Reasonable Service

We ask you to pray about a couple of big days coming up at the church.

1. On the 16th of March we will be having child dedication day. Alot of mothers are concerned with all the crime, disease and other evil going on and want a better life for their kids. We will be preaching on what it means to dedicate your child to God. We hope to see souls saved and parents make commitments to raising their children in church and by the WORD.

2. Also we will be having a big Easter Celebration. This should be an easy day to get a few visitors as most people feel they should go to church on Easter and Christmas.

Thanks for your prayers.

Well, I tried some more of the South African culture today. It was something that I would have normally refused but it having snuck up on me I had no choice. I was trying to get a microphone hooked up to the computer today and well, with township electrical wiring everything around the computer was somehow LIVE!!! I reached behind the computer and the next thing I new it looked as if I was on the Mount of Transfiguration because all I saw was a big bright light. I definately experienced a little shock living in S.A. today.

My original purpose was to get arrangements made to be able to start recording our choir. We will get it done another way.

We switched things around just a little today. We invited Pastor Ken Westenberger from Grace Baptist Church in Kabega Park to come over and preach to our church family while I went over and preached to his congregation. I have to say it was nice to preach in English. I was headed to complete an entire year without preaching in English. It was refreshing to say the least. I had a blast and I believe the church did to as we studied about what it meant to follow Christ.

Meanwhile Pastor Ken said things went great out at Madiba Bay. There was a good attendance and alters were full during the invitation. God is amazing! I am awed at His power and faithfulness everyday of my life.

Tonight our long awaited teacher’s training course kicked off. I asked a fellow missionary to teach the course for us. Veteran missionary Ross Pyle from California has graciously given his time and knowledge to teaching our people the basics of “being” and teaching a sunday school class. We are excited at the number of people that have showed interest and are going through the teaching training. As of today, 9 people from our church are going through the course and will be getting hands on experience in the near future through the start of the Sunday school program at Madiba Bay. Please pray for these people as they will most likely be the future leadership and leader trainers in our church.

We had a blast yesterday! After about two weeks of just kind of struggling along it seems as if yesterday God ripped one out of the park. We saw great crowds in both services. There were 60 in the morning service and somewhere close to that in the evening service. We celebrated Valetine’s day and took the opportunity to preach on marriage and true love. We had a special preacher in the evening service, Ross Pyle a church planter from California, which preached a tremendous message on marriage. In the morning service we saw a couple professions of faith, then in the eveing I believe many decisions were made in the hearts of our people. This is one for the books. We look forward to greater things in the weeks and months to come.

This coming week I will be “trading spaces” with another preacher across town. He is going to preach at Madiba Bay through a translator and I will be preaching in his church, Grace Baptist.

Many missionaries I know hate eating the food of nationals especially in third world countries. I have to say that it took a little time but I can honestly say today that I actually get urges for some of the African cuisine. In particular, amagwinya. I am a bread fanatic and this particular dish is deep fried bread. It is kind of like a unsweetened doughnut. It is a delicious. Lubabalo, Sipho and myself usually grad a bag of these for lunch. That will cost you about fifty cents. Unfortunately it would definately be found on the avoid list of any doctor’s healthy food chart. Up to this point in my life I have never really given a second thought to my diet. I stayed in decent physical shape exteriorly but as of today I have learned that the inside is not so well. I will be exchanging the amagwinyas, iqadidi, and amacala for some fresh fruit and other not so desired foods after going to the doctor for other reasons today and finding out my cholesterol is up to 6.6. I am not clued up on everything to do with cholesterol but it seems that it is suppose to be under 5 and this is particularly shaming seeing that I am not even thirty yet.

On a better note we had a good service tonight. The message seemed to go across well. We are continuing through the book of Mark. Tonight we were in chapter eight and read where Jesus asked his disciples in verse 18, “Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?” In other words He was frustrated with their lack of understanding and inability to remember the miracles that He had just performed before their eyes. It was as if He was saying to them that they seem not to be all there, or the elevator just does’t seem to go all the way to the top. We have a problem, God works and fixes it, we rejoice and then forget about the great work and then worry and fret the next time a problem comes into our lives. We see His power and we hear about His power but then just a short time later we forget about His power.

We look forward to a great service on Sunday as we celebrate Marriage.

That means that I am late (literally it means my baboon is old). I have been out of touch lately and I apologize.

Last week we baptized seven ladies and gave out 10 certificates for completing level one in basic discipleship. Our goal is for 120 people to complete this level this year and as you can see we are on target. We did have a few setbacks last week that we still haven’t gotten over. For instance a lady that was really taking long strides forward in her Christian walk has fallen victim to a horrible slavemaster called Alcohol. Between disease and Alcohol Satan is masterminding a holocaust of the Xhosa people. We desperately need your prayers for our people to be victorious.

We will begin some new teacher training classes this week. We should have four or five people being trained to work in the Sunday School classes. The rooms are almost complete. Braten, a builder in the church has done a terrific job of getting them done. Our kids and teens are desperate for direction in life so I am anxious to see these classes up and running.

This coming week we anticipate a great Valentine’s Service. We will be out compelling the lost to come and hear the Gospel at Madiba Bay. Pray for us that the Kingdom will be furthered by what happens on Sunday.