Slices of Life - Dini Esterhuizen
This faith thing...
Once we had three members on the same outreach team that stuttered. Driving to Mozambique, all three were in the same Land Rover. Piet, deeply Afrikaans, was sitting next to English speaking Martin. Piet spoke in English for Martin’s sake and Martin, out of politeness, insisted on Afrikaans for Piet’s sake. With the language challenge plus the stuttering, it took from Pretoria to Witbank to tell the first story.
Martin ended up explaining to Piet that God has a sense of humour. He translated literally from English, saying in effect “God has a temper” (God het ‘n ge…ge…gevoel van humeur)
Indeed He has. The month of February snuck up on us here at Alabanza with about 20 mouths to feed and no income on the horizon. This is not counting the dogs, and (I’ve noticed that visitors are perturbed when our dog’s meet them at the cars when thy arrive. An overwhelming experience, five square meters of solid jumping dog. I try to explain that per capita, if you consider how many people we are living here, the dog ratio is not that high. Then follows even more disdain…”Are there that many people living here?”, and the sideways glances at the caravans and the huts. I am then tempted to explain that these dogs were all strays, orphans or animals that had difficult childhoods, but by then the conversation would have moved on. By the way, we have only five dogs)
But back to the subject, faith - or lack thereof. And God’s sense of humour. When our situation looked so bleak recently, I considered reading Loren Cunningham’s book Living on the Edge just to refresh my memory on truths about living in faith. I was looking for the book when the phone rang. This was a friend that is on the executive staff of a very large children’s home. She talked about their budget and the huge challenges they faced and how they needed someone to come and teach them on how to live in faith.
I listened, expecting her to ask if I could recommend anybody. To my total shock she asked if I could come and teach them, the following day. This was the Lord’s joke. I never got to Cunningham’s book, but I was forced to shed my fear and look at Scripture that reveals His heart and character and teaches on faith. And of course, in the process, recalled some of the countless times that He had come through in the past, sometimes at the last minute, but never too late.
I felt how my own God-given sermon the next morning was changing me because. While teaching I was compelled to fill my mind with truth about God’s faithfulness, and to confess it with my mouth. We spent the morning talking about God’s great kindness towards us and we agreed on this. Oh, what power there is in fellowship and agreeing on God’s truth (Math.18:19). With them I repented and experienced a metanoia, a change of mind, away from “o ye of little faith…”
The staff of the children’s home absorbed the truth and the testimonies and responded like little children. Their faith inspired me. The directors decided to apply these simple truths in the very challenging league where they were operating. They were R1 million short on their budget and decided to trust God for it.
I told them stories about provision such as my aunt Soekie’s pink gown. Soekie had a room mate named Toekie. Soekie said: “Dear Toekie, I think I should praise the Lord for a new gown.”
(Praising God for something was an expression they used in which they would skip asking and fast forward to giving praise from the moment they mentioned their need to God.)
“What colour would you like, Soekie?”
“I think a pink one…”
They started clapping hands and praising God like five year olds that have already received it. (Math. 18:3)
Now, see the other part of the picture – at this time a friend, Corrie, and I were driving home from Pretoria to Alabanza, totally oblivious of their prayer in Krugersdorp.
“Your aunt Soekie is having her birthday soon,” Corrie said. “…I think I should make her a gown from the pink toweling I have at home.”
Almighty God who runs the universe pays attention to a request for a specific coloured gown in an old age home in Krugersdorp. And months before they prayed He had already directed Corrie to buy the cloth. There is nothing too small or too big in dealing with such an awesome God. And is a million Rand for orphans bigger or smaller than a pink gown for an elderly lady?
Mathew 6:28 says: “Don’t worry…
“Seeing is believing,” the cynics say. I want to modify this expression and say “sure, seeing is believing, as long as you see and believe it as if it is there before it is.
From the same aunt I learned how to encourage the process of seeing something in faith in the spirit before it is manifested in the material realm. (Heb. 11:1) And to do whatever will help me to visualize that which doesn’t yet exist as if it does.
She told me precious stories like the one on how the leaders of their church made movements and enacted, sound and all, the earth removal machines that they needed to level a terrain where they were going to build. Imagine these distinguished elders in their suits imitating roaring machines and changing imaginary gears… And low and behold, the Lord provided the machines. ”unless ye become like little children…”
And then there is the story of their bus. They needed bus with all the facilities for the elderly of their congregation. They visualized it in faith by putting the ladies on chairs arranged in rows to represent the bus seats, and an “oom” in the driver’s seat, making whoosh sounds like the hydraulic breaks.
We were in the Strand in the Cape, a group of young girls I was discipling at the time and I. My bank card at the ATM drew a “no funds available” that morning. I gathered the students. This
was going to be a learning moment. Nobody but God knew we had no food or money and this was where they were all to take responsibility to trust the Lord. I told them my aunt’s story of the bus to teach the faith principle. The apartment overlooked Strand street and the beach. The next moment a big luxury bus made whoosh sound as it parked right in front of us. Out got people I recognized from my aunt’s old age home. This was the very bus I was talking about!
The bus that had been built years before in Krugersdorp stopped in front of us while I was using its story to illustrste faith.
After recovering from shock, positive shock, that is, we prayed and acted as if counting out and handing one another money and some wrote imaginary checks. It worked, of course it did.
“This prayer thing works!”, a student once exclaimed at Kleinmond, thereby coining a now famous phrase. And so does this faith thing.
That afternoon a lady from Cape Town, called Wilna, who has since become a dear friend, phoned and asked if she could bring some people to us for prayer. After having prayed, we walked the guests to the car. Wilna took me aside, opened her car boot and revealed a weeks groceries she had bought for us, exactly for the duration of our stay.
May we cherish these moments out of our comfort zones, where nobody can take care of us but the Lord. May we realize then that the subject of our exam is faith, and simply choose for it even if our hearts are fluttering and out teeth chattering. May we not only speak out loud and proclaim our childlike trust in our kind Father, but even enact it like little children. That is when these moments are transformed into the life giving beacons of our journey.
Back to the present: I mentioned February sneaking up on us without any known income. Now, at the time of writing the second part of this letter, I can share that God came through for us. For a few days we ate what three different neighbours brought us, people we hadn’t seen for months and had no clue of our situation. They independently turned up and brought us vegetables and meat. And then came the money, a donation from Belgium.
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
Written by: Dini Esterhuizen
Comments