Newsletter July 2018


A special THANK YOU to all our partners, friends and supporter for enabling us to carry on our ministry. We are increasing in influence and know that this work is not of ourselves, but the Lord and the united efforts of us all, His team. Thank you!

SPECIAL EVENT AT EMILY'S PLAY SCHOOL:

We are so proud of several of our students for the way they have grown and the initiatives they are taking in their community. Emily, who is also on the board of community leaders, gathered together approx. 120 people with the intent that we, Philip and Rita, might come and preach unto them to love of God with that they may find a better quality of life, and be strengthened and encouraged that they are loved and very valuable!


In the photo above and the ones below, we illustrated how we are made up of spirit, soul and body. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:23). In the last photo Hetta vividly illustrated the downfall of the flesh after having sown to it and then reaping corruption! Afterwards all present stood to their feet and prayed with us to receive the Lord as their Savior. A great time was had by all and the skit brought lots of fun and laughter.




 Emily had invited approx. 70-80 people, but the head count showed that at least 120 showed up. We laid hands on the pot, while still in the kitchen, asking the Lord to stretch the food and make it enough for all, and it worked out that everyone was served—and there was at least a couple of portions left over! Thank you Jesus!

 Philip and Emily serving tea and coffee while the helpers served the people with some nice cakes and cookies after the main meal.


Seen here is Hetta, another very precious student who has been with us for years, and is another pillar to our work. Here she is cooking a nice big pot of hot soup for the neighborhood children whom she feeds at least three times a week.

SUPPLIES:

As seen in the photos here, 200 liters of milk and 14 big boxes of Weet-Bix were distributed in Sir Lowry’s Pass and Nomzamo to two soup kitchens and five ECD centers.



 Unloading outside Joyce;s soup kitchen located in the Old Station Building!

Unloading at Pearl's soup kitchen which caters to approx. 250 children a day.

Philip distributing 14 large boxes of Weet-Bix the the various ECD centers and two soup kitchens.

God bless Philip who is our only driver here. Here he is ready to take off with yet another load of Dis-Chem supplies (personal hygiene supplies, etc) and Weet-Bix!



Here is a vanload full of food and Dis-Chem supplies.We get food twice weekly for the main soup kitchen in Sir Lowry’s Pass!

BIBLE STUDENT GROUPS:

Here Philip is seen with our Bible School students after one of their classes. It was an especially cold night, so we brought our gas heater from home, and Philip cooked up a nice pot of hot soup. We also distributed packages of rice crackers for everyone to take home to their families. Thank the Lord for supplying!

Some of our students learning about the law of faith and how the power of God is activated and flows!












This group of students are presently being rooted in the unconditional truths of the New Testament and getting to know God and His true nature. The number of students tend to vary, but this is our core group.

HOME IMPROVEMENT:

The house seen here was completely flooded with the first heavy winter rains. In the photo above Philip is seen bringing cement (sacks in the background) and carpet. The sand was brought later, and the floor seen below is the living room floor which was done first.





Seen to the left are the bedroom and bathroom floors that still need to get cemented!




Meanwhile the kids are having lots of fun in the sand. The little ones (photo below) are using it as a slide while the older ones are busy building castles!



















FOOD FOR THOUGHT!
1 Corinthians13—JB Philips Translation

Christian love - the highest and best gift

Most people refer to 1 Corinthians 13 as the ‘Love Chapter’, but our example of how to love others can only come from knowing God’s love for us.

13:1-3 - If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.
Paul is saying that you can live your life doing the right things, but if the love of God is not real in your life, it has no power. It’s not enough just doing what the Bible says because it says so.

13:4 - This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
13:5-6 - Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
13:7-8a - Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.
Paul now gives us a definition of what the love of God is. If this is not referring to God’s love, the way God loves us, but rather to the way we ought to love God and others, but God Himself is doesn’t love us that way, then God is asking us to do something He is not willing to do! That is NOT so! The love of God is  a demonstration of how we can love, if we will allow God to love us the way we are.

All gifts except love will be superseded one day

13:8b-10 - For if there are prophecies they will be fulfilled and done with, if there are "tongues" the need for them will disappear, if there is knowledge it will be swallowed up in truth. For our knowledge is always incomplete and our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the complete comes, that is the end of the incomplete.
When you understand that God loves you this way, when you know and understand and are persuaded of that, then His love is a love that will never fail you, never fail you in your life and never fail to bring you to the place where you are needed to be. It will never fail to bring you that which will comfort and make your life better. It will never fail!

13:11 - When I was a little child I talked and felt and thought like a little child. Now that I am a man my childish speech and feeling and thought have no further significance for me.
13:12 - At present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when I shall know it as fully as God now knows me!
13:13 - In this life we have three great lasting qualities - faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.
If we will understand, believe and trust in God’s love in this way, and know that this is the essence (heart) of the Gospel, then we will understand that the essence of the Gospel is really about the love of a Father that will go to extraordinary lengths to win back His people. That’s what it’s about when you start talking about the love of God, there’s no end to it. When you start delving into it the revelation of it is bigger than you can ever imagine. In fact in Ephesians 3:19 Paul says that ‘the love of God passes all understanding’! That means that the moment you think you understand God’s love it passes everything you understand.






Newsletter June 2018

BIBLE SCHOOL:


First of all a big THANK you to all of our friends, partners and supports! Our students (whom you are enabling us to continue to minister to via your financial contributions) are growing and making great progress. They have now passed their first 2 tests (after 16 lessons) and we are proud to say that ALL PASSED! The truth will set you free and they are not the same as when we first began this journey together! Every time we meet we provide a hot drink and when possible a small snack to go with it. The ladies are now f their own initiative bringing snacks from time to time and each time it happened to be on a day when we had not been able to do so. Here in the photo below we were serving hot soup with chicken and vegetables cooked by Philip) as well as cheese crackers, tea and coffee).  The days of the test we try to offer an extra comfort, such as hot soup!



OTHER STUDY GROUPS:


We now run the Bible School program as well as 3 Life Groups (study groups) a week. In the photo above the group that is studying about the ‘Believer’s Authority’  are watching a documentary by Robert Liardon about God’s generals, and are being inspired and impressed by what God can do through anyone who will just believe and yield their all to Him.
Once a week Philip and I teach in two different locations. In the photo below is a picture of the group Philip is working with, singing and praising the Lord. This group is a mixture of advanced and new students (started out being for the advanced, but the Lord added new students, which we are very thankful for.
The other group, which I Rita teach, are all brand new students that are presently being taught the very basics in combination with a basic Bible Survey course in order to give more insight and understanding of the Bible while at the same time teaching how it related to us toady and why it is important for us have a right understanding of the different covenants, etc.
Once a week we also have training program for the potential leaders, servants of all. To equip them to carry on and gain insight to what it entails to carry responsibility.



One of our groups caught in action while praising the Lord!

SUPPLIES:


In the picture above Philip assisted Emily, who runs a Play School in Sir Lowry’s Pass, to collect food from one of her contacts. This was an especially big load. As seen Emily has a team of helpers that come to help divide the food—a portion is set aside for the daycare, and what is extra is divide and distributed to some of the most needy families in the village. It is not uncommon to see long quest outside her place waiting for these much treasured hand-out.
In the photo below we are collecting food for Joyce’s soup kitchen, also located in Sir Lowry’s Pass. This is a twice weekly pick-up and naturally everything is greatly treasured as there is an especially great need during the winter months where jobs for some are very scarce.
We are also very thankful to Ter from the Trumpet Tree who has been faithfully helping us over the years enabling us to assist people with food hampers for five of the neediest families in our circle. There are many grandmothers caring for their grandchildren with little or no help and many single mothers who also struggle to make ends meet. Thankfully together we are able to make a difference, if not to all at least to many. Meanwhile we also seek to equip them to believe for their own needs by aligning themselves with the Word of God and His many blessings!



MILK:


This month we again distributed milk to various day cares such as: Bright Stars Nomzano, seen above. Sunshine Kids, Sir Lowry’s Pass, seen directly below here, Mila's Angels seen below Sunshine.
as well as to Emily’s Play School in Sir Lowry’s Pass!




ROOF REPAIRS:



This month four roof repairs were done: Emily’s house, The soup kitchen, M’s house, and K.’s house. Furthermore a gutter was put on Sandre’s house as the neighbor was getting all the water from the heavy rainfall right unto his property. We are thankful for Wayne who helped us get the work done, and for the heavy rainfall. We are thankful that it has now been officially announced that there is no danger of day zero (where some taps may be turned off) for either 2018 or 2019. However it was also announced that the drought is not broken and that the city of Cape Town remains on level 6B water restrictions!

Another wonderful newsflash is that Emily, one of our students, while in hospital led several people to the Lord, and already has some people signed up to study through Rooted a basic discipleship course with her. It is wonderful to see our student gain strength and begin to not only have their own needs met, but also being able to minister to others. Praise God for His grace and life-giving flow!




WINTER WARMTH:



 In closing we want to send a big thank you to Wendy who personally knitted these beautiful scarves and the red jersey seen on the right. The little girls in the red jersey is the child of a single mother in Sir Lowry’s Pass. –And it just so happens that red is the color to be worn to the school the little girl attends….couldn’t have been better!
Everyone was overjoyed! Who would have known!
The children seen in the photo above with the scarves (also knitted by Wendy) are from families with especially trying circumstances, and a little extra warmth ..in every way...goes a long way for these little one.
In closing we also want to thank our church Gracelife for the wonderful leadership equipping sessions, power-packed Sunday services (everything being held together by the power of His Word Hebrews 1:3, and every service is jammed full of the Word and revelation. Our students are fortunate to be invited to partake of everything, and several of our students do, ourselves included!
We are blessed to be part of such a wonderful family, learning and growing together!


We love and appreciate each and everyone of you. Please know that you are in our prayers and do not hesitate to contact us if you'd like.