Dear brethren,

You are loved by the Father. In fact, you have always been loved by the Father and will forever be loved by him. May the truth of his steadfast love for you compel you to take greater strides for his cause in this world.

“We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, the deeds you did in their days, in days of old” (Psalm 44:1). May the testimony of God in the lives of those who went before us give us a hunger to witness his deeds in our day, just as John Knox, Whitefield, Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones, etc. witnessed it in their day!

This is our desire at Reformed Faith Mission Community Church. It is our ambition to seek God and to see him glorified in the life of everyone in our community. It has been our slogan and our prayer that God will be glorified in the salvation of sinners! This salvation is current, progressive, and will be complete at the coming of our Lord. To this end we strive—his glory!

January 

As usual, our year starts with our feet running before it hits the floor. It has become our annual practice to host students and missionaries from the Great Commission Camp. This year, 23 of them descended on our community with one purpose only: Christ and him crucified.

This year, we had a much stronger team with us as we went from house to house sharing the gospel in the toughest areas of our community. We had an added blessing in the presence of pastor Chris Mnguni who joined us for these few days of outreach. It seemed like the Lord schedule his vacation to be during the time of exciting street evangelism. He had first-hand experience engaging hardened criminals with the gospel. It was such a blessing having him share the gospel with gangs and individuals on the street. Daveyton has indeed been blessed with a powerful gospel preacher.

Pastor Chris was also privileged to witness someone trading his “slow-boat” (marijuana) for a Bible. I had to teach him how to handle it properly (not something I often do—ha ha!).

We had our annual month of evangelism. The whole of February is dedicated to corporate evangelism. The whole church goes out on the streets every night to reach the lost with the good news of Christ. It is always a blessing to see how our members have grown in their ability to accurately and lovingly share the gospel. I am especially encouraged at the wealth of Scripture that they share when they teach people the truth about God, the truth about man, the truth about Christ, and God’s command to repent and believe.

We are grateful to several pastors and preachers from other churches who joined us in preaching at our open air services. We have seen some of those who we ministered to in the streets attend our Sunday morning service and have several invitations to have house services. We pray that the Lord will save souls and add to our number.

The Homeless 

We have an opportunity to start with Bible studies at two homeless shelters in Bellville.

This endeavour has brought us into contact with a community of homeless families that have occupied a piece of land and setup makeshift houses made out of cardboard boxes, plastic and any type of waste that they can use. This community has organised themselves and have certain rules that everyone must abide by that seek to put up a shack with them. People from all walks of life have found a home here. They are in need of the gospel. One of the Charismatic churches has already sank their claws in here. I think they might see an opportunity to make money from sponsorships for proposed projects that they promised these people. We trust the Lord for an open door here.

The Gift of God 

“And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). It is our conviction that the office of apostle and prophet has ceased, but not that of evangelist and pastor-teacher. However, it seems that in our Reformed circles the office of evangelist has also ceased. As pastors and members of the body of Christ it is all our responsibility to do the work of an evangelist and to be witnesses of Christ, but I am convinced that we miss out on the tremendous blessing of this gift operating in our local churches. God has indeed blessed our local church with such a gift. Pastor Quinton, who by God’s grace began the work of planting Reformed Faith Mission, has recognised that as much as he is pastoring the church with me, he would really focus his attention and energy on leading the evangelism of the church. This does not mean we are starting an outreach team, as we are very weary of departmentalising evangelism. This does mean that he will be leading all evangelistic efforts of our church. I like J. Mack Stile’s definition of evangelism: “Evangelism is teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade.” That will be the foundation he will work from. We are thankful to God for this gift to our church.

We are also grateful that HeartCry has decided to support Quinton for fulltime ministry. This will has already proven to be a huge support to me and a blessing to our church and our community.

Personal 

It seems that, during our month of evangelism, the enemy’s attack on my family is more severe than usual. However, what the enemy meant for evil, God uses for his own glory and our good.

My wife had another hemiplegic migraine episode which landed her in the hospital for a week. Thankfully, by God’s grace, the swelling on her brain caused no damage and the doctors were able to identify what might trigger this kind of migraine. This will be a huge breakthrough for us if their suspicion is correct. They will switch some of her medication to see if this is the case, which we hope it is. Noah was also sick with fever well over 38. I had him twice at the doctor while Charlene was in hospital. I must agree with the Lord: It is not good for man to be alone.

The Lord has seen us through and Charlene is back at work and Noah is his jolly self again. Praise the Lord!

We have both learned valuable lessons through this time of trial. Our dependency upon God is a moment-by-moment reality and our joy and contentment in him is not based on our comfort, but even through our pain we should be a beacon of hope and light shining forth the glory of the cross.

“But I will hope continually, and will praise you yet more and more” (Psalm 71:14).

A Permanent Place of Worship 

We continue to trust God for a permanent place of worship. The building we desire to purchase is still available as negotiations with other buyers has fallen through. We are also looking at alternative land to purchase. Please keep praying to this end.

Prayer Needs 

• Pray for those who heard the gospel throughout the month of February. Pray for the house services that will be conducted as a result of this and for those who started to visit our Sunday services.
• Pray for our outreach to the homeless shelters and a small community of homeless squatters.
• We are currently dealing with a church discipline issue. Pray that the Lord will grant repentance to this member of our church.
• Thank God for the progressive health and growth in our members and that their zeal for God and his gospel will only increase.
• Pray for personal holiness of us as elders that we will be able to say with a clear conscience: “Imitate us!”
• Pray for the health of my wife and that the Lord will make it possible for us to have her quit her job.
• Praise God for keeping her through yet another hemiplegic migraine episode.

Church Building 

We are grateful to the Lord for those who gave toward the opportunity we have to buy an existing church building.

A second option, should the building not prove affordable, is to purchase a piece of land in our area.

SOUTH AFRICAN BANK ACCOUNT

First National Bank
Account Name: Reformed Faith Mission
Cheque Account: 62505439663
Branch code: 200910
Reference: Building Project

USA ACCOUNT

We are grateful to God for Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Mark Dever & 9Marks) who made their Great Commission Partners account facility available for U.S. donors to contribute towards this building fund. Simply put Reformed Faith Mission Community Church as reference or in the memo. Here is the link.

You can also donate via PayPal.

I trust that the Lord will work in your heart to give sacrificially to this opportunity.

May the Lord accomplice his will for us. We look to him!

Please do share our need with those who might want to contribute to this end.

Thank you for taking time to read this report. I trust you were encouraged and moved towards greater endeavours for our Lord.

Yours in his service,

Mario F. Maneville (Pastor-teacher)

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