HEADING
Angus Buchan: Spreading the Hope of Jesus
By Dan Reany
The 700 Club
Original Air Date: October 8, 2010
CBN.com
– Angus Buchan turned 3,000 acres of wild African bush into a working farm. It was the realization of a lifelong dream.
"I’d made a success of the farm, had squared off debts… But there was something empty in my heart. I still realized that even having a farm again, which was a miracle – bearing in mind I came here with nothing – I had no peace. I know that I was going into deep depression. This farm meant nothing to me. I had no peace. I couldn’t sleep at night. I had no purpose for living. I was totally discontent with life.
"Then on the 18th of February, 1979, the greatest day of my life, me, my wife, and my children went to a little Methodist church. The minister wasn’t even preaching. It was laymen getting up into the pulpit. Some were building contractors. Others were businessmen. Some farmers. And for the first time in my life, I saw men crying. I saw women crying.
"At the end one chap said, 'If anyone would like Jesus to come into their life, please come forward.' I took hold of my wife’s hand, and we and our children went up to the front. It changed my life. Jesus pulled me up out of that bottomless pit. Jesus gave me a second chance."
Angus spent hours in what he called his “green cathedral” studying the Word of God.
"When my wife and I first accepted Jesus Christ, the first thing that burned in our hearts was a passion to tell people about Jesus."
He started preaching right in his own 3,000-acre back yard.
"The Word of God says start in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then the outer ends of the world. Well, I can tell you proudly, proudly in Christ, and humbly, that we are now going to the outer ends of the earth, but we started in Jerusalem, and that was our farm."
Angus preached anywhere he could get an audience and watched as God began working miracles. He reaped bumper harvests during times of intense drought. A corn crop downed by hail seemed to resurrect itself after three days. As fire ravaged his farm, Angus cried out to God, and a rainstorm that no one predicted doused the flames. But even Angus wasn’t prepared to witness one of the greatest miracles he would ever see.
"One night in the middle of summer there was a huge tropical storm. I thought I heard in the distance some shouting. I opened the curtain, and there was a whole lot of Zulu ladies with blankets over their heads in this torrential rain, screaming and shouting. They said, 'Lighting has struck our hut.' The lighting had hit the hut and knocked them all to the ground, but one woman didn’t get up. She couldn’t get up. They said, 'She’s dead.' So I’ve got a terrible fright. When I got to the Zulu hut, there was still lightning and thunder and wind and rain. I said to the women, 'Bring the body out. Put the body in the pick-up and I’ll take her to the hospital.' They said, 'No way. You’re always preaching to us in the field, every day, that Jesus has got power. We want to see this Jesus of yours in action.' I went into the hut, very gingerly. I went up to the body, put my hands on the body, and I prayed the prayer of faith."
The woman stood to her feed. "I said to her, 'Can you hear me? Are you all right?' and she nodded. And the place went absolutely ballistic. It was amazing. There was from mourning to dancing. She was standing there. This woman, the last I heard, was still going strong. She was healed. We had a party. For weeks after, weeks if not months, people were talking in the field about the power of Jesus Christ. And at Shalom we have a saying, 'One miracle equals a thousand sermons.'”
The miracles kept coming, as Angus preached to bigger and bigger crowds. In Mozambique, he reached out to 5,000 Muslims.
"I was preaching my heart out. Nothing was happening, and the Holy Spirit says to me, 'Stop preaching. They’re not listening to you.' And I looked down, and right in the front row, there was a man sitting there and he had two crutches. He had a stiff leg. I felt the Holy Spirit say, 'Go down and pray for that man. And that miracle will turn the people.' Put my Bible down, told them on the microphone, 'I’m going to stop preaching. I’m going to go down and pray for this man, and God’s going to heal him.'
"Of course it’s a town, village, and everybody knew him, except me, and that’s just as well. That man was a woodcutter, I found out afterwards. And one of these huge, indigenous trees that you get in Africa had fallen the wrong way, fell on his leg and crushed his leg. And they put a steel bit through his leg, and his leg was stiff. I didn’t know that. Just as well because I probably wouldn’t have prayed for him, and that’s the truth. I’m repenting now.
"I went down there and we had instant attention. From 5,000 people that were milling around and moving in and out, there was absolute silence. You could have heard a pin. I anointed him in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I said, 'Do you want Jesus to heal you?' And he said, 'Yes, please.' We prayed for him. I bent down, 5,000 people watching us, and I took hold of his leg.I tried to bend his knee, and nothing happened. It was solid. I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, 'Bend his leg.' And I bent his leg like that, and something gave way inside. His leg came free, and he was moving his leg. He chucked his crutches and was running up and down and jumping and shouting for joy. I want to tell you after that I didn’t have to preach another word. I made the alter call and 5,000 people ran forward to give their life to Christ."
Even in small villages, Angus always gathers a huge crowd. He travels throughout Africa in a four-wheel-drive truck that can handle the rough, sometimes treacherous terrain. In the back he carries Bibles and Christian literature.
"You see the hunger for the Word of God? What annoys me intensely is that people in the Western world have got Bibles sitting on their shelves and they don’t even read them. These people will fight for the Word of God.”
Back at Shalom farm, he and Jill created a home for children orphaned by AIDS. He started simply by moving some buildings the local government was tearing down.
"Don’t wait for a million rand in the bank before you start your project. Start your project by faith. God will add to it."
Whether it’s preaching to his own workers, evangelizing to Muslims, or giving a home to orphans, Angus says his first priority is following the will of God.
"The Lord has done so much for me. He pulled me out of the miry pit. He’s given me a second chance. He’s restored my life. The least I can do is be obedient to him."
Through his obedience, Angus has seen God change thousands of people’s lives.
"If you look into some of their eyes, they’ve got no hope. They have nothing to live for. They’re existing. If you come on one of these campaigns with us and you’ll see after they give their lives to Jesus and they realize that this is not the life, this is preparation for the life to come, then you’ll see why we do it. There’s joy. You see the sun setting in a ball of fire. You see dust rising. You see children running around doing handstands and cartwheels and backflips and people singing. We can’t get them to go home at night. The only way is to turn the lights off, turn the generator off and make them go home and disperse. I’d say that’s nothing to fear. That’s bringing hope, and we spell hope J-E-S-U-S. Jesus Christ, the hope and the light of the world."
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