Let’s talk about miracles. Most people of any faith tradition have no problem attributing miraculous events to their founders. This is true whether it is Moses, Buddha, Rama-Krishna, Muhammad or Jesus. Even beyond such religious pioneers, seminal religious figures are encapsulated in the miraculous. Roman Catholics must have miraculous attribution to be recognized as a saint. Shiite Ayatollahs communicate with the 12th Imam who went into “occultation” in the 9th century. Taoist supernatural practioners of martial arts “fly.” The Dalai Lama is the reincarnated divine.
For Christians especially, Jesus’ ministry was marked by numerous spectacular miracles. His apostles continued this pattern and according to the gospels, Jesus promised that all of his disciples would be capable of the same:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. (John 14:12, KJV)
For missionaries, the modern term for an apostle (sent one), the miraculous is a proof of divine legitimacy:
The things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders and miracles—were done among you with great perseverance. (2 Cor 12:12, NIV)
Since I believed that the gospel accounts were “history” and not just mythology (sacred story), it was no problem for me to believe that as a modern day apostle, I could expect to see some element of the miraculous in our ministry in Africa. This was 1983 and I had been a believer in Jesus for 14 years. I had already experienced what I believed to direct divine intervention in my life on numerous occasions.
I hadn’t healed the sick or raised the dead, but neither had I been acting in an apostolic role. I had encountered what I believed to be evidence of demonic or occult activity. On those occasions I had experienced what I believed to be direct manifestations of God’s intervening power on my behalf. In fact, my first encounter with Jesus Freaks had included a close encounter with what I believed to be a demonic presence. (See my comments about the “great white light of the void” in “Part II - Jewish LSD Freak Meets Jesus Freak.”)
Pegi and I were on our way to Zimbabwe where the supernatural was part and parcel of everyday life for the African population. We felt very strongly that we needed to be able to face and back down the local practitioners of African Traditional Religion or we would not get a hearing for the message of Jesus.
Of course, American television was overpopulated with self-proclaimed Christian wonder-workers. Everyone knew of Oral Roberts who had founded his own university, medical school and hospital based on his ministry of healing the sick. We thought that he was a con-artist, but we couldn’t deny that the miraculous was a modern possibility. So, as we searched out a new church home, we also sought “power” for our ministry.
Once again, it was about what worked. As we began to listen to various proponents of miraculous ministry, we intended to test it out for ourselves. If it worked, we would use it. If it was just emotional imagination, then we would discard it. At least, that sounded like a sober approach! What we were to discover was that the proponents and followers of this “charismatic” ministry style were not as sober in their approach. Oy! We had a lot to learn about religious superstition among evangelical Christians.
Because we were already “on our way” to Africa as we began to explore charismata, we weren’t committed to any camp within the charismatic/pentecostal tribes. That freedom made it a little harder for us to “fit in,” but protected us from the shackles of dogma. So, as we experimented with the miraculous, our primary focus was always on the message of Jesus. Consequently, we were successful in ministering to charismatic, non-charismatic, and even anti-charismatic groups. Well, more of that later, as the story of our time in Zimbabwe unfolds.
We left Louisville the day after my 34th birthday, Nov 21st, 1983. We flew to Houston where we stayed with Pegi’s parents and visited some of our former Berachah friends.
My Jewish friends, Ken Duckman and his wife, Jill, who had joined me to sit under Thieme’s ministry in Houston after meeting in Madison in 1970, had also stopped attending Berachah Church. It was good to renew our friendship after our four year absence. They were not affiliated with any church group now. Thieme’s ministry had this effect on many people. Because he asserted his own authority as the right pastor-teacher and presumptuously insisted that other pastors and theologians were not good students of the Word, those who finally rejected his ministry had no where to go.
We had reserved a flight on South African Airways to Johannesburg for Dec 2nd. Although we had not raised the $25,000 we had hoped for, our new home church had committed to raising the $4000 we need for round trip tickets. (In order to enter South Africa and Zimbabwe, we needed return tickets.) We had a little over $1000 in Travelers Checks and an Amex card. We were full of “faith” that the Lord would raise the necessary monthly support once we got to Africa. We trusted our new home church to live up to their encouraging words when they held a special service for us to “send us out as missionaries.”
On the morning of Dec 1st, I called Arnold, our ministry representative in Louisville (another Jewish Christian who was a member of our new home church). He and his wife had volunteered to handle our stateside ministry affairs for our newly incorporated 501 (c) 3 charitable organization, Africa Harvest Ministries. Arnold was supposed to collect the $4000 from our home church and deposit it in our account so I could purchase our tickets.
When Arnold told me that no money had been provided by the church--not one cent of the promised $4000, my “faith” crashed. I had been so confident that the Lord would provide! And the church had promised. We had been major contributors to the church during our six months there, giving several thousand dollars to various ministry needs. I gave a large portion of my theological library to the pastor. We had even donated our newly paid off car to the church for a couple in need. We could have sold the car to pay for our plane tickets, but chose to “plant a seed” for our own ministry needs at the urging of the pastor. We were supposed to leave the following afternoon and couldn’t purchase the tickets!
I was so troubled that I completely broke down and began to have chest pains. Pegi came to my side and prayed for me, rebuking the chest pains in the name of Jesus. Now, I know this all sounds silly, but the pain left and my spirit revived. Of course, this was an emotional breakdown and emotional response to her intervention on my behalf. But, those pains were real, no matter what their cause. The relief of the pain and despair was just as real to me then. Call it emotion, call it a miracle--I don’t care, it was what I needed at the time and it worked!
Composing myself, I called Arnold again only to find out that six of the “brothers” in the church were on the phone right then raising the needed money. We interpreted this as a proof of the Lord’s faithfulness in spite of the failure of my own faith. We confidently purchased our tickets on Amex, trusting that by the end of the month, the money would be available to the ministry to pay the bill. Yeah, I know--that was a huge risk, but we didn’t see it that way. To us it was just a matter of the Lord undertaking on our behalf. We had the commitment of the church, the commitment of the six brothers who were working on our behalf, and renewed faith that the Lord would provide for us.
After a tearful goodbye with Pegi’s parents and a goodbye punch in the ribs from Ken Duckman, we boarded our flight. We both slept most of the 17 hours. This wasn’t quite the same as our last trip when we had celebrated our honeymoon and were awarded a bottle of champagne by the flight attendant. We were exhausted emotionally and physically from the events of the last 24 hours. But we were on our way, literally “thanks to the Lord.”
We would stop in Johannesburg for a few days visiting old friends from Rhodesia now in South Africa and gathering the essential supplies for life in Zimbabwe. From there we planned to board the Zimbabwe Railways train that would take us on the two and a half day trip from Johannesburg through Botswana, to Bulawayo and finally to Harare (formerly Salisbury) where we had reserved a room at the Jameson Hotel. For us, the Jameson was “home” in Africa.
Next: By Train from Johannesburg to Harare
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