July 10th, 2007, otherwise known as my 28th birthday. What I thought it was going to look like turned out to be something completely different, and totally God’s plan.
Monday, Scott had asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I had figured since Nessa was back together, that we’d finish the mural we started painting the week before. That’s all I was thinking about. The team had asked Kent and Shay about different fun activities to do around the Nelspruit area the week before. And they didn’t forget about our ideas. One of our ideas had been to go ziplining. Kent went for a full out search for a phone number of a guy he knew. Trumpie was the man’s name, and he owns an adventure camp with repelling, ziplining, horseback riding, archery, and the like. It took a dinner guest to figure out what the name of the business was and then look it up in the yellow pages.
Nessa was congregated in the kitchen, catching up on what had happened over the weekend (half had gone to Mozambique) and nibbling on my attempt at Tomato soup cake (Nancy, it came out pretty good for not having the exact ingredients). Kent rushed back into the kitchen after a short time on the phone. Everyone, get to bed soon, you’re leaving the house at 6:45 am to go to adventure camp. At that, I hopped in my pj’s and huddled under the covers.
Morning came amazingly fast, and we stumbled to the coffee maker. We put together our lunch, and made a hasty breakfast of granola and yogurt. Soon enough, we were in Kent’s car headed for White River. When we arrived, we were welcomed by Trompie and his wife Suzanna. They explained that they would be doing a teaching that morning with a group of teens from the Barberton area. Every day they have “camp”. They bus kids in from different poor (or black) areas, and this work is done by the local social workers. And then Trompie feeds them and sits them down for a teaching. And he taught about life, choosing life (choosing eternity, choosing values, and you can only do it for one person… yourself). He uses an illustration of shooting arrows at a target (over the kids heads!), saying that the opposition to you destiny is sin. You say he’s crazy, and taking the kids lives in his hands, but came in 32nd in the world archery championship. Trompie’s a man’s man, a guy that Scott could glean (and did) a lot from, especially teaching teens about the Lord.
Then he prayed with them, gave the opportunity for salvation, and every teen in that room wanted Jesus. We all stood in unison as we looked at one another, and saw our eternal family.
Suzanna made us a fried egg breakfast (yay protein!), and we played with dogs and on massive swings which dangled from high boughs of trees. Then Trumpie came and said let’s go abseiling. OK, sure…. what is abseiling? Suzanna sent us on a hike with one of the helpers, a local named Prince. We would come to find out that abseiling was belaying, or repelling down a steep rock face. As we walked the path, a family of vervet monkeys crossed the road, and behind it followed some kind of small deer. (I was half wondering where the big cat was that was stalking them.)
When we arrived at the abseiling site, we waited for Trompie to pull up to the ledge with the equipment. When he got out of the car (his black lab, Licorice in tow), he immediately set to work with his helpers, and explained abseiling… the different styles and techniques, the adventure business, what else we wanted to do that day. Hmmm, what else did we want to do. I thought about horse back riding, but Trompie explained that there were only 3 horses in riding shape at the moment. Many of the horses were foaling, and a few he was still training (he told us how he caught 6 wild horses in the forest, gave three away, and now he’s teaching the horses how to walk with sandbags on their backs).
We decided that abseiling would be the only activity we’d do (with the cost and all), but Trompie offered to take us to a cave to explore, free of charge. We were all strapped in our harnesses, and the first three were ready to lean back and repell. Amanda, Scott and I started walking backwards, and slowing made our way down to the bottom. Way fun. We hiking up and did it again. Scott went more than I did, it was a great experience to have done this on an actual rock, and not on a climbing wall.
We put the equipment away. When we got back to the house, we ate lunch, and then we hopped in the Landrover and drove toward the cave. Stumbling up dirt roads, in an extremely remote area (Trompie kept saying I never see anyone else here, no one comes up here), we came upon a nice looking pick up truck. As we approached, we realized there was someone in the truck, who acknowledged us. As we started to drive by, Trompie yells, there’s a hose going into the car. He immediately backs up, hops out of the car, opens the man’s car door, turns his car off, and grabs the key. Scott jumped out and pulled the hose out of the rear window, and out of the exhaust line. This man was attempting suicide.
As Trompie spoke with the man in Afrikaans, we stood around, praying, until Trompie told us to take a walk to a lookout. We did this and when we got there, just kept praying… praying against the darkness, the curses over his life, illness, and sending it to the pit of hell. We prophecied life over this man, I said today he’s met God, this is his road to Damascus (and yes, his name was Paul), he’s been given rebirth on the day God chose to bring me into the world. I couldn’t help but cry. It was a really emotional time for us all. We all prayed healing over Paul. Then we heard a whistle.
We came back to the cars. Trompie asked us if we’d pray with Paul. Scott began, and then I went. I thanked God that he had predestined this meeting from the beginning of time. And then I told Paul that there is no reason at all we should be up in the middle of nowhere, except that it’s my birthday and we were having a day of fun. There’s no reason I should be in South Africa, except that God called me out on this trip over a year ago. Paul broke down as I broke down. This is God’s grace. Not that a man should feel embarrassed about his sin, but that we surround him and tell him about God’s great love for him. God decided to use what Satan intended for harm, to be used for His glory!
The rest of the girls prayed, and then Scott asked Paul if someone he knows prays for him. Paul answered that his wife must be. We found out that his wife is a Christian, just as Paul admits to being one. Scott explained that his wife must be doing major battle in the heavenlies for him, because we were sent on this mission today. We didn’t have a clue, however, as we thought we were just coming up here to check out caves.
In the end, Trompie gave him his keys back, asked him what he shoudl do with the hose. Paul offered it to Trompie, and he gladly accepted it as a reward from heaven. I looked at Paul and Trompie talking and saw a new relationship… a father son relationship forming. It was a work that only God could do. Paul drove away, with a renewed hope. We drove away absolutely in awe of what God had just done. I am grateful to God, for my life, for allowing me to do His work, letting me be his hands and feet, for rebirth, and especially for grace.
