HE AVATAR SIMEON TOKO Fragile Beginnings Simeon Toko was born on 24 February 1918 in a village in northern Angola (the Tsafon of Psalm 48:3), portentously named Sadi Banza Zulu Mongo (“Village of the Celestial Mountain”). The newborn emerged from his mother’s womb into a very hostile environment. For almost 50 years, from 1872 to 1921, this region suffered natural disasters. There were long droughts between short lulls. Northern Angola and the southern regions of the French and Belgian Congos were devastated. The resultant famines killed thousands; so, too, there were thousands of deaths brought by smallpox, typhoid, sleeping sickness, malaria and other diseases. These different plagues represent the fulfilment of a biblical prediction. None but a few people inspired by the words of the Lord recognised this. And the dragon stood before which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. (Revelation 12:4) The baby Simeon Toko was born mere inches from sickness and famine and plague and death, and many leagues from safety. There was not much reason for a baby to want to live, and much against it. The infant Toko caught smallpox. He was so badly affected by it that villagers thought the hand of the Almighty Father alone saved his life. He was left with the unpleasant marring of smallpox scars on his face. Compare this prophecy: As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. (Isaiah 52:14) Not long after Simeon’s birth, a missionary at a Baptist Missionary Society, based in Angola, had a dream. He dreamed that a Great King had been born in the region under his ministry. He decided to go looking for this baby.Requesting guidance from the Holy Spirit, he came to the baby Simeon Toko. Staring at an infant so rachitic, like a “weak and tender plant”, and with so blemished a little face, he shook his head. Doubt had come to stay. He asked one or two questions and left, feeling victimised by his dream and the voice that had led him there.
KGOSINKOTSI 📚 