One Friday night, on one of our many prayer walks down Voortrekker Road in Parow, Cape Town, we encountered a young man who was walking briskly down the road from the direction of Belville.
He recognised one of the young ladies on our outreach team and they started chatting. She (let’s call her Sam) introduced him to me and explained that they knew each other from childhood. They attended the same church when they were youngsters.
We didn’t usually pray for men on the street, as our core ministry was to prostitutes and victims of human trafficking but suddenly, under the unction of The Holy Spirit. I said to the young man: “Come, let’s pray for you”.
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Sam, his friend from childhood was called away and I was alone with him. The young man responded to me, saying: “No, please don’t pray for me. My life isn’t right with God”.
I said: “All the more reason why we should pray for you!”
The young man (let’s call him James for the sake of this testimony) consented to prayer. I called my husband to come and pray with us, since we usually worked in pairs. My husband, Ron, put his arms around the young man in a fatherly hug and prayed for him. This was unusual, since my husband didn’t usually hug strangers.
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I stood in agreement at the back of Ron. James had his arms around Ron as well and I put my hands on James’ hands while Ron was praying for him. James came from a traditional church background and was unfamiliar with the Gifts of The Holy Spirit.
As I put my hands on James’ hands, I heard the Holy Spirit say to me: “There is blood on his hands, he orchestrated an abortion”. Those were the exact words. I was taken by surprise that the Holy Spirit would reveal such a dark secret about this young man’s life to me. I knew it was the Holy Spirit speaking, because “orchestrated” wasn’t a word I used at all in my vocabulary in those days.
After Ron prayed, I called James aside and made inquiries about abortions in their family. He appeared vague. I then told him the exact words The Holy Spirit told me.
James was a young man with very dark skin, the colour of dark chocolate, but after I told him “I hear The Lord saying that you have blood on your hands, you orchestrated an abortion”, he literally went pale in front of my eyes. I saw the blood drain from his face which turned almost white. He stared at me with confusion and dread in his eyes and asked me if I knew him from somewhere. I said no, I didn’t know him from anywhere.
Totally shaken, he then told me that a few months before our encounter, he had an affair with a married woman. She became pregnant and he took her to have an abortion in order to cover up the affair. He also told me that this was why he had walked about 16 kilometres from his suburb to Parow that night — because his mind just could not rest after the abortion.
I then called the men in our group to pray for him and off he went.
About two months after later, his friend Sam saw him again in a shopping mall. She invited him to church the following Sunday. He went along with her, and PRAISE GOD, he responded to an altar call and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Talk about divine appointments! How GREAT is Our God!!!! HalleluYah!!!!
Almost a year later I met James in a shopping mall. I didn’t immediately recognise him. He smiled at me and started chatting, relating the events of the year before, when we had the “chance” encounter in Parow. He looked so happy and thanked me for being obedient in confronting his sin. He was overflowing with joy and told me that his life was totally changed after he became a reborn believer. He was free of the condemnation he felt, and he had met a girl that he was very much in love with – and hoped to marry.
That first street encounter with James a year before, however, had such a huge ripple effect.
At the time of the street outreach, Ron and I were also facilitating a 13-week marriage enrichment course which was in its final week which is followed by a couples’ weekend away, where couples are given an opportunity to renew their vows with a salt covenant, during a beautiful ceremony.
On the last evening of the course Ron asked me to share the testimony of James and the abortion revelation, which had occurred a few days before. I thought his request strange since the outreach and marriage ministries were unrelated. But I obliged and told the four couples preset what had happened the week before. They listened without providing any feedback other than praising God.
That weekend we went away with the couples on a retreat. On the Saturday afternoon, as part of the programme, we usually discuss sexual sins and we repent.
A lady in the group, let’s call her Jose, said to me during the discussion: “You know Karin, it wasn’t a coincidence that you told us the testimony of James and the abortion on Monday evening”. On the same night that Ron had asked me to share the testimony, Jose and her husband were listening to Radio CCFM, while driving to the meeting. There was a discussion about whether abortion is murder and the presenting pastor concluded that abortion is in fact murder!
Jose then told us that when she and her husband were at varsity, they become pregnant and had an abortion done, because they couldn’t afford the baby. She was a pastor’s child and didn’t want to bring shame on her family. All of us, including Jose and her husband., confessed our sins with much brokenness before The Lord that day,
Interestingly, Jose was barren since they got married, and she had been trying to get pregnant via in vitro fertilisation treatment for five years but all the treatments had been unsuccessful. They had spent thousands of rands on treatment, as she desperately wanted children but nothing happened.
All four of the couples on the marriage encounter weekend were trying to have children and two of the couples had been barren for five years. After we had all confessed our sins that afternoon, the Lord gave Ron and I a few Words of Wisdom for the couples. I prophesied in particular that Jose and her husband would have two children. It was a very tender weekend in the presence of the Lord.
About three months later we held a little reunion. It was our practice to follow up, just to see how the couples were doing. We had a time of fellowship and while praying, Ron and I laid hands on the couples and prophesied children to them under the unction of The Holy Spirit. To Jose, The Holy Spirit gave us a Word that she would have her baby in her arms by the same time the following year.
As The Lord had promised, Jose had her first baby in the arms the next year, and when she went back to work after her maternity leave of four months, she discovered that she was already pregnant with the second baby. HalleluYah!!!!
The Lord was faithful according to His Word which says in 1 John 1:8-9: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. And in Acts 3:19 which says: “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord”
The Lord in His goodness and mercy gave times of refreshing and joy to all the couples. They all had babies in the following years. Our King and Saviour used the testimony of James to touch the lives of many more people. The Lord also confirmed for me that life does, in fact, start at conception and that ABORTION is MURDER in His eyes!
What a wonderful testimony! Truly our Lord is great and wonderful! Hallelujah and Amen!