Our Dear friends & family,
“The Lord is my rock,
my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” – Psalm 18:2
What an incredible blessing it is to belong to the
LORD! Whether in good times or in bad He
is our Rock, our Fortress and an ever-present help. He is always with us, and will never leave us nor forsake us! The past few months have been very busy, and filled with great levels of both joy and pain. But the Lord Jesus has been with us through it all, and we are so thankful for His sustaining love.
Teaching Ministry
I recently had the great opportunity to teach again at Joy Mission Bible College in Ngculwini. I taught a 4 week course on Expository Preaching. When the College approached me to teach this
class there was only a week and a half before it started. So, I had to get right to work because I
needed to build everything up from scratch.
I had to develop & write the class syllabus, source all my teaching materials
myself, develop all the lessons, and students assignments. It
was a lot of work, but it was also very fulfilling and fun. I had 13 students and they were all wonderful.
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| Some of my students & myself from the Expository Preaching Class. |
I am so thankful that I had a lot of my own
expository preaching books from my days as a student @ Nyack College – they really helped me! I also realized that although I am no expert
on preaching, I have been blessed to receive so much from those who poured into
me over the years. I am forever thankful
to those who have poured Christ’s love into my life. Their mentorship, love and support, has
impacted me tremendously...I think of people like: Jim Bailey, Jon Schuerholz, Ken Berding, Ron
& Wanda Walborn, & Paul Hazlett to name a few. The phrase “I stand on the shoulders of
giants” rings so true for me. My class
went very well and I loved it. As I said, it was very
fulfilling for me to help equip my students for
their ministry. I will be teaching another
class early next year in January or February.
A Painful Road
One of the hardest things in the past few months
was to lose one of our very close friends.
In fact in the space of 2 months we lost 3 friends. 2 friends died of complications from HIV. That was terrible but we knew ahead of time that could be happening unless the Lord Jesus brought some significant
healing. However, we were incredibly shocked & unprepared
to lose a dear friend very unexpectedly.
Her name was Nokuthula, and we first met her when she worked as an Aunty at the Sandra
Lee Centre. She quickly became a very good friend to us.
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| Nokuthula laughing with Zwakele behind her. |
In fact, she was really one of Zwakele's closest friends. Her passing was very painful for us. Shortly after our family left the SLC, Nokuthula also left her job because of some challenges she was going through in her life. In this season and up until her death Zwakele spent a lot of time with her. Our friend had a very difficult early life, but she met Jesus and he changed her and brought her joy and great hope. Nokuthula loved to laugh, I'll always remember that about her. I joked a lot with her and we would always laugh so much together. She also loved to sing and worship the LORD. Although we are sad she is gone, we are incredibly thankful that she knew Jesus! We will see her again one day! Nokuthula left behind a sister (named Thando) who really has no other family. Would you please pray for Thando as she continues to deal with her loss and please pray for us as we minister to her. We've known Thando for a while, and love her and told her that we are now her family.
Rural Outreach
In the
past few months we have continued to regularly spend time in the rural area
near Pigg’s Peak. This is the community where we did some home visits with Pastor Jon Schuerholz when he came out to
visit us in February of this year. We have
spent time building relationships, doing home visits, and meeting some practical needs. One of the families who we met with Jon in February was headed by a pastor who had lost his sight. Our family has grown to know this family quite well over the recent months. As we spend time with this man I am often struck by his attitude. He has gone through a very rough season in his life. He lost his sight - how terrible a thing to go through. Further, we recently found out that there was some medication he could have been receiving to help keep the sight in one of his eyes but the government hospital has run out of it many times. Because of the poor level of care he has suffered so greatly. I don't know about you but sometimes I complain a little too easily. And some of the things I complain about are often trivial. However, since I have started knowing this man I have never heard him complain. In fact, he is often the opposite, ready to encourage us and filled with joy. He has a joy that rises independently from the circumstances he exists in. That kind of joy is rare, and can only come from Jesus Christ.
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| Zwakele talking with the pastor and his wife. |
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| Thandeka being silly with the pastors wife! |
Because of a donation from a friend we were able to get the pastor a solar powered talking siSwati Bible. He was touched and very thankful for the gift of the Word of God. At our last visit with him he was telling us about the importance of the Word of God. He said that many church's in Swaziland are distracted by so many things but what they really need is the Word of God. He encouraged us to continue strong in the Word as it is the source of life. Despite all he is going through, he remains passionate, walks in purpose, and is always encouraging and having the joy that comes from a life in Christ. Praise the Lord!
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| The solar powered talking siSwati Bible. Thank you Caroline McGraw for the donation! |
Kenmore Alliance Church also donated the funds to build a house for a widowed single mother of 4 in this community. The process to get this house done has been quite frustrating. It has taken much longer than originally planned. We had a lot of problems. First, it was so difficult to get a truck to deliver the building materials from the nearest city to the homestead. The road was so bad and often inaccessible due to rains. Secondly, we had quite an ordeal getting a builder and then working well with him. Sometimes the builder would just not show up to work. :( Other times he would run out of something which would cause him to stop working. However, he would not communicate this to us and the work would stop for a week.
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| Old & New: The old house on the left and the new one going up in the back! |
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| Taken about 2 weeks ago, the new house nearly finished! |
Well just today (the 27th August) we received a call that the house is totally finished! Praise God!! We are so happy that the family will be able to enjoy a new safe place to live in. Thank you so much KAC for your sacrificial giving to this family! We will get a picture of the completed house posted soon!
S.O.S.
In July I had the great experience of leading a 2 week
trip called “Steps Over Swaziland” (S.O.S.).
This was the third S.O.S. trip to Swaziland, but my first time to be involved with them. This years team consisted of 8 people from the USA who came to volunteer.
The purpose of the trip was to raise
awareness for various issues affecting Swaziland, to prayer walk the nation,
and to do some practical outreach in communities around Swaziland. Each day the team started by prayer walking a distance of 18 to 20 kilometers!
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| The team and a group of Swazi's walking on Day 1. Notice the police escort! |
Part of the vision was to get young Swazi people from various church's to participate in the prayer walk and get them involved in their communities. Praise God that on various legs of the trip we did have a number of Swazi's prayer walking with us!
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| Day 1 finished! |
After the team finished the days portioned walk, they would eat lunch quickly, and be driven to a ministry site where they would spend the rest of the day. Many times this was at a neighborhood care point, although we also did a bunch of home visits and spent a day with The Luke Commission at one of their clinics. My specific job as a leader was to handle the trips finances/accounting, run the logistics, support the team as they walked, and participate in the daily ministry. While the team walked, at every 6 kilometers I would set up a relief station, giving the team water and fruit to help refresh them. Because of my service the team ended up giving me the nickname "Carson," after the character on Downton Abbey. I guess I'll take that over being called "Thomas" from Downton Abbey any day! :)
The team started in the Southeast region of the country and walked along the road up to the Northwest region of the country. By the end of the trip the team had gone 122 miles by foot! Quite a distance within a few days time. It was a great trip overall, and a lot was accomplished. It took weeks of work involved in preparation and set up before the trip but it was all worth it.
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| The team brought a huge quantity of soccer jerseys that were given out at care points. |
YWAM DTS
Time has flown by! I can't believe we officially started with YWAM in January. Part of joining YWAM Swaziland is that the organization of YWAM
requires that everyone who wishes to be a full time staff member go through a
training called
"Discipleship Training School," or "DTS" for short. YWAM wants all their staff to know the organizations core values so hence the required training. I will be starting my DTS this upcoming Monday, the 1st of September. The training will run for 3 months, finishing at the end of November. Will you please pray for me as I participate in this training. I will be going through this training with 3 other team members.
GREAT NEWS
We originally had planned to be back in America from
the middle of July to mid-September. We
wanted to be home to see friends and family, go to the KAC Camping event, get a little break, and attend a good friends wedding. However, something has come up that has prevented us from making the trip home just now. Look at the picture below:
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That's right Zwakele is pregnant!!! The new baby is due in the last week of February 2015. We are excited for this next member of our family! Please keep Momma and the new baby in your prayers! So far Zwakele has had a bit of a rough time with this pregnancy and she cannot wait to get into the 2nd trimester. Next month hopefully we should be able to find out if were having a boy or a girl. As of now the plan is to have the baby delivered in Swaziland, I will then make the mad dash to get all paperwork done and then LORD willing we will fly to states 1st or 2nd week of April for a visit! Exciting developments!
Thanks so much for your prayers and support to us! We couldn't do this without your love! May the Lord bless you abundantly!
