Africa: More than 100 saved in last 18 months

Over the last nearly year and a half, we have experienced somewhat of a mini-revival amongst young people in our town.

Now I realise that the term revival is probably thrown around too loosely in Christian circles. But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

When my wife and I moved to South Africa for a season at the end of 2021, one of the things we discussed was that we wanted to take a break from leading youth work (something we had done for a few years and also through the Covid-19 pandemic). However, as is normally the way with these things, God had other ideas.

Very shortly into our time here we were quickly asked to form a youth group at our church! Our first Friday meeting was a gathering of 13 or so young people, mostly children of those attending our church. As we began meeting as a church leadership team, we had faith and a vision for 100 salvations in 2022. We knew it would not be a failure to not ‘achieve’ this, all the while also knowing that God could do it! We painted a wall in our church building and called it the ‘wall of salvation’. Every time someone was saved, we wrote their name on our wall. Just like their name is written on the palm of Jesus’ hands.

When we started to meet as a youth group, we had three goals: know Jesus, become a family, and have fun! As time went on, we saw more and more of our young people come to genuine faith in Christ. Our first salvation in March was a young lady called Mpho (it means ‘gift’ in the local language), think what you will of that! In the beginning of May, we baptised 38 people between the ages of 13–18!

Some may ask us: ‘How do you know you’re not just having people put their hands up, and not knowing what they are believing?’. Well, we ensured that those who responded to a gospel call were taken through a short programme called ‘Rooted’ that covered the basics of Christian faith and confirmed that they knew what they were signing up for!

As of today, we have 109 new Christians in our church, the vast majority of which a younger people. All the glory be to God, forever!