Back To The Garden Conference: ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’

American preacher and poet Jacky Hill Perry encouraged believers to hold on to the hope in God.

For the better part of Friday, I was in bed owing to my being under the weather.

Fever, fatigue and toothache combined well to floor me and confine me to an empty bed as I am a sole user. Nothing reminds one of the gravity of their singleness than an ailment. I had resigned myself to napping, reading, eating and back to napping when a friend of coerced me to attend the biggest Christian event of the weekend – Back To The Garden at Rhema Bible Church in Johannesburg.

We hit the N1 south headed to Randburg, where the quintessential Jacky Hill Perry, fiery apostle Kabelo Moroke, oil-dripping worshipper Oncemore Six, dynamic expositor Israel Phiri, trendsetting pastor Koketso Malaolwe and others, were set to light up the scene with worship and the word at a conference hosted by emerging minister Tiisetso Kgomo. I must confess, it was not a case of “I was glad when they said to me let’s go to the house of the Lord”. The thing is my friend had sponsored a ticket for yourstruly and it was my ride responsible for transporting us to Promised Land, where hopefully we were to get back what the devil stole or walk into our moment of destiny.  

My friend went in first as I had to steal a few minutes of nap. As I made my way to the auditorium, I was greeted (with hugs) by a few familiar faces since the host and majority of attendees were from my church circle. I cut a lonely figure inside the auditorium and beamed with pride as the proceedings unfolded.

The sight of Kabelo Moroke, one of South Africa’s foremost preachers, taking to the platform at Rhema warmed the cockles of my heart. Since the first time I encountered Moroke deducing and dissecting the word with didactical prowess over a decade ago, I believed he was destined for big stages where wider audiences deserved to indulge in what God has instilled and installed in the man from Duduza, Nigel.

Ever so sensitive and attuned to the things of the spirit, Moroke, a prolific apostle adorned with prophetic grace, dealt with the heart of a worshipper as preferred by the Most High.
“Worship is not only demanded, but it is also commanded,” he set the tone as he embellished on the posture and the heart of a worship God deemed acceptable. With fastidiousness and veracity, Moroke urged the congregants to produce word-based worship, which is pleasing to the Lord.
The on-fire congregants were taken to another level with preacher and poet Jacky Hill Perry ascended the pulpit unmasking truth during her sermon aimed at making a case for hope. She was transparent and real.

“For some of us, hope is difficult because of experiences that we’ve had, where our hope was put to shame. I remember I had a conversation with my therapist some years back where I told her that I’m prone to have very low expectations of people. I tend to believe that people will let me down. I tend to believe that people will not do what they say,” intimated Perry, who revealed some of her struggles during her liberating ministration.

“When we refuse hope, it affects our endurance. And do you know what happens when we refuse hope? It not only pushes us into idolatry. It don’t sound that deep. Hope don’t seem that powerful until you realize that the essence of idolatry is in fact hope. It’s just hope that’s misplaced. It’s hope that’s put somewhere else.”

The American author, with several books under her belt, encouraged believers to hold on to the hope in God regardless of their circumstances and situations. 

“Despair did not deliver me from my circumstances, it deepened it. Until I remembered. I remembered that the Psalms and Lamentations and Habakkuk were written by people like me, people who have experienced God, people who have written about God, people who preach about God on days where they don’t even trust Him, people who know Him and have seasons where they don’t actually like Him, where they don’t understand what He is doing or where He is,” she admonished.

At the end of the highly charged sermon, despair disappeared, and an air of hope permeated the environment that led to some receiving Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
On day two of the magnificent conference, my recovering body said: “Andizi!”
It was back to napping, reading, editing, eating, and writing but this time I did so with a renewed hope.