Activities this past week

Lawrence taught Bible lessons all last week on forgiveness.  On Friday we had one on one sessions with the students praying God would grant them ability to forgive others and be released from bitterness.  Most of these students were dealing with issues of abuse from family members, parents (especially fathers) who deserted them at an early age, and murders of family members.  We praise God for the results seen from these prayers and ask you to join us in prayer for the future that the students can now put these issues behind them and look forward to God’s great plan for their lives.  This week the Bible lessons center on seeing God as the perfect Father.  Pray with us that the fatherless students will see that God is the example of the perfect Father.   

We are thankful that our cabin renovation is mostly complete.  It has given us a little more space to meet with students.  This week we are having 3-4 students in our cabin each evening for cookies and refreshment to assist us in getting to know each of them better and building meaningful relationships. 

Life at GAP Youth Mentoring Program

Greetings from sunny South Africa,

We are doing well and have settled in at the GAP Youth Mentoring Program.   We had 7 of the students for a cooking lesson this morning in our little cabin.  They enjoyed eating the muffins as much as baking them.  We also just had a great time of fellowship lasting about 3 hours of talking and sharing and getting to know each other better.

Appreciate all of you and your prayers are felt.  Below is our list of Prayer and Praises:

1.        Praise that the students are receptive to us and willing to share with us.  After we shared our testimonies and our story with them last Monday, there were lots of questions and discussion about life in the U.S. and living as a Christ follower.  We’ve had several come to the cabin in the evenings  to share and pray with us.

2.       Praise that our son-in-law Ryan made it back to Okinawa on Wednesday after his 6 month deployment to Qatar.

3.       Praise for safety this week as Lawrence spends a lot of time driving to E. London and various places with students and picking up and taking home staff from the Camp.

Prayer:

1.       Pray for safe travel for the students who went home this weekend and will return on Monday morning.

2.       Pray for two students who went home for specific reasons this week-end.  Bonginkosi is the only Christian in his family.  He shared with us that he felt the Holy Spirit prompting him to go home and share the plan of salvation with his whole family.  Pray for courage and clarity for him.  Pray for Akona as he was to meet his father this week-end for the very first time. 

3.   Pray that the addition to the cabin will be completed this next week.  There was no one available to work on it last week.  The area is roughed in and sheetrocked but needs to be finished with flooring and getting the kitchenette fixed up.  A door needs to be put in and due to structural issues has been a problem.

4.   Pray for Louise as she drives on Monday to Debenek School (in a village close to Ft. White) to deliver uniforms that were purchased for the students.  Our friend Dawn from E. London will accompany her.

5.   Pray for employment for our S. African friends Siyanda and Nosiphiwo and wisdom for us as we try to advise them on housing.

6.       Pray for Lawrence as he teaches daily and pray for Louise as she prepares menus and does purchasing of the food for the whole camp (about 24 people).  Most of the food comes from donations from grocery stores that comes in 2x a week.  From that a menu is made and then purchasing has to be done for any food that is needed to supplement.