discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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manian city square. That prayer was an act of defiance culminating a week of
protests against Romania’s atheistic and despotic dictatorship. Within days of
that public prayer, the Communist regime was gone. “We did not have machine
guns,” Dugulescu said. “We had only songs, prayers and candles. And we won.” 18
Doing Justice
Conflict between cultures has had a long history in South Africa.
Some people believed that the best way to avoid cultural clashes
was to separate the different groups. To that end, a system called
apartheid (separation of peoples) was set up after World War II.
Based on the concept of race, which anthropologists have discarded
as invalid, apartheid fostered hatred and social stress.
Then, during a relatively peaceful transition, the evil system of
apartheid was swept away. Institutionalized discrimination was dismantled
with all South Africans now having the right to vote. In a
nation as deeply divided as South Africa had been, this was nothing
short of a miracle.
Christians were crucial players in South Africa’s healing. At a
critical point in the negotiations to abolish apartheid, Michael Cassidy,
founder of an evangelistic organization called African Enterprise,
intervened when hope for a peaceful transition seemed to be
vanishing. American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Lord
Carrington from Britain had already boarded their planes when Cassidy
urged the mediator from Kenya, Washington Okumu, to continue
negotiations. Then, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, founder
of the Inkatha Freedom Party who had already threatened to boycott
the election, gave up and boarded his plane. After takeoff, however,
the chief’s plane developed a mechanical problem, forcing it to return
to the airport. Cassidy took this as a sign from the Lord, and after
prayer, got the three main leaders to forge an agreement opening
the way for the birth of a reconstituted nation.
On Sunday, April 17, 1994, the three leaders joined hands and
raised them together at a Jesus Peace Rally organized by African Enterprise.
On the following Tuesday, the chief minister stated, “God
has saved South Africa from civil war.” Just days later, the newly reborn
nation officially began life almost without incident. For his
contribution to the process, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the first
sub-Saharan African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
A Global Church 69
Not long ago, George Otis produced two widely shown “Transformations”
videos. These videos electrified viewers by pointing to social changes ascribed
to Christian revival and renewal movements in cities around the world. Although
criticized for hyping or overplaying the effects, Otis’s videos did point