagzaamheid’ (intolerance) in the church in Holland, but also to challenge the general arrogant attitude towards ‘de heidenen’ (the pagans). God used Hofstede to such an extent that religious tolerance increased significantly in the Netherlands towards the end of the 18th century. Tragically, Van Lier was not around to see the actual founding of the first missionary society outside of Europe at the Cape in April 1799. Van Lier had already died of tuberculosis in March 1793 at the age of only 28 years. Ds. Vos, who was later going to become the first missionary of South African origin, took where the mission-minded Dr van Lier had left off. Impact of Prayer in Europe and America In Europe there was a significant increase in missionary interest towards the end of the 18th century. The 24-hour Moravian prayer chain in Herrnhut that started in 1727 was definitely still going strong and in England evangelicalism was gaining ground. The effect of William Carey’s book, An enquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathens (1792) was quite pervasive in Britain and North America. Intensive prayer preceded the revival of 1792-1820, when no less than twelve mission agencies came into being. In London and Rotterdam two interdenominational missionary societies were founded in 1795 and 1797 respectively. The spiritual hunger of the Khoi at Genadendal, the new name of Baviaanskloof, has been attributed to the prayers of the Americans during the second great awakening there. The 24-hour prayer watch of the Moravians in Europe and America, plus the faithful prayer of Georg Schmidt until the time of his death - along with those of his convert Magdalena in Baviaanskloof - will have been just as contributory. It is interesting to note that the three Genadendal missionaries who arrived in 1792 - Kühnel, Marsveld and Schwinn - recorded in their diary the instance of a man who ‘dreamt that three would come to teach them... They (the Khoi) say that they spoke about it often because they very much wished for it to happen’. In the diaries of these three missionaries one reads again and again of Khoi coming to them, desiring to know more, wanting to accept the Lord into their lives, wishing to be baptized. Evidently the Holy Spirit had prepared these people through dreams and visions. On a daily basis the new Genadendal missionaries were overwhelmed by questions such as ‘What must I do to be saved?’ However, the rational European missionaries were not ready for that. It is striking that those who came to faith in Christ also sought protection against Satanic forces. Thus the Moravian J.P. Kohlhammer complained in 1799: ‘The Hottentots are great dreamers and we have much trouble to direct their minds from many deep-seated prejudices that they have imbibed concerning the interpretation of dreams and visions.’ But even if these missionaries had been trained along these lines, it would have been difficult to implement the teaching of biblical checks to see whether the dreams and visions were in accordance with Scripture. Only very few of the Khoisan could read the Bible in the early days of the resumption of Moravian ministry in Baviaanskloof. Baviaanskloof impacts the Western Cape People came to Baviaanskloof from everywhere, drawn to the mission station as if by a magnet. Some of those from the Cape testified to the obvious: ‘...this is God’s work, no one can hinder it though many are trying’. Amongst those who were trying to hinder the missionary endeavour at Baviaanskloof was the government at the Cape along with the church people in Stellenbosch. A group of colonists sent a petition to prohibit the missionaries from further instruction to the Khoi. Ds Vos, who became the minister for Swartberg (Caledon), fortunately brought about some change in the views and attitudes of the colonists of the vicinity. The conscription of the pandoere - the soldiers from Baviaanskloof - to fight in the battle of Muizenberg in 1795, cannot be described as a deliberate attempt to hinder the missionary work. However, the prior threat of expropriation of the mission station - which sent Marsveld scurrying to the Cape - definitely was. The reply to Marsveld surely led to much prayer in Baviaanskloof: ‘The Company in the Fatherland (wanted the missionaries) to go to the Bosjesmans to make peace’. Marsveld returned to Baviaanskloof far from reassured. At that stage the authorities would not even enter into negotiations so that the mission could buy the land. God sovereignly over-ruled, when the Moravians were allowed to keep their property and more importantly: they could continue their missionary work in Baviaanskloof. The mission station was threatened from another side. The pandoere were absent during the war. While they were engaged in the military defense of the colony at Muizenberg, colonists of the area (the Overberg) were conspiring to invade and destroy the mission station. On 18 July 1795, by which time Baviaanskloof started to resemble a European village, the situation had become very tense. Due to rumours of an imminent raid, the missionaries were seriously contemplating to abandon the station. God intervened in answer to their prayers when the government rallied in support of the Moravians. Colonist and Church Opposition The colonists were not enchanted by the migration to Baviaanskloof, as a Khoi person narrated: ‘the farmers were angry, and told us that they meant to sell us as slaves. But I remembered my father’s words, and would not be prevented from moving to Baviaanskloof.’ This culminated in opposition to the missionary work in Genadendal from the Moedergemeente in Stellenbosch, where Ds Meent Borcherds was the pastor. This included the attempt to seize Genadendal from the Moravian missionaries. The mission station was divinely saved, amongst others by the looming conflict between the two main colonial powers of the time - the Dutch and the British. Real warfare broke out at the Cape in 1795, which had a clear spiritual dimension. If the Battle of Muizenberg had been protracted with ensuing high casualties, the Genadendal mission station would have been given its deathblow. Almost all its males had been conscripted to fight alongside the Dutch. In fact, in the battle itself the Pandoere from Genadendal testified to the missionaries how bullets were flying around them ‘like sand’ with not one of them hurt. There might have been an element of exaggeration involved, but as Professor Juttie Bredekamp, who himself grew up in Genadendal, stated: ‘From their perspective, it was a great miracle to have survived the English onslaught.’ That ‘not a single Baviaansklower died in combat’ was surely not accidental. The return of the soldiers to their families secured the survival of the struggling mission station Genadendal, which soon became the biggest town apart from the Mother City, more populous than Stellenbosch. An interesting feature of Borcherds’ resistance to the missionary work was the involvement of a few of his parishioners. But Borcherds stance changed after he had studied the Moravian Bishop Spangenberg’s doctrinal exposition Idea Fidei Fratrum, even to the extent of apologizing to a visiting brother for his former behaviour. Meuwes Janse Bakker settled in Stellenbosch after he miraculously survived a shipwreck off the coast of South America. He decided to devote his life to missionary work among the ‘heathen’ at the Cape, buying a house in Dorp Street, Stellenbosch in 1798. Bakker immediately taught a few slave children there. When the SAMS started at the ZA Gesticht in the Mother City, he and the deacon J.N. Desch were the correspondents in Stellenbosch. In spite of the reluctance of their dominee, the Church Council supported Bakker. In no time he was the SAMS missionary in Stellenbosch. Slaves attended the afternoon services in his home, which soon became too small. Bakker left for further training in missionary work in Holland the next year, returning in 1801 with one big goal: that his property would be used for the extension of the Kingdom. The counter Attack of the Church and the Colonists The majority of the materialistic colonists sadly rejected the slaves outright, even in the Groote Kerk and the Lutheran church. Just as bad was what was happening on the farms. The workers who came to Baviaanskloof had been told by some of the farmers that they were not equal to them and that it was therefore impossible for them to enter heaven. The negative attitude of the farmers however made the Khoi inquisitive. In the Genadendal Diaries one reads in the entry for 5 September 1794: ‘...they have heard the farmers say many bad things about us... So they wanted to come and see and hear for themselves.’ Towards the end of the 18th century, the Dutch Reformed minister of Stellenbosch, Meent Borcherds, made no secret of his opposition to missionary work. Of course, this was nothing new. Years before him, his predecessors at the Cape had applied pressure, forcing Georg Schmidt to leave the Cape. Dr Philip asserted in the Philantropic Magazine of June 1820: ‘There is no place of worship where they [the slaves] are admitted; and the Dutch inhabitants, even the ministers, oppose every attempt to alter this state of things.’ It is exceptional how the co-operation of the mission agencies impacted the church life. The same Ds Borcherds who had been so negative towards missions, opened to other denominations a few years later. In the pastoral letter of the Dutch Reformed Church synod of 1826, of which Borcherds was the secretary, one discerns remorse over the earlier period in which there had been ‘meticulous concern to remain the ruling church.’ He regarded it as ‘better days’ that they were now preaching in each other’s churches. This formed the basis for the theologically sound synod decision three years later not to divide the church on racial grounds. 2. Prayer and evangelical Zeal confront Colonial Mission Policy The respective governments at the Cape had one thing in common - their opposition to missionary work. Missionaries were meant to serve the state, full stop. In the view of the authorities this work was to be done as far away as possible from any colonial settlement. De Mist and Janssens, the Batavian governors who ruled at the Cape from 1803-6, were quite ‘tolerant’ in religious matters. In fact, De Mist jotted down some progressive notions before he took office in his Memorie over de Caab, 1802. Thus he suggested that the ‘aborigines’ of the Cape should be employed on a voluntary basis and paid a good wage. But being a Grand Master of the Freemasons, it is not surprising that De Mist simultaneously opposed evangelistic activity in the city. A special paragraph on the Hernhutters (the Moravians) reveals his intention for the abuse of religion: first of all the Khoi must be happy; then they must be taught to be dutiful. His true colours also came to the fore - the Khoi had to become ‘loyal to the government’. De Mist expected the Moravian missionaries to subdue the Khoi, to make them subservient citizens. Marsveld had perceived before this that the interim British rulers (1795-1803) had wanted them to leave Baviaanskloof to help achieve peace at the Eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. The Opposition of the Dutch Authorities From the outset the SAMS had the authorities at the Cape against them. Article 12 of the constitution - according to which membership was open to non-reformed believers - rubbed conservative church elements up the wrong way. That article 11 even made provision for the involvement of women at policy level enraged many colonists. Henricus Maanenberg, the first missionary of the SAMS and the directors of the new mission agency were careful not to organize meetings for ‘heathen slaves’ on Sundays because it could have clashed with the other church services or it could have inconvenienced the slave owners. The charismatic-energetic Maanenberg - though sent by the London Missionary Society - could build on the solid foundation laid by the believers who had been influenced by Dr van Lier. A supernatural element can hardly be denied in the spiritual revival that erupted almost immediately. On 15 June 1801 - only two weeks after Maanenberg’s appointment - he informed the directors that he needed a bigger place for the services. A zealous mission-minded group of believers rallied around Maanenberg and Tromp, the other SAMS missionary at the Cape. Some missionaries who came out to work among the slaves often left after a short period. Henricus Maanenberg was one of them. Tromp was another, ‘who was here and there and not on one place’. Yet, within a short space of time the SAMS had enough resources to start building a place where church services for slaves could be held. Wisely the directors decided on 2 March 1802 to have no foundation stone ceremony for their building of an inter-denominational sanctuary (Virtually every church foundation stone ceremony laid at this time transpired with freemason ritual). Apart from this fringe group of Christians, the Gospel outreach to slaves figured very low on the list of priorities of the early Cape churches. Soon plans were made for the building of especially for the outreach to the slaves. A Blessing in Disguise De Mist arrived in February 1803, clearly seeing a threat in the expanding missionary activities. Subsequent opposition by De Mist turned out to be a blessing in disguise. First of all, directors of the SAMS opened their homes for the teaching of slaves. Some of them, like P. Le Roux, got involved personally and finally they started to train slaves for missionary work. Maart, the slave of Ds Vos, was one of the most able ones to be used. Maart, a slave from Mozambique, was blessed ‘with strong intellectual endowments’. He responded so well to the five years of Christian teaching under Ds Vos that the LMS thought of educating him ‘... to qualify him to accompany some other missionaries to... introduce into his native country ...that gospel which brings healing and salvation in its wings’. Maanenberg however had to suspend instruction to Maart because of a ban on teaching reading and writing to ‘heathen’. The blame for the ban should possibly not be laid solely at the feet of the secular authorities. It is reported that Ds C. Fleck, one of the Groote Kerk ministers, also complained that Maanenberg wanted to teach slaves: ‘for this we do not need special missionaries... because the church council has appointed persons for that purpose.’ One suspects sour grapes at Maanenberg’s success. De Mist’s reaction to the memorandum handed to him by the directors of the SAMS may have influenced Maanenberg to resign. He went to live outside the city. The SAMS directors were however so eager to get the Gospel to the slaves that they appointed Aart Antonij van der Lingen as the new missionary to the slaves as early as 6 April 1803. However, he was promptly forbidden by De Mist to preach and to give teaching to the slaves. Van der Lingen was only allowed to give support to missionaries who operated three dagreizen (days of travelling) from existing churches and congregations. At this time Stellenbosch, Drakenstein (Paarl), Zwartland (Malmesbury), Wagenmagersvallei (Wellington) and Roodezand (Tulbagh) were already flourishing congregations. Three days of travelling from all these places would have taken Van der Lingen deep into the interior. While De Mist was on an official journey into the interior, the SAMS directors approached his colleague Janssens about the consecration of the new sanctuary. The Z.A. Gesticht, the inter-denominational sanctuary in Long Street, was formally taken into use on 15 March 1804. It is said that when De Mist heard of the ZA Gesticht church building erected in his absence, he cried in fury: ‘May fire from heaven consume it.’ A colonist responded in 1824 in the Nederlandsch-Zuid Afrikaansche Tijdschrift: ‘But what he wished as an evil has come upon us for good. The fire of God has indeed descended and (as we trust) has melted many sinners’ hearts.’ The work of the Moravians at Baviaanskloof continued to impact the Cape. The critical De Mist appears to have gradually become a quiet supporter of the Moravian missionary work after his visit to the Overberg. After seeing the orderly village with over 200 houses, he spontaneously renamed it Genadendal. It was much more fitting to be known as a valley of grace than as a glen for baboons. The spiritual Death of the Cape Church It is reported that John Kendrick, a lay preacher who was evangelizing at the Cape at this time, could not find a real believer after hunting around among 1,000 English-speaking soldiers in the space of four years. Along with George Middlemiss, he could not find a single prayer meeting. One wonders how this was possible when only half a generation earlier the result of the work of Dr van Lier was referred to as little short of a revival! One possible conclusion is that the two were merely looking in the wrong places. Other spiritual forces possibly also affected all this. (The links of Freemasonry to Satanism has become known in recent years and it has also been reported that Tuan Guru revived the Islamic prayers at the holy circle of shrines.) That Janssen and De Mist later also allowed three Roman Catholic priests to operate at the Cape was on the one hand a breakthrough for religious tolerance, but on the other hand occult practices in Roman Catholicism are also quite common. Surely the ruling in the Church Order of De Mist was progressive that the church doors had to be open for all races, for slave and free alike. But he went too far, ushering in the spiritual death of the Church at the Cape. A humanist liberal spirit was prevalent with the name of God not even mentioned the Church Order of 25 July 1804. As a prominent Freemason, De Mist also laid the foundation stone of the Cape Lodge, which served as House of Parliament till the 1870s when the present building was built over the lodge. The link between lodge and the Cape churches at this time was laying a dubious foundation. Simultaneously, the witness of the church in South Africa with regard to secretive societies was effectively blunted through this link. Anton Anreith, one of the leading Freemason figures in the secretive freemasonry that has its origins in the occult, made his presence felt in no uncertain way. His architectural work affected even the inner precincts of the first two Cape churches, the Groote Kerk and the Lutheran Church. The pulpit of the latter church was Anton Anreith’s sculpture masterpiece, including lions with huge paws - which is freemason symbolism. A similar feature is found in the pulpit of the new building of the Groote Kerk, likewise by Anreith. Herman Schutte, another Freemason, did the church design. That this church was so much involved with the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond in the 20th century is surely no co-incidence. The obelisk structures on the exterior of the building that replaced the original Groote Kerk made the early Christian sanctuary of the Cape resemble more a Freemason temple than a traditional church. (A sad feature of the 19th century church was that there appears to have been not a single dissenting voice for many decades in respect of the Freemason influence). Officially freemasons were not allowed to become members of the Broederbond, but their secret practices were nevertheless very similar. Supernatural Intervention We have seen how Khoi were supernaturally called to Baviaanskloof after the arrival of the three Moravian missionaries in 1792. In the case of the other indigenous Cape people group, the San, called the Bosjesmannetjes, divine intervention was no less spectacular. In order to reach the people described as ‘a race that stood at a lower stage socially and religiously than any other race upon the surface of the globe’, God initially used a devout colonist, Floris Visser, the excellent field-cornet. He was described by Du Plessis, as ‘a man of character and piety, whose custom it was, even when journeying, to gather his companions and then to offer prayer and sing a psalm both morning and night.’ Even the San people were deeply impressed by the devotion of Visser and his fellow Boers. Soon they expressed an earnest desire to get to know the God of the Dutchmen. Visser promised to assist them, suggesting that they go to Cape Town to present their request there for a teacher or missionary. Two ‘Bushmen’ and a Koranna two of whom had been given the rather derogatory Dutch names Oorlams and Slaparm, arrived in Cape Town at the very time when the first four missionaries of the LMS set foot on the shores of Table Bay (Du Plessis, 1911:102).This can be regarded as the pristine beginning of the significant work for which Robert Moffat was going to become known throughout the British Empire. When the church and the colonists at the Cape had started becoming disinterested in reaching out to the slaves yet again, God intervened - surely because of the prayers of the faithful few elsewhere, probably evangelicals in England, in Germany and the USA. God sometimes appears to supernaturally use natural disasters to shake people out of their indifference and lethargy. An earthquake on 4 December 1809 at the Cape caused not only an 8-day revival and a significant increase in evangelicals, but it also imparted a new urge to missionary work among the slaves. It is interesting that an earthquake had this effect. In the Islamic prophecies referring to the protection given by the ‘holy circle’ of shrines, earthquakes were mentioned by name. The Cape was not supposed to be experiencing an earthquake! A strong British force comprising the 72nd and 83rd regiments garrisoned in the Cape. John Kendrick, George Middlemiss couldn’t find a serious Christian between the 1,000 men. They were mocked for their seriousness. At that stage Cape Town was given over to wickedness and immorality and known as the ‘Paris of the South’. During the earthquake, not a single person was killed, but the people fled in fear and watched horrified as the city was shaken as if by the fury of a giant hand. Kendrick wrote in 20 November 1810 that it was the greatest thing that could have happened as soldiers and civilians turned to God in prayer and pleaded for mercy. The 1809 earthquake impacted the SAMS in many ways. Jacobus Henricus Beck, a Cape colonist who had joined the SAMS, was deeply touched by the earthquake. Before long he was on his way to the Netherlands, Scotland and England for theological training. (Later he became the first pastor of the congregation formed at the ZA Gesticht.) In the same year of the earthquake, the Earl of Caledon’s 1809 proclamation on behalf of the Khoisan made a deep impact on society. William Wilberforce Bird, a colonial official, called the decree the ‘Magna Charta of the Hottentots’. This document had some problematic clauses from a modern point of view, but it was nevertheless in a sense a precursor to Ordinance 50 of 1828. Compassionate missionary Work The compassionate work of London Missionary Society (LMS) missionaries like Read, Dr van der Kemp and Dr Philip on behalf of the underdog slaves had the moral power of biblical truth on their side, but they were often opposed by their missionary colleagues. They were furthermore very unfortunate to have to battle against the pace that the Moravians had set at Genadendal. Nevertheless, the battle that raged at the Cape around the Khoi and the slaves – in which Dr Philip and Dr Van der Kemp had a big hand - had worldwide ramifications when it aided the cause of the abolition of slavery. Dr John Philip discerned that the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 caused the price of slaves to rise, leading to the enserfment of the Khoisan. Between 1808 and 1826 the price of slaves rose by 400% (Theal, RCC, 29:427). During Dr Philip’s visit to England in 1826, he met the evangelical parliamentarian Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. The latter had close links to William Wilberforce, the staunch fighter for the complete emancipation of slaves. In his subsequent correspondence with Buxton, Dr Philip linked the slave issue to the situation of the Khoisan in the Cape Colony already in his first comprehensive report on the LMS stations although he made a distinction between the problems with the Khoisan and those pertaining to slaves (Walker, 1964:153). Ordinance 50 of 1828 and last not least the publication of Philip’s two-volumed Researches in South Africa were major factors in the run-up not only to the Great Trek of colonists to the interior, but also to the final emancipation of slaves worldwide.1 Dr Philip’s role in the proclamation of Ordinance 50 has sometimes been exaggerated. John Philip however definitely played a crucial role in the run-up to this ordinance and he became a prime mover both in the eventual formal abolition of slavery in 1834 and in its implementation at the Cape in 1838. Yet, this decree dramatically changed the legal standing of the Khoisan, putting them on an equal footing with the colonists. Dr Philip undermined his own efforts by the unloving way in which he presented his case. His writing - painting the picture at the Cape in a distorted way, exaggerating things here and there - became one of the causes of the Great Trek, as expounded by the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief in his manifesto. All LMS emissaries of the Gospel were hereafter suspect in the eyes of the colonists, while the Moravian Mission at Genadendal became the model. This diabolic situation was a direct result of Dr Philip’s harsh criticism of the colonists. Not so long before all this, the Moravian missionaries had also been villains in the eyes of colonists - accused of ‘corrupting the Khoisan and encouraging laziness’. The absolute distancing themselves from politics was a tradition of the Moravians, which was not always helpful, making it difficult for the LMS missionaries to make a clear prophetic stand on ethical and racial issues. Because of their a-political role they suddenly became the role models. The precedent was set for the unbiblical notion ‘not to mix politics with religion.’2 Lord Charles Somerset’s Opposition to Missionary Work Lord Charles Somerset, the governor at the Cape from 1814, prohibited a missionary - the Methodist Barnabas Shaw - to preach to slaves at the Cape. Rev Shaw courageously defied the order, determined to preach even without Somerset’s permission. Barnabas Shaw was not going to be intimidated by a ban on public preaching. He was not impressed by Somerset’s refusal to grant permission, knowing that Somerset was hiding behind the colonists, saying that those who owned the slaves were in general opposed to their instruction. It is not clear whether Shaw actually preached to slaves. He did preach to soldiers ‘with the knowledge of the governor’, but Somerset probably decided not to make an issue out of that. Shaw preached, prepared and willing to be imprisoned. Lord Charles Somerset was known to be an adversary of Dr Philip, who arrived in 1819 to be the superintendent of the work of the London Missionary Society. After he had been only two years in the Cape Colony, Dr Philip boldly resolved to demand the amendment of the entire legal and civil status of the Coloured population, instead of seeking to correct individual acts of oppression or injustice. In Ordinance 50 of 1828 he had a big hand. This piece of legislation equated all races, also repealing the restricting pass laws that the ‘Magna Charta’ had introduced. The Khoi were now free to offer or withhold their labour and therefore to improve their condition through their right to abandon bad masters and cling to good ones. The colonists only had eye for the negatives, because the immoral elements among the Khoi indeed stole, cheated and trespassed. Nevertheless, Ordinance 50 of 1828 is a landmark in South African social history. In their eyes the missionaries, and Dr Philip in particular, were the culprits in creating tension between the masters and the workers. Lord Charles Somerset invited Scottish clergy to come to the Cape. He merely wanted to counter the Dutch influence by bringing in the British Presbyterian clergy. The likes of the prayerful Andrew Murray, the father of the famous namesake, effectively curtailed Somerset’s bigoted nationalism. Slavery returned by the back Door? Colonists now tried to secure an alternative supply of labour through the enactment of a vagrancy law which was thought by many to be overdue since Ordinance 50 of 1828 had actually increased the number of wandering Khoi to some nine thousand. The Vagrancy Law was passed by a narrow margin, sparking off a storm of protest from the churches and missionaries, particularly Dr John Philip, who suspected this as an attempt to bring slavery in by the back door. In a lengthy memorandum on the subject he wrote among other things that '...Any law ... that would compel the wilfully idle... would (bring) back ... a law more cruel and dreadful in its operation than the old slavery law of the colony, because the masters, having no interest in their lives beyond their immediate services, they would hav no checks upon their avarice...' To counter this possibility, he contended that any vagrancy law should be accompanied by land grants where vagrants could be taught useful occupations under proper supervision, asissted by missionaries and schoolmasters. In a very rare move, the reforming and liberfally-minded governor Benjamin D'Urban refused to sigh the measure penidng a decision by the Secretary of Statge in London, who rejected it outright. Slave emancipation, was observed on 1 December 1834 by the churches in Cape Town as a day of prayer. On that day thanks was offered that Khoi and former slaves would not be restrained by a vagrancy law (Shorten, 1963:117). Evangelistic Zeal Another Cape colonist, who was impacted significantly by the earthquake of 1809, was Martinus Casparus Petrus Vogelgezang. He had become a teacher and also had missionary training. In 1837 he applied to be ordained, but he did not find favour with the Dutch Reformed Church authorities. Not having obtained the expected university theological training (in Holland), they referred him to the custom for missionaries. This condescending attitude was indicative of the general view of the church with regard to missionary work.In the spiritual realms the discriminatory church ruling would impact the Cape in no uncertain way. On 17 October 1838 Vogelgezang resigned from the Dutch Reformed Church to start the first denominationally independent church. Undeterred by the rebuff from the big church at the Cape, the evangelist Vogelgezang preached the Gospel among the slaves with unprecedented zeal. Vogelgezang initially operated from his shoemaker’s shop in Rose Street, which forms part of present-day Bo-Kaap. That Vogelgezang gained the respect of his ecumenical contemporaries is demonstrated by the fact that various ministers of other denominations were present at his ordination in February 1839 in the Union chapel on Church Square, including Dr John Philip and Rev Robert Moffat of the London Missionary Society. In the course of time the zealous clergyman planted a few churches, bringing the Gospel to the Muslims with much authority and conviction. An interesting prayer snippet exists around the wedding of Reverend Robert Moffat. While working in Cheshire as a gardener for James Smith, he fell in love with Smith’s daughter Mary. The father was however unwilling to allow his daughter to go abroad to marry the missionary in a remote desert station in far away Africa. Three years later the Lord softened Smith’s heart. That Robert Moffat had to come to Cape Town from his mission post for their marriage in St George Cathedral on 27 December 1819 was strategic. Here he was not only persuaded to abandon the mission to Namaqualand, but also to take over the mission station at Dithakong. That was the beginning of the special ministry to the Tswana in Kuruman that would write Robert Moffat into history annals. He was also going to impact David Livingstone, the missionary-explorer of Central Africa. A sad Saga with a happy Ending The Stellenbosch church historian Du Plessis recorded the sad saga of a Khoi tribe, the Afrikaners, that was driven from their indigenous grazing fields between Table Bay and the Berg River to the northern Cape by the advancing Dutch colonists. They had become impoverished by the end of the 18th century. Jager Afrikaner, their chief was finally compelled by circumstances to work for the field cornet Pienaar, also employed by the latter in commando's against the San. After a dispute between Pienaar and Jager Afrikaner over wages, a tussle ensued during which the Field Cornet was killed. Fearing retribution, the Afrikaner clan fled to an island on the Orange River, from where the Afrikaners ‘embarked on a career of depredation and marauding which made their name a terror to the farmers and to the tribes dwelling along the course of the Orange River’ (Du Plessis, 1911:116). The Government declared Jager Afrikaner an outlaw and setting a price on his head. As he was an intelligent man, he attempted from time to time to secure a truce with the authorities, but so much blood on his hands, the Government could not even contemplate negotiation with him. Under the labours of LMS missionaries, Jager Afrikaner became an exemplary follower of Jesus, becoming an ‘unswerving friend’ of Robert Moffat. The latter had the radical idea to take his friend along to Cape Town in 1819, a thought ‘which was fraught with consequences of the utmost importance for his future life’ (Du Plessis, 1911:156). One needs little imagination the sensation when the missionary rocked up in the city with the man who had once been the terror of armers and natives alike. Moffat introduced him to Lord Charles Somerset, who was duly impressed, presenting Afrikaner with a wagon valued at £80. Cape Churches working together At the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht, Lutherans, Reformed believers and other believers were worshipping together with the common goal to reach the spiritually lost with the Gospel. The efforts of missionaries led to the networking of the Cape churches around the time of the slave emancipation in 1838. The cordial harmonious relationship among churches seems to have continued for quite a few years. A special feature of the mission effort of the early 19th century was the apparent lack of denominational rivalry. The Presbyterian Dr James Adamson and the Lutheran Rev Georg Wilhelm Stegmann engaged in combined endeavours. Soon after his ordination as a Lutheran minister, Stegmann not only felt the need to do something for the slaves, but he also started with a ministry in Plein Street in the Mother City. He was asked by Adamson to join him in the outreach to the ‘Coloureds’. Hereafter Stegmann became a regular preacher at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Green Point. At St Andrew’s, Adamson would preach in English in the morning and Stegmann in Dutch during the late afternoon service. A special event to highlight the emancipation of the slaves was organized at the Scottish Church - as St Andrew’s was generally known (hence the name Schotse Kloof was given to the area where the ministers were residing). An unprecedented revival spirit swept through the Cape. It would take quite a few years for churches to network in a similar way. It does not credit the churches at the Cape that hardly any effort was made to reach the slaves - many of whom were Muslim - with the Gospel up to 1838. A lack of perseverance was prevalent, combined with a tendency to go for softer targets than the resistant Muslims. Support from the colonists in the missionary work was not forthcoming at all. Financial support for the missionary work dried up, possibly also as a backlash to Dr Philip’s involvement, which was regarded as ‘political’ by church people and not fitting for missionaries. After the abolition of slavery in 1838, there was a rush of freed slaves into the city. Many deserted their former owners in the agricultural areas. As a rule these newly urbanized freed slaves turned to Islam. And not much changed thereafter. All the more the stalwart work of individuals like Vogelgezang has to be admired, even though his initial approach to the Muslims had been quite offensive. In the criticism of De Zuid-Afrikaan, a local newspaper with links to the established church an element of jealousy also played a role after Vogelgezang’s success in Bo-Kaap. (He had resigned from the NG Kerk in 1837.) Church Apartheid is born It is sad that church authorities at the Cape appear to have been the instigators of racial prejudice. Even though a separate school for colonist children had been started in 1663, there were still slave and Khoi children in all the schools at the Cape until 1876. The germ of apartheid seems to have been spread from a complete identification of the Dutch Church with Israel. The replacement theology that was generally taught regarded the Church as the new Israel. This also developed into racial superiority in respect of all other races, which made missionary work superfluous. The one-off instruction of Jesus not to bring the Gospel to Samaritans and Gentiles (Matthew 15:24; 10; 5-6) - became the norm, completely ignoring the great commission of Jesus to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28: 19-20). Just like the Jewish racial prejudice, which did not discern that the issue at the heart of the divine prohibition of racial mixing was idolatry, the Dutch Colonists regarded it as divine injunction to keep themselves separate from the ‘heathen nations’. The British rulers were insensitive to this religious spirit, which was probably the major driving force behind the Great Trek into the inferior in the late 1830s. At the time of the emancipation in 1838, the slaves were still rejected at the first churches – in spite of De Mist’s progressive Church Order, but in Onderkaap (the later District Six) mixed congregations were started. The Methodists had a congregation as early as 1837 with 200 Whites and 150 ‘Coloureds’ on its roll in 1854. That this racial breakdown is specifically mentioned, suggests that the apartheid spirit could have crept in somewhere between 1837 and 1854. The Swellendam Dutch Reformed Church actually requested racial separation in 1845, but this was not granted to them. It seems that Adamson and Stegmann were different from contemporary clergymen. They were completely accepted by people of colour. The Centenary Record of St Andrews mentions ‘the unsatisfactory arrangement’ as a reason for the discontent that developed after Rev George Morgan, successor to Dr Adamson, joined the mission to the slaves. Haasbroek, a Dutch Reformed theologian who wrote a dissertation on the mission among Muslims, mentions the concrete reason for the discontent: the slaves were not happy with Rev Morgan. The split that occurred at St Andrew’s in 1842 was possibly the result of personal rivalry between Stegmann (supported by Adamson) and Rev Morgan. At a time when the missionary work was flourishing, there was division in St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. Adamson had more or less been forced to leave the church. Morgan promptly refused Stegmann permission to preach at St Andrew’s. By this time meetings and school classes for slave children were held at the old theater, the Komediehuis in Bree Street. On 20 April 1842 a ‘vergadering van ontevredenheid’ (a meeting of dissatisfaction) took place at this venue. Stegmann implored the big audience to return to the Scottish Church but only one person did. The rest refused. The building that was envisaged as a separate church for freed slaves called forth the anger of the colonists. Hearing about slave children being taught in their former theatre enraged the colonists terribly. What ensued was possibly one of the first protest marches at the Cape and one that turned sour. Hereafter the church at Riebeeck Square was pelted with stones. Hence the building got the name St Stephen’s, named after the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death. The Emancipation of the Slaves: an Albatross removed There was some sense of relief among colonists in spite of the financial losses experienced through the emancipation of the slaves in 1938. Petrus Borcherds, the son of Ds Meent Borcherds of Stellenbosch, verbalized the ambivalence to which Whites during the apartheid era can easily relate. On the one hand Borcherds tried to justify slavery at the Cape: ‘I think ... slavery existed (here at the Cape) in its mildest form’. But Borcherds also said about slavery that there was ‘something so repulsive in that state of bondage and so contrary to the principles of justice... that slave emancipation ...was a great blessing... a tribute of infinite value to humanity.’ In the ministry of Stegmann his heart for the lost shone through, especially for the Muslims. Ds Davie Pypers, whose call to St Stephen’s in Bo-Kaap in 1956 was soon followed by a burden for the Cape Muslims, describes Stegmann as fiery in spirit, powerful in the word and a hero in prayer (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1958, p.34). Pypers furthermore typified Stegmann as a man ‘met sy gebedsworsteling en herlewingsgees’3 (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1958, p.36). This is illustrated by words from Stegmann’s diary, cited in the same article: ‘Oh, how heavy does the case of the poor deluded Mohammedans hang on my mind... Oh Lord, how long, how long shall they continue in darkness ... open the door, send out Thy servants.’ Apparently Stegmann had some notion of spiritual warfare. It is reported that the conversion of souls was the primary goal of his ministry, and that he was a ‘warrior of God and an attacker of the strongholds of Satan.’ The Lord used Stegmann’s powerful preaching to convict the congregation on 5 November 1843 in such a way that a church member, evidently overpowered by the Holy Spirit, exclaimed aloud towards the end of the sermon “Lord, have mercy” and fainted. A hush fell over the church and thereafter the whole congregation burst out in tears in a typical revival scenario Stegmann was self-critical enough when the near revival looked to have been stifled a few months further on. He took a part of the responsibility when he conceded in August 1844 with regard to the spiritual warfare: ‘What a havoc Satan has been making in poor St Stephen’s lately, so that with my own inward corruption and the perverse walk of many... I am ready to sink down.’ It seems that Stegmann did not descern the need of confession on behalf of the churches for the deception that led to the beginnings of Islam or for the treatment meted out to slaves in the decades immediately prior to and coinciding with the start of his ministry. However, also in the 21st century it remains a battle to let churches discern the need of collective confession. The Covenant of Blood River Even though the Covenant of Blood River took place in far away Natal, it had an impact on the rest of Southern Africa. Few historians discerned the spiritual roots at work, viz. that it was also a protest against the liberalism, which had moved into the ranks of the church. Ds G.W.A. van der Lingen of Paarl was one of very few indeed who withstood that tide. It is no surprise that he became God’s instrument for ushering in the blessed Pinksterbidure, the tradition of prayer services between Ascencion Day and Pentecost that became such a blessing to the Dutch Reformed Church over one and a half centuries. (This tradition is derived from Scripture where Jesus’ fearful disciples were united in prayer after the Ascencion of our Lord.) The Voortrekkers were devout Christians who firmly believed that God Almighty has a calling for them in Africa. Andries Pretorius, one of their leaders, wrote just before his departure from Graaff Reinet to Ds G.W.A. van der Lingen: ‘Thus we shall become a people working for the honour of his name.’ Even though one has to concede that many of them were deluded en masse by a distorted exposition of Scripture, which made them believe that the British wanted to impose on them a ‘Skrifvreemde vermengingsbeleid met die heidene’ (a policy alien to Scripture of mixing with heathens), it is clear that they lived by the Word of God, applying Yahweh’s promises to Israel for their own situation. The Trekkers saw the arrival of Andries Pretorius on 22 November 1938 as an answer to their prayers for a suitable leader. The devout and spiritually mature Pretorius was almost immediately elected as their military commander. (That he chose the mixed-bred J.G. Bantjes as his journal writer demonstrates that he was not as bigoted as so many of his compatriots in respect of racial mixing.) Pretorius discerned that humbling before God was necessary even before they could proceed to the serious matter of making a covenant. In a fighting speech he pleaded with the combined meeting to remove anything which could cause disunity. He emphasized again and again ‘Eendrag maak mag’ (unity empowers). According to Bantjes, Andries Pretorius discussed the possibility of a covenant with Sarel Cilliers, a devout elder, who was later given the task to formulate the covenant. It is striking that they promised in the ensuing covenant that they wanted to establish a temple to his honour, if the Lord would give them victory over the enemy. It has been pointed out that Pretorius, who was a builder by trade, was happy with the formulation ‘establish a temple’ rather than ‘building a church’. In the significant book Rigters onder die Suiderkruis, Dr. N.A. Burger suggests that this was indicative of a spiritual temple rather than a material building. At the church service on 9 December 1838, Sarel Cilliers used Judges 6:1-24 to draw attention to the fact that Gideon was called to save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. For a whole week till the evening of 15 December the seriousness of the covenant with God was repeated at the evening devotions. The victory against tremendous numerical odds reminded indeed of Gideon’s diminutive army defeating the Midianites. Even more significant was the spiritual impact on Southern Africa. The Mfecane, during which an estimated 2 million Blacks were killed in inter-tribal fighting of Southern Africa in the early 19th century, was more or less brought to an end at this occasion. (Years later President Paul Kruger discerned that the Afrikaners got punished because they did not always obey the covenant. Defying a threat by the British of a charge of high treason to anybody attending a mass protest meeting at Paardekraal, halfway between Pretoria and Potchefstroom, the Blood River covenant was repeated on 8 December 1880 by Kruger and other leaders.) A Slave inherits a Farm The Moravians became involved in another remarkable piece of Cape history when six ex-slaves inherited a farm. Rev Stegmann told his German compatriot Christian Ludwig Teutsch, a Moravian missionary from Genadendal, about a settlement near Piquetberg where a considerable number of ex-slaves dwelled together. They longed for a missionary. Hendrik Schalk Burger, who bought Goedverwacht as a cattle farm in 1809 or 1810, had also bought a slave woman, Maniesa with her two children. Burger did not permit his slaves to go to school, but a slave from a neighbouring farm read the New Testament behind Burger’s back, while doing washing in the Berg River. Another slave even held prayer meetings on the farm until Burger detected it and gave him a thorough hiding because of this. After his wife’s death, Burger lived amongst the slaves. After the liberation of slaves in 1838, he very surprisingly bequeathed Goedverwacht to the children and the son-in-law of Maniesa, on condition that they would not desert him as long as he lived. Teutsch was sent from Genadendal to investigate the possibility of starting a mission station at Goedverwacht. He preached in one of the dwellings of the former slaves, but found Goedverwacht unsuitable. He found the property rights too complicated. Teutsch promised the former slaves however, that the missionaries of Groenekloof would visit them from time to time. (The name of the latter mission station was changed to Mamre in 1849.) When Teutsch returned to Genadendal, it happened that one of the students from the training school, Jozef Hardenberg, became available for appointment. The people bade the teacher a hearty welcome. That became the beginnings of the mission station, Goedverwacht, started by the first trainee of the Moravian missionaries in Genadendal (The Kweekschool of Genadendal was the first teacher training school of South Africa, founded even before there was one for Whites). 3. Prayerful Actions oppose divisive Doctrine The practice of the Moravians and the LMS to ordain Christian workers distinctively as missionaries, received a negative slant. In the Dutch Reformed Church missionary work was clearly seen as something inferior. The interpretation of Revelation 2:15 that hierarchical structures are basically divisive, and something that God hates - or the positive variation of the priesthood of the laity - was not widely known. At the same time, the pioneering SAMS almost dissolved itself when its ministry was assimilated into the Dutch Reformed Church towards the end of the 19th century. An artificial and unbiblical differentiation between Christian action and evangelistic outreach resulted in a rift in the missionary movement. In South Africa the old scourge of racism nipped the evangelistic spirit in the bud. Diverse Christian Actions There is clear evidence that some Christians at the Cape understood the biblical imperative that the Gospel had to be brought to the uttermost parts of the earth. As early as 1804-1809, Rev M.C. Vos - born and bred in the Western Cape - operated as a missionary in India and Ceylon (the modern-day Sri Lanka). That the missionary spirit permeated his household is evidenced by the fact that Rev Vos’ daughter Elisabeth married Gottlieb van der Lingen, the son of Aart van der Lingen, a LMS missionary (Gottlieb van der Lingen was still to impact the Cape in a big way as the dominee at Paarl in the 1860s, the one to suggest the Pinksterbidure, the Pentecostal prayer meetings.) The tradition has of course its basis in Scripture when the fearful disciples were gathered in united prayer in the upper room after the ascension of our Lord till the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Various epidemics, e.g. of smallpox, almost brought Islamic numeric growth to a halt at this time, but the opposition to health measures and the carnal responses of the local newspapers made martyrs out of the Cape Muslims. This functioned as glue to them after they had been quite divided at that time. The resuscitation of Islam was aided by racial prejudice. The hatred and prejudice of rank and file Whites knitted Muslims together to fight for the survival of their religion at the Cape. The churches were too occupied with their own internal issues to see the need of bringing the Gospel to the ‘Malays’ who were perceived to be inferior. At this time, the work of the South African Missionary Society (SAMS) suffered for the same reason, viz. a lack of funds. The need for a special mission to the Muslims was nevertheless definitely felt and a sub-commission specially formed for this purpose. Speaking on behalf of this sub-commission, Rev. G.W. Stegmann insisted on a final decision in 1873. Yet, Muslims were still coming to faith in Christ. In the annual report of the SAMS of 1875 it is mentioned that 7 of the 18 new members to be confirmed were Muslims. It is ironic that Christians have saved Islam from extinction at the Cape again and again, directly and indirectly. Against the background of the generally negative attitude held by Whites, including the majority of the missionaries and clergymen, a lay Christian, , Mr Petrus Emanuel P.E. de Roubaix, towered above the rest with regard to the loving outreach to Cape Muslims in the second half of the 19th century. De Roubaix practised much of what biblical Christianity is all about. Kollisch, a contemporary, notes that public newspapers and other records of his time would show that De Roubaix ‘most cheerfully rendered his aid whenever required, and as his deeds were open, it was a matter of general surprise ... that as a Christian... he should give such support and assistance to a class of people belonging to an opposite creed.’ There was genuine compassion by de Roubaix - who was a director of the SAMS and a Cape parliamentarian. He intervened to get money from Turkey to finish the building of a mosque in far away Port Elisabeth, which was opened on 1 June 1866 (The actual building of the mosque was commenced in 1855). The P.E. mosque was special, the ‘first ascertainable reference to a mosque with a dome and a minaret’ (Bradlow and Cairns, 1978:18). De Roubaix, brought in Abu Bakr Effendi, an imam from Turkey, to try and stop the doctrinal fighting in the mosques.4 It was especially remarkable how after losing the parliamentary election in 1856, mainly because of his involvement with the Cape Muslims, De Roubaix even went forward more boldly as the champion of this despised people group. A Dent in Andrew Murray’s Legacy At the 1829 Cape Dutch Reformed Church synod it had not only been decided that all church members would be admitted to communion ‘without considering colour or background’, but also that race was not even to be a subject for deliberation at a synod. Instead, it had to be seen as ‘a hard and fast rule, based on God’s Word’ that no person should be barred on racial grounds. It seemed that Andrew Murray, the great man of God, did not sufficiently discern the danger of racial prejudice. That the nationals of colour could also be used as missionaries was apparently not remotely present in the thinking of the churches in South Africa at that time. Murray and three other young dominees, namely P.K. Albertyn (Caledon), J.H. Neethling (Prins Albert) and N.J. Hofmeyr, wanted the church to move forward in reaching the lost. At the Dutch Reformed Church synod of 1857 they were given the challenging task as a commission to examine the matter and report back to the synod. With no money and personnel available for missions, it appears that the synod might have tried to silence Andrew Murray and the three young colleagues in that way. Their report ‘took the breath away of some of the older members’. Ds Gottlieb van der Lingen from Paarl suggested with a ‘curious smile upon his face’ that they should do to it themselves. The threesome was thoroughly vindicated when because of the revival of Worcester and surroundings, no less than 50 young men volunteered for ministry. However, the very same 1857 synod tragically agreed to accept racial separation because of the ‘weakness of some’ - as a motion put forward by no less than Andrew Murray himself. This was a complete about turn of the 1829 decision not to divide the church along racial lines. The participants had no idea to what a disaster their decision would lead in the long run, even though separation was to be voluntary. An incorrect message was conveyed, and it seems as if there was not a single person of colour among the 145 missionaries that left the Mission Institute in Wellington over the years. The decision paved the way for the Coloured sector of the denomination, the Sendingkerk, to be sent on its separate way in 1881. An anomaly was that the (Coloured) St Stephen’s church of Bo-Kaap was accepted as a member church at this same synod. The Run-up to a Revival The 1860 revival of Worcester that started in the church where the well-known Dr Andrew Murray was the minister has been described as a result of teamwork (Brandt, 1998:58). It has been reported that his father, Ds Andrew Murray (sr), had prayed for revival every Friday evening since 1822. By 1860 he would thus have prayed for 38 years. The gifted young dominee Andrew Murray, who had just come to Worcester prior to this, would be impacted during the revival along with thousands in the Western Cape. The younger Andrew Murray appears to have at least matched his father as a prayerful minister of the Word. About his life the secular Dictionary of South African Biography, Volume 1 (p.578) wrote: ‘The golden ray of prayer illumined all he did...He believed that nothing that was amiss and demanded correction could not be corrected or endured by prayer.’ This is confirmed when one takes a closer look at the titles of his 250 books. There one finds titles like De Kracht des Gebeds (1860), Pray without ceasing (1898) and The prayer life (1912). A letter was sent out to call for prayer. A significant contribution to the revival came from Montagu where three believers came together for early morning prayer on Sundays from the beginning of January 1860. Then there was the missionary conference in Worcester in April 1860 that can be regarded as the run-up to the revival. Three hundred and seventy preachers and laymen attended. The Presbyterian Dr James Adamson set the tone with a report at the conference of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in America, and the conditions for revival. Ds Andrew Murray (sr.) was so overawed by the same topic that he burst into tears. And then there was a passionate prayer by his son and namesake that stirred the hearts of many, so much so that someone has suggested that this caused the beginning of the revival. Montagu was the first place to experience revival under Rev James Cameron, a Methodist minister. People came from Worcester, Wellington and Praal to observe and experience it. (Ds G.W. van der Lingen from Paarl was initially a little apprehensive). In May 1860 the revival started there with three prayer meetings per day. There was also great conviction of sin and confession. Revival Fires Spread from the Boland 50 Days later, the churches which had sent delegates, experienced the special move of the Holy Spirit. This happened also 50 days after the conference under Ds Andrew Murray (jr.) and Jan de Vries in Worcester. The role of young people definitely has to be mentioned in this regard. In fact, it was in the youth meeting in the church hall where an unnamed Coloured teenage girl dared to call for a song before her prayer, as was the custom. After the typical racially prejudiced hesitation of the time, Ds J.C. de Vries, the minister, allowed her to go ahead. During her prayer, a sound came from afar, getting increasingly louder until the building felt as if it was shaking. Everybody hereafter seemed to have prayed simultaneously, almost oblivious of the other participants. Dr Andrew Murray, who was called to come and listen to the ensuing noise, had great trouble in bringing order in the chaos. A visitor who observed his efforts from the doorway, warned him in English: ‘Be careful what you do, for it is the Spirit of God that is at work here.’ Each one seemed so burdened by his load of sin that they continued to call upon God for forgiveness and cleansing with an intolerable weight of guilt, sin and shame. Hettie Bosman, a teacher from the Karoo, was visiting Worcester. She had been praying for revival for years. During a special prayer meeting she fell unconscious and was carried to the parsonage where Andrew Murray prayed for her. She rose up with an extraordinary experience of joy. She married a pioneer missionary and took revival with her into the mission field. A hunger for revival broke out in all directions. The Stellenbosh Seminary started by John Murray and Nicholas Hofmeyr in 1859, could hardly cope with all the new students after the revival. Missions and evangelism commenced and within ten years of the revival beginning in Worcester, the Dutch Reformed Church had more than 12 mission stations established in and beyond the Cape Colony. The movement of 1860 stirred every part of the community and soon it was widespread. Even on remote farms people experienced conversions. A group from Worcester went out to tell of God’s dealings. Prayer meetings started all over the district with people of all races crying out to God not to pass them by. Revival moved to Beaufort West with a tremendous force from 6 -13 January 1861, nearly four months after it commenced in Worcester. Prayer meetings, often lasting all day, were held four times a week and meetings were held everywhere on the Lord’s day, in homes, under a tree, at farm houses. The church was too small for the crowds. God’s grace was flowing so widely that farmers in the remotest areas were touched. The fire also spread to the Free State, Transvaal, and many other towns. It is striking that the Worcester revival spread from the conference of Christian leaders to different church backgrounds. Within months the move of God spread to Wellington, Swellendam and even to Cape Town, more than 100 Kilometers away. The next year the revival also moved eastward across the Karoo and to the Northwest as far as Calvinia. Prof. Hofmeyr and Rev Van der Rijst, a missionary, kept on praying for revival for 6 years. While Professor (then Ds) John Hofmeyr was the minister there, he could initially not motivate his congregation to come to prayer meetings. At Calvinia the Holy Spirit then swept away fierce resistance. In 1860, spontaneous prayer meetings started in the congregation, growing as a movement without the help of the clergy. Ds Gottlieb van der Lingen, the son of a LMS missionary pioneer, the minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Paarl, initiated the Whitsuntide prayer meetings between Ascension Day and Pentecost in 1861. The Pinksterbidure would impact Afrikanerdom for many decades. Gottlieb van der Lingen was also God’s instrument and catalyst for De Gereformeerde Kerkbode, which later became Die Kerkbode. Revival in the Mother City and a Backlash Like Zinzendorf, the founder of the renewed Moravian Church, Andrew Murray had a great love for and interest in children. The very first book he wrote was Jezus de Kindervriend (1858). At the Cape, the Dutch Reformed Church penetrated into the fisherman families of Roggebaai near to Green Point, where they opened the second church school on 15 April 1861. In spite of the well-known revival of Worcester, Dr Andrew Murray was not yet so famous when he served as the minister of the Groote Kerk in the Mother City from 1864. His booklet Abide in Christ, which was originally written in Dutch, a daily devotional for a month, was meant as a manual and guide for the many converts in Worcester, when Murray saw them becoming gradually less committed. Within four years, more than 40,000 copies were sold. However, he only published a translation of it eighteen years later, the first of his English books. Andrew Murray would impact the Christian world like few before or after him. The pattern of 31 or 52 chapters was a favourite with him, a model that was to be emulated by many to this day for devotional diaries or prayer books. Abide in Christ was said to have started a revival in China. In February 1865 Andrew Murray started with services in Roggebaai every Thursday evening with a ‘full house.’ On the other side of the Groote Kerk, Murray started with services in a house in Van de Leur Street in District Six. Soon a parish of the mother church was started in Hanover Street, at that time called Kanaalstraat, where race and class discrimination started to play a role. The ‘Dreyerkerk’ as the church became known later, was obviously intended for poor Whites and ‘Coloureds’. Nevertheless, especially for the parishes of Roggebaai and Hanover Street, ‘the services could not be long enough in duration.’ Satan had to react, trying to split the church. An unbiblical theological liberalism infiltrated South Africa in the 1850s. This happened amongst other things when a book De Moderne Theologie appeared, written by Ds D.F. Faure, the founder of the Free Protestant Church. Andrew Murray replied in 1868 with a series of thirteen sermons. Turn of the Tide in Favour of Biblical Christianity South Africans were among the world leaders in church cooperation when the Evangelical Alliance was formally started in 1857 in Cape Town. In fact, at this occasion the founders declared that an Evangelical Alliance existed in the Mother City in all but name already in 1842. The South African Evangelical Alliance thus functioned long before it kicked off formally in England and six years before it started in Germany. They referred to the move when pastors of different churches had a weekly prayer meeting a few years after the slave emancipation. The South African branch of the Evangelical Alliance was the first outside Europe. This was the start of the worldwide movement, which again brought the major correction in Lausanne in 1974, after Marxists had successfully infiltrated the World Council of Churches. Cape Evangelicals got together in Cape Town in 1842 to work out a strategy to reach the lost of Southern Africa. Gerdener records how - within five years after the centenary of the start of Georg Schmidt’s endeavour - ‘concerted action had arrived.’ At that stage there were only 9 mission societies in South Africa, the bulk of which had to be contributed to the endeavours of Dr John Philip. (In 1937 – another century on – South Africa had become the best occupied mission field in the world with 1,934 Protestant missionaries and 658 Roman Catholic priests, according to the World Mission Atlas of those years.) The start of the Alliance in Cape Town led indirectly to the opening of the Stellenbosch DRC Kweekschool in 1859. At this occasion Professor N. Hofmeyer complained that no effort was made to bring all Christians of the country together. A committee organized a conference fairly quickly. Some 400 delegates from the Dutch Reformed, Congregational, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian and Presbyterian churches converged on Worcester in 1860 for the epoch-making conference. Worldwide it was one of the first of its kind. An interesting view expressed at the conference in Worcester was: ‘the home of every Christian should be a mission station’. The success of Worcester led to a similar one in Cape Town in Januar 1961. A special innovation – worldwide perhaps a first – was that the conference was conducted in two languages on alternate days, Dutch and English. Hereafter such conferences with delegates of 5 denominations plus mission societies were held at different centres. The first missionary conference took place in Genadendal in 1865 where 20 participants of the Rhenish, Berlin, London, Dutch Reformed and Moravian groups gathered. In 1872 Andrew Murray suggested regular missionary conferences with all churches and missionary societies. Missionary conferences took place in alternate years at different centres of the Western Cape until the South African War. Women spearheading missionary Work A rare feature of the 19th century is that a Cape-based missionary agency actually owes its existence to a woman. Mrs Martha Osborne was forced to leave India due to illness. In England she was thoroughly impacted by the Holy Spirit after conversion during a meeting of D.L. Moody, a well-known American evangelist. Her husband became seriously ill soon after his retirement, and eventually died. A newspaper reported negatively about conditions among British soldiers in Cape Town. The presence of ‘dens of the lowest description’ there, gripped her. This became Martha Osborne’s call to missions. She sailed in 1879, devoting herself to work among the Cape soldiers. In South Africa she initiated evangelistic missionary work in Cape Town, Natal and Zululand. She founded a Sailors’ Home, a Ladies Christian Workers Union, the Railway Mission and the South African YWCA. In 1890, she married George Howe who had been working alongside her with a similar vision. During the South African War the couple established no less than 27 Soldiers’ Homes. The Osborne Mission went through a number of changes and mergers, at last becoming the Africa Evangelical Fellowship. During a visit to England Martha Osborne challenged Spencer Walton, an evangelical Church of England member, to come and join the outreach at the Cape. Walton was the first director of the Cape General Mission that later - after a merger - became known as the South Africa General Mission. May, Emma and Helena Garratt, three sisters from Ireland, were invited to visit the various stations of the South Africa General Mission. May Garratt responded to the invitation but the other two sisters got involved in other outreaches. Bible readings among the police led to the establishment of a Christian organization and other outreach forms. For example, the Africa Evangelistic Band (AEB) came into being. The Pilgrims, as their workers were called, evangelized in same-sex pairs, discipling new believers as they criss-crossed the country, bringing life to many a spiritually dead church. The Emancipation of Women pre-empted5 The author of The Romance of the threeTtriangles is convinced that the work of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) ‘had its inception in the mind of God’ (Nowlan, 2001:3). The Ladies Christian Workers’ Union was formed in Cape Town at the suggestion of Mrs Martha Osborne. In August 1884, during a visit to the Mother City by Dr Andrew Murray for evangelistic services, this organisation was formally established under his chairmanship. At one of the Ladies’ gatherings young women and the best way to help them was discussed. Mrs Osborne’s sister succeeded in gaining the interest of many Christain friends. It seemed as if the matter ended their even though a great deal of interest was expressed. The women continued to pray, asking God for further guidance. There was an urgency now to find a suitable venue to which they could invite young women. For weeks they prayed to this end. At this time the affluent Bam family of Cape Town had sent their two daughters to Germany for schooling. During their stay there both girls contracted Typhoid Fever, dying of it subsequently. In this time of grief their father heard indirectly of the desire of the Ladies Christian Workers’ Union to befriend young women in Cape Town. He wrote a letter in which he expressed his desire to devote the house, which was the birthplace and home of his deceased daughters, to the work the Ladies Christian Workers’ Union had in view. The hearts of these women were filled with praise and gratitude to God for his gift through Mr Bam. They had asked for one room. God gave them a building in Long Street with many rooms, which almost immediately became a venue for services conferences plus a substantial library via a gift of books from the YWCA in London. Bible classes on Sunday afternoons were popular and well attended. Furthermore, in the winter months, a special kitchen provided soup for the poor. At a public meeting on the 6th May 1886 presided over by Dr Andrew Murray, it was decided to inaugurate the work of the YWCA. The building was dedicated for use by young women as a safe place and also intended as a place of rest for Christian workers and missionaries coming to town.right from its inception, a basis of faith became the framework within which membership would operate. The dependency upon God was epitomised by a week of prayer, first used in the second week of November. Later the second week in March became the week of evangelism. When special needs arose, it was quite normal that the leaders would call for Quiet Days. ‘It has always been the great desire of the members that the organisation should never lose the spirit of waiting on God to know how and for what to pray’ (Nowlan, 2001:24). Under the leadership of Miss McGill, the house became a blessing to many. At one stage she was President both of the Ladies Christian Workers’ Union and the YWCA. On 5 June 1901 the committee of the former union resolved to discontinue using the name Christian Workers’ Union. It had by then done its job to instill dignity and self-confidence in many a young woman. The emancipation of Cape women was prepared and pre-empted in this way. A new Wave of Revival During Pentecost 1904 the Methodists at Wittebergen had a week of prayer. There was such a response that intercessors met at 4 a.m. and prayer meetings continued throughout the day. A month later a great revival hit the village of Villiersdorp. The news of the Welsh revival at the beginning of the new century caused the Dutch Reformed Church commision to issue a call for all churches to join together to pray for South Africa. Dr Andrew Murray, together with Prof. N.J. Hofmeyr and Ds. Botha, organized a conference on revival for ministers held at Stellenbosch Seminary in May 1905. The main topic was the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the world and in the church. Soon local awakenings were taking place all over the Cape Province, in both Afrikaans and English-speaking churches. On the evening of 23 July 1905 about 130 young people were engaged in a Christian Endeavour service in Villiersdorp when deep conviction gripped the entire meeting. The Holy Spirit led their concern for sin, which turned into brokenness, tears and a spontaneous calling on the mercy of God. Each evening the people gathered in meetings of up to three hours. The number swelled and attendance increased from 350 to 500. Sometimes a score of people could be heard praying simultaneously. Nothing else was talked about and more than a hundred villagers were converted, including the roughest and most reckless men in the district, but the believers were transformed into fearless witnesses, testifying with great power, urging friends to respond and praying for them by name in the open meetings. One young man became a pioneer missionary in Nigeria. Three months after the revival started, the minister appealed for help from his colleages, because it was spreading. This moving of the Spirit began to influence thirty other Dutch Reformed congregations, chiefly in the Western Cape, the Boland and the Eastern Province. Still in 1905, the news from the revival in Villiersdorp caused the Christians in the Karoo town of Prince Albert to start with prayer meetings in homes. Soon the homes were too small and they met at the schoolhouse. One Sunday evening the Holy Spirit caused a spirit of conviction to break out among people of all ages. Even the children of the parish became so concerned that they filled another hall in the village, astounding the leaders and adults with their prayers for their own salvation, their families and friends. Whole households got converted, many of them led to the Lord by their own children. In September 1905 Rev William M. Douglas from the Methodist Church, who had ministered powerfully in the Eastern Cape and in the Karoo, was invited to Wellington for a convention. He shared the ministry with Albert Head, a well-known speaker from England. Dr Andrew Murray presided over the convention. A conviction settled over the gathering and soon scenes of revival surfaced as people sought blessing for their souls. A prayer meeting with two hundred people present continued into the early hours of the morning and led by Rev Douglas, it became the focal point of the convention. Andrew Murray, the Catalyst of Missions Andrew Murray continued to be a blessing to the nation, having founded the Bible and Prayer Union in 1883. The main object of this venture was to encourage members of his church to read the Scriptures daily and to pray regularly for specific causes. The organization published Uit de Beek, a daily devotional booklet, of which Andew Murray was the editor for 40 years. He also wrote a booklet in 1885 ‘De School de Gebeds’ that was translated into English as ‘With Christ in the school of Prayer’. The link between prayer and missions became concrete when the Goodenow Hall was built in Wellington in 1886. Here the annual Western Cape Keswick holiness meetings would be held for many decades. In the same year Murray was also the catalyst for the Ministers’ Missionary Union, where pastors pledged 5 to 20 pounds sterling as an annual contribution. How fitting it was that his nephew, Andrew C. Murray, could be sent as the church’s first missionary of the new era to Nyasaland (today Malawi) in 1888. In the Cape General Mission, which was started in 1889 with Dr Andrew Murray as President, there were from its outset people from different denominational backgrounds. Andrew Murray was closely involved with the South Africa General Mission until the end of his life. From the beginning the Mission agency was a dual enterprise, intending to reach both the White and Black sections of the population. In the main towns of the country they would labour among the neglected Whites. The mission agency was blessed with spectacular growth. After only five years the original six workers had increased to sixty-eight. Furthermore, at least one of Andrew Murray’s disciples, his first missionary student, Petrus Louis le Roux, did not inherit the negative trend of denominational and racial separation. Influenced by Murray to be a missionary to the Zulus, he was ordained Eerwaarde, i.e. as a Dutch Reformed missionary in 1893 at Wakkerstroom in the Eastern Transvaal. Within seven years Le Roux had 2000 members, attributing his success to ‘good, earnest, native preachers’. Africa for the Africans John Langalibele Dube was a Zulu patriot but an opponent of ‘narrow tribalism’ simultaneously. The rising generation of militant African nationalists came to look upon him as a parochial figure. Looking back in history, we discern that the country had been blessed with a gifted Christian, whose potential could not be fully exploited because of racial prejudice. As a sixteen year old Dube went to America where he also traveled and gave talks on self-help for the Blacks of South Africa. He returned to the USA in 1897, this time to study theology for three years. Ordained in the Congregational church, he was one of the delegation to London in 1909 to lobby against the colour bar in the Act of Union. Unable to attend the founding conference of the South African Native Congress (later the name was changed to the ANC), he was elected in absentia as its first president. The slogan ‘Africa for the Africans’ has often been branded as Black racism. It is hardly known that a White missionary from New Zealand was actually one of the first protagonists of the principle. Joseph Booth, who was born in Derby, England, wrote a booklet with the title Africa for the Africans in 1897. He worked as a farmer in New Zealand until he experienced a missionary call in 1892. His unorthodox approach to mission work and his schemes for African self-help and advancement eventually created friction with colonial authorities. He was barred from central Africa around 1903 as an alleged supporter of Ethiopianism or African religious separatism. But also other clergymen who thought along similar lines were side-lined, although not to the same extent. One of the most prominent late 19th century church leaders was Bishop John William Colenso of Natal. In the eyes of many church people he was suspect because he ‘advocated revolutionary and unpopular missionary policies’. Yet, Colenso also ‘asserted very firmly that the Christian gospel possessed definite social implications.’ He was for many Whites too radical when he tried to ‘leaven African culture and its social system with the gospel’, as De Gruchy worded it so aptly. Thus he was very critical of Bishop Robert Gray’s effort to turn Xhosas ‘into good Anglicans fitted for English society’, by taking them to Zonnebloem College in District Six. Prayer as the Key to the Missionary Problem Dr Andrew Murray put in practice what he had taught about ‘waiting on the Lord’ when he was invited to be a speaker at the World Missions conference in New York, 1900 - billed as the biggest ever to be held. (At this time the effect of the Enlightenment and rationalism had significantly diminished belief in unseen forces like the Holy Spirit.) Andrew Murray had no inner peace about going to New York, not even after the organizers tried to use his famous friend Dwight Moody to entice him. Moody invited Murray to join him in outreaches in the USA after the World Missions conference, but Murray was not to be swayed. He felt morally bound to stay with his people because of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). We may safely surmise that Murray was sensitive to the Holy Spirit, only wanting to take instructions from the Lord. Murray’s subsequent absence at the conference ironically became the biggest cause of missions in the 20th century. After he received the papers and discussions at the conference, Murray wrote down what he thought was lacking at the event in a booklet: The Key to the Missionary Problem. This book had an explosive influence on the churches in Europe, America and South Africa. In the booklet Murray referred prominently to the 24-hour prayer watch of the Moravians. It called seriously for new devotion and intensive prayer for missions. Murray powerfully stated that missionary work is the primary task of the church, and that the pastor should have that as the main goal of his preaching. These sentiments were repeated in a small booklet he called Foreign Missions and the week of Prayer, January 5-12, 1902 - stating that ‘missions are the supreme end of the church’. He furthermore suggested that ‘to join in united prayer for God’s Spirit to work in home churches a true interest in, and devotion to missions (is) our first and our most pressing need.’ One of Andrew Murray’s classic statements of the early 20th century was that ‘God is a God of missions.’ He wrote powerfully in his book The Kingdom of God in South Africa (1906): ‘Prayer is the life of missions. Continual, believing prayer is the secret of vitality and fruitfulness in missionary work. The God of missions is the God of prayer'. It is surely no mere co-incidence that revivals broke out in different parts of the world in the years hereafter - in such divergent countries as Wales, Norway, India and Chile. (The effect of the Welsh revival on Korea has been highlighted by Patrick Johnstone on a CD-Rom. That country was fast becoming the second biggest missionary sending nation of the world in the 21st century.) The Cape was used in this way by God to get missionary endeavour as a worldwide priority, an important spur to the conference at Edinburgh in 1910 that in turn could be regarded as a forerunner of the World Council of Churches. (An interesting fact is that William Carey had proposed a hundred years earlier for a missions conference to be held at the Cape of Good Hope.) Andrew Murray summarized the link between the Holy Spirit and missions as follows: ‘No one can expect to have the Holy Ghost unless he is prepared to be used for missions. Missions are the mission of the Holy Ghost.’ The first of the triennial General Missionary conferences was convened in 1904, very much prepared through prayer. These conferences surely contributed greatly in the run-up to the world event in Edinburgh in 1910. Confession as a revival instrument Confession is an important element of prayer as a tool 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 people and confession of sins. In revivals through the ages, prayer was the basis. In these cases prayer brought about a con­sciousness of sin, which invariably led to confession and restitution. Rightly Andrew Murray stated: ‘an essential element in a true missionary revival will be a broken heart and a contrite spirit in view of past neglect and sin’ (Murray, 1901, [1979]:150). In the probably most well known recent major revival in South Africa, in Kwa Siza Bantu, (Natal) Erlo Stegen, the leader, had been going through an extended period of prayer, but the Holy Spirit could only break through when Stegen confessed his racial pride, idolatry, lacking neigh­bourly love and other sin (W.L. Muncy Jr., cited in Elana Lynse, 1989:49). Through-out his the booklet The Key to the missionary Problem Andrew Murray men­tions prayer as the major single factor to change the world, as the key to the missionary problem. If he says over and over again that the problem is a personal one, he also states clearly that personally we have this key in our hands: ‘We feel that our only hope is to apply ourselves to prayer. Prayer, more prayer, much prayer, very special prayer should first of all be made for the work to be done in our home churches on behalf of foreign missions’ (Murray, 1901[1901]:147). With regard to the latter, the Herrnhut church of the 18th century was exemplary. As the missionaries faithfully sent reports of their work on the fields, the church prayed for them concrete­ly. About the priority of the work of the Holy Spirit and the power of prayer, Murray continues a few pages further: ‘And yet, it is only when they have first place and everything else is made subordinate to them, that the Christian life will be truly healthy’ (Murray, 1901[1979]:150). But he knew that he had an uphill task, conceding: ‘This preaching of contrition on account of our lack of obedience to Christ’s great command will be no easy thing’ (Murray, 1901[1979]:155). Paternalism breeds secession All along there was a lot of goodwill among Whites. A problem was that even radical thinkers among them hardly ever consulted people of colour. Proper consultation could possibly have averted many a crisis. From the earliest days at the Cape the ‘natives’ were regarded as inferior, their culture despised. Paternalism was rife. This gave rise to the secessionist ‘Ethiopian movement’. The ‘Ethiopians’ have been typified by the sentence: “We have come to pray for the deliverance of Blacks.’ The ideological link went back to the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8 and the church, which developed in that country without mediation of Western Churches. The term ‘Ethiopian’ was derived from the concept that the first indigenous church on African soil started in Ethiopia. By 1902, Ethiopianism was used for the entire indigenous church movement.) For the ‘rebel’ Black churchmen Ethiopia was the model land where Blacks were ruling their own country. In America a separate church had been started among Negroes as the American Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC). It was only natural that the ‘Ethiopian’ Methodists of South Africa linked up with them. Bishop Levi Coppin was sent here as the first Black bishop. The AMEC headquarters were to be in District Six. The ‘Ethiopian’ movement started in different parts of South Africa as breakaway congregations from the Methodist mission churches. In a sense the good teaching of the Methodists backfired to make the indigenous independent, because the missionaries kept on patronizing their congregants of colour. Another influential figure was Henry Sylvester Williams, a black lawyer who hailed from Trinidad in the West Indies. He came to Cape Town in October 1903, with the intention to build Pan-Africanism and to see British status coming into being for all Black people in the Empire. When he and Coppin saw how the ‘Coloureds’ were distancing themselves from the ‘Africans’, they thought that the ‘Coloureds’ might be the next to be segregated residentially. (The Blacks had been dumped in Ndabeni in 1901). They saw all the ingredients of divide and rule given when Tobin, one of the early leaders of the African Peoples’ Organization (APO), looked for reconciliation between the ‘Coloureds’ and White Afrikaners, who also spoke Afrikaans. Tobin and his supporters were angered by what they regarded as the betrayal of the British in the run-up to the Anglo-Boer War. Struggle for justice and equality Bishop Coppin and Henry Attaway, another American, who headed the Bethel Institute in Blythe Street, District Six, returned to the USA. The hopes that had existed at the end of the Anglo-Boer war were disappearing quickly. Racism, segregation and repression increased. Henry Sylvester Williams found himself boycotted and ostracized by his White colleagues and blocked in his work. He returned to England disillusioned. His contribution to the struggle for justice and equality at the Southern tip of Africa was nevertheless invaluable. South African Blacks were encouraged to see that their struggle was not an isolated one, but part of a worldwide movement against racial oppression. Joseph Booth, the missionary from New Zealand, was in Cape Town in 1912-13, living off rent from boarders in his home, one of whom was the great D.D.T. Jabavu. He drew up an ambitious scheme which would train Blacks in modern skills and give them a base for greater self-assertion. He enlisted support from Sol Plaatje, a fervent nationalist and Black author and Rev John L Dube, but nothing came of the schemes. In 1914 Booth went to Basutoland (today’s Lesotho) where he worked as an independent missionary. With the bulk of the leaders of the South African Native National Congress (which later became the ANC) coming from the ranks of the churches that grew out of missionary work, it was natural that a deep influence would be felt there. No wonder that the country’s first non-racial Bill of Rights was passed at their conference on 24 May, 1923. The five clauses demanding the right to live in South Africa, to own land, to be equal in the eyes of the law, to be treated equally irrespective of race, class, creed or origin and to have direct representation in government was expanded significantly in 1943, still anticipating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN by five years. Spurning of local ministers of colour A sad development in the last decades of the 19th century was that the gifting of people of colour was not appreciated sufficiently, combined with ambition and rebellion on a few ministers of colour who evidently did not understand the nature of the gospel properly. If one takes Gerdener’s statement as a cue that Black dislike of whites was a common characteristic of those ministers who broke away to start their own denominations, the deduction is natural to suggest that they had bad examples of Whites who lorded over them, not allowing their understudies to develop their full potential. A case in point at the Cape is Reverend Joseph John Forbes. Starting off as a teacher, he was ordained as a Methodist minister at their Buitenkant Street fellowship on the outskirts of District Six in 1918. He withdrew from the church ‘owing to differences on the colour question’, accepting a call to the Congregational Church soon hereafter. There he did not last long before he started his own church and denomination, the Volkskerk, in Gray Street (District Six) on 14 May, 1922. His leadership qualities were clearly overlooked and spurned because thereafter he became one of the greatest church planters at the Cape, starting an orphanage, five schools and congregations as far afield as Kimberley. In the case of the Cape Town City Mission, Alec Kadalie went to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, whose leader since the 1930s – the American Dr F. Gow – was all too eager to use people of colour. That denomination - with its origins among the Negroes of the USA - was a great propagator of the indiginization of the church at the Cape. Under Dr Gow’s leadership the church expanded rapidly, at least numerically, with churches in different parts of the Peninsula. The Kadalie clan would play a substantial role in the second half of the 20th century in the Cape Town City Mission. The Salvation Army was especially known for their work among the down-trodden and their open air services. All these outreaches however never seemed to have caught fire amongst the people of colour. One of the common weaknesses of almost all Christian groups was that they all seemed to be paternalistic, hardly recognizing the potential of locals, let alone to involve people of colour in leadership positions. In the case of the Baptist Church in Wale Street, the first minister who officiated as senior pastor and who did not come from England, was Pastor André Erasmus in 1971, i.e. almost after a century of its existence. He was a Dutch Reformed Minister, who had been deposed when he was convicted to get baptised by immersion. Spiritual vitality of praying women The spurning and suppression of women with regard to leadership went a completely different route. In stead of getting bitter and resentful, Black women especially appeared to have accepted male leadership gracefully. Up to 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. Thus one found in a report of the Primitive Methodist Church of an evangelistic campaign by women from Johannesburg in the Free State how thirty three people were impacted under the preaching of three different women from Saturday evening to Monday, 22-24 September 1919. 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 dignity and political awareness developed. Xhosa female poet wrote about the praying women of a store boycott in the country town of Herschel: ‘Right from the start, manyanos the shield to ward To ward off the white man’s arrows’ The practice and hurts of apartheid society was possibly the reason for determined resistance in the 1950s to reshape their meetings to provide more practical instruction and community activism. Whereas White and some ‘Coloured’ church women’s groups concentrated on fund raising, Black women amended their name soon to ‘Prayer and Service Union.’ The social and mutual support offered by prayer groups helped 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 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. Among the ‘Coloureds’ at the Cape there were ‘gebedskringen’ in which both sexes participated but they appear to have kept social and political issues outside their meetings. Alcoholism - and in the latter quarter of the 20th century drug abuse - were exceptions. Racial mixing happened in the early part of the century, but increasingly the apartheid patterns became the order of the day. Whereas some two hundred women also included other races (than Black) attending the annual district manyano in 1930 in Ndabeni, White churches would at best provide garages and the like (not even their church halls) for religious meetings for their domestic servants. Evangelism Explosion in the Mother City Mr Frederick George Lowe came to Cape Town in 1896 as a concerned Anglican and a businessman who sold cheap clothing. He soon got 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, till the Bubonic plague hit the Mother City once again in 1915 - especially the areas of Salt River and Woodstock. The compassionate work of the City Slum Mission now became more widely known. Frederick George Lowe’s death on June 2, 1924 hit the headlines. His funeral from the City Hall was probably only really eclipsed at the Cape in 1969 when the corpse of Imam Haron was carried from the City Park Stadium. (The biggest funeral ever held at the Cape to date was possibly the one on Saturday 21 September 1985 in the Black township of Gugulethu. That was the occasion of eleven people killed indiscriminately by police in a riotous situation.) After Lowe’s death the mission got 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 Peninsula. The combination of evangelism and compassionate outreach – which they took from their model, the Salvation Army, became an integral part of their ministry. (This remained the case till the 1990s when the evangelistic portion became a part of Kingdom Ministries, led by Pastor Alfie Fabe, which started sending out ministries all over the world.) Things started to change in the 1930s. 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, 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 John Crowe wanted to share the gospel with other people in the neighbourhood of Roggebaai - the area where Andrew Murray also evangelized. With his namesake John Johnson he soon struck a partnership, getting involved in open-air services at different places. Later they were especially active on the Grand Parade, Cape Town’s Hyde Park corner, 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, they 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.’ 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 of the World Council of Churches. All this looked set to spur worldwide evangelisation significantly. The Cape was in the thick of things through the presence of 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 at the beginning of the century. This ushered in the establishment of the Students’ Christian Association (SCA). The work of the SCA at the Victoria College - that was to become the University of Stellenbosch and 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 as Prime Minister of Jan Smuts, if the Nationalists had not come into power 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 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 French Hoek, a Dutch Reformed Church clegyman and a former Springbok, was the face of the movement for many years, even though they worked low-key to bring people from different races together. The movement got politically stained among the Cape ‘Coloureds’ through the participation of people like George Golding, principal of a primary school in District Six. Golding was attacked as a quisling or traitor by radical Coloureds who opposed collaboration with government-sponsored institutions. (Nevertheless, the author was deeply impacted by a book about some of its work of Moral Rearmament in the country with the title South Africa, what kind of change, which was given to him as a gift in 1977. Peter Hannon, the author of the book, was operating from the Fish Hoek centre of the movement in the Western Cape for quite a few years). Praise, worship and Fasting A text, 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 spiritual warfare, but it is unfortunate that the context is usually not considered when the text is quoted. Other basic principles are contained in this prophesy of Zechariah 4, namely that of the power of the weak and the 'few' in building 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 of God's enemies. Probably the most well-known of them is probably Joshua and the seven trumpets as 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 being complete and perfect.) Some­times fasting and praise occur in close proximity, e.g. Nehemiah 9:1+4. The arch enemy furthermore saw to it that 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 for example to fast 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, he never cancelled 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). Jesus did however attack fasting as an outward show to impress others (Matthew 6:16; Luke 18:12). The Master was 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 ‘OT’ teaches just as clearly how fasting can be a sign of penitence (2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Jona 3:5; Daniel 6:18; Joel 2:15). It can also be used as a weapon in fight­ing the enemy (Esther 4:16). 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 belonged to the habits of the Docks Mission. 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. Every third Saturday of the month a combined prayer meeting was held in one of the branches. From their early beginnings the Docks Mission also started with outreach at the prison in Tokai and at the nearby Porter Reformatory. Many a life was changed though this ministry, as well as at the Brooklyn Chest Hospital where services are still being held. After the services at the ‘Tin Shanty’on Sundays, some members went to Somerset Hospital to pray with nurses there. A branch of the Hospital Christian Fellowship, which operated at Somerset Hospital for many years, benefited greatly from this assistance. Docks Mission workers made a national impact through ministry to prisoners on Robben Island. Pastor Walter Ackerman thus witnessed and challenged Nelson Mandela at this time. After his release in 1990 Mandela often referred to the Christian teaching that he received over the years as contributory to his emphasis on refraining from revenge. The Africa Evangelical Band had evangelism as their main activity. One of the first Bible Schools operated in Bell Road, Kenilworth with great effect, sending their graduates as pilgrims throughout the country. Through this evangelism and spiritual challenge many pastors in the ‘Coloured’ churches of 'mainline’ denominations where gospel preaching was neglected, were impacted. Because of the Group Areas legislation the Bible School moved to Crawford. Christian Compassion in District Six and Bo-Kaap The Nanniehuis of Bo-Kaap showed the way of compassion. Anna Tempo, the initiator of the project, was the daughter of slaves from Mozambique. She became the matron of the Stakesby-Lewis Hostel in Harrington Street. With this move that started in District Six, care was taken of unwedded mothers and prostitutes. The Nanniehuis in Jordaan Street, Bo-Kaap became the model for similar projects in other parts of the country after Ms Tempo had been awarded the King George Coronation Medal for her work in 1937. By the early 1960s there were 288 welfare agencies in the city of which less than half were run by religious organizations. The City Mission was by far the best known of them all. The combination of evangelism and compassionate outreach, continued unabatedly. A special ministry of compassion to the city nightclubs from the early 1970s was based in the old Tafelberg Hotel of District Six. It was started amongst the youth of the White Dutch Reformed Church congregation of Wynberg. This ministry was birthed in prayer. Pietie Victor, who started his theological training in Stellenbosch in 1964, founded the compassionate ministry with his wife Annette, who was a social worker by profession. 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 nights, but many of the young people came for Bible Study and prayer before the group left for the outreach that would take them into the early hours of the morning. God used the breakdown of the bus that took the group back to Stellenbosch after a training weekend to bring them to the realization that they were broken themselves. At the Sunday evening service in the Student Church that evening, 350 young people remained in the church after the service as an indication that God had dealt with them during the week prior to that. In the Dutch Reformed Church denomination there was initially a lot of opposition to the work. However, after an invitation by Ds Solly Ozrovich to come and share about their work in his congregation in Gordons Bay, they received invitations from all over. The favour of the devout young people seemed to have angered the forces of the enemy tremendously. Pietie Victor was now asked to appear before his church council. Via the grapevine he heard that he had to account for the ‘late night activities and that he was busy with sectarian “things” like speaking in tongues, laying on of hands and other “geestelike vergrype” (spiritual offences). The group was driven to prayer as never before. God vindicated them. At the actual meeting not a single one of the accusations was mentioned. Instead, the youth group only harvested praise. 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 took people from all races into their mobile coffee bar - a Microbus, which they parked in front of St Stephen’s Church in Bree Street under a street lamp. There they served those whom they had brought from the streets with sandwiches and coffee. That was the cause for St Stephen’s Church to invite them to offer 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 - the same congregation that refused teaching to Muslims in one of their rooms at the beginning of the century - now hosted the White young people. Even a greater irony followed when the very room that functioned as coffee bar, had once been the source of conflict in 1842. It was the room where a little more than a century ago manumitted slaves learned to read and write. That had been the main bone of contention - the reason why the church got 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. It is ironic that the Tafelberg Hotel of District Six birthed such a blessed ministry. By the mid-1980s District Six was a tract of wasteland. From the mid-1990s prayers were held in the Straatwerk Koffiekamer for the Bo-Kaap and Cape Muslims every Friday between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. Ds Davie Pypers leads the outreach to Muslims The Dutch Reformed Church pioneered the work among the Cape Muslims. It is fitting that the initiative for resumption of evangelistic work among the Cape Muslims in the second half of the twentieth century was undertaken by the SAMS. Ds Pypers, who became a full-time missionary for this purpose in July 1961, was joined by Pieter Els who had been challenged to reach out to Muslims with the Gospel along with two other student theological colleagues, Willem Louw en Coen Brand, while they were studying at Stellenbosch in 1960. A witness group - spearheaded by White theological students - was started in Stellenbosch in the 1960s, reaching out to the Muslims of Idas Valley, the ‘Coloured’ residential area. The group of ‘Coloured’ churches called the ‘ring’ (circuit) of Wynberg - stretching from Retreat to Claremont including a big part of the Cape flats at that time - decided to give a bigger responsibility to the churches to witness to the Muslims and Hindu’s. The ‘Coloured’ sector of the denomination accepted the reaching out to the Muslims as their special task. In many suburbs they were their neighbours. The stalwart work of women in breaking down the prejudice of Muslims has too often not been duly recognized. Johanna van Zyl and Ria Olivier kept the loving outreach to Muslims in Bo-Kaap and other places going, along with other women of the Vrouesendingbond (Women’s Missionary Guild). That Johanna van Zyl could write in the August 1974 edition of Die Ligdraer about her 25 years of work amongst children in Bo-Kaap is an exception that only amplifies the rule. The fact is that whereas quite a few Cape Muslim women came to faith in Christ, conversions among their male counterparts have been very rare. 4. Spiritual Warfare at the Cape In the 'Old Testament' the Israelites were repeatedly warned against idol worship. Their idolatry took place, as a rule, on the ‘high places’. Nevertheless, the Jews - and much later also the Christians of the Middle East - ignored these warnings, getting into all sorts of bondage because of their disobedience to the divine precepts. Often people combined the idolatry with ancestral worship, for example the worship of stones and trees. In due course, buried saints were regarded as mediators between man and God. This belief grew to immense proportions, especially in Roman Catholicism, where the birthdays of saints are still commemorated worldwide. (As a rule, the New Testament calls only living people saints). In Egypt, the shrines of revered Coptic Christians very soon became places of prayer. Muslims copied the practice of building shrines when the Musselmen conquered North Africa. Ancestral worship at the shrines became part and parcel of Folk Islam, which has the anomaly that Jesus is rejected as mediator, while the deceased in the shrines are being called upon for help in times of distress and need. In Cape Town, these shrines (called Kramats), which are the graves of Muslim leaders, are specially frequented before pilgrims leave for Mecca. The biblical prohibition of ancestral worship was watered down and almost nullified in the 1990s. (In the secular government South Africa after 1994 ancestral worship became increasingly prominent, especially after it had become known that Mr Thabo Mbeki, the vice president at the time and now the present State President, appeared to have fairly close links to sangoma’s (witch doctors). In the belief system of the latter, ancestral worship is quite central.) Teaching of Spiritual warfare in earlier centuries The influential reformer Martin Luther believed in the reality of the devil so much that he was reported to have thrown his inkpot at Satan. His famous hymn ‘A mighty fortress is our God’ typified his belief in the realities of and the need for spiritual warfare. Along the lines of the teaching of the ‘Streiter-ehe’ (warrior marriage), Count Zinzendorf saw his marriage as part of the spiritual battle, where no sacrifice is regarded as too great in the light of the Cross of Calvary. Of course, they did not suck the concept out of their thumb. There was the scriptural precedent where Joshua had to request some tribes to join them while their women and children could remain in the land east of the Jordan while the warriors would go to war with the remaining tribes (Joshua 1:14). In the 19th century hardly anyone typified spiritual warfare more than William Booth and his Salvation Army. C.T. Studd, the founder of Worldwide Evangelization for Christ (WEC International), was also very much influenced by the concept. His wife Priscilla more than held the fort at home in England. In fact, the Lord used her to prepare the ground for WEC International in South Africa in 1927 when she also visited Cape Town. That visit also paved the way for WEC to change from a mission agency with a focus on the heart of the African continent to one with a worldwide focus. C.T. Studd furthermore used terms like ‘prayer batteries’ and ‘chocolate soldiers’ at the beginning of the 20th century. The earlier name of the mission agency was typically called Worldwide Evangelization Crusade. The impact of The Key to the Missionary Problem Until the early 1990s spiritual warfare was regarded as a modern fad but precursors had started from South Africa already in the previous century. Andrew Murray had already brought the issue into focus through his emphasis on prayer and the interest he aroused for 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 in 1900 really set the scene for great things. 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, finally leading to him becoming the superintendent of the Africa Evangelistic Band in the Transvaal. In 1942 von Staden 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’ (cited in Roy, 2000:161). Soon he had a band of evangelists who would pitch a tent for evangelistic purposes. One of the converts was Shadrach Maloka, a gangster, who would become a powerful preacher himself, used by God in Canada, Germany and Holland. The author met him not only in the latter two countries, but also back in South Africa in the early 1970s. Maloka was one of the first Black preachers to whom South African Whites would come and listen (This occurred for example at the Sendingkerk in Ravensmead, where Ds Piet Bester had impacted the author so significantly towards missionary work). 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 van 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 these Weeks of Prayer that made the provision of prayer information so important, and led to van Staden's challenge to Johnstone to write a booklet of information to help in these prayer weeks. Hans van Staden also proposed the name "Operation World" in 1964. The very first booklet with basic information covered 30 countries, was printed by 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 16 languages, and the total number of volumes printed over nearly 30 years is probably approaching 3 million! The book has arguably influenced world missions more than any other book. Johnstone met his first wife Jill, who wrote the first children’s version of the book, while they were missionaries with the Dorothea Mission in Southern Africa. The initial promise of 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. Some influences of prayer on the World Wars in the 20th Century During World War I it seemed as if England was on the losing side in 1916. Then along came Chaim Weizmann, a Jewish scientist, with the offer of his newly developed explosive TNT. He was willing to give Britain the formula in exchange for a promise that they would help liberate Israel from the Arabs and Turks who were living there and if Jews would be allowed to return to Israel. The Balfour Declaration was signed and General Allenby, a committed Christian, was sent to Israel to liberate the country. Possession of TNT tilted the World War in favour of the Western allies. General Allenby took the liberty of asking God in prayer to enable him to drive off the Arabs and Turks without bloodshed. God answered his prayer. When Allenby’s troops marched into Jerusalem, the panic-stricken Arabs and Turks from Israel sent a delegation to negotiate their surrender. Without a single shot fired, he took over the land. Israel came under a British mandate on 24 July 1922 and the birth of the new nation Israel became a fact. The return of Jews to the Promised Land would have been for them the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. However, this final liberation of Israel had to wait for more than a quarter of a century. The Jewish nation had to go through the crucible before this came into being. It is a sad irony that the Nazi holocaust speeded up the formation of the Jewish state like no other event in history! On the other hand, Christians worldwide were now challenged in a new way to look at biblical prophecies. The influence of prayer on World History was perhaps never recorded better than the intercession of the Welshman, Mr Rees Howells, before and during World War II. It can be said quite firmly that God used him to avert a worldwide demonic Nazi takeover by Adolf Hitler. Already in March 1936 Howells began to see clearly that Hitler was ‘Satan’s agent for preventing the Gospel going to every creature’. In the four years prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Lord increased the burden on Howells from local concerns to national and international affairs. As Howells testified, he and the group of intercessors linked to the Bible College in Swansea, Wales ‘... were led to be responsible to intercede for countries and nations’. The strategic prayer offered and led from Swansea effectively countered the progress of Hitler during World War II. ‘There was no hope for Tommy, humanly speaking’ when King George VI decreed a day of prayer throughout the British Empire. Also at the Cape, Christians were praying for divine intervention. What was the result? Hitler was supernaturally stopped at Dunkirk in a way that reads like a repetition of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. A storm came up on the side of the Germans while on the British side of the English Channel it was ‘like glass’. Was it mere co-incidence that Hitler repeated Napoleon’s mistake to take the Russians on during winter, and ushered in his own demise? Or was it much rather divine intervention once again? Rees Howells concluded: ‘God laid bare His holy arm and wrought as He alone can’. Prayer indirectly saved the Cape from coming under Hitler’s dictatorship. (The ‘Greyshirts’ had ensured the dissemination of Nazi propaganda in the Mother City.) Prophetically, Rees Howells had predicted concerning Joseph Stalin that ‘the devil may yet use this man to be the greatest foe to the Church that the world has ever known’. These results of sustained prayer hardly came to the surface - much less than the efforts of the Moravians in the 18th century. Stalin in Russia and Mao Zedong in China would to stage major offensives against Christianity. The deportation of missionaries and the persecution of Christians in China combined ironically to start an unprecedented church growth in the 1970s - the result of fervent prayer by followers of Jesus around the globe, not least of all in China itself. Cape Prophetic Voices The almost classic guilt - going right through to the present - derives from the refusal of the church to listen to, let alone to follow the warnings and advice of prophetic voices, especially with regard to outreach to Jews and Muslims. Although people like Dr John M. Arnold had already spelled out the need in the last quarter of the 19th century - for the church to give its best people for evangelism among Muslims, this call was not heeded. In general, the church authorities persisted in looking for people who could achieve quick results. (A notable exception was the Dutch Reformed Ds Davie Pypers, who persevered for many years to reach out to the Indians in the second half of the 20th century.) With regard to racial segregation, the warning voices of theological professors Barend B. Keet and Ben Marais should be added. In the Dutch Reformed Church synod of 1940 Marais warned his church not to accept apartheid because it was scripturally unjustifiable. However, he was sidelined. Keet, who was at some time heading the Kweekskool, the Seminary in Stellenbosch, was at it again in 1956 with his book Wither South Africa?, warning that ‘The test of our civilisation is our treatment of the underprivilged. Everything which bears the stamp of oppression [and oppression of personality is the worst] debases the oppressor just as it degrades the oppressed’ (p.85). The young student Beyers Naudé was deeply influenced by Professor Keet who was firmly opposed to the growing racist theology in the DRC. Writing in the Kerkbode, Keet would frequently clash with theologians who claimed that apartheid could be justified on biblical grounDs On a personal level, the heritage of the pioneer missionary Georg Schmidt impacted his life when Naudé met his wife. She was the daughter of Emil Weder, a German missionary who managed the Moravian Mission Store in Genadendal. (The name Emil Weder still lives on in the name of the local High School). Coming from the Karoo town of Loxton where he was a pastor, Beyers Naudé encountered cultured educated people of colour for the first time in Genadendal and nearby Greyton during the time of courting. The seed for the multi-racial Christian Institute was sown into the heart of the former Afrikaner Broederbond leader whose father had founded the secretive organization. A few years later, Dr Beyers Naudé, just after he had been elected as moderator of the new Southern Transvaal Dutch Reformed Church regional synod, was completely ostracized for criticizing apartheid.) Racist separatist thinking was disastrous in its effect with regard to evangelizing the Muslims. Dr Andrew Murray, who had been a divine instrument for the spreading of the Gospel worldwide through his books at the turn of the 20th century, had unintentionally sowed the seeds of racial segreagation when Dutch Reformed Theologians abused his a-political stand. Murray was branded in a negative way as a pietist. With the focus of so many church leaders on the government’s apartheid policy of yesteryear - either in defence or opposition - correction was definitely needed. Even the evangelical churches had no eye for the Muslims in their midst. The unspoken rule that one should not speak to Muslims about religion, won the day. It was in this regard that help from abroad was surely an answer to prayer. In England prayers had been offered for many years. The prayers for the ‘Cape Malays’ - as the Cape Muslims were erroneously called - possibly came into focus either after the publication of an article about South African Muslims in 1925 in the Muslim World by Dr Samuel Zwemer, the greatest missionary to the Middle East, or after his challenge to the Keswick convention in England about ten years earlier. Unity as a Prayer priority The Church at the Cape (and in the country at large) failed to follow the pattern of Jesus in making prayers for unity a priority. Jesus deemed it fit to pray in His high priestly prayer for His disciples and for those who would believe in Him because of their message, ‘that they may be one’ (John 17:21). It is surely no exaggeration to state that all sorts of disunity in the body of Christ is tantamount to crucifying Him once more. We should take it to heart that believers in Jesus have to be in unity ‘so that the world will believe’ that God sent Him. After Jesus’ ascension, his followers were united in prayer (Acts 1:14a). The Greek word homothumadon, which has often been translated as ‘of one mind’, indicates a common purpose, a common goal, an emotional and willful agreement. ‘Of one mind’ is a characteristic of New Testament leadership. This unity in prayer formed the natural base for the revival at Pentecost. Yet, also after Pentecost they continued to act ‘of one mind’ (see Acts 2:45,46; 4:24; 5:12; 6:2; 15:25). The newfound unity was grounded in their trust in God, which minimized all possible differences. Thus the meeting of pastors - primarily for prayer to get God’s mind for their city or town - should be a top priority. It is interesting that St Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage in North Africa from 248-258 CE, already saw the importance of the unity of the church, yet allowing for plurality. He wrote: ‘The church is a unity, yet by her fruitful increase she is extended far and wide to form a plurality; even as the sun has many rays, but one light; and a tree many boughs but one trunk, whose foundation is the deep-seated root... So also the Church, flooded with the light of the Lord, extends her rays over all the globe; yet it is one light which is diffused everywhere and the unity of the body is not broken up.... yet there is but one head, one source...’ Denominational and doctrinal disunity as sin The teaching of unity as a biblical priority has been generally neglected. There have been only very few exceptions of people like Count Zinzendorf who practised and preached the unity of the body with verve. He was very unhappy when his fellowship agreed to become a denomination to enable them to operate in Britain. In no way could we condone an airy-fairy covering up of differences. We must recognize that division is the paramount. If he can use the church and its leaders for this purpose, he will never hesitate. John Wimber, a well-known late 20th century Pentecostal preacher, serves as a modern-day example of Satan's strategy. Although God used him so powerfully through his teaching of Power Encounters, his personal history left deep scars in terms of church unity. Wimber left the Calvary Chapel movement in the USA after his doctrinal disagreement with Chuck Smith, the founder. Wimber’s abuse of the name of the disenchanted leader of the Vineyard Church had all the hallmarks of classical empire building. The practice rubbed off also on the branch in Cape Town. After a fairly amiable separation from the Wynberg Baptist Church, a new charismatic fellowship called itself the Vineyard Church. They were not linked to Wimber’s empire at all. No wonder that they were requested to relinquish the name. (The fellowship subsequently called itself the Jubilee Church.) Through the ages the enemy has succeeded in sowing division in the evangelical churches. Denominational and doctrinal disunity poses a problem of no mean dimensions. Unity in Christ must be practised and seen to be a reality in the lives of believers. The Church's disunity must be acknowledged for what it really is - sin! It is debatable whether mere discussion of doctrine can promote church unity as Bishop Brent from the Phillipines thought at the launching of ‘Faith and Order’ at the Lausanne Church Conference in 1927. What Bishop Azariah (India) said at that occasion had more clout: ‘The divisions of Christendom may be a source of weakness in Christian countries, but in non-Christian lands they are a sin and a scandal.’ (Quoted in Visser 't Hooft, The Pressure of our Common Calling ,1959:44). Cindy Jacobs, an international prayer leader from the USA, has put it even stronger when she not only referred to the idolatry of denomination and pride in doctrine as sectarianism, but she also called it a demonic stronghold. Viv Grigg, another US American, wrote very aptly: ‘The spiritual unity of believers is a key to spiritual power... The Holy Spirit may not work significantly in a situation where he is grieved due to disunity.’ Conversely, and I quote Grigg yet again, ‘prayer is a common denominator around which many diverse Christian groups can work in unison.’ Paternalism hinders the cause of the Gospel Missionaries whose lives had been transformed through personal faith and conversion, often expected that this would also happen in society at large automatically - if the Gospel would only be effectively preached. Satan hit back, when an artificial and unbiblical differentiation between Christian action and evangelistic outreach caused an ever-widening rift in the Church. South African exponents of the ‘Social Gospel’ embraced education, social work and politics not as replacements of evangelism, but they were sometimes accused in this way by right-wing evangelicals. For Blacks, the discussion was academic in part, because as Professor D.D.T. Jabavu, a Black Christian leader, claimed, ‘the secular-sacred dichotomy was foreign to their African cosmology’. The disunity between churches for much of the 20th century actually centred around paternalism. The White-dominated English-speaking churches thought that the other races only needed equality of opportunity, which the Whites owed to the others. Afrikaners generally thought themselves to be called to be the guardians of the ‘non-White’ races. White supremacy was thus taken for granted by both groups. In the former case – also among missionaries - full equality and total integration were dragged and postponed to a distant future. On the other hand, nobody put the thinking of Afrikaner Christians more clearly than Hendrik Verwoerd, the architecture of apartheid. It was his conviction that the Black man had to be kept ‘in his place’, i.e. in subjection and servitude. Both groups were unaware that they were hurting themselves by denying dignity to others and thus seriously hindering the cause of the Gospel. Somewhere the teaching that unity is a prerequisite for effective prayer did not penetrate into the churches. That does not mean though that the message was not vocalised. Donald Fraser, a former Scottish missionary preached in twenty-six South African towns and cities in 1925 during the United Missionary Campaign. He charged Whites to abandon their fears of a so- called ‘black menace’, claiming wisely that there is ‘no menace when people are determined to do justice to one another.’ Early 20th Century Black Church leaders in costly Reconciliation Generations of political leaders in South Africa, particularly within the ANC, drew on Christian values for the building of a broader political unity. Coming from the African background of a broad humanity,(ubuntu) there was, they believed, an ethical imperative to move beyond narrow identities of family, clan and race. Long before White and Coloured churches embraced the concept – their own thinking was bedevilled by the neat separation of politics and religion – Blacks already saw the importance of the unity in Christ. Thus Rev Zaccheus Mahabane, a Methodist minister and president of the ANC in the mid-1920s and late 1930s, maintained in 1925 that ‘the universal acknowledgement of Christ as common Lord and King break down the social, spiritual and intellectual barriers between the races’. Over the years the church in South Africa has been a major conduit for peace and reconciliation. Strong personalities like Reverend John Dube and Professor D.D.T. Jabavu had been playing a moderating and conciliatory role in the early days of the ANC. Successive White governments failed to appreciate the gold of human resources, by not listening to Black church leaders. Not bearing the brunt of the hurts caused by apartheid, the White-led denominations were out of touch with the spiritual dynamics of the resistance against the heretical ideology which became government policy from 1948. Helen Joseph, a Jewish anti-campaigner, bemoaned in respect of the Defiance Campaign of the 1950s: ‘The Church turned its back on the ANC, [but] the ANC never turned its back on the Church’. The deep religiosity and prayerfulness of that campaign was described by Tom Lodge as a ‘mood of religious fervour [that] infused the resistance.’ He went on to note: ‘When the [Defiance] Campaign opened it was accompanied by days of prayer, and volunteers pledged themeselves at prayer meetings to a code of love, discipline and cleanliness… and even at the tense climax of the Campaign in Port Elizabeth people were enjoined on the first day of the strike “to conduct a prayer and a fast in which each member of the family will have to be at home;” thereafter they attended nightly church services’. Substantial resistance to the oppressive race policies came as a rule from the ranks of these church leaders till the 1950s. One of the most prominent of them was South Africa’s first Nobel Prize laureate, Albert Lutuli. After he had been dismissed as chief in November 1952, he responded with his famous address which had at its beginning the momentious words ‘thirty years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately and modestly at a closed and barred door…’ and ending with the powerful sentence ‘The Road to Freedom is via the CROSS’ (The full address in printed as an appendix in Luthuli:, 235-238). Long before Black Theology was in vogue, Lutuli expressed his conviction that apartheid degrades all who are party to it. He was optimistic despite all evidence to the contrary that Whites would sooner or later be compelled to change heart and accept a shared society. Lutuli was elected ANC president-general by a large majority the next month, followed by his cross: Bans imposed in early 1953 were renewed in the following years. Lutuli was not around any more to experience the freedom which Nelson Mandela could walk into, but he paved the way. On the other hand, many Christians naively overlooked the innate convenience in man to hold on to privilege. Some needed Black Theology in the 1970s and 1980s, for example the Kairos Document of 1985, to shake and liberate some of them out of their cozy zones. Opposition to the Separate Representation Voters Bill. The one instance when George Golding, the leader of the Coloured People’s National Union (CPNU) – widely regarded by ‘Coloured as a quisling - influenced national politics was when he made common cause with the Communistic Frachise Actron Committee (FRAC), the ANC and other groups when a ‘most impressive demonstration’ (Walker, 1964:823) was organized in the Mother City on 11March 1951 in reaction to the introduction of the Separate Representation Voters Bill. This was followed by a fairly successful one-day strike. This caused Adolph Malan to invite White ex-servicemen of his Veterans’ Action Group from around the country to the Mother City. Presently changing their name to the Torch Commando, they conducted a huge mass-meeting on the Grand Parade. In the aftermath of this demonstration, teams of young policemen, who had been trained to break up mobs, charged unruly ‘Coloured’ folk without warning. ‘For the second time during this disastrous (Parliament) Session, the Mother City was the scene of scarcely excusable violence’ (Walker, 1964:823). All this led indirectly to the founding of the mother organization of the Black Sash. Six White English-speaking women, gathering for a tea party in a Johannesburg suburb on 19 May 1955, decided to ‘do something’ about the proposed legislation authorizing the government to enlarge the Senate. The moral indignation was the result of another effort to get the ‘Coloureds’ removed from the Common Voters’ Roll. The Women’s Defence of the Constitution League was started, an organization which became known as the Black Sash. Over a period of twenty years this group – easily discernable through the symbols of mourning over the rape of the constitution6 - developed a sustained campaign of public education, examining the legality and morality of the laws. Significant was that the move of the The Women’s Defence of the Constitution League not only spawned a male counterpart, The Covenanters, but they organized a national prayer day for Wednesday, 10 August 1955. The weakness of all these organizations became apparent. They had limited themselves to ‘citizens’, i.e. they excluded Blacks. And even though the initiative was aimed on behalf of the ‘Coloureds’, they failed to catch the imagination of these people. It was surely no co-incidence that a broad representation of protest gathered the same year on 24 and 25 June in Kliptown, Johannesburg where the Congress of the People formulated its Freedom Charter. An emerging church unity high-jacked In South Africa the Boer-Brit rift, a traditional animosity, was still rife in the 1940s among Whites as a legacy from the Anglo-Boer War at the end of the 19th century, especially after the Dutch Reformed Church withdrew from the Christian Council of Churches in the early 1940s. The unity in the church body, which had been started in 1936 with Dutch Reformed Church ministers in leading roles, had however been quite frail from the start. Politics or an academic career was not the first vocational choice of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, a Cape genius, who looked poised to become the Prime Minister of the country as successor of the ageing Jan Smuts at the 1948 elections. Hofmeyr had been deeply impacted as a child and teenager by Rev Ernest Baker of the Cape Town Baptist Church and Oswin Bull of the Student Christian Association (SCA). At the beginning of 1912 the teenager was elected president of the SCA at the forerunner of the University of Cape Town, a mere 17 years old. At the end of that year he attended the seaside services of the SCA at Somerset Strand and in July of the following year he surrendered his life completely to the Lord at the SCA conference in Worcester. After his return from Oxford in the UK, where he had also won one academic prize after the other, he had no bigger desire than to serve the Lord full-time with the Students’ Christian Association. Hofmeyr’s church affiliation proved to be a stumbling block: ‘He was not employed by the interdenominational association for which he had done so much, for the reason that he was an Afrikaner who did not belong to one of the Dutch Reformed Churches.’ The enemy of souls succeeded in high-jacking an emerging unity of believers in South Africa at the end of the 1950s. Professor G.B.A. Gerdener, a Stellenbosch academic, could write in 1959: ‘With thankfulness we observe signs to come together and work together, also in our own Dutch Reformed Church’. Gerdener rightly discerned exclusiveness and isolation as a danger to missionary work. ‘Nowhere is isolation and exclusiveness so deadly and time-consuming than in the fight against the mighty heathendom and nowhere is co-operation and a unitary front so necessary and useful as here.’ Ambivalently, Gerdener was very close to apartheid thinking in political matters. The link to the apartheid legislators threatened the emerging unity in no uncertain way. The Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960 could have been God’s corrective to get the church in South Africa at large to change its course. One of the leading Dutch Reformed Church ministers, the gifted Ds Beyers Naudé, was seriously challenged. The World Council of Churches met their South African member churches at Cottesloe, a Witwatersrand University hostel in Johannesburg, to discuss the crisis in the country in the wake of the Sharpeville killings and the arrest of Black leaders. From Pretoria where he was at this time to testify during the Treason Trial, Albert Luthuli, the leader of the ANC, called for a national day of mourning. He asked the people to stay at home on that day ‘and treat it as a day of prayer… Many churches were open for prayer throughout the land, and students of all races participated in the mourning’ (Luthuli, 1962:222). A significant segment of the White Dutch Reformed Church was at this time very much part of the ecumenical movement in South Africa again. Dutch Reformed Church leaders initially agreed to oppose apartheid, but were thereafter demonically cajoled into line - after the Prime Minister, Dr H.F. Verwoerd, had exerted pressure. Furthermore, one can safely surmise that denominational rivalry at the Cape contributed greatly to the lack of significant success in evangelism, especially in the 20th century. 13 August 1961 - a Date to remember! When Ds Davie Pypers commenced work in 1956 as a minister of the Dutch Reformed St Stephen’s Church in Bree Street - which was quite prominent in Bo-Kaap in those days - he discerned the need for increased prayer for the Muslims of the area. Soon he initiated praying for Bo-Kaap and the Muslims there. Together with two other Dutch Reformed Church minister colleagues he interceded every Monday for the area that became pronouncedly Islamic in the wake of the envisaged implementation of Group Areas legislation. Pypers was one of the very few ministers at the Cape at that time who had any notion of spiritual warfare. It was definitely not common practice yet. And Satan was not going to release his gains so easily. Davie Pypers was called to become the missionary to the Cape Muslims on behalf of the NGK, linked to the historical Gestig (Sendingkerk) congregation in Long Street, the church where once people from different denominations worshipped. He had hardly started with his new work when a challenge came from Mr Ahmed Deedat, to debate the death of Jesus on the Cross publicly. As a young dominee David Pypers prepared himself with prayer and fasting in a tent on the mountains at Bains Kloof for the event to be held on 13 August 1961 at the Green Point Track. Because of publicity in the papers, 30,000 people of all races jammed into the sports stadium. The venue quivered with excitement like at a rugby match. In the keenly contested debate, Ahmed 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 a proof that Jesus died on the cross. The young dominee rose to the challenge by immediately stating that Jesus is alive and that He could there and then do the very things He was doing when He walked the earth. Dr David du Plessis reported about the event in his autobiography: ‘Taking a deep breath, he (Pypers) spoke loud and clear, “Is there anybody in this audience that, according to medical judgement, is completely incurable? Remember, it must be incurable...’ Of course, the stadium was abuzz by now. And then several men came along, carrying Mrs Withuhn, a White Christian lady, with braces all over her body. She was completely paralyzed. Then Pypers went ahead, asking whether there were any doctors present who could examine her and vouch for her condition. ‘Several doctors came forward, including her own physician, and they concurred in pronouncing her affliction incurable.’ Pypers simply walked to her and without any ado prayed for her briefly and proclaimed: ‘In the name of Jesus, be healed!’ Immediately she dropped her crutches and began to move. The Green Point event thus resulted in a victory for the Cross, after the miraculous healing of Mrs Withuhn in the name of the resurrected Lord. Many Muslims were deeply moved. However, the impact of the miracle was almost nullified by the news that came from another part of the world on that same day. The report of the building of the Berlin Wall resounded throughout the world! A new type of battle was heralded in- the ‘cold war’ between Soviet Communism and Western Capitalism! The Green Point Aftermath The re-issue of the pamphlet The Hadji Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself and its distribution at the gates of the sports stadium called the Green Point Track, was definitely not helpful. Actually it was quite unfortunate. The Muslim community was enraged by this re-publication of the 19th century pamphlet. Even worse, Pypers was heavily criticized by his church officials because he undertook the confrontation without getting prior synod approval. The perceived defeat of Ahmed Deedat at Green Point called for revenge. Deedat stated publicly that his original motivation for these public debates was his humiliation at the hand of Christians. He was not going to accept defeat lying down. Over the years, he challenged many a Christian leader, usually with many of his followers in attendance. With the ensuing cold war becoming the talk of the day, the enemy of souls abused Communism with its atheistic basis to hinder the spreading of the victorious message of the Cross, which had been proclaimed at the Green Point Track. The Cape Town event of August 1961 had great importance in the spiritual realm. The Islamic Crescent was clearly linked to Communism - albeit not intended - in opposition to the Cross. (This would 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 Saddam Hussein marched into Kuwait with his army. That event became the cause for ten years of praying against the ideology of Islam as a spiritual force.) In his denomination, the NGK, Pypers was still a lone ranger. In some quarters he was even vilified by some after the Green Point event. Although he had actually been challenged by the literature on faith healing written by Andrew Murray - a revered hero of his denomination - Pypers was out on a limb in the NGK. At the Kweekskool in Stellenbosch, the theological seminary of the church, it was officially taught that faith healing was something which belonged to a past age - to the times of the apostles. A Cape-born Reconciler at Work If ever there was someone who took the ministry of reconciliation seriously, it was the Cape-born David du Plessis. He moved to Ladybrand in the Orange Free State with his family before he was nine years old. Du Plessis first had to go through the mill himself, leaving his home when his father would not allow him to go to university. He was reconciled to his father two years later. The Lord first had to deal with the prayerful Du Plessis before he could be used optimally. ‘I began to be sensitive to the Lord’s checking’. Even though it was not generally recognized as such, one of Du Plessis’s greatest achievements was in race relations. At a time when Professors Ben Marais and Barend Keet were battling against apartheid in their denomination in the 1940s, Du Plessis as General Secretary of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) was responsible for reducing missionary staff to a minimum, taking the work out of the hands of the North Americans and Europeans and putting it under the jurisdiction of Africans. ‘The local work, we felt, had to be under the control of the nationals.’ As if that were not radical enough, the AFM had a central conference in which ministers, missionaries and executives of all races met at top level. It appears that this denomination came the nearest to practical non-racialism at a time when apartheid was already practiced far and wide. But this was by far not the end of Du Plessis’s ministry of reconciliation. He had to go through the crucible once again. After an accident in the USA, when the car in which he was a passenger, drove into a shunting locomotive, he landed in hospital. Du Plessis later described this time as ‘the most extended period of silent prayer in my life’. He was challenged to forgive Protestants in general. The first test came at the Second World Conference of Pentecostals in Paris, which he attended on crutches. God used him to reconcile Pentecostals who were fighting each other. In his typically humble manner, Du Plessis did not gloat over the victory achieved there. Instead, he said ‘I know that if I would have any success at all with what the Lord had directed, if I was to be able to forgive the old main line churches, I had to forgive these Pentecostal brethren.’ God would use him to bring the first Pentecostal denominations into the maligned World Council of Churches. Into the Vatican and further David Du Plessis' ecumenical work was however not appreciated in his own denomination. Fellowship with independent Pentecostals was to him just as important. He was invited to become the secretary of the world conference in Toronto in 1958. There he was completely cold-shouldered, and all but pushed out of the Pentecostal movement. Du Plessis felt clearly led ‘to resign from every position that I held in any society and to follow Him wherever he may lead.’ Sovereignly God over-ruled. In 1959 he was lecturing in the theological institutions of a wide spectrum of denominations. The following year he was requested to give a lecture at a meeting in Scotland, in preparation for the WCC plenary occasion that was to be held in New Delhi in 1961. This resulted in him being invited to the WCC conference itself. There he met Professor Bernard Leeming from Oxford, who was the personal representative of Pope John XX111. One thing led to another until Du Plessis wrote from New Delhi that he would make a stopover in Rome. There he spent many hours in prayer, ‘considering the difficulties that lay ahead for Protestants and Catholics in matters of trust and forgiveness.’ The Lord first had to deal with him through His Word. In fact, it came to him through the context of the Lord’s well known prayer. ‘...If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses’ (Matthew 6:15). He sensed: ‘I am certain the Lord spoke to me about the many burdens of unforgiveness and suspicion’ between Catholics and Protestants for so many centuries. “The souls of Christians will live when all learn to forgive.” In Rome Du Plessis met Dr Strandsky, the secretary of Cardinal Bea, who headed a new Roman Catholic secretariat for promoting church unity. Strandsky had a special charge to learn as much as he could about the Holy Spirit and the Pentecostals. Because David du Plessis was now a ‘mere zero’ in the Pentecostal movement, he was ideally placed to share at the Vatican. When Cardinal Bea asked him: ‘Well then David, what do the Pentecostals have to say to Rome?’, he was in a predicament. In honesty he could only hesitantly stutter: ‘I have to say that the Pentecostals have no intention of talking to Rome.’ When Cardinal Bea asked him for his personal opinion, God used David du Plessis to minister to millions of Roman Catholics all around the globe. ‘Make the Bible available to every Catholic in the world - in his own language...If Catholics will read the Bible, the Holy Spirit will make that book come alive, and that will change their lives. And changed Catholics will be the renewal of the church.’ Cardinal Bea immediately ordered those words to be written down. The words of ‘Mr Pentecost’ – as David Du Plessis was nicknamed - turned out to be very prophetic. At the Vatican Council it was decided to make the Bible available to every Roman Catholic person in the world. David du Plessis was present at a session of the Vatican Council. His contribution in 1964 ushered in the charismatic renewal of the Roman Catholic Church. Du Plessis was also used by the Lord to bring about a thaw in the relationship between Protestants and Roman Catholics worldwide, notably at a meeting in Zürich in June 1972. Special about that meeting was how God brought Jean-Paul Regimbal, a Roman Catholic priest from Quebec to the event. He was the translator from English to French and vice versa. At that time Regimbal was one of very few Roman Catholics who had a thorough understanding of the charismatic renewal. He was praying one morning about the meetings when the Lord seemed to say to him that he should go to Zürich. But he had no finances. Before long, a woman arrived at his office to tell him that the Lord had instructed her to give to Regimbal an amount of money. It was exactly the amount he needed to pay for his expenses in Zürich. A Call to Prayer for African Cities Michael Cassidy, another Southern African spiritual giant, grew up in Maseru in Basutoland, as Lesotho was previously called, attending boarding school at Michaelhouse in Natal. He proceeded to study at the famous British Cambridge University in the mid-1950s. While attending a meeting with Dr Billy Graham there, he was greatly impacted. In Cambridge the conviction developed that only a spiritual renewal could remove Boer-Brit alienation and Black-White racism in South Africa. On vacation in New York in mid-1957, he attended an evangelistic campaign by Dr Graham. He reports in one of his autobiographical works about this event: “Suddenly I heard within my spirit: ‘Why not in Africa?’ ‘Yes, why not Lord?’ I replied.” (Cassidy, ??). God started to prepare Michael Cassidy for a special mission. During a study stint in the USA in 1960 Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade, invited Michael Cassidy to start work in South Africa on behalf of the agency. During the Week of Prayer at the Campus Crusade Training Institute, Cassidy participated in a period of “Waiting on God”. There he was challenged to pray for the 31 major cities of Africa. This he did by praying one day of the month for the whole summer for African cities. Joined by a prayer partner, they were soon asking God for the chance one day to minister in each of these cities. The very next year they undertook a trip to the 31 major cities of Africa. After seeing a boat with the name Africa Enterprise, the 23-year old Cassidy started an evangelistic agency with the goal ‘to reach the influential people of this continent’ (Cassidy, ??). He wrote in a magazine ‘We desire to have a social emphasis in our ministry as well … because evangelical Christians have presented a lob-sided message that has greatly ignored the social implications of the Lord’s teachings.’ (Cassidy, ??). Across the continent of Africa the agency Africa Enterprise (AE) was destined to have a significant impact in the years to come, starting with an interdenominational campaign in Pietermaritzburg in August 1962. Other Power Encounters At the Cape, Ds. Davie Pypers continued to be one of very few evangelists who was involved in spiritual power encounters, albeit that he operated in a very low-key manner because the Protestant churches hardly had any antenna for this sort of thing in the 1960s. However, the Green Point event of 13 August 1961 received relatively wide media coverage. Yet, the publicity of the Green Point Track meeting was not of Pypers’ making. But it did open doors for him throughout South Africa. This secured for him a prayer backing, which few ministers enjoyed. (He testified how he visited Hendrina, a far-way town 20 years later, when a man came up to him. The believer did not only recognize Pypers immediately, but the man told him that he had been praying for him every day since 1961.) Faith healing was widely regarded as sectarian. In his ministry to the Hindu’s, Pypers furthermore made use of films, exposing the demonic nature of walking through fire with the role players being in a trance. In Muslim strongholds of those days like Sherwood Park, Pypers extensively used a film about the crucifixion of Jesus. In this film Barabbas made the significant statement: ‘He died in my place.’ The film was used in conjunction with a series of sermons on the ten ‘I am’ pronouncements of Jesus. This series in Sherwood Park, a small residential area with a significant Muslim component near to Manenberg, had the title ‘Who is this man’. This definitely was a power encounter. Two weeks before the campaign, rain and wind were ravaging the area. The Muslims themselves recognized the supernatural ‘co-incidence’ because the rain and the wind stopped the moment the team unpacked their evangelism material. A terminally ill woman, Fatima Olckers, heard parts of Pypers’ sermon on her bed. She wondered whose voice was repeating a sentence again and again. The breeze brought the words to her ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. She realised that it was Nabi Isa ibn Mariam. She resolved to call on the name of Jesus, after she had called on Allah and Muhammad in vain. She was instantly healed and thereafter she became a believer in Jesus Christ, one of the first converts from Islam in the Western Cape in the early 1960s. Concealed power encounters at the Cape The influence of evangelistic campaigns in sports stadiums and big auditoriums had started to take the English-speaking world by storm, impacting South Africa as well. Already in the 1950s Michael Cassidy became a follower of Jesus under the preaching of Dr Billy Graham. The Green Point Track event of 13 August 1961 was only one in a series that would influence South African ecclesiastical history. Mass evangelists like William Branham, Billy Graham, T.L. Osborn, and Oral Roberts drew big crowds all around the world. Cape Town was one of the venues for these religious globetrotters. Alan Walker and Eric Hutchings joined the fray in the 1960s. A mere month after the Green Point Track encounter between Pypers and Deedat ,another power encounter took place at the Cape, this time at the Goodwood Showgrounds on Sunday 17 September 1961. There the Lord used Dr Oswald Smith from Canada to challenge many to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. The author was one of those who surrendered to the claims of Christ at the evangelistic service there. A veiled power encounter ensued at the Cape in 1962 when Theo Kotze became the pastor of the Sea Point and Malmesbury Methodist congregations. John Wessels, the Sea Point Methodist minister in 1999, described Kotze’s ministry with the following words: Theo Kotze ‘combined church growth and integrity on the one hand, and evangelism and social justice on the other’. With his wife Helen and their children the Kotze family formed a formidable team, soon becoming the talk of the city. Underhand tactics lead to the founding of the Christian Insitute The Afrikaner Broederbond, very much nudged by Prime Minister Verwoerd, got the White Dutch Reformed Church church to change its stance after the watershed Cottesloe conference of December 1960. The Broederbond was a secretive organization of which only male White Afrikaners could be members. Rev Beyers Naudé, one of the Dutch Reformed Church delegates to the meeting with the WCC officials, could not palate the underhand tactics. With a few other ministers he started the Christian Institute along the lines of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Beyers Naudé was by now quite influential - the moderator of the new Southern Transvaal Synod of the NGK. The Sunday Times published a secret Broederbond plan on 21 April 1963 to oust the ‘new deal’ leaders of the NGK, people like Beyers Naudé - and to outlaw theological criticism of apartheid. The Sunday Times revealed that the secret organization wanted to tighten their stranglehold on church affairs and that they wanted to ‘clip the wings’ of Beyers Naudé. The disclosure did not save the gifted church leader. He was effectively ostracized by Afrikanerdom, until he more or less had to resign from the Aasvoëlkop congregation in Johannesburg. But that also ushered in the isolation of the NGK. The emerging church unity was effectively put on hold. One of the closing paragraphs of the Cottesloe declaration stated: ‘We give thanks to Almighty God for bringing us together for fellowship and prayer and consultation. We resolve to continue in this fellowship … to join in common witness in our country.’ The resolve became more concrete after Beyers Naudé attended the 1966 Conference of the WCC on Church and Society. Together with an Anglican clergyman, Bill Burnett, who was instrumental in the reorganization of the Christian Council of Churches, Naudé drafted The Message to the People of South Africa. The document, which was published in 1968, was reminiscent of the anti-Nazi Barmen Declaration of 1934. It declared in no uncertain terms that apartheid was incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The reorganized national church body – known hereafter as the South African Council of Churches (SACC), was now branded as politically tainted. This was reason enough for the conservative Baptist Union to withdraw their membership, thus siding with the Afrikaans Churches. The rift between churches supporting apartheid and those opposing it was now complete. The Christian Institute at the Cape At the Cape, Reverend Theo Kotze was one of the first Christian Institute (CI) members, forming an ecumenical Bible Study group and using CI material. In the second year of his ministry in Sea Point, Kotze masterminded a prayer vigil and the publicity for the multi-racial Alan Walker Mission at the Goodwood Showgrounds. Special trains were organized to bring people from as far away as Simon’s Town. Two massive crosses were erected on Signal Hill and the summit of the Tygerberg range. An all-night prayer vigil was a part of the build up. Dr Alan Walker, a godly and fearless Methodist evangelist, had been leading Gospel campaigns worldwide. Unlike most contemporary evangelists, he emphasized the social implications of the Gospel. During the preparation for the mission an ex-Cabinet Minister, angered by Walker’s statements on non-racialism, unleashed a politically contrived controversy. Through his involvement with the evangelistic campaign, the government lumped Reverend Theo Kotze with Dr Alan Walker of whom they disapproved because of the Australian evangelist’s non-racialist stand. Tony Heard, the editor of the Cape Times, described the handling of the crisis with the following words: ‘The steadfast way in which Theo Kotze handled (this) was a harbinger of his future principled, non-racial work in the Christian Institute.’ A demonstration of the fine balance between biblical compassion and social involvement became evident in Kotze’s ‘Straight Talking’ columns in the Sea Point Vision magazine, which he launched in his congregation in March 1964. On the cover of the first edition was written: “Wide Vision, big Thinking, Great Faith, Stout Effort, God’s Husbandry... bring results.” The youth work of the church impacted the 'Duck tails', the White gangsters of the area, in no uncertain way. ‘Club Route Twelve’ was led by Derek Kotze, the eldest son of the family. A Capetonian Prophet in the making Theo Kotze was granted a Christian Fellowship Trust grant in 1967 for three months of overseas’ travel and study. This trust was closely related to the Christian Institute. His vision was decisively broadened when he and his wife Helen were privileged to meet the leaders of the Methodist Renewal Movement in the UK. Dr Pauline Webb, one of those leaders, summarized the essence of the renewal mission that Kotze would try to implement back in Cape Town as follows: ‘... renewal can come about only as the church is recalled to the priority of mission - for then the focus of our concern would not be... the church and its forms, but rather the world and its needs.’ Upon discovery of the depth of God’s grace and forgiveness, Kotze committed himself also to the local problems. Very daringly he addressed not only the burning issues of his White congregants, but also the social ramifications of apartheid legislation, making it illegal for Black workers to be accommodated in servants’ quarters, amongst other things. His involvement with the CI, of which he became the Regional Director in 1969, played a major role in his spiritual development in this regard. Jenni Sweet, who worked on a literacy programme at the Sea Point Church, met him through the CI. She quoted Kotze as saying: “Political involvement stems from your love for Jesus. If you love Jesus, you love people. The way you express that love is by getting involved in a concrete way in people’s struggles.” At the Methodist synod his clear and convincing articulation of the problems of the dispossessed alienated him from his White colleagues. When Kotze became Regional Director of the CI in 1969, the organization had already become quite unpopular among Whites because of its clear stand on the side of justice, and against apartheid. He also became General Secretary of the Western Province Council of Churches. The theme of the CI was (racial) reconciliation. All initiatives were preceded by discussions based on Bible Study and prayer. Beyers Naudé, the national leader, set the prophetic tone in the pursuit of truth and reconciliation, a message with which Kotze had no problem at all. Naudé dreamed of establishing a ‘Confessing Church’ in South Africa along the model of what happened in Germany when Nazis threatened to absorb the church in its ideology. With the help of friends and colleagues, Kotze regularly prepared and disseminated memo's explaining the implications of Parliamentary Bills and giving ideas for practical involvement. The demonic apartheid ideology tilted the Bible-based beginnings of the CI. The CI was quite prophetic when it encouraged Black, Indian and ‘Coloured’ Dutch Reformed Church leaders to consider how apartheid was destroying church unity in South Africa. However, the CI was at the same time acting diabolically, politicizing a part of the body of Christ in an unhealthy manner. The CI became a catalyst for unchristian activism. This was especially evident in the University Christian Movement (UCM) that was more or less a spiritual child of the CI. Personal spiritual encounters During a series of Pentecostal series in the early 1960s, God used the prayerful Ds Piet Bester of the Sendingkerk, to cause a local revival in Tiervlei, which was later called Ravensmead. I was personally impacted during one of his sermons. Some months hereafter, Paul Engel and Allan Boesak, two peers brought me to a major turning point in my life. They invited me to the evangelistic outreach of the Christian Students Association at the seaside resort of Harmony Park. This was scheduled to start just after Christmas at the end of 1964. At that time however, I felt spiritually empty and bankrupt. How could one go and share the gospel with others in such a condition? I cried to the Lord to equip me! He heard my heart’s cry, divinely touching me. I sensed the power of the Holy Spirit taking hold of me. Now I was ready for the outreach there in Harmony Park! A special friendship and partnership developed to my evangelical tent mates David Savage and Ds Esau Jacobs (who was generally known as Jakes). At that time Jakes was a young pastor, who had just started off in his first congregation, in the Transkei. After one of these evening services I got my introduction into ‘spiritual warfare’. When Jakes entered the tent after he had a long conversation with a Muslim camper, he exclaimed that we would not be able to make any head‑way without prayer and fasting. The young pastor became my role model and mentor for the next few years. We corresponded quite intensely for a few years. After my personal encounter with the Lord before my first Harmony Park beach outreach, I started to attend the early prayer meetings every Sunday morning at six o’clock at the local Sendingkerk church. I was now seriously considering God’s call to full time service. Almost as a matter of routine I responded on these occasions that I was fully prepared to proceed to theological studies should the Lord call me. God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. This surely was the case when Reverend Ivan Wessels, widely touted to become the first bishop of colour in the Moravian Church, died of leukemia aged a mere forty-three years old in March 1968. At his funeral God called the author into the ministry, using Bishop Schaberg to issue a challenge: ‘Who is going to fill the void left?’ I knew that it was God’s calling upon my life, even though I felt myself in no way adequate to step into the deceased’s shoes. I discerned God’s hand when I was offered a scholarship for theological studies in Germany the very next day. The crunch for Africa Enterprise The crunch for the young agency Africa Enterprise (AE) came in 1970 during Mission ’70 in Johannesburg. There the need for drawing the body of Christ together had been brought home to the AE ‘quite forcibly’. Cassidy and John Rees, who became the new General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), learned from their mistakes. Together they organized the South African Congress on Mission and Evangelism in Durban (13-22 March, 1973). The SA government went all out to protect the South African ‘way of life’. All overseas speakers including Billy Graham, Leighton Ford and Michael Green were initially barred from entering South Africa. Dr Graham had indicated previously that he was not prepared to speak to racially segregated audiences. The Congress leaders turned to God in prayer. Michael Cassidy was given the verse: “No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment” (Isaiah 54:17). Together with David Bosch and John Tooke he petitioned John Vorster, the Prime Minister. Finally, written permission was given for non-racial accommodation in a Durban hotel and all overseas speakers were allowed entry into SA. Significantly, the Durban Congress brought together the so-called evangelicals and the so-called ecumenicals. The Congress was much more than only an ‘…experience of tremendous learning and mutual discovery for different sectors of the Body of Christ.’ It was pivotal in the spiritual realm as the body of Christ in South Africa operated together for the first time across racial and denominational barriers in significant numbers. The Durban event made a worldwide impact, coming only a year before an international meeting scheduled for Lausanne (Switzerland), which was organized by ‘evangelicals’. The birth of South African Black Theology During 1971 UCM conducted a series of seminars on Black Theology, which resulted in the publication of the first South African book on the subject, Essays in Black Theology. The seminars succeeded in bringing Black Theology to the attention of the public and the churches like very few other attempts to conscientize church people. It must have been in answer to prayer that government agencies were the main contributors to this state of affairs. For one, the distinguished Bishop of Zululand, Alphaeus Zulu, was arrested during one of these seminars on a technical pass-law- offense. The banning of Essays in Black Theology made the available copies going from hand to hand. De Gruchy summarises the significance of UCM and Black Theology: ‘Seldom has a new theological movement achieved such publicity.’ At a UCM conference Steve Biko and others discerned the need of forming SASO, the South African Students’ Organisation and breaking away from the White-dominated National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). The popularity of UCM unfortunately also ushered in a shallow spirituality. Prayer and Bible Study became ‘also rans’. The author climbed onto a bandwagon that had counterproductive ramifications in the spiritual realm. At the final disbanding UCM conference in 1972 - to pre-empt the organization being banned - the Bible was seldom opened, and prayer seemed out of place. (I attended the conference as the delegate of the Moravian Seminary). Symptomatic of the atmosphere was that the bulk of the delegates stayed on for the SASO conference. I did not, missing the opportunity of meeting Steve Biko. He had already ‘graduated’ from UCM to a more radical position, which was ultimately going to cost him his life. (As a committed Christian, Biko got disillusioned with both the churches and liberalism as agents of change. Yet, he was deeply influenced by the Christian tradition and the development of Black Theology.) From Nairobi to the Cape At the Pan-African Christian Leadership Assembly (PACLA) in Nairobi (1976) tensions between Black and White South African delegates spilled over into the wider conference. Professor David Bosch from Unisa was divinely used when he addressed the conference. Hearts began to melt as he spoke self-critically: ‘We have failed to create the new community in Africa… which should be an alternative to all other communities on earth. Have we really understood what Jesus came to do on earth? … Reconciliation is no cheap matter. Reconciliation presupposes confrontation… Reconciliation presupposes an operation, as cut into the very bone without anaesthetic. The abscess of hate and mistrust and fear, between Black and White, between nation and nation, between rich and poor, has to be slashed open’ (Coomes, 2002:398). That speech turned out to be very strategic, paving the way for the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) in Pretoria in 1979. Here the seed for the new South Africa was sown. A group of delegates from Stellenbosch decided to continue the SACLA fellowship locally. A result was that at least one Afrikaner theological student was delivered from a racist posture towards Blacks in 1980 after a meeting at Stellenbosch University with eleven hundred students. Bishop Festo Kivangere of Uganda was one of the speakers. The Afrikaner theological student was touched by the double feature sermon by Cassidy and Kivangere. The latter speaker pulled no punches on the theme of race relations bringing the student to concede that he had been full of race prejudice. “I feel I have today been liberated from racism. Thank you, thank you, Bishop Kivangere”…’ (Coomes, 2002:208). This was however no plain sailing. More sinister forces of opposition were also at work both on and off the campus. The resentment towards English–speakers was still rife in Afrikaner circles. The mission to Stellenbosch was not only hit at the heart of the apartheid philosophy with a Black and White speaker performing as equals, but for afrikaneres it would have been a bitter pill being brought to them by a rooinek, as the English–speakers were dubbed. The head of the student Christian group just before the mission received an anonymous phone call, warning that ‘Cassidy is a terrible man ansd has left his wife and is living with another woman’ (Coomes, 2002:208). Besmirching the characters of Christians who opposed apartheid was a well-known ploy of the government Bureau of State Security (BOSS). Michael Cassidy and his Africa Enterprise (AE), that had been so closely involved with PACLA and SACLA, did it again in the mid-1980s through ERA, a holistic approach bringing Evangelism, Reconciliation and Action together. The start of this new campaign took place in 1981 in the Cape violent suburb of Elsies River. Michael Cassidy was staying at the home of Rev. Njongonkulu Ndugane for the Elsies River Mission that deepened even more the burden for the Black townships in his heart. (Ndungane became the successor to Archbishop Desmond Tutu after the latter’s retirement). ‘He described lucidly how the misery impacted him: Human brokenness, personal fragmentation, marital heartbreak, incredible social dislocation and community disruption due to Group Areas legislation all stared us in the face with eyes of fire’(Coomes, 2002:274). From May 1984 onwards, meetings with businessmen were organized by AE. At what was called the ‘Top Level Encounter’ in Cape Town, Graham Power was impacted. The event had far-reaching spiritual consequences in some of the professions and industries of the Mother City. (In 2000 Graham Power would be God’s choice instrument to get the spiritual transformation of Cape Town off the ground when he was the catalyst for the prayer event at Newlands the following year, see p. ??). Islamic shrines come into the limelight 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. Mrs Catherine Taylor, an opposition MP, had brought up the issue in Parliament, which the government of the day evidently wanted to squash. 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. In the church at large there was ignorance about the effects of ancestral worship on people in general and of praying at shrines. Being a lover of mountaineering, Wrankmore retreated for prayer to the Kramat near to Lion’s Head. He was in deep meditation when a group of Muslims entered. They promptly invited Wrankmore to attend the Muir Street mosque in District Six. When the Muslims there heard that permission had been refused for him to pray in the St George’s Cathedral, one thing led to another. Eventually Wrankmore was allowed to use the Islamic shrine at Lion’s Head for his fast. He was probably not aware of the occult connections. 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. A friend, who had visited him at the shrine near to Lion’s Head, put the newspaper reporters on his track. It was definitely not Wrankmore’s own idea to get media attention. Initially the effort of the cleric seemed in vain, as Prime Minister Vorster remained unbending. Eventually a judicial inquiry followed when advocate ?? Cooper came into the picture. Imam Rashied Omar points to the role played by the local newspaper The Cape Times to keep protest alive in the minds of the people. What Wrankmore did not bargain for, was a major health hazard. After an extended period of fasting, his body became mysteriously swollen up. He thanked God that another round of prayer and fasting could sort out this matter. It is interesting that he started his fast on 19 August - 40 days before the second anniversary of the death of Haron. Through apartheid legislation the ‘Malay quarter’ of Bo-Kaap was greatly extended, churches there were closed down and Christians were tempted to become Muslims if they wanted to continue living there. Some of the believers, who worshipped at St Stephen’s and the Anglican St. Paul’s Churches, had started leaving the residential area because of this legislation. By 1980, Bo-Kaap had become a Muslim stronghold with very little Christian influence left. While he had been a prisoner, Mr Nelson Mandela visited the shrine of Shaykh Mattara on Robben Island in 1977. Mandela had evidently not received any teaching on the spiritual dynamics involved. He ‘literally harassed the Commanding Officer for permission’ to visit the Kramat. He and his fellow visitors came out of the shrine ‘proud and happy that we were able to pay our respects to so great a fighter...’ Mandela was possibly not aware of the influence which the shrine exerted on him. It seems to have effectively neutralized his decision to become a follower of Jesus, a fact to which Pastor Walter Ackerman testified in Mandela’s presence in a meeting with many pastors in the Docks Mission Church of Lentegeur (Mitchells Plain) in 1995. Ackerman, an evangelical clergyman, had ministered to Mandela for many years while he was on Robben Island. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association publicized the news of Mandela’s conversion. However, it was not customary for Mandela to refer to his commitment to Jesus in his public utterances after his release on 11 February 1990. By contrast, the first ANC government under President Mandela after their election victory of 1994 was perceived to be favourable to Islam. In the new government 17% of the ANC members of Parliament were Muslim, completely out of proportion to their percentage in the population (less than 2%). The Wall of Communism under attack After the Second World War Communism had become a greater threat to the progress of the Gospel than Hitler and his regime had been. The demonic roots of Communism were not generally known, but the atheist stand of the ideology should have made it easy to discern its opposition to the Church. Yet, Communist infiltration into church bodies was fairly successful, notably into the World Council of Churches (WCC) at the plenary assembly in Uppsala (Sweden) in 1968. Very few people in the mainline churches discerned what was going on. Isolated voices warned, like the German Reverend Rolf Scheffbuch, who attended the WCC plenary conference in Nairobi in 1975, but the course was set. It took only a few more years before 'inter-faith' was the official position of the WCC. (Actually the origins go back to Edinburgh in 1910, following the suggestion of the German theologian Troeltsch in 1902, that Christianity was hitherto the highest form of religion. This implied of course that a better one could still evolve.) There was some further preparation in isolated cases, such as through the Moral Rearmament (MRA) movement, which had started as the evangelical Oxford Group under Frank Buchman in the 1920s. The MRA misled the believers by compromising the unique claims of Christ. Everybody was allowed to worship God in their own way. Morality was the ‘in’ word. Mahatma Ghandi’s example was placed next to Jesus’ teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. Muslims and Hindu’s came to Caux (Switzerland), the international headquarters of the MRA movement along with Christians. Books on prayer as such, for instance those by R.A. Torrey and Charles Spurgeon, were better known. A pocket book by William R. Parker and Elaine St. Johns called Prayer Can Change Your Life was published in 1957. Hereafter a spate of books followed in the 1960s, notably by Leonard Ravenhill, who edited a whole series of booklets on prayer by E. M. BounDs The notion of spiritual warfare remained fairly obscure until the late 1980s, although Jim Wilson wrote a booklet in 1964 called Principles of War. The issue of spiritual warfare was however not yet prominent. This only really happened in 1975 with Paul Billheimer’s book Destined for the throne. In 1980 Jim Wilson gave his booklet a new title Against the Powers. This was possibly the start gun for an increase in spiritual warfare, although at this stage it was still happening against the backdrop of the Cold War between the Soviet Block and the West. Communism was seen as the threat to the Church par excellence. Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who had been imprisoned because of his faith in Rumania, had alarmed the church already in the late sixties in a booklet with the title Tortured for Christ. Persecuted Christians, who succeeded in coming out of Communist countries, aroused the sympathies and interest of believers in the West. Pastor Richard Wurmbrand of Romania was one of the most prominent, sharing his experiences. The Dutchman Brother Andrew (Anne van der Bijl) wrote his Battle for Africa in 1977 in the same mould. Much to the chagrin of Moscow, a polish pope was elected to the Vatican in 1978. The new pope’s support to the trade union Solidarity in his home country would erode much of the Soviet influence in the years hereafter. After leaving South Africa in January 1969 for Germany, the author was personally moved to prayer for the Communist world after reading Wurmbrand’s story. In Stuttgart I had the opportunity to hear him speak. Soon I was supporting the cause of the persecuted Christians in the Communist world. Along with believers in different parts of the world, I started to pray regularly for persecuted Christians in Eastern Europe and China. ‘Brother Andrew’ van der Bijl, a Dutchman, was a Western evangelical believer who discerned things quite clearly. He was trained at the WEC Missionary training College in Glasgow (Scotland) when Norman Grubb, the son-in-law of C.T. Studd led the mission agency, which was still known at the time as Worldwide Evangelization Crusade. When Brother Andrew visited Prague at the time of the Soviet invasion in 1968, his eyes were opened. A programme of Bible smuggling was developed in obedience to the Lord. The link to his training in Glasgow was kept alive in Holland when he founded Kruistochten (Crusades), a ministry on behalf of the persecuted church. Internationally the organization became known as Open Doors. Brother Andrew wrote a book in 1977 about the ideological battle for Africa. He was a regular speaker at a church fellowship that met in the theatre Figi that was situated about hundred meters from our home in Zeist. From its beginnings the fellowship was closely linked to the work of Open Doors. (Later we as a family joined that congregation in Holland, which also became our home and supporting church over the years.) Personal prayer for South Africa Back in Cape Town in 1970 I was still nowhere near being a faithful prayer warrior, but I definitely sensed a need to pray for our country. Early one October morning in 1972, while I was on my knees praying for the country at the Moravian Seminary in District Six, I felt constrained to write a letter to the Prime Minister. In this letter, I addressed Mr Vorster with ‘Liewe’ (dear). That was definitely something extraordinary. My natural feelings towards him were not that charitable. In this letter I challenged the State President to let himself be used by God like Abraham Lincoln in the USA, to lead the nation to the ways of God. Basically however, it was a letter of criticism that could have landed me in hot water. I was fortunate that I only got a reprimand from Mr Vorster, the standard reply to people who objected on religious grounds to the racial policies of the country. (It is of course not certain that the Prime Minister saw my letter.) The reply implied that I was involved in politics under the guise of religion. Through this ploy, that was very much used in propaganda, the government endeavoured to teach Christians to make a sharp distinction between faith and politics. Many Afrikaner eyes were kept blinded to the heresy of apartheid in this way. At and in the church building adjacent to the seminary, the former Moravian Hill manse, significant moves towards the first Global Day of Prayer was to occur on the 1990s and especially on 9 May 2004. Third World spiritual Impact on the West In the Western world the term ‘power encounter’ is often associated with John Wimber, the American evangelist who revolutionized theological thought in the evangelical world in the 1980s. It is not generally known that Wimber was greatly influenced by Peter Wagner at the Fuller Seminary (USA) where they lectured together in the Church Growth department. Wagner himself had been impacted in a revolutionary manner through his contact with Pentecostals, after 16 years of sterile ministry as a non-charismatic in South America. There he was challenged when he researched the history of the Pentecostal movement. His 1973 report on the movement in South America with the title Look Out! the Pentecostals are coming had Western theologians sitting up straight. Perhaps Wagner prepared many of them to take to heart what third world theologians had to say, notably at the world conference of evangelicals in Lausanne (Switzerland) in 1974. From another part of the globe, Paul Yonghi Cho of Seoul (South Korea) impacted the world, illustrating to all and sundry that the Bible is nowhere outdated. He emphasized that what he dubbed Fourth Dimension Faith was needed in evangelism. Korea taught the whole world anew the neglected power of prayer, breaking the ground for Patrick Johnstone’s powerful prayer guide, Operation World. Internationally, the Third World started to challenge the leadership of church growth in the 1980s with Cho’s International Church Growth Centre. In fact, the dynamic pioneer of the church growth movement, Donald MacGavran, initially called it ‘Third World missionary enterprise’. Discovering how ‘the first instinct of many Latin Americans is to consult a witch’ in case of problems, Peter Wagner learned the hard way that occult power cannot be broken with logical arguments. With some of their evangelists coming from a background of spiritism, the South Americans may have given the tools to the rest of the world to deal with Folk Islam, where White (sometimes Black) magic and Spiritism occur. ‘Practising spiritists serve the devil like practising Christians serve God’. Heber Soares, a former Brasilian spiritist leader, told after his conversion how he made a pact with the devil to receive the healing powers from five medical specialists from different parts of the world. 5. A spiritual Watershed After the West had refused to help them in the battle against the apartheid regime, the ANC turned to the Soviet Communists. The military situation on the country’s borders spawned White believers of South Africa to form a group called Intercessors for South Africa. This was initiated by Dr. Frances Grim, leader of the Hospital Christian Fellowship, which had its national headquarters in the Capetonian picturesque suburb of Pinelands. He was one of very few at the time to discern the growing moral dangers sufficiently: ‘Most people seem to be too busy making money, enjoying themselves...to notice the dangerous downward trend in the country’s morals’. Prayer as a Part of the Process of Change Prayer was very much part of the process of change. This is demonstrated by times of prayer and fasting in the St George’s Cathedral. Those responsible had evidently repented after the negative response to Rev. Bernard Wrankmore in 1971. Dr Frances 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 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 a young policeman, Johan Botha was posted in Soweto. Supernaturally God would use him almost 20 years later to bring the nation to its knees in prayer.7 The role of the Church in Reconciliation in recent decades 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. Yet, valuable seed was sown towards racial reconciliation by Black clergy who had a good track record and who were not known to be radicals like Desmond Tutu or Allan Boesak. 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… calling a white man a beast.’ Long before the Soweto uprising he 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 himself and Bishop Tutu were not heeded by the authorities. Resistance of Werkgenot squatters Thousands of Blacks continued to come into the Western Cape in the 1970s in spite of the government intention to finally remove Africans 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. Marius de Jager, an employee of the municipality of Bellville, became aware of the camp during the winter of 1974. On October 21 he received a phone call from Mr W.F. Coetzee of the Bantu Affairs Administration Board (BAAB) with the instruction to arrange that Werkgenot be bulldozed on the night of October 25. City engineer John Marshall, De Jager’s boss approved Mr Coetzee’s request. The raid – fully described inn Andrew Silk’s booklet A Shanty Town in South Africa, was executed ‘like a military exercise.’ Blacks took the matter to court because a shanty could not be destroyed without a court order or the permission of the landowner. Details of the raid emerged during the trial. About 20 shanties were erected near Nyanga township during February, 1975. Several of them had been put up by former residents of Werkgenot. By mid-April there were over 1000 shacks and almost 4000 people. The first raid on the new camp, which had been called Crossroads, began at 5 a.m on May 2. Thirty four squatters were arrested for pass offences and for trespassing. During the next two months selected shacks were knocked down and women arrested while their husbands were at work. Finally two squatters brought a suit against the Bantu Affairs Administrative Board for destruction of property. The judge ruled in favour of the squatters, lecturing the officials to respect the little possessions the squatters had. The Board did not contest the ruling but their officials continued to harass the squatters. Pretoria would of course not allow itself to be challenged by Blacks. In the parliamentary debate Dr van Zyl Slabbert, a former sociology lecturer valiantly gave an analysis of the situation, defending the squatters. The government was undeterred. A new law, the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Amendment Act of 1976, came onto the statute books. No longer would a court order be needed to demolish a shack. Cape Build-up to Soweto June 1976 The Werkgenot squatters were not going to take everything lying down as well. While Parliament was debating the new law, they constructed new shacks in the bushes just off Modderdam Road, not so far from where they had been evicted. Modderdam Road runs between Bellville Station to the N2, passing the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Bishop Lavis Township. The camp soon became a test of the government’s renewed war against Western Cape squatters. By the end of May 1976 more than a hundred shacks had been put up and the police was now also aware of their presence. The first heavy winter rain fell during the night of June 2, 1976. This did not deter the police pouning at the doors of the shanties and demanding passes. While policemen with heavy raincoats herded Black women to parked cars, about thirty squatter men – armed with clubs, pick handles and stone - surrounded three policemen who stood apart from the rest. The ensuing battle of about half an hour was followed by a procession along Modderdam Road in a strange combination of hymn singing and the stoning of passing cars. At about 1 a.m. the police sealed off the road. The Cape Times reported the next day that 30 squatter had been arrested and two policemen were hospitalized. Rev. Louis Banks reacted on behalf of the Western Province Council of Churches, calling the incident ‘a direct outgrowth of the law.’ A pleading letter to the Prime Minister Bishop Tutu wrote a pleading letter to the Prime Minister on May 6 1976 during a three day clergy retreat. This was just weeks before the eruption of violence after 16 June 1976, when protesting high school students were shot. More than anything else, this event brought church leaders back into the centre of racial reconciliation. Writing from a clergy retreat in Johannesburg a month before June 16 1976, Desmond Tutu, at that time the General Secretary of the SACC, demonstrated the initiative and prophetic vision, which was to distinguish him in the years to come as a Godly man on the South African political scene. He predicted a nightmarish scenario of violence and bloodshed in South Africa if the basic demands of Black South Africans for a non-racial, open and just democracy were not reacted upon by John Vorster, the Prime Minister, and his government. Tutu appealed to the humanity, parental concern and Christianity of Vorster in a highly personal and impassionate appeal, which was to become characteristic of Tutu in the years to come. The injustice, oppression, exploitation and inhumanity of apartheid were becoming increasingly intolerable for Blacks to bear. The run-up to the 1976 clash in Soweto Tutu incisively depicted Vorster’s reformist moves of doing away with petty-apartheid as superficial and hence not bringing about fundamental change in Black lives vis-a-vis the migrant labour system, inadequate housing, transport and overcrowded classrooms. It is significant that Tutu mentioned educational conditions as only one of many causes of Black frustration. He did not even make mention of the language issue, which is widely accepted as the immediate spark which ignited the Soweto revolt a month later. All this must have troubled Satan tremendously. On 16 June 1976 the enemy of peace had his reply ready, a major upheaval which reverberated throughout the world. Was this the starting shot of the revolution which had been feared all along, a power encounter ‘too ghastly too contemplate’, as John Vorster, the Prime Minister had worded it so aptly? Rioting of all sorts by young people all over the PWV area (as Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging was abbreviated in those days) erupted in force. New dignity to people other than white The protest of the youth served to inject a new dignity into people other than white. Thus the Cape Herald, a newspaper predominantly read by Coloured people in the Cape peninsula, wrote proudly in the edition dated 7 September 1976: ‘Last week’s two illegal parades through the city had a positive side in that many White South Africans saw for the first time that the Black scholars are not savages but neat, orderly, very serious and very concerned young people’. The lines turned out to be premature. When schoolchildren from Heideveld tried to march into nearby Guguletu and Nyanga townships, they were forcibly turned back by police at the only road bridge. The Argus reported the same day: ‘Earlier today police opened fire with shotguns and service revolvers into large groups of demonstrating Coloured youths… outside the African township of Guguletu.’ The result of the reaction was mayhem: looting and rioting, nothing to be proud about. Even worse - this started an era of ugly boycott politics which damaged relationships between parents and their children. The boycott generation became the teachers at the end of the century, which had never learnt to respect the older generation. In fact, quite often the parental generation was crudely despised, because of the fallacious youth perception that earlier generations accepted and tolerated the apartheid humiliations without protest. Many a Cape township still has to recover from the moral damage perpetrated since 1976. Alarm among Whites Whites could initially only be spectators, but soon many of them were affected as well. Liberal sympathizers at tertiary institutions found themselves banned or detained and man had their cars damaged. Tension rose in the run-up to worker stay-aways, including a big one planned for 15 September. Stories circulated that Blacks had been told to ‘kill a White’. Many White rushed to buy guns, took shooting lessons after rumours of arson were spreading like wild-fire. The stay away – observed by about 100,000 Black and Coloured workers – was largely peaceful. Yet, foreign embassies were overwhelmed with enquiries about emigration. The urban uprisings of 1976 shook the nation and the international community. In all, 128 Capetonians were reported killed, and about 400 killed. Living in Berlin at this time, we tried to start a ‘peaceful front’ for change in South Africa in Germany, but other South Africans had given up hope that the escalation of violence could still be stopped. The violent struggle was seen as the only option left to fight apartheid repression. God was however also at work. On that very June 16, 1976 a young policeman, Johan Botha was posted in Soweto. Supernaturally God would use him almost 20 years later to bring the nation to its knees in prayer. Divide and Rule scores a victory Two groups in the Black townships had diametrically opposite needs and ambitions. The Africans who grew up in the city knew little of the rural areas. Yet, they were nevertheless pushed by the government to abandon the city for the Ciskei and Transkei. They resisted the call to revolt and strikes. The (not always veiled) threats of employers worked wonders. Some of them had passports from the Transkei, the first apartheid homeland to be granted independence in 1976. The fear of losing their jobs meant for these migrants risking their right to be in the Cape. Divide and Rule scored an easy victory. As the ‘conscientization’ process by the students increased, the rift between the students and the migrants turned ugly. After having fought the police, the students no longer hesitated to use force. The students’ main targets were the shebeens, the illegal alcohol outlets. This was adding insult to injury because the students had already burnt down the beer halls. Mr Oscar Mpetha, a trade unionist and a member of the Moravian Church, was soon seen as a leader of the settled inhabitants of Nyanga, which was close to Crossroads, where many of the former Modderdam inhabitants were now residing. Mr Simon Matthews who had come to Modderdam shortly before the June 2, 1976 raid, soon established himself as a leader on behalf of the migrants. Boldly the group took their case to the police, offering to maintain order inside the camp and to cooperate with the police on serious criminal offences. Astonishly, their offer was accepted. An informal agreement was made that as long as the camp was peaceful, no more raids would be undertaken. Word spread quickly through the city with the result that Modderdam spread in all directions. Between June 1976 and December of the same year the shanty town grew from 400 to 10,000 inhabitants. This could happen quietly because the police were kept busy on another front. Students were marching, stoning, demonstrating not so far away, while the camp itself remained ‘peaceful’. In due course the tension grew inside the squatter camp. Those inhabitants who had come from the hostels for singles or the ‘homelands’ distrusted the students, feeling strongly that the camp should be guarded to prevent them from using Modderdam as a hideout. Mr Plaatje, an influential member of the committee, called for a compromise which was approved. Guards were appointed and placed on the road and the railway tracks, and residents were warned not to harbour students on the run. Other races assist the Modderdam squatters Mr Simon Matthews did much to establish a link between White churches and community groups. He knew personally several members of the old Congress of Democrats, which funded the Kliptown ANC event in 1955. In the early months of 1977 the people of Modderdam believed that the Whites were their strongest allies. Soon they were disillusioned as they learned that financial aid had strings attached. An organization called SHELTER came into being in February on the back of Modderdam, but the trustees ruled that the money could only be spent for ‘legal’ squatter camps. Modderdam did not qualify. Social work students at the Institute for Social Development (ISD) of the University of the Western Cape came to help in the camp. The Coloured students had the same limitations because the university was governement-run. Soup kitchens, kindergartesn and first-aid clinics were allowed, but any political ‘agitation’ was closely monitored. The dangers came to the fore when the director of the Institute, Wolfgang Thomas, was deported. The Cape Flats Committee for Interim Accommodation (CFCIA) was the most overtly political organization working for the squatters. The sponsored meetings and workshops for squatters from different camps enabled Simon Matthews and Mr Plaatjie, a community leader, to work in the camp full time. CFCIA was funded by churches linked to the Western Province Council of Churches and the Catholic Church. Some within CFCIA believed it impossible to develop the resistance of the squatter and the sympathy of Whites simultaneously, others felt the need to be sufficiently moderate to win financial support and prevent to be banned. Demolition of Modderdam announced SHELTER, ISD and CFCIA net-worked loosely, but when the chips were down with rising tension when the protest became dangerous, mud-slinging surfaced. In late January 1977 the government announced its plan for the demolition of Modderdam. ‘Coloureds’ and Blacks would first be separated. The ‘Coloureds’ would then be sent to a new squatting site, Rifle Range. Africans would then be screened into ‘illegals’ and ‘legals’. Rural women and children, as well as men who had neither contracts nor residence rights, would be given free train tickets to the Transkei and free baggace space for their belongings. The few African men and women who did have full rights to stay in the city would be moved to a new squatter camp on a plot of land called KTC near Nyanga. The Modderdam squatter community entered into negotiations with the government, aided by a White lawyer, Mr Richard Rosenthal,8 with Matthews and Plaatjie as their spokespersons –Several meetings followed with Mr Fanie Botha, the Bantu Affairs Commissioner. Rosenthal helped the squatters to discover a technical mistake with the eviction notice, securing for them the temporary extention of their stay. Messrs. Matthews and Plaatjie won new support in the camp. Finally the judge dropped the case. The week-end following end of the court case, several new shacks were erected. Of course, the government would never take the defeat without retaliation. A new version of the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act followed. The amendment tabled on April 25 1977 was a remarkable document, bringing in legal language an end to all legal protection for squatters. Inter alia the law stated that a shanty could be knocked down and squatters’ belongings removed ‘without any prior notice of whatever nature to any persons.’ Blanket permission for abuse was given in this way. Alex Boraine and Dr van Zyl Slabbert fought valiantly in Parliament against the new Bill, but is was a lost cause. With their comfortable majority the Nationalists were sure to rap it up. This they did when the measure was passed by 88 votes to 33. Coming just before the Cape winter, it would just be a matter when the demolition of Modderdam would take place. The government seemed to have preference of blundering in this way, when some from their own ranks would come with pleadings to do these brutal actions at another time of the year. The unity of the camp became strained in the weeks which followed the passage of the new Bill. The victory of the April court proceedings turned out to be pyrrhic. Plaatjie and Matthews were accused of planning to abscond with camp funds and of working too closely with Whites. The ‘axe’ started to come down in late June with hammers and crowbars. Municipal workers knocked down St John’s Church on on June 25. After being challenged, David Roux of the Bellville Municipality retorted: ‘I think it was a dance hall and was used for squatter meetings.’ ‘Coloureds’ were served with eviction notices on July 1. Five days later also the Blacks got the notices of the intention of the government to demolish their shanties. Most of the ‘Coloureds’ left voluntarily to Rifle Range, the legal camp on the other side of Belhar during July. The internal squabbles intensified as the plight of the camp became more hopeless. A BAAB employer brought suspicions into the arguments which were difficult to defend. Squatters were hereafter angry that Plaatjie and Matthews accepted help from Whites. The Modderdam squatter camp – a model of resistance The government’s intention with Modderdam backfired completely. What was intended to become the model for the country to deal with illegal squatters became instead teaching in resistance. Andrew Silk summarized the paradox of South African history aptly as it was practiced in a nutshell in that informal settlement: ‘The economy’s huge appetite for black labour is in conflict with white fears of being ‘swamped’, and ruled by Blacks. Modderdam was a microcosm of this classic struggle’. The men and women who fought to keep the camp were hardly known outside Modderdam and were forgotten after they had left. The first raid there on June 2, 1976 was overshadowed by the uprising which began in Soweto. Its demolition on August 8, 1977 was eclipsed by the death in detention of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko, who had been tipped to be a future State President and the bannings of the Christian Institute and a host of other organizations in October of that year. The demolition of Modderdam brought in the churches in a big way. A tradition had already started to see the month of August as one in which compassion was highlighted. The Sunday before the ‘Coloureds’ left, the squatters had their weekly meeting. The crowd unanimously resolved to resist the government passively by simply refusing to move. They also agreed to undertake a three-day fast, and invited those outside the camp to join them. In a new stand of solidarity with the squatters, the leader of the white Women’s Movement endorsed the fast and also urged members of her organization to sleep alone at night, to symbolize the separation of husbands and wives. A ‘Coloured’ woman stood up during the meeting and expressed ‘Coloure’d solidarity with the Blacks. This appeared to be rather tokenism, because the ‘Coloureds’ obeyed the eviction orders soon thereafter. Yet, if the government ideologists had hoped that fights would break out between ‘Coloureds’ and Africans, they failed dismally. Laconically, the Blacks resolved that it was better to have a hard committed core of people who were determined to fight to the bitter end. Yet, the Modderdam camp stayed in the newspapers, gaining wide support all along. When the bulldozers arrived on August 8, the press was there, as well as many supporters from the other races. The Start of the Demolition The first bulldozer got stuck in the mud, as well as a tractor which was called to pull it out. This gave time to organize. Edna van Harte, a lecturer of the ISD played a powerful mediating role, bringing in Dr van der Ross, the rector of the University. An emergency situation was organized including twelve huge containers with steamy vegetable soup donated by the large Pik ‘n Pay supermarket chain. In the afternoon Modderdam had become a major traffic jam. The appeals of the White sympathizers were unsuccessful, although the actual demolishing was postponed when people obstructed the vehicles after a second tractor succeeded in freeing the bulldozer and the first tractor. The next day, a letter from the benefactor whose generous gift triggered the founding of the SHELTER Fund six months earlier - framed by a black border - was printed on the front page of the Cape Times. ‘…The misery of the ejected squatters with their homes in ruins, guarding their meager possessions on the roadside, is indescribable... I have to share in the guilt of the ‘haves’ of contemporary society. I hang my head in shame and plead for forgiveness…’ Scattered skirmishes during the morning - after the police had separated the supporters from the inhabitants – converged into a major confrontation shortly after midday. A tense razor-edge situation developed, which looked like ending in massive bloodshed. Mr Plaatjie lifted his hand as once the apostle Paul spoke to a riotous crowd, miraculously bringing down the tension. The squatters dispersed quietly. They won the moral confrontation, leaving the field to the police to take Modderdam without bullets. The burning of Modderdam began shortly after the crowd dispersed. Social workers and squatters reported that police had set fire to the shanties but the inhabitants themselves also fanned the flames in their desperation. Church Protest The day’s ‘fighting’ ended with teargas, but there was little panic. That evening a protest meeting was held at St. Xavier’s in the White suburb of Claremont. They decided to form a human chain the next morning in front of the bulldozer and force the police to drag them away. An unprecedented wave of support followed when 100 clergymen arrived at 6 a.m. But the bulldozers did not arrive. The bulk left by 9 a.m., with a few staying behind, to warn the others, should the operation begin later in the day. It is obvious there there must have been informers in the protest meeting in the Claremont church. After midday, two bulldozers arrived. Three White men including Rev. David Russell, the Anglican priest who ruffled the conscience of the nation with his protest and fast in St George’s Cathedral on behalf of the Blacks in the ‘Resettlement Areas’, walked into the camp. Since the inception of the Crossroads informal settlement in 1975, that was part of his parish. As soon as the three protesters reached the first truck, Rev Russell calmly laid down in front of the vehicle. He was promptly arrested. Asked later why he did it, he said: ‘…instead of writing another letter to those in authority, I had to use my body where communication and words were useless, as an act to uphold and be a witness to God’s law. Just by obeying God’s law and acting according to my conscience, I felt I could communicate to these people’s hearts so that they could be made aware of the evil being done there.’ The community workers found shelter for the women and children in church halls. Their possessions were taken to an empty Pepsi-Cola warehouse. Three church services were held on the following Sunday. At the nearby Unibell informal settlement ministers from different races joined in the service, including a prayer for Rev. Russell who was still imprisoned. He refused the condition of bail – that he would not enter any squatter camps. The second gathering was at the City Hall in the city centre. In the inter-faith service Dr Allan Boesak received a standing ovation when he said that he would pray every day for the downfall of the Nationalist government. His repetition of that statement would become quite controversial in later years. The third meeting of the day took place at the camp itself. Prayers were offered in a moving ceremony where the congregants held hands, sang hymns and closed the proceedings with Nkosi sikelel ‘iAfrika. The spirit of the migrants crushed? The government seemed to crush the spirit of the migrants completely when Werkgenot was flattened on August 25 – the second time in three years that shacks were demolished there. The squatters put up little resistance. The only person arrested there was a White – Dr Margaret Nash, a member of the Christian Institute. She came to Werkgenot with a large white cross. Holding the cross high she walked up to her waist into a stagnant pond in front of the shacks. After she had marched to the other side, she was escorted to a police van. Quite surprisingly, opposition from within the National Party surfaced. That the Kerkbode expressed regret at the timing of the demolition, was a new element. A direct attack by theological students from Stellenbosch demonstrated the growing influence of Professor Nico Smith. Superficially, it looked as if the government won the bout. The spirit of Modderdam would get resurrected in KTC, Nyanga and Crossroads where the bulk of the squatters landed. Very few went to the Transkei and Ciskei as the apartheid ideologists would have liked to see them going. In the ‘battle of Nyanga’ the government would suffer its first major victory in 1981. A year of major spiritual confrontation 1977 turned out to be the year for a major confrontation of spiritual forces. South Africa was ideologically under threat because of the ANC's close links to the Soviet Union. In the same year the famous prisoner Nelson Mandela started visiting the kramat of Shaykh Mattara, the Islamic shrine on Robben Island, unwittingly bonding him to that religion. The seed was sown for a link to Islam, a religion which also had a clear political agenda. In February 1977 the Catholic Bishops conference made a statement expressing their stance on social justice and race relations in the church. Some of the most radical recommendations for the time were made, for example ‘to signify, by the appointment of Black priests to the charge of White parishes, the breaking away by the Church from the prevailing social and political system.’ The news came through in September 1977 that Steve Biko, a leading Black Consciousness leader and highly touted to be a future president of the country was dead - possibly killed while in police custody. Furthermore, the Christian Institute and its leader, Dr Beyers Naudé, were banned on 19 October 1977, along with many other organizations that were perceived to be in opposition to apartheid. Professor Nico Smith from Stellenbosch played a significant role in initiating Koinonia, a movement that organised inter-racial weekends in different towns and cities. Participants would always lodge with someone from a different race 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 dominees in the Western Cape significantly reacted against a government ruling, which made agitation against detention without trial unlawful, as well as calling for transparency regarding ‘the handling of matters relating to the security of the state (e.g. the recent series of bannings, detentions and arrests on October 19th., 1977). The prayerful attitude of the three clergymen came through 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…’ Bannings and arrests of church people The October 19th (1977) bannings and arrests of church people simultaneously called forth a spate of church condemnations of apartheid from around the world, to be followed by sharp criticism from within the Dutch Reformed Church ranks. Thus the meeting of the Lutheran World Federation in Dar-es-Salaam in 1977 declared apartheid a sin and any theological justification thereof a heresy, with the NG Sendingkerk using almost identical terminology the following year at their synod. The judgment was repeated a little stronger by the Association of Black Reformed Christians in South Africa (ABRECSA) in 1981: ‘apartheid is a sin and any theological justification thereof is a travesty of the gospel, a betrayal of the Reformed tradition and a heresy.’ Dr Allan Boesak’s paper in Hammanskraal on 26 October 1981 at the founding conference of ABRECSA included the statement: ‘I indeed believe that Black Christians should formulate a Reformed Confession for our time and situation in our own words’. All this paved the way not only for Dr Allan Boesak to be asked to deliver a paper at the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and ensuingly being elected as President of the WARC in Ottawa (Canada) August 1982, but also for the Belhar Confession at the Sendingkerk Synod of October 1982. In this way the name of Allan Boesak got linked to the declaration of apartheid as a heresy. All the more it was sad that he did not discern that he became party to new heresies soon thereafter. He was instrumental in the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) a year later, where Muslims joined Jews and Christians in the fight against apartheid. A by-product of that struggle was a resurgence of inter-faith on dubious premises, where the uniqueness of Jesus Christ was compromised; where Allah was equated with the God of the Bible. Western Cape missionaries breaking through apartheid hurdles Sydney Dean, an English-speaking Capetonian from the suburb of Vredehoek, married Annamie, an Afrikaner from the Boland town of Bonnievale when marriages like that were still frowned upon - at best tolerated. After being trained at the WEC Missionary Training College in Tasmania, they were refused visas for Indonesia, the country that they perceived to be the one to which God was calling them. With nobody to lead proceedings at the WEC Headquarters in Durban, they were requested to fill the gap. Very bravely and prayerfully they fought against the apartheid hurdles. 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 the Bishop Lavis Township in 1979 and June Domingo of Steenberg in 1980. The latter two became the first South African female missionaries of colour in the apartheid era to go abroad with faith missions. The two went to Brazil and France respectively with WEC international. WEC also pioneered with Indian missionaries from Durban. The first three Indian missionaries from Durban, Bhim Singh, Tiny Kuppen and Geetha Sunker, had a Cape link through the missionary endeavour of Ds Davie Pypers, who started his career in Bo-Kaap. Two Blacks, viz. Newman Muzwondiwa from Zimbabwe and Abraham Thulare - both of whom worked in Japan - pioneered a new recruitment base for Southern African missionaries. However, only many years later the next Black African was accepted as a WEC missionary. A spate of applications came from various African countries, but just like other Western mission organisations, WEC International in South Africa allowed itself to be restricted by the concept that sufficient funds should be forthcoming from the country of origin. On the other hand, many an applicant looked merely for an opportunity to escape poverty in their home countries. The emphasis on full-time missionaries barred the possibility of ‘tent-making’ missionaries from Africa. The Nigerians would overtake South Africa in the 1990s as a missionary sending country from the Black continent. Sydney Witbooi and Peter Tarental, respectively from the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) and Operation Mobilization (OM), broke through racial marital prejudices. Witbooi married Andrea, the daughter of Gerhard Nehls, the well-known Life Challenge missionary pioneer. Quite a few racially mixed marriages followed within Operation Mobilisation (OM) ranks through the ministry on their ships. Jeremy Kammies from the Assemblies of God Church in Grassy Park married his bonny Anne from Pietermaritzburg. After serving WEC International in Liberia, from where the family was forced to leave in 2003 because of the civil war there, the couple was elected as the new national leaders in South Africa. A Call to pray for Communists Shortly after the South African Peter Hammond was converted to Christ early in 1977, a missionary from Overseas Missionary Fellowship challenged their congregation, urging them to pray for God to open the doors to Red China. Even as they prayed, his heart was filled with unbelief. How could a communist country like China ever be open to the Gospel again? Yet, shortly after Mao Tse Tung died, his little Red Book became discredited. Since then many millions came to Christ in China. The vision for a mission with a Capetonian head office - to assist persecuted churches, evangelising in war zones, serving in restricted access areas - grew out of the daily Bible study and prayer meeting, which Peter Hammond, the founder of Frontline Fellowship, led during his time of military service in 1981. He reports about this time: 'For two years we met, almost every night, around the Word of God, spending extended times in prayer. Sometimes we prayed through the night, in prayer chains. Often our Bible study and prayer meetings lasted for three, four or five hours at a time.' When Hammond first started praying for Mozambique in 1981, the country was firmly closed for the Gospel. The Beginnings of Frontline Fellowship It was while praying through Operation World on an all night prayer chain, that the Lord impressed upon Hammond's heart what Patrick Johnstone had written, that Mozambique was the least evangelised country in the Southern hemisphere. It moved him that there was less than one Bible for every thousand people in that Marxist nation. Something stirred deeply within him. He knew that God was calling him to take Bibles and the Jesus film into Marxist Mozambique. As Hammond shared this vision with Christian friends and family members, they reacted sceptically. Mozambique was a communist country, a war zone, an enemy of South Africa. As he prepared for his first mission to Mozambique, the Lord confirmed His call through many passages in his daily devotions. Hammond recalls: "The Lord said to me, 'Do not say that you are too young, but go to the people I send you to, and tell them everything I command you to say. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 1:7-8). "Get ready now and cross the River Jordan into the land." (Joshua 1:2) In 1982 Peter Hammond crossed the border from Swaziland into Mozambique on a 250cc motorcycle with a thousand New Testaments in Portuguese and four reels of the Jesus Film. In so many ways God protected, provided and guided. This was a faith mission. 'I did not know a word of Portuguese. We had no contacts in Mozambique. I only had R10, not even enough money to purchase petrol to drive out of Mozambique again. Yet the Lord led us that first night to someone who became our host and translator. By the next morning he had gathered a large number of Christians from numerous churches together for us to minister to, and by the next day someone at the British Consulate permitted us to use their 16mm projector.' International prayer against Communism After the exposure of the atrocities in communist countries by people like Richard Wurmbrand as well as Brother Andrew’s forays into the countries behind the ‘iron curtain’, prayer increased for an end to the atheist ideology. It is hardly known that the Dutchman Bob van der Pijpekamp and another believer prayed against the occult powers at Lenin's mausoleum in the Kremlin while they were waiting in the queue for one and a half hours in 1980. This was happening just after the prayerful outreach of Christians during the Olympic Games in Moscow (Van der Pijpekamp, Gott zählt sie auf, Maarn (NL), 1992:123f). In 1983 Brother Andrew’s Open Doors called Christians worldwide to pray for a period of seven years for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus it was not so surprising that we saw the disintegration of the vast USSR in 1991! The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 ushered in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. This had been preceded by mass prayer rallies at different churches, for instance in the East German cities of Leipzig and Dresden. In Southern Africa there were a number of occasions when Frontline Fellowship’s Peter Hammond was arrested and detained in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Sudan. On each occasion the situation was very serious and could have become quite disastrous. However, in answer to prayer, on each occasion, the Lord opened prison doors and set the captives free. Hammond reports: 'In July 1984, my brother, Derek, and I were on a mission trip through Zimbabwe into Mozambique. We were detained and escorted out of Mozambique and detained in Zimbabwe and interrogated by CIO investigators. On both occasions the Lord gave us wisdom in our answers, and grace in the eyes of the authorities to set us free.' In October 1987 Hammond and three other Frontline Fellowship volunteers were imprisoned in Zambia. During the 16 days that they were locked up in Zambia they had to endure six interrogations. The tension between South Africa and Zambia at that time was intense, and sometimes it looked as though the missionaries were mere pawns in a political game being played. Nevertheless, by God's grace, in answer to international pressure and prayer, the Zambian government was forced to set them free. Eight missionaries in solitary confinement In October 1989, exactly two years after the Zambian prison experience, Hammond was leading a team of eight missionaries on a mission to Mozambique. They were captured by Frelimo troops, transported by Soviet MI-8 hip helicopters, and ended up in solitary confinement in the Machava Security Prison in Maputo. Hammond reports: ‘I had just been married six months before. My wife, Lenora, was the only one back at our mission headquarters in Cape Town to mobilise the international prayer and pressure on our behalf’. The situation was most serious because of the Mozambique Report, which Hammond had published. It included eyewitness testimonies of Frelimo atrocities. He had received warnings from the communist government in Mozambique, which bluntly stated that should he return to Mozambique, he would be killed. His writings and documentation on the systematic slaughter perpetrated by the communist Frelimo government in Mozambique had received worldwide distribution, and was even read in the US Senate and in the Parliament of Norway. Now he was in Frelimo’s hands. By God’s grace, his captors confused his identity, leaving out his surname on all their records. He was continually referred to as Peter Christopher (On his passport the surname was on the second line). Banner headline articles in South Africa and Zimbabwe declared: ‘Baptist Minister Is Frelimo’s Top Captive.’ International prayer and pressure secured their release before these reports made their way back to Mozambique and beyond the translator’s table. Bliss and Blessings David Bliss came to South Africa under the auspices of Africa Enterprise (AE) in 1967 from the USA as a student. The relatively young mission and evangelistic agency AE, which was started by Michael Cassidy in 1962, rubbed off on David Bliss in the best sense of the word. He decided to postpone his return to Princeton University for a year. After his marriage to Deborah in 1972, the couple came to South Africa in 1979 as AE workers on the Wits University campus in Johannesburg. In that year the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) took place in Pretoria, an event that impacted them significantly. The issue of unreached people groups and the possibility of South Africans as missionaries came to their attention so powerfully that soon thereafter they started to put together a group of 35 people to attend the Urbana missions event in the USA at the end of the same year. The next year they participated in the students' conference in Edinburgh, which was running parallel to the 70th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the World Council of Churches. In the same city the American John Mott had been one of the main movers in 1910, the man who had catapulted world missions into the attention of Christian students. The 1980 event brought the use of non-Westerners as missionaries into focus. For Dave and Debbie Bliss this was a natural follow-up to SACLA in Pretoria the previous year. At SACLA Professor Nico Smith, who had come from Stellenbosch, was significantly challenged to attack the apartheid structures with more attempts to bring people from the various race groups together, at least from time to time. David Bliss linked up with him in 1981 at a CYARA conference, the acronym for come ye apart and rest awhile. The Bliss family had relocated to Pietermaritzburg when Dave Bryant, who is known around the world for Concerts of Prayer, came to the country in 1983. (David Bryant played a major role in promoting Concerts of Prayer in the early 1980s. This initiative spread into the nineties and helped to bring people together on a city-wide level. Anything from 5 000 to 50 000 people were coming together in stadiums to pray for their cities and nations and millions of intercessors were mobilized in this way.) Bliss organized a busload of people from Natal to attend a prayer and revival conference in 1983 at the Cape that would have a deep impact on many young people. Waves of prayer start at UWC The Mother City and the wider surroundings of the Peninsula were blessed when a Frontiers Missions Conference was organized at the University of the Western Cape with Dave Bryant as speaker. The conference at the University of the Western Cape spread waves of prayer throughout the country. Charles Robertson, who had been a lecturer at that university from 1971-76, was brought into the swing of prayer events when he was approached to help fund the hiring of a bus to take participants to the event at the historical Sendingsgestig Museum in the Mother City's Long Street. (The former Coloured Gestig church building had been 'saved' by Dr Frank R. Barlow, a Jewish academic with a keen sense of history. The congregation had to move because of apartheid, and thereafter the former church was turned it into a museum). After Charles Robertson's father died in 1979, he was thrown into deep spiritual turmoil. The business he had started was in dire straits. All that brought him to his knees in a double sense. Hereafter he broke through into a living faith in Jesus as his Lord. At the Concert of Prayer with Dave Bryant he was approached to chair the meeting as an Afrikaner. That was not going to be the last time either. He led the Concerts of Prayer not only at the monthly meetings at that venue, but later also at the Presbyterian Church in Mowbray where the event moved to. (The Concerts of Prayer were held there for many years.) The visit to the Sendingsgestig Museum in Long Street with Dave Bryant - along with a visit to Wellington - paved the way for the Bliss family to move to the Boland town, which had so much of the stamp of the renowned Dr Andrew Murray. At the museum they were significantly challenged by the vision of Dr Helperus van Lier to see slaves trained to become missionaries. At a Concert of Prayer in Wellington the hearts of Dave and Debbie Bliss had been already prepared when Dave Bryant proposed a Consultation on Prayer and World Missions in the town. Dr Christie Wilson, one of Dave Bliss's lecturers at Seminary, furthermore suggested that they buy the building, which in due course became the Andrew Murray Centre for Prayer, Revival and Missions. That also became the venue for the first Bless the Nations conference, an annual event that would significantly impact the country for missions in the late 1980s. An Indian couple from Durban impacts the Cape Richard Mitchell was a young pastor affiliated to the Full Gospel Church, who came by bus from Natal to the Frontiers Missions Conference in 1983. He had been a political anti-apartheid activist and a drug addict, who came to faith in Jesus in prison. He became an important catalyst for citywide prayer in the 1990s. Richard Mitchell and his wife Elizabeth had already been used by the Lord in 1980 when they asked Reverend Hugh Wetmore to share a room in their home with Dr Theodore Williams, the speaker at the Keswick Convention in Durban. For Wetmore, who became the leader of the Evangelical Fellowship of South Africa, TEASA's predecessor, the experience was life changing. It was the first time that the White clergyman, who had been born and bred in the apartheid set-up, would share a room with a person of colour! At the Frontiers Missions Conference Mitchell met a young man from the Cape, Roland Manne, who had a heart for missions. Manne's yearning to serve the Lord abroad was aborted when he contracted cancer of the bowels, dying in 1984. His commitment had however by then sown seeds that were germinating in the hearts of many young people. Mitchell was one of those impacted by the testimony and commitment of Roland Manne and Dave Bryant for missions and prayer. When Mitchell came to the Cape to plant a church in Rylands Estate in1985, he felt challenged by his background in the struggle against apartheid to bring the element of prayer into the matter as well. He approached Pastor Ron Hendricks of the Silvertown Baptist Church to bring together a few evangelical pastors for regular weekly prayer. In later years the practice found a powerful emulation in Mitchells Plain. 6. Significant impact of Prayer on Cape Islam The German missionary couple Gerhard and Hannelore Nehls had to stop their work in Johannesburg with the Bible Band due to health reasons. When they saw Bo-Kaap at the beginning of 1975 the first time, it immediately called forth a resonance in their hearts. Soon the focus of their ministry changed, although they were formally still missionaries of the Bible Band. That surely was an answer to the faithful intercessors in England who had prayed for decades for the 'Cape Malays' among whom at that point in time very little was done in terms of loving outreach. At the Cape itself, Andrew Murray’s legacy was revived in 1986 when the American missionary David Bliss started to mobilize for missions from Wellington in the same building from where the pioneer of old had operated. It became increasingly evident that Islam was more than only a religion, that it was a political ideology due to the interpretation and escapades of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Unfortunately the religion was hereafter regarded more as a threat to world peace than one for prayerful concern. The threat of another world war was even more evident after Iraq’s State president Saddam Hussein had ordered his army to move into Kuwait. After the success against Communism and Apartheid, it was only logical that praying Christians would apply the same spiritual principles to ‘fight’ Islam. A call for 10 years of prayer for the ideology of Islam was a natural result. Prior to the 1989 turnaround in the Soviet-block Communist world, Chinese people had turned to Christ in an unprecedented way, and after 1991 a major missionary interest developed for the Arab world. This was surely an answer to prayer. At any rate, it cannot be rationally explained, especially considering the complete lack of interest in the churches in the Muslim world before 1990. The call to intensified prayer for Muslims came during a meeting of several Christian leaders in the Middle East in 1992. The 31 Day Prayer Focus – a booklet published by the Hospital Christian Fellowship in Voorthuizen, Holland appears to have inspired at least one in the group at that time. These men and women strongly sensed God’s desire to call as many Christians as possible to pray for the Muslim world. An internationally mixed group produced a booklet calling for prayer during the month of Ramadan, the 30-Day Prayer Focus. Prayer against the Wall of Islam Some books had already been written in the 19th century, clearly exposing the deception of Islam. One of these was the two-volume work of C. Forster with the title Mahometism Unveiled (1829). Dr John Mühleissen Arnold had the third edition of an excellent scholarly book printed in 1876 along the same lines. Somehow the information did not become general knowledge, and the Islamic deception continued unabatedly. In fact, at the beginning of the third millennium, Islam was still expanding quite substantially worldwide - also in Southern Africa, and notably among the Blacks. Internationally, the first major round of prayer for the Muslim world in the past century started around 1915 when Dr Samuel Zwemer challenged the Keswick Convention in England. This event fathered the Prayer Fellowship of Faith for Muslims in Britain. The next major round had its origins in the Lausanne Convention in 1974, the brainchild of the spiritual giant Dr Billy Graham. The conference in Lausanne was organized from an evangelical base. A direct result of the convention was a conference of missionaries to Muslims from all over the world in Glen Eerie (USA) in 1978. Marius Baar, a German author, reacted to the Islamic revival that was initiated by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. After the oil crisis of 1973, the Arab states were swimming in money. Baar saw the West in crisis, and wrote his book Das Abendland am Scheideweg (The West at the Crossroads). The book was intended as an effort towards an exposition of eschatological prophecy. An interesting aspect of this work is the discussion on the meta-historical role of oil money. Baar foresaw that revenue from oil - in the Bible the image of the Holy Spirit - would be used to expand Islam. Looking back over the last two and a half decades, this was definitely the case in Africa, with Libya playing a prominent role. The destruction by a gale of a big tent in the mid-1980s in which the German-born evangelist Reinhardt Bonnke was to hold an evangelistic campaign in the Cape township Valhalla Park, created much interest for the event when it had to be held in the open. The networking of township churches in the run-up was unprecedented. With a corresponding response at the altar calls. Hundreds of Muslims gave an indication that they wanted to become followers of Jesus. However, putrid follow-up by the churches prevented a massive spiritual turn around at the Cape. This lack combined with a brutal apartheid clampdown at this time, driving many nominal Christians to Islam when it was regarded as part of the struggle to become a Muslim. Marriage swelled the numbers of Cape Muslims when the Christian partner moved over to Islam and staying Muslim even after divorce. That Islam was another vassal of the enemy of the Cross became only generally recognised after 1990, after the Berlin Wall had been demolished. In the meantime, the main opposition to the apartheid regime, the banned ANC, was linked very closely to Moscow, after the Western nations had failed to give concrete support. No church leader with credibility among the oppressed of the country dared to warn the leaders of the ANC against the dangers of getting into an unholy alliance with the atheistic world power. The demise of Communism after 1990 got the country off the hook. The country was saved the humiliation and misery which so many countries had to go through when they joined the communist block. A new wave of prayer against the ideology of Islam started in February 1987 when David Montague challenged those involved with the preparations for the conference to be held later that year in the Dutch town of Zeist. Potential participants were requested to ‘bathe the entire event in prayer’. It was emphasized that ‘... a significant part of the conference will be prayer for the Muslim World and each other’. The year 1987 can be seen as one of major spiritual warfare between Islam and Christianity. The counterpart of the conference in Zeist (Holland) was the Islamic event in Abuja (Nigeria), which strategized to take control of the Black continent. But the Holy Spirit was also clearly at work. Various world leaders in the prayer movement were divinely called to this ministry in that year. Bennie Mostert (a Namibian Dutch Reformed minister) was challenged to become a missionary to South Africa. God has used him since then to spearhead the prayer movement, the Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa (NUPSA), which has become closely linked to the spiritual transformation of the continent. Gerda Leithgöb in Pretoria and others were divinely called at this time into intensified prayer. In 1988 Leithgöb called prayer warriors from other countries at a conference in Singapore to pray for South Africa, which had been in a constant crisis since 1985. The '10/40 window' in the Spotlight Prayer journeys to Muslim countries followed after 1991. The 30-day Muslim prayer focus started in 1992 where Christians, on a global level, prayed through the 30 days of Ramadan for breakthroughs among the Muslim peoples of the world. In 1992 about 200 000 people prayed. Increased intercession for the Muslim world has taken place during Ramadan since 1993 when the 30-Day Muslim Prayer Focus booklets were distributed globally. Bennie Mostert became God’s instrument when he organized the annual distribution of thousands of prayer booklets in English and Afrikaans since 1994 in South Africa. The booklets were intended for intercession during Ramadan for Islamic countries and Muslim people groups. Thousands of Muslims, Hindu’s and Buddhists in the '10/40 window' have come to believe in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour in the last few years as a result of the application of spiritual warfare in different parts of the world. Conversions have often been preceded or accompanied by supernatural manifestations like visions, dreams and miracles of healing. More and more the dubious roots of Islam, Hinduism and Freemasonry have been exposed. In the case of Islam, scholars like Sales, Foster, Pfander and Arnold had already done this in the 18th and 19th century, although their efforts did not receive much recognition. Colonel Muhammed Khaddafi, the Libyan State President, was one of the first to propagate the islamization of the African continent. According to a newspaper report of 9 September 1978, he stated this clearly. It had special significance in the light of an Islamic conference held in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, in October 1995, where it was verbalized that Africa was to be Islamized by the end of the 20th century. This was to include a major move to utilize the South African infrastructure. It is not surprising that these tones came from Tripoli. In the spiritual realm it was therefore surely meaningful when Colonel Khaddafi invited his national television crew to record a Christian praying for him and his country in 1998. He ordered these prayers to be screened daily for a month. The friendship of former president Nelson Mandela to Colonel Khaddafi may still set the scene for Libya to become (one of) the first Arab country(ies) to become open for entry by emissaries of the Gospel. The impact of the Global Days of Prayer since 15 May 2005 will surely also have their impact. At the Global Consultation of World Evangelization (GCOWE) conference in Pretoria in July 1997 a significant development and correction took place when churches and mission agencies discerned that they had been working in competition with each other. But there has been hardly any translation of the discovery in terms of action. In fact, there has been a dramatic decrease of Bible School students and full time Christian workers since then. This will possibly only be reversed by a complete spiritual renewal and networking of the poor and more affluent churches, to tap into the dormant goldmine of missionary recruitment from Black communities and refugees who could return with expertise and as emissaries of the Gospel to their countries of origin. Start of Life Challenge In the mid-1970s the missionary effort to the Muslims at the Cape was revived through the pioneering work of Gerhard and Hannelore Nehls couple, who 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 Salt River in 1980, later calling his work Life Challenge. Support from the Cape churches was almost non-existent at the time. In fact, the churches were 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. Gerhard Nehls became God’s instrument for the recruitment of a string of German and Swiss missionaries. These Christian workers made little impact, but they kept alive the consciences of those churches that did not get on the inter-faith bandwagon with regard to their missionary duty to the Cape Muslims. A major contribution by Nehls was that he linked up his agency Life Challenge with other missionaries working among Muslims. John Gilchrist (Jesus to the Muslims) and Fred Nel (Eternal Outreach) joined forces with Nehls 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. Significantly, one of the founder members was Gloria Cube, a Xhosa-speaking female, who started Muslim outreach in Bo-Kaap as preparation for missionary work with Africa Evangelical Fellowship. Life Challenge and the initiative from the Dutch Reformed Church seemed to co-operate quite well, especially while Ds Chris Greyling was still the Sendingkerk man. 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. Prayer used in Evangelism From oral reports of Life Challenge workers of yesteryear like Neville Truter, who later became an SIM associate missionary, the 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. WEC missionaries, who came to the Cape in 1992, likewise endeavoured to emphasize prayer, undertaking prayer walks in Bo-Kaap, Woodstock, Walmer Estate and Salt River. At the Cape Town Baptist Church a few believers, including Hendrina van der Merwe, prayed at the church when outreach groups would go to Muslim areas like Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. Prayer walks by the author and his wife resulted in a fortnightly prayer meeting in the home of Cecilia Abrahams, the widow of a Muslim background believer from Wale Street in Bo-Kaap. The former Muslim husband of Cecilia had been in a backslidden state spiritually, but he came back to the Lord just prior to his death. Regular prayer meetings focused on the prime Muslim stronghold of Bo-Kaap. The weekly Friday lunch hour prayer meeting that was started in September 1992 became the catalyst for many evangelistic initiatives. The meeting itself was initially mooted by Achmed Kariem, a convert from Islam. At the prayer meeting itself, Daphne Davids, a member of the Cape Town Baptist church and also a Bo-Kaap resident, was a regular from the outset. When Cecilia Abrahams encountered problems with her hearing after a few years, the Monday meeting was relocated to Daphne's home over the road, which became a monthly event. There it still takes place. Interlude: An impact on Cape Jewry The Bo-Kaap prayer meeting in the Abrahams’ home in Wale Street was later changed to a monthly meeting, making room for a prayer event where intercession for the Middle East was the focus. The new monthly meeting - at the author's home in Vredehoek - also included prayer for the Jews, those in Israel as well as those in Cape Town. The catalyst of the Jewish part of the prayer meeting in Vredehoek was Elizabeth Robertson, whom God 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 impacted Cape Jewry when it was published in 2003. In the same year it was read on the programme Story Teller via CCFM radio. In The Choice Elizabeth Robertson writes about the predicament into which the rabbi put her in the final interview of the procedure before she was to convert to Judaism: "Elizabeth, ... being raised as a child in a Christian home, who is Jesus to you now? Is He just a prophet, or is He the Messiah? What is your belief on this subject?” She continues to describe her inner tussle, the choice between the Jewish future husband ‘Aaron’ and her Lord: “Elizabeth, you have got to understand that you cannot have Aaron and Jesus. You’ll have to make the choice!” Four hours was all the grace she was given to give her reply. Four hours to decide whether she would give up the love of her life or deny her Messiah. She describes the turmoil in her innermost during the next few hours with the following words: "Thoughts of Jesus came to mind. I remembered how He had also faced a choice, a choice that seemed so unfair. By rights He was totally innocent, not deserving death on a cross, and in the Garden of Gethsemane the Father allowed Him to choose whether or not He would go through with it. “Oh Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will, but yours be done,” He cried, as drops of blood and sweat fell to the ground. Then He willingly laid down His life as atonement for the world, trusting His father to raise Him from the dead as He had promised. God never forced His will on His son, but He watched and waited to see Him obey." I was led before my judges who waited to hear my choice. They sat anxiously; clearly moved by what was about to happen and knowing only too well what devastating consequences my choice would bring - whatever it was... Quietly I was asked to give my answer: “So now Elizabeth, who is Jesus to you?” 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 Lord my God was so tangible that my whole mouth tingled with pins and needles from the presence of His Holy Spirit. There and then, in spite of the pain, I was baptized afresh with His Presence and Peace, in a measure never known before. He was clearly assuring me that I had made the right choice. Bathing in this weird peace I quietly sobbed, as everyone else in the room sat in shocked silence, arrested too, it seemed, by the presence of this Holy God. I knew in my spirit, that on this day ‘the God of Israel’ had spoken. His Will had been done by His strength in me." The unexpected choice of Elizabeth Roberson shook Cape Jewry. Surprisingly, she was encouraged by Jews to publish her special story, as she recollects: "Although everyone knew now about my faith in Yeshua, it did not seem to matter a bit. I felt liberated, no longer having to watch my words or actions anymore. My story became the talk of dinner parties and coffee mornings and time and time again the suggestion of writing a “book” came up. I even remember when the rabbi once said: “Liz, your story makes The Thornbirds look like Mickey Mouse!” Through Elizabeth Robertson, the author and his wife met Renette Marx and Lorraine Fleurs, two Christian workers, who were ministering covertly among the Jews of Cape Town. The two believers concentrated on praying that Cape Jews might see that Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah. For many years they stuck to this task until Renette Marx left the Cape in the late 1990s. Later we also met Edith Sher, who is a Messianic Jewish believer herself. Ten Years of Prayer for Muslims In 1983 Open Doors called Christians worldwide to pray for a period of seven years for the collapse of the Soviet Union. At conferences in Germany and Holland in 1987 missionaries started praying more intensely for the truth to be exposed to Muslims. The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 ushered in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. In spite of the reign of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, the Christians were not really interested in Muslims, let alone concerned enough to pray for them. Until the 1990s only very few missionaries volunteered for work in Muslim countries. (The dearth of missionaries to the Muslim world was the direct cause for the author to start praying seriously about volunteering for such an endeavour in the early 1980s.) All this changed after Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to invade Kuwait. The run-up to the Gulf War sparked off the call by Open Doors in 1990 - ten years of prayer for the Muslim World. Subsequently, Iraq’s invasion became a major undercutting of the foundations of Islam in recent times. At least one Egyptian Muslim - a former lecturer and shaykh from the famous Al Azhar University in Cairo, who wrote a summary of his life story under the pseudonym Mustafa, was troubled by the undermining of the idea of jihad (holy war) in Islam. It disturbed him that Iran and Iraq, two Muslim countries, had been at war with each other for many years. During his student years the former shaykh had to ask himself: ‘What religion would continue such destruction of human life?’ The advent of the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini had indirectly led to the fact that the president of the USA at the time, Jimmy Carter - who fought valiantly for human rights to be given worldwide priority - was not re-elected in 1980. But Khomeini (like Mao Zedong in China) became one of the best ‘evangelists’ of all time when his rule exposed a side of Islam that had not been generally known until then. Hundreds of Iranians turned their backs on the state religion, and many thereafter turned to a living faith in Jesus Christ. Some Iranians converted in exile, others in secret. The Egyptian scholar from Al Azhar, who studied in Teheran at the time of Khomeini’s rule, voiced his objections to his own peril. He was ostracized and kicked out of his job for questioning the religion. After fleeing to South Africa in 1994, he adopted the name Mark Gabriel. He was significantly impacted when the PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) scourge broke out at the Cape in 1996, forcing him to go into hiding. This turned into a blessing when at this time he started his research on Jihad, which culminated in his book Terrorism and Islam. This book influenced world politics when it was published in the USA shortly after 11 September 2001, going into its fourth printing in April 2003. Correction and Aid from Abroad A void was left in the Christian outreach to Cape Muslims after Ds Davie Pypers went to the Indian suburb of Rylands Estate in 1967, and even more so when Ds Chris Greyling became an academic. Furthermore, the proper discipling of new converts from Islam was not always optimal. The lack of discipline in the townships - also on the part of pastors - has to a great extent been hampering the evangelistic effort. With the focus of so many church leaders on the government’s apartheid policy of yesteryear - either in defence or opposition - correction was definitely needed. Even the evangelical churches had no eye for the Muslims in their midst. The unspoken rule that one should not speak to Muslims about religion, won the day. It was in this regard that help from abroad was surely an answer to prayer. In England prayers had been offered for many years. The prayers for the ‘Cape Malays’, as the Cape Muslims were erroneously called, possibly came into focus either after the publication of an article about South African Muslims in 1925 in the Muslim World by Dr Samuel Zwemer, the greatest missionary to the Middle East, or after his challenge at the Keswick convention in England about ten years earlier. (The intersession was mentioned to Gerhard Nehls by Lionel Gurney, the Director of the Red Sea Mission team.) Nehls became the catalyst in recruiting many German-speaking missionaries from his native country, from Switzerland and Namibia. Uli Lehmann was Nehls’ first assistant. He experienced first hand how resistant the Cape Muslims of Bo-Kaap were. When Walter Gschwandtner could not get a visa for Pakistan, he came to the Cape. Divine correction also took place when Kathi Schulze from the USA, a descendent from German missionaries to the Eastern Cape, came to help as a physiotherapist on the Moravian settlement Elim in 1973. She remained in South Africa after finishing her stint on the mission station. When Kathi visited her sister and brother-in-law in Heidebeek, the YWAM base in Holland, she was touched by God’s Spirit. Back in the Cape, she soon started to minister with Scripture Union in the pioneering days of multi-racial camps. During that time she became burdened to start praying for Cape Muslims. Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson, respectively from Madagascar and the island Reunion, came to Cape Town as Bible School students, and ended up as Life Challenge co-workers. They joined Youth for Christ in 1984, later becoming independent missionaries on behalf of TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission). ‘Co-incidence’ also played a role in the recruitment of missionaries from other countries. David Jun came from Korea with his family, initially with the intention to work as a missionary to seamen, after he had ministered on one of the Operation Mobilization (OM) ships. Soon Jun was also assisting as a Muslim outreach co-worker for Life Challenge. The international component of the missionary work at the Cape continued to expand over the years. Orlando Suarez from Mozambique, who came to study at the Baptist Bible College, ended up as a SIM co-worker linked to the Westridge Baptist Church in Mitchells Plain. From Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Taiwan and the USA labourers joined the full-time staff for loving low-key outreach to Cape Muslims in the 1990s. The author returned to his home country in January 1992 and soon hereafter he was called to this ministry with his wife - after initially feeling drawn to work amongst street children. The new element of workers from the third world became even more pronounced when Orlando Suarez from Mozambique became one of the first to return as a missionary to his own country, after he had been impacted and equipped at the Cape. Jesus Marches at the Cape All around the world Jesus Marches were planned for 24 June 1994. In a letter from our late friend and missionary colleague Chris Scott from Sheffield (England), he wrote about their preparations for a Jesus March in their city. Inquiries on this side of the ocean dropped the co-ordination of the whole effort in the Western Cape into the lap of the author. I became involved in the co-ordination of about 20 prayer marches in different parts of the Cape Peninsula, liaising closely with Danie Heyns, a Christian businessman and Chris Agenbach of the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington. Danie Heyns organized the marches in the northern suburbs of the city and Chris Agenbach did the same for the immediate ‘platteland’ (country side). I had high expectations that this venture would result in a network of prayer across the Peninsula. However, the initial interest that our second attempt, which an updated audio-visual had stimulated in various areas, petered out. I had to learn the hard way that it was not yet God’s timing and that much more had to be done to stimulate the unity of the body of believers. As part of my own research, I thought to discern that the Islamic shrines around the city were keeping the city in spiritual bondage. I shared this in meetings prior to the Jesus Marches. Probably for the first time Cape Christians started to pray concertedly against the effect of the occult power of the Kramats, the Islamic shrines on the heights of the Peninsula. Personal Spin-offs of the Jesus Marches In the run-up to the Jesus Marches the vision came in my heart to get a prayer network going throughout the Cape Peninsula to achieve a breakthrough among the Cape Muslims. I was so terribly aware that we concerted prayer was needed. A few prayer groups got going but the bulk soon petered out. Two of them not only went on for some time, but they had interesting consequences for the role players. Kirkwood, who led a prayer group for the Cape Muslims at her home in Plumstead in the mid-1990s, played a pivotal role in this prayer event. Later she came to the fore with a more prominent role among the Cape intercessors. The other group was formed by Gill Knaggs in Muizenberg after she had attended our Friday prayer meeting on a one-off basis. This set her in motion to start praying about getting involved in full-time missionary work. She had been involved in a close relationship with a Muslim person before she became a believer in Jesus as her Lord. Soon God used Gill to get the YWAM base in Muizenberg more interested in the Muslims. Concretely, an interest developed in Egypt where they started to network with the Coptic Church in that country via the links through Mike Burnard of Open Doors. In 1996 the author and his wife were asked to teach in Muizenberg. This led to a close friendship with Mark Gabriel, a former Sheikh from Egypt. Mitchells Plain Pastors in a Prayer Offensive In the early 1990s the pastors Henry Bush, Eddie Edson, Alfie Fabe and Theo Roman came together for prayer on a Friday morning with other pastors from the area. The ministers' fraternal of Mitchells Plain succeeded in bringing well known evangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Reinhard Bonnke to the area. That gave them quite 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 join up, organising a separate march in no time. (The concept of taking the Church to pray outside the four walls and put their feet on the streets of the cities began in London in 1985. In 1987, 15 000 believers took to the streets of London in the very first “March for Jesus”. In 1997, more than 170 nations of the world participated in Marches for Jesus. An estimated 10 million believers, spanning every time zone, were marching in the streets of more than 2 000 cities on May 25, 1996. Since then the March for Jesus has become a permanent part of the prayer calendar for many nations.) The Mitchells Plain ministers' fraternal was also the driving force of the pastors' and pastors' wives prayer meetings, every second Thursday of the month from the mid-1990s. This prayer meeting soon included church leaders from all over the Peninsula. Pastor Eddie Edson of the Shekinah Tabernacle was also pivotal in the formation of prayer drives where believers would target strongholds of the enemy every last Friday evening of the month. (Eddie Edson had already pioneered transport for the poor at his church in Mitchells Plain, buying buses for 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' (metaphetamin??) drug problem. The input of Ewa Hus, a WEC International missionary from Poland, to get a support group for parents of drug addicts going,was valuable. The Victory Outreach progamme from 2007 and that at the ?? church resulted in many a drug addict rehabilated when they became followers of Jesus. New ground broken in the Mother City and on the Mountain tops Because of his own background in drug addiction, it was just natural to the family of Pastor Richard Mitchell that their home in 22 Flat Road, 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 scene, 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 pastored the fellowship in Taronga Road, Crawford, in a building that had formerly been a White Dutch Reformed Church. In the new fledgling church pioneered by Richard Mitchell on the Cape Flats, church members took over the vision for prayer as a matter of course. When hardly anybody at the Cape had a vision for praying on mountain tops, Mitchell succeeded in getting believers to gather at Rhodes Memorial on Friday evenings from 1989. Led by Richard Mitchell, the Christians - some of whom had been at Rhodes Memorial the previous night - prayed from Signal Hill early on Saturday mornings. After a 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 mornings at Signal Hill in 1999, the idea of Cape Town as a spiritual gateway to the continent was shared. The prayers ushered in transformation in the country after Richard Mitchell had seen the Transformation video at a pastors' prayer meeting one Friday morning in Mitchells Plain. The vision of praying in sports stadiums became a reality within months. There were significant combined prayer events, respectively at Bellville's Velodrome on a Sunday morning, at the Athletics Stadium of the University of the Western Cape, at the Vygiekraal stadium and 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. Reconciliation of Jews and Muslims? Already in 1993 we started with a monthly prayer meeting for the Middle East, which evolved from a fortnightly meeting in Bo-Kaap. The vision grew to see Jews and Muslims reconciled around the person of Jesus Christ. This vision got fresh nourishment when we prayed on Signal Hill from September 1998 every alternate Saturday morning at 6 a.m. Signal Hill is situated just above Tamboerskloof, a ‘Christian’ suburb, Bo-Kaap which was still very much of a Muslim stronghold at that time and Sea Ponit where the bulk of Cape Jews are living. For many years our love for the Jews was limited to occasional visits to Beth Ariel, a fellowship of Messianic Jewish believers in the suburb of Sea Point and friendship to their leaders. This was to be stepped up significantly in 2004 when we got to know Leigh Telli, a missionary from Messianic Testimony, who is married to an Arab. During 2004 Edith Sher organized a prayer breakfast in Sea Point during which Adiel Adams, a Cape Muslim background believer, shared his testimony. Lillian James is a longstanding 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 Jews and Muslims. She introduced us to Leigh Telli and her husband. Leigh loves the Jews and the husband comes from Muslim background and hails from North Africa. All this served to confirm our calling of ministering to foreigners and linking our work to Messianic Jews. Soon we were invited to join an open-air service in Camps Bay that was dubbed ‘Shalom Salam’, denoting the intention to reach out to both Jews and Muslims. This became the start of a close link with Leigh Telli, who was reaching out lovingly to Cape Jews and a strengthening of the tie to Edith Sher. 7. God at work behind the scenes From the mid-1960s a local revival was taking place in Kwasiza Bantu in Natal. The start of the revival could possibly be located to the prayer of a young woman in the Zulu congregation, after she had interrupted the sermon of Erlo Stegen, a German background preacher. She had just been converted three months before. Stegen recorded the incident as follows: 'Tears were streaming down her face as she said, "O Mfundisi, please stop"... Astonished I asked: "Yes, what's wrong?" She replied, "May I pray?” Somewhat unsure what to do with a newly converted person suddenly getting up, stopping the service and wanting to pray, Stegen decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘I did not know whether to allow it... But then I looked at her and I thought, "Well, she isn't deceiving us, she seems to be serious." The simple prayer of the young woman seemed to penetrate the throne of heaven in a special way. Stegen himself was changed and hereafter evidently completely accepted by the Zulus! This itself amounted to a breakthrough! In due course, people from different races were worshipping together at Kwasiza Bantu, which was quite revolutionary for the country at that time. The location of this 'revolution' on the countryside, apparently did not trouble the government. Surprisingly the government did little to curb the ministry. Yet, Kwasiza Bantu knocked the bottom out of apartheid’s theory that different races could not have close fellowship together without friction. SACLA impacts the Cape and further afield In the spiritual realm, a major event took place in Pretoria in 1979. After the impact of PACLA in Nairobi (1976), UNISA’s Professor David Bosch and Michael Cassidy initiated the South African Consultation Leaders Assembly (SACLA), where a broad spectrum of Christians met. Very significantly, Bosch repudiated two contrasting positions at that occasion, which had been bedevilling race relations in the country. On the one hand he rejected the complete separation of the church and the kingdom of this world, the view that the church should not get involved in political matters at all. On the other hand he also opposed complete church collaboration with any political grouping. He took his cue from Matthew 5:13; the church has to be the salt which indicates its solidarity with the world and yet it should retain its critical uniqueness, thus a sort of critical solidarity. Professor Nico Smith and a few pastors in Stellenbosch established a regional follow-up, a logical extention of Koinonia, the linking of families from different races in homes. The informal meetings of believers from different races in Stellenbosch had been making a profound impact on Professor Nico Smith, so that his resignation from the Afrikaner Broederbond in 1980 was a mere formality. As a member of the Broederbond he got the post at Stellenbosch, but now his situation had become very shaky indeed. After my sister had died of leukemia in December 1980, we applied for the extension of Rosemarie's visa in order to stay on a family for six months to help the bereaved family. We slept in a caravan in their yard for the first three months, while I was teaching at Mount View High School in Hanover Park. My wife Rosemarie and I became personally involved with the SACLA follow-up during a six-month stint at the Cape from December 1980 to June 1981. We were personally very much encouraged at the monthly church meetings of a multi-racial group of believers from different churches in Stellenbosch, the sequel to the SACLA event. The experience in Stellenbosch inspired us later to link believers from different church backgrounds in Zeist (Holland) in combined outreach from 1982. Because I was unemployed in Holland after our return from the stint in South Africa, I was approached to take over the leadership of the ‘Kinderkaravaan’, a local evangelistic endevour. It turned out to be no salaried position, but we nevertheless volunteered to lead the venture. I immediately put forward my vision for a broadly based evangelistic outreach - also to the youth, the unemployed and to the prison in Utrecht, where I had been ministering during my work as a Moravian pastor. Within a few months the ‘Stichting Goed Nieuws Karavaan’ was a reality with workers from many local fellowships and others in the region. That people from different church backgrounds could work together locally was completely new to the bulk of the co-workers. The town of Zeist and its surroundings has been impacting the Netherlands significantly since World War II and it was continueing to do so. A Full Gospel Church was started there at which Brother Andrew of Open Doors and Floyd Mc Clung, who started a ministry on behalf of Youth with a Mission in Amsterdam, were regular speakers since the 1970s. (Both of them became household names in the evangelical world in the late 1970s.) We could ride on the crest of a wave. Just at this time Campus Crusade was pioneering a campaign called Er is Hoop (There is Hope), with which we also linked up. Quite a few co-workers of the Goed Nieuws Karavaan later ventured out into missionary work over the years. The initiation of a broad correction Some actions of the WCC was causing deep division between the evangelicals and ecumenicals worldwide, notably its Programme to Combat Racism (PCR). The state-owned radio, the SABC, distorted the recommendation of the consultation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) at Notting Hill near London in 1969 to support the freedom struggle if efforts towards negotiation would fail. All churches linked to the SACC – seen as a subsidiary of the WCC – were now labelled as being in league with communist-inspired organizations that were seeking the violent overthrow of the government. God especially used two Africans at this time to close the rift, one from the South of the continent and the other from East Africa, the one White and the other Black. Dr David Du Plessis – who was nicknamed ‘Mr Pentecost’ - teamed up with Bishop Festo Kivangere of Uganda to bring Christians of different persuasions together. In an unprecedented manner Du Plessis was God’s instrument at the Vatican, pointing out to the Pope that Mary obeyed Jesus according to John 2:5. Bishop Kivangere had to flee the evil antics of his President, Idi Amin, before he became a blessing to Christians all around the globe, preaching love and reconciliation wherever he went. Sovereign intervention also followed when Grahamstown Bishop Bill Burnett, who had previously been General Secretary of the SACC, had an experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1972. This brought him into the heart of the Charismatic Renewal that was impacting many a church in the country. Two years later he was elected head of the Church of the Province. As Archbishop in Cape Town, Burnett was able to bring together in a powerful way the social concern of the ecumenicals and the spiritual vitality of the Charismatic Renewal. As the first South African-born Archbishop at St George’s Cathedral, he was in a much better position, endeavouring to achieve reconciliation with Afrikaners. School and bus boycotts influence the Cape scene In the school boycotts of the Cape in 1980-81, Muslim youngsters worked side by side with Christian students, some of whom had been influenced by Dr Allan Boesak, who had radiated some evangelical flair before leaving for studies in Holland in the 1970s. An upsurge of interest in Islam among Blacks followed the apartheid repression of the late 1970s. Mount View High School in Hanover Park was one of the two schools where the boycotts started in 1980. When the students from that institution of learning were challenged at Easter 1981 with the story of the despised Mary Magdalene at a school assembly, Muslim students were among those who responded favourably. Initially the action and stance of the churches against apartheid opened up some of the Muslims for the Gospel. Bishop Tutu’s lead as secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) had an evangelical touch when biblical compassion shone through for the victims of apartheid evictions and the like. The care for the families of political prisoners especially had his loving concern. Accommodation was provided in Cowley House in District Six for relatives who were visiting prisoners on Robben Island. The SACC also provided transport to and from the ferry going to the island. In 1981 Bishop Tutu took a retreat in prayer and fasting, a practice that was definitely not typical for the SACC (South African Council of Churches) at that time. Compassionate Christian outreach challenges apartheid In 1980 a young physician, Dr Ivan Toms, launched the SACLA Clinic in Crossroads as a sequel to the big inter-denominational event in Pretoria in 1979. This was the first of its kind, after various denominations had started their own ministries of compassion in the informal settlement. Some Stellenbosch Missiology students under Professor Nico Smith were worried that their denomination, the NGK, 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 Dutch Reformed Church (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 it's 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. Conflict in Crossroads had its origins in the rise to power of Johnson Ngxobongwana as head of a residents’ committee consisting exclusively of males in 1979. This resulted in abuse and corruption. In the early 1980s a power struggle developed between Ngxobongwana and his past supporters, notably his former vice-chairman, Oliver Memani. In 1983 this developed into bloody clashes that soon spread into surrounding camps like the informal settlement KTC. Ngxobongwana’s supporters distinguished themselves by wearing bits of white cloth, or witdoeke. They were basically vigilantes, who opposed the ‘Comrades’, young Black militants. Some people fled to the new township Khayelitsha to avoid the violence. Crossroads and Nyanga in the limelight Rommel Roberts and his wife Celeste were Roman Catholics who became somewhat of an embarrassment to those church members who preferred their church ‘not to be involved with politics.’ The couple became known for their compassion for squatters in Modderdam (near Bellville). Rommel also became very much involved with the bus and school boycotts of 1980. They had already completely inconvenienced the Roman Catholic Church leaders by their marriage. Apart from marrying across the racial divide, Rommel had studied at the Roman Catholic theological seminary to become a priest and Celeste had been a nun. The couple lodged with the author and his family in Zeist (Holland) in 1980 after they had left the country because the South African police were looking for Rommel. God used the visit of Rommel and Celeste to Holland in1980 her pregnancy and loss of their first baby to get Rosemarie deeply involved in the plight of the 'illegals of Nyanga and Crossroads' during our six-month stay in South Africa. (That followed the death of my sister in December 1980. At the beginning of 1981 Rommel and his wife Celeste were back in Cape Town. After we had tried unsuccessfully to get other accommodation, we moved in with Celeste, her husband Rommel Roberts and his two brothers Alan and Wally, into a house in Haywood Road, Crawford. Soon hereafter we were confronted with the eviction of Black women and children from their shacks at night. From March to June 1981 we were quite deeply involved in the plight of residents of Crossroads and Nyanga, two Black Cape townships. Rosemarie paved the way after she had been approached by Celeste Santos-Roberts to assist with the teaching of retarded Xhosa children. Rosemarie knew full well that she was acting against the spirit of the conditions of her visa, which prohibited her from taking any employment, but she felt that she should be more obedient to God risking imprisonment or deportation. The Black women were subsequently scheduled to be forcibly sent to the Transkei. Through my contacts with church leaders that included the Dutch Reformed Church Broederkring and church leaders like Douglas Bax who were linked to the Western Province Council of Churches - as well as Rommel’s hot line to the Cape press - the matter received quite a lot of media coverage. We returned to Germany and Holland in June 1981, unaware of the effect, which our involvement in Crossroads and Nyanga would continue to have. I stopped receiving the international edition of The Star, which had kept me abreast of events in South Africa. 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 others to resist the oppressive race policies. Ferment in the Dutch Reformed Church More ferment occurred in the Dutch Reformed Church. One hundred and twenty-three Dutch Reformed ministers signed an open letter, publishing it in the Kerkbode on June 8, 1982. The document stressed the unity of the church, thus pointing to a major correction of the denomination’s position. In this open letter, the ministers confessed that they were ‘mede-aandadig’, that is they were accomplices to many of the social evils in the country, also calling for the church to play a role within reconciliation. However, the letter only referred to unity in the Reformed church family. It was nevertheless valuable in the South African context that the document stressed that unity in Christ is primary and the (racial) diversity secondary, and that the broad representation included many ministers from the countryside. The confession of 1982 – albeit one of a different caliber - that would impact the Dutch Reformed Church most was the one by the daughter church, the 'Coloured' Sendingkerk. At the Synod in Belhar in 1978 the star of Dr Allan Boesak had already started to rise. That synod declared the moral and theological justification of apartheid a mockery of the Gospel. The confession at the 1982 Synod, which declared apartheid a heresy, elevated the condemnation of the deplorable ideology into a status confessionis, an article of faith. This confession would keep the minds and synods of the Whites within the denomination busy for decades. Police Brutality changes the political climate at the Cape Possibly the biggest funeral at the Cape took place on Saturday 21 September 1985. Eleven victims of the police actions, including Ayanda Limekaya, a two month old baby, who died after inhaling too much tear gas, were buried that day in the township of Gugulethu. This set off a chain reaction of guilt waves that finally led to the unbanning of Nelson Mandela in February 1990. The start of the traditional march to the cemetery was described as follows: ‘Within ten minutes it has swollen to 20,000, 25,000 then it becomes impossible to estimate the numbers’ (cited in, Pienaar, 1986:45)- This was in spite of many roadblocks put up by the police and army to prevent people from other places joining the funeral. The roadblocks could not prevent the consciences of some Whites being touched. Events followed each other up in quick session at the Cape at this time. Willem Steenkamp, a conservative writer reported in his Cape Times column the following about what became known around the world as the ‘Trojan horse’ or the ‘Jack-in-the-Box’ event that took place in Thornton Road, Athlone on 15 October 1985: ‘Film taken on scene shows railway policemen laying down a heavy column of indiscriminate shotgun fire...’ An eye witness described a similar scene in Crossroads three days later, printed in the Cape Times: ‘Suddenly the police jumbed 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’ (cited in Pienaar, 1986:1). The Cape exploded and the state of emergency was extended to include the Cape on 26 Oktober 1985. Hans Pienaar, an Afrikaner journalist, courageously wrote in a book that he called Die Trojaanse Perd about these events and a few similar incidents. Many of his Afrikaner compatriots had never heard about these things before because Die Burger and the Afrikaans press withheld this information from them. Chickens coming home to roost In the meantime, the clinic in Crossroads, the township visited by Professor Nico Smith and his students, continued to do fine work under Dr Ivan Thoms, the young doctor. But when the chickens came home to roost in the resistance against the tri-cameral system of government a few years further on, Crossroads was one of the first to erupt at the Cape. Behind the scenes, God was at work. On 22 September 1985, the day after the funeral, Dr. Charles Robertson, who had been a lecturer at the nearby ‘Coloured’ University of the Western Cape from 1972-76, was spiritually impacted during his quiet time. Sensitivity grew amongst Whites that finally enabled Mr F.W. de Klerk to take the risk to ask the White electorate for permission to vote themselves out of power in a referendum on 17 March 1992. An advance guard for seven years of prayer We have noted already how the Western Cape’s Dr Andrew Murray was used by God in the run-up to Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World, a book which had probably influenced prayer for missions worldwide more than any other in the 20th century. In fact, Johnstone acknowledged this in the preface to his magnum opus. Operation World brought united prayer into focus like no other one before it. Furthermore, World Literature Crusade launched their Change the World School of Prayer in the early 1980s. The South African prayer manual was published in Cape Town in 1981. It seems as if the manual was not very widely distributed, but the terminology used indicates that Dick Eastman and his prayer warriors operated much in the mould of CT Studd, the founder of WEC International. World Literature Crusade’s publication may have been the advance guard for the seven years of prayer for the Soviet Union, and the prayer victories at the end of the 1980s. The group in California (USA) documented some of their experiences, praying systematically over 40,000 continuous hours. Charles Robertson, a Bellville businessman and lecturer, who was very much involved in the launching of the initiative at the Cape, wrote that 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.’ The first school was held in Cape Town, attended by 1,130 people over two weekends. It is appropriate that the revived prayer movement started at the Cape where Andrew Murray had written his School des Gebeds in 1885, and it is also very fitting that Charles Robertson and his wife Rita would donate the property where the first NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa) School of Prayer was to be erected in 2000. 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). The Change the World School of Prayer suggested that believers pray strategically, praying for 100 unevangelized Chinese and Arab-Moslem nations. The Dutch section of the Hospital Christian Fellowship in Voorthuizen, which had South Africa’s Dr Francis Grim as its worldwide leader, was possibly God’s instrument for the prompting towards a month of prayer for selected Muslim countries, when they published a little booklet in the early 1990s. They referred to specific needs in a 31-day prayer guide. In turn, this appears to have been the model for the 30-day Prayer Focus that went around the globe during Ramadan in the years from 1993. The influence of Andrew Murray could hardly be overlooked. (Semi-)political and Doctrinal excesses hamper the impact of the Word The apartheid ideology influenced the whole of South African society. The Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), the denomination with a big vision for mission and evangelism until well into the 1960s, was adversely affected by the racist government policy - more than any other church group. It brought the denomination into almost complete isolation, and it also tainted her mission policy. Ds Davie Pypers was understood to minister to the S.A Indian population in the 1960s as an entity, and he was expected not to concentrate solely on either the Muslims or the Hindus as an unreached religious grouping. Ds Chris Greyling was an exception. He understood his predominant role to minister directly and indirectly to Cape Muslims, working from the Wynberg Sendingkerk congregation. It looked initially as if Greyling’s hope for a simultaneous evangelical and prophetic witness ‘...that a better rapport could be built without compromise’, could have come to fruition from the ranks of the Sendingkerk. But looking back, it seems that the Gospel was watered down. Nowhere did the unfortunate politicising of the church become more evident than in the Dutch Reformed Sendingkerk. Previously fed on apartheid propaganda, the racial inequalities of society became the main issue in many a Cape Sendingkerk congregation. In the late 1970s there was almost no semblance left of the young Allan Boesak who had been evangelically active in the Students’ Christian Association of the 1960s. In the late 1980s there was similarly little comparison discernible with Bishop Desmond Tutu, who had been fasting and praying in 1981 on behalf of the battered Crossroads inhabitants. A wonderful opportunity to demonstrate that evangelical concern and spirituality were not mutually exclusive was impeded by the too overt political agenda of these clergymen. The ‘prayer marches’ by religious leaders to Parliament in Cape Town in 1988 appeared to have been influenced by those of Martin Luther King in the USA, who was in many ways a model to Dr Allan Boesak. On the other hand, there were factors in South Africa, which called for action. When the government banned opposition organisations on 24 February 1988, it was actually laudable that churches took a clear stand. The march of 29 February, which was organized at such short notice, could have turned very ugly indeed, knowing that the South African Police had no hesitation to shoot even at little children. Instead of dispersing at the command of the riot police commander, the significant number of clerics - which included many Whites - kneeled down on the street. They were arrested and warned. The committed stand of the clergymen turned the tide in a new way. The government now had to counter resistance on a much broader level than ever before. The marches might also have influenced what happened in East Germany the following year. Doctrinal excesses have been hampering the impact of the Word for centuries. This has also happened in recent years, notably through the so-called Toronto Blessing and Prosperity Theology. With regard to the former, it should have been clear that animal sounds - which are also found in Hinduism - have no biblical foundation. Demonic infiltration had the effect that what started as a special move of God in a church at Toronto's airport, caused splits in churches all around the world. After the spreading of the teaching on prosperity, which was not very balanced, Pastor Ray Macaulay, one of the pioneers of Prosperity Theology in South Africa, repented publicly of it. But this repentance did not filter through properly after the damage had been done. It also appeared that his Rhema-related churches never mended their ways in that regard. Many churches still have a sermonette on giving or related testimonies as part of the weekly liturgy. In another excess, after the neglect of worship in mainline churches in earlier days, some churches started to over-emphasize worship. The Word and its proper exposition became neglected. The most extreme example is possibly the Universal Church where the preaching of the Word was all but pushed aside. Rebels against the Status Quo Rev George Buckley, vice president of World Literature Crusade, cited prayer as a legitimate rebellion against the status quo. Charles Robertson used this as a chapter in his booklet ‘South Africa: the miracle of little waves.’ Without expressing it in so many words, the booklet suggests that the little waves of revival from the Cape might have started in the tumultuous year of 1985. At that time racial separation was the major dividing factor in the country, possibly stifling revival more than anything else. After giving some examples of ‘little waves’, and of individuals who rebelled against the status quo of racial separation, Robertson concludes: ‘The changes ... were rooted in concerted prayer for revival and prayer for change in the nation.’ Charles Robertson mentions two black leaders in his booklet of 1986 that appeared to have been exemplary. Chief Mangosuthu Buthulezi is quoted as having said at that time: ‘...prayer is the only way black aspirations can be met while the temptation of blacks to wreak vengeance can be dissipated...the key is to pray for one’s enemies. Joy in the midst of adversity is an inner strength that only comes from Christ.’ That was definitely rebelling against the status quo of the mid-1980s. Of Bishop Tutu, the other Black leader that Robertson quotes a few times, similar rebellion could be quoted. Unfortunately, the balanced views of both Buthelezi and Tutu became tainted in the political hurly-burly of the late 1980s. Special Cape ‘rebels’ were unnamed White teenagers in the home of Mike and Mure Kloppers of Hout Bay on some Sunday in whose hearts compassion was birthed for the nearby squatters. What started with soup, bread and plastic sheets as protection against the rain, developed into bonds of mutual friendship. ‘Families of squatters began to call on the group for assistance in prayer or when medical help was required, and the bonds grew.’ A prayer awakening in Pretoria with a national impact Gerda Leithgöb started a prayer ministry for the city of Pretoria in 1978. The SACLA event in Pretoria of 1979 influenced the whole country positively. 1979 was a significant year in South Africa also in another way. 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 (Vincent,1986: 164). In due course many major churches were founded and men with unusually anointed ministries appeared on the scene. The SACLA conference was part of God’s plan to transform the apartheid stronghold and capital of South Africa. 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, setting them on a path previously unexplored in this country. Simultaneously with this, 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 start with 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 were published concerning this issue. In 1988 Leithgöb called prayer warriors from other countries at a conference in Singapore to pray for South Africa, which had been in a constant crisis since 1985. In 1993 Mostert formally started a national prayer network known as NUPSA (the Network for United Prayer in Southern Africa). NUPSA became closely linked to the spiritual transformation of the continent. In 1993 the first teams started praying through information gained from serious research. Teams travelled from Kimberley to Grahamstown and George, to pray through issues concerning Cecil John Rhodes and Freemasonry. This had a major influence in the continent, exposing much of the damage done to society through Freemasonry. During 1993 South Africa also started to participate in the Pray through the Window initiative, launched internationally by the AD 2000 prayer track. Personal involvement in the battle against Communism In Zeist, Holland, we were receiving more clothes for our relatively big family than we could use. We started a private project, sending clothing parcels to South Africa to support the missionary endeavours of Shadrach Maloka, an evangelist from Garankuwa, near Pretoria. At that time we had also become more involved in the battle against Communism. God led us to a family from Rumania in 1987, Erwin and Sina Klein with their five children. The big family was allowed to leave the communist-led country because of Erwin Klein’s German ancestry. We got befriended with them when we attended a German government-sponsored camp for families with many children. (Tabitha, our fifth child, was born in 1986.) With Sina Klein supplying us addresses of believers in her home country, we now started sending parcels of clothing to Romania as well. We thus created headaches for the communist dictatorship of Nicolai Ceaucescu, which had tried to isolate Romanian Christians from the rest of the world. A mysterious move of God's spirit A special move of God's Spirit took place when Pastor Alfred West was turned down for missionary service on medical grounds He was redirected to start working as a missionary in the Cape township-like suburbs of Kensington and Windermere. The prayerful Pastor Alfred West had to wait for twenty five years to marry his (‘Coloured’) sweetheart Jessica because of the country’s racial laws, was in this way a quiet rebel against the status quo. When members of his flock moved to Bishop Lavis and Bonteheuwel, the mission-minded pastor started a prayer-centred church that brought forth missionaries to different parts of the world. Caroline Duckitt from Bishop Lavis Township would become the very first South African missionary of colour serving in Brazil in 1979 with WEC international, thus causing a little crack in the apartheid wall. 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-loving citizens of the township appreciated West’s brave challenge to shebeens (illegal liquor outlets). A special trophy of his ministry in Bishop Lavis was when the gangster Percy Jephtha got converted, proceeding to become a pastor of a home church. Special about Pastor West’s ministry was that he regarded the new home church not as competition, but as an extension of his ministry and keeping close contact with them. Various missionaries visited the two churches in Bishop Lavis, and quite a few went from there to minister in other parts of the world. Peter Barnes, who was trained at the nearby Cape School of Missions in Ravensmead, became a missionary to the Transkei where the vision was shared to prepare missionaries for other African countries. All this started to take place at a time when the concept was still rife that missionaries were not expected to come from the Black and ‘Coloured’ communities. An innovative township Bible School gets off the ground 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 that later became the Fountain Christian Centre. When a few students wanted to continue their studies, it was decided to start the Cape School of Missions. Gielle (Deon) Daniels is a special former student of the Cape School of Missions. He was only in Standard Six (Grade 8), when he was expelled from school in 1980. Boycotting and political activity was the reason. He landed in gangster-type activity in Port Elizabeth until he came to know Christ, experiencing a call for full-time service. No Bible school was willing to accept him, because he only had a Grade 7 report. Daniels applied to the Cape School of Missions, which had advertised in Rapport, an Afrikaans nationally distributed newspaper. He excelled to the extent of faring better academically than student colleagues who had already attended university. After marrying a girl from Ravensmead, he returned to the Eastern Cape, continuing with theological studies. In 2004 he was heading for his Master of Theology degree. Until 1994 Martin Heuvel was the principal of the Cape School of Missions, succeeded in 1995 by James Selfridge, an Irish missionary of the Metropolitan Church, who led the teaching and proceedings up to the disbanding of the school and the merger with the Bethel Bible School in 2004. God deals with arrogant Communist dictators When Frontline Fellowship first started delivering Bibles and medicines to Christians suffering in Angola, the mission agency heard that the Angolan Christians were praying for God to intervene. They were told how the dictator Augustino Neto had declared: "Within twenty years there will not be a Christian left in Angola. I will have eradicated Christianity!" After Christians had prayed for God's deliverance, Neto died in mysterious circumstances on an operating table in Moscow. His successor, Josè Dos Santos, showed a marked lack of enthusiasm for continuing Neto's wave of church burning. In 1986 Samora Machel's brutal persecution of Christians in Mozambique intensified. Frontline Fellowship published The Mozambique Report, which has been updated and re-published as The Killing Fields of Mozambique, launching a campaign of prayer for the suffering Christians there. Although there seemed to be no hope, the Cape-based Frontline Fellowship continued to trust God to intervene and stop the bloodshed. Machel publicly cursed Christ and challenged God to prove His existence by striking him dead. When, after sixty seconds nothing had happened, Machel declared: "God is dead! But I am alive!" Suddenly, in October 1986, his Soviet Tupolev crashed in the midst of a storm. (It has now surfaced that the plain crash in which Samora Machel died was orchestrated by the Defence Force.) Although much suffering continued, Mozambique officially renounced Marxism a few years later and allowed some measure of freedom to many churches, especially in the cities. And missionaries were at last allowed to evangelise in Mozambique. The atheist persecutors of the Church finally had to acknowledge defeat and they have even returned many confiscated churches. Results of Seven years of prayer Things changed dramatically when the results of seven years of prayer for the Soviet Union became known. Open Doors had invited Christians around the globe to pray for the prime Communist state. The results were there for everyone to see. There is nevertheless no cause for triumphalism - this never behooves a believer. Yet, we may utilize the new opportunities for the spreading of the Gospel. 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. Yet, one has to put some question marks to the demonstrative appeal of those prayers. Also in 1989, Edgardo Silvoso and Tom White presented papers at the Spiritual Warfare Track workshop of the Lausanne II Congress in Manila. Tom 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. Since then Peter Wagner and others have developed this further. A spate of books followed on the topic. In the 1990s Silvoso would impact many countries with his teaching and example of bringing churches together in unity and practising restitution as part of genuine repentance. 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 there quite apparent towards the end of 1989. The spadework had been done through Johnstone’s book Operation World. For the first time in the modern era thousands of prayer warriors were mobilized globally. It is possible that due to the faithful prayers of many over the years, 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 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 unknown up to about 1990. Of course, here and there the example of Hur and Aaron in the Bible might have been noted. Their keeping 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. Isolatedly, the expertise of Kurt Koch, a German theologian, on the occult and its diabolical links, had been widely recognized since the 1960s. Paul Billheimer’s 1975 book Destined for the throne approached the matter in a revolutionary manner. Although this book had quite a few printings, the content was not distributed globally by way of translation before 1989. Thus it did not mobilize believers siginificantly to either use praise or prayer - let alone both - to break down demonic strongholds in spiritual warfare. Yet, Billheimer made some profound statements about the role of the prayerful church that would have influenced world history deeply, had his book been taken seriously. He said 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 in (organized) crime and violence. Cape-based ministry in Central Sudan In recent years, 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 have had to trust the Lord for protection in defying flight bans in countries where a shoot-on-sight policy was maintained. The government of Sudan posted an article on their official Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, which referred to Peter Hammond, the leader of Frontline Fellowship by name. It plainly stated: "Peter Hammond should expect to be bombed, to be shot on sight." It even gave the reason for this. The article stated that his writings made him "an enemy of the state." Indeed, Hammond had to endure artillery and aerial bombardments in Sudan at church services. 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 - one barely seventeen metres from where Hammond was crouching. He had a few cracked ribs and was buried under the debris flung up by the explosion, but otherwise he was unharmed. On this and many other occasions they experienced Psalm 91 fulfilled, namely to be under the protection of the Almighty. A New Age onslaught countered The late 1980s co-incided with the office of Gordon Oliver as mayor of Cape Town. He proved to be a forceful agent of the New Age movement, fighting for the erection of a Peace Pole apiece on Table Mountain and at Rhodes Memorial. With its syncretistic-universalist elements (the mixture of different religions, whereby people can get saved in any way), the claims of Jesus to be the unique Saviour of the World (John 4:42) were clearly challenged. The position of Jesus as Saviour was compromised in various other quarters, e.g. in the growing interfaith movement. 1989 was a year of spiritual clashes. New Age made its ‘official’ entry with the 15 March 1989 article in the periodical Fair Lady under the caption ‘The Lure of the Occult’. In the article, which featured the telephone numbers of 18 practitioners of astrology and psychics, Ms. Caroline Hurry asserted that ‘more and more people are turning to New Age practitioners for answers to questions about their life, money, health…’ (Cited in Gardener, The New Age Cult in South Africa, 1991:38). The same year the country had its first ‘National Festival of Mind and Body’ in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. Gordon Oliver, the mayor of Cape Town in the late 1980s, was a self-confessed New Ager. However, the efforts to abuse his high office to promote the New Age ideology backfired. It spurned some sort of prayer networking in the Cape Peninsula. Stiff resistance was given by Christians, led by Youth with a Mission (YWAM), with Jamie Campbell and Brian Johnson the prominent personalities. At a New Age ritual on the slopes of Table Mountain at Deer Park, Vredehoek, a group of Christians challenged the New Agers prayerfully, refusing to leave when Gordon Oliver and his band attempted to drive them away. Vagrants destroyed the Peace pole at Rhodes Memorial. The poles on Table Mountain and at the St George’s Mall also did not last long. The latter two were removed by Mr Alaistair Sutherland and Mr Charles Probert, after which they reported their deeds to the police. In the subsequent court appearance of Sutherland, the magistrate dismissed the charge because the State could not establish the owner of the pole and in the case of Probert no charge was laid against them. What was interesting in the response to the New Age onslaught was that an Afrikaner reformed clergyman, Dominee E. J. Sevenster, linked up with the Pentecostal Pastor Paul Daniel of the Lighthouse. For those days it was also significant for the unity of the body of Christ that a Coloured Christian from Mitchell’s Plain, Mr Norman Scheffers, had prayed at a gathering of 1000 Christians at the St George’s Mall "that this pole be removed and that the name of Jesus Christ will triumph." Truth and Reconciliation The other side of the coin is that the South African military was performing terrible atrocities. A case in point was Michael Lapsley, a clergyman who came to South Africa from New Zealand. Here he joined the ANC but he was deported after three and a half years, hereafter fulfilling a pastoral role for ANC members in exile. He testified during the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a process which contributed so much to the healing of the wounds of apartheid, 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 got grace to forgive the perpetrators, simultaneously ushering in the spirit of forgiveness, we can take his words: ‘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…’ 8. Cape Church opposition to racism Apart from a few individuals Christians rarely protest against the South African government race policy during the 1960s. The propaganda seemed to be very effective in spreading the perception that to get involved in politics in any way was unchristian and that all religion had to be separated from race politics. The Dutch Reformed Church was teaching in a distorted way that God had ordained racial separation. As we have already seen, Cape churches have had hardly any vision for the unity of the body of Christian believers. It is sad that the clergy - and the missionaries - have often been just as guilty, appearing to be quite content with all the racial divisions that were characteristic of the previous dispensation in this country. Even the ecumenism that grew in the 1960s was not based on a solid unity of the body of Christ, but boiled down to mere window-dressing. Every denomination - very often also the individual churches - was basically busy building their own kingdom. Little has changed since then, but racially and denominationally, combined prayer events did pick up at the beginning of the new millennium. However, the church in general remained fairly indifferent to the racial divisions. In the 1970s and 1980s the lie of the apartheid policy was increasingly exposed, as communities were ripped apart. It became more and more clear that the bottom line was the retention of White supremacy. Police brutality in the mid-1980s drove the message home, when even little children were shot in the name of the regime. The prayers and groans of the masses increased, even though they were not coordinated. The church opposition - sparse as it was until the march to Parliament on February 29, 1988 - can nevertheless be regarded as some sort of answer to prayer for just rule. Initial Church Opposition against Apartheid The main formal 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 surprisingly came from within the ranks of the denomination that was led by racist ideologists. I do not refer to the warnings by people like Ben Marais and Professor Keet, but specifically to the stand of a ‘Coloured’ Dutch Reformed Church clergyman, Eerwaarde (Reverend) I.D. Morkel, who in turn influenced a dynamic mover, a young minister, Ds David Botha. From the Sendingkerk in Wynberg, to which was linked the Battswood Training School, Ds Botha opposed the apartheid policy long before the famous Dr Beyers Naudé. (Reverend David Botha later became the moderator of the Sendingkerk, the Coloured sector of the denomination.) The Wynberg ring (circuit) of the church agreed unanimously with the motion tabled by the dynamic Coloured minister, Rev Morkel, to oppose apartheid on scriptural grounDs The participants at that meeting included quite a few Afrikaner dominees, because there were still very few ministers of colour ordained in that denomination before 1950. The circuit protested against the proposed legislation of the new Nationalist government, appealing to them urgently not to implement apartheid laws. However, the Malan Cabinet ignored their protest. Ministers of the Sendingkerk were hereafter invited to discuss the legislation. Although 28 congregations were represented, only two White dominees attended the 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’. Led by the young Rev David Botha, the Wynberg Dutch Reformed Mission Church spearheaded an effort towards reconciliation with the 'mother' denomination. In a letter to the (White) moderator dated 29 October 1949, they deplored the deterioration of relations between the Sendingkerk and its mother. In the letter the church council protested sharply against the apartheid policy with the implied inferiority of ‘Coloureds’. The spiritual value of this protest was limited from the outset because an activist undercurrent could not be denied in the date set for the corporate implementation, that being 16 December 1949, a public holiday. This was to be followed by a public meeting in the City Hall the following day. The Afrikaans daily Die Burger, in its report of the City Hall meeting, scathingly referred to the event as a "so-called church convention". Afrikaner solidarity - probably via the Afrikaner Broederbond connections - tragically undermined the principled stand of White dominees in the Coloured Sendingkerk, who had agreed in October 1948 that ‘no ground for colour apartheid can be found in Holy Scripture’. To Afrikaners it was especially painful that Rev David Botha, the young Dutch Reformed Church Sendingkerk dominee, honoured the City Hall event with his presence. It was nevertheless pathetic how inaccurately his speech in the City Hall was reported in Die Burger. In a letter to the editor Botha complained about serious distortions, pointing to important omissions from his talk. Rev Botha had noted in his speech that the church had no right to criticize the state unless it could show a positive way forward. More important was his strong plea for intercession and his reference to the main weapons of the church, namely the Word of God and prayer. Botha also urged the whole audience ‘to pray for revival instead of having a critical spirit.’ None of those notions were reported in Die Burger. Other Churches oppose Apartheid The Anglican Church leaders opposed apartheid from its pristine beginnings. The Boer-Brit stigma, a traditional animosity as a legacy from the Anglo-Boer War at the end the 19th century, was however clinging to the efforts of (Arch) Bishops Trevor Huddleston, Geoffrey Clayton, Joost de Blank and French Breytag, because they hardly had support from other churches. These church leaders were nevertheless household names in the opposition to the apartheid folly in the 1950s and 1960s. Bishop Huddleston joined the Defiance Campaign, stood in the forefront of resistance to the destruction of the township Sophiatown in Johannesburg (the equivalent of District Six in Cape Town) and he went on to play a big role in the Congress of the People, which produced the Freedom Charter in 1955. (Unfortunately his church was not so happy with his political involvement and he was recalled to England the next year.) Reverend Arthur Blaxall, the Anglican General Secretary of the Christian Council of South Africa, who worked at the Cape in the 1920s, developed a support network for political detainees during the Treason Trial of the late 1950s. He was one of a few clergymen, who were deported because of their political involvement. Because of the harsh repression and the ‘kragdadige’ (forceful) clampdown on all opposition by the government, the early 1960s was marked by indifference and inertia on the part of the church. In the second half of that decade one finds careful opposition such as Beyers Naudé's multi-racial Christian Institute. Reverend Theo Kotze, a Methodist Minister from Sea Point, headed up an office of the organization in Mowbray, where the Institute of Race Relations was also accommodated. This building near to the station soon became a thorn in the flesh of the government. Multi-racial work camps at Langgezocht in the mountains of Genadendal from the mid-1960s formed another avenue that brought the Gestapo-like Special Branch of the South African Police into action. As previously stated, in the early 1970s individual Anglicans were still prominent in the church protest against apartheid principle and practice,. Father Bernard Wrankmore called forth the anger of Prime Minister Vorster and his government in 1971 when he called for an inquiry into the death of Imam Abdullah Haron, who died while in police custody on 27 September 1969. The St Paul’s Church of Bo-Kaap voiced its protest when an unusual memorial service was held in the crypt on 6 October 1969. Compassionate Work amongst peripheral Groups Reverend Arthur William Blaxall, an Anglican clergyman, came to South Africa in 1923 to work with the deaf. At the Cape he was open for the need to reach out compassionately to other peripheral groups of the society like the Muslims. In the 1930s he headed the Athlone School for ‘Coloured’ Blind children, which is now located in Glenhaven, Bellville South. In 1939 he opened the first workshop for blind Africans in South Africa in Roodepoort. For many years he was secretary of the the South African Christian Council, which was established in 1936 and he was also chairman of the South African branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. The need for reconciliation was necessary all round. A competitive spirit and backbiting even among missionaries seems to have been quite common at that time. In his inaugural speech as chairman of the Christian Council in 1936, Rev. Nicol referred to a letter of a missionary, which he concedes was not typical: ‘Ek veg ook wat ek kan teen die Y-seksie...Ek is ‘n man van vrede, maar nou het ek oorlog verklaar’ (Koningsbode, August 1936, p.258).9 The same missionary opines that he never knew that one sister church could be so distrustful of another. Over the years Reverend Blaxall developed ‘an ever deepening sense of solidarity’ in his own words with the Black, ‘Coloured’ and Indian struggle against apartheid (Karis and Carter, Volume 4, 1977:8). Trusted as a friend, he received money in the 1960s from exiled ANC and Pan African Congress (PAC) leaders and passed it on to former political prisoners and their families who were in need. This led to his arrest in 1963 and conviction under the Supression of Communist Act. The Homeland Situation highlighted From 1969 Reverend David Russell, a committed and unusually innovative Anglican priest and CI member, worked in the Dimbaza ‘resettlement area’ near King Williamstown. ‘Resettlement areas’ were the euphemism used for human dumping grounds for ‘redundant’ labourers and their dependents, those who had been endorsed out of the so-called ‘black spots’ of cities. Russell profited from the attention Bernard Wrankmore had received. The St George’s Cathedral authorities could hardly refuse him permission to conduct a prayer vigil there. However, the fact that he only intended being there for 90 hours would surely also have aided his cause. Surrounded by informative and challenging posters, Russell conducted a 90-hour fast and prayer vigil on the steps of the Cathedral. For his pains he went a step better than Wrankmore, securing an audience with the secretary for Bantu Administration. However, the latter’s cynical response was not encouraging. Three months later, on the public holiday called the Day of the Covenant, 16 December 1972, David Russell set out on a thirty day ‘Pilgrimage of Confession for the Healing of Family Life in South Africa’. In 1974 he moved to Cape Town, taking a small office at the Ecumenical Centre in Mowbray. From here he courageously endeavoured to prevent the break-up and removal of families to the Bantustans. Russell worked closely with the CI, particularly in publicizing injustices and enabling blacks to fight for their legal rights through the courts. He became one of those banned in October 1977, along with other leaders of the Christian Institute. Russell was also placed under house arrest during week-ends. Cosmas Desmond, another Anglican minister, drew attention to the plight of ‘Discarded People’, as Rev Desmond called the inhabitants in a book with that title. Sada and Dimbaza were two new Transkei townships into which many of those discarded people were dumped - for instance after catching ailments such as lung cancer because of working in the goldmines. The regime responded by banning clergymen, confiscating passports - for instance those of the leaders of the CI - and deporting foreigners like Dr Häselbarth, a Lutheran theologian. There was sadly also no protest from the church ranks when the outspoken Reverend Daniel Wessels was banned and restricted to Genadendal. The ogre of government reprisals and Robben Island as a scare kept almost everybody silent. Many gifted people of colour left the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s instead. The relatively small D.F. Malan airport of the Mother City did experience occasional public protests. A few Christians would sing ‘Onward Christian soldiers’ every time a deported anti-apartheid fighter left. As a rule they were missionaries and foreign clergymen who had opposed the government. Then there was the occasional protest meeting organized by Theo Kotze and the Christian Institute on a Sunday afternoon on the Rondebosch Common. However, usually only a small brave crowd would attend. Kotze became one of those South Africans whose passport was withdrawn. He fled the country in July 1978. Robben Island – Incarceration gives Birth to Baith: The government was quite successful to create fear of incarceration on Robben Island among all communities of South Africa in the 1960s. What they did not entertain was that God used the brutality of the system just as he heard the groans of the Israelites in Egypt in preparation of their final liberation. For Njongonkulu Ndugane, who was sentenced to three years on the island because of his political activities on behalf of the Pan African Congress of Azania, his time there became a turning point in his life. The son of an Anglican priest, he found himself wrestling with God asking the question: ‘How could a good God allow so much suffering in my country and now on the island? It was in the course of that wrestling with God that I found inner peace, as if God laid his hand on me. It was in a prison cell that I felt the call of God to serve him in the ordained ministry’ (Ndugane, 2003:5). In June 1996 he was elected to become the successor of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In this office he was instrumental in the renovation of the Church of the Good Shepherd on Robben Island and the reconsecration of the sanctuary ‘as a symbol...of future hope’ They also made a statement to the effect of claiming it as ‘a place of pilgrimage and reconciliation. The island of incarceration has become an island of faith… It is part of that spirit of hope, that reconciling effect that people who were incarcerated on the island can bring to the world’ (Ndugane, 2003:3). Spadework for Reconciliation A diabolical polarization between evangelical and ecumenical Christians followed the WCC General Assembly in New Delhi in 1961. The Wheaton Declaration of April 1966 was surely necessary as rectification, but the conference of evangelicals in Berlin later the same year widened the rift. The schism was causing anxiety, resentment and even animosity within some denominations. Evangelization and care for the poor and needy were never meant to become biblical alternatives. Much of the spadework for reconciliation between evangelicals and ecumenicals was laid at the Durban congress of 1973. Michael Cassidy recalled how he and John Rees laid the foundation of a watershed in the spiritual realm through a congress on mission and evangelism in 1973. They had encountered major polarization and alienation in their effort to stage a citywide evangelistic campaign in Johannesburg in 1970. At the Durban inter-denominational church congress of 1973, the Dutch Reformed Church and the Pentecostals were still notable absentees. But the event was nevertheless regarded by many a church leader as a ‘seminal(ly) transforming experience in terms of their attitudes to people of other races, cultures and denominations’. The famous Dr Billy Graham had the vision to call a broad spectrum of the divided church together in the Swiss city of Lausanne in 1974 for an international congress. Here third world theologians exposed the diabolical semantics of the unbiblical and artificial rift between (born-again) faith on the one hand and compassionate action on behalf of the poor and needy on the other hand. The Lausanne event was regarded as a meeting of the evangelicals amongst each other. At that occasion third world theologians were divinely used by God to bridge the rift between evangelicals and ecumenicals that existed at that time. It is so apt that way back in the early 1980s Archbishop Tutu wrote in his essay ‘Apartheid and Christianity’ in the book Apartheid is a Heresy (De Gruchy and Villa-Vicencio (ed), 1985:42) that ‘the heart of the Christian Gospel can be summed up in the one word reconciliation’. Along with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu became the personification of costly reconciliation, heading the Truth and Reconciliation Comission in the mid-1990s. An activist Spirit spawned My reading the books of Martin Luther King in Germany in 1960/70 spurred me on to become a radical activist. One of my first moves after my return to the country in October 1970 was to become a member of the Christian Institute (CI). The practice of the organization to obey the petty apartheid laws, when the White members were not ready to go to prison for defying these laws, led to some inner estrangement to the agency. Hereafter I went through the motions of attending events more to please the director of the Moravian Seminary in District Six, which I was attending from 1971 to 1973. (As an activist I found the CI policy of heeding the unjust laws unacceptable.) Falling in love with Rosemarie Göbel in Stuttgart in 1970 was to me tantamount to supernatural intervention, creating a tension between the love for my country and my love for her. The latter love threatened to take me out of the country. This finally followed after all attempts had failed to get her to South Africa. She had been black-listed for visa purposes by the government because of our friendship. Reticently, I left for Germany in voluntary exile at the end of 1973, determined to fight my way back by 1980, by working towards the phased removal of apartheid. (There was some ambivalence here, because in a short treatise that I tried to get published in Afrikaans newspapers called Liefde dryf die vrees uit (Love drives out fear), I described apartheid as a cul de sac, something that could not be reformed). My marriage to Rosemarie in 1975 made us political 'victims', a fact which different factions in West Berlin tried to exploit. There I co-pastored a Moravian Church from September 1975. My personal independence was however too dear to me to allow myself to get on any bandwagon. The deaths in Soweto in 1976 threw me into political turmoil. With Pastor Uwe Holm, a leader of the Lutheran State Church, I spontaneously organized a protest meeting in the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis’ Church in central Berlin. The 16th of June 1976 made an activist out of me more than ever before as I feared a development that could lead to a bloodbath in my beloved South Africa. After my ‘Soweto’ speech in the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis Church in Central Berlin, I was catapulted into the role of mediator in a dispute between foreign African students and the local authorities. After listening to my effort of mediation Heinz Krieg, who was connected to Moral Re-armament, made an appointment with me. A friendship started with him and his wife Gisela. When we left for Holland in September 1977, he gave me a challenging book as a parting gift: South Africa, what kind of change? When I read in it about personal friends from the Cape like Franklin Sonn and Howard Eybers, I was encouraged to increase my activism for racial reconciliation in my home country. This was also the start of a stint with Moral Re-armament (MRA). Already at the end of the same year Rosemarie and I attended the conference in Caux, Switzerland. At that venue the apology of Suzanne, the daughter of Ds Daneel, a former Springbok rugby player and a MRA leader in South Africa for the hurts of the government, made a deep impression on me. The power of confession left an indelible mark. I perceived it as something, which could change the social and political landscape of South Africa. Conscientious Objection debated In due course, the SACC (South African Council of Churches) became the main opposition to the government. In its leadership, the Moravian Bishop August Habelgaarn was not regarded as radical, nor was his Lutheran counterpart Bishop Manas Buthelezi. Cross-pollination was taking place with input from the CI and related organisations like the Black Sash, which brought their objection against conscription to the military into the open in 1973. The SACC confrontation took a clearer perspective in 1974 on the issue of such conscientious objection. Reverend Douglas Bax of the historical St Andrew’s Presbyterian congregation of Green Point proposed the motion, which was seconded by Dr Beyers Naudé. In the preamble to the motion it was noted that in the case of South Africa one cannot speak of a ‘just war’ because Whites would wage war in ‘defence of a basically unjust and discriminatory society.’ This would lead on the long run to the End Conscription Campaign (ECC). Reverend Douglas Bax prodded away within the Presbyterian Church to keep the denomination relevant. Already in 1973 the church reacted on the SPRO-CAS report Apartheid and the Church with a Declaration of Faith in the trinitarian form of a creed that included the words ‘We believe in the Son… breaking down every barrier of religion, race, culture or class’. This was expanded significantly in 1981 to include ‘every separating barrier.’ The Church and the State were summoned to seek reconciliation and unity between all and justice and freedom for all.’ A strange Mix: conscientious Objection and charismatic Renewal As was expected, the SACC motion opposing military conscription - by supporting conscientious objection - made headlines which evoked the wrath of the government. Mr P.W. Botha, then the Minister of Defence and a later Prime Minister, indicated that he would introduce a bill in Parliament that would provide for a fine of up to R 10,000 or ten years imprisonment. Dr. Alex Boraine, a former president of the Methodist Church, led the attack sympathetic to the SACC resolution as a Progressive Party member of Parliament, suggesting that many would have no alternative than to break the law. The most interesting support of the church resolution came from Bill Burnett, the newly elected Archbishop of Cape Town. In his ‘enthronement’ sermon in August 1974 before a huge congregation in St George’s Cathedral that included the State President and military chiefs, he called for a new Pentecost. He however also expressed the hope that the resolution, which he supported, would help the Church to understand that some Black South Africans, many of whom are Christians, are fighting from outside the country ‘to change our power structure by force…’ John de Gruchy noted that the connection between charismatic renewal and non-violence had found a powerful advocate. Archbishop Burnett was a strong supporter of the charismatic renewal in the Anglican Church. More pronounced Confrontation with the Government When the Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu became the general secretary of the SACC in 1978, the confrontation with the state became more pronounced. It was generally accepted that his caring for the families of political prisoners on behalf of the SACC was a thorn in the flesh of the government. Evangelicals had been more or less neutral until people like Pastor (later Dr) Frank Chikane, who had been involved with the institution for contextual theology, were imprisoned. Until the early 1980s the churches were hardly supporting people like him and the Reverends Chris and Daniel Wessels who were respectively imprisoned or banned - let alone supporting other Black leaders who had secular professions. (Rev Chris Wessels was imprisoned without being formally charged. His ‘crime’ was supporting the families of political prisoners on behalf of the SACC. SA legislation allowed people to be detained for up to 180 days without a charge laid.) It is significant that the usually conservative Christian Students Association also joined in with a declaration in 1980 that was critical of the government, saying among other things: ‘We must reject an unquestioning loyalty to our own group or country, placing first our identity with each other in Christ.’ He continued very radically: ‘If the will of those in authority is irreconcilable with the will of God as clearly revealed in Scripture then Christians have no option but to break their pattern of conscience in favour of God’s command’. The Methodist Church chipped in the following year with a Message of Obedience, calling the members to move from resolution to action, translating their love for each other into justice for all. Someone must have been praying for me The grace with which the MRA people of Caux accepted my criticism of their hero-worshipping Frank Buchman, the founder of the movement - although I was still a complete newcomer to MRA - augured well for deeper involvement. A few months later I participated in the celebrations in Freudenstadt, Germany where Frank Buchman, had been born in 1878. The practice of Moral Rearmament, to write down thoughts that came up during quiet times, was one that suited the activist spirit in me perfectly. My activism however also led to estrangement to my church. Ideas from my quiet times that I came up with - like pastoring the Black church of Nyanga together with the Cape Flats one of Manenberg - were too radical for the Moravian Church leaders. My compromise suggestion, to pastor a country congregation for three years, and thus to cause another crack in the apartheid wall - in defiance of the prevalent racial laws - was still too rebellious for the church leaders. I managed to ‘fight’ myself into a meeting of the Moravian Church Board in South Africa in the Capetonian suburb of Bridgetown during our visit in early November 1978 with the help of Rev Martin Wessels, who was a lone comrade against the old guard of the denominational leadership. My activism was however just a bit too much for the brethren of the Church Board, causing the chairman to lose his cool. This was enough to label me as a tourist! It hurt me terribly that nobody contradicted the chairman. I was thus not welcome to return to my home church! But I probably deserved that treatment. I also confronted them with the perceived lack of concern for my friend Chris Wessels when he was incarcerated. When we ran out of cash, it came in handy to discover that South African Railways offered a ‘special.’ It should not have surprised me that the embarassed young official in the White side of the Cape Town station where we dared to go and enquire, bluntly told us: ‘You see, we discriminate here!’ Noticing that we intended to travel by train from Cape Town to Johannesburg as a family in the same compartment, he was forced to consult his boss. The simple request went up the hierarchical ladder via the System Manager right up to the responsible government Minister. Finally it had to be dealt with at Cabinet level, earning treatment for us as VIP’s. Perhaps the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues intended to make us happy. All that had however the opposite effect; it angered me intensely. In November 1978 I was enraged by the combined reaction by the Moravian Church Board to my suggestion to come and work in South Africa, and that 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 was actually unreasonable but all the same I was hereafter determined not to put my foot onto South African soil again. I only had one last wish, namely to worship with Dr Beyers Naudé. (Later the Lord gave me grace to forgive the perpetrators.) Howard Grace, a British full-time worker with Moral Rearmament (MRA), fetched us from Park Station in Johannesburg. He had to bear the brunt of my rage. When I was still fuming, Howard suggested during the car trip to Umdeni (the villa of the movement, where we stayed in the rondavel for the next few days), that I meet the influential Professor Johan Heyns. The timing for Howard's kind gesture was the worst one the Moral Rearmament worker could have chosen. At that point in time, I was definitely not prepared or interested to meet the chairman of the Broederbond! Changed from Within On that November Saturday the MRA people of Johannesburg surely did not encounter a happy Christian. I am ashamed to say that I relished verbally whipping an old lady, who clearly had her sympathies with the government. With as much venom as I could muster, I shared how the various agents of the apartheid government had been maltreating us. Therefore it was no wonder that Howard Grace and others suspected in the evening that I was craving after sensation by phoning Dr Beyers Naudé to find out where he was worshipping. There was thus ample reason for the one or other MRA member to surmise that I was not sincere in my wish to worship with Dr Naudé. One of them actually suggested that I more or less had a martyr complex, hoping to be thrown out of the church. It was a miracle that I kept my cool! Someone - or perhaps even more than one person - must have been praying for me. God used Dr Naudé and the congregation where he worshipped, to supernaturally heal me of my intense bitterness and anger towards the country that I paradoxically loved so dearly. Rosemarie and I visited the church that he and his wife attended, along with a few believers linked to Moral Rearmament. I had intended the visit to Dr Naudé to be my farewell gesture of solidarity with the politically oppressed of the country. A miracle happened that Sunday. I was changed from within, through the visit to the Naudé home and that of Ds Joop Lensink, a Dutch national, who ministered to Blacks in the mining compounds! Determinination to fight the demonic Apartheid Ideology In His sovereign way God used the visit to Dr Beyers Naudé to make me more determined than ever to fight the demonic apartheid ideology, and to work towards racial reconciliation. The Moral Rearmament practice of writing down thoughts fueled my activist spirit. Hereafter I wrote various letters of protest to Cabinet ministers. From the time of our return to Holland after our six-week visit to South Africa, I saw a ministry of reconciliation now as my special duty to the country of my birth. As part of this effort, I collated personal documents and letters with more verve, hoping to get it published under the title ‘Honger na Geregtigheid’ (Hunger after Righteousness). In this manuscript I included and commented on my correspondence with the rulers of the day. Yet, I wanted to win the government over, rather than expose their practices abroad. As a means to this end, I targeted the Dutch Reformed theologians whom I believed could play a pivotal role. In my resolve to work towards racial reconciliation, I went out of my way to meet a Dutch Reformed Church church delegation that included Dr O'Brien Geldenhuys and the Professors Willie Jonker and Johan Heyns at the Amsterdam airport Schiphol when they visited Holland in 1979. These three would be quite influential in significant change in the Dutch Reformed Church in the years hereafter. I urged the clergymen to get the ban of Dr Beyers Naudé lifted. (Later I found out that some of them had responded positively, however without initial success on this score.) Because of the well-publicized tampering with post by the special branch of the police - which I had experienced myself - I contrived to send my draft manuscript of Honger na Geregtigheid in an open envelope to Dr Naudé with the delegation. My request for one of the delegation to deliver the manuscript to Dr Beyers Naudé, was not honoured (I had left the envelope open, suggesting that the bearer could read the manuscript. I learnt later that the manuscript had been handed to the government, instead of being delivered to Dr Naudé. However, the action did harvest respect for me in government circles thereafter.) Dr Naudé never received the manuscript. 9. More Church struggle against divisions In South Africa the churches were completely divided in the late 1960s. At this time believers were calling in a rather isolated manner for prayer against the heresy of the apartheid ideology that held so many people (not only Whites) in bondage. The Message to the People of South Africa, which was published in 1968, caused some ripples declaring in no uncertain terms that apartheid was incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The author was campaigning in Germany in 1969 as a young student for prayer on behalf of the unique problems of South Africa, viz. apartheid, church divisions and alcoholism. I did this without knowing much about spiritual warfare. I was not taken seriously, here and there scoffed at, for instance when I suggested that the apartheid regime was a potential danger to world peace. The circles in which I moved at that time included few fervent prayful persons. Thus the effect of these warnings was like water on a duck’s back, not much more than mere entertainment. (Initially I heeded the warnings by our bishop to be wary of South African spies in Germany. I dropped my caution after I heard how our family had been required to leave our home in Tiervlei. Nevertheless, my theological position remained basically evangelical.) Ferment in the Dutch Reformed Church Already in 1963 Dr O’Brien Geldenhuys, a prominent Dutch Reformed Church minister, threw a cat among the pigeons when he resigned from the Broederbond. Geldenhuys believed that the Broederbond was being used as a political instrument in the church. Discontent slowly started to simmer in the Dutch Reformed Church church about the role of the Broederbond. However, only when a letter by a well-known dominee was published on 22 January 1979 under the pseudonym ‘Ethicus’ in Hoofstad, a Pretoria afternoon paper, a 'snowball' got rolling. In his letter ‘Ethicus’ asked whether there was not a clash of loyalties if ministers belong to a secret organization. On March 13, 1979 a statement by 45 ministers of the Sendingkerk, the bulk of them stemming from the Cape Peninsula, was published in Beeld, another Afrikaans daily newspaper. They asked White pastors who were serving in the Sendingkerk, the ‘Coloured’ part of the denomination, to declare their loyalty to either the Broederbond or the church. And most surprisingly, the conservative Free State Synod decided on September 27, 1979 that a commission should be appointed to investigate the Broederbond in depth. However, like previous investigations into the secret organization, little was expected from the inquiry because the bulk of the investigators were Broeders, members of the Broederbond. The 1980s saw ferment in the Dutch Reformed Church as never before. Officially described as a ‘verligte’, Dr O’brien Geldenhuys still opposed the concept of a non-racial church. Dr Geldenhuys caused a storm of his own by resigning from his post as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Ecumenical Relations of the Dutch Reformed Church on September 10, 1980. Geldenhuys had clashed with his church leadership, differing on the urgency of implementing synodal decisions on racial matters and the need for the church to sound a prophetic note on such matters. The conservative leaders were very unhappy with the statement in the Dutch Reformed Church News of June 1980 including the ‘radical’ words: ‘no political solution will ultimately work, which does not enjoy the broad support of the convinced Christians of all races in our country.’ In his farewell sermon on 28 September 1980 Geldenhuys warned bluntly: ‘South Africa’s people would be plunged over the precipice if drastic solutions were not found soon… the church has become an exclusive group that built barriers’, closing its doors to the other races. The Seed of Confession starts to germinate From Holland the author continued his correspondence with a few Dutch Reformed ministers in South Africa since 1979, impressing on them the need for confession as a prelude to racial reconciliation. The powerful impact of confession and restitution, which I had experienced within the confines of Moral Rearmanent, was obviously working through. The Reformation Day statement that became known as the ‘Witness of the Eight’ of 31 October 1980 - seemed to have given the ‘snowball’ momentum. The statement challenged the NGK, inviting the believers to ‘resist mutual estrangement and exclusivity among Christians and so to work against the divisions of the church, which shame the communion of saints.’ It was an encouragement to me that two members of the Dutch Reformed Church delegation, whom I had met at Schiphol Airport, were in this group, viz. Professors Heyns and Jonker. That Professor Willie Jonker was among this group of eight was not really surprising. At the Dutch airport Jonker had taken me aside to explain that he was not a member of the Broederbond. I was sad to hear of the ambivalent role that Professor Heyns was still playing as the chairman of the Broederbond. (Yet, during an 1981 interview he conceded that the Dutch Reformed Church was paralysed internally.) Militant Prayer as Part of Anti-apartheid Armour At the national launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Mitchell’s Plain on 20 August 1983 Aubrey Mokoena, secretary of the Transvaal branch of the Release Mandela Campaign gave an unusual slant to prayer, exhorting the listeners to: ‘…remember our leaders on Robben Island and we must pray, but when we pray we must not do so like the missionaries who said we must close our eyes while the pull the land from nder our feet. I would like to call upon you to pray like revolutionaries with your eyes wide open becaue I believe we can never win the struggle unless God is amongst us’ (cited in Lodge/Nasson, 1991: 49). The WCC and its agents - in South Africa it was the SACC - often called for action like boycotts, rather than for prayer. When prayer was called for from their ranks, for instance when Dr Allan Boesak called for prayer to topple the government the SACC conference of 1984, the activist spirit was prevalent. (It must however be added that the media loved to quote Boesak out of context. Thus the latter part of the phrase ‘....and the removal of those who continue to do injustice’ in their reporting of his sermon on June 16, 1985 was often conveniently omitted). Also the historical context has to be taken into account. It was at a time when police brutality was at its worst. All over the country even small children were ruthlessly beaten, and in isolated cases, even killed. The year 1985 could be seen as the start of another season of major spiritual upheaval. The government repression of 1984/5 coincided with the increased activity of the UDF. The run-up to this season can be traced to the call of Dr Allan Boesak during the 1984 annual conference of the SACC (South African Council of Churches) for a day to be set aside for a day of prayer for the fall of the government. The conference changed the wording to prayer for the ‘abolition of all apartheid structures' and 'the end to unjust rule’ (Boesak, 1986:16). A season of major spiritual upheaval 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 even more it was a result of the political tension of 1985 - when the country seemed to be rushing towards the precipice of civil war. Michael Cassidy issued a significant 'Statement of intent' on 18 July 1985 which heralded the National Initiative for Reconciliation. Following ‘several months of prayer, careful consideration and discussion in the Board and team of Africa Enterprise... a unanimous decision has been taken to place all manpower and resources on an emergency footing to cope with the crisis situation which exists at present in South Africa.’ 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) from 10 to 12 September 1985. The call for a national day of prayer by this group on October 9, i.e. less than a month later, was widely followed. Yet, the prayer day had a less positive intermezzo. Many Black Delegates at the Pietermaritzburg NIR consultation felt their interests not seriously considered. They saw the 'pray-away' as a bad compromise. (A national six-day stay away from work had originally been suggested as a non-violent gesture of opposition against apartheid.) Already in July 1985 the Institute for Contextual Theology had finalized the first draft of the Kairos document. The radical document blasted church theology, which supported the status quo. Two weeks after the NIR in Pietermaritzburg, the document was published, demonstrating the disunity of the church as never before. The repression also caused conservative church groupings like the Baptist Union, to take a public stand. Their national Assembly of 1985, which met in George, sent an unprecedented letter to the State President, clearly deviating from the usual evangelical position that the church should ‘not get involved with politics.’ The National Initiative for Reconciliation God used Michael Cassidy and his Africa Enterprise at this time especially to heal wounds of racial polarization in the run-up to the National Initiative for Reconciliation, which was convened in September 1985. Cassidy wrote about this preparation: ‘I felt while travelling around South Africa that I was seeing a new thing – the birth of an embryonic national humility…’ (Cassidy, 1989:295). The most significant outcome of the National Initiative for Reconciliation, was the call for a National Day of Prayer and humiliation, set for Wednesday 9 October, 1985. How politicized the country had become, became obvious when it was decided to debate the prayer day on television. But God intervened, in answer to inercession. As Michael Cassidy recalled: ‘I knew many were praying for me. An African leader told me he fell on his knees by his TV set the moment he saw me come on… A whole bunch of (TV) technicians were up there: We were all praying for you, Mike…’ (Cassidy, 1989:301). How different this National Day of Prayer was to the one about ten years earlier when only a slice of the population participated. All around the country Christians from different denominations and races came together for prayer services. In Cape Town over thirteen hundred people crammed into the St George’s Cathedral for a lunch-hour service. According to a report of a participant: ‘In Cape Town we broke out of our islands as never before’(Cassidy, 1989:302). Significantly, concerned Chritians all over the world across denominational barriers joined in prayer for South Africa that day. Thus the Pope, speaking to seven thousand Catholics in St Peter’s Square in Rome, called Catholics everywhere to pray that ‘South Africa should soon find peace founded n justice and reciprocal love through a sincere search for a just solution to the problems that torment that dear country’ (Cited in Cassidy, 1989:303f). The well known evangelist Luis Palau put the prayer call on that day on hundreds of radio stations across Latin America. Chickens coming Mome to roost In the meantime, the clinic in Crossroads, the township that Professor Nico Smith had visited with his students, continued to do fine work under Dr Ivan Thoms, a young doctor. But when the chickens came home to roost in the resistance against the tri-cameral system of government a few years further on, 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. The igniting of the powder keg occurred from faraway Krugersdorp when Winnie Mandela went on record as saying: ‘Together, hand in hand, with our sticks and our matches, with our necklaces, we shall liberate the country.’ Crossroads was one of the areas hit most by the revolt that followed countrywide. On 9 June 1986 the Community Centre of Crossroads, which had sheltered over two thousand refugees on the chilly night before, was put to the torch. Dr Di Hewitson and a nurse, Dorcas Cyster, risked their lives as committed Christians in 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 Comrades turf. Even as they came to work, they were accused of going to tend to the wounds of the enemy. Michael Cassidy summed up the situation, which epitomized the dilemma of the country at that time in a prayer: ‘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 polarized contexts.’ The controversial Dr Allan Boesak did this in a way, which was not recognized as such at that time. He engaged in spiritual warfare on 16 June 1986, although he might not have been the first to call it such. In his sermon he acknowledged the reality of Satan, challenging the congregation: “Satan is alive. Satan is real. Believe the words of Jesus: I have seen Satan fall.” Other elements of such warfare that Boesak included in his writings and sermons were the inner joy that the persecuted were experiencing amidst unjust suffering. Thus he preached: “The joy of the oppressed is a source of fear for the oppressor. But we sing because we believe, we sing because we hope”. He also quoted how students danced and sung around a police vehicle just after a student had been arrested at a church service: “It is broken, the power of Satan is broken. We have disappointed Satan, his power is broken, Alleluia!” The police released the arrested student almost immediately. Confession starts to bear fruit Dr Nico Smith visited Bilthoven in Holland, only a few kilometers from Zeist where we were living at the time, I visited him there. This resulted in some correspondence. One of these letters landed me in hot water when Nico Smith quoted from it at the ‘Reforum’ conference, at which Reformed theologians and ministers from different races participated. In my letter I had suggested confession for apartheid as the place to start, to be followed by restitution. Some dominee wrote to me angrily, asking who had given me the right to interfere in their affairs. He had a point of course, but I definitely had not written the letter for the consumption of the conference. In the course of my correspondence with Dutch Reformed theologians I urged Professor Johan Heyns to co-opt Allan Boesak to their commission, which had the brief to rewrite the Dutch Reformed Church policy on Ras, Volk en Nasie.10 As a personal friend of Allan Boesak when we were in our late teens, I remembered how Allan had raved about Dr Heyns, his lecturer in Biblical Studies. While I was studying to become a teacher, Allan Boesak started off towards a career as a dominee. My request was obviously asking very much, knowing that Allan had publicly criticized his former lecturer quite harshly in Pro Veritate, the periodical of the Christian Institute. Nevertheless, Professor Johan Heyns’ metamorphosis continued dramatically in the following years while he was the chairman of a synodal commission Church and Society. At the 1986 General Synod in Cape Town, the report of this commission brought the White sector of the Dutch Reformed Church almost to a 180 degree change. In the White Dutch Reformed Church General Synod the seed of confession appears to have started to bear fruit. 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 and to be rejected.’ Yet, this position was not supported by the rank and file church member. Right-wing elements were perturbed that Church and Society actually included confession of sin concerning the part played by the churches, for example in causing suffering through the implementation of apartheid. In 1987 the reaction was 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 break-away denomination, the Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk. Here and there it surfaced that the likes of Boesak and Tutu had meaningful prayer lives, although they would not go on show with it. Tutu lifted the lid once when he mentioned how Boesak came to welcome him as the new Archbishop at Bishops Court in 1986 and how they offered 30 minutes of silent prayer there in the chapel. The good intentions of the Kairos Document (KD), which contained quite a few positive elements in terms of creating an atmosphere for repentance, however also displayed too many features that smacked of posturing to an (overseas?) audience. A spokesman for the KD stated that it was not meant to be a final document, but it rather wanted to ‘stimulate discussion, debate, reflection and prayer’. The document did stimulate discussion and debate - reflection also followed - but there is no apparent evidence that the KD became a catalyst for prayer. Battle lines between the church and state are drawn The decision of the government to outlaw the activities of the UDF and sixteen anti-apartheid organizations, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), turned out to be completely counter-productive. The message of 24 February 1988 was clear: any opposition to the apartheid regime would not be tolerated - not even peaceful protest. Unlike October 1977, when the Christian Institute and other organizations were banned, the church rose to the challenge. Dr Allan Boesak, the leader and founder of the banned UDF, defiantly preached in his church in Bellville South on Sunday 28 February 1988, choosing Luke 13:31-35 as his text. He noted that Jesus chose confrontation in his response to the threats and intimidation of state power. He was surely brave in the volatile situation to quote Jesus’ words (in which the Master referred to King Herod) "Go and tell that fox...", The very next day, Monday 29 February 1988, Archbishop Tutu, Frank Chikane and scores of other church leaders led hundreds of protesters in the Mother City in a prayer service, marching to the South African Parliament to demand the restoration of the right of non-violent, peaceful protest. Emulating the civil disobedience of Martin Luther King, Jr in the 1960s, they refused to disperse and retreat when confronted by a daunting line of riot police, calmly kneeling in prayer. The clergymen were detained by the police, strictly warned, and then released. Hundreds of other marchers were hosed down with police water cannons. Archbishop Tutu vocalized the feeling that the battle lines between the church and state were drawn: "We are not defying, we are obeying; and we are going to obey God every day". A new era was born in the conflict between the church and the state. Jim Wallis, a visiting American clergyman, aptly summarized the spiritual warfare involved: The white South African government had to understand clearly that to attack the South African churches is to attack the whole body of Christ. 'The time has come for the faith, prayers, and energy of the worldwide church of Jesus Christ to be clearly focused on bringing an end to the diabolical system known as apartheid.' In March 1988 the white South African government did not yet understand that. A rally planned to launch the newly formed Committee to Defend Democracy, an organization hastily put together by church leaders to protest against the government's assault on peaceful opposition, was banned hours before it would have been held. The three-day-old organization was likewise outlawed. A Prayer Service for Justice and Liberation in South Africa was called for Sunday, 13 March 1988. The sermons of Boesak and Tutu in St George's Cathedral that day were prophetic. Using the content of Elijah's warnings to Ahab (1 Kings 19-22), the challenge via Boesak to Mr P.W. Botha was clear, a paraphrase was hardly to be overlooked: 'Go and tell Ahab, “Ahab, you have displeased me. I am going to take away from you your kingship..." A few sentences later Boesak said in so many words: ‘...Bishop [Tutu], you and I have to do the work of Elijah. We will have to go to this Jezebel who sits in Pretoria... and we will have to say to ...Ahab and Jezebel: "Your days are over! ..." The prayers at the service may not have been so vocal and expressed, but God evidently heard the groans of the oppressed. Less than a year later, in January 1989, Mr P.W. Botha had a stroke, to be replaced by Mr F.W. de Klerk as leader of their party and as State President. Government reprisals and demonic Backlashes In the interim however, there was still more ‘warfare’ to follow. In the ecumenical services the prayers were as a rule formal-liturgical, and not the targeted spiritual warfare-type prayer. In some of these events there was not even any intercessory prayer, even though they were sometimes called prayer services. Thus the sermon of Allan Boesak was most prominent in the ‘prayer service’ for Nelson Mandela in August 1988 in the extended celebration of the prominent prisoner's 70th birthday. (To be fair, it must be said that the sermon has traditionally been the focal point in the Calvinist churches with prayer playing a smaller role.) The reaction to the boycott calls was counter-productive on the part of the South African government and the churches linked to it, inducing the well-known laager mentality. (One of the best examples of this phenomenon happened after the 1960 Cottesloe consultation initiated by the WCC. It was a direct result of the Sharpeville disaster, when 69 Blacks were killed after a peaceful protest.) The government's reaction was typical: at ten minutes past one on the morning of August 31, 1988 an expertly set bomb exploded in Khotso House - meaning house of peace - where the offices of the South African Council of Churches and other organizations were located. In a similar move the government tried to silence the critical Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) and their outspoken leader South African-born Archbishop Denis Hurley, who could not be deported like other foreign clergy. Khanya House, the Pretoria headquarters of the SACBC, was destroyed by fire under suspicious circumstances. Solidarity of the international Roman Catholic community was typical of the support, which the struggle against apartheid experienced. Irish bishops especially helped tremendously with the cost of rebuilding. Archbishop Tutu formulated a side of spiritual warfare that is not so well-known: 'For those of us who are from a sacramental church our strength is in the encounter with God in the Eucharist, the encounter with God in mediation, the encounter with God in those quiet moments when you’re consciously aware of being in the flow. You're being carried along in the current.' Apparently both Dr Boesak and Archbishop Tutu were not properly prepared for the ensuing demonic backlash (That is not surprising, because not much was known about spiritual warfare at that time). Only later did it become known how Satanists were praying for the break-up of the marriages and families of Christian leaders. Of course, the devil cannot be blamed that Boesak’s marriage broke up because of his infidelity and that Tutu’s son received negative headlines. Yet, Christians were also not taught in those days to cover their leaders in prayer. Reactions to 16 June 1976 The South African Council of Churches (SACC) appealed to all Churches to give guidance and support to a shocked and bereaved society and to those who by virtue of the vote bore the responsibility for fuelling the oppressive structure. The SACC called on the churches to observe Sunday 20th June 1976 as a day of prayer, bringing to their attention II Chronicles 7:14. ‘If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.’ At the SACC conference in July of that year, Bishop Tutu set liberation firmly on the agenda in an address entitled, “God-given Dignity and the Quest for Liberation in the Light of the South African Dilemma.” In his speech, Tutu concluded with the following words: ‘The struggle for liberation, a truly biblical struggle, is crucial for the survival of South Africa. It must succeed. Yes, liberation is coming because our God is the God of the Exodus, the liberator God. `If God is on our side, who is against us?’ In the aftermath of Soweto 1976 the Anglican Archbishop Bill Burnett actualized 2 Chronicles 7:14, the Bible verse that would play such a crucial role in the transformation process in the new millennium. In an open letter to Mr B.J. Vorster in September 1976 he wrote: ‘Unless White Christians in particular admit the wrongs they have done to Black people and take action to redress them, there can be no possibility of healing in our Land.’ Not even exposure of corruption in the government Department of Information, which finally led to Mr P.W. Botha becoming the new Prime Minister in 1978, brought about change. The Christian Institute (CI) was always one step ahead of the SACC and the churches in their resistance to apartheid. It was often the case that what the CI practiced, the SACC, followed by its member churches, also did. It is thus important to examine how the CI responded to the uprising, to get an idea of the direction that the SACC and the churches would take in the future. The CI discerned that the initiative for change in South Africa lay firmly in the hands of the Black people. This in itself represented a fundamental shift from an earlier position they had held. In a statement immediately following the Soweto uprising, the CI said: “the Government is no longer in a position to determine the course of political events, not only in Soweto, but also in South Africa as a whole; nor is it capable of guiding in any way the nature, direction or pace of change.” At their Pietermaritzburg conference on 18 September 1976, the CI showed an increasing political maturity in the far-reaching resolutions they took, contained in their State of the Nation statement. Amongst these was the demand for a National Convention. The CI proposed that Blacks be given the freedom to elect truly recognized leaders from their midst, including those in prison, and those who were in exile. These leaders would then ‘participate in a national convention with a view to dismantling in the shortest possible period the unjust political and social structures of our land and to present to our country a political policy of liberation based on freedom and justice for all.’ They saw any action, which fell short of this demand as ‘a dangerous stumbling block to the achievement of fundamental peaceful change.’ The radical stance of the CI ushered in its own demise. In 1977 the CI called upon their White ministers and members to publicly retract their support from the policies of the Government unequivocally, and to make personal and collective representations to their members of parliament to press for a conference of Black and White leaders, recognising that there could be no peace until all people were totally liberated. (This call was echoed later in that year by Reverend Abel Hendricks, a Cape clergyman, to Methodist circuits throughout the country). The CI position was apt to lead to government reprisals. The organisation was banned on 19 October 1977. Soweto impregnates the new South Africa A rather belated reaction to the Soweto riots followed in the 4th quarter edition of Educatio, the periodical of the Cape Professional Teachers Association (CPTA), which had just elected Mr Franklin Sonn as its President. The editorial was probably hardly read outside the circle of teachers of the relatively new teachers’ association, but it may have sent ripples which started Mr Sonn’s meteoric rise. His editorial focused on justice in the interest of all children in South Africa. Sonn followed this up with a 43-page memorandum four-hour address to the Cillie Commission Riots Enquiry, which was reported in the Cape Times on 27 November 1976. Among other things CTPA called for full citizenship for all South Africans. Strategic was especially his letter to Die Burger on 12 February 1977 in his private capacity where he called for the building of a new South Africa that transcends existing divisions. The term New South Africa was to be popularised by Mr F.W. de Klerk in 1990 when he released Dr Nelson Mandela and after he had lifted the ban on various organisations. Soon Franklin Sonn, born in the rural town of Vosburg in 1939, who started off his teaching career at Bishop Lavis High School, was heralded as a rising star. Soon he was a sought after speaker across the country. When Sonn was asked for his motivation behind his decision to give evidence to the Cillie Commission Riots Enquiry he replied: ‘I believe the truth should be spoken.’ In the foreword to a book with speecehes and addresses of Franklin Sonn commemorating Ten years of Struggle Randall van den Heever suggested that ‘this concise statement epitomizes the dedication and conviction of Franklin Sonn to pursue, uncover and speak the truth at all times’ (Sonn, 1986: Foreword). Whereas his fight for the equalisation of teacher salariess might not be that dramatic – something which had to come anyway – his ‘vehement objection to the dominance and paternalism of White officialdom in the educational area’ was a driving force which led to affirmative action in the field, something that was practically ushering in the New South Africa. Along with a group of committed colleague, he challenged the staff structure of the University of the Western Cape. Their involvement led to the sudden appointment of a numer of ‘Coloured’ academics who later utilized the faciliities to attain doctorates and professorships. Prayer moves in District Six and Woodstock It is noteworthy that the first two phases of resistance with regard to District Six was started by a prayer campaign. Four days after the notorious proclamation of 11 February 1966, a twelve man steering committee proposed a ‘Peninsula-wide prayer period’. This was possibly the first time a city-wide prayer event was mooted at the Cape. Syd Lotter, a trade unionist appealed to ‘all the churches and mosques… (to)…call a day of prayer on which our people can give vent to their humiliation and frustration, to the Almighty.’ The government reaction was a stepping up of the harassment. ‘Spyker’ van Wyk, the notorious Gestapo-like Special Branch agent, intimidated the movement by visiting all the members of the District Six Defence Committee. Significantly, the second phase of resistance with regard to the removal of ‘Coloureds’ from District Six was also 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 came to District Six with advertising skills in September 1978, launched a fundraising 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’ (Cape Argus, 5 September 1978). 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, an offspring of the District Six Ministers’ Fraternal. The members came not only from the above-mentioned churches but also from other circles, notably Muslims and Jews. They included some Whites. Among those who joined were the Black Sash, the National Council for Women, the Civil Rights League and the Institute of Race Relations. The revival of Islam at the Cape in the late 1960s started with the dual Group Areas proclamations: District Six was declared a White residential suburb in February 1966 and Bo-Kaap was to become a ‘Cape Malay' pocket. The latter area was thus perceived to have been reserved for Cape Muslims. Christians were expected to leave Bo-Kaap. By becoming a Muslim, one received the right to remain in or move into Bo-Kaap. Some of the Christians decided to become Muslims so that they could remain in the area. That a part of the old District Six and Walmer Estate were later formally declared ‘Coloured areas’ was surely partly due to these prayers and efforts. Some people alleged that it was a sop by the government to keep the protesters happy. Nevertheless, Whites hereafter refused to buy property in District Six en masse, possibly not wanting to be identified with the perpetrators of the injustice. This created some embarrassment to the government, but the suggestion that District Six should become an open residential area was not going to bring them off course, not even for the time being. That District Six never became a White suburb was surely an answer to prayer. In fact, God turned the injustice perpetrated in District Six around, stirring the conscience of White South Africa like few other apartheid measures had done. Conciliatory church moves A significant church initiative was the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) of 1979. However, it would probably be safe to say that other factors like the 40 years of apartheid oppression - combined with the prophetic WCC and SACC actions between 1948 and 1988 – also helped to conscientise the poor and the oppressed. In this, the situation was radicalized towards the inevitable conflict. The revolutionary situation after 1985 possibly influenced F.W. De Klerk, the pragmatic new presidential incumbent in 1989, towards a more conciliatory approach. Such a scenario also normally calls for more prayer. We can safely surmise that more people were agonizing in prayer for an end to the killings and violence than before. Further concrete fruit came through in 1990 when Professor Willie Jonker started the ball of confession rolling at Rustenburg in November, ushering in the new South Africa. I really rejoiced when I heard of Professor Willie Jonker’s bold stand in Rustenburg. (This is the very same Professor Jonker, who told me in an aside at Schiphol Airport in Holland in 1979 that he did not belong to the Broederbond.) The seed sown through my correspondence with Dutch Reformed theologians, seemed to have germinated. The Rustenburg meeting of church leaders in November 1990 sent signals of reconciliation throughout the land that augured well for the future. There Professor Willie Jonker started the ball of confession rolling at Rustenburg in November, ushering in the new South Africa. The document issued after the Rustenburg event in November 1990, where 230 delegates from 97 denominations had gathered, contained specific, radical and concrete confession like their misuse of the Bible and their being ‘bold in condemning apartheid but timid in resisting it’. The confessions were not one-sided at all. The victims acknowledged for example their ‘timidity and fear, failing to challenge our oppression.’ The government of the day and Afrikaners in general, slammed the Rustenburg confessions. Were they forgetting that it had been President F.W. de Klerk himself who had originally initiated the idea of such a national church conference, or were they too surprised at the outcome? Be that as it may, a deep impact was definitely made in the spiritual realm. When matters were very volatile in Natal in 1991, churches played a big role in the National Peace Accord that was brokered. After the introduction of the transitional government, churches retained a high profile in the process of reconciliation. An instrument used by God in a special way was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The success of the implementation of the nitty gritty must be contributed to the input and integrity of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One of the commissioners, Alex Boraine, who himself had been a former minister in the Cape suburb of Pinelands and a former president of the Methodist Church before becoming a Progressive Party member of Parliament, described 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…’ Pentecostals usher in transformation Evangelicals in general, Cape Pentecostals in particular, were not known for radical change. In fact, they were regarded as reactionary, supporting the racist structures of Cape society. In July 1981 a young final year University of Cape Town (UCT) student, Paul Daniel, had been coming from a dramatic conversion experience in answer to the prayers of his grandmother after the death of his younger brother. (His grandmother became a follower of Jesus through the ministry of the Pentecostal pioneer John G. Lake). The Pentecostal Protestant Church (PPC), much better known in the Afrikaner version, the PPK, could be regarded as a stronghold of apartheid practice in the 1960s and 1970s in the Boerewors curtain of the Cape, the northern suburbs. No one would have suspected that from this denomination one of the most radical changes of Cape Society would emanate. In obedience to the divine call, Jenny and Paul Daniel sold their house and moved to Table View in the Cape, joining the Lighthouse Christian Centre as Youth Pastor after meetings between Henry Wolmarans, Paul and Pastor Walti Snyman. Around Dean Carelse, who came to the Lord as a young boy from Muslim background when his father became a Christian, outreach work evolved from the Lighthouse Christian Centre at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) where he was studying. From other students he had heard about the non-racial fellowship that started at the former Lantern cinema. He was instrumental in starting a Lighthouse Christian Centre-related cell group in his hostel. Good Hope to the City Paul Daniel thus came to the Lighthouse Christian Centre, which had a flourishing student ministry not only at UCT, but also at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) at this time. led by Dean Carelse. Colleen Snyman introduced Dean Carelse and Paul Daniel to each other. The first His Majesty's service was held in the home of Paul and Wendy Daniel. He soon resumed the student ministry at UCT, forming a society on the campus. While fasting and praying with the students, Paul Daniel sensed God clearly leading him to pursue a vision to take the Gospel to the nations. The ministry grew rapidly, and soon the biggest lecture hall of UCT was too small for the congregation. In the mornings all students would come through to the Lighthouse for the Sunday service in Parow. They soon moved to the Baxter Theatre for afternoon services, but even there within three years that were conducting four full-capacity meetings every Sunday. Peter Snyman, the son of Walti and Colleen, led the first few worship times at UCT with the Lighthouse Youth band. Peter was to succeed his father as the senior pastor of the Lighthouse in May 2007. Later some of the band members became part of His People when it was formed into a regular fellowship. In 1988 His People Ministries started at UCT with services on Sunday afternoon in the Baxter Theatre, usually led by Paul Daniel. In due course this institution became a blessing to many a country as missionaries left Cape shores to plant fellowships abroad. Some of these new leaders found initial salvation experience and nurturing at the Lightouse, like Wolfgang Eckleben, who went to London etc. Glen Robertson.also got saved at the Lighthouse and was introduced to Paul Daniel there. At His People he developed an extensive music ministry. He was to play a pivotal role in the Newlands mass events from 2001. In a parallel move of the Holy Spirit, Neville McDonald was impacted. Groomed by his father-in-law, Fred Roberts, he came to Cape Town as a young pastor with his wife Wendy to start a church. They hired a cinema, the Three Arts Theatre, put an advert in the newspaper and began to preach and pray for the sick (Vincent,1986:134). Along with the Cape-born and bred Derrick Golding, who soon joined him, 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 its own in due course, notably a large congregation in Strandfontein led by Pastor Salama Temmers, who had orginally come out of Islam. Prayer initiatives of the North that impacted the Cape What happened through Gerda Leithgöb and Bennie Mostert in 1987 are examples of divine calls received by other people on a congregational level. A visit to Singapore in 1988 by Gerda Leithgöb, at that stage a virtually unknown prayer warrior from Pretoria, became a spur for worldwide prayer for South Africa. Leithgöb had been involved with spiritual warfare, amongst other things with confession at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, along with her prayer team. In the country itself she became the pioneer for spiritual mapping, using the results of research for informed prayer. Even in remote parts of South Africa people were praying because of the escalating, explosive situation in the country. Thus vastly different groups, like one in the Mother City, which gathered on a weekly basis, as well as the Black women in the Soutpansberg Mountains, interceded for the country to be spared from bloodshed and for an end to the misery caused by apartheid. In 1989 Kjell Sjöberg, from Sweden, visited South Africa on a prayer assignment to pray at sites called ‘the ends of the earth’. In South Africa they prayed at Cape Agulhas. At that time a national prayer network was formed that started linking up with international prayer agencies. All of this happened fairly quietly and unnoticed. The role of the Church in racial Reconciliation once again11 It is so apt that way back in the early 1980s Archbishop Tutu wrote in his essay ‘Apartheid and Christianity’ in the book Apartheid is a Heresy that ‘the heart of the Christian Gospel can be summed up in the one word reconciliation’. Along with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu became the personification of costly reconciliation, heading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the mid-1990s. A significant church initiative was the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) of 1979. However, it would probably be safe to say that other factors like the 40 years of apartheid oppression - combined with the prophetic WCC and SACC actions between 1948 and 1988 – also helped to conscientise the poor and the oppressed. In this, the situation was radicalised towards the inevitable conflict. De Klerk attested more than once to the role of his minister Ds Pieter Bingle of the ‘Dopperkerk’, (the smallest of the three Afrikaans Churches). Friends and relatives reported that De Klerk talked of being seized by a powerful sense of religious “calling” on 20 September 1989, when he was inducted as State President. In his sermon Dominee Pieter Bingle challenged him from Jeremiah 23:16, 22 to operate from the council chamber of God rather than heed the words of false prophets. De Klerk was exhorted by his minister to break new ground, ‘aggressive enough to tackle problems and challenges fearlessly. Excess baggage will have to be discarded. …Those stuck in the grooves of the past will find that besides the spelling, depth is the only difference between a groove and a grave’. His brother shared how the new president was literally in tears after the service, asking his family and friends to pray for him. De Klerk sensed that ‘God was calling him to save all the people of south Africa, that he was going to be rejected by his own people but that he had to walk this road. That he did. He also conceded that he knew that he had a big responsibility in his vertical relationship – with God. A week before his inauguration De Klerk was put to the test after the police had opened fire and killed a number of demonstrators in ??, a Cape ‘Coloured’ township. The angry community planned a protest march into the city, to be led by Archbishop Tutu and other church dignitaries. During the Botha era such a march would have been banned outright. De Klerk acted differently. After getting assurances from the church leaders that their own marshalls would control the demonstration, he allowed it. Thirty thousand people marched peacefully to the steps of the City Hall. This was clearly the first step towards normalizing life in South Africa. En route to real democracy A letter of confession, posted on October 4, 1989 in the Dutch town of Zeist, became the spur for the regiogebed of the same evening to devote their monthly prayer event exclusively to South Africa (In the months preceding this evening, the group had discovered how powerful intercessory prayer for countries could be offered, interceding for the former Communist states of Eastern Germany and Hungary, which were in the process of transformation.) A week later - without the group in Zeist having any knowledge of it - the new South African president, Mr.W. De Klerk, met Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak. That momentous meeting would help change the course of events in the country decisively. De Klerk showed that he meant business already by October 15. He not only released Walter Sisulu and five other ANC life prisioners, but also Jafta Masemola, founder of the military wing of the Pan-Africanistcongress, and Oscar Mpetha, a Cape trade unionist and an ANC member who had ben imprisoned for terrorism at the age of seventy six. It was especially the Rustenburg meeting of church leaders in November 1990, that impacted the land so prodigeously. The document issued after the Rustenburg event in November 1990, where 230 delegates from 97 denominations had gathered, contained specific, radical and concrete confession like their misuse of the Bible and their being ‘bold in condemning apartheid but timid in resisting it’. The confessions were not one-sided at all. The victims acknowledged for example their ‘timidity and fear, failing to challenge our oppression.’ The government of the day and Afrikaners in general, slammed the Rustenburg confessions. Were they forgetting that it had been President F.W. de Klerk himself who had originally initiated the idea of such a national church conference, or were they too surprised at the outcome? Be that as it may, a deep impact was definitely made in the spiritual realm. Soon it became only a matter of time for the slated Group Areas and other apartheid legislation to be scrapped. On an orientation trip in December 1990, we were sufficiently encouraged to return to South Africa a year later as a family. Earlier that year the Lord had started to prepare me for this eventuality during a trip to Abidjan (Ivory Coast), just at the time when Nelson was released. Part 2 gives an indication of what happened in the spiritual realms at the Cape since the release of Nelson Mandela on 11 February 1990. Part 2 10. Prayer and Interaction with Islam After our return to Europe in 1981 - after having been at the Cape for six months - Rosemarie and I were divided on the issue of where we should be serving the Lord. In fact, an old wound had been opened: I yearned to return to my home country even though I knew that it was well nigh impossible. My interest in fighting apartheid was definitely not completely altruistic. In order to achieve my heart’s deep desire to return to South Africa, the racist laws had to be dismantled. Rosemarie on the other hand was relieved that we got out of the threatening cauldron more or less unscathed. Our personal experiences and involvement in political turmoil during the first half of 1981 caused fierce resentment in Rosemarie towards South Africa. During tense weeks before our departure for Europe we had to reckon with the possibility of being killed or arrested all the time. The months preceding this event were not easy at all, as we had to struggle through all sorts of apartheid red tape. Then there had been the attitude of locals and that of the churches! On more than one occasion we experienced from close range how the political climate in the country was heating up to near boiling point. But we knew that God had brought us together, and that we had to be called together to whatever country He would choose. With little conviction Rosemarie allowed me to write to the Dorothea Mission to enquire about possibilities and an enquiry to teach at a school in Lesotho came up. But in neither case a door opened. For work among street children in Brazil we did not find complete unity as I still wanted to return to Africa at least. What appeared to us like a stalemate situation was of course not impossible for God! In a sovereign way, He would turn the impasse around to bring us back to South Africa in 1992. We had as yet no clue that our prayerful involvement with the Goed Nieuws Karavaan in Zeist was part and parcel of God’s preparation for an increased role in the loving outreach to Muslims. Missionary work in West Africa? Since the early 1980s we attended the annual mission conferences in Holland as a family, but everything still seemed far away. In 1988 it appeared as if the ‘door’s to the mission field were finally opening. The visit of the Dutch AIM (Africa Inland Mission) leaders to our home in Zeist was the catalyst to start using the book Operation World, praying systematically with our children through all the African countries. In this way we hoped to discern in which country the Lord could use us. The effect of these prayers at meal times was initially not positive at all, if not counter-productive. Our sprouts did not seem excited at all at the prospect of having to leave Europe for what they perceived as primitive Africa. But our children now noticed that we meant business. All changed when Marry Schotte, a missionary from WEC International, came along with a video of the mission school in Côte d’Ivoire where she was teaching. Suddenly our children caught the vision to go with us to West Africa. At our extended weekly family devotions, even the little ones now started to pray fervently for a teacher to accompany us to Bulstrode in England as part of our missionary training. There we would have to go and do our WEC Candidates’ Orientation Programme. A supernatural challenge to tackle the wall of Islam The release of Dr Nelson Mandela ushered in a new era in the country as a whole. He spent twenty seven years of his life in custody at the Cape, namely on Robben Island, as well as at the Pollsmoor and Victor Verster Prisons. In a letter to the Muslim Judicial Council, he wrote about his visits to the Kramat (shrine) on Robben Island. In the spiritual realm he probably forged a link to Islam that impacted his rule later as State President. At the time that Nelson Mandela was released, the author was in West Africa on an orientation visit with a view to teaching Mathematics at a school for missionary kids The three weeks there were sufficient to excite me about the possibilities of sharing the gospel in West Africa. The discussions at the school in Vavoua (Ivory Coast) were promising, although I saw that merely as a prelude to getting into other missionary work after a few years. With the 'iron curtain' of Communism and the edifice of apartheid all but shattered by February 1990, supernatural intervention occurred in Abidjan to nudge me to tackle the daunting wall of Islam. With my Dutch missionary friend Bart Berkheij, I landed in a 'mosque’ by accident. When all the shops closed down at lunch time that Friday, we had no opportunity to continue our souvenir shopping spree. We simply took a seat next to the road, when prayer mats were rolled out all around us. Bart was sitting obliquely behind me. Somehow I had the impression that he was also doing the obligatory raka’ts, the Islamic cycles of bodily movements accompanying the prayers. Thus I simply joined in, imitating the people in front of me. Suddenly I heard an angry stifled shout-whisper: ‘Ashley, wat doe je daar!’ (Ashley, what are you doing!) What a bashing he gave me hereafter for going through the Islamic motions. Strangely enough, I felt embarrassed, but I did not feel very deeply sorry from within... As I looked at the people in front of me, I experienced a thrill. It was as if the Lord was reassuring me that these bodily movements were no more than meaningless tradition; that some day the Islamic wall would also crash like the communist ‘iron curtain’ had done. The experience of that day helped me to persevere over the next decade and a half with low-key missionary work among Muslims. On my return to Holland, I could witness how the Lord had started to answer our children’s fervent prayers for a teacher. While I was in West Africa, our longstanding friend Geertje Rehorst visited Rosemarie one evening. When Geertje heard that we were praying for a teacher, she asked all sorts of questions. Because she had been ruled unfit for teaching a few years before, we never even seriously considered Geertje as a possible candidate to help us out. The Lord had other ideas about the matter. A few months later she was all set to join us in England in January 1991 at the international headquarters of WEC International. My terse experience of Mali and Cote I'voire also definitely influenced me. I was starting to think of Black South Africans as potential missionaries to the Muslim countries of West Africa. A seed was sown in my heart when in later years I considered how I was impacted while in exile. In Cape Town this inspired me to challenge refugees and foreigners in a similar way to go and spread the Gospel in their home countries. The ‘door’ to West Africa however unexpectedly closed for us as a family. The school in Vavoua turned us down because of the number and age of our children, especially since our eldest son would have had to leave Cote I'voire so soon for Holland. A consolation was that quite a few years later - in 2001 - our daughter Magdalena was able to go to Vavoua to help out as a volunteer at the schoolwhere I had been scheduled to go and teach. The 'door' to South Africa, however, surprisingly opened up shortly after my return from West Africa. Children helping to change the World through prayer Jill Johnstone, the wife of Patrick Johnstone, the author of Operation World, had just been diagnosed with cancer when we came to Bulstrode, near London, in January 1991 for our candidates’ orientation to become missionaries of WEC International. Jill still passionately wanted children to be inspired to pray for the world, dreaming of a book that would help them do so. With a group of children at the WEC headquarters in the UK she formed a little club, called the Operation World Children's Club. Her manuscript was first called “Children's Operation World”. As Jill wrote the various sections, she shared the contents with the children. One of the first countries Jill wrote about was Albania. At that time, Albania’s leaders were still boasting that they were the first completely atheist country in the world, with all religions banned. The children prayed much for that land to be opened to the gospel. A year or so later, when Communism fell, and the news reached the children, one of the girls was so delighted that she shouted out, “We've changed Albania!” It was from that testimony that the title of the book, “You Can Change the World”, came. At the beginning of 1991, when we were in Bulstrode for a part of our missionary training, our children joined the Operation World Children's Club. Rosemarie and I had to complete an assignment, called a ‘field study’ about the country we intended to go to. I had been giving talks about different aspects of South African life, but felt that I did not know enough about the culture and history of the country’s Indian population. What also played a role in my thinking was the strategy to be used back home to help recruit South African Indians as missionaries. Thus I suggested that Rosemarie should study the politics, economy and related issues on South Africa, while I would make a study of the Indians of South Africa and their culture. This led me into looking at Hinduism and Islam, the two major Indian religions. During my field study I also discovered that Bo-Kaap, a residential area below Signal Hill, had become an Islamic stronghold. By this time we were preparing ourselves to come to Cape Town in January 1992. Very soon after our arrival in the Mother City, we encountered a major problem that was associated with the Muslim community - drug addiction. On the first Sunday that we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church, a couple there told us about their daughter who was addicted to drugs, and who had become a Muslim. We were immediately reminded of the successful Betel outreach of our mission agency to drug addicts in Spain, seeing this as a possible avenue of loving service to the local Muslim community. A few months later, the Lord himself seemed to lead us to the Cape Town Baptist Church using Vanessa, the 8-year-old daughter of Brett Viviers, one of the elders of the church and a Jewish background believer. Vanessa was terribly troubled by the calls from the minarets in the nearby mosques of Bo-Kaap. Brett, her father, suggested that she should start praying for the Muslims. The result of the child’s prayers was that a whole group from the church pitched up one Monday evening at a prayer meeting in Bo-Kaap that we had initiated after Rosemarie and I had been doing prayer walks there. A call to Cape Muslims When we returned to Holland from England in April 1991, I challenged Dutch Christians to send their prayer ‘batteries’ to Bo-Kaap. Even though we had no concrete plans for personal involvement there, I suggested that they ‘bombard’ the area with prayer before we as missionaries could go to the Cape as the ‘infantry’. Prior to our coming to Cape Town, we had sensed a challenge to work among street children. Once in the Mother City, the call to the Muslims of the Cape came through ever stronger. The Lord used our need of accommodation in Cape Town in January 1992 to nudge us towards outreach to Muslims. At the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute in Surrey Estate a roar woke us up at half past four the very first morning. It was the thundering sound from the minarets of seven mosques within a two-kilometer radius from the Bible School. The change of the religious complexion of the residential area had happened during the author’s long absence abroad. Our lack of transportation brought us into touch with Manfred Jung, a German missionary, and the late Alroy Davids Both of them were involved with the Life Challenge outreach to Muslims. The 13-year old minibus that looked horrible had previously belonged to Walter Gschwandtner, another German missionary, who ministered in Bo-Kaap before he sold it to Manfred. Without our doing much to arrange it, we got in touch with converts from Islam. We met Adiel Adams and Zane Abrahams through our representation work with WEC, the mission agency to which we are affiliated. My late Aunt Emmie Snyers, spontaneously gave us the phone number of Majiet Poblonker, a convert from Islam. It seemed that different people were divinely instructed to challenge us to reach out to Cape Muslims. A special Answer to Prayer - Accommodation After staying at the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute (CEBI) in Surrey Estate during January 1992, our faith was tested in the extreme. We were now in dire straits, because we had to vacate the Bible School before the end of the month. We still had no alternative accommodation to go to when the students were about to return after the vacation. Many were praying with us while we were following up one advertisement after the other and quite frustrated, as all our attempts at getting a house had brought us nowhere. On Friday the 31st of January we started packed all our belongings together, without knowing where we would go the next day. On Sunday the influx of students was expected to start. We were not aware of how many people were praying on our behalf. Soon hereafter we heard about some of them from Shirley Charlton, our missionary colleague. We also knew about believers from the Community Bible Fellowship that we had attended the previous Sunday. They had been praying right through the night from Friday to Saturday, also for us! In the heavenlies something was obviously happening, because somewhere in the suburb of Kenilworth, a Greek lady could not sleep. Ireni Stephanis never had problems with sleeplessness, but this night she constantly had to think about the family from Holland about whom she had heard from our Shirley Charlton, our colleague. Ireni Stephanis did not know if the family of seven had found accommodation in the meantime. She decided to offer to share her house, because her daughter had just married and left home. Her two adult sons would not be around for some time. When we heard this story on the Saturday afternoon from Shirley, we could just marvel at the timely divine intervention. It looked to be the most practical thing to sleep at the Bible School for the last time. Even in this little detail we could see the hand of the Lord when we met brother Cyster, who would help us with getting the container from the ship. After moving over to Kenilworth, we resumed our search for a house. Ireni Stephanis said that we could stay at their house as long as we would need to. But we really wanted to get into our own home and of course, we did not want to abuse her hospitality. By this time we had already enrolled our children at the German school that is located in the suburb of Tamboerskloof. A few more personal Experiences Almost from the word go we encountered a major problem that was associated with the Muslim community - drug addiction. On the first Sunday that we attended the Living Hope Baptist Church with Ireni Stephanis, a couple there told us about their daughter who was addicted to drugs and who had become a Muslim. We were immediately reminded of the successful Betel outreach of our mission agency to drug addicts in Spain, seeing this as a possible avenue of loving service to the local Muslim community. One Sunday afternoon we decided to just go and have a look at a house in Brunswick Road, Tamboerskloof, because it would be relatively near to the German School. We liked the house, but because of the rent tag, we never gave it serious consideration. It would be nice - a bit small, but within walking distance of the German school. The monthly rental would however be well above what we had budgeted for. More out of courtesy and because of our desperate situation, we gave Ireni Stephanis’ phone number to the couple. We were taken by surprise when the Germans phoned us the next day. We learned that the owner had remarried, and thus the house in Tamboerskloof had become redundant. Our two boys had made a good impression on the lady owner (We left the three young ones in the Kombi). Money was not really the object with her. She was also positively inclined towards us, because her adult children had also attended the German school. When we had to concede on the phone that the rent was too high, she offered to lower it by R100. We promised that we would think about it. I had left to fetch the children from school when the telephone rang once again. Originally we had decided that the monthly gift that we were receiving from our home church in Holland should be designated for the rent. For the rest of our cost of living we wanted to trust the Lord to burden the hearts of other believers and/or churches. When Rosemarie was now asked telephonically what we were prepared to pay, the deal was clinched - R200 less than the original sum. We could not do otherwise than seeing all this as a gift from the Lord. Just at that point in time we heard that the container with the furniture had arrived. Our new landlords agreed that we could move in, almost a week before the end of the month - without any extra cost! Thus it was not necessary to leave the container in the docks for any length of time, which would have amounted to added costs for the storage. We could just praise the Lord for his wonderful provision. The Lord opened the door to rent a house in Tamboerskloof, almost a stone’s throw from Bo-Kaap, which was still very much of a Muslim stronghold. God had evidently started fitting things together in his perfect mosaic, calling us into the ministry among South Africa’s prime unreached people group in terms of the Gospel. More supernatural guidance At the beginning of our stay in Tamboerskloof I joined Manfred Jung's Life Challenge team in Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock. I soon felt very uncomfortable with the method of knocking at strange people’s doors to speak to them about my faith. This coincided with the cessation of the SIM Life Challenge outreach effort in Bo-Kaap. A positive result of the door-to-door ministry with the SIM Life Challenge team was that I discovered my knowledge of Islam was completely inadequate. I received permission from our WEC leaders to do a post-graduate course in Missiology at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) in Kalk Bay with a special focus on Islam. Rosemarie and I decided that we would now do prayer walking in Bo-Kaap, asking the Lord to lead us to those people where the Holy Spirit had already done preparatory work. Soon we were walking through the Bo-Kaap as a couple once a week, praying for the area. But after a few weeks we sensed that we should not be alone in this venture. We needed the backing of other Christians. As a family we were attending the city branch of the Vineyard Church, as the Jubilee Church was called at that time. Dave and Herma Adams, the local leaders, had a vision to reach out to the Muslims, although the denomination in general had no affinity as yet in that direction. Two members from the fellowship, Achmed Kariem, a Muslim background believer and Elizabeth Robertson, who had a special love for the Jews, joined us for prayer meetings in Wale Street, Bo-Kaap. We had as ultimate goal the planting of a church in Bo-Kaap, the most extreme Islamic stronghold of the Cape Peninsula. That was in those days regarded as quite a daunting challenge. The fellowship of believers from the Vineyard Church stopped gathering at the Cape Town High School. The small denomination decided to change their name to Jubilee Church. A request had come in to that effect, to distinguish them from the fellowship with links to John Wimber, which also used that tag for their denomination. An arrangement had apparently been made to that effect that they could use the name until such time that the Vineyard Church would have churches of their own at the Cape. Just at that time we heard that Louis Pasques and his wife Heidi were interested in ministering to the Muslims. Louis was a student at the Baptist College and leading one of the three daughter congregations of the Cape Town Baptist Church. We had attended a few meetings in a school in Tamboerskloof, where either Louis Pasques or Brent Bartlett, another theological student, was preaching. Prayer as part of the evangelistic outreach at the Cape Prayer had been used quite substantially in the outreach to Cape Muslims, though not nearly sufficiently to make an impact spiritually. Under the leadership of the German missionary Gerhard Nehls, the founder of Life Challenge, his team had people praying while co-workers visited Muslim homes. In other cases, groups prayed before they would go on outreach. Thus, in the mid 1980s, his German missionary colleague Walter Gschwandtner had his group praying in the home of the Abrahams family in Bo-Kaap, where the Muslim head of the home came to faith in Jesus as his Lord just before he died in 1983. The information about the Bo-Kaap prayer meetings almost went amiss when the Gschwandtner family left for Kenya. As a result of prayer walking in 1992, the mishap was discovered. Thereafter the Bo-Kaap prayer meeting in Wale Street was resumed. At one of these meetings, Achmed Kariem, a convert from Islam, suggested a lunchtime prayer meeting on Fridays while Muslims attend their mosque services. Such prayer events started in the Shepherd’s Watch, a little church hall at 98 Shortmarket Street near Riebeeck Square in September 1992. When the building was sold a few years later, the event switched to the Koffiekamer, the venue used by Straatwerk for their ministry to vagrants, street children, and to certain nightclubs over the week-ends. In addition to prayers for a spiritual breakthrough in the area, a foundation for many evangelistic initiatives was laid at the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. The suggestion, to have prayer groups all over the Peninsula, so that the spiritual eyes of Muslims might be opened to Jesus as the Saviour of the World and as the Son of God, never really took off. Here and there one started and petered out again. The only prayer meetings that kept functioning over the years was the one in Wale Street on every first Monday of the month and the Friday lunch hour prayer meetings which started at the Shepherd’s Watch in September 1992 ,and which continued in the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk at 108 Bree Street.. Prayers at Rhodes Memorial continued for some time under the leadership of Reverend Richard Mitchell. On the other side of the spiritual spectrum, Satanists continued to use the same heights for their rituals. Locally the prayer fort was also held by the monthly Prayer Concert, first at the S.A. Gestig and later for some years in Mowbray at the Presbyterian Church. The next big combined move by Christians centred around the Jesus Marches. In 1994 quite a few of the marches were organized all over the Peninsula and the Western Cape. In preparation for these Jesus Marches, many Christians heard for the first time about the Kramats as a crescent wielding spiritual power in the Mother City. Probably for the first time, Cape Christians started to pray concertedly against the occult powers of the kramats, the Islamic shrines on the heights of the Peninsula. The hub of the prayer movement in South Africa had moved to Pretoria, which by the mid 1990s had already been transformed from a bastion of racism to a metropolis that was able to invite Christians from all over the world to come to a global consultation on missions in 1997. Gerda Leithgöb had been the leading light in this transformation, practising spiritual warfare since 1978. Bennie Mostert took the prayer challenge from Pretoria to the nation and in the new millennium, to the continent of Africa. Cape Prayer endeavours of the early 1990s Arthur J Rowland, a committed believer who had a close friendship with Dr Andrew Murray when he started teaching as a young man at the Boys’ High School in Wellington in 1912, had a deep interest and involvement in prayer, evangelism and missions as was his son Noel, such as starting a Cape Town Keswick. Both kept their interest, based at the Cape Town Baptist Church till ripe old age, the father dying in 1973 at the age of 102 and Noel just short of the century markReverend Roger Voke kept the fire of the Keswick movement alive at the Cape. Dr Andrew Murray had started it in Wellington towards the end of the 19th century. In the late 1980s the Concerts of Prayer - inspired by David Bryant - drew good crowds in the Sendingsgestigmuseum, a fitting commemoration of the inter-denominational work that started there in 1899. The Concerts of Prayer later moved to the Presbyterian Church in Mowbray. Much of the prayer endeavours of the early 1990s were connected to missionary work. David Bliss from Operation Mobilisation (OM) had already put the Cape on the map again with his Bless the Nations conferences. Love Southern Africa events started in Wellington, taking over from the Western Cape Missions Commission. Pastor Bruce van Eeden coordinated Great Commission conferences and Pastor Paul Manne organized an annual missionary event. All these efforts fizzled out towards the end of the 20th century, while Gauteng grew in importance with regard to missionary-sending from South Africa. Bishop Frank Retief and his St James Church in Kenilworth were carrying the evangelical banner for the mainline churches in the early 1990s at the Cape. The Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow was a new growing church, as was His People, which started among students in the Baxter Theatre, Rosebank. The Good Hope Christian Centre became increasingly known when it moved from the Three Arts Theatre in Plumstead, to Ottery. These three originally White churches attracted people of colour while the country was in transition towards the new democracy. The lunchtime prayer group at the Shepherd’s Watch at 98 Shortmarket Street in the Mother City, which started in September 1992, targeted the transformation of Bo-Kaap, the residential area that had become an Islamic stronghold through apartheid legislation. Over a period of more than a decade, the group experienced special answers to prayer. Yet, in the natural, it appeared as though Islam was still making great strides, for instance through a proliferation of mosques in residential areas that had formerly been zoned as ‘White’. At the prayer meeting itself, Daphne Davids, a member of the Cape Town Baptist church and also a Bo-Kaap resident, was a regular from the outset. When Cecilia Abrahams encountered hearing problems after a few years, the Monday meeting was relocated to Daphne's home across the road, which became a monthly event. There it continues to this day. Prayer initiatives elsewhere that impacted the Cape In recent times fasting and praise have been prof­itably rediscovered. In 1990 David Mniki - a believer from the Transkei - called the first national 40-day fast. It was quite localised, and not many people participated. During the fast God gave a scripture from Isaiah - ‘Can a nation be born in one day?’ This was the beginning of several more fasting initiatives. In 1992 the second 40-day fast took place. 1992 was the year during which mission leaders decided to call Christians worldwide to pray for Muslims during Ramadan. This was a natural follow-up to the call by Open Doors for 10 years of prayer for the Muslim world in 1990. Everybody still vividly remembered the spectacular result of the 7 years of prayer for the Soviet Union. The prayer initiative was called Ramadan, a 30-day Muslim prayer focus. A little booklet was printed and distributed around the globe with information on different issues relating to Islam. In 1993 Mostert formally started a national prayer network known as NUPSA (the Network for United Prayer in Southern Africa). That year also saw the first teams praying through information gained from serious research. Teams travelled from Kimberley to Grahamstown and George, to pray through issues concerning Cecil John Rhodes and Freemasonry. This had a major influence in the continent, exposing much of the damage done to society through Freemasonry. During 1993 South Africa also started to participate in the Pray through the Window initiative, launched internationally by the AD 2000 prayer track. Simultaneously with the call to prayer and fasting, God also moved in other prayer initiatives in South Africa and the continent. During 1992 YWAM organized an international prayer initiative to pray at the extremities of the six continents. (The vision originated with Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM, based on Psalm 2:8: “Ask of Me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession…” The day had four objectives: thanksgiving for salvation, praise for who God is, spiritual warfare and intercession over the lost throughout the continents and nations. The primary goal was to have teams praying at the 24 Cardinal Points of the world’s continents, and beyond that - to go to the extreme points of nations, cities and regions.) At all four cardinal points of Africa believers went to pray namely at Cape Agulhas, West Africa, Tunisia and Somalia. South Africa was soon even more in the thick of things when Bennie Mostert, an Operation Mobilization (OM) missionary, initiated the printing of the 30-day Muslim prayer focus booklets in South Africa. Hereafter it became an annual event. At least just as great an impact on the country as a whole was the initiatives of African Enterprise (AE) during the transition years from 1991 to 1994. In April 1993 AE launched a two-year chain of intercessory prayer to go non-stop day and night for two years. Then there was project ‘From Africa with Love’ when small teams went and visited the major political groupings and leaders to pray with them and to pastor them where appropriate. Then there were the Kolobe Lodge Dialogue weekends. At a game lodge north of Pretoria politicians from the far left to the far right were invited to get to know each other informally. This was thus a variation of the Koinonia concept which proved so effective to undermine apartheid. Along with the other prayer initiatives at this time, South Africa’s political leaders of all ideological shades became surely the most prayed for political leaders anywhere. Some compassionate Cape Christian outreaches of the 1990s The different ministries of compassion in the Cape, like those of the Cape Town City Mission, Alcoholics Victorious, The Ark in Westlake (now in Faure), Total Transformation and Trailblazers all had people from a wide spectrum of religious persuasions going through their ranks at one stage or another. Various agencies have been reaching out in love to street children, like Youth with a Mission (YWAM). At the ‘Beautiful Gate’ in Muizenberg, spear-headed by a Dutch YWAM missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer, many kids have been impacted. (We had met Aukje and Toby in Holland just prior to their and our departure for South Africa.) A problem of the bulk of these institutions was that local churches never really bought into their vision. It remained the baby of individuals. Another valid critical note is that the evangelistic work amongst the down and outs has been very uncoordinated and fragmented, making it difficult for churches without any compassionate outlet, to respond regularly. An element of competition and unhealthy rivalry sometimes wrecked the good intentions. In Salt River Hudson McComb was moved by compassion for street youths, starting Beth Uriel, a home at which believers would care for the unfortunate young people. In the City Bowl a church-related ministry for street children called Homestead was started as one of the first of its kind, soon followed by Ons plek, a similar accommodation for girls. We linked up with the former ministry during the first few months at the Cape. The ministry to street children was however not confirmed. Instead, there had been many indications that we should move into Muslim evangelism. A ministers’ fraternal in Observatory and Mowbray initiated a project for the homeless called Loaves and Fishes. The Haven was another church-initiated ministry to the homeless. In this case it was later taken over by the City Council, with daughter institutions at new venues. The work of Straatwerk in night clubs and the work among French-speaking foreigners received aid from abroad when Freddie Kammies and his German wife Doris, who had worked among street children in Toronto (Canada) under the auspices of Operation Mobilization, joined the team of WEC International in Cape Town at the end of 1997. Freddie Kammies hails from Q'town, a township in the Athlone area. The couple formally linked up with Straatwerk, the pioneering outreach effort of the Dutch Reformed Church to nightclubs, prostitutes and homosexuals. Prostitution has become a major problem amongst the Cape population, notably in Woodstock and Hanover Park, but also affecting previously protected communities like Bo-Kaap. Christians had challenged some of these prostitutes. One such group was led by Marge Ballin, who was linked to YWAM. More outreach to prostitutes took place under the ministry of Madri Bruwer of Straatwerk. Pastor Willy Martheze, a qualified welder from Mitchells Plain, was still a vagrant when he was initially ministered to. Humorously he would recollect how he had been such a good-for-nothing alcoholic that his own mother sent the police and the gangsters after him. ‘But Jesus found me first!’, he said. He was radically changed by the Gospel after attending an evangelistic service on the Grand Parade in February 1974, with the Scottish missionary Pastor Gay as the preacher. Soon thereafter he got a job at the Arthur’s Seat Hotel in Sea Point. The prayerful ministry of Pastor Gay in District Six challenged the former bergie (vagrant) to attend an evening course at the Bethel Bible School in Crawford. Obedient to God’s voice when he saw a vagrant, Pastor Willy Martheze followed a call to minister fulltime to homeless people, with the intention of bringing Gospel healing to these people. He constantly aims to empower them to return to the homes they had left. At the District Six fellowship at the Azaad Youth Centre, the congregants can clean themseoves before the late Sudnay afternoon service and get a plate of food afterwards. One of his ‘clients’ of gave him the special testimony: ‘you are the only church where the pastor is happy when the members leave, i.e. returning to their homes. The commencement of the ministry of compassion to the children who associated themselves with the Hard Livings Gang in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, looked promising. Ayesha Hunter, a Muslim background believer, was bravely presenting the Life Issues programme via CCFM radio, while at the same time running a soup kitchen for the children of the notorious gang. She gave the group a new name, using the same first letters of the gang - Heaven’s Little Kids - a name of which they were quite proud. Glen Khan, a drug lord, sponsored the project anonymously while he was being challenged and ministered to. He finally accepted Jesus as his Saviour, and was assassinated shortly thereafter. The benevolent ministry ceased with his assassination in April 1999. The start of a ministry to AIDS/HIV patients At a time when AIDS was still being mentioned in a hush, there was no competition in compassionate outreach to the hapless sufferers. A ministry with close links to the Cape Town City Mission started when Val Kadalie had a deep concern for young people who contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). She started off as a volunteer in District Six before going for training as a nurse. Back in the apartheid years, she was invited to speak to many churches and schools to warn young people about the dangers of promiscuity and to encourage them to abstain from pre-marital sex. After Ms Kadalie became the matron of the G.H. Starke Centre in Hanover Park, the institution also started functioning as a hospice for terminal patients. She warned her staff in the late 1980s that they might soon have to treat AIDS patients, but her colleagues were not yet ready for that. The crunch came when she and her husband were approached to take care of a little 4-year old boy, Jason, who was HIV positive. When her husband Charles put the phone down at the electric power plant in Athlone where he worked, he sensed that God was challenging them as a couple to practice what they preached. Jason was the first of four children they cared for in succession, until all but one died from AIDS In the process Val became a pioneer fighter for AIDS awareness throughout the country, responding to calls from churches and groups of the most diverse backgrounds. Nazareth House, a Roman Catholic institution in the City Bowl, performed the same compassionate work during this period, as the occurrence of HIV-positive babies started to increase. At the building in Vredehoek where the Roman Catholics had already started caring for orphaned children and destitute elderly in 1888, they pioneered with the care of HIV-positive/AIDS babies in 1992, possibly the first outreach of this nature in South Africa. The Dutch YWAM missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer, after their successful pioneering work amongst street children, soon took on the care of AIDS babies. In 1999 they started to care for such little ones with government aid in Crossroads, a Black township. Since then, their ministry has expanded even to the neighbouring country of Lesotho. On 8 December 2004 a new centre was opened in Lower Crossroads. Broken lives were restored and in the case of at least one young man, a desire was inculcated to enter missionary work. In the meantime HIV/AIDS became a pandemic. This spread of the disease was especially dramatic in prisons where inmates infected almost all newcomers. This challenge has not yet been taken up rigorously. Nevertheless, gangsters were ministered to and many also came to the Lord while in prison. Personal ministry experiences We saw the settling in of our children as the top priority of the first six months. The move from Holland was not easy for any of them. Rafael, our second eldest child, especially had a torrid time. In the meantime we prayed that God would show us where we should get involved. We had started praying for Bo-Kaap, but we also wanted to get involved with some hands-on evangelistic work. We thought of going to Hanover Park, where I had taught in 1981. After a phone call to the City Mission there, we sensed a confirmation that this was where we should get more involved. In 1992 inter-racial communication was still much of a novelty in South Africa. Many Capetonians from different cultural and church backgrounds became our frienDs We were approached to help train Xhosa young people in children’s work at Camp Joy, a campsite in Strandfontein during the June holidays. The week was strategic, as we got to know the gifted Melvin Maxegwana, who translated the teaching into Xhosa. For the rest, our ministry still had no clear direction. Sensing the dire need for racial reconciliation, we formed a racially and internationally mixed choir with our missionary colleague Grace Chan from Mauritius plus a few Bible School students. Our repertoire included a Dutch, a Xhosa and a (Mauritian) Creole song apiece, apart from English and Afrikaans. Breaking new ground through prayer Preparations for the start of a missionary prayer meeting progressed well in the City Mission congregation of Hanover Park. They were prepared to have one weekly prayer meeting per month changed to a missionary prayer meeting. Later that year the power of prayer was experienced in a special way after Everett Crowe, a police sergeant from the Phillippi police station and a believer, called in the help of the churches in a last-ditch effort when the local police could not cope with the crime situation in Hanover Park. Operation Hanover Park was formed. The initiative had prayer by believers of diverse church backgrounds as its main component. This operation was on the verge of achieving an early version of community transformation at the beginning of 1993 when a leadership tussle stifled the promising movement. With Norman Barnes, a Muslim background believer and former gangster drug addict as the leader of the City Mission prayer group, it was easy to share the burden of praying for these groups. This Saturday afternoon prayer meeting fused into the monthly prayer meeting of Operation Hanover Park towards the end of 1992. The vision to pray for missionaries called from their area was likewise gladly taken on board. The idea was completely new to them, but the Lord soon started answering the prayers miraculously. Within a few years there hailed from the Lansdowne/Hanover Park/Manenberg area about as many missionaries as from the rest of the Mother City put together. In Hanover Park we were also due to have the first cell group consisting of male converts from a Muslim background. The Western Cape Missions Commission, to which our WEC colleague Shirley Charlton took me soon after our arrival at the Cape, proved very valuable in terms of contacts. An event organised in 1993 with some link to the Western Cape Missions Commission was a workshop with John Robb of World Vision. I later used the list of participants at this event to organize Jesus Marches the following year. At this occasion I also met Trefor Morris from Fish Hoek was one of those attendees. He became not only a regular at our Friday lunch time prayer meeting, but also an important catalyst to study the history of spiritual dynamics at the Cape through a radio series via Radio Fish Hoek,. At one of the mission events I met an AIM missionary who told me about Salama Temmers, a convert from Islam. Her husband Colin soon became one of our regular warriors at our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting. The family was one of the core of our support for converts coming from Muslim background. Contact with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre and SAWE in Stellenbosch was quite strategic. On the same weekend that our microbus was stolen in September 1993, Hanekom had invited me to address a SAWE camp near Stellenbosch. That same weekend we were conned by a drug addict who purported to have accepted the Lord. As a family, we however sensed a special under-girding through the intercession of friends because we were seriously challenged to return to Europe at this time. A traumatic weekend Black townships like Khayelitsha were no-go areas for anyone who was not Black in the period of transition to a democratic government. Our friend Melvin Maxegwana from the City Mission of the township, where I had preached in the mean-time, had to flee from the area. The local civic organization had concocted allegations against him. As a pastor with contact to other races, he was the first Christian local radio station of the country accused of linking up with Whites - regarded as a cardinal sin by some Blacks in those days. Whereas the violence and turmoil on the East Rand, in Natal or even that of Khayelitsha was still on the periphery of our lives, the weekend starting with the second Friday of September 1993 had us reeling. After the children had left for school at about 7.40 a.m., Rosemarie and I had a short prayer session. Just after nine, I had to fetch a few old prayer warriors for the monthly WEC meeting at our house where we would especially pray for our missionaries from South Africa, and for those ministering in other parts of the country. The events of the next thirty hours were traumatic in the extreme. Our emotions swung like a very long pendulum, from the heights of elation to the deepest despair. For many years hereafter I tried to complete a report of the events, but I was never able to finish it within a time frame where the memory of the events was still fresh. On the Friday morning we discovered that our vehicle was stolen; at the one o’clock prayer meeting a new ‘convert’ came to our meeting - a drug addict, who purported to have just been ‘saved’. Thirty hours later we discovered that he was a conman. This fake convert had fooled us terribly. His demonic actions removed our vision for a Christian drug rehabilitation centre almost completely, also bringing our fledgling first male convert cell group to a sudden halt. The events of the weekend highlighted the temptation to return to Europe. The Lord however did not give us peace to leave the Mother City as yet. In fact, on that same weekend we were confronted by the challenge to buy a house that had been repossessed. While our emotions were in complete turmoil, we had to make a decision. The Lord used Rainer Gülsow, a family friend and a German builder, to help us make up our minds (The family had originally been impacted by the German-born South African evangelist Reinhardt Bonnke.) His expertise was to us the ‘Gideon’s fleece', the test whether we should buy the run-down house. In his view the property was a very special bargain. Well over eleven years later we are still living in the Vredehoek home that we actually bought. A sequence of special circumstances made the purchase possible, including an inheritance from Rosemarie’s late father. Melvin Maxegwana and Brett Viviers, a Jewish background believer who was also unemployed at the time - linked up in harmony with Cameron Barnard, a believer from the Jubilee Church and the son of Frans and Vena, an elderly couple who wanted to go to Turkey as WEC missionaries. The three workers renovated the dilapidated house in two months. The working together of Melvin and Brett especially was invaluable for the time. The example of a White man working happily under a Black was not so common at all in South Africa. Taking back what Satan had stolen The small Assemblies of God Church fellowship of Woodstock had early morning prayer meetings on weekdays from 1994, starting at 5 a.m. The indifference of the churches with regard to evangelistic outreach was a scourge all around the Peninsula. The situation in Woodstock and Salt River was of the worst in this regard. The two suburbs had become predominantly Islamic within a few years. Pastor Graham Gernetsky the Cape Town Baptist Church organized a missions week with theological students of the Baptist Theological Seminary in March 1994. I was teaching at this occasion along with Bobby Maynard, who was linked to Veritas College, which was still very much in its embryonic stage. (In later years, the Correspondence Bible College which started at the Cape, would have a worldwide impact, notably in Egypt among Coptic Christians.) Reverend Gernetsky reacted positively to the suggestion to do prayer warfare with the students not only in Bo-Kaap, but also in Woodstock. This would be tantamount to an attempt to take back what Satan had stolen through drug abuse, prostitution and gangsterism. During a prayer walk by the students - which formed part of the missions week - a local Woodstock inhabitant mentioned Pastor William Tait and his fellowship. This led to contact with the Assemblies of God congregation there. When Pastor William Tait started off as a pastor at the Woodstock Assemblies of God in 1989, that suburb was becoming completely Islamic, albeit not in a way which Muslims were proud of. Christians were leaving the sinking ship of Woodstock as gangsterism and prostitution took the area by storm. It had become the drug centre of the Metropolis. The missions’ week was also the run-up to closer co-operation between the Assemblies of God fellowship and the small Baptist Church that had no pastor at that time. The notorious suburb hereafter slowly changed its religious complexion towards the end of the decade. (The hub of drug peddling and prostitution moved to more lucrative areas for their respective trades.) Pastor Tait and his church were ably assisted by the tiny local Baptist Church under the inspiring and pioneering Pastor Edgar Davids, who died in March 1998 after the rejection of a transplanted kidney. The Face of Woodstock changed The two buildings, where these churches congregate, visibly demonstrated the need for change in the area. Both buildings had become quite dilapidated by 1995. The Baptist Church bought the ruin of the old Aberdeen Street Dutch Reformed Church, which they started to restore with financial and practical aid from North Carolina believers in the USA. Among the participants, there were American pensioners who came over to help with the restoration. The Assemblies of God congregation bought their building from the Woodstock Presbyterian Church in 1997. The latter denomination found it difficult to survive in that suburb. Almost all their members had either left the area or passed on. Almost before our eyes we could now see God started using these churches of Woodstock to change the face of the suburb gradually. The Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God rented the dilapidated building from the Presbyterians. They had already started having their fellowship services in this building. The restored churches, respectively in Clyde and Aberdeen Streets that once had been the shame of local Christianity, now stood there as a visible testimony to God's renewal power in that suburb. We prayed that something similar would happen in the spiritual realm. The Lord was orchestrating things in his own sovereign way. William Tait, the pastor of the minute Assemblies of God Church, had the vision to start early morning prayer meetings in the early 1990s. Soon after Edgar Davids took office in 1995, the two churches organised a combined evangelistic campaign in the Woodstock Town Hall. Our SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague, Manfred Jung, ran a course in Muslim Evangelism with the Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God Church. Our involvement in the adjacent suburbs of Walmer Estate and Salt River started with prayer walking. In the latter instance it became the prelude to a children’s club that we commenced with Marika Pretorius, another SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague, in 1995 after our return from Europe. (Marika had been used by God to introduce us to families in Bo-Kaap, as well as a link to the Alpha Centre in Hanover Park, where we also conducted children’s clubs from 1993-1995). In our absence she did further spadework work with a holiday club. In Walmer Estate the prayer walk led to a link to a spiritual lifeline of the area, Trevor Klein and his minute Brethren Fellowship. As a result, members of that fellowship attended a course in Muslim Evangelism at St. Paul’s Church in Bo-Kaap in 1997. At some stage Marika brought along her room mate and co-worker from her their Dutch Reformed Church in Panorama, Jenny van den Berg. When Marika left for Germany to work among Turks, Jenny not only became our valued co-worker in Salt River, but in due course she was to become one of the regular lecturers at the annual Muslim Evangelism course at the Bible Institute run by CCM. After we had handed the children’s work in Salt River to Eric Hofmeyer, Jenny van der Berg pioneered with a similar ministry in Woodstock, based at the renovated Baptist Church, persevering there for quite a few years. More lessons from March 1994 The missions' week became one big lesson in spiritual warfare to us. Early one morning - we included prayer times with the students starting at 5 o'clock - Rosemarie shared what she had ‘discovered’ in Galatians 1:8,9; that even an angel could bring a false message if that would deviate from the original Gospel revealed in Scripture. This amplified to us the origins of the Qur’an. (Muslims believe that the first revelations were brought to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel.) It is well-known that the crucifixion of Jesus is denied in the Muslim sacred book. We were filled with more compassion towards the Muslims as we realized that they have been deceived without even knowing it. This became to me the pristine beginnings of a major study of the Angel Gabriel in the Bible, the Qur’an, the Talmud and the Ahadith. (The latter are Islamic traditions of Muhammad’s words and deeds that are regarded as equal in authority to the Qur’an.) The more I studied, the more I discovered how deceptive the arch enemy was, that he had indeed been masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), and that the consistent omission of everything alluding to the cross in the Qur’an could not be coincidence. The latter discovery came about as I prepared for teaching Muslim background believers. (As yet, I harvested no success in getting any of this research material published.) Another lesson of the missions' week was quite painful to me. When I shared with the Bible College students something about the history of Islam in the Western Cape, I broke down in tears. I had to discover that deep in my heart there was still resentment towards the Dutch Reformed Church. I suppose that it developed when I read how the denomination had opposed the government when Mr P.W. Botha and his Cabinet were ready to remove the Mixed Marriages Act from the statute books. Two of the student participants at the mission week were Kalolo Mulenga and Orlando Suarez, respectively from Zambia and Mozambique. The seed had already been sown in my heart to see African Black people as future missionaries during an orientation visit to the Ivory Coast in 1990. Now the increasing number of expatriates in Cape Town came into focus as future missionaries to their own people, just like the Samaritan woman of John 4 in the New Testament. The lessons in cross-cultural outreach that the Master Teacher passed to us through this chapter from John’s Gospel would guide us during the next few years. I not only used the conversation of our Lord Jesus with a woman from another culture as a prime example for the outreach to Cape Muslims, but we were now concentrating our work on the local converts from Islam. We noticed how much more effectively they were reaching out to their own people. Two missionaries from the Cape helped prepare the way for a major change by their ministry in Malawi. Bobby Maynard attended the Cape Town Baptist Church before he left the Mother City for Malawi, impacting the young (future) Baptist ministers during the missions week in March 1994 just before he left. Bram Willemse, another Cape missionary, who ministered to the predominantly Muslim Yao tribe, died at a fairly young age. Willemse did stalwart pioneering work among that tribe in the mid-1990s, but he was not around anymore when the first mosque became a church in Malawi - probably the first on the African continent to do so. Gangsters and Drug Addicts changed On another level, God intervened sovereignly when gangsters and drug addicts were changed in answer to prayer. Nicky Cruz received worldwide fame through his conversion under the ministry of David Wilkerson and his Teen Challenge team. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association produced a winner in the filming of The Cross and the Switchblade. (The use of the Jesus Film, produced by Campus Crusade and translated into many languages, was even more spectacular, with thousands turning to Jesus all around the globe after hearing Jesus speaking in their own language.) The ministries among gangsters and drug addicts by people like Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong and the Betel ministry of Elliot Tepper in Spain became part of the move of God’s Spirit into the 1990s. The use of the Jesus Film, produced by Campus Crusade and dubbed in many languages, was even more spectacular, with thousands turning to Jesus all around the globe when they heard Jesus speaking in their own language. Also at the Cape many video copies of the Jesus Film were distributed in Afrikaans and English from the mid-1990s. Cape Town had its own version of gangsters changed - albeit on a much less spectacular scale - when a tract written by Dean Ramjoomia, a converted Muslim, impacted Ivan Walldeck, a gangster from Hanover Park. Ramjoomia had been a PAC anti-apartheid activist before his conversion in 1983. After literally running away from Gospel preachers in trains, he was sovereignly visited by the risen Lord walking through a closed door. In the second half of 1992, the criminality and violence in the township of Hanover Park got completely out of hand, but the Lord raised up praying people. In answer to these prayers, police sergeant Crowe approached the churches about the situation in the township. Pastor Jonathan Matthews of the Blomvlei Baptist Church played a big role in the start of Operation Hanover Park. Prayer by believers from different churches had a huge impact on this operation. Operation Hanover Park, under whose auspices Dean Ramjoomia operated, was organized as a combined church effort to fight crime in the township after the police had given up hope. Ramjoomia and his wife Susan felt themselves led to minister to different gangs as part of this initiative. Earlier Ramjoomia had been embittered as a boy by police maltreatment, after he had used a ‘Whites only’ toilet. Formerly a Muslim, he was supernaturally ministered to by the Holy Spirit, and thereafter discipled by Pastor Alfie Fabe from the City Mission. In 1999 he entered Bible School with the intention to get involved with ministering to drug addicts and gangsters on a full-time basis. Eric Hofmeyer, a former gang leader, became a pastor. He not only led many a gangster to the Lord in the infamous Pollsmoor prison, including Sollie Staggie, a less well-known brother of the infamous twins Rashied and Rashaad, but thereafter also discipled many of them. Eddie Edson was another name from the Woodstock gangster world that was to impact the Mother City in a big way in the 1990s. He became a pastor of the Full Gospel Church. The Shekinah Tabernacle in Mitchells Plain was the venue from where prayer drives were to be launched in the mid-1990s, and Edson became the driving force for both the pastors and pastors' wives monthly prayer meetings, and the city-wide prayer events that pioneered the Transformation of Cape Town in the new millennium. Trials in transition When President F.W. de Klerk announced a Whites-only election on February 20, 1992 it was still touch and go which direction the country would go. The possibility of unprecedented civil war could not be discounted. The Whites were asked to say 'yes' or 'no' to the question: 'Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on February 2, 1990 and which is aimed at a new constitution?' The success of the national cricket team at the world cup tournament in Australia at that time possibly influenced the vote decisively. A 'no' vote would most certainly not only have ushered in civil war, but it would also have sent the country back into the sporting wilderness. The latter was for many in the sports loving country just as ghastly to contemplate, a dictum coined by Mr B.J. Vorster, a previous Prime Minister. With a resounding 'yes' - 68% - from all corners of the country, De Klerk was given a mandate on 17 March 1992 to negotiate a new constitution with the likes of Nelson Mandela. Much of the goodwill of these promising beginnings seemed to evaporate after 1992, during the transition to democratic government. In Kwazulu, a simmering condition of civil war had been prevailing for years. The tension between ANC (African National Congress) followers and those of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) was just waiting for the final igniting of the powder keg. Over the Easter weekend of 1993, the country seemed to have been pushed over the precipice of major racial conflict. The news on 10 April 1993 reverberated throughout the country that the outspoken communist Chris Hani, who had been touted for a top position in a possible ANC-led government, had been assassinated. The fact that a white woman provided information leading to the prompt arrest of the alleged perpetrators, two right-wing activists, served to lower the political temperature momentarily, but things remained extremely tense. The death of Chris Hani helped not only to get a date set for elections, but also to bring about a climate for reconciliation. Yet, by July 1993 the country was still clearly moving towards the precipice of civil war. In different parts of the Peninsula, Christians from different denominational backgrounds came together for prayer, although this was still mainly occurring within the racial confines. In fact, God had to use the brutal attack of believers in a Capetonian sanctuary to get the Church in South Africa praying fervently. Divine Intervention The massacre in July 1993 at the St James Church of Kenilworth caused a temporary brake on the escalation of violence that was threatening to send the country over the precipice - a civil war of enormous dimensions. The event inspired unprecedented prayer all around the country and around the world, bringing home the seriousness of terrorism that would not even stop at sacred places. The attack on the St James Church brought about a new sense of urgency for Christians to leave their comfort zones. But Satan had overplayed his hand. The St James Church killings turned out to be the instrument par excellence to impact the movement towards racial reconciliation in the country. Those family members who lost dear ones received divine grace to forgive the brutal killers. The killing of innocent people during a church service sparked off an unprecedented urgency for prayer all around the country. The adage of Albert Luthuli after he had been dismissed as chief by the South African government in November 1952 received a new actuality: It is inevitable that in working for freedom some individuals and some families must take the lead and suffer: the Road to Freedom is via the Cross. Sovereign moves of God’s Spirit A third consecutive 40-day fast – the first of the three started on 2 January 1994 - co-incided with preparations for the general elections. Before this, the concrete fear of civil war inspired prayer meetings across the racial divide. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Methodist Bishop Stanley Mogoba convened a meeting between Dr Nelson Mandela and Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi to try to resolve the deadlock posed by Inkatha Freedom Party’s threat to boycott the elections. Africa Enterprise enlisted prayer assistance from all over the world in 1993. Few other countries responded like Kenya and Nigeria. Foreign missionaries were seriously considering leaving South Africa because of the increase in violence. In a special move of God’s Spirit, Pastor Willy Oyegun from Nigeria and a group of prayer warriors from that country were led to come and pray in South Africa in February 1994. It was touch and go, or they would have been sent back from Johannesburg International Airport without accomplishing anything. God intervened sovereignly. Willy Oyegun became God’s choice instrument for healing and reconciliation at the Cape in the post-apartheid era. In East Africa God laid on the heart of many a Kenyan to pray for the country as it was heading for the general elections on 27 April 1994. In the frantic months leading to April 1994, Nelson Mandela engaged in attempts to placate extremist groups. His efforts seemed futile. On the one hand the ANC entered into negotiations with General Constand Viljoen, the former head of the South African Defence Force for the establishment of a Volkstaat, in which Afrikaans religion, culture and language would be preserved. On the other hand, the ANC took quite a hard line with Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi, the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Front, who appeared definitely no less stubborn. Danger lurking again The ANC attempt to diminish the power of regional governments could have led to the much feared civil war when Viljoen decided to move into Boputhatswana, one of the former homelands with 4,000 troops. Nominally, this intervention was projected as an effort to preserve the independence of an ally; it would have given his army a base into which Viljoen could move much of its sophisticated equipment. From there they would have been able to challenge a new ANC-led government. Viljoen’s well-disciplined forces were however joined by a party from the extreme rightwing Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging, which was shooting Blacks for the fun of it. This led to a mutiny in the Boputhatswana Army. Almost immediately hereafter on 16 March 1994, Viljoen broke with the Freedom Alliance, forming his own political party, the Freedom Front agreed to participate in the elections. It would probably not be preposterous to suggest that this was the result of the many prayers offered in various places at this time, postponing the feared civil war for the moment at least. A sovereign answer to Prayer God used Rev Michael Cassidy and his Africa Enterprise team to get another massive prayer effort underway by Christians all over the world, along with the skills of Kenyan Professor Washington Okumu, a committed Christian. God furthermore clearly called a police officer, Colonel Johan Botha, to recruit prayer warriors. The press took up his story, reporting on how God supernaturally came to him in a vision. An angel stood before him on 23 March 1994 with the message: “I want South Africa on its knees in prayer”. A national prayer day was announced for 6 April 1994 - a national holiday at that time called Founder’s Day. The country was on the verge of a civil war, which surely could have sent many missionaries fleeing in all haste just before or after the elections in 1994. Two reputable negotiators were brought in along with the more or less internationally unknown Professor Okumu. Lord Carrington was a former British Foreign Minister, who had brokered an accord for Zimbabwe in Lancaster House in London in 1980. Dr Henry Kissinger, a former US Secretary of State, headed off a major crisis in the Middle East through his shuttle diplomacy in the 1970s. The group however had great difficulty in attempting to induce Inkatha, the predominantly Zulu party led by Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi, to participate in the elections. On 13 April 1994 - only two weeks before the scheduled elections - the two prominent gentlemen from the UK and the USA left the country, having acknowledged their failure to achieve a settlement. The scene was set for the outbreak of civil war of unprecedented proportions. Journalists flew in from all over the world to witness and record the carnage that was expected to follow the elections. Professor Okumu heeded Michael Cassidy's request to stay behind when his prominent Western colleagues left. After Okumu had rushed by taxi to meet Dr Buthulezi on 15 April at the Lanseria Airport to explain a new proposal to be presented to the Zulu King, he could just see the machine taking off. Divine intervention occurred when the aircraft returned. Some strange navigational reading caused the pilot to return to the airport. (Afterwards no fault was discovered with the machine). God indeed had to intervene supernaturally to get the machine, in which Dr Mangusuthu Buthelezi was sitting, to return to the airport where Okumu had already thought to have missed him. Millions of ballot papers had already been printed. Hurriedly a similar number of stickers was prepared to be attached to the ballot papers to give the new South African electorate the added option to vote for the Inkatha Freedom Party. It was very fitting that God used Okumu, a Kenyan professor, to broker the accord with the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party) and the Zulu King, a move that literally steered the country from the precipice at the 11th hour. Many Kenyans had been praying for South Africa in its period of crisis. They - as did Dr Mangusuthu Buthulezi and thousands of South Africans - gave God all the honour for divinely steering the country to an unprecedented four days of peaceful revolution, as the election process was dubbed. In answer to the prayers of millions, God had brought about the miracle elections that might have gone awry, if Satan had his way. It was clear that it was not the military actions or the boycotts, which toppled apartheid. It was God’s sovereign work. The devil must have worked overtime almost to the last minute to counter God’s plans of redemption for the country. In the wake of so much positive publicity to the honour of God, Satan was ‘honour-bound’ to hit back with a vengeance. The Devil’s Reply When the ANC came to power in 1994, all religions were given equal status. Increasingly, occult elements became fashionable. Witchcraft was accepted uncritically, and some regarded Satanism as just another religion. That people had to be ‘sacrificed’ in the process by Satanists, was uncritically taken on board. The poor argument was: so many are also killed in political and other forms of violence, so what! A spokesman for the SACC even rationalized the issue so much as to state that Satanism is a matter of personal conscience. The pervasively negative influence of television - with the poisoning of young minds - proceeded unchecked; violence, extra-marital and same-sex relationships were depicted in many films as ‘normal’, thus encouraging promiscuity. From some pulpits homosexual relationships were even covertly encouraged. Already on 11 May 1994 - at the inauguration of the new President, Nelson Mandela - the stage was set for anti-evangelical government. The use of a praise singer might have looked very African, but new age notions and ancestral worship were simultaneously ushered in. It was not surprising at all when the new government made no secret that they wanted secular rule to substitute the racist apartheid style of the former regime. But the government possibly did not bargain with the dramatic increase of Satanism in certain areas. A fourth 40-day fast was organized in conjunction with an international initiative called A Day to Change the World. Thousands of people participated in this fast, which culminated in Jesus Marches all over the country on 24 June 1994. Although much of the mutual distrust was temporarily overcome, the country more or less lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational divisions. Even though there were many prayer meetings for the 'gateway cities' during October 1995, they were generally either confined to prayer within local churches, or (but this was already the big exception) combined prayer within the respective racial groupings. Initially there was very little change. Yet, Grigg’s recipe is still very appropriate: ‘If there is not significant unity, the first step is to bring together the believers in prayer or in renewal and teaching until there is reconciliation and brokenness.’ The church universal would do well to heed Patrick Johnstone’s advice: ‘Courses on prayer are to be incorporated into required curricula of Christian seminaries, colleges and schools.’ Rarely found prayer courses are generally only an elective. A change here could deeply affect the Church and the progress of world evangelization. Prayer needed for the new Secular government Next to many positives – notably in the supply of housing, electricity and water - the new secular government unwittingly walked right into Satan’s trap in their effort to appear liberal. Obviously with the best intensions, President Nelson Mandela granted amnesty to many criminals. However, many of these released prisoners continued their criminality as soon as they were discharged. Nelson Mandela’s generosity and love for children became too well known when his parties for street children were televised. This led to a significant increase in children who hereafter found it much easier to leave their homes for very dubious reasons. Soon the government seemed to be bending over backwards to accommodate sexual immorality. The legalization of abortion by the new regime was not surprising because in the run-up to the 1994 elections, the ANC had already envisaged that as future policy. Whereas the racist remnants of the previous era rightly had to be eradicated, the new government was possibly not aware that they were opening gates of evil. Human rights became the condition on which laws were liberalized almost indiscriminately. One of the first liberal new laws was the possibility of ‘easy bail’. Criminals went for the gap. Drug lords had no problem coughing up the bail money, and hardened criminals usually had easy access to cash. The new inexperienced government appeared to allow all sorts of criminality to spiral out of control. Crime increased and especially drug trafficking spiraled! The influx of refugees – many of them for economic reasons - caused xenophobia, as many Blacks saw them as a threat and competition to the already tight employment market. This drove many of the expatriates to the lucrative drug trade, where criminal Nigerians were soon on hand to take control in mafia operations. A situation developed by the end of the century that could only be countered with spiritual warfare on a national scale. God was equal to the challenge when he raised prayer warriors from different communities. The link to the countrywide prayer movement Contact with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre and SAWE in Stellenbosch was quite strategic. I got linked to the countrywide prayer movement in October 1994 via Jan Hanekom, a spiritual giant of the South African mission scene. (He was prayerfully preparing entry into Bhutan as a tent-making missionary when he died after contracting some mysterious disease a few years later.) Local Christians joined Bennie Mostert, in a drive to Macassar. Under Mostert’s the leadership they prayed at the shrine of Shaykh Yusuf, the generally acknowledged founder of Islam at the Cape. Something significant happened that day in October 1994. The prayer at Shaykh Yusuf’s shrine probably signalled a breakthrough in the spiritual realm. Here and there individual Christians started showing an interest in praying for Muslims, although the churches in general remained indifferent. Soon hereafter, the connection to the countrywide prayer movement was strengthened. Gerda Leithgöb, who had introduced the use of research for prayer in South Africa, was invited as the guest speaker for a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995 that focused on Islam. Louis Pasques, had just been appointed as the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, came back from a conference in Pretoria with the Argentinian Ed Silvoso, all fired up to see the church members praying for their neighbours. But it took months before the seed germinated. But it did start happening when a map of the city was put up at the back of the church in September 1996. Pasques now also became a regular to our Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. Evaluation of prayers at the shrines Every time the Bible speaks about sacred stones, there is a negative connotation. Their erection was forbidden (e.g. Leviticus 26:1) or where they existed, they had to be demolished (e.g. Exodus 23:24). The other common use in Scripture is where they are outlawed either as signs of idolatry or as an indication of apostasy from Yahweh by the Israelites. It is surprising that Muhammad, who had struck so clearly at all forms of idolatry, clung to the black stone at the Ka’ba. On the other hand, Christianity hardly ever pointed to the fact that the shrines could exert a spiritist influence. In fact, Islam took its cue from similar places of ancestral veneration by the Christians (and Jews) of the Middle East, notably those of the Coptic believers in Egypt. The ritualistic but spiritually dead church there survived in the Muslim environment. Pagan elements like the obelisk pillars – relics from ancient Baal and sun worship that indicated another creating power via its penis-shaped form – were passed on with hardly any questioning to this day into all the major religions. Orthodox Islam outlawed ancestral worship at the shrines, but rank-and-file Muslims could not care - knowing that there was supernatural power available. The source of the power is usually immaterial to them. Spiritism appeals to the emotions and offers physical healing. Both traits make it an attractive alternative to biblical Christianity. That this is often followed by severe depression is either not recognized or glossed over. We should keep in mind that any bondage works like a drug. Cape Islam needs the united offensive of the intercession of Christians, who believe in the power of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, their Lord. Historically, Capetonian Muslims have been much closer to biblical Christianity than those in many other parts of the world. Farid Esack, a Capetonian Muslim theologian, describes the South African Muslim community as ‘one of the most dynamic and exciting in the world of Islam.’ With my concededly limited knowledge in this regard, I have no reason to contradict this statement. In fact, I tend to endorse it. Possibly more than anywhere else, Islam here - excluding the fringe extremist groups - might be ready to accept correction. White South Africans set a fine precedent when they - with the exclusion of fringe right-wing groups like the AWB - accepted correction to the country's apartheid policies a few years ago, led by the late Professor Johan Heyns, who has to be regarded as a martyr because of his turn around. (Another academic, Willie Jonker, confessed their guilt on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church at the Rustenburg conference in November 1990, an event that was a significant step towards the new democracy.) Prayer Sequels The Lord used the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 60 as part of a devotional in a Friday lunch hour prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch to start calling Gill Knaggs into the mission to the Muslim World. She was attending the prayer meeting on a one-off basis. This set her in motion to pray about getting involved in full-time missionary work. Gill hereafter helped to translate (from Afrikaans) and edit the testimony booklet Search for Truth. She also hosted a prayer group for Muslims at her home for quite a number of years. When Cape Community FM (CCFM) started with a radio programme aimed at Muslims in 1998, she was on hand for the writing of scripts, something she continued to do for many years, also after her marriage. As a result of the 1994 Jesus Marches some Cape churches came to know the missionary work of WEC International better. One of these churches was the Logos Baptiste Kerk in Bellville. Not only did this church become a major recipient of the Ramadan booklet, but Freddy van Dyk, a leader of the church who worked at the City Council, joined the Friday lunchtime prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch. At this meeting we prayed about our vision to get into the hospitals to visit people outside of the regular visiting hours. He mentioned a training course in pastoral counselling which his wife had attended. When we followed this information up, it resulted in Rosemarie attending such a course it along with other befriended ladies. June Lemensich and Arina Serdyn, who had been regulars at our Friday prayer meeting, as well as Renate Isert, our SIM missionary colleague, attended the course. Dr. Henry Dwyer, who heads up the pastoral work at the hospitals in the Cape, was an old friend of mine from our connections in the VCS, the student Christian movement in the 1960s. This in turn led to a Muslim Evangelism teaching course scheduled at the same venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne. Another sequel to the Friday lunchtime prayer meetings was the resumption of language classes at the Cape Town Baptist Church, even though these lessons differed greatly from classes held before 1999. It all started with a local believer attending the prayer meetings and pointing to French-speaking traders from West Africa in the Mother City, many who were invariably Muslim. "Who would bring the Gospel to them?" was the challenge. At that stage Louis Pasques, who had become the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church, was attending the lunchtime prayer meetings fairly regularly. As one of the few born again French speakers of the Mother City at the time, he was in this way prepared for the challenge posed by refugees from Zaire and the Republic of Congo, who came to his church for some sort of aid. When Gildas Paka, a Congolese teenager, pitched up at the church in 1996, the Pasques family opened their home to him. One thing led to the other until Alan Kay, the church's administrator, finally adopted Gildas. Soon the Cape Town Baptist Church became a home to refugees from many African countries. The need for fluency in English - in order to help them obtain employment - inspired the offer of free English lessons to many of these refugees. This led to the resumption of English language classes at the church, this time not as a service to foreign students, but to refugees. An unseen result of the Friday prayer times was the call to missions of Sherna Fortune, who was working at Metropolitan Health in Buitengracht Street in 2001, less than hundred meters from the Koffiekamer. While she was overlooking the Muslim stronghold from her working place, she sensed a strong challenge to share the gospel with Muslims. The following year she resigned her work to be able to work full-time for the Lord. In 2003 she not only became a faithful co-worker in various factories where she ministered to many a Muslim woman, but she also became the link to get the Lighthouse Christian Centre, her home church, closely involved with the outreach to Cape Muslims the year thereafter. A Kibbutz in the Boland The Cape Town Scorpions, a Cape Flats gang, made an unprecedented move to set up their headquarters in the Roodewal township of Worcester, a country town about 100 km from Cape Town. Gangsters from the township Elsies River started training new recruits there. When gangster violence rocked Roodewal in 1986, Erena van Deventer was called into action. She was not completely satisfied with the peace that was brought about by the concerted prayer of believers. In response to the gangster activity, the Lord birthed in her heart the idea to set up a Kibbutz. She began to fast, cry and pray with new zeal for Roodewal. She wrote in her autobiographical booklet about this period of her life: ‘My life became a prayer to God’. Her failure to secure the purchase of the Shalvah Chavonnes property for the purpose of starting a Kibbutz there only made Erena more determined. A link to Hudson McComb, who had started the ministry Beth Uriel for street children in Salt River, brought the vision for her Kibbutz into greater focus. When she was given a tract of property near Roodewal Township, she was ready to start her Kibbutz - South African style. This became the beginning of El Shammah Ministries. The Kibbutz was used as a venue for 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 not only came into a living relationship with Jesus, but a few of them left the Cape shores as short term missionaries, using drama and other modern forms of ministry in different countries. A Reply to New Challenges from Islam Muslims were perceived as receiving preferential treatment from the new government. This boosted the religion at the Cape substantially. On the other hand, conversions from Islam to a living faith in Jesus Christ increased significantly in South Africa as from Ramadan 1995. The catalyst was definitely an increase in prayer, stimulated by Bennie Mostert through NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa), and Gerda Leithgöb from Herald Ministries. (Leithgöb taught and implemented spiritual mapping quite effectively. This is a tool that had been introduced in 1991 by a well-known American, George Otis). A link to the Cape Flats township intercessors existed via Mercia and Vincent Pregnalato and their fellowship in Greenhaven. The fellowship around this couple held the fort in an area that was becoming Islamic at an alarming pace in the late 1980s. They also ushered in spiritual dancing, flag worship and other visible artifacts not only into the Cape churches as a part of worship, but also quite far afield. Martha Pekeur was another stalwart from the Cape Flats community who put intercession into her banner, even though it was not always targeted and therefore perhaps less effective. During the 1980s spiritual mapping was not yet practised at the Cape. A new brand of convert from Islam emerged, people who were bold and willing to suffer ostracism and persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. A case in point is Esmé Orrie. She was very fearful and suspicious for a long time after her conversion in July 1992. However, since 1994 she has testified boldly in many a church and on the radio. On 10 March 2000, listeners to the CCFM Christian radio station were invited to react telephonically to the programme God Changes Lives when she shared her testimony. Johaar Viljoen, a former Imam, shared his conversion story in many a church fearlessly in spite of threats. Publications assist a networking effort Majiet Poblonker and Zane Abrahams, two Muslim-background believers and their families, visited our home in June 1992. After hearing Majiet's moving story, seed was sown in my heart to write down the testimonies of converts from Islam. At one of the first discussions with Manfred Jung, a SIM missionary colleague, the idea was mooted to publish the testimonies as a networking effort. The author enjoyed collating the testimonies from some of the Muslim-background believers, sometimes making notes at meetings and once he took a tape recorder to a house. Eleven of the stories were finally selected. The result was Op soek na waarheid, a booklet that we planned to launch at a prayer seminar in January 1995. Elizabeth Robertson, one of our regular prayer warriors, was on hand to paint a beautiful cover for the booklet, which was also later translated into English as Search for Truth. The development of the publication of the booklet with testimonies of Muslim converts proceeded quite well during the first half of 1995, but we experienced major attacks in the family. One such attack was when the two-monthly allocation via our WEC headquarters from Holland - gifts from churches and friends, disappeared mysteriously between the bank in the Netherlands and the bank of our missionary headquarters in Durban. A major gift, which we had earmarked for the printing of the booklet, now had to be used for air tickets to Europe for the family. The bank later reimbursed the money. At this stage I was very eager to see the publication as a combined effort of various mission agencies. But because of its sensitive nature, none of my missionary colleagues were prepared to stick their necks out. Converted Muslims could be exposed to persecution if the testimonies would be published. Furthermore, the person(s) responsible for the booklet would have to reckon with the same treatment. In the end, the author had no other option but to use the mission agency WEC International to which we are linked, as the publishers. The compiler and the names of the converts remained anonymous. This was a weak link in the publication. However, we had to protect the converts, some of whom had reason to be quite afraid. I did not mind at all staying in the background in this way, not wanting to endanger myself or my family unnecessarily. Special networking took place when Pastor Johnny Louw, a retired Bible School principal from the Apostolic Faith Mission Church, got different missionary colleagues to write a booklet called Share your faith with your Muslim Neighbour. Originally written in Afrikaans, Louw had it translated into English. Thereafter he distributed the booklet in different countries. Elisabeth Robertson made a painting for the cover of this publication as she had also done of our booklet Op Soek na Waarheid / Search for Truth. The annual distribution of the Muslim Prayer Focus for intercession during the month of Ramadan became a common effort by CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) members. Bennie Mostert, who had introduced the booklets in South Africa, wanted to abort the effort in 1996 because of financial constraints when Manfred Jung, a SIM Life Challenge missionary colleague and I stepped in to assist. As this action had to transpire at short notice, and in an effort to keep the costs as low as possible, we roped in our children and a few young people from the Stellenberg Chapel in Pinelands to help collate, count and bundle the booklets. SIM missionaries wrote a number of other booklets and tracts, which surely made some impact. The author wrote tracts with testimonies of Cape Muslims, networking with Colin Tomlinson of MECO, who assisted with the editing. A nephew of Rosemarie from Germany started with the layout. Renate Isert of SIM Life Challenge put in a lot of effort to get them ready for print. In this way the almost axiomatic belief in Cape Muslim circles that if one is born a Muslim, one must die one, was eroded. It was however definitely not in the spirit of the author when an over-eager Christian distributed tracts outside a mosque. Proof of the impact of the written material came through when it was discovered that Muslims were being warned against the testimonies on a website. A National Day of Prayer and its local backlash In October 1995 the Sunday Times published a report about the Islamic conference held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. There it was vocalized that Africa was to be Islamized by the end of the 20th century, making use of the South African infrastructure. The precedent of making the country ungovernable – fairly successfully used in the 1990s to bring the apartheid government to the negotiating table - was to be repeated. The Western Cape, with its favourable infrastructure plus the presence of well over a quarter of a million Muslims, was intended to be the springboard from the south. The attempt was frustrated by the 30 Days of prayer during the first term of 1996 and a National Day of Prayer. The 1996 national day of prayer with the theme “Healing the Land” was preceded by the fifth national 40-day fast in which some 100 000 people participated. The culmination of this fast was a national assembly in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where about 20 000 people gathered. Countrywide, Christians were chal­lenged to fast and pray in the 40-day period leading up to the National Day of Prayer on July 7, 1996. All in all, seven national fasts were completed in the decade from 1990 to 1999. Then God broadened the focus to include the continent. Satan was sure to respond in some way. In the Western Cape, the initial resultant Satanic backlash was traumatic, with the eruption of a near Lebanon-type scenario after People against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD), a Muslim extremist group, started terrorizing the Mother City on 4 August 1996. On that day, Rashaad Staggie, a drug lord, was publicly executed by burning. On the long run however, this event played an important role in the start of the demise of Islam as a religious stronghold. It later became clear that this was part and parcel of the Islamic strategy to Islamize the continent. A Lebanon-type scenario? Spiritual strongholds became a focus of prayer drives that were launched by Pastor Eddy Edson from Mitchells Plain and intercessors from different churches on the last Friday of each month in 1996. The prayer drive of July 1996 started at the strategic Gatesville mosque. This was the same venue from where a fateful PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) car procession started a week later. That procession left for Salt River on August 4, the occasion of Rashaad Staggie’s publicly burning. That event catapulted his twin brother and co-gangleader Rashied into prominence. The prayer drives, undertaken at the initiative of Pastor Edson, who had been a gangster himself, unfortunately only had a short lifespan. An Edson initiative, which lasted much longer, was the monthly pastors' and pastors' wives prayer meeting. Yet, it took years before the racial divide was bridged, and even then these prayer meetings still never really took off multi-racially. Nevertheless, they prepared the soil for the start of the spiritual transformation of the city. Sandwiched between the above-mentioned two processions that left the Gatesville mosque, a church service in the Moravian Church of Elsies River was to have worldwide ramifications. Mark Gabriel, the name adopted by a Muslim background believer from Egypt and a former professor at the famous al-Azar University, shared his testimony there at a combined youth service on the last July Sunday evening of 1996. (Gabriel previously had to flee his home country where he narrowly escaped assassination.) Within days, the booklet with his story was in the hands of Muslims leaders. Maulana Sulaiman Petersen, who suspected that Mark Gabriel had contact with local missionaries, threateningly enquired after him on Wednesday 31 July - i.e. at the time when Mark was doing the practical part of his Crossroads Discipleship Training School at YWAM in Muizenberg with us. He was forced to go undercover once again. The televised Staggie execution by PAGAD a few days later reminded him of Muslim radicals of the Middle East. He was inspired to research jihad, which resulted in a book that possibly influenced US policy on the Middle East in 2002. The public ‘execution’ of Rashaad Staggie by PAGAD (People Against Drugs And Gangsterism) was the next major stimulus for prayer. It brought personal relief to us, because in the resulting turmoil the fundamentalist Muslims seemingly forgot to hunt for Mark Gabriel. The PAGAD issue highlighted the fear of and resentment - sometimes even hatred of some Christians towards Muslims. The veiled threat of a Muslim State was now mentioned more often than was healthy for good relations between the adherents of the two major religions at the Cape. An arson attempt on the church soon hereafter where our course on ‘Sharing your faith with your Muslim neighbour’ was to be held, was luckily downplayed in the press. Satanists were accused of the arson attempt. Fortunately the damage was not too extensive. The crisis abated after a few weeks. Start of an Impact on a Bo-Kaap school and an arson attempt In September 1996 we suddenly gained access to St Paul’s Primary school in Bo-Kaap through Ms Berenice Lawrence a teacher at the school. The author had introduced Mark Gabriel, the Christian from Egypt to her and her husband. Now Berenice asked me whether I could bring people from other countries along to their school. I jumped at this idea to broaden the minds of the children, to try and open them up for the Gospel in a non-threatening way. Soon I became well-known to the kids as I brought Christians from all parts of the world to address the school assembly. The 10-week teaching course ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour’ emphasized prayer as part and parcel of ‘spiritual warfare’. Just before the course was scheduled to start, there was an arson attempt on the intended venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne. When Muslims offered to help with the repair of the damage done, the suspicion was confirmed that Satanists were not really behind the arson attack as had been suggested by a Cape Argus reporter. The reason that the first course was held at St James Church in Kenilworth from 3 September to 5 November 1996 was exactly because the organizers wanted to use it as a ‘Gideon’s fleece’ (compare Judges 6:36-40), a test to make sure that they had God’s will in it. A Lebanon-type of scenario - with Christians and Muslims fighting each other - appeared to be a very real possibility. The organizers of the course did not know at that time that Lansdowne was one of the big PAGAD strongholds. In fact, PAGAD was virtually unknown before August 1996. Since then, conflicting reports were published about the intention of Muslims - for instance by the radical Qibla faction of PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) - to attempt to start the Islamization of South Africa in the Western Cape. Mark Gabriel left the Cape in the wake of the PAGAD-related threat to his life. Intercessors from different areas June Lehmensich, a regular at the Friday prayer meetings and an office worker for the City Council, had taken the pastoral clinical training course with Dr Dwyer in Lansdowne, in addition to attending the ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’ course at St James Church (Kenilworth) in 1996. She became a pivotal figure as she spread the vision for prayer, taking it right into the Provincial Chambers and the National Parliament. She was simultaneously the personification of faithfulness and perseverance, as well as a link to a prayer group with a long tradition at the Cape Town City Council. In November 1996 the launch of the 30-day Muslim Prayer Focus booklets took place in the historic St Stephen’s Church of Bo-Kaap. Bennie Mostert arranged the annual countrywide distribution, ensuring that the vision of countrywide prayer for Muslims once a year was guaranteed. However, the bulk of agencies that were involved with Muslim outreach never fully adopted the vision. Intercessors were coming together from different places once a month at the Sowers of the Word Church in Lansdowne, where the veteran Pastor Andy Lamb was the leader. Sally Kirkwood, a Cape intercessor of note, had already been prepared by the Lord, starting a prayer meeting at their home in Plumstead. Along with other intercessors she became God’s instrument for increasing prayer awareness in the Mother City. Cynthia Richards from Enterprise, was another important cog in this regard as she visited the various Ministers Fraternals of the Peninsula and organising prayer meetings in preparation for the Franklin Graham, the son of the renowned evangelist Billy Graham. (I could give her the phone numbers I still had from the Jesus Marches of 1994). It was really significant for the Cape Town Metropolis in April 1997 when churches across the city and from almost every denomination joined hands for a big campaign on the Newlands Cricket Stadium with Franklin Graham. Pastor Walter Ackerman from the Docks Mission Church in Lentegeur and Pastor Elijah Klaassen from a Pentecostal church in Gugulethu/ Crossroads, worked tirelessly to enlist people from the Cape Flats and Black churches respectively for this event. Transport from the townships was provided free of charge. This thus became the model for the Transformation stadium events of the new millennium. I had met Elijah Klaassen the first time in 1981 when I was part of a church delegation in Crossroads when the government wanted to send women and children back to the Transkei. I met up with him by chance again in 1992 when he was addressing a group on the Grand Parade. My effort to make use of him to rope Black pastors into a prayer network for the Peninsula was however not successful. Eben Swart became the Western Cape coordinator for Herald Ministries, working closely with NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa), which had appointed Pastor Willy Oyegun as their coordinator in the Western Cape. Important work was done in research and spiritual mapping, along with Amanda Buys. Some of her clients had been involved with Satanism. Ernst van der Walt (jr) had ministered in China with OM on short term and Amanda Buys had been involved with the counseling of Christians with psychological problems. Confession once again It came really as a special boon when Christians overseas starting organising a Reconciliation Walk following the path of the Crusades. Bennie Mostert (Jericho Walls) faxed the lengthy confession of the organisers through to our Cape CCM Forum on the very day we had one of our meetings. It looked to me as if God had his hand in it. But it turned out to be no cakewalk. In our meeting the lengthy confession was turned down out of hand because it was regarded as not relevant for us in South Africa. I managed to salvage the idea, that we should then write our own confession. At our Easter Conference 1997 at Wellington I reminded the missionary colleagues of the idea at the meeting of the leadership. They promptly gave me the homework to write a draft and pass it on to the colleagues in preparation for our leaders meeting in October. It was obvious that they were just procrastinating but I did not want to let them off the hook so easily. The matter was much too important for that. What a difference the prayer seminar with Gerda Leithgöb at the former Cape Evangelical Bible Institute shortly hereafter, still in April 1997. The news of the sale of the former CEBI Bible Institute to Muslims coincided with the prayer seminar, but what a sense of unity we experienced in spite of the sword hanging of Damocles over all of us. (Pastor Danny Pearson led the believers of the fellowship that was making use of the premises from there on many a prayer walk in the area.) Gerda approached me to become the co-ordinator for the Western Cape of Herald Ministries, but I had no peace to accept. Eben Swart turned out to be a much more capable person for that function. The visit by Cindy Jacobs from the USA brought a significant number of ‘Coloured’ and White intercessors together at the Shekinah Tabernacle in Mitchells Plain. She confirmed the need for confession with regard to the blot of District Six. When Sally approached me in October 1997, I had started to prepare a visit of intercessors from Heidelberg (Gauteng). A strategic meeting in District Six International intercession began in earnest with the identification of the 10/40 Window, which gave a geographical focus to prayer. This was a divinely inspired window passed on by Luis Bush, an American prayer leader and was used by Peter Wagner, a compatriot, to rally the evangelical world in united prayer for the peoples who were unreached with the gospel. At the occasion of the sending of prayer teams to different spiritual strongholds in 1997, a team from the Dutch Reformed Church Suikerbosrand from Heidelberg (Gauteng) followed the NUPSA nudge to come and pray in Bo-Kaap. In the spiritual realm this was significant, because Heidelberg was the cradle of the racist AWB when the town belonged to the Transvaal province of the old South Africa. As part of this visit from Gauteng, a prayer meeting of confession was organized on November 1, 1997 in District Six in front of the former Moravian Church. The diminutive Sally Kirkwood, who led a prayer group for Cape Muslims at her home in Plumstead in the mid-1990s, played a pivotal role in this prayer event. Sally not only had a big vision for the desolate District Six to be revived through prayer, but she also informed Richard Mitchell and Mike Winfield about the event. The citywide prayer movement received a major push. Eben Swart was asked to lead the occasion. That turned out to be very strategic. The event at the Moravian Church in District Six attempted to break the spirit of death and forlornness over the area, so that it would be inhabited again. It was to take another seven years before that started to be realized and abused for election purposes in 2004. For quite a few participants this event became a watershed. Gill Knaggs, Trish and Dave Whitecross were burdened to become missionaries in the Middle East. Sally Kirkwood came to the fore with a more prominent role among Cape intercessors. Richard Mitchell, Eben Swart and Mike Winfield linked up more closely at this occasion in a relationship that was to have a significant mutual impact on the prayer ministry at the Cape in the next few years, and on transformation in the country at large. Eben Swart’s position as Western Cape Prayer coordinator was cemented when he hereafter linked up with the pastors' and pastors' wives prayer meeting led by Eddie Edson. Mike Winfield belonged to the Anglican congregation in Bergvliet that had Trevor Pearce as their new pastor. (The Anglican Church in Bergvliet later took a leading role in the attempts towards the transformation of the Mother City.) The confession ceremony in District six closed with the stoning of an altar that Satanists or other occultists had probably erected there. Churches Working Together 1998 brought significant steps in the right direction through the initiatives of NUPSA (Network of Prayer in Southern Africa) and Herald Ministries. Regular prayer meetings at the Mowbray Baptist Church, with warriors coming from different parts of the Peninsula, and from different racial and church backgrounds, carried a strong message of the unity of the body of Christ. However, the suggestion in 1999 to continue on local level in different areas, never took off. Nevertheless, the Mowbray exercise brought together two racial groupings for prayer. This thus became the forerunner of citywide prayer events. In another part of the world the transformation of a Mother City had been prepared. In the Central American Almolonga in the country of Guatemala, God had already performed a miracle. Where old-fashioned idolatry had been practiced and Maximon considered as the patron saint of the many Guatemalan villagers, God intervened in answer to prayer. The documentation of the transformation of Almolonga, along with that of Cali in Columbia, which had been a crime-infested city ruled by drug lords not long before, was recorded by George Otis. The video also includes the record of Transformation in two other cities in answer to prayer. In early 1999 Ernst van der Walt (jr) started working closely with Reverend Trevor Pearce, an Anglican cleric, in the sphere of the transformation of communities. They started distributing the video produced by George Otis. The first time it was screened to a big audience in Cape Town was at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow in October 1999. Already in the short term this showing brought about substantial change in some churches. Also, in organizations, the importance of strategic prayer was breaking through. On the longer term the video broke the ground for a citywide prayer event at the Newlands Rugby Stadium on 21 March 2001.The Alpha Course (founded by Nicky Gumble in England) has resulted in many coming to a living faith in Jesus. The Promise Keepers, a movement established among American men, with its emphasis on taking responsibility in the family and commitment to fidelity in marriage, could influence Cape society profoundly. Infidelity and divorce, a hallmark of American television society and which has been exported around the world, had become a major threat to family life all around. The teaching by Black preachers in the Independent churches, ably led by Larry Warren, an American missionary and assisted by local ministers and missionaries, empowered many a pastor in the black communities. An open-air campaign by Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke in Mitchell’s Plain in May 1998 - fourteen years after a gigantic tent was blown apart by the Cape South Easter in Valhalla Park - played a significant role in the evangelisation of the gangsters there. Unfortunately, as happens with most evangelistic campaigns, the co-operation amongst churches petered out after the event. Also, the follow-up of new converts was very poor. Citywide prayer events A citywide prayer event on the Grand Parade in 1998 almost floundered after a bomb threat. Churches across the Peninsula had initially been requested to cancel their evening services on Sunday, 19 April 1998. In sheer zeal, a Christian had thousands of pamphlets printed and distributed without proper consultation with the organizing committee in respect of the content of the pamphlet. The flyer and poster that invited believers to a mass prayer meeting against drug abuse, homosexuality and other vice, unfortunately also referred to Islam in a context that was not respectful enough for some radicals. A PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) member apparently regarded this as an invitation to disrupt the event. The meeting was subsequently announced as cancelled, but a few courageous believers including the late Pastor Danny Pearson, who had been deeply involved with the organization of the event, felt that they should not give in to the intimidation, and that, if need be, Christians should be willing to die for the cause of the Gospel. The meeting actually proceeded on a much smaller scale than originally planned. The prayer event included confession for the sins of omission to the Cape Muslims and to the Jews. The unofficial renaming of ‘Devil’s Peak’ to ‘Disciples' Peak’ - led by Pastor Johan Klopper of the Vredehoek Apostolic Faith Mission Church - and regular prayers at Rhodes Memorial, fitted into the pattern of spiritual warfare. These venues had been strongholds of Satanists. A mass march to Parliament on 2 September 1998 in response to the perceived attack on community radio stations was followed by a big prayer event on Table Mountain a few weeks later. The prayer day, this time as an effort to rename the reviled peak ‘God’s Mountain’, was called for 26 September 1998. A few thousand Christians prayed over the city from Table Mountain. The event inspired a new initiative whereby a few believers from diverse backgrounds would come together again for prayer on Signal Hill on Saturdays every fortnight at 6 a.m. Soon early Saturday morning prayer meetings also commenced at Tygerberg, Paarl Rock and on the Constantia Heights. Christians from different churches thus demonstrated the unity of the body. Quite a close relationship developed to Richard Mitchell and his family after we had started the early morning prayer meetings on Signal Hill. When the opening came for a regular testimony programme on Friday evening on Radio CCFM, Richard Mitchell was a natural choice. The programme ‘God Changes Lives’ with him as presenter was naturally also used to advertise the citywide prayer events. Other Attacks on spiritual Strongholds That God works in mysterious ways was of course known to us. A special version of it happened when we conducted a ten week teaching course on Muslim Evangelism at the Logos Baptist church in Brackenfell. There appeared to be no immediate success in people joining us as co-workers. Yet, a few of the participants were deeply impacted. Among the participants there were for instance Johan Groenewald and his wife as well as Cheryl Müller, whom we picked up every week in District Six. The Groenewald couple took the message to the rural village of Eendekuil where he found a willing ear in Chris Saayman, the Dutch Reformed minister. The Müller family in District Six was challenged to go full-time into the ministry of the Nazarene Church. They were however heavily attacked when Glen, her husband, had a mental burnout while they were in Johannesburg at the theological seminary. Glen nevertheless retained a prayerful interest in District Six. He introduced me to Saki Mispach, his neighbour across the road. My friendship to Saki, an avid reader with wide interests and an unheralded hero of the anti-apartheid struggle with people like the La Gumas and Johnny Gomas, was to impact me too as we inter-acted from time to time. As someone who was deeply involved with the Muslim drug rehabilitation programme at Schaapkraal, we had more than enough common ground. Without getting into doctrinal discussions, I sensed how the Holy Spirit was gradually mellowing down his initial strong Marxist-atheist convictions. Prayer walking one a month was another method used to break down strongholds of the deceiver at the Cape. A few Christians joined from as far afield as Melkbosstrand and Eendekuil. Results might not have been spectacular, but the lifting of a spiritual heaviness over the Muslim stronghold Bo-Kaap could definitely be discerned. In another move on 25 April 1999, Christians were challenged at the Cape Town Baptist Church and the Eendekuil Dutch Reformed Church to pray for people living in the streets of Bo-Kaap. A few faithful aged prayer warriors of the Dutch Reformed Church in Rondebosch who had been coming to an early morning prayer meeting every Sunday, also became involved in this way. A group from Melkbosstrand, spearheaded by Celia Swanepoel and her husband Abrie had been coming to pray in Bo-Kaap every year at Ramadan even before this. Intermittent prayer at the Tana Baru cemetery with important kramats (shrines) and its view over the harbour, especially during prayer walks in Bo-Kaap, included intercession against drug abuse and prostitution emanating from the Cape Town Docks. We could not discern whether an informal settlement in Hout Street just below the former Muslim cemetery was an answer to our prayers. The squatter camp brought prostitution, alcoholism and drug peddling to the Bo-Kaap which had been morally quite upright before its entry. Be it as it may, the dark spirit over the area clearly diminished towards the end of the century. In October 2000 the prayer walk group was encouraged while walking in Bo-Kaap, when they met a Congolese Bible School student. He was on the verge of returning to his home country as an evangelist after being impacted and trained in Cape Town. This was one of my long-time visions. In 2006 Bertie de Jager, an Afrikaner linked to the Logos Christian Church of Brackenfell became deeply burdened to pray for Bo-Kaap. Prayer efforts in the Cape Town City Bowl A forty-day fast from Easter Sunday to Ascension Day 1998 included days of prayer and fasting by a few churches in the City Bowl. Rev Louis Pasques of the Cape Town Baptist Church, who also displayed a vision to reach out to the Cape Muslims with love, spearheaded this endeavour. After trying hard since September 1995 to get a ministers’ prayer group going in the City Bowl, this weekly meeting with a prayer emphasis gained ground slowly after the 40 day prayer effort from April to May 1998. A corresponding move in 1999 - this time with a prayer period of 120 days - was concluded in the Western Cape in the traditional service of the Groote Kerk on Ascension Day, 1999. In the communion service pastors from different churches officiated, a signal of a growing church unity. Likewise a combined evening service in September 1999 in the Cape Town Baptist Church was significant. Dignitaries from the provincial government were present and prayed for. At the Groote Kerk Ascension Day event, Dr Robbie Cairncross was divinely brought into the equation. He had been prepared by the Holy Spirit, coming to the Mother City with a vision to see a network of prayer developing in the Peninsula. After he had listened to the author speaking at the Groote Kerk, an appointment was set up. I was able to introduce him to the leaders of the Cape Peace Initiative, which was formed in the wake of the PAGAD disruptions in 1999. His prayer for an office for his Christian Coalition/Family Alliance near to Parliament was answered in a special way, and he could move into the premises of the Chamber of Commerce at 4 Church Square, a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament. Dr Robbie Cairncross’ plan became quite strategic when Achmed Kariem, a convert from Islam with a vision for taking and distributing prayer information, came onto his staff. Unfortunately the plan faltered somewhat when Robbie Cairncross had to leave the Chamber of Commerce because of financial constraints. Cairncross went on to become an international evangelist with a significant healing ministry. In an initiative by Pastor Eddie Edson of Mitchells Plain, occasional all-night citywide prayer events started, one each on 25 June and 15 October 1999. Natural prayer fuel was provided by the possibility of an escalation of tension between Muslims and Jews in the Mother City, because of the situation in the Middle East. Satanic deception and a backlash The New Age movement - with the formal variant of inter-faith - seemed to have drowned the evangelical roots at the Cape at the time of the World Parliament of Religions in December 1999. The World Parliament of Religions held from 1 to 8 December 1999 in the Mother City, was a spur for churches to get some idea of the spiritual threat to the country. Ironically, the opening took place at the very spot in District Six where the prayer event of confession took place on November 1, 1997. It soon became clear that the uniqueness of Jesus Christ was under attack at the World Parliament of Religions. Dr Henry Kirby, a medical doctor with close links to YWAM, joined up with Brian Johnson (Johnson had been targeting the New Age movement since 1989. That movement has been putting man in centre stage, as opposed to the Creator God.) A prayer event at the Moravian Church in District Six on 27 November 1999 brought together a broad spectrum of Christian churches. That in itself was a memorable occasion. The participation of Rev Derrick Meyer, a former student colleague of the author, who was now the superintendent of the Moravian Church, at this occasion brought me back into the frame of the church of my childhood and youth. There was however no real interest forthcoming in our ministry from that side as yet. The role of drugs has still not been acknowledged sufficiently in spiritual warfare. For centuries the scourge of alcohol obstructed all church and evangelistic work at the Cape. The roots of cannabis (dagga) abuse goes back many centuries, when the Khoisan bartered cattle with Arab traders in Mozambique for the plant that they chewed before they learned to smoke it with a pipe. Every year many new converts to Jesus backslide spiritually over the Christmas period when the increased consumption of alcoholic beverages takes its toll. Muslims have taken to drugs in the same manner as they have seen Cape Christians abuse wine. Mitchell’s Plain Muslims have strikingly been quoted as saying, in an effort to justify their drinking of wine at Lebaran (Eid-al-Fitr): “It is mos our Christmas!” The impact of drugs has had the same devastating result: a tragic addiction that has been wrecking family life. A large part of the population of Cape townships like Tafelsig and Woodlands in Mitchells Plain started regarding all vice related to drug abuse as their way of life. The churches at the Cape became guilty themselves when far too often they hardly made an effort to assist their members who experienced problems related to drug or alcohol abuse. From the 1980s Satanism received many recruits from the drug scene, making spiritual warfare even more necessary. Special moves in Woodstock and Salt River The Woodstock Assemblies of God Church valiantly held the fort under the leadership of Pastor William Tait, also with outreach efforts. On Good Friday 2000 they served the poor and needy with pickled fish and hot cross buns during an open-air service. In a series of Bible Studies held at their church in June 2000, Christians from other churches were invited to come and have a look at Islam as seen through the eye of the Bible. The pastor had a vision for getting more church members involved in evangelism. The spiritual battle is still raging in the area. In spite of aid from a White Afrikaans-speaking church - the Logos Baptiste Kerk in Bellville – the Woodstock sister church struggled to survive after the tragic death of their devout Pastor Edgar Davids in March 1998. Jennie van der Berg, who also worked with us in a children’s club in Salt River, started children's ministry in that area, with the local Baptist Church as her base. Early in 2000 a Christian businessman bought the Junction Hotel in Salt River, where so many lives had been wrecked through alcohol and drug abuse. He donated the hotel to the City Mission. A vision had grown with the latter mission to use the renovated building - for which big money is needed - for the rehabilitation of drug addicts. Funds were however lacking to renovate the building for this purpose. In the nearby community centre, Eric Hofmeyer had been using the City Mission facilities to get into many a school with his Adullam Ministries. It seemed as though the Church at the Cape started to regain its former missionary zeal. There are however only very few indications that the church is at last also awakening to its responsibility towards the Muslims, who still form the prime unreached group of the Cape in terms of the Gospel. Are Christians getting ready to share the Good News in a culturally acceptable manner? Church-led restitution? The 1996 visit of Pastor Ed Silvoso of Argentina to South Africa had a significant follow-up at the Cape when Dr Robbie Cairncross was very much of a catalyst in getting a group of church leaders to go to Argentina. At this occasion Pastor Martin Heuvel of the Fountain Christian Centre in Ravensmead was challenged to apply the principal of restitution to the South African set-up. His efforts to get other White church leaders to move beyond mere oral confession and especially towards restitution for the evils of apartheid took more than two years. Some of these personalities who were challenged, had been involved with the prayer movement in the country for many years. In 2002 Martin Heuvel approached Charles Robertson, a prayer warrior of many years standing and the catalyst of the monthly prayer concerts at the Cape, where he found a prepared heart. This finally led to the founding of the Foundation for Church-led Restitution, where believers from different races and church backgrounds met from time to time. They started to discuss possibilities to nudge the church towards meaningful restitution, especially to address and rectify the wrongs of apartheid.. Some of the church leaders, who had been involved with the Cape Peace Initiative in 1999, got involved in this organization. Robertson jotted down some of the results of their deliberations in a book, which also stressed personal intimacy with God. The disparity between poor and rich, which has been growing to great proportions, is a cancer of our society that developed out of the race policies of the previous regime. An interesting suggestion of Robertson is to challenge the church to see the distribution of material goods in restitution of our past as a volksbesnydenis, a circumcision of the nation. After reading one of the author’s manuscripts, Charles Robertson approached me in November 2004, to discuss an effort to implement church-led confession and restitution for the wrongs perpetrated to Muslims and Jews. But nothing came from it. Every effort to get churches even half-way interested, floundered. 11. PAGAD and its Effects The dislocation of the Cape Flats communities because of the Group Areas Act in the 1960s and 1970s had caused a major problem. As people were uprooted from stable residential areas, gangsterism (which had already taken root in District Six), grew almost exponentially in the new townships. In his contribution ‘Violence and Social Life in Cape Town in the 1900s’, Robin Hallet concluded already in 1980: ‘For many of its inhabitants Cape Town has degenerated into an extremely violent and dangerous place in which to live.’ In the list of murders per thousand inhabitants printed, according to information given in Parliament in 1978, Epping (including Elsies River), Retreat, Manenberg and Bishop Lavis (including Bonteheuwel) head the list. These are exactly those townships in which people had been dumped due to Group Areas legislation. Another 20 years on, the townships were even more dangerous. A case in point is the well-known Staggie twins. They were forced to move from the respectable suburb Diep River to the Cape Flats township of Manenberg in 1971. Over the years, the Staggies became mighty drug lords with international links. During the 1980s the apartheid regime covertly assisted gangsters. Chris Ferndale, who can be regarded as an expert on gang affairs, referred to an ‘alliance’ between gangsters and the police (The Cape Argus, 15 August 1996). Gangs would report on clandestine anti-apartheid operations, with the understanding that the police would turn a blind eye to their illegal activities. By the 1990s the situation had become almost anarchic in many a local township because of this arrangement. The Response of the churches and Missions to Gang-related Activities The question was: How long would the churches sit idly by and endure the senseless killings and crime? The occasional pious talk, calling for an end to the violence, was not good enough. Fortunately there were some exceptions to the rule. The prayerful Pastor Alfred West was a brave White evangelist. He was mightily used by God to stem the tide of gangsterism, notably in Bonteheuwel in the 1980s. In his open-air campaigns he confronted the shebeen owners (illegal alcohol peddlers, operating from their homes) and dagga (cannabis) smokers. A special spin-off of his work was a missionary prayer fellowship, to which amongst others the missionary Walter Gschwandter (SIM Life Challenge) came from time to time. This resulted in quite a few of Pastor West’s group getting trained in Muslim Evangelism and becoming involved in regular weekly outreach. One of his protégées was Percy Jeptha, a former gangster, who later became a pastor. Peter Barnes, a young man from the fellowship, went on to plant mission-minded churches in the Transkei that have it as their vision to send missionaries to other African countries. In recent years a few gangsters from Islamic background became followers of Jesus. Until the early 1990s there was no targeted endeavour to reach the gangsters with the Gospel. Some of them came under the sound of the Gospel at the occasional open-air service. Dicky Lewis, who became a missionary with AEF (Africa Evangelical Fellowship) in 1995, grew up among many of the gang leaders. Through his involvement in community structures, Lewis won the trust of many a gangster and drug lord. Counterproductive Islamic Moves The relative success of evangelistic efforts in the second half of the 1990s has to be attributed in part to ‘own goals’ by the Muslims. The general Christian indifference to the spread of Islam was temporarily checked through the report of the above-mentioned Islamic World Conference in Tripoli in October 1995. The conference resolved that Muslims would now try to utilize South Africa’s excellent infrastructure to islamize the continent from the South. Initially the Tripoli announcement was not regarded as a real threat to the Gospel in Southern Africa. The prospect only hit home a few months later when Louis Farrakhan, a prominent black American Muslim, visited the country. Fairly soon after his successful mass march to Washington D.C. with his Nation of Islam in October 1995, Farrakhan came to the country amid much fanfare and prominent media coverage. The appeal to the Black masses was evident as he appeared on television together with President Nelson Mandela. That this happened during Ramadan was just the tonic for Cape Christians to pray as rarely before. Whereas the church had been fairly indifferent about its outreach to Muslims until that time, things changed almost overnight. The confident prediction from Tripoli in October 1995 did not sound so preposterous any more by February 1996. Although Ramadan was almost over by this time, there was suddenly a big demand for the 30-Day Prayer Focus booklets. The assistance of Muhammad Khaddafi and other oil states was made practical through the provision of Islamic literature in African languages and mosques built in the Black townships. Strategic property was bought up with the aid of oil revenue and funds from Muslim countries, for instance from Libya; new areas in different parts of the country were quitely islamized. (In other Southern African countries like Malawi it was even more pronounced). A crisis following the first PAGAD moves In 1995/6 conditions in the township of Manenberg were well nigh unbearable for the local people - completely out of control. Father Chris Clohessy, the local Roman Catholic priest, had earned the trust of many people of the township, moving fearlessly also in gangster territory. PAGAD was initiated by a group of Muslims in 1996 and joined by Father Chris Clohessy. However, in the ensuing inter-faith venture, Muslims were soon dominating proceedings. Prominent figures like Farouk Jaffer and Achmat Cassiem were reported to have performed a palace coup. Cassiem was the leader of Qibla, subtly changing the anti-drug, anti-crime movement into an organization that sought to usher in Islamic rule in the Western Cape by any means. PAGAD radicals saw this move merely as part of the plan to implement the October 1995 decision in the Libyan capital Tripoli. PAGAD became known publicly on 4 August 1996. That was the occasion when an influential drug lord, Rashaad Staggie, was burnt alive in full view of television cameras. The crisis that followed the PAGAD eruption of August 1996 presented the churches with a challenge, an opportunity to impact the problem areas of the Cape townships. The danger of a Lebanon-type scenario was very real – virtually everybody at the Cape feared that the gangsters might hit back with a vengeance. A meeting for church leaders and missionaries was organized at the Scripture Union buildings in Rondebosch, followed by a wave of prayer by evangelical Christians. Drug rehabilitation where Jesus is central, was also suggested. (The Bet-el centres that had proved so successful in Spain served as a model. Through this ministry, many drug addicts around the world have in the meantime experienced the liberating power of a personal faith in Jesus.) However, when the crisis subsided, pastors simply resumed building their own ‘kingdoms’. A potentially dangerous development was the resuscitation of Afrikaner right-wing resistance. On Sunday 5 January 1997, in a series of bombings, a mosque was savagely damaged. These atrocities were linked to a group who called themselves the Boere Aanvalstroepe. Luckily other right-wing Afrikaner groups distanced themselves from this group, so that the dangerous situation was soon defused. Christians have a duty to minister to deluded racist madmen and violent religious fanatics from all persuasions through love. Islamic Bewilderment Many Muslims perceived with initial satisfaction that the new government after 1994 was favouring Islam. Farid Esack - widely regarded as an Islamic liberation theologian - was given the gender chair in the new government. This frustrated conservative Muslims and young radicals alike, albeit for opposite reasons, causing rifts in the Muslim community. The conservative group was disappointed that Esack interpreted Islam in a way that enhanced gender equality. At the same time, the radicals considered that the country did not move significantly nearer to the ideal of an Islamic state, the clear aim of the Hamas-Hisbollah related Qibla. The majority of Muslims were nevertheless satisfied with the direction of the ANC- dominated government. Many regarded the new regime to be favourable to Islam as part of its policy of affirmative action. A hero from Islamic ranks, Dullah Omar, the new Minister of Justice, was however regarded to have been responsible for the notorious law on easy access to bail. This caused some unease in Muslim ranks, because many perceived easy bail as the prime reason of the spiraling crime levels. (So typical of human nature, he is not remembered for the ground-breaking Truth and Reconciliation Commission for which he introduced legislation as well. A bigger due for this legislation is however to be given to another Muslim, Professor Kader Asmal, who suggested such a commission originally in his inaugural address some years ago at the University of the Western Cape.) A major cause of Islamic bewilderment was the side effects of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD). Quite a few founder and early members of PAGAD left the group because of the violence and the aggressive stance that the Qibla faction radiated. But also dynamic peace-loving Muslims could not palate the new direction. Gangsterism and Drug Addiction: the Achilles heel of Cape Islam? The police connivance with gangsters and drug dealers created an immense problem. The groups of gangsters and drug dealers often overlapped, although the drug lords also included businessmen with overseas connections. Amongst other vice, guns and drugs were ‘recycled’ by corrupt policemen. The clash of PAGAD with the gangsters in August 1996 caused a major upheaval in Muslim communities throughout the Peninsula, even throughout the country. In only a few months PAGAD achieved much in order to create awareness that made the use and spread of drugs less attractive. However, the public execution of Rashaad Staggie on August 4, 1996 continued to haunt the movement. The word was spread that the deceased drug lord had a crucifix around his neck at his 'execution'. In Manenberg he was actually called ‘brother Rashaad’ at the time of his death. The reason given for his punishment was however his drug peddling. Of this he was obviously guilty. Other Muslim background believers received threats at this time. The drug dealers hereafter moved to the countryside. Drug peddling was thus actually spread through PAGAD pressure. From Zaire, the former name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), drug peddlers and later a ring of Nigerian nationals with the same purpose, were quick to supply the local market, hardly targeted or harassed. When they moved to Cape Town (from drug centres like Hillbrow and Yeoville in Johannesburg), the Mother City probably became the drug capital of the continent. A drug ring from Nigeria started their activities right in the central area of the city, some of them operating at night on the parking area of the Cape Town Baptist Church. Spiritual warfare around drug-related issues The spiritual warfare from the side of the enemy of souls was conducted in the Cape Flats townships mainly through a related threesome viz. drug addiction, gangsterism and prostitution. Over the last two decades these vices proved the ideal opening for Satanism. For months the drug and gangster war kept the Mother City of South Africa in suspense. Violence, rape and gangsterism sky-rocketed. The triplings of vice still remain unsolved problems of the city and the country as a whole. Prayer meetings against the increase in crime were organized in different parts of the Peninsula. In Cape Town itself there also occurred a shift. Whereas the centre of drug peddling has been ‘Coloured’ areas like Woodstock until the early 1990s, the new huge shopping malls like Tyger Valley Centre took over in prominence for the sale of expensive drugs like heroine and crack cocaine. Another change was the age of the drug users. A few years ago the sale in the townships had more or less been limited to people around 20 years and older, whereas drugs are now being sold at schools, along with sweets and popcorn by street vendors at lunchtime. The Battle of the airwaves The differing factions of Cape Islam have their favourite radio stations. However, influential shaykhs like Sa’dullah Khan of the Gatesville mosque have been operating on both Islamic stations. Yet, many Muslims perceived Radio Voice of the Cape to be in competition with Radio 786, although the two Islamic stations share the same frequency. At some stage the rivalry reached such a frenzy that telephone lines were cut. In the mid-1990s, Radio 786 had virtually become the voice of Qibla, the radical faction of Cape Islam. At the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the Director of Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM), formerly Radio Fish Hoek, was challenged to use the station to reach out to Cape Muslims. She phoned the author, offering airtime for a regular programme to this effect. At that stage we had only assisted the station with advice and teaching to the ‘prayer friends’ of the station, who had to counsel those Muslims who phoned CCFM. Since the 1994 Jesus Marches and the effort to start a prayer network in the Peninsula, there had been contact with Trefor Morris, who was closely linked to Radio Fish Hoek. Occasionally he joined in the Friday lunchtime prayer at the Shepherd’s Watch in Shortmarket Street. We had to warn Avril Thomas of the unsuccessful arson attempt on the Lansdowne Church where we wanted to stage a Muslim Evangelism seminar in 1996. She and the CCFM board were prepared to take the risk for the sake of the Gospel. A series on biblical figures in the Qur’an and the Talmud was transmitted towards the end of 1997. After a gradual increase of occasional programmes geared to address the Cape Muslim population, missionaries felt challenged to start utilising the CCFM offer to use the medium on a regular basis. In the meantime, Gill Knaggs, a co-worker from Muizenberg, offered her services to CCFM in 1997. Gill also had previous experience in commercial script writing. Soon she was ready to write the scripts for Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers, two followers of Jesus with an Islamic upbringing. At a meeting on 7 January 1998 it was decided to start with a regular programme via CCFM, making use of the two converts as presenters. On the same day the radio station Voice of the Cape published their intention in the Cape Argus to use a convert from Christianity as one of their presenters. The precedent created space for CCFM radio to follow suit - with less fear of PAGAD reprisals for putting Muslim converts on air. Ayesha and Salama soon hereafter started with a weekly programme, beginning with the theme ‘the woman of two faces’. Gradually many women, some of them Muslims, started responding with phone calls, hereby giving evidence that the radio programmes were making an impact. Life Issues, the women’s programme on CCFM on a Thursday morning went from strength to strength till it ceased to operate in the second half of 2004 when CCFM restructured their programmes. It was evident that the Holy Spirit was at work. Supernatural visitations came to the fore in March 1999, possibly as a direct result of 120 days of prayer and fasting in which many Christians were involved. A Muslim woman phoned CCFM after having different visions of Jesus, receiving instructions from Him to read portions of the Bible that very clearly related to her life. Soon thereafter she accepted Christ as her Saviour. The phone-in programmes of Radio CCFM and the sister Afrikaans station, Radio Tygerberg proved very effective. Many Muslims including converts and secret believers, were phoning in. A very special result was when a Muslim who had phoned the station in 2003, could not only be ministered to, but she later became a co-worker, reponding to the calls of Muslim enquirers. At some point in time Radio CCFM needed more space. Within days after the public announcement of a day of prayer for this need, a building was bought in Muizenberg. Provision of the finances was spectacular - clear indication that God was in the move. The new venue is located in an area that has become Africo-cosmopolitan in the wake of many refugees and others from the Northern parts of the continent, who have moved into the suburb. Threats and attacks on Christian Radio Work A white paper was rushed through Parliament on 20 August 1998, which contained a veiled threat: the closing down of community radio stations. There had previously already been an attempt to close down Radio Pulpit, a Christian radio station that broadcasts nationwide. The Communist faction in the government might have been behind these moves. The ill-fated government white paper on public broadcasting - whatever its original intention - resulted in a mass march to the houses of Parliament on Wednesday, 2 September 1998. The perception could not be removed sufficiently that the government wanted to regulate the airwaves in such a way that the freedom of religious broadcasting would be severely curtailed. For the first time twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unprecedented unity. One of the banners proclaimed “United we stand”, a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main slogan. Wisely, the government dropped their plans. From time to time, local Muslim background followers of Jesus shared their testimonies on the CCFM programme that started in January 1999 called God Changes Lives. Two consecutive ‘God Changes lives’ programmes by Achmed Adjei - a convert from Ghana - had reverberations as he shared how he and his 28 siblings came to the Lord one after the other. The same programme also made inroads into other religious groups. Thus the testimony of Richard John Smith, a famous Cape singer of the 1980s, who had been a New Apostolic, surely made a profound impact as did the conversion story of Herschel Raysman, who came from a Jewish background. Raysman came to believe in Jesus as his Messiah when he linked up with the Jesus People in the 1970s. In later years he was to lead the Beit Ariel Messianic congregation in Sea Point. Fireworks of a different calibre detonate More ‘fireworks’ exploded at the beginning of the academic year 1999. Dean Ramjoomia, a Muslim convert, shared his testimony on the radio. He also started attending the Evangelical Bible School in Strandfontein. At the George Whitefield Bible College in Muizenberg, a teatime prayer group was started to coincide with the time when Life Issues - the Thursday version of the women’s programme with two converts from Islam - was broadcast. A new student at the College, Gill Knaggs, the programme's scriptwriter, initiated the prayer meeting. On March 1, 1999 the battle of the airwaves took a nasty turn when a petrol bomb was thrown at the CCFM Radio studio. Luckily the missile did not detonate. The cowardly action was repeated a few weeks later on March 18. This time the perpetrators smashed a window pain, and also made sure that a burning ‘torch’ was dropped inside the building. Miraculously there was neither an explosion of the petrol bomb, nor was the studio or the expensive equipment arsonized. God evidently had his hand protectively over the building. The second attempt occurred only hours before the scheduled broadcasting of the Life Issues programme. This threw the suspicion of the possible perpetrators very much in the proximity of the radical PAGAD corner of Islam. On various other occasions, that group had indicated that they were very unhappy about people turning their backs on Islam. However, there was also a Satanist group in Fish Hoek who appeared to be possible candidates for the arson attempts. A bomb threat was delivered to CCFM on a Thursday morning, not long before Life Issues was scheduled to start. The police had to be called in, especially as this occurred at a time when the Mother City was being nicknamed ‘Bomb Bay’. From time to time, the Muslim background presenters received threats of all sorts. God overruled when PAGAD was effectively silenced at the time of a prayer conference at the Light House Christian Centre of Parow, a suburb of Cape Town, in November 2000. Impact into Africa by Radio Andrew and Barbara Macdonald have been linked to the prayerful Cape Town Baptist Church, where Andrew later became the organist, since their marriage. They were sent to minister at Trans World Radio, later becoming the leaders of that agency, which was going to impact the black continent with the Gospel in a big way. The congregation played a further role in that ministry when Brent Bartlett, who worshipped there while attending the Baptist Theological Seminary, joined the team in the late 1990s. In May 2005 a new broadcast to the Afar tribe of Djibouti is scheduled. Networking amongst mission agencies was perhaps nowhere bearing fruit as much as in the radio ministry. The kick-off was given the decisive push at the Global Consultation on World Missions in Pretoria in 1997, where Trans world Radio, HCJB (Radio voice of the Andes = World Radio Missionary Fellowship) and Far East Broadcasting Association on the Seychelles pooled resources and expertise to impact Africa. In 1999, tests were performed among the Yao for a new series of radio talks taking listeners through the Bible. In another networking venture, John Ragsdale of Trans World Radio helped to implement the vision of Gerhard Nehls, a pioneer missionary among the Cape Muslims, with a video series Battle of the Hearts, that was soon used all over the world. During the first decade of the new millennium a children's programme for Africa was developed called Witness at the Waters. This programme deals with issues children in Africa face daily. From Cairo to the world at large via the Cape A new dimension was added to the Cape scene when the testimony of a converted former sheikh and lecturer from the Al Azar University of Cairo using the pseudonym Mustapha, was published in South Africa in 1996 under the title Against the Tides in the Middle East. Three assassination attempts in Johannesburg and a veiled threat in Cape Town at the end of July 1996 made it necessary to hide the Egyptian Christian temporarily. He adopted the name of Mark Gabriel. When a Muslim leader was looking for the author of the booklet, he feared for his life. The PAGAD public 'execution' of August 4 of that year took the attention away from him. When the second printing of his testimony booklet appeared in 1997, it seemed as if Cape Islam was taking his presence in their stride. While he was in hiding at the Cape in 1996, Mark Gabriel started with significant research of jihad in Arabic Islamic literature, finishing the manuscript in 2001 in the USA, where he had moved to in the meantime. The September 11 event of that year made his book on the topic a best seller when it appeared at the beginning of 2002. It came out under the title Terrorism and Islam. The book turned out to be a major factor in the exposure of the tragically violent side of Islam, going into its fourth print in April 2003 in English. Another book just published, with roots at the Cape hammered the same anvil, namely Slavery, Terrorism and Islam by Dr Peter Hammond of Christian Action. Efforts to minister to drug addicts One of the first efforts of Cape Christians to reach out in love to drug addicts structurally, happened more or less by chance. John Higson from the evangelical St James Church in Kenilworth requested a different residential area for their door-to-door outreach as a Life Challenge co-worker. He had become frustrated after the lack of success of their endeavour in the suburb of Lansdowne. Salt River was hereafter allocated to him. During the second week of prayer for Salt River, Higson was confronted with the major drug problem in the township-like suburb. This was the start of a St James Church effort among the drug addicts of Salt River under Higson’s leadership. The actual outreach to Salt River from the Kenilworth church ceased in 1995, without much of an impact achieved. The co-workers were disheartened - yet another case of Christians honourably wounded in the spiritual warfare at the Cape. The seed of Higson’s ministry however germinated towards the end of the century when Judy Tao, a missionary from Taiwan, joined up with Martin Wortley, who had once been mentored by John Higson. They started up AMOS, a new ministry from the church in 2000 AD. In November 1997 the gang war erupted once again. This time TEASA (The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa) called a meeting at Baker House in Athlone. There, it was decided that churches would initiate monthly inter-denominational prayer meetings. However, none of the nice-sounding resolutions aired at that meeting were perseveringly implemented. (At that stage PAGAD was however quite headstrong, not willing to talk to anybody). It was left to individuals like Eric Hofmeyer, Ayesha Hunter and Dicky Lewis to minister to both camps, not without success. Some Muslim leaders who had some dealings in drug peddling became very scared when they heard that PAGAD had a hit list of three pages. The road to anarchy paved? A bomb explosion at the Planet Hollywood Restaurant at the Cape Town Waterfront on 25 August, 1998 shook the Cape in more than one way. The perceived threat of closing down community radio stations was effectively arrested as PAGAD activists were suspected to be behind the bombing. Since then it has surfaced that ‘making the country ungovernable’ - the example set by anti-apartheid radicals in the late 1980s - was part and parcel of the strategy agreed to by extremists, in order to create the platform for an Islamic state. The Planet Hollywood bombing resulted in more confusion in the Muslim community. A leading Muslim, the academic Dr Ebrahim Moosa, went on television announcing that he would be taking his family overseas, away from the developing hearth. The PAGAD actions definitely did not have the intention of harming the Muslim cause. However, the public statements of a Muslim leader leaving the country - albeit temporarily - might have created the impression that he was leaving a sinking ship. This perception was enhanced when the Cape Times, a local daily newspaper, announced a week later that Sa’dullah Khan, an influential shaykh who was linked to the prestigious Gatesville mosque, was also leaving Cape shores. Many Capetonians breathed more easily when it seemed as if Ganief Daniels, a Muslim, was getting PAGAD under control with a new police initiative, Operation Good Hope. The cause of disquiet shifted to the gangsters when rape appeared to have become rife. With cases reported in the City Bowl and other formerly White areas, along with the simultaneous spiraling of HIV/AIDS, Christians from all races were forced to wake up. More prayer was called for. During a church leaders’ meeting on 7 October 1998, quite a few churches in Cape Town made a decision to ‘join hands’ in an attempt to take the City for Jesus! The road to anarchy looked paved as the year 1999 opened with a car bomb on the Cape Town Waterfront. It was seen as a miracle that only three cars were damaged with no loss of life. The first results of police investigations linked the atrocity to Muslim radicals. No group claimed responsibility for the bombing. One shudders to think what could have developed from this senseless act if many people had been killed during the high season of tourism at that venue. PAGAD involvement in drug smuggling and abuse Another source of embarrassment in Islamic circles was that the PAGAD saga exposed the extent of Muslim involvement in drug peddling and gangsterism. It was equally embarrassing for PAGAD, an organization that claimed to fight drugs, when some of their leaders and many members were exposed as drug (ab)users. Of course, there is some clout in the argument that the addicted could possibly be helped if the source of their problem - drug distribution - were removed. Insiders suggested that the skirmish was around the import of drugs, respectively from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. However, whether or not the gangsters could get their stocks from the Caribbean region illegally, imported on yachts - for instance through the harbour at Hout Bay - was immaterial to the rank and file Muslim. The bottom line was that drug abuse and its spin-offs were creating havoc in so many homes. The prelude to and aftermath of an Islamic night of power The adamant showing by a Waterfront cinema of the film ‘The Siege’, which was regarded as highly blasphemous in respect of Islam – and that during Ramadan – brought matters to a head once again. On 8 January 1999 Mr Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was scheduled to hand out medals to countrymen who helped in the democratization of this country at a ceremony at the Castle of Cape Town. Thie occasion was the fusing of the various factions of the defence force. The timing was however unfortunate, appearing like potential for putting fire to a powder keg. A new Muslim extremist splinter group calling themselves Muslims against Global Oppression (MAGO) took the opportunity to steal the limelight from the high British dignitary with a violent, illegal demonstration. They wanted to protest against British assistance in the bombing of Iraq. With Muslims visible and audible, the violent incident reflected badly on Islamic adherents. Yusuf Jacobs, a young Muslim and one of the protesters, was shot in the head by police. When he appeared to be dying in Groote Schuur hospital, the scene was set for ‘Jihad’. PAGAD promptly called for a holy war if he were to die. A tense situation followed when this happened on 12 January 1999. At Jacobs' funeral the next day a PAGAD leader threatened to make the country ungovernable. In the charged atmosphere he used unfortunate words that could have had dire consequences. Fortunately he retracted these words. That he did apologize (or was he was forced to?), was basically immaterial. The ‘Holy War’ became more than words the very day after the funeral. A leading police detective who had investigated the PAGAD related activities, Bennie Lategan, was killed on 14 January 1999. The whole country was alarmed. The ‘War in Cape Town’ became an issue for prayer countrywide when Christians were challenged by Herald Ministries to get together for prayer on the evening of 15 January, the Muslim Night of Power. (This is celebrated annually in remembrance of the first Qur’anic revelations.) A mini-crisis developed when the pre-recorded testimony via the CCFM radio station of Majiet Poblonker, an Indian convert from Islam, was going to coincide with the Islamic Night of Power. The Muslim background follower of Jesus was understandably uptight. Parts of Poblonker’s testimony about the persecution he had to endure, could fortunately be deleted from the recording just before the transmission., Amidst the volatile atmosphere it would probably have enraged Muslims terribly had the story of how his family almost assassinated him, been aired. The powerful testimony was nevertheless bound to impact Cape Islam, coming only a day after another female convert from Islam had given part of her story on the ‘Life Issues’ radio programme of CCFM. A special vision for work of compassion Zulpha Morris, who became a follower of Jesus after receiving supernatural visions in July 1998, had much opposition when she was divinely called to take care of abandoned babies. Within less than two years she had more than 30 children in her township home in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain, which underwent a few extensions. The garage was converted for accommodation purposes and the yard at the back became a sewing workshop for women. A container, in which diverse goods and furniture had come from Holland, was part of God’s special provision to get this project off the ground. The original content was intended for a discipling house for persecuted and evicted converts from Islam. The sacrificial work of Zulpha and her husband Abdul became a challenge to many a foreigner. In one case a student from Switzerland, who came to Cape Town to learn English, was inspired by what he saw in Mitchells Plain. After returning to his home country, he started a home for drug and alcohol addicts there. The Cape Peace Initiative During a Church Leaders’ Meeting on 7 October 1998, quite a few churches in Cape Town made a decision to ‘join hands’ in an attempt to take the City for Jesus! Glen Khan, a gang leader and drug lord whose wife had been a secret Christian believer for some months, was assassinated on Easter Sunday, 1999 - only a few days after he had committed his life to Jesus as his Lord. Two weeks prior to Khan’s assassination, Rashied Staggie, a famous Cape drug lord, had been shot and hospitalized. Staggie made the news headlines from his bed in the Louis Leipoldt Clinic in Bellville through his public confession of faith in Jesus. In the wake of Glen Khan's funeral on 7 April 1999 and Staggie's powerful testimony on that occasion, Muslims started turning to Christ more than before. Suddenly PAGAD was marginalized. It was not surprising that they now frantically sought to get credibility. It was however quite unexpected that they had become willing, almost eager, to speak to churches. This was God supernaturally at work, but Pastor Eddie Edson and his pastor colleagues were not immediately aware of it. When ‘Muslim leaders’ wanted to speak to Edson, a confrontation was feared because reports were coming in of Muslims who turned to Christ in the wake of the Khan funeral, some in the trains. Intercessors were called in to bathe the proposed meeting in prayer. A general crisis was feared once again. Pastor Edson was surprised when the ‘Muslim leaders’ turned out to be no less than representatives of PAGAD. This was a major turn-around on the part of the extremists. Only a few weeks prior to this meeting that took place on 13 April, PAGAD refused to meet any Christians or other mediators. A direct result of all this was the birth of the Cape Peace Initiative, church leaders trying to mediate between PAGAD and gang leaders . At a church meeting on 13 April 1999 in Hout Bay to which Pastor Johnnie Louw had invited the author, the believers present were challenged to pray first for the meeting of Pastor Eddie Edson with the Muslim leaders that evening before moving on to the rest of the proceedings. This was eagerly implemented. At the meeting with PAGAD leaders, an agenda for a bigger consultation scheduled for 22 April was agreed upon. This was scheduled to take place at the Pinelands Civic Centre. Discussions with gang leaders took place on the same day. At the meeting, prayer warriors were not only interceding for the discussions, but some of them were also helping to serve the delegations at mealtimes. A tense moment developed when the issue of violence was addressed. The PAGAD delegation asked for permission to discuss the matter separately. It was evident to the church delegation that God had intervened powerfully. PAGAD was suddenly ready to go with them to the government - unarmed! This was an answer to the prayer of the warriors around the country who were interceding for the proceedings. Research of Spiritual Influences ‘Spiritual mapping’ is a term that has been used in recent years for research into spiritual influences, especially those of a demonic or anti-Christian nature. In respect of Islam, Gerda Leithgöb had already introduced the exercise to the Cape at a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995, but only in 1999 was it practiced in Cape Islamic areas. The Cape Reformed Church of Manenberg was possibly the first to use it pointedly. Herb Ward, a lecturer from the USA with links to the Bible Institute in Kalk Bay, was brought in to equip the believers in that church for outreach to the Muslims of the notorious township. Manenberg was the locality that depicted the change in the religious climate in 1999 more than any other. An off-sales liquor distribution centre, the Green Dolphin, changed hands dramatically when it became a church. The name Green Pastures was suggested by a resident. Even more dramatic was the turn-about of Die Hok, the former national headquarters of the Hard Living gang that also became a church. Pastor Eddie Edson, who had been a gangster himself in earlier days, spearheaded the Manenberg outreach. The spiritual revolution in the notorious township received countrywide prominence through the television programme Crux on Sunday 25 July 1999. Manenberg gang leaders hit back by forcibly recruiting young boys. In April 2000 Manenberg was still making negative news headlines with the innocent killing of children in gang crossfire. Much prayer was still needed if the crime and violence was to be stopped. Pastor Edson discerned that Manenberg was a key township in the spiritual warfare in the Peninsula. He not only caused the venue for the monthly pastors and pastors' wives prayer meeting for July 2000 to be relocated to ‘Die Hok’ , but he was also the driving force to get a 10,000-seater tent campaign into that township. That he made Pastor Henry Wood responsible for the new fellowship at ‘Die Hok’, proved to be quite strategic. Pastor Wood impressively followed up the converts of the campaign. On 10 February 2001 a national television station, e-TV, reported this success story in their news bulletin. In the report the local police spoke of the former crime-ridden township having become relatively quiet. Die Hok and Green Pastures, along with other churches of Manenberg, were to play a prominent role in significantly reducing the crime level of the area in ensuing years. A Sequel to a funeral - Transformation The Glen Khan assassination of Easter 1999 was divinely used to bring churches together, not only for prayer, but to some extent also with a vision to reach out to Muslims in love. Before this time the perceived resistance of Muslims to the Gospel, and the lack of success in Muslim evangelism deterred or discouraged many Christians. This changed quite dramatically after the conversion of Rashied Staggie, the famous drug lord, and the revolution at Die Hok in Manenberg became the talk of Cape Flats townships. Following Glen Khan’s death, some churches showed a new interest in the lives of gangsters. A week later, on April 28, a report back occasion of the meeting between church leaders and the PAGAD leadership in Pinelands of 22 April 1999 took place at ‘Christ Church’ in Kenilworth. However, only a few pastors attended. Nevertheless, a metamorphosis occurred at the Jubilee Church that had commenced with negotiations to sell their buildings located in Crawford, to Muslims. They hereafter joined up with other churches in the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI). The New Covenant Fellowship of Hout Bay, at which spontaneous prayer for the 13th April meeting with PAGAD leaders had taken place, also participated in the Southern Suburbs prayer initiative. Both fellowships were represented at the badly attended but strategic report-back meeting in Kenilworth. The two churches got linked up with the Community Transformation movement that took over from the CPI. The Jubilee Church was especially challenged when they bought the old Ital Tile factory in Observatory towards the end of 2000. The denomination that hardly had vision for anything else other than the poor and needy, now not only saw a challenge in the neighbouring Islamized suburbs of Salt River, University Estate, Woodstock and Walmer Estate, but they could now also appreciate the work of mission agencies that they had previously negatively labelled ‘para-church’ organizations. With their move back to Observatory, the Jubilee Church was challenged to become involved in outreach to the Muslims. A similar development took place in big churches like His People and the Lighthouse Christian Centre, which had been prominent in the Cape Peace Initiative. In the case of the Good Hope Christian Centre, Salama Temmers - herself a Muslim background believer, whose stories was printed in the first volume of a booklet with testimonies from former Cape Muslims, Search for Truth - became the senior pastor of the satellite congregation in Mitchells’ Plain after the death of her husband at Easter 2003. Since 2000 a good number of Muslims in the Mitchells Plain area came to faith in Christ. Some of them started attending that fellowship. The church falls asleep once again With the PAGAD crisis seemingly abating, it looked as though the Church at the Cape was falling asleep once again. It was nevertheless quite meaningful that the proposal of a Jesus-centred drug rehabilitation centre, as part of a repentant service to the Islamic community, was accepted in principle. The prayer meeting with ministers and church members from the Southern Suburbs of the Cape Peninsula was surely strategic in the spiritual realm. Confessions were made when representatives of each of the four major South African races stood in the centre of the circle, also in confession of the debt of the Church with regard to the global spread of Islam. Father Clohessy, a Roman Catholic priest, was another representative from the churches who got involved with the effort to solve the social problems related to gangsterism and drug addiction. Indian shop owners, like those from Gatesville - some of whom had a stake in the lucrative drug trade - went to a pastor for counselling after a PAGAD hit list had been leaked. The suggestion was put forward to get a rehabilitation centre off the ground according to the model of the Betel centres which had proved so successful in Spain. At these centres a relationship to Jesus Christ is encouraged as central. However, when the crisis subsided, pastors simply continued with the building of their own ‘kingdoms’. The idea of a rehabilitation centre was picked up by the Muslims however, who soon had a facility in place, at Schaapkraal in the farming area of Philippi. This proved to be no success. Drug addicts simply returned to their habits after leaving the institution, because the spiritual void was not sufficiently filled. Faiez Abrahams, an ex-Muslim and former drug addict, who is a social worker by profession, became a follower of Jesus with a passion to help drug addicts. In 2002 he and his wife, who likewise had been using drugs in earlier days showed interest in getting trained for WEC's Bet-El related work. In 2004 Faiez Abrahams initiated the formation of a group that helped drug addicts in the Mitchells Plain area. In October 2004 he met Elliot Tepper, the international leader of the Betel Ministries, when he visited the country. In 2005 they were looking at a dilapidated building they intended to renovate and which was to be called Victory Lifestyle Centre. On May 8, 2005 the new ministry, which had a close link to the Heavens Shelter House of Zulpha and Abdul Morris, two other Muslim background believers, was formally going to be launched. Transformation of Communities That Cape Town was the venue for the World Parliament of Religions in December 1999 became a spur for churches to get some idea of the spiritual threat to the country. Prayer initiatives displayed significant strides towards evangelical church unity. Towards the end of 1999, the various mission and prayer initiatives seemed to converge. However, ‘Coloured’ pastors verbalized their disquiet to Eddie Edson that the Cape Peace Initiative had the effect of making PAGAD seem fashionable. Some clergymen were unhappy that the CPI leaders had been speaking to PAGAD. At this time, Father Trevor Pearce from the Anglican Church linked up with Ernst van der Walt (jr) in a vision to spread the Transformations video that was just being distributed worldwide. Pearce had been impacted by the vision during a visit to Washington D.C. He initiated a move to invite George Otis and Allistair Petrie, two leaders of the international Sentinel Group, to the Mother City for a conference of his denomination from 29 October to November 2, 2000. Soon it was agreed to add another conference, a cross-denominational one, at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in the Northern suburb of Parow from 3 to 5 November of the same year. Trevor Pearce had a vision for citywide prayer. The Transformation concept brought evangelicals from the mainline churches and the Charismatic-Pentecostal traditions together. Van der Walt started attending the monthly pastors and pastors' wives prayer meetings occasionally. It was soon decided to put the CPI under the Transformations umbrella. He and Trevor Pearce discerned that they could combine it easily with a vision for the continuation of citywide prayer events. The next occasion of this nature was realized on 25 June 1999. The all-night prayer event at the Lighthouse Christian Centre, Parow on 15 October 1999, included the screening of the Transformations video. The distribution of a video by George Otis on the transformation of four cities became a major catalyst for citywide prayer after it had been screened there in Parow. Within three months, more than 4000 copies were distributed by NUPSA countrywide, inspiring prayer for revival in many places. A result of this video was that a yearning for more mass prayer rallies developed. The close links to the Cape Christian Radio stations Tygerberg and CCFM proved valuable for the spreading of the news of the citywide prayer events. Graham Power, a prominent Cape businessman, was deeply impacted at this occasion to initiate a stadium event in the Mother City. It is ironic that the violent threat from PAGAD appeared to introduce the transformation of the city. In the process Manenberg - once a black spot of crime and violence - was poised to become the vanguard for transformation of the city and perhaps even further afield. 12. The pregnancy and birth pains of the transforming Mother City The year 2000 was the last of ten years of concerted prayer for ‘the Wall of Islam’. History appeared to start repeating itself, just like it happened from November 1989 in the case of the Communist world, albeit initially not quite as dramatically. It appeared as if the Mother City was getting pregnant with new spiritual life, possibly also impacting Islam locally and nationally. Denominational and doctrinal disunity however, remained a major stumbling block for revival. Disunity as a blockage of prayer Division is the paramount strategy of Satan. If he can use the church and its leaders to bring about division, he will never hesitate. Through the ages, the arch enemy has succeeded in sowing division in so many churches. The blessing that God might have used to bring millions to the Cross in recent years, has become a curse in many a case. The ‘flesh’ in some Christians who wanted to assert themselves in exhibitionism saw to that, for example expressing some doubtful ‘gifts’ as part of the Toronto blessing. The early church seems to have handled the supernatural gifts of the spirit in a more balanced way (see Acts 2:42-47). In South Africa, the concrete fear of civil war before the elections of 1994 led to prayer meetings across the racial divide. However, the Cape Peninsula thereafter more or less lapsed back into its traditional racial and denominational divisions. Though there were, for instance, many prayer meetings for the gateway cities during October 1995, they were generally either confined to prayer within the local churches, or limited to combined inter-denominational prayer within the racial groupings. Therefore the recipe of Viv Grigg, an American Christian leader and teacher on prayer, is still very appropriate: ‘If there is not significant unity, the first step is to bring together the believers in prayer or in renewal and teaching until there is reconciliation and brokenness.’ Explosions of another sort A ‘bomb’ of another sort exploded on 11 April 2000 when Hansie Cronje, the cricket captain of the South African national team, conceded that he had taken a bribe involving match-fixing. He was known to be an evangelical Christian with links to the Rhema Christian Centre in Johannesburg. With South Africa being the sports loving country it is, the shock waves were definitely not small. On the positive side was Cronje’s confession. He phoned Dr Ali Bacher and Mr Percy Sonn, the top administrators of the country’s cricket board, in the very early hours of the morning. That spoke the clear language of a sensitive conscience. The impact of the explosion had not yet settled down when two prominent Christian clergymen received very negative publicity. The divorce of the well-known Pentecostal minister, Ray Macaulay, was blown out of all proportion. Dr Allan Boesak’s imprisonment rattled the image of the religion. It is ironic that the final demise of Cape Islam appeared now to hinge on the repentance of Boesak. It was still fresh in many a memory how he had marched and prayed alongside Muslim leaders at the height of the struggle against apartheid. If he would return to the evangelical faith of his youth, conceding his guilt in creating a false perception, namely the so-called brotherhood of Christianity and Islam, this might have ushered in a significant turn-around from the Islamic religion at the Cape, possibly even countrywide. But this was not yet to happen! Exposure of the deception of Islam It appeared just a matter of time for the fuller exposure of the deception of Islam to transpire. This would have been the most spectacular answer to the ten years of prayer. A hard-hitting book in 1985 by a former high-ranking Iranian former Senator, Ali Dashti, surprisingly received hardly any prominence. The book, 23 Years: A study of the Prophetic career of Muhammad, pulled no punches. It was a very critical study of the life of the major Islamic prophet. Coming from a Muslim, it was really surprising how candidly Dashti portrayed the personality change that occurred from the time that Muhammad went to Medina. Dashti stopped short of suggesting that the unnatural sexual appetite of Muhammad - when he was over fifty years old - was demonic. It is nevertheless a mystery how the book stayed out of controversy. I can think of only one possible explanation, namely that oil money was used to buy up the bulk of the books, to prevent them coming into the hands of thinking Muslims. What probably saved Dashti from the wrath of people like Ayatollah Khomeini was that he wrote almost just as negatively about Jesus. More exposure of the Islamic deception occurred through the worldwide distribution of Islam Unveiled (Abdulah Al-Araby, Los Angeles, 1997) and Behind the Veil (Written and published anonymously in 1998). The second title especially had the potential to shake Islam in its foundations because it quotes reputable Islamic sources. These two books - written by converts from the Middle East - however have a common deficiency, viz. a lack of compassion. The books might even have proved counter-productive, if they had fallen into the wrong hanDs The 1999 book by the influential South African theologian Dr Farid Esack, On being a Muslim, gives an indication that some honest soul-searching is nevertheless already occurring in Islamic ranks. Amongst other things, Esack bashes the covering up of the discrimination of women in the Qur’an and Hadith. He goes very far in his attack on the Islamic discrimination of women, referring to the usual defences as ‘stock responses’. Esack displays exceptional courage, speaking of ‘spurious sayings of the Prophet’, but adding the respectful ‘Peace be upon him’, as it behooves a good Muslim. Esack cites two sayings about women. The one refers to them as having ‘faulty intelligence’ and the other encourages Muslim men to ‘push them back as Allah has pushed them back’. Reports about the teaching via Radio Islam in Gauteng on how Muslims should beat their wives - along with the headstrong attitude of the radio station spokesmen about it after October 1997 - had been harming the Islamic cause countrywide. This was followed by controversy around the use of female presenters. A word of warning should be added to those Christians who are tempted to display a triumphant attitude. It should be appreciated that Muhammad was relatively honest about his relationship to women. Humility is called for. Certain secret sinful occurrences in monasteries and parsonages with regard to sexual immorality would also have Christians hanging their heads in shame if they were exposed. Mud slinging between religions and faiths is definitely not called for even though this does not mean condoning shameful behaviour. Humility, confession and mutual forgiveness are much better propositions. Search for Truth Gerhard Nehls, the old Cape missionary pioneer, did not sit still even after his retirement from active mission work in 1997. In conjunction with Trans World Radio, he became the mastermind behind a video series, Battle for the Hearts, The series that was finally produced with the aid of various experts, provides Christians with much knowledge regarding Islam. Although already in his early seventies, Nehls also delved into modern electronic technology, starting to create a database of important books on Muslim evangelism on CD Rom. Worldwide quite a few missionaries among Muslims appear to be putting high expectation in the academic refuting of Islamic fallacies. Somehow however, the compassion for Muslims still seemed to be lacking. Those who came out of Islam were sometimes not discipled well, all too often appearing to be guided by revenge and legalism. A booklet with stories of converts from the Cape, Search for Truth, as well as tracts with testimonies narrating how they came out of Islam, eroded a prevalent Cape Muslim notion. This was the almost axiomatic belief that if one is born a Muslim, one must die a Muslim. The fearless confessions of converts from Islamic background via the radio helped many a secret believer who feared to take courage to disclose their new-found faith in Christ. One convert had been a secret believer for seven years before she came into the open with her faith in Jesus. Some of these believers were nevertheless often harassed and ostracized by friends and family on the one hand, and lured with material advantages to return to the Islamic fold on the other. The bold stand of some of them made the Cape Muslim leaders quite nervous by September 2000. A warning was included on their Internet website, referring to ‘so-called’ converts to Christianity. Apparently some converts or Christians were so bold as to disseminate Christian tracts even at the mosques. Life Challenge Africa and WEC International published a second booklet as a joint venture in 2004 with more testimonies of Muslim background believers from the Cape: Search for Truth 2. Important new insights from Africa and Asia Furthermore, African and Asian Christians who had come from a background in the occult, started giving the body of Christ important new insights about things happening in the spiritual realm. Langton Gatsi from Zimbabwe has, for instance, given important teaching on water spirits. Para-psychology has started to open up rationally minded Westerners to the realities of the unseen world. Christians nowadays are more aware of the existence of evil spirits, but it is even better to reckon with the all-conquering power of the blood of Jesus. Thus we may take the liberty to move into the strongholds of the enemy, but we are also aware that we must guard ourselves against presumption; that we need constant covering in prayer, should we do this. The use of supernatural powers by agents of the enemy is nothing new. Already in Moses’ days, the Egyptian magicians initially matched the miracles of Aaron by turning their staffs into snakes (Exodus 7:10-12). Aaron’s snake devoured the snakes of Pharaoh’s magicians. The enemy took the guise of a snake, as he deceived Eve. Paul rightly pointed out that Satan is powerful enough to disguise himself, so that he can appear to be pious. In 2 Corinthians 11:14 Paul states that he can even appear as an angel of light. In spite of the warning to check the contents of the messages given by angelic figures (Galatians 1:8, 9), millions have been deceived. For instance, the doctrine of ‘The Saints of the Latter Days’ (better known as Mormons), is based on messages that the ‘angel’ Maroni brought to Joseph Smith. The most tragic personality in this regard has been Muhammad. He evidently foresaw that the Qur’an itself would be compiled after his death (see the compilation of the Qur’an, Hadith Vol. 3, p.702). He seemingly wanted the Qur’anic material to be compared with the Bible (Surah 4:82, 83). Muhammad apparently knew that Satan could try to infiltrate. That was the background of the controversy surrounding the 'Satanic Verses', with the compromised inclusion of three goddesses of the Ka’ba. He unfortunately was not guided to doubt the originator of the bulk of the revelations. Khadiyah evidently found it very nice to be married to a prophet, and it seems that Waraqah bin Naufal, her priestly cousin, was primarily interested in grooming the gifted Muhammad as his successor in a Christian community. At any rate, there is more than enough reason for confession of guilt from a Christian point of view. The NT sees spiritual warfare as the continuation of God’s work through the seed of Abraham, especially via the spiritual offspring through faith in Jesus, our commander-in-chief. We have Messianic prophecy on our side. Ultimately, the seed of the woman will crush the seed of the snake (Genesis 3:15). Numbers 21:4ff, where Moses was told to hoist the image of a snake on a pole, is therefore very important as the paradigm of the Cross. No wonder that Jesus used that as an example in the run-up to John 3:16. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Conversions among criminals Many gangsters turned to Islam on discovering that occultic aid via ‘doekums’ (Muslim sorcerers) was available for protection and for getting away with mild sentences after committing serious crimes. An evangelistic effort, which has mushroomed over the past decade, has been the prison ministry. A few role-players have deserved special mention. Eric Hofmeyer summarized his life as ‘a disaster changed by the Master, and now serving Him as a pastor.’ He had been a gangster when he came to faith in Christ. In the 1990s Hofmeyer counseled many gangsters in the massive Pollsmoor prison. Quite a number of them turned to Christ. Johaar Viljoen, who had won over many Christians to Islam, came to faith in Jesus in the prison of the rural town of Caledon. His conversion in 1992 - a demonstration of the power of prayer - shook many Islamic inmates who regarded him as their prison imam. Viljoen was well versed in the Bible and the literature of Ahmed Deedat, who had been his hero. Before his conversion in the Caledon prison, Viljoen frustrated the evangelistic efforts of Christian workers there. Three of those workers decided to take him on through prayer and fasting. When Viljoen studied the Bible - in order to fight the Christians even better - he was overwhelmed when he compared the narration of the near-sacrifice of Isaac with the Qur’anic version. Prisons have also been impacted in the countryside, such as at the youth prison near Wellington, where young inmates voluntarily started to attend Bible studies. A former prisoner at Pollsmoor prison, Jonathan Clayton, became a pastor with a special concern for prisoners. His conversion was the fruit of the prayers of his family and friends including his future wife Jenny Adams, an Africa Evangelical Fellowship missionary. Clayton attended the Baptist Seminary after his release, and started to minister in Pollsmoor prison on Saturday mornings while he was still a theological student. Members of the Strandfontein Baptist Church, the home congregation of his wife, assisted him. In 1999 Clayton became a prison chaplain. Shona Allie is a third person who has been powerfully used in prisons around the country. Allie angered many Muslims when she honestly stated her conviction - in a mosque of all places - that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, and that he died on the cross for our sins. Throughout the country, prisons have been impacted by her ministry. Ruweyda Abdullah is another Muslim background believer who became involved in the ministry at Pollsmoor, challenging many a gangster there during the process of restorative justice. The Soon Bible correspondence programme of WEC International, under the leadership of Pam Forbes, has been a tool for reaching prisoners all over the country. Pollsmoor in-house radio service An evangelical initiative that has impacted Pollsmoor prisoners has been an in-house radio service. Many a gangster and criminal has been challenged and influenced towards change as they have heard the testimonies of others who have come to a living faith in Jesus as their Lord. It all started after an affluent young man, Marius Boaden, came to the end of his tether: 'I literally hit rock bottom, and I was faced with a critical decision, whether to return to my former immoral ways, or to return to the Lord. I decided to turn to the Lord in my desperation...' (To-day's Challenge, nr. 13, p.1). He was led into a close walk with the Lord. Hereafter it was not uncommon for him to spend an entire day reading the Bible or in prayer. The conditions at Pollsmoor challenged him so much that he sold his house and car to become involved with the prison ministry on a full-time basis. God directed him to establish a radio station for the juvenile inmates. 'In our first two months violence in the prison subsided and there was a general calm and peace in the prison.' Truth Radio in Pollsmoor was broadcasting to all 8,000 inmates at the end of 2004. However, they were still only able to broadcast to all of them at the same time. A deficiency of the Pollsmoor ministries is that Cape churches have failed to open their doors in warm welcome to the new believers. Furthermore, abuse of the tag ‘born-again’ made potential employers wary of employing former gangsters. However, far too many fell back into their old habits after being discharged from prison - often as the result of deficient follow-up and discipling. A new brand of convert At the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington, David Bliss - the pioneer of the Bless the Nations conferences - became the initiator of yet another novelty when he started with a ministry of Bible Studies in a youth prison. Soon his team was ministering in different prisons of the Boland. It had such an impact that the prison chaplain for the Western Cape wanted them to extend their programme to other prisons in the province. A new aspect of their ministry was the vision that prisoners were seen as potential missionaries. With the ministry team to the prisons, an exciting prospect arose - former drug addicts and other hapless young people were being given the vision to share the Gospel in other parts of the world. A former Muslim from Bo-Kaap, was a member of one of the first teams. He had originally been trained in evangelism by Evangelical Enterprise, an interdenominational venture via different churches in the Athlone area, soon after his conversion at an unprecedented service in the Athlone Stadium in 1973. The fact that not everybody persevered with the initial vision, did little to dampen the zeal of the initiators. International initiatives impacting the Cape A group of intercessors from America visited the East German village of Herrnhut in 1993. The group included a believer from St Thomas, the island to which the first two missionaries left in 1732. That group experienced a sovereign outpouring of God’s spirit as they prayed in the prayer tower of Herrnhut. This could possibly be seen as the beginning of the modern wave of prayer that swept around the world since then, especially since 1999. One of the most pronounced prayer expeditions ever was the repentance for the Crusades that had been perpetrated against Muslims and Jews. This took place from 1996 to 1999, exactly 1000 years after the actual happening. The initiative was launched in Cologne, and took prayer teams on the three main routes where the Crusaders left their bloody trail throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East. At this time a challenge came to the Western Cape Forum of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) to repent publicly for the guilt of Christians to Muslims. After a long drawn-out discussion, no decision was taken, but the seed was sown. The seed appeared to have started germinating by November 2003 in Paarl at the National Leadership Consultation of CCM. In March 1997 a group from England came to pray in repentance for the sins of England at the location of Anglo Boer War concentration camps in South Africa. In 1998 a prayer team with international intercessors took a trip from Matopos in Zimbabwe to Cape Town to pray again around the issue of Cecil Rhodes and Freemasonry. In 1999 an extensive prayer journey was undertaken with the descendants of some of the first people of Africa, the San or Bushmen, to pray through Africa from Cape Agulhas to Cairo. Representatives of the San and a group of intercessors traversed the entire eastern part of the continent of Africa on a three-month prayer expedition to repent for the idolatry and witchcraft that were still defiling the continent, causing resistance to the spread of the Gospel. Repentance was brought in fourteen countries where the first people built altars to worship the spirit of the rain and waters. This happened simultaneously with 120 days of prayer and fasting by believers in different parts of the country. Something very remarkable happened in 1999 in England when Peter Craig challenged young people in England to pray non-stop for 30 days, asking the Lord for this generation of young people to come back to God. It began as the vision of a local church in England based on the model of Count Zinzendorf in Herrnhut in the 18th century. Bennie Mostert and Daniel Brink attended a conference led by Tom Hess in Jerusalem, bringing the message back to South Africa. In September 1999 this new challenge commenced in South Africa as 24-hour prayer watches. Since then hundreds of new 24/7 prayer watches have started globally. Input from the Far East and West Africa Kumla Folly, a national from Togo, married Aye, an ex-Muslim medical doctor from China who belonged to the Muslim Uighur tribe. He was studying in the Far East when he got to know her. She is one of the first (if not the very first) to come to faith in Jesus Christ from her tribe. Originally challenged by an African Christian fellow student, she converted in 1986. After lecturing in Japan, Kumla Folly accepted a post as professor in Engineering at the University of Cape Town, coming to the Mother City in 2000. Nursleen Rajagukguk from Indonesia had been working in Hong Kong before her marriage to Nimrot. There she met and befriended Aye Folly. The Lord used the friendship to birth in her heart a burden for the Uyghur. For nine years she prayed for the unreached people group without seeing any spiritual movement as a result. But God works in mysterious ways. In Cape Town Nursleen and Aye revived their friendship. When Bejing was accorded the Olympic Games for 2008, England and the USA were no longer the top countries for learning English. 11 September 2001 put paid to the popularity of those countries for Muslims. From 2003 individual Uyghurs came to Cape Town. Some of them have already been impacted with the Gospel, about which few of them had heard anything before they came to South Africa. A Special Month of Prayer “Sooispit” - the turning of the soil - for a prayer room in the Western Cape took place on February 9, 2000. Charles Robertson, a Christian businessman with a heart for prayer - along with his wife Rita - generously donated resources towards a venue for the work of NUPSA in the Western Cape. The premises in Bellville were earmarked to be a 24-hour prayer room for intercessors from the whole continent. Daniel and Estelle Brink were called to lead the NUPSA initiative to get the 24-hour Prayer Watch off the ground at the Cape. That this was spiritual warfare of a high degree became evident when Daniel Brink became critically ill shortly after commencing in his new function. The Lord touched and healed him in answer to the prayers of many intercessors. In the same month Susan and Ned Hill, a couple from Atlanta (USA) linked to Blood ‘n Fire Ministries, visited the Mother City on an orientation visit after they sensed a call to come and minister to the poor and needy in South Africa. While being on a tourist visit to Table Mountain, their eyes were supernaturally fixed on a piece of desolate ground that they soon learned was called District Six. When they visited the museum with that name - housed in the Moravian Chapel at that time while the present locality, a former Methodist Church, was being renovated - they heard the tragic story of the former cosmopolitan slum area of the Mother City that was demolished in the wake of apartheid legislation. The unity of the body of Christ became visible at a mass half-night of prayer on 18 February 2000 on the Grand Parade, organized at short notice. On the same weekend two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, representing the prayer movement in Holland, joined local Christians in confession for the sins of the forefathers and in praying against Satanic strongholds in the Peninsula. Four thousand Christians from a wide spectrum of denominations gathered on the Grand Parade. Denominationalism, materialism and other evils in South African society in which the church had played a role in the past, were confessed. In a moving moment just before midnight the two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork - representing the prayer movement of Holland - joined local intercessors in confession for the catastrophic contribution of their forefathers to the evils of Cape society. (The Holy Spirit had ministered already in 1994 to Cees Vork to come and pray in Cape Town, imploring him to confess the sinful roots of his ancestors around slavery. Bos had been doing intensive research into the slave trade.) A prayer network had grown towards a preliminary culmination in the half-night of prayer on the Grand Parade. Since then, prayer events proliferated countrywide through the 24-Hour prayer watches and revival prayer attempts. Here the electronic media played a big role. The enemy would not remain idle at such activity. Ribbons of video and audiocassettes on which Satanists had spoken curses, were found at venues where accidents had taken place. It had been discovered that Satanists had been distributing cursed audio and videocassettes to various parts of the country. Subsequently, accidents occurred at these locations. The Cape Town City Bowl was confronted with the possibility of Satanist activities after paint had been spilled on roads at night. The white lines formed in this way could have led to confusion that in turn would have resulted in accidents. During a prayer walk cassette tape ribbons were found in Bo-Kaap - on the same day on which two Muslims were heard performing their version of prayer walks, chanting Arabic prayers. This appeared to be more than mere co-incidence. It was more likely that the fight in the heavenlies for rule in the area had picked up. As the area opened up for people of other races and religious groups, homosexuals were quick to take the gap. The proximity to the nearby Roggebaai - which was fast becoming the ‘gay’ stronghold of the metropolis - enhanced this development. The visit by the two Dutch intercessors spurred significant moves in the second half of the month. During the early hours one day in February 2000, en route by car from Pretoria to Cape Town, Eben Swart, the Western Cape leader of Herald Ministries, sensed the Lord ordering him directly: “You have to start training prayer leaders in Cape Town.” After months of consultation with prayer leaders across a wide spectrum of views and backgrounds, the Prayer and Intercessors Leaders’ Training Consultation (PILTC) was born – a completely new, unique attempt to prepare prayer and intercession leaders of a city in a uniform, non-confrontational way for their task. On the 15th of September 2000, the first course kicked off in the suburb of Parow. Initially, the idea was to present the course only once, and thereafter to dissolve it into the prayer movement. But the first course soon developed into a second, and the second into a third. The need was so vast that Eben Swart only stopped running the PILTC courses four years later. Remorse and Tears Divine guidance was evident at the events of 19 February 2000. It was initiated by NUPSA in the process of “closing the gates” of the sinful roots of slavery in preparation for a conference in Pretoria from 22 to 26 March. It coincided with the coming to Cape Town of two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, something that had been planned independently. The two highlighted the roots ofa number of evils that stem from their country. The roots of materialism - typified by Simon van der Stel, an early Cape governor - were also addressed through prayers at van der Stel's farm Groot Constantia. In prayers at Satanic strongholds in the Peninsula that have their roots in Holland and Indonesia, freemasonry and slavery were singled out for special confession. At the moving occasion on 19 February 2000 at the Cultural Museum (the former slave lodge), there was hardly a dry eye around, as the Spirit of God moved through the room. The awesome presence of God was evident when two descendants of the San and Khoi tribes (respectively the so-called Bushmen and the Hottentots) were completely overcome by remorse for the actions of their ancestors. Tears of repentance flowed freely as descendants of the San and Khoi, slaves, the Dutch, Cape Muslims, British, French and a few other people groups asked each other for forgiveness. The Holy Spirit moved mightily as Pieter Bos and Cees Vork repented on behalf of their forefathers for their role in the slave trade. Their Dutch ancestral compatriots had continued with ungodly malpractices even though they knew that they were evil. A participant whose ancestors stem from the Indonesian island Bali, ministered forgiveness to the Dutch brethren in Jesus’ name, but he himself was overtaken by remorse as he discerned that the slaves were party to the stifling of revival at the Cape. (The emancipated slaves were party to incitement when the St Stephen’s Church in Bo-Kaap was started in 1843.) It was a special moment when Dr Henry Kirby - a descendant of Dr John Philip, the powerful missionary of the 19th century - was called forward. It was noted that Dr Philip discerned that the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 caused the price of slaves to rise. That led to the enserfment of the Khoisan. In spite of his shortcomings, Dr Philip became a major mover for the eventual formal abolition of slavery in 1834 and its implementation at the Cape in 1838 through his contacts with evangelical British parliamentarians like William Wilberforce. On Sunday 20 February, a few thousand Christians from the Northern suburbs of the city gathered for prayer in the Bellville Velodrome in the morning. Various churches from a wide variety of denominations closed their doors to their regular morning services for the occasion. This was very significant. Evangelicals in Macassar A Monday gathering at the kramat of Sheikh Yusuf in Macassar on 21 February attracted 43 prayer warriors from diverse nations. Pastor Willy Oyegun, an intercessor from Nigeria, led the proceedings with Barbara Cilliers, a Western Cape believer. Pieter Bos - the visiting intercessor from Holland - emphasized that there would be no prayers offered against Islam or the like. The participants should only enthrone Jesus, the King of Kings. Bos was however overawed himself, as he discerned very deeply the guilt of his ancestors because his countryman, Ds Kalden, the owner of Zandvliet at the time of Shaykh Yusuf and other Christians at the Cape, had not clearly shared the Gospel with the early Muslims. Bos promptly apologized to the group on behalf of his forefathers. The group moved over to Vergelegen, the farm of Willem Adriaan van der Stel, the Cape governor and the son of the ruler after whom Stellenbosch was named. The younger van der Stel was connected with much evil, including corruption and the roots of freemasonry in the country. The international group of Christian prayers was about to join in the Lord’s Supper, led by a local pastor and the Nigerian Willy Oyegun, when Nimrot Rajagukguk, an Indonesian participant and Bible School teacher in Grassy Park (a traditional Cape Flats residential area), felt burdened to share his feelings of guilt. He had been deeply moved by the confession of the Dutchmen at the Kramat of Sheikh Yusuf in the light of his own people’s indoctrinated hatred of the Dutch. Rajagukguk’s great grandfather had been betrayed and killed by a Dutchman. He and his brothers had been taught from childhood not to befriend Dutchmen. It was the first time that the Indonesian had now heard a Dutchman apologize for the wrongdoings of his countrymen. His intense remorse was evident. A few more confessions followed. That spurred a female Zambian participant to address the witchcraft in her country. Prayers for Indonesia, the most populous Islamic country, as well as for Zambia, were a natural result. The meeting was marked by the absence of any accusation or self-righteousness. Instead, those participants whose ancestors had been the victims of brutality, manipulation, oppressive materialism and racism, - and many more sinful actions and attitudes - generously granted forgiveness in Jesus’ name on behalf of their ancestors. Challenge for Church Unity At a meeting the following day with a group of intercessors in Stellenbosch, Pieter Bos challenged the church at the Cape to get their act together, since as a rule, revival only takes place in a unified church. As the group prayed at the Stellenbosch Kweekskool, the Dutch Reformed Church theological seminary, they took note of the historical information, for instance that Ds Meent Borcherds, who became a minister in the Moedergemeente in 1786, was a member of the Freemason Order. The meta-historical significance of the university town of Stellenbosch is clear when one considers that all former South African State Presidents except F.W. De Klerk and Nelson Mandela were graduates of that university. Much of the week’s events were organized on short notice - here and there things happened on the spur of the moment. This gave rise to great expectation that the Holy Spirit was at last ushering in the long-awaited revival. It was veryappropriate that Art Katz, a Christian from the Jewish faith, challenged the believers from similar background in Sea Point and Somerset West. In prophetic style he did not mince his words, challenging his audience - especially those from Jewish stock - to take their role seriously. But they also had to be prepared for suffering. He stated categorically that judgement is intrinsic to the nature of Yahweh, that the cross and resurrection are central tenets of Scripture, rather than celebration. This message was of course not so readily palatable, but definitely a word in season, a challenge to the church at large. More rays of light started to break through. Here and there, remorse and repentance by Christians for their negative attitude towards Muslims surfaced. At the turn of the millennium, there were signs that Cape Islam had started to abandon much of its confrontational approach towards Christianity an approach so typical of the PAGAD era (August 1996 to April 1999). In the township Bonteheuwel the same building was for instance not only used by Muslims and the Assemblies of God Church, but this was also reported favourably in February 2000 in the Athlone News, a newspaper that is distributed free of charge in homes in that area. There even arose an openness to study each other’s scriptures. Prayer is imperative that many will remain open to what God’s Spirit might lead them to - without triumphantalism, and in obedience. Another season of spiritual combat Conflict was escalating between the notorious minibus 'taxi' drivers, which transport commuters from the townships on the one hand, and the Golden Arrow Bus Company on the other hand. Nobody suspected that the shooting of a bus driver of the bus company would bring the black townships to the brink of anarchy once again. At this time, a drug criminal with spurious links to the police force, was set free much sooner than his sentence had prescribed. May 2000 seemed predestined to usher in another season of spiritual combat, with the police force not only in disarray, but also frustrated by a judiciary that was perceived to be corrupt. The conditions in South African prisons were highlighted when inmates threatened to sodomize and kill the well-known activist Allan Boesak as he was about to enter Pollsmoor, Cape Town's major prison. On Thursday 18 May the Islamic Dawa Movement staged a well-advertised public meeting in the Parow Civic Centre with a speaker from India, Dr Zakir Naik. He was billed as an expert on comparative religions namely Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. This event was staged by the Islamic missionary arm, but advertised to non-Muslims - especially to Christians - as an an inter-faith exercise. The title of his talk was ‘Similarities between Christianity and Islam’. In his lecture, Naik initially indeed gave the impression that he wanted to placate the Christians, showing why he deemed Jesus to be a Muslim. But the attack did not stay out, as he stated that Muslims were more ‘Christian’ because of the abuse of alcohol by the latter. During question time, Naik demonstrated why he could be regarded as taking over where Ahmed Deedat had left off, while offending the Christians in a much more refined way. However, if the event was intended as a public relations promotion for the religion, it backfired. Naik demonstrated why many regard the religion as something for the intolerant. He mocked Christians when they asked questions. On Friday evening the 19th of May, a citywide half night of prayer took place at the UWC Sports Ground in Bellville, attended by 6,000 people. Here the unity of the body was emphasized! In the spiritual realm it was certainly very powerful when Pastor Martin Heuvel apologized on behalf of about 40 pastors present, among other things for lording over their flocks, for being dogmatic, and for the lack of a servant attitude. An important introduction was the ongoing translation of the proceedings into Xhosa, thus demonstrating that the presence of Capetonian Blacks was appreciated. At a meeting with converts from Islam on 20 May 2000 a few of them reported ostracism by various people from their previous religious backgrounds. There was ample evidence from different quarters that spiritual warfare was increasing once again, rather than subsiding. Satanist traits surfaced here and there, notably when the chopped-off head of a mentally handicapped young man was abused to instill fear into people. The arrest of 19 PAGAD members in Tafelsig, a violence-ridden part of Mitchells Plain, on 21 May 2000 after a shoot-out, was publicized as a major breakthrough. When only three gangsters were arrested and that not even immediately, the notion was strengthened that the police force was siding with criminals. The necessity for transformation through revival was thus highlighted once again. The spiritual war heats up in the City Bowl once again In June 2000 the fight in the spiritual realms was raging at the City Bowl as never before. A television report depicted how the Mother City drew gay tourists from around the world. Satanists were also staking their claims to impact the city. While preparations were being finalized for a Jesus March on 10 June 2000, it almost seemed as if Satan wanted to foil the event through a bomb at the New York Bagles restaurant in Sea Point, a few kilometers away from the City centre, and not many days before the march. At the famous and well-patronized eating place the bomb, placed in a plastic bag, was discovered by a vagrant who was probably looking for food in the refuse bin. The bomb could fortunately be defused before any damage was done. God clearly intervened at the internationally organized Jesus March. After a series of bad weather forecasts, Pastor Lazarus Chetty, the organizer, asked Christians via the CCFM radio station to pray for dry conditions. In spite of the bad weather prediction, ten thousand Christians from across the religious landscape converged on the CBD of the Mother City. The first drops started falling well after the crowds had dispersed. While the Jesus March crowd was praying in the historical Dutch Company Gardens, an old Muslim lady gave her life to Jesus at the famous Groote Schuur hospital a few kilometers away. Christian workers had ministered to her after she confessed that she has had a dream of the broad and narrow way, with Jesus standing at the top of the steep narrow way waiting for her. This dream had been plaguing her for 50 years. A Satanic backlash and divine Response Satan seemed to mock the prayer march after he had failed to foil it. On the same evening, a car bomb detonated in Sea Point. The stolen car was strategically parked between the well-known Jewish and American restaurants New York Bagles and McDonalds. Miraculously - one should say supernaturally - the damage to people and property was minimal. Satan lost the bout. An unheralded meeting at the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gestig Museum a few days later on 15 June 2000 looked bound to be strategic in the spiritual realm. Thea van Schoor, a Christian worker from Durbanville, had met Louis Pasques, minister of the Baptist Church at the prayer meeting of pastors and pastors' wives at the Atlantic Christian Assembly in Sea Point a week prior to this event. On short notice the City Bowl ministers’ fraternal decided to link up with the prayer occasion organized by Van Schoor at the Zuid-Afrikanse Gestig Museum. This was part of a tour by an American church group from Waco, Texas. In preparation for their two-week visit to the Mother City, the American group of young people had been praying for Cape Town for six months. The event of June 2000 at the historical venue also featured David Bliss, the director of the Andrew Murray Centre, and a group of young people from their centre in Wellington. An event with spiritual significance was a combined church service at the Cape Town Baptist Church and the English speaking Dutch Reformed Church on June 11, 2000. This was the culmination of the 10-day Pentecostal prayer meetings in the latter church. These prayer meetings have been such a blessed tradition in the Dutch Reformed denomination ever since they were inaugurated in the 19th century. Five churches of the City Bowl, whose ministers came together on a weekly basis, hereafter decided to have combined evening services from time to time. The evening service of Pentecost could be seen as the ushering in of this effort when the churches joined hands. The next occasion of the kind was scheduled for 10 September 2000. Here members of five City Bowl churches joined in prayer in a combined evening service in the Tafelberg NGK. That was probably the first time that so many people of colour congregated in the church where once Dr Koot Vorster - one of the major apartheid theologians of his denomination - was the minister for many years. Thereafter, the combined Sunday evening church service became a monthly event until 2003. Thereafter it was decided to have only three combined events per year. The church at large seemed to take up the challenge to influence things at the Cape. One effort was a three-day ‘mini Rustenburg’ from 22 to 24 August at the Huguenot Hall. The stated intention was to ‘turn the tide’ at the venue where Dutch Reformed Synods were usually held. For 30 September a summit was organized in Green Point, with the intention of working at a ten-year plan for the church to get their act together. At both occasions intercessors accompanied (that is covered) the events in prayer. The implementation of the plans left much to be desired. With a lack of perseverance curtailing many promising initiatives, the monthly pastors and pastors' wives prayer meetings - under the leadership of Pastor Eddie Edson - was a sustaining factor of this endeavour, keeping up the momentum for many years. (By 2003 the movement appeared to be running out of steam, especially when Edson's moral failure came to the fore.) Start of a new turning to Christ? The year 2000 saw a turning to Christ by Muslims as never before. This happened especially in the Mitchells Plain area. Prominent in the evangelization was the witness of converts from Islam and the radio ministry via CCFM, with the Thursday morning programme of Life Issues to be singled out. No wonder that Ayesha Hunter, one of the presenters and an inhabitant of Tafelsig - one of the most notorious parts of Mitchells Plain - was threatened more than once. Furthermore, two terminally ill Muslim patients were not only led to the Lord, but missionaries also had quality time with them before they passed on. One of the two was a woman of Bo-Kaap whose husband had died because of AIDS in 1999. Her conversion to Christ was significant, because this was the first known one in the former Muslim stronghold for many years. Another spiritual breakthrough occurred when one of the less prominent founder members of PAGAD accepted Jesus as her Saviour on 30 July 2000. Neither she nor the woman from Bo-Kaap professed their new faith openly. Eben Swart, the Western Cape Prayer coordinator - in a brochure that he titled Bridging the Gap - addressed the danger of fragmentation; different groups were doing their own thing. He also addressed the rift between different Christian factions. While he was praying, the words spirit of violence came through in a strong way. He passed the challenge on to church leaders to address the issue head-on at the Manenberg Citywide prayer event. This meeting took place in Manenberg on September 2, 2000, and was followed by a big evangelistic campaign immediately thereafter. The adjacent township of Hanover Park, along with nearby Gugulethu and Nyanga, have been important localities not only of killing and mugging, but also of spiritual warfare. John Mulinde of Uganda was the speaker at the Manenberg prayer event. In spite of continuous rain that will certainly have kept many away, about 3,000 gathered in a big tent. The occasion was very meaningful, especially because over a third of the audience consisted of Whites, who were thus braving racial and other prejudices. In the spiritual realm intense warfare was waged. Many tears flowed in repentance and mutual acceptance. Prophecies about Manenberg becoming a blessing to the city appeared to come to fruition when many gangsters helped fill a tent with 10,000 seats from Sunday 10 September 2000 - an event that was facilitated by Jerome Liberty and his team. It was perhaps problematic when he introduced the various gangs present in the big tent night by night as special guests, but if there is a case to be made for ‘die doel heilig die middele’ (the goal sanctifies the methods), here was one. The method bore fruit. The follow-up and discipling of those gangsters who went forward in an act of commitment, was a daunting task for the churches of the notorious crime-ridden township. A secular radio station, KFM, noted the short-term result, reporting on 15 September that there was not a single incident of violence in the notorious suburb in the week of the big evangelistic tent campaign. The healing of Manenberg continued. On May 7, 2004 our son Samuel, who participated in a Youth with a Mission Discipleship Training School with outreach linked to the local Salvation Army, wrote about this time: ‘It is also wonderful to see what God has done regarding gangsterism and crime. The entire month that we were there we did not hear a single gun shot, which is considered a miracle when comparing the situation to about 13 months ago.’ The danger of Anarchy once again Ramadan 2000 was accompanied by conversions to Christ, not only in other parts of the world, but also in Cape Town on an unprecedented scale. However, the enemy of souls blurred the picture at this time by reports to the contrary. Thus the deceit was there for everyone to see as the impression was given that District Six had always been Islamic. The return of the former slum area to the original residents was abused in the run-up to the local elections of December 5, 2000. The Democratic Alliance – an arrangement of convenience between the Democratic Party (DP) and the New National Party (NNP) - had little to defend in respect of the ANC attacks that the political parents of the NNP had been responsible for the forced removals of the inhabitants from District Six. It is ironic that the reversal of apartheid - which caused Bo-Kaap to become a Muslim stronghold in the 1970s - was now apparently doing the same to the former slum area. Muslims had been even more evidently in the minority in District Six before the February 1966 Group Areas Declaration. On 11 February 2004 the ANC made election capital out of the visit of Nelson Mandela in person at the handling over of the keys to the first residents who were about to return to District Six. By May 2004 the new residents had however not yet moved in. And also thereafter the building process was painfully slow indeed! PAGAD was prematurely given the blame for a bomb explosion at the car park of Cape Town International Airport on 18th July 2000. Obviously, there were demonic forces at work trying to create havoc and anarchy! The protracted violent conflict between taxi drivers and the Golden Arrow bus company resulted in quite a number of people dead or wounded. This was a reminder that a miracle was needed to turn the tide. In October 2000 more PAGAD members were arrested and some of their leaders tried. The tension in the Middle East had a spin-off when big Islamic rallies were held. The one on 14 October 2000 at the Green Point Stadium was counterproductive on the Islamic faith when supporters damaged cars and property such as at McDonald’s, after the crowd had been hyped up at the rally against Americans and Jews. The prayers of God’s people - for instance that the tension between Muslims and Jews locally would not get out of control - were surely answered when a time bomb under the car of a Jewish man was discovered and defused before the device could cause any damage. However, a bomb explosion near to the offices of the Democratic Party’s office of Kenilworth on 18 October kept the tension alive because the leader of that party, Tony Leon, is known to be a Jew. Was PAGAD getting a new lease of life? Muslim unity at the Cape seemed to be restored in the wake of the Middle East conflict. A flourish of prayer and missionary activity With the vision for prayer of the American missionary Susan Hill it was only natural that the couple would be linked up with the prayer watch movement in 2002. Susan Hill came into the picture as a possible coordinator for a prayer watch to be started in the City Bowl. From 2002 we had joint prayer events at the Moravian Church every third Saturday of the month, which she later led. A flourish of prayer and missionary activity towards the end of 2000 looked set to have a major impact on the country as a whole, especially since much of it was happening in the Mother City. Even more specifically, with regard to the unity of the churches in the City Bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard, there was visible evidence of change. Previously it had been very difficult to get the body of Christ to work together meaningfully for any length of time. A few City Bowl ministers who had been praying together on Thursday mornings approached the office of Mr Mark Wiley, the minister responsible for law enforcement in the Western Cape. They offered to pray for him, not taking more than ten minutes of his time. Wiley responded positively, whereupon a delegation of the pastors went to pray with him. A few months later however, Wiley resigned due to his inability to resolve the protracted dispute between taxi operators and the Golden Arrow Bus Company. The seriousness of the situation was thus highlighted even more. This dispute had kept the Cape Black township dwellers in suspense for months. Everything pointed to the fact that the spiritual battle was still raging at a significant pitch. On 27 October 2000 the Ministers Fraternal of the Atlantic Seaboard organized a half-night of prayer. Wiley's successor became Hennie Bester, who had been a school friend of Eben Swart, the Western Cape coordinator of Herald Ministries. The new provincial cabinet minister’s request - prayer from Christians - was a catalyst to send intercessors into action (see Appendix A). In answer to prayer, the people responsible for the bombs that had been plaguing the region were apprehended soon thereafter. Transformations take off slowly Although the Moravian denomination itself seemed to have dwindled into obscurity, the heritage of the early Moravians was once again at the cradle of a mighty movement of God across the world. The vision of the 24-hour prayer watch - that kept going in Herrnhut for 120 years - was rekindled towards the end of 1999. Like wildfire, the concept spread around the world. At the beginning of the year 2000 African leaders - spearheaded by Bennie Mostert from Pretoria and John Mulinde of Uganda - got together to attempt implementing the example of the Moravians in Africa. Graham Power, a Cape businessman, who is a member of the board of Directors of the Western Province Rugby Football Union, saw the Transformations documentary video in March 2000, birthing in him a strong desire to see a prayer event at their headquarters, Newlands. He promptly approached his co-directors for use of the biggest sports stadium of the Mother City. This was approved in August 2000. The Sentinel Group, that included George Otis of the well-known Transformation videos, staged a three-day conference at the Lighthouse in Parow with international speakers from 3 November 2000, followed by a citywide prayer meeting at an athletics stadium in Bellville on Sunday, 5 November. The meetings in Parow and Bellville were preceded by prayer events that not only coincided with a bout of spiritual warfare against the occult Satanist Halloween celebrations, but they were also part of a countrywide 40-day offensive of prayer and fasting for the continent. The November 2000 conference at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow was attended by Graham Power. The story of the Mafia-style drug lords who exercised such a dominating presence in certain cities reminded him of Cape Town. After the Lighthouse event in November 2000 the stage was soon set for a prayer event at the Newlands Rugby Stadium. On Friday 3 November, two potentially destructive bombs were discovered and defused at a well-known shopping centre in Bellville. The bombs could have caused massive loss of life, had they detonated at the intended time a few kilometers from the venue of the prayer event in Parow. On the same day of the start of the prayer conference in Parow, the main alleged perpetrators of the pipe bomb planting were arrested. Reverend Trevor Pearce, who led the Community Transformation prayer initiative, stated that it could hardly have been co-incidence that the arrest of the surmised culprits happened at the time of the conference and that the 18 bombs, which exploded in the preceding months did not result in any loss of life. Nor could it have been be mere co-incidence that pipe bombs were discovered under a snooker table at a house in Grassy Park on 6 November, a day after the citywide prayer event in Bellville. Up to the moment of writing, it is for well over four years not a single PAGAD pipe bomb went off at the Cape. It is possible to say that transformation of the Mother City of South Africa got a major push on 3 November 2000. On the local level churches also seemed to be playing a role in bringing about peace. On Sunday 25 February 2001, the national television reported how local church leaders had brokered a peace accord between two gangs of Bonteheuwel, the Cisko Yakkies and the Americans. The event on 21 March 2001 seemed to usher in a new era. Because Newlands was too small for all the people who wanted to attend, several local churches used a satellite connection and big screens to allow more people to participate. Because CCFM and Radio Tygerberg radio stations also broadcast the event live and because it was a public holiday, many followed the prayers at home. The Transformations programme was closely aligned to prayer from the outset. It is no surprise that the 24-hour prayer watch was linked to a big prayer event scheduled for the Newlands Rugby Stadium on 21 March 2001. In the 21 days prior to the event more than 200 congregations joined in a prayer effort for the stadium meeting on a 24-hour basis. Cautious optimism needed When the Cape Argus reported on 9 January 2001 that Chika Odimara, alias Jovial Rantao, a Nigerian drug lord had been arrested and deported, nobody got too excited. The report intimated that the syndicate used South Africa as the ‘nucleus of movements of other shipments from drug-processing areas to other parts of the world’. Hearing that he was believed to control over 80% of the drug trade in South Africa, it was not difficult to deduce that he would just use another name, coming into the country on the next plane on another forged passport. One unfortunately knew only too well that it was much better to exercise caution in optimism when the word was spread that the police was getting the upper hand in the fight against drugs. The news a few days later proved how premature the Cape Argus report was: on 23 April a masked man broke into the house of Judge van Zyl. This judge had been appointed in the PAGAD trial. It was an open secret that the so-called anti-gangsterism and drugs group had a drug-related hidden agenda. 13. Birth pangs of a new era? Christians would do well to prepare to enter those countries that are still more or less closed for missionaries with the good news of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the World. Elizabeth Jordaan of Jericho Walls said in an email of 6 February 2001 ‘...we can see that God slowly but definitely increased the prayer level in the country. God wants to bring revival, more than we want to have it. We are in the beginning of a new millennium. Since 1987 a lot of research was done and much information gained about the history of our country. We have not prayed through this information on a national level. It is time now to finish the old millennium and deal with the sins of the fathers in our country.’ Cleansing the land Bennie Mostert and his Jericho Walls team had great plans for 2001. By this time a Cape office and prayer centre was already established in Bellville. In her email Elizabeth Jordaan summarized the situation from the NUPSA office: ‘God has moved us to focus on prayer at a national level. We are in a desperate situation in this country. The situation is so devastating that one cannot even imagine the impact it will have on the economic and social life of our country. We must not underestimate what is happening concerning the crime and wickedness pouring into this nation. The church is the only body that has the answer. We need God to change this country.’ In her email of 6 February, Jordaan outlined NUPSA's plans, encouraging and challenging prayer warriors throughout the country, stressing that ‘...One of the major things that needs to happen to prepare the nation for repentance is that we need to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of our sin as a nation. Without this conviction there will be no Godly sorrow and no repentance brought about by the Holy Spirit’. For the second half of the year 2001 NUPSA set out to deal with the whole issue of cleansing the land. On Friday, 26 January 2001, a meeting was held at the NUPSA premises concerning the proposal of a national prayer project - Cleansing South Africa from offences against God. A period of preparing the nation for repentance was envisaged from February to July 2001 in the run-up to this effort. Material was made available on the sins of the land, how to repent of it, and how to ask for cleansing, and was distributed throughout the country. During August and September 2001 the atonement of Jesus on the land was called upon. Praying on sites of offence was performed simultaneously in all 9 provinces. At the Cape, this happened on Robben Island on the first weekend of September 2001. For this prayer exercise Johan de Meyer of the Western Cape office compiled a manual. Former prisoners on the island who had become believers, like Vernon February, and the former hardcore Communist, Dr Crosby Zulu, joined in the programme. Further items in this prayer venture were ‘Dedicating South Africa to the Lord’ (September to November 2001) as well as a symbolic action of ‘Taking the Gospel to the Nations (November 2001). All of these actions did not get off the ground properly at the Cape, but in the spiritual realm things were nevertheless happening. The short-term aftermath of the first Newlands prayer event The event at the Newlands rugby stadium on 21 March 2001 seemed to usher in a new era. Because Newlands was too small for all the people who wanted to attend, several local churches used a satellite connection and big screens to allow more people to participate. Because CCFM and Radio Tygerberg radio stations also broadcast the event live and because it was a public holiday, many followed the prayers at home. The aftermath of the massive prayer occasion proved that Satan must have been very angry. A scathing public attack with little substance by Mr Kader Asmal, a Cabinet Minister, made headlines. For Asmal it turned out to be counter-productive. He was repudiated by many, even by prominent people from his own ranks. Mr Ebrahim Rasool, a fellow Muslim and the ANC provincial leader who became the Western Cape Premier in 2004, was one of them. It counts to Asmal’s honour, greatly enhancing his stature that he apologized a week later, even though the apology was merely worded in terms of regret. It had special significance that Dr Allan Boesak wrote a letter from prison attacking Asmal. The question was whether this would be the precursor to Boesak expressing his personal regret - or better still offering an apology - for the misleading role he had played in the spreading of Islam in the 1980s through the UDF. Rumours were spread from the Goodwood prison that Boesak had changed completely. But the hopes I had of working alongside him were dashed after his release. He was hardly outside the prison gates, when the confusion was perpetuated. It was reported how he had addressed a group of people the same evening after his release at the His People Church. The next evening he was in Gatesville, a suburb with a clear Muslim stamp, a residential area with a big mosque and an Islamic educational Centre. The impression of the equating of Allah of Islam and the God of the Bible thus continued. After the Newlands event, the prayer movement seemed to take off. At the Cape there were 156 prayer watches by the end of April 2001, as well as three houses for prayer, respectively in Bellville, Glencairn and Somerset West. The 2002 event at Newlands and other venues throughout the country did however not spark off the same excitement, but the momentum nevertheless kept going when the date was changed to May Day in 2003. Table Mountain, one of the major venues of idolatry The Transformations programme was closely aligned to prayer from the outset. It is no surprise that the 24-hour prayer watch was linked to a big prayer event scheduled for the Newlands rugby stadium on 21 March 2001. In the 21 days prior to the event more than 200 congregations joined in a prayer effort for the stadium meeting on a 24-hour basis. In prayer leadership circles, the Newlands event was seen as an excellent opportunity to start repenting of the past idolatry surrounding Table Mountain. When researchers like Eben Swart started to delve into the spiritual history of Cape Town, it became evident that Table Mountain, even since pre-recorded history, had been one of the major points of idolatry in our beloved city. It was shown that Table Mountain is known as “The Altar of the South” in occult circles and that there is an ancient Quena shrine of worship to the sun/moon on Lion's Head/Signal Hill. Prayer warriors went to the first group of kramats in the Southern Suburbs. The author had given them historical information, which the intercessors could use for praying at the various sites. Thereafter the warriors went to Bo-Kaap, where they prayed and repented at the Tana Baru kramats. At every instance they went through some prophetic actions, and blew the shophar. Then they set off for the trip around the mountain, during which they experienced a very special anointing of the Holy Spirit. They drove the whole way in a sense of awe, acutely aware that something had snapped in the spirit world. On the Sunday prior to ‘Newlands’ they went around the mountain for the fifth time. The group of twenty four first went to Signal Hill, where they repented of idolatry, overlooking the ancient Quena shrine where the worship to the sun and the worship to the moon had taken place. They also went to Llundudno, overlooking Sandy Bay, where they dealt with the sins of promiscuity, permissiveness and homosexual practice. A converted ex-Sandy Bay-er led the group in repentance. Churches seemed to be playing a role in bringing about peace. On Sunday 25 February 2001, the national television reported how local church leaders had brokered a peace accord between two gangs of Bonteheuwel, the Cisko Yakkies and the Americans. Cape Town’s anchor to the occult cut off? The 2001 Newlands prayer event was bound to turn out to be a spiritual watershed. A word from God that Amanda Buys (a long-time intercessor who has also been counseling former Satanists) received on 21 March 2001 at the Transformation meeting, says it all: ‘During the prayer time God took me into intercession - I travailed much and I knew something was breaking in the spirit. I asked the Lord, “What is it Lord?” He clearly showed me the Lady of Good Hope with her anchor. I then saw her anchor being cut off. God said that Cape Town’s soul had been anchored to her, that’s why we turned to drugs, prostitution, gangs, etc. Today this anchor was cut off and replaced with God’s anchor. I asked for scripture. The Lord gave me Hebrews 6:19,20 Now we have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul - it cannot slip and it cannot break down under whoever steps out upon it - a hope that reaches farther and enters into the very certainty of the Presence within the veil. Where Jesus has entered in for us in advance, a forerunner has become a High Priest forever after the order with the rank of Melchizedek. A lay initiative for united prayer was resumed in June 2001 after believers from the Presbyterian, the Methodist and the Roman Catholic had been challenged at the Alpha Courses at their respective churches. This developed into a monthly event with a number of refugees and other Africans at the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk every last Wednesday of the month. New believers joined the group at regular intervals with Shaun Waris, a Pakistani national, quite prominent in the outreach. Graham Power - a major mover of the Newlands event - had a dream in February 2002 that encouraged him to bring the stadium prayers to Southern Africa. In 2002 the prayer day started to spread throughout Southern Africa: eight stadiums were involved with some 160,000 people attending. In 2003 and 2004, mass prayer events were held in sports stadiums throughout the African continent. In 2003, 77 sports stadiums in South Africa were used for prayer meetings and another 62 in 28 African countries. Some 700,000 people were praying in the stadiums with another 5 million linked through radio and television. An interesting dynamic was starting to take off, namely that missionaries who had been working in other Southern Africa countries, started encouraging missionary work from Cape Peninsula believers. Thus locals were challenged to minster to under-evangelised and forgotten peoples in Namibia and the Northern Cape. Georgina Kinsman from Mitchells Plain was among the first of a new generation to get going with church-planting in a powerful and blessed way. Pastor Jeff Holder Another prophetic move in District Six Murray Bridgman, a Cape Christian advocate, was challenged to perform a prophetic act in District Six. He had previously researched the history of Devil’s Peak. Along with Eben Swart, the Western Cape Prayer co-ordinator of Herald Ministries, Bridgman provided some research that encouraged Dr Henry Kirby, a medical doctor who had worked as a YWAM missionary in Mozambique, to lobby Parliament to change the name of Devil’s Peak into Dove’s Peak. (Duivenkop had been an earlier name.) Kirby’s role as the prayer coordinator of the African Christian Democratic Party resulted in a motion tabled by Ivan Kirsten in the City Council in June 2002. The motion was unsuccessful, fueling suspicion that Satanists also had a significant influence in the City Council. On June 1, 2002 Susan and Ned Hill, the American missionary couple, joined Murray Bridgman and his wife as they poured water on the steps of the Moravian Hill Chapel in District Six, symbolically ushering in the showers of blessing that were to come. Two weeks later a few other Christians joined them. Forcefully the message was confirmed that Messianic believers should be invited to join in the prayers of welcome to the foot of the Cross, of all those who intend to move back into the formerly hapless residential area. Pastor Willie Martheze followed a call to minister to homeless people, with the intention of ministering healing to these people. In the spiritual realms it was significant that Martheze was allowed to use facilities at the Azaad Youth Centre, one of the few buildings that remained intact from the old District Six. They were blessed to see quite a few of the homeless impacted. Some of them returned to their homes. Exposure of the roots of Freemasonry As a result of Eben Swart's teaching the Dutch Reformed Church of Brackenfell West requested him (in September 2003) to come and address the congregation at the church, since the issue of the church's obelisk tower had been raised in the church board (prior to Eben's presentation). At the church board's request, the wife of Ds. Chris Swart, Kobie, had written a letter to the board concerning the issue. In this letter she gave a brief overview of the occult roots of obelisks, and suggested that the church's tower be removed. The church board's reaction was to call an open meeting of the congregation, so the issue could be discussed. At this meeting, Eben presented the historical background of obelisks (including the Masonic connection), as well as the Biblical view on it with the aid of pictures and photographs. Some leaders in the congregation were extremely agitated by this presentation, and made no secret of their feelings during question and answer time. Things turned out so nasty that both dominees (Christo Klopper and Chris Swart) eventually publicly apoligised to Eben for the congregation's behaviour. Soon after this meeting, the Freemasons on the church board made sure that the press got hold of the story, who then splashed it on the front pages of newspapers countrywide, crucifying Kobie Swart for (quite correctly) calling the obelisk symbolic of a "phallus of the earth god having continual sexual intercourse with the sky goddess" in her letter. She was innocently referring to the Egyptian creation myth concerning the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Needless to say - this ridicule by the press (having a field day with a "pastor's wife with dirty thoughts") caused the church board to retreat hastily, and the church tower stands tall until this day. Soon after these happenings, disciplinary proceedings were started against ds. Chris Swart (who continued to urge for the tower's removal) about baptism-related issues. This led to Chris Swart eventually leaving the Dutch Reformed Church within months. A Wave of Opportunity In 2003 Rosemarie and I were seriously praying about a change of ministry. After almost 12 years at the Cape in the same ministry, we thought that we should have a change for the last stretch before retirement. With our youngest daughter about to finish her schooling at the end of 2004, I thought that we might even relocate. But no ‘doors’ opened with regard to a move overseas. Instead, we felt increasingly challenged to reach out to refugees and foreigners, for example by using English language teaching as a compassionate vehicle. We prayed that the Lord would give us more clarity with regard to our future ministry by the end of 2003. Rosemarie had a strange dream in which a newly married married couple, clad in Middle Eastern garb, was ready to go as missionaries to the Middle East. Suddenly the scene changed. While the two of us were praying over the city from our dining room facing the Cape Town CBD, a massive tidal wave came from the sea, rolling over Bo-Kaap. The next moment the water engulfed us, but we were still holding each other by the hand. There was something threatening about the wave but somehow we also experienced a sense of thrill. Then Rosemarie woke up, very conscious that God seemed to say something to us through this dream. What was God saying? Now we had been taking some photographs at Sedgefield and Knysna of beautiful waves during a holiday break in July 2003. Somewhere we found Psalm 93:4 engraved on a stone. That was exactly the Bible verse that Rosemarie got on the day of her confirmation in Germany as a teenager way back in the 1960s. ‘Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty! The day after Rosemarie's dream we heard about a conference of Middle Eastern Muslim leaders in the newly built International Convention Centre of Cape Town. We decided on short notice to have our Friday prayer meeting there instead of in the regular venue, the Koffiekamer of Straatwerk. Lillian James, one of our prayer partners, would come to arrange free parking for us near to the Convention Centre. Because of some miscommunication with Rochelle, our American YWAM colleague, about the change of venue, Rosemarie went back to the Koffiekamer. This resulted that we could just pray together for a short time near to the Convention Centre. I had to bring back a few others to the Koffiekamer with our Microbus. Rosemarie, Rochelle, Shamielah, a Muslim background believer, and Denise Crowe, one of our co-workers, went into the Convention Centre where they surprisingly had access to the interior of the building without any security check. Here they walked around, praying for the delegates to the conference and for the building. The same afternoon Rosemarie and Rochelle went to the nearby Waterfront where they now literally walked into a bunch of ladies with Middle Eastern garb. The outgoing Rochelle had no qualms in starting a conversation with one of them. Having resided among Palestinians in Israel, she is fluent in Arabic. Soon they were swarmed by the other women, who were of course very surprised to be addressed in their home language by a White woman with an American accent. A cordial exchange of words followed, with the intent of email correspondence. Rosemarie was reminded of her dream, sensing that God might be sending a wave of people to Cape Town from Muslim countries. We should also get ready to send young missionaries to the Middle East when it opens up to the Gospel. Shortly hereafter the Lord brought to our attention various groups of foreigners who had come to the Mother City, including a minority group from China. Attacks on the Pagan and Buddhist roots of apartheid Around this time Amanda Buys, a Cape researcher of the roots of apartheid discovered not only that it went back to Adolf Hitler and his anti-Semitic Nazi party, but that Hitler also sought help from the demonic spirit world in Athens and Nepal. For many people the pagan content of the opening of the 2004 Olympic Games might have been strange. For Amanda it was not. It was therefore natural for her and fellow intercessors that they should counter the new effort to bring pagan influence into South Africa. The entry of the forces of darkness was depicted by the arrival of the Olympic flame at Cape Town’s international airport. Linked with this event was a special show at the Art Scape theatre that was very well advertised. The intercessors discerned that spiritual warfare was needed for both occasions. This was quite effective. For the event at the former Whites-only Nico Malan Opera House hardly a ticket was sold. In desperation the organisers gave away complimentary tickets to have at least some audience for the expensive extravaganza. It was probably no mere chance that the Olympic flame was scheduled to arrive at Cape Town international on 12 June, 2004. Cape intercessors were equal to the task. Amanda Buys of Canaan Ministries had already done research, showing how apartheid ideology evolved via Adolf Hitler’s bringing the Olympic flame from Athens to Berlin in 1936. Intercessors learned how Robbie Leibrandt relayed the demonic anti-Semitic spirit via the Ossewabrandwag to Cape Town. Spiritual warfare was engaged into to prevent the apartheid spirit to be re-introduced. (The increase of xenophobia, fear and hate of foreigners, showed that the prayer effort was no luxury.) During a visit to Hong Kong, Amanda Buys discovered how in many shops the dearly sought after abalone from the Cape was sold. She soon discerned the link to criminal syndicates. A prayer effort ensued, which led to the arrest of the leaders of a crime syndicate. The police discovered the house factory where the drug ‘tik’ was produced towards the end of 2004, four houses from their home in John Vorster Street, Plattekloof. When she shared this at the 24-hour prayer event on February 2004, along with the challenge of an influx of Buddhists into South Africa, we rejoiced to discover how God had pre-empted the demonic attempt by giving the ‘tsunami’ dream to Rosemarie in October 2003. What a blessing it was to discover anew that God definitely still has things under control. Cancer diagnosis It was confirmed on 8 October 2003 that I had prostrate cancer. I was encouraged by the ‘Watchword’ for the previous day. (The Moravians have been calling the Old Testament Scripture traditionally the ‘Watchword’): ‘I will not die but live and proclaim what the LORD has done’ (Psalm 118:17). This became the cue for me not only to update an unpublished autobiographical ‘open letter’, but also to change the original title 'My spiritual Odyssey' to 'I will not die but live'. Two decreases of the PSA blood count in the following weeks, indicating a very unusual decrease in cancerous activity, encouraged us to expect supernatural healing without the need of an operation. When a further PSA test on 23 November showed a new increase, we sensed that we must not play around with the cancer, although I dearly wanted to participate in the continental prayer convocation that took place in Cape Town from 1-5 December 2003. I immediately booked myself in for the operation, undergoing surgery on 3 December. When the post-operative report came through we were overawed once again. The cancerous growth was only 1mm away from the membrane of my prostrate gland. The timing of things gave me so much reason to thank the Lord. The compulsory rest in the wake of the operation was just the opportunity to follow through on the injunction of Psalm 118:17, viz. to ‘proclaim what the LORD has done.’ Rosemarie and I had already felt challenged to make the City Bowl 24-hour Watch a matter of priority for the first half of 2004. The unity of the body of Christ, the believers in the crucified and risen Saviour, was (and still is) very much on our hearts. We believe that the prayer watch could be a decisive vehicle to make this more visible - to be used as a powerful means to take the city for God. This was possibly a wave of opportunity for renewed countrywide prayer. I worked not only on the above manuscript, but also updated material that I had written on the occasion of my wife’s 40th birthday under the title ‘On Eagles wings’. I proceeded to try and finalize SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER. We prayed for someone to edit the scripts and get it ready for a possible publication. Quite a few months would pass till further progress could be booked. (An important step happened on 9 May 2004 at the opening of the 7-days prayer Initiative in the Moravian Hill Church of District Six, when Bennie Mostert agreed to write the Foreword and involve Jericho Walls towards a co-publication) During the time in hospital and the period of recuperation I was challenged anew to tackle the issue of the 24-hour prayer watch for the City Bowl. On Sunday 28 December we heard that two friends, Beverley Stratis and Heidi Pasques, wanted to speak to us. They shared the same evening that the Lord somehow impressed on them very starkly that the Bo-Kaap and the disunity of the churches in the City Bowl were two strongholds which prevented a spiritual breakthrough. We were surprised on the one hand that the penny dropped with two people who could have heard our challenges in the church over many years. On the other hand, we were encouraged that the Lord now used them to confirm that we should not relocate as yet and that we should tackle the two issues that had been concerns for us so long with even more urgency, viz. church unity including the 24h prayer watch in the City Bowl and a ministry to refugees. At that time the Lord impressed on Beverley Stratis' heart that we should undertake a prayer march along Buitengracht Street, to cut off the spiritual connection that was brought about by the apartheid creation of the Bo-Kaap Muslim stronghold. Only a year later she shared this with the author. It was fitting that the prelude to a prayer convocation for the African continent from 1-5 December 2003 at UWC, Bellville, took place on Robben Island. This was a follow-up of the ‘Cleansing South Africa’ event of September 2001. Just at a time when Henry Kirby and his preparation team ran into problems getting access to the famous island, a Muslim background believer got in touch with CCFM Radio. It was clearly an answer to prayer that the author was present at the CCFM Radio studio when her fax arrived there. When I invited the young lady to our home for a preparatory talk with regard to a radio interview, I learned that the believer had been working on Robben Island for many years. Through her intervention, the necessary arrangements could be made for the prayer warriors, some of them coming from various African countries. By the Scruff of the neck Sometimes God has to take people by the scuff of the neck to bring them in obedient submission as he once did with Jonah. This he did with me a few times, the last time in February 1989 when I wanted to settle into a comfortable position of teaching in a High School in Huizen, Holland after God had clearly started opening doors for me into missionary work in August 1988. This also happened to Michael Share, who was challenged to leave his work in the police force to start Cops for Christ at the turn of the century. After he was involved in a raid, he got stranded in a shack. He experienced supernatural protection. Bullets were flying past him, without one hitting him. This was to him the wake-up call. Through the movement Cops for Christ he was going to challenge Christians throughout South Africa to bring spiritual life and encouragement into the police stations, when anarchy was threatening once again. Michael challenged Danie Nortje, a Cape policeman around 2002 to assist him getting Cops for Christ off the ground in the Western Cape. Supernaturally, God had to grab Danie Nortje after initial disobedience. After a boat accident off the coast at Camps Bay, during which he had to be rescued, he was admitted to Chris Barnard Memorial Hospital. At this time he sensed the renewed calling to be involved with Cops for Christ. Fanie Scanlan was already the Superintendent of the Buitekant Street police station in the Mother City when he was stabbed seven times, narrowly escaping death. This became the turning point in his life. Towards the end of 2003, it was my turn again to be taken by the scuff of the neck. During the post-operative period after the removal of my cancerous prostrate gland on 3 December 2003, I was challenged to stop looking for other people to try and start up the 24-hour prayer watch in the Mother City. Things fall in place On June 8, 2003 Pierre Hanekom and his wife - a couple that had relocated to the Cape from Pretoria - happened to listen to a sermon by Bennie Mostert. God challenged them to start a 24-hour prayer group in the Bellville area, which they called Kairos. Within a few months, this prayer watch was not only running, but their initiative started to be a blessing to other parts of the city as the word got around. Beverley Stratis got in touch with Pierre Hanekom, inviting him to the first meeting of the effort towards a prayer watch in the City Bowl in the Moravian Church of District Six. We were furthermore surprised to hear on 16 January 2004 at our monthly prayer meeting with WEC colleagues and other interested people - this happens the third Friday of every month at our regional mission headquarters in Ottery that was already ministering to Somali’s in Bellville. We already knew about many Chinese in Cape Town in order to learn English. Martha Meyer, the wife of Reverend Derrick Meyer, showed consistent interest in promoting prayer in the Moravian Church for many years. Her husband Derrick had been a part-time Moravian Seminary student colleague of our common District Six years. He was president of the denomination when we started speaking about the possibility of using the church building in District Six as a venue for the 24-hour prayer watch. A visit to the Fountains of Joy Assemblies of God parsonage in Woodstock soon broadened the prospective base of the prayer watch to the congregation, which had kept the evangelical fire burning in that residential area for over a decade. When I was referred to Rowina Stanley, their prayer coordinator, the Lord had already prepared her heart. On top of it, she lives in Walmer Estate, the residential area adjacent to District Six. Things seemed to be falling into place for the start of the prayer watch. One thing led to the next till the Moravian Church of District Six was fixed as the venue for the start of the national prayer chain from 9 to16 May 2004. That was scheduled to culminate in a world day of prayer on May 15, 2005. The Koffiekamer, once mooted as the venue for a 24-hour prayer watch, suddenly became a major channel of blessing when an Alpha Course started there. A special role in the transformation of the city was accorded to the Koffiekamer when many a vagrant was transformed by the power of the Gospel and prayer meetings for the city held there every last Wednesday of the month. At another fringe of Cape society the faithful ministry of Marge Ballin to prostitutes was blessed when a house was acquired where those women who had committed their lives to the Lord, could be discipled. A prayer watch at last? In 2002 President Mbeki announced that the building complex, which was used as a gymnasium by the Cape Technikon, was to be given back to the Moravian Church. Hendrina van der Merwe, a faithful aged prayer warrior had been praying for years for a 24-hour watch to begin at the Moravian Church. With the origin of the modern prayer movement going back to Herrnhut in 1727, this would be very appropriate. Hendrina hoped to be part of the start of the prayer watch before her death. When she was accommodated at the historic St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Green Point, many thought that this should be the venue for the prayer watch. (There is a historical connection in the revival following the setting free of slaves on 1 December 1838.). When this turned out to be unpractical, the Moravian Church Board was formally approached in October 2003. The request was approved, along with permission to have monthly meetings with Muslim background believers in their District Six church building. The St Andrews Presbyterian Church did however become the venue of a half night of prayer on the Islamic Night of Power in 2003. At this occasion, Trevor Peters, who worked as the guard of the parking area at certain times, participated prominently. Increasingly, he became burdened to pray for the city. The fervent prayer warrior Hendrina van der Merwe was not going to experience either a breakthrough towards church planting in Bo-Kaap or the start of a 24-hour Prayer Watch in the City Bowl, before going to be with her Lord on 31 December 2004. Unknown to us, Trevor Peters had been corresponding with Reverend Angeline Swart with regard to the use of the Moravian Church for a 24-hour prayer watch. The Lord had to humble the former drug lord and gangster, until he became a car guard and tour guide at the historical Groote Kerk. On May 2 in 2004 prayer events in the 58 nations and islands linked to the continent of Africa were held in some 1100 stadiums. (This does not include 13 nations where people were not able to gather in stadiums, but met instead in house groups, churches and other venues.) A 10-minute prayer was disseminated, that will have been offered all over Africa at Greenwich Meantime +2 hours. It could be accessed via e-mail in thirteen languages all over Africa. The spokesman for the event, Bennie Mostert, reported a few weeks before the 2004 event: “We have confirmation from groups in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Sweden and other places that will join us in prayer for Africa. All this is helping to prepare the way for the Global Day of Prayer on 15 May 2005, Pentecost Sunday.” On the verge of the 2004 event, Daniel Brink of the Jericho Walls Cape Office sent out the following communiqué: ‘...From Sunday May 9th thousands of Christians all over South Africa will take part in a national night & day prayer initiative called "7Days". The goal was to see the whole country covered in continuous prayer for one year from 9 May 2004 to 15 May 2005. ‘Teams of praying people, young and old, representing different churches, schools, prisons, campuses and towns throughout South Africa will seek the face of God for spiritual breakthrough, social justice, economic stability and transformation in every community.’ A Case of D.I.Y. When a further PSA test on 23 November 2003 showed a new increase of cancerous activity, I sensed that I must get serious about this, and, although I dearly wanted to participate in the continental prayer convocation that was to take place in Cape Town from 1-5 December, I immediately booked myself in for the operation, undergoing surgery on 3 December, 2003. In the hospital God could speak to me more clearly because I had so much time to pray. I sensed that I should stop attempting to find someone else to co-ordinate an effort to start a 24/7 prayer watch in the Cape Town City Bowl. I had been trying for years to work towards a more visible expression of the unity of the body of Christ, with very little success. Billheimer (1975:102) made the following statement, with whom possibly nobody who know anything about spiritual warfare would disagree. 'Any church program, no matter how impressive, if it is not supported by an adequate prayer program, is little more than an ecclesiastical treadmill. It is doing little more or no damage to Satan's kingdom.' The end of the episode was that I knew that it was a case of D.I.Y. – do it yourself. I should attempt it myself prayerfully. God confirmed this duly. Another eventful week When the movie The Passion of the Christ was released in March 2004, it was clear that this would be another event film. But nobody suspected that its ripples would go around the world so fast. Objections by individual Roman Catholics and Jews only gave more publicity to the controversial film. Believers in Jesus Christ, ordinary cinema frequenters as well as people from all religions around the globe were deeply moved as they witnessed the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ in the unusual movie. Pirate DVD’s sold like hot cake, at the Cape and throughout the country. For Nur Rajagukguk, a missionary colleague who had worked in China years before, it was very special to watch the video version with two Uyghur women from China. Nur Rajagukguk had a special burden for the Uyghur, a Muslim tribe in the Northwest of the vast and populous country. For years she prayed for those people without seeing any change. And now God brought some of them to Cape Town. Within months both Chinese ladies accepted Jesus as their Saviour. The film influenced the Middle East significantly. What is clear is that Satan must have been very angry at the effect of the movie! On Monday, 22 March 2004, Israeli soldiers killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a prominent leader and founder of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance force, bringing the Middle East to the brink of all-out war. Surprisingly, the immediate massive backlash that was expected, did not materialize. The possible reason was the impact of The Passion of the Christ. Many Muslims went to see the film because they 'heard' that it was anti-Jewish. Since they had been taught to resent the Jews, they wanted to see the film. God used the movie to communicate the Gospel as rarely before. The very opposite spirit that motivated Muslims to go and view the film came through. The message of loving your enemies, and Jesus praying to his Father to forgive his prosecutors - while still on the Cross - hit many a Muslim theatre visitor in a powerful way. Quite strikingly, many Muslims hereafter seemed to start accepting the death and resurrection of Jesus as a set of facts, tenets denied by orthodox Islam. That Jesus addressed God as his Father surely rattled many of them. In Muslim countries children learn as a nursery rhyme that God neither has a son nor does he beget. At this time we were introduced to Leigh Telli who loves the Jews and whose husband comes from Muslim background. An old vision of us was revived, serving to confirm our calling of ministering to foreigners and linking our ministry to Messianic Jews in an effort towards reconciliation of Jews and Muslims at the Cape. On 19 February 2005 a few believers from both Jewish and Muslim backgrounds were present at a seminar. At that occasion Leigh Telli and the author shared respectively on 'What are God’s purposes for Isaac's and Ishmael’s descendants in these last days?' For almost three-and-a-half centuries, Muslims have been a minority at the Cape, but what Patrick Johnstone wrote about another part of the African continent, is still very valid at the Cape: ‘The hardness of the field, the cultural inflexibility of earlier presentations of the gospel, and an over-emphasis on institutions and schools have combined to limit the impact of earlier missionary efforts; many missionaries have been discouraged.’ A note of caution is necessary. Potential converts from Islam must be shown that there is a difference between nominal Christianity and becoming a follower of Jesus. It is especially those who turned to Islam out of disappointment in Christianity during the apartheid era who may be the first to ‘turn’ back in a people movement. The same thing happened a few years ago, when former apartheid supporters easily changed their tune, without any evidence of remorse for the abhorrent ideology. Christian sensitivity is very much called for. Seed for Confession seems to germinate The seed for confession and prayer in respect of Islam appeared to have started germinating by November 2003 in Paarl at the National Leadership Consultation of CCM which I initially would not have attended because of the pending surgery. I was not so keen anymore to be involved with the organisation which was supposed to be a networking body. It appeared to me completely unsatisfactory because coming together only twice a year and have hardly any contact in between was to me too meagre. Whatever I had tried in terms of getting the co-workers together for prayer, it reaped very little response. Because I had not been admitted to hospital, I thought that I should attend the consultation at Paarl. There I was really encouraged!! It seemed as if the seed of prayer and confession had at last started to germinate. When Dr Cobus Cilliers, a missionary linked to AMS (???) who had come to minister in Strand and a missionary from Mozambique suggested the issue of confession, it was duly accepted by the consultation! After this conference Western Cape delegates could now work on a joint statement. Much Time to pray Many people prayed for me, including public anointing at our church. This encouraged me to be more open to divine healing, especially when two PSA tests pointed to a decrease of the cancer! When a further PSA test on 23 November showed a new increase, I sensed that I should not play around. Although I dearly wanted to participate in the continental prayer convocation that took place in Cape Town from 1-5 December, I immediately booked myself in for the operation, undergoing surgery on 3 December. God could speak to me clearer because I had so much time to pray in hospital. I felt that I should stop attempting to find someone else to co-ordinate an effort to start a 24/7 prayer watch in the Cape Town City Bowl. I had been trying for years to work towards a more visible expression of the Unity of the Body of Christ, with very little success. The end of the story was that I knew that I should get going myself. I worked not only on the above manuscript, but also updated material that I had written on the occasion of my wife’s 40th birthday under the title ‘On Eagles wings’. I proceeded to try and finalize SOME THINGS WROUGHT BY PRAYER. We prayed for someone to edit the scripts and get it ready for a possible publication. A penny drops During the time in hospital and the period of recuperation I was challenged anew to tackle the issue of the 24-hour prayer watch for the City Bowl. On Sunday 28 December we heard that two friends, Beverley Stratis and Heidi Pasques, wanted to speak to us. They shared the same evening that the Lord somehow impressed on them very starkly that the Bo-Kaap and the disunity of the churches in the City Bowl were two strongholds which prevented a spiritual breakthrough. Rosemarie and I had been praying for divine confirmation by the end of the year whether we should remain in the Mother City or relocate. Our youngest daughter was scheduled to matriculate at the end of 2004. This seemed to us an appropriate time to move on after 13 years in the city where I was born and bred. We were surprised on the one hand that the penny dropped with two people who could have heard our challenges in the church over many years. I could almost laugh at the suggestion of the two intercessors, because the two of them must have heard more than once how I appealed for believers to come and join us for prayer towards the start of a vibrant Church in Bo-Kaap, the residential area that became such a Muslim stronghold because of apartheid after Christians and churches had moved from the area in the wake of Group Areas legislation. In stead of laughing, Rosemarie and I were over-awed. We sensed that this was the Lord at work. We were encouraged that the Lord now used them to confirm that we should not relocate as yet and that we should tackle the two issues that had been concerns for us so long with even more urgency, viz. church unity including the 24h prayer watch in the City Bowl and a ministry to foreigners. As the co-ordinator of the City Bowl Minister’s Fraternal, it was fairly easy for me to start organising, emailing many pastors and inviting believers at different churches. The Lord had already given us a fairly ‘neutral’ venue for the start of the effort, the desolate Moravian Church in District Six, which had been earmarked for monthly meetings of Muslim background believers. The result of the invitations to the beginnings of a prayer watch was not encouraging, to say the least. Nevertheless, with a few believers we decided to pray every first Saturday of the month in the Moravian Hill church. I felt very much challenged to attempt a 24-hour prayer watch in the City Bowl the first week of February as Jericho Walls suggested. The first feelers were not positive enough to nudge me into action. However, a phone call by Trevor Peters, a car guard at the Groote Kerk, a former gangster and drug peddler, did just that. I was not aware that he had been in touch for months with Reverend Angeline Swart, the present leader of the Moravian Church. In very short time, I managed to put a programme together and approached various speakers with whom I had been in contact over the years. That week became also became the first intense contact with Gary Coetzee, who started a new church, the Rock Fellowship near to Bo-Kaap. We were blessed to hear a few days before the event that Superintendent Fanie Scanlan of the Cape Town Central police station had a room for us for 24-hour prayer. The institution in Buitenkant Street was notorious in the apartheid days as Caledon Square and was thus a neutral venue.12 After the week of prayer at the Moravian Hill Church, a few of us went to go and pray there every Wednesday morning. At the end of 2006 we were still doing this. Transformation Africa! The event of 2 May 2004 when African Christians were praying was apt to impact the continent in a significant way. The theme running throughout the afternoon was that the time had come for the Dark Continent to become the light of the nations. In an inspiring message, the international Argentine speaker Ed Silvoso led the millions of believers in stadiums across the continent through prayers of repentance, dedication and commitment. The Lord gave a vision to someone, which he shared with the Newlands crowd. The time for the fulfillment of Isaiah 66:12 has come: Contextualizing the word that refers in the Bible to Jerusalem, he applied it to Africa: ‘For thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream.” Two items that recurred again and again in the prayers were poverty relief and HIV/AIDS It appears that the church wanted to start delving into the biblical challenge from Isaiah 58:9-10 seriously: ‘...if you give food to the hungry ... the darkness around you will turn to the brightness of noon (Ahead of the prayer day “The Warehouse” of St. John's (Anglican) parish in Wynberg organized a job summit on May 1 to create 1000 sustainable jobs. Noting that about 17% of South Africans still earn 75% of the wealth, they hoped to develop strategies for job creation that can be used by churches in other areas. They challenged Christians to pray for God's guidance and provision, and for a ‘generation of new strategies to address poverty and unemployment'. Furthermore, they hoped that role players would be able to work together, proclaiming that the church is the salt and light of South Africa. A cure for HIV/AIDS? Research done over the last three years by the University of Stellenbosch now puts South Africa on the forefront of finding a cure for HIV/AIDS A certain plant extract was found that effectively shields cells against the infiltration of the AIDS virus, thus rendering the virus powerless in its destruction of the human body. Its effect is therefore different from anti-retroviral medicine that tries to kill the virus. The research indicated that the possible new cure for AIDS has the ability to kill, in one minute, about 50 million cells infected by a virus. It seems that it slows down and might even stop the division and multiplication of the AIDS virus (Rapport, 25 July, 2004). Should this research prove to be the breakthrough all have been waiting for, it will not be as expensive as current products used. Believers throughout the country were encouraged to pray earnestly for the completion of research into this possible cure. Launch of the 7-days initiative The Lord encouraged us when I was asked a few months later to approach the Moravian church leaders for the use of the complex where I had received my theological training from 1971 to 1973 to host the launching of the 7-days initiative. At this occasion, on 9 May 2004, I approached Bennie Mostert to write a forward for my researches on the results of answers to prayer at the Cape through the centuries, which I had written as two booklets ‘Some Things wrought by Prayer’ and ‘More things wrought by Prayer.’ Earlier I had already submitted a draft of ‘Some Things wrought by Prayer’ to Elisabeth Jordaan, one of his co-workers. Bennie suggested that I should rather make one volume out of it.13 That event was the start of the initiative that went around the country till 15 May 2005, the first Global Day of Prayer. The 7 DAYS Initiative As a follow-up strategy of Transformation Africa, the 7-Days initiative was launched. On relatively short notice, communities in SA were challenged to each take 7 days to pray 24 hours a day. The initiative started with the Western Cape taking the first seven weeks. Global Prayer Watch, the Western Cape arm of Jericho Walls, filled the first 7 days with day and night Harp & Bowl intercessory worship and a ‘boiler room’ of prayer at the Moravian Church complex in District 6, Cape Town, starting at 9 o'clock in the evening on May 9. Daniel Brink, the regional organizer, invited believers of the Cape Peninsula to ‘proclaim your trust that, when we pray, God will respond. Declare your trust that if we put an end to oppression and give food to the hungry, the darkness will turn to brightness. Pray that houses of prayer will rise up all over Africa as places where God's goodness and mercy is celebrated in worship and prayer, even before the answer comes.’ The second week was taken over by the West Coast town of Melkbosstrand, and thereafter by five more Western Cape towns. Interestingly, the Moravians were now very much in the thick of things when the hub of the events on the adjacent West Coast took place at the Mission station Mamre and the Cops for Christ group of the nearby Atlantis. Other places in South Africa could not wait to dive into the 7-Days initiative. At midnight on the 9th of May 2004 various prayer watches started. Police Stations as Prayer venues It was exciting to see how in different parts of the country, the vision of ‘adopt a cop’ - prayer for the police force - took off. It was surely in answer to prayer that Cops for Christ was started. The group saw themselves as stimulators and co-ordinators for prayer. Already at the City-wide prayer events of the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Captain René Matthee was a regular speaker, challenging believers to pray especially for the police. Danie Nortje and Michael Share challenged churches in the city area and further afield to pray concretely. They developed a system whereby Christians with cell phones are sent a simultaneous prayer request as a SMS. Countrywide the branch of Atlantis on the West Coast was prominent, for example in the organization and implementing of the 24 hour week of prayer from 16 to 23 May 2004 in their area. Crime reported at the local police station dropped significantly in the months hereafter. A special variation occurred in the violent suburb of Elsies River. Monica Williams, a compassionate Christian of the area, took it upon herself to see her suburb transformed through prayer. Reacting to a dream, she approached the local police to this effect, caring especially for juvenile delinquents and rape victims. Within months corruption within the local police force was exposed. In nearby Ravensmead, Lea Barends endeavoured to combat crime and domestic violence through prayer. In September 2003 she approached Freddie van Wyk of the local police station, with the request whether she could come and pray for the staff. He was excited and soon the start of a 24-hour prayer watch occurred there with five women attending every Thursday. In due course this expanded to ten women by May 2004. Within months crime in Ravensmead dropped dramatically; many drug lords were apprehended. Mqokeleli Mntanga helped to facilitate unified prayer among churches in the township of Mbekweni, Paarl. The churches there started a house of prayer at the local police station. From time to time drug syndicates were discovered, very often after concerted prayer. Thus a factory where drugs were produced was unearthed in Woodstock at the end of the previous millennium. By the end of 2004, the locally produced drug tik had become a scourge of Cape townships. A Chinese syndicate brought the new drug ‘tik’ to the Cape market. It was significant that they operated from the posh suburb of Plattekloof. Amanda Buys and her team had just been praying intensely around the link between China and crime in the Cape (During a visit to Hong Kong in 2004 she discovered that (possibly poached) South African abalone was sold there in many shops). The police discovered the house factory where ‘tik’ was produced towards the end of 2004, four houses from the Buys home in John Vorster Street, Plattekloof. Amanda is also a researcher who ministers in prisons. There she showed to prisoners – how the basis of their assumptions around the history of the ‘26’, ‘27’ and ‘28’ gang syndicates, was actually founded on a lie. Exposing the deception of the father of lies (John 8:44) belongs to the kernel of Spiritual Warfare. Her teaching to the prisoners in Malmesbury was going to impact many of them deeply. “7 Days” Prayer initiative for the SA Police Service The Christian Police Association (CPA) prayed from the 13th to the 19th of September 2004 for the South African Police Service and its members as well as for the crime situation in South Africa. It followed their annual National CPA conference. One of the speakers was Amanda Buys from Kanaan ministries. René Mathee, a police captain from Paarl, wrote in her report: ‘Amanda is one of the forerunners on intersession and spiritual warfare in our nation. She was a vessel that God used to inspire us enormously!!! We got a Word from the Lord for the Police in South Africa and it is as follows: The Lord says that the Police are a gift to the nation like the Trojan Horse. But ….the enemy is hidden inside the horse!!! Another concern for the South Africa is that ever since South Africa made a covenant with Haiti, the voodoo capital of the world, witchcraft flooded our nation. We experience a great onslaught of witchcraft in the SAPS currently. We, as the children of God must learn how to stand against the enemy and all its powers… We as Christians must rise up and take our places as watchmen on the walls!!! We cannot turn our faces away!! We must plead God for mercy... We started to pray very early Monday morning. People from over the whole of South Africa were involved in praying for this very important organization…The community of South Africa also joined us in this prayer initiative. In the Western Cape we divided the Province into the four areas. Every area had a particular day to pray…In the Boland area we prayed for murder and rape, as this is the problem crime in the area. We also prayed for Operation Neptune, a police base in Hermanus that investigates abalone smuggling in the Hermanus – Gansbaai area. We prayed that God would remove this seat of Satan, as “Neptune” is a sea god. We also prayed for the abalone smuggling that takes place in this area. We prayed that God would expose the Police members that are involved in these syndicates. We are glad to report that 7 members of the Police from Gansbaai, Hermanus and area were arrested on Sunday and it hit front-page news in the local newspapers!!! The Provincial Commissioner said that corruption in the Police will not be tolerated and it will be rooted out!!! We as Christians stand with the Commissioner and we pray that this statement will come to pass in the SAPS … We trust that the Lord will expose and remove more corrupt police members and we will not stop praying that God will purify the criminal justice system!!’ On Thursday, September the 30th there was a TV documentary programme on Special Assignment, where a number of police members were exposed for their involvement in corruption and bribery regarding prostitution. A few of the presenters of this programme acted as spies and filmed police members where they bribed people to pay fines, otherwise they would be arrested as they assumed that prostitution is illegal. A former Freemason Lodge to become a Prayer Room? When we were still wondering whether it was feasible to go ahead with plans to have a 24/7 week of prayer in the City Bowl at the beginning of February 2005, Trevor Peters phoned me. This happened just as my own faith had started to wilt on the matter. It turned out that he had been corresponding for some time with leaders of the Moravian Church about the use of the complex in District Six. At the monthly prayer for the City on Saturday 8 January (2005), it was decided to press ahead with another week of prayer from 30 January to 6 February as a next step towards the goal of a 24-hour Prayer Watch in the City Bowl. Trevor Peters was going to find out whether the venue was available for that event and Bev Stratis was going to get in touch with Superintendent Scanlan to see if a room in the Buitenkant Street Police Station was available as a plan B. From June 2005 this was scheduled to become a regular venue for the monthly prayer meeting. In due course we prayed in his office every Wednesday morning. One thing led to the other within a week, until it was finalized that the week of prayer was going to be held at Moravian Hill, to be followed thereafter with a prayer watch at the Buitekant Street police station. Superintendent Scanlan put to our disposal a room called Die Losie, a former Freemason lodge in the police station. This was a significant step in the spiritual realm. On Sunday 23 January, 2005 the station was anointed and prayed over, signalling the ushering in of the victory of the Lord in the Mother City. (Until about 2003 the command structures of the famous/notorious Caledon Square police station had been firmly in the hand of freemasons.) In fact, at the beginning of 2005 there was hardly any police station around where there was not a committed Christian in command.) As we were praying in the third story board room, I suddenly noticed that I had the Tafelberg Dutch Reformed Church opposite me. I was reminded that this was the church from which Ds Koot Vorster, a Dutch Reformed Church minister, the brother of a Prime Minister and a top Broederbonder, operated. I heard somewhere that he was the one responsible for the request to the government in 1948/9 to put the prohibition of racially mixed marriages on the statute books. At some stage the Lord had to deliver me from resentment when I heard that the denomination dug in their heels when the government under Prime Minister P.W. Botha was ready to repeal the law in the late 1970s. (This effectively blocked my possible return to South Africa.) Up there in the police station it was my privilege to express forgiveness in a prayer once again. A divine hand possibly operated when Director Booysen came to the same police station with an excellent track record. The new director, who was soon also the acting station commander, came from a background as detective when he was involved in quite a few high profile cases like the murder of Mrs Maryke de Klerk, the ex-wife of a former State President, F.W. de Klerk. Here was a police agent who made no decisions without first praying about it. In his own words he would first ‘discuss the matter with the Lord’. No wonder that the crime in the Mother City dropped to its lowest figure for years by the end of February, 2005. The arch enemy was not sitting still however. In the same week City newspapers blasted out how three women were mugged in Deer Park, Vredehoek, i.e. a mere kilometre away from the Buitenkant Street police station, so to speak just up the road and not far from our home. It was nevertheless significant that not a single one of the victims was hurt and that three suspects of a gang of five were arrested a few days later. No small breakthrough Our joy at the perceived victory to get the Freemason stronghold Die Losie turned out to be premature. A few days later Superintendent Scanlan informed us that Die Losie was not available for our prayer purposes, but that we could have another room. We thus experienced it nevertheless as a victory to invite Eben Swart, an expert on Freemasonry, to lead us in prayer on 11 May 2005 at 6 a.m. in Die Losie. This event highlighted to us the need to inform the church leaders and the church at large of the demonic roots in many a Church building via Freemasonry. It remains a challenge to continue attempting to take back what Satan has stolen. We experienced it as no small breakthrough when Michael Share, the leader of Cops for Christ, informed us that he would be able to address the Christmas celebration of 2005 at the Central Police Station. At that occasion Director Booysen, in thanking us, made no bones about the fact that he attributed the relative success of the station to the regular prayers on Wednesday mornings. Beverley Stratis had an inspired idea when she bought a cake on her birthday, had it cut in pieces. Mpo ??, who regularly prayed with us, distributed the pieces of cake on the logistics floor where we were praying in the office of Superintendent Scanlan. Heidi Pasques started a new job in Bellville, whereafter she could not attend regularly anymore. But the Lord brought in new warriors like Vlok Esterhuyse and his wife Lynn. Theresa Reid, a committed believer, brought in a new touch when she would hug and greet all and sundry. It might not have been appreciated by everybody, but it could have contributed to general acceptancefor us as a group. When we wanted to use Die Losie again for a week of prayer prior to Pentecost in 2006 there was no opposition whatsoever. In fact, thereafter it became the new venue of our weekly events on Wednesday mornings. When the police station and its new commanding Officer, Superintendent Gerda van Niekerk, received quite a few accolades at the end of 2006, we could do nothing else but give God the glory for his faithfulness and answering our prayers. Christians to get ready There is the concrete hope that churches and mission agencies might start joining hands. Ideally, this should include Jewish and Muslim background followers in a leading capacity. In fact, the vision to see missionaries from different culture groups leaving the Mother City to different parts of the Islamic world is no pipe dream anymore. This might even include refugees returning to their home countries as evangelists to their own people and some who today are still classified as Muslims. The Middle East is ripening to be won back for the biblical Jesus. He has been appearing to thousands of Muslims all over the world in visions and dreams. The movie The Passion of the Christ was supernaturally used by God to prepare hearts to believe in Jesus as their Saviour. The film got an exceptional reception in the Middle East. Thus 130,000 went to see the movie in Abu Dabi in the space of only 10 days. With the goodwill that our country has won, amongst other things through the worldwide acclaim that our former President Mandela had been receiving, almost the whole world is now ready to accept all sorts of emissaries from South Africa. While Mandela emphasized that he is no saint, even his errors of judgment may turn into a blessing in due course. His criticism of George Bush in his handling of the Iraq debacle will probably be assessed by history as well-judged, the charge of selectiveness is surely in place with regard to his loyal uncritical support to the hilt of the dictators Castro’s Cuba and Khaddafi (History will likewise judge the church negatively for staying silent on the oil revenue used by Libya to keep Robert Mugabe in the saddle and all efforts to Islamise the continent). Mandela and the South African government’s possible errors of judgement could nevertheless have earned credibility for the country to send missionaries into countries, which today are still Islamic strongholDs Worldwide, ex-Muslims mobilized themselves via email and the internet in September 2004 in an effort to expose the militant nature of Islam. After the possible exposure of the deception of Islam, former Muslims from the Cape would already be partly prepared to share the Gospel in the Middle East. In recent years some Cape Muslims have also learnt to speak Arabic, the lingua franca of the Middle East. South Africa is a leader in the movement of non-aligned countries. Just like it happened in the case of the Communist world, Christians should be ready when Muslim countries open up to the good news of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the World. (Of course, there is still hard work to do. Followers of Jesus should first pray the Middle East completely open for Christian missionaries as they once did with regard to the former Communist world.) Iran lifted the ‘death penalty’ over Salman Rushdie in September 1998. Could this be interpreted as a sign that Islam has started to get ready to face up to uncomfortable facts, for instance that the (post-) Qur’anic Gabriel is not identical to the biblical archangel with that name or that Muhammad himself doubted for more than two years whether the figure that appeared to him was indeed angelic? Is Islam ready to face that Allah - which merely means the god - is the name that was also given to Hubal, the chief deity of the Ka’ba in Mecca, whose tangible symbol was the black stone? (Muhammad left the stone intact when he cleared the shrine of 360 other idols in 630 C.E.) Sooner or later Islam will have to face the fact that the circumambulation of the Ka’ba is basically idolatrous, a pagan practice that Muhammad continued in disobedience, in spite of being warned against its idolatrous nature. Christians must understand that it is far from easy for Muslim academics and leaders to acknowledge these facts, almost just as difficult for Christian leaders to acknowledge collective guilt, for instance for the side-lining of Jews by Constantine or for the deception into which Muhammad was brought by Waraqah, a Christian priest. All these facts can be found in books on Christian and Islamic History. Repentance and Renewal In October 2004 the agricultural sector in the Western Cape was concerned about the prevailing drought. In response to a request by agricultural leaders, the Dutch Reformed Church in the Western Cape called for a Day of Atonement in all their congregations on Sunday, 24th October 2004. It was interesting that the request was expressed for such a day, rather than prayer for rain. The Consultation of Christian Churches invited all churches to join in a time of repentance and renewal of faith and commitment. Prayer was offered because of declining Christian values, moral decay, disintegrating families, crime, corruption and violence. Yet, the call for prayer was not widely heard, let alone heeded. A similar call went out from Transformation Africa for a Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain for Sunday 20 March 2005 (See Appendix F). Gerda Leithgöb of Herald Ministries supported the call by distributing it around the country inviting believers to ‘Please JOIN our Brothers and Sisters in Prayer for RAIN in the Western Cape.’ Significantly Gerda Leithgöb added: ‘Please add Isaiah 45:8 to your prayers and pray for spiritual rain to fall!’ This verse calls to the heavens: ‘…rain down righteousness; let the earth open wide, and let salvationthem spring up, and let righteousness grow up with it; I the LORD, have created it.’ It is not known in how far this call was followed up. In the two months hereafter God responded with plenty of rain in the bulk of the Western Cape, but the West Coast was still very much in need of rain by mid-May. Martin Heuvel, a minister from Ravensmead, approached Charles Robertson after he had unsuccessfully tried to get various church leaders moving with regard to confession, and especially towards restitution for the evils of apartheid. This finally led to the founding of a Foundation for Church-led Restitution in 2002. Charles Robertson approached the author in October 2004 to participate in this initiative. In one of my manuscripts, which I had sent to him by email, he had picked up the suggestion that the church should make restitution for the wrongs against Muslims and Jews. I had also written for example: ‘Costly restitution would be a genuine sign of remorse and repentance. One way to prove how serious we are in remorse is to get involved in a corporate, unified way to tackle drug abuse, the scourge that has been plaguing Cape Islam, the Mother City and our country at large for so long already. Another gesture would be to set up a programme to eradicate traditions and practices that contradict the biblical message and even more importantly, it should then be implemented. Mere praying and fasting - without deeds and fruits of repentance - may only achieve getting divine powers lined up against us. As God once spoke through the prophet Isaiah (e.g. chapter 58), He abhors empty gestures and/or activism that do not include heartfelt compassion for the poor and needy. Our racist past with the resulting rift between the poor and the rich would be one of the sad heritages to be addressed. Genuine sharing of resources and imaginative programmes to ameliorate poverty - initiated from the ranks of the churches - would show that we are sincere in our desire to see others becoming followers of Jesus. That might usher in the revival many have been praying for.’ Prayer against Satanist infiltration Whereas the apartheid regime government had an obsession with race laws, the secular government since 1994 legislated against it. The new regime however has taken sexual immorality on board; passing laws that give the impression that homosexuality, abortion and prostitution are the most normal things in the world. Atheist and even Satanist infiltration in the government had to be suspected. The efforts between 1995 and 1998 to get religious broadcasting banished – albeit that the impression was given that all small radio stations were under scrutiny – tend to fuel that suspicion. But also within denominations interfaith was gaining ground so that the unique features of Jesus were gradually eroded. Parallel to this, acceptance of homosexuality was gaining ground at a rapid pace, notably in the Anglican and Dutch Reformed Church. A move by concerned pastors of the Cape Town City Bowl led to a declaration to be read in churches at Pentecost 2004 that included the sentence ‘We implore Christians to observe marriage as the ultimate and unique expression of the relationship between one man and one wife.’ It was generally felt that a status confessionis had been reached. The Church had to speak out against the sinful practice of homosexuality as she failed to do with regard to apartheid. So to speak at the last minute, the public reading of the declaration in the churches from pulpits was postponed at the request of the Groote Kerk ministers, not to jeopardize the discussion at their General Synod, which was to be held in October 2004. The decision at that synod in Hartenbos was however nowhere unequivocal, appealing to church members to be loving and not judgmental towards homosexuals. However, the lack of comment on the actual practice was leaving a loophole which was to cause trouble a few months later. Matters came to a head when the Constitutional Court ruled shortly thereafter in November 2004 that gay marriages were not a violation of the constitution. Pastors could thus theoretically be charged if they refused to marry lesbians or homosexuals. The spokesman of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) added to the confusion in the television discussion. This troubled Rowina Stanley, the prayer coordinator of the Woodstock Assemblies of God sufficiently to bring this up for prayer at the monthly Prayer for the City event on 4 December, 2004 outside the District Six Moravian Church. We put prayer against Satanist and homosexual infiltration into the Church on the agenda for 2005. Rowina unfortunately pulled out of our regular monthly meetings because of other commitments, but in their church a few prayerful women they herafter started with early morning prayer every Saturday morning. We resumed our sunrise monthly prayer event on Signal Hill. Another DRC Split? In the City Bowl itself the matter was highlighted again in April 2005 when Douw Wessels, a Psychologist, committed suicide. Before he did this, he accused Rev. Laurie Gaum, his homosexual partner and the minister of the controversy-ridden St Stephen’s DRC congregation, in a newspaper report of behaviour not behoving a pastor. The City Bowl ministers Fraternal was now clearly challenged to take a stand on the issue. It was decided that the moment had arrived to read the declaration from the pulpits on Pentecost Sunday. Two of the ministers who belonged to the commission of the Ring (Circuit), Dr Francois Wessels and Ds Thys du Toit, felt that they would prejudge the matter by reading the declaration from their pulpit. Another congregation feared an internal backlash. It seemed that only the Cape Town Baptist Church dared to read the declaration. Die Burger, the influential Afrikaans daily, referred to a looming split when the result of the commission was publicized. It was advised that Ds Gaum should be released from his duties at St Stephen’s but he was not defrocked, leaving it to churches to call him. The gay lobby in the church appeared to fan the fire by giving the impression that the Cape Ring was deviating from the 2004 synod decision. This enforced the church spokesmen to make it clear that the 1986 Church position still stands, namely that the Bible outlaws the practice of homosexuality. Allan Boesak displays Remorse The dust had not properly settled on that issue when President Mbeki pardoned Dr. Allan Boesak. His conviction on fraud made it impossible for him to re-enter politics. In a surprise move, Boesak said that he would not return to active politics. His church, the Uniting Reformed Church, followed the presidential pardon up with an offer to re-ordain him. This happened on Sunday 30 January, 2005 in the Boland town of Piquetberg. In an emotionally charged service, Boesak used Mark 2 to thank God in his sermon for the second chance the Almighty had given him. Frankly admitting that he erred, many were touched. Very significantly, the Kerkbode (11 February 2005) cited his literal words: “And then, in my sinful stubbornness I chose a different path. Without consulting God, without prayer…’ The first step towards a new era in which he could play a leading role in bringing the Cape churches in repentance and restitution, seems to have been taken. Boesak added to the doubts about the depth of his repentance when he soon thereafter initiated the Reformed Confessional Movement on the basis of Belhar. A nostalgic touch was added when he was joined by Dr André Bartlett of the Aasvoëlkop congregation of Northcliff in Johannesburg. (It is the same congregation where Dr Beyers Naude once took off his clerical robe in protest against apartheid.) Not only to many Afrikaners the move of Boesak smacked just too much of the old activist. For others outside of the Dutch Reformed Church this was not relevant any more. Should not the Body of Christ rather move forward to a combined confession and repentance on the basis of the Bible? How wonderful it would be if the man who ushered in the confession of Belhar, could become the catalyst of another confession; not only because of his personal role in the equating of Allah with the God of the Bible, but also of the guilt of our Christian forebears, who were misleading Muhammad and therefore keeping millions in religious bondage. Transformation Action Rev Trevor Pearce and Rev John Thomas were in more than one sense the face of Cape Transformation down the years, by getting involved with practical actions. As the husband of the directress of CCFM radio station, Rev Thomas uitilised the medium to the full to pass on the good news of churches getting involved with the poor and needy of the Fish Hoek Valley, like schooling and HIV/AIDS Reverend Pearce was very much a pivot of the church and the business world, partnering to change the former squatter camp at Westlake. Also in the Helderberg and in Manenberg concerted prayer was followed by action, which changed the respective communities significantly for the better. The annual Transformation stadium events were followed by a week of bounty where the more affluent churches were challenged and encouraged to share with those on the other side of the economic divide. God used Pastor Dean Ramjoomia, a Muslim background believer, who got linked to a City Shelter, to challenge the City Bowl Ministers fraternal on 17 March 2005 to do something about social issues like the many roaming homeless people and street children in a coordinated way. This led to a prayer walk scheduled for 7 May 2005 at the various venues of vice in the City Bowl. Concurrently with an evangelistic campaign with the former Springbok cricketer Peter Pollock at the Tafelberg Dutch Reformed Church, plans are currently being made for a common effort of City Churches to reach out in love to the homeless, utilizing research done by a team from Stellenbosch University under Dr Johannes Erasmus on behalf of Transformation Africa. The soil had been prepared by the homeless themselves, who were attempting to play off some churches against others. Light appeared at the end of the tunnel that there might come a common strategy of aid to the hapless co-citizens. Pastor Martin Heuvel of the Fountain Christian Centre in Ravensmead also saw the need to make restitution practical. He initiated shops run by Christian volunteers, where all sorts of second-hand clothing and other utencils could be purchased cheaply. This idea was developed in different suburbs, taking on board various ideas of skills training that were already running for some time to help the homeless and the unskilled unemployed, for instance the one called The Carpenter’s Shop in the Mother City. The most advanced initiative in this regard is possibly the Living Hope Community Centre H.O.P.E. in Muizenberg that used the acronym for Helping Other People Earn. Apart from providing healthy meals and ablution facilities, spiritual direction is given next to skills training. Furthermore HIV/AIDS workshops are run next to clinic services, along with access to social services. Interesting was also how traditional churches were impacted during the transformation of the communities. Already for many years the annual student mission events, e.g. at Stellenbosch, were the vanguard for other music like choruses and hill songs in some Afrikaans churches. The Dutch Reformed church of Wellington North went perhaps furthest when the staged a Bambelela festival in the beginning of 2005. At the prayer meeting which started at 6h on the Friday morning, the start of a 50 hour prayer chain, a number of farm workers participated. Rev Human was quoted as saying that the Bambelela festival was only the beginning of a process for people to get their lives in order and to start caring for others (Die Kerkbode, 11 March 2005). For 2005 the churches around the globe were challenged to get involved in '90 Days of Blessing' or Community Outreach from 16 May to 13 August. This happened hereafter every year after the Global Day of Prayer, however with rather luke-warm response at the Cape with few exceptions. Xenophobia towards Somalians When we were in Holland in the summer of 2006 to discuss with our team leaders our imminent resignation from WEC after serious internal difficulties had arisen in our team, we could read in a newspaper over there about 50 Somalians being killed in the township Masipumelele, near Fish Hoek in the wake of xenophobia towards them by the Xhosa-speaking original inhabitants, fanned by the traders. 24/7 at the University of Cape Town ‘Simply Worship’, an event develped once a quarter, where predominantly young people from different churches, backgrounds and cultures come together to ‘simply’ worship. In mid-2006 a Simply Worship service which was held in the Jamison Hall of the University of Cape Town (UCT) our son Sammy was challenged to go forward and call people to prayer at UCT. About ten people came to him afterwards wanting to join him in prayer. They started meeting together to spend time in worship and intercession on a weekly basis, but also spending lots of personal time with God in the prayer room at UCT. They also organised an event, where they decorated the prayer room and encouraged people to worship God using their creative giftings. They prayed continuously for 77 hours, leading up to the next Simply Worship evening. Throwing the net to the other side? I attended a few meetings in March 2007 with some scepticism. I had been speaking to and phoning Richard Verreyne, pastor of the Soter Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk in Parow, a few times in the last quarter of 2006. He was a mission-minded pastor of a denomination that was generally not known to be evangelical. When he invited me to a meeting of the Consultation of Christian Churches (CCC) in February 2007, to prepare a big event where Floyd McClung was to be one of the speakers, I was in two minds. Through their networking with the Western Cape affiliate of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) the impression had been quite wide-spread that the CCC was also propagating inter-faith notions and supporting the law allowing same sex marriages that took effect on 1 December 2007. I was not prepared to be a party to this set-up. On both scores we were re-assured that – at least what the Western Cape part of the CCC was concerned - its leadership structure and membership was clearly evangelical. We agreed to participate in the proposed CCC event on 20/21 March, 2007. We wanted to make sure that the CCC folk would hear about present efforts to reach the continent with the Gospel. To achieve this purpose, I roped in Bruce van Eeden from Ten Forty Outreach and Raymond Lombard from Wheels for God’s Word. At the meeting I felt myself more or less pulled into the steering committee of the missions’ department of the Western Cape CCC after declining initially. But I also wanted to be available if God wanted to use me there. (At the end of January 2007 it had been clearly confirmed that our days in WEC (South Africa) were over and we duly resigned, to take effect as from 1 May 2007. Our hearts were still aching however, as we still experienced affinity to the ethos of the mission agency.) Involvement at the Foreshore Home Affairs The Friday prayer of WEC International/Friends from Abroad on 30 March 2007 led to a once-off relocation of the prayer venue, scheduling the one of 13 April to the Foreshore Home Affairs premises. A crisis was developing there around the issue of bribes and corruption. Some immediate needs were identified. The question arose whether the Body of Christ in the City Bowl could get challenged to address some of the problems and needs. At the Friends from Abroad meeting of 17 April in Parow, the author was encouraged to arrange an ad hoc meeting with a few City Bowl pastors who are involved with foreigners in some way. In a sequel to this meeting, held on 4 May at the Straatwerk facility at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Green Point, it was decided to invite more churches and pastors to get on board as part of 90 Days of compassionate action, after the 2007 Global Day of Prayer. (Since 2005 the churches around the globe were challenged to get involved in '90 Days of Blessing' or Community Outreach from 16 May to 13 August. This happened hereafter every year after the Global Day of Prayer, however with rather lukewarm response at the Cape with few exceptions.) Our involvement at the Department of Home Affairs played some role in reducing the corruption to a trickle by the beginning of 2008. By the middle of the year it was however as bad as ever again. Disasters shake young Christians We were not aware that our roads would cross that of a young UCT student, Sheralyn Thomas, the daughter of John and Avril Thomas, the pastoral couple of the nearby King of Kings Baptist Church. The church was very much involved with the compassionate care to the Somalians. Sheralyn played a major role in the negotiations between the South African Blacks and the Somalians, but we were not aware of this. From her parents she heard about our minisry to refugees, in which she took keen interest. Towards the end of our stay in Germany in July 2007, where we had gone for the wedding for our eldest son Danny, we received an email from Samuel, our son in Cape Town. The subject of the email was 'pray'. He shared that Rüdiger (Rudi) Hauser, a good German friend who had gone to Austria to study, had been in a mountain cabin with some friends the day before when a gas explosion collapsed the house. We had read about the incident in Germany, unaware of a personal link to Sammy. Subsequently we heard that Rudi and another friend died on impact. His younger brother Norbert was still fighting for his life after two weeks. The event shook Sammy, who was quite close to Rudi, with whom he led the Scripture Union group at Secondary School. Unaware that he had actually written a sort of diary of these days I prayed with him on Tuesday 21 August, the very next day after our arrival in Cape Town just before he left for University. I shared with him my hope that young people would be used to assist in bringing the Christians of the Cape together. He indicated that special things had been happening the last few days, but that it would take an hour to share it. However, he had recorded much of it. At a ‘Simply Worship’ event shortly hereafter God spoke to Sammy and another student friend of his, Brendan ?? - independently of each other. They were moved respectively to give savings and a bequest for the start towards a children's home. A group of UCT students now came to our home quite regularly on Fridays as they prayed and organised for this home. One of them was Sheralyn Thomas. New involvement with Somalians The next chapter with Somalians came via our son Sammy who became involved in the start of a prayer room at UCT after he had a very emotionally meaningful spiritual encounter with the Lord. He had become intensely involved with the start of a children's home and the UCT 24/7 group. As a result, various UCT students including Sheralyn Thomas, the daughter of John and Avril Thomas, the pastoral couple of King of Kings Baptist Church, started visiting us quite regularly. We were not very keen to minister to Somalians as such when Rosemarie had a recurring dream one morning which seemed to indicate that we should resume outreach to Somalians. Our previous experience with some of them in Mitchells Plain in 2004/5 ended on a rather disappointing note. By October we had been linked to the All Nations International team for a few months already. They had been doing intensive outreach in Masipumelele near to Fish Hoek already for months. The very next day after the dream of Rosemarie a discussion with the MOB Team (MOB is our appreviation for Masipumelele, Ocean View and Beyond) seemed to confirm our intensified involvement in the Black township where a major clash between Somalians and indigenous Blacks had resulted in 50 people killed in 2006. When K., a student from abroad with whom I did Bible Study every week, phoned to cancel because of a test, I thought I had a free evening. But then the bell rang. It was Sheralyn Thomas. It turned out that she had been negotiating in the talks between Somalians and Xhosas the previous year. She furthermore told us about a believer from the East African country who had just been baptized in Bellville. I needed no encouragement to phone the pastor of the Baptist Church there. I knew he had a heart for foreigners. It turned out that Ahmed, who subsequently changed his name, had been baptized at that church on October 7. We had started with 'international Bible Study', intended as foundational teaching for new believers from the nations. A Second Somalian? Soon hereafter I received a phone call from a pastor in Sea Point with regard to a second Somalian, who has been coming to faith in Christ from Islam. This sounded to me too good to be true. I had serious doubts whether this was genuine. (Over the years we had a few cases of people who only wanted money, coming with impressive 'conversion' stories.) Initially we were thus rather sceptical about the story of the young man who had purportedly fled his country after his father probably killed his mother because she came up for him after he had become a Christian. In South Africa he was fleeing from other Somalians because he had heard that his father put big bucks on his head if anybody would remove the shame of the renegade who had left their religion, by eliminating him. On the other hand, our 'Christian' conscience could not be callous and indifferent to the plight of someone so clearly destitute. He was suicidal. After further checks and balances, we decided to let him sleep in my office. (Marthinus, a missionary colleague who was on leave of absence from our previous mission agency, was lliving with us for a few months, teaching English to foreigners from an internet facility.) We saw this co-incidentce as a special divine gift because Marthinus speaks - next to a few Western languages - also Xhosa and Arabic. The English of our new Somalian brother was still very poor. Thus it was special to have Marthinus available, who could communicate via Arabic. During the next few days we could not only convince ourselves that he was sincere, but we could also witness how his English improved and how he grew spiritually. A bright future in spite of the general gloom? The verse ‘If my people humble themselves and pray ... I will heal their land’ (2 Chronicle 7:14), is very much a Biblical promise. A bright future is therefore nevertheless a real possibility in spite of a pervasive gloom in some quarters. We are thus able to remain positive in spite of a persistent malaise. If we repent as a country of our godless laws and practices - also those of the last decade under our new government - we are apt to witness a new turning to Christ. The alternative is the maligned words of Mr John Vorster, a former Prime Minister and State President of the late 1960s and a big part of the 1970s: ‘...too ghastly to contemplate’, mayhem and anarchy. Many people in townships like Tafelsig have already been experiencing this option, where law enforcement broke down to all intents and purposes. The Cape Argus noted in mid May 2001 that 103 deaths had been reported in the Western Cape since the beginning of that year. New laws with a moral high ground like the one against public smoking have unfortunately become a laughing stock. And yet, the church has learnt that there is power in prayer. Prayer is the key to change. Because of prayer, we may still expect a bright future for the Mother City of South Africa. In different parts of the Cape Peninsula, followers of Jesus Christ have tried to keep the momentum of 'Newlands' going. The prospect of Cape Town as a blessing to the continent is real in spite of all the hick-ups. Will the Middle East be ready soon to accept ambassadors of the Gospel? There are signs that the Islamic ideologists have been trying to minimize the damage of extremists to prevent the complete demise of their religion. In South Africa Ahmed Deedat’s spiritual heirs announced at some stage that they would take all his books from the shelves that are offensive to Christians. It is not clear whether the announcement was followed up in practical terms, or whether it was only a propaganda ploy. Many people across the board appeared to have moved towards a new-age position, where Allah and the God of the Bible would become identical. On the other hand, the question is also valid whether the church universal is ready to repent of its role in the establishment and spread of Islam globally? Is Christianity ready to acknowledge that the ‘reforms’ of the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century estranged the religion from its Jewish roots; that by enforcing the main day of worship to Sunday, homage was being paid to the pagan sun god; that the example of the big heathen temples cancelled the New Testament paradigm of house fellowships; that the traditions and practices of many a church are a far cry from the examples and teachings of Jesus? Are we willing to start settling the collective debt that has been incurred? Wanted: Brave Religious leaders Brave religious leaders are called for at this stage, people who would be willing to take flack in their stride - even from the people they represent. We are reminded of the fine precedent set when Professor Johan Heyns led his church into a turn-about to apartheid at the national Dutch Reformed Church synod of 1986, a move that possibly cost him his life. His assassination in November 1994 has still not been cleared up. (However, much of the credibility that the denomination had won through the stand in October 1986 was lost in the first quarter of 1988. The Dutch Reformed Church attacked church leaders from other denominations, who marched to the Parliament buildings in Cape Town in opposition to the government. This amounted to the Dutch Reformed Church taking a position in support of the apartheid system.) South African churches and theologians could do something with possible worldwide ramifications at this time. A part of the debt of the church is surely to correct the confusion that our Nestorian, Coptic and Maronite Christian forefathers have caused. It was their bickering and the resulting emphasis put on two completely separate natures of Christ plus the giving to Mary the title of Mother of God that led many medieval Christians to stumble, e.g. to believe in Mary as part of the Holy Trinity.) Doctrinal tussles around these issues prevented Muhammad and the Arabs from understanding the Gospel properly in the first place. A valid question arises: would a combined church leadership - representing the broad spectrum of their faith - be prepared to confess these errors? To be fully credible, such a church submission should ideally include a commitment to scrap every church tradition and custom that contradicts the Bible. Would church leaders be prepared to initiate and implement that in practice and not only on paper? Bennie Mostert faxed a document to the Cape in 1996 regarding the reconciliation walk of Christians from Cologne in Germany. The document was discussed in the local forum of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims), without any concrete result towards an effort to demonstrate repentance and remorse for the actions of the misled Christian crusaders 1000 years ago. The authors of Jericho Walls, the periodical of NUPSA, took an important step in the required direction in the run-up to the national elections of June 2, 1999. Confession for unbiblical traditions was suggested. This was followed up in February 2000 at the Cape, for instance at the Kramat of Shaykh Yusuf through remorse and confession and at other places like Robben Island. When will this be picked up or will the good start fizzle into oblivion as has happened on previous occasions? To my knowledge, no single denomination has started to implement concrete steps towards a practical repentant turn around - for instance to consciously scrap traditions that are unbiblical. It took a few more years for the next significant step to take place when leaders of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) started working on a declaration addressing some of the issues mentioned. (A draft prepared by a few missionaries was brought to the national leaders’ consultation in November 2004, but not accepted as a CCM document. It is still envisaged to finally pass the ideas to the two national church bodies the SACC and TEASA, the national evangelical alliance, possibly via the initiative for church-led restitution.) Also on the Muslim side, brave religious leaders are needed who are willing to concede that Islamic teaching has bred a spirit of hatred, that weird ideas of jihad made a third world war a distinct possibility because of the volatile situation in the Middle East; that the PAGAD/gangster scourge had brought the Mother City to the brink of economic collapse and anarchy during the first months of 1999 when Muslim traders feared for their lives. It might be too radical and idealistic at this stage to expect from Cape Islamic clergy to suggest to their followers a general submission to Jesus, the Prince of Peace? But perhaps they could come up with some intermediate suggestion. The initiative of Charles Robertson for church-led restitution may be a possible next step on the side of Christians. The Church's unwillingness to acknowledge collective guilt in the doctrinal bickering that led to the emergence of Islam appears to be a major stumbling block. Such a measure would amount to a significant step in the required direction. The implementation of real unity on biblical grounds in the spirit of the person and example of Jesus - without semantics and quarreling around peripheral issues like baptism and preaching by women - remains some distance away. Satan gave notice that he was not happy with the prayer offensive. After four-and- a-half quiet years in respect of pipe bombs, a device destroyed a home in Manenberg –of all places – on the eve of the Global Day of prayer. Another one detonated and killed little children in Beacon Valley, Mitchell’s Plain a few days after the event. It gave little comfort that the targeted buildings were major dens of drug merchants. The need of unity in Christ Already in 1979 Professor John De Gruchy gave the direction, which is still valid and very much needed: ‘In order for the church to be there for all the peoples of the land, it has to rediscover its unity in Christ. It cannot do this through either cheap reconciliation or superficial ecumenism. It must recognize that the “middle wall of partition” has been torn down in Christ and that …Christ has destroyed the barriers between black and white, Englishman and Afrikaner, rich and poor. The tremendous significance this act of reconciliation has yet to be realized within the South African church… The struggle of the church is impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit, for it is God alone who can liberate the church and equip it for its task. But God requires more than passivity. He requires obedient discipleship; … it requires a spirituality which combines a reliance upon the power of the Holy Spirit with a wholehearted effort to do God’s will in the world through that power.’ The unity created by the prayer movement and the process of transformation augurs well for the future even on the short term. Every South African Christian has reason to praise God that the Global Day of Prayer on 15 May 2005 had its origins in the Mother City of the country. Off to Israel! One by one the small band of volunteers around Rose McKenna who had been so faithful in going to Khayalitsha, began to be called away. (Frank went to America, Suzanne back to Holland, Lisa started a now thriving pottery, Farrington to the Vineyard Church, leaving only Rose and Ruth there in Khayalitsha.) When it seemed to Rose that God was calling her out of the blue to go to Israel, she knew that it had to be confirmed, even though she had a love for the Jews. At the end of visit to Israel in 1989 she donated her ‘shekels’, the leftover coins she still had in her possession on her return, to some agency at the airport, without thinking twice. By 1994 she had completely forgotten about this incident.             Putting out a ’fleece’ one morning, she bargained with the Lord. She said to Him in prayer that she would see it as confirmation of the divine call if there would be only one letter in her tray of incoming correspondence at Old Mutual that day. There should not only be one letter, but it should come from Israel, and more specifically that it should come from Jerusalem. This was impossible, as it was the time of receiving bursary applications for the Actuarial Scholarship, there would come an average of 35 letters on a daily basis.             She was flabbergasted – to say the least, when there was indeed only one letter in her tray that day, … from Jerusalem. It was a letter from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, thanking her for her shekel donation of 1989. She now had no hesitation to resign to be off to Israel. (This subsequently turned for her into retirement from fixed employment. In Israel she worked in the area of being a volunteer for three years, to private elderly folk, and a family in dire need.)        After her return to Cape Town, she has been involved in many projects to do with Israel. At an Africa-Israel summit in 2006, she was directly challenged by an Afro- American to indict President Robert Mugabe for his genocidal crimes. She was still reeling from this challenge when she was asked to accompany a volunteer at the Holocaust Museum to Cape Point on a fairly rainy winter’s day. In the vicinity five Black traders were sitting under an umbrella. When she discovered that all five of them were born in Rusape, as she had been, and one came from Inyazura, a small town in Zimbabwe where her father had been the Station Master, she knew that this was no co-incidence. This was the run-up to Rose’s involvement in Redhill, an informal settlement where the Zimbabweans were living among South Africans. There she linked up with team members of the first Church Planting Experience (CPx) course in Cape Town, who got involved there after fires had destroyed many shacks in Redhill at the beginning of 2008. Epilogue During the first months of 2005 Cape Town experienced significant answers to prayer. The need to minister in love to foreigners got an interesting turn when it became clear that Bo-Kaap residents were selling their properties for good money. This meant that the Muslim stronghold started to crumble as never before. Other spiritual dynamics point to an interesting continuation. Muslims turn to Christ A missionary who developed a church planting network in the Middle East and North Africa, reported a growing underground movement of house churches in that region at the beginning of 2005. In the early 90s there were around 1500 churches in the region, but in just ten years time this number has tripled to 4500. Nowhere has the growth possibly been more dramatic in the region than Iran. Christians meet in independent groups which are springing up like mushrooms - with the exception that they are invisible. In contrast to most Islamic nations, new believers are not immediately expelled from their families. Quite the contrary - the relatives often follow the new believers in their change of faith. An Iranian who emigrated to Scandinavia for economic reasons found Christ there. On his first visit to Iran, he was itching to tell his relatives of his new faith. Within one month, 50 of his relatives came to faith. By the time he returned again one year later, the church had grown to over 250 believers. There are now far more than a quarter of a million believers in Iran, according to the Iranian authorities - in a naturally conservative estimate. A pyrrhic victory? The gay lobby showed exceptional efficiency during 2006. All odds were stacked against them to get same sex marriages legalised. Almost all the major religious groups - with the lonely exception the spokesman for the SACC – and traditional leaders came out against a law that had no scriptural and popular backing. Very cleverly the gay lobby played the card of discrimination, which in South Africa found very eager and sensitive ears because of the heritage of apartheid. They managed to get the ANC, which had a massive majority in Parliament, on their side. Evangelical Christians had organised very well under the leadership of the Marriage Alliance, but they could never win without the backing of the ruling ANC. The law allowing same sex marriages took effect on 1 December 2006. The question remained: was the gay victory pyrrhic? In Parliament Rev Kenneth Meshoe, the leader of the African Christian Demodratic Party (ACDP), warned that the country was inviting God’s wrath through the passing of this law. This seemed to get a prophetic dimension when crime and violence spiralled in the first two months of 2007, despite the vitriolic assurance by the State President that crime was not out of control. On the flip side, this seemed to be God’s way of stirring thousands to prayer in a way reminiscent of 1994 when the country seemed to be heading for a bloodbath of terrific dimensions. God raised people to pray for the removal of the gruwel, the abomination, as Cedric Evertson, a prayer warrior saw the new law. When only Murray Bridgman was there alone with me on Signal Hill for our monthly prayer event on 2 December, I was initially somewhat disappointed. We were in the clouds, but not in a pleasant way. It was cold and wet. Murray had so much wanted to introduce me to Cedric! A cell phone call was enough to get Cedric Evertson to join us for prayer simply in the car. How exciting it was to hear from Cedric how the Lord has been leading him. The Holy Spirit touched his heart to stand in the gap like a Moses on behalf of the nation. To this end he would go to Tygerberg man alone to pray there in the morning, three days a week. When two leading international 'pink' figures – one apiece from the lesbian and gay background – turned their back on the movement after becoming followers of Jesus – the gay victory into the SA statute book of December 2006 became pyrrhic. The question was only when it would go the same road as the old apartheid laws – into the dustbin of history. The time of such a move was now in the hands of prayer warriors. In a sequel to the 2006 preparation to the law to legalise same sex marriages, evangelical spokesperson and advocate for a biblical stance on Homosexuality, Pastor Errol Naidoo, left the pastorate at His People Church to launch the Family Policy Institute. On 15 May 2008 the Institute took occupancy of its new headquarters at Parliament Chambers, 49 Parliament Street, Cape Town. This was as near to Parliament as one could wish, just outside the gates of Parliament. In quite a providential way for both parties, Achmed Kariem, who had been doing jouranlistic work at Parliament became his full-time assistant. Xenophobic mob violence brings the country to her knees The attacks in Alexandra spread quickly via new ones in Diepsloot and Olifantsfontein, both in Gauteng. Within a matter of days the mob violence occurred countrywide. On Wednesday 21 May mayhem also broke out in the Western Cape. Greater carnage was possibly prevented because the police commissioner of the province, Mzwandile Petros, had called all stakeholders and station commanders to the Headquarters in Bishop Lavis Township the previous day and setting up contingency plans. In spite of determined efforts by the police, it took days until the situation calmed down. However, by that time thousands of foreigners were displaced, many shops destroyed and looted by criminal elements and other poor folk who exploited the anarchic demonic situation. We were especially sad to hear and read of mob violence and xenophobic behaviour in Masiphumelele and Ocean View, where our CPx colleagues had been ministering. Worldwide television coverage of the events led to many countries warning their citizens against visiting South Africa. The media reports tended to make one very despondent. The economy suffered a major setback from which it may take a long time to recover. Satan may however have overstepped once again because the xenophobic mob violence brought the country to her knees in another sense as possibly never before. A call for prayer was issued, asking all denominations and Christian organisations to pray on Sunday, 25 May 2008 and in the weeks to follow for the ethnic violence in the nation. A suggestion was disseminated to add to these prayers intercession for the genocide in the neighbouring country Zimbabwe. Masiphumelele, and Redhill, two special townships Young people attending the CPx in two townships in the deep south of the Cape Peninsula, Masiphumelele and Redhill, had hand-on experience and learning how to serve people holistically - materially, spiritually and physically. In these vibrant informal settlements CPx participants were impressed by people in abject poverty from day to day who however have a freedom of spirit that one rarely sees in the west. The spread of HIV/AIDS has been bringing with it another epidemic: child-headed households. CPx participants would be seeking out these children who lead families, finding out how they could support them. Furthermore, every year it is estimated that 120 babies are abandoned for dead in and around Masiphumelele. Many are found in the large dustbins where people dispose of their garbage. When the storm drains are flushed out (twice a year), counsellors are on hand to help the city workers who uncover the many infant corpses. A team of CPx, led by Bethany O’Connor, are working to develop a ‘Baby Safe’: an anonymous drop-off where women can leave their babies instead of killing them. From there the babies will be adopted. They will be given the opportunity to live a full life. The team believes that these are the children who will help change South Africa. The two special townships Masiphumelele and Redhill are two informal settlements which had been devastated by fires in 2007 and 2008. When fires of violence were raging throughout the country in similar settlements with foreigners in May 2008, these two stood there as beacons of light where the Gospel was spreading like a wild fire. By the end of May 2008 there were eight house churches running in Redhill which had been planted in the previous two months. Also in Masiphumelele a few new churches had been planted through the participants at the CPx. Xenophilia and Compassion ushered in In an email on Friday 23, I wrote after the xenophobic outburst in the Cape: ‘This is not only a matter for political activists. May I suggest that we … protest in the best sense of the Latin root word: pro testare - to make a positive statement. Let us replace xenophobia with xenophilia (love for strangers. This is the word that has usually been translated with hospitality.) The next few days I was blessed to hear of compassionate action of Christians - churches and individuals - indicating that there was now a groundswell of goodwill towards the displaced foreigners in different areas. This included a report of many churches at the southern tip of our Peninsula that have been networking in accommodating refugees. A Somalian refugee friend phoned us that her family - as well as another family from that nation – has been given refuge in the home of Americans. We were not surprised to find out that the American family was indeed Claude (Themba) and Mary Crosby, our CPx colleagues, who had also ministered previously to these friends of the Black township Masiphumelele. Stolen goods were returned to the owners in that township and the fellow Africans were invited to return. It seemed as if the spadework of Christian mediators and workers since August 2006 was bearing fruit. The CCC Leaders Forum released a statement to the press regarding the xenophobia and violence on behalf of the Church in Cape Town. The Leaders Forum called on all Christians to pray for the situation in our city and country. All Christians were urged to pray for 2 minutes every day at noon for peace in the communities and that all people's dignity might be respected and restored. Revival-preparing action in the City Bowl? By mid-October 2008 there was still no concrete sign of City Bowl churches prepared to work together. As the wedding of our daughter approached, Rosemarie thought of Maeve Verblun as someone to arrange the flowers at the occasion. For many years Maeve was responsible for flower arrangements at the Cape Town Baptist Church. When she visited us in the middle of October 2008, I mentioned our monthly early morning prayer on Signal Hill, and that we prayed there for Bo-Kaap and Sea Point. She immediately showed interest to join. The event on the 4th Saturday of October on Signal Hill14 was destined to have interesting ramifications when Maeve invited me to attend the prayer meeting at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Vredehoek, which takes place every last Saturday morning of the month. When I attended their event on 29 November I was deeply blessed to hear what God had already started doing in Sea Point. The fellowship started with a church planting initiative through Jacques Erasmus. (As a Straatwerk colleague he had already been praying with us at the Ministers' Fraternal in 2007 and I was very happy to hear about their vision to reach out in the City Bowl with the Gospel, if possible together with other churches.) I was furthermore elated to hear that a few artists of the City area were meeting for prayer once a week. (At one of the Saturday early morning prayer events at the Metropolitan Civic Centre someone prayed for an 'escalation' and spread of prayer events to other venues.) A monthly prayer event started at the Malmesbury Town Council on Saturday 8 November, with plans to have one also in the Helderberg area and in the National Parliament. Remembering that united prayer has been the run-up to revival, we remain full of expectation that valuable seed has been sown. Calamities formed also a reason for various prayer meetings. Thus an inmate of Pollsmoor Prison – situated not so very far from Cape Point, was killed in November after a brawl between gangsters. This was the first unnatural death at the institution for many years. God used this tragedy somehow to bring about a move of the Holy Spirit in the vast complex to which Mandela was sent after his release from Robben Island. A few well known gangsters came to Christ. The believer knows that God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. I for one will not be surprised when tragedies like these or bigger ones like the cholera and starvation in our neighbouring country Zimbabwe turn out to become the trigger of a revival that the world has never seen before, one that will reverberate throughout our continent and beyond! Much of what we were doing the last weeks and also what is lined up for the coming ones, centre around international events - one just before and the other one three months after the Football World Cup next year. It has been very encouraging to experience networking among city pastors as we have not experienced for many years. At our brain storming session last month with local Christians who sense some calling to reach out to M'lims, we decided on a two-pronged strategy. a) We want to continue teaching believers in the churches, while b) we also gather Muslim background believers. What a blessing it has been to discover that one of the MBB's has actually started out on his own with the vision to 'touch the Nations through Faith'. That is surely a big challenge! As a next step around the gathering M'lim background followers of Jesus we will do some teaching and outreach next Saturday in Mitchells Plain: On Saturday 14 November at Immanuel Apostolic Church, Hengelaar Rd., Beacon Valley Mitchells Plain. Please pass on to the info to any Muslim background believers here in the Cape that you know or let them contact us. We sense that there is a major spiritual battle around the World Cup. Human trafficking has already started to disrupt families significantly. There are plans afoot to also 'recruit' children to supply in the 'demand'. We are thankful that the Church has started to wake up to this scourge. We are inviting to an evening on 19 November with Pastor Errol Naidoo (Family Policy Institute) and Marge Ballin (Balm of Gilead Outreach) with the theme. 'United we stand! - what we can do together as the Church.” Venue: Woodstock Baptist Church, Aberdeen Street. Lausanne and GdoP The upcoming event of Lausanne III in Cape Town in October has been a big motivations for writing the manuscript. CHURCH UNITY AS A TOP PRIORITY. The present stage of this manuscript can be likewise accessed at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com. Discipling of (new) Believers Sheralyn and Sammy accepted a call to be Jubilee Church representatives on the UCT campus. This is surely special to them, the turf where they met each other in the prayer room just over two years ago. We are happy for them that they could gain valuable experience in our Discipling House, where they could also disciple followers of Jesus coming from M'lim background. The flip side of things is of course that we now desperately need a couple who could come and assist us with the discipling of the folk in and around the Discipling House. Would you please pray with us for divine provision in this regard! Home Affairs The move of their premises of the Refugee Centre to Maitland augurs well in terms of service delivery. We are very happy that the level of corruption at this government department here at the Cape appears to remain minimal. We pray that clean governance there might prevail. Prompt response to a letter of concern from our side encouraged us after we had noticed things starting to deteriorate again – including recent stick wielding by security officials. Rosemarie and I witnessed an orderly situation this week. We are also looking at possibilities of serving the hundreds of waiting sojourners at the Maitland venue again in a holistic way. A new Variation of Xenophobia It is quite sad that we still have to fight xenophobia, all too often under the guise of racism. The most recent occurrence affects the refugee ladies where Rosemarie is giving Bible Study on alternate Saturday mornings. The owner of the house, a compassionate White lady, has just received notice from the City that she has to vacate the premises in a month. There appears to have been no concern about noise levels or the like, only 'because too many people live there'. It is obvious that the pigmentation of the people is the real cause of the anxiety of the neighbours. The ladies and children who have no other sources of income, have found there a refuge and home because of the generous gesture of Christian compassion. (The big rather delapidated house has been specially changed to house the refugees, the bulk of whom suffered significantly during the xenophobia last year. It is situated in an area that has been residential for decades. But a few business have started moving there in recent years). We prayed with that God would intervene to stop the rot, because it could in the long run affect Children's homes and our Discipling House if businesses would get away with that sort of thing. Appendix A: Letter from Hennie Bester of February 2001 (translation from Afrikaans), Western Cape Minister of Police to Eben Swart, the regional co-ordinator of Herald Ministries, : Dear Eben Thanks to everybody who had been praying last year. I can testify to firsthand experience how large volumes of prayer had enabled us and the security forces to have breakthroughs in areas, which formerly seemed to be insolluble. I refer specifically to the termination of the bus violence, as well as the fact that the last bomb explosion in our city had occurred on 18 October 2000. Since then, several people have been arrested, and several had been found guilty on charges related to acts of terror. During the past month I have noticed a change in the rate and violent nature of crime. In areas like Manenberg, Elsies River, Mitchell’s Plain and others, the mutual fights between gangs have increased in intensity. Many people have already died. Every week there are several extremely bloody armed robberies - many of which leave the impression that the perpetrators have no respect for life or their fellow man. On top of that, common criminals are becoming increasingly defiant and openly challenge governmental authority. Every day one wrestles with the question - why? What is going on? Our Police Force works very hard under extremely difficult circumstances and are assaulted themselves. Almost daily the Lord takes me back to Ephesians 6:10 - 18 where it deals with our spiritual battle and clothing ourselves with our armour. I become increasingly aware that the situation, which I am witnessing is actually a kind of volcanic explosion by the forces of evil to suffocate the impact of the prayer meeting on Newlands on March 21 this year. At the least, there is a battle going on in the spiritual realm that manifests itself in a manner on our streets. There is, though, a lot that I do not understand. In short: An immense need for prayer exists. I hereby request in deadly earnest that all believers would pray in this critical period in time. Everyone should pray in the way that he/she might be led by the Holy Spirit. The following would be some prayer points: 1. The protection of those who are involved in the battle against crime daily - members of the Police, prosecutors, magistrates, judges, members of the Defence Force, jail officials. 2. That the truth will come to the light in all the court cases which will take place in the following number of months and which are related to urban acts of terror; also that every plan to plant bombs will be cancelled. 3. Certain initiatives are underway to make a significant impact in a number of key areas that are effectively ruled by gangs. They must be rounded up, recovered and the life circumstances of inhabitants should be changed. Those people need hope. Pray that the obstructions in the way of these projects would be cleared out of the way. 4. Pray for wisdom, truth and integrity for every decision-maker involved in security issues. 5. Pray for the victims of crime and their families. 6. Pray for the exposure of organized crime syndicates, as well as the exposure of those who should enforce the law, but are involved in crime themselves. 7. Pray for an explosion of love and care in and amongst our various communities. 8. Please support our police stations with word and deeds, as well as the men and women serving there. Thanks a lot for your assistance with this most important part of our battle against crime. Regards, Hennie Bester Appendix B: Email from Elizabeth Jordaan from NUPSA, dated Tuesday, February 06, 2001 (slightly edited) Through all of this we can see that God slowly but definitely increased the prayer level in the country. God desires to bring revival, more than we want to have it. We are in the beginning of a new millennium. Since 1987 a lot of research was done and much information gained about the history of our country. We have not prayed through this information on a national level. It is time now to finish the old millennium and deal with the sins of the fathers in our country. At the beginning of the year 2001 God has moved us to focus on prayer at a national level. We are in a desperate situation in this country. The situation is so devastating that one cannot even imagine the impact it will have on the economic and social life of our country. We must not underestimate what is happening concerning the crime and wickedness pouring into this nation. The church is the only body that has the answer. We need God to change this country. From 1 - 21 March 2001 a prayer initiative called Day and Night 21 will run with the aim to mobilize intercessors in at least 70 towns and cities (one tenth of the country) to pray for 24 hours continually for the period of 21 days, and ask the Lord to open the heavens above South Africa. Another prayer initiative aimed at mobilizing the youth in our country will run from 13 to 20th of May 2001 and is called Prayer Storm 24-7, where we would like to mobilize all the high schools to join in praying 24 hours a day for a week. In the second half of the year 2001 we want to deal with the whole issue of cleansing the land. In case you have not noticed, we have increased the momentum. There is more power, more unity, and more freedom in the spirit, as well as more trouble, more division and more pressure mounting against the church. If God sees us ready to move into 24 hours of prayer internationally and nationally, we need to pray about where He wants us to go for this new millennium. Let us take hands and join our prayers as we approach the throne of God on behalf of our nation. “Cleansing South Africa” If God is increasing the desire of people to pray, then we know that He is ready to unfold more of His divine plans towards us. There is a worldwide cry from the Church for more intimacy with God, and for a visitation of God to our communities in revival. God is, in character, a HOLY God, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). God is still the God revealed in the Bible. He is God of the Old and New Testaments. What He purposed in the Old Testament came to fulfillment in Jesus Christ. What He hated in the days of the Patriarchs of the Bible, He still hates today. The precepts that He laid down for holy living in the days of Noah, Moses and the prophets, are still valid today. The only difference between then and now is Jesus. We are not able to keep God's commandments without the redemption of Jesus. Even with Jesus, we still cannot keep God's precepts on our own. Without Him, we can do nothing. If we are inviting God to draw near to us, there are certain prerequisites demanded by God's holiness. The most important for us is to be cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:6-9). If we say that we want Him and still walk in darkness, then we lie. At the end of His ministry, Jesus gave His disciples the command to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations (Luke 24:47). How can we preach repentance if we do not know what our nations are guilty of? It is only through measuring our nations and the history of our nations, against God's Word, His commandments and precepts, that we know what to repent of, and what we need cleansing from. When there is sin in a land, then God removes His favour from the land and its people. The removal of His favour results in chaos and destruction, such as what we witness in South Africa today. In Ezekiel 14, God gave four types of judgment for the sin of idolatry: famine, ecological devastation, war and disease. God was very explicit: if people do not follow His ways, then eventually the land will remove them (Lev 18:25). Sin has an effect on the physical environment that we live in. The Bible calls this effect of sin on the land, defilement or pollution. Because of the defilement of the land through sin, the people who live on the land, even though they themselves might not have committed the original sin that caused the defilement, are under God's judgment. There are four categories of sin, according to the Bible, that defile the land: bloodguilt, immorality, broken Covenants and idolatry. If we look at South Africa in the light of this information, then we surely have reason for national repentance. If this is true and considering the fact that we long for God to draw close to us, we need to remove the darkness, through the confession of our sins, and the sins committed by previous generations. In this way we can prepare a place for God, where He can manifest His holiness in our midst and draw all people unto Him. In the light of all this knowledge, we have felt that it is time that South Africa comes before God as a in humility, and on a national level ask for cleansing of our land and people, through the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7). In the last 10 years, much has been done. We have accumulated enough research to call the nation for a time of national repentance. On Friday, 26 January 2001, a meeting was held at NUPSA to wait on the Lord concerning the proposal of a national prayer project - Cleansing South Africa from offences against God. Representatives attending this meeting were from the six provinces of Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu Natal, Free State, North West Province and Western Cape. Provinces not in attendance were Northern Province, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape. All representatives were in agreement that we should go ahead with the proposed initiative to call the nation of South Africa to repentance. The following is an outline of the process to cleanse the land: A. Prepare the nation for repentance (February to July 2001) We would like to have the whole of South Africa participating in this initiative. Most of the praying, confessing and repenting will happen in and around your own town, city or region. We need however, to have representatives or coordinators in each town and area, to help us coordinate the process, to spread the information, and to help prepare the people to come before the Lord. We have material available on the sins of the land, how to repent of it and how to ask for cleansing. This material must be distributed throughout the country. We also need to map sites where explicit sins have taken place in your areas such as battlefields of the wars, casinos where immorality and gambling take place and so forth. One of the major things that needs to happen to prepare the nation for repentance is that we need to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of our sin as a nation. Without this conviction there will be no Godly sorrow and no true repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). The time of preparation will stretch from February to July 2001. During this time, we need to find the following: a. A representative or coordinator for each town and city in South Africa. b. A comprehensive list of all the sites where explicit sin has occurred in South Africa. c. Intercessors and Christians who are willing to carry the burden for South Africa before the Lord in repentance and confession. d. A communication system to link the different areas with each other and with the office of NUPSA in Pretoria. e. Each town and city needs to prepare teams that will travel to outlying areas on specific dates, to join in national repentance on site. B. Apply the atonement of Jesus on the land (August and September 2001) Praying on sites of offence simultaneously in all 9 provinces. Confessing and repenting of the sin of bloodguilt: 6th to18th August Confessing and repenting of the sin of immorality: 20th to 26th August Confessing and repenting of the sin of broken covenants: 27th August to 2nd September Confessing and repenting of the sin of idolatry: 3rd to 22nd September When repentance at the different sites of offence are completed, we would like to call the nation to a National Day of Repentance and Brokenness in every church, to be held in their own areas on the 23rd September, 2001. C. Dedicating South Africa to the Lord (September - November 2001) Following the national repentance will be 40 days of rededication of our cities, towns, villages and areas to the Lord. We would like Christians to saturate their areas with prayer through prayer walks in all streets, highways and byways, and to dedicate our schools, businesses, parks and the like to the Lord. On the 3rd November 2001 there will be a national gathering with a minimum of 2 representatives from each town, city and village of South Africa at a certain site (that is still to be communicated) to dedicate the whole of South Africa to the Lord. The following day, 4th November 2001, will be a day of celebration and worship throughout all the land, with corporate services in all the towns of South Africa. D. Taking the Gospel to the Nations (November 2001) (symbolic action) On the 3rd November 2001, six teams will leave for six praise marches, travelling on all the main routes in South Africa, and carrying a banner to represent the Gospel of Repentance, to our six neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho. This will symbolize the redemptive gift of South Africa in opening the way for the Gospel to Africa. On the borders to those countries, the teams will hand over the banners to representatives from those nations to take the Gospel further into Africa. ... We would like you to pray about being part of this initiative. First of all, pray that the Spirit of God would move over South Africa to convict the Church of sin, righteousness and judgment. Also that He would reveal to us His purpose for this country, and lead us as a nation to repent for His Name' s Sake. Appendix C A Prayer of Repentance for Unjust Labour Laws in South Africa, 15th September 2001 After being very much of a pivot for a prayer event on robben Island in September 2001, Mike Winfield wrote a confession ‘before God as Father and to those who are still victims to the past injustices.’ “Father on behalf of our founding fathers, I confess the sin of acquiring economic wealth and political power through slavery and the perpetuation of inequality in labour legislation and practice. Well does the words of James speak out against your church in this nation, “Look! The wages you failed to pay your workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty (James 5:4). Father I repent on behalf of the generations of Church leaders and Christians who have taken economic and political advantage through the various laws and accepted social norms in this nation and in particular this city. Through out the centuries the successive governments in this country stand accused, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people.” (Isaiah 10:1,2). Cape Town is a city founded on slavery, which also stands accused, “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!” (Habakkuk 2:13). Many of Cape Town’s historic buildings were built by slaves or housed slaves, which it may be said, “The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of woodwork will echo it.” (Habakkuk 2:11). This is particularly so for the Slave Lodge where thousands of slaves were held in the most inhumane conditions and many slave women and children sexually abused. Like the prophets of old I stand before you in your court and confess, “O Lord, we acknowledge our wickedness and the guilt of our fathers; we have sinned against you.” (Jeremiah 14:20). “Our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached the heavens.” (Ezra 9:6). What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved. (Ezra 9:15). Although our sins testify against us, O Lord, do something for the sake of your name. For our backsliding is great; we have sinned against you. (Jeremiah 14:7). Father God although many of us can identify with the oppressor’s actions, I remind you of your promises, “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor”. (Psalm 72:4). “For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and needy and save the needy from death”. (Psalm 72:12,13). I beseech you Father of mankind, “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.” (Psalm 82:3). “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8,9). Father I pray that communities oppressed by the past laws and still carry the effects of the injustices of Apartheid may find it in their hearts to pray as Stephen when he was stoned to death, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Acts 7:60). Jesus as you stood to applaud Stephen, will you not encourage the people of this nation to look not at what has happened to themselves, but what you can achieve as we are reconciled to each other. Appendix D An autobiographical addition: Prayer in opposition to repressive laws that impacted my life Before 1948 and the entry of the National Party as sole governing political party, various attempts had already been made to get a law onto the statue books to prevent miscegenation. It is however especially sad that the church took the initiative in 1948, requesting the new National Party government to pass a law to prevent marriages between Whites and any people of colour. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 has caused a trickle of people to leave the country over the years. Pastor Alfred West, who worked as a missionary in the Cape townships of Kensington, Bonteheuwel and Bishop Lavis, proved the exception when he waited for 20 years before he could marry his ‘Coloured’ darling Gladys. Before I left South Africa, (Moravian) Bishop Schaberg warned me to stay clear of politics, because agents of the apartheid government were also well represented overseas. I initially heeded this warning more or less, without however really making a conscious effort to do so. A version of Naboth’s vineyard Then I received a letter from my parents with shocking information. They had been served with a notice of the expropriation of our property in Tiervlei under the guise of slum clearance. Before I left South Africa at the beginning of 1969 on a study bursary there had indeed been a rumour that our family property - including 8 plots for houses - had been offered to a businessman in Bellville South. Considering that our solid brick house nowhere nearly resembled one that qualified for slum clearance, we perceived the move as a local version of Naboth’s vineyard (1 King 21:1-15). What really enraged me overseas was that my mother mentioned in her letter something about ‘the will of the Lord.’ I stopped just short of considering joining the armed struggle against the apartheid government, because this wanton act was to me just an extension of their racist policies. I wrote quite a strong letter of protest to the Parow Municipality from abroad, with copies to some people in Tiervlei. But it was all to no avail. Hereafter, I became almost reckless in my opposition to the South African government policies. I was very critical of the government, also in public utterances. As a speaker from Africa, I was something of a celebrity in certain quarters, especially on the German countryside. With my protest, also much of my initial missionary zeal went overboard. The only constraint with regard to the content of my speeches on South Africa was a moral and religious one. I wanted to act responsibly as if to God in everything I did. For the rest, I could not care less if they wanted to withdraw my passport or not. In my letter to the Parow Municipality, I had almost invited the recipients to pass the information on to Pretoria. Nevertheless, the Lord blessed me with insights that turned out to be very prophetic. In my main paper on South Africa, I spoke about the unique problems of South Africa. I defined them as the apartheid government policy, the disunity of the churches and alcoholism. As a solution to the problems, I suggested much prayer, because I believed in the power of prayer, the result of the mentoring of Ds Bester, the local sendingkerk minister in Tiervlei. Initially I was quite determined not to fall in love in Germany. I wanted to return to South Africa to make a meaningful contribution in the one way or another. Marrying a German in those days would have meant not being able to return to my home country. Rationally I just felt I was more needed in South Africa. The start of a special romance When a black-haired beauty walked into my life, I was not so determined any more to return to South Africa. She came to the ‘E.C.’, the evangelical Christian Encounter youth group with her student colleague and friend Elke Maier. From my side this was as close to a ‘love at first sight’ encounter as ever. I had great difficulty keeping the excitement to myself. I just wanted to tell my two Stuttgart roommates immediately about ‘Rosemarie Göbel aus Mühlacker’, even though I still hardly knew her. The disappointment was therefore not so big when she stepped out of my life just as suddenly as she had entered it. We had no opportunity to exchange addresses or telephone numbers. * * * Just at this time, my parents left Tiervlei as a result of the expropriation of our property, going to the Moravian Mission station, Elim. I experienced for the first time what a prayer backing meant to any missionary. Although nobody spoke about short-term missionaries at that time, I was one of them to all intents and purposes. With my mother not around anymore, the praying women from various churches in Tiervlei were not reminded to intercede for me overseas. I almost tangibly felt the lack of the sustaining intercession that I had experienced in the 18 months prior to this. Almost simultaneously with my examinations in classical Greek - a mere two weeks before my scheduled return to South Africa - Rosemarie re-entered my life. This time I resorted to some very unconventional methods to make sure that we would not lose contact again. Those two weeks turned out to become crucial in our lives. The miraculous intervention from above so gripped me that I really wanted to shout it from the rooftops. One of the most unusual love stories ensued. After reading in a local newspaper about someone who had been racially ‘reclassified’ (something like that could of course only take place in the apartheid era), I deemed this as my chance to get my bonny over the ocean to South Africa. Instead of waiting on God’s intervention to enable a possible marriage, I decided to ‘assist Him’. I wrote to the Prime Minister, Mr John Vorster, to inquire about the procedure to have someone reclassified. This - along with some other rash actions on my part - would cause us more problems. I desperately wanted Rosemarie to come to South Africa, rather than me going to Germany again, to marry her. Knowing the objections of her family, Rosemarie was however not yet free from within to come to Africa. In one of her letters, she actually requested me to pray for her inner liberation in this regard. I had no problem with this, trusting God to change that in due time. Had she not told me when I invited her to the evening with the Wycliffe Bible Translators, that she had wanted to become a missionary already from her childhood? Thus I simply pushed ahead with my ideas. Competition? Somehow I did not really take her hint in a letter seriously that another young man had come into her life. When no letter arrived hereafter from my bonny, I was ‘sure’ that the South African government had intervened, that our post was being intercepted. Practices like that belonged to the day-to-day occurrences of apartheid South Africa. It was common knowledge that the government would have no qualms in trying to stop our contact in that way. Interracial contact of any sort was not appreciated in government quarters. Because I had resigned as a teacher to go into full-time pastoral work, I received a cheque from the authorities as repayment of monies that I had paid into the State Pension Fund. The amount of the cheque was more or less just what I would have needed for the cheapest air ticket with ‘Trek Airways’ to Luxembourg. And my passport was still valid. I heard from Trek Airways (later Luxavia) that the first flight just after the start of the school holidays was absolutely fully booked out. This was a very convenient ‘Gideon’s fleece’, a test to see if it was right to use the 'pension' money in that way. Two hundred and sixty-odd Rands meant a lot of money in those days. So I argued: “If it is the will of the Lord that I should go, then he has to get a place for me on that flight’. When I received a phone call only a few days before the departure date that one seat was actually free, I saw this as a clear indication that I should go. I had considered the venture prayerfully enough! Any doubts about the correctness of such a drastic step as going to Germany for only two weeks were dispelled for the moment. The surprise to Rosemarie was complete when I phoned from Trier, the border town in Germany. I was due to take the train to Stuttgart from there. Incomprehensible naivety On the phone, she gave an indication that I was in for some disappointment without giving any details. For the first time, I had to come to terms with the possibility that she had another friend. On the long journey of approximately four hours, I had all the time in the world to face up to this eventuality. Due to my incomprehensible naivety - I suppose, love does make some people blind - I was completely perplexed. In Stuttgart I had to face the fact that she regarded herself as more or less engaged to marry another young man. When his mother died, she felt that she had to choose him. I had many questions. Had it been worthwhile? I could not understand a thing. How could God allow me to come all this way for this experience? Was all this necessary? But the other young man was also surprised. He knew that Rosemarie had written a letter to me in which she would have informed me of her decision to part with me. The next day I met the likeable young man who was the cause of my coming all this way at the ‘Offene Abend.’ This was the same group of young people that had organized the memorable evening with the Wycliffe Translators less than a year before. I really pitied him, as I discovered how he felt himself misled. But of all three of us, Rosemarie surely experienced the excruciating pain the most. When I now appeared so suddenly, she knew whom she loved most of the two suitors. At this time she wrote to me: If God has really led us together again, and given us a new love, then I cannot do anything else to believe than that I belong to you. She knew full well that the problems at home would flare up again. After an intense struggle in prayer, Rosemarie decided to part with both of us. Everybody had understanding for her decision, even her parents. I had full empathy for her decision, but my faith was simultaneously tested to the full. The Lord comforted us. Although we had the inner conviction as never before that we belonged to each other, we decided to separate. In our last prayer together, we more or less put the ball ‘into God’s court’ in faith. We committed our future into God’s hanDs He had to bring us together again if it was His will that we should marry one day. I for one knew that it had been wrong for me to try and assist Him through letters to the South African authorities and the like. But I did know now that we loved each other as always, and that was ample consolation for that moment. In spite of my activism on more than one front, my heart was still aching at the thought that I could not write to my Rosemarie directly. This was foremost in my prayers. Via Hermann Beck, my former student colleague and roommate in Stuttgart, who was now studying in Tübingen, I still heard of Rosemarie’s whereabouts. She worked there. I had some frank discussions with my parents in Elim during the last part of the June holidays of 1972. I also discussed the issue of my love to Rosemarie openly with them for the first time. I spoke of my hope to get her to South Africa one day. But they made no bones about the fact that they would rather be prepared to sacrifice me to Europe, than seeing me bring Rosemarie into the humiliations of apartheid. I was too much in love to appreciate how magnanimous their gesture was. They knew what they were talking about. My cousin Hester Ulster, who became a British citizen after marrying Tubby Lympany, an English marine sailor from the Simon’s Town naval base around 1950, had not been allowed to visit her parents as yet, after more than 20 years away. Trapped in activism Mentally I was almost completely caught up by the racial problems in the country. As a former teacher, the racial discrimination in educational funding and facilities was something for which I felt it worthwhile to go to the street in a protest march, defying police orders to the contrary. On the particular day, I already had a letter in my pocket for Hermann Beck, my faithful Stuttgart roommate. I actually wanted to post this letter before joining in the demonstration. In the aerogramme I stated that we expected to be arrested for our defiance of a ban on a protest demonstration on behalf of equal education for all races. But we came away ‘unscathed’: teargas won the day. In this way the crowd of young protesters was scattered. Many activists took refuge in the nearby St George’s Cathedral. This was perhaps the first time that the police brutality was really brought home to local Whites. It was reported in the newspapers how the police pulled a White girl from behind the pulpit by her hair. A letter from my ‘Schatz’! Returning to the Seminary in Ashley Street, there was a letter from Germany, not from Hermann, but one directly from my ‘Schatz’! I could hardly believe what I read. Her mother had given permission that we could resume our correspondence. At Rosemarie’s 21st birthday, the Lord had spoken to Mama Göbel through a word from Scripture: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ She understood that to mean that she should give Rosemarie permission to write to me again! This was very courageous of her, because she knew that this was definitely not the wish of her husband. Encouraged by this development, along with my mentor and confidante, Henning Schlimm, a teaching post was negotiated for Rosemarie at the ‘Kindergarten’ (Pre-school) of St. Martini, the German Lutheran Church in Cape Town. I was not aware of the great courage that Pastor Osterwald, the local pastor had displayed in appointing her, knowing the background of the application. He had asked Rosemarie not to mention anything about the appointment in her letters to me. * * * I had been far from careful when I stated openly in a newsletter to friends in Germany that Rosemarie was about to come and work in Cape Town in February the following year. That was looking for trouble. Oh, sometimes I was so naive! Rosemarie was pleasantly surprised when a Cape Flats South African, who was introduced as Mr Ashbury from Gleemoor, a part of Athlone - a well-known suburb of Cape Town - pitched up in her vicinity. She did not suspect that he might possibly be linked to the South African security network. (In those days, the Special Branch also had the task of keeping ‘problems’ like our romance across the colour bar out of the country. Rosemarie tried to send me an audiocassette with this particular gentleman. On the cassette she included Pastor Osterwald’s advice: ‘I want to tell you that your decision to start on this daring venture will lead you into many a conscientious conflict...’ The link of the ‘Coloured’ gentleman or his landlady to the South African authorities became quite clear when a certain commissar assured Rosemarie soon hereafter that she would not get a visa to come to South Africa. It was evident that this ‘commissar’ knew the content of the audiocassette. Further enquiry brought to light that the local police in Reutlingen did not know the commissar with the name given by him. Back in Cape Town, I was completely unaware of what was going on: a series of events that I might have set in motion through my careless newsletter. Or was Rosemarie’s visa application the cause? This must still be unveiled. I was still counting the days to the beginning of March 1973, when Rosemarie was scheduled to arrive in Cape Town. Great was the disappointment when the first of March came and went without any news of the receipt of her visa. We had thought that this would be a mere formality. I was completely stunned when she called me on the newly-installed direct telephone line from Germany. She had received a letter from the South African Consulate with the following sentence: ‘I regret to have to inform you that your application for permanent residence in the Republic of South Africa has been turned down...’ * * * We deemed it important that Rosemarie should at least get to know South Africa and my family. Therefore she applied again, this time for a tourist visa. This was however turned down as well. Neither of us was aware that she had been blacklisted in respect of entry into the country. Looking back, we saw that the Lord in His providence was very gracious to us. Our brittle love would have been put under extreme pressure by the compulsory sphere of secrecy caused by apartheid laws. There seemed to be few other options to me than to leave South Africa. I did that at the end of that year. I and many other friends and family thought that I would probably never be able to return to the country. But my parents and a few other people were praying that things would change in our country, to enable me to return one day. One of my ‘final’ actions in South Africa was blowing my own trumpet, literally, at a Youth Rally with Dr Beyers Naudé. The instrument had been donated to me in 1969 in Germany - (Years later, in November 1978, I visited Dr Naudé when he was under house arrest, but I was also determined at that occasion not be return to South Africa. God used him to completely change my attitude in that regard, so that I committed myself to work towards racial reconciliation in my home country from abroad.) Prayer surrounding our honeymoon Much prayer and correspondence surrounded our honeymoon in South Africa in March and April of 1975. After Rosemarie finally got a visa on condition, that she would enter the country without me, we circumvented the demonic spirit of the condition by travelling on different flights. Many prayed for our protection, because we knew that we were playing with fire. Our visit to Genadendal included more than only a visit to aged relatives. Going to see the banned Reverend Daniel Wessels was a political act that could have landed us in trouble. Sleeping together in the only hotel for ‘Coloureds’ in Bosmont, Johannesburg, was likewise quite a risky business. We really thanked the Lord that we experienced no major hassles during four very eventful weeks. Back in Germany, I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Vorster, confessing our dishonesty. At the same time, I not only encouraged him to continue on the road of dismantling apartheid, but I also attacked the handling of Rosemarie’s visa at the consulate in Munich. A threat from that quarter thereafter had a few of us praying once again, because I still valued the possession of a South African passport. A few months later, I became the second pastor in a Moravian congregation in Berlin. I stuck to a politically low-key position, but continued trying through correspondence to influence the government back home. Furthermore I sought in Germany to create a front for non-violent change in my home country. The Soweto uprising of 16 June 1976 had a double effect on our lives. On the one hand, apart from our friend from the Cape, Rachel Balie, who was studying in Berlin, I could not find any interest amongst other people in Germany for a peaceful front. On the other hand, I was catapulted into the limelight during a church service of prayer and protest in the well-known Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche with Pastor Holm from the Berlin Mission. When I was hereafter asked to mediate between African students and their ‘opponents’, the Berlin State church leadership, it led to our getting involved with Moral Rearmament. Our going to Holland merely got me out of political activism temporarily. We had hardly arrived there in September 1977, when Rachel Balie reported from South Africa that our friend, the Moravian Reverend Chris Wessels, at whose home we had lodged in Port Elizabeth on our special honeymoon, had been arrested. Chris Wessels was incarcerated without any charge laid against him. However, nobody knew where the authorities were detaining him. With Steve Biko, the Black Consciousness leader just having been found dead while in police custody, we prayed for the protection of our friend, while we feared the worst. Rosemarie encouraged me to get our church denomination involved. Soon church protests were sent into South African Embassies around the world and prayers offered, contributing together to the release of Rev Chris Wessels’. On the personal level, we were blessed to discover a few years later that Dutch Reformed Church ministers with whom I had spoken in Holland in 1979, were endeavouring to secure the unbanning of Dr Beyers Naudé after one of them had initially abused confidential written material, passing it onto the government in stead of to our outlawed friend. A prophecy concerning Africa See the Lord rides on a swift cloud. He is coming to Africa. The idols of Africa tremble before him, The hearts of Africa’s leaders melt within them. (Isaiah 19:1) In that day: The cities of Africa will make a commitment to serve Jesus. They will swear allegiance to the Lord Almighty. (Isaiah 19:18) In that day: An altar to the Lord will be built in the heart of Africa. It will be a sign and a witness of His presence in Africa. When they cry out because of their oppressors, He will rescue them. The Lord will make himself known to the people of Africa. (Isaiah 19:19-21) In that day: They will acknowledge their sin of immorality. They will repent of all their idolatrous ways. They will fully commit to obey Jesus in holiness. Their acts of worship will be pleasing to God. They will make a commitment and promise to serve Jesus. And they will keep their promises. When they will turn to the Lord, He will heal them of the plague that has struck Africa. He will respond to their pleas and heal them. (Isaiah 19:22) In that day: There will be a highway for the Kingdom throughout Africa. Africa will be a blessing to the nations of the world. And God will say: “Blessed Be Africa my People.” (Isaiah 19:23-25) Based on Isaiah 19. Bosberaad for the Day of Prayer Africa Shekinah Game Farm, Bela Bela 24th September 2002. The above encouraging words were confirmed by Jenny Mc Millan who earlier in the day had read: “On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai.” (Haggai 2:10). She with the other intercessors felt that sometime during that day, the 24th of September 2002, a word of encouragement would come from God concerning Africa. Appendix F Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain - Sunday 20 March 2005   We have all taken notice of the terrible drought that is a current reality in the Western Cape. One can have many viewpoints on the causes for the drought, but everyone should agree that God is speaking to us in one way or another – as He has done through the ages, also through droughts.  He is waiting on our response.   We need to approach God in this hour of need. We should ask people to pray about rain, at every occasion. But let us not ask for cheap grace. Let us first do repentance, humble ourselves before God, and then pray for His intervention in this situation.   Let us also pray for a new ecological sensitivity amongst our people. God appointed us as stewards of His creation and of the earth, but we have not done well at all. In fact, the ecology shouts back at us.   This is a call to set aside Sunday 20th March 2005 as a Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain. Let us give thanks to God for his grace and mercy, let us not miss the good things He has done. It is not the Western Cape’s season for rain yet, and many feel that we cannot expect God to give rains out of season. At the same time He is a God of miracles for whom all things are possible.   If, by an earlier miracle, it rains well before that day, we will have reason to celebrate and sing of God’s glory! Then we can still pray for good and consistent winter rains in the Western Cape.   Transformation Africa (Cape Town Office) Why are we suffering a drought in the Western Cape?    Here are a few expanded thoughts based on a similar famine/drought experience of King David as recorded in 2 Samuel 21:1-14.  This passage of scripture is relatively obscure and many people avoid it because of the rather brutal manner in the out-working of the issue.   During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord (2 Samuel 21:1).   In the Western Cape we have had three years of relatively low summer and winter rainfall. The current year is worse than the previous years.  If we do not have significant rains this winter, the drought that has hit the rural communities hardest will most certainly affect the urban areas with devastating consequences.  Already the dams have insufficient water if the winter rains come as late, as they did in 2004. What could God be saying to us in the Western Cape as we turn to him in prayer? To David, God said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood –stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.” (2 Samuel 21:1).  The significance of the event is expanded as follows: “Now the Gibeonites were not part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah tried to annihilate them.“ (2 Samuel 21:2) When God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendents, the Amorites were pre-Israelite tribes who occupied the land of Canaan (Genesis 15:16). Although the Bible does not recall the event of Saul murdering the Gibeonites, it most likely occurred early in his reign.  This action was motivated by an attitude of excessive nationalism if not excessive tribalism.  Today we would call this racism.  The Gibeonites occupied the territories assigned to the tribe of Benjamin.  Saul being of the tribe of Benjamin may well have sought to consolidate his power by rooting out this Amorite tribe. This attempt to annihilate the Gibeonites was however in direct contravention of a covenant promise made over three hundred years early during Joshua’s conquest of Canaan.  The Gibeonites approached the conquering armies of Israel and sought to make a peace treaty to let them live in the land of Canaan.  The Israelites however did not inquire of the Lord before they made a peace treaty with Gibeonites.  This treaty was an irrevocable promise, which the leaders of Israel ratified by an oath or covenant.  It was only later that the Israelites realised that they had been tricked into making a treaty with this Canaanite tribe (Joshua 9:14-15). God was essentially drawing to David’s attention that the three-year drought was as a result of an event that occurred forty to sixty years earlier. This incident during Saul’s reign was in direct contravention to a covenant made three hundred years before that.  In this passage God was saying that the national bloodguilt of Saul had interfered with the course of nature.  (D Guthrie et al, 313; NIV Study Bible, 456) Today the question needs to be asked is it possible for the unconfessed national bloodguilt of previous leadership structures be applicable for the Western Cape? Brian Mills and Roger Mitchell in their book Sins of the Fathers, gives a very interesting commentary:  A sin committed a generation ago by someone now dead, breaking a covenant made four hundred years ago, can bring a contemporary famine on a nation.  If this can be true physically and literally, it can certainly be the case spiritually. (Mills & Mitchell, p.32) For many people in the Western Cape, the comment would be “We have dealt with the sins of the past through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.  There are many who would also say “We have said sorry and there is now a Black government who have been in power for over 10 years.” Their conclusion is effectively to say, “Let the past deal with the past for we must live for today.” The South African economy has never been more robust and active in over forty years, which is the economic lifetime of most people.  Inflation is down to about 3 to 4% and interest rates are at the lowest in real terms for years, property prices in the Western Cape are increasing at 30% per annum, the Rand has strengthen, which may have caused some industry to be under pressure, but in real terms the whole economy is benefiting by these positive economic stimuli. The reality for many of Western Cape citizens however is they do not have access to a home, let alone a job. Depending on which side of the political or economic divide one is positioned, there is a view that racism still exists or that reverse racism is being practised. For many people of the Western Cape their views are expressed in the words of the Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, “I am ashamed to say that Cape Town is a racist city!” (Cape Times Friday 4th March 2005).  Others are saying that reverse racism is being practised. Now more than ever the Church of the Western Cape is being challenged to say and be the example of Christ’s reconciliation, love and unity.  The clarion call is not for words of heartfelt confession, but active steps of reconciliation, reparation followed by deep and genuine forgiveness and unity. While the church in South Africa stands on either side of the poverty divide, I believe we should do as David. David asked the Gibeonies, “What shall I do for you?  How shall I make amends so that you will bless the Lord’s inheritance?”  (2 Samuel 21:3) Today’s society has the privilege of a New Testament perspective, where the cross of Jesus fulfils the need for atonement and it is no longer necessary for representatives of guilty parties to be physically punished.   As Christians leaders in authority, who are sensitive to the issues facing our society we are called to disclose the injustice of the past and seek positive means of redressing the issues.  We should therefore seek opportunities on the 20th March (Day of Repentance and Prayer for Rain) and 15th May (Global Day of Prayer) to allow the following:   1. Openly confess and admit to the sins of racism that still exist in our communities to this day.   2. Initiate opportunities where people can pronounce and declare God’s blessing on their neighbours instead of cursing through grumbling and complaining etc. “Bless those who persecute you; and do not curse”. (Romans 12:13-20) This should be motivated at an individual household level and at an institutional level as in business or churches. Where people have been offended by what they see as racism or selfishness or anger, frustration and resentment we should be encouraging them to let go of their disappointment, bitterness and anger.  Jesus encourages us to forgive those who have offended us.   3. Initiate actions that are in keeping with genuine repentance that may lead to acts of reparation. This should be motivated at an individual household level and at an institutional level as in business or churches.  Some examples though not exclusive are as follows: - Provide a home or contribute towards a home for one’s disadvantaged staff. - Assist in extra education opportunities for the children of one’s disadvantaged staff - Provide seed capital or an interest free loan to township entrepreneurs. References: Kenneth L. Barker, 1985, The New International Version Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation. D Guthrie, JA Motyer, AM Stibbs, DJ Wiseman, 1970, The New Bible Commentary Revised, Inter-Varsity Press Leicester. B Mills, R Mitchell, 1999, Sins of the Fathers, Sovereign World Norfolk. Possible addition: The birth of Athletes for Christ When the farm boy Fanie Richter was in his penultimate year of his school career in 1968, he was determined that he was not just going to assist with mundane tasks at the upcoming athletics school meeting. Being fairly fit because of work on their farm in the Eendekuil district near the Boland town Piquetberg, he decided to enter the 800 meter race where stamina rather than speed was required. To his own surprise he finished second, only a meter behind the age group provincial champion of their school, who was older. Fanie decided to take up athletics more seriously. Already the next year he had the beating of the other lad. After matric his parents decided that he had to go and earn some money. On the Reef, where he went to, he had the idea of running from Beit Bridge in the extreme north of the country to Cape Town to raise funds for the Southern Cross Fund. This fund was widely supported in Afrikaner communities in aid of the men ‘defending the country on its borders.’ Soon however Fanie thought that it would be much better to raise funds for missionary work instead of supporting the war effort. He could not see this dream coming to fruition immediately. A series of circumstances saw him coming back to the Cape as a theological student of the renowned Stellenbosch Kweekskool. There he met Norman Burger who had a similar idea, viz. to travel the country with a choir. Richter and Burger did not lose time to speak to other athletes and students of their dream. God’s hand was evidently on the venture. Atlete vir Christus was born, started by a race from Cape Town to Beit Bridge in 1975. The fund raising event became an annual event, still operating after well over 30 years. The team of 23 members consist of ten athletes, ten singers and three spiritual advisors. Then there is also a father figure who holds the reins spiritually. The funds raised are used for the printing of Bible Studies of a correspondence course and the distribution among prisoners. In September 1995 Pastor Raymond Lombard from Cape Town was moved by the Holy Spirit early one morning as he prayed, to initiate a project that would ultimately reach every home, tribe, clan, family, and village throughout Africa with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This outreach that surged through 28 countries in 8 years is known as Wheels for God's Word. During this period of time 2223 bicycles ("rural Mercedes" as these have been named in Africa) have been given to pastors and evangelists in more than sixty-two church denominations. Simultaneously with the first fact finding mission of Wheels for God's Word in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire at that time) - Ferdie Warwick (author of the Discipleship Course Growing in Grace") was inspired by the Spirit to work in conjunction with "Wheels" as Word on Wheels, i.e. to distribute the "Heart of Man" chart and the accompanying booklet wherever a bicycle was released to a preacher of the gospel. The mission and vision inspired by the Lord through these two pastors – while pastoring their own local congregations, challenging them with a burning passion to see souls saved and cared for – got gradually known as Wheels for God's Word and Word on Wheels. + Bruce van Eeden, Africa Arise Jubilee social ministries Drug Rehabs             AFRICA - land of beauty and splendour ; land of primal mystery, yet a continent lacking in some of the amenities that most Westerners would automatically take for granted. It is therefore, not without some reason that Africa has acquired the unfortunate stigma of being labelled "the dark continent". Yet Africa has largely been neglected by the Christian church in the West,  thus,  allowing other religions to gain a foothold on the continent. As Christians, we labour under the divine injuncture to spread the gospel to the furthest regions of the earth. We are also enabling the life-changing force of the gospel to so transform people, that they too can experience the fulness and joy of life in Christ. Africa presents a unique challenge to the Christian evangelist. Due to the high illiteracy rate among the African population, the gospel has to be spread orally. However, communities are far-flung which means that great distances have to be covered in the quest to spread the gospel. In addition to this, the terrain is frequently inhospitable and unforgiving, making the lack of a properly developed transport infrastructure more sorely felt. War damage and devastation has left many rivers uncrossable by 4 wheel drive vehicles or by car because bridges have been blown up by civil war or swept away by floods. Most men of God are very poor, living only on edible leaves they have cooked. Sometimes with no more than three meals a week they have little energy and strength in their bodies. Bicycles are the answer. The bicycle is the most practical means of getting the gospel to where it is needed the most. One does not need a license to drive/ride a  bicycle. A bicycle can go where a 4 X 4 cannot go. Humbled and Ashamed When I attended the City Bowl ministers fraternal on the first Thursday of October 2007 after a lengthy absence, my mood was basically to say good bye to the colleagues. In my spirit I had given up hope that the Body of Christ could work together locally. At the meeting I was humbled and ashamed to hear from Rev Peter Holgate as he invited other churches to join a venture to uplift the community and thereafter especially when Dr Andre Olivier, speaking on behalf of the Groote Kerk pastors. They wanted to suggest to their church council to invite other clergymen to share the pulpit on Robben Island once a month. Following the invitations to minister colleagues to share devotions at Monte Rosa, their old age home, this was a significant move forward. The Groote Kerk congregation had been the most conservative of all with regard to any moves of church unity in the City Bowl, apart from their traditional networking with the Lutheran Church in Strand Street with a children’s home. A further few months down the road Groote Kerk staged a combined Christmas Carol service better than anything in the years prior to this. Because I was about to venture into the CPx from the end of January, I could not volunteer to serve on Robben Island soon. Only on Sunday 22 June 2008 I went there with Rosemarie, Sammy and Sheralyn. That only five other church members attended – including the local elder, Frikkie Nel, his wife and two daughters – did not quench our spirits at all. In fact, all of us were challenged in some way or another. This was especially the case when Frikkie showed us around the following morning. We saw the deterioration of the island since we were there at the ‘closing the gates of iniquity’ event in 2001. The more Frikkie Nel shared about the potential of the island, the more I started dreaming. Could this island, a gateway to Africa, perhaps be the place where the transformation of our continent could start? I shared my dream in this regard with Tim Makamu and Andy Hawkins at our think tank meeting around the xenophilia issue on Wednesday 25 June, 2008. For a long time nothing further transpired, not even after our friend Jutty Bredenkamp was appointed as director of the Island museum situation albeit that things seemed to improve. Interaction with a Holocaust survivor The same day, Saturday 31 May, 2008, the northern suburb of Durbanville hosted a special event where a Holocaust survivor told his story, followed by that of Rosemarie as the daughter of a German couple who had sported the opposite sentiment in respect of Jews. Rosemarie apologised to David ?? and all Jews present on behalf of the German nation for the misery which had been perpetrated to the Jews. She mentioned how she came to appreciate that Jesus was made a scapegoat - just like the Jews during the Nazi era in Germany. At the end of the meeting quite a few Jews came up to her afterwards, thanking her and hugging her. Publication at last? At the occasion of our visit to Germany following the birth of our grandson Josiah in June 2009, we took along a few sample copies of Seeds sown for Revival along for our children. When our nephew Uli Braun saw the book – he had been in the printing trade - he immediately had a suggestion for improvements of the front and back covers. Further subsequent comment from our children and my wife on Uli's efforts made email networking the name of the game after he had gone to South Korea. The beautiful final present product was the result. But we were still praying for a financial confirmation to continue with the publication. I preferred to leave my manuscripts on our Internet blog until such time that it was clear that the Lord had given His right of way for the faith venture. The contrary happened when we returned from Europe at the beginning of September. A few letters awaited us including a shocker regarding a backlog of taxes that had to be settled. This was to me the confirmation that the time for publication of the book was not ripe. The consultant who had initially been such a blessing to put us at ease in 2004, had been procrastinating for years. A few days later there was an SMS on my bank, a substantial amount from a church that had been blessing us occasionally. When I mentioned this to Rosemarie, she reacted immediately that we should go ahead with the printing. I envisaged the 21 October as the date when I wanted the book printed ADDITION Prayer and Protests As candlelit prayer vigils and protests spread from Leipzig, through Dresden, to all of East Germany, the East German government was bankrupt and tottering. Gorbachev's Soviet Union was also bankrupt and could no longer bail them out.  So Erich Honecker, the dictator of East Germany, turned to the West Germans (who in the past had always been willing to provide enough to keep East Germany going).  This time, however, the West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was not willing to bail them out.  He demanded reforms.   The Fall of the Wall While governments negotiated, the people in both East and West Berlin rose up to breach the wall and began to dismantle it physically.  The leaders were overwhelmed by events.  Days after the Berlin Wall collapsed, mass demonstrations broke out in Czechoslovakia.  Vaclav Havel, long time leader of the Resistance movement and prisoner of the communists, rose to power and dismantled communism in Czechoslovakia.    Street fighting erupted in Romania to overthrow the brutal communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.  Soon resistance spread to Bulgaria where the communists were overthrown in December 1989.  In Hungary the communist government was overthrown in October 1990.  In Albania the first free elections were held in March 1991.  Yugoslavia split into different republics as each broke away from the communist control in Belgrade.  Soon the Baltic Republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - were demanding their independence from the Soviet Union.   The End of the Soviet Union In August 1991 a coup in the Soviet Union was frustrated in its attempt to return the country to hard line communism.  Boldly waving the white, blue and red Russian flag, Boris Yeltsin abolished the Soviet Union and pulled down the Soviet Flag.  The Cold War had formally ended.   The War on Terror But even as the Cold War with Soviet Union communism ended, a new war was starting with radical Islamic terrorists declaring war on the West. Revival-preparing Action in the City Bowl? By mid-October 2008 there was still no concrete sign that City Bowl churches were prepared to work together. As the wedding of our daughter approached, Rosemarie thought of Maeva Verblun as someone to arrange the flowers at the occasion. For many years Maeva was responsible for flower arrangements at the Cape Town Baptist Church. When she visited us in the middle of October 2008, I mentioned our monthly early morning prayer on Signal Hill, and that we prayed there for Bo-Kaap and Sea Point. She immediately indicated interest to join us at the next occasion. The prayer event on the 4th Saturday of October on Signal Hill15 was destined to have interesting ramifications when Maeva invited me to attend the prayer meeting at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Vredehoek, which takes place every last Saturday morning of the month. When I attended their event on 29 November I was deeply blessed to hear what God had already started doing in Sea Point. The fellowship started with a church planting initiative through Jacques Erasmus. (As a Straatwerk colleague he had already been praying with us at the City Bowl Ministers’ Fraternal. I was also overjoyed to hear their vision to reach out with the Gospel, ideally together with other churches.) The Triplets of Abomination addressed At a meeting of the xenophobia think tank on 2 December 2008 at the His People offices I shared my desire to bring the triplets of abomination that plague our country as issues to be addressed. Seen from a biblical point of view I deemed them to be: abortion, sexual perversion and discrimination towards refugees from other African countries. Pastor Tim Makamu shared how he had addressed a high-profile meeting of the ANC while attending the event with other Black pastors of the Godly Governance Network. As the spokesman for the group he cleverly challenged the ruling party at that occasion to return to their biblical roots. Also at our Civic Centre prayer meeting a few days later I repeated the triplets of abomination as a prayer point. The seed sown in this way germinated quite soon. A few weeks prior to the elections of 22 April 2009 and his Africa Christian Action highlighted biblical values in a comparison of the stance of the various parties on the first two of the ‘triplets of abomination’. This appeared to elicit reaction from the bigger political parties. A spokesman of the ANC even intimated that abortion and same-sex marriages are not ‘holy cows’. The significant amendment or even repeal of these laws suddenly loomed as a possibility. And I was not willing to relent on fighting discrimination against foreigners. An unprecedented global Initiative In thousands of vigils, rallies and protests, hundreds of thousands of phone calls, and millions of petition signatures from all around the globe, an unprecedented movement rose to prevent climate change which would lead to some islands to disappear. After hearing the result of the talks, one member from Africa wrote to the Avaaz organizers of the protests: 'It takes a lot to get an elephant moving, but when you do it is hard to stop...the elephant is moving...' Despite the outcome, Copenhagen has built the movement that can win the fight to save our planet. In the last week of the Copenhagen summit, thousands of vigils and events were organized in 140 countries as well as an enormous multi-million person petition. All this generated thousands of news articles, organized peaceful sit-ins at key government buildings. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown requested an emergency conference call with Avaaz members, telling them: 'You have driven forward the idealism of the world...do not underestimate the impact on the leaders here'. Peace Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu personally appealed to the organizers to take up the torch of past causes and never give up. The organizers summarised after the battle: 'We saw that the fight to save our planet cannot be won at a single summit. But we also learned what we're capable of, when we all come together. If we stay together, nothing can stop us.' The past week was quite interesting. I should start the story with Thursday, 5 May, while we were on our way to Carmel. During a prayer walk in Bo-Kaap, along with the remaining members of our team, Brett Viviers shared a vision that the Lord had been giving him regarding Bo-Kaap. A stream that started at Signal Hill became broader and broader. This could be easily linked to the FIRE TRAILS initiative that God had given to unite national ministries, movements and churches in South Africa for a period of 40 days (6 March – 16 April 2011). FIRE TRAILS that were expected to support and serve local communities towards sustainable and biblical transformation, had started on 6 March 2011 at Signal Hill. While exciting things were reported in the wake of the FIRE TRAILS in other parts of the country, it seemed that nothing was happening in the City Bowl. Yet God was at work all the time. Already last year, in September, Deon Augustyn, a young man who worships at the Cape Town Baptist Church, was impacted at the GdoP/Jericho Walls prayer teaching at the Rocklands conference Centre near Simonstown. He came back all fired up, starting a little prayer group at his home church and organising a 24/7 prayer day last Friday. During the above-mentioned prayer walk in Bo-Kaap two weeks ago, members of our Friends from Abroad team became very much aware of the historical guilt regarding the area - very especially in respect of the way in which slaves were pushed away and encouraged to became Muslims. They came to our FFA meeting on Tuesday 9 May with the suggestion to have a night of prayer where this should be highlighted. Trisha wrote some notes with the aid of notes I had written last year on Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations. On Friday 3 June, during the ten days of prayer in the run-up to this year's Global Day of Prayer, we will have a night of prayer. We will of course also pray for the city and our country. Repentance and confession for wrongs of the past, especially here at the Cape, will be fairly central at this occasion. (As Christians we have stained hands regarding what happened to slaves, Jews and Muslims over the centuries. Identificational confession and repentance is surely in place.) The leadership of Cape Town Baptist Church has already offered their Conradie Room for the occasion. The venue is possibly not so important, but I would personally have preferred something nearer to Bo-Kaap. St Stephen's unfortunately already have Pinksterbidure every evening. Initiated by Tesfaye Nenko, our short termer, a pastor from an Ethiopian congregation in Bellville came here on Tuesday afternoon. Together we deliberated how we could involve some of his Ethiopian and Eritrean congregants in the outreach and mobilization, e.g for reaching out to Somalians. The same evening I was due to attend a meeting in Bellville. The presence of Tesfaye gave new hope to the folk. In the initial reports there was a negative vibe, just highlighting what we all knew, viz. that it was not easy to minister to Somalians. I did not expect that the whole meeting would be about the outreach to this difficult people group. The possibility of utilising the special Ethiopian church in Bellville – worldwide possibly the only one worldwide where Eritreans and Ethiopians worship together in peace and harmony, as well as believers from different denominations – infused new enthusiasm into the group. They are now looking at having a combined prayer meeting on Friday 3 June. Tesfaye went to that church this morning with Baruch Maayan, who was going to share something of the vision of the African Highway of Holiness to Jerusalem, to initiate the planting of small fellowships. He foresees a central role for the Ethipian Church. I preached this morning at a home church with Malawians in Brooklyn, hoping to return there on 19 June. It is not clear what the Lord has in store here. We met the leader, a part time student at Cornerstone, during one of our leaders' meetings of All Nations. Information has surfaced that the change towards democracy in South Africa was primarily the result of many years of faithful prayer against the demonic apartheid ideology, much of it by less known Christians. Many of the persevering pray-ers were black women and Christians in other countries. Some of the prayer in the run-up to the elections has been documented, e.g. by Michael Cassidy, A Witness for Ever, Hodder and Stoughton, London (1995). The sterling work of others has been surfacing, e.g. in the teaching of Bennie Mostert of the Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa and Gerda Leithgöb of Herald Ministries. A few Christians from the region of the Dutch town Zeist were led in the Zionskerk to pray especially for South Africa on Thursday, October 4, 1989. They were not aware of it that just a week later the new State President De Klerk was scheduled to have a historic meeting with the theologians Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr. Allan Boesak. The Dutch prayer warriors were thus unwittingly instruments to prepare the way for the release of (the later president) Nelson Mandela in February 1990. It was very fitting that a Kenyan professor, Washington Okomu, was used by God to broker the accord which staved off civil war just before the first democratic elections in 1994. Many Kenyans had been praying for SA in the run-up to these elections.