September 2024
Our last newsletter introduced you to a family that we have been working with for over a year. Today, I want to acquaint you with Adam’s best friend, Michael. We met Michael our first week in South Africa. His family had been attending Faith Baptist since 2018. He was really struggling in school and asked “Can you help me with my reading?” He was attending a local Afrikaans school. He had failed 2 grades, and the school was just passing him even though his reading was less than a 1st grade level. Kelli started tutoring him in February 2023. His family joined us for dinners on our Monday tutoring days and this opened the door for us to start counseling his parents, Carrie and Hunter. Hunter works all over South Africa so he could only be with us on occasion. Carrie has experienced significant trauma in her life. She has made a profession of faith, but her flesh had already built many bad habits of self-worship and anxiety. She listened to the truth each week but did very little studying at home. She did quit smoking and cut up her credit cards. This appeared to us to be some fruit but the conversations we had each day still focused on discontentment and being a victim. The truth was always given to instruct and correct but the conversations continued to be self focused. During this time, Michael was still attending church, Friday Bible study, Friday Youth Night, Saturday teen Bible study and Monday family devotions with our family. He had a desire to grow. Hunter showed less and less interest in hearing the truth and stopped studying on his own or leading family devotions. His work kept him away for a month at a time. Their other children were becoming more resistant to hearing the truth. Life at home was becoming more difficult. On July 13th, a teenager died walking home from a friend’s house. Our church meets in a hall inside a low-income gated community. This teen grew up in this community but had recently moved 1 mile away. The families in the community are like family so this death hit very hard. Carrie became overwhelmed with emotions and instead of correcting with truth, followed those emotions into many of the old habits that she had stopped. This spiral went faster than we anticipated. She came to counseling and church for 3 more weeks then cut off contact. Her son, Michael continued attending church and all other Bible studies but just said his mom and siblings were spending time with new friends. August 9th, Carrie asked her husband for a divorce and a few days later moved her and her 2 youngest into their friend’s home. God has allowed Kelli the opportunity to speak face to face with Carrie for nearly 2 hours. Kelli let her know that we loved her but her heart and resulting actions were against God’s plan for her life. Carrie was kind but said she just needed to pursue her own happiness. Although we were devastated for her decision and the affect it will have on her family, we were not fully surprised. Pursuing happiness, selfishness or self-worship never ends with a closer relationship with God. We are born in bondage to those passions, but Christ died to save us from them. We all desire to be fully free from our flesh but praise God, He gives us His Spirit and His Truth to fight our fleshly desires.
Many people in our ministry have been impacted by this situation. Michael is seeing the contrast of selfishness and godly love, and it is fanning his desire to be in the Word and grow his trust in God. Michael’s dad, Hunter, has repented of his path away from the Lord and is daily seeking God. I keep close contact with him to encourage and keep truth in his ears. Michael’s best friend, Adam, has grown faster and stronger in his understanding and implementation of the Word than any other person we have ever worked with. He encourages us every week in our own walk. His family has been coming over for dinner the past 3 weeks and has plans to continue this. We have had very open, direct conversations with his parents and are hoping that God shows his mother, Angela, her need for Christ. When we started writing this newsletter last month, we were at the very beginning of this situation and did not know what the following weeks would include. We are in awe of how God is using this situation in our life and ministry. God is AMAZING!
Note: All names have been changed for privacy purposes.