Sermon Illustrations

OLONGA'S PERSECUTION

Henry Olonga tells of when he was first selected for the Zimbabwean cricket B-Team. They were touring South Africa and staying in a luxurious Johannesburg Hotel. At that time they had to share a hotel room with a teammate and he was sharing with a more famous, white, senior player.

One night Olonga's roommate brought a girl back with him to the room and at first Olonga didn't have a clue what she was doing there. Then the girl and his roommate climbed into bed much to Henry's embarrassment. He lay there in his own bed with a blanket over his head trying to pretend it wasn't happening. Quote, "I wanted to die."

As if that was bad enough the next night his roommate called an escort agency and soon afterwards a girl arrived at their door. It was much too late at night to be going out, and once again Olonga was thoroughly embarrassed and annoyed. His roommate paid the girl and she left, at which point the 18-year-old Henry Olonga continued to lie quietly in his bed, not saying a word. His teammate laid into him, attacking Henry's Christian values.

In his autobiography he writes: "The truth, I guess, is that he felt some guilt about what he'd done. We had a discussion about faith in which we debated a few issues. I didn't report it to anybody, but it never happened again."

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