August Hawkins' Headlines

Thank you for continuing to pray for our ministry! We have been busy with day to day ministry life. Brad has been visiting our existing Word of Life (WOL) youth groups, encouraging youth leaders, and even training leaders to start youth in Newtown Baptist Church!

You’ll notice a couple of new “family” members in our family photo above. Lawrence (left) and William (right) are young South African men that have been living with us since December 2017. William left last month to study at the WOL Bible Institute in Uganda. He is planning to return to Durban as an intern with WOL after graduation in August 2019. Lawrence is still here with us, and is a big help and an encouragement.

Brandon has finished his year of studies as a freshman at the WOL Bible Institute, and completed 8 weeks of counseling at camp in FL. He is currently spending a week with Brad’s parents in PA before he heads back to NY for the last 2 weeks of camp at WOL. He will then spend a few weeks working at another camp before starting his sophomore year at WOL in September.

Holiday Bible Club (VBS) was a blast at our South African home church, Grace Baptist Church in Durban. We are so grateful to Community Baptist Church in PA for donating several years of curriculum! We were able to touch 110 children with the gospel message and had many children make the decision to trust Christ!










We recently had a wonderful visit from Ken Dady, a missionary ministering for over 38 years with WOL Local Church Ministries. His visit was an encouragement to us, as well as our local youth leaders!
Ken arrived in Durban on Friday and we hit the road running with a STORM event at Bethany Baptist Church, an outreach event for local churches. We had a fun-filled evening and Ken shared the gospel message through his testimony.
Saturday morning, we had a Leadership Conference to encourage and equip our local church youth leaders to lead from the front. Not at the front of the room but in front of their lives, teaching them how to interactively challenge the youth to a passionate walk in the Lord that they might “lead their friends from the front” as well!

Upcoming Events

Coming up is BattleZone Camp, August 9-11. This is a camp to prepare our youth for the every day battle of the Christian walk. The emphasis of this camp will be to equip teens to share the gospel and will also have a focus on the persecuted church. Please pray for the youth that attend to grow in their walk with Christ.
Also quickly approaching is our annual SMASH missions trip (Students Ministering And Serving Him). This gives young people from around Durban the opportunity to minister in South Africa for a week. We will be heading to Kokstad, around 3 hours from Durban, and working alongside the First Baptist Church of Kokstad, running Holiday Bible Club in the morning, and doing various types of outreach ministries as well as work around the church. Please pray for us as we plan and prepare.

February Hawkins’ Headlines

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Ministry Update

Update from South Africa!

The Hawkins family is back in South Africa! We are settling into a new house, and back into the full swing of ministry.

In our family photo above, you'll notice an extra person! William Mohapi is a student at Word of Life South Africa's Discipleship Training Centre (DTC) in Johannesburg. He has spent the holiday season with us, helping us move. He has one term left to finish at the DTC, and in April he is hoping to join us in Durban for an internship. Please pray for him that to finish well!

January brings with it a new year, and in South Africa it also brings a new school year! Saturday is our annual Leaders' Kick Off. Please pray for us as we meet with the youth leaders from our local churches to encourage them and train them for the year to come. Mary & I will both be teaching sessions. Please pray for wisdom as we prepare and for the morning to run smoothly.

Thank you for your prayers!
Serving Him,
Brad & Mary Hawkins

September Hawkins' Headlines

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Train Trips, Chicago & Visas

We are headed to Chicago on the train today. As an American, you can travel to South Africa for up to 90 days without applying for a visa, but in order to stay longer, we have to submit applications to the South African Consulate, and the one for our region is in Chicago. A visa application involves a lot of supporting documents, and it can be stressful to acquire everything necessary and anticipate what else they might ask for. It includes things like medical reports, radiological reports, marriage certificate, proof of insurance, bank statements and much, much more!

We will go to the consulate tomorrow morning, submit our applications, and hope and pray for approval. We are requesting a 3-year visa, as the application process is tedious and the less often we have to renew, the better! But, if they approve our application, they can give us any amount of time up to 3 years. Please pray with us that all goes smoothly!

We are making this trip as a family, minus Brandon. He doesn't need to apply for a new visa at this time. We are feeling a little incomplete, leaving him out our temporary home in Michigan while we are in Chicago, and in 2 weeks, we will be moving Brandon into his dorm at the Word of Life Bible Institute in upstate New York. He will study there for one year. I suppose this is just the beginning of our transition! Please pray for each of us as we process this change in our lives.

June Hawkins' Headlines

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Durban SMASH 2017

Brad at the Opening Session

Thank you for your prayers for our recent SMASH Camp (Students Ministering and Serving Him). We had a total of 29 youth and leaders involved, and we had an amazing week, both in ministry, and sitting under the teaching of our country director, John Page.

Quillan, William & John Page

It is so exciting to see the faith of the teens and young adults grow as they raise their support, come away from the world to focus on the Word of God speaking into their lives, and step out of their comfort zones to serve others.
We had the opportunity to volunteer at a local home for mentally challenged residents, Horizon Farm. We also spent some time doing work projects on the property for the church that hosted us, Grace Baptist Church, Queensburgh. They worked hard, ministering to the residents, and serving there and at the church. A lot of physical work and it was HOT!

A small part of our team prepared songs, lessons and crafts and interacted directly with the residents at Horizon Farms. What a blessing to see our youth learning from them as the residents served each other happily, despite whatever physical or mental limitations they might have. We learned so much from them!

The students also had the opportunity to learn how to share the Gospel clearly, and how to effectively share their personal testimony. These sessions were taught by John Page and some of the young adult leaders in our group.

Brandon teaching about Evangelism

On Saturday, we joined up with the children from Grace Baptist Church, Queensburgh, and headed over to Flame Lily, a local retirement village. We were able to had out chocolate covered marshmallow Easter eggs and invitations to the Good Friday service. We sang to the residents, and were able to interact with the residents, giving hugs and smiles, and hopefully brightening a few people's days.