Can you believe it is December already? By the time you read this letter I’ll be home in WA for a few weeks enjoying the holidays with my family. I not only look forward to seeing my family, but also to experiencing a WA winter. Hopefully we will get lots of rain while I’m home! After the last year and a half living in near desert conditions, my soul is parched for rain. The smell of rain, the sound of rain, and the feel of rain will all be a blessing.
Since my last letter in October, we (the Gestring’s and I) took five of our witnessing training students on an outreach in the nearby village of Sixhundred. Although the university had been shut down for two weeks previously due to student protests, we were still able to continue with the outreach.
We worked with a small church in the village to host a children’s program in the morning and a youth outreach in the afternoons/evenings. Each morning, children came from all over the village to have a lesson in Tae Kwan Do and then to hear Bible stories and discuss them in small groups. As always, the Tae Kwan Do was a big hit and many of the kids worked extremely hard on their own time to get the pattern down for the contest on the final day. Thankfully, because this village is near Mafikeng, Dr Gestring will take some of his university Tae Kwan Do students out there regularly to continue working with the village kids.
This year, however, our primary goal was working with the youth of that church to train them in evangelism and outreach for their community. After several training sessions, our university students took the church youth out into the village door to door each afternoon. It was so exciting to see the youth of the church gradually taking on the responsibilities of witnessing and, as a result, growing in their own faith. It was also wonderful to see our university students taking on the leadership and training roles so that the Gestrings and I were simply there for support. Our university students hope to continue working with the youth of the church at Sixhundred over the next year.
After the outreach, when the university reopened, violent protests continued for several days and I spent 2 weeks living with friends off campus. This time, the university decided to actively crack down on the protesters rather than closing the university down. However, over the first few days, things were quite rough and one of the Animal Health lecturers was hosed down with a fire extinguisher and another was assaulted with rocks. By the second week, campus was calm enough that classes and tests could continue.
During the second week, the Gestrings started a daily prayer walk around campus at 6am and we continued these prayer walks for several weeks, joined frequently by various staff and students. The first few days we found numerous rubber bullets in our path that had been fired by the security and police to disperse rioting students. I picked up several for souvenirs
In early November, I spoke at the regional women’s conference in which my church participates. I was asked to share about living for God as a single woman and enjoyed the opportunity. Quite a few women from my church were also in attendance and we relished the fellowship despite the rather rustic accommodation.
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