October 4, 2013
Lola Crouch, one of our outstanding Internet teacher in Searcy, Arkansas, tells an amazing story about one of her WEI students in Mozambique. If you think witchcraft and Satan worship are things of the past, consider the following.
Samuel Asante Congo Mtaula was earning a good salary teaching in two schools in the Tete Province of Mozambique, but he longed for more. So he got a bank loan, bought a truck, and started a transportation business.
Samuel writes, “I began living a lifestyle that included drinking beer, adultery, and neglect of my family. After a month, I started facing a lot of problems.” His truck was involved in an accident, and he had to borrow money from loan sharks to pay for the damages. He could not make payments on his loans, and the bank garnished his wages.
He totaled his car in a collision and bought a small car for transportation, but he had to sell it to pay fines imposed by the courts. He bought a motor bike, and it was stolen. Then the loan sharks took his household belongings. Life became unbearable. Samuel writes, “Everything I tried was a failure. I wanted a better life, but it seemed there was no hope. I became addicted to alcohol, began to hate myself, and considered suicide.”
As Samuel was trying to pay his debts, he met a rich man who invited him to his church—the church of Satan. A leader of the church told him, “If you are willing to kill people and drink human blood, you will be given everything you want.”
Due to the terrible conditions in his life, Samuel decided to join the church. On September 1, 2012, he traveled with the rich man to Malawi where they booked two rooms in a hotel. Samuel was to be initiated into Satanism the next day.
Samuel says, “That same night, while I was sleeping, I had a terrible dream. All of a sudden, my room was filled with light. I saw a very bright person wearing clean, bright, and white clothes. I was terrified. I could not see his face clearly because of the light. I found myself on my knees near his legs. He told me that he was the Creator of the universe, the First and the Last, and the Ruler of the heavens and the earth. In a loud voice, he said, ‘I am God of love. I took all your possessions because of your sinful life, and I expected you to come to me; yet you have decided to drink blood and kill your family.’
“I started to cry loudly and begged for forgiveness. He said, ‘The choice is yours. You go and follow Satan, or you follow me.’ Suddenly I saw myself flying with him in slow motion, and we stopped at a deep lake full of water, but the lake was burning. He also showed me a very beautiful place with flowers and songs of praise. He informed me if I did not follow him, I would be thrown into the lake of everlasting pain; but if I obeyed him, I would go to the lovely place where true Christians live after this life. I cried and cried. I begged for forgiveness and mercy. He told me that he would give me what I lacked, but first, I must find the truth of God.”
“Then suddenly, I woke up with tears. I was terrified, and I left the hotel and got a mini bus back to my country. When I got home, I prayed! The next day, I went to my brother and asked him for a computer. He gave me an old computer, and I logged into Google and wrote, ‘the truth of God.’ Do you know what came out? ‘The Church of Christ.’ I continued to browse, and I bumped into the website of World English Institute. It is there that I came to know Lola Crouch.
After studying with Lola several months, Samuel decided to become a Christian. Lola located a Church of Christ in Tete, and Samuel was baptized January 6, 2013.
Samuel says, “It is my wish that people must know Jesus Christ and be free from the bondage of the devil.”
Now, Samuel is preaching throughout the Tete Province. He has established two churches and has baptized more than thirty people. Samuel says, “I know for certain that there is no way of dealing with earthly problems apart from Jesus Christ. He is the real comforter, savior, redeemer, and problem-solver. There is no salvation, happiness, or hope without him.”
