I couldn’t help but notice the awkward silence. Probably because I was the one who created it. I came to the end of the worship song that I was leading my outreach team in, and we waited in silence. This one wasn’t the awkward one, but just silence. Then I posed a question, “Is there anyone who has a prayer they want to pray out?” Silence. Then my assistant leader said she sensed there was someone who needed to release a prayer. This is when the silence became awkward. I wanted to be a good leader and let the students have a chance to hear God’s voice and respond accordingly. The problem was that no one was responding. During our time of worship, as I strummed the guitar, I was looking at the pictures on the church wall of William Carey, and other missionaries. The words that ran through my mind were, “Remember the blood of the martyrs.” Still, no one was responding. I remembered what had passed through my mind previously, and not because I believed I had the prayer to pray, but rather to break the awkward silence, I voiced my thoughts into a prayer concerning the missionaries who had come to that nation and given their lives.
We finished our time and went about preparing for evangelism in the afternoon. As usual our host picked us up, but told us we wouldn’t be doing our usual dramas, testimonies and messages in the villages, but rather, he was taking us to the village of his aunt who had just died. There we would join his relatives in their mourning. We arrived at the village and were ushered into a tiny, dark, smoke-filled room where we sat on the floor and waited for our host to share with us. The villagers had congregated outside the hut and were peering through the windows to catch a glimpse of this team of foreign, white faces. The host proceeded to tell us that 50 years previous, two missionary ladies had come to the home of his aunt and shared the gospel to his relatives. After that, half his family decided to follow Christianity, and half Islam. This particular aunt and her family had become Muslims. The prayer I had prayed that morning came racing back to my mind and my assistant leader looked at me saying, “Remember the prayer you prayed.” My heart started to pound and I knew God wanted to say something through me. I asked our host to interpret. In tears, I proceeded to share with the family and the onlookers what had transpired in the morning. I explained that just as God sent those two missionary ladies to them 50 years ago with the message of salvation, He had sent us missionaries to share the same good news, and give them another chance to receive His gift. I wasn’t the only one crying at this point. Although I left the village not knowing if any responded, or would respond to the message, I left knowing that this was God’s way of remembering the blood of the martyrs and those missionaries whose steps I was walking in.
Today is National Youth Day in South Africa. Most see it only as a public holiday, many don’t know why. This is a day when we are to remember those students who lost their lives protesting against the apartheid government who were introducing Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in their schools. This was deeply resented by the students as Afrikaans was considered the language of the oppressors. On June 16, 1976 an estimated 20,000 high school students in the township of Soweto took part in the protests, only to be gunned down by the police, leaving hundreds dead and thousands injured. The freedom we are reaping in this nation 38 years later is because those students, and many others like them, sowed their lives.
This is worth remembering!
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