Since August of last year, the Cub Corner youth have been on a mission with the youth of Zimbabwe; get the Message to the people. Together, their efforts have been monumental.
In August of last year, we launched a new Jesus Jar Missionary Sponsorship Project called Billboards In Zimbabwe. Over a few months period, youth from around the world saved their Jesus Jars to help sponsor this project to post huge billboards in the largest city of Zimbabwe. Their sacrifce and efforts are still being seen both in Zimbabwe and here in Jeffersonville, as the number of Harare, Zimbabwe hits continues to climb on themessage.com website since the billboards were posted.
With the success and inspiration from the Billboards Project, we took it a step further to do another Sponsorship Project to equip the youth of Zimbabwe with ammunition to fight the enemy on ground level. Once again, Cub Corner youth, Sunday Schools, churches, parents and grandparents around the world went to work saving their Jesus Jars to send themessage.com material to Zimbabwe. The Highways and Byways project was underway.
Months later, and now fully equiped with soul saving material, it was time for the Zimbabwe youth to go to battle. Below is the report, video and images of their epic crusade.
From the Heidelberg Press at the heart of VGR’s pressroom, to the cutter, packed in boxes, flown across the sea, traversing both state and national borders, and finally trucked to a warehouse in a country where God’s prophet set foot in 1951 to sow the seed that is coming to fruition today in a myriad of ways; a mission was in motion. The country is called Zimbabwe and the cargo described above is tracts, a life giving resource tailor made for the searching-hungry heart.
The tracts had been packed and sorted a few weeks earlier. The long awaited time had finally come where these tools were to be put to their intended use. It rained some during that week but that particular morning dawned so bright and beautiful! You could whiff it in the air, something reeaally good was in store!
The day started relatively early, arrival was scheduled for 7:45am. As we arrived, our names were ticked off, and we were given numbers which we had to remember, a very hard task considering the excitement we all harbored!
In a few minutes Brother G opened the day in a word of prayer, and he talked to us briefly about the important and noble responsibility we were going to assume for the next few hours an,d ultimately for the future going on. It was quite sobering but exciting to think God had allowed us to be a part of this great work! Following this we were all given really nice “themessage.com T-shirts” which we wore with gratitude before being put into our different groups. Each group then proceeded to collect their tract packs and began to discuss their battle strategy!
After some encouraging singing, the bus engines were roaring toward the frontlines. Excitement, anxiety, anticipation, apprehensiveness, it was a whole hodgepodge of feelings as we headed for the heart of downtown Harare. The City had allocated us a spot at a crossroads of First Street & Speke Avenue. No doubt God knew there would be another Zacchaeus waiting for Jesus at a crossroads of their life, and that Jesus had died on the Cross to point every soul up the right road.
As we the salt of the earth disembarked and started walking toward our base, the world had already began thirsting and they wanted to know where they could get these waters that if they’d drink they never thirst again!
When we arrived we didn’t waste time, we sang a good gospel spreading revival song in our native Shona and Brother Ben prayed for God to guide our steps as we sowed the seed. At this, we took the streets by storm! We had a tent which served as our base, here a few tables were set with more tracts, Spoken Word Books in English and the local language, and a few people to talk to God’s precious people as they walked up to find out what this was about. We also had a good size speaker playing a tape for the several hours we were there. It was just something else to hear the Voice of the messenger to the generation, preaching his heart out to the people he was sent to.
Standing in the street while the clock ticked, you’d see sights like one engrossed in a tract reading about the Godhead, one or two youths sitting with a vendor discussing the original sin, or trying to convince a lady that God still does miracles. Some would be opening Bible Scriptures, sharing how there is definitely a life after this life on earth. Most of the people were enthralled by what the youth had to say. On the other hand, several encounters were tough and had some real challenging personalities & questions to deal with. It was such a thrill to see young sisters and brothers answering them hard questions with Scripture, shedding light on a particular subject according to what the Word says about it. Several of these people wanted more of the prophet’s material beside what they got on the day and were given the full VGR contacts and address. Several of them asked about attending church, and the youths directed them to the different congregations they attended around the city, or the one closest to that person’s place of abode.
From the different experiences, it was all too evident that the world is hungry for the Truth. The harvest truly is great but the laborers are few. Vendors, passersby’s, chain smokers, drunkards, old men, young people, mothers with babies, touts, business people, denominational ministers, Christians and non-Christians alike all got a chance to hear about what God has done in their day. If they didn’t stop, they heard The Voice thundering out against evil and pointing them back to the unadulterated Word of God which comes to the prophet. Some believers, who happened to be walking in town that Saturday, were puzzled and wondered if they were hearing right when they heard Brother Branham’s voice ringing through the streets! The beam on their faces as they turned the corner and seen their fellow brothers and sisters testifying about the fundamental foundations of their faith said it all! A few of them even stayed for a while to join forces with the young ambassadors’ about the Father’s business!
After a good three hours, we trekked back to our base at the tent where we listened to the voice for a few minutes before we prayed, thanking God for the seeds that had been sown and asking him to water them till they came to fruition. Even as we walked toward our busses, some people did not want certain of the groups to leave. They still wanted to keep their conversation going and enthusiastically discussed their topic all the way to the bus!
Enroute to VGR, we made a necessary detour by one of the Jesus Jar BillBoards where we had a group photo taken before we proceeded to VGR for a sumptuous lunch.
Every single one of us youths want to come back and do it again! We learnt a lot of things and exercised our spiritual muscles like never before. See, there is something about testifying that feeds back to the testifier, it’s almost like you’re testifying to yourself too! And the Holy Spirit quickens Scripture and the Word just when you need it in a conversation. It’s so amazing! It’ll be God doing the calling only through a yielded vessel on the mission fields; we are privileged to have experienced this first hand!
Feedback continues to come in from extremely grateful parents, about how those few hours have had an impact on their children. The pastors and the youth themselves alike are confirming that the ripples of this one are still going, they’re not stopping. May God Bless You YF and continue to inspire you to point more and more to the Word. For that is THE Foundation.