Will You Build Me a Cross?
An extraordinary true story
set in South Africa
by Robbie Hift
El Shaddai Publishing
e mail: info@ecmirror.co.za
www.hift.co.za
Acknowledgements
Photographic Image of father and Son Fishing-
Permission kindly granted by photographer Karm Redland
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of the eighty eight people who took their own lives by jumping off Van Stadens Bridge to their death because they could not face life anymore.
Foreword
“Where there is no vision (no redemptive revelation of God), the people perish; but he who keeps the law (of God, which includes the law of man)-blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he. Proverbs 29:18
“I heard a little voice inside me and it said, “Will you build me the biggest cross you have ever seen at Van Stadens bridge?” And I replied, “Yes, Lord. I will do it! I haven’t got a clue where to begin, but if you give me a sign so I know this is from you, I will do it!”
By that time, 88 people had committed suicide by jumping off the Van Stadens Bridge to their death...the bridge had been dubbed “The Bridge of Death.”
Hundreds and hundreds of people across South Africa caught the vision to change all this. We believe that with Jesus Christ, all things are possible and that with Him, there is new life. So, we decided to build a cross of Hope to encourage everybody and to give them new hope and to take heart in this difficult life.
Out of this giant cross, another cross was born…and another…and another. Hopefully, you too will catch this vision and help to build your own cross for Jesus right where you are!
Introduction
Ithink the first time that you really fall very deeply in love withGod is when your heart’s desire changes and your focus is notso much, “What can I get fromGod,” but instead your focus becomes, “What can I give toGod?”
Andyour motivation is that you want to give back to Him just because youare hopelessly in love with this fantastic, kind, forgiving, everloving God who never gives up on you….no matter what you havedone and no matter what you will ever do.”
Thatis the time in your life when you start to fall completely andhopelessly in love with God and you just fall deeper and deeper intothat love until it becomes a complete obsession. You can’t stoptalking about Him. You can’t stop pondering His ways. You can’tstop sharing your experiences and trying to find ways to lead otherpeople to know Him and to develop a relationship with Him. It is notbecause you are trying to win His approval and certainly not becauseyou want to try and make up for all the wrongs you have done. We allrealize that we are saved by the Grace of Jesus Christ and not by ourown works. No, when you realize that you are totally forgiven for allyour sins: past, present andfuture, that God loves you just as you are, that is the time thislove starts to take hold of your life.
Byway of introducing this book, I would like to share a few experiencesof mine on this theme. In July 2003, I traveled to Sydney, Australiawith the worship team from my local church, Victory Christian Church,from Jeffreys Bay in South Africa, to the annual Hillsong Conference,which is held in the Olympic city in Sydney. For 10 days, some65,000 Christians came together from all over the world to worshipGod and to attend a series of workshops where we learned how to formdynamic worship teams. So, for example, you would find a workshopfor 1000 bass guitarists and another workshop for 1000 soundengineers and another workshop for 5000 drummers. Every morning, andagain every evening, all 65,000 people would congregate together inthe giant hypodrome and the worship would be orchestrated by Hillsongworship team, which for 20 years had been acknowledged as the world’sforemost leaders in writing and performing worship songs. I wasabsolutely blown away by the spirit of excellence, by the harmonywhich was created with a choir of 200 people, a worship team of 20musicians, by the professional sound recording teams and a the TVrecording team all focusing on worshipping Jesus Christ. The powerof this worship was absolutely incredible and this changed my lifeforever.
WhenI came home to South Africa, it was impossible for me just to attenda worship practice on Thursday evening and to attend church on Sundaymorning. The power of worship had become the most important part ofmy life and I can remember praying, “God, give me more! This isnot enough!”
“God,give me more! This is not enough!”
Well,God answered my prayer in a mighty way. The net result was that I wasinvited to join Christ for the Nations Bible School in Jeffreys Bay.Pastor Danie Nel invited me to become the music director at theschool and take charge of the 30 musicians and singers. This waspretty strange for me because I was 53 years old at the time, andmost of the students were between the ages of 17 and 27! Strangely,the age gap seemed to make no difference, and the students acceptedme as one of them. Every morning, we would assemble in the hall at6:50 AM and hold a powerful worship session with keyboards andguitars and singers and drums and overhead projection until 9:50 AM,five days a week with two practices on the Tuesday and Thursday. Simultaneously, I was still part of the worship team in my homechurch, Victory Church, practising together on a Thursday and playingin church on Sunday morning and on Sunday evening. Wow! What anincredible two years I had! My life became saturated by the goodnessand the power of worship. In the process, my private computerbusiness, RiversideComputer Consultants,was somewhat neglected, and I found myself R65,000 in debt! Then Godcame through for me in a mighty way. Suddenly, there was a propertyboom in my home town and the land values of local properties soaredsky high. In this property boom, I sold off a small piece of land for20 times what I had paid for it! This profit was enough to pay offour debts completely and for us to make two major trips to SouthAmerica as a family on holiday!
WhileI was at Christ for the Nations Bible school, I made two lifelongfriends. The first was John Rodwell, a man who had a burning passionfor prison ministry. Every week, John would go to St. Albans prisonto take the gospel to criminals who was serving lifelong sentencesfor crimes like murder, rape and armed robbery. St. Albans prison,outside Port Elizabeth, is as big as a small town and it canaccommodate 5 000 prisoners at a time. There are high walls aroundthe stone walls with electric fences and murderous Alsatian dogs thatpatrol the walls.
Johnnagged me for two years to bring my guitar and my Bible and to joinin his ministry to help criminals come to know Christ. When the timewas right, I joined him and week after week, we passed through theten security gates with the X-ray cameras scanning my guitar and myBible. We went there in order to reach out to dangerous prisoners. John and I helped to create worship teams in the jail from musicianswho were spending time behind bars. I can remember times when wetook boxes of Gideons Bibles in for the prisoners, and they would runforward desperate to receive a free Bible. Huge, powerful men withtattoos up and down the arms, weeping freely when we told them aboutthis phenomenal God who would forgive you, no matter what you haddone.
Thepower of God’s love is so strong that it can reduce even thestrongest man to tears.
Manyof the prisoners could not write, and so when they accepted JesusChrist as their personal savior, we got them to lick their thumb andto make an imprint on the back page of their very own first Bible.
Oneprisoner was busy sitting in the toilet rolling a marijuana joint. Hetore out a page from his Gideon’s Bible to use as a cigarettepaper because the thin, rice paper makes excellent cigarette paper.(So I am told!) That man happened to read that page of the Bible uponwhich was written John 3:16 “God so loved the world that Hegave His only begotten son that all who believe in Him shall notperish, but have everlasting life.”
Hetore out a page from his Gideon’s Bible to use as a cigarettepaper……and it change his life forever!
Thatone verse from God’s holy word changed that prisoner’slife forever. He started reading the bible avidly while he was injail because there was nothing else to do. Not long after, heaccepted Jesus Christ into his life, stopped his evil ways and beganstudying while he was in jail and eventually became a pastor. Ibetter not tell you his name here, without obtaining his permission,but he started leading other criminals to Jesus and he formed astrong, powerful worship team in jail for many hundreds ofunfortunate prisoners. But that’s another fascinating tale,which I have written up in one of my other books entitled Blindedby the Light, which Iwrote seven years ago.
Thesecond really good friend whom I met at Christ for the Nations BibleSchool was Johan Hitchcock. Johan was in his early 50’s,divorced and had a real passion for the underprivileged community inthe Eastern Cape. Johan started a church in a very poor Colouredcommunity in Lourie Township, which was situated some 50 km away fromJeffreys Bay. Although Johan had no money himself, for he ran aone-man plumbing business, he succeeded in drawing together a largenumber of Coloured people into his church. He had a passion foryoungsters and he wanted to get them off the streets, which wereruled by the drug lords, and get them into church. So he devised aplan to build a children’s church out of large wooden panels. He managed to secure these panels from the VW motor plant inUitenhage. These 6 x 3 meter wooden panels had been used to transportmotor parts from Brazil to South Africa.
Johanasked me to help them build this childrens’ church and I wasright behind it. At the time, I had access to a 5 ton truck, so weused to take truckloads of bricks and building materials out toLourie. After a few months, we opened the doors one Friday evening. It was a huge success and every week some 50 to 60 youngsters used tocome and hang out. I helped them to build the worship team and theColoured people are naturally good singers and they love to dance, sowe had a great time. Trying to keep the church based on God’slaws instead of man’s laws was tough. We had a situation, forexample, with the main keyboard player who was the worship leader. Hewas living with his girlfriend for two years and neither of themcould see that this was not right according to God’s rules. How do you cope in an imperfect world? How do you train people sothat they are aware of what God says in his word without offendingthem so badly that they stop coming to church? That’s achallenging issue!
WhatI learned in these two major experiences, was to love God by servingother people.
Thenthere was a time for some 14 years when I was supporting Shepherd’sField Drug and Alcohol Rehab Centre outside Port Elizabeth. Thisrehab center was run by Pastor Gerrie Cronje and his wife, Suzanne.They started out using their farm Nooitgedacht which was way out inthe sticks, miles from anywhere, with some 20 youngsters who wereaddicted to Heroin and Tik Cocaine and some of them had seriousalcohol problems too. The Putco Bus company donated some 12 publicbuses which they parked off under the trees without engines or wheelsand these buses were initially used as accommodation for thepatients. These buses were kept spotlessly clean by the patients andone of them was transformed into a church.
Theytransformed a bus without wheels or a motor
Andmade it into a church under the trees……
Ican remember interviewing Pastor Gerrie when I was writing some of mybooks on Jeffreys Bay, and I asked him, “Gerrie, where does themoney come from to run the Centre? It must take a lot of money tofeed and clothe and to heal your patients.”
Gerrieshrugged his shoulders and replied, “It’s a mystery! Godmiraculously provides for all our needs. Local farmers and fishermenmysteriously arrive here with a bakkie load of fish, meat orvegetables. The local Pick n Pay often provides us with groceriesand local pharmacies give us free medicines. Shepherd’s Fieldis run by faith , and it is the power of the Holy Spirit that healsour patients and our young people. We have the highest success rateof any rehab centre in South Africa of people who are cured fromtheir addictions. Out of every 100 people who are admitted toShepherd’s Field, 77 of these youngsters are cured after oneyear. In most government rehab institutions, only 3% of the patientsare cured after one year, and it is hugely expensive to be admittedthere. The fantastic thing is that the people who come to us are notChristians at first. But, time after time, we see youngsters whohave had an experience with God while they are here and their livesare completely turned around. Many of them just lose the desire totake drugs. Shepherd’s Field is so successful because it isGod who does the healing and not us.
Itwas a former high priest in Satanism who hand carved the wooden crossthat stands outside the bus that serves us as a church…
Gerriecontinued, “One man was a high priest in Satanism and he cameto us hopelessly addicted to Heroin. While he was with us, he gottouched by the Holy Spirit so powerfully that he became a Christian.He was miraculously healed of his addictions and, out of gratitude,he took months to hand carve the wooden cross that you see in ourchapel outside the bus which serves as
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 22.04.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-3763-6
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Widmung:
This book is dedicated to the memory of the eighty eight people who took their own lives by jumping off Van Stadens Bridge to their death because they could not face life anymore.