Life has quieted down significantly after the past several weeks in which we were maintaining a busy schedule of traveling and appointments. We don’t know where the time has gone, but can say it is moving at a rapid pace!
Over the last five weeks the Lord has clearly shown us where He wants us and we will be spending three weeks there starting Friday (July 20) to be able to get more familiar with the community and start building relationships with the people there. It’s a mid-sized town called Potchefstroom about 100km southwest of Johannesburg. We have made two day-trips there to meet with friends who are already involved in the area, explore ministry opportunities and look at land on which we can establish a permanent teaching/training/resource center.
We have opportunities to hit the ground running once we locate there… ministering to an existing group of youth and families as well as the teachers and students at an existing preschool on a regular basis, and have been extended offers to use a community center and preschool for other programs open to the entire community. We’re not sure of the exact date yet but it is looking like we will be taking up full-time residence in Potchefstroom sometime in November/December to be prepared to be fully functional in January when the new school year starts.
We are praying that we will be able to have the 19 year old girl we have been ministering to since 2008 (and consider our South African daughter), stay and work with us. She will have finished her early childhood training course by that time and all of her other commitments will be over. We feel there are many opportunities for her to consider there, from attending university, to working with us in ministry, to learning more about teaching, to volunteering at a local preschool. After meeting with her last week, her heart is still soft for sharing the Word with youth, which remains her number one goal in life. We feel that it is important to be close to her as she still has a lot of healing that needs to take place in her life. We are praying that she will be able to stay with us in Potch for a few days before we head back to the US in mid-August.
As far as land goes, we’ve been looking at smallholding farms (10-30 acres) with houses and additional outbuildings on them which can be used or converted into worship and teaching spaces, housing or classrooms… some have been small livestock farms (cattle, sheep, goats and chicken), and some have been small fruit and/or vegetable farms. We haven’t found “the spot” yet but have several more to look at when we go back that look promising. It’s a bit of a catch-22 looking for something we don’t have the funds in-hand for and at the same time trying to raise the funds for something we haven’t found yet, but we’re trusting that Christ has figured all that out for us already.
With all of this said, most of our time this past week’s was spent on the Calvary Chapel Johannesburg church grounds… praying, studying and listening to teachings. There were a few days that we barely made it out of our room! For a couple that is on the go most of the time, it was a little challenging but at the same time very rewarding! We also participated in a blanket drive organized by one of our South African partners in Diepsloot, a township that is home to well over 150,000 people (in 2005, much larger now), where city officials estimate that well over 55% of the population is unemployed, and Sunday we went rural to worship with a small handful of people on the outskirts of Johannesburg. There was a total of 8 of us, South Africans, Malawians, and Americans and amongst us all spoke Afrikaans, Tswana, Chichewa, and English. I love how it doesn’t really matter what language is spoken when you are worshipping God, you all seemed to be doing the same thing and everyone knows it!
We thank all of you for your continued prayers and support. Sometimes we get emails from people that totally surprise and mean SO much to us! It reminds us that this is a journey in which many people play different parts to make things happen. We just happen to be the ‘goers’ right now, but God makes it clear that we need the ‘senders’, too. We are in this together and everyone has a role to play! We especially appreciate those of you that pray for us and provide financial support on a regular basis.
Please continue to lift us and the work that the Lord has laid upon our heart in your prayers. As we will be moving to Potchefstroom on Friday, please pray for safe travels, our settlement there, that Christ will continue to go before us to open doors and set divine appointments for us, and that our eyes, ears, minds and hearts be open to see and walk through the open doors and avoid banging into or trying to break down the closed ones.
We are thankful for each one of you for being on this journey with us.