Challenges and joys...
We welcomed the Carmichael family from Canada into our community a couple weeks ago and they had a proper South African welcome with challenges with their airport arrival, a hectic lightning storm, no electricity at all for a couple days (now they are on the load shedding schedule same as the rest of us with planned power outages between 4-12 hours each day), challenges getting a vehicle, challenges with extending their visas, and their water intermittently doesn’t work. They have been amazingly resilient and fitting in well despite all the crazy things coming their way. Our friends have been so great to help with rides, with dropping off meals, loaning them vehicles to drive for the three weeks until their van arrived, showing them around town, inviting them over, and coming to play dates, birthday parties and braais. The Carmichaels are hoping to stay as long as possible and have been an asset everywhere where they are jumping in to help with Align, Advance workshops, and serving at Bambalela ministry.
About three weeks ago, Dan’s Pathfinder was totaled and the insurance company sent a flatbed to take it away. It was time…Dan had fabricated a part last year to fix the engine, he welded his muffler back together a couple months ago and it seemed like we were holding our breath waiting for it to die any day. We were paid out a fair sum by insurance and spent HOURS scouring the internet for a van for the Carmichaels and a replacement vehicle for us. It was a fair bit challenging to figure out how to get everyone everywhere with my 7 seater X-Trail for the 12 of us (including car seats and boosters!). We are so grateful for the dozen friends who stepped up to help along the way. We couldn’t have made it through the last several weeks without them.
After three very long travel days this past week, the Carmichaels now have a van that fits their family perfectly and we are now the happy owners of a pre-owned vehicle that we got a really great deal on. We are tired and very, very thankful.
We did launch the youth ministry to New Horizon College and showed the Jesus Revolution movie to them for the first event. We had loadshedding, so we showed the movie through a generator and there were still over 120 students who came. Our second event the students didn’t receive notice about and was also during loadshedding. With 20 minutes notice, Dan quickly made a plan to run some super long extension cords from our generator to the school hall and over 85 students still came! Dan did a brilliant job giving a gospel message and most of the students stayed an extra 30-40 minutes in a freezing hall to chat about Jesus and ask us and our team really deep questions. We are thrilled to see how hungry they are to receive spiritual input. The students are a week away from a month long school break so we will resume in July.
Three weeks ago, I had the immense honor of leading a young lady to salvation and we have begun a discipleship journey together. Last Saturday, I had a follow up appointment with a gal from NHC and she also accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. We are thrilled with how the Lord is moving in their lives!! It also breaks my heart to hear how deep some of the issues are that these young people are facing and dealing with. I continue to help listen and mentor young gals from the school who are walking through deep pain and it is such a joy to see the breakthroughs and growth they are experiencing. Please join us in praying for their faith to grow!
Our team also launched Advance workshops and Dan’s class “Dealing With Pain” had 60 people attending. There are approximately 100 people attending church each Sunday so that was a fantastic turnout! I gave a testimony during the second workshop on “Forgiveness”, and this week we had another great turnout as our pastor’s wife Stienie taught on “Healthy Communication”. Last night was on Connection and was taught by another couple on our leadership team and now we will take a break until next quarter. We have heard so many testimonies of how these classes have helped people. These have been truly lifegiving and so much fun to put together.
We have still not heard anything regarding the piles of paperwork that was submitted for our visa process for Plan A and B, so our agent officially initiated Plan C. We are not anxious, but we are very aware of the challenges and unknowns in this process and ask that you all continue to join us in praying for a favorable visa response and soon! It is a really difficult to live with such big unknowns.
We have been experiencing greater than usual spiritual warfare and ask that you join us in praying for God’s protection and grace over our family and ministry. We have been going at a pretty fast clip for the last 6 months and look forward to resting with some friends for my birthday this weekend and then taking a family vacation to someplace slightly warmer in South Africa at the end of the month.
If any of you would be interested in contributing towards our visa process, we would be so very grateful. It is expensive to utilize an agent and to need multiple plans, but we want to make sure we are doing everything in this process “above reproach” and following their laws carefully which means it comes with a higher price tag. Any gift you could contribute would certainly help and we will definitely receive all your prayers on our behalf as well. You can give using the DONATE button below. We are so blessed to be able to have so many opportunities to minister in this community and we really would love to stay for many more years.
Thank you so much for your love and care for our family.
Janell for all of us.
Thanks for supporting us!
