We are now all moved out of our old place and getting settled in the
house. We are really enjoying our little community, which includes us,
the people (and animals, too, I suppose) at the animal hospital, and the
family that stays in the room at the back of the garage (see photo;
their’s is the second door on the right). This week is the last of
a
long school vacation, so Abel and Mirriam have three grandchildren
staying in the room with them for now. Everyone is very friendly, and
Mirriam is a WONDERFUL worker. Dust is actually terrified to come
anywhere near this house now.
We are planning to renovate the garage, so that it can be used for
congregational meetings and seminars. The owner of the house is
AMAZINGLY cooperative in helping us make things - well - however we want
them. He has offered to finance the renovations with a several year loan
at no interest. There is considerable demand for us to start up in the
seminar-giving-business again, but it is a lot of trouble and expense to
have to rent a place every time. One of the difficulties turns out to be
that almost no place that we have found can be made dark enough for the
computer projector, so we have trouble using all our nice PowerPoint
goodies. I am really looking forward to getting waist-deep in technology
and seminars again (see photo). But seriously, I actually am.
Last week, Louise, a lady named Annelien (from our congregation),
Annelien’s brother and I took food downtown for the feeding scheme. Some
of their helpers were away, so the four of us ended up assisting two of
the homeless people (Sampson and Emily, see photos) prepare the food.
There wasn’t much too it, just buttering a LOT of bread and boiling
a lot of eggs (see photo). We were able to provide two eggs and six
slices of bread for everyone, which is nice because all but the most
hungry had some to take away for later. Cooking the eggs was a bit of an
adventure, because the stove is old and took maybe 20-30 minutes to
bring the water to a boil. ‘Better late than never’, as the saying goes.
We were blessed with an unusually large number of children at our
congregation meeting this past weekend. Father, in His INFINITE wisdom,
had already arranged for me to bring the message while Louise took
care of the children. As a result of His good planning three of the
children received salvation. Halleluyah! I am truly praying that there
is some sort of ‘community property’ arrangement regarding eternal
rewards in heaven. If I can just get the benefit of a fraction of what
is stored up for Louise I will be in GREAT shape!
The next day we drove to Rustenburg to teach and minister to the
‘Healing Group’, which consists mostly of women and mostly of
Methodists. Their long-time pastor recently quit, not just that
congregation but the ministry entirely, and they said they felt like
sheep without a shepherd. I worked with them every week when I lived in
Rustenburg, and it was VERY nice to see them again. I gave about three
hours of teaching and one hour of ministry, and it seems both parts went
well.
We then spent the night near Rustenburg with a family we met at a
previous seminar. Ralf and Gryda are both terrific people, and they have
two truly amazing little boys (6 and 9). Rather than watch TV or play
video games they build various vehicles with LEGOS that they then use to
play games in which they rescue people. The next morning Louise went
through the ‘Wordless Book’ (pages just with colors, including black,
white, gold, red and green) to teach about salvation. She gave each of
them a book, and they promised to use them to really rescue children
they know (they agreed to phone Louise after the first three and share
the good news with her).
We STILL have no telephone line here. The “phone company” - Telkom - is
pretty good at collecting bills, but not so good at providing telephone
service. Oh well. So, to send the email, we are off to ‘Mugg & Bean’
where there is free Internet access via a wireless network - if you buy
some coffee. You are welcome to stay for hours if necessary. Best of
all, they have good coffee.
Love from Africa,
Lary and Louise