I am bad about taking pictures of ministry stuff. I wish I had pictures of the moonlit service in a Xhosa village. Visitation before hand was efficient: the pastor would drive to the door, hoot and shout the news that there was a meeting at so-and-so's house, and off we'd go, whipping along at about 40 k's per hour over some very rough roads. Our city born Kia didn't know what to think, but we only scraped bottom about 7 times, and it seems to be ok.

Anyway, over 60 people gathered at so-and-so's house and Paul preached on the narrow way and the broad way. Pastor Frik had to shine a light so it could be seen as the sun finsihed setting and the moon rose over the flat topped mountain behind the village. As I listened and shivered, I just felt such a thrill at the life God has called us to. It's rare and privileged and very satisfying. We're blessed!

So the picture below is just of the fall day which made me want to go back to school, and rake leaves, and be in New England. We're going, Lord willing, in August, so we may get glimpses of days like this.

A Day at the Shore

A mist moves into False Bay while we observe from the rocks past Simon's Town.

Evangel, Danielito, and Joshua are smiling though about to be squashed by a huge boulder. (Joke)

Our friend Margie Collins (see Facebook for a photo as we neglected to get Margie and Oliver) arranged this delightful day to go observe sea life in tidal pools at low tide. It was fantastic! We took all these pictures in ankle-deep water, with a small camera, but look at the creatures!

Sea anemone, urchins, and all types of shells were so beautiful.

These sea urchins were mostly purple, but their shells are green if the spines come out.

The rough rocks hurt our feet, but didn't bother star fish a bit.




The glare of the flash is the only way you can tell this is under water.

And finally, last Sunday Paul preached at a Salvation Army Church. I got all tickled at their sign on the Ladies' Room door:

Catherine Booth and her husband founded the Salvation Army. Do their toilets say that all over the world? I wonder.

Holiday Happenings

School holidays are happening in South Africa. Here the whole country pretty much has the same schedule. 8 weeks of school, 2 week holiday, 8 weeks of school, 2 week holiday, then the winter holiday, usually two weeks, but this year it is 4 weeks since the FIFA World Cup Soccer games are being held in South Africa. Then comes 8 more weeks of school, 2 weeks of holiday, 8 more weeks, and then the summer/Christmas break.

You had to know that.

Anyway, since the rest of the world is having holidays here, we Youngs have caved in and slacked up a bit on homeschooling, with the intent of getting some projects finished. Evangel's projects tend to involve her video camera, so today we had 20 visitors in our house, all here to help with His Chosen the story of Abraham.

I watch my tall daughter in amazement at her poise, her organization (that must come from Paul's side of the family) and how she manages everyone. She is doing so much better in that area. I didn't see anyone cry today! The secret of her success: brownies and peanut balls. She has learned that boys particularly are much more mellow when she gives them snacks occasionally.
Danielito is the youngest actor. Here his mom had to console him a bit after the scene where the men of Sodom tried to break into Lot's house. It was noisy and scary!
Evangel getting part of her crew ready while Mom takes a "crane" shot from our upstairs apartment.

Johanneke delighted everyone by bringing Sergeant, her new puppy.

And there he is looking more calm.

Timmy and Oliver (Abraham, though not in costume yet) boning up on their sword fighting practice. This scene had a director's nightmare: goat heads, those pernicious little thorns that embed into feet and cause severe pain. They can pop bike tires too. Several kids had come without shoes, so we had to do some hopping and shoe sharing to get through it.

Moms and sibling pitched in to carry things to scene site.

There's me, the CREW. I found a really good deal on Peter Gird Production t-shirts at a thrift store, or a hospice as it was called. So I bought 5 of them, so we could look official. Only then did I begin to wonder if Peter Gird was a decent sort. I googled him, and found only an address, so we're risking it. What we really need is Mvangel's Movies t-shirts.

What's going on here?

Today Paul went to the prison to pass out evangelistic newspapers. We get Today’s Challenge papers given to us to distribute, and an issue had come while we were gone so he wanted to distribute them to the cells in Polsmoor Prison. That is always a fun job, just breezing along, greeting the guys, and chanting his little chant, “To read not to smoke” as he passes them along to enthusiastic prisoners.

Today FOUR different guys, in FOUR different places said to Paul something like, “Can you pray for me? I need to get things right.” All FOUR prayed to be saved! Plus one of them had a friend listening in who prayed too.

That’s rare, folks. People do not usually walk up to us to ask if we can lead them to the Lord.

Another rarity, was that FOUR or more others came up to comment to Paul on his book Answers to Prayer for our Family. Two of them actually waved their copy of it in front of him. (If you want to read that, it is readable and downloadable from our website http://www.drawingotherstochrist.com/ under Crucial Issues.)

So it’s rare, but please know: WE LIKE IT! If anyone else wants help coming to the Lord in prayer, we’d love to help!

We read a quote by Selwyn Hughes, "In evangelim the preacher calls on people to get saved; in revival people often call upon the preacher to ask him how they can get saved." May revival sweep across the globe!

Veggie Tales

Making muddy memories.

What an amazingly big flower blossom!

Veggie Tales

Paul has been preaching this week on farms. These must be HUGE farms because he’ll have as many as about 300 workers listening to him at a time.

The first day, he came home with a box of avocados (yum!) and a jar of honey (double yum!) that they had given.

The next time he preached at a chicken farm and arrived home with two packs of chicken (take a little break here and make sure it’s thawed out to cook for lunch).

Another farm gave him SEVEN large bags of sweet potatoes! Sweet potato casserole, here we come!

Now he wants to know why the explosive factory where he preached last week didn’t give him any explosives :-). Actually, the owner of that company and his family kept us and fed us for two weeks, and we swam in their pool every day. Also they tracked down a South African supplier of chalk art paper and bought us 300 sheets. That's probably good for 7 or 8 months. Matt Bowman has good, inexpensive chalk art paper in America http://www.eternityarts.com/, but airmail to Africa is very expensive.

Paul has been traveling with Pastor Johannes to all these farms so that the pastor could translate as well as help to find the places

We’ve been staying with the Frew family all this week. Dad, David left in the middle on his own missionary trip: up to Mozambique.

Our kids have loved being with their kids. They’re also Christian, missionary homeschoolers, and have a similar ideas of fun too, so that makes for lots of good fellowship. Yesterday the kids rushed outside to try to squeeze in a scene for Evangel’s Abraham movie before a brewing thunder storm hit. They accomplished their scene, but then “Ishmael” threw some water on “Hagar” (typical!) and it all degenerated into a massive water/mud fight. Cute. I think they made some precious memories, and I know they made another load of laundry.

That sinking feeling in Carletonville

Our journey continues, and we've left Carletonville behind, but I learned a lot there. One thing was that judgments like what happened to those Israelites can still happen. In Numbers 16 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram spoke against Moses, and ended up getting swallowed, not by a whale, but by the earth!

See that monument above? It's a memorial to a family that lived near there. Their house was completely swallowed by a sinkhole. We were told that these sinkholes are caused by dolomite. I'd like to research more about that, but for whatever reason, an entire house with a mom, dad and 3 kids, disappeared beneath the surface of the earth. I'm not saying it was a judgment on them, just that it still happens.

We were told that this family had just come home from a vacation. They were planning to leave again the next day to head to Cape Town, but they all died in their house. Freaky! But a good lesson on always being ready to go.

Carletonville is a mining town. The Main street is called Gold Street,

Other streets are

Opal St.

Mica St.

Sapphire St.

Dolomite St.

Anthracite St.

Kaolin St.

Talc Rd.

It's like a vocab lesson in mining rocks and terms! What a fascinating place to Google. Google Earth shows up the mines around the town.

The people there were kind to us and so enthusiastic about Paul's message. We hope to go back before too long.