Three years ago, after experiencing a fresh touch of the Lord, Gqeberha couple Malinda and Dawid van Eeden stepped out in faith and started a suburban “prayer drive thru” to offer prayer to passersby.
From the start it was evident that the Holy Spirit had much more in mind for their fledgling ministry as passionate volunteers from various different churches joined them and people were prayed for, counselled, healed, saved, baptised and built up in discipleship and fellowship groups.
Three years on they are seeing a multiplication of their ministry, said Malinda. “The Holy Spirit is taking us into uncharted territory and teaching us new things. We are just following where He is leading us and we’re seeing the fruit of it,” she said.
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“All the glory goes to Jesus,” said Dawid about their full ministry life on top of fulltime work careers.
On the first Saturday of every month the Lorraine Prayer Drive Thru team, comprising several prayer teams, street marshals and exuberant worshipers serve the public in a roadside park. Dawid engages motorists and other passersby on a street corner where he has handed out thousands of their printed Gospel flyers – and succeeded in getting many motorists to make a u-turn to receive prayer.
Malinda said they celebrated their third birthday at their last monthly prayer drive-thru event on Satuday July 3 “starting as always, with Loud, joyful, open-air praise and worship, singing and dancing with flags, tambourines and shofars – preparing the atmosphere and inviting the Holy Spirit’s tangible presence”. Then the team formed a circle and shared testimonies, pausing to pray for people “sent by the Lord”. A highlight was praying for a 14-year-old boy brought by his single mother. The boy gave his life to Jesus and the team encouraged him with many words.
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Malinda said “absent fathers” has recently been a recurring theme in their prayer ministry and they have responded by discipling and walking with affected youth and young married women.
One of the ways the ministry has been multiplying has been by drawing in volunteers for a season and building their confidence to start new ministries of their own. As old volunteers move on, God supplies new volunteers. One of the more recent startup ministries birthed from the prayer drive thru is one to fatherless youth.
“The nice thing is that we all have our own ministries but we support each other as the Body of Christ in unity. So when they have an event we all go there and when we have an event they join us,” said Malinda.
On one memorable prayer drive-thru day Dawid stopped a woman motorist at the stop street and encouraged her to turn around and receive prayer. The woman, who appeared very confused said that her husband had left her and that her family, who believed she had a calling from “the ancestors”, had been using her as a channel for communicating with “ancestral spirits”. The team calmed her and ministered to he for about an hour during which she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Saviour and renounced ungodly covenants. With her permission, the team removed and destroyed four strings of sangoma beads that were so tightly bound around her wrists and ankles that her skin had turned purple.
“Two months later, we hosted a spiritual warfare and deliverance workshop to equip believers for this unseen battle. The fruit has been remarkable. Ministries have been birthed from within this coalition, and many are now actively ministering in deliverance and spiritual warfare, equipping the Body of Christ and advancing the Kingdom of God,” said Malinda.
She said they developed close relationships among volunteers and with people who they served at the prayer drive-thru – some of whom went on to become prayer volunteers. They run a weekly, online discipleship cell group for people who accepted Jesus at the prayer drive thru, using The Purple Book: Biblical Foundations for Building Strong Disciples by Rice Broocks and Steve Murrell. And they offer a weekly online cell group for volunteers as well as a monthly face-to-face gathering for fellowship and baptisms. Community is also built as team members attend Christian women’s and men’s events together.
Some time after starting the prayer drive thru they started praying for God to use their example to launch more prayer drive thrus. Malinda said God has answered their prayers – four new drive-thrus and various outreaches have been started in the region by people who had volunteered with them.
An unexpected offshoot of their ministry has been getting orders from across the country for wristbands which they give to people they pray for. The wristbands display the steps that can be taken to accept Jesus and start a discipleship journey.
“Now we are praying for a venue because I think that is the natural next step – to have a place for events. Maybe a little coffee shop where we can do our fellowships. Maybe a boardroom for cell groups and teachings. We desperately need a baptism bath as we’re always baptising in the sea. And we would like some small rooms for counselling and 24/7 prayer,” said Malinda.
Anybody who is interested in joining the volunteer team is welcome to contact Malinda at +27 82 290 3734.
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