Church Planting

Dear Friends,

We would like to announce the planting of another Moriel church in South Africa. We led a team from Aletheia community church in Spring’s, travelled to the rural town of Thakgalane in Limpopo province to establish ‘The Living Christ Bible Church’.

The new church membership is made up of mainly Northern Sotho people. The whole weekend was a tremendous experience for all those concerned.

There were some difficulties to overcome as we planted the church. First of all the area is very remote and it took seven hours to travel there, a good portion along dirt roads. Then we had to pray real hard that it would not rain. Once it rains the roads become treacherous and once your in Thakgalane it is impossible to get out. There is no electricity or running water and the only toilets are long drops with bricks as a toilet seat.

The journey was so hard that we arrived an hour after the first service was due to take place. Then we found that the generator we were promised was broken. This meant that the first evening service had to be canceled till the next day. We new then with these difficulties something special was going to happen.

On the Saturday we had four services, I preached a series on the attributes of God and it was great to see people responding to the message. People were saved and many recommitted their lives to the Lord. The Saturday evening service was fantastic, since the church building is a simple structure with a Zinc roof held up with wooden posts and no walls, the services were basically in the open air. The small structure was soon filled and people began to collect around the building. Because it was pitch black outside it was impossible to estimate how many people attended but the place was packed. We also had the privilege of the Royal family attending the service. They told us they were thrilled that Moriel should come and help the community and pledged to help in whatever way they can. We began as usual with a time of worship in the fashion only Africans can muster. It was loud and energetic with much dancing involved. Then we had teaching on Gods forgiveness and Gods justice followed by an alter call and chance for some ministry time.

We finished the event on Sunday morning with a service centred on the holiness of God and the worthiness of God to be worshipped. We eventually left a decent crowd to work at establishing the new fellowship. We would like you to keep them in your prayers. Please pray for the following.

• That the fledgling congregation would be protected from any wolves who would try and scatter it.
• Pray for Bernard Mathe who is from the Baberwa tribe, his wife Mabel and myself as we return every other month to hold teaching events.
• Pray that the Lord will raise up a strong leadership of local people.
• Also that we can improve the facilities by laying a concrete floor and providing a secure site for worship
• We need to pray about how can we help the community. There is a great deal of poverty. HIV is rampant. Unemployment is 90%+. Some of the children were severely malnourished. Often you saw the tell tale red hair associated with the lack of good basic diet. One girls hair was bright ginger and her hair was falling out in huge tufts through ringworm

Eventually if finances permit we would like to have a fully-fledged mission station in the area. Bernard believes the chief would be gracious enough to give us the land to establish one. All we need is the usual things we ask for and which only other children of God can give us. That’s missionaries and finances.

I would like to end with a final note of encouragement. For some reason the Lord is opening doors for us to plant churches, especially in the rural communities. The only obstacle is the usual one , our own apathy and lukewarmness. Listen, the mission field is on our doorstep in South Africa. The fields are white unto harvest but the labourers are few. Moriel has been given the opportunity to respond, let us not let the Lord down by ignoring his call to get involved. Let me be bold enough to say how we can get involved so non of us are ignorant and without excuse.

• Come yourself to the mission field, we need people with nursing, teaching and building abilities.
• Help fund the ministries. You should know by now that Moriel is a good bona fida ministry that puts 100% of everything into ministry. We have no money preachers or conmen; just people who want to spread the gospel.
• If you want a Moriel church in your area why not ask and we can see if it’s the Lords will and make a plan.

Please seek the Lord on these issues and e-mail [email protected] or phone me or even chat with me if your in South Africa at one of Jacob’s conferences later this March. (Springs, Cape town)

Matthew 25:31-46

Dave Royle