Steve Plodinec, a teacher at Christ Seminary in South Africa, spent the weekend at the church of one of his students. This is Part 3 of his account.

Before closing I want to tell you about a visit Martin and I had on Sunday afternoon that was, to me, the most poignant and memorable experience of the weekend. We visited the home of a young couple and their five-month-old baby daughter. They have been going to Martin’s church for a few months and they wanted to talk to him about becoming members. They were not at church that morning. We drove up to their home, a one-room tin shack, about 8 x 20 feet. Martin knocked and without waiting for an answer we walked in. It was dark inside, and close. The only light was coming in through holes in the scavenged tin walls and from the gaps around the closed crooked door. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust and when they did I looked around at some shelves made from scavenged wood, an old cabinet, a small table with two rickety chairs, a small wood stove and a few cooking pots and utensils. A moth-eaten blanket served as a barrier between the rest of the room and the bed. We stepped around the blanket.

The young wife and mother stood next to the bed, her five month old baby daughter wrapped to her back with a towel. They looked at us when we came in and then back down at the bed where the young father was lying. His breathing was fast and shallow, more like panting and gasping for air. He was covered with probably every blanket they had, but you could tell he was shaking and trembling. He was dying of AIDS. We greeted them, and Martin spoke to him and his wife for a few moments and then asked me to pray for them.

I felt weak and worthless at that point because I was not even sure if they understood English and because there was nothing else I could do for them. I was just a visitor looking in on a culture and its problems that are foreign to me, and always will be.

But at that moment I came to know through experience what I have understood for a long time. Martin is their pastor, and he loves them. He ministers to them and helps meet their needs and does much more than I or any other outsider ever could. This is why my work here is important and has eternal consequences.

The church in Africa has the Holy Spirit; it has the Word of God and it has some good men like Martin leading it. But it doesn’t have adequate access to resources or training, so the church is weak and immature and struggling. God’s people suffer and are fearful and even sin in ignorance. They don’t have good examples of godly homes, godly leaders or godly churches and most of them don’t even know where to go in the Bible to find out about those things.

At the seminary we give Martin what he does not have — a deeper knowledge and understanding of God and His Word, and hopefully a closer relationship with God so he can minister to his own people and strengthen the church. Why should the church in Africa stumble along in ignorance and weakness when it can improve by training its leaders?

I am not minimizing the power of prayer, but at that moment I realized there was nothing else I could do. But Martin is their shepherd and he loves them and I can, if God is gracious, help Martin. So, I prayed and asked God to show more grace and mercy to this little family and to heal the young father.

I also asked for God to give us all the grace to accept whatever He does. The man lifted his head and extended a trembling hand out from under the blankets, I grasped it, he held on and said, “Thank you, pastor, for coming and for praying.” Then he sunk back on the bed. We left.

The father died less than a week later. He had just gotten a steady, good paying job and things were looking up for the family, but now there is another child in Africa who has lost a parent to AIDS. Such is the human wreckage of sin. Some estimate that over half the people living in villages like this one are infected with AIDS. This is one of the reasons the work here is urgent and why we need trained men preaching the true gospel.

Time will tell if God makes my visit fruitful. The same is true of the seminary. Though we still deal with some cultural issues there, and always will, God has already proven that it is a fruitful ministry and we pray that He will continue to bless the seminary and the church in Africa through it. Please pray for Martin and his church, for all the students, for all the lecturers and for the seminary.