Out of the Black Shadows

Stephen Lungu was the oldest son of a teenage mother, married to a much older man by her parents, and living in a black township near Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). When Stephen was three his mother could stand it no longer and ran away, leaving him and his younger brother and sister in the reluctant care of an aunt. By the age of eleven Stephen too had run away, preferring life on the streets. To survive, he slept under bridges and scavenged food from white folks' dustbins. As a teenager he was recruited into one of the urban gangs, called the Black Shadows, which ran a programme of theft and thuggery with a half-focused dream of revolution. When a travelling evangelist came to town, Stephen was sent to firebomb the event, carrying his bag of bombs. Fatally, he stayed to listen, and God touched him. The next morning he presented himself at the local police station. The desk sergeant, a Christian, looked at the long charge sheet, listened to his story - and released him. Boarding a bus with the morning commuters, Stephen felt so happy that he felt compelled to share his testimony. He has been doing so ever since. Today Stephen Lungu is one of Africa's top evangelists, leading dozens of missions a year. At a rally a few years ago, an old lady came forward to make her commitment to Christ, and Stephen had the great joy of leading his mother to the Lord. This is a revised and updated version of an earlier book entitled Freedom Fighter.