Micro F1 in Muldersdrift

Yesterday we had a Micro F1 (Hot Wheels Car Race). We had around 115 in attendance, and 24 decisions for Christ! John Cottier, an intern with Word of Life SA, shared the gospel, Steven Bongani Ndaba, a Discipleship Training Centre Student, translated and God changed lives!
Click here to view more pictures!

New Team Members for Word of Life South Africa!

Meet our new team members for Word of Life South Africa, Luke & Erin Lacey. Please pray for them as they pursue a support team.  They desire to be in South Africa by June/July of 2013.

Prayer Update

Thank you to those that have been praying for Brad's health! He was down this past week for 4 days with gastro, and finally feels like he got his strength back today, almost a week later! He's back in the office today playing catch up and preparing for Student Fusion to arrive on Saturday!
In his absence, John Cottier (an intern with Word of Life South Africa for 2 years) and I were able to teach a second Olympians Training to a church new to Word of Life, South Hills Church. We enjoyed our time of fellowship together with them, as well as seeing their excitement about implementing new changes that will facilitate discipleship with the children in their church!
Please pray for the Student Fusion team, as they are in training this week at Word of Life in Schroon Lake, NY and will arrive in South Africa on Saturday. They are a team of students from all over the US that are coming to help with the ministry in South Africa and Mozambique. Click here to keep up with the team!

Serving Him,
Mary, for the fam
Brad, Mary, Brandon, Marissa & Mya

S.M.A.S.H. Update

Thank you so much for your prayers for S.M.A.S.H.! We returned safely from Durban, and had an amazing week!
We had a total of 34 people on our team, and we stayed at a local church, Grace Baptist of Northdene. The church was gracious to let us stay there, even though they had their own HBC (VBS) every day. Each day we would get up early, pack up all of our things and attempt to make it appear as if we'd never been there before they arrived for a full program of ministry.
Then we split into two groups, one group ministering at Crossroads Community Church and the other at Ekukhanyeni Baptist Church. In the mornings we did all that we could to help them run their HBC, in total ministering to well over 330 children.
In the afternoons, still in our two groups at two churches, we worked on training the youth in the church in personal Bible study and evangelism. We even went out into the community and were able to share the gospel with numerous people.
We were excited to see, between the HBCs and afternoon evangelism outreaches, over 45 people make decisions to follow Christ!
In the evenings we gathered all of our team back at our base church and heard amazing, challenging messages from several Pastors and Missionaries in the area.
We are so grateful for those that allowed us to come and minister alongside them and poured themselves into those on our team: Pastor Mike Blackstock and Pastor Louis Fourie of Grace Baptist Northdene, Pastor Henry and Janet Houk and Pastor Bongani of Ekukhanyeni Baptist Church, Pastor Dennis & Violet Nkosi and Darin and Kathy Ishler of Crossroads Community Church. Thank you!

Prayer Update

Please pray for us as we prepare for a second ministry team, S.M.A.S.H. (Students Ministering And Serving Him) leaving for Durban this weekend! This will be a team of approximately 35. Brad and I will be on this ministry team, and Brandon, Marissa & Mya will be staying at our home with some friends.
Pray as we plan and prepare! Pray that all of the details will continue to fall into place smoothly, and pray that those on the team as well as those we minister to will have hearts that are open to God's teaching.

Serving Him,

Mary, for the fam

Prayer Update

Be praying for us tomorrow, we are doing some training at one of our churches here in SA. I have the opportunity to share with the Children's Leaders, Student Leaders, and the Sunday School Teachers. We will be talking about make the Bible relevant in the lives of the youth and us as leaders! Thanks for all your prayers and support!

In His Service,
Brad

Text Only Prayer Letter....

For those of you that prefer a simple, text-only prayer letter, I'm sorry I forgot to post it in May. Here it is! :)

Join us in reaching S. Africa for Christ!
We are so grateful as we see God’s provision for our needs! We saw another small increase in our support this month. Thank you! We are still needing around $920 per month. We are extremely grateful to those that have given toward our moving expenses! We have raised $3000, leaving only $500 to raise!

There has been a lot happening since you heard from us!
March 10 was T-Junction, a “fun” event at a local water park, designed to attract unsaved youth. This event is more importantly designed to bring students to a “T” in the road of life, causing them to choose between turning toward God or turning and going their own way.   We had around 150 in attendance and 6 salvation decisions! It was an amazing day and fun was had by all. Thank you for your prayers!
We had a great time at BattleZone Camp from April 2-4 with approximately 80 in attendance. This camp was held at a local church and the youth slept on the floors in classrooms and in the main hall.  Fran & Mary cooked for them with the help of the Disciple-ship Training Centre students. Mike and I spoke on relationships - "Building Bridges" was the theme. There were lessons on friendships with Christian and non-Christian friends, dating, and relationships with those in authority. It was exciting to see the kids avidly taking notes. The interest and response on dealing with these relationships in a Biblical fashion was encouraging!
I was able to be a part of a satellite BattleZone Camp in Potchefstroom along with some of the young adults that we  work  with. Potch  is about 1 1/2 hours away. We had a great time with the young people there. We were able to have 4 meetings and 4 breakout group meetings in  2 days. We challenged them to evangelize their families, friends, and strangers, then we equipped them to do it! Thanks, again, to those of you who were praying!
We have had  some excellent discipleship  opportunities over the last few months! Please pray for those that we are actively discipling. Here are the names of some of those that we are discipling: Michael, Colleta, Sonny, John, Themba, Cremelda, Ntombesizwe, Rumbi, Miriam, and Agnus, as well as the girls in Mary’s Jr. Youth. Please pray for wisdom to encourage and challenge these precious friends that have a desire to walk closer to Christ!

~Upcoming Ministry~

5/11-13 - Oasis Camp for Young Adults
5/25-6/8 - Trip to Durban (about 6 1/2 hours from Joburg) to help assess when our move will take place and where we’ll be located
6/8-11 - Teach at Family Camp, Grace Baptist Church Northdene, Durban
6/9 - Mid-Year Leadership Conference in Johannesburg (we will be away, but pray for Mike VanBruggen and Christy Page as they will be our only full time staff on hand to run it!)
6/14-18 - Youth Leadership Camp in Durban (We won't be going, but pray for John Page and the team of 11 others that will be ministering there)
6/22-29 - S.M.A.S.H. (Students Ministering And Serving Him) - Mission trip for South African teens - Durban