In this sermon transcript, the speaker recounts a powerful encounter with a black African pastor who had a deep sense of the presence of God. The pastor prayed fervently for an hour and a half, leaving a lasting impact on the speaker. The speaker reflects on the difficulty of sharing the gospel with their own family, as they were already living a moral life. The decision to study theology was prompted by the speaker's mother, who made a covenant with God to dedicate the speaker's life to Him if they were spared as a stillborn child.

Let me welcome Gerard to tour. Good morning, Gerard. Good morning. Gosh, that's echoey and more than you can admit, but no one else would know what I'm saying, and that would not be fair. Gerard, is this your first visit to New Zealand? That's right. Wow. I've been to Australia a number of times, and I'm part of Christian Missionary Alliance in Canada, but also full-time with an organization called Canadian Revival Fellowship. And so we work together with Life Action Ministries in the United States, Hard Cry for Revival, in a number of different countries, including Holland and, of course, South Africa, where I'm from. And then I've got the joy to travel to between 30 and about 40 countries, mostly teaching and lecturing on Old New Testament theology of prayer, the subject of revival, most of the times of leaders of the Christian community in different countries. And sometimes we bring large numbers of churches together for what we call a prayer encounter or a week of prayer, those kind of things. Now, tell us about you. You're obviously from South Africa. What part of South Africa are you from? I was brought up close to the border of Mozambique. Oh, interesting. Yeah. There's a national park called Kruger National Park between Mozambique and where we live, and I was brought up on a cattle ranch. Wow. So I went to study theology, and at the end of my first year in the Western Cape where I was studying, I was confronted by a fellow student one night and said to me, if you die tonight, where will you spend eternity? And in the school where I studied, because my background is that reformed, and, you know, we were brought up with God's Word, but you could miss it by 18 inches because of the knowledge of the way the country was running in those days. And so at the end of my first year, I went alone with God that night in the school where I studied and came to Christ about 3 o'clock in the morning, asked Him to come into my life to save me, and next morning in our lecture room one of our professors gave us a hymn to sing. As we were singing that hymn, the Spirit of God, witness of my spirit, that I was saved, and stood up Tuesday night amongst my fellow students, faculty members, and said to them, I want you to know that I was never saved. A huge shock to the college. I mean, I was committed to theology. In fact, three of the students got gloriously saved, you know. So that's how it happened, yeah. That's very exciting. But, of course, what prompted you to go to this college? Did you have a calling? What did you want to do? You know, this is interesting. I had a mother. I mean, this is just amazing. And I only found this out after I went to study theology, that I was supposed to be a stillborn child. Wow. Yeah, youngest of four. And my mother, who didn't know Christ, but she was a God-hearing woman, found the Lord 12 weeks before she died. But she made a covenant with God, and she said to God, if you spare the life of this child, I want to give this child to you. Didn't know this. So went to study theology, and people often say to me, how did it work in your life? I said, well, I think God called me to save me so that he can call me. So that's how I landed up in the ministry. That's amazing, isn't it? She only told me this after everything. And the light went on, and you're like, wow. Amazing. So, Karen, after college, what did you want to do then? Well, this is the interesting thing. After my first year, at the end of my first year, I came to Christ, went back to my mother and father in the farm, and because they were such God-fearing, merciful people, I couldn't preach to them that they need to find Christ, because I would say to my father, if you are a Christian, these are the kinds of things that you will not do. My father would turn to me and say to me, I've never done those things. I couldn't say to my mother, if you are a Christian, these are the kinds of things that you do, because my mother would turn to me and say, this is what I've done all my life. So that's the way that we were brought up. But I was home for about five days. When I came into our kitchen one day back from the town, and my mother said to me, I had a little cottage about 50 yards from our farmhouse, and my mother turned to me and she said, there's this black African man that wants to see you. So I said to her, where is he? And she said, he's in your cottage. And so I walked to my cottage. I said to her, what is he doing? She said, I think he's a minister or a pastor. So I walked into my cottage, and this black man was sitting there, and I said to him, shook hands with him, and I said to him, we're going to discuss theology. And he just turned to me and he said, no. And so I said, what are we going to do? And he said, we're going to pray. And Laura, before I could say another word, this black African pastor fell on his knees on the floor of my study, and for an hour and a half I was exposed to a life that was saturated and immersed and intoxicated with the sense of the presence of God. Wow. And people often say to me, what's the presence of God? How do you define it? And I would say to them, you can't always explain it, but you always know when it's not there. And this man was so, and he began to pray in Northern Sutu, which I was familiar with, because I was brought up amongst the African folks. They were some of my best friends. And he prayed for an hour and a half. It felt like five minutes, because this man was so, you know, so... So fired up. Oh, sure, and there was a level of intimacy with God in his life that demanded a supernatural explanation.