Gearing up for the new year

As we've mentioned before, most things have paused for the holidays. So this is the time for gearing up for the new year.

We've been putting together schedules: lining up volunteers to staff the BEC, and scheduling speakers and food providers for the biweekly Sunday afternoon class. We're also working on the schedule for Bro Norm Fadelle from Illinois, who will be here for a week starting the 12th of January. He wants to be kept busy, so we're trying to expose him to as much of what's going on here as possible, without running him completely ragged.

We've also been doing the prep work for a Bible study day in Lamontville township later in January, on the theme "The Good News of the Kingdom of God". We put together an invitation, which will go to all of our current students in Lamontville and nearby Umlazi. These have been printed, stuffed, addressed and stamped, and will go into the mail in the next day or two. (Hoped to attach the invitation to this posting, but doesn't look like Blogger accepts attachments--if you know how, leave a comment!) We will also make use of a nice facility they have here in South Africa, called bulk SMS. Using an internet interface, you can send a text message to the cell phones of multiple people. Since the mail is not 100% reliable, we will also send a text (SMS) message to everyone. More prep work remains to be done, including getting a banner ready to put on the front of the Lamontville Good News Centre, where the study day will be held. (Paul also needs to write the talk he will give!)

Now that the new year is here, another thing we need to do is extend our visa. We came in on a regular tourist visa, which is good for 90 days--our current one expires 10 Feb. We need to renew for another 3 months, to take us to May. "Volunteer worker" visas are also available, and are required for anything over 6 months total. But there is a great deal more paperwork to get one of those, so we are hoping that the tourist extension will work out. It has worked for some of the other overseas volunteers here.

The biweekly Sunday classes have not paused for the holidays (next one is this Sunday, with Jane providing the meal), and the weekly Lamontville class will resume this coming Tuesday, so things are beginning to move again. The BEC will reopen on 12 Jan, and we'll spend some time on Saturday the 10th getting it ready.

Another activity during the break is preparing a multi-part handout version of Bro Rob Hyndman's book The Way of Life. This will become our 3rd level course at the BEC, replacing some older material. Sis Leah Egginton has done the major work to format the book into groups of lessons that can be given to the students, with assignments they can do and return. Paul is acting as reviewer/editor - always need another set of eyes to catch the little things that try to slip through. We are excited about having this new course to offer.

We pray that all of our friends, family, and brothers & sisters in Christ will have a blessed year. And above all, we pray that this year we may see our Lord's return, to fulfill all that has been promised, and to fill the earth with the glory of God! "Even so, come Lord Jesus!"