Late in 1990 I was appointed ministerial secretary and personal ministries director for the Tanzania Union. The appointment puzzled me: how could I lead in evangelism when I had not been fully involved in evangelism? I prayed, fasted, and sought for a clearer vision of what I should do.
First, I needed to set soul-winning goals for my own ministry. "Someone in charge of evangelism must set an example," I said to myself. "I must set a high goal that I can only reach by the power of God." I was impressed to set the goal of baptizing an average of five people a day in 1992—a total of 1,830. In addition, I set out to train 500 active lay preachers. By the end of the year, and five crusades later, 2,850 souls were baptized, and more than 600 lay preachers had been prepared for their ministry. In 1994, four crusades yielded 4,000 baptisms and we trained 1,000 lay preachers.
In September 1995 my wife and I arrived in Andrews University. In the academic setting of the seminary, one can easily lose one's moorings, and die professionally and spiritually. For this reason, I decided to prioritize two things: to study hard, and at the same time to be involved in evangelism. God soon opened doors for me to evangelize. Every spring break and summer I was invited to different countries to conduct crusades. From 1996 to 1999, my wife and I have conducted 17 crusades.
Two-year evangelism explosion
My doctoral study concentrated on evangelism and church growth. For my dissertation, I chose to focus on the mobilizing and equipping of lay members for evangelism. To do this I chose to spend two years in an "evangelism explosion" program. The two-year evangelistic marathon involved 11 crusades.
The marathon began in 1998 with a five week crusade in Kishnev, the capital of Moldova. Meetings were translated into Russian and Romanian. We began with an attendance of about 800 and ended the fifth week with over 1,800. We baptized 310 souls, and trained more than 200 lay evangelists.
From Moldova we flew to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, my home country. We began our meetings there with an attendance of 3,000. By the end of the first week, attendance grew to 10,000 and doubled by the end of second week. By the end of the third week we had a crowd of about 50,000. Some 150,000 were coming to the meetings in the final week of the five-week campaign. We had never witnessed anything of that kind in any of our previous crusades. In the end we baptized 1,620 people.
Then there was Arlington, Texas. A small church, meeting in a rented hall with fewer than 150 members, hosted the meetings. The four-week program began with a small attendance. The parking lot was only half-full. Local church leaders warned me that it was possible that we would not baptize anybody. However, by the end of the fourth week the parking lot was overflowing. When the crusade ended, 52 people had been baptized, including 15 couples. The crusade brought such revitalization to the church that today more than 300 people are attending every Sabbath, and the congregation is worshiping in its own facility. Contrary to the way we sometimes feel, public evangelism can work even in places that are not thought to be productive fields.
The year 1999 saw the Great Nairobi Crusade in Kenya. One of my goals for the year was to reach and evangelize the higher class in society. In fact, I was determined to share the gospel story with the presidents and top leaders of different countries. I was determined to do whatever I could to reach these thought leaders. Nevertheless, I did not know how it would happen. My duty was only to work hard, lay all my plans before God, and leave the results with the One who knows no failure.
The first thing I did when we arrived in Kenya was to share my dream with the pastors and church members. I told them that the impact of the crusade should reach the State House. During the second week of the crusade I told the pastors and church elders that I needed 25 buses to pick up people from outlying areas around the city so that they would be able to come to the crusade. They frankly said this would be impossible. They simply did not have the budget.
After a few days, I met one lay member, an influential and financially blessed person. I told him I needed 25 buses to bring our members and their friends to and from my meetings every night. I told him that I had chosen him to coordinate the program. He and his wife would give part of their money toward this project, and find a few of his friends to sponsor a few buses each. "You and your wife pray about it, and let me know," I said to him.
After a few days, the man and his wife came up with a donation of 300,000 shillings (about US$5,000) toward the bus project. Other contributions swelled the bus fund to more than 1.5 million shillings. My donor had also contacted the bus company, and from the third week of the cru sade buses were bringing people from all parts of the city for free. The attendance kept growing from 20,000 until it reached over 200,000, and included every class of people—from cabinet ministers to office workers, from business leaders to just ordinary people. We baptized 3,200 souls.
The president of Kenya was aware of what was going on in the city. One of his ministers attended our meetings daily. As a result, the president invited me to the State House where I had the opportunity to share the Word of God with him, and to pray for him. Along with the president of our Eastern Africa Union and other pastors and lay members we spent almost an hour with President Daniel Arap Moi.
Next we went to Blantyre, Malawi. Here, too, we had the privilege of being invited to meet with the president, the Honorable Bakili Muluzi. Even before meeting him, he had sent a personal donation for the crusade. When we met him at the State House, we spent about one hour with him, spoke the Word of God, shared some books, and prayed with him. How wonderful our God is! He surely can bring anything about.
In Harare, Zimbabwe, the crusade coordinators had chosen a small auditorium because of budget constraints. But I needed the National Sports Stadium, one of the most beautiful and modern stadiums in Africa. It can accommodate more than 50,000 people, and no one needed to be embarrassed to attend because the venue was sub-standard. But again the problem was one of finances.
I now knew that money was no longer a problem when God was in our evangelistic endeavors. I asked the steering committee if they knew at least three financially blessed people in the city. They did. I chose one, and sent two of my team members to meet him.
"Go to this man," I told them, "and tell him that Herry Mhando is here to evangelize Harare for five weeks. He has sent us to you, and he would like you to do two things. First, to arrange for the use of the stadium for five weeks. Second, to pay the rental for the facility."
"Are you coming with us?" they asked.
"No," I said. "However, before the crusade ends, I will make sure that I visit the person who funds this crusade and pray with him."
They left and came back smiling after one hour. The man had agreed to pay for the stadium, and for the public address system and the stage and advertising on television, radio, and the newspapers. How can our God fail us financially when we depend upon Him to do the work that is, in fact, His business? In Harare we baptized 1,523 souls.
Our last crusade for the millennium was in Kisii, Kenya. This was to be the largest reaping crusade in all the 48 that I had conducted thus far in my life. We had a team of 1,000 lay members, actively working with me. The conference president and several pastors joined forces. We baptized 6,600 precious souls. Estranged, former members were reclaimed and rebaptized. Relatives, friends, and neighbors of Adventists were among those who decided to accept Jesus.
In 1999 alone, I saw some 13,000 people baptized, almost the same as the total baptized during the 20 years of my ministry before I came to the seminary.
