My Godly Father In-Law - Part 1

Father, thank Thee from our hearts that we, as Thy children, can be here in this convention. Thou art good to give us this privilege where many multitudes across the world would do anything for once in their life to have such an atmosphere with God's choiceless people, all fellowshipping and talking of God and bowing before God and praying through and dragging their families to have fellowship with other children from godly homes. Oh, there are multitudes across the world that would do anything for one occasion in life to have a weekend like this, let alone the occasions we have, Lord, but we bless Thee for this time together.

This lovely convention center which is an awful cost for the Maranatha Baptist Church to lay out, but we bless Thee for that, their vision, their willingness, everything of the food held out, all the love in that kitchen, all the love in every room prepared so lovingly, every preparation, every brochure with the program, everything of the equipment, the recording equipment, everything even on the stage, that someone put these flowers here, Lord, with love, because that's all they could do, but oh, they did it well. And we thank Thee for every one involved in this that we could come, and we ask Thy blessings upon them as a congregation, Thy blessings upon them as individuals, every single one that did any kindness that we as the people of God from so many states across this country could come and seek God and enjoy fellowship and enjoy all the good things held out to us in privilege. Thou hast privileged us, God, Thou art good and we worship Thee and thank Thee for every kindness shown to us at this convention.

We thank Thee, our God, that tonight we heard little Samuel, 15 years of age, and I bless Thee for my son that wanted to stand up for Christ, fearful but longing, and I ask Thee, Lord, to give him such a taste of God speaking through him that he'll be ruined for anything else in life once he's tasted that. Thank Thee for my wife and her life and her sharing everything from her soul to the ladies of this convention and the girls and for my young son Roy doing the same to us as men this morning and yesterday. Keep us as a family under the blood of Christ and safe from the hatred of Satan, that we as a family want all to serve Jesus with our whole heart.

O God, please keep this little family safe as unworthy and weak and base and despised as we are. Please protect us, anoint us and use us till the day we die, each one of us, for Thy glory. Come, our God, even with this message tonight and speak to every heart in such a way that we'll forget about the person sitting beside us, we'll become conscious it's just God and me, God speaking to my heart so clearly, so directly, that no one else matters now.

O come, visit us and do something of eternal value in every single heart. Keep us now safe from all the principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world against whom we wrestle. Keep us safe by the risen resurrected power of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the angels of God, not only us but this whole convention center and nation, a nation that Satan is trying to destroy because it sends out more Bibles than any other nation in the whole world, more missionaries than any other nation in the whole world, more support to the mission fields of the whole world, even missions that have nothing to do with them so long as they're true to God.

Oh, there's no nation on earth sending more than America and Satan hates her and everything that's coming against this nation is Satan. Come in mercy upon America, that part of her that does not love God. Lest the day come when the scales will reverse and the evil from this nation will outweigh the good and God will have to judge them or apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.

In mercy, awaken the Christians of this land, protect them under the blood and move in a Holy Ghost revival to set them ablaze for God with no compromise, no matter what the cost. In mercy, move through the Christians when they know Thee and bow in such a way, confessing their sins, turning from their evil ways. Thy people, call by Thy name, till Thou dost hear their cry for their land and come and visit this land and heal this land through them and that's the only way Thou wilt come through Thy people if they let Thee before it's too late.

Come in mercy now to this meeting, speak to the depth of our hearts to bring about this movement of God that we so long for and wait for in faith. In Jesus Christ's name, Amen. There are multitudes and multitudes of people across the world, countries I've never been, pulpits I've never been into and never will, but somehow God took that message when I preached in the early times of visiting your country and have met with many, many people in the way He honored that message.

I shared about my father the things I remembered in his life that brought glory to God and that would glorify God as I shared them. Someone entitled that message, My Godly Father and God has honored it in a way that I would never have dreamed God could honor such a message in such a singular way. But tonight, I'd like to speak to you about another man.

You see, two months after I was married to Jenny, my father died, but God did a singular kindness to me in giving me another father. From that moment that I have loved equally as much as I loved my own father, I say that carefully, but to be honest, I say it. I love my father, but I love my father-in-law equally because of his godliness.

God gave me such a favor in giving me such a man of God to be a father-in-law that he is as a father to me and has influenced me to follow God as much as my own father did, and I regarded my father to this day as one of the godliest men this world has ever, ever known. Multitudes have never recovered from my father's life, but equal multitudes will never recover from my father-in-law's life, especially this man. Oh, God was kind to me.

I'd like to share on his life an attempt in it, hope that this also will be honored by God to the degree he honored in his mercy the CD, the DVDs, the tapes, videos of that message, My Godly Father. I'd like to entitle, if you want a title, My Godly Father-in-law, in case you're thinking of some other title, brother. I'd like that.

Family can destroy you. Family can be your worst enemies, and a man's enemies are the members of his own home because he loves Christ and they want Satan. When a mother-in-law rises up against her mother-in-law, the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law, David had the misfortune of having a father-in-law that wanted him dead and tried to kill him, live to kill him.

There was Naomi and Ruth. Thank God for that life. Her mother-in-law was so godly that all that young lady could say from her soul is, Thy God shall be my God.

That life did that. No sermons. She wanted the God that made such a life.

I have been so privileged to have a man and woman in my father and mother-in-law that have made me seek God as I never would have. Had I not had their examples, their conduct, and the blaze burning in both of their hearts for Christ's glory to the degree that it's staggering. Staggering.

His name is Yanni. That is short for Yohannes. Jacobus Petrus Larue.

You shouldn't say Larue. People will think you are being rude. Larue is a French name.

All the immigrants of the early and the early settlers came to America. They fled Europe for South Africa also. French, German, all well.

A language came. A people came called the last white tribe of Africa. Well, this Africana speaking man, Yanni Larue, was saved when he was 14 years old through a teacher.

There at school, there was no homeschooling, but there at school a teacher came along one year that had more burden for their souls than their academic achievements. And he just brought Christ in everywhere he could, pleading with them. Pouring out his heart and compassion about the gospel to these young children.

And Yanni Larue was so deeply convicted, so stirred by God through this teacher's compassion and the way he presented Christ, calling on them to turn to Jesus and not to go to hell, but to find eternal life by seeking God to save their souls. At the age of 14, through this teacher's compassionate cry to his pupils, Yanni Larue knelt down before this teacher. He knelt down with this teacher and he sought God from his soul as a boy of 14 to save him from hell through the blood of Christ and to come into his heart and to save him, make him God's child.

God saved him, but this teacher swiftly was taken away. And he had no follow-up, no example, no protection, no one to nurture, no nurturing. He was suddenly left alone with no born-again believers that knew he was born again to nurture him and he didn't grow.

He did one thing, though. He knew he was saved. That he never doubted.

And he remembered this teacher said, the one main thing is never to miss God in the morning and night. And from that time, he never did. He took his verses, meditating, and he prayed through to God, daily, morning and night.

But he didn't grow as he ought to have, for he stood alone. His father was up in Oudtshoorn, a district in Africa, in southern Africa, where the ostrich farming and industry was a great wealthy business. And many multitudes of people in the early days found a living in this time of the ostrich market with all the fashions of the world with ostrich feathers and everything else.

It really was something. But it collapsed and all the thousands evacuated this town and went across southern Africa and other parts to try and find a means of survival in the days of depression across the world. His father took this family of five boys, a girl, down to what they called the Gamtus Valley and he tried to start farming.

The Gamtus Valley is in the eastern Cape of southern Africa. You shouldn't say Gamtus Valley, by the way. You have to say Gamtus Valley.

Or the Boer War will break out again. The Boers don't like you to take their words and anglicize them. So, you say Hamtus.

Of course, you don't say that in America because you think something's wrong with me. Anyway, there I've learned, don't dare say Gamtus. You're in trouble.

Well, they went to the Gamtus Valley and this man with nothing but these five boys, young girl, he began to work so hard. It didn't matter what it cost him until he began to get each of these sons a farm. He established them as boys.

Each one had their own section of land that he worked like a slave to acquire down the Gamtus Valley. It was tobacco farming, but that was what they farmed there and that's where he had come for hope of making some sort of a living and a future for his children in the hard times of Africa that were faced at that time. He taught those boys to stand together, not just to look after themselves, but if one thing went wrong, they all came to their brother.

He taught them to farm together as one body, as one family, though they each had their own lands. And they did and they enjoyed each other and they stood together. One day on his acquired land of tobacco farming, he was standing with his brothers and he looked over to the farm next door, over the fence.

They were English and he saw something that changed his life forever. He saw a girl on a horse riding down the valley and the wind was blowing her hair and something happened, of course, that he went to pieces. I don't know if he had ever noticed a lady before or a girl, but there he was, this fellow, teenager looking and all his brothers saw him just start gasping, as it were.

You know what happens. And there he was, falling to pieces and of course, they began to laugh and mock him. So he looked at them and felt embarrassed.

He said, look, look at her. I'm going to marry that girl. That's my wife.

Don't doubt it. That's the sort of man he is, by the way. Well, she became conscious that he was after her and she got scared.

She wasn't so keen on him and one day in her despair, because everybody noticed this fellow was just desperate to get her attention, she turned and said, Gunny LaRue, you'll never get me unless you seek God with all your heart and become a man of God. Until then, I won't let you near me. That's something.

He said, but I am. I'm a Christian. I gave my life to the Lord when I was 40.

She said, no, no, no. You come to the conventions where the full revelation of God's Word, the standard of God's Word for Christianity is preached. You come attend with my family, my mother.

I don't want to go through what my mother went through with an unsaved husband. I'm not going to face that, Gunny LaRue. I don't want to weep for years and want to serve God.

Well, a man doesn't want God. I don't want what my mother went and I want someone who will be the priest of the house, the head of the home and a man of God. That's what I want.

So, if you want me, you come and you start attending the conventions of the godly. So, he went along. He had never been outside of his church, which is the Dutch Reformed Church, which most people go to in South Africa.

So, he comes along now to this big convention where the godly go now. And he sat there in the A.B. convention. The A.B. is the mission of which we are in, Jenny and I and Roy.

And people from all over came and he saw the godly from all these areas coming. And he sat under one of the godliest preachers in our land's history, R.T. de Villiers. Then, Ethelbert Schmidt, men who staggered South Africa, staggered that land, reached so many multitudes.

They stood in that convention and he trembled and he despaired at what he had missed. The atmosphere, the blaze of the full revelation of God is burning in his heart, coming from the pulpit of the years he'd never heard or grown under the light. He thirsted but he trembled in the blaze of the full revelation of anointed preaching.

A man of God such as that, he began to thirst for God, he began to seek God, he began to go to prayer meetings, he began to want for every convention. And eventually, Enid Jones, that is English, she said, alright, now you can marry me. So, they got married.

They were young by the way, but they got married. Well, bless the Lord that that happened. Rani LaRue then found something as he pursued these meetings.

He heard a message that Andrew Murray preached. The most singularly used man of God in South Africa's history and one of the five most, I would say, used over the centuries, over the years, ministries in this world's history was Andrew Murray. He heard of a Christian having to come to a place of absolute surrender.

He'd never heard that before. And he heard how Andrew Murray's message cries out that unless a child of God comes to a place where he comes to the end of himself, unless a child of God comes to a place where he has a personal calvary and dies to self, unless he comes to a place, though he's born again, of absolute surrender like Jacob, wrestling with God, fighting with God over issues in his life, and God didn't win the battle, so God struck him. But he came to the place of absolute surrender and gave in the fight and clung to God, confessing his true state, though he was a child of God, Jacob, clinging, saying, God, have thy way.

I will not let thee go unless thou dost have thy way, unless thou hast thy full way with me. A yielded, confessing, clinging, desperate man for God to meet with him and make him what he ought to be. Because Jacob's life, though God was so with him, was not on the altar and brought him into much shame and hurt until absolute surrender, which happened at Peniel, where Andrew Murray says, unless a child of God like Jacob comes to a place where he gives in the fight of all the life that he's been given, that he yields to God and lays his life on the altar of God.

As Paul cries out, I beseech you, brethren, I beg you, brethren, brothers, by the mercies of God that he present, you dedicate your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, H-O-L-Y, which is acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, acceptable unto God. And be not conformed any more, in its translation, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, that ye may prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God. There has to come a pace of dedication in a Christian's life.

God will consecrate only what you dedicate. God can't dedicate. You can't consecrate.

But when you dedicate your life as a child of God, according to Romans 12, verse 1 and 2 and 3, God consecrates. You will be filled with God, the Holy Spirit. At absolute surrender, when you come to a place where you have a personal calvary, where you die to suffer and lay everything on the altar, you don't die physically, but you die.

And God has you on the altar, a sacrifice, a life totally on the altar, sacrificed for God. And then God comes. Oh, Andrew Murray says, unless this happens in a child of God's life, he will become a grief to God and man, beginning in the hole.

Unless this happens to a child of God, though you're saved, unless a child of God comes to a place where you have a personal calvary and die to suffer and have an absolute surrender and seek God to cleanse you through and through and through and through. That's Andrew Murray's terms with the blood of Christ, not just from the guilt of it, but God cleansing you. They were filled with the Spirit, their hearts being cleansed by faith.

And God fills you with the Holy Ghost. Andrew Murray says, being filled with the Spirit isn't like a glass of water, half filled, and now the empty half gets filled. No, the Holy Spirit is a person, he can't be half in you.

So what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? He's in you, otherwise you're not saved. And that grief that you feel of your failures and inconsistencies and lack of growth and compromises, that's his grief. Driving you to despair, to come to a place where you're desperate like Jacob.

God has to have everything. I am saved, I am his child. What does it mean then to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Well, that person in you just takes full control.

But he can't do that unless you're absolutely surrendered. You have to do that. He's in you, he saved you, your life has changed.

But there's so much crying out that just makes you despair and come to a crisis moment. Hudson Taylor preached it, William Booth preached it, John Wesley preached it, Charles Finney preached it, you can go on and on and on. The fullness of the Holy Spirit.

The absolute surrender. Being filled with the Spirit is not something about gifts. 1 Corinthians tells you gifts are obnoxious and not of God unless you have the fruit.

And all that happens is when you yield and he takes control, that's all. Being filled is just to be taken control of by the Holy Spirit. All that happens is that from that time onward spontaneously, not by effort of your own, the fruit of the Spirit, the evidence that the Holy Spirit is in you, you react with the fruit of the Spirit, love, suffer it long and is kind.

You can't do that by a set of rules and laws saying I'm going to live the standard and so thou shalt not, so you don't. No, it must be a spontaneous reaction, not an effort of yours. And only when God has taken the whole, filled you, will you find that the fruit of the Spirit is there.

When he's taken full control because he's absolutely surrendered life and spontaneously you will react by the fruit, the evidence, the reaction, the response of the Spirit being in control, you react. You will suffer long and be kind. You will be able to find the ability to love your enemies, to bless them that curse you, to do good to them that hate you, to pray for them, not pray for their death, but pray for the good that despise, persecutes you.

Oh, this is why we have to come to that or we struggle to attain the standard of the New Testament. I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. How? By putting you under the bondage of a whole lot of laws again? No, by you yielding your life and me living it through you.

You can't live it yourself. You'll never, you'll despair till you die trying to live the standard, the full standard in the light you've been given. You'll never know perfection, ultimate, until you see Jesus.

But what you do know, Andrew Murray says, instead of a life of ups and downs, suddenly from yielded, you'll see a consistent growth into more and more of the image of Christ, as more light is given to you and you continue. But there has to be this initial yielding, this initial dying of self, this initial person of Calvary, as it were, whereby you yield all on the altar. Well, my father-in-law was so staggered by this message as it came, and he saw his need, he saw his inconsistencies, he was despairing of his failures, though he knew he was saved and loved God.

But he knew he was grieving God on so many levels. That message made him kneel before God and say, everything, everything is on the altar. Take everything, no matter what it costs.

I want the full light to be my life. Well, he stood up. From that time, the next thing he did was the first thing he ever did as a Christian that staggered the world.

From the time of absolute surrender, the first thing he did staggered his world, everyone who knew him. Before that, nothing had staggered anyone for Christ and Christ's glory, though he was saved. He went home.

He called his father, he called his brothers, and he said, trembling, still young, married though, this tobacco, it's sin. I have to stop. I'm going over to vegetables.

I know it's profitable, there's money. And it doesn't seem there's money in vegetables, but I cannot have liberty, naming the name of Jesus, with tobacco. I'm ploughing it into the ground and I'm planting potatoes.

Well, they laughed at him. They laughed and they laughed. The father was angry, but the brothers were laughing.

The father was shocked, but the brothers were laughing. Others laughed. Oh, as the news went by, this fellow's ploughing his tobacco, with all the profit of tobacco farming, in this area that's tobacco land, in this irrigation system with this rich, wealthy soil.

What's he doing? He became like a joke. Eventually, there were even people protesting that this is tobacco land, you don't change the whole system, everything functions as tobacco. Don't you start bringing... There was so much reaction about this and so much of the value of what he did, the single man.

But let's remember something, beloved. God honors them that honor him. And he cannot deny himself.

He said he will honor you, if you honor him. He so prospered. He so prospered that others began to just plough their tobacco in and start planting vegetables.

He out prospered the others. He so prospered that he got into the newspaper of the Eastern Cape, the main newspaper. Now, I know that newspaper is something of... the whole of South Africa knows the name of that newspaper.

He got in and they called him the Potato King of the Eastern Cape. He so shook what happened in his business, in his farming. And his brother also followed God.

Opie, the younger brother that loved him and followed the Lord with him. In the beginning, he ploughed all his tobacco in the land his daddy had got him and he planted tomatoes. And he became known in the paper as the Tomato King.

I'm glad they don't call me a Potato King. That doesn't really sound wonderful. But anyway, that's what they called him in the secular world.

God honors you. God honors them that honor him. Now, at that time, God did something very, very unusual.

He sent a young missionary from the A.E.B. Many of our young workers went through Africa. Many died. Many came home to die in their early thirties and forties of diseases worn out for souls in times when it was very difficult to survive in the African continent.

But they went out. But they sent to the Gamtus Valley, our mission in those early days, they sent a young lady. She was so small.

I knew her an old, her old age. Annie Nouveau. Annie Nouveau.

Now, that's hard for you to pronounce, but Annie is like Anne and Nouveau is like New Wood. Nouveau, yeah, I think so. Anyway, this little lady was brave.

She had a braveness that few Christians on earth will ever know. Trust me. This is the testimony of multitudes.

That little lady was sent a young lady, not great experience, but one qualification. She was a blaze for God. And she just wanted to burn out for God.

And she just wanted the privilege of bringing souls to God. She went into the Gamtus Valley. They became conscious of her.

Yanni Leroux and Enid and the other few Christians around. And this woman's braveness for God as he went from farm to farm, telling them why she's come. Not a Jehovah Witness, but she had a Bible.

She was dressed in a godly way. And they let her in. And farm upon farm turned to Christ her children.

People just began to turn to God down the valley. Farms up to farm. Until everyone was speaking about this woman.

You know, she couldn't drive a car. Until the day she died, she couldn't drive a car. So, they said, well, you can't walk from farm to farm.

Yanni Leroux and a few others said, we give you a horse. You can't drive, we'll take a horse. So, she took this horse because she felt obligated, but she never rode it.

She just walked with the horse. They said, oh, she's standing there watching. What's she going to do now when the rivers came? And she said, take her shoes off and walk the horse through it.

But, oh well, she was famous for her horse then. When you see this little coming, lady coming with a horse, run. Because she's after your soul.

Well, one old farmer, he's a big man. Many of the farmers, the Boere, they call it there. The Boere, the farmers.

They are big. You want to see their hands. I've got to hold their thumb.

That's about all I can reach, you know, because they're so big and strong fellows. Well, this one big old farmer heard about Annie Nouveau. Everybody's talking.

When she comes along, she wants your soul for God. He came to see her farm. And this old farmer got up and said, you'll never get my soul.

No. Not this R.E.B. sect that comes along here, wanting this rubbish and telling us all, I've got my church, I've got my church. Do you want to come here and talk about a soul? Do you want to get my soul? I'll take my sambok, he says in Afrikaans.

This big long whip that the farmers have for the animals. He goes and grabs it from behind the door. I excellent do it, slam.

I'll kill her. He was an angry old man. And a big man.

Well, they told Annie Nouveau to bite this farmer what he said. It got back and she said, oh. Well, lo and behold, what does she do? The next day, she takes the horse and goes to this farm.

Now, this man was inside and they all ran, the family and different people, and said, Annie Nouveau, the one with the horse, the one who comes for your soul. She's come. She wants to speak to you.

She's going to get. He goes, ah, not me. She'll not get my soul.

He gets his whip. He runs out. And she's there standing at the door with a horse at the bottom of the steps.

And he stands and he starts cursing and swearing and even blaspheming. And this poor, everybody else is trembling. And she looked at this big man, ah, swinging the whip, ah.

She looked at him. It was so funny that she just started laughing. And she started crying.

Oh, she was, she thought this was hilarious, the way this pig. What does a big man do with a little lady? Just scream and cry with laughing. It's your worst effort.

Your best effort, I mean. Well, he looked. Everybody else was looking at her and looking at him.

Everybody now did. So he walks down the steps and he looks at this little lady. He throws down his whip.

She kneels down. He says, take my soul. She brought him to Christ.

And, you know, he really got saved. Can you believe such a testimony? Well, her braveness shook the whole valley. In the end, the whole valley.

And this is a long and wide. It's amazing how long, the miles and the miles and the farms of some of the richest land, soil for farming in this irrigation scheme of the Gamtus Valley, the great Gamtus River. Well, so many came to God.

But this lady, this young, this small lady, full of boldness for God that nothing put fear in her heart. She just went to every soul that she could find. And she turned the world upside down, a little lady.

This made Yanni Leroux change course forever. He thought as he watched her, if such a little woman God can use, if she's so brave, I'm going to witness. He started witnessing.

It set him ablaze. He copied the way she would speak, you know, the way she would witness. And he began to witness to every single soul he came near.

I can't say all the others did, but he did. He began to witness that people come on the farm and they come, all these business people to try and get the farming business, you know, with the implements and all the things for the crops. Yanni Leroux became known as the man that if anybody comes for business for the farms, especially such big farms, such farms that are prospering, he would say, you come for business.

Good, come in. First, there's a more important business as yours. Then I'll speak to you.

Your soul. Oh, people became scared, you know, even businessmen, even these people who are salesmen. They knew this word got around.

There's a man that just confronts you about. He spoke to everybody with such compassion, with such amazing compassion, almost a desperation that they have to listen. They have to listen to the bitter end of everything.

There's a heaven, there's a hell. All down the valley, everywhere in the towns all surrounding. Yanni Leroux became a name.

I was sitting and having my hair cut in what they call human's dope. It's about 40 minutes drive from the farm and the towns there in the valley. And I was sitting there and the man was saying, where are you from and what are you doing? And I said, well, I married a girl, a farm girl.

Oh, which farm, who, which family? Yanni Leroux is my father and he stopped cutting my hair and he went and stood in front of me. You are Yanni Leroux's son-in-law? Yes. Yanni Leroux is the only man in my life that ever, ever talked to me about salvation.

No person in my life before or since has ever told me I'm going to hell. Quoted the scriptures, told me I can find eternal life by grace through faith in Christ. He just poured it out.

The only man in my life that ever. You walk past people, brethren. You think they know the way? You might be the only one that came near them.

That could have and should have. Could have and should have. Oh, he began to, eventually they started to preach.

Him and a lot of the other young Christians, they took the preaching on their hearts to preach. And oh, whoever they could gather, the workers, the laborers, bring them in lorry loads and fill out the buildings and the sheds and just preach out their hearts. And souls started coming to God.

Eventually, God so anointed him, he started preaching in churches, in the pulpits. And as the years went by into some of the greatest conventions in the whole of South Africa, where ministers of high academic qualifications and theological seminars would just flock to sit at the feet of a man who's never ever been in Bible school, but in the school of God has a ministry so practical, so compassionate that they don't want to miss it. He became loved and revered for the way he so longed to be used of God.

I first heard of Yanni Leroux through a man called Rossi Fenta. He was a missionary, a district superintendent of all the young missionaries, and he would get them organized. And I first heard of Yanni Leroux through this man when he was driving me, when I was very young in the faith, to go and help in a big convention in the Ganges Valley.

And he says, there's a man here called Yanni Leroux, you're going to meet him. I know no man in my life like this. He's so ablaze for God, and there's no man in this whole state, this area, this district, that stands with the work of God like Yanni Leroux.

Everything is just for God, and you're going to be blessed by him. He said, you know, Keith, in 1968, the floods came. There's books written on the Ganges Valley, the taming, the trying to tame, when they thought they'd tamed it, it just smashed the whole damn wall, and went down as the dam just collapsed.

Hundreds died, hundreds. The farms swept, destroyed all the crops, all the implements. Hundreds just swept away.

What that valley, the hundreds and hundreds of lives that have been swept away. Yanni's great-grandfather's given an award from the King of England for his braveness in going out with his little dangerous thing, trying to rescue people hanging on to trees. All the lives he saved, he was godly.

And he said to me, Rashi Fenta, the floods came, the river came, the farms were swept, the houses, the people, lives lost. The radios say the bridge is one kilometer width. The bridges are washed away, there's no crossing, there's no way of getting to them, no way they can come.

And I knew that most of the godly have lost everything in life. There's nothing left. They've lost everything they have in life.

And my burden was for them. And then eventually the newspapers, the news and the radio says there's a moat being developed where they bring all the cars and the vehicles who want to get across. There's a chance now they pull with the ropes, as all these vehicles now can get on a moat and cross over because there was no possibility of repairing the bridges swiftly.

So he went, he thought, at last I can go and see the godly and try and comfort and encourage them and pray with them because I know they've lost everything in life. People were attempting suicide, some did. They lost everything they knew they could never get on their feet again.

They never, ever could recover. They've lost everything. He went to the burdened heart and they saw the moat coming across with the cars and the vehicles and there was a face.

And as he got close he recognized it's Gunny LaRue and Gunny LaRue recognized him, this missionary. And he shouted, Hallelujah! Hallelujah? I thought the man's lost everything in life. How can he shout Hallelujah? Not a word of grief.

Not a word arguing against God or the injustice. Not a word. Just praising God and joy.

I looked at him, I could hardly speak. I come to comfort him and he's now speaking to me, God speaking to me. No murmur.

Not the slightest, not one word negative about what's happened. Oh, God's done. Come, we go back and we'll go with you to visit all the farms you want to, all the Christians.

As he went he said he became aware of something staggering. Gunny LaRue took hold of farmers that were suicidal, many of them. Sitting there, given up, there's no hope.

He said, you get up. He took his own workers, any implements they could find. He didn't go in his own farm.

He went from farm to farm first to others and said, get up, we're going to stand together, we're going to get going. And he got them going. Getting on their feet.

His life gave him the right to witness as never before. Because that message went that that man didn't give up. He got up and he got others up everywhere he could because of his faith in God.

And they got going again. Well, years went by after that first meeting when I just stood and looked at him. Didn't get any too close to him further than that.

And one day I met his daughter. And that was the end of my life. I don't know if Jenny's here.

Perhaps I better be careful. But anyway, she might have fled by now. Nonetheless, I was in the ironing room of a Bible school where there was a big convention.

She was at Bible school. Twelve years of age, she stood up and said, I want to be a missionary for Christ. That's all she ever dreamed of.

And here she was now. Just left school in the mission. She's in the Bible school now preparing for anywhere God wants to send her.

Where there's this convention that took over this big Bible school and all the facilities and the grounds. They're very conservative, very strict. No girls are allowed anywhere in rooms with men.

I was in the ironing room with some brother. And ironing my shirts and we were talking away, you know. And suddenly the door opened and two girls rushed in.

And there was Jenny, of course. And all I heard was, I'm sorry. The meeting's starting.

We've stood outside for so long. But you go on and on. We have to iron our clothes or we can't go to the meeting.

Sorry, we just got a text. Men don't look at us. They're just suddenly ironing, you know.

And I never ever saw anything so beautiful in my life. Well, smoke was coming up. I was burnt.

The iron was on my shirt. And so I didn't lift the iron up. I just got rid of the smoke.

And I was doing this, you know. And the brother was saying, Keith, what's wrong with you? The shirt's burning. And they pulled it away.

I saw Jenny looking up wondering, what's wrong with this man? He must be a little bit, you know, smoke all over the place. Of course, I was blood red and embarrassed. But I was gasping at her.

No, I'd never ever seen anything so pure. It wasn't another beauty that perhaps in my unsaved days I noticed. It was something so pure that I was staggered.

I was staggered by the integrity and purity that shone through this whole face and being. Well, she didn't seem to notice me in the same way, but I could hardly sleep. The convention was over for me.

The messages, all I was doing was looking around, where is she? Every time she came down a passage, I said, how am I going to stop her? But she seemed to do everything in the passage to walk past, you know, didn't want to see me. There was no hope, but God did something wonderful. I'll tell you the story one day that any one thing led to the other, and she began to notice me.

And at least I think God began to put something in her little heart to say, this is the one I've kept you for. All these years that you waited faithfully. The AEB did something staggering.

They decided right then to send me to the Eastern Cape, to the Gamtus Valley area. She went on holiday from that little convention. I was placed there, and I was given a few days off, and they said, go and stay with the young Hiliru.

I was on the farm, and I was in love, and all I looked at was the sky, and I looked at the clouds, and I just saw Jenny. I looked at the moon, and I said, Jenny, couldn't get her out of my mind, you know. Now I'm on the farm, she's there.

Now I'm sitting at the table, and suddenly, I mean, how do you hide it? Her father, I saw him getting pretty earnest, because I was trying to act normal, but I looked at her, and I just melted. And of course they saw it, and I saw his eyes looking at her, and looking at me, and I thought, oh, you know, he didn't look too happy. But from the moment he saw me looking at his daughter, he started preaching at me.

He preached. Whole sermons were worked out for me from that day. To this day, he's never stopped.

He works on whole sermons. I mean, it's unbelievable. His wife even said on two occasions over all the years, as they're all sitting around the table, Yanni, it's so obvious, this whole message has been worked out for Keith.

Have you no shame? Well, I look at him, you know, when I see him, and I just say, preach. That means preach. I'm ready, you know.

Even the appeals. Everything's with me. He's determined.

From the moment he saw me look at his daughter, this man's going to not fail us or fail my daughter. I'm going to keep him on the road. That was from the day he saw me looking at her.

Well, bless God for that. Anyway, it was lovely. It was precious.

And Jenny and I got more and more conscious. It was God, and men were praying for us. But of course, one day, I asked her if she would marry me.

And she was in hospital at that stage, lying in quite a state. And she said, you do choose the right moment, don't you? She said, you have to ask my father and mother, because I'm young. So I went, and I went to the mother and said to Aunt Ingrid, I've never ever been in love before in my life.

I never knew love. I was infatuated. I was attracted.

But I never knew what I know now. I've never ever known what's happening in my heart. I want to marry your daughter, and I do believe it's God's will.

You'll have to ask Jenny. Don't ask me. Go, go find him.

That wasn't very encouraging, so I'm walking down now to the shed, and he's down there with all the things and the machines and the workers, and he says, oh, come in the office. We'll have a cup of tea. I'll take a break.

And we sit there, and I said, look, I came here for one thing. I want to marry Jenny. I love her.

I won't fail you. I can't promise to be perfect, but I will love her with my whole heart until I die, if you let me. He stopped smiling.

He sat back. He looked at me for at least four minutes without blinking, and I was unnerved, waiting. I didn't say a word.

He said, Keith, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to look at Jenny's mommy carefully, Keith. I want you to look at everything about Jenny's mother, because that is what you will have 20 years from now.

Exactly. Her conduct, her standard, the way she speaks to me, the way she's raised her children, the way she runs her home, her reactions to me and everyone else. I want you to look at Jenny's mother, because, Keith, that is what you will get.

In 20 years, that's all you'll have. Is that what you want, Keith? Don't answer me. Pray first.

And I did pray. And I said, I think she's lovely, your wife, and you look so happy. I'd love to know your happiness for the rest of my life.

Well, that was the right answer, because he smiled. He said, all right, then you can marry my daughter, but I'm watching you. Only he could have said it the way he said it, so I can't even tell you what it meant the way he said it.

But anyway, well, we caught it. We had to wait for a good while.