United Church of God
Sermon Transcript — March 15, 2008
Well, as you heard, you know, my name is Kambani Banda. We...Shirley, my wife...we work with the Church in Zambia, in Lusaka; we stay in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. We have eight churches that we take care of all over the country there. The whole circuit is around 3,000 kilometres and we have one Bible study, which is very close to just two families there.
I was born in 1952 in..., Zambia where I went to school and I met my wife, Shirley, at the Feast and we go to..., not at the Feast, no, in Zambia. We have a...comparatively speaking... our family is very small. We've got only four boys and one girl. I say "small" because in one of the churches that I work with, we have a man who has fifty-three children. He got them with many wives before he came in the Church and, so, not while in the Church!
Our boys, the two boys, are grown up. They are out of the house; in fact, they are out of the country and the only girl we have is also grown up. She is here in the U.S. studying at Cornell and has what we call back home a Master's Degree, which is a second degree, and she goes to the New York Bar and she started working in New York for a law firm in Manhattan.
I came in the Church in....after that we thought we were finished, but ten years later we had a boy and then we thought we were really finished when we got another one after eight years. So, our children range from twenty-eight to eight.
I came in contact with the Church in 1971. Somebody had come to see me. One of the students that I went to school with had a magazine. I saw it and I liked what I saw and I wrote for my magazine and The Correspondence Course. They sent me one magazine, lesson one through three and "All About Water Baptism." That is all I had from 1971 to 1978. So I read it back and forth, back and forth.
In 1978 I had the privilege...I was starting an accountancy...I had the privilege to go to the U.K. to wait for Deloitte & Touche and finish my studies there. It was while I was there that I wrote to the office in...I think it was in Bricket Wood in those days...and they asked that they should send me the rest of the books...I mean The Correspondence Course...and the books, which they did. I read them, studied them, and they asked for a visit from my minister there and he came to see me and the way I was saying, he invited me to come to Church. I said where is Church? And Church was just about at that tree over there. So, I was, you know, I had been there for about a year and the Church was meeting over there and I didn't know it.
I was baptized there and I was given an opportunity to work in the U.K. but I was single and in those days it was not very...it was considered not right to marry across races... so I wanted to get married and I decided to go back home and I continued to work for Deloitte there. After about five years, I was given a job in industry by a company that the ... Toyota franchised there. I worked for that company for awhile, until I became a General Manager for Toyota. I...here...I don't know what a General Manager...I don't know what you call it here, but I basically was running Toyota in Zambia.
Then, this company decided...the father and founder died and his children didn't want to work in Africa so they sold their franchise in Africa and it was bought by a group of Indians in Zambia and while I was working they asked me to do a number of things, which I thought were unethical and sometimes downright sin, and I said I didn't want to do that; then they fired me, they said that I didn't know how to work. But, they were very good to me; they paid me a very good separation package. When we stopped working for those people...it was a very good job, by the way, our children went to very, very good schools. In fact, I was explaining to our class how...went to the same school as the President and our daughter went to the same school as the American Ambassador in Zambia. So it was a very good job, but, anyway, they terminated my services and with the package that we had and the savings we had, we started a business, my wife and I.
We are doing tracking with, I think, three properties. We have a small finance company, but it is keeping us very, very, very busy and I was kind of losing track of ... but it was keeping me very busy. So we decided, no, this is not what we wanted to do. I wanted to go back and practice my profession as an accountant; so, we thought we couldn't get a job in Zambia because the place is very, very small. Everybody knows everybody else and nobody would give me a job, so we decided to go to the U.K. where we had been or to come here and we were making good progress in coming here. We actually got the four-year visa to get here. We were thinking of going to Texas where the young sister to my wife lives but, while we were in the process of moving, Mr. Van Belkum offered me a job to work and help with the Church, which I had been doing all the time.
Going back a little bit, I was ordained as a Local Church Elder in 1996 with Worldwide; then, three months later I left the Worldwide at the Feast. My wife didn't come with me, initially, because she said that I was rebelling against the government of God and I said, no, I think it is Worldwide that we have rebelling against the government of God. After six months, keeping the Sabbath alone, I didn't even know about United, but one thing I knew was that Worldwide was not the place where God was working. We went to visit Mr. ..., who is the father to...who was the late father....my father-in-law and he is the one who introduced me to United.
After working through it, my wife came with me, and then my family came, our boys and the girl came to United and for about a year we were the only people there; but by the time we're talking about, when Mr. Van Belkum was offering me a job to work as a minister in the United, there were about 80 people in Zambia then. So we set down with my wife and, you know, here we are, we are about to move and we got this offer.
We are very, very simple people. When we read the Book, we believe what it says. We read the book of Jonah and we thought, you know, we don't want to come back here, possibly back to Zambia and do this work and we accepted to do the job. Our arrangement was that we...because that we had the two children in university, one was in Cape Town in South Africa and the other one was in Botswana, it was very, very expensive. The school fees were higher than my boss's wage so the agreement was that we were going to continue with our job and help with the Church, that's where we have our business, and help with the Church.
So we took up with the job and this is where we are today, you know. When I look around here, my teachers are here, you know, they are seasoned people here, and I don't think there is much that I can teach you, but from time to time, when things have gotten very, very hard, especially financially, and so on and so on, my children have turned around and said, look, I think you made a mistake, you should have just gone and pursued your career.
So I need, from time to time, to sit down and hold a meeting with myself and say, look, did I make the right decision? When I can see all the facts, I think I did! And, you know, why didn't I say so? You know, as I said, you know when I was working as General Manager for Toyota, two company cars to drive us, you know, and so on and so on, and when their guys talked to me and shook their heads, you know, and... said buy us an X-Box, I didn't even know what that was. I went and checked and it was $360. I said, you know, I don't have the money, ... it wouldn't have been any problem, you know, so, from time to time, I have to sit and think, why am I doing the thing that I'm doing? And, you know, basically, after talking to myself and thinking to myself and reasoning, you know, say aloud, then I have reasons I do what I do. And the first reason that I do, that I continue to be in the ministry, I have one option, is because I think I have found a pearl of great price.
I don't think you need to go there. You all know where it is. You know, for me, you know people talk back and forth about the existence of God and evolution and the insects and things like that; for me, what I have found is that the law of God has worked for me in my life and in the lives of the people that I work with.
For the first scripture, I would like you to turn with me or just read with me because I know you know this scripture. It's Malachi 3:8.
As you are turning there, you know, this is one of the scriptures that made me come into the Church of God in the first place. You know this magazine I was telling you was talking about tithing. It was talking about the fact that God did test me anyway.
Verse 8 - He says, "Will a man rob God?" I am reading from the New International Version, you know, I know when you are doing doctrine and complicated things like that, you know, that's not one of the best books, but for us who use English as a second language, we find this translation very, very helpful. It says, "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' In tithes and offering."
Verse 9 - "You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me."
Verse 10 - "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house. 'Test me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.'"
I guess, you people here, this is very difficult for you people to understand because we who come out here, you've got everything so you don't need, physically speaking, you don't need God. Your government takes care of you when you've got no job but, for us, we don't have those safety nets. We have to rely on God to deliver on His promises and, so, when I looked at this magazine and it says, " test me and check if it's true," you know that appeals to my nature.
You know I'm an accountant. I've thought to myself, look, I always dreamed to be an accountant. You know, we do investment analysis. So what if I invest ten percent of my salary? You know, this is going to happen? I looked at the risk. You know I take...I give ten percent, I remain with 90 and it says that, you know, God is going to bless me in such a way that I will have no room to put my blessings in it. Let me try and check! And at that time, I didn't even know that there was the Church of God. I didn't tithe even to the Church of God. I tithed to the church next to the place where I stayed, and I started tithing, you know, that was, I think, 1972, I started tithing, and by 1975 my salary, I'm telling the truth, went up by 500 percent.
I was very young then. I went and bought a car for cash and finished the flat and I think you can understand this, where I come from, there's a section where the Blacks live, and there's a section where the Whites live, and my boss gave me a flat, you know; we've got company housing there, you get a company car, company housing, everything. He gave me a flat in the white section of the community. That is very unusual. It just doesn't happen!
And so, when that happened to me, I said, look, this thing works. Ever since, we have lived...God has blessed us in incredible ways that are very, very hard to understand.
I was telling you about our daughter here, who came to school here. The fees were $10,000 a year at the school where she went in South Africa and when she came to the U.S. she went to Ivy League university and the fees are about $50,000. You know, she got a scholarship for that, but, you know, to me you can't beat God. I can't explain that! Even if I did my job, I was not to earn that amount of money so, you know, I have found out myself, that the way of God works and it is my passion.
You know, I see so much poverty in Africa. I think you see that. I want to spread this good news to anybody I can find. As a minister, your sphere of influence increases and so you've got the opportunity to explain this awesome God. In fact, we have had an opportunity to explain this and experience this; not only with me, but with the people that we work with.
I know there are very different ideas about LifeNets...but LifeNets...is the same as the Church. We control it there. It is the...nobody outside the Church... who knows what he needs to do. We do it ourselves. They have given us money.
I told you I used to work. One of our companies was a finance company. What we did is...we didn't sell that company we just transferred the business to LifeNets and instead of working with outsiders, now we work with the people in the Church.
What LifeNets has done is they will hire the people from outside to teach our members. You know - simple business skills. They have taught them animal husbandry, crop production, and given them the little finances, the little loans, to start their businesses.
But, as a Church, we have told these people and they insisted that they keep the law of God; especially tithing. I know here, you know, the test commandment is the Sabbath, but there is so much unemployment the Sabbath is not a problem! So one of the things that we require before we baptize somebody is that he should tithe faithfully and these people that we work with have been tithing faithfully.
When we started working with them, you know, they were so poor the Church had to give each Church here, you know, from the Home Office, had to give assistance to all the families the first year we started working with them.
The second year we gave them some seed.
The third year, you know, we do some training and these little loans from LifeNets and there is no going back from there and since we have been working with these people their incomes have increased, I would say, five-fold. The income of the Church in tithes is going up every year by no less than 25 percent. Our people have been blessed for keeping the law of God. You know, when I see this myself, what can be better than that?
You know, these people are very simple. They're from the villages. Now we have got three boys who are going to college from these families. I mean, the law of God, to me, works and what can be better than that, to help another human being come out from the dirt and from the poverty and gain some dignity! You know, to me, that inspires me.
Another reason why I continue to wait, I mean to be a minister, is that, you know, waiting for the minister, in I Timothy 3:13, I know it's talking about deacons and it's also talking about the...when you read the New King James, if you put your head to it, it is great, but the New International Version makes it much more clear.
Verse 13 - It says, "Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus."
So, working with the ministry, in the ministry, and with my boss, Mr. Van Belkum, you know, has given me a lot of assurance that there is a God who can intervene when everything else has failed.
I remember one day Mr. Van Belkum was coming for the First Day of Unleavened Bread and we had, in those days, we had to apply for a visa for him to come into the country. We got the visa for him but somehow it got lost in the post; so, when he came to Zambia, he arrived at the airport without a visa and the inspectors said he is white and, therefore, he must be a spy from South Africa and they put him inside a Zambia jail. Outside, on Sunday, he came and Monday was the first Day of Unleavened Bread! So my boss says, look, you got a visa, it got lost, you go and get a visa. I said, but this is Sunday, I can't get a visa. He said, no, you go and find out where the post for the Minister of Home Affairs lives and you ask him to issue a visa! I said how can I do that? He said, just go. And I went, I did my homework, someone tells me where this man lives, I went to his house, I introduced myself, who I was, on Sunday, that is, the offices are closed and my boss is in the cells there, they kept him in the cells in the Zambian jail, not a very nice place, and I want a visa for him. He says, what happened? I explained to him and this man just got up, went to his office on Sunday, opened the office, issued a visa and gave it to me! I mean, I know people talk about the coincidences, but I do think that is the hand of God!
So that's the kind of thing that I am talking about when I work with my boss, the things that we go through. You know, working in that area is very, very difficult and I am not complaining, but you see the hand of God every so often. You begin to believe it. Yes, there is a God! Yes, I am at the right place ! When you are convinced that you are at the right place, it is easier to exercise faith; because what is faith? Faith is the evidence, you must have the evidence. It was just not a question of believing there is a God and then He tends to know. There must be evidence that there is a God. You must see the hand of God day in and day out.
Let's see... I Corinthians 1:8. What I'm talking about...you know, for me, working in the ministry is a passion for me because I can spread, oh, I can show people the law of God, challenge them, and let them see the result. And, because of the nature of the area in which we work, it is very, very difficult for us to get things done, you know. The roads are not as good as here but, anyway, I Corinthians 1:8.
Verse 8 - He says, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brother." I know you are very informed but you are not quite informed about the areas that we work, and no amount of description, you know, even seeing on a video, can tell you what we go through, you have to see, you know, I mean, but, my brother there, maybe he understands what I am talking about because he goes to Africa every now and then, but, it says, "We do not want you to be uninformed."
You know, I am not being disparaging. We suffered, how say, in Zambia there one night, with my boss, we were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure. I don't think we despaired. We didn't despair about life. We wouldn't go there.
But, you know, one night we were working with my boss, there were so many people that wanted to see us and we were counseling for baptism and so on and so on; so we left a member where we worked, around 6:30, to get to the second person and it was 150 kilometres, that's about five hours and it was raining and it was raining; so I was driving and it didn't have a real starter, so you couldn't start it, you pushed started it! We don't pull that to repair because it doesn't work even if you repair them, so we just push, and there's also a...there, so it's not improper.
So we were just the two of us and we were going and going and we got stuck in the mud and this thing switched off and it was only me and my boss, Mr. Van Belkum. I said what do we do now? He said, well, look, let me go outside and push. I said, no, I'll go and push, sir. He said, no, you stay here and I will push. He was ready. He was taking off his shoes and he says, no, just try and start it. I said, no, but this thing has never started suddenly. It has never started. He said, no, just try and start it. And, you know, I believe in government, so I tried to start it—and this thing started! And we go down through the mud and we got home; that was the first and the last time it ever started!
You know, when you encounter things like that, you know, for me, people may say it is coincidence, but I choose not to believe them. I think I see the hand of God in there; so, what am I saying? You know, what I am saying is that being in the Church of God...I mean, first of all, especially being in the ministry, has really helped me, you know, to solidify my faith and I do pray that God will continue to keep me in the Church and in the ministry and I will not be caught in things that are not important and, hopefully, that I have explained to myself why I am here and as I close—and I am relieved to close—Hebrews 10:23—and, again, I read this to myself:
Verse 23 - "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope that we profess."
You know, we face a number of very discouraging things, certain things that we read and so on and so on. I have to remind myself to let me "hold unswervingly to the hope that we profess."
Verse 23 - "For he who promised (that is, God) is faithful."