Bible Mozambique, World Campus Mission

[BrotherCremildo shared this testimony at the S. African Bible Conference. His testimony is posted to seek your prayer support for Bible Mozambique.]

P.S. They speak Portuguese.

Key verse : Genesis 12:2

The LORD had said to Abraham , leave your country your people and your father’s household, go to the land I will show you.”

Part 1. I wanted education in poverty.

Hello, my name is Cremildo Rafael Armando. I was born in a small village named Maxixe, Mozambique, on 06 September 1989. I am the third born of four children. When I turned 6 months old, my father died of a disease. After my father’s death, my grandmother sent my mother away with her children. And my mother began to support us without help from anyone. I have to say it was not easy for my mother because she was unemployed. This was the most difficult time in my life.

In 1996 I started to go to the primary school. This was another challenge because from my house to school was far. I had to walk 8 kilometers a day to attend school. In 2003, when I finished my primary school, I could not study continue because my mother did not have enough money. So I went to Maputo look for a job as 15 year old boy. I worked carpentry. My dream was to continue to study after earning money.

In 2005 I returned to home and started my study in the secondary school. It was also far from my home to ride 55 kilometers by bicycle. At the second year of secondary school, God blessed me. The Catholic mission offered a place of boarding. In 2009 I finished my secondary school as top student. But I was not sure what I could do because I did not have money to support my study at University. Then one of my teachers told me that if you have good marks you can have scholarship from government. Later I wrote admission exam and was accepted from the university of Eduardo that is the 5^th rank in the southern Africa region. In the university I studied sociology because my dream was to be a professor in sociology.

Part 2.  New father for my life.

In 2011 in April I saw four strangers in university residence. Then one of them greeted me, and invited me to study Bible with them. Those four strangers names were Missionary James Lee, Sh. Theo, Sh. Abia and Sh. Stephens. When they invited me, I did not accept and went away. But when I came back to residence, I met them again, and missionary James was looking for other students. And he said to me, “I was waiting for you, let’s go study Bible.” I followed to study Bible. We were seven students for the study.

After they returned to South Africa, we were communicated by face book with Sh. Theo and Stephens. Then they invited me to come South Africa to attend the discipleship training. I have to say that it was not easy to leave my country, because my friends with me said that you would be sold because of human trafficking. I was not afraid and I came for my first time to South Africa. I joined the discipleship training and studied Genesis chapters 12 through 25 about Abraham. And I learned that to follow God is sometimes necessary to lose everything he had like Abraham. Genesis 12:1 says, “The LORD said to Abraham, leave your country and your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” I learned that to grow spiritually is only one way that is faith. On that time, I have to confess that I found new father because I started to be with God in my life. I did not know my father even his feature. I now have God as my father. I am happy for that. After this I returned to my country and I met my friends. Some of them were interested in study Bible after I reported them what I learned.

We did not have English bible and we borrowed from other students. And I started what I learned with five friends. Bro. Cristiano who came with me is one of them.

This year April I came to South Africa to participate for the Easter conference. On the conference, I learned many things about Jesus. I learned that to be saved by Jesus is just believe. Mark 5:36 says , “ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue’s ruler do not be afraid, just believe.” This passage showed me that to be saved you must only believe in Jesus.

When I went home my friends and the number of my bible study was increased. Now we are about 10 from two universities. Sometimes they said that they need to see UBF members in Pretoria in our country, because they need to know more about UBF. They asked me what UBF means. Where does it come from? As I do not know much about UBF, it is very difficult to give them a correct answer.

I pray to God so that can light and strengthen my week faith in order to server his ministries. I also pray that God must show me a god way to learnt his words so that a can be able to teach the words for other people. I pray too that God must bless me so that I can have a power to invite many colleges to study bible with them. I prey god to illuminate my academics life so that a can finish successful my studies. I so pray to god that can bless our country and we can have UBF delegation in Maputo. My topic prayer is to grow spiritually so that I can be one of Jesus witnesses.