Chapter 1 - The Voice of the Bridegroom

One day in the early 1930’s I jogged happily along a path with a stick for a horse, under the warm South African sun of the Kalahari Desert. I was a tow-headed lad named Cornelius Johannes Verwey – a long name for such a small boy! Suddenly I stopped. There was my mother, lying on her face before God praying for me! I crept stealthily behind a bush and watched as she poured out her heart to God for me and for my brother and three sisters.

My mother lived very close to God. Every night since I was a baby she had taught me to pray and had told me Bible stories so faithfully that I soon knew by heart any story she could tell. It had become such a habit that I couldn’t sleep without it. One night when guests had come to the house she had been so busy that I had to go to bed alone. But it was impossible for me to sleep! I lay sobbing for her to come tell we a Bible story and pray with me.

But here, crouching behind the bush with my stick in my hand, hearing her cry to God for her children like this, was something new. An acute awareness of the Presence of the Almighty God surrounded and enfolded me. For the first time in my young life God Himself was vividly real.

My father was a well-driller in the Kalahari Desert. He would take our family into a desert area, set up a tent for us, and drill for water. When he discovered water, others would come and open a farm while he moved further into the desert to drill for water again.

Often for moths at a time I saw no one other than my parents, brother and three sisters. We children had few playthings, but toys are not missed when one lives in tents, with the barren but vast desert for a playground and a vivid imagination. As each child became old enough lie or she was sent to the town of Kuruman to school, but we all spent our holidays in the Kalahari Desert.

A few short years after starting school when I was 12 years old, once again I stood near my mother in the Presence of God. But this time, silently weeping, I stood beside her grave.

‘The petitions of a praying mother live on, for God is not dead! The habits she forms in her young children for reaction patterns for the rest of their lives, as I soon discovered. For a time during my teen years I became quite rebellious, refused to listen to advice from grown-ups, and didn’t even want to attend church. My family were members of the Dutch Reformed Church and never missed attending when they were in town.

But I wanted to follow my own way, and would often dance and indulge in pleasure until well after midnight before going home. But even then, in the loneliness of my home I could not get into bed before reading my Bible and praying! What my mother had taught me had become such a part of me that I could not escape it. Even during the most sinful part of this time, no matter what I had been doing, when I got to my room this was something I had to do, whether I wanted to or not, or I could not sleep. Bible reading and prayer at night had been patterned into me for a lifetime.

Fortunately, my rebellion didn’t last long. Once again I began attending church faithfully. I prayed in the prayer meetings, taught in the Sunday School arid gave money to the church from my new earnings, for I had recently finished school and begun working as an auto mechanic. I confessed my sins at least once a day and sometimes three times a day, yet never experienced forgiveness. The burden of sin was heavy in my heart, though outwardly people thought everything was all right in my life. Even my minister thought I was right with God.

And then, one day, the 11th of November, 1946, the Africa Evangelistic Band pitched a tent in our town. I listened earnestly as the preacher explained that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins.” The preacher said it is riot enough just to confess, we must also believe the Lord when He promises to forgive us.

I knew inwardly that I was not right with God and that I had never experienced forgiveness. I realized that night for the first time that my confessions must be wade in absolute faith, and then lift with the Lord Jesus. As the meeting ended, I slipped out of the tent. In the shadows of the lonely place I found a large stone, knelt beside it and prayed, confessing every sin that came to my mind.

“Lord,” I whispered, my hand resting on the stone which was cold to my touch, “this time I’m confessing in faith. This time I accept that You’ve forgiven my sins. My heart is feeling as cold as this stone. There’s no warmth. There’s nothing in my heart that tells me my sins are forgiven. But although my heart is a cold as this stone at this moment, I still believe You.”

After a while I rose and returned quietly to my home, feeling nothing. But I had placed true faith in the Savior for the forgiveness of sins. Two or three days later God sent the witness of the Holy Spirit, joy filled my heart, and Romans 8:16 came true for me: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God!”

What a joy to know I was right with, God! Now I not only had other people watching me and thinking I was right, but I knew in my own heart that I had been forgiven.

The first thing I realized was that I needed to tell other people about Jesus Christ. I tried telling the other workers in tile garage about Him, but they weren’t all that interested! I was greatly burdened for them, yet all my 1ttempts at witnessing ended in miserable failure. I had not yet learned the secret of Acts 1:8, “you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses.” When Jesus was on earth He had already given to His disciples power to heat tile sick, power to cast out devils and had sent them out two by two. But only after the Holy Spirit had come upon them did they have power to witness and find people turning to God through their testimony.

Tile little town of Kuruman is in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. Here in this semi-desert, quite unexpectedly a fountain springs up out of the earth which produces about three million gallons of water a day. The town grew up around the water. Tile schools I attended were here, and the town also boasted a general hospital to serve the surrounding area. Since it was a sparsely populated area there were never many patients at a time.

I became burdened not only for my fellow workers in the garage, but also for these sick people. Timidly I began a program of “hospital evangelism.” I got some tracts and at the first opportunity rode my bicycle quite a distance to the hospital. I had never learned to be at ease around people, but in spite of my extreme shyness I was determined to witness.

I stood outside the first sickroom door for a while, literally shaking with fear, and then slowly opened the door and looked in. To my great relief there was only one person there! I tiptoed into the room and held out a tract, my hand trembling like a leaf in a fall wind. Tile tract was accepted graciously.

I went out softly and on to the next room. Two people were in it. Taking a deep breath for courage, again I went in and gave each patient a tract. I slipped quietly on to the next room, paused a moment, opened the door carefully and peeked in. Four people were there. I fled!

Week after week I returned to the hospital with my tracts, usually on Saturday nights, going from room to room with such fear that I often trembled all over, yet wanting to do it for the Lord. To each patient I gave a tract and sometimes prayed with him briefly.

‘There was a man In Kuruman of whom I was especially afraid, for this man made a public laughing stock, of me for saying that I had become a real Christian. I feared him more than anyone, and if this man was coming down the street I would go up another street to avoid facing him.

One day after I had prayed a long time before going to the hospital, I then went on my way, got off my bicycle, took out my tracts and started in the front door. Just then I heard this man’s voice behind me. Quick as a startled deer I shot right on out the back door of the hospital, onto the bicycle and on my way home!

I had a special secret place of prayer that no one knew, about, where each day after work I would go for a secret tryst with God. On this miserable day I fled there, knelt down and cried out, “Lord! I can witness for you anywhere – but not in Kuruman!”

But the Lord answered, “You are to be my witness first in Jerusalem, and then to the uttermost part of the earth.” Kneeling, weeping, I painfully realized that if I couldn’t witness for Jesus here I could never witness for Him anywhere else. Kuruman was where I must start.

“Lord, I’ll witness for You,” I sobbed, “I’ll do my best. I’ll do everything I can to witness! I know I’m a miserable failure in witnessing where I work too, not just in the hospital. I’ll sure do my best, but You’ll have to help me, Lord!” It was a hopeless, pathetic plea.

For a while I was faithful. The Lord sent little opportunities my way and I accepted them, though often with inward terror. One day the awareness came that I must witness to a certain lady in my town. I knew that even though she was a Sunday School teacher this lady did not know about how wonderful salvation is. I knew the Lord was asking me to tell her, and prepared to obey.

I walked purposefully toward her after Sunday School, my speech well rehearsed. I’ll give her this tract, I thought, and ask her if she’s really right with God, and if not, I’ll tell her that it’s time for her to consider if she’s really trusting God for the forgiveness of sins, and … but she spoke first! Thrown off guard, I couldn’t say a word!

Three days later, at the side of a swimming pool, she died. Shocked and in despair again I fled to my secret place of prayer and wept before the Lord. “I’ve let you down, Lord! I promise, I’m not going to let You down again. Give me another chance! No matter what might happen – no matter even if I might be killed, I’ll witness for You!”

For the next three months I witnessed for Jesus at every opportunity. One of my fellow workers in the garage was not at all sympathetic with my efforts, didn’t see things at all the way I saw them, and was sometimes very hard on me. He needed conversion.

“Lord,” I prayed, “if you send him to me alone I’ll really talk to him straight!”

Soon the man came to visit me, the day before leaving on a three week holiday of touring through South Africa. We talked of all kinds of things, politics, the weather, the garage. I kept mustering my courage to talk to him about spiritual things, about his relationship to the Lord and if I could pray with 1rhm, but I couldn’t quite get started. When the man left, my sinking feeling inside told me that I had let the Lord down.

“Well, Lord,” I promise, “I’ll have another chance when he comes back, and this time I’ll really do it.”

But this man, coming from a hot desert area with little water, had probably never seen a river in his life. One day during his tour lie ate a full meal, took a swim in one of the rivers of South Africa, developed cramps and drowned.

This time as I knelt before the Lord there were no more promises. Grief-stricken I cried, “Lord, I know I’m a failure! You might as well kill me! You might as well!!” I felt like pulling the hair out of my head. “I know now how hopeless I am, Lord! I’ve come to the end of myself, and I know that I can’t do anything. I’m so hopeless that I just don’t know what you can do with material like me.”

As I wept in despair, the God of all comfort whispered gently, “When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be My witness.” That was it! Clearly I now saw that unless the Holy Spirit came upon me, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t witness! God had had to prove to me that all my noble resolves proved futile without the power of the Holy Spirit in my life, Who alone could give me the power to witness.

One day, while I was lying underneath one of the cars in the garage, fixing it, the Lord spoke to me again. “Neil, from now on you will not fix cars, but you will fix the hearts of human beings.” And I knew, with an awareness deeper than thought, that this meant I was to go to Japan.

Japan! One of the most densely populated areas of the world with crowds around all the time! Did God know what lie was doing with me? Coming out of the isolated Kalahari Desert, painfully shy, so afraid of people that I often literally ran away from them, – how could God choose me?

But the awareness that came in such a clear way was unmistakable. I had felt strangely drawn to Japan for a long time, even while in high school, though at that time World War II was raging and the “aggressor” nations were Germany and Japan. I knew nothing of that nation, knew of no way in which I could make contact with it, knew of no mission work going on there. But the Holy Spirit had long been at work in my heart, drawing me to that land even before I was saved, and now I knew that this was of God.

I announced to my friends, “I know that I am to go to Japan to do mission work.”

“What will YOU do there?”

“What mission will you be under?”

“Where will you get the money to go?”

“Don’t you know that Japanese is the most difficult language in the world? Do you think you’re smart enough to learn it?”

I could not answer any of the questions my friends were throwing at me, for I still had no idea myself how this call of God to Japan could be carried out.

“Lord, if You, really want me to go to that country,” I prayed again and again, coming oftener now to my secret place of prayer, “there are some things You’ve got to do for Fie. The first thing is that You have to make this desire to work in Japan grow stronger. The more I pray about it the stronger You’ll have to let it grow. But if this desire is not from You, please do not mock me but take it out of my heart completely,

The desire did not go away but grew ever more urgent. And then one day I read with astonished interest General MacArthur’s plea for an army of missionaries to come to Japan. “For the first time since the birth of Christ,” the General had written, “there is an opportunity to lead a whole nation to the foot of the Cross.” he told how the Japanese people had worshipped the Emperor but that with the defeat of that nation they now knew he could not be a god, or they would not have lost the war. A vacuum had been created for the good news of Jesus Christ to fill.

My desire was deepened by MacArthur’s request, and I prepared to leave my job and enroll in Bible College. But first, I had to inform my girl friend of my call to Japan. I was deeply in love with a fine Christian girl in Johannesburg, and wanted very much to marry her. Whenever possible I drove from Kuruman to Johannesburg for the week-end, sometimes taking one or two friends along. Leaving right after work Friday I would drive all night, visit her Saturday and Sunday and then drive back all Sunday night, arriving just in time to start work on Monday morning.

“No, Neil, I cannot go … I love you very much, but I can’t go to Japan.” All day I had pleaded, but she did not share my vision.

“I’ll do anything to marry you,” I promised, “except that I cannot stay in South Africa when God is calling me to Japan!” My arguments were of no avail. The answer was no.

All that night I tossed on my bed weeping. It was impossible to sleep. If I marry her, I thought, I’ll have to stay in South Africa and become an ordinary, comfortable Christian. But how can I disobey the Lord? Must I sacrifice my life to the Lord by giving her up when I love her so much, just to go to Japan? Couldn’t I serve the Lord just as well here God! What a terrible choice You’re asking of me!

The long night ended at last. When I entered the dining room the next day there were other guests seated around the table with the girl and her mother. Her decision had not changed during the night as he had hoped. I couldn’t eat. Excusing myself from the table, barely able to control my feelings, I walked quickly out of sight into the hills behind her home, weeping as I went. “Lord,” I sobbed, “You’re just taking the heart out of me! How can I do this!”

I spent all day with the Lord in the mountains. And that night I came back. The girl and her mother were alone, for the other guests were gone. Her decision had not changed. I said goodbye and sadly drove all the long night back to Kuruman. It had been the most miserable week-end of my life.

For a long time I was so emotionally involved that I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. It was just too much for flesh and blood to bear! Yet I knew I had no choice. I had to obey the Lord. Walking up and down in my room one day I said, “Lord, I am so miserable! I just can’t face-it! Unless you take the love from my heart for this girl I just can’t take it anymore!” And then a new thought occurred to me.

“Lord, I’m going to ask you for a sign. If you really want me in Japan, then allow me to lead two people to You during the week. Then I’ll know for sure and I won’t doubt again that You really are calling me to Japan.” But even as I prayed I thought to myself, I’m not going out looking for them either!

Wednesday night God sent someone to my house, a huge fellow in comparison to my slight build. This man was keenly interested in politics so we talked about that, and we talked about everything else, and the man stayed and stayed. The longer he stayed, the more my heart pounded, for there was a terrible conflict in my soul. I knew that before the evening was over I had to talk to this man about God. My breathing became so uncomfortable and so loud that my friend couldn’t held noticing and asked, “What’s wrong with you?” I

“I–well, there’s something I have to do tonight,” I stammered. “I have to talk to You about your soul.”

To my astonishment the man’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ve been looking to the Lord for sixteen years,” lie confessed, “and I never knew anyone who could show me how to find Him.” Together we knelt and prayed and wept together, as this man accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and trusted God for the forgiveness of sins.

That night I tossed on my bed for joy. I felt so near heaven that I could hardly sleep. But then the thought came that I would have to go to Japan if I pointed two people to the Lord that week. Well, this is just one, I thought. If God wants me to go He’ll just have to send someone else mighty quick because the week will soon be over. And I’m not going out looking for anybody else!

A day or two later one of the blacks who worked with me in the garage asked, “Can I talk to you?”

Sure. We can talk later when we get through working today.” I had no idea what tile man wanted but God had given me a real love for these nationals. Before my conversion I had treated them roughly, kicking them around and shouting orders, but after I accepted the Lord I was so changed they couldn’t understand it.

“Are you sick?” one of them asked me one day. “You don’t kick us any more, you don’t swear at us any more. What’s wrong with you?”

“Well,” I had answered, “the love of Jesus Christ makes a difference you know. He’s changed me now.”

The man who wanted to talk to me after work on this day wasn’t very bright mentally. Perhaps fie was having some problem with the work. At five o’clock I put my tools away, washed my hands, arid the two of us cycled together to a place where we could be alone.

“I had a dream,” tile man began, “that scared me. I dreamed that Jesus came to fetch everyone who belonged to Him. You went with Him too. I knew I wasn’t right. I noticed that lie was fetching everyone who was ready, and I begged Him to take tile too, but lie left me behind! When I woke up I knew I been left because of the evil in my heart. It

I explained to him as simply as I could about the Blood of Jesus Christ that makes us clean from all sin. We knelt together and the man asked Jesus to make his heart clean and to be his Savior.

And that made the second person that God had sent to me that week for conversion. Now I knew that God had given me the sigh I had been asking for. I knew there was not getting away from this. God’s will was now plain, and I determined to follow it all the way. Suddenly, a marvellous joy overwhelmed me, my anxiety over the girl lifted, and the burden was gone! I hurried home excitedly, happily telling everyone I was going to Japan for certain and nothing could stop me!

God had done something in my heart that I couldn’t do by myself, in taking away my love for this girl. Alone in my room that night I knelt down and prayed simply but earnestly once more. “Lord,” I said, “I just want to tell You plainly now that I’m finished with women! I don’t want to have anything to do with them any more! And I’m going to serve You unmarried for the rest of my life!”