I left before dawn and we drove all day to reach Chimanimani in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. Driving was Panganayi Sithole, a graduate of George Whitefield College (GWC) who now leads a large Baptist congregation in Harare. His wife, Tariro, and daughter came for the ride.
At our lunch stop we received a distress call from Inocencio Varine at the Mozambique border. He was low on airtime and money but anxious to reach me at Rusitu. For the rest of the day I worried and prayed as we waited in vain for another call.
“He will head for Chimanimani,” I thought, but after two hours of waiting at Chimanimani and darkness approaching we had to leave for the Mission.
Rusitu is ten kilometers back along the main road and then an hour or more of bumping along a tortuous track into the mountains. As we drove up to the place where we had to leave the main road I said one last prayer … and there in the middle of the track was Inocencio.
He had arrived five minutes earlier. If we had come five minutes earlier or he five minutes later we would have missed him. My atheist friends tell me there is scientific proof that prayer doesn’t work. Fifty years of talking to God gives me confidence to continue!