HOPE | Lt. Sam Mhasvi

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. You're listening to The Salvation Army's Words of Life.

Hi, I'm Megan Hoffer. And if you're enjoying Words of Life, I want to invite you to check out another show brought to you by The Salvation Army. Heartbeat is a one-minute show about real life. Heartbeat touches on topics ranging from finances and prayer to dating and mental health. If you're looking for a short message of hope to challenge you and brighten up your day, subscribe to Heartbeat wherever you get your podcast or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Cheryl Gillum.

And I'm Bernie Dake. We hope you've been enjoying this series of testimonies. We launch the series on January 29th. So if you've missed any episodes, subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmyradio.org. Now this week's episode is with another friend of ours named Lieutenant Sam Moshy. Now Sam is a Salvation Army officer here in the Atlanta, Georgia area. He and his wife oversee the work at one of our Kroc centers, and Sam's a really interesting guy because he's a very capable musician, but he's actually also a very talented visual artist.

Wow. We hope that you'll be encouraged by his testimony. Thank you so much for joining us today, for being willing to share your story. Thank you for having me. My name is Sam Moshy.

A lot of people don't really know how to pronounce that. But I was born and raised in Zimbabwe, migrated to the U.S. in 2010. You were part of the Salvation Army in Africa. What was that like growing up as an army kid, as a pastor's kid in Africa?

I have to say that for me, it was really different from most Salvation Army officer's kids. I was blessed to have a fairly well-to-do life. And I always lived in a house that had electricity and running water, which is not given the circumstances in Africa. How did you internalize that privilege? Was it something where you felt grateful for? What did that look like just growing up to have that level of privilege, knowing that people around you didn't have that? Unfortunately for me, it grew a little bit of entitlement in me. My parents, awesome parents.

I would say the best parents that you could get. But in a sense, I took advantage of that. It meant a lot of trouble for my parents. It meant me sometimes even using my parents' position to get my way. There was almost this entitlement that there's nothing you can do to me.

In my head, I always thought that I can get it right later. Fast forward to 2006, I got into this crazy argument with my dad over a cell phone. It was just at the beginning of where officers were getting cell phones. My parents were at THQ and they were given cell phones. Of course, I grabbed the cell phone and I made it my own because she would just leave it at home. That's where I called all my friends.

That's where I had conversations with my girlfriend and all of that. But those were pay-as-you-go contract lines. So I built that bill up pretty significant. I guess at some point, it came back and my dad came back one day and said, do you need to stop using that phone? I said no. That was entitlement at its peak.

I was able to argue that. I just said no. He at that point said, if you are not going to listen to me, you're going to have to leave the house. I twisted that and I made him kind of be in the wrong, like, oh, you don't love me and you're going to throw me out of the house. From that point, I made a horrible decision not to speak to my dad.

That year, I went off to a music camp for a week. I was away from everything, but I came back home and found my dad was in this, he had just lost a lot of weight. The first thing that hit me was, I hope he's not dying.

That was the first thing that came to mind. I remember saying this prayer, God, please don't let my dad be sick. He kept deteriorating. I remember in that time, you know, I was just frantic at that point because, like, it was in that moment that you have this realization that, golly, most of my life, he has not seen anything good out of me. At that point, I am just praying frantically, like, okay, God, please don't let him die. And I started this fight with God. Like, you know, if you're God, you know, how do you allow this to happen?

Putting these demands on God and saying, you know, God, if you're God, then fix this situation. At that point, he wasn't even able to speak anymore. So the irony of it all, I always look back at that, you know, is that I spent all these months not speaking to him while he was trying to speak to me. And then, you know, in this time where I'm literally seeing life being sucked out of him, I'm like so desperate to talk to him now.

So I'm going to the hospital every day. There was just a lot of pain in knowing that, you know, I couldn't have conversations with him. And I feel like God was working in all of that, as weird as it sounds. Literally, I gathered the strength, I guess, in a sense, and I was doing everything I could possibly think of to almost gain God's favor.

I had been fasting even. And on that night, I'm in my room and I'm praying on my knees, like right at my bedside, praying out, like crying to God, literally. And I remember out of frustration, I had just picked up my Bible and just kind of thrown it. And it opened to Daniel chapter 3, where it starts to talk of how Daniel and his friends refused to bow down to the statue.

And when they're called in front of the king, basically it was saying, we will not bow down to this statue. We know that the God we serve could save us from whatever you can throw at us, you know. But even if he doesn't, we refuse to bow down because we only bow down to God. It hit me in a very, very different way because I was there reading this story and all I heard literally was a whisper from God saying, you know, I can save your dad. And that was a prayer, right, that he can literally speak healing into existence. But he said, but if I don't, would you still serve me?

God doesn't want this falsified relationship with me, where it's just about what God can do for me in the moment. And I remember in that moment, I also understood what that meant. And I said, after a lot of crying, I just like, I cried more than I can, I had ever cried in that moment because I understood. But at the end of that, I went back on my knees and I said, yes, God, I will do whatever it is that you call me to. I understand.

So that's the 27th and the 28th. I would normally go to the hospital in the morning and in the evening, but I couldn't go in the morning only because I knew. There was just this thing in me that knew that that was going to be the last time that I saw my dad. And I remember my mom had gone and she called me and she said, you know, where are you?

Your dad is looking for you. And I just remember telling her, tell him to wait for me. And then in the evening, I went to the hospital.

I saw him. And I remember as a family, it was my sister, my cousin, my mom. And it was just us around his hospital bed and we started just singing hymns. And then it was time for all of us to go.

Everyone started to leave, go out. And I stayed. Because I knew. And so I talked with him. Of course, he couldn't talk back to me. But I remember just apologizing and saying, you know, I'm sorry that you never got to see anything good in me.

It was a painful moment for me. But I also remember in that moment just saying, I want you to know, I promise that I'm going to live a life that you would be proud of. Based off your experience, your story, everything that you've gone through, how would you define the word hope?

I would say that hope is knowing who your God is, knowing how great our God is. When David goes to the battlefield and all of Israel is cowering at this giant. And then David finally stands up and he says, who is this giant that come before? And he says, you know, you come against me with sword and spear and javelin. But I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty and the God of the armies of Israel whom you defy. David says, I come against you with the armies.

Which makes it plural. For me, it was this eye-opening moment that, you know, David is not worried about this little army that's here. He's worried about the host, God's armies that are with them. I think that's a thing that we, when we're in our moments of doubt, when we're in our moments of pain and all of that, we don't realize that, you know, God has a whole army of angels and hosts of heaven that are literally behind you.

God's armies that are fighting for you. salvationarmy.org The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. And we'd love to hear from you. Call 1-800-229-9965 or visit salvationarmyradio.org to connect.

Tell us how we can help. Share prayer requests or your testimony. With your permission, we would love to use your story on the show. You can also subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store. Or visit salvationarmyradio.org to learn about more programs produced by the Salvation Army. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. Join us next time for The Salvation Army's Words of Life.