TAYLOR MADE NEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Updated October, 2006

September/October 2006

The past 2 months have been good but challenging. Satan has tried every method to slow the gospel down. BUT our God is bigger than anything Satan can throw our way!!

Praise Reports

1. The boys at Zakhe are getting ready for baptism. They are growing so much in the Lord. They come up with really thought provoking questions.
2. The house church decided on their own to begin tithing. They too are growing in the Lord and are able to ask many deep questions.
3. Men are beginning to show some interest in attending the house church.
4. I can not tell you how God has used the food parcels to open doors here. We praise God for Southern Baptists giving to those in desperate need!
5. Josh made it through his school trials. We praise God he was accepted at the Culinary College in Durban. He is very excited.
6. We completed all our stuff for Visa Renewals and for Stateside Assignment Physicals.
Praise for the new prayer group that has formed. We meet every Wednesday with other Great Commission Churches to pray for the people and community of Sweetwaters.
7. Praise we are moving the food parcel recipients into planting their own gardens. Praise Hilton Baptist will help with seed money and another group is to come in and share gardening knowledge.
8. Praise our team had a wonderful Prayer Retreat in the Drakensburg Mountains. Praise for Darrell & Elaine Cook joining us.

Prayer Requests

1. Continue to pray for the house church. The past 2 months Satan has tried to spread lies in the community about members.
2. Pray for an area where the drunk men hang out. There is an empty building next to where they sell the alcohol. The church and others are praying for these men's salvation and that the empty building will be a new church plant.
3. Pray for the boys at Zakhe to be strong in the Lord. Many are the only believers in their whole family and that is hard!
4. Pray for Charles and Siya as they spend time in the community of Sweetwaters. Pray for open doors and for their safety.

Family Notes

The children have started their last term of school. Josh begins his Matric Exams on October 31st. Please pray for him!!!! Chelsea had pushed so hard for a soccer team she got it last term. At the end of term they played many schools in one day and won every game!! She was very excited. Chelsea has enjoyed this year and has been one of the monitors for her grade in school. Caitlin is working hard and continues to do well in school. She has a group of wonderful friends and all the children are enjoying Youth Group and church at NCF. Caitlin is praying about being the leader for FCA next year. Josh is excited about Culinary College and living in Durban. It will be a packed year and will require much diligence on his part.

Our Prayer Retreat was a treat and we all gleaned things from the teaching of God's word. Funny thing is wehave never seen any snakes since being in SA but made up for it while in the Burg. We had not been there 45 minutes and found a large Puff Adder. The camp people finally found it under a building and killed it. Then while the children were in the river tubing Chelsea had a snake pop up in front of her and it swam away after her loud scream. On a hike Chelsea again stepped right over a baby Puff Adder and the Camp people killed another large Adder also. I think we got our fill of snakes while there!!

For the past 2 months at least once a week we have had power outages. They have lasted anywhere from 30 minutes to 14 hours. Our neighborhood goes out if the village of Hilton goes out or on the other side when Pietermaritzburg goes out too. We get it in both directions. We finally went out and bought a generator and we are glad we did. Monday, Tuesday and yesterday we had long power outages and would have lost all our food in the frig. and freezer if we hadn't. With the city's growth and power stations that need upgrading this may be a common occurrence. We talked with someone with the electric department and he said workers have told the city it needs new sub-stations but they never want to put in the money for them. Even if they start now it will take 18 months to 2 years to build them. Oh well! What can you do but adjust!!

We are excited to celebrate Josh's 19th birthday on October 9th. We still can't believe he will be that old. Guess that means mom and dad are getting older too!
LOL!! Blessings to all of you. Thanks you for giving to the upcoming Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. There are approximately 9 million Zulu's and maybe .2% are true believers. That is a lot of people to reach. Thank you for partnering with us!!!
Living His Adventure & Believing Him,    
Charles, Robin, Josh, Caitlin & Chelsea                     
43 Worlds View Road                                                      
Pietermaritzburg,  3201 Republic of South Africa    

Home # 27-33-343-5457       Fax # 086-616-3928
Charles' Cell-082-643-9808  Robin's Cell-082-646-9088