In the weeks and months prior to accepting the call to take a short term missions assignment to Kenya, I remember sitting in my living room and reading Matthew 19:29, 30 where Jesus told His disciples, “Everyone who has left houses or father or mother or brothers or sisters or children or farms for My name’s sake shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life.”  I memorized those verses because I wanted them to be burned on my heart so that if the time ever came for me to have to “give up” something for the Lord, I would have the grace and strength to do it.  I remember a particular day in the spring of 1984 when I felt prompted in my spirit to walk through the house and lay hands on my most precious antiques and family heirlooms and give them to the Lord. In that moment I felt courageous enough to whisper, “You can have this, Lord!…and this….and even this…”  It was quite a process for me to finally reach the point of relinquishing my worldly possessions to the Lord, and even more so, trusting Him with my children and family.  At last my heart was at peace and I could say with confidence, “You can have it all, Lord!” Little did I know that those words would set in motion a series of events that would eventually lead us to accepting a two-and-a-half year special missions assignment to Nairobi, Kenya. Miraculously, God provided everything so quickly, that we landed in Nairobi on January 1, 1985 and celebrated the New Year with our new missionary family.

Chicago Airport Departure Day for Kenya December 31, 1984 for a 2 1/2 year special assignment

At the conclusion of that assignment in June of 1987, we returned to the States at which time we felt the Lord calling us to commit to full time missionary work. We then began the year-long process of raising funds and making preparations to take a container back to the field with our household effects and supplies.  Back in the 80’s, many of the basic household items were either not available or were very expensive so it was customary for the missionaries to stock up on certain things and ship them in their containers.  In addition to furniture and appliances, these items would include pots and pans, dishes, bath towels, a four year’s supply of shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, toilet paper, paper towels, and especially brown sugar, chocolate chips and of course, Heinz Catsup, etc. etc. etc.   We also spent the year stocking up on shoes and clothing that would last us and our two growing daughters for four years.  We also packed four years worth of Christmas and birthday presents, Easter baskets and special candy and decorations to make our holidays as much like American tradition as possible.

It was a hot sunny July day in South Bend, Indiana when we were scheduled to pack our container to return to Kenya. Mark and I had finished packing everything we “needed” to set up our new home in Nairobi.  Finally, the last item was checked off my list and the shipment was inventoried and ready to be loaded into the container. I was getting very excited knowing that soon we would be in Kenya enjoying our life on the mission field.  We discovered that packing a container was much like putting a jigsaw puzzle together and having no previous experience with this, we were definitely at a disadvantage.  Naively, we agreed to let other missionaries ship some of their items on our container because we thought an 8 X 8 X 20 foot container had plenty of room—no problem.  We would soon discover that was definitely not a wise decision on our part.

Leading up to the day we were scheduled to pack the container, we had put out a request to our church family for volunteers to help us pack the container and hoped we would have plenty of able-bodied men show up.  By the time the container arrived at our house, five men from the church showed up to help us. Unfortunately, they were all over 60 and half of them had some physical limitations.  Mark lovingly called them the over-the-hill gang.  The next thing we knew our front yard looked like a gigantic garage sale and boxes were flying and furniture was getting shoved in every direction.  It was utter chaos.  From time to time, I would catch a glimpse of two or three of the men standing around talking and drinking coffee.   To them, this was like a social day at the Hayburn house and they were having a great time.  After a few grueling hours, Clint and Ronda, a young couple who were good friends of ours came by to see how things were going.  When Clint saw the disaster unfolding, he immediately jumped in to help. All I can remember is seeing Clint and Mark sweating bullets with blood vessels popping out on their foreheads trying to get everything in the container.

When it was about to reach its capacity, they started asking for anything small to fill in the gaps.  Unfortunately, all my remaining items were too large and that’s when I started to panic.  All the other missionaries’ boxes seemed to be just the right size and when we got to the end, all their items were on board and I still had two living room chairs (seat cushions were already in the container), lamp table, two side tables and a half dozen large boxes of household effects sitting on the lawn.  Because we were paying the moving company by the hour, Mark and Clint began ripping open the boxes and throwing everything from drinking glasses, dishes, pots and pans, clothing, bedding, linens and even Christmas decorations into big black garbage bags and jamming them into the nooks and crannies remaining in the container.

That’s when I lost it. I don’t remember what I did but Mark told me it wasn’t pretty.  Suddenly Mark and Clint looked like two baboons throwing my carefully packed and inventoried treasures into the container like garbage collectors on trash day. Then suddenly God sent an angel to my rescue. Right when I started to launch into a major meltdown, Sharon, my senior pastor’s wife and best friend, pulled up in her little red car to see how things were progressing.  When she saw me, she immediately talked me into leaving with her and let the men finish the packing without my valuable assistance.

As we drove the short distance to her house, I was crying like a baby.  I remember the feelings of anger and fear spilling out from deep inside over the fiasco taking place with “my stuff”. It literally felt like everything that was precious to me was being wrenched from my fingers.  By the time we arrived at Sharon’s house, we sat down in her family room and she encouraged me to put my trust in God and then she prayed for me.  As I began to regain my composure, the Lord helped me put the whole situation in the proper perspective.

Then the Lord brought to my remembrance a story that a veteran missionary couple told me about how their first container had sunk to the bottom of the sea on route to the field.   I remember thinking how awful that must have been to lose everything and wondered how I would handle something like that happening to me.  I believe the Lord allowed this experience to test my heart and reveal to me how tightly I was holding on to the very things I had told Him He could have.  Then my mind went back to the day when I walked through my house laying hands on everything I loved and telling the Lord, “You can have it all.” I just didn’t realize how painful letting go would turn out to be.

Looking back over the past thirty-three years on the mission field, I think about all the subsequent moves Mark and I have made back and forth to Africa.  Today as we prepare to return to Kenya for a six month special assignment and then on to South Africa for another year, I constantly have to remind myself again and again that my most precious treasures are in heaven and that all of my earthly belongings will one day turn to dust.  I thank the Lord for His faithfulness and especially His patience with me down through the years. Now that we are in a retired-active status, we continue to look with eagerness to the future and to whatever God may call us to do. I know that I must remain utterly dependent upon Him for His grace and strength to face whatever comes my way.

The following is the amazing testimony of how God spoke to the team leaders from Operation Mobilization (OM) about the venue they were to use for the GO Challenge Conference 2015.

Here is the story as told by Chanri Odendaal to our students and faculty in chapel on February 4, 2015:

Chanri Odendaal speaking to the students at GST-WC on February 4.

As we were busy working on the preparation for GO Challenge 2015, we prayed that God would show us the venue for the conference in June. We anticipate anywhere from 350 to 500 people to register for this training and so we started checking out different options around Cape Town for a venue that could accommodate such a large number of participants. As we kept praying over a period of time, God gave us some clues and guidelines. It almost seemed like a scavenger hunt.

The first thing we felt God saying was that we would experience God’s footsteps at the venue. He then gave us a verse from the Psalms: “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters” Psalm 23:2. We felt that God was saying the venue would be spiritually quiet and prepared and not a spiritual battle field. When their training was completed, they would then be able to go into the battlefield spiritually prepared. We understood that God was telling us that the venue would have to be a quiet place.

Entrance to GST-WC campus

One morning during our team devotions we prayed about the venue again and received another guideline from a passage in Acts: ^“The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade” Acts 5:12. We immediately believed that this was another promise for the venue:

• “The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people” – This assured us that God would work in miraculous ways during conference.
• “And all the believers used to meet together…” – All of the people assembling at the conference would be believers.
• “…in Solomon’s Colonnade” – We were curious about what Solomon’s Colonnade looked like so we searched for pictures on the internet. So far, none of the venues we checked out had colonnades.

Beautiful colonnades line the campus and courtyards with gardens provide a quiet place for the students

About two hours later one of our colleagues took us to see the Global School of Theology. We didn’t even have an appointment so we showed up unannounced. It just so happened that our colleague was familiar with the school as he had been invited to speak in chapel a while back and had only thought about this venue the evening before.

As we entered the school we were overwhelmed as we found all the different guidelines and clues God had given us. We immediately knew as we walked around the campus that it was spiritually prepared and was sacred ground – Psalm 23:2.

Administration Block

We discovered God’s footprints all over the venue as we walked through and saw all the Bible verses mounted everywhere on the walls. But most overwhelming was when we realized that the venue had many small colonnades attached to each other. – Acts 5:12. We had only read this verse two hours before we arrived at the campus.

There was a moment when our team just stood there amazed at how God had led us using such detailed guidelines to this particular venue. As we were discussing this, we happened to look up and saw a verse from Psalm 119 printed on the wall next to us. Just that morning during our team devotions a team member felt impressed to share that specific verse from Psalm 119 with us.

Rene Fortuin, GST-WC staff member with Chanri and the OM Team.

There were just too many coincidences with so much detail that we could not ignore the fact that God was at work answering our prayers. We believe God showed us the venue that He had in store for our conference.  ​

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The GO Challenge is an initiative of OM South Africa committed to mobilising churches and believers from all walks of life to go out and share the love of Christ. Through a four day conference, they aim to equip attendees with the right tools in order to reach out cross-culturally and in their own communities. The conference is followed by a seven day outreach in which they have a chance to test out these skills and experience what it’s really like to fulfil the great commission and to go and make disciples of all nations.For more information about this ministry, go to their website at:  http://www.omsouthafrica.org/go-challenge ​

Before I (Mark) tell the story about this incredible miracle, first I need to set the stage by describing what had been taking place in Ethiopia prior to 1991.  The following information was taken from the Wikipedia article, Derg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derg and the book, The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat, by Rwszard Kapuscinski:

Haile Selassie

In September of 1974, Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie, was removed from office in a Coup d’etat. The monarchy was formally abolished in May 1975 and Marxism-Leninism was proclaimed the ideology of the state. Emperor Haile Selassie died on August 22, 1975 and it is commonly believed that Mengistu Haile Mariam, the leader in the Derg, killed him, either ordering it done or by his own hand.

Mengistu Haile Mariam

At the time of the Coup, the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army began to rule Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987. The term Derg was given to this committee. It took power following the ousting of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Soon after it was established, the committee was formally renamed the Provisional Military Administrative Council, but continued to be known popularly as “the Derg”. In 1975, it embraced communism as an ideology; it remained in power until 1987. Between 1975 and 1987, the Derg executed and imprisoned tens of thousands of its opponents without trial.

In 1987 Mengistu Haile Mariam abolished the Derg; however, he established the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. After years of warfare by a coalition of ethnic-based resistance, Mengistu was overthrown in 1991.

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In December 1991, East Africa Area Director Mike McClaflin invited me to join him on a fact-finding trip to Ethiopia. I had just taken over as the principal of EAST, our Bible school there in Nairobi, and Mike wanted us to check out the possibility of assisting the evangelical churches in establishing a Bible school in Addis Ababa.  Ten leaders from the evangelical churches of the country requested the Assemblies of God mission to come and help them and we were not sure what we would find.

During the seventeen year Derg rule, the evangelical churches were forced from their places of worship and forbidden to meet together. The believers had no other recourse but to take the Church underground. Anyone caught witnessing for Christ was arrested immediately and imprisoned. Believers would meet secretly in homes under the cloak of night. Those seventeen years were a time of severe persecution and oppression for the Church, especially for the Pentecostal believers who were called, Penties for short. In fact, they are still called Penties today.  There were many questions to be asked and answered but the primary one was: What happened to the Church during this time period?

When we arrived in Addis Abba, we met with the leaders of the Evangelical Union. These men represented the evangelical churches of Ethiopia consisting of Baptists, Mennonites, Full Gospel, Lutheran, Finnish, Swedish, and Pentecostals, etc. My initial thought was: What am I doing here? What can I do to assist them? I felt like a young Timothy in the presence of a group of modern day Pauls. Each of these men had been imprisoned for their faith. Some had been imprisoned and tortured more than once. They told about believers who had been put to death because they would not renounce their faith in Jesus.  As I sat there and listened to their stories I was overwhelmed. During this time of horrific persecution, the Church had grown exponentially. Literally hundreds of thousands had become followers of Christ. This was all done through secret house churches, one-on-one witnessing and what could best be described as prison evangelism.

It was hard to take it all in, but two things really stood out to me. The first was listening to how the communist government aggressively attempted to eradicate the Church but how God turned it around and used their evil plots to spread the Gospel. One of their insidious practices was every time they arrested someone, he or she would be placed in a prison located far from their homes. The reason for this was that prisoners were to be fed by their families, but if they were too far away from home, they would eventually starve to death. At least that was their evil plot.

However, the Lord intervened and this wicked plan backfired. Whenever new prisoners arrived at the prison, the Christians in that area would go to the prison and provide food for the ones who did not have family living close enough to feed them.  The believers fed anyone in need whether they were a Christian or not. If the new prisoners happened to be believers, they would encourage them not to give up hope. The new prisoner would become an evangelist at the prison and witness to his fellow prisoners resulting in many coming to faith in Christ.

This happened on a continuous basis throughout the seventeen years. The communist government, which had desperately tried to suppress and oppress the Church, had in reality promoted the spread of the Gospel through the underground Church. Instead of breaking the will of the people, they actually ignited a fire of revival throughout the country.

The second amazing thing was a supernatural move of God that took place all across the country. The various evangelical leaders began to share testimonies of how small groups meeting together during their worship suddenly experienced a supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit as on the Day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2:1-4. One of the leaders from the group made the statement that they were still officially Baptists, Lutherans and Episcopalians, etc., but they were Pentecostal in practice.

There had been no one coaching them, no one telling them what they should or should not do; there were no missionaries, no teachers, no Bible schools—just a sovereign, supernatural move of God that took place across the country. The believers witnessed miracles of healing and deliverance from demons and addictions and the empowerment of the Spirit of God to continue to share the Gospel in house churches, prisons, one-on-one in the streets—taking no thought for their lives, but proclaiming Christ as Lord. It was the Book of Acts being lived out through the Ethiopian believers.

On Sunday we were invited to worship with one of the Ethiopian congregations. With the overthrow of the communist regime, the church properties that had been confiscated during the Derg were returned to their rightful owners. This particular congregation met in a small stone church which seated approximately two hundred people. The military rulers had used the church for an ammunitions depot. When we arrived, we saw firsthand the result of those seventeen years of oppression on just one of the congregations. There were approximately 1500 people there to worship and we had to hold the service outside because the building couldn’t contain all the believers. As you can only imagine, there was incredible joy and outpouring of praise and thankfulness for what God had done. This was an experience I will never forget.

Mark with Endale, the ABC principal and Steve Pennington, Ethiopia Field Moderator while on six month assignment to the Bible school in 2002-3.

We did eventually start Addis Abba Bible College (ABC) where young men and women study theology to serve the Church as pastors, evangelists, missionaries and teachers. The scripture that comes to my mind when I think of that time is found in Matthew chapter 16 when Jesus said: “…I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it.”

We all know that ultimately, the enemy of the Church is Satan himself and since the day of the Church’s inception, he has used ungodly people and governments to try and wipe out every semblance of Christianity.  He attempted to use the communist regime in Ethiopia to destroy the Church, but God’s plan and purpose would not be thwarted and never will. History proves that persecution actually empowers the Church and spreads the Gospel further and faster than times of peace and prosperity. The Ethiopia miracle is a powerful testimony of how believers “… overcame him [the great dragon—the serpent of old who is called the Devil and Satan] because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death” (Revelation 12:9,11).