Moriel Missions Southern Africa – Christmas 2004

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

First of all thank you for the response to my last newsletter. It was good to check the mailbox and receive several letters of encouragement from our supporters; they have been very welcome in what has been a difficult couple of months.

First of all we at Moriel would like to give our sympathies to the Simpson family. As many of you know John Simpson was attacked and stabbed while taking an evening walk in late October. He spent two weeks in ICU recovering from a wound to his Liver and Kidneys. After coming home from hospital John experienced another tragedy, the sudden and unexpected death of his wife Sarah. As you can imagine this has come as a great blow to his family as well as the community of believers out here in South Africa. Sarah was a fervent supporter of Moriel’s work and a founder member of Aletheia Community Church. Sarah was mother to Etta, Wilma and heather as well as a much loved grandma. She will be missed by all, but we look forward to being reunited with her in the Lord Jesus, who is our hope and shield.

This month has also seen the departure of Salvadore Hayworth from Moriel Missions. Salve came to us three years ago as a bible student and on completion of his course stayed as a missionary at Moriel Kwazulu Mission Station. Through his time with us Salve has shown all the attributes of a true servant of the Lord and has led by example in the zealous approach he had to all aspects of mission. We shall certainly miss him and pray that in the near future Salve will return back to the African mission field.

Our good friend and rabble rousing end times preacher Fred Blomkamp has also been in the wars. Fred was suffering from all the symptoms of angina and went to the hospital for an angiogram. The results where such that they rushed him in for a heart bypass and he spent several days in ICU after the operation. Praise God that Fred is well on the way to recovery and getting back to his old self. Please pray Fred will recovery quickly and of course pray for Wendy who is nursing him with the patience of a saint. Fred get well soon, we miss you from the pulpit.

These events have reminded me of the verse from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

“For everything there is a season, and a time for very purpose under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace” American Standard Bible

This brings me on to the issue of security which also been raised by some, especially in light of the attack on John Simpson. Some have shown their concern (actually not personally to me, but to others. Please don’t do this. I am very approachable and loving) that I frequently leave my family to raise awareness of missions/HIV and also teach; and that these trips place my family in danger. I would like to say very strongly, that I would never, ever, leave my family at risk to their lives! I find these remarks, even though maybe given out of genuine love and concern by some, an affront to myself as a husband and a father and as a minister of the gospel called to this work.

Let me assure the individuals concerned about the welfare of my family, that we have strict security protocols including armed response for emergencies. Our compound is surrounded by a security wall; we have guard dogs, burglar bars. I also have members of staff and two strapping sons looking after all aspects of security and ministry. Although no security is perfect, my family are as safe here as anywhere in the world and to be frank, there are those who are in more danger than we are in countries such as Israel and the persecuted countries. I have a special family who are called to this life style and if God has called us, then we rest in His security and not the plans and schemes of men. Thank you for your concern and love and for the individuals who are worried, it would help if you voiced your worries to me as director of MMSA and not to other people outside the situation who have enough worries of their own to contend with. As for me and my family we will continue to serve the Lord as we have always done. Hell, misguided men, politicians or high water will not stop us; only the Lord can withdraw the candlestick

Finally Moriel Missions would like to welcome Claudia Dreiwes (Pediatrician) from Germany, John and Collette Austin (Electricians) from Scotland, Dieter (evangelist and servant minister) from Cape town and Marianne (Nursing Sister) from Bournemouth, who are presently serving with us on short term mission. We pray that the Lord will use them in a mighty way during their stay.

May the Lord bless you and keep you over the Christmas holiday period, please pray for all those serving the Lord away from their families at this time and why not send them a letter of encouragement at this time. Remember it is more skilful to build up, anyone can pull down.

Ps Dave Royle
Missions Director Southern Africa

Ebyown Pilot Project

Lyn continues to work with the children with great energy and zeal. As you know Lyn home schools the children and so her day passes by very quickly. Please continue to pray for her, that the Lord will continually uphold her and give her strength. As you know, being the wife of a minister of the gospel has its ups and downs and she feels protective towards me, especially if the enemy uses others to attack me or the ministry. The Lord has given me the perfect help mate for the task ahead.

We would like to welcome onto the pilot project team our new assistant to Lyn ‘Victoria Thamae ‘. Victoria has been indispensable over the last two months especially with Lyn at hospital everyday with Prudence. Victoria is a widow, 36 years of age with 5 children. She originally comes from Lesotho where her children still reside.

Prudence has had a terrible time with her health. After her arrival she began to suffer with abdominal pains and was rushed back to hospital. The surgeon opened her up to find that her TB has perforated her bowel. This had led to abscesses which burst causing peritonitis to set in. This inflamed the appendix, which in turn burst. The inflammation caused her intestines to be pushed out of place causing a strangulated hernia. The operation to rectify these problems took nearly four hours. But the story continued with Prudence contracting the MRSA super-bug and she had to go into isolation till she recovered. Unfortunately this was not the end of her suffering; a week later she contracted a serious strain of chickenpox that can prove fatal to HIV children. Praise the Lord through prayer and His mercy she is on the road to recovery. We have also been told that she is now ready to receive anti-retroviral’s and we hope to place her on them in December.

S’phiwe still grows physically strong and it looks as though for now the decline of his mental faculties has halted. Continue to pray for the lad and also the wisdom needed to help him.

Johannes, N’tombi and Paullina are all in good health as I write, Paullina though is not making the expected progress at school, mainly due to the severe retardation of other pupils and we are prayerfully considering taking her out of her special school and home schooling after Christmas.

We have some sad news concerning one of our latest children Lizwe. Lizwe came to us with a good report from those placing him. Unfortunately these individuals were economical with the truth and we found him to be mentally disturbed and physically unwell. As you know we have a lot of special needs children who need a lot of care and we found Lizwe needed to be in a smaller family where he could receive special attention and so with sadness we had to place him elsewhere.

Anthony has flown the nest and now resides in Llandudno in North Wales. Anthony is being missed by us all but is working hard establishing his own home. Anthony begins a new job this month for a Christian organization working with the mentally handicapped.

Christopher again takes on the mantle of eldest son at home. He is a wonderful, caring young man with a real heart for the children. He is also assisting me with the bible college as my PA and is involved with reproduction, videoing and sound systems. If any of you order tapes, you will most likely deal with Chris.

Aaron is waiting anxiously for the new season which begins in January with pre-season training and friendly. He still has his aspirations to play for Manchester United one day but we hope that with prayer and deep counseling, he will recover from this misguided notion. (I’m a Man City fan)

Altogether this ministry is going very well and our property not only houses this ministry but also the Bible College and Aletheia Community Church as well as our admin office.

Ebyown Children’s Village

Please Pray. The final draft for registration is now with welfare head office and all concerned say they are trying to push things through by December the 3 rd .

Please could I ask you to read this next part very carefully ? Ebyown Children’s Village at this moment in time has three children taken in by Bernard, Mabel and Kate. I have had numerous people visiting, expecting the site to already have up to 60 children. We have never said we are at this final stage in our newsletters or orientation pack or while speaking at various churches. I have made this situation very clear. If you have heard contrary to this then you are being misled and the ministry is being misrepresented. Rather, if you want to know the state of play, so to speak, please speak with myself and hear it from the horse’s mouth. Whoever is misrepresenting this ministry is only placing upon myself and my staff undue pressure and doing us a disservice. This ministry is run on a shoe string with very little income and it is unreasonable to expect a multi million Rand project to be set up overnight in what is effectively a third world country with few recourses at hand. We do however wish to thank everyone who has helped us thus far and we pray that the Lord will release further help once the village has been given government clearance. We also need to remember that all that has been achieved with Ebyown has taken just one year since we moved on site.

Ebyown Feeding Scheme

Thank you for your continued support of this important project. As you know this is part of Ebyown’s attempt to work with orphans and widows in the community. We are now reaching 70-80 children with the gospel and food. If you would like to help this project, flip to the back of this newsletter for details.

Ebyown Gospel Outreach and Churches

Moriel Community Fellowship led by Bernard Mathe is going extremely well. The fellowship celebrates its first birthday in December and we ‚  held a joint celebration with Aletheia community church and inviting other associated ministries. It was a wonderful time with a large crowd gathering in our gospel tent. We had visitors from as far away as Uganda with Ps Kiyimba Brown and many other local leaders. ‚  During this year we have planted two other fellowships based on farms in the area. Also the local squatter camp receives the gospel as well as an outreach to the people on Pension day which sees a crowd of around 400 people come under the gospel. This month has seen the visitation of pediatrician Claudia from Germany. Claudia has run special children’s clinic in the area and also assisted Lyn at our pilot project.

Aletheia Community Church would like to welcome Joseph Minga onto its oversight. Joseph is married to Virginia and they have two children. Joseph and Virginia are French speaking and come from the Congo. Joseph is a translator, just finishing his Masters at Wits University. We pray that the Lord will use Joseph and his family powerfully as they serve Him at Aletheia.

Limpopo Mission

The little fellowship their still witnesses and battles on. We are continually looking for a missionary couple to take on the work but up till now the Lord hasn’t provided anyone. This mission needs a very special couple with energy and vision who can develop the work. You will work initially in very primitive conditions but the people are very loving and responsive to the gospel. If I am describing you and you wish to pursue this further, please contact me via email.

Kwazulu Mission

It was sad to see Salve go back to the UK after three years with us but nether the less the work will continue to grow. Caleb and Sophie are in the middle of developing a web site with the help of Caleb’s sister and we will give you more information as we receive it from them. This month has seen the visit of nursing sister Marianne to the station. Marianne has been assisting with the clinic as well as evangelism. Another visitor has been Dieter who not only assisted Salve during his final few weeks but continued to serve the Lord faithfully till the end of his stay.

Moriel Missions College

The visit of DR Calvin Smith from Midland Bible College went very well. Calvin worked with us to look at improving the course material and also talk about strengthening our relationship with themselves and University of Wales. Calvin also spoke at several church services as well as auditing aspects of our mission’s ministry. We hope to have a report to release on this in the near future.

Moriel College is making good progress especially when you consider we are attempting to found a missions college from scratch and a zero budget. However the Lord has been good and we can now offer a one year course with an option of a praxis module with mission experience in South Africa. For a prospectus and further information contact our office, details at the back.

Report From Dave’s Overseas Itinerary

I was in the UK for two weeks and the USA for one week during September. Can I thank Dena Alderton and Dave Lister for arranging my itinerary and the many people from the various churches including my parents who hosted me.

One of the most memorable events in Pittsburgh was an evening hosted by Marylyn and Manny. They had arranged for a dear sister from Australia, a professional Opera singer with a top Philharmonic orchestra to sing for me at a charity function. She had the voice of an angel and the evening will stay with me for a long time.

I now have a PA in the UK who speaks on my behalf on ministry issues and organizes ministry press releases. Her name is Joanne Drinkwater and she can be contacted on [email protected] Tel: 0161 288 1209

I will be visiting the UK again in April and later in the year in September/October. If you want me to come and share about the ministry and/or teach please email our office or contact Dena Alderton via your local Moriel office

Singapore: I have never been as hot in all my life. The humidity was such that I felt as though I was swimming. Nether the less Singapore proved to be a great time of ministry and fellowship and I was very impressed with the Singaporean believers whose depth of walk and Christian hospitality was an example to us all. I had seven teaching sessions in total, the first at Joy fellowship on the Friday evening and the rest at Glory Presbyterian church on the Saturday and Sunday. Can I personally thank Jeff Loh from 2Tim2 ministries who organized everything for me; his team of colleagues who acted as my hosts and finally Glory Presbyterian church for hosting the teaching conference. For tapes and CD’s from the conference please contact Soo Guan at: [email protected]

Australia: this was my first visit to Perth for preaching engagements and I was hosted by Ps John and Joan Philips (Now Uncle John and Aunty Joan) who were very gracious hosts. By the end of my brief visit I felt that I had known them forever. John and Joan lead Victory Christian Fellowship and they had organized an evening at a home cell followed by an evening at Keswick Conference centre which was well attended for a mid week event. If you are ever on holiday or passing through Perth and in need of a good solid Bible based church to fellowship at, then please contact the Moriel office for John and Joan’s contact details. In fact we now have a list of good fellowships throughout Australia if you are visiting.

Adelaide: It was good to catch up once again with Ps Kevin and Kerry Bickle as well as their committed team and fellowship. We had three sessions on the Sunday and these seemed to be enjoyed by everyone who attended. Special thanks to John Owen who hosted me, he was a very gracious host and welcomed me into his home.

Melbourne: Special thanks to Marg and Ross who organized a wonderful itinerary as well as Vic and Pam and other team members who worked alongside them getting events booked, organized and messages recording. Thanks also to Ps Lionel Letcher, Ps John Masaino and Pastors John Kidd and Mike Shafton from Pilgrims Fellowship. If you would like any of the conference tapes, please contact Marg Godwin at: [email protected] Please if I have forgotten to say thanks to anyone don’t take offence, I met so many wonderful brothers and sisters and its hard to remember so many names and faces..

Prayer Items

• John Simpson and family
• For Prudence and her health
• For all our children’s health situations
• Ebyown and its registration
• For all our Ebyown outreach programs
• For our salaried staff, Bernard, Kate and Victoria
• For all our volunteers, too numerous to mention
• For Salvadore as he seeks His will for His future
• For Kwazulu mission
• For a couple for Limpopo mission
• For our temporal needs to be met

How Can You Support

Our South Africa details

Pastor David Royle
Po Box 10807
Strubenvale 1570
Springs
Gauteng
South Africa
Tel/Fax: 011 362 1026
Email: [email protected]

Important New Law

FISCA, a law passed in South Africa to stop money laundering has asked if address details of financial supporters could be written on the back of any cheques made payable to the ministry. Your help in this matter would help us speed up the banking process. Thank you for your help in this matter.

Finally

Everyone at Moriel Missions wishes to bless you over the Christmas Holidays and pray the coming year will see more inroads for the gospel with our hope placed in Christ’s imminent return. Pray particularly for Ps Kiyimba and his team as we look into extending the African work and establish Moriel Missions Uganda, God willing I will be in Kampala in June – Come Quickly Lord Jesus!