Work keeps growing in Congo (DRC)
Tough road leads to major move of God
in the city of Bukavu
Despite the daily heavy rains in Ariwara, DRC, thousands trekked down the mud roads to hear Bill Smith present the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most had never heard it before, and thousands surrendered their lives to the Lord and Savior.
By John Butterworth
Intensity! That’s the word that comes to Bill Smith’s mind when he thinks about his time in the city of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Getting to the city was tough, the roads were rough, and delayed flights left him and WWC team member John Titman unsure of just how prepared the city was for this evangelistic outreach by Worldwide Crusades.
But all the difficulties faded when they saw 40,000 or more people show up for the first night of the crusade, says Smith
“The crusade ground has a capacity to accommodate 40,000 to 60,000 peoples,” Bidaha Maombi, coordinator for the outreach, wrote days later. “To my big shock and surprise, the very first day the ground was packed up till people could not find their way to the front for the altar call. Thousands gave their lives to the Lord, and many sick were prayed for and the power of God by His Spirit was present and people didn’t want to go home.”
Days earlier, a delayed flight in London caused them to miss a flight from Nairobi, Kenya to Kigali, Rwanda. When they finally reached Kigali on a late-night flight, no one met them at the airport, and employees were preparing to shut down the airport until morning.
“We were standing there wondering what to do next when a guy walked up and wanted to know if we were stranded,” Smith explained. “We didn’t know him, but we told him we were, and he said to follow him.”
After driving a couple of miles from the airport, the man pulled up to a building with no lights and no sign and escorted them to the bottom of a staircase. When a sleepy man finally showed up, he took them to a very modest room and charged them $55 for the night.
“It was kind of a flop house, but it was clean,” Smith recalls. “I never saw either of those guys again, even though we got up early.”
In the morning they met up with team members from Kenya at the airport and then left for Bukavu on the ride of a lifetime.
“It was the most harrowing ride I’ve ever had in my life,” Smith says. “I thought this guy was the world’s worst driver. We were driving through very mountainous country on bad roads going around the corners on two wheels at times.”
He changed his mind about the driver when they reached the border crossing 15 minutes before it would close for the night.
“He didn’t tell us he was trying to reach the border before it closed,” Smith says with a smile. “Maybe he was the world’s best driver.”
Reflecting on the crusade in Bukavu, Smith says, “Every night was bigger. The first night maybe 1,000 people surrendered to Christ, but after that, it grew to 3,000, 4,000 and 6,000. It escalated every night. The intensity increased too.”
Over the years of international evangelism, Smith has noticed that children are often sort of an afterthought when it comes evangelism in numerous nations. So it came as no surprise the second night of the Bukavu crusade when he felt led to do something he hadn’t done ever before.
“We had an altar call for kids even before I started preaching, and they came by the droves,” he recalls. “Some estimate 800 to 1,000 came forward. They filled the whole area in front of the platform. It was such an anointed time, those kids were standing there with tears streaming down their faces. And to hear them pray.”
Smith and the Worldwide Crusades team also had the opportunity to preach to some of the local pygmy population, where the gospel of Jesus Christ is just beginning to penetrate.
After Bukavu, the team traveled to Southern Sudan and then returned to a less populated area of DRC, a city known as Ariwara. In an area with no paved or gravel roads and few vehicles, heavy rains had hampered attendance at the crusade. Despite these obstacles, Smith estimates 2,000 to 3,000 people surrendered their lives to Christ during the crusade.
“They begged us to come back,” he says.
At the request of the area’s governor, Smith visited a prison near Ariwara. He found men secluded in a building with a dirt floor, no windows, and absolutely nothing to do. One guard stood outside nearby the heavy double doors secured with a padlock.
The room was so dark it was difficult for him to see, so he had to preach from the scriptures he knew by heart. In that jail he experienced once again that darkness comes in more than one form.
After preaching his heart out through an interpreter, he got no response whatsoever from the men.
“I got no response whatsoever. I wondered if these guys were just that tough,” he recalls.
It was only after one of the WWC coordinators started interpreting Smith’s message and doing a little preaching of his own that the men, almost unanimously raised their hands saying they wanted to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Smith later learned that the first interpreter was a Jehovah’s Witness, and when Smith would talk about Jesus Christ, the interpreter would use the generic word god.
“It shows that there is power in the name of Jesus,” he says.
“Overall it was a very productive trip. Even though it was the toughest travel-wise and physically, I felt like best series of crusades we’ve ever had.”