Two Testimonies

Both struck and healed

She came struggling out to be prayed for at the time of ministry in the Sunday Prayer meeting on Sunday 2nd April 2006, a girl or young lady, in her early twenties. She was suffering from being unable to use either right arm or right leg.

We all watched and prayed while someone ministered to her in different ways, ending up by getting her to put faith into action by moving her limbs and walking up and down. Bit by bit, she regained the use of her limbs until she was able to jump and dance in time to the singing of a chorus.

It was only afterwards, when we reflected on the testimony she gave us, that we realized she had come to the meeting perfectly well, but had had a mild stroke in the middle of it. We are really grateful that God also healed her in the same prayer meeting. We were also grateful that we did not realize what had happened until after she was healed.

Step ahead for UZ

At the same prayer meeting, Manners Sheshe testified how Mrs Blandina Marere had invited one or two people to give the essential parts of a Life in the Spirit Seminar to some University of Zimbabwe students at her house. He had gone along, just to give support to those who were giving it and to gain experience.

The UZ students were there, 25 of them, all ready and eager to hear something about the Holy Spirit, as Mrs Marere had promised them. However, no one had turned up for this ministry. There was just him and his younger brother Mike, who had no experience at all. Mrs Marere said she was unable to help with the teachings because, ‘I talk too much’, meaning that she goes on endlessly and looses direction. So essentially, he was on his own.

Mrs Marere said it must go ahead since the students were all there and were full of expectation of learning something about the Holy Spirit. So Manners went ahead – with a certain trepidation, but in faith, and the Lord was with him. So he was not on his own after all.

Manners has just obtained an Engineering Degree from Harare Polytech. This was an asset and it gave the students some confidence in him.

He started with the teaching on the love of God and Inner Healing. Mrs Marere told me the students were all taking it down like they were at a maths lecture. Yet, when it came to ministry, the Lord began working with them. Some of them were confused when they saw some people being slain in the Spirit, especially two Catholic students and some Seventh Day Adventists, two of whom disappeared when they saw this happening.

They were particularly touched, however, by the teaching on Deliverance. This teaching can lead to a much deeper level of repentance, especially in the area of traditional and occult practices.

When it came to the ministry of baptism in the Spirit, Manners started singing, ‘Just one more touch, Lord’, and the Lord was straightaway working with the students. It was a case of ‘touch and fall’, and they were falling down all over, baptised in the Spirit and praying in tongues. Mrs Marere mentions one young boy, about grade three, who happened also to be there, who was lying on the floor praying in tongues with tears flowing from his eyes.

Faith and courage walk hand in hand. If it had been you or I, we might have said, 'Nothing doing, we are going home'. Thank God for Manners Sheshe’s faith and courage on this occasion which brought the kingdom of heaven to this small group of future leaders in the country.

Word of God

John 3: 27 ‘A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.’ NKJV

Which is more important to you, the head or the heart?

If the gift we receive, for example the gift of wisdom, is coming down from heaven, it is a gift from God. How can we possibly receive something from God with our human intellect?

To use computer software terminology, the gift from God has to be first downloaded then installed. You might think it has to be downloaded through the intellect and then installed in the heart of a man.

But it is more likely the other way around. It is downloaded through the heart and installed in the intellect. We first receive from God intuitively through the operation of our spirit, then think about it, and so install it in our mind or soul.

Nicodemus was a cleric and an intellectual. He could see there was something special about Jesus but was having a hard time with Him. He was trying to crank it all through his superior intellect. He was trying to download from Jesus straight into his head.

It is sad to see intelligent, educated people trip up on things like the baptism in the Spirit, the gifts or charisms of the Spirit, and the charismatic renewal in general. Could it be they are living too much in their head and not enough in their heart? Simpler people on the other hand receive this good news and profit greatly from it and produce fruit in their lives for God’s kingdom.

Our Christian faith is primarily a thing of the spirit and is received by the spirit. All the gifts of God we receive, including gifts of prayer, are all spiritual matters before they are intellectual. We receive these things intuitively into the heart through the operation of our spirit.

Could this be what Jesus meant when He said that unless we become like little children, we should not enter the kingdom of God – which is a thing of the spirit.

Report: Gokwe

The Spirit blows where He wills in Gokwe

Mrs Anna Tsanga was a victim of the tsunami. This was not the tsunami that the whole world knows about, but the tsunami that Zimbabwe knows about. Here, ‘tsunami’ is a nickname given to the clean up exercise in which many people lost their homes and sources of income.

After struggling for a long time to find new accommodation, Mrs Tsanga eventually made a firm decision that she must return to her rural home in Gokwe, a remote area about 300 kilometres from Harare, rather than be a burden on her daughter and son-in-law. We did not want to lose her since she was a BLCC leader in Chitungwiza, a place just outside Harare, but eventually we had to accept that God had his own plans for her.

After some months she returned for a visit and gave a testimony at the Sunday prayer meeting that showed us that the Lord is ready to do something at Gokwe. We decided to send two people to support her and to get people ready for a Life in the Spirit Seminar. We call it ‘kugobora’, this means to dig out the tree stumps. You cannot plough virgin land until you have first got rid of the stumps, and you sometimes cannot give a Seminar until the ground of people’s hearts is prepared in some way.

So, last weekend we sent Mrs Sharai Chanetsa and Lazarus Kudiwa to Gokwe. Mrs Chanetsa works at Kingdom Bank as an item processor, and Lazarus is a young man that was working as a salesman but is now out of work. He spends most of his time visiting people with problems and meeting them with prayer at their point of need, either individuals or families or groups. Both of them have experience in the Lord’s work and together with Mrs Tsanga they made a formidable trio.

It soon became clear that Mrs Tsanga had been putting her leadership qualities to work in the parish there. Gokwe is a place where the people seem to know nothing of the Renewal God is bringing about in His church. When Mrs Tsanga prayed for sick persons in the parish and they saw they were healed, they thought she must be a Satanist. (That word gets bandied about too much these days.) They were happy to learn from the people from Harare that these things are happening these days, both in their church and in other churches.

They had no chance to visit people in their homes. Instead, a small group of 20 or 25 people assembled at the house of Mrs Tsanga, and they were hungry to learn all they could. The team taught them about Jesus and what He could do for them. They taught them about the Holy Spirit and about the Charismatic Renewal and about BLCC (The Blood of the Lamb Christian Community). We did not plan to give them a Seminar this time, but they brought in the teaching of the three hearts, which comes in Seminar One, to give them some homework while waiting for our next visit.

They also taught them to praise God all together in a word of praise and they responded wholeheartedly. The team were surprised and delighted to see the Spirit come upon them during this praise. Many of them were slain in the Spirit and a number of them were baptized in the Spirit and praying in tongues.

The Lord does not wait for us and our plans. He does not wait for our Seminars. When He sees people’s hearts are ready for it, He can and does pour out His Spirit upon them as they are. God’s love is going out to people these days and He wants to work in their lives with His divine power. It is as if God wants to bring as many people as possible to salvation, or deeper into His kingdom while there is still time.

The people in this group were from various churches and some of them were asking, ‘What about us? We see this is good. Are we allowed to come and pray in this way?’ Mrs Chanetsa replied, ‘You must stay where you are in your own churches. You can come and pray and make the Seminar when we come again. What you learn there, you can go back to your own churches and teach them about it. God’s church is the whole of Christianity and God wants all people to be saved and to receive the baptism in the Spirit.’ The people were pleased to hear this.

Something is growing at Gokwe and next time we go there we expect to see many people ready for a Seminar. It is clear that Mrs Anna Tsanga has been praying at Gokwe. All leadership in the kingdom of God starts there. Without prayer we will be only following our own plans. When we pray we give God a way in and allow Him to bring His own answers to the problems in people’s lives.

Apologies for all the religious jargon here. We hope to provide links to explanations of some of the words and phrases as soon as we can manage it.