He went looking for a church. He found an independent evangelical church that practiced the laying on of hands and divine healing. He turned his life over to God. He prayed, he sought salvation in Jesus Christ and asked God to heal him.

"I did not believe it was possible. I had not heard of anyone being healed of HIV/AIDS. I knew that drugs would protract life, but not ultimately save me. Then God did a miracle. One day as I was out on the mountains I prayed and earnestly sought God's face. Something happened. I cannot fully explain it, but my girlfriend, a Christian lady, said I should get tested again. After several tests, the doctors said I was free of the virus. I cried and thanked God for several days."

Joseph, who had started studying law, is now completing his studies. "I want to help those who cannot afford expensive legal aid. I want to help many who cannot help themselves. Perhaps when you see me again I will be an attorney, married and with a family. Truly God is good...all the time."

*****

If you think young people are all caught up in the culture of post-modern rebellion, obsessed with sex, drugs and the so-called good life, you are wrong.

Fully a third of all the participants here at the Lausanne Congress on Evangelism are young people in their late 20s and early 30s. I met two young German ladies while having breakfast in my hotel yesterday.

Their stories were of a reverse rebellion. Neither was raised in a Christian home though one had a godly grandmother. They came to faith through encounters at Christian camps they attended and meeting people who seemed more real than those around them experimenting with sex and drugs. They were drawn to Christ like magnets hungry for something more than their friends had. One young lady, Christine, was sent off to a summer camp without knowing it was Christian. She almost ran away. "Initially the camp experience drove me crazy and my Catholic Church background of force fed faith and rote learning, hours of catechism and a quick baptism had done little for me.

"I wanted something more or nothing at all," Christine said. "But I had questions that I needed answering. I began to read the Bible for myself. I began to see Jesus in a new light, away from all the church structures and dry stuff I had been raised in and had to listen too. As I got my questions answered ranging from issues of science and faith, sexuality and to why I needed Jesus, I began to sense a change coming over me. After a month I finally surrendered my life to Jesus. My parents were not happy. My mother wanted me to start taking the pill 'just in case' I was sexually active. My father didn't understand why I didn't party like all my other friends. But my life had changed. I was not interested in any of this. My parents finally separated and divorced because my father wanted someone different and younger. He is not any happier, I can tell you."

Christine later studied theology in England and is now working with Scripture Union in Cologne, Germany, telling young people about the Good News of Jesus. "I think my mother is coming around," she says with a laugh.

While the three of us sat in a church on Sunday morning, an active CESA (Church of England in South Africa) parish, Holy Brompton in Cape Town, I watched as they poured over their Bibles, examining the Scriptures for themselves, raising holy hands to heaven, singing the praises of Him who died for them.

If this is the future of Christianity in Europe, then perhaps there is hope after all. These two young ladies won't save Germany, but they represent a small but growing, significant number of young people who are finding Christ amidst the sexual morass, abortion holocaust, secularization, drugs and Islamification of Europe.

Some might see the Christian lights being slowly extinguished in Europe, yet here in Cape Town at a Congress that has drawn over 5,000 men and women from nearly 200 nations, there are stories like these two young women...and there are hundreds more. They are all lights in this dark world and we should thank God for them.

END