Elim Missionaries martyred in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Ivan Rudolph recalls. 

My first inkling that something was brewing was when Elim missionary Sue Evans asked a fellowship group attended by our friend Pam Marson to pray for them. Sue said they had a feeling that disaster loomed for the mission despite the security analysis that they were secure there. Her prayer request was that they would have the strength to face whatever lay ahead.

Later, speaking more personally, she shared that some of them believed they had been challenged whether they were prepared to die for Jesus Christ.

“We are struggling to come to terms with the question. It is one thing to choose to live for Christ, but to die for Him, we are finding, is not quite the same challenge.”

Then on Friday 23^rd June 1978 all the Elim missionaries at the station in the Vumba were savagely murdered with axes and other weapons. During and despite their agony, they had called out to God for mercy for their killers!!

The gentle missionaries had been so badly abused during the attack that some of their bodies could not be identified at first. The final count was three men, six women and three children that were brutalised and killed, including Sue Evans and husband Philip plus Rebecca, age 5.

The nation was outraged. In the staffroom the following Monday morning, Ivan was challenged with, “If your God is alive like you say, why didn’t he save his missionaries?”

I was dumbstruck for a few seconds, unsure how to respond. Then I believe God gave me a “word of wisdom” how to answer. I said something like, “If you believe life is just 70 years or so on earth, then I have no answers for you. But if you know, as I do, that life is eternal, then there are possible answers because our time on earth is only one small part of a much greater picture. What seems to be total defeat now may not be so up ahead. Christianity has always advanced through the death of martyrs.”

I don’t think they were either impressed or convinced. One young mother said, “That may have been all right for the adults to stay on the mission field, but what about the young children who had no choice?”

Ah yes, the young children!

Dr Rikki Decker had to break the news to the two remaining Evans children, Timothy and Rachel, that their mother, father and young sister had all died. When he went to their boarding school, he was surprised by their composure. “Mum and Dad and Rebecca have all gone to be with Jesus, haven’t they?” they asked him as he walked across to where they were in the grounds. Sue must somehow have prepared them for this awful moment, unless there is some other explanation.

Brenda (Rudolph) went to hear Peter Griffiths speak at a women’s meeting soon after these horrific events. Peter had been the principal of the Elim School and had been on leave in the UK during the massacre. Brenda was most impressed by Peter’s gentle demeanour and presentation. At the close of the meeting he challenged the ladies present whether they too would choose to live for Jesus. Six women responded to the call, the same number as the women who had been slaughtered up the Vumba.

But, as predicted, this was nowhere near the end of the story. Accounts circulating during the 1980s suggested some of the murderers had actually become Christians themselves, in large part because of seeing the missionaries praying for their abusers even while dying. Peter Griffiths himself was asked to investigate these rumours and discovered that there was also a supernatural element behind some of their conversions. To quote from a pamphlet published by Elim International Missions and titled “Vumba Tragedy” we find:

Eight of them experienced a vision in which they saw the cross and the hand of God coming against them in judgment. Seven of them who had passports immediately left the country and enrolled in Bible Schools in West and East Africa. The other, not having a passport, went to a Bible School in Harare where Peter Griffiths was able to meet him.  He had left school at 14 and had been the youngest platoon commander in ZANLA, operating under the name of “War Devil”. Peter subsequently kept in regular touch with him.

In another separate incident, an African pastor named Mopofu, working for Harare Intecessors, was asked to speak at a rehabilitation centre for ex-combatants in Troutbeck, Nyanga. While he was preaching, a paraplegic man screamed out in agony out of deep conviction, crying for mercy. He later confessed that he had been one of those responsible for killing the missionaries. He told the pastor how the missionaries had prayed for their killers as they were being slaughtered.

An Anglican priest, Rev John Knight, was also asked by his bishop to investigate the rumours independently and did so much more extensively. Of the terrorists who were involved, as best I can remember, he discovered one to have died, another to have disappeared, but that all the others as far as he could ascertain had become dedicated, serving Christians. He wrote a fascinating book dealing with his research.       

          The Elim Martyrs’ testimony shows: 

1. God uses martyrdom to defeat evil. Jesus’ death on the cross was the greatest example of a sacrifice that has helped to rescue millions from personal destruction.
2. God the Father heard the prayers of forgiveness offered up by the Elim missionaries while their tormentors and murderers actually slaughtered them. This was a replay of how Jesus died on the cross and resulted in almost all of the terrorists ultimately becoming Christians themselves. It illustrates a very early statement by the second century Church father Tertullian that: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
3. God is always victorious in the long run.
4. God knows the end from the beginning and is never defeated by evil because His plans take all the factors into account.
5. God’s plans for the salvation of mankind take precedence over the most heinous of crimes.

Professor Chiwoza Bandawe in Blantyre, Malawi.

On the morning of 12th August 2021 when fire broke out in my parents’  home of 41 years in Lilongwe, Malawi, I was there visiting them.

At 2am we heard a loud bang and I got up. My mum had rushed ahead to see what was going on. She said the house was on fire! The house was filled with smoke!

I rushed to the window of my room to breathe. My mum was in the master bedroom bathroom calling for help. We were trapped inside because of the burglar bars!

The guys in the quarters near the house heard us and came. They had to find a way to break the burglar bars and pull us out. How could they smash through the burglar bars?

I could feel I was losing consciousness and knew that if I did I probably would not come back. I pleaded with God: “I don’t want to die!”

The guys outside found an axe which should have been locked in the store room, but had been left outside that night. They were then able to use it to break the burglar bars and rescue my mum and me. 

Dad did not make it; he was overcome by the smoke.

Dad was a devastating loss.

I however remain grateful to God for Dad’s 89 years of life, and for rescuing mum and me.

We lost our home of 41 years; it had to be demolished.

However, I know God was with us that night, the axe and the circumstances clearly showed the hand of God. To Him be all glory!!

Chiwoza’s testimony illustrates about God:

1. God can rescue some from death while others may die, in the same disaster.
2. God hand may be seen within the circumstances of the tragedy.
3. God has ultimately determined the time of our death (Psalm 139:16). That may be seen in that some die tragically in an accident whilc others survive.

Missionary returning to her birthplace of Malawi, Africa

How can God help us through a great tragedy? 

In 2017 I returned to Malawi, where I had lived until 1992. I was returning home on Christian mission work despite having left Malawi with a deep distrust of Christian missionaries! 

It was no picnic but God was on the journey. 

Our Eagle Wings treasurer came with me. She was a new believer, 

Aussie born, who had never been to Africa. We visited each of our pastors in the villages. 

After six weeks of travelling from south to north and back I personally, with horrendous back pain, just wanted to get back to Oz. 

But the Lord was laying it on my heart to go and see my brother in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which was a nearby African country. He was an ex-Rhodesian army soldier and now a poor white man married to a local African woman. My brother wasn’t a believer. When I had spoken to him on the phone I hadn’t let him know I was in Malawi because he would have wanted me to visit and I really did not want to change my plans. 

I was not in the mood to visit him in Zimbabwe and made loads of excuses to God for not going there. I was not comfortable and knew I was disobeying God, but returned to Australia despite this. 

Two weeks later my sister-in-law found my brother on the side of the road with internal bleeding. He died in her arms.

I’m sure God had wanted me to go there to share about Christ with him. Perhaps he would have accepted Christ as saviour? My disobedience could have eternal ramifications for my brother!

I said sorry to our Lord. I asked Him to be gracious and show me where my brother’s heart had been when he died? Had I been the cause of him dying without hearing about the saviour? 

I learnt from my sister-in-law that a week prior to his sudden death he had given his life to Jesus. How awesome!  

Ivan Comments.

This testimony is written by a lady who has initiated and raises support for admirable missionary work in Africa. Her desire to remain anonymous is to protect various people mentioned in her testimonies.

Her testimony illustrates about God:

1. God can bless expatriate mission outreach initiatives even with a small budget, but with a passion to serve Him.
2. God’s promptings are for the best solution. However, disobedience can rob a relative of having a part in a total rescue on more levels than the spiritual alone.
3. God may still bring salvation to a family member – but the overall intervention by the Lord may be less complete than what it could have been had obedience been followed – the consequence still beibng a relative tragedy.
4. God’s intervention displays again how much more important spiritual salvation is than physical salvation.
5. God, in mercy, can supply answers about the actual spiritual condition of someone who has died, to help those left behind to cope with the tragedy.

Steve Glanville, Toowoomba, Australia.

I recently had coffee with a friend who was still grieving the sudden loss of his wife, but had begun the painful process of clearing out her personal belongings. 

In his words, ‘she must have had half shares in Koorong (a Christian bookshop) as she had so many books.’

None of the local churches were willing to accept the books as their libraries were already well stocked so after selecting a few books for himself, my friend packed four cartons of books to take to Lifeline (a charity which supplements its income by the sale of second-hand books). This was not the best option because the books would be discarded if they did not sell quickly.

As my friend drove to the Lifeline depot, he felt the sudden urge to turn around and go home. He is a man of faith but not really used to responding to promptings which may or may not be from the Holy Spirit. With a little trepidation, he started for home, but as he did so he remembered a friend of his who was a member of the Christian chapter of Women’s Aglow. Perhaps that organisation would be interested in the books and, anyway, they had a scheduled meeting on that day.

Arriving at the hall where the Women’s Aglow meeting was held, my friend asked the secretary if the group would be interested in a collection of Christian books. The lady beamed and told him that they would take as many books as he could provide for their mission work at home and overseas. So, not only did my friend pass on the 4 cartons of books, but later every other Christian book in his wife’s collection as well.

My friend’s response to the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit meant that a large (but sad) part of finalising his wife’s affairs became not only significantly easier but also became a fitting memorial to his wife’s faith and erudition

Steve’ testimony illustrates about God:

1. God the Holy Spirit was alert to the bereaved husband’s pain in packing up the books and undertook for their worthwhile distribution.
2. God the Holy Spirit can direct us in many ways, in this case the husband receiving the urge to turn around and go home.
3. God the Holy Spirit is by nature sequential in His promptings and very gentle. Consequently, He is easy to ignore and thereby miss the blessing He has planned.
4. God the Holy Spirit’s planning often leads to deeper and personal comfort in the case of losing someone we love. Please ponder the depth of the last paragraph above.