Headed Some Place New and Unexpected

Flag of South AfricaWe thought we might be going to a place in Asia that is closed to evangelism and then on to the Philippines this summer, but those plans have not worked out at this point; instead, we have just begun making plans to spend the summer in South Africa, near the City of Worcester, a city of about 75,000 people in the Western Cape. Summer makes it sound nice, but it will actually be winter given the fact it is in the Southern Hemisphere! Penguins near Cape Town We won’t be in Cape Town or near the coast, but something about there being penguins in South Africa makes it seem remote!

We will be a part of the leadership of a team of missionaries from the U.S., England, Scotland, Holland, South Africa, and perhaps others. We look forward to visiting people in their homes in impoverished areas and sharing the love of Christ through our testimonies, and provision of food, clothing, and bibles. We also will have opportunities to minister in areas of first aid, a prison, farms that are somewhat like sharecropping farms of yesteryear in the U.S., and in some wealthier communities.

The most exciting possibility to me is that there is an area we will be going to where there are a great number of unaffiliated churches, all of which operate very independently and don’t work together. There is the potential for bringing these churches together in one large meeting to teach on unity in Christ and reconciliation toward God and one another. This is especially exciting to me in a country like South Africa where the message of reconciliation is still greatly needed. Map of South Africa by language groupThis map shows the principal South African languages by municipality. There are nine different major languages and eleven official languages! Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. I think we will be in areas that primarily speak Afrikaans and Xhosa.

Please pray for us as we make the preparations (flights, accommodations, visas, ministry budgets, vaccinations, schedules, and the like)!

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