Let me tell you about one of our students

Hello Friends & Family,

In this blog I (Mike) wanted to share with you the story of one of our recent students.  I will call her Faith (not her real name) as she has been growing so much in her journey of faith with the Lord!

Faith comes from a very broken family background, like most of our students, with an absent father, neglectful mother and trying to survive living in poverty.  For years now she would say that she has been desperate for hope.

As she came to Hope Africa to go through our job training program she met Jesus in a radical way through FDG (Faith Discovery Group, one of the programs I oversee in our church related ministries).  She shared how she was in the midst of a serious crisis, both personally and in her marriage.  She was feeling very discouraged, lacking identity and looking for peace.  In her marriage her husband was repeatedly cheating on her, saying he was sorry, but then falling back again into another affair.

In FDG she discovered that Jesus is the one who brings real life, life to the full.  At first this was hard for Faith to accept as she had gone to church for a long time and nothing good ever seemed to happen.

Faith then started to meet regularly with Bishop Nyanga (one of our pastoral staff) and he helped her to understand that going to church is not the same as choosing to follow Jesus with her life and growing in a relationship with Jesus.  He presented the gospel to her and explained how even people who go to church can still have a hole inside if they are not walking with Jesus.

Faith’s heart was ready to make a change and she accepted Christ as her Lord & Savior!   Mawande (our FDG teacher & my brother in-law) encouraged her to surrender trying to "change" her husband but to instead trust in God that He can change her husband.

Over the next few days the joy in Faith’s life was so contagious that the other students started asking her: "What has happened to you?".  Faith was growing rapidly in her new life in Christ, learning to trust in God and growing in her knowledge of Scripture & prayer.  As she was learning these things, each and every day she would go home and tell her husband what she was learning.

These conversations start to grab her husband’s interest.  One of the days she got home and asked her husband a question from class that day: “What is church?”.  He said something about singing and preaching.  Faith then took her notes from class and helped her husband to see from the Scriptures what the church is really meant to be.  The husband got to the point that he realized that he had also been missing out on following Jesus, but he continued to resist making changes in his life.

Over the next few weeks Bishop Nyanga kept encouraging Faith to invite her husband to church, even if he doesn’t want to go.  Then the husband came to Hope Africa to learn about our new Trade Skills (carpentry, metal work, plumbing, and electrical) program.  That afternoon, Faith and her husband met with Bishop Nyanga and he led the husband to Jesus, and they begin some marriage counselling!

Over the next few weeks Faith was easily the person with the most joy walking around the Hope Africa campus and her life and her husbands lives have been radically changed!  Together they came and celebrated Faith’s graduation from Hope Africa and now they are continuing to attend Bishop Nyanga’s church.

A year gone boom

Guys, seriously!!!  The year didn't just go by, it went BOOM with a BANG.  Like "wow".  Some of it felt long, some of it felt short, but after being in South Africa for a year, we marvel more than ever at the work of God and His ability to reach out, save and transform lives.   

This is no joke, we (you all included) serve a God who is alive, He reigns over all the earth, calling His creation back to Himself.  AH!  We are so stinking privileged to serve Him, and our family is so privileged, by His grace, to be in a ministry in South Africa where we see His hand moving daily. WOW.

Mike has been teaching Faith Discovery group every six weeks since February, and then every Wednesday he teaches a follow up class with these same students.  He almost always starts off the classes with an opportunity for them to share what God has been doing in their lives.  It never ceases to amaze me the stories he shares about how God changed the students lives during their time at Hope Africa.

• One student shares how God has changed their attitude to enable them to let go of their anger.   
• Another student shares how God has helped them forgive someone they never thought they could forgive.  
• Another student testifies to how God has healed their lungs from lifelong breathing problems.   
• Another testifies how God has given them a passion to know Jesus.   
• Another testifies how for the first time in their life they felt the presence of the Holy Spirit as they gave their life to him!

And that's just one week's worth of testimonies, this happens every Wednesday.  And that is entirely based on the work God has done, and we get to be a part of that.  

Mike says: 

"I now come to Faith Discovery Group weeks with huge expectations about what God is going to do.  I know that the students will have gone through severe trauma and struggles in their lifetimes.  Before every week starts, my co-teacher Mawande and I, spend a lot of time praying for what God wants to do.  I know that on Monday as Mawande and I share our testimonies, God will open the doors for our students to open up about their life stories." 

There are always 2 groups of about 15 students taking the class at a time.  We now know ahead of time that in each group:

• Many will share about not having enough food.
• 14 of the 15 of them will have no fathers in their lives.
• 7 or 8 of the 15 will have one or both parent(s) dead.
• 3 or 4 will have been rejected by not only their father, but also their mother and that they were raised by a grandma or aunt.   
• 1 will share about being raped, and as she shares, another 3 or 4 will start deeply weeping immediately as she says the word.

Mike says: 

"But we also know that God is the good Father.  And as we begin to teach about God, the good Father, who is forgiving, just and loving, we know that through the Holy Spirit there is freedom, there is healing, there is power to forgive others, there is the forgiveness of sin.  Through Jesus, we can be made right with God again, restored according to His plan from before creation even began!"

He continues: 

"This past week in Faith Discovery Group, God blew me away yet again!  And as I heard the students testimonies in our follow up from our last week of class, I think about their life stories they shared last Monday and I am so deeply humbled.  I am so humbled by their authenticity, by their openness, and by their hope in spite of despair all around them.  I am so humbled to see God working through our ministry. 

In particular I am humbled by being used by God last Friday, when I was able to go around and pray with 7 students.  When I came to the first student, I asked him what God had been teaching him last week.  He said, “I want to respond to Jesus’ call and follow Him.”  So I talked with him about counting the cost and making sure this is really what he wants, and as he affirmed it, I lead him in a simple prayer of repentance and turning to Jesus. 

I proceeded to talk to the next student and she tells me that she actually gave her life to Jesus for the first time while I was reading Isaiah 53, and as she did that she felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in her life. 

The next person asks me to pray for them as they are struggling to forgive the deep hurts from their abusive father. 

The next two students I talked to, also make first time commitments to Christ.  And then 2 more, asked for prayer for various struggles and hardships.

For those that know me personally, sometimes I think that driving Camaros or Arctic Cats, or playing hockey is fun.  But there is nothing like watching someone experience the joy of salvation, never mind four in one day!  This makes me so deeply humbled to be used by God is this way."

He is powerful to save!

Wow oh Wow, God is good!  God is so faithful, His desire is that none should perish but that all come to repentance and faith in Jesus!  This was so apparent as we taught FDG (Faith Discovery Group) for the second time in early March.   

Just like in the 1^st class, the Holy Spirit was powerfully at work right from the first day, opening the hearts of our students (26 of them) to the gospel.  My heart breaks as the students share about being abandoned or rejected by their parents, experiencing the trauma of violent crime, and trying to recover from the deep hurt of rape.

I (Mike) would like to share a couple brief testimonies from our group:

"At first I didn’t believe in God.  I had this anger that lived within me, and I asked myself that if God is as good as he is said to be, than why did he take both my parents? I always blamed God for everything that is going on in my life.  I am now a changed person.  I have found the heart to try and to let go and forgive.  I now believe in God, for he is a loving, caring, and forgiving God.  I can now proudly say that I believe in God.  It’s all thanks to faith discovery group."

"Firstly when I was here at the faith discovery group I was not myself because I have a sin [and do] not forgive myself for what happened to my brother and I blame God for what happened to my brother.  When I’m watching TV or movies and I see a story, I feel the pain and I will start to cry because I know how my brother die and I see him when he was stabbed.  But now I started to forgive myself and I also pray God that he must forgive me for blaming him for what [is] happening to myself.  My life has been change because of the session of the faith discovery group and like to thank Mike and Mawande for helping me and give me an advice to me that God is here for me."

God’s hand moved powerfully among this group, and on at the end of the class, 9 out of the 26 students gave their lives to the Lord for the first time.  

We are very excited to now be in the follow-up process with them to help them begin growing their new lives in Christ.  Please continue to pray for them in these early stages that their faith would be strong and they would daily draw near to God.

Faith Discovery Group - "I want to apply him to more areas of my life"

As you might have heard already, in the beginning of February Mike had the huge privilege of teaching the first ever Faith Discovery Group at Hope Africa Collective.

Mike taking his work very seriously...

But first, during December and January, "my man" spent much of his time working with a Xhosa co-worker named Mawande Mani, to write the material for this course (see my sister-in-law’s post for more information about this man of God  http://charlenefast.blogspot.ca).  In case you don't have time to read it, it is safe to say that we have a special family bond with uncle Mawande, although he has yet to realize we're not actually related.

Mawande - A.K.A. Petti is Vincent's BFF

The goal of the course was to introduce the students to Jesus-Christ, as the large majority of our students are not following Him, even though some of them might call themselves Christians.

Mawande loves teaching students and using white boards.

This is what Mike had to say about how the class went, and boy-oh-boy it’s worth reading (and not just because I said so)!!!

“Our first class was amazing!  We had 10 students and immediately on day 1, God was working in powerful ways.  We opened up the class so that everyone could share a little about themselves, and it was incredible to witness how the Spirit just opened up these students to share powerful and painful life experiences that they have struggled through.  We prayed and ministered to them, and praised God for how His hand was working early on.

Our students also engaged with us in what we were teaching.  For example, when talking about money, one of our students who is about a 30 years old said if offered the choice between money and his wife, he would immediately chose money and leave his wife.  And then if offered the choice between money and his children, he would abandon his kids.  

Xhosa girl in Phillipi near HAC

And from many conversations like this we presented how different Jesus teaches us to look at our world and our values.  We spent time teaching about how Jesus related to people and how Jesus desires to relate to them.  We spent time discussing the Kingdom of God and His magnificent plans for our world.  Finally, on Friday, we presented the finished work of Christ on the cross and through to the resurrection.

The group was quiet as we gave time for reflection and response.  Mawande and I then went person to person and just asked what was happening in their hearts and minds and how we could pray for them.  Here are a few of the words that they shared:

“I want God’s love in my life.”  (This was the student who had at the beginning of the week wanted to trade in his wife/kids for money)

“God has awoken my heart.”

“I feel more connected with God, I felt his presence.”

“I have felt abandon by God because of serious sickness in my life.  Now I feel encouraged that God loves me!  I haven’t been to church in 3 years, but I want to go back to church.”

“I want to follow Jesus, he has helped me to forgive people this week.  I want to apply him to more areas of my life.  I learned that God has good plans for me.”

I was so blown away by these testimonies and each one took significant steps towards God.  To hear a student on their own say “I want to apply him to more areas of my life” is massively encouraging for Mawande and I as we lead these classes."

Mike excited about how well the class went

So thank you for praying for Mike and Mawande, and please continue to pray for them as they follow up with these students over their remaining weeks in Life Development at HAC.  Please pray for them as they are seeking the Lord, that they will completely surrender their hearts and lives to him.