Newsletter February 2019

Dear friends,

           Thank you so much for your partnership and support. We are very thankful for all that the Lord is doing through us as a team.

          This month we are happy to report that six new souls were led to the Lord and started attending our Bible study groups. 

BIBLE SCHOOL:

The picture above and here feature our weekly Bible School students busy at work. 

While Philip runs the Bible School, I Rita am teaching Rooted (the basics) to a group of people in the adjoining classroom. The two young people in the front just very recently received the Lord and joined our group.

STUDY GROUPS:

The study group shown here and below are studying principles of faith (How to Become a Water Walker) every Thursday. On Wednesdays we run two other groups (one each in two different locations -- sorry we have no pictures this month).

Here is another group studying Rooted at Emily's house. We meet with this group every Thursday afternoon before the evening study group seen above.

SUPPLIES:

 We want to thank Dis-Chem for their support.

 Mila’s Angels ECD Sir Lowry’s Pass, as they happily receive the much needed supplies.

 100 liters of milk — on the way  to being distributed in Sir Lowry’s Pass and Nomzamo!

20 loaves of fresh bread from the market being divided between our approximately 40 students after church  Sunday!

We were asked to help provide the chicken needed for a meal of approx. 60 people for a crime prevention workshop in Sir Lowry's Pass. It was attended by social development, the crime prevention unit Somerset West, the police and the magistrate court. The aim was to address the youth and to also offer them forms to fill out for job applications.

GRACELIFE: (CHURCH)

This month we were blessed to learn about how the finished work of Christ has given us an advantage we could have never secured for ourselves!

We also attended a Business Leaders’ Conference co-hosted by Pieter Weenik and Gavin Cox. We all went home with some good Food for Thought!

Due to the local Woordsfes our church is meeting in a tent on the lawn for the next couple of week. We are now needing two buses every Sunday to transport the people from Sir Lowry’s Pass.

 TESTIMONIES

· During the past few weeks six new people were led to the Lord and have attended our Bible study groups. As in the days of Acts the Lord is adding daily such as should be saved! (Acts 2:47).

· H. had developed a cataract in her eyes and was struggling to see and read. Philip prayed for her and when he saw her the following weeks she testified how her eyes have been steadily improving and that she is now able to read again without any problem.

· Philip noticed a mother walking along holding her daughter’s back (she was about 7 or 8 years old), as the daughter was struggling to walk and needed support. Immediately after they prayed the daughter was back to normal and walked completely unaided!

· M. was suffering from back pain due to a surgery he had some years ago. He came to Philip for prayer and while they prayed he felt heat in his body and testified that the discomfort was gone.

· During a service at the church Philip had a word of knowledge that someone had chest pains. About fiv e people stepped forward for prayer and one of them also received prayer against a spirit of fear!

· E. arrived early in the morning at the market feeling completely exhausted, not sure if she would be able to make it through the day. Philip prayed for her, and she immediately felt better. She later testified that she had gone through the whole day at full strength. Praise the Lord!

· During another service Philip got two different words of knowledge that he did not get the opportunity to give out load. So he went into the congregation asking the Lord to lead him to the people he had received the word for. It turned out to be a couple who both were struggling with different things in their bodies. The wife had suffered a neck injury due to an accident. This caused her to feel dizzy, lose her balance and be in pain. When Philip shared what the Lord had shown him she began crying, After prayer the pain immediately left her. Philip also felt led to twirl her around and she did not get dizzy or lose her balance!

· For the husband Philip had had a word about a hip pain, which also turned out to be right on. After prayer he likewise felt much better!

We praise the Lord that we are healed by His stripes and that He is the same yesterday, today and forever — still healing! Thank you JESUS!

Newsletter January 2019

Dear Ones,  

We are happy to announce that the Lord is busy raising up leaders from our midst. From the end of December till the middle of January, we had a couple of Sunday church meetings at Emily’s Play School in Sir Lowry’s Pass. It was lots of fun and a good time was had by all. One of our upcoming leaders, Emily, is seen here making announcements and sharing some Word with the congregation. After that Philip taught on the subject of Prayer, using a video from Charis Bible College. This was in follow up of a video The “War Room” (which we recommend you see if you haven’t already). We had two Friday evening movie showings during the holidays, the other one being the ‘King’s Castle” about how a young man’s faith leads him out of crime into a better life. On the last picture, which was the second Sunday, I, Rita, taught about how our consciousness was awakened and at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Based on the ‘Who Told You that You Were Naked” book by Andrew Wommack). Which produced our sin-consciousness and how we now can be free from the subsequent condemnation through Christ and knowing Him and all that He has delivered us from.

TEACHING AND PREACHING:

Sunday Church Services in Sir Lowry's Pass:

Bible Study Group Restarted:

Bible School:

Towards the middle of the month we started up the Bible School and our various study groups again. Here is Philip teaching the Bible School students. At the same time I Rita am using one of the classrooms to bring a group Zimbabweans (4) through the Rooted course, laying a good strong general foundation!

Study Group at Emily's:

Emily as the main teacher, and I, teaching (above and below) Rooted to this relatively new group. Some of the youngsters joined late and Emily now has separate classes with them to help them catch up.

Study Group at Hetta's:

This group (above and below) is being taught by Philip each Wednesday, while I, Rita, am teaching another group at Mila's (sorry, but no pictures of them this month) that is also going thought Rooted. The group Philip is teaching is more advanced and have lately been concentrating on healing and building their faith for that.

Study Group at Jessica's:

This group (above and below) has gone through several subjects such as their Identity in Christ, Effortless change, the Believer’s Authority, etc. and are presently studying on “How to Become a Water Walker”, - stepping out by faith trusting and believing God. Courses by Andrew Wommack And Shayne Holesgrove.

SUPPLIES:

We are very thankful to our friends and Gracelife family who donated many useful items, as well as clothing to be distributed to the village. We are also thankful for our volunteers In Sir Lowry’s Pass that help divide, pass out, and keep track of whose turn it is to be preferred next when supplies come in.

We also thank Dis-Chem which has assisted us in reaching out to the needy for many years. THANK YOU!

Volunteers:

 Top and bottom: Some of our precious volunteers busy at work sorting, dividing and rightly distributing!

Some of our happy student receiving bags of blessings. Thank you so much to everyone that helped!

We thank Ter, from Trumpet Tree, for the supplies that were a big boost for everyone to receive in January which tends to be a challenging month, and to our dear friends Collin and Jenifer who donated the meat.

 Milk Distribution:

The company that has been assisting us with milk for years changed hands. This resulted in us not receiving any milk for several weeks, while we reapplied and prayed for everything to get worked out. We are happy to say that to everyone’s relief we were approved again and are aging able to assist especially the daycare centers with milk on a regular basis.

Emily's Play School, Sir Lowry's Pass:

Emily’s Play School happy to receive millie meal, sugar, cooking oil, meat and milk.

 Bright Stars, Nomzamo:

Bright Stars in Nomzamo receiving rice, oats, cooking oil, meat and milk!

Mila's Angels, Sir Lowry's Pass:

Mila’s Angels receiving samp, oats, cooking oil, meat and milk.

Sunshine Kids, Sir Lowry's Pass:

Sunshine Kids receiving meat. milk, cooking oil and rice!

Woolworth:

We thank Woolies for their faithful support of the main kitchen in Sir Lowry’s Pass. They have assisted for years for which we are very grateful. The waste varies and is sometimes more, sometimes less!

Gracelife:

In recent times we have had two busloads of people from Sir Lowry’s Pass coming to Gracelife church  on a Sunday as seen here, (the white bus in the background and the blue in the front). Emily (seen in the center top) has been on the hospitality team for while now and helps greet people at the door as they arrive.

We also want to give an update on how it is going with our goal towards getting a van. We believe we are about halfway there towards it (with what we have been able to raise and what reserves we had set aside}. Please pray with us that the Lord will lead and guide us to a good vehicle, not just any old vehicle, but one that we’ll be strong and able to do the job as well as look presentable, We are not set on a certain brand name, but trust that the Lord will make it clear to us when the right one becomes available—preferably no with too many kms on it. We appreciate your contributions and prayers towards this great need and look forward to it soon being met.

In closing we send much love and appreciation to each and everyone of you,

Philip and Rita

HIGHLIGHTS from 2018 from Force4Good!

HIGHLIGHTS 2018!

JANUARY 2018:

In January of 2018 one of our biggest highlights was being able to enter the new year together with our two precious daughters, our three granddaughters and our son-in-law who live in Texas!

FEBRUARY 2018:

One of the biggest victories in February was starting up the online CBC (Charis Bible College) course for our students in Sir Lowry’s Pass that have gone through the basis courses with us.

MARCH 2018:

Besides enabling us to have and distribute many various supplies such as milk, food, personal hygiene products, empowering a family to start cultivating they small plot of land, etc. the Lord also enabled us to vastly improve our hospitality by providing new coffee mugs and thermos flasks!

APRIL 2018:

In April a new study group consisting of all new students was started up — and this group is still with us. Besides that 240 ducks (aprox. 300 kg of meat) was distributed, as well as aprox. 170 double sized Weet-Bix cereal packages, etc. along with more food hampers, clothing, and an empowerment project to get someone started running their own hair dressing salon in the village.

 MAY 2018:

Besides keeping up the Bible school on Monday nights, the leadership training on Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights teaching, as well as Thursday night’s teaching and making provision for everyone to be able to attend church on Sundays we again received a bakkie load of ducks that were distributed in the Sir Lowry’s Pass village and Nomzamo, as well as 100 liters of milk, more food hampers, lots of clothing, more Dis–Chem supplies, etc.

JUNE 2018:

Besides keeping up the Bible school on Monday nights, the leadership training on Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights teaching, as well as Thursday night’s teaching and making provision for everyone to be able to attend church on Sundays we again received a bakkie load of ducks that were distributed in the Sir Lowry’s Pass village and Nomzamo, as well as 100 liters of milk, more food hampers, lots of clothing, more Dis–Chem supplies, etc.

JULY 2018:

Reaching out to the unreached! We had a bog meeting at Emily’s Play School for people that are not part of our student groups. Approximately 70 were expected and  nearly 120 showed up. We

ministered to them about the Lord’s love and plan of salvation and demonstrated spirit-soul and body through a fun skit. Afterwards a delicious warm meal, tea, coffee and cakes were distributed!

Meanwhile 100 liters of milk, 14 large boxes (not packages) of Weet-Bix, many Dis-Chem supplies, clothing, etc was distributed and a family whose house had been flooded was assisted with sand and cement (to help raise the floor) as well as a “new” carpet.

AUGUST 2018:

We invited all our Bible students for a nice social gathering where we prepared a nice meals and arranged for everyone to be comfortably seated at a table, The aim was for everyone to get together to get to know each other better as a couple of new groups had been started up.

A lot of us also attended a Ladies Camp hosted by Gracelife! Besides that more milk, ducks, food, clothing, and Dis-Chem supplies were distributed, Praise the Lord for His amazing goodness!

SEPTEMBER 2018:

Along with others Philip and I were honored to be appointed among the elders in Gracelife church. We are happy to be working closely with Grqacelife as we have learned and grown a lot.

Meanwhile all our study groups continued to progress, and milk, Weet-Bix, food hampers, lots and lots of duck liver, 25 liters cooking oil , toilet paper, etc, was distributed and we were assisted one of our students who is running a soup kitchen in her area for the neighborhood children. And we enjoyed inspiring teachers from abroad Ashley and Carlie Terradez who visited Graqcelife.

OCTOBER 2018:

We had a three day outreach event in Sir Lowry’s Pass led by Gracelife. The aim was to not only reach out to more of the community, but to also help stir up and inspire our students there to do so through a fist hand sample. We had three very eventful days with people being healed, coming to Christ and learning and experiencing many new things. One of the evening we also handed out over 100 ready-made (by people from the village) meals.

NOVEMBER 2018:

We had a three day outreach event in Sir Lowry’s Pass led by Gracelife. The aim was to not only reach out to more of the community, but to also help stir up and inspire our students there to do so through a fist hand sample. We had three very eventful days with people being healed, coming to Christ and learning and experiencing many new things. One of the evening we also handed out over 100 ready-made (by people from the village) meals.

DECEMBER 2018:

During December we had a nice Christmas braai for approx. 80 people. 20 Food Hampers and 20 food vouchers (of R 300 each) were distributed. We also made 150 party packs for the children for their year-end celebrations. Besides that we were able to empower someone by replacing all their lost tools that were stolen, distribute other food and clothing, and Philip and I were blessed to attend a Christmas lunch in Cape Town where we met one of the Charis Bible College instructors , Wendell Parr who was visiting here.