Our Promised Land

In a dream years ago God said: “I am sending you to the last greatest place on the earth.”

My husband and I had sensed God was launching us into our destiny. We had co-founded Blood N Fire Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia with David and Janice VanCronkhite ten years prior. We were praying and seeking God for his timing and confirmation. We told no one, just continued to ponder what we believed was the right time, watching for more signs from the Lord.

In August of that year we applied for a second mortgage, a home equity loan which we planned to use to paint and prepare our townhouse for putting on the real estate market. Then a need in Hong Kong came up, could we help in ministry there for two to three weeks? We said yes then found out a woman from South Africa would be there also. Once we arrived in Hong Kong, I, Susan, never left the camp of the ministry where we were volunteering. We had a ten minute introductory meeting with the woman from South Africa and that was it! However, Ned attended a prayer meeting elsewhere in Hong Kong, which was intended primarily for addicts who were in need of help. Ned had gone as part of the ministry team. One of the staff gave a prophetic word that when we returned home we would start a new work.

We hit the ground running as we arrived back in Atlanta. We literally drove from a 22 hour plane ride another four hours to Columbia, SC to collect our daughter where she’d stayed while we were on the Hong Kong trip. From there we visited a church near Blue Ridge, Georgia where some friends of ours attended. Twenty four hours later we were back in Atlanta at “the warehouse”, Blood N Fire’s corporate headquarters.

Jim Goll arrived that evening for a series of meetings. God used him to very accurately confirm what we had been hearing from God and that it was time to go. Needless to say, the details Jim spoke had us making airline reservations to South Africa and putting the townhouse up for sale immediately. Where would God want us to go? We didn’t know. Like Jehosophat, our eyes were on him. So we asked, and went to Johannesburg to visit our new friend and then to Cape Town.
Once in Johannesburg our friend confirmed our trip again telling us she was pretty sure we were the ones her prayer group had been praying for the last twenty five years. She told us that when we arrived in Cape Town we should go atop Table Mountain and look north. From that point God would reveal to us where he wanted us. And so it was that we came to notice a dead and barren patch of ground at the foot of the mountain where nothing seemed to dwell. That was the place God was calling us? That was our promised land? Doesn’t that sound a little bit like the children of Israel in the desert? ‘How could that be their promised land?’

Descending down the mountain we spent the rest of our trip trying to locate this dry, dead patch of land we’d seen from the top of Table Mountain. The last day of our journey we found it- District Six. We didn’t know what it was, but followed the sign to an small Moravian Church located on the property of a technical college, Cape Technikon. What did this place have to do with District Six and why was God directing us inside?

Crossing over the threshold we wept. Our feet were standing on a hand drawn map that covered the entire floor of the church. The map outlined a community called District Six. Old roads that were no longer visible physically were outlined here and people had drawn pictures of where their homes had been and written the names of their family and friends who lived among them. Isaiah 61, one of the foundational scriptures of Blood N Fire, came quickly to our minds and spirits. 60,000 people had been displaced from District Six alone during South Africa’s apartheid days. It had been a community where all races and religions dwelled together in unity. It had birthplace and home to many a creative, talented musician, writer, actor, artisan, activist, and families.

Blood N Fire, RSA was born in that little church that day. A reminder of the spirit of the Sovereign Lord was upon us, because he had anointed us to preach good news to the poor, to set the captives free, to pour out His oil of gladness, to see God’s beauty rise from the ashes. Wow! We even noticed a building God had specifically shown Ned and me individually 15 years before; saying that was what his church would look like one day. He’d told me the day Ned shared he’d met the Lord and wanted us to go to the Atlanta Vineyard to worship God together as a family: “If you will trust me and go there with Ned one day I will build a church through you and Ned that will not have any other name on it but my own.” Wow! A few years later on a mission trip in London Ned and I received visual pictures simultaneously of what that church would look like. Fifteen years later God led us to the place where he planned to do just that!

On our plane ride home Ned was listening to a Dave Matthews cd, our son plays guitar so what more can we say? The band was playing, All Along the Watchtower and Ned had an amazing vision: Inside the building in Cape Town there were round tables with candles with ten or twelve people at each of the tables. At the end of the room was a stage, a young man was began to play guitar as a spotlight opened on him. The rest of the lights came on and an entire band was playing on stage. The people at the tables stopped talking and rose up, taking part in a large worship service. Afterwards they sat back down and what seemed to be the previous homeless from the streets were now serving them coffee and desserts. The people at the tables seemed to be in community, fellowshipping with one another and with those who were serving. The ones on stage were the youth of the nations and our son Evan was leading them.

We believe this is God’s heart for his church. That whether rich, poor, homeless, and/or talented that we be in relationship with Him and one another. That we reach out to the poor and relationless and build community among them. It will produce the fruit that lasts! As I walked in Kirstenbosch Gardens this rainy morning these thoughts came to mind:

Is this what it’s like to walk in the presence of God? Our friend, Murray Bridgman is enthralled with clouds, seeing God’s presence in them. The mountains were covered with clouds this morning, so thick the mountains could not be seen. It dawned on me then, where the presence of the Lord is we cannot see the mountainous obstacles in our way! You know, those things that weigh our hearts down, distracting us and preventing us from believing who we are! Hello! Can anyone else see it that way? As I pondered it really came to me- Jesus really had done it! He has redeemed the world! Our enemy Satan continues to wreak havoc upon us to prevent us from believing it! He does all he knows to do to prevent us from walking in the light of God’s glory! Keeping us in forms of guilt, shame, doubt and unbelief bedraggles us; weighs our hearts down to where we cannot see or remember who we are! That’s when the separation comes, the wide gap or division that separates us from the place God has made for us with Him! Think about it! We have choices as to what we believe. Jesus told us that ‘as we believe so shall it be done!” Our enemy knows this! How about us? Armed with this knowledge, we walk in the light of His Glory! Jesus said, “With God all things are possible.” Paul taught that “all things are possible for those who believe.” Hebrews 11: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” We believed!

We sold everything and moved into ‘the warehouse’ with hundreds of former homeless families from the streets and byways of Atlanta to whom Blood N Fire had given sanctuary. This was our home as we prepared to move to a place God would show us, like he had Abraham. It was there I had the dream where God said, “I am sending you to the last greatest place on the earth.”

Flying over Africa November 28, 2000 I had a vision of a great cloud, like the cloud of God’s presence that led the children of Israel out of Egypt into the Promised Land. The cloud covered over all of Africa. The above photo is what it looked like in the heavens to me that day, seeming to confirm He was leading us into our Promised Land.

Nelson & Susan Hill
Blood N Fire, RSA
Cape Town, South Africa
bnfrsa@sentechsa.com