Dear family and friends,
It is with much gratitude that we write to you. Our hearts are full of joy, thanksgiving and praise to the LORD who continues to lavish his grace upon us.
Family
As a family, we desire to be centred on Christ. We labour to see the word of God dominate our home, shape our common living together, and inform our conversations. We seek to be a beacon of light in our neighbourhood, an encouragement to our friends, and a faithfully serving family in our local church. We will not rest on what our family has done, but will seek to live more and more in light of God’s grace and goodness, as he enables us.
Our children are all doing well, growing too fast for us. Resego has just turned 9 in February, Reitumetse will be 7 this year, Reabiloe and Reatliloe are both 3, though Reabiloe will be turning 4 in October. The girls continue to thrive in their schooling and once a month they get to enjoy ice skating on home-schooling discounted rates. The boys are getting along well these days (not so very well as yet though) but learning to share and defend each other. We’re now contemplating on whether to get a lie detector for the boys or not; it’s so hard to know who’s lying or telling the truth.
Raising children is actually for the faint of the heart who need God’s grace on daily basis, else we would just fall apart. We continue to be prayerful for ourselves to be on-guard against raising mere moralists. It’s also our desire and prayer for their salvation; to see fruit in keeping with true repentance and faith.
The adoption process is long and daunting, we are still waiting for a court date. Please keep us in prayers to get this finalised.
Ministry
It has been a very busy start of the year. One of my two fellow-elders started seminary at Christ Baptist, Polokwane; we hosted pastors’ workshop with Mike McKinley on 10 January, talking church revitalization; we suffered a death of a church member at the end of January; we celebrated a wedding beginning of February; and I enrolled for a counselling course beginning of this year. It is also my second year of Church in Hard Places apprenticeship in partnership with Acts 29.
In the midst of this busyness, I’m learning the basics of faith. The Lord has been teaching me to trust him through his word—to know that Scripture effectively deals with the deepest human problems. I echo the words of Calvin: “that the truth by which God sanctifies his sons exists nowhere but in the word.”
We praise the Lord for blessing us with active members, who support the ministry through prayer, attendance, service, giving and evangelism. It is our prayer and desire to do more evangelism this year. We have been praying and now we see God opening doors and hearts of the people.
Community
We have been reaching out an informal settlement just two kilometres away from the church premises and we have been received well. We praise God for the gospel opportunity and also pray we will be able to start a Bible study in this area for more outreach opportunities.
Police Station
We recently received an invitation by a local police station commander to discuss how the church could have a working relationship in the fight against crime through spiritual intervention. We praise the Lord for this opportunity and pray that through this platform many will hear the gospel and be saved.
School
One of our members is a high school teacher and has been giving spiritual insight to the staff and students. In our conversation, we realised that there is an opportunity for our church to get involve in the school and offer spiritual intervention. Please pray for bold gospel proclamation and salvation of souls.
Pastoral Internship
Though the task ahead seems daunting, we are grateful to God for his provision of Menzi Mohale, who recently joined our church. Menzi was saved in 2013 and became a member at Crystal Park Baptist Church until mid-March 2019. He’s currently doing his fourth year of Bachelor in theology with Christ Seminary.
Prayer
It has been quoted that “a church that does not pray together cannot stand together.” May I urge you brethren to make prayer your first priority and be devoted to it. As God’s people, we must always aim at been prayerful.
Please pray for us:
- Sanctification—that Christ will be further formed in us and we will be transformed more and more into his image.
- Salvation––of our children and the community of Naledi that we are reaching out.
- Adoption—for the adoption of our boy, who has been with us for over a year, to be finalised.
- Homemaker and helper—Pray for my wife as she supports and helps me and runs the home and home-schools our children.
- Provision—that the Lord will continue to provide for us as he has faithfully done and that we will be generous and wise stewards of all that he has entrusted to us.