Preaching opportunities, sharing and serving others

A month ago we had a new student/visitor to our Wednesday Night Bible class at the Aphiwe center in Tembisa. His name is Johannes Maluleka. He enjoyed the Bible class and took a lot of notes. After the class he told me that he was invited by Lindiwe (a regular student by then) and that he was skeptical and came to "suss" us out. He was however very impressed with the way we approached our classes and the content and the way we would always be "in and about the Bible" to explain things. A week later he attended again and invited me to lead the talks/studies for the first two days during a youth camp they were planning. I gladly accepted and on Jun 13,14 we went to the camp and shared some wonderful time and sessions with just over 65 young people. We were pleasantly surprised by their love for God's word, their knowledge of the Bible and their willingness to learn. 

Quite a lot of ground were covered on different topics and some interesting questions were fielded and answered. They enjoyed all the visual material shown and diagrams they received as handouts. We played a computer generated Bible quiz game at the end of the second day's session which they thoroughly enjoyed and caused for great fun and laughter. It was rewarding to see, during the quiz, that they retained much of what was dealt with in the study sessions.

Leona, Liezl, Hendri and Natalie made up the rest of the team and we also had a great time teaching the young people some new gospel songs.

It was heart warming to still see so many young people with the correct priorities in life willing to let Jesus lead them and to live according to God's word. Johannes has indicated that he wants to do something similar in the future and also encourage the young people to come to the Bible study classes at Aphiwe.   

With abiding love in Jesus

Lucas Scheepers

P2P 2 PE - (P2P To Port Elizabeth)/ (P2P to Preach Eternity)

We (Hendri, Christy, Mat and I) had the great opportunity to spend 3 weeks in Port Elizabeth There we met a lot of wonderful Brothers and Sisters. We were in East London for a weekend and got the Gods Master Plan correspondence course started there. In Port Elizabeth we worked at the BEC where we repainted the inside of the BEC and the guys waterproofed the roof. We bought new stock and signed up over 100 people for the Correspondence course. We held an open day and got balloons and voovoozelas to attract people to the BEC. As you can see Hendri busy blowing as loud as he can..

We had a couple of praise evenings with the youth there in PE and had loads of fun singing with them and getting to know them better…We also had an open day for the Sunday school and had 15 children coming and taught them of the good Samaritan and sang songs with them in the very windy weather..As you can see in the photo they all wanted the balloons - it attracted quite a lot of their attention..

Christy and I attended 2 Sisters classes where we gave the classes and got to know the sisters better. Also handed out over 8000 leaflets for the open day at the Sunday school and for a Talk Zwelaki gave in Kwadwesi, and another 3000 were given out in Uitenhage to try create awareness there of the Christadelphians and the courses we give.

We had an amazing 3 weeks in Port Elizabeth and God willing will be able to go back soon.

With love in Jesus

Liezl Scheepers

Here I am, in Tembisa!

Here I am, in Tembisa!

About 8 months ago, I decided to come to South Africa for a travel experience and to do some more mission work. I had come to cross ways in my life; I'd left my full time job of 3.5 years and was looking for guidance on what to do next. My profession is in Children's Services and after hearing about the Community Outreach Projects in South Africa, I was curious to visit and see if I could help. After some traveling I eventually made my way to Jo'Berg where I met Lucas and Leona and became involved in the CUDDLE projects.

Once arriving in Tembisa I was hit with the basic life styles and poverty in a confronting way. I had been to townships earlier in my trip but, whilst driving past a swatter camp, and hearing there was are over 500 creche's amongst the different areas of Tembisa, I knew there was so much work ahead of me. I quickly came involved in presenting letter lessons, and joined others in a crèche upgrade. To see the ladies rejoice and praise God for the work we did for her, was greatly rewarding.

 I have sat in crèche courses run for the ladies and been inspired by their enthusiasm and eagerness to learn. I have learnt to appreciate all the knowledge I have, and been motivated to share it and pass it along. It has also been a pleasure to open and close with a prayer at every class, and even see some of these ladies attend our bible class too!

This week I presented a course on – Providing Art and craft activities. I have never taught a class of people before but having such a keen group made it all the more easier. I really enjoyed my time and focused on showing the ladies how to think outside the box and get them thinking of how to be innovative when providing paint activities, demonstrating over 15 ways of using paint without a paintbrush, and then how to implement these activities into their themes of the week and lesson plans.

The ladies enjoyed their time, and got into all the activities, many said they were looking forward to whatever I had in store for them next, and were keen on having me visit their own crèches. It was a very positive time for me and I can really see God's hand directing me on what purposes he has for me.

Natalie Boardman