South Africa Base News

Greetings prayer friends! It has been three months since God called Richard into full-time ministry with CCSM. Three years ago, God called Bernice into the ministry full-time. At last, after ten years, we are seeing more of the fulfillment of the prophetic in our lives in that we are now together serving the Lord in a full-time capacity through the ministry of AM-CCSM.

So what's happening now? Firstly, it is exciting that God has confirmed in our hearts that we should serve the local Chinese in our area by visiting various Chinese shop keepers, befriending and building relationships with them. We are sad to report that Jehovah's Witnesses are very active amongst these shop keepers. We have also started a midweek Chinese Friendship Evening whereby we share a meal together and have some fun whilst we build on our Mandarin vocabulary and the Chinese build on their English vocabulary. At this point in time, we have only one shop keeper attending. Through this, the Lord is slowly opening doors for us to share around His Word. We realize that only God, by the power of His Holy Spirit, brings the increase and that we must be diligent and faithful to the call.

Secondly, we have begun visiting "China Town" in Ottery, Cape Town. There is much work to be done there and the vision that the Lord has given us is (a) firstly to establish who there are believers, and (b) to start a Sunday evening fellowship in one of their business premises. There are no Chinese churches in this area and with their business responsibilities being 24/7 there is not much time left to go out looking for fellowship or a church family. God has given us a special love for the Chinese people and we believe that God has, in a sense, brought China to our doorstep.

We found this quotation by Oswald Chambers very useful in our challenge to reach the local Chinese: "According to Our Lord, there is not a home church and a foreign church; it is all one great work, beginning at home and then going elsewhere, ‘beginning from Jerusalem'. Jerusalem was not the home of the disciples; Jerusalem was the place where Our Lord was rejected. ‘Begin there,' said Jesus." So true.

We will also continue doing short-term mission trips to China, which we so absolutely love, and in doing so be committed to the call of "to the utmost ends of the earth calling", as stated in Acts 1:8. Talking of short-term teams, we are thrilled that we can say we have three applications for the pastors/leaders team and four applications for the mercy team in October. Praise the Lord! If you feel God calling you to join one of our October teams, please give us a call so that we can pray and chat. Time is very short and we do need any applications for October immediately.

We were listening to the morning news update on the radio recently and heard that we South Africans are suffering a shortage of potatoes. Oh, there is an abundance of potatoes alright, but a very large percentage of the potatoes have ‘hollow hearts', which really tells us that they are not of much use! They look great on the outside but on the inside - well, there is not much at all! It made us think of Christians and prayer. There are so many of us but how many ‘feel' actually ‘useful' to the Kingdom, particularly when it comes to prayer. How many times do we approach the throne room of God with a sense of ‘hollow hearts' - emptiness? Let us be encouraged and remember Romans 5:5b, which says, "Because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Because of God's great love in our hearts, not our own love, we can pray effective prayers, Holy Spirit-led, with God's heart for our Chinese brothers and sisters in Christ and for China.

Richest blessings,
Richard and Bernice

Give thanks to the Lord for Michael, the Chinese Bible College student who has been such a help to us in the ministry among local Chinese.

Pray for us as we learn conversational Chinese language.

Pray that local Chinese that have been visited by Jehovah's Witnesses would be protected from these subtle deceitful teachings and that they would be guided to the truth as we visit, share and befriend them.

Pray for our Chinese friendship evenings on Wednesdays. Pray that, as we visit local Chinese in our area, the Lord will bring more people to these meetings.

Praise the Lord for all the South Africans who have committed to going on a short-term team to China in October. Pray that the Lord would undertake in all ways for their needs, safety, financial provision, etc.

Pray also for the Lord of the harvest to raise up more to go on short-term teams.

Pray for the work among the local Chinese shopkeepers and businesses, that it would bear fruit as we continue to visit them.

Pray that the vision for a Sunday evening fellowship for them will come to fruition in time.

Praise God for all He is doing through the ministry of AM-CCSM South Africa and His continuing Hand upon Richard and Bernice.