Thanksgiving Day

We had a very nice Thanksgiving meal next door at the Brunks and with Jonathon Deseno. I don’t think I’ve eaten so much at one time in a couple of years! It was so good. The Brunks are from Ohio. Mrs. Brunk says that it is her ‘biggest’ dilemma every year to know how to celebrate Thanksgiving because of the lack of Americans. Thanksgiving isn't big with the British. I was glad to be able to serve God by solving this dilemma.

I’ve been spending a great deal of time in front of the computer. I'm glad to use any skills that I have if that's what needs to be done. Please pray that I be faithful to my tasks here and not my own distractions. I was thinking this morning, as I was washing the dishes, that I’m so glad that I'm able to fit into 'normal life' here with the Grings. I wanted to experience closest to the day to day life of missions work as possible and I don't think that would have happened in weeklong blitz with a dozen people running from one thing to the next.

Many people here say ‘how is it?’, especially when you exchange greetings on the street. I learned to say Hello yesterday in Zulu, Saw’-o-bona (phonetically), when I went with Pastor Brunk and Jonathon to Katlehong township. The Brunks started working in the area about 5 years ago when they came here from Ohio. They now have Sunday school meetings that have 900 and 1300 children! God is doing a good work here and it is growing and could soon be split into 4 separate works. Pastor Brunk is discipling several individuals. One, Johannes, teaches a Bible (Theology) class on Wednesday nights. He came to the Lord several years ago through door to door visitation. Another is a Mozambican named Sergio. I was part of the Bible study with him yesterday. Pastor Brunk is working to prepare him for ministry back in Mozambique. After this Bible study Jonathon and I went walking up the street handing out tracts and talking with people. I used an Evangecube, that he had with him and some 1,000,000 Rand tracts from the ‘South African Reverse Bank’. There were kids all over the place. One kid in particular just couldn’t seem to get enough of these. I eventually started holding them up in the air one at a time and letting the children run after them as the wind blew them away. That gave me a few seconds of peace. I presented the gospel numerous times, once more effectively I think, through a young man that translated for me. Then I taught them ‘Yes, the Bible’s true’ and the actions. I'm told there are millions living in just the Katlehong township.

Oh, and I went running this morning. It’s much more difficult here at 5,000 ft. above sea level. :-) What I thought was probably a 7 minute/mile pace was really hardly even 8:00.