Newsflash from D’kar – April 2020
Rev Hendrik Du Plessis Reformed Church D ́Kar Botswana
In Mark 4 from verse 35 We read of the behavior and the actions of the disciples during a storm on the sea. After so many sermons and Bible studies on the continent, it was time to apply what they have learned in practice. They had to open the waters. You can’t sit in a classroom forever. There are times that you must be able to apply in the storms that you learned in the classroom in your comfort zone. Learning is important, but in practice you bring the two together. But woe to you if you have no theoretical underpinning. If your place was empty in the church for years and you have no theoretical background to face such a storm. We are now experiencing the storm around the corona pandemic and the boat we find ourselves in filled with water, and everyone is calling out to the Lord as the disciples of old.
But what they did not realize, at that moment he was (the Almighty) between them asleep. He was with them. He wasn’t out there on the land. No, he was among them like a master who wants to see his learners apply practically to their faith as they were taught in the classroom. But oh no, the disciples are going mad as if they have learned nothing. Their screaming in trouble, for he was their master: “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” Like a master, He now teaches them how you to behave in such a storm, how you gather theory and practice. You sleep in faith especially when you know in whom you put your trust. You are calm and calm as the Lord Jesus himself. It is faith. All the classes and lessons in the past should now determine your state of mind.
This was in short the sermon now recently after our Elder’s son was lost in the central Kalahari. It began to rain when they called me. Please help us..come !!. I just left everything and drove . It was cold and it darkness started to fall. In Gantsi we had to go to the elder’s house. Many people were awaiting us there. (+- 15km from Dekar)
There we made plans, because it is dark and ice cold with the rain drizzling. You can imagine what’s going on in a parent’s mind. If the traces (sole-marks) are drenched, where are you going to start looking for him. Getting lost in the direction of the central Kalahari Park, it is like a needle you are going to look for in a haystack. I’ve read somewhere that the Kalahari Park is about 10 times greater than the Kruger National Park.
Whether it is true I do not know, but what I know is that the odds are extremely slim that
one will come into contact with people. It is lion’s world as no other place in the world. I stayed behind at one of our elders ‘ cattle posts, if he would get lost in the direction and get to us by change. One o clock at night the other group came back. A great fire was made and each made him warm there around the fire, and how colder we get the more we thought of the boy who’s gone without a jersey. Four o’clock the morning we began the search again.. Here at eight the morning we heard a pounding and the good news. They got him. For us it was a miracle, and the parents were radiated with gratitude. As he last saw the previous day, they walked in the round until they came across fresh tracks and hence they ran on his rail straight toward the central Kalahari Park. I asked the boy if he got cold. No, he says.
| He later admitted to the Sermon on the Storm on the sea, they could identify themselves with the disciples in their trouble that night, but they clung to their faith knowing that the Lord Jesus was with them in this storm. ” |
Then his father explained what happened. He walked and walked until he came to an old borehole at sunset. There he got an old thick plastic jacket that someone threw out or forgot a few years ago. This he dressed. There was a long thread laid and a container. He then tied the thread to the container and lowered into the borehole and could drink enough water to quench his thirst. Nearby were old ruins where he could hide. After the entire excursion, when we arrived back in D’kar, his father explains to me the actual drama with which they had to do. The family insisted that they first had to see a magic doctor, and in the second place their culture does not allow his wife to go together. He refused, and the reason for it was, he and his wife were Christians. His words to them were: “You’re wasting my time. My child gets cold and I’m going to drive now. “
It’s not the first time someone got so lost. A few years ago, someone’s child was just so lost. All the dancers in the area gathered together to dance for the child, to learn from the spirits where he is. They were on track, and one persuaded them to turn back, and to this day they did rebuke themselves that they had wasted so much time. The child was never found .He died or of the hunger and the thirst, or the Lions consumed him. No one will know.
This stark contrast to people who do not believe and people who believe was a sermon in itself. Now after the time, the elder and his wife strengthened in their faith : they read their Bible, they teach many things in the church, but on that day the Lord Jesus led them into the open waters, so that they might have practically added to what they already knew, and the Lord Jesus was with them in the boat. No coincidence he came down on the borehole, and no coincidence anyone forgot his thick jacket there. We got cold that night, but he was hot and sheltered.
Such incidents are very important to us as missionaries in the mission field. The Lord gives content to the preaching of his word. He strengthens and tests the believer in his time and in this case they came stronger than ever.