How many people can you fit in a Bucki?

Last week was another amazing testament to God's providence in supporting all our 2010 endevours.

On Wednesday morning we sat down to hit the Yellow Pages to find somewhere that was willing to donate a few tyres. We are going to build a retaining wall at a creche in Mariannhill and create an obstacle course for the kids at the Good News Centre there!

The FIRST place we called gave us 400 tyres...AND THEY DELIVER!!
It was a result we were not expecting on our first attempt. So we kept going...
The next place we rang was a shoe shop. WEe needed shoe boxes to put Christmas presents in for the creche kids. They said they could give us 40-50 PER DAY!

Thanks be to God...And of course, Christy's 'seriously' good telephone skills!

The highlight of the week however, was our trip to Margate. We headed down there on Thursday morning to have Bible class with Nelson, Alistair and Eddie. Mat talked about Moses and did hand-outs complete with beautiful illustrations of the staff turning into a snake!

After dinner at the Waffle House we planned a Praise and Worship morning for Saturday. We went out into the nearby township and to the local mall to hand out leaflets and invite as many people as we could.

There was a brilliant response and on Saturday morning...after a few trips to pick people up from the township...there were 45 people ready to sing praise to God!
The following morning we wet again to pick people up and were so excited to see how many people wanted to come back. The hall was full with 60 people joining us for the Sunday service...There wasn't a spare seat in the house!

It was a fantastic feeling to see everyone there and to see Nelson grinning as he translated the parable that the guys acted out for the exhortation!

It was an uplifting and encouraging weekend for us all and we are determined to go back to Margate more often to sustain the interest there!

So watch this space...

Our First Blog: 27-10-09

Hello...

This is the Westville volunteer group.

We are Simon Peel, Laura Skinner, Julie Machacek, Mat Collard, Jude Norcross and Laura Iredale. So far. We’re here for 3 months/8 months/a year.

So lots more of this to come!

Projects the past few weeks since our arrival have included:

Speaking and teaching kids at Lamontville.

Marianhill bible classes. The singing is amazing!

Digging up turf from local school and re-laying it in Marianhill.

Happy’s school leading study groups and kids classes.

BEC clearing up the flood, helping man the shop and sign people up for Bible correspondence courses.

Our highlights:

It’s been brilliant meeting, working with and having fellowship with so many new Christadelphians passionate about the spreading of the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

The Congolese class was exciting because we had to go into dodgy areas of Durban to pick the attendees up! Once we got there safely we had a good uplifting discussion about Philippians 2v5-11. It was good to see their enthusiasm and depth of knowledge.

Lamontville Youth class was fab. We spoke to them about sin, how we should try to avoid it in our lives and focus instead on working for God. We played DODGE – the sin – BALL! The balls represented sin and how it is not always easy to avoid but with the armour of on God we are protected.

Another highlight from Lamontville was wrapping up a small child in multi-coloured bits of paper (beautifully coloured by the kids) and trying to pass it off as Joseph’s coat.

In other news:

We jumped off some rocks into the dam at Shongweni Reserve Park. Does it count as preaching if we say it was a ‘leap of faith’ we so ably demonstrated to passing canoeists?!

Hectic.

Bible Study day at the KMPBEC - October 2009

We had a very fruitful Bible Study day at the KMP BEC on Saturday 17 October. Fourteen students turned up after 358 were notified via sms twice during the week leading up to the 17th. The classes were led by myself and Bro. Cameron Beeler (USA), who is doing full time mission work in Durban at the moment, and visited us for the weekend. The class started at 10:00 and ended at 2:30 only with a coffee break in the middle. Quite a few topics were covered including the promises to Abraham and David ; How to deal with temptation, The Kingdom of God on earth. The students went away very encouraged and with some additional literature to help them in their studies. It was very rewarding to see their enthusiasm and appreciation for the chance they had to grow in knowledge and understanding. 

 

Love from the 2010 team here in Gauteng

Lucas   

Forever young

Even if you are not turning 50 this month (like someone I know very well :-)), this (quote below) should be a keeper - We should really never get old spiritually - The ideals God sets for us WILL, in the end, keep us forever young!

"Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease. This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals."

- Samuel Ullman

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Which reminds me of something 2010 has highlighted for me these last two years ........

"Don't expect your ecclesia to grow old with you - MUCH rather stay young with your ecclesia"

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God is SO great - "Job 33:23 "If there is for him an angel, a mediator, one among a thousand, who can vouch for the man's uprightness;

Job 33:24 then [God] is gracious to him and says, 'Redeem him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.'

Job 33:25 His flesh becomes fresher than that of a child, he returns to the days of his youth.

Job 33:26 He prays to God and is accepted by him, so that he sees [God's] face with joy, and [God] repays the man for his righteousness.

YbiC'ss

Lucas

 

No work for God and Jesus is EVER in vain

The momentum of our Bible classes at the BEC from August has carried well into September. About 8 students attend every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, 4 of them being real regulars now and asking really good and pertinent questions. Questions discussed and scripturally investigated the past two weeks ranged from "where and what is hell"; "what does the Bible teach about praying in tongues" ; does God still speak to us in visions and dreams" ; "The Holy Spirit"; "What happened to Enoch, Elijah and Moses regarding dying and being buried"

 Our work for God's is never in vain. About 5 years ago a lady I knew from our local gym asked me to come and have some Bible study with her and her son who was then in his last year of school. He was worried about what would happen to him when he died and he was not satisfied with the answers he was getting from friends and churches that he was going to. We had Bible studies together for about 6 months and covered a lot of the crucial teachings. After leaving school he lost interest though and I stopped seeing him. Last week he decided to "get back to God" and start going to church regularly. He wanted to contact me but did not have my number – prompting him to go to the gym to find my details there – guess who was about the first person he walks into once there? …… yeah – me. So, he and his girlfriend came to our meeting yesterday and they are keen to live a godly life and get back to some Bible study. We will see where this all leads to but it just reminded me again that the building work we do for God and Jesus is a work of patience and we should not be discouraged if progress might seem to be slow by our standards. It often takes people some time to realize the vanity of life without God and how much better a life it is with God and the sure hope of the resurrection to come.

Our new Congolese brothers and sister in Pretoria continue to meet faithfully every Sunday. Yesterday sister Kiza brought her older sister and a friend to the meeting. Together with bro. Alain's wife and Juma that made the student total 4 and the total number of people at the meeting was eleven. They remain focused and also very series about developing into a more official ecclesia that will meet in a central venue. We continue to pray that God will help us in finding a suitable venue for them.

The fifteen ladies attending the crèche course in Tembisa Township have all been back for week 2 and week 3. Sister Trudy Clark has now joined Leona in presenting some of the sessions and between the two of them they are providing the ladies with quality teaching and a lot of super practical tips and ideas they can use to keep children constructively busy. It is wonderful to be involved in this way where we can make a small difference in helping the community to improve the lives of their children.

Loving greetings from the 2010 team here in Kempton Park

YbiC'ss (Your brother in Christ's service)

Lucas

 

 

 

 

 

New horizons opening and old friends returning

Another great week of preaching and community outreach work here in Kempton Park.

 

The lunch time Bible Classes continued to pick up momentum from last week. Tuesday 7 students turned up and on Thursday 14 students came for Bible class. Questions on life after death, hell, baptism and faith were covered. On both day the classes went on for over 2 hours. It was very rewarding to welcome back three of the students who were "regulars" a year ago, then moved away for various reasons but now are coming to the classes again. 

 

Leona started the first of what is to become a long series of the 7 week crèche courses. The Tembisa town council has been quite keen for her to give these classes to about 354 ladies to get the standard of crèche care raised in Tembisa where there are a lot of informal crèche's that are in reality only baby sitting facilities where the children get little if any pre-school education or proper nutrition. Considering that these ladies will be caring for 20 and more children each the impact of the crèche course can be huge. The council is also considering to make the course the standard for all crèche training in the future. They are particularly happy that we are the only people they could find thus far that is willing to take the course into Tembisa, to the people, at a low cost and as such enabling a large number of crèche "teachers" to attend the course. Seeing the difference proper training makes for the children (as at the Modimo Oteng Crèche) makes us very exited about this opportunity that has been opened up to us. We look forward to also show them the love of Jesus through our interaction with them.

 

Sunday we were delighted to see 19 children and the Tembisa Sunday School again after the somewhat extended holiday break. The senior class was very rewarding when we discussed "praying in tongues" as a subject with 4 of the senior children. It has been a problem for some of them and they were delighted to explore the Bible and get answers from the Scriptures.

 

With love from the 2010 team here in Kempton Park.

 

   

Thanking God for a fruitful week

We have been blessed with another productive preaching week. Bro. Richard Alyene from the UK and his cousin Susie spent last week with us. Bro. Richard led the Lunch Time bible Classes on Tuesday and Thursday which were attended by 11 and 7 students respectively. On Saturday morning he led a marathon Bible Study day which lasted 5 hours with a 30 minute break half way through. The 7 students that attended had a variety of questions answered and subjects covered.

 

We also managed to visit the Modimo Oteng Crèche on Tuesday and Thursday mornings during which sister Leona and Susie helped with giving a one hour lesson to the little ones on transport. It was lots of fun to observe the children's perceptions of trains, cars , busses etc and they were most intrigued with the cars they each had to make out of egg holders and other card board. On Wednesday bro. Grant and Jonathan from Australia joined us again for more maintenance work at Modimo Oteng. Mpule's (the crèche's headmaster) room was painted and we removed a lot of rubble that was "created" when we set up the playground and jungle gym previously.

 

On Sunday afternoon we had a meeting in Pretoria Central with our newly baptized Congolese brethren and sister. Bro. Andrew Walker from the UK gave the exhortation and 3 other brethren from the Kempton Park ecclesia also attended. Most rewarding was the fact that Bro. Alain's (one of the newly baptized brethren) wife also attended the meeting with their three children. It was the first time in the 6 months that we have been preaching to them that she has attended anything. All in all we were 16 people at the meeting. One could sense that there is now a real sense of belonging and commitment with our new brothers and sister.

 

We are exited about the future of this new mini ecclesia.

 

With love in Jesus

 

The 2010 team here in Kempton Park