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Hello, Friends! It's been just over two years since our last update on this platform. We hope you have been doing well and flourishing wherever God has you. We wanted to share a few updates with everyone. Just over a year ago, Pastor Julius passed away after a short battle with cancer. His wife, Irene (Lulama), has continued to care for approximately 30 children at the Unakho Children's Home, and we have continued to provide financial support for them through Reach Africa. Thank you to those of you who have continued supporting them finalcially and in prayer. It is very much appreciated. We have stayed in contact with Irene, and we spent some time with her and their daughter Nosisi last year in July. It has been a challenging time for all of them. We went to Cape Town last year for two weeks in July. The weather was absolutely horrible for all but one day, but it was wonderful to be able to spend time with William and to catch up with dear friends. Tim was able to go back in September for Scripture Union's 100th Anniversary of being in South Africa. This year, we are planning to lead a team from Calvary Baptist Church NYC to help run a holiday club in Langa from June 26-July 10. We currently have 15 people planning to go, including the two of us. We are planning to work with Pastor Ziba's church (Langa Commonground), Scripture Union, and with some youth workers in the community. It's a pretty daunting task to run a holiday club from on the ground there, let alone trying to organize it from 8,000 miles away! We would really appreciate your prayers for this. We aren't sure yet from which school we will be hosting the holiday club, but it will not be at Mokone Primary. We do have one veteran of several South Africa teams sent from Blacksburg Christian Fellowship on the team (Tucker Miller), so that will be helpful. Specific prayer points are listed below. In addition, if you feel led to contribute financially towards the expenses of the trip, we would be grateful. We are hoping to be able to provide a hot meal each day to the children who attend the holiday club. Schools will be on their 3 week winter break, and that often means that a lot of children are very hungry because they aren't getting a meal at school. If you are interested in making a contribution towards team expenses, please open this link: https://cbcnyc.tpsdb.com/OnlineReg/603/Giving/7676 . Each team member's donations are being pooled and will go towards not only the team's expenses, but also towards the costs of the holiday club and meals for the children. In other news, Tim has been enjoying his role as Executive Pastor at Calvary. In addition, we are both involved in helping to oversee the young adults ministry. This is something that we really enjoy, and the group has been growing, both numerically and spiritually. We have recently gotten the green light to start engaging with people living in a housing project in Manhattan. Our first outreach there will be Saturday, April 12. We are planning to run a "Super Saturday" type of event with the children of the community, sharing a Bible lesson, lots of games, an Easter egg hunt, and songs. We hope to start building relationships with parents through their children. Eventually, we hope to be able to engage the adults with things like job readiness training, teaching English, and helping in other ways that are needed. This community is not far from where the new church building will be, so hopefully we can invite people to join us there soon. The church building project is progressing well. The developers plan to hand over the keys in the next few months. Then the final touches will need to be put in. Ideally, we will be in the building before Christmas this year. While the church has been without a building, we have been meeting in a synagogue on the Upper West Side since January 2024. Prior to that, the church was meeting at Hunter College, but we were very limited at that location. The synagogue has been a real blessing, and we have enjoyed getting to know people in that congregation. We have worked together with some of them to help immigrants work through complex paperwork details so that they can legally work in the city. The church is holding a Passover Seder at the synagogue on Good Friday, which will be led by a Messianic Jew. Tim has been writing a blog to address issues of the church and culture. If you are interested in reading his posts, you may click on this link: https://tim292.substack.com/p/when-religious-leaders-get-it-so In our last update we asked for prayer that we would be able to make friends in our apartment community. The Lord has abundantly answered that prayer! Last May we met a diverse group of people at a pool party that the apartment management hosted. Since then, we have gotten together regularly for meals and celebrations. It has been a real blessing for all of us. We are the only Americans in the group. The others are from India, China, and Nigeria. Leslie has been working as a math tutor in a couple of different schools since August 2023. She has found that the children in these schools are as far behind as the children that she worked with in Cape Town were. A lot of children have big gaps from the Covid season, and closing those gaps is a huge challenge. Our son James and daughter-in-law Mackenzie are expecting their first child in early June. We're very excited for them and for our new role as grandparents. William is continuing to thrive in Cape Town. He is planning to come for a visit here in June. Thank you for your continued interest our latest adventures in following Jesus. May God bless you, and may you experience the joy of this Resurrection season. FOR PRAYER & PRAISE Praise:
A few pictures: CBC Young Adult Group, CBC Church Building near completion, NYC view from The Edge, Kirstenbosch Garden, Cape Town. |
