Greetings brethren,
I trust that you and your family are doing well by the grace of God. It is been two months not updating you on news in Daveyton, but we thank God for the opportunity that he has given us to serve together in his kingdom.
Please see below a recent update of my family and the church. As the Mnguni family, we are so grateful for your support and prayers as we serve God in Daveyton.
Pastor’s Home
Our little family is doing well by the grace of God. We are grateful to God for the practical wisdom he has given us to manage the fatigue we’ve been experiencing. We’ve started paying closer attention to exercise and my wife has drastically changed our diet to a low carb and low sugar diet. This seems to be helping us a lot and we are planning to commit to it for the long term.
Spiritually, we are also grateful for our personal time of prayer, which is where the Lord has been just bringing strength and encouragement to us.
My wife has been great in helping me identify patterns that lead me to being overworked and tired. Please pray that the Lord will grant me the humility to listen to her whenever she observes that I’m overworking myself or over committing to things, because I usually don’t even recognise it.
Planting Seed
As a direct result of these conversations with my wife, I’ve decreased on some intense ministries, like the morning preaching at the clinics. I have also reduced my preaching days as I have felt that it’s one of the activities that has been taking a toll on my body.
The church at prayer
Interestingly enough, even when the weak bodies of mortal man fail, the mighty hand of God continues to move. In my recent preaching at the clinic, one old lady responded to the gospel message. She signalled that she would like to speak to me before I left. She told me that she goes to a cult church and that, as I was sharing the gospel, she realised how lost she is and how much she needs the Saviour. I asked for her contact number but she didn’t have a phone. She asked her husband to give me his phone number. He was very unhappy and sceptical. After a few follow up visits to their home, the Lord used the sickness in his life to get his attention. We were there to help them to go to the hospital. Her husband was just broken by the way we served him. He then told his wife that he will come to church with her. They have both started attending our church for the past month now and have also invited another elderly couple to church with them.
The Lord has opened another unique opportunity in one of the schools, where I not only preach in the assembly but get to serve on Mondays as a counsellor. The school has assigned me an office where they direct all the learners who need counselling and guidance. They bring problematic learners in class, learners addicted to drugs, and learners having problems at home. Some learners also come voluntary to share their problems. This opportunity has helped me to reach the learners and teachers better because I get to share the gospel with them one on one and they have the opportunity to engage me and ask questions, which is quite effective.
School counselling
In one of our sessions the principal came to my office with six girls who were apparently fighting after school. I spoke to them, showing that the root of their problem is that their hearts are evil and wicked. They didn’t believe that their hearts are so evil. After I explained how sinful the heart of man is, they realised that they were not just sinning against each other but against God who created them. They asked forgiveness to each other. My prayer and hope is that they will give their lives to Jesus, who can give them a new heart.
Shepherding God’s Flock
After returning from Washington D.C. I realised that part of our weakness as a church was not using the men that God has blessed us with. I have challenged the men about taking the responsibility of shepherding the flock of God. The Lord has raised brothers Johannes and Nkia who are willing to serve as elders. We have started meeting every Wednesday to go through the different 9Marks books on the church. At the moment, we are busy reading the one on church membership. It has revolutionised our commitment to helping our church members to be healthy. We also pray for each of our members by name and are intentional in reaching out to the weak sheep in our midst.
We also have started to implement the ACTS acronym prayer in our service. The church has responded well and this has grown the prayer life of the church and our personal prayer. As a church, we’ve been a place where only two people will be standing in front and serving: a programme director and the pastor. But now we have four to five people who serve, whether by reading Scripture or praying the prayer of adoration, confession, thanksgiving or supplication.
Losing Febri, who was leading our music, was a blow but, as Paul says, all things work together for good. This has encouraged us as a church to focus more on congregational singing. Although we are still praying for someone who will play the keyboard for us, this is not something that we worry about as a church.
Building the House of God
Many of our township churches meets in schools, tents, or shack structures. We’ve been praying that the Lord will build structures in each and every township in our country where the truth will be preached. We are one of the churches that the Lord provided with land. We’ve been waiting for a rough sketch of a building structure.
Church building drawings—top view
It is our appeal to all of you to pray that the Lord will lay on your heart, as individuals or as churches, to give towards this project. Our desire is to build a church in our township that will be a hub to plant other churches. We desire to build a church that will start a Bible school, which will teach people God’s truth in their native language.
Church building drawings—side elevations
Our plan is to build this church building in phases. The first phase of this building is estimated to cost R1.5M. (USD102,318.00). At the moment we have an amount of R200,000.00. It is our humble request that you will join hands with us in advancing his kingdom.
Prayer Requests
Please pray with us along these lines:
- Pray for the Lord to continue to build strong churches in townships.
- Thank God with us for the fruits that we are seeing in clinic outreaches. Pray that he will grow the people he sends to us deeper in his word and to love his church.
- Pray for one of our elder candidates—brother Johannes—who recently proposed to his girlfriend, Portia. He is sending his family to Portia’s family in October for lobolo negotiations. Portia has recently become a Christian. She is from a family that believes in a cult kind of church. She is afraid that they will use the lobolo negotiations to get back to her. Please be praying that the negotiations will go smoothly between the two families.
- Pray for brother Nkia, our other elder candidate, who recently lost his father. He leads our music and one of our Bible studies.
- Pray that God will provide the funds for building project so that he might use it to build his church.