DAY 6

Before you Call, I will Answer

God had given Reinhard Bonnke a vision that "Africa shall be saved, from Cape Town to Cairo!" So, in the mid-80s Peter and the CfaN team knew it was time to expand out of South Africa. It was decided that he would accompany Reinhard on a research trip to West Africa, which was very difficult for South African residents to do in the days of apartheid...

As their flight arrived in Douala, Cameroon just after midnight, Reinhard leaned over to Peter and cautioned, "Peter, I know a German missionary who used to work in Cameroon. He said Douala is a very dangerous place. We mustn’t leave the airport by ourselves, because people get hijacked and murdered for the sake of their luggage, never mind for money.”

Passing through customs, Peter began searching the nearly abandoned arrivals hall for a phone to contact their missionary contact. But all of the phones required coins, and all he possessed was a worthless, outdated banknote. Dismayed, he noticed a more modern phone booth nearby that required a card. He desperately turned to the only person in sight, an old man in a dust coast cleaning the floor, and asked for help. Fortunately, he had a card and agreed to use it for Peter's call.  When finished, Peter turned to gratefully offer the man some American dollars, but he was gone. 

Peter and Reinhard squeezed their suitcases into the missionary's tiny car and Peter explained his difficulty making the phone call. Upon hearing of the phone card the missionary looked perplexed. "Those phone's don't work," he said. "They’re a big joke, installed by a French company who didn’t even check that they could be linked to our local system..." 

Two days later, it was time to leave Cameroon. Upon arrival at the airport, Peter went straight to the modern phone booths and lifted a handset; it was dead. He walked around to the back and there were the phone wires, all tied together in a big knot and not connected to anything...

Peter remembers, "Reinhard looked at me for a moment, then smiled and said, 'Peter, that man in the dust coat was an angel.'

Until that moment, I could not have said for sure that I believed in angels...But our lives were in danger, we were miraculously helped in an impossible situation, and I have no other explanation to give but that God sent an angel to us that night in Douala – an angel in a dust coat." 

Questions: 

1. Acts 5:17-29 and 12:1-19 contain two stories of angels at work in the early days of the Church. What are the similarities in these two stories? What are the differences?
2. What are the similarities between the two stories in Acts 5 and Acts 12 and the story of Peter and Reinhard at the airport in Cameroon? What are some of the differences? 
3. The missionary in Cameroon did not believe that Peter had used the modern card phone to contact him that night in the airport. How is this similar to the people's response to Rhoda when she reported seeing the Apostle Peter at the door in Acts 12:11-19?
4. Have you ever heard a modern-day story of an angel? Did it have anything in common with the stories in Acts 5 and 12 or with Peter and Reinhard's story? Do you believe that God still uses angels to help people today?