ABBY AND EMILY'S MINISTRY

This excites my heart!  Our girls have always been heavily involved in our ministry, but this is a ministry of their own :)

I've spoken about Pastor Clement quite frequently and just recently we were out to his place for a visit.  Their Christian school (reaching out to orphans and the poor) was just about to start its school year.  Pastor Clement asked Abby and Emily if they would like to be involved.  He had a need for them . . .
The school works hard to get the kids speaking English fluently.  This is hard when they are surrounded by Zulu speakers 24/7.  Clement was hoping that our girls would want to come out once a week and play games, read books, color, etc with one of the younger grades  AND do it all in English.

The girls were so excited and started planning right away!  They had some "ministry funds" to buy supplies and worked hard at talking through a schedule.

Their first day was this week on Tuesday.  The 45 minutes included- action songs, a story book, a coloring page that went along with the story book and a game that taught the English phrase, "Hi, my name is _____"

They are definitely looking forward to next week!

YOUNG ADULTS EVENT

Eight young ladies came out for the year's first young adults activities.  This was our first time leading it, so we felt a bit like we were floundering!  But, everything seemed to go well and, minus the two that will be leaving for college, they all asked when we were scheduling the next one.

Here is the line up of what we did:
Ice breaker game called "two truths and a lie"
Big pot of soup and bread
Kyle gave a devotional
Then we closed with the game "Pit" . . . always loud and fun :)

And yes, for all those who recognized it, we did hold the event in the Care Home.

Please be praying for the next meeting in February.  We are making up little fliers to pass out at church and hoping we can catch some of the young adults that "slip in and slip out".  There is a HUGE young adult population in Richards Bay and we would love to find a way to minister to them.

CLOSING OF THE CARE HOME

Yes, we've officially closed . . . all for good reasons.  The biggest reason being that our area is a lot healthier.  And it felt like it happened overnight!

Several great things happened in the last year that led to this:
1)  education about AIDS was everywhere.  This opened dialog about a person's status, encouraged people to get tested, and decreased the stigma surrounding AIDS.
2) then the medications to treat the patients started becoming readily available along with more doctors to handle the numbers.  The ARVs are incredible- someone can go from being bed bound to up and walking in 2 weeks as their immune system gains strength
3) big companies in our area started supporting their HIV+ workers, providing education at the work site and even mobile clinics to bring them their medications and take blood for testing if necessary.

All of this has caused a dramatic reduction in the number of dying HIV+ people, increased the family acceptance of them, and essentially made us obsolete.

Are we upset by this?  Not at all!  This means moms and dads are living longer.  It means we have more time to reach of the communities with the gospel.  It means that HIV+ people are being treated better.

So what next?  There is still a lot of work to be done!  Lots of kids were "left" behind when their parents died and so many young adults have grown up without learning any life skills.  We are praying to see how God wants us to be involved.

Please pray with us!

HELPING OUT

Background information:  Pastor Paulos works in eNseleni pastoring the Nseleni Baptist Church.  We were introduced to him awhile back and he's been a huge help explaining Zulu culture, helping us with language and introducing us to the community.  Three of our workers attend his church and our church, Calvary Baptist, donates weekly to their orphan feeding program.

So back to the opportunity to help out . . .

Pastor Paulos became aware of area in the town next door without a gospel presence.  After some prayer, they decided to plant a church.  For the month of October, they held tent meetings every night! People from their church slept in the tent and stayed there all day to be around to chat with people and continue ministering.  One of the outreaches they held was a health awareness "clinic".  Paulos's wife, Nelli, works for an eye doctor, she agreed to bring her testing machine out to the tent for vision screenings.  We brought out two of our Care Home workers to do blood pressures and check blood sugars and I did mini assessments on the children.

It was so much fun!

The best part for me was seeing our workers use their skills for ministry and love it.  Thuli kept coming to me just to say she was having so much fun and Zinhle found a way to make every person smile.  On the ride home, they thanked us for the opportunity and expressed how enjoyable it was to "help out".

Nelli told that the church plant is going very well.  30 people so far have come to know the Lord! Their next step is to build a little building on the property and carry on with weekly services.

Please pray for this baby church and their leaders that God would give them boldness and keep them safe!

 Taking blood sugars.  Diabetes is a huge issue because of a diet mainly of starch

 Area around the church plant

 Holding a little guy while his mom gets her eyes checked

 Nelli is wearing the dark blue jacket

 Checking out the little ones

 Thuli getting ready to take blood pressures

 Zinhle checking blood sugars

Area across from the church plant

When God sends encouragement

This weekend God gave us a gift of encouragement.  A gift that was unexpected and as random as they come :)

God loves to encourage His children.  Encouragement and hope is important for our souls! Proverbs 13:12 tells us, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life."

And encouragement can come is so many different forms.

-All through the Old Testament, God is sending His prophets to encourage the people through verbal messages from God. Isaiah 40:1 "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God."

-Today, we have His Word which is an ever present reminder of His promises and encouragement to   press on.  Romans 15:4 "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction,       that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."

-Many times He gifts people as encouragers and we should be looking for ways to encourage others.
I Thessalonians 3:2 "and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ,       to establish and encourage you in your faith."
And- Barnabas, whose name means "son of encouragement", was used in a mighty way by God to       bring Saul (Paul) into fellowship with the other apostles.

Back to the encouragement that God gave us this weekend . . . 

It came in the form of two couples from Alabama.  People we had never met and might never again. They were traveling to South Africa to enjoy God's incredible creation and get in some good scuba diving.

Their plan was to fly into Durban (2 hours south of us), drive to Richards Bay (our town) and spend the night before continuing on north.  Out of curiosity, one of the wives googled "baptist missionary Richards Bay".  Our website popped up!  She read our information and contacted us about meeting that Saturday night.

What a delightful evening.  The 9 of us sat around a table at a restaurant, telling travel stories, asking questions about each other, sharing the ministry of the Care Home and laughing a lot!  They brought gifts for the girls and a box of solar powered audio Bibles (little MP3 players) for our ministry.  We left with light hearts, fully encouraged by complete strangers who had followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit and desired to be a blessing.

Sunday morning, they stopped by the Care Home on their way north.  We introduced them to the patients, gave a quick tour, had a time of prayer and then our new friends were off.  One of the wives quietly said to me, "Press on".  Wow, those two words made my heart soar.  Could anything be more powerful than another Christian, in recognition of the battle before us, whispering "press on"?

Rhythmic Gymnastics

One of the great joys we have in our little town of Richards Bay is a wonderful Rhythmic gymnastic coach.  Both Abby and Emily have been doing this sport for several years and completely enjoy it.  It is a great mix of flexibility, strength and dance.  For those of you who haven't seen it in the olympics, the girls compete with different apparatuses: ball, clubs, hoop, rope and ribbon.

Last Saturday ended the year's normal competitions.

Abby, Level 4, scored well enough to compete at Nationals Sept 21st!

Emily finished Level 2 placing 7th!

BACK FROM THE STATES

So many of you prayed for my quick trip back to the States (maybe more prayers for Kyle and girls!) And I thank you so much.  It was a great time to reconnect . . . see my brother's new baby girl, see my other brother living out in California, hang out at my cousin's wedding and eat a lot of fondue with the Fankhauser side of my family.  I was only there for 5 full days, but we made the most of them (thanks Mom and Dad for driving me all over).

But, on a more serious note, I learned a lot.  Learned a lot more about the grieving process  - the process people go through when they are not physically present to grieve with other family members. We deal with sickness, death and grieving on a daily basis, but the grieving is done as a family unit and sometimes quite public.

Missionaries and others who are far from home don't have this support system to help them grieve.  Sometimes the grieving doesn't even happen.  We have a good cry, tell our coworkers, then move on.  There's no funeral to go to and no hurting family members to hug.  It is awkward to grieve far away!
I couldn't believe how healing it was to physically hug my aunt who had just lost her husband.  To tell my cousins "I'm sorry" in person instead of on the computer.  Until I got to Michigan with them, I didn't realized I had stopped the grieving process.  Didn't realize how incomplete my process had been.

So what did I really learn. . . . to pray even more for my coworkers who lose loved ones while on the field.  To encourage them to have as much contact with family as they can over the weeks following.  And whenever possible to buy that plane ticket and fly back to be there.

                                                  Aunt Sherry and her just married son Tyler

                                             My brother Dale, his wife Briana and new baby

                                                                Fankhauser Fondue

                                                                   Meeka and Me :)

                                                    Tyler (my cousin), Ansley, his new wife