(classical music)

- Gambler, Grand Prix racer,and rich tobacco farmer,

who is this?

This was the life of South African,

Peter Pretorius, for years.

And then a miracle led himto a lifetime of sacrifice

that changed the wholecontinent of Africa.

Take a look.

- [Narrator] Peter and Ann Pretorius,

co-founders of Jesus Alive Ministries

and Joint Aid Management have led

over 12 million Africans to salvation

and provided more than 1.2 billion meals

to starving people.

Prior to Peter's death in August of 2018,

he shared his story of howGod used an ordinary man

to bring hope and healingto a devastated nation

in his book Death-Defying Faith.

- Well, welcome to the 700 Club

and our dear friend Ann Pretorius,

the wife of Peter Pretorius,and their son Isak.

Ann, Peter was an amazing man.

Were you with him when he wasdoing all that crazy stuff

before he found the Lord?

- I actually was, Pat, yes I was.

So I can give testamentto the life transformation

that took place.

It truly was a DamascusRoad experience that we had.

- Well what happened? Whatbrought him to the Lord?

- Well his father was dyingafter a double heart attack

and he was desperate, andhe tried to find somebody

who could pray, finally did.

They prayed for him and his father

was totally, miraculously healed.

- [Pat] Oh!

- So Peter was confrontedwith this miracle

and realized there isa God, He does exist,

and He's there for me,He answered my prayers.

And so that's how it all began.

And then the man who led us to the Lord

then came visiting us on our tobacco farm.

Taught us the message of salvation

and everything changed.

- That is amazing.

Well Peter, I didn't know Peter before,

but I knew him after, and he was

a powerful man of God.

And we had the privilege ofhelping him along the way,

but he led how many millionsof people to the Lord

did he lead, do you knowwhat the numbers were?

- It's over 12 million, in fact.

Soon after his death, the records came in

from the field again and I realized,

"Oh Peter, I hope you know this.

"We went over the 12 million mark."

(laughs)

- Isak, well, are you following

in your father's footsteps, first of all?

- Absolutely.

I guess our family's journey with Jesus

started in the supernatural.

God healed my grandfather and showed us

that God was the God of the supernatural.

I think when you grow up aroundthat often side of people,

I grew up a privileged upbringing,

and they think I lived in a fancy home

and I went to a fancy school.

But the reality is thatmy privileged upbringing

was that as a young child,I got to fly all over

the continent of Africaand sit on a platform

watching my dad preach to people,

and watching Jesustouch and heal the blind

and the deaf, and the crippled,

but also being able to workin humanitarian operations

all over the continentwhere as a youngster,

I was working in refugee camps

in places like the Congo and South Sudan.

And really just gaineda huge understanding

for the power of God, for who God was.

But I guess most importantly, for what God

wanted us to do as a family

and what the responsibility was.

So following in dad's footsteps was,

it wasn't a question or a choice,

it was a calling.- Sure.

- And something I knew Ihad to do with my life.

- [Pat] As I recall, over500,000 people in the Congo

he led to the Lord.

I believe it...

- You were a part of thatwith my husband, yeah?

- I know, I know, we helped him.

Peter was such an inspiration,

but I just can't...

You know, and the thingthat struck me about Peter,

he was so ashamed ofapartheid and he was so happy

when Nelson Mandela was elected president.

He felt liberated.

- Totally, because a white South African

with an Africana name, itwasn't an easy situation

to be in, and yet we had pioneered work

into the informal settlementsand into the townships

when whites weren't actuallyallowed to go there.

So it wasn't the other way around.

And the Gospel had to go out.

And so yes, he definitely pioneered that

and he loved doing it.

It just was an absolute heartbeat to him.

- Was the opposite, the name Pretorius,

the capitol he named, theyused his name, you see.

But was the opposition inSouth Africa to his stand

for Mandela and--

- It was opposition,they watched us closely.

From time to time,there were even lawsuits

that started developing,and God gave us favor

every step of the way.

We were actually accused at one stage

at running a club on our mission base

because they said, "We saw black people

"were swimming in your swimming pool."

And Peter just laughed.

He thought that was so amusing

that they would call that aclub that we were running.

In the meantime, it was our ministry

and these were our coworkersthat were working with us.

- What'ss happening, by the way, in South,

are you still in South Africa?

- Yes, yes, our headquartersare still there.

- I understand there's a bigcrime wave, is that true?

- Oh yeah, the crime has been terrible,

the corruption has been awful

and we really trust inGod for a breakthrough.

It's such a beautiful country.

- It's gorgeous!

I was down there with, we hadour own broken down airplane

and Peter and I flew thatplane down and parked it.

I said somewhere of getting rid of it,

we left it in South Africa,

and I don't know what ever happened,

but we wanted to get rid of it.

Peter and I flew downthere to South Africa.

Well, he was such awonderful guy, you know,

- He really was.

- I know how much you loved him.

- He was a man driven so much by passion,

and that's why I'm soexcited about the fact

that we were able to record the stories.

It was hard to get him to do so

because he was so focused onpioneering the next exploit,

but to capture the storieswide ranges of Africa

of more than three decades,

it was just a privilege towork on the book with him.

And it was only completed threeweeks before he passed away.

- Oh it was really?

Did he sort of feel likethat this was his life story?

- He did feel like it was his life story

and yet he never wanted it to end.

He wanted the book to just go on and on

because that was his dream.

He had no idea that he wasgoing to pass when he did.

- What kind of miracles did he have

when he was out there on the field?

I mean, all I know was the numbers

and he was asking for trucks and things

to carry tents and hegot all that equivalent,

and I think we helped him along the way,

but what were some of the miracles he had?

- Well, we saw the blind see,we saw the crippled walk,

we saw the most amazing things happen.

We saw transformation take place

in countries like Rwanda, we went in.

And a lot of what we have done, Pat,

is the demonstration of the Gospel.

Demonstrating that lovethat says Jesus loves you

and cares for you, andpeople have a question

in their heads when you'regoing to a real tough situation,

they wonder why you came there.

And when they understandJesus knows where they're at

and he wants to bring a solution for them.

So many many doors have opened to us again

and Isak's really involved, he's excited

to be preaching in prisons,to be ministering the Gospel,

to be demonstrating it.

- Well I think that's part of the miracle.

Often people say, "Whatmiracles have you seen?"

And immediately you thinkof the blind who have seen

or the crippled who have walked.

But God has done so manymiracles through the ministry.

Just creating opportunities for us.

The most recent, I would say,is the Prison's Authority

in Kenya, they agreed to allow us

to do a trial in one prison

where we could go and preach in the prison

and then we could establish our Christian

Discipleship Program that we have,

which is 50 hours of training.

We put that into the prison.

The Prison's Authority were so confronted

by the transformation inthe lives of those prisoners

that they have opened every single prison,

over 300 prisons in the whole country

and said, "Come preach the Gospel

"and come put in theDiscipleship Training Program."

They have now made it an official part

of their rehabilitation curriculum

for prisoners in the country,

and we're just seeing God transform lives.

One prisoner who had a life sentence

he got born again throughthe ministry in the prison,

he attended the full 50 hours of training.

He ended up getting outfor exemplary behavior.

He started a church in that same area,

now has a large church that he's leading,

and he's an on-fire Evangelist.

To me, those are miracles.

God's favor the miracleof being able to take

the Gospel to not justthe poor in physical,

but those that are so pure in spirit

and setting the captives free.

And there's no better wayto set the captives free

than to take Jesus into the prisons.

- Well you think ofKenya, you think way back

to the mwarmwar, you think of the stuff

that went on in South Africa, the killings

and the hatred, you'rebringing reconciliation

and love, aren't you, between the races?

- Yeah, we've witnessedit in our own lives

and family, the truelove, grace, and mercy

of Jesus and what that means.

I think that was the firethat burnt in dad's heart.

It's what drove mom anddad's vision and commitment

to the ministry was thatothers needed to understand

and know the power of Jesusand needed to understand

the power of the grace, love,and mercy that Jesus brings.

And that drove that, and Ithink that's just continued

to be, for assward, beat in our heart

is that there's still people out there

that don't know who Jesus really is

and know much He loves them.

- I see these pictures of all this family,

how many children andgrandchildren have you got?

- We're competing with you, Pat.

We've got six childrenand 14 grandchildren.

- Well good for you.

I have 14 great, great,

I've got the 14 and thenI've got the 14 great, great,

so I'm a little ahead of you,

but keep going, keep going.

It's a big family. That's wonderful!

- Yeah, it is wonderful,

but that reconciliation that we've seen

has just been beautiful.

From my own personal experience, Pat,

my youngest sister and her husband

were brutally murdered in South Africa,

and offering two little, a four-year-old

and a two-year-old, it wasthe most traumatic experience

for us as a family.

And it could have stopped usfrom taking the Gospel further.

But the power of thatforgiveness that came upon us

to release that man and let him go,

understanding that he wasdriven by forces of evil

and that God could reconcile our hearts

to the people who've just dosuch terrible atrocious things

and I think that's why we're so happy

to be able to get intoprisons today as well.

- Well, you're alsofeeding the hungry too.

There's a big feeding program isn't there?

- We provide over a million meals a day

to children in schoolsall over the continent.

- [Pat] Fantastic.

- And so we're able to not just feed them,

but we're able to ensurethey get an education,

which we all know is the only way

that we can ensure theyhave a brighter future.

Providing water wells, more than 200 wells

that we drill every yearall over the continent.

And then very involved inagricultural development

and helping communitiesto become sustainable,

so that we're not needingto provide for them

into the future, but we'reproviding an opportunity

for to live up to what our tagline

is that, "We're helpingAfrica help itself."

But we really feel that that's what God's

called us to do.

- [Pat] Where do you getthe resources for this?

You got people in Africa orpeople in the United States?

Who's helping?

- We've got people allover the world, Pat,

and we're so grateful to them

and we call them partners.

Not donors, because theirpartnership means we

can do so much together andthat's where our partnership

with you has been ofsuch immense value to us.

- Well me, I just can't tellyou what a dear dear friend

your husband was, Peter, was a great man

and a wonderful friend,and well it's called

Death-Defying Faith, that'sthe name of this book

and the ministry is available to help

with Death-Defying Faith

and the ministry is called what?

- [Isak] Jesus Alive Ministries.

- Jesus Alive, oh.

- And then Joint Aid Management, or JAM,

is the humanitarian organization.

- Well they're wonderfulpeople ladies and gentlemen,

I'm just thrilled they're here with us.

The memory of my dear, dear, dear friend

Peter Pretorius.