Prison Discipleship Course and Lecturing on African Church History during Mission to Mpumalanga-FRONTLINE FELLOWSHIP- DR PETER HAMMOND

[Nat Quinn]

Prison Discipleship Course and Lecturing on African Church History
during Mission to Mpumalanga

By God’s grace, I have completed another Mission to Mpumalanga, in the eastern Transvaal. You can listen to a From the Frontline radio interview report back on this here: https://fromthefrontline.podbean.com/e/from-the-frontline-episode-264-prison-ministry/

Living Testimonies at Amazing Grace
This involved over 30 meetings, including 3 days of ministering in the Barberton Medium B Prison to some very enthusiastic inmates. They have a well-organised church, Amazing Grace Church in the prison run by a previous senior policeman, who is in for murdering his wife and the man she was having an affair with. Richard’s co-pastor, Lloyd, a Zimbabwean, who is in for murder and robbery, came and warmly embraced me, happy to meet “a fellow Rhodesian.” There were 20 Zimbabweans in the prison. Everyone in this unusual congregation has an interesting story. We had great times of enthusiastic praise and worship and I presented a Discipleship course, which they entitled Living Testimonies which included giving the testimony of:

Testimonies of Transformation
Anthony Stander, the chairman of the Board of Frontline Fellowship, who after serving as a paratrooper in the war in Angola, fell into a life of crime, which included a bank robbery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and incarcerated in maximum-security prison where he came to Christ. I was also able to give each prisoner who attended our course a copy of his booklet: Prison Break (https://www.christianlibertybooks.co.za/search/any/Prison%20Break ).
I also related the testimony of Lawrence Temfwe who came to Christ in prison in Zambia. Lawrence had stolen from the Standard Bank where he worked. In prison he read the book From Prison to Praise and surrendered his life to Christ. After completing his sentence, Lawrence worked to save up enough money to repay the bank what he had stolen when he was working for them as a clerk. Legally, under the laws of Zambia, he was not required to do that. He had done the crime and he had done the time. However, it was a tremendous testimony to the bank and Lawrence went on to head up Prison Fellowship in Zambia.
I also related the testimony of our good friend George Oesch who stole a fortune in diamonds while working for the diamond fields. Although he got away with it without detection, when he was converted to Christ, he was convicted by the Holy Spirit to confess his crime to the company and to do restitution, selling his house and farm, returning the fruit of his ill-gotten gains. Since then, God entrusted him with a dynamic ministry in KwaSizabantu Mission. I followed up these life transforming testimonies with teaching on how to Reclaim Surrendered Ground. (To listen to an audio presentation on this teaching, click here​. To see a video presentation on this message, click here. This is also available in PowerPoint format, click here. To view this study in English as a tract to download and print, click here. To view this study in Afrikaans as a tract to download and print, click here.)
It was also appropriate to share my prison experiences in Zambia in 1987 and in Mozambique in 1989. The prisoners expressed great appreciation for us caring enough to visit them and enrich their lives. “…I was in prison and you came to Me.” Matthew 25: 36

Remember the Prisoners
This special programme of ministry in the prison was organised by Dr Elreza Mulder who has devoted herself for the last 20 years to ministering in the prisons in and around Barbeton. It took much hard work and dedicated prayer to overcome the bureaucratic obstacle course to obtain official permission for this course and to enable me to enter the prison and run this Discipleship programme.
As you can imagine there is stringent security and every guest must be authorised and passes through layers of security and numerous searches and checks.
On another day I presented: Two men went up to the Temple to Pray (To read this message on the web : https://www.livingstonefellowship.co.za/discipleship/two-men-went-up-to-the-temple-to-pray
To listen to the Audio of this message : https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/frontlineafrica/sermons/514181050590/
To view this message translated into Zulu on Video, click here: https://vimeo.com/280322908 )
For the Sunday morning worship service in the prison, I preached on the book of Philemon – set free to serve Christ. (To listen to the audio of this sermon, click here. To read this Bible Study on the website with pictures, click here. )

The prisoners who attended these Discipleship Course were given lecture notes on each of these presentations and we had precious times of prayer. At the Sunday morning service each prisoner was presented with a signed certificate for having completed the course.
^“ Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also.” Hebrews 13:3

From Military Engineer to Missionary Professor
Our host was General Shai Mulder who has dedicated over 22 years to building up this Bible College of Back to the Bible Mission. General Mulder, a veteran of the Angolan war, Operation Savanna and the battle of Bridge 14, was the Commanding Officer of the Engineers and of the Military Academy in Saldanha (the South African Defence Force equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst). When he was meant to retire at age 60, Gen Mulder and his wife Dr Elreza Mulder launched out into Missions by faith, and earned degrees in Theology, including Masters and Doctorates.

Leadership Training at Back to the Bible Mission
After the prison ministry I had the privilege of presenting a week of lectures to Back to the Bible Mission to over 80 pastors and missionaries in training, from something like 20 different nations across Africa, on African Church History.
And it was for this I prepared and our mission printed 85 copies of an 80 page A Christian History of Africa manual (https://www.christianlibertybooks.co.za/item/christian_history_of_africa ) so that every student was given his own manual, including a full set of my lecture notes for the week which included: chapters on the early Church Fathers and Martyrs of North Africa, a history of the Church in Sudan, the Evangelist John Mark who planted the Gospel in Egypt, the Apostle Matthew who planted the Gospel in Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia), Samuel Ajai Crowther, the first African Bishop of the Church of England, Robert Moffat of the London Missionary Society, who translated the Bible into Tswana and established the LMS Mission station at Kuruman, Dr. David Livingstone, the best friend Africa ever had, the man who opened up central Africa to the Gospel, Mary Slessor, missionary to Nigeria, C T Studd, the Cricketer who became a Missionary to the Congo, Erlo Stegen, and the Mission of KwaSizabantu among the Zulu and the largest Mission Conference in history, in Cape Town 2010.

Historic Christian Films
We held Film Evangelism in the evenings, including screening: Tortured for Christ, The Roar, Polycarp, Khartoum, Sudan- the Hidden Holocaust, Missions to the Nuba Mountains of Sudan and When God Came Down on the Revival among the Zulu.
I was assisted throughout this last week by Frontline missionary Rev. Ryan Underwood, who also ministered at a high school assembly on the Friday morning, presented a number of devotions and led the communion service at the end of our Day of Prayer and Fasting at the college.

Ministering to Body, Mind and Spirit
Monday was a prayer and fasting day concluded with a fervent celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Devotions for the faculty were held early each morning, in the Principal’s home, normally starting at 6:40 a.m. Devotions with students and staff began at 7:30 AM each morning.
On Wednesday afternoon Ryan and I organised a special PT, fire drill and security & survival session for the students and staff.
Ryan has remained in Mpumalanga to present lectures on Greek and Hebrew over the next two weeks.
Please continue to pray for Ryan, for Prof and Dr Mulder and for the students, staff and faculty of Back to the Bible Mission.

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Ephesians 3:17-21

 

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Click here to see the latest Frontline News:. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/67668888/frontline-fellowship-news-edition-1-of-2023

 

Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship PO Box 74 | Newlands | 7725 | Cape Town | South Africa Tel: +27 21 689 4480 website | email

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