{"id":1266,"date":"2013-10-30T05:20:17","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T09:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/?p=1266"},"modified":"2013-10-30T05:20:17","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T09:20:17","slug":"no-endings-only-new-beginnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/2013\/10\/30\/no-endings-only-new-beginnings\/","title":{"rendered":"No endings, only new beginnings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>About endings … and new beginnings (I found this blog in my drafts folder… It should have been out weeks ago!!) We are in the last month of the evangelistic teaching in our village! We started in Genesis in May this year and will finish with Revelation soon. It has been a very intense time and it truly is miraculous to see the life-changes in our friends. Praise be to God!<\/p>\n

Photo #1 Photo: People looking at the pictures after the Bible teaching.<\/p>\n

The aim with this first cycle teaching is to show people (who have never heard the Message) who God is, what man is without God (dying because of our sin) and what plan God made to mend the broken relationship. We did not stop with Christ\u2019s resurrection and ascension, but continue to teach through parts of Acts and Hebrews and will then jump to Revelation so that people can see the whole picture: God made everything perfect in the beginning … and He will make everything perfect again in the \u201cend\u201d – which will only be a new beginning!<\/p>\n

Photo #2: Vrydag, one of the Bible teacher\u2019s new baby daughter!<\/p>\n

I (Nadia) recently had the privilege to be at another birth of a Mwinika baby! What an amazing miracle to experience a new, little life coming into this world, often with a cry and some difficulty. In many ways, the Mwinika going to the Bible teaching are like newborn babies in faith. We would never think of leaving a newborn after its birth to fend for himself, would we? A mother\u2019s job is not finished once she\u2019s given birth! In the same way, the \u201cnew born\u201d Mwinika believers are only starting a very exciting and challenging new life.<\/p>\n

In a way we are only in the beginning, not the end of our ministry here! How often new believers are left after their \u201chands\u201d were counted… It is as fatal as leaving a newborn alone. Church…, we have a huge responsibility to see these newborns grow into full maturity.<\/p>\n

Praise God for what He is teaching our Mwinika friends. Pray that they will grow in faith and understanding, and most importantly that they will not only KNOW the truth, but believe it for themselves and live it.<\/p>\n

Reading and Writing Continues In the Literacy ministry, we also had a \u201cending\u201d in July when this year\u2019s class received their certificates. But again: for the new readers this is only the beginning of a whole new life in which the written word has a new purpose and place!<\/p>\n

Photo #3: Nadia and Abar at the bi-monthly Reading Class<\/p>\n

To encourage the new readers and to keep improving their reading, we are doing a bi-monthly Reading Class. Each of the students receive a booklet with new stories in the Mwinika language that they take home and read during the next two weeks. When we get together again, we discuss the stories, the teacher asks questions that the students answer in writing (to encourage that part of literacy too!) and each student gets a change to read aloud to the class from the booklet. We also teach things like how to use an index, chapter and verse to find what we look for in the Bible and how to write a formal letter in eMwinika.<\/p>\n

Every single written word in eMwinika must of course be produced… by us!… since it\u2019s been an unwritten language before. Stories that Mwinika people told or wrote must be converted, formatted and edited into a booklet that can be published. We add pictures and a sturdy cover to make the booklets last. We also translate booklets about health, transport and other themes. And then we need to organize and manage our library. Nadia and Abar are working several hours per day on these projects. Please pray for us. It is a painstakingly slow process, but indeed rewarding!<\/p>\n

Family Matters On the home front we are doing well. This year has been a marathon and the work seems to never get finished, so we constantly feel slightly overwhelmed. Still, we feel incredible privileged to be part of this ministry! God continues to be our strength and encourager.<\/p>\n

Photo #4: Marius and Swart Hand (our new driver!) working on the \u201cambulance\u201d.<\/p>\n

We had a visit from our friend, Marius and his son, who came up from South Africa with supplies and much needed technical help in fixing our \u201cambulance\u201d (the Basic Utility Vehicle) among other things. We are so thankful for their willingness to come and give us this vital support!<\/p>\n

Franco (now 13 yrs old) needed a new hearing aid and we made use of the \u201clift\u201d back to SA with Marius to have it fixed. Marius and Yvette kindly are giving him accommodation as well as carting him back and forth to the Audiologists. The Lord also provided wonderfully through Willie and Klein Moller in helping very generously with the cost of the hearing aid as well as with the airplane ticket back! Franco got his hearing aid yesterday: a brand new Siemens that turned out to be not only waterproof, but also automatic and to top it all: a nice blue and silver colour :)! Franco is ecstatic! We are very much blessed.<\/p>\n

Photo #5: The kids working in their class room.<\/p>\n

We have a new addition to our family! In fact not one, but FIVE newborn puppies :). Our Jack Russell terrier whelped a beautiful litter of pups a week ago. These squirming, blind and extremely cute bundles of fur are a constant source of entertainment and enjoyment to us. In preparation for the event, we did a chapter in science on \u201cReproduction\u201d. So, when the day arrived, Heidi and Waldo were ready to help since they understood what is happening and what to do. Both agree that it is one of the most amazing experiences of their just-over-a-decade lives! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Photo #6: …trees promptly dropped their leaves, apparently in dismay because of the onset of the warm and dry weather!<\/p>\n

Even weather wise, we are experiencing endings and new beginnings. Whereas the rest of the Southern Hemisphere are enjoying spring, we have our usual \u201cmini autumn\u201d at this time of year. At least, it looks like autumn, for although the many mango and cashew trees are ever green, some of the indigenousness trees promptly dropped their leaves, apparently in dismay because of the onset of the warm and dry weather! It therefore does not feel like autumn at all … but it\u2019s obviously only preparing us for the even more scorching weather ahead. Soon however, with the coming of the First Rains, all these trees will transform overnight covered with light green, new leaves. And then, for a moment at least in the early morning, before the sun peeps out and before the high pitch singing of the hot-weather bugs start, we experience something like \u201cSpring\u201d!<\/p>\n

So, while our Mwinika friends are learning that there is a difference between believing God\u2019s Word is true and claiming this truth for themselves personally, we see new beginnings all around us. We can also ask ourselves this question: in whom or what do we trust? After all, even the devils believe that Jesus is the Son if God! May we all not only testify to our belief in words, but live this testimony out in real life!<\/p>\n

Thank you for being part of our season of endings and new beginnings! Francois, Nadia, Franco, Heide-Marie and Waldo PS. Just before sending this email, an opportunity presented itself for Nadia and Franco to attend the Sandton Bible Church Missions Conference in Johannesburg! I am very excited for the chance to meet the people from this new supporting church as well as for the spiritual input the two speakers will give. Pray that the Lord will be honoured as I will give my personal testimony as well as feedback on the ministry on two occasions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About endings … and new beginnings (I found this blog in my drafts folder… It should have been out weeks ago!!) We are in the last month of the evangelistic teaching in our village! We started in Genesis in May this year and will finish with Revelation soon. It has been a very intense time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":808,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/808"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}