Home is where the clock is

I hate going first. I never (hardly ever) volunteer. But we were beginning our pre-field training; I wasn’t keen to be there but had no choice; so I thought I’d try my best. And I went first (for the last time!). The ice-breaking question was “How do you know where home is?” This is an important question for missionaries because we rarely are at “home”.

Wanting to give it a fair chance, I went first and volunteered, “Home is where my books are.” Everyone after me said, “Home is where my family is.” Now, of course, that is true. We were nearing the end of what would be four years of support-raising. During those four years, we traveled together as much as possible. Emily was either in high school or college but Gregory was right in the back working on school as we traveled down the road. So, we were mostly always together and, by most definitions, at home.

But I was very embarrassed. We were living in a small apartment in New York City at the time. I like to know what time it is but there was no clock there. We were planning to go to K-Mart later that day to get a clock and a few other things to make living a little more comfortable. On the way home, I declared that, for our family, from now on, “Home is where the clock is.” We carried that clock to South Africa so we’d be home there. And now that we’re back in the US for Home Ministry Assignment (HMA), we have a clock with us here. The clock we bought back in 2003 was a little too large for my suitcase so we bought a nice, smaller one to indicate home (see picture). Now, as we travel around, we can bring home with us.

We are aliens and strangers on this earth, longing for our heavenly home. In the meantime, God has graciously given us friends and family. We rejoice that in the coming year, we’ll be able to see most of our friends and family. We won’t be able to travel as a family so much because Emily is teaching and Gregory is in college now. But we do have a clock to remind us where home is.

Home Ministry Assignment (HMA) is called “furlough” by some. This gives the impression that we are on vacation. While we do hope to get some vacation, we have many other things to do. HMA allows us to visit our supporters, get some additional training, and tend to business (doctors, dentists, etc) that is easier to do here in the US.

Already, since we arrived back on September 16th, we’ve visited N (not enough) churches and supporters, put X (too many) miles on our 2001 Mercury Sable, and celebrated Thanksgiving with our family (would you believe we left the clock in Maryland while we traveled to Chicago?). Our desire is to finish our church visits (we have 31 supporting churches) and see as many friends as possible before we return to South Africa in September 2010.

We hope to thank you in person for your support of us during our four years in South Africa. We truly appreciate and thank God for your prayers on our behalf as well as your kind financial support. We would not have made it without you!

While on HMA, we have several recurring prayer requests. We ask for prayer for:

1. Wisdom in scheduling the remaining visits to supporters. We have 31 churches to visit and have visited 6 so far.
2. Safety as we travel. We spend a lot of time on the road traveling to churches. We ask for prayer for safety and wisdom. We also ask for prayer that our car would hold up. We've had many mechanical problems with it in the 3 months that we've owned it.
3. Our participation in the Re-Entry Conference with MTW in late January. This is an important part of our HMA, giving us an opportunity to get reacquainted with MTW and their policies.

We ask you to join us in praising God for:

1. The good visits we've had so far with our supporters.
2. The opportunity to be with our families at the holidays this year.
3. The renewing of our many friendships here in the US.

As Christmas approaches and the year ends, we rejoice that home isn’t really where the clock is, nor is it where family is, but ultimately it is where Jesus, our Savior and Protector, is. Won’t you join us in praising the Triune God who sent his son as a small baby to live, grow, die, and rise again so that we might glorify him and enjoy him forever!

May God bless you and your family,


Bert, Nancy, Emily, and Gregory Williams

Prayer for SA Ministries

As you all know, we're busy preparing for HMA. In fact, the movers come tomorrow to pack our things (mostly books) for storage.

Part of preparing is to say good-bye. When we held our final worship service in Reimvasmaak, I asked the saints there for a year's worth of prayer requests. I am pleased to share them with you and to ask you to lift up these saints to our Sovereign God.

They asked that we pray for:

1. Love, peace and unity - especially for outreach. There are few if any churches in the area. They are well aware of the power of Jesus' words: By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
2. Youth and youth leaders. There are many young people in the area with nothing to do but get into trouble. Please pray for Christian leaders to organize and channel the energy of the youth.
3. Mutual understanding and trust. This is related to the first request but deserves special mention. Too often in communities like Reimvasmaak, people get involved in leadership out of self-interest. Pray that those saints in Reimvasmaak trust each other because they are part of the family of God.
4. The marriages and families of the community. With such extreme poverty and idleness comes conflict. Pray that Christian families might be truly different.
5. The physical health of the community. There is much sickness and health care is far away.

Also with preparing for HMA comes filing and sorting. I found, on a crowded corner of my desk, a big sheet of newsprint folded up that contained prayer requests offered at our last Family Workshop at the AFM Church in Sun City, KwaMhlanga. I knew I saved it for a reason. This blog post is just the reason.

We closed our last session with a time of prayer. Before praying for the families of the AFM church, we collected these prayer requests. You'll notice that these requests could be prayed for the families of your church. Won't you consider praying for the South African church families and your church families?

Please pray for:

1. Courage and strength and commitment to attend church. In Sun City, as in many communities, it takes an effort to get to church on Sunday morning. There are many competing activities and Saturday nights sometimes get a bit wild.
2. Unity within the family. As is the case everywhere, families are increasingly separated sometimes due to work, sometimes for other reasons.
3. The development of "House rules". We spoke about Ephesians 5:15-6:4. Each family was to review the Bible study and apply what they learned to their own family.
   
4. Families to use their gifts for God's glory. Earlier in the series, we discussed family ministry - that each family can minister together for God's glory. Please pray for this.
5. Members of families who have left the faith (backsliders). This is a problem here, too. Many children stop attending church when they hit their teens.
   
6. Families to grow strong in the Lord. Again, we discussed family worship, led by the father or the head of the household. For families to grow strong in the Lord, they must have strong leaders, pray for this, too.

Thank you so much for praying for us and now, for praying for these ministries in South Africa.

See you soon!
Bert and Nancy

Christian Community Development Association - South Africa

Many of you have heard how we ended up in Pen Lucy in Baltimore - through God's use of the book With Justice for All by John Perkins. Maybe some of you remember that we visited Voice of Calvary in Jackson, Mississippi twice in the mid-80s to learn about Christian Community Development. We also attended one of the first Christian Community Development Association's (CCDA) conferences (it was either the first or second but it was 20 years ago). Then, last October, we attended another CCDA conference.

It was at this conference that we met Pastor John Aidoo. Pastor Aidoo is the pastor of LifeChanging Ministries in Roodepoort, South Africa. I believe we have written about some workshops we did with his church. One of the other things we talked about at the CCDA conference was the forming of CCDASA - the Christian Community Development Association of South Africa. Just this week, we finally completed the constitution in order to be registered as a not-for-profit organization here in South Africa. This is the first step to a CCDA organization in South Africa.

Lord willing, there will be the first CCDA conference in South Africa next year. In the meantime, Pastor Aidoo, Nancy and I, and about 4 other pastors will be busy telling others about CCDA. Please pray about this and the many other organizational details we have yet to do.


We are excited to be connected to CCDA and their guiding principles of Reconciliation, Redistribution, and Relocation. These principles have been around for a long time and remain a good start to getting involved in Christian community development. Perhaps, I'll write more on them later.

Blessings,
Bert

Tiny’s Library

Library's Open!






Many of you are aware that when we lived in KwaMhlanga, we ran a lending library of children’s books. The kids in the neighborhood could take out one book at a time, then get a new one when they returned the old one. We worked hard at finding people to take over the various ministries we were involved in when we left but we didn’t expect the “library” to continue. We rejoice that we were wrong!

Library's Reopened!

Tiny, a friend who lives a few blocks from our old home, really wanted to continue the library. We gave her some of our books and off she went. We rejoice that a supporting church, Trinity Presbyterian in Brownsville, Indiana, took up a collection and sent even more books to her.

Tiny, Kamogelo, and Nancy - The Librarians

Tiny opens her library twice a week. She now has about 40 neighborhood children borrowing books on a regular basis. She has more than 130 books in her library. Kamogelo is Tiny’s sister’s granddaughter who now lives with Tiny. Kamogelo is in 8th grade and loves helping Tiny in the library. Tiny invited us to visit her library and meet the children who have been borrowing books. We were so pleased to meet the children and were impressed by how much they have been reading. Here are some examples: Bonginkosi has been coming to the library since it opened 11 months ago and has read 19 books. Mpumelelo has been using the library for only 3 months but has already read 12 books. Kamogelo (mentioned earlier) has read 13 books in the past 4 months, including the Secret Garden, Swiss Family Robinson, and poetry books. Most of the children that come to the library do not have access to a public library. Their schools do not have a library and they have few, if any, books at home. What a blessing it is to have Tiny making books available to the children!!

Don't let anyone know I'm reading :)

Friday's Crew with books

June 2009 Update

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20

Dear Friends,
You would expect a missionary to quote the Great Commission from time to time. We would like to draw your attention to the last sentence: "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." We thank God that Jesus is with us - not just all the time but in every place. In our last, brief, email, we thanked you for praying for our safe arrival home after an eventful trip to the Western Cape. We do spend a fair amount of time on the road here in South Africa and truly appreciate and need your prayers for safety. We recently completed an expense report where we enter our mileage for reimbursement. We thought sharing it with you might give us a chance to tell you what we've been up to lately.

First some photos of our faithful bakkie -

This is our faithful bakkie (pick-up truck). Given some of the roads we've traveled on, we're very grateful to have it!

Once, recently, we had a metal shield fall off the underside of our bakkie while out in KwaMhlanga. It was easily fixed - we just went to the local muffler repair shop (note trench underneath) and had them re-attach it.


5/9/09 288129 288311
Pretoria-KwaMhlanga: Sun City AFM
We talked about Pastor Daniel Mahlangu before. His church has invited us to do a series of family and marriage workshops. This was the third one. The subject was family ministry and worship. As usual, we only completed about half of what we had planned as things always start late. We covered family worship fairly thoroughly. We'll pick up where we left off in July when we do the next workshop.








Bert teaching and Pastor Daniel interpreting.








The men are tasked with making a tree with the roots and fruits of a good/healthy family.








The women have the harder task of making a tree with the roots and fruits of a bad/sick family.


5/13/09 288367 288579
Pretoria-KwaMhlanga-Bronkhorstspruit: MCDC/Ubuhle Care Centre
Nancy still works with Mukhanyo Community Development Centre (MCDC). On this day, we visited MCDC to make plans for some volunteers that Nancy will be supervising in the next few months. After MCDC, we went down the road about 50 kilometers to begin a teacher training program at a new care centre in Bronkhorstspruit. This one is for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) that live near or on one of the many farms in the area. We thank God for the Christian farmers who care for their workers and their children.








Some of the teachers at the Ubuhle Care Center









The rest of the teachers at Ubuhle Care Center


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5/17/09 288914 289094
5/23/09 289484 289635
Pretoria-Roodepoort: LifeChanging Ministries
We met Pastor John Aidoo at the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) conference in Miami last October. At the time, he asked us to assist in starting a CCDA-South Africa. A small group of South African pastors have been meeting since the beginning of the year for just such a purpose. We have a draft constitution we're working on. We hope to have a CCDA conference here in SA in 2010. These trips were for us to hold community development workshops, for Bert to preach at a Sunday service, and to continue the CCDA-SA work. Bert had the flu on the last Saturday but, thank God, he was able to do the workshop. It is getting to be winter here now and there is a lot of cold and flu going around.









Bert and Pastor Aidoo








Nancy and Bert co-led the workshop on Foundations of Christian Community Development






Here the groups are working on a drama (skit) to illustrate some important points. It's too bad we don't have video of the actual performances. They were stellar!



5/19/09 289148 289273
Pretoria-Kempton Park: OR Tambo Airport
Stacy is a school teacher that will be spending part of her summer here working with the MCDC teachers and the children. Nancy is supervising her. We met her at the airport to welcome her to South Africa. Please pray for Stacy as the educational system here is very different from what she is used to. She brought along about 10 science lessons and all the associated materials. Pray also that the children and the teachers develop a love of learning.

5/20/09 289273 289430
Pretoria-KwaMhlanga: MCDC
Nancy met with Stacy to go through the plans for her in the next few weeks. Nancy also made a presentation at the Theological College about the Mobile Educational Resource Centre (MERC). Since the college was still in session, Bert had an opportunity to connect with the pastor/students.

5/30/09 289868 289961
Pretoria-Midrand: Gauteng Region Prayer Meeting.
All the MTW missionaries in the area meet monthly for prayer and fellowship. We're all busy doing different things during the month so it is very good to pause, reconnect, encourage one another and, most importantly, pray for one another.

This is the end of our travels for May. It was a pretty normal month, travel-wise. We have included prayer requests throughout this email. We'd also appreciate prayer for our travels this month. We're leaving on Saturday for 10 days in the Western and Northern Cape. We'll be showing someone the various works that we do with Word and Life Ministry in the area. As usual, this involves lots of travel. One place we're visiting is 10 hours from Cape Town. Please pray for safety as well as fruitful ministry amongst the farmers and farm
workers.

Thank you again for your kindness and support.

May God bless you,
Bert and Nancy Williams

Academic Competition Results

We rejoice that every centre sent many fans

The teams were lined up randomly (by a toss of the die)

There were trophies and medals for the first three places

The Competition was a huge success! Everyone came very well prepared and each centre should be very proud of their performances. There were slightly over 100 people in attendance. Questions were asked in the areas of Geography, Computers, Science, Africa, Animals, Maths, Bible, Spelling, and Vocabulary. Out of 50 questions that were asked, only 8 were answered incorrectly! The most difficult area for the learners was Maths, where 4 out of 5 questions were answered incorrectly.

The final results were as follows:
1st place - Sun City with 30 points
2nd place - Manaleni with 26 points
3rd place - Vezebuhle with 24 points
4th place - Thembalethu with 13 points
5th place - Phumula with 7 points

Sun City OVC Centre - The winning team with their trophy and medals

As you can see, it was a very close race for the top three positions. In fact, Manaleni was in first place with 36 points until the very last question of the competition. They had a Maths question worth 10 points and they got the answer wrong, thereby losing 10 points and moving them from first to second place.

Many of the learners and staff commented on how good this was in encouraging learning at the centres and asked if this could be done again next year. Of course, I will be in the US next year, but Thelma would be very capable of organizing this event (I could assist her via email).

Please continue to pray that the learners will enjoy learning. School learning is not always valued as it should be. The teachers need encouragement to continue to make learning fun. (See previous postings for context).

I want to keep this brief so I won't go into any more detail, but if you have any questions, please ask!

Blessings,
Nancy

Books, Books, Books (and other stuff)

Hello All,
As a follow up to the teacher training report, I thought we'd give you a taste of a couple of reports that Nancy wrote concerning the follow-up trips. First, one teacher from each centre went to Johannesburg to a big warehouse with free (yes, free!) books. This is a service offered by the Rotary Club (Rotary Books for the World) to NGOs in Southern Africa. This was a fantastic visit. We had a great time and left with close to 150 books. The teachers chose very wisely. Most of the books were in the area of Maths and Sciences (books that would be VERY expensive), but they also chose books of poetry, dictionaries, books to help them teach English, and much more.

No - this is not Bert's study (although he wouldn't mind if it was filled with this many books). There are many books for the teachers to choose from. It was tough for them to decide.






You can tell from the big smile on Portia's face that she is having a good time. Portia is the OVC manager at the Thembalethu Centre.






Shopping Trip
The next trip to report on is the shopping trip for the teachers. You'll recall from the previous posting that each center that accumulated enough points during the teacher training received R500 each to purchase books and supplies for their center. The center with the most points received an extra R300. Vezubuhle was the winning center. The money for this shopping trip came from part of a donation from Renee Coppes, a recent MCDC volunteer.

We spent most of the day shopping, visiting 4 different stores in Pretoria. The teachers came well prepared with lists of things their centres needed. The teachers made excellent choices, ranging from stationery supplies (rulers, chalk, pencil sharpeners, etc) to books (dictionaries, atlases, English Handbooks, etc.). I was especially impressed that many of their choices for materials reflected the things they learned during the Teacher Training Workshops and are now putting into practice.

The teachers are very clever! There were several things that they wanted to get, but could not afford with their spending money. They put forth excellent arguments and convinced me to purchase these things for MERC so they could all use them!

God showered us with many blessings! There was a particular book that I had used during Teacher Training that all of the teachers wanted to buy. We found only 2 copies of it as we were shopping. The price of the book was R50, but when the two teachers who got the books first went to pay for it, they found it was on sale for only R5! I promised the other teachers I would look for it later since Bert and I are often in bookstores, and they each gave me R50, in case I found it and it was not on sale. I did find 2 copies of the book at another store the next day, and after telling the story to the manager of the store, she gave them to me for free!

Another blessing was that in one store several of the teachers found an excellent phonics program for teaching English. It has many components and is quite expensive, but I was pleased that they were so interested in it. I told them that I had seen it for the first time the previous day and I thought it looked great too, but could not be sure about the quality of the program without listening to the CDs first. The manager heard us talking and offered to play portions of the CDs for us! The teachers feel it will be very helpful at the centres. The manager offered to organize a workshop for us put on by a representative of the company. Talking it over, we decided that I would attend the workshop with Portia (Themb) and Victoria (SC). After completing the workshop, if we decide that the program is useful, I will use additional money that has been donated by Renee to buy the program for MERC. Portia and Victoria would then teach the material to the other teachers at all of the centres. As time goes on, as additional money is donated, perhaps we could buy the program for each centre.

In order to have enough strength to finish the shopping day, we made a stop at KFC for lunch.









Here is the group of teachers at the end of the long day. It's hard to see the big smiles.






We are so grateful to the Rotary Clubs, the donor for the money for the supplies, and to God who allows us to work with such a fine bunch of teachers.

Teacher Training at MCDC

Below are excerpts from Nancy's report on her work training teachers last year. Also included are some photos of the training in action. We're posting this report to provide some context for the Academic Competition that we asked you to pray for.


Teacher Training concluded on 13 November. Below follows a brief report. I will be phoning Anna soon to schedule a meeting with her, Nomsa, and Sibongile to discuss several matters that arose as a result of the training. These matters include a trip to Joburg with 2 teachers from each centre to choose free books for their centre, the possibility of an Academic Competition between the centres being held in March, and a shopping trip in Pretoria for educational materials earned by 4 of the centres. {See subsequent postings for reports on these activities. We know we are keeping you in suspense about the Academic Competition but just to let you know - we think it was a success and are very happy with the way it went. The scoreboard and photos will follow}


Teacher Training Final Report

Teacher Training was held at the Phumula Centre over a period of 10 days (4 hours / day) during the months of August - November 2008. The highest attendance on any given day was 17, the lowest was 12, and the average attendance was 14. In addition to teachers and some OVC managers, we were also blessed by the attendance of Thelma Ngobeni, Nomsa (4 times) and Sibongile (2 times).

Most of the teachers at the centres, though they have a great love for children, are not equipped with the skills to teach. The goal of the workshops was to provide them with the tools and the confidence to do their jobs effectively. The theme of the training was, “This Is Learning. Isn’t It Fun?!” The teachers came away from the training equipped to teach the children using games and a variety of fun activities.

The workshops were a combination of theory and practical application. Topics included: Teachers are FUNdamental, The FUNdamentals of Reading to Children – Why, What, and How, The Power of a Teacher’s Words, Teaching FUNdamental Bible Lessons, Developing a Programme for your Centre is FUNdamental, Teaching the FUNdamentals of English, Understanding the FUNdamentals of Discipline – What, Why, How, Helping Children With Homework is FUNdamental, FUNdamental Principles of How Children Learn, and The FUNdamentals of the Unit Study Method of Teaching.

Teachers were given notebooks that had outlines for each training session and well as additional related materials. At the end of each month, they were also given a set of my notes that they can use for revision.

During the workshops the teachers had many opportunities to teach in front of the group and receive peer feedback. They also spent much time in small group discussions that enabled them to share ideas and offer each other encouragement.





At the end of each lesson teachers had homework assignments that required them to put into practice at the centres what they had learned. The teachers were faithful in completing their assignments and commented on how beneficial they were.

A competition was held during the training to encourage the teachers to work together as a centre. Each centre was awarded points each time we met for attendance, punctuality, completion of homework, quality of homework, participation, Nancy's observations at the centres, etc. Prizes were awarded each month to those teams who had earned enough points. The big prize they were working towards, however, was a shopping trip in Pretoria to purchase educational materials for their centre. Any centre that had earned 60 or more points during the training will be given R500 for the shopping trip from a donation by Renee Coppes. The centre with the MOST points will receive an additional R300. At the end of the training, Vez. had the most points (93). Themb. (89), Phumula (65), and Sun City (61) all had earned enough for the shopping trip. Only Manaleni (52) did not earn enough points. This was mainly due to attendance.

Teacher response to the training was very positive. Teachers learned a lot and I have observed many of them putting into practice what they have learned. I enjoyed doing the training very much.

My greatest concern is that teacher turnover continues to be a huge problem. Teachers become equipped to do their jobs well, but often leave and we have a new batch of unequipped teachers. I have tried to impress upon the teachers and OVC managers of taking the materials I have given them and using those materials to train new teachers.

My greatest joy was hearing the teachers discussing among themselves the need for them to meet together on a regular basis (even if I can't be there) because it is so helpful to discuss problems they face and offer each other encouragement.

Cruma in the News

This article is in Afrikaans but describes some of the things we did with the students in the past two weeks. I can't read it either but we had one of the students give us the highlights.

Overall, the two weeks were good. We covered lots of material and exposed them to life in the city. I believe the article even mentions an evening with the police seeing what happens after dark in Sunnyside.

Our prayer for the students is that they would continue to grow in their concern for people different from them. We also pray that they do not forget what they learned. We asked them to write a letter to themselves that we would keep for three months and then mail it to them. This is one way we hope they remember.

Home Visits

Yesterday, nine fifth year theology students from North-West University (Potchefstroom, aka Potch) arrived at Cruma. This is the third year that they have come to us for their Urban Ministry internship. They will spend two weeks with us learning about life and ministry in the city.

Since Cruma isn't three years old, how can this be the third year? Well, this was actually one of the first things that Cruma did even before it existed. Three years ago, my involvement was a brief presentation on the Biblical foundations of Christian community development and some practical things that I've learned. Then, we went to visit the centres at MCDC and did some home visits.

Last year, I was more involved. I gave an expanded presentation on the Biblical foundation of Christian community development and even more on some practical things. This year will be similar to last year but, hopefully, a deeper look at some of the practical aspects. More on that later, I hope.

However, today we visited KwaMhlanga and Mukhanyo Community Development Centre. Actually, the students are spending the night in KwaMhlanga and will be visiting Mukhanyo Theological College in the morning but Nancy and I had to come back to Pretoria tonight.

After an introduction and overview of MCDC, the students were introduced to the Family Development Program (FDP) by Randy Finkbeiner, the coordinator of the FDP. From there, the students went out in pairs with the FDP workers. The purpose of this excursion was twofold: to see the people that MCDC works with as well as their communities; and to spend time with some local workers to understand their heart for the ministry, the role that Christ plays in their daily ministry, and to see Christ in the way that they do their ministry.

These FDP workers spend all day, every day, walking the communities they are assigned to, talking with people, and visiting those who are sick or vulnerable. They are able to bring some simple medical care to some; some words of encouragement to all; and to pray and share with all (even as part of the encouragement).

Today my group went out with Celia to visit four families in the Phumula area. Each of these families have at least one member that is seriously ill. One man is actually in rather good spirits but he is facing surgery this week for cancer. For the longest time, he assumed that he had a different problem but it was finally determined that he has cancer (in addition to other health issues). He ministered to us by showing us again a very deep understanding of the sovereignty of God. I rejoice that we were able to spend time with someone who, by worldly standards, would be considered uneducated, but, in reality, knows all about theology from a living standpoint.

Our next visit was to a woman who Celia had just started working with. Yesterday, this woman was taken to the hospital but there was nothing that could be done for her. Celia went home with the family and spent much time helping them learn how to care for this seriously ill woman. We rejoiced with Celia that today our new friend was responsive and alert. She has no recollection of yesterday's trip to the hospital but she was awake and aware today.

The remaining two visits were similar to the above but remarkable nonetheless. I'm writing this post, though, to highlight a couple of things I was reminded of during the day:
1. The people we work with have a very deep understanding of who God is and what he has done in Christ. We ought never to assume that because someone is in a tough situation that they are overwhelmed by it all. We saw many things today that would defeat the average, "non-suffering" believer. Yet we were encouraged and even ministered to by the attitudes of those we visited.
2. One of the students that was with me commented on Celia's standard of care. In particular, the student said, "I was amazed at how much Celia touched the sick. She held hands with them. She stroked their hair. She stroked their arms." Celia modeled Christ's care by touch. The family of some of these patients don't like to touch them. Celia's touch showed her love for them. What a blessing!

The students will be with Cruma until 6 February. Please pray for them as they learn more about ministry with the poor and hurting. Pray also for Celia and her fellow FDP workers. I know that each of them struggles with the fact that they can't do everything they would like. Pray for wisdom for them to do what needs to be done and then rest in the fact that God is in charge. And pray for us that we never get insensitive to those we see hurting and in need.

Blessings,
Bert

Happy Birthday, Gregory

Today is Gregory's birthday. He is now 20. We rejoice that last week, Thursday, we were able to celebrate with him here in Pretoria. Then, on Saturday at around 5:30 pm, here, he started his trip back to Beaver Falls and Geneva College. He arrived at the Pittsburgh airport just before midnight on Sunday. He traveled for about 38 hours to get back. We are glad that he is so young. On Sunday, he was still a teenager. Now he is 20. Soon he will start feeling the effects of such long travel. Now, he started classes on Monday morning.

Of course, he wasn't as young as the photo above. One of the problems with being on the field is you don't have all the photos you want. I'd love to put a baby picture up but unfortunately we don't have any with us. I had a couple of old photos in my wallet, though. Believe it or not, he still looks like this, more or less. The more is the beard, of course.

One of my favorite stories of his birth was my encounter with Eric when I arrived home from the hospital. Nancy and Gregory were still at Hopkins. Emily was at the Cheeks house. It was kind of late. Eric lived on our street and had a substance abuse problem. At the time, it was mainly alcohol. When I got home, Eric was standing on the street corner. I shouted across the street to him that Gregory was born. He was happy along with me and crossed over to my side to offer me a drink from his brown paper bag. I politely declined but was touched he wanted to share with me.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Gregory!
Love, Mom and Dad