Possible Ministry Opportunities in South Africa

In January, the mission was able to go and visit two different churches in villages not far from Polokwane.  On January 24th, Mark and I were able to travel with William, Member, Darren, Brad and Jill to Indermark to visit with Pastor Klaas and a few of his church members. 
  
Here is an update from Darren Early, one of our staff, from the trip to Indermark this past week ...

This past Thursday we were invited to Indermark, South Africa (an hour and half drive to the Northwest of Polokwane), to visit the Baptist church there, meet their leadership team along with a few members and to discuss some of their spiritual needs.

The facilities were built by the mission 10 years ago and the church has been faithful in taking great care of it. It really is beautiful in comparison to other village church buildings.

This church is in a very large village with great opportunity to impact the kingdom of God, having multiple schools within a short distance. There is also a mountain range nearby with inhabitants who have not been reached with the Gospel, and the church has a desire to take the Good News to those people as well.

We spent time encouraging them and we too, were encouraged by their faithfulness and desire for spiritual growth. They detailed their need for youth and children's teaching material, along with other spiritual needs. This is an active congregation, with some kind of ministry occurring everyday of the week. We, as a mission, will meet and discuss how we can come alongside of this wonderful church and minister to them in a way that would strengthen them in the faith of our Lord Jesus and that would help train up teachers from within, that the church might continue on for years to come in worshiping and glorifying God.

Pray for us as we seek the Lord’s guidance in ministering to this and other rural churches that are starved for discipleship.

Pastor Klaas and his wife Poulinah

 

Church garden

 

On January 29th, William, Gordon, Member, Darren, Brad and Jill traveled to Lebowakgoma to visit with Pastor Nelson. 

Here is an update from William, our Mission Pastor ...

Yesterday we visited with Pastors Nelson Chuene and Matapo at the new church site in a new developing area outside Lebowakgomo. The site is ideally situated and is the only church so far in this new area. The property is fenced off and they have built a small corrugated structure and even built toilet facilities that have flushing toilets and running water. The stand is a good size for a big church building to built later on. Pastor Nelson finished with seminary last year and will be pasturing this new church and he lives very close to the church site, which is ideal. It was great to hear their desire to reach out to the people in this area with the Gospel and have asked us to assist them in helping to develop this church in their various ministries. We have promised to give them our old tent that needs some serious repairs to put up until they are able to put up a church structure.

There are also a number of church buildings that Samaria Mission has built in the Lebowakgomo area where there are virtually no people going to these churches because of no church leadership being there anymore that they want to revive as well. It was encouraging to see Pastor Matapo who is 80 years old still coming alongside of this new church plant and wanting to see the revival of the other churches. We had a wonderful time of fellowship at Pastor Chuene’s house together with his wife. They plan to bring all those who have already joined at the new church plant to visit us at one of our church services here at Christ Baptist Church so that they can learn something from us in how we conduct our services.

Pray that we will be meaningfully involved in helping this church to grow and develop into a church that glorifies God in all they do.