Early Days in Durban

Foreword by MICHAEL CASSIDY

Profile by Dr CUTHBERT CHIDOORI

JOHN BOND by Peter Watt

Prologue

Some Personal Notes

My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God

H. C. Phillips

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

- Mylet Bhengu

Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden of His Heart

President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana

Early Days in Durban

The Glad Tidings Assembly

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

John and Yvonne Stegman

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

Letting Go of the Reins

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)

Durban during the 1930’s and 1940’s saw quite a stirring of events in the Assemblies of God. W F Mullan had come from Ireland to start a work in South Africa. His burden was for a white assembly but remarkably God had impressed on his heart as a promise the text, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hand to God”. It was remarkable in that Fred Mullan was never directly involved in the black work, but as Chairman of the Assemblies of God for many years, he was ceaselessly involved in Executive matters pertaining not only to white churches but to African, Coloured and Indian assemblies and ministers as well.

When he landed in Durban, he somehow came into contact with Archibald H Cooper, the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Cartwrights Flats in Durban who invited him to be assistant pastor with him in the Tabernacle. The arrangement did not last long. Because of certain difficulties, Fred Mullan severed his connection with Pastor Cooper and started evangelistic meetings in the Sons of England Hall in Smith Street in Durban. Born out of these meetings there came into being two new assemblies. There was the so-called “Smith Street Assembly” which conducted its meetings in the Sons of England Hall, and the “Umbilo Assembly” which found its meeting place somewhere in Umbilo in Durban.
More or less concurrently with these early events, Pastor Cooper brought from England a young man called Wharton Sayer to be his assistant. Sayer too clashed with Pastor Cooper and led a split from the Tabernacle. He called the assembly thus formed “The Glad Tidings Assembly”. It eventually made its home in the Oddfellows Hall in Albany Grove near the Playhouse Theatre in Durban.
This happened in 1936, the year of my conversion at the age of 15. I first was led to call on the Lord in one of Fred Mullan’s evangelistic meetings, but I was baptised in the Full Gospel Tabernacle at the time of Pastor Sayer’s secession. All unknown to myself, I had been born into a troubled situation. After three weeks of anguished prayer for guidance I believe I was led out of the Full Gospel Church and I joined Pastor Sayer’s little group which soon afterwards became part of the Assemblies of God.
Eight years later I became pastor of that same assembly, but that is another story.

In those early days there stood a little wood and iron church behind the Alhambra Theatre, near the Indian Market in Durban. It was painted green. Of course it was dubbed “the Little Green Church”. This too came into the Assemblies of God. The pastor was Paul Hansen, a Norwegian and an ex-Salvation Army officer. It was the only meeting place to which we had unrestricted access and the several congregations mentioned above would use it for combined services and prayer meetings once a month.
Looking back now, it could all seem insignificant, but seeds of the future were sown there. In those combined prayer meetings I witnessed manifestations of the Spirit never matched again in my experience.

Paul Hansen had two sons. One son, Fritjhoff Langeland-Hansen pioneered an Indian work in Sparks Road, Durban, the Bethshan Gospel Mission. Bethshan prospered and spread out into five branch assemblies, a well-run orphanage and an old-age complex. All this was accomplished with no outside help whatsoever as far as I am aware, a venture of faith indeed. Fritjhoff Hansen also had a Salvation Army background. Perhaps because of this circumstance, his life was given to social concerns as well as preaching the Gospel. This was at a time when social concerns were largely ignored in the Assemblies of God. He had a simple practical turn of preaching and he was used in casting out evil spirits. He told me how in those days while preaching it was not uncommon for someone in the congregation to begin antics in the aisle, sitting down on his haunches hopping about like a monkey. This probably would be a manifestation of the so-called monkey god, Hunaman, known to Hindus in Durban. Frits would forthwith cease preaching, cast out the demon (for that is what the spirit was) and then have a Holy Ghost glory meeting with hallelujahs ringing in an old-style Pentecostal way with people getting saved.
In those days the political debate had not become so general or intense as it did later. The congregation of “the Little Green Church” consisted largely of very dear Coloured people, dignified, refined and as yet unruffled by political sentiments. Surely even then God was preparing us to see
people as people regardless of colour.

A happening through ministry at the “Green Church” ministered significantly to my personal need. In 1944 I resigned my post in Barclays Bank to assume the pastorate of the Glad Tidings Assembly in Albany Grove. Soon afterwards my father died leaving my mother to care for a small farm to which he had retired. Not being at all enamoured of my church activities and despising my connections there, my family with one accord pressed on me the duty of caring for my mother on the farm even though that meant leaving the ministry. I felt the challenge keenly. A sense of duty reinforced their arguments. I could get no light or leading from the Lord.
But guidance came one evening in the monhtly combined meeting at the green church. Pastor Paul Hansen was the preacher. His text, the words of Jesus, “He that having put his hand to the plough looks back is not worthy to enter the Kingdom”. There it was. A clear answer from the Bible, which I obeyed. In retrospect, I can see how foolish it would have been for me to try my hand at farming without any experience or capital whatsoever.

It was at the little green church that I first met Jim Mullan, Fred Mullan’s missionary brother. At that time he served as a missionary under Willie Burton in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire). His wife Mary was with him. She played the piano and sang. I remember her zest and charm as it impressed me on that occasion. It was some years before the Mullans settled in South Africa to pioneer white assemblies. It must have been 12 years later that I began to work in partnership with Jim Mullan. But from that first contact in the green church, I felt drawn to him. I have never doubted that it was right for me to work in association with him.

One remembers how earnestly we sought God in those early meetings in the Green Church, as well as some bizarre occurrences we endured during our times of seeking. I was very earnest in my hunger to be baptised with the Holy Ghost. I wish now that somebody had told me then how simple it is to receive the gift of God by faith, trusting in Christ’s finished work on the Cross. As it was, our piety was infused with a large degree of rigoristic error. The emphasis was placed on a false conception that we were required to achieve a perfect obedience to become worthy to receive the promise of the Father. One could never feel sufficiently worthy to receive. Hence I struggled in vain for a number of years. Often I cried aloud to God until
I became hoarse. I pledged myself to serve God as never before. I attended what we used to term “tarrying meetings”. I listened to every teacher who expatiated on the subject. I read books galore. Like the woman with an issue of blood, I suffered many things at the hands of those who wished to help me. One preacher told us “say Hallelujah until you say ‘lulihallya’ and then you will be speaking in tongues”. That particular profundity was indeed too much for me. It gave me the giggles so that I shook with suppressed laughter. I could only stop when the preacher’s face betrayed such anger that I feared he would descend from the platform to eject me physically from the meeting.
On another occasion, a dear missionary brother ministered to me. In a crowded meeting I knelt at the altar (in this case, the church platform) head resting on my arms which were folded before me in a position that exposed my armpits in a somewhat vulnerable way. The brother came up behind me, clapped his hands onto my back and unintentionally pressed his fingers into each armpit. I am ticklish! My reaction was a convulsive jerk. The brother became quite excited as I tensed up. He exhorted me fervently, “Relax brother, relax!” Again the unintended comedy overcame me. The more I tried to suppress my laughter, the more fervent the missionary became. I appreciated his zealous attempts to help me. He certainly meant well. I meant no discourtesy by my laughter.
As it turned out I waited in vain until the early 1950s when Paul Lange began praying for me to receive the Holy Ghost baptism. He showed me the promises of God based on the power of Christ’s blood. He used a technique in ministry which was expounded in a booklet by a man called Styles. As Paul laid his hands on me, I several times experienced such an anointing that my hands, arms, neck and face tingled and became numb. Eventually I spoke in tongues. It is so easy to receive the Holy Ghost baptism by faith. Yet those early times of tarrying in the Green Church and at convention meetings did a work in me which I cannot ever regret.