My brother and I presenting the Nativity for one hour... and did we keep their attention!
2024 ended with Christmas... I write you this testimony through tears... Oh, God is GOOD!!!! My income is roughly $527 per month. It is like nothing. I buy food, electricity and petrol. I pay my tithe to the one I support... and then it is done. In light of this, how on earth did I travel so much for Him last year? The miracle continues to happen - and this is what happened Christmas.
There was a family that was going to host a big Christmas for those without families. When the plan was canceled I clearly felt to pick up the mantle and fill the gap in my own backyard. People simply did not have the R250 per head to cover costs.
The day I decided to host this event I had no money to invite so many people to this... but I know God! This is what I know after 28 years as a full time volunteer:
He is for the orphan and the widow (alone and lonely people!)
When He speaks He provides.
He is OFTEN late! You have to know that.
If one studies the Old Testament and sees that God, came a minute past midnight for humans like Moses... or us YWAM'ers, you will know that if you follow His promptings... not allowing money to dictate saying yes to what you sense He really is saying - then WATCH how God breaks through like water every time.
If you cannot tell after all my stories in 2024!!! ...
This was my plan - buy two halves of those big cement round blocks you place around big trees, and make a fire pit in there. Bring your own chairs... I have a garden. We will have a lamb... and woopy! It is Christmas.
Two days after I said YES to host this, I texted a friend of mine simply asking how he was doing... and he replied "Did you receive my email?" He very rarely emailed me. I said no... and then went to read it. I tear up as I even write this because IT IS THE IMPOSSIBLE that God made possible the moment I said I WOULD DO IT.
Then I saw the amount that came in... I was FLABBERGASTED. At first I said, I will keep it for missions and conveyed this to my friend. Then, that night as I prayed, God spoke in my spirit and said - it is for your Garden... get it ready for Christmas.
I worked so hard for 3 weeks that my back took the beating. It took 4 weeks before I could sit on a normal chair (actually, that was yesterday and I am still in pain writing this letter)
Rianni and FC my brother worked tirelessly alongside me.
Then it was Christmas. He was the ultimate perfect lamb that was slain... Christmas starts in a garden with our disobedience... that God fixed. This we pondered in my garden that day.
It was expensive because of the labor of the builders. 23 December they finished... and at 1 pm left for the last taxi. My brother built 2 x 10seaters and we had a place for 26 people to sit comfortably at tables.
30 people came. A few days ago someone told me "You know, people still talk about the blessing Christmas was to them" I can just imagine how God smiled.
John Sexton and Christ Church Southport, we could not have done this without your incredible generosity.
Jenny Genrec en Herman- thanks for your wholehearted giving and prepping the lamb.
Rianni and FC - julle is ysters.
Pa - dankie vir pa se support!
SALT OF THE EARTH - God challenged me and I challenged a friend:
The Bible says: “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt loses its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is not good anything but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.
The Greek word that is translated as “salt” refers both to a fertilizing agent. This verse could just as well read, “You are the fertilizer of the soil”
In the time of Jesus, this is how they dealt with a culture without toilets.
When we get involved in a community, we are the agents of salt... we step in and through our presence and WHO we represent - we are the Ambassadors of Heaven on earth - we drop salt on the world around us.
We become all-inclusive.
We are not exclusive.
We invite! We share! We bring hope...
because we are His Body.
Your church may be one expression of Who He Is... another church is not another place with different doctrine and worship - it is another expression of HIM in our midst. We are His body (not you alone - it is a CORPORATE TERM).
During Christmas, I challenged a Charismatic friend in Cape Town. She did not "feel" like going to church. I told her that 1. she is the church and 2. go the the old NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church). Go sit in the silence of that culture and enjoy the Hymns they sing because it is so deeply routed in scripture. Go find God in that expression so many of us have lost because we need to "feel" whatever we need to feel. Oh, her joy when she phoned me. She met God in silence and could bless the old ladies of that church. It was precious.
This became my challenge as I live in a community in South Africa and not in the 10-40 window. My focus is 10-40 but I live HERE. NOW. How am I salt HERE?

PIONEERING SLOWKOU COMMUNITY BY DEFAULT
We live in the region of the GOUKOU RIVER it ends in Stilbaai. Directly translated it means to chew fast. I have no idea where the name came from but one day our circle of friends were eating and I told them - "you eat so slow I am going to call you slowkou" This is how the SLOWKOU group started. It suddenly felt as if more was behind this. This was a group that could become SALT in Stilbaai.
LIVING IN STILBAAI? NEVER BE ALONE

Join the SLOWKOU Community...
+0607170429
We have a SLOWKOU SUP group
SLOWKOU bicycle, walk, BBQ, Swim -
SLOUKOU Intercession at URstory building next to bali Fridays 3-4
SLOWKOU BIBLE study group Thursdays 5:30 - 7:30pm
CURRENT MINISTRY FOCUS OUTSIDE STILBAAI
Pray for the boxes on their way to Pakistan
Pray for the Makua - I am making stop motion videos again for them. I make it in their own language. They are a Muslim group in North Mozambique.
Rianni and I will be creating a new visual Oral Mother Tongue SandBoxBible tool to help Sunday schools.
URSTORY will be expanding community work in our region this year. We are still waiting for SARS to approve our Non-Profit FNB account but in the mean time, if you would like to support URstory outreach in our community (fuel, gift, wood for cutting - please add us this year as beneficiaries. Why not do it now quickly!!
FNB URSTORY-NPC 63 111 31 57 50 THANKS. It will help a lot.
PAUSE APP

I went to visit a friend who introduced me to the App PAUSE. It is a 30 day, AM and PM app. We have been following it and it really helps you to go deeper with Jesus.
STILBAAI...
you are good to me!
I love your river
I finally embrace your wind
Your mountains help me to look up
your stillness grounds me for what is real
that I MUST become still each day to hear You say...
STILBAAI
your touch rugby reminds me of the 19-year-old who needs to be called into a missional mindset
your "all that floats day" reminds me I need help... I cannot be alone
the boy with the beer - Oh God intervene!!
the child that took a sandbox bible - keep his heart to become a bible teacher STRONG
DEAR GOD
I praise you that we came to Stilbaai in 1995 -
exactly 30 years this month ago.
I praise you that my parents went bankrupt when you called me to missions.
I praise you that it taught me to trust YOU and that I gained living on 5 continents and still see You provide.
Philippians 3:7-11 (NLT) Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.
and try PAINAFRICAIN BREAD next to SPAR! Fritz Schoon is the best baker ever.
Thanks to my sponsors that carry me each month.
As I embark on this Muslim Makuwa journey... pray for me.
Sarah Anna-Lise
ABSA 907 558 0094 savings
FNB 6261 46 15 245 savings
PS - I was for an hour on the phone with my Frontier Missions leader and we briefly discussed, after he lost more sponsors too regardless of his involvement in full time Missions, how the Corporate Church in South Africa generally created a culture of giving to churches alone and not to missionaries individually. I even heard, last November the cry out in one of my fellow stunning leaders in Cape Town Muizenberg's newsletter how they have to fight so hard to find sponsors for the South African Ywam'ers there in Cape Town and Worcester.
We are taught in church that we have to give only the church that then distributes a tiny fraction of their income to their missionaries... You and I know that rent alone is more than what most of us get per month. I wonder how we can change this culture? When I hear what a pastor receive per month, and what the missionaries "receive" - something is way off... way way way off...
I have no answer to this. Please take care of your missionaries in your church... ask them if their rent, their car, their fuel and food is covered.
Just trying to help some of my friends out here. xxx.
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