March 22
Greetings from Nelspruit where SLOWLY the stinging heat of summer is showing small signs of ending.
We will remember Christmas 2021 for a while as it marked the first time we successfully got together with all our children and grandchildren and celebrated Christmas together for the first time in some years. We had made plans previously to be together for other celebrations but this was the first time it all worked out. While we know without a doubt that our experience was nowhere near unique, it was still special of us.
While we have tried to strictly follow all Covid protocols these past two years it still got through our defences and Geraldine was tested positive towards the end of January. Thankfully it was relatively mild with symptoms being uncomfortable rather than serious and she is now doing just fine. There is no way of knowing ‘where the infection took place’ but as Geraldine does occasional Pharmacy locums at the Hospital she has always been somewhat susceptible.
Just like most people on the planet, the last two years has seen our ministry activities influenced in all sorts of ways by Covid, but WE THANK GOD that as far as the MINISTRY TO THE AMAZIONI in Mpumalanga, we have been able to fully restart. ‘THERE WAS A TIME’ (let’s call it ‘pre-covid’) when we would set our ministry calendar and the ZEBS and amaZioni ministry would start each year like a rolling train and the ministry was kind of ‘predictable’ and we could tell you where we would be on a particular day and we could even tell you what lesson would be taught at a particular time…..and we kind of took that predictability for granted.
Well, the last two years turned that predictability upside down but it is with a huge sense of anticipation that we have been able to set the 2022 calendar for all the classes in Mpumalanga, we have been invited to participate in visiting Churches and a series of open air crusade services and we are hopeful that any future ‘waves of Covid’ are going to be weak enough so as not to send us back into a ‘holding pattern’.
There is still uncertainty with our restarting visits to Mocambique….our biggest concern is the unanswered questions about us needing to be tested in Mocambique when we return after a visit. The South African Government has committed to not renewing the State of Disaster beyond its present dates which we are hoping means that some of the border regulations would also be eased…..something to pray about and we will let you know….it is not easy to get reliable up to date information on these changing matters.
A Church at Burgersfort has asked us to preach on Sunday from 2 Peter 2….all about ‘False Teachers’. 2 Peter 1 is all about the amazing blessing of having reliable teaching, and then 2 Peter 2 plunges us into the ‘real world’ of False teachers among God’s people. This has been one of the major problems amongst the amaZioni in Africa from when they first started. Pease pause and pray that TRUTH would be made clear at Burgersfort on Sunday,
Every Blessing,
Richard and Geraldine
