WF Report – November-December, 2010

On December 4, 2010 the Durban Bible Education Center held another Bible student graduation for those who’ve finished one or more of our Bible Correspondence courses.  About 45 students completed one or more of our classes and got to graduate.  This was absolutely the best graduation I have been a part of in my entire time here in South Africa.  Phil Ashcroft has been working with some Zulu musicians to create an album of Great Zulu songs.  He’s been working very hard and the sound that we experienced on this day was amazing.  Once his singers began singing, the whole group of Students began singing along.  We literally had dancing in the aisleways in the Durban Hall.  I was absolutely flabergasted at the quality of the singers and the reaction of the students.  I truly am amazed at the fantastic response of praise and worship we had at this graduation.  It was such a blessing to be there!

Siphiwe / Reunion Graduation

Siphiwe is a young brother that we met at a Hospital while visiting Marcus last year.  Siphiwe became immediately interested in our God’s Master Plan course, and after some intensive studies was baptized.  Siphiwe lives in Reunion and has always been active as one of the youth in the town, including a Wednesday night Bible class that is held at Manzini’s house, an elder in his community.  Mama Manzini saw the change in Siphiwe and began the God’s Master Plan for herself, to see what had caused the change in Siphiwe.  Further, having found the class so good at explaining some of the Basics of Bible teaching, the Manzini’s asked Siphiwe to teach the Wednesday night bible class to the community youth.  The following picture is the graduation from God’s Master Plan for about 25 of the students.  There are another 20 students who were out of town on Holiday when we had the graduation.  Imagine that, 45 students in a community going through our Bible Courses at one time.  And they all stuck with it through the whole class ;-).  Amazing.

The best part?  The entire class has now enrolled in the next series of courses – “Learning your Bible” which focuses greatly on the promises of God through Abraham, David, etc as well as other basic tenets of the scripture.  45 students progressing through the 2^nd Bible Correspondence course together.  Priceless!

The BEC graduations represent a lot of work from many of the volunteers and some of the local members as well.  What a blessing to have so many people contributing to our efforts, as well as so many students who desire to receive our services as well.  God Be Praised!

Kim’s Update

The kids have been in public school since September.  This was a big transition from homeschool for our family, but God has really blessed this path for us.  The kids are enjoying the culture of South African school and it gives us yet another venue to let our light shine.  Wyatt is in Grade 1 and gets out at noon, so this allows me to spend 3 mornings a week in the mission projects, then the afternoons doing the typical kid extramurals, homework and being a mom.  Now that we are down to just a small handful of volunteers, we have redesigned our projects and I’m enjoying being more involved.  I have joined in the Feeding Scheme project and help with the soup kitchen and food parcel preparations.  The kids have also been in on this action coming once a month and packing up all the goods.  We usually make it an ecclesial kids afternoon and for the reward of a sweet, they work very hard!  We are excited to carry on Emma and Simon Palmer’s legacy and work in the feeding scheme.

Another place that we have become more involved is in the new Clermont ecclesia.  The Palmers, Jude, Phil and Nay and many other volunteers have worked hard in 2010 to establish a solid foundation in this new ecclesia.  We have been blessed with 3 existing brothers and 2 existing sisters that were attending other meetings, and have now transferred over to support the Clermont meeting.  This is exciting because it gives us maturity in a newborn ecclesia.  We are attending there twice a month and teaching Sunday school.  Cam and I have also taken on the Thursday morning Gogo’s coffee morning and with Kwanda’s aid, have turned it into a community fellowship/ Bible Education Center morning on Thursdays.  We hope to be able to have impromptu classes and help the community with the God’s master plan correspondence work, while at the same time enjoying a cup of tea and fellowship.  Kwanda’s presence is key in this as he is our zulu speaker.  The good news is that he’s been tutoring Cameron quite regularly and Cam’s zulu continues to improve.  We are prayerful that this will in turn expand into a great witness.

On Fridays, we plan and prepare the lessons for the weekend that are taught at Lamontville SS, Mariannhill SS, ClermontSS, Happy’s and Lamontville Youth.  Consolidating these efforts into one lesson has been very helpful as we can brainstorm as a team and work together on the materials.  It also gives us a way to be more purposeful in the subjects we are teaching.  When these lessons are done, we have prepared for 200 children to be taught each weekend!  Our family will teach at the Happy’s school once a month as well.  This is great as the kids get involved in helping.  I feel so blessed to be able to be more involved now.  I hope to have some photos next month of the projects so you can get visuals of what we are doing.

Update on Sister Nozipho

There are many exciting things happening in the Life of Nozipho (No-Zee-Po) Hlongwa (sHlongwa).

She is one of our regular class attendees at Happy’s school.  She was baptized this past year and is currently a member of the Westville ecclesia.  Our current mission involvement with Nozipho includes 4 things.

1. Nozipho has completed secondary school and can no longer live in school housing.  Since the school is for physically disabled children, there are people committed to assisting the children every day.  We are helping Nozipho to find permanent housing with assisted living benefits in the area, so that we can continue to keep her involved in our studies, and to allow us to contribute to her physical welfare.
2. As a youth, Nozipho had Rheumatic fever, and having no medical attention ended up with Rheumatoid Arthritis.  By the age 15 she was unable to move any of her arm, leg, hand, feet & hip joints as they had all m/l calcified.  What this means is that Nozipho is effectively quadriplegic.  Nozipho has been sponsored by her Physical therapist in Umlazi to become one of a very small number of quadriplegics to receive medical attention to help with her quality of life.  The operations begin in January 2011, and we are helping Nozipho in and out of the hospitals, and taking care of her personal needs during this time.  She can have as many as 10 joint replacement surgeries taking as much as a year or more to complete, including rehab efforts.
3. Another important result of completing her secondary school is that Nozipho also qualified to get into University.  While this opens lots of questions, it also opens many opportunities for Nozipho.  As a result of her operations, Nozipho will be unable to attend university in this school year, but we will be working with her to gain grants to get into university when her physical health permits.
4. Finally, we are working with local Westville volunteers to transport her when she is able to attend meetings and Bible classes.  Currently we are coordinating hospital visits to ensure she gets plenty of attention!

Please pray for Nozipho as she will have a medically intense 2011!

Cards with well wishes can be sent to my address as follows:

Nozipho Hlongwe, ℅ Cam Beeler, 16a JB Marks rd, Durban, 4001  South Africa

Updates to Follow in Future Posts!

These are the items that I anticipate to update on the next WCF update (January – February 2011)

• Nozipho surgery updates & hospital visits
• “Learning your Bible” with Siphiwe
• Ministers Class to join in Lamontville and to begin “Learning your Bible” courses
• Beelers and Strachans become sponsors of the Clermont ecclesia, in continuance of Simon & Emma Palmer and Phil Ashcroft and Naomi Midgley.
• Continued Soup witness program (with Kim)
• Cameron and Kwanda begin a God’s Master Plan mentoring and Bible Study in Clermont on Thursdays
• Beelers visit the states from Feb 17 thru March 25 – Please pray for us in our travels!

God Bless all of you!,
Cam & Kim and Family