African Enterprise is a Christian organization that has been working in Africa for nearly 60 years, with a focus on evangelism, youth empowerment, and community development. Today on The Evangelism Podcast, Zweli Sokhela, an evangelist from South Africa, shared his personal testimony of how he came to know Jesus and became involved with African Enterprise’s Foxfire program, which trains and empowers young people to share the gospel through various creative means such as music, drama, and storytelling.
Learn more about African Enterprise: https://africanenterprise.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Zweli Sokhela from South Africa.
(00:14):
Wonderful. And you are with African Enterprise is, which is working in many countries all over Africa, doing a phenomenal job telling people about Jesus. And I really like your t-shirt. It says, this is what an evangelist looks like. And so if you want to know what an evangelist looks like, this is the evangelist, the handsome South African evangelist. So let’s talk a little bit about African enterprise. Tell me about what African enterprise does and what the mission is.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (00:47):
Okay. So African enterprise is set up to do evangelism throughout Africa. We currently have 12 offices in Africa. Our main focus is going through different cities of Africa, preaching the gospel, proclaiming the good news that there is Jesus. And we have different pillars that we focus on, which is youth empowerment. That’s where Foxfire is. And then we have woman empowerment, which is more on the community development part of it. And then we also focus on developing leaders. We do believe that an empowered church can bring changed lives. So that’s why our mission is to evangelize the cities of Africa through word and deed, which where the community development comes in. And then also proclaiming the word to all the cities that we normally go and to missions.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:50):
And for how many years has African enterprise been working here in Africa?
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (01:55):
It’s almost 60 years now because it started in 1961 where Dr. Michael Cassidy had this burden to, I would say God gave him the vision to reach Africa through the gospel. And it’s all started in South Africa in Peter Mabe where he, after when he was at university, but then God gave him the call, then he had to go to South Africa to sort of scout to the land. And that’s how it started. The first mission.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:26):
And let’s talk about your testimony and how you joined African Enterprise. Tell me what have you seen God been doing in your life? How did you come to know Jesus and then how did you become an evangelist?
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (02:41):
Yeah, it’s not something that I would’ve chosen, but growing up in a non-Christian family, the reason I’m saying non-Christian, because I grew up going to church, but believe me, if I say there was nothing that was changing about my life
(03:01):
As much as I go in and out every Sunday, which I’m grateful to mom who will take us to church because I think the idea of God started then. But I realized that as I was growing up, I started to, when I was in high school, for me it was more questioning what is this life about? Because as a young person, a black African young person, a male in South Africa, I faced many challenges, even family wise where my dad is always away working to make sure that we are supported as a family. But as a man growing up, I needed him to be present, but most of the time he needed to be away from home so that he’s able to support his family. So then that’s way for me, I started questioning what is life about? And through questioning that, I had an encounter with women who were coming to our house to share the gospel. Obviously you don’t pay attention, you’re a church goer. They’re talking about prayer about the word of God. But something that intrigued me was when they said there is a Holy Spirit who is a person that lives inside you. For me, that was the first time hearing that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:19):
Then
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (04:19):
I pause a bit, then they invited me to their church, which I attended. And then the teachings were quite interesting because my other church was not doing as much teaching, but the preaching was happening. So then they also invited me for a Sunday where there was going to be a special Sunday, there was an evangelist from Texas. And I was like, okay, someone from overseas coming to preach preaching in English, I’m Zulu. Then I don’t think I was able to even speak words in English, but then I attended the church. So while he was preaching, there was something that happened while he was speaking where God gave me a picture of how my heart looks like without him and how my heart can look like with him. And I didn’t like what I saw about my life because I used to drink. I’ll sleep around at some point.
(05:18):
I used to fight with the gangs in the community and all of that. I don’t think my dad was even away until I received Christ. And I was able to talk about the things that I was suffering inside to say, this is what I’ve been going through in your absent, even though you were present in my life. So at that moment, I found myself in front at the call and that when I gave my life to Christ, and that’s how my journey started after high school, I didn’t have funds to go and study, decided to take a gap year, and that gap year led to the evangelists that you see today.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:59):
Wow, wonderful. And so in African enterprise you lead one area called Firefox Fire, Fox Fire. Fox Fire. Sorry, I got to get it right, Fox Fire. So explain to me what is Fox Fire and what do you do?
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (06:19):
Okay, so then as I mentioned that I left school, I did a gap year, which I work in a ministry. So part of my work was doing afterschool support with young people. And that developed an understanding that this is what was lacking in my life. To have somebody that will take time to care for me, to develop me. And as I was doing that, something just spiked inside me to say, you know what? There’s a gap in our youth ministry. And that led into more of the studies I did because the organization where I did a gap here, I ended up staying until for about 13 years working for one organization. But they helped me to develop, to prepare myself for the season I’m in now, where African Enterprise was looking for somebody to lead the Foxfire program, which then I applied, they gave me the opportunity.
(07:25):
Foxfire is a youth empowerment program where we disciple young people for about one year and then they will graduate. So they come from when they finish diametric, which is grade 12, or you finish your university and you want to take a gap before you go and be employed. So we do a two month training with them before we go around South Africa and outside South Africa where we share the gospel, be. We share our life stories, how God have helped us, but we also visit schools where we do life skills. We have found out that especially with us in South Africa, a lot of young people will get a hundred percent in their life skills, but that is more like a subject. But what we bring is how do you apply those life skills in your life so that there’s change, which we are seeing immediate change from that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:24):
And so right now we are in Zimbabwe. Beautiful. We’re here for the Zimbabwe Festival in Guru, and it’s been really wonderful to see what God has done. And you brought a team of young people with Fox Fire here to Zimbabwe and they’ve been ministering all week long. How many young people did you bring?
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (08:49):
So there is five here,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:51):
But
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (08:51):
We have six and team currently.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:53):
Okay. And they’ve been going around and ministering. I’ve been very impressed with them. Today we did a children’s festival. And so one of the young ladies who’s with your team, she shared her testimony and just really a horrible upbringing, very difficult. But then using that to show how Jesus has changed your life is really powerful. And so what type of impact have you seen in the lives of young people who have been a part of Fox
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (09:29):
Fire? Sure. So the one I will highlight is for them to have a safe space to be themselves because in most cases they’ll have to perform to be approved by their peers. But what we have teach them is how to discover who you are in God so that you don’t get approval from anyone else, but you get it from God. Our program has four pillars that is drawn from the book of Luke chapter two, verse 52, where Jesus grew in wisdom, in favor with God and men. So from those four pillars, we can see that there’s a holistic approach in terms of how we nature our young people. So the moment we help them to create a space where they can be adventurous and they can discover themselves, but also on the training that I mentioned for two months, where we help them understand what missions look like, where they can open scriptures, where they can see God in their story, that the pain that you’ve been through is not a waste, but God was preparing you for a season like this. Because when people hear your story, something changed. People that are going through the same thing, people are changed by that. But also we helping them to discover the world outside them, which is why we are here in Zimbabwe. We are using music. The moment you play music, everyone can connect, everyone dance, even if you don’t speak the same,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:07):
The music is fun. Everyone starts dancing and the Foxfire team does some great dances. And then I saw you’re also using drama.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (11:16):
We do. We do. And that’s a way of portraying the message without speaking and people can see it. And most of our dramas, what we have found is that the moment you played on stage, people can identify themselves, but through the play, what we are bringing is how can God help you in the space where you are in? It doesn’t matter where you are at, God is able to reach you from where you are and bring light in your situation, which is why we are using the dramas and the music.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:51):
We’re here in Zimbabwe with Desmond Henry, who’s with the global network of evangelists. And one of the things that Desmond said the other day I thought was so good, he said, young people are not the future of the church. They are the church of today. That
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (12:06):
Is so cool.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:06):
And it’s true when you think about the church, young people need to have opportunities to minister, to use their gifts for God to make a difference for the kingdom of God. And I think that the ministry that you’re doing is so vital to helping young people have an opportunity to use their talents and skills for
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (12:31):
Jesus. Sure. No, definitely. I used to say the future of our country depends on the quality of the young people that we develop. So if we as a church can take time to look at our young people differently to say they are not the future, but they are now church, then we can start to invest properly in terms of developing them and also creating opportunities, which is what we are seeing even because it’s their first time to be in a festival. It’s another way also that is helping them to develop to say, okay, there are different ways to preach the gospel as you’ll know that G and E will say it’s one message, but different expressions.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:19):
Yeah. It’s so neat to hear that you are Zulu. I had the opportunity several years ago to do a crusade with some of the Zulu people. We were there at the invitation of the King of the Zulus, and we set up a tent and filled it every day full of people. And I remember we wanted to feed everyone, so we brought three cows live and they butchered the cows. And by after lunch there was nothing left of the cow. I mean, everything was eaten. We had several thousand people there, and every single piece of the cow was eaten. Sure. That’s amazing. But it was so neat learning about the Zulu culture. You have a very proud people, very warrior-like people, but it’s neat that you can take your warrior spirit and do big things for
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (14:18):
Jesus. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:19):
Fight the devil.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (14:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the kingdom has space for everyone. But as you say, because I mean as Zulus, sometimes we hold on to who we are and what we know, but what we sometimes forget is that who we are is who he created us to be in our differences then how do we come together as a family or as a community so that when God looks at us, it’s like, oh, my beautiful children. But sometimes we zulus are very good looking.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:59):
They’re very beautiful people. Creation of God.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (15:03):
Amen. I’ll check that as a country. Yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:06):
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. I really appreciate it.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (15:12):
No, thank you so much for having me. And it was amazing to meet you and the message that you’ve been also preaching has really been powerful and we thank God for people like you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:22):
If someone wants to help to support Firefox or to help African enterprise, what would be a good website that they could go to find out more information about what you do?
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (15:36):
Okay, so we do have a website. You just type African Enterprise, but on the website because an international website. So then they will find all the different countries that are part of the website. But our office is South Africa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:54):
Wonderful.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (15:55):
And all the details and everything is in
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:57):
Well. I so love what African Enterprise is doing and the impact that you’re having all over Africa. It’s really wonderful.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (16:04):
Thank you so much.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:05):
Thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Zweli Sokhela – African Enterprise (16:07):
Bless you. Thank you.
