“A missionary’s journey: I felt weak” – part 2 of 4

How did a missionary test out his call from God?  See part one by clicking in the right-hand margin.

The idea was that I would go to Mozambique to learn about cross-cultural missions and church planting amongst the unreached.  However, I could only spend one month with the CAPRO missionaries before COVID hit the Southern Region. The lockdown in South Africa had begun. This cut my stay short and forced me to go back home.

I had planned to go do ‘great and mighty things’, however God planned to use this time to expose me to what he is doing amongst the nations, and further deepen the conviction about my calling into missions.  While Mozambique is a neighbouring country to South Africa, the culture in the North was different, and the language was definitely different!

I got off the plane, and the humid and hot climate welcomed me; while the switch from the English-speaking South Africa to the Portuguese Mozambique started to make all the stories I had heard come alive. The cross-cultural shift was a lot for me. I was theologically educated and very invested in the work of ministry, but in that context, I felt very dependent and inadequate.

Furthermore, I battled with ‘ill-discipline’, as I could not keep up with my host’s fervent devotional and ministry life. I just found the sacrifices they put into this life too intense.  It was all new for me and I wondered how they were so disciplined and invested. My mind thought, “They don’t even get a salary for all this!” It was an issue for me, and a testimony as well.

Based on my experience back home, they use fewer resources, less equipment and technology than everything I’m used to in a typical contemporary church in South Africa, and yet they are doing far more in reaching out to the lost and unreached in Mozambique.  So, during that time I felt very weak and defeated, but God was pointing me to the reality that if I’m going to do this, I need to depend on him and pursue training.

By the grace of God, it was a humbling experience for me as a young man who felt a calling to missions, but who didn’t know where to start. Previously, I had wondered if truly there were Africans who were doing church planting amongst the unreached, but to see them do what they are doing, and believe that I can also do it, that really ministered to me.

I remember when I arrived and the team leader, who was the national coordinator at that time, said “By the time you leave in 3 months, you should have planted a church.” I said, “What?” Of course that sounded wild.  I now began to realize why he was saying that, because of the model of church planting they used (this was another confirmation from God). It obviously takes more than that, but he was opening my eyes to the fact that to “start” is possible and with the leadership of the Holy Spirit and the partnership of indigenous missionaries on the ground in my case, it is possible.  It challenged me, empowered me and it even stirred me to go back to God and say “I cannot do it, you need to help me.  I feel weak, I feel ill-disciplined, I feel defeated, but I see they are doing it.  Whatever it is that makes them able to do it, I want to do it!” That’s when they told me I had to go for training to at the CAPRO School of Missions, which would provide the foundation for me to be developed in my character, ministry, and cross-cultural understanding.  And that’s how the Lord started my journey.