Heathens Miraculously Prepared
for Christianity

Startling examples from around the world of God working in the lives of heathen peoples and preparing them, often centuries in advance, for the coming of Christianity.

African prophets

The Gedeo were a half-million strong Ethiopian tribe who believed in Magano, the benevolent, omnipotent, Creator of everything. And yet few prayed to Magano. They were far more concerned about trying to appease Sheit’an, an evil spirit. They felt they did not know Magano well enough to be free from this evil spirit. One day, however, a Gedeo man, Warrasa, prayed that Magano reveal himself to the Gedeo people. Then followed a vision in which he saw two white-skinned strangers erect temporary shelters under a certain sycamore tree near Warrasa’s hometown, Dilla. Later they built more permanent shiny-roofed structures. Warrasa had never seen either type of dwelling before. A voice told him that these men would bring a message from Magano. During the next eight years other Gedeo soothsayers prophesied that strangers would soon arrive with a message from Magano. At the end of 1948, missionaries Brunt and Cain planned to set up base far from Dilla but the political climate forced them to decide on Dilla. So two white men erected tents under that very sycamore tree Warrasa had seen in his vision. Events continued to unfold in accordance with the vision. Today there are tens of thousands of Gedeo Christians. (54-56) (Of course, there’s nothing special about being white. It’s just an historical fact that for some people groups it was white people who first brought them the Gospel.) ‘What happened among the Gedeo is by no means an isolated incident,’ writes Don Richardson. ‘Incredible as it seems, literally thousands of Christian missionaries down through history have been startled by exuberant welcome even among some of the earth’s remotest peoples! Folk . . . anticipated the coming of message-bearers for the true God almost as knowledgeably as if they had read about them in the morning news!’ (56) Richardson has documented some of these incidents in a book mentioned below. Bracketed numbers indicate relevant pages from that book.