An exciting report of lives transformed from Seth & Amy Meyers' in South Africa.
Matimba gave testimony of his salvation before being baptized:
Today I want to tell what God has done for my soul, not my body.
I had thought I was converted back in 1992, but I never learned Christ.
Though I had been baptized, I see now that I was just bathing at church because I had not been born again.
As the Scripture says, “I am a worm and a dead dog.”
Now I see that Christ is my prophet, priest, and king. He is my prophet because he teaches me. He is my priest because He died for my sins and prays to God for me. He is my king because He rules over me and defends me.
I know that I am born again because I want to read the Bible, and I hate my sin, and my love for Christ is growing.
Jesus chose me before I chose Him. He knew me before I knew Him. He prayed for me before I prayed to Him.
My name is in the book of life because Jesus died for me.
I (Seth) don't think I've ever heard a baptismal testimony with a clearer demonstration of doctrinal understanding.
After speaking about 10 minutes, he sat down, and Grandma Baloyi began:
I too grew up in this village at the same time as Matimba and in the same church.
When I was a little girl, they talked to us about God, but they never told us about believing in Christ.
We learned the rules such as don’t steal or lie or do bad things.
But then last year a neighbor invited me to come hear the pastor preach on the streets. She said I would hear lessons that I had never heard before.
I have now learned what Christ Alone means. With my whole heart, I trust in Christ to save me.
I cannot read because of my eyes, but I will not stop coming on Sundays so that I can learn the Bible.
The Meyers pickup packed with 16 adults and 10 kids to go to church.
A mile away, we baptized 4 new members bringing the total of baptized believers to 7.
Did demons laugh as they trapped these individual sheep in the obscurity of 5 villages of only a few thousand each? Were they proud having barricaded these souls inside walls built of irrational fears and bone-chilling poverty? Did evil spirits take a twisted aesthetic pleasure in letting them have a shiny glaze of truth in words like God, Bible, and church while preventing the actual substance? Did their diabolical hopes not rise that Amy Carmichael’s words would prove true again, “And some went over [the precipice] quietly and fell without a sound”?
Yet it appears this laughter was cheated. Omnipotent love pursues the sheep to forgotten villages racing on the wind of the prayers of God’s people. And it is to encourage and stimulate more of these prayers that I write a rare second letter in the same month.
Do not be weary in interceding for this people group!
The Meyers are investing countless hours among the Tsonga people cultivating the soil and planting Gospel seed, all the while praying for God's saving and transforming work. We rejoice for the testimonies like Matimba and Grandma Baloyi. We pray for many more and the planting of indigenous churches in the Tsonga villages.
Seth & Amy Meyers
Serving the Tsonga People of rural South Africa
