Street kid to African Leader – The powerful testimony of the late Stephen Lungu

Stephen Lungu clutched his bag of petrol bombs tightly as he and his fellow gang members approached the large gathering inside the tent.  It was just before 7 PM and a huge crowd had gathered to hear the Gospel in Machipisa township on the outskirts of Harare, capital of Zimbabwe.  Stephen was the leader of a detachment of a dozen teenage thugs from the Black Shadows, a gang intent on stirring up trouble and rebellion against the white government of pre-independence Zimbabwe.  And their intent on this particular evening in 1962 was to blow up the evangelistic meeting.  “I want everyone inside that tent to die,” Stephen admonished his gang friends.  “At 7 PM I will whistle and everybody throw their stones and petrol bombs into the tent entrance” (74).

With a few minutes to spare before the stroke of 7, however, Stephen stepped into the tent to listen.  Now in his late teens, he was an angry and lonely young man, abandoned at the age of seven by his mother and left to fend for himself on the streets of Harare.  His father had long since married another woman and moved to Malawi and he had lost contact with his younger brother and sister.  He was illiterate, having had only four months of formal education and spending his younger years sleeping under a bridge, retrieving balls at golf and tennis clubs for a few pennies of income and scavenging food out of trash cans in the affluent white folks’ neighborhoods.

His anger and hatred had lately been fanned and given focus by his involvement in the Nationalist Youth League, which promoted a Marxist understanding of African history and advocated the violent overthrow of the minority white government of Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was called then).  Stephen and the Black Shadows aimed to contribute to their country’s liberation from white rule by stealing from whites and seeking to sow general chaos through thuggery and instigating riots.

While Stephen’s fellow gang members grew restless as 7 PM came and went, he continued to listen, first to a beautiful young girl from Soweto in South Africa telling of how Jesus had “transformed everything.  There was a strange uncanny authority and resonance with which she spoke of forgiveness and a new start in life,” said Stephen, “and I suddenly felt very dirty and shabby” (75). 

Then a Zambian preacher got up and spoke from Romans 6:23 about the wages of sin being death.  These words rang in Stephen’s head as he reflected on all the hatred he felt towards so many people that had caused him to pursue a life of violence and chaos.  When the preacher then quoted “2 Corinthians 8:9 – ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’  Suddenly I began to understand what Christianity was all about,” said Stephen.  “It was for someone like me!  I could identify with this Jesus.  He had suffered in all the ways that I knew so well. Poverty, oppression, hunger, thirst, loneliness.  I had known all of these, and so had he… My wages were death, but Jesus paid the price for me.  On the cross he had become a nobody that I could become a somebody” (80-81).

Still clutching his petrol bombs, Stephen stumbled forward to where the preacher was speaking, even though it was still in the middle of his message.  Ushers tried to escort him away, but the preacher forbade them, continuing with his sermon.

A few moments later, rocks pelted the tent and petrol bombs went off, causing a stampede out into the surrounding fields.  Stephen’s cronies had gone ahead with their violent plan without him.  But the preacher remained, with Stephen on his knees in front of him, pouring out through tears of anguish his story of abandonment and heartache, of anger and violence.

Through the providence of God, the preacher himself had come to Christ and found healing after having been abandoned as a baby by his mother, and shared with Stephen Psalm 27:10: “Though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.”  After hearing this, Stephen prayed, “God, I have nothing.  I am nothing.  I can’t read.  I can’t write.  My parents don’t want me.  Take me up, God, take me up.  I’m sorry for the bad things I’ve done.  Jesus, forgive me, and take me now” (87).

Stephen went back to his usual bridge to sleep under that night, but as an entirely new person.  When he awoke and cleaned himself up, his career as a powerful evangelist got underway as he boarded a bus into the city and began preaching to the other passengers about what had happened to him the previous night.  He was thrown off the first bus he tried this on, but when he exited the second one, a small crowd of seven people had been touched by his testimony and wanted to give their lives to Christ.

Stephen realised he didn’t quite know what to do, so he knelt down on the sidewalk with them and prayed, “God, I’ve met these good people on the bus just now, and I told them about how I found your Son Jesus last night.  They’ve said they would like to meet him too, because I’ve told them how he loves everyone in the whole world.  So, here they are.”  Tears rolled down the faces of these new converts as they gave themselves to their Savior.  More than forty years later, says Stephen, “I was still in touch with three of them – they became ministers of local churches” (99).

Besides telling people about Jesus, Stephen also felt he must turn himself in to the police and confess his crimes.  “The love of Jesus arrested me last night,” Stephen told one of the senior policemen.  “Last night I became a Christian, and I realised that what I have been doing is wrong” (100).  The incredulous policeman listened to Stephen’s story and tried to plumb him for information on his gang.  Stephen confessed to everything he had done, but sought not to betray his old friends.  Finally, the policeman said, “Well, Stephen, if your Jesus has forgiven you, we forgive you also.  There is nothing to be gained from keeping you here.  You are free to go.”  Another policeman held out his hand and said, “Here is some money – go and buy yourself a Bible” (103).

Though he did not yet know how to read, Stephen went out and proudly bought himself a nice hardcover Bible, which he treasured.  With it under his arm, he went out every day on the bus to preach in the central market, telling everyone he possibly could about Jesus.  His old friends from the Black Shadows gang found out about this and would come and heckle him, calling him “Bishop” or “Vicar” and kneeling down and pretending to cry in the street.  One of them even pulled a knife on him.  Stephen also sought out a church to attend, but found that the parishioners there weren’t very enthusiastic about his preaching every day out in the marketplace – it wasn’t “respectable” – and his bringing mostly shabby new converts into the congregation.

Word had got back, though, to the Dorothea Mission, the South Africa-based Christian organisation in whose tent crusade Stephen had just come to Christ.  One day as he was preaching, a man named Hannes Joubert, a Dorothea missionary from South Africa who had just moved to Zimbabwe, approached Stephen with an offer to join a Bible school which Joubert was starting in Harare.  Stephen was the first student and was amazed at Joubert’s faith in starting this new venture.  For he “had no money.  He had no building.  He had no teachers.  He had few books.  He had only one student – an uncivilized twenty-year-old straight off the streets whose knowledge of Christianity came from Marxist-driven ideology, one evangelistic tent service attended with the aim of petrol bombing it, and a few follow-up meetings afterwards” (124).

Furthermore, Stephen spoke little English, could not read or write and hardly knew how to eat with a knife and fork or to take a bath without spilling most of the water out of the tub.  Stephen took up residence in Joubert’s garage, as it was against the law at that time in Zimbabwe for a black person to stay in a white person’s home, but this new home was an enormous improvement over his former one under the bridge.

Stephen spent a number of years studying – learning to read and write, learning English, learning about the Bible and even learning about eating properly with a knife and fork!  By the mid-1960s the Dorothea Mission welcomed him aboard as one of their missionaries and he began to go out preaching in the ensuing years on missions throughout Zimbabwe and in Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa.  This was a time of major social and political upheaval in most African countries, as they gained independence from colonial powers or, in the case of Zimbabwe, continued to resist the oppression of the ruling white government.

Reprieve for Zimbabwe did not come, however, until 1980 and for South Africa not until 1994.  But it meant that Stephen and his colleagues were preaching the message of what many Africans considered “white man’s religion”.  Many evangelistic rallies would invite violent protests and find the Dorothea missioners fleeing in a hail of rocks and bricks, or being beaten by a mob.  Stephen and others were once kidnapped at 1 AM by members of the Malawi Congress Party Youth League, who were upset that a Dorothea mission in Blantyre had attracted more people than their political rally.  Intense prayer by many others secured their release.

New impetus came into the ministry of the Dorothea Mission with the arrival from England in the mid-1960s of Patrick Johnstone, who later became well-known for his prayer guide, Operation World.  Stephen and the others learned to build their lives around prayer, study and outreach.  Thus mornings “were devoted to prayer and preparation, while each afternoon we began spending three hours out and about, visiting Christians to prepare for meetings, or visiting house to house.  We would encourage converts in their new faith.  By late afternoon…we would hold a simple open-air meeting to catch people’s attention on their way home from work.  By seven we were down at the tent, preparing for the evening’s rally” (154).  Johnstone sought to build up Stephen and other young Africans to take over the leadership of the evangelistic outreaches, something Stephen at first found incredibly daunting and difficult to contemplate taking on.

But he persevered and soon was leading missions all over southern Africa, besides getting married to Rachel, a Malawian, in 1969, with whom he has had five children.  The most astonishing experience Stephen ever had in a mission came in 1975, back in Harare again, when he was exhausted after a whole day of preaching almost constantly.

He had just finished his last preaching assignment for the evening and made a halfhearted appeal for anyone wanting to come forward.  “I unhooked the mike and was turning away from the platform, longing for a cool drink, when someone clutched at my trouser leg.  I looked down.  A little woman standing in front of the platform, looking up at me.  I crouched down to have a better look at her.  She was a bit of a mess.  She was thin, looked ill and stank of alcohol.  She was drunk.  ‘I would like to pray with you,’ she said abruptly, staring at me in the most peculiar way” (191).  Being exhausted, Stephen tried to fob her off to one of the female counselors, but finally prayed with her.  But she kept hanging on to him, finally saying, “‘Do you know you are my son? … Back in Highfield,’ she said.  ‘You and your brother John and sister Malesi.  From what you said tonight, I know I was – am – your mother.’  Her words sunk in at last, and I felt the shock of it hit me like a physical force.  The years peeled away and I relived the terror of that dreadful day.  This small, shrivelled-up, ill lady was the glossy, round young woman that had abandoned my sister, my brother and me to probable death twenty years ago” (192-193).

Stephen struggled mightily to forgive his mother, but with the Lord’s help was finally able to do so.  Amazingly, she grew in her Christian faith and enrolled in the same Bible school as Stephen had gone through and then joined the Dorothea Mission and became an evangelist herself!  Stephen then tracked down his father in Malawi in 1986 and shortly thereafter led him to the Lord.  He lived with Stephen and Rachel for some years and died at the ripe old age of 104.

Stephen was invited in 1978 to start up a new Dorothea team in Malawi and then in 1982 joined African Enterprise (AE), an international ministry focused on evangelising the major cities of Africa with teams in ten countries across the continent. Just at this time, he was given a scripture that portended his future.

Isaiah 55 reads: “I will send you to the nations that you do not know.”

New horizons opened up for this former street kid, as he soon found himself preaching not only all around the African continent, including a crowd of 250,000 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1994, but all over the world – in North America, the UK, Ireland, Europe and Australasia.  He even spent six months living and preaching all over New Zealand in 2004 in an effort to build up a solid base of prayer and financial support for AE there.

“Because I look at myself as a miracle of God’s grace,” Stephen says, “so I believe that the power of Jesus Christ to save sinners still exists. If he can change me, he can change anyone… Winning souls for Christ. It’s my calling. It’s my passion. It’s me”.

Stephen Lungu was the Team Leader for African Enterprise Malawi from 1982 – 2006. He then became CEO of African Enterprise International, taking over from the organisation’s founder, Michael Cassidy. Stephen Lungu was succeeded by Stephen Mbogo as CEO of AEI in 2012.

You can read Stephen’s full testimony in his book “Out of the Black Shadows” (page numbers referenced in this testimony).

 

Mission Update: Zomba

“All in all, things are going well. God is on our side and souls are getting saved. Churches are taking responsibility. HBE is a great tool.”
– Dr Cornelius Huwa, AE Malawi Team Leader

AE’s strategic mission to the city of Zomba is not what we expected it to be. The pandemic has forced this mission to take a different approach – that of Home Based Evangelism (HBE). And yet, HBE is proving an exceptionally effective tool for evangelism.

In Zomba, over 500 leaders have been trained in Home Based Evangelism, and AE is partnering with over 150 churches to reach the city with the Gospel. With each local church taking ownership of HBE, the follow-up of new believers is greatly simplified, and the impact thus far has been profound. HBE is gaining momentum in Zomba, as testimonies are encouraging more believers to participate in evangelism.

Pastor Suwedi describes how “before sitting under the home-based evangelism training, I could barely stand in front of a crowd. I was immensely drenched in fear, the best I could do in my church… was to carry chairs and tables”. Subsequently appointed to lead a home church, Pastor Suwedi’s fears soon dissipated. His home church attracted people from a village 10km away, Mdera, and he has since planted a small, but thriving church there.

Miss Saidi is one person whose life was transformed while attending Pastor Suwedi’s home church. Abandoned by her husband and left to fend for her family, her life was filled with bitterness. She describes that “my anger would spiral out of control”, and admits that she became abusive towards her children. Tormented by horrific nightmares, rest was elusive.

After accepting Christ, Miss Saidi is surprised by the peace that she has discovered. She mentions how the Lord has used her as a peacemaker in her family: “my brother and parents were not talking to each other due to an argument… the peace I found in Christ helped me mediate their conflict towards resolution”.

And so this great message of reconciliation is spreading, one life at a time. Replacing turmoil with tranquility, and leaving restoration in its wake.

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” – 2 Corinthians 5:18

Favourable or not

Missions in a COVID-19 world.

Our teams have refused to give up on the Great Commission, despite incredibly challenging circumstances in Africa.

Evangelism is the heartbeat of African Enterprise. We exist to share the eternal hope of the Gospel, and this hasn’t changed. In 2020, AE has developed a home-based evangelism (HBE) approach to share the Good News of Jesus, in spite of COVID restrictions.

The HBE model equips believers to share the Gospel with their families and neighbours, in a structured and effective way. The approach focuses on personal evangelism, on a large scale. Mission volunteers facilitate home gatherings, where a pre-recorded or live Gospel message is shared using television, radio, mobile phone or social media platforms. The Gospel broadcast is followed by a personal testimony and an invitation to follow Christ, extended by the HBE facilitator.

Between mid-April and July 2020, our AE teams trained 2,590 pastors and volunteers in the HBE approach, and have found the approach holds enormous potential for evangelism, as well as discipleship. For example, one church in Lukunga, DRC, was able to share Christ with at least 945 people, in multiple homes, on a single Sunday.

One mission volunteer in Kenya, Nancy, has shared the Gospel with over 300 people since the HBE approach was implemented there in May. When she shared the Gospel with a Facebook acquaintance, the 24-year old Margaret, Nancy had no idea that Margaret was suicidal. Nancy describes:

“I shared the Gospel and she made a commitment for salvation during one of our phone calls. The following day we met and from that time, we have created a relationship that is exceptional. It is wonderful to see the great transformation Christ has brought to this sister. She is now happy in the Lord. Today, as I see her smiling, I often have the sobering thought that, if the Gospel had not come her way, she would possibly not be alive!”

Our brothers and sisters in Africa are passionate for the cause of Christ, and our support means so much as they choose to “preach the word of God” and “be prepared, whether the time is favourable or not” (2 Timothy 4:2).

“For such a time as this”

Leadership, Mission and Malawi

“People lose their way without wise leadership, but a nation succeeds when it has many good counsellors to guide it.” (Proverbs 11:14)

For the next three years, AE Malawi is focusing its mission efforts on the city of Zomba, culminating in a city-wide outreach in 2022. With the theme, “Honest Leadership – a key to National Development”, this year’s mission will target societal leaders in this significant city. By hosting events for leaders in the spheres of politics, church, business and academia, AE hopes to bring many leaders to Christ and assist them in serving their nation.

Malawi’s 2020 Vision document states, ““By the year 2020, Malawi, as a God–fearing nation, will be secure, democratically mature, environmentally sustainable, self-reliant with equal opportunities for active participation by all, having social services, vibrant cultural and religious values and a technologically-driven, middle-income economy.”

Sadly in 2020, Malawi remains one of the poorest countries in the world, and high corruption levels are a major barrier to national progress. However, with Malawi’s 2019 election results overturned, and the recent election of a new president, the people of Malawi have declared that they are ready for change. In Zomba, at this pivotal moment in history, AE stands prepared to guide Malawi’s leaders, and ultimately, to make way for the one true King, Jesus Christ.

Image: ilovemalawi.blogspot.com

An update of what you have helped make possible in Africa today.

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed” (Proverbs 19:17).

Through your recent gifts, you have shown God’s love in action amongst communities that are reliant on a hand-up in difficult times. Through you we were able to send emergency funds to each of our teams in Africa as a part of a local community led response to ensure sustainable approach to Covid-19 prevention. These funds were much needed as poverty-stricken communities were in urgent need of food and hygiene supplies as they continue to develop much needed vocational skills to support their families in a healthy way.

Below follows a short update of what you have helped make possible through the work of our various teams to address community needs during this crisis period.

AE DRC have worked hard to give hope through TV engagements, and distributing sanitation stations to 96 communities which included a bucket, soap, sanitiser and reusable facemasks and food hampers.

AE Ethiopia have given out 300 facemasks, food hampers and hygiene and sanitation products to date.

AE Ghana have distributed food to 5,000 families with the assistance of the women’s training project in Akropong, Akuapem and their successful Cassava plantation.

Our Soweto Kayole Clinic at AE Kenya has given medical assistance to 1252 patients so far. The team has also distributed 1345 food hampers and 700 facemasks. In addition to this, the team is working hard to give messages of hope and educating people through TV, radio and social media on COVID awareness and prevention. They have reached 6907 people through media engagements so far.

AE Malawi have distributed 110 facemasks and hygiene and sanitation items to families in need. The team has also donated blood which is such a great gesture during this time of need. They have reached 3000 households through media engagements and continue with training pastors and home based evangelism for their upcoming mission in September.

Initially AE Tanzania had challenges due to government regulations. They have only recently been authorised to start distributing food and other supplies. So far they have provided 3 schools with hand soap and buckets and they have also distributed sanitiser and facemasks to bus and boda (taxi) drivers.

AE Rwanda has been very blessed and very busy, distributing 23 560 food hampers, 1000 facemasks and 3200 hygiene and sanitation items. They have also been able to reach 98 000 people through media engagements.

The Ngezandla Zethu Sewing project run by AE South Africa are currently busy sewing 2500 reusable facemasks for distribution. The AE team have also given out 4956 hampers with food and hygiene and sanitation products. They have distributed 300 facemasks so far and have reached 68 000 people through media engagements.

AE Zambia distributed water buckets, soap and hand sanitiser to a local school and have also given out 300 facemasks in Kaunda Square.

AE Zimbabwe have distributed 150 facemasks and 5000 hygiene and sanitation items. They have also given out food hampers and sanitation items to people with albinism who were in dire need of such provisions.

Thank you for partnering with us to help those in need in Africa and show the love of Jesus in word and deed. Please continue to pray for our teams as they carefully and faithfully serve in their communities in the desperate time of need. Our teams in Africa are so grateful for your love and support.

Meet Tamandani, Health Programs Officer at AE Malawi

Tamandani Nazimera, a phenomenal and passionate woman of faith, recently joined the team at AE Malawi in a voluntary capacity as Health Programs Officer. Originally from Blantyre, Tamandani studied nursing and midwifery at the University of Malawi. After working for eight years as a nursing officer with Malawi’s Ministry of Health, Tamandani served as a family planning coordinator in the rural district of Neno. However, she recently resigned from this position, in order to focus on her family and the ministry that she feels called to.

Her long-term vision, together with African Enterprise, is to open faith-based primary healthcare clinics and youth development centres, in underserved urban districts in Malawi. In these areas, poor health outcomes are exacerbated by poverty, and simple health interventions have the potential to save countless lives. Healthcare for pregnant women and young children, as well as family planning services, will be the main focus of these clinics.

Tamandani laughingly describes that “it was the uniforms” that first attracted her to nursing, and explains that her mother had always encouraged her to become a nurse. Raised in a middle-class family, Tamandani’s parents modelled entrepreneurial skills for their four children. Her dad was a manager, and her mum a teacher, and they also ran several businesses. As a result, Tamandani learnt from a young age how to embark on small business ventures, and is currently the managing director of LAWTANA investments. She is also founder of Women of Faith, a non-profit organisation that sponsors underprivileged students at Neno’s Chikonde secondary school.

Tamandani grew up in a Christian family, but describes how she first encountered Christ and began her “own life with God” after a Campus Crusade in her first year of college. Together with her family, she attends Calvary Family Church in Lilongwe.
Tamandani met her husband, Lawrence, at a youth fellowship event in 2011, and they were married in 2014. Lawrence is a doctor, and currently works as the national coordinator for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. (Gavi is a global health partnership which increases access to immunisations in low-income countries.) They have three beautiful daughters, aged 4, 2 and 1. They named their first daughter Kuwala (“Light”), as she “brought light in our lives after we suffered from a miscarriage”. Ungwiro (“Integrity”) and “Watipatsa” (“The Lord has provided”) are Kuwala’s two younger sisters.

Currently, at AE Malawi, Tamandani is assisting with COVID-19 sensitisation for staff and volunteers in preparation for the upcoming mission in Zomba. She is also conducting COVID-19 education programs in churches (which are not currently under lockdown in Malawi), where she provides COVID education for young children in Sunday schools. As part of the upcoming Zomba mission, Tamandani hopes to assist the team in hosting pop-up medical clinics. Some of her former colleagues, who are also Christians, have already volunteered their time for this effort. AE Malawi is also getting involved with an “Adopt-a-ward” program at the Burns Unit at Kamuzu Central Hospital, Lilongwe. While working several shifts as a
volunteer nurse in the unit, Tamandani plans to assess the best way for AE to partner with the unit in relieving the suffering of burns victims.

Tamandani’s humility and servant-heart are so evident in her unassuming manner, and we look forward to partnering with her, and the team of AE Malawi, to see the love of Christ shared in both Word and Deed, in this nation.