Allister Garth Cousins wasn't satisfied with the Christianity he'd experienced when growing up. So as a 20 year old he consciously started looking for true and genuine Christianity and victory over sin.
An hour's drive from Johannesburg in South Africa lies the industrial town of Vanderbijlpark. Here I meet Allister, and due to the heavy downpour sweeping over the town, we sit down to talk inside. Allister is 26 years old, lives in Johannesburg and works there as a graphic designer in an advertising agency.
“I grew up in a quiet and peaceful area of Johannesburg together with my mother, my father and my brother,” Allister begins carefully.
God, if You are out there somewhere, You must guide my life.
Growing up, Allister regularly attends Sunday school. With his mother as the driving force, he is also a faithful churchgoer in his teens. At the age of 21 he starts attending a non-denominational church. Allister has always been conscious of right and wrong, but now he makes a firm decision to live as a Christian.
“God, if You are out there somewhere, You must guide my life,” is a prayer that grows in his heart.
After high school he feels a desire for a life that is different from what he’s always lived. He understands that life as a Christian demands something more of him and he eventually comes to a natural separation from his old friends.
“Besides, they didn’t want to have much to do with me anymore; I just talked about God all the time,” remembers Allister, with a smile on his mouth and a twinkle in his eyes.
Once he says to one of his friends, “We can’t really say that we’re friends, not real friends. When I’m not around, you do things you wouldn’t do if I was there.”After a little pause, he continues: “We don’t have an open and honest friendship.
Gradually he gets a longing to break with the sin that he knows still binds him. But without faith in Jesus as a forerunner for him, he just doesn’t have the strength. He has no solution, no way out of the things that are weighing down his conscience. In the Bible he reads that those who want to follow Jesus have to take up their cross daily and deny themselves.
“I started feeling like a hypocrite,” he says. “In the Bible I read about how Jesus lived. In my conscience I also knew what was right and wrong, but I just couldn’t live accordingly.”
Allister goes to Bible classes in the church he is attending. He considers becoming a pastor, because isn’t that what you do if you want to live wholly for God? He grabs anything he can in his search for that which can satisfy the longing in his heart.
However, at one stage he is very close to giving up the Christian life altogether—but that is before he meets Arnold. Arnold has joined Brunstad Christian Church several years earlier, and now lives with his family in Cape Town.
Allister starts attending a new non-denominational fellowship, and is invited to participate in a trip to Israel in 2006. His motivation is really low, and he isn’t even sure if he is still a Christian. On the plane someone asks to swap places with him, and he ends up sitting next to Arnold. They start talking, and this conversation proves to be the start of a new life for Allister.
“Those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved…” says Arnold enthusiastically.
“Yes, I’ve heard that before,” thinks Allister to himself.
“…every day!” continues Arnold.
This last comment sets Allister thinking. He looks at the man whom he accidently ended up sitting next to, and asks straight out, “Do you think it’s possible to overcome sin?”
The answer is just as direct and clear as it is simple: “Yes!”
The conversation that follows once again ignites a hope in Allister’s heart that he maybe doesn’t have to continue living as a slave of sin, after all.
While in Israel he can hardly think of anything else than what he heard on the plane trip.
Shortly after he returns home, Arnold contacts him again. He is invited to a working weekend at Brunstad Christian Church in Vanderbijlpark. Here he also experiences something that he doesn’t forget in a hurry. The sight of the group of young people at work and the good atmosphere makes a strong impression. When he talks to different people, they all have one message—the same one he heard on the plane on the way to Israel.
“What made a strong impression that first time was the unity and people who sacrificed themselves for each other,” Allister recounts. “The older brothers could sit down and talk with me. That didn’t happen where I came from, unless you were a friend of the pastor’s,” he says thoughtfully.
“I remember thinking to myself that this must be right. This must be what God wants,” he continues.
He experiences that people are engaged in a personal battle against sin. They aren’t primarily interested in winning as many “members” as possible. These people are interested in a life, and it is this he’s been longing for for so long.
Following that first contact with Brunstad Christian Church, Allister visits the friends on several occasions. He is also invited on a car trip to Cape Town. Everything he sees and experiences works on him. After the meetings people don’t go home so soon. They have a fellowship he hasn’t experienced before.
He remembers the day he visited some of the friends together with someone he knows. His acquaintance understood that these new friends of Allister’s were good people, but he wasn’t convinced.
“If I don’t go to Vanderbijlpark, what’s the next best?” asked his friend.
The answer: “There isn’t anything else—this is what’s right!”
After his first contact with the friends, Allister continues going to the Bible classes he’d been attending for some time. He tries to tell the others about what God is working in his heart, but feels that his own life is lacking something. This becomes a great need for him. He needs help himself.
“At the meetings in Brunstad Christian Church I felt completely exposed. I hardly wanted to be there.” he says.
Nevertheless, he knows that the preaching he hears is the very help he needs so badly. Here he receives help to come into a life of transformation. The word of taking up his cross to follow Jesus is the only word that can satisfy the longing he has been feeling for the last few years.
At home, Allister tells about the help he has received for his own life. Both his mother and brother are strongly affected by what they see and hear, and both come to faith in the same life.
Today, Allister is an active participant in church life, and is deeply thankful for the grace that has come over his life.
Among millions of people, God sees a heart that is seeking the truth.