AFRICA!
TRUE AFRICAN ADVENTURE STORIES
by John Roy Bohlen & John 5:30
Better Stories Than Tarzan!
TRUE AFRICAN ADVENTURE STORIES!
“Ever Since The Olden Days: The beginnings of my interest in Africa.”
I was born at a very young age. If someone asked me when I first started knowing or loving the Lord Jesus, it would be like being asked when I first started knowing and loving my parents. I cannot remember when I first started loving or knowing my mother or father. I know that it is necessary to become “born again”, by asking Christ to come into us as Saviour and Lord, but I started doing that since before I can remember, at age 3, 4, 5, and 6, etc. I do not remember when that first happened. It seems like I have always known and loved the Lord. With that love came the desire to serve Him and share Him with others. As a child, we had missionaries come to our church and present the need to preach the Gospel in other lands, other countries, to other groups of people, in other languages, so, there was early, created within me to take the Gospel to others, many others. As a teen-ager, I remember weeping with the burden of the Lord for the lost in other lands. I would seek God earnestly for the lost, sometimes fasting. I gave my life for the service of the Lord, very early in my life. I was stirred by missionary stories, like that of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and the other missionaries to the Auca Indians.
At Bethel College, my first year, I was chosen as vice president of the missionary society, WMF, the World Missions Fellowship. The next year I was the president. It was largely due to my Bethel College Missions involvement that I came into "The King’s Greatest Secret", at age 20, in November of 1960. (See our book, The King’s Greatest Secret!) Write: K.O.G., P.O. 7123, Minneapolis, MN 55407
Later, I was privileged to minister on about a half dozen ministry trips to Mexico, and a 7 week ministry trip to Brazil. Wow! What a sweet privilege! What adventures! In Mexico, I went for a walk in the desert in the sunset, and saw a black something that I had never seen before, so I emptied my flashlight of the batteries, carefully captured it inside my flashlight, and put the cap back on and took it back to camp, whereupon I put it into a jar with a lid. The local people were afraid of this huge black scorpion in a glass jar beside our trailer.
Missionary Danny Ost hunched over the stick of his small bush airplane that seemed to be held together by baling wire, scotch tape and rubber bands, and he prayed for safety before we took off over boulder strewn and rocky desert, dodging sage brush and cactus, flying through storm clouds and dodging lightening bolts. Other times, as I preached to crowds, the pigs and chickens would wander through the church with the dirt floor. In Africa, it was common for chickens to take part in the services.
When I was to go to Brazil for 7 weeks, I only had enough money to plan the trip and pack my bags. Then, I got enough money to apply for my passport. I had enough money to go to the airport. At the airport, someone, a stranger and his wife came up to me and asked me if I had enough money to pay for the ticket. I said, “Not yet.” They said, “God spoke to us on the way to the airport to give you this money!” It turned out to be enough to pay for the rest of the trip, and enough to support Karen and the four children while I was gone. I knew the Lord wanted me to go, and determined that if I only had enough money to go to New York or Miami, that I would go that far, and then sit on the side of the road, so to speak, and wait for further orders and provision.
What mighty adventures! Speaking on the radio, over the loud speakers in the city square, sharing with strangers on the train and plane, learning the language well enough to get along alone. I preached 49 times in 47 days. Already, I enjoyed my food hotter than the Brazilians, having come to appreciate hot food in California, Arizona and Mexico. Now, I often eat my food hotter than the Africans.