Hot!

I'm not sure if we will have WiFi after today but we continue to value your prayers. School finishes today for Easter and after this we will be on a painting project. The  children are just gathering with us in the shade - the temperature is 31! Yesterday was visits to patients in the slum and to HIV positive mothers or mothers-to-be around Mpophomeni. This morning was a crafts and Bible session under an immense umbrella! Here's a piccies of some of our ladies:

Now I'll put my phone away before a youngster knocks it out of my hand! Love in Christ and we will be in touch somewhere soon! George for the team

Juxtaposition

Brian suggested the title for this post! We are constantly amazed at how such severe poverty can exist next to life like home or better. The entrance to the Shiyase camp is opposite the Howick lawnmower shop and a Nando's sign. Please pray for the food and health works among the Sutu people there, and for the brief gospel messages, this morning about butterflies and Romans 12:2. One woman of 21 was born in the camp. Yet the mothers are caring and their children clean, mostly well and happy. The local vaccination programme is excellent, which is one thing. The mothers gave permission for us to take these pics. This is the mothers after a craft session while we looked after their children:

This is Jackie, in her Tearfund T-shirt, teaching two of the children cat's cradle:

She was on a plastic sheet on the rough earth floor with Rupert 

and Brian. The creche is in the beer shebeen because that is not used on Monday mornings. Here is a drinks queue outside with more Ethembeni volunteers:

As for the team, we are very pleased to be all well - praise God and thank you for your prayers. We have also just chilled out with great church services,

 visiting the Nelson Mandela capture memorial, and seeing a different sort of youngster - one with a rhino horn...! 

Love to all of you in Jesus from the team. 

Catching up

In a gap there's just time to send three more of Rupert's pics.
Putting "Farming God's Way " into practice at Shiyase mud hut slum:

Some of us with Ethembeni's team members:

Acting out God's way and the other way of farming:

Time to go - lots of youngsters are about to arrive at the Family Centre. All prayers are immensely appreciated! We praise God for answers so far. Please pray especially for those with TB, which now kills more around here than HIV - it is very difficult to overcome. George  for the team! 

Farming and stuff

We have also been Farming God's Way, or rather supporting teaching sessions on it. A very thorough set of talks on best food growing practice was linked to a powerful message on putting God's honour and Jesus at the heart of our lives and of our care of the land. FGW speaker Dan led it and over 35 Zulu folk, nearly all women, were very attentive listeners. A great programme. And here are, Karen and Chris with the youngest farmers!  George

Latest

It's raining today. It was hard to believe Shiyase slum could be even worse but...

and here's the wet workers

but here are the Family Centre leaders and  kids on a nicer day!

and here's how much of God's provision we are depending on!

Howick Falls. 

Love from all the team, especially to Liz! 

Piccies!

This is a mud and wood shack like the one the Mums and toddlers meet in at Shiayase, and this is the group.

At last!

Apologies for a late report! WiFi is not too easy to come by here. Greetings again from our team here in Mpophemeni. Yesterday was a big shock, as we went to the slum of Shiyase.  Townships are one thing, an unlit mud shack surrounded by razor wire, with earth floor, covered by a Mums and toddlers group, quite another. It seems that like a descending lift shafts, there are unsuspected basement layers of poverty even lower down. Wendy from Ethembeni's told the children that Jesus loved them and that meant they were a church.  Monday afternoon was a different revelation, of a flood of cheerful children with some remarkably good at English, their second language. Also yesterday and today, explaining to Mums why they should breastfeed and what arguments they could use on their husbands to convince them to use protection! Please pray for one pregnant lady (her Zulu name means "a gift given") who is very afraid of losing her child - she has reached 3 months safely. Now, the children are pouring in again! More pics when we have a moment to spare. George, for the team.

Some of our hosts!

Here are Mama Dudu on the right, with her Mum Winnie and niece Sam, who are the cheerful hosts of George and Chris.

We're here!!

Yes, there were hugs all round at Durban Airport. Brian and Jackie had had to run for one plane with Jane following on. So we were delighted to enjoy the company as Steph and Wendy drove us 60 miles through green rolling country to Mpophemeni tow
nship which lies in a wide valley full of very small homes of all sorts, all defended by fences and some big gates. Rupert, Karen and Jane are homestaying with Sanele, Brian and Jackie are with Cindy who runs Ethembeni's educational support. George and Chris are at Mama Dudu's who does HIV counselling and is really hospitable despite having fallen and hurt her leg last week. It rained all night while we got used to simple living.  We'll tell you more on our return! Sunday morning we went to the One Life Church (actually a shell under rapid construction). The worship was quiet by Zulu standards, only mild rock concert volume. The message was an excellent study on God's servant heart, followed by real washing of nearly everyone's feet! Finally we relaxed over soup and in Steph's lovely garden as we saw our programme for HIV patient visits in the mornings, school support in afternoons and talking about Jesus and His love all the way along. Love from all of us, and please pray for Liz and her family back in the UK. George

Verses from Liz

Just encourage you all today, as you finalise your packing and thoughts for this exciting trip. I read these verses from Ephesians 3 v 16-20 and thought they would encourage you all as they have encouraged me to pray for you daily, “ I pray that out of His glorious riches He May strengthen you with power in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lords people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him... be glory for ever and ever.”
I do believe that if you totally trust God He will do miracles with you and for you in theses next 2 weeks! 
I will be praying everyday for you and if you have specific request then do let me know. Have a safe trip and enjoy your time as well.
Love Liz

On the way!

Well, folks, we're getting going. Final bag packing is being done (including an urgent international consignment of Creme Eggs). The debate about the one hairdryer has finally been settled. Updates from here on will be real ones, whenever and wherever we can provide them. We all want to get there and get busy, now. Watch this space!   George

The bouncy road!

The journey to Ethembeni is proving interesting, folks! We continue to much appreciate your prayers and the Lord's grace. Have you ever been walking along one of life's roads when you have come across a road sign with the label, 'Beware! God at Work?' Our team members seem to be passing through a lot of divine roadworks! We are also clearly in  territory claimed by the 'principalities and powers'.
We were certainly feeling challenged around the middle of last week. The first bit of roadworks was a literal one, when poor Karen, already in South Africa, sprained her ankle in a very nasty pothole. Prayer for rapid healing would be greatly valued. Our team full of nurses had more than enough advice to offer! - even Liz, who we are praying for ourselves as she heard she faces 3 months chemotherapy as well as missing the trip. Brian and Jackie had undertaken Tearfund's "mean bean" challenge, spending a week eating only beans, rice, oats and water, and were feeling rather empty, although it led to great conversations about poverty and justice, and lots of donations. Jane's uncle's funeral was organised OK - but the fire alarm went off, and they had to evacuate, half way through the eulogy! Christine had a nasty reaction from her last injection, which is only now subsiding steadily. It also turned out I had hurt my back on our youth weekend (probably dodging a snowball) but that seems almost OK now. Chris and I also found we only just had time to deal with an overlooked MOT for the car our younger daughter will need while we're away,  and some important lost medication. The MOT is being done during my 100-year old auntie's funeral, just two hours before we leave!
So Christine and I were much heartened when she read her Tearfund prayer diary for the day, and learnt that everyone who uses it was praying for us!! (For Tearfund's 600 volunteers annually). The next day, the prayers were for Ethembeni! We also had a great commissioning service at our church, who are praying hard as I'm sure the team's other churches are. They dressed Christine up in armour!
Also thank you all for your great donations!! All of our team have been blown away with peoples' generosity!
So we all travel soon - it will be interesting. I've just checked the predicted temperatures at nearby Howick for the first four days we are there... in Centigrade they are 14, 20, 25, 30! We daren't think what comes after that!
So it may not surprise you that the Bible passage on my heart for this update is the first few verses of Isaiah chapter 43. We pray that these words might also speak to each of you lovely people, as you travel along roads less public but quite possibly as rough as ours:
'But now, this is what the LORD says—he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.'  [Isaiah 43 verses 1-3a (NIV)]. 
George

Getting close!

Thanks you, everyone, for your prayers! We need them!! Most of our South Africa team has had big challenges recently.

Rupert and Karen are already in South Africa, where they are taking a break driving up from Cape Town to Durban Airport. They had an interesting journey, trying to reach Heathrow from Gloucestershire on the snowiest day of the big freeze, with many flights being cancelled (but not theirs, though it was delayed and they missed a connection).

Jane passed her first aid course but then found herself carrying a heavy burden with only 3 weeks to go, due to the sudden very sad loss of her uncle, in a bereavement of which the main practical burden fell on her, to add to her sadness.

George and Chris found themselves taking 13 young people to a houseparty in Snowdonia as the snow was falling! (Along with 6 sledges!) It was a great weekend with real spiritual mileage covered, but during it their much-loved 100-year old aunt also passed away. Since two of their children are living overseas and they leave on 15th March, only their youngest daughter may now be in the UK for the funeral, which will be be hard for her.

Brian and Jackie simply got snowed in!

Most importantly of all, Liz, who cannot go and is our prayer warrior, had successful surgery for cancer. Praise God! But she expects to need chemotherapy. We continue to lift her and her family before the throne of grace.

So... it's interesting to live in the spiritual front line (if that's where we are!). There is a certain comfort in knowing that the enemy's attention to what you are doing proves that you have come to the right place.
The right place ... in Jesus.
Love to you all. George.

[Jesus said...] "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life . . . Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." [Matt 6:25a, 33 (NIV)]