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The history of Christ for all Nations 

 

A blood-washed Africa – a continent washed in the blood of Jesus Christ – that was the vision that God gave Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke more than 30 years ago. Since that day he has been filled with a burning commitment to win Africa for Jesus Christ. “Whether I am eating or drinking, awake or asleep, the vision is ever-present, it never leaves me,” he admits openly.

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(as per 04 september 2009)

How it began 
Reinhard Bonnke spent his first eight years on the mission field doing typical mission work in the small independent mountain kingdom of Lesotho. He built a church in the capital, Maseru, and set up a Bible correspondence course which took the gospel to many thousands of people in Lesotho and other parts of Africa. Yet he longed for more.

That profound longing was intensified by a vision that he had in 1972. For several nights in succession the missionary saw a picture of the continent of Africa washed clean in the blood of Jesus. At the same time he heard the voice of the Holy Spirit in his heart whispering over and over again, “Africa shall be saved!” This experience affected him so much that from then on he had only one aim – to spread the gospel throughout Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo.

Specific divine leading launched Reinhard Bonnke out on major evangelistic meetings, which gradually became more and more successful. Yet there was one problem which preoccupied him. The evangelistic meetings were often hampered by the bad African weather. For a while he used a small tent which provided shelter for around 800 people, but that tent was soon not big enough for the vast numbers of people who wanted to attend the meetings. The Evangelist’s heart ached to see disabled people sitting helpless in wheelchairs as heavy downpours of rain soaked them to the skin or others listening to the proclamation of the gospel in freezing cold weather. Something had to be done! He needed a larger tent!
 
The "large tent"
In 1978, after much prayer and many years of hard work, Reinhard Bonnke and his team were finally able to dedicate a new tent with seats for approximately 10,000 people. However, soon that tent also became too small for the masses that flocked to the meetings. In the course of 1978 and 1979 it became increasingly obvious that an even larger tent was needed. While the 10,000-person tent was continuously in use in various African countries, work began on building a new, far bigger tent. The “largest tent in the world”, according to the entry in the Guinness Book of Records, was dedicated for the work of the Lord on 18 February 1984. It is seven storeys high and has room for up to 34,000 people.

The evangelistic ministry of Christ for all Nations has since grown far beyond that huge vision of a tent ministry. The large tent is now being used by other mission organisations in Africa for the purpose of evangelising that continent.