This is a true story about a man named James, in Cape Town, SA

Some months back, a man by the name of James invited Mark and me to do a session on the topic of “Romance in Marriage” at a fund raising banquet for their Bible school. Before the banquet got underway, I had an opportunity to sit and chat with James. James was a very soft-spoken and gracious man and I remember being so impressed with his gentle and sweet spirit and his love for Christ. I was blown away when he told me that he was an ex-inmate and a former “26” leader of a prison gang.

A typical gang member in a Cape Town Prison

In Cape Town prisons, gangsterism is a common factor for many of the prisoners. The prison allocates different gangs into three separate sections on a single floor, accommodating a total of 500 to 750 gang members. The various gangs are generally called “The Numbers” (the 26s, the 27s and the 28s), and they are enormously powerful in their given shared cells. Gang rules involve extreme violence, which also includes sexual violence. James was in prison for 12 years and was given the nick name, “The Nightmare of the Prison,” by the warden and officers of the prison.

A cell block of prisoners in a Cape Town prison

James told us that one night God gave him a dream that completely changed his life. The dream was so powerful and shook him so hard, that he immediately upon awakening from the dream gave his heart to the Lord and became a sold-out, born-again Christian. He was finally released on parole in 2008 and started the Jahaziel Bible School which is located in an Assembly of God Church in Kraaifontein. James now serves as the principal of the school. He is also married to a beautiful Christian woman whom he met in the church and they also have a small child. God is using him in a powerful way through the ministry of training young men and women in the Word of God and preparation for ministry. He told us that we would not be able to comprehend the terrible things he had done and everything from which God had delivered him in his former life.

James’ experience is only one of many bearing witness to how miraculous events, visitations by angels, dreams, visions, and other amazing and unexplainable encounters in the supernatural have radically changed people’s lives. We believe God is reaching out to many lost souls as we draw nearer to the Second Coming of Christ.

Following the Day of Pentecost and the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Peter quoted a passage from the Prophet Joel who had predicted what would happen in the days preceding the return of Christ: “And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all mankind; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even upon My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above, and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be, that “every one who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  ACT 2:17 – 21.