Following God's Voice Across the World
Charles Leonard was born in 1960 in Haiti.
In 1982 he finished his high-school and, as he was considering what to study next, heard in his heart God tell him to study the Word of God. His parents were not Christian but vodooists, and refused to support him financially in this endeavor. Leonard still decided to take the entry test of the Nazarene Bible school in Haiti, and passed it successfully. Later, he came to speak to the president of this Bible school, Dr. Jeanine Van Beek, explaining to her that although he did pass the test, he was lacking the finances to pay for the semester costs. She then, with tears in the eyes, felt that one day the Lord would send him to Africa and that she could find a way to help him. Indeed, she helped him to become the assistant of one of the teachers, and Leonard entered and completed the Bible school in 1986.
After his studies, Leonard helped plant a church in Haiti, and this church is still doing well today. He was ordained in the Church of the Nazarene as an elder in 1989 by Dr. William Greathouse.
Leonard met his future wife, Micheline, also a Haitian but living in New York. They married and went to the United States where she had been studying and then worked for a few years. He received a green card, studied and started a new Nazarene church in Brooklyn, New York.
In 1991, Leonard felt that the Lord spoke to him during the night about him going to minister in Africa. In 1994, a Haitian friend contacted him and shared that as he was praying he felt God was telling him that Leonard should go serve God in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Leonard's wife then had a dream of him speaking with Charles Dumerzier, a missionary friend in Rwanda, and encouraged her husband to speak with him. When Leonard did so, Dumerzier invited him to teach for a few weeks in 1997. Leonard arrived in Rwanda in the beginning of 1997 and ministered in Kigali, Gisenyi, and could also cross the border to the town of Goma in DRC. The border had just opened while he was there (before, the civil war in DRC did not allow this).
This time of ministry was blessed. In Goma, invited by the Nazarene leader Jacques Balibanga, he could go to a hospital and pray with sick people; some persons were healed and people (even doctors) committed their lives to Jesus. He could also teach homiletics and be instrumental in the deliverance of a young woman that was possessed, an event that marked many.
During this trip to Rwanda and Eastern DRC, he sensed that the Lord would want him to go next to the West of DRC. He then planned a trip in Kinshasa (West of DRC) and went for a few weeks, while he was still pastor in Brooklyn, with his wife and five daughters still living in New York.
After these few trips, Leonard was thinking that he had done all what God wanted him to do concerning Africa, and could continue his rather comfortable life in New York.
Then, he felt strongly that the Lord wanted him not only to do a few trips but wanted him to move and live in Kinshasa. This was something that seemed crazy to Leonard as well as to his whole family, and he battled against this direction. This meant for them that they would forfeit the financial security and confortable life that he and his wife worked so hard to establish.
Yet, sensing the clear direction from the God he loved, confirmed in prayer by his wife Micheline, he took the steps to move to Kinshasa in 2008. The Lord opened the door for him to receive a 5 year residency permit without paying a single dollar, and allowed him to establish a good contact with the Nazarene district superintendent in Kinshasa, Rev. Hermenegilde Matungulu.
By faith, their family arrived in 2008 in Kinshasa, seeing confirmations of God's direction through surprising conversions, healings and divine appointments. Since then, they started a children church in one of the humble quarters of Kinshasa, and up to today God has sustained them faithfully.
It was a joy for me, with my colleague Gavin Fothergill, to meet with Leonard and Micheline today, and hear from them their story of God's faithful guidance and provision, leading them to be missionaries in Kinshasa, DRC. I mentioned only a few of the many ways God's voice has guided this couple to this beautiful yet very challenging place.
Please pray with me for this gracious and faithful couple, as they minister to hundreds of children in Kinshasa, and continue to follow God's guidance to show His love and shine of His grace.
Your brother in the Living Messiah
Stephane
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