Rev Hendrik Du Plessis
I remember as a child how the people talked about haunting spirits. If they told you that place is haunted by spirits, you should know that the people there don’t sleep at night. At night you hear someone turns on the taps and when you get there, there is nothing. You feel something is shaking your bed. You hear someone is dragging chains on the roof. It is an experience that has made people decide to move instead.
Recently, at a funeral in Gantsi, someone phoned me with the request to come and visit them. It was a young white man who grew up in Zimbabwe and manages a farm here. Someone told him that I am a missionary and might be able to help because their workers don’t sleep at night.
I then made an appointment with him for the next Saturday. On Saturday, Aron, one of our elders, and I went to visit them. Once there the young white man received us. With him was a Ndebele from Zimbabwe and two Bushmen.
They explained to us what happens at night. There is something that makes a noise on the roof and then at the window. In the middle of the night you can clearly hear someone opening the door and coming in even though it is locked. It’s almost always a certain time of the night. From the windows, the person usually goes to the door, then opens it and enters. When you look you find the door locked as it was. Lately it has gotten worse, says the Zimbabwean.
We had a long conversation during which I explained to them what the Bible says about the existence of evil spirits. In Ephesians 6, Paul speaks of the evil spirits in the air, but, we have made it clear to them that we were not there to drive out or chase away the evil spirits. We came to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus in Whose presence it is unbearable for such spirits. If there were such spirits there and we exorcise them it would only be to address the symptoms and not the problem. The problem may lie in the fact that the inhabitants of the house did not have the Lord Jesus as a personal Savior in their life. If you really have Him in your lives, you have not only addressed the symptoms, but also the root of the problem.
On the other hand, if you cast out an evil spirit and your house of life stands empty without Christ, that evil spirit can return later with seven other spirits worse than itself, and the last will then be worse than the first.
Afterwards, I also explained to them that such problems usually arise where the occult has been consulted in the past, such as witch doctors or these so-called “barutis”, (preachers) who involve themselves in spiritism. When Africans have problems they have the tendency to visit witch doctors and spiritists who call themself preachers as they have problems, and expose themself to occult practices. Afterwards, they are usually harassed in their dreams by so-called ancestors who are actually evil spirits pretending to be their ancestors.
My advice tothem was to surrender yourself to the Lord Jesus, and ask Him to forgive your sins and ask Him to come into your lives through His Spirit. I explained to them what sin is and that we are all sinners before the Lord, but his mercy is great and through His Son Jesus Christ He forgives all our sins. He is the only sacrifice for our sins.
My further advice to them was to get together every night before going to bed, read a section from the Bible and then say a prayer. Recently I called the Ndebele man to find out how things are going on the farm. He said that the night visits definitely decreased. I encouraged him to continue praying, because prayer and fasting are the only way to get rid of these powers, says the Lord Jesus.
It is not unusual for Africans to sit with these callanges. This comes over generations during which they were exposed to occult practices. For thousands of years it has been the practice to consult the sangoma or witch doctor when you have a problem in your home. The witch doctor will then give you some medication that will “counteract” the witchcraft. He will also give you the name of the person who wants to kill you.
For the rest of your life, you will then believe that that person wants to kill you even if it is the biggest noncense the witch doctor wants you to believe. For the rest of your life, you live in enmity with that person. It can even turn so ugly that you harm or even kill that person.
Through their contact with the occult, it is common that they begin to dream dreams in which the so-called ancestors speak or communicate with them.
A Tswana woman once told me that she could see her ancestors in her house. When an elder and I explained to one of the women during a home visit that these are not their ancestors but demonic forces that appear to them in their dreams, she agreed with me and said, it makes sense to her, because her mother who has recently passed away, was the gentlest woman imaginable and she was well aware of their poverty, but now she bothers her every night in her dreams and wants her to sacrifice an ox, and where are they going to get money to buy an ox. She whole heartedly agreed with me because she didn’t know her mother that way.
Many people here in Africa yearn for the good old days before the advent of democracy and the whites, but what they don’t realize is that democracy has replaced “sangomacracy”, where the witch doctor or witch doctors with their lies wielded the real scepter.
The chief of the tribe had his witch doctors as his advisors. They usually consulted the so-called ancestors for him through their dolosses or bones. You then always lived in fear because the witch doctor could very easily tell the chief, his dolosses showed him that you were planning a plot against him as chief. Then the chief gives orders to his impi’s to get rid of you. There was no such thing as an appeal. These are the fake or so-called good old days.
There is a common belief among black people that white people cannot be bewitched. I always answer that white people can be “bewitched”. If I, as a white person, expose myself to the occult like the average African person, it is obvious that I will be controlled by the power of darkness.”
Bere
Once again we had a good visit. We were able to visit two cattle posts outside Bere. In Bere itself we showed the “walking with Jesus” film for 3 consecutive nights. I mentioned the film in my previous report. It is a film that dramatically explains the result of becoming a Christian in a very simple way. What happens to you when you surrender yourself completely to the Lord Jesus?
Question 2 of Sunday 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism is clearly depicted in the film, your misery, how you can be saved, and your life of gratitude afterwards. The fact that it is dubbed into Tswana keeps everyone glued from start to finish. They understand clearly the message. Even the next day you hear them discussing the film among themselves.
On Sunday at the church there were not as many children as usual, because many were away with their parents to the cattle posts during the school holidays. Still, it was pleasant to see how the teacher teaches them. The children dictate Bible verses that they have memorized at home. She then opened a book she was working through and explained the Sunday school lesson to them. When I saw the group of children there in front of me, Zechariah 4 verse 10 came to mind, which I shared with them: “For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice . . .” Sitting here, is not very impressive in the eyes of the world, but the Lord looks differently at the day of small things. It is not about the day as such, but about what the Lord plans for the future. Many times this happens in simplicity and modesty.
I told them the story of Uncle Walt who really wanted to start a Sunday school class. One day he saw a group of boys playing marbles. He approached them to make friends with them. Later he invited them to church. One day he asked them if they would like to join his Sunday school class. “Hey we didn’t even know uncle had a Sunday school class,” remarked the one. “No” he said, “I don’t have a Sunday school class but I want to start one.” After that he taught them faithfully and on Sundays they went to church.
They were 13 boys. Eleven of those boys later became ministers or missionaries and one of those boys was the famous theologian prof. Howard George Hendricks. For more than fifty years, Howard George Hendricks was a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, where he taught “Bible Interpretation and Hermeneutics” to freshmen. In Wikipedia we read that he has mentored many Christian leaders over the years including Chuck Swindoll, Tony Evans, Joseph Stowell, Robert Jeffress, Chip Ingram, Josh Macdowell and David Jeremiah. He has been a keynote speaker for Promise Keepers and has written sixteen books. He served in more than 80 countries, and he also served as chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys football team from 1976 to 1984.
According to Josh Macdowell, more than a thousand institutes were created worldwide through his influence – And all of this actually originated by the simple Uncle Walt. Professor Hendricks himself writes:
“In my own life, I can recall several of these profoundly influential figures who were strategically used by God to change the course of my life. The first was a man named Walt. Had it not been for Walt, I seriously doubt whether I would have ever become a follower of Jesus Christ. I came from a broken home. My parents were separated before I was born, and neither one paid much attention to my spiritual condition. To put it bluntly, I could have lived, died, and gone to hell without anyone even bothering to care. But Walt cared. He was part of a tiny church in my neighborhood that developed a passion to affect its community for Christ. “Would you like to play marbles?” Walt’s passion was to reach nine-and ten-year-old boys like me with the gospel.
I’ll never forget the Saturday morning I met him. I was sprawled out on a Philadelphia sidewalk playing marbles. Suddenly someone was standing beside me. I looked up to see this gangly guy towering over me—all six feet, four inches of him. My mouth sort of dropped open. ‘Hey, son, how would you like to go to Sunday school?’ he asked. That was an unfortunate question. To my mind, anything that had the word “school” in it had to be bad news. So I shook my head no. But Walt was just getting started. “How would you like to play marbles?” he asked, squatting down. Now he was talking my language! “Sure!” I replied, and quickly set up the game. As the best marble player on the block, I felt supremely confident that I could whip this challenger fairly easily. Would you believe he beat me in every single game! In fact, he captured every marble I had. In the process, he captured my heart. I may have lost a game and a bit of pride that day, but I gained something infinitely more important—the friendship of a man who cared.
A big man, an older man, a man who literally came down to my level by kneeling to play a game of marbles. From then on, wherever Walt was, that’s where I wanted to be.
A PH.D. IN CARING
Walt built into my life over the next several years in a way that marked me forever. He used to take me and the other boys in his Sunday school class hiking. I’ll never forget those times. He had a bad heart, and I’m sure we didn’t do it any good, running him all over the woods the way we did. But he didn’t seem to mind, because he cared. In fact, he was probably the first person to show me unconditional love. He was also a model of faithfulness. I can’t remember a time that he ever showed up to his Sunday school class unprepared. Not that he was the most scintillating teacher in the world. In fact, he had almost no training for that. Vocationally, he worked in the tool and die trade. But he was for real, and he was also creative. He found ways to involve us boys in the learning process—an approach that made a lasting contribution to my own style of teaching. Overall, Walt incarnated Christ for me. And not only for me, but for thirteen other boys in my neighborhood, nine of whom also came from broken homes. Remarkably, eleven of us went on to pursue careers as vocational Christian workers—which is ironic, given that Walt himself completed school only through the sixth grade. It just goes to show that a man doesn’t need a Ph.D. for God to use him to shape another man.”
To conclude, of course Walt did not foresee that the boys sitting here in front of him would one day have such a great influence on the world. Walt only lived out his passion, his love for Christ. Love Christ and the children in front of you sincerely. It is extremely contagious. Through your love for them, they will love Christ. Those children will remember it for the rest of their lives. Even if your class is small, we serve a great God, a God for whom small things are not too small.
Your brother in Christ,
Hendrik du Plessis