Prayer Requests 23 July 2009

A quick update for prayer requests:
1) Keep Steve Martin and Kathy Paxton in prayer as they continue the ministry in Lancaster, PA while we're in South Africa.
2) Our office in Leola, PA was broken into a couple of days ago. Pray that God stirs in the mind and heart of whoever broke in. Pray that God draws them closer to Him with His love.
3) Jordan and Isaac will be ministering at another preschool in Tembisa on Friday July 24th.
4) Dave will be teaching a 3 hour workshop for Christian counselors in the area on Saturday July 25th.
5) Dave will be preaching at Tabernacle COGIC Church in Tembisa on Sunday July 26th.
6) Ongoing ministry at the prisons on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and the group at Acts Christian Church on Tuesday night.

Preaching 4 services plus in South Africa

Wow!! What an awesome experience to preach 4 services in a weekend. One Saturday night at 6 PM, then three on Sunday at 8AM, 9:30AM and 11AM. It was amazing the way God moved. I prayed for God's heart for the congregation at Acts Christian Church and felt strong about there Scriptures that He took me to.

At the Saturday evening service I shared my testimony and then preached the Word that God had given me. His presence was evident as over 30 people came forward for prayer to be set free from addictions! I woke up Sunday morning and expected the same as Saturday night. Boy was I surprised!

Each service was different in the exact content of what I shared and in the response! It all fit in the same theme but I was awestruck at God's heart to tweak His message to fit the people at each service. The last service really blew me away! God's presence and anointing was so heavy. There were about 600 people there and about 2/3 were in tears with many sobbing vocally. PRAISE GOD for His love for us!

Just an incredible side note about the move of God at Acts Christian Church in Midrand. They are a church with cell groups for everyone and every cell group focused on outreach and evangelism. As a result they have had over 400 people accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior on the streets this year and more than 300 are now members of their church and activley involved in new believer cell groups!!! How's that for taking Jesus to your city and taking your city for Jesus??

More family fun

We're about half way through our trip to South Africa now. The length of time has been so nice because we have not been rushed with anything. We are able to take time just to relax or for the boys just to play here with their friends. The two girls who live where we're staying are off school now until we leave. They are home schooled and their Mother has decided that since they and our boys are playing so nicely they can take a break from school while we're here. So they are together playing almost all day long.

We have done many fun things with this family. They our showing us many wonderful places to go. Last night around 8:00 we went to a restaurant with a star show. It was so unique and amazing. First of all, the dinner was delicious and the restaurant was warm and cozy with a fire burning. But the unique part was each table took turns going outside and looking through an old Nasa telescope while getting a lesson from an astronomer about what you were looking at. We went out about five times to look at different stars and planets. We all really enjoyed it.

This morning we went to Mandella square to celebrate Nelson Mandella's 91st birthday. They had a free 67 minute concert to celebrate the 67 years of service he gave to this country. The concert was fun. We sat on bean bag chairs during the concert. They had face painting, jugglers, and other fun stuff for the kids including making Mandella a birthday card.

I can hardly believe the ways that we have been blessed while here. The place that we are staying is amazing and having friends for the boys to play with is such an unexpected and wonderful blessing. We are really being taken care of by people here. We have a car to drive, a GPS to use (thank goodness, we had no idea how helpful they were), we have friends who are willing to drop what they would do and take us sightseeing (Rod and Sharon have been amazing).
A few days ago we had lunch with friends at a Medditeranian restaurant. For 7 Rand they would bring you a plate to break. Jordan took advantage of that and got many cheers as he broke his plate right where we were all eating.
All in all we've had great food, good latte's, wonderful friendships, and many fun adventures. We are really looking forward to the rest of the trip.

Prayer Requests

We've decided to begin using the blog as our spot for timely prayer requests. We will delete the old ones as we put on new ones.

Here's some as of Friday 17th of July from South Africa:
1) Dave preaches four sermons this weekend at Acts Christian Church in Midrand, South Africa.
2) Dave preaches at Tabernacle Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in Tembisa township, South Africa on Sunday July 26th.
3) Ongoing ministry for Shawn and the boys at the townships.
4) Wisdom and ears to hear as we sift through the contacts, opportunities, open doors, and relationships we have in South Africa and search for God's will for our family.

Thanks for your prayers,
Dave, Shawn, Jordan and Isaac

A Stomach Bug Meets a Loving Wife

During supper on July 9th I began to feel sick. I hardly ate anything at all. I ended up going to bed early and figured I'd feel better in the morning. Boy was I wrong!

When I woke up on the 10th of July I was achey, weak, my fever was up to 103.9F, I had diarrhea, felt nauseas and could not eat anything! That lasted all day Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th. My fever would go up to 104F and then down to 95.3F. (I didn't even know it could go that low!) I alternated between moaning and groaning, crying out to God to heal me, pleading with Jesus to touch me and falling asleep to a variety of crazy dreams and purple light shows!!

Shawn and the boys took turns praying for me. Rod came by and prayed for me and brought some "lemon-med," sort of like Theraflu I think. It would knock the fever down for a few hours at a time. I prayed for me. Then on Saturday evening while everyone was off at church, Gerard, (the man who lives in the main house of the estate, aka our host) came busting into our cottage and said "Shawn has given me permission to take you to the doctor!"

The next minute we were off to the doctor's office. Within minutes he was checking me out and putting me on an IV drip to deal with my dehydration. He gave me a homeopathic thing and sent Gerard to buy some electrolyte drinks to get me boosted in that way. Then he wrote two prescriptions, one for an antibiotic for the "stomach bug" and one for a probiotic for the diarrhea. He asked me to hold off on the scripts til Sunday afternoon as he felt I should respond well without them.

I went home still weak, but hopeful for maybe the first time in 48 hours. I had a fairly restful evening but was not really getting any better. Then on Sunday Shawn and the boys had a fairly full day scheduled with our host family so off they went. I assured Shawn that I would be fine. Well as soon as they left I began to feel worse. Another day in bed with crazy dreams, purple lights, diarrhea, etc. The doctor called and instructed me to begin the prescriptions.

I began to pray again "But God I need to be healed to be able to minister here in Africa." "God are you listening?" But it seemed like I was getting worse with each prayer. "God do you even care?" Self-pity and despair were deepening. Finally I felt like just giving up on all I was doing, the prayer, the rehydrating fluids, etc. and to wait for God to do what He wanted to do whenver He got around to it. (I know it's not pretty, but it's honest!)

Just then Shawn came in the bedroom. I told her what was going on. She left and quickly returned with the laptop computer. As she gently held my hand, she began to play a playlist of music for me that she was picking on the spot. First was When I Don't Know What to Do by Tommy Walker. Well the next thing I knew I had tears in my eyes as I raised a hand in worship to my Lord and Savior. Shawn assured me that I would begin to feel better in the morning.

God had sent His answer in the form of love, a loving wife to show His love. She gave me the personal touch, the words of encouragement, and the music to lift my spirit. Later that evening God took me to Proverbs 18:22 "He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord." I praised God and thanked him for my wife. Then He took me to Matthew 19:16-17 "Now behold, one came and said to Him, 'Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?' So He said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.' "

And God assured me that I had found a God thing when He sent me Shawn as my wife and that He will continue to pour out His love for me through her!! Amen!

Needless to say, I was beginning to feel better as I awoke on Monday. Still very weak but better. My fever was gone and I felt some strength coming back into my body. God made me strong enough to go to the prisons on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, coming home and taking long naps both afternoons. Also I was able to go to the Addict to Disciple group at Acts Christian Church on Tuesday night. PRAISE THE LORD for His faithfulness!

I've gotten stronger each day and I can say I now feel fully recovered. So, if you ever get a strange stomach bug...introduce him to a loving wife!

Amazing Ministry in South Africa!

Wow! Has God knocked my socks off already or what!!

In just our first week here God has bombarded us with favor, blessing and incredible open doors! It started with an invitation to Leeukop Prison for a special service arranged by the chaplain in the maximum security block. In recent weeks there has been an inmate suicide, a member (corrections officer) who shot his wife and himself, and the sudden heart attack death of a young athletic member. The members asked for chaplains and spiritual workers who volunteer in the prison to have a prayer service for them!!

What an incredible service! The service was held in the gym inside the maximum security part of the prison. Over 60 members came and their were 6 pastors. After a time of praise and worship, prayer, and a brief sermon, one of the pastors led the members in spiritual warfare to come against the spirits of death, despair, anger, hopelessness, frustration, etc. that were running rampant in the prison. We prayed for the Christian members to be His light in the prison and to walk in the spiritual authority that God had given them as Christians with the authority as members in the corrections center.

To close the service a call was made for any members who had not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and 13 members came forward! Praise the Lord! After that the members asked the six of us pastors and the chaplain to anoint them with oil and pray for specific requests that they had. More than 3/5 of the members present came forward for this anointing prayer! What an amazing blessing it was for me as tears streamed down my face at the realization of how God is moving in the prisons in South Africa.

Oh and I forgot to mention...before the service started, on our way to the gym, the member who was in charge of solitary confinement where the suicide happened asked us to come into the cell where the suicide occured. He had not assigned anyone else to this cell as he was waiting for pastors to come to pray inside the cell and anoint it. On our way out of the cell I was asked by his supervisor to pray for and anoint the member's work station in the solitary block!

That was just the beginning! The next invitation was from Krugersdorp Prison to attend a two day training workshop on Restorative Justice. This was put on by the head of Prison Fellowship (Chuck Colson's ministry) for South Africa. It is an incredible program which has been officially endorsed by the government of South Africa. One aspect of the Restorative Justice initiative is the Sycamore Tree Project. This is an 8 week program to bring healing and restoration to offenders and victims based on Zacchaeus' encounter with Jesus in Luke 19. I have been trained and given the resources to lead this program in prisons and churches and I believe it will be a great fit with what we are already doing in 'Etsah Ministries.

The two day training was also a time in which God opened the doors wide as the executive director of Prison Fellowship for all of South Africa and his regional head in the Durban area both asked how to implement the Addict to Disciple discipleship program into prisons where Prison Fellowship is already working. I ask for your prayers as we will be meeting in the coming few weeks to seek God's plan to move forward with this.

Last night was the Tuesday night From Addict to Disciple meeting at Acts Christian Church in Midrand. Eleven men attended as Rod Shiers opened with prayer, the song East to West by Casting Crowns and then led them through part of chapter 2. The men were open and honest as they shared their struggles, encouraged each other and shared how far God had brought them in such a short time.

Today it was back to Krugersdorp Prison for the weekly From Addict to Disciple group. 18 men attended and, after I opened in prayer, I was truly blessed as one inmate sang a praise song about how God changes lives. Then almost all of them shared a testimony of how God had touched their heart with hope and the beginnings of change since they started the book three weeks ago. What a neat experience to watch what God is doing through Rod Shiers leading the group in English part of the time and Afrikaans another part of the time...and the whole while everything is being translated into Zulu by another inmate!

After the group was over the men handed me handwritten thank you letters to the men and women who had been recently incarcerated in Lancaster County Prison, Pennsylvania who purchased the books for their brothers in South Africa. (Please check back in a few days as I will have excerpts from these letters added to the testimonial section of our website) Then the translator shared with me that he functions as an inmate evangelist throughout the various blocks of the prison and that he is using the things he has learned in From Addict to Disciple to minister to and encourage many other inmates throughout Krugersdorp Prison.

I ask for your prayers for each of these areas of ministry as well as what God has in store in the coming weeks and beyond. Also several of the men at Krugersdorp included their full mailing address so if you're interested in corresponding with them please send me an email and let me know. Thanks, Dave

Family Fun in South Africa

We've been having a great time in South Africa so far. What an amazing blessing our accomodations have been. We are staying in a two bedroom cottage on a large gated property. The owners live in the main house and we are quickly becoming friends. Jordan and Isaac spend most of their time playing outside with the two girls who are about their same age. Yesterday I took a picture of the four of them playing in a large eucalyptus tree. It is very good for climbing. I had never seen one before and I'm actually kind of fascinated by it.

Driving here is quite an adventure for us. Once you get used to driving on the other side of the road, the other side of the car and shifting with your left hand...then you have to figure out how to get where you want to go. After being here a week we have a general grasp of where we are and how to get to a few places...mainly church and shopping. We're so thankful for the generosity of a young man, who is involved in the Addict to Disciple group at Acts Christian Church, for lending us a car to drive for the month while we are here.

Some of our other adventures have included: trying new foods, learning new words in both Afrikans and Zulu, a trip to the zoo, learning an African handshake, living with ants, Jordan being stung by an African bee, doing conversions in our head as we spend Rand($), freezing and frosty mornings with the enjoyment of the hot African sun all day.

Thanks for all of your prayers for us as we are here in South Africa. Shawn