Patrizia Straulino gave a wonderful confession of her faith two weeks ago and was baptized the next Sunday. It was a lovely day and the members of the Kempton Park ecclesia were delighted to welcome a new sister to our family. Patrizia is a friend of sister Aneta Silva and she has been preparing for baptism for some months. Her faith in God and Jesus and perspective about a life of discipleship in the future is very refreshing and encouraged all of us to keep our focus on Jesus as we all walk to the Kingdom together.

With abiding love from the Kempton Park Ecclesia.

New satellite ecclesia in Tembisa

Last Sunday was a wonderfully exciting day. It was the first meeting of our new satellite ecclesia in Tembisa. Several people that we have met in the course of the last two years have expressed a desire to attend a meeting if it was in Tembisa as transport remains a problem for many to make there way to the Kempton Park meeting.

It was very pleasing to have six of our most regular Bible students to the Tuesday night Bible Class turn up for the meeting. All together we were 12 people and after the meeting we had another hour of serious discussions. Three of the six students that attended are preparing for baptism. It is particularly rewarding that these students are all young men who have very responsible and spiritual heads on their shoulders and have made a decision to commit their lives to God and Jesus.

The term “satellite ecclesia” refers to an ecclesia that is well supported by a nearby ecclesia in terms of studies given and exhortations on Sundays. It is more about establishing a presence and a venue for interested people at first even if there are not enough brethren and sisters to establish an official ecclesia from the very beginning

We thank our heavenly Father for the abilities and opportunities he has given us to preach the Gospel and to now move closer to the next step of having an official and mature congregation in Tembisa that will serve as a true light stand.

The Ignite2020 team - Kempton Park

The Margate Learning Centre goes electronic!

We have been running an after school club once a week from the Margate Good News Centre for about 4 weeks, offering English, Maths and Biology support, but we could really see a need for computer access - about 2 in the group of 30 had either used a computer once or twice, or never.  These kids were going to be graduating high school, competing with the rest of the nation's school leavers, for higher education and jobs!

After submitting a proposal (aka a very good Spirit-guided idea, we prayed) to the Trustees at COPT we were blessed to be able to purchase 11 notebook computers to be able to offer after-school and adult computer skills at the centre, alongside the other subjects.

We collected the machines on Tuesday, Ben worked through the night (almost) to get them synched and ready to go; we were also very mindful of security issues so we had set up a safe and individual locks, it was quite complicated and then, Wednesday 4pm - LIVE!  Thanks to God we had 17 kids turn up, (we had 18 spaces that day) so no one was turned away.  The kids were very respectful and it was lovely to see their eyes widen as letters shrank and grew, font styles changed etc with the touch of a button!  Ben asked them to just 'play' with the text editor to find their way around, and many of them started writing us thank you letters!  

We pray this work will really give these children a better chance in life, but more importantly a relationship with us and the other events at the Good News Centre, so that they may grow in a greater Wisdom eventually.

Caz Parsons

COPT Margate