NEWS FEATURE: `Jabez’ Author in Africa: `I’m Like a Coach’

c. 2003 Religion News Service SANDTON, SOUTH AFRICA _ American Bruce Wilkinson, best-selling author of the trio “Prayer of Jabez,” “Secrets of the Vine,” and the recent The New York Times best seller “A Life God Rewards,” is becoming a new voice in Africa. Since moving from the United States to Sandton, a Johannesburg suburb, […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

SANDTON, SOUTH AFRICA _ American Bruce Wilkinson, best-selling author of the trio “Prayer of Jabez,” “Secrets of the Vine,” and the recent The New York Times best seller “A Life God Rewards,” is becoming a new voice in Africa.

Since moving from the United States to Sandton, a Johannesburg suburb, in August to aid in the fight against AIDS, Wilkinson has received invitations from Namibia, Ghana, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as South Africa for speaking engagements and to meet with heads of state.


He has met with groups ranging from white farmers in Namibia (who are afraid what happened to white farmers in Zimbabwe _ the confiscation of their land _ will happen to them) to pastors from the GKSA, the Reformed Churches of South Africa (whom he rebuked for their lack of evangelism).

“I am like a coach,” he told the GKSA pastors at a recent conference here. “Sometimes we need help from somebody from the outside to get us to move ahead.”

Using stories and examples, Wilkinson encouraged the pastors to “preach to the need.” He told of a pastor who couldn’t understand why his church was dying. When asked what he preached, the pastor replied the biblical book of Galatians. When asked for how long, he answered two years. “You’re killing your church!” Wilkinson told the pastor and suggested he supply paper and pens at the next service and ask the congregation to write down their needs.

The pastor later phoned Wilkinson in tears. “I had no idea what my people are going through,” the man said. Wilkinson then encouraged him to start preaching to the top need and stop preaching on it when it was no longer a need. “Then go to the next need,” Wilkinson advised.

In his frequent visits to Namibia, a country west of South Africa, where he meets with farming, church and government representatives, Wilkinson said he addresses land ownership.

“The farmers are asking how do they make land more equitable among the people. I told them the issue isn’t ownership of the land. God owns the land. The issue is if God is pleased with what they are doing with his land. I ask them, `Are you treating the people the way you would like to be treated? Are you letting them buy the land? Are you giving them a way out of their poverty?”’

He said he challenged the white Namibian farmers to spend a night in the housing they provide for their workers. He reminded them that merely feeling sorry for colonialism’s mistakes is not enough and that repentance involves looking for ways to change the system.


“I serve as a catalyst. I speak directly. I try to give the scriptural answers for their problems,” Wilkinson said, explaining his direct, gadfly manner.

It was this grab-the-bull-by-the-horns approach that led him to relocate to South Africa last year. On a visit to the country in 1999, he was “blindsided by the needs here. AIDS, poverty, famine, hopelessness. The challenges are overwhelming,” Wilkinson said in an interview with RNS.

In 2001, he founded Global Vision Resources, a nonprofit, interdenominational organization aimed at alleviating poverty and AIDS in Africa through the action of American churches. Then last August, Wilkinson and his family made the move to South Africa, where they expect to live for as many as five years or more.

Wilkinson, 55, said his new life is “stressful. It’s impossible to plan because no two days are the same.”

He makes his way stateside now and then, keeping busy with speaking engagements and book promotions in addition to rallying support for combating the ailing social conditions in Africa.

Wilkinson said he was heartened during a recent trip to Washington, where he spoke with administration officials about his new home. “I found in every single person a deep commitment to the area and to solving the problems of famine and AIDS in Africa,” he said.


Now reaching the one-year mark in South Africa, Wilkinson remains hopeful that his ministry will make a difference.

“I don’t believe there is a limit to what one person can do as long as that person continues to look to the Lord. Too often we settle for too little,” he said.

DEA RNS END BRANCH

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