Ministry in a "Normal" Month
Down here in the southern hemisphere, our winter season is upon us. The autumn colors are beautiful and our evenings and nights are downright chilly – nearly freezing or below. Lucky for us, African winter days are pleasant and we often open our windows to let the warmer outdoor air into our super cool home.
Dan and another man from church named Willem have been heading up a painting project the last several weekends. It is at Charlotte Theron Kinderhaus (CTK), an orphanage that helps approximately 100 orphan/foster kids in town here. A couple years ago, our church “adopted” one of the children’s homes and have been helping in many great and small ways. Our senior pastors have been doing devotions weekly with the house mamas on the whole property. They are investing love and discipleship into these ladies who come from a variety of religious backgrounds and who carry a massive emotional load as each cares for between 10-14 troubled children/youth. They said that this year the ladies are beginning to see some softness and interest in the faith topics. We believe that helping the mamas heal will ultimately benefit the atmosphere of all the homes and the children who stay there. Painting the house won’t help children heal from all that has wounded them, but we pray they will know that we are invested in them, they are not forgotten, and that we care that they have a beautiful space to live in. The kids all loved “Uncle Dan” and several of the bigger boys really wanted to help paint. Dan said that every time he handed them a paint brush with the oil based paint, he was mentally committing another 4 hours to the project to tidy up and fix what the boys did, but he told me, “These kids need a father figure, not a project manager.” This shows his heart is for reaching these kids and showing them how valuable they are, and not just getting a job done. We can’t show any pictures of the kids, but here are a few of the volunteers from church who assisted over the two weekends. We plan on going this coming Saturday as well.
Auntie Joyce (also known as Super Mama) is the woman caring for the 14 young children in this home. She is pictured with Willem in the final pic below.
We continue to go visit the grannies in Phahameng a couple times a month. We are praying about partnering with them to do community outreach and upliftment. These 10+ ladies all met at a ladies luncheon just before COVID and started a soccer club together. Now that they can travel and compete again, they have an undefeated record. They pulled Titus and Miesha into joining their practice/workout last time we visited! They are an absolute delight and we love their heart to reach the youth and inspire the athletes in their community. The money designated for their project by the government was stolen so they are coming up with creative ways to raise money for building community toilets, a soccer pitch, and eventually a community center. Their first fundraiser is a beauty pageant. All these ladies are 65-80 years old and they were so cute practicing their catwalk moves and declaring who the “sure winner” of the beauty contest will be. They are going to sell tickets to the community and invite them to vote for a winner. We are definitely going to attend that one! We are thrilled with their passion to “make a plan” and not give up on their dream of serving even though the initial promised money is now gone. Apparently the smiling granny in the white hat is the one who is the fastest and she scores most of their goals during the soccer matches.
Dan and Etienne (the youth pastor) have begun a new evening service ministry at the church to target the young adults between 19-30 in town for 3 weeks of the month. It is called Connect Church and we look forward to what the Lord will do to minister to the amazing young professionals in Bethlehem. It is steadily growing! Shane the worship pastor also recently started leading a 1x monthly evening worship service which has been incredible. A couple months ago, Dan and I also began serving on the worship team – myself on flute and Dan on sound and drums as needed. It has been so life giving! Often times, the worship band in a small community is a bit sparse, but we are blessed at BCC to have incredibly talented musicians who all have a heart to worship, bless the heart of the Lord, and to invite the whole congregation into a deeper musical worship experience. The Lord is doing something really special at this place and we are thrilled to be partnering here.
We were in Johannesburg this past weekend as Dan officiated a wedding. We have been honored to have been speaking into this couple’s life for several years and are thrilled we get to celebrate with them as they move into marriage. We loved reconnecting with dear friends and enjoyed going shopping in the big city for my birthday weekend – great timing!
We continue to have a wide open invitation to minister next door at New Horizon College and recently connected with the new dormitory “dad” who is thrilled to have us be more involved with the students. We will have a meeting with him soon to prayerfully suggest some things to help the students and then to put some fun activities on the calendar. Exciting! We already have a steady stream of students and a few staff members who come by our home to chat and get counsel and I was so honored to pray with one gal to receive Christ as her Lord and Savior a few weeks ago. She told me this week she would like me to disciple her. Thank you Lord!!
Dan has been investing quite a few hours the past couple months in renovating the little round guest house (rondovel) in our back yard. He stripped it down to the structure and has redone the plumbing, electricity, floors, painted, installed a new sink, shower, and toilet and is now doing some final touches. It seems there has been challenges at every part of the process, but we are thrilled to have a lovely space for hosting guests and visitors. We also want to utilize that space for Marriage Reset weekends where couples can come and rest, have a couple of counseling sessions with us and eat some great food together. We hope to pass along tools and help couples work through some of their challenges to move to a greater place of healthiness. We hope to start in a couple weeks!
This week a young couple is here to shadow us. They are interested in becoming missionaries and want to have time together to see what we do and to see where the Lord may be leading them next. They are our first guests in the rondavel.
Dan and Thian, a man from our connect group at church are beginning a ministry on July 25th to help those who are needing help and accountability to move out of unwanted behaviors such as alcohol or drug abuse, pornography use, or other addictions into abundant life and freedom. If you are in Southern Africa and would be interested in receiving more information or referring someone – please contact Dan at 083-293-9531 or Dan@magezi.org. This will be a hybrid course with online and in person options. The course will run on Monday evenings for around 30 weeks.
We are looking forward to hosting a ministry team from Zambia here in Bethlehem in a couple months and we are talking with a lady from Germany this week who wants to come and serve with us. Please let us know if you would like to bring your family or a team over to minister with us here. There are so many incredible opportunities to serve here and a visit to Africa will change your heart forever.
Earlier this month my mom was experiencing some significant health challenges. She was in the hospital for 4 days, but thankfully was discharged on June 10th – their 50th wedding anniversary. She was readmitted again later last week and was then discharged on Sunday. She is growing stronger each day, but it is a very difficult time for her. Please will you say a prayer for healing in her mind and body and for wisdom for the doctors and her caregivers? It is a challenging season for my parents and it’s hard for my sister Julie and I to be so far away. We are thankful for the significant care and help from my 3 sisters who do live close to them.
Thank you!
Janell and Dan
Thanks for supporting us!
