August Kast And The Mount Tabor Mission Station
Profile by Dr CUTHBERT CHIDOORI
My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God
The Congress on Mission and Evangelism held in Durban
W F P Burton and some Congo Missionaries
Nicholas
Bekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu
– His Youthful Dreams
– His Preaching
- Bhengu and Education
- Bhengu and Money
- Miraculous Experiences
- Spiritual Happenings
- The Sanctifying Spirit of God
– His Departure
Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden
of His Heart
President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana
William
Frederick Mullan
The Fairview Assembly
Fred Mullan and the Gifts of the Spirit
A Miracle and a Vision
The Revival in Norwood
James E Mullan
Paul O Lange
William Branham in Durban
Oral Roberts in South Africa
Billy
Graham in Salisbury and Durban
The American Missionaries from Springfield, Missouri
C. Austin Chawner and the Portuguese Work
August Kast and the Mount Tabor Mission Station
Colin
La Foy and the Coloured Leadership
The Work in Zimbabwe
Mauritius and Reunion Island
Special
Answers to Prayer – 1
Special
Answers to Prayer – 2
A Beautiful Square with Good Vibes
Prayer and the Hippie Revival
The Young Turks
Tensions within the Group
The Split
of 1981 – Part One
The Split
of 1981 – Part Two
The Beginnings of the Faith Movement in South Africa
The Statement of September 1989
The Charismatic Renewal
The Start of the Pentecostal Revival World Wide and The Swedish Pentecostal Assemblies
Epilogue
APPENDIX 1 : How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit
APPENDIX 2 : The National Church by Nicholas Bhengu
APPENDIX 3 : Article from the Argus 5/02/1981
APPENDIX 4 : Pointers to the future of the Assemblies of God in the New South Africa (10/06/94)
Set in the mountains of Lesotho, the Mount Tabor Mission Station still shines as a light to the surrounding region. Once owned and run by the Swiss Pentecostal Mission, now it is in the hands of the indigenous African Christians, although the Swiss seem to retain an interest there and periodically visit the mission for teaching seminars and exercises of that kind.
My contact with Mount Tabor
came in 1947 when as a fledgling minister 26 years old, I attended a
General Conference of the Assemblies of God held in the church there.
The hosts were August Kast and his wife Gertrude, a German/Swiss couple.
Mrs Kast recently celebrated her 100th birthday (in 1999). August Kast
passed away some years ago having retired in about 1970 because of poor
health. He had been a pastor and Bible teacher in the Pentecostal Church
in Zurich, Switzerland. I remember him as a sturdily-built, devout man,
round-faced, gentle-eyed and serious of mien. He loved to teach the Word
of God. His countenance would light up as he expounded the Scriptures
in his rather heavy foreign accent. One can picture him now in the marquee
at Witbank with the Bible in his hand, saying, “The verds of Paul
- vonderful verds” (“The words of Paul - wonderful words”).
The Africans loved his ministry and hung upon his teaching.
The mission station at Mount Tabor had struggled under great difficulties
prior to his coming in 1936. The previous missionaries, the Gschwends moved
away in 1935 leaving Gertrude as the main person responsible to run things.
But God moved in a surprising way. On furlough Gertrude met August in Switzerland
and it was not long before the couple were married and on their way home
to Mount Tabor. The Lord had provided a man to minister at the mission
station.
August Kast told me of his initial difficulties in preaching the Gospel
to the Basotho people. Apart from having to learn the language, he simply
could not break through mental, cultural and spiritual barriers when he
sought to make the Gospel of Grace plain to his congregation. Some rather
right-wing people from the Orange Free State town of Wepener who befriended
the Kasts had told him, “You will never convert those people; they
simply are unable to receive the teachings of the Bible”. August
Kast was coming to believe that these friends, born and bred in South Africa,
were correct after all. He began to doubt whether he would ever make any
converts from the heathen that surrounded him. Even the blacks belonging
to the mission seemed spiritually obtuse. He preached God’s Word
to them. He told them of the Blood of Christ. He explained that they had
to accept by faith the truth he laboured to impart to them. But they could
not understand it. He was nearing the end of his tether. Maybe his friends
at Wepener were correct after all! Maybe Africans just were predestined
never to see the light!
The Africans on the mission station too felt there was a problem. One day
they sought an interview with Mr Kast. They complained, “We simply
don’t know what you are talking about when you tell us to have faith.
Please, won’t you just give us a list of the things we must do and
must not do. We will obey you. But at least be plain with us.”
In a very discouraged frame of mind, Brother Kast attended one of the early
conferences of the Assemblies of God. There he met the young Nicholas Bhengu.
He at once felt a kindred spirit in the young African preacher. Here was
at least one African who undoubtedly was a child of God. The experience
was a joyous revelation to August Kast. After all, Africans could be born
again! They could come to understand the grace of God! August Kast invited
Nicholas Bhengu to Mount Tabor Mission. He went there for meetings in 1939.
But for Bhengu things proved just as hard as for Brother Kast. After several
weeks ministering in the piercing cold of Lesotho, there was not one convert.
Nicholas Bhengu and his wife, Mylet, begged to be released from their assignment
at Mount Tabor. Bhengu said to August Kast, “I have preached in Zululand,
and it was hard. I preached in the Transvaal and it was harder. But for
this place I have no words!”
The situation seemed impossible. But shortly before the Bhengus left to
catch a train in Wepener, a break-through came. Bhengu was called to pray
for a young woman who had lain sick for years. She was instantly healed.
A few Sundays later her sister was present in church. She had heard of
her sister’s healing and had travelled 500km to find out if it were
true. A few Sundays later she brought 40 relatives to hear the preaching.
Some had walked for an entire day to be present. Wonderful healings took
place through the prayers of August Kast and his faithful African co-worker,
a Basotho man called Hosea.
Gertrude Kast has written a memoir entitled “A Missionary Remembers”.
In it she recounts staggering instances of the miraculous attending the
preaching of the Gospel in that time of revival. August found that not
only could Africans be born again. They could be healed by the prayer of
faith too. They could be delivered from the demonic attacking through the
power of witchcraft. He recounted to me an experience he had which he attributed
to a poltergeist. Stones had pelted a Basotho hut and he was called upon
to pray against the phenomenon.
Not only did miracles occur, lives were changed. At the conference I attended
in 1947 I met a little brother, a Basotho tribesman named Mabotile. We
could not understand a word of each other’s speech, but our spirits
were in accord. We usually sat together in the services, communicating
with handshakes and smiles. I thought Mabotile must have anointed himself
with mutton fat, for he exuded a rich odour, not unpleasant, but distinctly
noticeable. It did not hinder our fellowship at all. I had found a Christian
brother, a nature’s gentleman and a kindred spirit.
August Kast told me a story that showed I had found a Christian hero as
well, a living martyr in the true theological meaning of the word. Mabotile
had three fields which he planted with maize. His crops were good. He would
bring a sack of maize to the mission as his tithe to the Lord. However,
he ran into trouble with the chief who had uttered his fiat that each person,
including Mabotile, had to give a dishful of maize to the local witch-doctor
who would then ensure that crops were good and the weather propitious.
Mabotile knew his blessings were from God. He refused to pay anything to
the witchdoctor and the ancestral spirits. The chief was incensed at what
he took to be a flouting of his authority that might induce the spirits
to withhold rain and fertility. He confiscated two of Mabotile’s
fields leaving him with only one rather small section of land. He did this
even though a hailstorm had destroyed the crops of Mabotile’s neighbours
notwithstanding their contributions to the witchdoctor. Yet the hail missed
Mabotile’s land. That season Mabotile reaped ten bags of maize and
gave one to the mission for the Lord. In the end the chief confiscated
even his one remaining field. Mabotile had to find a home with a friendly
Christian family. His memory lives on. Surely he had found the meaning
of grace which August Kast in his early days had laboured so hard to teach
in spite of great frustrations.
I am sure the little brother has by now gone home to be with the Lord,
and I am equally sure that in the Lord’s presence where he is now
he is numbered among all the martyrs who through the ages have stood firm
in their day, witnessing faithfully at all costs to the true God and Jesus
Christ in whom they have believed.