I want to tell you a story of a man I met last month.
This frail frame, wrapped in his old dirty jacket trying to stay warm, coughing regularly, and living with the pain caused by Tuberculosis, had sadness in his eyes- but a glimmer of hope as well.
This man lived on the other side of the hill across from Bomvu Backpackers, our main ministry site. We were all going for church service that we were asked to lead that Sunday morning. All of the village children from that area huddled around and their families sat around, all of us in a big circle outside of the huts. We lead songs and did some funny skits and they loved it! After the service though, we went inside the church hut to pray over it (there’s lots of confusion in Coffee Bay about the spiritual and how church and witchcraft are not related) and just ask the Lord for protection over the area. As we were praying there was the man sitting on the ground behind us, obviously in discomfort. Cole asked if he could pray for him and the man nodded yes. Cole prayed for him back outside and the man said he felt better, Cole was sure to say that it was because of Jesus! It was time to leave the church but I’ve been praying for God to speak to my spirit about divine opportunities that He’s given me. I knew I was supposed to ask if this man knows who Jesus is! Well, that’s a little difficult when you don’t speak a lick of each other’s languages. So I quickly found a translator and we stood there for 15 minutes talking back and forth and who God is and how He loves this man. The man quickly said he believes in God but has only seen pictures of this Jesus, but also that he doesn’t believe God is love. There’s a god for blacks and a god for whites. I was able to tell him how much God loves HIM, the same as he loves me…I think that was the only point that God wanted me to get across that day. As I’m in the middle of sharing the Gospel with the man (7 or 8 of our squad standing around praying for the Spirit to speak through me) he looks at me and turns around and walks down the hill. I’ve been praying for God to break my heart for the lost, and immediately I couldn’t hold back the tears. In my past these would have been tears of frustration or rejection, but this was different. These were tears of genuine sadness that this man couldn’t understand how much God loves him.
I knew that day as we were walking back from church that I had to go back to this man. About 2 weeks later Hannah and I decide to go back up there and see if we can find the man (he has a name but I CANNOT pronounce it!). We walk up the hill fully expecting to be used by the Lord, we just didn’t know how. When we finally got to the home, we asked around for the man with TB and after a few minutes we realize he is walking up the hill to meet us. He’s out of breath and wants to sit down when he makes it to where we are. It was definitely provision from God that the same girl who translated that Sunday morning was there again and perfectly willing to translate for us again. We asked if we could pray over his sickness, so we prayed over him for several minutes. Hannah and I took turns talking to him about the Lord and who Jesus is and what He did because of His love for this man. This time he was SO much more receptive! We had to move to sit on another part of the grass because he was very uncomfortable because of the TB, so we moved and talked some more. I asked him if he believed in Jesus and he said yes! Through the translator, this man repeated out loud after me the sinner’s prayer. I am not ignorant enough to believe this man understands everything about Christianity and what it means, but I know that God asks us to have faith like a child! Even though he doesn’t understand all that it entails, I know that this man will be with me in heaven one day, and that’s something to praise the Lord for!!! Moments like these is what the World Race is all about! Being used by God!
We were able to pray for him again before we left and even the 3 or 4 children that were there came and laid hands on him and prayed out loud for this man to be healed of the TB. I know that this was all an answer to prayer for me to be used by God, but I also believe that God rejoiced at our willingness to be used by Him! I pray for more divine encounters like that this year, but even if he is the only person I can actually LEAD to Christ, it was all worth it.
I will never forget the man on the hill.
