Early on Saturday morning the 25th Jan 2014 I had driven to meet a fellow missionary, Eric
Binion, who lived an hour away. Since my
arrival was a little early I decided to open and read a letter I had taken out
of our mail box upon leaving home. I
knew who it was from, because faithfully
since starting our work for God 15 years ago,
this group of dedicated ladies have been praying for us, and sending us monthly encouragement
cards. This months encouragement card
had “Prayer” written across it, including the verse from Matthew 9:37 The
harvest is plentiful…Ask the Lord … to send out more workers into His harvest
field.
We were on our way to Lesotho, a tiny kingdom surrounded by South Africa and
locked away high in the mountains. We had
heard from others that the Amazioni of Northern Lesotho might possibly be ready for the teaching of God’s
Word, and we, who both are Bible teachers at Zion Bible Schools in South
Africa, are keen to see this happen. (The somewhat 10million Amazioni of Southern Africa can trace their roots back to
the Christian Catholic Church in Zion, Illinois, whose publications, teachings,
and brief missionary contact, around 1905, sparked a religious movement so
large that today we still struggle to keep count. Most are syncretistic, and
with a love of old testament law and practices, are still bound by African
traditions, laws and customs.) Our last
visit in early December of last year,
yielded only 1 Zionist, I was failing to
see the wide harvest fields being reported.
We prayed along the way, because
our strategy was to set no detailed agenda, other than to go to the rural village
of Butha Buthe and to begin to look for the signs of the harvest that had
previously pointed us to this place.
Upon arrival, we
started to enquire at the local church about the Zionists we had met
before. It was suggested we contact a
certain Zion pastor and begin there, and
before we could dial his number he walked in the gate. He proceeded to inform us of a Zion Church
meeting happening the following day in the neighboring district. We decided to drive the 40km that afternoon
and check it out. It so happened, (or, most
likely, God was orchestrating something) we both knew this young Pastor from
previous visits. How very surprised and
overjoyed he was to see us in his village.
A quick stop had to be made to the local chief to introduce
ourselves, upon which we were questioned
as to the where-a-bouts of the rain. We
assured him that we had not taken it,
and that it would return. The forecast
for Lesotho, was no rain for the weekend.
The next day we were allowed to share with a tent full
of Amazioni from around the district,
including the chief and his son.. We
challenge them from scripture and the early church teachings about being ready
to study God’s Word for themselves. We
will be returning on March 14, 2014 to begin with a foundational lesson of
their history and the Christian Faith.
No sooner had we ended our challenge to them, when it started raining very lightly. How happy the chief was, and a wonderful
confirmation of our words of truth from God to them. Pray
further with us, that this meeting in
March will be the start of a great harvest for God in the mountain Kingdom of
Lesotho.
Thanks you for equipping us to go, good and faithful
servants of God
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