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Mission To South Africa

From Marilyn Cook at Grace Place, South Africa
November 12, 2009

Dear Ones,
 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS! Stu and I are very aware of them. My strength has been restored after about five weeks with bronchitis on the verge of pneumonia. I had to curtail my activities for a while, but that is what was needed and the Lord blessed much during that time.
 
My schedule now goes something like this: Tuesday morning Ladies’ Bible Study. I use an interpreter for that and we read the scripture in three languages plus English, so we don’t cover a lot each week. But, we’ve been studying the Names of Jesus , and that has been a real blessing to all of us – just to get to know more about Jesus and the relationship we can have with Him. To them, God has been a God, “Modimo” who is way out there somewhere, and not near. The spirits are nearby. Most of the ladies seem to have taken the step to follow Jesus only.
 
In the afternoon on Tuesday, my neighbor and I and David Kibasomba (who is here for an internship) prepare 15 loaves of peanut butter and jam sandwiches for soup kitchen the next day. Since Dita has a three-month old baby, I now get to be ‘grannie’ while the other two do the bread.
 
Wednesday is the heavy day. I leave home about 8:15 to fetch the milk for soup kitchen from the farm dairy out here, then to the big tent with milk and bread – others bring in more bread and milk – and the fun begins. Preschoolers, mothers and babies come first and sing and praise and have a Bible story in flannelgraph which I teach most of the time – through an interpreter. I wish you could see their little faces when they sing and dance and when they get their food!  So precious!
 
Then it’s another gathering of about 100 children and mothers with the same program, out in the open in the hot sun – unless the Lord blesses us with cloud cover. Then in the afternoon, we have 300 to 500 school children, occasionally more, singing enthusiastically, and they are usually very attentive to the lesson.  The tent is hot, but the joy of the children is worth it. By the time everything is cleaned up it is nearly 4:00 and David and I make all the stops necessary along the way home, usually getting home with about 30 minutes to clean up and then go out again to church cell meeting. Stu is currently teaching on the book of Acts – good group, good interest, good fellowship.
 
The past two weekends we have had about 10 of the young men – leaders and potential leaders - out to our place for Stu to do some intensive teaching with them. In between, David and I go to town for two more Bible Studies, the 10 to 13 year olds who are dying to be in the youth group, really first fruits of the soup kitchen, and then the youth at 2:00. David has been teaching both of these groups the past few weeks. Come the first of the year, I will probably have them and one of the youth will have a new group of younger children to teach and disciple. Being able to ‘feed up’ the young men is also a joy as they sometimes have so little.
            
In between all this I edit the church magazine, a really enjoyable exercise for me. There is much great talent available for writing the articles, and expert help from Stu and Cathie. As the church wants it to be an evangelistic tool, we try to get as much good scriptural teaching in as we can, and then see that the finished product goes into local shops as well as quite a big mailing list.
 
Stu is busy with preaching and teaching and at the moment with coaching and counseling David. David came from the Congo several years ago with his family as refugees, and they stayed with us at Aletheia in Berea.  He will be here through most of December.
 
We’re also busy preparing for the big Christmas parties, as we try to do something very special for hundreds of kids who have very little that’s special in their poverty-stricken lives. If you would like to help with this, I suggest money towards the sausage rolls we give them – probably the only real meat they get all year, a sausage roll to themselves!

All this – but It’s not enough to just be busy – please pray that much fruit will be borne for the Lord, and that we have much wisdom to get the message across.
 
The photos are of the bunch of youth helpers I hauled to the second soup kitchen the other day to help, and the younger children beginning in Bible School. In January we should have three groups meeting on Saturdays.
 
Again, thank you for your prayers, your love and support.
 
In Jesus,
 
Marilyn Cook

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