God Loves Children

A team from Coastlands traveled 1½ hour away to Paternoster, for an outreach to that community. Ian and Carmel Chalklin arranged this event with Samaritan’s Purse. Over 200 children attended. There was face painting, games and entertainment, including Carmel’s singing and dancing team of young girls and a dynamic drama group from an area drug rehabilitation ministry. Of course, the highlight was when the children opened their "love boxes."

If your church has ever prepared these shoe boxes for Samaritan’s Purse, you know what a joy is to think of the children who will receive them. On this side of the world, it was truly delightful to see the fruit of such ministry as we watched the kids open their boxes. We prayed that this day would cause them never to forget how much God loves them.

The Hawks Bless Many

My parents, Ralph and Novella Hawk, have been with us here in Cape Town since April 11. They have had many opportunities to minister during their time here.

In these photos you see Dad ministering weekly to the men, Mom speaking monthly to the women, and all of us visiting Ian and Carmel Chalklin, who minister to the poor in the village of Paternoster.

Regarded by Xavier and Heather as valuable mentors, both Ralph and Novella have enjoyed their role as "fathers and mothers in the faith," not only in Africa but in many other parts of the world.

Planting in Botswana

Last weekend I visited Tyler and Lizzie Jorgensen, missionaries in Botswana. They have begun a program to train leaders, called Southern Africa Leadership Training. This program, developed by Tyler and sponsored by LIFE Canada, provides home study for potential pastors from anywhere in Africa.

They have also started a church in the carport of their house in the village of Mochudi, near Botswana’s capital of Gaborone. Here you see the Sunday morning church service, with 30 children meeting around the corner on the porch of the house.

Listening to the Word at Annie's House

Sunday night we met again at Annie's house to listen to the Word in the Shona language. Annie is the laughing lady in the pink scarf.

One of Annie's guests speaks only the Xhosa language, so next week we'll bring along a Xhosa Proclaimer as well.

People from all over Africa have found their way to South Africa, making it a fertile mission ground.

Career Planet

How do students get ahead when their high school doesn’t even have a telephone? South Africa’s government offers a basic education, but it is up to schools to provide enrichment classes. Most students don’t have access to computers in their homes or in their schools. How will they keep from falling behind?

Karin Chisholm, with an IT background, and Heather Adriaanse, with 20 years in financial services, formed a company to meet just this need. Calling it Career Planet, the two women connect with schools desiring to provide their grade 11 and 12 students with career research opportunities. They take their learning kiosk to schools, where students participate in workshops followed by online research.

More about the workshops and learning kiosk next time…

Vision for Zambians

As the mother of five children, Jennifer says that God has nurtured her to have a big heart for people. Her church members reach out to the community to help families. They pay school fees and buy uniforms for orphans and vulnerable children to attend school. The Zambian government approves of the church’s vision because few children are able to afford to go to school in their township.

Jennifer’s church also has begun a program to raise up women to start small business ventures. Church people train the women and help them start their businesses, teaching them marketing or tailoring skills. The women then are able to set up small shops in order to earn income for their families.

Pastor Jennifer

When Jennifer asked her father about attending Bible school, he released her to go but gave her no money. God, however, raised up other people to support her and all her fees were paid. She completed Victory Bible College, also earning a diploma in tailoring and design. Although she lovingly prays for them, Jennifer’s parents continue to oppose her. Over the years, however, all her sisters have come to know Jesus.

Immediately after Bible school, Jennifer pioneered a church. She also met and married her husband John Nkandu. Both Jennifer and John are pastors in two different townships. Pastor Jennifer finds that the endurance she learned as a teen has given her fortitude and stability for the ministry.

After 24 years of pastoring and seeing God work miracles in her congregation and family, last fall Jennifer Nkandu was elected general overseer of the 22 Foursquare churches in Zambia. As Pastor Jennifer says, “God does wonders!”
More about Pastor Jennifer’s vision tomorrow…

Jennifer endures persecution to follow Jesus

Raised in a Catholic family, Jennifer always wanted to become a nun. When she found Jesus, though, she found God had other plans for her life. Unhappy she left Catholicism, her family chased her from home. But as Jennifer says, she serves a God who cannot fail her. Her pastor found a sister in the church to take care of the young persecuted girl. Her parents went to court to try to take her away from the sister, finally bribing the judge to hold her in prison. The other prisoners said, “You say you are suffering for Jesus, but why don’t you just deny Him?” After a week she was released for lack of charges.

Back at her parents’ home, Jennifer found that they had burned her Bible and other Christian literature and then forbade her to pray. She would hide in the flower bushes to pray. There she heard God reassuring her to keep on praying, telling her “I am with you.”

Knowing God had called her to be a pastor, Jennifer planned to go to Bible school.
To be continued tomorrow…

Building Belonging to the Lord

Coastlands Community Church dedicated our new building to the Lord last Sunday. Over 250 people attended, 15-20 of them Cape Town pastors.

Since their arrival in this area nine years ago, Pastors Xavier and Heather have made friends with many people. At the beginning, they walked the local mall to get to know people and develop friendships. Pastor Xavier began working in the community, as a speaker at the old-age home, a chaplain at the hospital and board member at their children's schools. The Adriaanses think of the community as their congregation, and to hear from the community at the church dedication, they are loved and appreciated by many.

Pure Desire

Over the weekend Ted Roberts presented a conference about Christians getting free of addictions, called Pure Desire. Here are stats about American habits from his website:

• 66% of Internet-using men between the ages of 18-34 look at online porn at least once a month
• 55% of pastors admitted to participating with porn online
• Over 40% of women online are involved in problematic cyber behavior
• The largest consumer of Internet pornography is the 12- to 17-year-old age group
• 70% of Internet porn traffic occurs during the 9 am to 5 pm workday
• Two out of three companies have disciplined employees for misusing the Internet at work, and pornography topped the list of abuses

We are thankful that Pastor Ted is here to share with African leaders, who will now be aware of the intensity of Satan’s attack at this time in history. Ted shared how habitual addictions change the chemistry of the brain. I beg you, if you have not done so yet, to install software on your computer to at least protect yourself and your family from easy temptation of this destructive habit.

Leaders Meet This Week

In a few days our African home congregation, Coastlands Community Church, will host a regional pastors meeting and a Pure Desire conference. Local believers and pastors have been invited and they’ll be joined by regional leaders from surrounding countries.

The regional leaders will meet for two days, and the next two days Ted Roberts, founder of Pure Desire will teach and minister on overcoming sexual addiction, a topic of special concern here with the prevalence of AIDS.

Then on Sunday we will all join together to dedicate our church’s new building. In the photo here you see the Southern Africa Regional Council meeting in the Coastlands' new building.

Rusks on the Move

During perhaps the only four consecutive dry days of the rainy season, the Rusks and Allens moved our belongings from Johannesburg to Tableview. Here's John on our front porch.

Our movers were “Girls on the Move,” an enterprising business found for us by our pastor’s wife Heather. A team of seven black-suited youth, four of them girls (with pink trim on their outfits) packed up our stuff and delivered it to our houses, where both families were glad to settle into our new Home Sweet Homes.

The furniture hadn’t arrived by dinner time, so we celebrated John’s birthday by ordering a “take-away” meal, and our friends joined us sitting on the floor or on lawn chairs our neighbors lent us.

The church that faith built

Take a look at the new building of our African home church, the Coastlands. Pastor Xavier has led the congregation in constructing it completely debt-free.

Businesses, individuals and churches made significant contributions, including our U.S. home church, Grace North in Anthem, Arizona. One local business donated the carpet, another fencing materials; a church member sewed curtains, another provided kitchen counter tops...and so it went up to today, when all is nearly complete. I call it "the church that faith built," because we've watched it grow from parcel of land to nearly finished place of worship.

We've also seen a pastor believe God for what he knows God wants to do in this community, which Pastor X says means a lot of faith-stretching.