Durban BEC in American Hands

The Durban BEC has been getting a facelift over the past few weeks! The two of us (Alissa Sillars—California and Hailey Rankin—Virginia) have been working tirelessly to complete a new computer database. We’ve finally gotten the database together and it’s all ready to go for the next volunteers that get assigned to the BEC!

Alissa is also in the process of putting together an “Owner’s Manual”, if you will, to show volunteers the ropes of running the BEC on their own.

Each Friday, we’ve been holding a seminar, and generally, the topic is decided by what people have been most interested in throughout the week, such as Hell, the Kingdom of God, or the Devil. For a successful seminar, we’ll advertise a few days in advance and get between 6 and 15 people each week.

The shelves are well stocked, and hopefully we’ll be able to keep them that way—we have been ordering lots of new bibles and books. Everyday, 3 or 4 people will ask for ‘small Zulu bibles’, and finally, we can show them where we keep them on the shelves, rather than tell them that we’ll have them ‘next week’!

Every day, we have between 20 and 60 visitors here at the BEC! Sometimes people come in from the lure of the window display (which will soon be revamped), and sometimes they come in because they’ve heard about our Bible courses through friends or family members. Either way, we always try to reel them in with a free Bible course. Sometimes they get hooked and sometimes they keep on swimming—it’s all up to God what happens with each person.

Though our time here at the BEC (and in South Africa, for that matter) is coming to a close, we know that our efforts and the efforts of the Westville and Durban ecclesias will be continued through the new volunteers, one of which has already arrived—Doreen Greene from California.

Alissa and I, along with two other 2010 volunteers (Jessica Russell—Newcastle, Australia and Becky Brown—B.C., Canada), took last Thursday and Friday off from the Durban BEC and headed down to the ecclesia in Margate. Sis. Cecelia (from Margate) is more than prepared for the new crèche that opens there soon, as far as teaching supplies, toys, and storage go. Bro Nelson (Margate) has had a great start with the BEC that is now opening in Margate. All he needs is the manual Alissa is working on, and he’ll be ready to go!”

(Sis. Alissa Sillars and Sis Hailey Rankin)

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