A Personal Tribute from Dr. Michael Cassidy

Dr. Michael Cassidy

The following tribute was written by Dr. Michael Cassidy in 2011 as he reflected on the death of John Stott. Dr. Cassidy is the founder of African Enterprise, an inter-racial, inter-denominational evangelistic global-partnership organization South Africa whose mission is to Evangelize the Cities of Africa through Word and Deed in Partnership with the Church.

10 August 2011

Our Very Dear Friends far and near, and all in my Barnabas Groups,

It was with a sense of deep sadness, shock, and yet inevitability, that we heard of the passing to Glory of John Stott on July 27th. Of course when treasured friends or family are in their early 90s one knows they must soon go to Glory, yet when the final moment comes there is always a sense of shock. For me personally John has been an inspirational exemplar, spiritual friend and theological mentor for 57 years. Also since our African Enterprise inception 5 decades ago, John has been an encourager, guide and partner in the Gospel through his counsel and writings. The fact too that the Lausanne Covenant is our constitutionally enshrined statement of faith, with John as its chief architect, has made him a theologically determinative influence for us. That’s why all in African Enterprise, whether in Africa, or other parts of the world, join me in saluting and paying tribute to one whose life as a Gospel preacher, Biblical teacher, theologian and friend has touched us so deeply. 

For me personally, the sense of loss and feeling semi-orphaned has been considerable because I always say that the two men who have influenced my own personal ministry most have been John Stott and Billy Graham. When Billy Graham also goes to Glory that sense of being spiritually orphaned will be complete. From Billy what inspired me was the passion and Gospel faithfulness of his evangelistic preaching and the integrity of his character. From John deep inspiration reached me notably in the biblical content of his messages, their thorough preparation, (one hour’s preparation for every five minutes of public utterance – something I could never measure up to!), but also his deep exegesis of the text to bring forth what the Bible actually said and then apply it relevantly to the contemporary context. Incidentally, one minister, after hearing John preach, vowed “never again to go into the pulpit unprepared”! Over and above that was his astonishing capacity, as noted by many, to make the profound simple, and the simple profound. I felt that for me personally and for AE generally, as well as for all contemporary ministers of the Gospel, if we could aim to achieve the capacities and commitments of these two giants of twentieth and twenty first century faith, then we would serve our Lord well.

So let me backtrack into some of these treasured memories, which will, I trust, bear tribute to the measure of the man about whom we speak. And also be a real blessing and inspiration to you all as well.

Cambridge (1955-1958)

I guess my first exposure to John Stott was in the early weeks and months after my conversion in October 1955 at Cambridge. The Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union (CICCU) used to bring him to the university regularly to speak in the weekly Sunday evening evangelistic services at Holy Trinity Church. I remember so well that young seraphic smile, set between two almost boyishly ruddy cheeks, as he preached. By the time I first heard him I had already come to Christ, but I used to wonder how anyone hearing the lucid and compelling logic of his Christian apologetics could fail to come to faith. Committing one’s life to Christ just seemed the most sensible and logical thing to do.

And I couldn’t have been far along in my Christian walk when I read what I think was his first book entitled Men with a Message and giving the basic messages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, St Paul, and the book of Revelation. I devoured this and soon thereafter Basic Christianity through which multiple thousands around the world have come to Christ over the years. Both volumes are still in print.

John was also set to be Billy Graham’s Assistant Missioner when the American evangelist came to do his mission to Cambridge in November 1955, just weeks after my own conversion. I so well remember the furore released around the churches of England at the notion of a so-called “fundamentalist American evangelist” coming to speak in the hallowed academic halls of Cambridge University. And of course when the English go to war, if it is not with Napoleon or Hitler, it is carried out in the correspondence columns of the London Times. Back and forth, pro and con, the letters flooded and for a very young convert, such as Yours Truly, this was confusing indeed. Of course most of the time nobody defined what a fundamentalist was, a label incidentally which both Billy Graham and John Stott eschewed and quite rightly viewed pejoratively.

This John affirmed in a letter of August 25th 1955, to the London Times disassociating both himself and Billy Graham from that type of fundamentalism which was “almost a synonym for obscurantism… The conservative evangelical desires to lay a truly biblical emphasis on the necessity of divine revelation, to ascribe to the scriptures no meaner an authority than did our Lord and His apostles, and to accept the biblical doctrine of scripture as they accept the biblical doctrine of God and Christ and the Church.” John wrapped up his letter noting that “God’s revelation is essentially reasonable, but would have to add that it is often in conflict with the unenlightened reason of sinful men…. There is then in conversion….not a stifling of the mind but the humble (and intelligent) submission of the mind to divine revelation. The proud human intellect still needs to be abased – in England as in Corinth – and the only way to enter the Kingdom of God is still to become like a little child.”

Thus ended John’s London Times epistle and Billy Graham came to Cambridge for a mission which was an overwhelming and tumultuous success.

All Souls Church, London (1958-59)

After leaving Cambridge in mid 1958 I taught in London for six months and while there attended All Souls Church, Langham Place, where John was Rector. It was such a privilege to go Sunday after Sunday to All Souls and especially every third Sunday, when the evening service was always evangelistic, to take uncommitted friends and see a number of them come to Christ, not least my sister Olave who had a thumping good conversion in one of the guest services with John preaching.

I also noted at that time very specifically the extremely thorough follow-up and nurture programmes in place at All Souls to ground and confirm in the faith over a 10-week period all those who came to Christ in the guest services. My sister was one such person thus nurtured and she has flown higher than a kite for the Lord ever since.

This thoroughness, under John’s guidance, of the All Soul’s follow-up system committed me early in the day to trying to ensure that in my own ministry in African Enterprise, follow-up would have the vital place it deserved. Sadly our efforts have not really matched up to John’s, though we try.

I think it was also during the six months of teaching in London that I first discussed with John my vision for a work of evangelism in Africa and received his encouragement.

Fuller Seminary, the founding of African Enterprise, and John’s visit to Fuller (1959/64)

During the summer vacation of 1961 as AE was being birthed, my friend Ed Gregory and I stopped in London en route to Africa, and if my memory serves me correctly we saw John and were encouraged by him as we set out on a three month and 50 000 km tour round all the major cities of Africa. For me it was very important, with John already being a Significant Other in my life, to have his blessing on what we were doing.

In the Spring term of 1962, not long before our little fledgeling AE team came out for the first Mission to Maritzburg in August 1962, John Stott came to Fuller Seminary. There John delivered a brilliant series of lectures on Preaching entitled The Preacher’s Portrait which became completely formative and determinative in AE’s philosophy and understanding of biblical preaching. (Incidentally, any preachers or ministers out there who have not read The Preacher’s Portrait, do yourself a favour, stand yourself a treat and by hook or by crook or by Amazon.com secure the volume. And you will bless me for this counsel!) John examined five New Testament Greek words describing the preacher. These were the preacher as (i) Steward (ii) Herald (iii) Witness (iv) Father (v) Servant. The two which most deeply impacted me were the preacher as herald (keryx), preaching the kerygma as a fixed deposit of truth declared to non Christians, as against all the preacher’s personal views on this or that, and secondly the preacher as steward (oikonomos). Said John: “The stewardship metaphor (1 Corinthians 4:1-2) indicates the content of the preacher’s message. Indeed, if the stewardship metaphor teaches anything, it teaches that the preacher does not supply his own message; he is supplied with it. If the steward is not expected to feed the household out of his own pocket, the preacher is not to provide his own message by his own ingenuity….Thus if we are good stewards, we shall not presume to tamper with God’s Word (2 Corinthians 4:2).” That’s why “it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). 

These two concepts have been foundational for me in my own preaching and for many others in AE, not to mention all those students at Fuller and many others who have read the volume.

I remember also that while John was in Pasadena for the Fuller Seminary series, he was also invited to do a couple of evangelistic services at the famous Lake Avenue Congregational Church, one of the most significant congregations in USA. I remember John preaching his heart out and then giving an evangelistic appeal to which only two or three people responded. I chatted with John the next day and asked if he was disappointed with the response the previous evening. I will never forget his reply: “You know, Michael, when one preaches the Gospel evangelistically, and calls for a response, one has to be ready to be a fool for Christ’s sake, and be thought a failure, and to stand there without embarrassment even if the response is minimal. We are called to be faithful in proclamation rather than successful in producing results.” That was another key lesson for many of us.

It was also at this time that John introduced me to the Robert Murray M’Cheyne Bible reading system to which he himself had been introduced by Martin Lloyd Jones. The system, available incidentally from AE, has one start out the year at the four great beginnings of scripture of Genesis 1 (the beginning of Everything), Ezra 1 (the beginning of restoration after the Exile), Matthew 1 (the beginning of the Gospel), and Acts 1 (the beginning of the Church). Reading four chapters a day, it takes one through the Old Testament once a year and the New Testament and Psalms twice a year. That system I have used from mid-1962 till now, some 50 years, and we have shared it with people all over Africa and even in other parts of the world. I commend it in all of my Barnabas groups. Write me if you would like a copy. But I must say I can never adequately bless John for this introduction to M’Cheyne whose system has blessed me and many others over these last five decades.

World Congress on Evangelism, Berlin, 1966

In 1966 Billy Graham called the first of the great international world congresses on evangelism. It was held in Berlin. Billy Graham, John Stott, Francis Schaeffer, Festo Kivengere, and even King Haile Selassie of Ethiopia were among the speakers. My assignment in one of the sub-sections of the Congress was Political Nationalism as an Obstacle to Evangelism. I spoke of how both white and black nationalisms obstruct the Gospel, with specific reference to the white nationalism of South Africa so prevalent at the time. The two South African Dutch Reformed delegates there who had seen a précis of my paper, came to me beforehand and demanded that I not deliver it saying that it would mark me as a traitor to South Africa and I would be reported on as such if I proceeded. Of course I could not accede to such a request. Anyway, following my delivery, these two brethren got to their feet in outrage and demanded the Congress expunge my paper from the record. This produced an uproar which further intensified thereafter when these brethren went to the world media to have me cast to outer darkness. While the whole Congress rallied to my side, the South African delegation was rent asunder with the blacks supportive and the whites either muted or opposed. The great American theologian Carl Henry came up to me and said with a chuckle: “We knew you had problems in South Africa, but we never knew the half of it.” But what I most particularly remember in that whole episode was John Stott coming to me in a wonderfully pastoral mode, almost as a Paul to a Timothy, and putting his arm round my probably drooping shoulders as we walked to the exit of the hall and saying: “Michael, perhaps there are some people in life and ministry whose support you should NOT have.”

It was a vital and critically important word to my spirit as we were just getting going in the early years of our ministry. John was underlining the importance of standing on principle and not seeking to please everyone. People-pleasing and prophetic utterance could not walk together, John was saying. I was not to temper my utterances to satisfy the prejudices of white South Africa. Take your stand and let the chips fall where they will. This counsel meant much to me and to our work as we moved forward in seeking to be courageous proclaimers of the Gospel midst the ongoing convulsions and injustices of apartheid South Africa.

Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation, 1974

Though in touch with John in the years following Berlin 66, nevertheless the next high-point international memory was seeing him at work and connecting to him during what could arguably have been his major contribution to the twentieth/twenty first century church of Christ, namely his drafting, honing and finalising of the celebrated Lausanne Covenant. Several thousand delegates were there from 150 countries in what Time magazine described as “possibly the widest ranging meeting of Christians ever held.” Half the speakers and participants were from the developing world and this brought in a strong emphasis on the socio-political and horizontal dimensions of the Gospel, along with the challenges of faithfully proclaiming the personal Gospel of salvation giving one a right vertical relationship with God. John’s great challenge to the Congress was to recognise that Christ’s commission to “go and make disciples” doesn’t stand alone, and as Christians we are called to serve our neighbour. “In the servant role”, he told the Congress, “We find the right synthesis of evangelism and social action. The Great Commission (go and make disciples) neither explains, nor exhausts, let alone supersedes the Great Commandment (love your neighbour). If we truly love our neighbour we shall without doubt tell him the Good News of Jesus. But equally if we truly love our neighbour we shall not stop there…. Love expresses itself in service wherever it sees need.” John worked on three drafts of the Covenant during the assembly and worked through two whole nights without sleep to revise the draft in the light of 3 000 replies. I remember chatting with him briefly about two of my own suggestions, one of which made it into the Covenant and the other which did not!

For us in AE the Lausanne Covenant was strongly affirmative of the position we had adopted in our ministry from the start, namely that evangelism and social concern or socio-political witness belonged together. They were like the two wings of a bird. Post ’74 the Covenant, as mentioned, became our constutionally enshrined statement of faith.

Mexico City, 1975

The Lausanne Congress, having decided against any “massive new structure” for follow-up of the Congress, then established what they called “The Lausanne Continuation Committee for World Evangelisation” made up of a cluster of leaders from around the world. I had the privilege of being part of this and our first such follow-up meeting was in January 1975 in Mexico City. As evangelicals had often been weak on the socio-political dimensions of the Gospel, it was not surprising in the months following Lausanne that there was much debate which resolved out into whether people supported a “narrow” or a “broad” understanding of the Gospel. There was also a strong debate as to whether evangelism had a primacy over socio-political concern or a parity with it. Sadly in the Mexico City follow-up meetings the debate issued in quite a strong altercation and collision between Billy and John. It all got pretty tense. Billy was strongly advocating evangelistic primacy, though not denying the importance of social concern, while John advocated a much stronger holding of the two together in balance. But a wonderful spirit of humility and grace from Billy combined with the overflow of a magnificent Bible study by John on John 17  brought us through when we could have blown apart. While Billy was not advocating an either/or on this issue, nevertheless John affirmed strongly in the committee that “if we go back now, and concentrate exclusively on evangelism, it will not be an implementation of the Covenant but a betrayal of it.” Watching these two giants interact was a lesson for me in the dynamics and display of both grace and strength in theological debate. For us younger leaders this whole episode, which rates no less than four pages in the new biography on John by Roger Steer, was both instructive and determinative in how we would proceed in facing assorted issues of theological challenge.

Advisor at the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Nairobi, 1975

While John had been invited to be an advisor to this Assembly, I was just a ‘lil ‘ole attendant. While, yes, John was an advisor, I am not quite sure how much advice he got to give! There were of course big shot speakers and ecclesiastical leaders from all over Planet Earth. Some were quite interesting, others incomprehensible, and a few plain objectionable to my eyes, theologically I mean! John and I had some good personal connection time and I prayed much for him when his big moment came to address the assembly for 10 minutes, if you please! Thanks a lot, guys, for that significant time for evangelical input!! John could not afford to be discursive and went straight to the point, saying as Roger Steer, his new biographer, summarises, that “he believed the WCC needed to recover the doctrine of humanity’s lostness (over against the popular universalism of the day), confidence in the truth, relevance and power of the biblical Gospel (without which evangelism is impossible), the uniqueness of Jesus Christ (over against all syncretism), the urgency of evangelism (alongside the urgent demands of social justice), and a personal experience of Jesus Christ (without which we cannot introduce others to him).” To my inevitably of course biased eyes, John’s statement was a classic of simplicity and biblical clarity. But as he got back to his seat a WCC Swedish theologian from Harvard leaned over to John and said to him: “I didn’t agree with one word you said!” Such remarks bring home to one that out there in the ecclesiastical firmament there is indeed what the Apostle Paul in Galatians called ‘a different gospel’ (Galatians 1:6)”, “a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you” (Galatians 1:8). I remember chatting with John after his presentation and found him discouraged and a bit depressed. He felt he had not done well although to me he had done brilliantly. But of course a lot of things we were hearing ran very contrary to both his and my lines of thinking and that was sort of discouraging. Anyway, we got a photo together to remind us of a powerful moment we had shared.

PACLA 1 (Pan African Christian Leadership Assembly), Nairobi, December 1976

Exactly a year later we had the PACLA conference which AE had initiated, drawing Christian leaders from 49 out of 51 African countries. As Programme Chairman of that event, you can be sure I invited John to be with us and gave him a lot more than 10 minutes!

With the perspective of being one year on from the WCC experience the previous December, John was wise, I thought, and gracious in commenting on the ecumenical and evangelical constituencies respectively, and observing that “generalisations about these two constituencies are difficult, not only because many evangelicals are ecumenical, and many ecumenicals evangelical, but because of the wide spectrum of opinions in both camps. However, if generalisations are to be made, it is probably so, said John, “that evangelical attitudes to the ecumenical movement in general and to the World Council of Churches in particular, varied from uncritical enthusiasm – the WCC can do nothing wrong – to equally uncritical condemnation – the WCC can do nothing right. Evangelical attitudes thus vary from total commitment to total rejection. In my humble view both of these are extreme positions. They lack spiritual discernment and are not worthy of evangelical Christians.” In so far as WCC professes “faith in the Holy Trinity, professing Christians, however much they may disagree with some of the WCC positions, cannot just ignore those who are in the ecumenical movement. Anybody who professes Jesus Christ as God and Saviour (as WCC does) has a right to be accepted as a Christian, however much in our eyes they may err in some of their beliefs. Those who confess Christ should certainly be able to talk to one another and engage in some kind of common action, especially in things such as Christian aid, even if we find it difficult to evangelise together.” John did however note that it was “probably not unfair to be critical from an evangelical perspective of the fact that WCC’s highly inclusive nature does risk giving the impression that absolute or normative truth does not exist, but that all truth is cultural, relative, or existential and that different theological positions are equally valid aspects of truth.” But he admired the concern of WCC to seek visible unity in the Body of Christ worldwide. So, then, “we ought indeed to seek the visible unity of the churches, but this is not to be done at the expense of revealed truth.”

Many amazing speakers from around Africa also took this kind of line so that PACLA came forth aiming to “hold and speak the truth in love, in holiness, and in mission.” Thus was PACLA able to be quite a healing movement all across Africa, and John’s contribution to this was certainly not inconsequential. That mix of clear and strong biblical commitment along with Christian graciousness came through John and others into the bloodstream of the African church.

Bermuda 1978 and Lausanne Continuation Committee

Now to early ’78 where the Lausanne Continuation Committee was again meeting, this time in Bermuda.

I was privileged in being invited to do the devotions for the first morning of our committee get-together. I was somewhat, I must admit, in a state of trembling because I felt the Lord had led me to share my spiritual testimony of a new experience of the Holy Spirit, a Charismatic experience one might say, through the famous Renewal Conference at Milner Park in Johannesburg in late 1977. It was “baptism in the Spirit”, said David Pawson to me later, while others said: “You experienced not a baptism but a new infilling of the Spirit.” In my book Bursting the Wineskins I told the story of this experience in a chapter I called “A Second Touch”, thus avoiding the semantics and controversial vocabulary which divided classical evangelicals and classical Pentecostals/Charismatics. But of the fact that I had had a Second Touch, or whatever one might appropriately call it theologically, I was in no doubt in my own mind. This included being awake the whole night of the experience praising and rejoicing in the Lord, and, tell it not in Gath, speaking in tongues!!

John had been extremely leery of the Charismatic Movement and had found himself in tension and finally separation from one of his All Souls curates, Michael Harper, who had claimed and professed such an experience. Lausanne, of course, found itself on the conservative, hyper-cautious and mildly critical end of this debate. But now the Lord was asking me right in the midst of the Lausanne Movement’s luminaries to share my testimony of a so-called “Charismatic experience.” Lots of fears about a so-called “two stager” understanding of Christian experience. What I remember however is that John just beamed at me afterwards with a sort of seraphic and quizzical smile as if to say: “You risk becoming a theologically naughty boy but I still love you, and I can see the Lord has done something new in you!” Beyond John, the rest of the Lausanne leadership received my testimony equally warmly, while the celebrated Peter Wagner of Fuller Seminary, the scholar of signs and wonders, was positively ecstatic! And he even wrote a great commendation for the USA edition of my book.

Later on after I had written Wineskins on my personal quest in the area of Person and work of the Holy Spirit, I shared how the Lord had led me miraculously to propose and get married to Carol on the basis of “a word of knowledge” as well as “a word of prophecy.” The whole thing had been thoroughly miraculous. When I asked John to write a commendation for that book, he concluded I had not strayed too far theologically and wrote a masterly statement of theological tightrope-walking so that he offended neither the David Watsons and Michael Greens of this world nor the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia!! Then he added when we were face to face: “If I had had such a miraculous experience of guidance as you, Michael, had with Carol, even I might have got married!” Now that would have been something!

We bring John to South Africa, August 1988

Time and space constraints require me now to fast forward substantially to August 1988 when AE had the privilege of bringing John to South Africa for a two week ministry tour. Only his second visit to the country, I think. This was a very special and high-point memory for all of us, myself particularly. First of all, John with his great birding passion coveted before any of the public ministry a time away bird watching. So with AE Board members Ken Burns and his wife Sarah, as well as David and Patti Geerdts, along with Judge Mark and Anne Kumleben, we went up to the magical Northern Natal reserves of Ndumu and Mkuze. John’s encyclopaedic knowledge of birds of course was legendary and the others in our party were no birding slouches either. For myself I felt the best policy, though I do love birds, was to remain silent and be thought a fool rather than to open my mouth and remove all doubt. Patti Geerdts and I periodically had to revert secretly in our identifying endeavours to “it’s another LBJ!” (Little Brown Job). 

What I particularly remember was one evening when John had taken up his position in a hide on the edge of a little lake and in one view and a single frame down his binoculars he had a Purple Gallinule, a Black Crake, a Spur-Winged Goose, an African Jacana, and, if I remember rightly, a Blacksmith Plover! John had never before seen such a concentration of birds in one telescopic frame of his bino’s and his birding ecstasies soared over the moon, or wherever birding ecstasies soar! In the evenings we had wonderful fellowship and Bible studies around the fire with John each evening doing a Bible study on one or other of the many birds mentioned in the Bible. He called this Orni-theology! Oh, it was fun, and how we laughed! And how we all learned from our multi-talented friend. Do get his charming book The Birds Our Teachers. Lovely photos too.

As he and I travelled the country with John doing the lion’s share of all the ministry, and me doing a little contextual analysis of South Africa each time, we found people everywhere hanging on every word he said. His reputation had surely gone before him. But something I especially remember, and it says much about John, is that whenever I rose about 5.00 am to answer a call of nature, John had already answered a call of grace and his light was on and he was already having his devotions. Having known and seen as I travelled with him how he prayed and prepared, I was able to understand during the day why his ministry was so effective, lucid, powerful and penetrating. I also saw his discipline in having his daily HHH (i.e. Horizontal Half Hour). These disciplines of devotion, preparation, prayer and rest challenged me profoundly. And his answers, in the question time, and sometimes to very difficult and complex questions, were stunning, biblically precise and spot on. In AE we published a book of his addresses entitled The Lordship of Christ in South Africa Today. We could probably still locate some copies for anyone out there who wanted to order one from us. I would say that travelling with John in ministry for those few days was one of the high-point privileges of my life.

Au Revoir, John

In mid 2009 my sister Olave Snelling and I went down from London to the country where John was located in an old age home. He was very frail. We reflected on so much over the years, including Mexico City in 1975 and the painful collision with Billy. “I remember your tears”, he said. Olave and I thanked him for all he’d meant to us, including her conversion under his ministry. I also brought him news of the upcoming third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation set for Cape Town the following year. (Amazingly, he and Billy were still alive to be its patrons with each bringing a pre-recorded message). Then we prayed. Embraced. And said “Au Revoir till Glory.” I knew I would never see him alive again.

Conclusion

I must stop! But I hope these reflections have blessed you and allowed John’s life to inspire you. As liberal theologian David Edwards, who combined with John on a fascinating and stunning book entitled Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue, put it, “apart from William Temple, John Stott is/was the most influential clergyman in the Church of England during the 20th century.” Added Edwards: “He invited people to think, not merely to tremble or glow!” Time magazine listed him as “One of the hundred most influential people in the world.” Billy Graham once put it this way: “John Stott is the most respected evangelical clergyman in the world today, and has been a standard, or role model for thousands of clergy.” The Archbishop of Sydney recently described him as “a Prince in the land.” George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, described John as: “One of the greatest Christian leaders of the 20th Century.”

So as I close out this tribute to an exceedingly special friend, guide and mentor to me personally and to AE more generally, as to multitude of others, I give thanks to God for the privilege of having known and loved a Christian brother of genuine greatness whose voice has “gone out into all the earth” and whose faithfulness to Christ, to the Bible as the Word of God, to the proclamation of the Gospel, and to the thorough discipling of new believers will forever remain for me, until I too go to the Lord, a major inspiration and blessing in my life. Thank you, dear John, for all you have been, all you still are and all you will still do through what you have accomplished in your journey on Earth.

God bless you all, dear friends, receiving this communication. I appreciate you all so much.

With much love in Christ from both Carol and me,

Michael

Michael Cassidy is the founder of African Enterprise, an inter-racial, inter-denominational evangelistic global-partnership organization in South Africa whose mission is to Evangelize the Cities of Africa through Word and Deed in Partnership with the Church.