Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord
Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of
the Spirit, that you strive together with me
in your prayers to God for me, that
I may be delivered from them that do
not believe in Judea, and that my service
which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted
as a saint, that I may come unto
you with joy by the will of God,
and may with you be refreshed.
Now the God of peace be with you
all.
Amen.
Chapter 16, verse 17.
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark then which
cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrines
which ye have learned, and avoid them.
For they that are such serve not our
Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies, and
by good words and fair speeches deceive the
hearts of the simple.
For your obedience is come abroad unto all
men.
I am glad therefore on your behalf.
But yet I would have you wise unto
that which is good, and simple concerning evil.
And the God of peace shall brood Satan
under your feet shortly.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with you.
Amen.
May the Lord add a blessing to these
two short portions.
This morning we were considering the epistle to
the Romans and how, in its four sections,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the full title of
the Lord Jesus, is used.
But you know, while in many ways the
epistle to the Romans seems to fall into
these broad patterns, at the same time it
does not exhaust all that there is in
the epistle.
And so here, in these two passages that
we have read, twice over we find the
Apostle addressing God, or speaking of God, by
this title, the God of peace.
And one time when I was doing a
study through the epistle to the Romans, it
struck me the number of times that peace
is found in the epistle.
Again and again we find that Paul speaks
of this gospel which has been brought, which
has been delivered to him to bring to
the people.
He speaks of it as being a gospel
of peace.
I'm sure that we all know that when
God created Adam and Eve, he put them
into the Garden of Eden.
And there, in that place, everything was suitable,
everything was perfect as far as their environment
was concerned.
And certainly one thing that was outstanding about
that place was the peace that they enjoyed.
But you remember that sin came in, and
because of sin, the fellowship that man had
with God and the peace that they enjoyed
was broken.
And from that time, right down through the
ages, man has not enjoyed peace.
And so we can go back into the
prophet Isaiah and the prophet Ezekiel and many
of these prophets that spoke long ago, and
we hear them state that there is no
peace, says my God to the wicked.
They speak of thee ungodly as being like
the troubled sea, that which is constantly throwing
up dirt.
There is no rest in it.
And so peace is a characteristic that is
not seen and not known in the world
today.
This is something that we have been made
very conscious of as we have lived in
Rhodesia.
When we went out there in 1971 as
missionaries, we felt that there was a considerable
future in that country.
That God had set open doors there.
I don't know whether all of you are
aware, but starting back in the middle of
the last century, missionaries got a vision of
work in Africa.
And starting in Angola and going right across
the central portion of southern Africa, they moved
in and formed mission stations right across central
Africa.
And if you look at old missionary maps
of Africa, you will see that area marked
in and called the Beloved Strip.
Young people today don't know of this, or
they're not as familiar with it as those
that are older.
But while this was true of countries like
Angola and Congo, as it was then, and
going right across into Kenya, Uganda, and so
on, right out to the east coast, the
southern part of the continent was virtually neglected.
And it was only about 1963 that certain
of our missionaries, principally some who had formerly
been in Angola and who had had to
leave because of the unrest that was there
and also because of health, they moved into
Rhodesia and they began to work.
And God blessed their work.
Now this is not to say that there
had been no missionary activities prior to this.
In the city of Bulawayo, where we live,
Mr. E.
W.
Sims, that's the father, I'm sorry, Mr. E.
H.
Sims, the father of John Sims, came there
during the war, round about 1943 I believe
it was, and commenced to work in the
city.
He had had to leave Zambia because of
the education of his sons, and they moved
there into the city.
When they got there they already found a
Miss Manders, an Irish lady from the city
of Dublin, working there in the city.
And they continued working there until about the
end of the war.
Then, about 1945, Mr. and Mrs. Hairstline, that's
the father of Gordon Hairstline, who is now
the Director of Emmaus Correspondence Courses in Chicago,
he moved down into Bulawayo.
Also, a number of the businessmen who were
there in the city, and also up in
the city of Salisbury, the capital, were exercised
about working with the African people.
And so there was a work done there
in the city, or in the country, prior
to the coming of Mr. Wiseman and Mr.
Allison to the city of Salisbury.
But when we went there in 1971, things
had already begun to change.
We felt that there was a considerable time
that we could look forward to.
We felt that while much of the rest
of Africa had been swept by the winds
of change, those winds of change that Mr.
Harold McMillan spoke about in his speech when
he made a tour through Africa as Prime
Minister of England, those winds had affected many
of the other countries.
We were living in Zambia when that country
gained its independence.
We saw something of the unrest and the
problems that they had there.
And by the way, just purely as an
aside, and while we don't in any way
want to detract from the man and from
his abilities, Mr. Kez Karunda, who is today
the President of Zambia, is being spoken of
as the great exponent of non-violence in
Africa.
Well, we were living in Zambia when he
was conducting his campaign against the British government,
and I can assure you that it was
not a non-violent campaign.
But these are purely as an aside, because
we want to point out that there, living
in Africa, it became so evident that peace
was something that is virtually non-existent.
I remember seeing an article in a newspaper
one time concerning the British Army, and it
stated that from the middle of the 19th
century up until the time that that article
was written, there had never been a time
when some section of the British Armed Forces
had not been involved in military activities in
some place around the world.
And so we can see the truth of
the Word of God when it says that
there is no peace for the wicked, and
the lack of peace is the characteristic of
those who have turned their back upon God.
Because we find here, in this passage that
we read together, that the characteristic of God
is that he is the God of peace,
and it was his desire that men should
live in peace, and this was what he
had planned for Adam and Eve when he
put them there in the garden.
But because of sin, because of rebellion against
God, that peace was broken, and they turned
their back on God, and so we find
the conditions that exist today.
But when we come over into the epistle
of Romans here that we were reading this
morning, we find that the coming of the
Lord Jesus was for the express purpose that
he might constitute peace once again, that he
might remove that which was disturbing the peace
of men.
And so at the end of chapter 4,
it tells us that he came, verse 25,
he was delivered for our offenses, and he
was raised again for our justification, therefore, and
as Mr. Ernie Woodhouse always points out, when
you find a therefore, look to see what
it's there for, and of course, it's connected.
And because of the work of the Lord
Jesus, because he was delivered for our offenses,
those sins that had risen up and had
broken the fact of fellowship between man and
God, that which had disturbed the peace, he
took care of it.
He was delivered for our offenses, was raised
again for our justification, and therefore, having been
justified by faith, we can have peace with
God.
And so as you go on through the
epistle, you find that the apostle takes up
this thought of peace, and he shows how
this is worked out in the heart and
in the lives of the believer.
If we look at chapter 12, we see
there that this peace is possible in our
relationship with the world.
Those of us who know the Lord Jesus
Christ, he says that it is possible for
us to live in peace with the world.
The world doesn't know peace, but we who
have trusted the Lord Jesus can know this.
He goes on to speak in chapter 14
about the possibility of peace in the assembly,
and one of the tragedies around the world
is, among the people of God, the turmoil
and the unrest and the sorrow and the
division that has come among those who should
be the illustration, the living example of the
peace of God.
But when we come over here into chapter
15, we find that Paul is now thinking
of his service.
And he speaks here in this chapter, and
by the way, the background to these verses
that we read here start in Acts chapter
19.
Paul had been out on one of his
missionary journeys, and he traveled down through Macedonia,
down into the city of Corinth, and this
letter that he writes to the Romans was
written there from the city of Corinth.
And as he looked around, and as he
saw the depravity and the sin that was
rampant on every hand, his heart was disturbed,
and I am convinced that those early chapters
of the epistles to the Romans were a
direct outflow of the revulsion that Paul felt
as he looked at the sin and the
iniquity and the open cesspool of all that
was going on there in that beautiful city
of Corinth.
And he speaks of the pagans, and how
these men have turned their back on God.
But now he writes to the Romans, and
he says to them, I have a task
that I want to do.
Money has been given to me by the
churches here through Asia, and I have been
given this charge to go back to the
city of Jerusalem to minister to the saints
there.
But he says, when I have completed that
work in the will of God, I will
come to you.
Now, I believe that Paul was aware of
some of the things that were likely to
happen in connection with his visit to Jerusalem.
We've only got to read the following chapters
from Acts chapter 19, and going right on
through until he arrived there in the city
to see how again and again the apostle
was warned about what was going to happen,
how bond the way to him, and yet
he felt that it was the will of
God for him.
He was pressed in his spirit to complete
this work that had been given to him
to do.
And he says, after I have been there,
and after I have done that work, in
the will of God I am going to
come to you.
There is going to be trouble.
There is going to be unrest.
And I know that these things are lying
ahead of me, but pray for me.
Pray for me that the God of peace
may preserve me.
And this seems to be the thought that
was sustaining him in view of those things
that lay ahead.
And so we have so often comforted our
hearts in connection with the same thing.
You know, it's so easy sometimes to look
at the circumstances, to look at the things
that there are around, and to become discouraged.
We were living in this country when there
was all the unrest here during the 1960s
across so many of the campuses of this
land.
And so often when you spoke to both
believers and unbelievers, there was a real sense
of fear, of dread, of uncertainty as to
what the future would hold.
What is happening to our land?
But those of us that know the Lord
Jesus Christ, those of us that have been
brought into this relationship with God, we can
know him as the God of peace.
And we can know that it is his
desire and his will that peace should be
that which is the characteristic of our land.
And so as he thinks of his visit
to Jerusalem, and as he thinks of all
that is likely to happen, he asks these
Roman believers to pray for him that he
might be kept, and that he might be
able to come and visit them.
And it seems that having come to the
end of this, he has finished what he
had to say.
And so he gives this salutation, Now the
God of peace be with you all.
Amen.
And then it seems that in thinking about
these things, there are other thoughts that come
to his mind.
And so he takes up his pen again,
and he starts to write concerning his sister
Phoebe.
And then he goes on and he speaks
of these various ones and sends greetings to
them.
But then he goes on and he says
that even among the believers, there is the
possibility of the lack of peace.
Those who, having given themselves over to Satan,
that one who is responsible for destroying peace,
they're bringing in evil, they're bringing in division,
they're bringing in dissension among the people of
God.
And he commits them to the God of
peace.
And here, his thought is not so much
as to that peace that we can know
and enjoy now, but he looks forward to
that day when he who's righted it to
reign is going to come back, and when
all unrighteousness is going to be put down,
and even Satan himself is going to be
trampled underfoot.
And so here, in verse 20 of chapter
16, he speaks again of the God of
peace.
And he says he is going to deal
with that one who is destroying the peace
that should be ours.
And so I would like to comfort our
hearts, I would like to encourage our hearts
with this thought, that today it is possible
for us to know peace.
In spite of all that might happen around,
in spite of so much uncertainty, in spite
of the turmoil that can be seen in
so many different places, we have been brought
into the relationship with the God of peace,
and this is something that can be ours.
And so we can take up the words
of Isaiah when he tells us that thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
is stayed on thee.
But then, not only that, but we can
look forward to that day when he is
going to come back, and when Satan is
going to be trampled under his feet, and
he who's righted it to reign is going
to set up his throne here in this
sea, and peace is going to be that
which is going to rule across this world.
You know, Rhodesia is a troubled land, but
this is one thing that we can hold
on to.
Not only for the believers, but also we
can hold it out as a possibility of
that which can be enjoyed by even those
who do not know and who do not
love the Lord Jesus.
Now, we'd like to just show you very
quickly some of the slides of the work
that, what God has been doing out there
in that land.
I know that folks generally don't appreciate geography
lessons, but I think that just very quickly
we should have a very brief geography lesson,
and so my first slide is a map,
and you'll just look at that, and that
will perhaps give us a little insight into
some of the things that are happening there
in that land.
Now, you'll notice that Rhodesia is approximately the
shape of a man's head in soapbox.
Whenever you think of the country, if you
think of it that way, it might make
it easier for you to identify some of
the things, or the country itself.
We have the nose out here on the
left, and so on, right on that.
Now, we're completely surrounded by four other countries.
In the north, the northern border, starting here
at what we would call the tip of
the nose, and going up here to the
crown of the head, we have our boundary
with Danube, and that boundary at present is
closed because of the political problems that have
existed.
There is virtually no come and go between
the two countries.
Then, from that point, right round the eastern
border, down here to what would be the
neck of the neck, is the boundary with
Mozambique.
I'm sure that many of you are aware
that about two years ago, Mozambique were given
their independence after a long period of crisis,
and one of the very first things that
they did, having established their government there, was
that they proclaimed, openly and unashamedly, that they
were going to be a Marxist government.
And having done that, one of their first
acts was to take all Christian workers, missionaries
as well as nationals, and put them into
prison.
Many of the missionaries, I would say probably
all of the missionaries, have since been expelled.
They've been sent back to the countries from
which they have come, but from that day
until this, many of those national workers are
still in prison.
Many of them have given their lives for
the sake of the gospel.
It was not that they had broken any
law.
It was purely the fact that they were
preaching the gospel, and therefore it was against
the communist and Marxist doctrines that were held
by the government there.
And one of the problems that is existing
in Rhodesia today is that that government has
declared that they will not rest until they
have overthrown the present Rhodesian government and set
up a communist government there in Rhodesia.
Now, it is on this eastern border that
most of the fighting that is going on
in the country has occurred.
Gradually, over the years, this has accelerated.
They have moved into other areas of the
country, but principally it is in those areas
that the trouble has occurred, and most of
the missionary activity that was taking place, not
only those connected with our assembly, but also
the Evangelical Alliance Mission, the Baptist, many others,
Salvation Army, those who had work up in
that area, many of them have had to
close down their work and move out of
the area because of the war activity.
Then, here in the south, across what would
be the next, is our boundary with South
Africa, and then from there, up again to
the point of the nose, is our boundary
with Botswana.
So you see, we're completely surrounded, we have
no outlet to the sea, and this has
caused considerable problems.
We are presently working in the city of
Boulogne, which is down here in the southwest,
and if you think of it as following
down to the mouth, and going up to
approximately where the temple is, that would be
where the city of Boulogne is situated.
Now Rhodesia is a country about the size
of the state of Montana, and it only
has a population of about six and a
half million.
Many of your cities right here in this
country are much bigger, much larger, than the
total population of the country of Rhodesia, but
we are very grateful to God for the
opportunity of taking a gospel there.
The city of Pulauea, as we'll see in
a minute, is a modern city.
It has a population of roundabout 265,000,
and there, as in most other parts of
the country, the ratio of white people to
black people is approximately 20 to 1, or
perhaps as high as 22 to 1.
So you can see that, really, the great
majority of the people, and these are the
ones that God has called us to work
among, are the African people.
I don't like the term because my wife
and I feel that we're African as well.
Our roots are there.
I was born there, my wife was not
born there, but went there at a very
early age.
Our lives could be spent out there in
Africa.
It virtually is our home, and we feel
that we're African.
All our children, except our youngest, were born
out there.
They're Africans, and it was very difficult for
them to adjust coming to this country, that
black people were not Africans, and that they
were the Africans, and the black people in
this country were Americans.
Rhodesia is a country that is a very
beautiful place, and up in the north there
is the Victoria Falls.
Now, we don't want to spend too much
time on this, but the falls are about
a mile across, and therefore it's not possible
to get an overall view of the falls.
This is the western end, or the Rhodesian
end, the eastern end, or the northern end,
whichever way you want to look at it,
is the Zambian end, and as I said,
we're no longer able to go over there.
If you move along the face of the
gorge and look back to this point, you
see there a statue of David Livingstone, that
has been mounted just about the place where,
when he was exploring in 1873, he first
came out and viewed this tremendous sight, this
handiwork of God, and he wrote at the
time in his diary that he was quite
sure that angels would pause in their flight
to look at this wonderful sight.
You see that as we stand at his
feet and we look down the gorge, it
is not like Niagara, which falls into a
broad valley, but it falls into this narrow
gorge and rushes away down through a series
of gorges and so on down the river
and out to the Indian Ocean.
It's not possible, as I said, to get
an overall view, but here we are, just
various views of it.
They say that at full flood, you get
something like two million gallons per second going
over the lip, and it really is an
awesome sight to go there, and one which
I'll never forget.
My first experience of going there to the
fall, and the one verse that rang in
my mind as I stood there as a
boy looking at that sight, was his voice,
was of the sound of many waters.
How this thrills our hearts to think that
one day we're going to see our Lord
Jesus and hear his voice, and how it
will thrill our hearts that something like this
can so affect us, how much more will
be the sight of our Savior.
You travel down the river, about perhaps 400
miles, and you come to the Kariba Dam.
This was built during the 1950s, when the
three Central African territories had federated with the
view that they would supply electricity to the
three territories.
Since then, this federation has broken up, but
for up until this last year, Rhodesia was
still supplying electricity to the country of Zambia,
and if you've got very sharp eyes, you
can perhaps see the cables, the power lines
going across there.
Since then, Zambia, which is the northern bank
over there on the far side, has built
their own power station, and are now generating
their own electricity.
Rhodesia is also very well endowed with wild
animals, and this is one of the things
that a lot of people come to Africa
to see.
And so here you have the sable antelope.
This is the national emblem of the country.
We have a lot of giraffes, and this
fellow looks like he's yet to fell, and
he's getting out of the way there.
But you know, whenever I look at giraffes,
I'm reminded of so many Christians, so many
believers, because the giraffe has literally no voice.
It is completely mute, and there are so
many believers that are like that.
Oh, they're so attractive to look at.
They look so lovely.
Their lines, perhaps, are exemplary, and yet they
never open their mouth to witness for the
Lord Jesus.
So, next time you're at the zoo, or
next time you see a giraffe, remember, let's
be vocal Christians, those who are prepared to
speak for the Lord Jesus.
Here we have the zebra.
I always think he's a crazy mixed-up
kid, a donkey that doesn't quite know what
he wants to be, half white and half
black.
Also, we have a number of the square
-lipped rhinoceros.
This is one of the endangered species of
the world, and they have found that the
area just outside the city where we live
is very suitable for breeding them, and so
they are attempting to increase the world population
and to preserve them in this way.
Rhodesia also has one of the largest population
developments of any country in the world.
A recent article in Time magazine says that
we have 14,000.
So, if you want to see elephants, come
to Rhodesia.
Also, the African buffalo, and this is a
very treacherous animal.
You know, so often we think of the
lion, and we think of the words of
Scripture, of Satan going around with a roaring
lion, speaking to whom he is seemingly made
to bow.
And yet, sometimes, the treacherousness of some of
those, and we are reminded of the bold
operation that it speaks about in the Old
Testament, here is the African buffalo.
And, of course, the lion.
And that's just how close he was.
We were very fortunate, visiting at this time,
we were able to drive right up next
to him, but, you know, he was completely
bored of the whole thing.
And he just couldn't care.
We were able to drive right up next
to him, and just point the camera just
about put it down his throat.
But, you know, in all the time that
we've been in Africa, we could probably count
on one hand the number of lions that
we've seen.
I'd like to introduce you to our family,
those of you that don't know them.
Our daughter, Annette, is the oldest.
We have six altogether.
Terry is 20.
And then there's John at 18.
Graham, with us here, is 14, almost 15.
David is, sorry, 15, almost 16.
David is 14.
And Brian is almost 8.
And these are our children.
We have been asked a number of times
about the question of, are children doing military
service?
And we should point out that this is
something that there is no option for them.
Every child, every white boy who is in
school, the minute he reaches the age of
16, has to register for military service.
And then, at the age of 17, providing
he has finished school, he has to go
into the army.
There is no question about it.
We're not given any choice in the matter.
One thing that we are grateful about is
that the governments are prepared to consider people
that have conscientious objections, and they do try
and accommodate them as much as possible.
And so, our son Terry, when he did
his military service, he did a year of
national service, and we are very grateful to
God that during that time he was in
as a radio operator, and it was not
necessary for him to bear arms.
John is now in the police force.
But even in the police, he is still
required to do service in the war zone,
and we would ask you to pray that
God will keep these young men, not only
physically, but also spiritually.
These are a real test of spiritual character
to have to go into the army, and
to have to go into these kind of
circumstances, and to be able to stand for
God.
So, please pray that the Lord will keep
the young men.
The Simpsons have had to face the same
situation.
Many of the other missionaries there in the
country have had to face the same thing,
and we do feel it is a real
problem.
I might mention that in addition to our
own family, we also look after two other
children.
We have only one missionary couple working in
the whole of the country of Botswana.
They have two young children, a little girl
of eight, nine, and a little boy of
seven.
And because there are no suitable schools down
in Botswana, they send them up and they
live with us for nine months out of
the year, and only three months at home.
This, again, is one of the things that
we feel very grateful to God that we
have been placed in circumstances where we've been
able to keep our families.
But this is some of the things that
others have to face.
And we would ask you to pray for
missionaries, not only just in Africa, but in
many places of the world, that they have
to face these decisions as to what they
are going to do with their children.
It is a real wrench, a real problem
for them as to what they are going
to do.
So, we have done this as a service
to the Lord.
In 1971, in 1966, we had come over,
we were going to settle in this country.
We felt that there was no longer any
future in Africa, and we came to settle.
But the Lord stirred us up, and in
1971, we went back as novice missionaries.
Of course, we had been associated with missionary
activities all our lives, but we had not
been actually engaged in it.
And so, we have only been missionaries since
1971.
And then, in September, we flew out, landing
here in the city of Salisbury.
This is Salisbury Airport.
You can see large, modern facilities.
We were greeted there by the missionaries working
in the country.
Some of them you'll recognize, Mr. and Mrs.
John King on the left here, Mr. and
Mrs. John Sims on this side.
Some of you perhaps met Mr. and Mrs.
Allison, a Scottish couple, when they were over
here about two years ago.
Some of these missionaries are no longer there
in Falklands.
For instance, Dr. and Mrs. Emerson had to
leave.
Their work was mostly out in the rural
areas, and because it was no longer safe
to move freely in those areas, they felt
that they were no longer able to work
and to do their medical work, and so
they have left, and they are presently working
down at Murchison Hospital in South Africa.
Mr. and Mrs. Sims, with this couple, Mr.
and Mrs. Chambers, are engaged in printing work,
and we're very grateful to God for the
help and the assistance that they are to
us in this connection.
We left Salisbury, and we traveled down to
Galloway Island, and we were given a very
warm welcome when we got there, and let
me say that any of you, if you
ever care to come visit Africa, we would
be very happy to give you the same
warm welcome as well.
Fullerham is a large modern city, very wide
streets, very progressive, and we're very thankful for
the facilities that we have there.
As I said, our children live with us.
They're able to go to school.
We have large modern schools.
We have a teacher's college.
We have modern hospitals of every kind.
All the facilities, really a beautiful city altogether.
In the background here, across those hills, are
the areas of the suburbs where the African
people live, and there, in that closely confined
area, we have about 200,000 people, and
God has given us this area to work
in.
We had thought originally that we might have
done rural work, but we have seen something
of the wisdom of God in bringing us
back to this.
More of that just in a minute.
Fullerham is a very pretty place also.
Beautiful flowers, flowering trees on the streets, a
lovely park, and very lovely in every way.
This is Mr. and Mrs. Airtline.
The parents, as I said, of Gordon Airtline,
and they have been working there since 1945.
When we arrived in 1971, Mr. Airtline said
to us, please, I'm no longer able to
continue with this work because of ill health.
Would you take over the work that you've
been doing in the city?
But during the years that Mr. Airtline was
working there, he was responsible for the erection
of this very lovely hall, and we've been
very thankful for the help and the facility
that this gives us.
It has two Sunday school rooms in the
back, as well as a hall that will
seat perhaps 200 people reasonably comfortably.
Of course, they think nothing of crowding onto
a seat.
You'll see a seat that appears to you
to be full, and somebody will come in,
and by hook or by crook, they manage
to push themselves in there as well.
You wonder how it's done.
But this is the hall that we presently
have.
Up until that time, they had had this
building.
It was originally started by Mr. E.
H.
Finn, completed by Mr. Airtline, and then it
was taken over by the city.
And then they reimbursed us for taking the
property and gave us a new site where
we now are.
So this is the work that you can
see has gone on for some time.
We have fellow workers working with us there
in the city.
With me here in the picture, in the
center, is Mr. Les Ramey, that I'm sure
is known to many of you here.
He was working there up until the end
of last year.
He presently is at home here in this
country, and he is very uncertain as to
his future.
As I said, things are so...
in such a state of turmoil there in
that land that many of the Lord's servants
are wondering just which way to turn.
And so I'm sure that he would want
me to ask you to pray that the
Lord will lead him with regard to the
future.
Mr. Ross, Mr. and Mrs. Ross are working
principally among white people.
They have had a real door of opportunity
open to them in working with young people
who have become involved in one way or
another with the law, perhaps through drugs or
various other offenses, and they are referred to
Mr. Ross.
And God has blessed that work, and a
number of them have been saved, and so
they now have a small assembly meeting in
their home.
And it has really been thrilling to see
how God has worked in the lives of
these young people, changing them and producing the
Lord Jesus in their lives.
We had wanted to do this rural work,
and this is a very typical African path,
this is a very typical site.
As soon as you get off the paved
road, the road, the other roads disappear, and
you're very often confronted with a little path
like this.
You follow it through the bush, and you
come to a scene like this.
Now, in many parts of Africa, the villages
are very, very much larger.
For instance, in Botswana, where our friends are
working, they are living in a village of
35,000 people.
It's one of the largest villages in the
whole of Africa.
But here in Rhodesia, or certainly in the
section where we work, you have something like
this little family unit.
And so you'll have a husband living in
one house.
And if he's a rich man, he'll have
more than one wife, perhaps three, or even
five, or more, and they will live in
another house.
And by the way, you notice that the
huts are round.
They're very superstitious, particularly these that live in
the rural areas, and they will not build
a square hut, because they say that the
evil spirit can hide in the corners.
And so they build their houses round.
Of course, they're getting away from this, but
they're becoming more into contact with civilization.
But this is very typical of the villages
that they live and work in.
But God closed this door to us, and
he opened a work here in the city
itself.
In the city, there are quite a number
of schools, and owing to the foresight of
Mr. Cecil John Rhodes, who gave his name
to the country, he had it written into
the Constitution that every child who was in
school should be given the opportunity once a
week to be instructed in the Scriptures by
a minister of his denomination.
Now, this has given a tremendous opportunity for
the Gospel, because many of the denominations have
not taken up the challenge of this work.
And we were able to go to the
school of clergy and to say to them,
we are prepared to take anyone that doesn't
have somebody else to teach them.
And so here, in this particular school, I
have, in this one classroom, over a hundred
children.
In the same school and at the same
time, my wife has a class of about
a hundred children.
Our helper, our African helper, he has a
class of a hundred or more.
And so there, in the one school, we
have over three hundred children for half an
hour, with no restrictions, no limitations put upon
us as to what we should teach or
what way we should teach it, and it
really has been a tremendous opportunity for getting
out the Gospel.
In some ways, it's very frustrating.
Those of you that do Sunday school,