The following is the amazing testimony of how God spoke to the team leaders from Operation Mobilization (OM) about the venue they were to use for the GO Challenge Conference 2015.

Here is the story as told by Chanri Odendaal to our students and faculty in chapel on February 4, 2015:

Chanri Odendaal speaking to the students at GST-WC on February 4.

As we were busy working on the preparation for GO Challenge 2015, we prayed that God would show us the venue for the conference in June. We anticipate anywhere from 350 to 500 people to register for this training and so we started checking out different options around Cape Town for a venue that could accommodate such a large number of participants. As we kept praying over a period of time, God gave us some clues and guidelines. It almost seemed like a scavenger hunt.

The first thing we felt God saying was that we would experience God’s footsteps at the venue. He then gave us a verse from the Psalms: “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters” Psalm 23:2. We felt that God was saying the venue would be spiritually quiet and prepared and not a spiritual battle field. When their training was completed, they would then be able to go into the battlefield spiritually prepared. We understood that God was telling us that the venue would have to be a quiet place.

Entrance to GST-WC campus

One morning during our team devotions we prayed about the venue again and received another guideline from a passage in Acts: ^“The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade” Acts 5:12. We immediately believed that this was another promise for the venue:

• “The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people” – This assured us that God would work in miraculous ways during conference.
• “And all the believers used to meet together…” – All of the people assembling at the conference would be believers.
• “…in Solomon’s Colonnade” – We were curious about what Solomon’s Colonnade looked like so we searched for pictures on the internet. So far, none of the venues we checked out had colonnades.

Beautiful colonnades line the campus and courtyards with gardens provide a quiet place for the students

About two hours later one of our colleagues took us to see the Global School of Theology. We didn’t even have an appointment so we showed up unannounced. It just so happened that our colleague was familiar with the school as he had been invited to speak in chapel a while back and had only thought about this venue the evening before.

As we entered the school we were overwhelmed as we found all the different guidelines and clues God had given us. We immediately knew as we walked around the campus that it was spiritually prepared and was sacred ground – Psalm 23:2.

Administration Block

We discovered God’s footprints all over the venue as we walked through and saw all the Bible verses mounted everywhere on the walls. But most overwhelming was when we realized that the venue had many small colonnades attached to each other. – Acts 5:12. We had only read this verse two hours before we arrived at the campus.

There was a moment when our team just stood there amazed at how God had led us using such detailed guidelines to this particular venue. As we were discussing this, we happened to look up and saw a verse from Psalm 119 printed on the wall next to us. Just that morning during our team devotions a team member felt impressed to share that specific verse from Psalm 119 with us.

Rene Fortuin, GST-WC staff member with Chanri and the OM Team.

There were just too many coincidences with so much detail that we could not ignore the fact that God was at work answering our prayers. We believe God showed us the venue that He had in store for our conference.  ​

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The GO Challenge is an initiative of OM South Africa committed to mobilising churches and believers from all walks of life to go out and share the love of Christ. Through a four day conference, they aim to equip attendees with the right tools in order to reach out cross-culturally and in their own communities. The conference is followed by a seven day outreach in which they have a chance to test out these skills and experience what it’s really like to fulfil the great commission and to go and make disciples of all nations.For more information about this ministry, go to their website at:  http://www.omsouthafrica.org/go-challenge ​