HOME, HOPE, & HAPPINESS

Dear Friends & Family,
Happy Easter!!!

“This is love:  not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” – 1 John 4:10

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”  - Luke 24:5&6
 
We hope you have had a weekend full of reflecting on the costly sacrifice of our King.  And Praise God for this Sunday morning!!  May you have a wonderful Sunday celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ!! 

  

Our family is so thankful to be a part of what the LORD is doing here in Swaziland!  In the past few months the theme of what the LORD is doing in and through us has been: Home, Hope, & Happiness. 

 

HOME
The Lord has given us a new ministry home in YWAM Swaziland.  This has brought us much joy and happiness.  We are part of a great ministry team!  Below is a picture of our staff.                 

The YWAM Swaziland staff is composed of 3 families from Brazil, a family from Holland, a man from Nigeria, a young Swazi guy, and a Swazi Couple who run a home for orphaned children.  The YWAM Swazi base is located in the capital of Mbabane, up on a mountain that overlooks the city.  Below is a picture of the beautiful view from our headquarters. 

   

The property of the base is nestled between an older township community known as "Zone 4," and a new property development called "Lomkiri."  In both communities there are a lot of opportunities for ministry, in some cases literally right next door. 

   
Zwakele & I are now involved in a bunch of different ministries.  All of the YWAM staff have to put in some hours every week helping the base.  Monday mornings I usually work about 4 hours with our director handling communications for YWAM Swazi.  We currently are working on our new website, building it up, and adding content as we can.  You can check out our new website @ www.ywamswaziland.org .  We really have a severe challenge with communication at the moment.  In January we lost our internet ability at both the base and at all of our residences.  It is a long & complicated story, but we have been trying for months to get another internet service provider.  We are now dependent on internet cafe's again which can be extremely slow and impossible to download or upload any pictures/content.      
     
Part of our Partnering with God along the theme of HOME has been helping those in need of proper shelter.  In February Jon Schuerholz the pastor of our home church, Kenmore Alliance visited us.  It was an awesome trip with a lot of encouragement for us and much work for the Kingdom of God.

One day we did home visits in the rural area surrounding Pigg's Peak (North West Mountainous part of the country).  We visited a widowed mother who currently had 3 children staying with her.  The four of them lived in a 2 room stick & mud house.  The inside part of the walls are decaying and water is surfacing from somewhere underground.  This makes the floor of the inside constantly wet and even muddy at times.  So Pastor Jon decided that we would construct a new concrete house for her.  Below is the picture of the house they are currently staying in. 

 

Below is the "toilet" they use everyday.   

 

 

For the past month and a half we have been coordinating construction of their new house.  Zwakele & I typically spend one day a week up in this rural community checking on details of the construction and doing home visits in the community.  Unfortunately, due to heavy rains throughout most of March, the hardware store could not get a truck up the road to deliver building materials to the family.  However, two weeks ago we were very happy to find that the blocks & cement had finally been delivered and that the foundation was already laid!!   

 

Below a picture of the new foundation.

 

The rainy season has now ended and we are hoping that construction will be finished by the end of the month of May.  We will post more pictures in our next blog.  We would appreciate your prayers for our continued ministry in this community. 

HOPE – The Resurrection of Christ Jesus displays the only true HOPE for mankind.  Some of the ministries we now are involved in are all about declaring the love & hope that are found only in Christ.  Will you please stand with us in prayer for these ministries we are involved in.   

Hospital Outreach - Zwakele & I are taking time every week to do hospital visitation and outreach @ the Mbabane Government Hospital.  This is a great opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus and show his love and compassion to people who are often in desperate need of it.         

Outreach in Zone 4 - In the community around the YWAM base known as Zone 4 there are quite a number of widows & orphaned children.  Our staff has a continual presence in this community ministering to them.  So far we have had open doors to visit and share the gospel of Christ with people in this community.  Last week we broke into several teams and prayer walked the area and met with people at their house, at small roadside shops, or just walking along the street.  It was a great time.  We also have open doors at the primary school in Zone 4, where once a week we lead the students in morning devotionals before the start of school.  Below is a picture of some of us as we went out into the community.   

 

Lomkiri University students - There is a newly constructed medical university in the community of Lomkiri.  This has seen our area have a massive influx of college students.  In fact we have 17 students living right next door to us in a group of apartments.  A fellow staff member and I are leading a weekly time of outreach for them on Thursday nights @ the YWAM base.  Please pray that students would make decisions for Christ, and that God would empower us to have the right words & His wisdom to reach them.           

Seminars / Preaching @ Church / Teaching @ the Bible College - Being at YWAM has also opened up much more time for me (Dennis) to be involved in teaching and preaching.  Soon we will be conducting one day and weekend seminars for churches to instill in them a passion to reach the lost and equip them to carry out the mission.  I will provide more details as the seminars draw closer.      

HAPINESS 
Being in Christ's will for your life brings joy!  We are so thankful to be in this new season of ministry.  Our families desire is that wherever we go we want to move with Jesus' purposes, love, and compassion.  We want to be conduits of His joy to those around us, carrying His light into dark places.  Whether its the government hospital, the township of Zone 4, or the rural areas, we want to minister Jesus' love and bring joy to people.  When people meet us we want them to encounter Christ.  Thandeka Grace is now 3 years old.  She is growing and speaking both Siswati and English.  It has been such a joy to take her with us as we go out to minister.  Below she is holding the hand of one of the children for whom we are building the new house.        

Again, we are so happy to be in this new chapter of our lives!  We feel incredibly blessed and humbled.  Thank you so much for standing with us prayerfully and financially as we serve the Lord Jesus in Swaziland.  Today is a great day!  He has risen, just as He said he would!  I pray that His resurrection power would be so very evident in our lives, and that we would choose to walk with him daily.  Lord Jesus thank you for your grace and please make us more and more like you!  May the Lord bless you all abundantly!