Greetings, brethren, in the wonderful name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Please find herewith the latest ministry news from Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Olievenhoutbosch, South Africa.

Thanksgiving

Thank you for your constant prayers and support. We give thanks to the Lord for his grace and faithfulness toward us and for the encouragement and support we receive from you. We give him praise that, despite the challenges we face, he continues to give us the grace to press on with joy and gratefulness.

Family

I continue to thank God for the wonderful family that he has given me. My wife is feeling much better and healthier than the previous month and that give us great joy as we see the grace of God upon us.

We are grateful for the Lord’s grace, for granting our prayers for healing for Pearl, brother Sello’s wife, who was hospitalised a second time and is now recovering.

Progress

We are happy to still be able to meet, faithfully and tirelessly, every Sunday. The rain often looks threatening for our gathering, but the Lord graciously enables us to meet and blesses us with his word.

After a small misunderstanding with the community, we have a fruitful meeting whereby we learned that some people were posing as community leaders while they were not. This was confusing because there are things that were discussed but with wrong people.

We had some people refusing municipal workers from connecting a water meter on our land. This is when we learned that there are other people who are still opposed, saying the community was not consulted. Brother Sello accompanied the municipal workers and managed to have the meter installed after. Afterward we had a meeting in a week and the meter is installed until now.

We really thank God for the progress and the eye opening that some people were trying to take advantage of the situation and hoping for a bribe. There seems to be a good understanding now since the matter of false community representatives is out of the way. The community around the church has given us a clear indication that they don’t have a problem with the church, but they believed that we had not spoken to them, while we were of the opinion that we had spoken to their leader. We thank God to have revealed now that those people were fake leaders hoping for a bribe.

Outreach and Evangelism

Please pray for consistency in reaching the community with the gospel and for the Lord to save people in the community.

We continue to invite people and inform them about the church and one advantage of our meeting under a tree is that everyone can see there is a church gathering and we pray God will draw them to join us.

Prayer Requests

  • Pray the Lord will give us wisdom in dealing with the community and its leaders at all times.
  • Pray for gospel fruit as we continue outreach efforts.
  • Pray for Thandi and Pearl’s health.
  • Pray for financial provision for the building work that is required.

Thank you again for your prayers.

For Sovereign Grace Bible Church

Bheki Bembe

Bheki Bembe

Bheki Bembe

Sovereign Grace Bible Church

Bheki Bembe is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Olievenhoutbosch, a township of Centurion on the northern side of Johannesburg.  For years, Bheki has sacrificially served his church while also maintaining a successful career in business management.  Like his friend, Chris Mnguni, Bheki is a leader in the growing wave of township church-planters laboring to build biblical churches on the strong foundation of the true gospel and sound doctrine.