In a crowded bus, driving through the dusty roads of Sudan, he looked out with excitement burning in his heart as he realised that he was finally in Africa doing what he had been called to do — preach the gospel of Christ.
On noticing his excitement, a man, a Sudanese native, sitting beside him asked in English, “Are you a Christian or a Muslim?” Eager to practice the little Arabic he had learnt, he replied, “Ana Mesih”. The man gave him a startled look and repeated the question, to which the visitor gave the same answer. Shaking his head, the man turned his face and ignored him for the rest of the trip.
When he got home, his host asked him how his day went. He then proceeded to tell him about the man in the bus and the question he asked. The host asked what his reply was. When he told him, his host gave a shout of laughter and said, “You told him you are the main messiah!”
This American has been to most places in Africa (five countries) that are not safe to be in, with reports of political unrest, kidnapping and public execution of Christian missionaries. What is even more remarkable is that he now resides in South Sudan with his wife and children.
As a result of this, he goes by an alias, “Dietrich Luther” and refuses to have his picture taken for security reasons. This is the story of Dietrich Luther who was in Lagos recently to speak at a conference, and how he stuck his neck and was able to win the hearts of the locals in South Sudan.
After he got married, he and his wife moved to South Sudan to preach the gospel but they had one problem — the residents did not trust them. When asked what brought them to that area, they said they had come to learn Arabic. The natives were skeptical as South Sudan was the last place they could have come to learn. What happened to other more progressive cities like Morocco or even Dubai? They stayed month after month and still could not get close. So, even as they had obeyed God by going to Africa, they could not seem to make any progress.
What made their story more unbelievable to the people was that they said they were students but they stayed at home day and night, so the people’s suspicion was validated, or so it seemed.
They then went to the embassy to get a visa to cross to neighbouring Sudan. While there, they met someone who asked why they were interested in going to Sudan. When they answered that they were going to learn Arabic, the embassy official looked disbelievingly at them and then proceeded to tell them he was a CIA agent, all the way from America and that his job was to sit at the embassy all day and look out for suspicious activities. Again, that was shut down.
Dietrich then decided with his wife to run an NGO. There was no way people would not warm up to them; every African village would welcome relief materials. But husband and wife forgot one important fact — relief workers have a bad reputation in those areas. There is a perception that foreign NGO workers come to Africa not to help or work but claim to work in a bid to collect funds from sponsors and ignore the needs of the people. So that also was a dead end.
After some years of moving from one country to another, they felt they had reached the end of their wits and began to consider returning to America. Praying to God, they asked Him for a breakthrough. God answered by giving them an idea — start a business. Dietrich proceeded to open an English centre, while his wife opened a pre-school. Then, finally, the people began to come to them.
Apart from the customers, Dietrich had a team of workers, people he related with eight hours a day and so he had the opportunity to speak to them about Jesus and went further by discipling them. Then he proceeded to sending them out to talk to their neighbours about Jesus, without the label of “the white missionaries”.
Apart from teaching them about Jesus, Dietrich felt it was important that he set a good example and so, he made sure that he paid them on time, never assaulted anyone but always kind to them. This idea of business as a mission produced more positive results than when he went simply as a missionary.
The reason was because she and her female partner never went to work, the neighbours assumed that they were prostitutes and so they were never given an audience. He says you need to create a reason to be accepted.
For Dietrich, “If we want to see the gospel of Christ reach the far ends of Africa, we must all come together and work as a team. We must seek and actually change our theology and perception of missions, and release waves of men and women into the field.
“We need to get more creative in the way we carry out the missionary work in Africa, and the world,” he said.