Goeie dag everyone, dumela!

We are back in South Africa over a month now and have experienced favor at every turn.  We (and all our luggage) arrived safely and we were warmly welcomed by friends in Johannesburg.  We had several lekker braais (awesome BBQs), reconnected with friends at our Joburg church, turned in new applications for Permanent Residency for Janell, Miesha and Titus (we were in and out of the office in one hour which is crazy fast!), we celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary, Titus’s 15th birthday, and had a couple meals with former missionary teammates and friends.  Loved it! 

We then travelled to Bethlehem and have been settling in our new rental which is a different farmhouse, but still in our old neighborhood in Eden.  It is spacious, has big picture windows, and very colorful old carpet.  We are still quite close to New Horizon College (the school where we had youth ministry) and it is lovely and quiet with the occasional exception of the noisy cows, donkeys, and guinea fowl in the next field.  

Our first Sunday back at Bethlehem Christian Centre Church, I kept crying with thankfulness.  There were a few moments in the past year where we wondered if we would actually be able to come back.  Everyone was telling us “welcome home” and sharing how much we all were missed.  After church, 70 friends came by the Bossert’s home where we were staying for a fellowship lunch braai and then a bunch of strong friends with trucks and big trailers helped us move all the boxes for the house from the container storage to the new rental.  Dan and Titus’s tools and boxes for the shop have moved over a bit at a time later.  We are happy to be reunited with all our pets.

At that Sunday church service, Miesha reconnected with all the toddlers who love her so much.  It only took minutes for them to realize their special friend was back and to start following her around again.  The worship pastor’s daughter was turning 3 next day and invited Miesha to her birthday party.  I checked in with her mom about the time and such and when we got there…we were the party.  The other party was at her preschool earlier that day and she specially invited Miesha to her home because she wanted more one on one time with her.  Just before we arrived, her 5 year old brother was telling her, “Titus is going to be my best friend and you can keep Miesha for your best friend.” They are so cute!  Our friend and hairdresser named her daughter after Miesha and the two girls got to meet a couple times.  Miesha is now on standby for babysitting little Misha – adorable!!

Dan has been doing loads around the house to make it better here.  Every time we move into a rental, there is usually something that needs sorting out and we are so thankful for his skill set to fix the water, water pressure, septic, stove, and oven issues.  He has upgraded the lighting and fixed the anthracite stove just in time to keep us all alive during the cold snap that dropped SNOW on us this weekend.  Now that the basics are working again, we are setting up desks, building shelves, resuming homeschool, etc.  

We are making significant progress in unpacking, but are often happily interrupted by visitors and meetings to reconnect with friends and ministry partners.  We have been invited for meals at load of homes, the ladies from church brought us dinners for nearly two weeks to help us settle in (and the stove and oven weren’t working, so it was a huge help!), and one pastor dropped off homemade bread and lettuce.  

Miesha and Titus were happily reunited with their friends and are enjoying going to youth group, restarting art classes, horseback riding, riding motorcycles, doing archery, and having lots of sleepovers.  Most every weekend there are a bunch of teens around which is awesome! It’s been really lovely to see how well they reentered here.  

Several people said to our family, “We saved your place for you!”  I was invited to join a ladies discipleship group and one of the ladies told me she memorized her weekly Bible verse in English (her 2nd language) that week to honor how much I have spoken into her life over the years.  

The Align freedom group is thrilled to have Dan back and we have enjoyed seeing how well many of them are doing.  Even though things are not perfect, they speak with wisdom into each other’s challenges and are doing well at keeping each other accountable.  The group shrunk a bit over the past year and each week the group is now growing and adding former and new members.  One day I was in a shop looking for something for the house and the cashier was curious about my American accent and asked why we are in Bethlehem.  I told her, and by the end of the conversation we were Facebook friends and she brought her brother to Align the following Monday.  That one is all Jesus!

So many of the people we have listened to or mentored previously are still experiencing significant challenges and we are happy to reconnect, to listen, and point them to Father God’s heart again.  Please join us in asking God for wisdom and breakthrough in their situations.

We are attending two conferences soon – excellent places for networking!!  We will then have Pastor Daniel Lilema and his lovely wife Nellie stay with us for a week.  They are our ministry partners in Zambia and he leads the Word of Life Network of Churches (350+ churches) and is encouraging us to return to Zambia/Malawi/Zimbabwe for outreach again in 2025 and to bring teams to them.  We hope we can!  They are not coming for ministry, just to rest with us. 

The day after the Lilemas leave, our friends from Impact Africa in Johannesburg are sending their intern team to us for 6 days.  They are 23 university students and we are planning their ministry and tourism schedule while they are with us here in Bethlehem.  We have recruited quite a few friends to help us come up with ideas to keep them all busy and it looks like they will be doing a lot in the schools, youth groups, to the orphans, ladies ministry, prison ministry, hospital visits and more.  We are looking forward to having them. 

As we are transitioning back into ministry life here, Dan and I are often asking ourselves:  What is working, what are the greatest needs, do we need to close anything, how can we reach more students and be more effective, how can we leave a lasting impact on those we may only have a small touch with (like teaching at school assembly, or door to door evangelism)??  This is definitely a season of evaluation for us.

In summary, it is a joy to be back!!

We are so grateful to all of you who have prayed for us and have given generously to help finance our ministry here.  

With joy, 

Janell for all of us