I now know that city evangelism, like village evangelism, can contribute to the gathering of God's "firmament of chosen ones" from Africa. It may seem strange, but all the usual difficulties of evangelism in the home fields were met in this mission field. The hall problem was even bigger than at home. The advertising problems were all there, and last but not least, the problems of doctrinal objections were, interestingly enough, present.
But I have returned with the conviction that now is a most opportune time for city evangelism in West Africa. Because of a small budget for our meetings we had to confine ourselves to limited advertising. A simple handbill was distributed, two front-page advertisements in newspapers appeared, one hundred double- crown posters were displayed throughout the city of Kumasi, and two sixteen-foot calico streamers were stretched between palm trees in prominent central parts of the town. The response was gratifying, for almost two thousand people crowded into the hall, filling seating and standing room.
We had to contend with lightning and thunder, which the African fears, and heavy tropical rains, which flooded in across the hall floor; with termites, which invaded the hall by tens of thousands; with failing electricity supply, which produced an address "in the dark"—but not withstanding all this the people continued to flock to the meetings. Sermon illustrations were similar to those in the home field, though at times much more simplified, for the African likes to "see" his sermon as well as hear it. And lives are changed in the same dramatic, in explicable way as they are in the home countries. Drinking and smoking habits were broken by the power of the divine touch upon the soul.
The interest is now being cared for by some of our African evangelists, led by the Gold Coast Mission president, A. J. Mustard, but we thank God for having had the privilege of helping to scatter seeds of truth in the cities of awakening Africa!
"Among earth's inhabitants, scattered in every land, there are those who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Like the stars of heaven, which appear only at night, these faithful ones will shine forth when darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people. . . . God has in reserve a firmament of chosen ones that will yet shine forth amidst the darkness, revealing clearly to an apostate world the transforming power of obedience to His law."— Prophets and Kings, pp. 188, 189.
