November 2008 Update

We plan on putting our hardcopy and email prayer letters on the blog. In the interest of time, we're not changing them. Below is the most recent one.

Greetings Friends,
Words cannot express our gratefulness to God for your kind and faithful support for us. Some of you have not heard from us in a very long time. It has been ages since we sent out a hard copy prayer letter. This past year has been filled with conflicting emotions which are too complicated to explain in a letter such as this. We have learned much about relying on God alone and His faithfulness. Please join us in praising God for His faithfulness and mercy!

There have been many changes this year. Before we go into detail about these changes, let us first assure you that we are still in South Africa; we’re still working with Mission to the World; and we’re still working with churches who seek to see their communities transformed in all aspects of life through the power of the gospel. As we mentioned in the first paragraph, another thing that hasn’t changed is God’s faithfulness! We’d be truly lost without it.

In our last hard copy prayer letter, we mentioned that Bert was no longer working with Mukhanyo Community Development Centre. The biggest change this year has been our move to the Sunnyside community in Pretoria for Bert to begin working with the Centre for Reformational Urban Ministry in Africa (CRUMA: www.cruma.co.za). This new work is being established by a local Reformed Church pastor, Naas Ferreira, who has a vision for strong churches in the urban areas of Africa, especially Southern Africa. As South Africa’s cities change, CRUMA seeks to see strong, reformed churches in every neighborhood which have a transforming impact on their congregations and their communities, allowing the gospel to change all of life. Bert’s primary role with CRUMA is to mobilize the local churches to mercy ministries in their own communities as well as in the greater Pretoria area. Nancy and Bert also attend a local church plant started by CRUMA and are responsible for developing demonstrations of God’s mercy in Sunnyside.

In addition to this new work in Pretoria, we are also spend about 1/4 of our time in Cape Town working with a ministry to coloureds in the Cape Flats and working in farms in the Western/Northern Cape region. This ministry, Word and Life, has had a strong evangelistic component but are looking for ways to incorporate mercy ministry into their work, while not lessening the evangelistic work. We go down to Cape Town for extended periods of time every few months as it is far from Pretoria. Our focus so far has been on two churches in the Cape Flats area. Johnnie Tromp, the head of Word and Life, has asked us to help in incorporating Christian community development activities in all aspects of this ministry.

While our location has changed, Nancy remains involved with Mukhanyo Community Development Center (MCDC). She recently completed a second teacher training course for the teachers at the Orphan Care Centers. The focus of this class was “Learning can be fun.” She used educational games and taught the teachers how to use them in their classes. Many of these teachers never really considered that it could be fun to learn. Now, some of them want to learn even more games! Nancy has also taught English to some of the children at the centers and to most of the staff of the centers. We never expected there to be a need for this but the response has been great.


As we are gradually shifting away from MCDC, Nancy has trained Thelma Ngobeni to assume many of her responsibilities. We thank God for Thelma’s eagerness and willingness to learn. She is the wife of one of the Mukhanyo Theological College students and mother of 2. So, you know she is very busy. Yet she is also very eager and capable to learn.





Since it has been a while since we’ve reported on some things, we thought we’d close this letter with a report on some of the pastors Bert has been working with. God is very gracious in allowing continuing contact with these men, even though we live in Pretoria and they are in KwaMhlanga.



Bert began working with Job when Job started planting a church at one of MCDC’s centers. Initially, they were working on how to preach but soon they began learning how to study the Bible together. This year, Job grew in Bible knowledge and English speaking ability enough to begin classes at Mukhanyo Theological College. We rejoice that he is passing (he failed in his first attempt) and that the church is growing.










Daniel’s church is establishing their own community development ministry. It has been fun to watch this group grow and develop. In addition to the Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) work, they plan on adding a foster care program, a skills development program and have many other dreams. Please pray for them.

Samson is one of two Reformed Church pastors leading 32 churches in KwaNdebele. There used to be three but one left recently. Prior to moving to Pretoria, Bert regularly preached in one of his churches. As we face a new year, Bert has been asked to begin preaching again, even though we live 70 kilometers from the nearest one. Please pray for wisdom. Pray also that God would raise up other leaders and elders for these churches.

We have been greatly blessed to be able to work in the lives of these men, their churches and many others. We could not do it without your kind and generous support. Thank you!

Our principle means of communication in this past year has been through email. We’ve heard that not everyone on our email list is getting our letters and not everyone on our mailing list is on our email list. If you are on our list and haven’t received anything from us for a long time, please write to us (email on next page) and let us know. If you are not on our email list and would like to be, please email us and let us know.

We are just beginning a blog. It is at showandtellthegospel.blogspot.com. It isn’t up and running as of this writing but Bert is hoping to get it ready by the time you receive this letter. We will be writing more about daily activities and including pictures. We do not send out pictures on our email list as not everyone has broadband access to the internet yet.

Emily and Gregory are mailing this to you over the Thanksgiving weekend. Please know that we are indeed thanking God for you. Please keep us informed of what is happening in your lives and in your churches. We love to hear from you. We do read everything and pray for you all.

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!



Bert, Nancy, Emily and Gregory
p.s. We ran out of space for everything so we added a third page. This is too much but we put our prayer requests there. This way you can keep the prayer requests handy and pray for us. Thanks!

Prayer Requests and Other Important Information

We would like to ask you to continue to pray for the men reported on above and these other requests:
1. The development of a deacon training program for the Reformed Churches in the Pretoria area. Bert met with the deacons once and found a great deal of interest. Please pray that this interest can be translated into meaningful mercy and development work.
2. The growth of the Sunnyside church plant. Brian DeVries, a missionary from Grand Rapids, MI, is the principle church planter. He is being assisted by students Ben Zulu and Malwande Mdonga. We are attending this church plant and helping establish the uMusa (Mercy) Committee.
3. Nancy’s continued work with MCDC, especially her mentoring of Thelma.
4. Our Cape Town work. Right now, we are still establishing relationships but even this can result in God-glorifying ministry. In July, Nancy had a brief chat with some of the women in one church. While discussing the situation in their community, they realized that amongst themselves they had the resources and skills to begin ministering to the sick. Pray that this grows into a good witness for Christ and His Kingdom.
Please also join us in praising God for:
1. A great whirlwind trip to the US in October. We went to attend the Christian Community Development Association’s (CCDA) annual conference. In addition to the conference, we were able to visit seven churches in the five weeks we were there. This was good practice for our Home Ministry Assignment which will begin in the last quarter of 2009. We were only sorry that we couldn’t visit everyone.
2. The CCDA conference was a great encouragement. We were stimulated by the various speakers and enjoyed running into some old friends and meeting some new ones.
3. It looks like Gregory will be able to visit us again this Christmas. Emily is still busy teaching in Chicago and does not get a long enough break to make it worth coming out now, unfortunately.

Introduction

Bert and Nancy both became Christians in high school. They met in college and were married in 1979. Nancy taught elementary school while Bert attended graduate school. In 1982, Bert accepted a job as a mathematician with the U.S. Department of Defense.

In 1987, they moved into an inner-city neighborhood of Baltimore to live and minister as a Christian family. Bert continued with his job while they both were active in the community development ministries of their neighborhood church, Faith Christian Fellowship (PCA). Bert’s job took them to Canberra, Australia in 1992. While in Australia, they were blessed with the opportunity to work with an MTW church-planting team. God used this unexpected opportunity to prepare their hearts for overseas missions. They returned to Baltimore in 1996, resuming ministry in their neighborhood while attending Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Baltimore (PCA). Bert was ordained as a teaching elder in 2003 and called to missionary service with Mission to the World.

As a result of God’s leading and preparing, the Williams family have spent the last three years in Southern Africa, partnering with churches in Christian Community Development and Reconciliation ministries.

Bert's time is currently divided between working with the Centre for Reformational Urban Ministry in Africa in Pretoria and working with Word and Life ministries in Cape Town. Each ministry involves him in mobilizing churches to respond to the mercy needs encountered in their communities (relief and development). He works training pastors and deacons to show and tell the gospel.

Nancy also divides her time between Pretoria and Cape Town. In Pretoria, she works with Mukhanyo Community Development Centre equipping staff in everything educational from English classes to teacher training to helping communities develop a love of books and reading. In Cape Town, she works with Bert in the various churches helping them to discover their skills in ministering to their neighbors.

We have two children. Emily lives in Chicago where she teaches music at Sumner Elementary Math & Science Community Academy in Chicago. Gregory is a sophomore at Geneva College studying history and sociology (and anything else he has time for).

London City Mission

I just finished reading Streets Paved with Gold: The Story of the London City Mission by Irene Howat and John Nicholls. I had never heard of the London City Mission before seeing this book in the book store. I hope to write a book review of this book sometime soon but in the meantime, there are a couple of quotes that are too good not to share.

The London City Mission was founded in 1835 to bring the gospel to the poorest neighborhoods of London. They used city missionaries who walked through the neighborhoods every day, knocking on doors and sharing the gospel. Their strategy is: "the same person, going to the same people, regularly, to become their friend, for Jesus' sake." This strategy could be useful for any church's evangelism program. I pray that all churches would train their members to be friends for Jesus' sake.

The London City Mission (LCM) was a little slow using women as city missionaries. But this doesn't mean that women didn't have an important role in conjunction with their work. In 1861, LCM debated whether to employ women alongside men. They finally decided not to; one fear was that people would see LCM as a woman's work and the male recruits would stop joining. They did recognize that women did have a valuable role to play. They quoted in their magazine, "When the heart of a woman has been won to the love of Christ, it is her happiness, her delight, to be employed in works of mercy." Of course, this joy is in men's hearts, too, I hope.

There is much more from this book that could be quoted. I hope to post a review soon.

Bert

June Update - Neigbor-ology

Greetings Friends,
As we are beginning a new phase of our ministry in South Africa, it is a good time to reflect on our purpose for being here. You probably have heard us talk about "Show and Tell the Gospel" often. We'd like to introduce another metaphor - helping churches and Christians be good neighbors.

One of our favorite books on development, Walking with the Poor by Bryant Myers, introduced us to the concept of neighbor-ology (he credits the term to Kosuke Koyama, p. 150). In his summary of the Law in Matthew 22, Jesus says:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Mt. 22-37-40)

Loving our neighbors as ourselves is the second commandment. In Luke's Gospel, in chapter 10, an expert in the Law says the same thing. The expert then goes on to try to justify himself and asks, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus then relates the parable of the Good Samaritan. Neighbor-ology is, then, the study of what it takes to be a good neighbor.

We can all be good neighbors to those like us and to those we like. The Good Samaritan parable shows what Jesus means when he says, "Love your neighbor as yourself." It goes beyond what we might feel comfortable with, even helping those we are not generally inclined to even notice. We will be working with people and churches, helping them study themselves, their communities,and their neighbors, helping them develop ways that they might be good neighbors. Pray for us as this is a simple concept to state but hard to put into practice in a God-glorifying way.

As time goes on, we'll be giving you more concrete activities related to neighbor-ology. In an earlier update, we asked for prayer for a workshop for deacons that was to be held on May 31 at CRUMA (Center for Reformational Urban Ministry in Africa). Unfortunately, this workshop never happened. We hope to reschedule it for August/September. The next few weeks will be crucial in the planning for this workshop. Working with deacons in the church is one way we are assisting the church in being a good neighbor.

In other news, you may have heard about the spate of xenophobia (fear of strangers/foreigners) in South Africa. The violence was largely directed towards people from other parts of Africa who were living in the slums and townships. There was limited violence reported in KwaMhlanga (as far as we heard) but we do know that the fear of violence impacted some of our friends from Zimbabwe and other places. Please pray for greater understanding among the various people groups in South Africa. We praise God that many churches in South Africa were active in ministering to those displaced by the violence. They were being good neighbors, indeed.

We are planning on spending most of July in Cape Town, working with Word and Life Ministries. In particular, we'll be working with two churches, one in a community called Capricorn and another in Wes Bank, training their leaders in some basics of community development. These are two small congregations in rather poor communities with young pastors. Please pray that they will be gripped by the gospel in such a way that it shows in their love for their neighbors.

Finally, with our move into Pretoria, we have a little better internet situation. We recently were able to get Skype working. This allows us to use our high-speed internet connection for making cheaper international phone calls. Our Skype account is hsw1957. If you have Skype, we can even talk for free. We are not always online so if you'd like to talk with us, please let us know in advance so we'll be ready.

Summarizing our prayer requests (and adding a few):

1. Pray for our work with churches in neighbor-ology
2. Pray for the planning of our deacons workshop and the continuing work at CRUMA
3. Pray for the strangers and aliens in our midst - that the Christians would love them and demonstrate that love. Thank God for the care He has shown them through His church.
4. Pray for our time in Cape Town with Michael (Wes Bank pastor) and James (Capricorn) pastor. Bert will also be working with Johnnie Tromp, the head of Word and Life, to plan future activities.
5. Nancy's English classes in KwaMhlanga end next week. When we return from Cape Town, she will begin a new series of teacher training classes for the teachers at the Orphan and Vulnerable Children centers. This will be her second set of classes with the teachers but many (about 1/2) are new since the last time.
6. Pray that we would get to know our neighbors. Pretoria is a city of big walls around homes. This makes it hard to get to know your neighbors. We are learning names gradually but wish to get beyond that.
7. Praise God for our improved internet situation. We are glad to have Skype working and are looking into other things that are possible with a higher speed internet connection - like sending out some pictures in these emails. Let Bert know what you think of that.
8. Praise God also for His provision of work and housing for Gregory over the summer. He is working on campus cutting grass, etc. He is living in a home owned by a family who attends the church he goes to. This house is being renovated and they are allowing him to stay there as the work progresses. It should be completed in July but it looks like he has a place to stay after that.

We thank God for your continued support. We are very grateful for the many ways you encourage us as we are your servants in Christ in South Africa.

Blessings,
Bert, Nancy, Gregory, and Emily Williams