Tramp for the Lord (10 page)

Then Kees prayed with us, laying his hands on us in the name of Jesus and rebuking the dark powers that would attack us. Even as he was praying, I felt the darkness leave. By the time the prayer was over, we both felt covered by the blood of the Lamb; and all our tiredness had disappeared.

God had taught us a valuable lesson that we would remember in many other areas of the world. We learned that in a country where a godless philosophy reigns, only by claiming the blood of Jesus can you stand and not fall. The same is true in a city, or school, or even a church building. If Jesus Christ is not recognized as supreme, then darkness rules.

Since then we have traveled in many countries and felt this same tiredness coming over us. Often I have felt it in American cities. Now I know it simply means that I am in a place where Satan rules. But praise the Lord! I can be an overcomer when I stand in the power of the blood of the Lamb.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you
.

Matthew 5:44

T
homas was a tall black man who lived in a round hut together with his big family in the middle of Africa. He loved the Lord and loved people—an unbeatable combination.

Thomas’ neighbor, who lived across the dirt street, hated God—and hated men like Thomas, who loved God. The hatred grew stronger and stronger until the man began sneaking over at night and setting fire to the straw roof on Thomas’ hut, endangering his small children.

Three nights in a row this happened. Each time Thomas was able to rush out of his hut and put out the flames before they destroyed the roof and the walls. The fact that he never said an unkind word to his neighbor, only showing him love and forgiveness, made his neighbor hate him even more.

One night the neighbor sneaked across the street and set fire to Thomas’ roof. This night, however, a strong wind came up; and as Thomas rushed to beat out the fire, the sparks blew across the street and set the neighbor’s house on fire. Thomas finished putting out the fire on his roof and then rushed across the street to put out the fire on his neighbor’s roof. He was able to extinguish the flames, but in the process he badly burned his hands and arms.

Other neighbors told the chief of the tribe what had happened. The chief was so furious that he sent his police to arrest the neighbor and throw him into prison.

That night Thomas came to the meeting where I was speaking (as he had done each night). I noticed his badly burned hands and asked him what had happened. Reluctantly he told me the story.

“It is good that this man is now in prison,” I said. “Now your children are no longer in danger, and he cannot try again to put your house in flames.”

“That is true,” he said. “But I am so sorry for that man. He is an unusually gifted man, and now he must live together with all those criminals in a horrible prison.”

“Then let us pray for him,” I said.

Thomas dropped to his knees, and holding up his burned and bandaged hands, he began to pray. “Lord, I claim this neighbor of mine for You. Lord, give him his freedom, and do the miracle that in the future he and I will become a team to bring the gospel in our tribe. Amen.”

Never had I heard such a prayer.

Two days later I was able to go to the prison. I spoke to the prisoners about God’s joy and God’s love. Among the group who listened intently was Thomas’ neighbor. When I asked who would receive Jesus in his heart, that man was the first one to raise his hand.

After the meeting I told him how Thomas loved him, how he had burned his hands trying to put out the fire to save his house and how he had prayed that they might become a team to spread the gospel. The man wept big tears and nodded his head saying, “Yes, yes, that is how it shall be.”

The next day I told Thomas. He praised God and said, “You see, God has worked a miracle. We never can expect too much from Him.” He left, running off down the path, his face beaming with joy.

I had been in Africa for three weeks when I finally got to visit the prison on the outside of the city. I inquired of the warden if I could talk to the prisoners.

“Impossible,” he said, “the prison is on restriction for an entire month due to an uprising that has broken out among the prisoners. Nobody is allowed in to see the men, much less give a sermon.”

I felt discouraged but knew that God had brought me to that place for some reason. So, I just stood—looking at the warden.

He grew very uncomfortable under my prolonged gaze. At last he said, “There are some political prisoners who have been sentenced to death. Would you like to speak to them?”

“Certainly,” I said.

The warden called three heavily armed soldiers, who escorted me down a long hall past many barred doors and into a cell where one man was sitting on a low bench which was also his bed. There was absolutely nothing else in the cell. The only light came from a small window high above the floor that let just a little spot of sunlight fall on the hard-packed dirt floor in that dreary place.

I leaned against the wall. He was a young man with black skin and very white teeth. He looked up, his eyes filled with sadness. What could I say?
Lord, give me some light to pass on to this man who sits in such darkness
.

Finally I asked him a question. “Do you know about Jesus?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “I have a Bible at home. I know that Jesus died on a cross for the sins of the world. Many years ago I accepted Him as my Savior and followed Him for some time until political affairs absorbed all my time. Now I wish I could start again and live a surrendered life. But it is too late. This week I die.”

“It is not too late, my friend,” I said. “Do you know the ones responsible for your death sentence?”

“I could give you the entire list of those who have put me here,” he answered, gritting his teeth. “I know all their names and hate them.”

I opened my Bible and read, “But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Then I closed the Bible and looked at him. “Do you want your Father to forgive you before you die?”

“Of course I want that,” he said. “More than anything else in the world. But I cannot meet the conditions. I am not able to forgive. I am young, strong and healthy. I have a wife and children. These men have wronged me, and now this very week they will take away my life. How do I forgive that?”

The man looked at me with eyes full of despair and hopelessness. I felt such a great compassion in my heart, yet I knew I must be stern, for much depended on it.

“Let me tell you a story,” I said. And then I told him of my experience in the church in Munich when my former guard from the concentration camp asked me to forgive him.

“That moment I felt a great bitterness swelling in my heart,” I said. “I remembered the sufferings of my dying sister. But I knew that unforgiveness would do more harm to me than the guard’s whip. So I cried out to the Lord, “Lord, thank You for Romans 5:5:

The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Thank You, Lord, that Your love in me can do that which I cannot do.”

“At that moment a great stream of love poured through me, and I said, ‘Brother, give me your hand. I forgive all.’ ”

I looked down at the African man sitting on the bench. “I could not do it. I was not able. Jesus in me was able to do it. You see, you never touch so much the ocean of God’s love as when you love your enemies.”

The man listened as I told him more of Jesus. Then, promising to meet him on the other shore, I prayed with him and left.

The next day a missionary friend came by the place where I was staying. He told me that as soon as I left the prison the prisoner had sent a message to his wife saying, “Don’t hate the people who brought me here and who will cause my death. Love them. Forgive them. I cannot, and neither can you, but Jesus in us can do it.”

I slept well that night, knowing why God had brought me to Africa.

I had spoken in many prisons in my travels across the world, but the prison in Rwanda, Africa was the dreariest, darkest prison I had ever seen. The men were all black, their uniforms were black, and they were sitting in the mud on the ground.

I had just entered the prison gate with my interpreter, a missionary lady. Steam (the aftermath of a hard tropical rain) was rising from the mud. The men were sitting on pieces of paper, branches, banana leaves, their legs caked with mud up to their knees.

“Why don’t we go into the building?” I asked my interpreter.

“Impossible,” she whispered, obviously afraid of the men. “There are so many prisoners that even during the night only half of them can go inside.”

I looked at their faces. Like their skin, their eyes were dark. It was the look I had seen so many times in Ravensbruck—the look of those whose hope had died. Unhappiness. Despair. Hopelessness. Anger. How could I speak to them? What could I, an old Dutch woman, say to these miserable men that would help their lives?

“Lord,” I prayed, “I am not able to overcome this darkness.”

“Take My promise of Galatians 5:22,” I heard an inner voice say.

Quickly I took my Bible and opened it to that passage. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love …”

“Thank You, Lord,” I whispered. “But I have a great love for these men already or I would not be here.”

I read on. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy …”

“Joy?” I asked. “In these surroundings?” Then I remembered what Nehemiah said, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”

“Yes, Lord,” I cried out. “That is what I need. That is what I claim. I claim the promise of joy.”

Even as I spoke the words, I felt a wonderful, lifting sensation in my heart. It was joy—more joy than I had ever felt. It poured like a river out of my inner being; like the rising tide it covered the salt flats of my depression and turned the ugly mud of despair into a shimmering lagoon of blessedness.

Moments later I was introduced to the prisoners who all sat staring at me in hatred. The steam rose around them, and the stinging insects swarmed their mud-coated ankles and legs.

I began to talk of the joy that is ours when we know Jesus. What a Friend we have in Him. He is always with us. When we are depressed, He gives us joy. When we do wrong, He gives us the strength to be good. When we hate, He fills us with His forgiveness. When we are afraid, He causes us to love.

Several faces changed, and I saw that some of my joy was spilling over on them. But I knew what the rest were thinking.
After your talk you can go home, away from this muddy, stinking prison. It is easy to talk about joy when you are free. But we must stay here
.

Then I told them a story.

“Morning roll call at Ravensbruck was often the hardest time of the day. By 4:30 a.m. we had to be standing outside our barracks in the black predawn chill, in blocks of one hundred women, ten wide, ten deep.

“Names were never used in the concentration camp. It was part of the plan to dehumanize the prisoners—to take away their dignity of life and their worth before God and man. I was known simply as Prisoner 66730.

“Roll call sometimes lasted three hours. Every day the sun rose a little later and the icy-cold wind blew a little stronger. Standing in the gray of the dawn, I would try to repeat, through shivering lips, that verse of Scripture which had come to mean so much to me: ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’ (Rom. 8:35–36). In all this there was an overwhelming victory through Jesus who had proved His love for me by dying on the cross.

“But there came a time when repeating the words did not help. I needed more. ‘Oh God,’ I prayed, ‘reveal Yourself somehow.’

“Then one morning the woman directly in front of me sank to the ground. In a moment a young woman guard was standing over her, a whip in her hand.

^“‘
Get up,’ she screamed in a rage. ‘How dare you think you can lie down when everyone else is standing!’