We are visiting the land of milk and honey… our passport country! Although with recent power shortages resulting in “power shedding” some would beg to differ about the “milk and honey” part! 🙂
In our last newsletter we mentioned that we may go to SA for a few months… and here we are!
Why are we here?
- We need the rest! As you know, we have just come through a very challenging and full two and a half years. Waldo especially had a very hard time last year physically. (He had malaria twice, scarlet fever and measles). His body needs rest and he needs some medical attention.
- We are switching all three our kids to a new home school curriculum for their senior school phase. They now have the opportunity to go to a nearby school that uses this curriculum for the first term of the new school year. They just started at the school and are very excited to be in a class with other kids in a “real” school. They have the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities and forge new friendships, something they have a greater need for as they grow older.
Pray that our time in South Africa will be refreshing and restful. That our kids will enjoy school, making new friends and use all the opportunities only SA can give them. Pray too that both Francois (who is very run down) and Waldo will be completely restored physically.
- Even though we are in South Africa, Francois still has some leadership responsibilities as SA now is part of the NTM field of South East Africa (as is Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Mozambique) and in reality we haven’t left the field at all!
Pray for wisdom and focus as there are many leadership decisions that must be made. One of these concerns how to go about training South Africans to go out cross-culturally as missionaries. Pray for clear leading. We will be visiting our co-workers in Tanzania later this month. Pray for a good and fruitful visit!
- Although our primary reason for being SA is not to visit our supporting churches this time, we welcome the opportunity to reconnect with some of you whom we haven’t seen in a long time!
Pray for good opportunities to reconnect with supporters.
- Part of our church plant strategy is to not only train and disciple church leaders towards seeing a mature church, but also to give them the opportunity to function in that capacity. We purposefully want to create opportunities in which they can function without our being there. Therefore, although the Mwinika church is still very young and need many more years of nurturing, we want to see how the churches in our area function without our “interference”.
Pray for the young Mwinika church and believers. Pray especially for the three groups in our area. Although our co-workers Phil and Elin are in a village not far from there, the believers will have to function much on their own. Pray for their faith to be strengthened and for their personal relationship with God to prosper. Pray that they will be faithful in going to the meetings, but also faithful in living Christ in their day to day life.
Thank you for partnering with us in reaching the unreached for Christ!