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Kanyinda Isaac speech, about 1950.
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- speakerPlease may I say to you.
- speakerI want to show you this morning the greatness of the love of God in our people.
- speakerClearly,
- speakerI want to make you understand the words that I have read
- speakerfrom the Book of God.
- speakerBut,
- speakermy heart is shaking within me because the difficulty I have in making you
- speakerunderstand all the things that I have seen in the land of my birth.
- speakerRandy Mitchell.
- speakerHow on earth shall I compare the great love that God has to
- speakermankind. Can one
- speakertake hold of the wind?.
- speakerI think
- speakerthat I think that you American people
- speakercan understand the wind and can take hold of the wind because you have
- speakerlearned so much wisdom in your schools and in your colleges here in America.
- speakerI see that you are here in America. You are able to wrok with the wind. You do things with the wind. You send the word. You send words in the wind, all the way across the ocean to our people in the Congo. You take the wind and put it in the rubber tires
- speakerof the automobile and your bicycles. I am amazed at the wisdom that you people
- speakerhere in America have. We are not able to do that in
- speakerthe Congo. But, I am telling you that the love of God surpasses all the wisdom in the heavens and far beneath the earth. Because the matters that God has done in our land of the Congo, they surpass, to amaze me. And, in showing you this great love of God, I want to show you. three matters. The first I want to show you is this. The judgment that people, that man, brought upon his people
- speakerGod so loved the world that He
- speakersent His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but should have life everlasting. Truly, truly,
- speakerGod is full of love, surpassingly full of love to mankind.
- speakerThe
- speakersecond matter i want to show you is this, that God so loved us, that he himself sought sent
- speakerhis only begotten a world escape that he be.
- speakerWe have all sinned.
- speakerWe have done very badly, but God himself has found a way to escape.
- speakerWe do thank God for all he has done for us. Thirdly, we have
- speakerread in the Book of Ephesians the second chapter God has so loved us that he has given his,
- speakerhis son that he might die on the cross to redeem us and to save us from all sins. The last thing I want to show you is this, our lives, our eternal lives, all said by Jesus Christ
- speakeris something of a tremendous value, great importance, God has redeemed us. He didn't redeem us with any goats or with any other animal like that, but
- speakerhe redeemed us with his own son. As was read in the First Peter, Book of FirstPeter,
- speakerthe first chapter, eighteenth to nineteenth verses, For as much as
- speakeryou know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as children go, from your vain
- speakerconversation received by tradition from your father but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot.
- speakerI
- speakerwould like to show you that God has revealed to
- speakeryou. I would say that God has revealed to you, the Presbyterian Church in this country this great truth. This great
- speakergood news that you were able to send it across to us. Truly, truly, the word that you sent,
- speakerthe good news in our
- speakercountry at a time when we greatly needed it at the time that was most
- speakeropportune for our people. Our land was full of
- speakertrouble, full of trouble, like fire, our land was filled with trouble when the good news came.
- speakerAt the time the missionaries came with the good news,
- speakerour people were dying in great numbers with sleeping sickness and many other diseases as well.
- speakerSo when the doctors, your doctors, the missionary doctors came to our country,
- speakerthey were absolutely amazed at the number of people who dying of one disease and another.
- speakerOh! How we thank God who sent for all of the things that have
- speakershown us all, for the great news, for the great love that he put into your heart.. That he sent t
- speakerhe good news to you and sent the doctors to us that we might become as you are--well
- speakerpeople and people who
- speakerknow the good news.
- speakerUntil this day, the African people, are all saying that the people in America, the Presbyterian people,
- speakerparticular, are our friends. They sent us the doctors. They sent us the medicine. They sent us the needles
- speakerto put into arms to cure some of the great diseases.
- speakerNow, we thank God for all of these good things that have come from you.
- speakerWe saw that
- speakerthe people, the missionaries, when they came, they came with two different matters. First, they
- speakercame with life everlasting. They brought us the good news of life everlasting. And, then they also brought us
- speakerthe medicines and things
- speakerthat heal our bodies and let us have life, let us live. And, so many of us have
- speakercome to live and receive strength and go and tell our own
- speakerpeople about the good news. Many of people. Many of our young people have come to know many many things that we've never
- speakerbeen there before. We've learned how to sew sewing machines. We've learned how to sew shoes, to make shoes,
- speakerto make furniture and things like that. We never did know anything
- speakerabout before. And so, we say that these people who have come to teach us these things
- speakerare our friends.
- speakerThe time when the missionaries came was a terrible time in our country. It was a time of
- speakergreat warfare when the Portuguese from Angola came from the west
- speakerour country and the Arabs from the east also came into our country with a
- speakertime of great warfare and a time of slavery. For the Arabs and the Portuguese took many of our people
- speakerand sold them into slavery.
- speakerBad bad bad
- speakerbad bad bad bad
- speakerbad bad.
- speakerPortuguese were called important people. From that day all white people are called important, whether they are Portuguess or whether
- speakerthey are Americans or whoever they may be. And when
- speakera white person leaves the country they say he has gone to "imputu," that is a foreign country.
- speakerBam. Bam That was a time of slavery when the Portuguese and the Arabs came into the country and caught a great many of our people.
- speakerThey came with guns, and our people had never seen a gun. They had
- speakernever heard a gun
- speakerThey came into our country with guns and caught a
- speakergreat
- speakermany of our people. And, the Arabs took them to the east. Took them all the way into Egypt, but the Portuguese took them to the west, to the west, to the Atlantic coast. Many of those were our people. Aver people, he says, found their way right into the American colonies.
- speakerCome.
- speakerBack. Randy.
- speakerAnd, we thank God
- speakerthat when the missionaries came with this word of God. They came with something. They came with a book.
- speakerIt is able. It is powerful. it can stop warfare. It can stop slavery. was
- speakerreally
- speakernice.
- speakerNow you don't see the Portuguese coming to our country to get slaves. You don't see the Arabs coming to our country to get slaves. They are not there.
- speakerI want to tell you something. I want to tell you about a matter I heard from my own mother, from my mother about the time when, when that was all taking place
- speakerbap. bap
- speakerbap.
- speakerWhen my mother was a little girl, like one of these little girls here, a small girl, maybe eight or ten years old, in her village, one
- speakerday they heard gunfire. They had never heard gun fire before. They didn't know what to do. So they ran. They ran until
- speakerthey came to a stream. They came
- speakerto the stream. And,
- speakerthey came to a river called the Lubilash. And, and they wanted to get across on the boat. And, the people that were handling the boat, were in the boat, said, "We won't take you across, except you `pay us." We
- speakerhave nothing to pay. We have run away from our village. Pay us the little girl. She will be our slave. So they gave the girl, his
- speakermother to these boatmen as a slave.
- speakerBap bap bap
- speakerbap bap bap bap
- speakerbap bap
- speakerbap.
- speakerWhen they reached the next village, where the slaves, the slave owner took the little girls. And, the Arab people followed them across
- speakerthe river. And, when they came to that village. Also, they
- speakerheard gunfire. And, they` killed many people but all the people that were there, that could escape,
- speakertried to run away. They couldn't go anyOwhere except in a cave. They all entered into a great
- speakercave. It is between the Bushimaie and the Lubilash Rivers.
- speakerBYE BYE.
- speakerOnly a very few escaped out of that cave, because the Arabs built a great fire
- speakerin
- speakerfront of, in front of the cave, and threw stones into the cave. Only very few people came out of that cave. A great
- speakernumber entered that cave. And, let me say in passing, that I myself have entered that cave. And, I have seen skeletons of hundreds and hundreds of people
- speakerThey were
- speakerit.
- speakerWhen they arrived in the next village, after his mother and a very few people escaped, they came
- speakerto the next village and the people caught them. They found that the chief of that village, a great chief had died. So they caught these
- speakerpeople and said, "You ought to sit down and wail and weep and wail for our chief. I do not know
- speakerthe name of that chief. My mother didn't tell me. You must sit down and wail for the chief.
- speakerSo. They found the dead chief in the village. And, the people caught them and made them weep and wail for
- speakerthe chief. But then after
- speakerthat. Right.
- speakerRight.
- speakerBut then after that, they took all these people and broke their arms, broke their legs. They dug a big grave, a
- speakergreat big
- speakergrave for the important chief. And, they put the chief in the grave, and they put all these people in the grave too with their eyes open. They were quite well
- speakeraware of what was going on. They were alive. They said, "We don't want our chief to go where he is going by himself."
- speakerOther than my mother, only
- speakerone person escaped out of that whole group of people, that were buried in that grave. Buried alive. And
- speakermy mother escaped only for one reason and that is the sister of the chief saw that the girl was
- speakera promising girl. And said, "Don't break her arm! Don't break her leg. I want that little girl to be a slave in my house." Ah! The love of God sur
- speakerpasses
- speakerunderstanding that he chose my wife my my mother. He save my mother
- speakerfrom this great and terrible death.
- speakerBut when
- speakermy mother
- speakerarrived at the house of the sister of the chief, she was
- speakervery sad. She cried the whole day long because of the terrible, terrible things she had
- speakerseen. And, she had seen people buried alive in the grave. And she lost her appetite
- speakercompletely. She couldn't eat anything at all because she believed the Arabs would come to this village, She didn't know what her end would be.
- speakerWell when the sister of the chief saw that this girl was
- speakernot eating anything and getting thin, she said this little girl is going to
- speakerdie. She won't be worth anything to me. I'd better get rid of her. I'm going to sell her off to another village. I'd better give her to some
- speakerpeople and let them sell her while she still is strong. So. She gave this little girl,
- speakerhis mother to
- speakersome other people were going to another village to sell for her. They took that little girl. They took her all the way to Luebo. Luebo. The first mission station of our mission.
- speakerThere they took her to Dr. William Morrison [Morrison, William McCutchan] and our old missionaries Sheppard [Sheppard, William H.] and Hawkins [Hawkins, Henry Philip] and Miss Fearing [Fearing, Maria] . And, there they put this little girl in the Girls Home
- speakerThat is what they call it, the Girls Home.
- speakerWhen she got into this Girls Home, she
- speakerwas so happy.
- speakerOh! She was so happy because she learned to read. She learned the Shorter Catechism. She learned
- speakermany things in this home. She became a Christian. She accepted the Lord Jesus
- speakerChrist as her Savior. She learned to sing songs. She was so happy she just
- speakersang songs all day long.
- speakerAll.
- speakerAt the same time, my father had also
- speakerbeen a slave. And, he had been traded round from place to place. And, he finally arrived also at Luebo. And,
- speakerhe was redeemed at Luebo.
- speakerEven as my mother was redeemed for one piece of cloth, eight yards of cloth, with the price
- speakerof a slave. They redeemed this girl. The missionaries redeemed the girl and redeemed the
- speakerboy. Put the girl in the Girls Home and the boy in the Boys Home.
- speakerAlso, the parents, the parents of
- speakermy wife, who is with us this morning. Also her parents were slaves. And,
- speakerthey were brought into this home for the boys and the girls at Luebo.
- speakerAnd
- speakerMy father saw my mother in
- speakerthe Girls Home. And he liked what he saw.
- speakerAnd so, he took her to be his wife.
- speakerThey received their marriage at
- speakerthe mission, a Christian marriage. And, they remained in that marriage
- speakermany years. But they didn't see a child. They had no child born to them.
- speakerThat movie.
- speakerMy father became weak in his Christian faith, and he married a
- speakersecond woman. So he might have perhaps a child.
- speakerThey the people of the church, the missionaries of the church and the native leaders of the church. They judged
- speakerhim and they took his name from the roll of the
- speakerchurch. Would not let him have the communion
- speakerBut my mother would never stop praying. She
- speakerjust said basket of prayers all the time. If God wants to give me a child,
- speakerthat would be good.
- speakerShe never failed to enter into the house of God.
- speakerShe remembered the word of God that says, "If
- speakeryou ask anything in my name, it shall be done unto you." And so, she did constantly pray for a child.
- speakerShe told me. that I want God to give me a child.
- speakerGod
- speakerheard her prayer and on the
- speaker13th of April nineteen hundred and nine, I was born.
- speakerbap. bap.
- speakerMy mother named me Kanyinda Isaac,
- speakerbecause God had heard her prayer
- speakerand answered her prayer.
- speakerMy mother just took me to church all the time. I was baptized in
- speakerthe faith, because of the faith of my parents by
- speakerRev. Crane. By Rev. Dr. Crane.
- speakerand so my mother just took me to the church all the time and taught me all the things that she had known--to read and all of those things.
- speakerTo
- speakerIn nineteen hundred nine in the month of August. I had
- speakerlearned the Shorter Catechism perfectly
- speakerand had learned many other things. Learned to read and to write. They took me before the church.
- speakerMr. Mackinnon [McKinnon, Arch Cornelius] some of us may know, received him
- speakerinto the church and he said Now you're a member of the church.
- speakerBam bam
- speakerAt that
- speakertime.
- speakerMy mother and my father both took me to the man who was in charge of the Boys Home.
- speakerDr. Martin [Martin, Motte].
- speakerWe wish our child to be a preacher of the Word of God. And, Dr. Martin asked me, "Do
- speakeryou want to learn all about being a preacher of the word all the days of your life?"
- speakerYes, he said. "That's what I want. That's what I feel that God called me to do, to be a preacher of his Word, all the days of
- speakermy life.
- speakerThat was
- speakerthe time he said when I knew so
- speakerwell Mr. Segall and his wife and Dr. Sixrud, who has also
- speakergoing to be with the Lord. And then, Mr. McGovern and also Dr. McElroy, who was then with us
- speakerfrom time to time. That was the time
- speakerwhen I knew all my friends in the Lord so well.
- speakerbap rap.
- speakerWe had a small school at that time, and I
- speakerentered this school and I learned
- speakerall the things that the school had to teach and some good
- speakerthings of the future.
- speakerAnother missionary
- speakercame, Mr. Frank Gilliam [Gilliam, Frank J.],
- speakerfrom Virginia.
- speakerAnd he was going to start a great school like Mutoto, our second mission station. He told me
- speakerI want you to go with me and help me in the school.
- speakerSo we went to Mutoto.
- speakerAll right, he said. I told Mr. Gilliam I want to go to your school
- speakerand learn all you can teach me but I'm a preacher. When I finish that school, I want to become
- speakera preacher.
- speakerWhen I got to Mutoto,
- speakerI finished that
- speakerschool and entered the Bible school.
- speakerAnd when I finished that then I became a preacher of the Word.
- speakerThat was the time, he said, when I saw
- speakera young lady, the daughter of the high school cub normal. whom I fell
- speakerin love with. And,
- speakershe became my wife.
- speakerAnd, God had given us ten children and
- speakerfour grandchildren. We thank Him with all of our heart.
- speakerWe are amazed at the growth
- speakerthat our mission has taken in the Congo. In those days, we had only one station, Luebo, then two, Mutoto; then Lusambo.
- speakerWe had only three or four mission stations. But today, look, we have eleven mission stations! And, we have a theological school, a
- speakerBible School. We have dental school, medical school. Many other schools are established. that your mission is making the Congo. That we are absolutely amazed.
- speakerBye bab
- speakerWere Made the things that our people have learned to do. Before
- speakerthe missionaries come, they knew none of these things. But now we have pastors in the churches. We have elders.
- speakerWe have deacons. We have teachers in the school. We have many of the elders who
- speakerhave not entered the work of the church. They become carpenters. They become shoemakers. They
- speakerbecome tailors. Many of them are clerks in the offices of the
- speakergovernment. And one of them, the brother of my wife, has
- speakercome to America sent by the King of Belguim himself to settle the things in America. Kalonsi Issac
- speakerthat is his name.
- speakerGod be praised!
- speakerFor all his
- speakergoodness to the people of the Kasai, who in their trouble, in their
- speakerpunishment because of the goodness of God in sending the
- speakergood news over to us, now we are quiet. We are peaceful with.
- speakerWhat more can
- speakerwe do? What can we give you? What can we pay you? What
- speakercan we do to repay for all of your kindness and all of your goodness
- speakerto us in sending us this Good News?
- speakerWe are poor. We have nothing in our hands.
- speakerWe just have God and he will. He will pay
- speakeryou. We were not able to do it. He will repay, because we were poor. We are
- speakernot able to do anything.
- speakerBut he is able.
- speakerSurely, he has never gotten on a subway, but he love us, the
- speakerpeople of Africa. He loves all people, and he loves us as well.
- speakerWhat shall we do to thank God
- speakerfor all of the things that he has done for us? The only thing we c
- speakeran do is to give to him, to commit to him, to surrender to him our lives,
- speakerour hearts, our wisdom, all that we have. All that we have, all the days of our lives.
- speakerJust as we have read in the book of Timothy
- speakerThe first chapter [First Timothy, verse twelve].
- speakerRamekin
- speakerI thank God. I thank Jesus Christ, my Lord.
- speakerbecause he has given me the strength, who counts myself as
- speakera person of
- speakerno worth, but he put me into
- speakerhis work. Let him have the praise
- speakerfor ever and for ever.
- speakerIn the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.