Lucky Shabangu of South Africa attended the Haggai Leader Experience (HLE) three years ago, but his passion for sharing the Gospel predates his earliest childhood memories.

“As my mother relates the story, at five years of age during the evening family prayer sessions, I was able to read the scripture and explain it like a mature person … At the age of ten or twelve, my Sunday school teacher was late for class, and I apparently took over and started teaching the fellow kids in church. When the teacher finally came and saw me teaching, he hid behind the door and listened to me until I finished preaching.”

This passion for sharing the Good News followed Lucky through his college years at the University of Johannesburg, where he was instrumental in inspiring a revival on his college campus. Like many Haggai leaders, Lucky is bi-vocational. He works in the marketplace as a civil engineer while also pastoring a church. And while Lucky’s focus has always been on Kingdom work, he realized the demanding role of pastoring a church had pulled his focus from his first passion: sharing the Gospel with the unreached.

“I realized that after I became an official pastor of a church, I relaxed on advancing the Gospel and gave my focus to building the church.”

In 2018, however, Lucky attended the HLE, and the passion that motivated him as a young boy was reignited.

“As soon as I arrived back in my country, I drafted a program of Gospel-sharing campaigns that included evangelism workshops. Two things were very clear to me: reach non-Christians, and equip Christians to become leaders. I was ready to pay any cost to ensure that the Gospel reached people.”

Lucky’s campaigns strategically focused on students in schools and merchants serving in urban marketplaces. For underprivileged students, Lucky’s ministry provides free uniforms to start the school year, and this ministry has created unique opportunities to build relationships in local schools.

“I knew this would open a door to preach the gospel to thousands of learners in different schools. Fortunately, I would also have the opportunity to speak to the school’s management and the parents of all the learners that benefitted from the school outreach program.”

For local merchants, he began preaching and organizing Gospel events in high-traffic business districts.

“We would do one-on-one outreach and open-air preaching. This would allow us to reach out to people that never have an opportunity to attend church because they are forever on the streets and shops selling for a living.”

Before the pandemic, Lucky and his team set a goal of sharing the Gospel with 100K people. Though lockdown restrictions have created challenges in reaching this goal, Lucky and his team have reached more than 21,400 with the Gospel and equipped nearly 2,000. And Lucky considers this work to be the greatest privilege of his life:

“The HLE brought a complete change in my life. I can confidently say that I am now doing and have given my life to the work of reaching those in Gospel poverty. Although I knew the significance of evangelism, the HLE ignited a flame in my heart, and I will not let it die … I believe the greatest call any believer can ever have is to leave everything behind and pursue to preach the Gospel.”