Confess… ‘Jesus is Lord’ and… You Will Be Saved.
It seems too good to be true. Doesn’t it? All I have to do is confess Jesus as my Lord and Savior, believe in my heart that Jesus died for my sins and God raised Him from the dead, and I will be saved and spend eternity in heaven with God… Incredible! (Romans 10:9)
A few weeks ago we had our 3rd International Leadership Academy (ILA) of the year at Shikwaru. ILA is a week-long camp for learners and educators in secondary school. We work with educators to select learners who are displaying leadership skills to come to the camp. The week is spent teaching the children how to become better leaders and instilling the Word of God into their life. The learners are given a project they must complete in order to come back to camp next year. This week was a bit different for ILA. We had a first year and second year camp running at the same time. Running one camp is exhausting, so the thought of running two separate camps in the same facility at the same time seemed overwhelming to say the least! However, we had a team coming from the States that had done the camp before, so I was hoping it would run smoothly.
I was excited about ILA this time, I had already helped with the previous two this year and I knew that it was a great opportunity to invest the lives of these children. I knew that helping with the first year group would probably be easier and I was really hoping to get to work with them…. Well, the Nomads had a meeting prior to the American team coming and not only was I put with the second year group, I was put in charge of making sure everything was running as planned for second year. Basically this meant I needed to be in all the sessions and get anything for anyone who needed something. Needless to say I wasn’t too excited about that! To add to that the second year campers are taught a program called Kids Games. It’s a really cool program that teaches kids about Christ using games. However, this would be the 3rd time that I had to go through the training, and to be honest helping crowd control the 200+ kids that we would have later on in the week isn’t my idea of fun… I knew that I could easily get a bad attitude about the upcoming week, so I asked to Holy Spirit to keep my attitude in check and remind me of the awesome opportunity I had to share with the kids coming for camp. That prayer was answered! I’m not saying I loved every second of what I had to do, but my attitude was completely different this time and God did some awesome things.
Speaking of awesome things, this last Academy has probably been one of the best weeks I’ve spent in South Africa thus far!... Throughout the day we have a few small group discussion times to talk about the morning devotions and to get to know the kids. This time I actually wasn’t assigned to a small group, but I decided to join in on the two groups that had boys in it. On Tuesday I decided to join Jerry’s group that had Trevor and Karabo in it. Before I go on, let me tell you a little bit about Jerry. He’s 70 years old, and doesn’t like to interact with people that much. He’s a professed introvert, but when his church announced the trip God told him to go. He didn’t want to at all, but he was faithful to God’s call. Jerry didn’t know why he was here, but he would soon find out… Back to Tuesdays small group. The morning devotion was about purpose, we had a paper with some discussion questions about the devotion and we started going through them. We got through most of the questions, but it was time for lunch so I asked the boys if we could get our food and then keep on discussing, they agreed. We all got our food and then continued to go through the questions. I was the one asking all of the questions, some from the paper and others that I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to ask, Jerry sat and listened. The Holy Spirit led our conversation to salvation and what that really meant. I could tell God was moving in a great way and the boys were responding. All of a sudden Jerry pops in and takes over the conversation. At first I really didn’t want to let him take over because I was on a roll and I knew where this conversation was heading, but I let him take over. Jerry asked the question, “If you died right now and were in heaven standing before God and He asked why He should let you in, what would you say?” Both of the boys answered something along the lines of, “Because I worked hard in life and tried to do good and help people.” Jerry and I went along to explain to them that doing good things had nothing to do with getting into heaven. As Jerry was talking I started looking up some scriptures in Romans to show the boys. Obviously the Holy Spirit was telling us the same thing because he started referencing the very scriptures I had looked up. I read Romans 10:9 to the boys, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” We told the boys that all they had to do was this and that is how they would get into heaven. We explained it’s not about how much good we do or how hard we work, it’s about accepting God’s forgiveness and loving him. We told them this was their decision and they didn’t have to do this. Their response in unison was “No, we have to do this!” Jerry then asked me to lead them in the sinners’ prayer. The prayer was short and simple, but it was an incredible experience! Trevor and Karabo are now going to spend eternity in heaven with God!
All I can do is give God the glory. Trevor and Karabo’s salvation had nothing to do with me or Jerry, we were simply the willing vessels the Holy Spirit used to bring them to God! I’ve never felt so much joy in my life. I feel honored to be used by God like this. His plans are so incredible. He’s known for all eternity that on Tuesday September 28th 2010 in the middle of nowhere South Africa at around 1:20 p.m. that I, Jerry, Trevor, and Karabo would be sitting at that table and the Holy Spirit would use Jerry and me to share God’s love and plan of salvation with the boys… I couldn’t believe that I had just met these boys 2 days ago and they had already given their lives to God. The day after the boys accepted Jesus, I told both of them that if the only thing I accomplished during my year in Africa was helping to lead them to the Lord, than that makes every second here and every penny spent to get here worth it, and so much more! I honestly feel that way.
I feel like God gave me a little insight into how much He really loves us though this experience. I can’t explain it, but I love those boys so much. It made me think, “If I feel so much love and concern for these boys that I just met, how much more does God love me!”… There was a special bond God planned between Trevor and me. The other Nomads teased me about how much of a bro-mance we had, but it was a friendship that was of God... Later on during the week the kids all cooked their own dinner over a fire at their camp, with the supervision of the Nomads. I went up with the second year boys to help them. We were sitting around the fire and then out of no-where Trevor said to me, “You know Paul, sometimes I was you were my brother so we could hang out all the time.” That was a moment I will never forget. I told him we were brothers in Christ, and even though we will only get to spend time together for this one week, we will both be in heaven for eternity and we’ll have plenty of time to hang out then!
The pastor of the church that came from the States began the first session of the week with a presentation about “Moments that can change your life” I know that many of the kids that were at camp had a moment that changed their life, and I thank God for that! We interview the second year learners at the end of camp and one of the questions we asked them was, “Was there a moment this week that changed your life?” The video below is Trevor’s answer to that question…
