Out of the Black Shadows

Stephen Lungu. Google him. You won’t be disappointed.

Stephen works for an organisation called African Enterprise (google that too). He came to share with our team on Tuesday morning, and I was absolutely blown away, to put it mildly.

Stephen was born in what is now Zimbabwe, and at age 7 his 21-year-old mother abandoned him in a marketplace with his brother. Stephen grew up on the streets, illiterate and uneducated, joining gangs, and performing hate crimes against white people, for whom he had a very deep rooted hate, particularly against believers. At the age of 19, in 1962, leading a well known hate group called the Black Shadows, Stephen had organised the bombing of a nearby bank that predominantly had white clients. As his gang made their way to the bank to plant the bombs, AK-47’s on their backs, they came across a big tent full of people. It was a revival, led by South African believers. Stephen hated believers, so he told his gang to surround the tent and at 7 pm he would give the signal, and they would throw the bombs in and kill as many people as they could. He made this announcement to his gang at 6:55 pm. For the next 5 minutes, as they waited, he had nothing to do but listen. And those 5 minutes changed his life. People looked at him, moving away from him in fear, but as he heard the Good News of JC and His sacrifice, Stephen was changed. He went forward, collapsing at the front, begging for forgiveness and giving his life to the Creator.

He didn’t give the signal to bomb the tent, but another gang came along and decided they would bomb it instead. Hundreds of people were killed, including many of Stephen’s gang members, but he was spared and committed to changing his life. Just in those 5 minutes!! I couldn’t believe that. According to Stephen, every other word out of his mouth was a curse word, every thought he had was of killing white people and he hated everything about the Book, and any time someone crossed him, he immediately gave them a bullet. He was a hard man at 19, and yet in 5 minutes he was delivered from those chains. He still struggled with his hatred of white people, but was adopted into a white family (he attributes this to the Father’s sense of humor). While with that family for 5 years, he learned to read, and received an education. He also grew tremendously under the spiritual leadership of the family. He struggled with his long-lived hatred of white people, but as he told us on Tuesday, “Now I love them! So you can’t get rid of me!”

He also shared that recently he met a little old South African lady, who had been part of that revival. The night he was saved, she and her group had asked the Father for just one gang leader to be saved. Amazing!

Stephen is now one of the leading evange’s across Africa, leading international teams of African Enterprises. He tells his story, and leads others to know Him who have similar backgrounds to his. They place evange’s in buses, bus stops, street corners … anywhere they can. Right now, their major goal is to reach 100% of the children in Rwanda with the Message, ensuring that each has heard it. I’m telling you, this man is on FIRE.

I encourage you to read more of his testimony. He also wrote a book called Out of the Black Shadows. Just incredible what the Father can do!!!