Thurs. Dec. 11th, '03
Good morning to Park St. (and other) praying friends -
(Prelim. Comment: I have tried to limit, or to cut-down on overly-lengthy e-mails, as I know you, like us out here, get more than you can handle. "Bless-ed ramblings," however well-intentioned (or therapeutic), from far-away missionaries, are perhaps the hardest to handle. But in this case, allow me a departure from my self-imposed rule to limit transmission length.)
"Blessings & Challenges" --
Two young couples, each with young family members (one, and two boys, respectively), have recently joined the Andrew Murray Centre's ministry. I will send you computer-graphics photos soon. One, Christopher and Sunetta Lawrence, moved into a house we own (which we purchased in the 1980's with a gift from a Gordon-Conwell Seminary pal), across the street from our "main building." They have two boys, and Christopher's mother lives with them as well. He is the principal of our about-to-start-up "Andrew Murray Bible College."
They moved in from a neighboring town on the 28th of November, and all was well as Christopher set about making the final arrangements to open the college formally at the end of January. Christopher's wife, Sunetta, is scheduled to leave her long-standing place of employment at the end of December. It is in the City of Cape Town, too far distant from our Wellington base for sensible commuting. The availability of inexpensive accommodation in a property owned by the Andrew Murray Centre makes that possible. Her kids will both love it...the boys are 6 and 3.
On Saturday morning, Dec. 6th, while driving their car to a funeral where Christopher (a minister) was to officiate, Christopher and Sunetta encountered a road mishap. Their car left the road at speed, went down an embankment, and rolled several times before coming to a standstill upright. Christopher remembers shutting off the engine. The automobile did not hit any obstruction, and fortunately, there was no fire, for they were unable to open the doors (the car is a write-off).
Injured, but not critically, they're slowly recuperating at home this week, Christopher making more progress apparently (I can tell from the sound of his voice when I phone him). They're sort of still in shock.
The other couple that's joined us, Benjamin and Geraldine Roberts, have a long-ish history with the Andrew Murray Centre. "Brother Bennie," an ex-nightclub "d.j.", came to us in Jan., '99, a temporarily disappointed O.M. DOULOS Ship crew applicant (he hadn't the support funds needed, coming from a poor family without a strong bread-winner). Bennie was with us at the "opening gun" of the prison ministry in Feb. '99, and worked with that as his "training situ" with us for eighteen months. After that he was called into radio broadcasting, and later, once married (to a young woman prison Bible teacher/volunteer he met with us), he started an innovative youth outreach ministry in some of the poorer sections of Cape Town, in schools. He invited me to join him in that work, and I spent several days a week in schools with him, unforgettable months, in Xhosa and Coloured Jr. and Sr. High Schools outreach. (South Africa has not formally or legally separated the Bible from the process, or the concept of Education, and there are many remarkable opportunities on every hand...most going un-fulilled.)
Bennie and Geraldine live at the Andrew Murray Centre, in an "apartment wing," and are the "house-life directors." Their ministry alongside us, dating back to 1999, makes them uniquely qualified to lead that important aspect of our training ministry. They have one little son, a toddler, named Reinhard.
I noticed, as from Bennie's re-joining us in September, the hoarseness of his voice. I thought it was from too much voice-use on the radio. But it didn't go away as the intervening months passed. In the first week of December, Bennie's older sister, age 41, died suddenly from an Asma attack. (Okay, will someone write and tell me how to spell that respiratory ailment? I cannot even find it in the dictionary, or at least not at 0330hrs. in the morning) That was a wake-up call to me. "Bennie's voice trouble," it dawned on me, "is asma, not voice strain, or a prolonged cold."
On Tuesday, Dec. 9th, I took Bennie to our family doctor. He said one thing: "Get a chest x-ray and come back." We'll get the full diagnosis in due time, but one thing's sure: Bennie will have to undergo some serious treatment, and will, I suspect, have to alter his work routines in the process.
I mention these things to you for your prayers. Both these young couples are "full-time," So. African volunteers. Both take up very responsible positions at the Andrew Murray Centre, each with vital contributions to make as our 'new year' begins in January. Christopher is the principal of our new Bible College...with BOTH an "in-prison" component, and an external, "part-time" community approach, e.g. night school, at the Andrew Murray Centre.
This expands our outreach and training base tremendously, and means that the A.M.Centre moves more towards its overall mandate of "missions training," instead of being a one-note trumpet, prison ministry.
In other words, the Centre is going through a time of transition and growth. This process is made somewhat clearer to me, as we have now received our long-awaited Permanent Residence Visas (on Tues., Dec. 2nd). We still intend to retain our focus on prison Bible Studies. Oh yeeesss, big-time...for we now work in TEN prisons. I have that portfolio, but both of these new co-worker couples' ministries dove-tail effectively into that aspect of our ministry. We have well over 450 regular students in the Prison Bible Study programme, and with many in their early twenties, with fifteen year (or more) sentences, it makes perfect sense to help them enter our new Andrew Murray Bible College...so that by the time they're out of prison, they're Bible College Grads. I estimate that there may be as many as 300 potential "bible college" students among our current crop of prison study participants.
LIFE continues to get MORE INTERESTING, as these things happen against the back-drop of new prison Bible Studies, AND some invitations I am beginning to get with regards to speaking/teaching on the issue of South Africa's serious, serious H.I.V./A.I.D.S epidemic...(in prisons, exclusively, where else? I GO nowhere else!)
One thing I have vowed: "I will not speak on this issue without speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ." (And that in some simple, but definite Biblical detail, not just a name-dropping exercise.) This is because I know I am NOT, but I also know that HE IS, the most balanced person ever to walk the earth...as in His John 8 interchange with "the woman caught in adultery." My next assignment: at a prison in a small town where we as yet have no Bible Study outreach ministry, on Wednesday, Dec. 17th. I sense that that will be the introduction to a Bible Study programme there, prison Number 11.
PRAYERS: Would you pray for these two couples, the Lawrences and the Roberts's, who, upon joining us at the Andrew Murray Centre recently, are contending with some serious problems, un-expected things that have arisen to make their beginnings difficult?
PRAY ALSO, that I would seek and find the Lord's guidance amidst these major "transitional' developments. All older missionaries (of which I am one, obviously) have of necessity to think about transition of leadership. These two couples are mature, tested, gifted, and committed to "The Andrew Murray Centre." Theirs is not short-term training. They're the TRAINERS themselves.
And PRAY AS WELL, for this process, as it occurs at an interesting time, financially, for the Andrew Murray Centre. The dollar's exchange rate has been adversely affected by a bunch of things out here, and it translates practically to about a 45% drop in revenues, against the usual year-on-year So. African inflation rate of 10%. Mathmatically and economically, this spells one thing, but faith spells it differently, P - R - A - Y - E - R, as we read in James 1:5.
God willing, our next transmission to you will contain digital camera photos. I have asked someone to get some shots of the families mentioned here, including the Blisses.