God's hand at work

Stotram/Molweni

The Lord has given us an amazing testimony that I have to share with you all in detail.

Just before we left for India we found ourselves distant from 'The Church'.  I think this was due to the fact that we felt ourselves and a handful of our brothers and sisters in Christ were the only ones with a heart for the nations, and not really 'The Church'.  We felt that we were not benefitting spiritually and so pulled away from 'The Church'.

After being in India for around a week or two The Lord gave Jared a vision to "Mobilize youth into missions" and specifically gave him a picture of Selbourne College (Jared’s old school). The Lord put it on Jared’s heart that when he came back from India, he would somehow be involved with encouraging and educating the youth that were soon to be matriculating, that there was another option other than university when one finishes school. So often we have found that the youth are on fire during school and then towards the end of their schooling career they fall away from The Lord/distance themselves from Him. We believe that a big reason for this, is that they are not aware that working for The Lord full time/taking a gap year to figure out where The Lord is calling them, is an option. Anyway, we have been praying about this vision and believe that The Lord will open the doors at the perfect time according to His perfect plan.

Local youth in Chennai

Then, literally two days before I left India, The Lord put it on Jared’s heart to possibly start a DTS(Discipleship Training School) in East London... When he told me this, immediately I was opposed to the idea, thinking there is no ways we could do that, we wouldn’t even know where to start, and on top of that we had only just finished our own DTS. But after praying about it, and allowing The Lord to lead me with where His heart was, I immediately was given a complete peace about it. The Lord reassured me with the words, it won’t be done on my own understanding and strength but on His and His alone. Complete Peace radiated through me.

During the DTS, I’m not too sure exactly when, but The Lord started to speak to Jared and I about being connected with The Body again. He showed us clearly that all group dynamics that are designed by Him, are designed to unite The Body, not to divide. We felt a burning desire in our heart to connect again with a church when we returned to East London (which is where we were feeling called to ‘mobilize the youth into missions’). So we started to pray about which church He wanted us to go to when we came back, and I felt The Lord say ‘Stirling’ and Jared felt ‘Stirling Presbyterian’. So on 22 April (my first Sunday back in EL) I went to Stirling Presby to check it out, thinking that I would probably have to put a lot of prayer into whether this was in fact the church that The Lord wanted us to connect with. And then The Lord decided to show me exactly how omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent He is...



Sunrise at the beach, nearest to the base in Chennai



There just happened to be a couple from YWAM speaking, Paul and Simone Weaver, who in fact, run the DTS in Cape Town. (TICK 1) Stirling Presby has been their sending church for the past 13 years or so, and it just so happened that they were up this particular week (due to adoption processes that they had been praying to come about for ages). When Paul put up his first slide, my attention was immediately caught with the heading "Mobilize Youth into missions"... (TICK 2) I started to think to myself ‘Hmmm, I wonder what The Lord is going to do with this?’ Anyway, He continued to give a brief overview on how The Lord is using them to raise up disciples to start living for The Lord and to reach The Lost all over the world. Then the next exciting thing happened, Rev. Chris Moore came up and started to express his heart for the nations, and how he wants The Church to have more of a heart for The Lost Sheep. (TICK 3) He mentioned how everyone is called to be involved with Missions whether it be prayerfully or financially. At this point you can imagine I was almost jumping out of my seat. Is this actually happening? The Lord has led us to a church that is a sending church and that is being fed solid food.

One of the many 'gods' which they place outside their homes

After the service I first went to introduce myself to Paul, explaining how I had just come back from India YWAM and how The Lord had brought me to this particular church, at this particular time. We both could feel that The Lord had something planned here, but we weren’t to sure how, so we decided that we would meet for coffee to see where The Lord wanted to take this.

I then when to introduce myself to Rev. Chris Moore. I told him how The Lord had brought me to this particular church, and how encouraged I was to see a church with a heart for the nations. Chris’ eyes were shining and I could feel the excitement that I was feeling building up within himself. We started to speak a bit more and I told him about Jared’s vision for Selbourne. He then told me how their youth pastor is involved with Clarendon High School (sister school to Selbourne) and how she has approx. 168 girls who meet during lunch break to fellowship together. They had been thinking about starting something up at Selbourne, but felt it was someone elses calling. (TICK 4) He then mentioned that if starting a DTS in East London was a possibility, there was definitely a need for one and they definitely had the youth to feed into the DTS. (TICK TICK TICK TICK!!!)

Well you can imagine at this point both Chris and myself were excited beyond words, witnessing The Lord’s hand at work so clearly, a divine intervention. This most definitely was not any sort of "coincidence".

I phoned Jared that afternoon, and told him what had happened at church etc. He told me how he had tears in his eyes and how he had been crying out to The Lord that very morning asking Him whether or not the vision for the DTS was from Him. He said it felt like his heart was bleeding whilst asking The Lord to confirm this vision that was given to him.

Praise The Lord for his faithfulness and reassurance.

Chris invited me over for late lunch/early supper (‘Lupper’) with Paul and Simone later on that week, where we were able to chat properly. Paul then told me how he has had the Eastern Cape on his heart for sometime and how they had wanted to start a DTS in East London, but never felt that they were called to pioneer it. He expressed clearly that they would love to help us to pioneer a DTS here. (Paul and Simone were involved with overseeing all DTS’s in the South African region for some years, so they are truly a God send!) How awesome is The Lord with his magnificent planning and intervention... telling us to start a DTS, not knowing even how or where to take the first step, and then connecting us with Paul and Simone who want to help and support us to pioneer one. I am still overwhelmed with all of this!

I think if we could all wrap our heads around the fact that The Lord has a unique plan for us, an individual plan, specifically designed with our best interests at heart, and all we have to do is to stop trying to take control of life, and to hand it over to Him, how much more rewarding would life be?!

I pray that you will choose to hand something over to The Lord this week, even if it is just one thing for the time being, that small step of faith can be the giant leap He wants you to take.

Blessings and love to all