Nhlengelo

Today I had one of the most powerful experiences of my life. I met a crowd of angels.

The story in brief:

In 1999, Pastor and Mrs. Mawela retired in Darsloop, in the far northeastern portion of South Africa. At the time, Paul Mawela's health was bad, but he had wanted to start a church in his retirement, and so he held a series of meetings. But hardly anyone came. All the other pastors in the town scheduled "revivals" for the same time! He began to hear that some other pastors were telling their congregants that Seventh-day Adventists were devil worshippers! (That sounds silly to us, but it is a measure of the ignorance and superstition in Africa that it is still a potent accusation here.)

Not getting anywhere with evangelism, he and his wife, Martha, wondered what to do next. He noticed that there were a lot of funerals in the area. When he looked more closely, he discovered that most of the funerals were for young people.

All Africans know about HIV/AIDS. There are roughly 42 million infected people in the world, and fully half of those, 21 million, are in the southern third of the African continent. He had retired in a particularly hard-struck community.

So Pastor Mawela went to the pastor of the local apostolic church, and told him his concerns. This was the first Christian pastor who was willing to talk to him. The other pastor realized two things: Pastor Mawela had identified a problem churches needed to address, and he also realized that Pastor Mawela was a true Christian man who he could trust. He gathered all the local Christian pastors, and together they determined to do something.

They started out with just a phone and an office. I'll skip the intermediate steps, and tell you that today Nhlengelo (the word means "fighting together against an enemy") is an interfaith ministry that employs 60 volunteer caregivers who go to the homes of people who are dying and minister to them. They visit the multitude of child-headed homes, where orphans live alone. They feed 70 children at the main center, and another 700 orphans at a local school. Here's a picture of some of the orphans who came for a meal while we were there.

In short, this is one of the most Christian activities I've ever seen Seventh-day Adventists do.

I must correct myself: Seventh-day Adventists were the impetus behind it, but it is an interfaith effort carried out by hundreds of marvelous Christian people. I'm more proud of that than I would be if our people were doing it all alone!

I wish you could meet the Mawelas. There is a power about them. It does not come from being right but from doing right. The other angels are the caregivers, who walk miles every day to minister to dying people. (And for these caregivers, volunteering is a real sacrifice; most of them live in poverty, too.)

And by the way, Pastor Mawela did start a church, and the town was so thrilled with the Nhlengelo center that the chief gave them the land!

If I can figure out how to edit my videos, I'll post them.