Visiting And Building

Today was a beautiful Spring day - cloudless blue sky and temperature at least 28 degrees with no wind, wonderful!! We are so looking forward to more of this type of weather. Paula spent yesterday afternoon with Joel and a friend and her 2 children in the Nature Reserve. It was another day like today and they had a wonderful time enjoying the scenery and chatting while the children played. Please pray for a deepening of these friendships for Paula and Joel. In many ways God is really answering this prayer after only 2 months in the country, but Paula is keen to establish deep roots from early on so that they both have real security in the coming years.

We went into Chris Nissen as a family this afternoon and enjoyed a lovely afternoon of visiting and praying for folk. It was great for Paula to see Patrick again for the first time since his discharge from hospital. He looked a transformed man, free from pain, getting to grips with his walking frame and enjoying being back amongst family and friends. He was just brimming with thanks to Dean for regularly making sure that family and friends visited him in hospital over the past 4 weeks. He really couldn't believe that Dean managed to do this and is so thankful to God. He is also adamant that the only reason he is home and doing so well is because of God's faithfulness in answering so many of your prayers. He has taken great encouragement from the Bible in recent weeks, particularly since we managed to get him an English Bible that someone had donated to church. We also visited Sandra, the main community leader. She has been causing a certain amount of friction and difficulty in recent weeks and so it was good for Paula and Joel to meet her for the first time. She was obviously chuffed about this and we hope that Paula will be able to keep this up in the coming weeks. It was also good to visit and pray for Aunty Jane whose husband died last week. She must travel a very long way over Friday night to his family home for the burial, so please pray for her safety, particularly that the bus will be driven well and that she will be a wonderful witness to the family through this sad time. Visiting and building relationships in this way really warms our hearts and it is lovely to see how God is using Dean in particular even after such a short time. Please pray for continuing favour with the people and that his Afrikaans comes on in leaps and bounds.

Lots of love

Paula & Dean

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