Hey, this is Pastor Jones with Shield of Faith Baptist Church in Boise, Idaho.
Recently we had a church member of ours go to South Africa to do some soul winning.
So he's going to introduce himself and explain how things went on their trip.
So Brother Skoll, thanks for doing this interview here.
If you wouldn't mind, just tell us how the soul winning went while you were there.
Soul winning in South Africa absolutely went great.
Nine out of ten doors we'll talk to you and eight out of ten doors someone will get saved.
And just very, very receptive overall and very kind people.
Nice. So you did the soul winning marathon there, right?
Yes.
How many other times did you go soul winning while you guys were there?
We only had the soul winning marathon day and then just did some personal, you know,
setting up appointments with people to get them saved.
But I would say two times.
You know, like when we're soul winning here in Idaho, it seems like everybody goes to church.
Everybody basically has the same doctrine. You have to work for your salvation.
Did you find that to be the attitude there or was it different?
Absolutely. Everybody believes in some form of being good to make it, hopefully make it.
But everybody is religious. Everybody has respect for the Bible.
Everybody has respect for God in general, but just not saved necessarily.
They need that soul winner to explain to them the gospel and get them saved.
And they're very receptive and they understand the simplicity in the gospel.
How easy it is actually to just get saved.
They had a very good understanding about that.
Nice. How many soul winners did you have over there?
We were 25 out on the streets and we had a good set of pairs of people that could talk.
Obviously, there was little children also with us and they didn't necessarily talk.
But most people could give the gospel really well.
And so we were about 25 for that whole day that only did a small section of that town.
Real small.
Nice. So what would you say the ratio was for, I guess, people that spoke English versus Afrikaans?
So in the town where I'm from, so I'm from Bredasto, the Western Cape.
And it's predominantly Afrikaans, but they do understand English.
The older generation, they were more comfortable in Afrikaans.
So they might not fully understand you preaching to them in English.
But what we did was we would pair Afrikaans speaking guy up with a guy that might not be able to give the gospel in Afrikaans.
And so whenever the person says, hey, I don't really understand English too well,
then we just had the Afrikaans guy continue with the gospel and then understood it.
But the younger generation, I mean, they will understand English.
They will have cell phones and Internet and all that.
So they know English.
And I can't give a percentage on it just because if you just look at the demographics of that town,
it's going to tell you like the town is 80% Afrikaans and 10% something else, 10% something else.
But most people are bilingual or trilingual in that area.
OK, so if members from our church went there, obviously they don't speak Afrikaans, it wouldn't be a problem.
No, it wouldn't be a problem.
And we would just pair someone up with an Afrikaans speaker.
What happened is like for me and a brother, his name is Brother Siwe.
He and I spoke to a guy, but this guy was, I guess, early 70s.
So he's of that old generation where South Africa was very, very Afrikaans.
And then he tried to talk to him in English, but he just he couldn't really respond too well.
And then he just said, hey, Brother Skolk, you know, you want to speak to this gentleman?
And then he gladly heard me and he understood the gospel very good.
So there was a language barrier in that instant.
But overall, it will just have to be a good mix of how to get people set up properly.
Just good planning.
Nice. Sounds like it's definitely ripe under harvest.
Yes, very, very, very fruitful.
One thing that we always hear about, I guess, and some people would definitely have questions and obviously we don't care too much, but is it dangerous?
I would have to say it's a yes and a no, because, you know, nowadays they're just bad people everywhere.
I mean, I always like tell people, like everybody's moving to New Zealand because it's a safe country.
But that city Christchurch in New Zealand was shot up by a guy and that was just a random, you know, violent act that took place.
But it's one of the safest cities in the world.
So yes and no, but I would lean more to in my town, in my area, I would say no, not that bad.
And what I mean, not that bad.
Don't worry about getting shaken or robbed necessarily, unless if you go and, you know, go by yourself and they can see that you kind of look weak, they might try to scare you.
Hopefully that will never happen, but we tried to just stick everybody together so nobody just whanned us off.
No, it makes sense. And at the end of the day, obviously we know that Christ is, you know, is with us and protecting us.
And it's the mission has to come first, whether or not it's dangerous or not.
I mean, you know, it's like where we're at here in Treasure Valley.
You know, it's like the whole Treasure Valley is almost like it's ran by an invisible HOA.
And, you know, I'd rather have South Africa's attitude and worry about a little bit of danger than, you know, Caronville like we live in here.
Yeah, yeah. And like I said, I would say there's more dangerous cities in the United States than in places in South Africa.
Sounds like it. I think the total was 79 people saved. That's something, right?
Seventy-nine in total. And we had 59 on the soloing day. And that was pretty much just done in four hours.
OK. Yeah, that's amazing. You know, it means we need to figure out how to get back there, huh?
Yeah. Yeah, it's not really that expensive. It's I mean, I believe if a person would want to go do soloing and join up with us in the future, they would just have to cover the obviously the plane ticket is the big the big check, I guess.
But it can be anywhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred. Once again, that depends on how you book your tickets.
And then I guess just another fifteen hundred on accommodation and food. And if you want to, you know, just have some extra money on you.
So about three to four grand per person. But then again, that's over. That's more than enough money for that short time. It doesn't need to be that much, really.
Nice, nice. Last thing we were talking before about something that you learned, a lesson that you learned after getting someone saved at a house.
Right. Something that we used to do here and need to get back to doing. But can you explain what that was?
Yes. So we would knock on the door. We perceive that it is a very receptive family or we just perceive that they're very receptive.
So what we would say is, hey, and we would introduce ourselves, ask them the question, and then we would say, hey, is there anybody else in this house that would also want to listen?
It was it's been very successful. I spoke to three people at once, spoke three times to two people at once.
And the other the other soul winners out, they also did the exact same.
And the reason for that is it's so receptive and you preach so many times the same gospel.
I mean, you literally knock the door and you preach the gospel and you get that person saved.
You pray with them, you give them a Bible, you knock on the next door and you are starting all the way over exactly with that gospel.
Then just the next door over. It's not like you knock a few doors, you know, drink water or something. You you are going to talk.
You got to be you got to be fit. Yeah. Sounds like it does. So definitely a good problem to have.
Right. Yeah. Definitely be. I mean, that'd be amazing if that's how this place turned into it.
Yeah. I mean, I'll sacrifice dry mouth any day to get, you know, fifty nine, sixty nine people saved in, you know, a Saturday afternoon or something.
Yeah. And the harvest truly is plenty as you know, we just need the laborers.
It's so receptive and we would be able to talk to so many people at once.
I mean, we can really, really make a difference. And I mean, that's just a small town in the Overberg, in the Western Cape.
This is not even touching the city of Cape Town, other bigger towns in the area.
But it just comes down to extremely, extremely receptive.
I've heard of the receptiveness in the Philippines, in Uganda and Mexico and places like that.
But I believe it's absolutely equal in that regard of soul winning.
Just the people have a very overall respect for religion and in general.
And unfortunately, a lot of them are in a false, false gospel, the works by salvation.
And they're just very ripe unto harvest. They're definitely a tremendous blessing to have been given that opportunity to go over there.
Absolutely. Yeah. Hopefully, Lord willing, we can work something out.
Yeah. To go over there as a church. And I've been telling people, if we don't have one hundred and sixty.
Yeah. I don't know about that this year, but we'll we'll definitely work something out.
Yeah. And for future, you know, I would just say because it's so receptive.
You might not necessarily you know, if you if you're going to give Bibles out, you might not want to fly with it.
Seeing it just end up becoming really heavy. So to find something local, which we do have.
What was the attitude of the people like when they received the Bible? Very grateful.
OK. Like I haven't seen it here in the Treasure Valley where they're actually like, I don't want to say tearing up, but, you know.
Maybe like they are tearing up, but they're really, really grateful.
OK. Yeah. No, it's it's a good thing. You kind of you said something we were talking about yesterday.
You know, you were able to do that because you go soloing here, right? Yes.
You're you're you go soloing here every week.
You know, and I think about all these evangelists and missionaries that come in through these old IFB churches.
You know, they'll contact us every once in a while, like, hey, I'm a missionary to Peru.
And it's like, oh, OK, well, do you go soloing now?
Yeah. You know, and there's like, oh, well, you know, I don't know. Yeah.
You know, sometimes, yeah, well, I'm traveling, you know, and I'm sure on deputation.
We're not playing with all that. No, I mean, like we all know, a lot of these people are just sitting in another country on someone else's budget.
Unfortunately, that's how it's going. And obviously, we're thankful for the for the people that actually do go soloing.
You know, there are some churches that is missionaries that do get the support of of soul winning, you know, independent Baptist churches.
But we know we know that it's not the case.
Right. Definitely, you know, far and few in between.
There are some great old IFB churches out there that are doing great work.
And, you know, when you see those guys come through town, you know, usually the first thing they ask is, hey, you know, what's your soul winning time?
You know, and then they tell you, like, oh, you know, I'm from, you know, a missionary to Peru or something like that.
And you can obviously tell just by talking to them. But it seems to be more of the other kind that aren't really making a difference.
Yeah. And then, you know, there's like there's a pastor in Pretoria that has, well, there's a lot of soul winners that go to his church and they are reaching the Pretoria.
I guess, you know, in a broad spectrum, they're reaching the Gauteng province.
And I don't know the exact distance, but I think it's over a thousand miles.
They traveled for three days and they were zealous soul owners that came down to come do soul winning with us.
Two guys and, you know, my family to do soul winning in our town.
They are in it like they are committed to preach the gospel.
It was it was a real good motivation and it was really good.
It was very encouraging.
Yeah, they're they're serious and they're reaching people.
They're making a difference. It's just we need more. I kind of feel like it's like for my for the areas that don't really have the preachers.
You know, I know this pastor Bogart in Cape Town and he's making a difference there.
And then it's the small towns that also needs to be reached.
You know, Jesus always was on the moving, always going to the next village, the next town.
And that's just how I envision it. You know, I want to do Bredorstorp, do the towns around Bredorstorp.
You know, reach that the whole Overberg and then, you know, cover the Western Cape, go to the Northern Cape.
But, you know, that's it's lots of work, but the people are very receptive, very, very receptive.
So, yeah, it's really amazing. Yeah.
For the future, I think we should just go soul winning really hard.
And anybody that, you know, even if you want to just reach out to us to shield of faith and we can really do with laborers.
And obviously we want soul winners that has the same vision and mission.
We have it to go, go preach, preach the Word of God, preach the eternal salvation.
Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing your story with us, brother.
Hopefully next time we'll be able to go with you.
Yeah. Yeah. No, we will get a plan together.