March 2011

No longer will your name be called  Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.

                                                                                                                                                           Genesis 17:5

The power and promise of God’s word.

One of the explicit teachings in the Bible is the importance of the words we speak. In Gen 17 God changes Abram’s name to Abraham and promises him that he will become the father of many nations. Abram means “High Father” or “Patriarch”. Abraham means “Father of a multitude”. Thus, God was arranging that every time Abraham heard or spoke his own name, he would be reminded of God’s promise. God was saying to Abraham; this is what I see when I look at you. God was not just changing his name, He was changing his destiny.

May the promises which God has spoken to you be as fixed in your heart, mind and the words you speak as it was with the changing of Abraham’s name. let the words we speak be a reflection of God’s promises for our lives.

Don’t “name” yourself anything less than God does...

Eldoraigne High School

As you know, during MAD year we are actively involved not just on university campuses, but also in schools. We have been graced with a HUUUUGE open door at Eldoraigne High School. Johan de Vries is the GATEWAY youth worker in the school and we also worked together while I was still with Gateway. Him and Willie Roos (who is the director of Gateway) are both also in our Every Nation Church in Pretoria East.

They currently have discovery small groups    running in the school with between 30 and 40 leaders!!! Johan approached us with the idea of bringing discipleship into the discovery groups. To equip these “teenagers” to be disciples and to go and make disciples. The great commission in Matthew 28 is for everyone. Even teenagers! We are very excited about this. The possibility of a whole school adopting the culture of discipleship and sending discipled teenagers into the university campuses is huge. For now we will just join in during their discovery small groups and build relationships. They get together during break on Tuesdays and it’s really something special to see these young people hungry for God…

You can visit the Gateway Int. website at www.gyf.co.za

Testimony

By Kennedy Manyike (also a MAD year student)

Keegan Langeveldt age 15 recently did Making Disciples Training (a course specifically designed to equip you to reach out to others) and ever since he has just been reaching out and witnessing where ever he can. One Saturday he was witnessing at the HPC and he witnessed to some of the Zambian U23 national soccer team. After he shared with those guys the Zambian captain who was amongst them said to Keegan “My whole team must hear this.”

So Keegan came to me and asked me to book the auditorium for them for Sunday night after church. He then came to me and we prepared a sermon. I arrived late from church on Sunday so he got Arnold,Vivian,   Tarrence, Samuel and Jubilant (other students from the HPC) and they preached to the team. I remember walking into reception that night and just hearing this bold childlike voice from the auditorium speaking with such boldness and a ran upstairs to the auditorium to listen at the door.

At one point they just  started singing in their language. I waited outside and when they finally came out I was told the whole team gave their lives to God right there.

Keegan is 15. He is just being obedient to God’s call of going and making disciples. I say again,  HE IS 15. I hope you are as challenged by this as I was.