Greetings from Johannesburg South Africa! We had a fantastic flight over and arrived to be met by Rod Talbot (missionary with World Outreach from New Zealand) at the airport and taken back to his place to be greeted by freshly baked hot muffins by his wife Lynley and later to be sitting down watching the All Blacks play in Christchurch.:)
South Africa is a very dry red brown land with huge expanses with development happening everywhere you look. Lots of really really nice cars, obvious wealth around the place, yet you will see people living on the street.
We have had a 'soft landing' here in Johannesburg but I am not complaining as it is really nice to enjoy some of the easier sides of Africa while we can and aclimatize and learn some of the local lingo. Robots are traffic lights, bakkie is a ute, whopooe is a bird, pik and pay a supermarket, biltong is dried meat, bobootie a local dish and so on.
When flying into Africa I straight away realised some of the differences compared to our previous country of China. We can speak english here. You can be a missionary. Both of which bring such a great freedom in being able to share the gospel openly. The security issues of China not overshadowing everything you do. However we know there are and will be other challenges.
Where we are staying there are missionaries from Mozambique here so enjoying listening to some of their stories, hearing some of their journey & struggles and having opportunity to pray with them and for them. In hearing their stories we are learning much about the countries we intend to be heading to and the challenges that we may face and how very different they are to here.
We were blessed to go to a local church on Sunday, a congregation of over 3000. I was honoured to be a part of a womans' group today run by the great granddaughter of Smith Wigglesworth. Her Son is the Pastor of the church. A word that the lady running it gave was "you can either be a "blessing bestower or a blessing blocker" and hence when the Lord had given me words of knowledge for healing, I stepped out in faith on what she said and brought the words which opened up the way for prayer and ministry to happen and the glory of the Lord to be released. It was certainly a highlight for me to be able to pray and minister to people and see the power of God moving.
We then had some fun this afternoon, went and played ten pin bowling. Really nice but as we were driving back to the house we hit rush hour traffic, six lanes on one side full of slow moving traffic, quite a site really as you watch the vehicles maneuver all over the place including the sidewalk to get where they want to go.
The Lord had me looking at the life of Jacob yesterday and I would like to share a verse that spoke to me. Gen 28:15 "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you" It was a great encouragement to me in the fact that God is with us but also that he will do what He said he will do and so we look forward to what and how He is going to do what He said he will do.!
That's all for now, love to everyone and thank you for your continued prayers and support!
With love, Jim & Sarah - and please continue to pray for Kate while we are here. Thanks.
South Africa is a very dry red brown land with huge expanses with development happening everywhere you look. Lots of really really nice cars, obvious wealth around the place, yet you will see people living on the street.
We have had a 'soft landing' here in Johannesburg but I am not complaining as it is really nice to enjoy some of the easier sides of Africa while we can and aclimatize and learn some of the local lingo. Robots are traffic lights, bakkie is a ute, whopooe is a bird, pik and pay a supermarket, biltong is dried meat, bobootie a local dish and so on.
When flying into Africa I straight away realised some of the differences compared to our previous country of China. We can speak english here. You can be a missionary. Both of which bring such a great freedom in being able to share the gospel openly. The security issues of China not overshadowing everything you do. However we know there are and will be other challenges.
Where we are staying there are missionaries from Mozambique here so enjoying listening to some of their stories, hearing some of their journey & struggles and having opportunity to pray with them and for them. In hearing their stories we are learning much about the countries we intend to be heading to and the challenges that we may face and how very different they are to here.
We were blessed to go to a local church on Sunday, a congregation of over 3000. I was honoured to be a part of a womans' group today run by the great granddaughter of Smith Wigglesworth. Her Son is the Pastor of the church. A word that the lady running it gave was "you can either be a "blessing bestower or a blessing blocker" and hence when the Lord had given me words of knowledge for healing, I stepped out in faith on what she said and brought the words which opened up the way for prayer and ministry to happen and the glory of the Lord to be released. It was certainly a highlight for me to be able to pray and minister to people and see the power of God moving.
We then had some fun this afternoon, went and played ten pin bowling. Really nice but as we were driving back to the house we hit rush hour traffic, six lanes on one side full of slow moving traffic, quite a site really as you watch the vehicles maneuver all over the place including the sidewalk to get where they want to go.
The Lord had me looking at the life of Jacob yesterday and I would like to share a verse that spoke to me. Gen 28:15 "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you" It was a great encouragement to me in the fact that God is with us but also that he will do what He said he will do and so we look forward to what and how He is going to do what He said he will do.!
That's all for now, love to everyone and thank you for your continued prayers and support!
With love, Jim & Sarah - and please continue to pray for Kate while we are here. Thanks.
