Msindisi Newsletter # 69

SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY

NUMBER:      69.       JUN 2010

PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA
+27 (0) 728311008
Email:  msindisi@gmail.com ,
salv.di@gmail.com

Moriel KwaZulu Mission Website: https://morielkzn.wordpress.com

Personal Website: http://msindisi.googlepages.com

Dear Friends and family,

We just thank the Lord for His goodness in this month and for the opportunities He gives us to serve Him. Much has happened in the last few weeks. Before we sent the last newsletter out, we had come back to KwaZulu finding Phumulani’s brother Walter with a terrible skin condition and ill. His 18 month old daughter had also come out of hospital after 3 days of being put on a drip because of severe diarrhea. When Di went to see her on the Monday night after she had just returned from hospital the little one was not doing well at all. Di made her a sugar/salt rehydration solution and took her to the clinic the next morning who also gave a rehydration solution. The next day we went to town and stayed in Vryheid for the night. The following day we returned and found that the girl had died. This was very sad because the family had already lost 2 children who had died drowning a few years ago. The other shock was that we thought that the people who had congregated had come to mourn, such is the custom. We told them we would return in the afternoon. We decided to go back sooner and good job we did, for it was the actual funeral they were having!! Since then we have been helping to get Walter aqueous cream and now some yoghurt to help with mild sores in mouth and throat. His skin has started to look better. We were also grateful that we were able to give him a bible, which he gratefully received and Salvi shared the gospel with him. Walter has heard the gospel through Phumulani but we thank the Lord for this opportunity nonetheless.

Thanks to the Lord’s provision we have purchased 1000 Zulu tracts (they just need to be delivered) and been able to buy some Zulu bibles which are being sold for only R30 each. We will not engage in bible distribution as in the past we have known people to want a free bible in order to sell it but we will give to people whom we feel impressed upon to give. We have had numerous blessings this month. More people have been evangelized. We have broke into a few new areas. One of them has come about as a result of the lack of interest at Mondi. For 2 Sundays we saw that people were reluctant to come out and hear the word. Because of this Phumulani and Salvi have decided to go to the nearby community and start preaching. This is the furthest community from us that we want to reach. The first week, Phumulani preached and had no response from anybody. We went to another spot and then we had quite a few people come to listen and we were invited back the next week. When we visited them this Sunday they were challenged by the need for new birth and not trusting in the baby baptism. One of them is a Lutheran. She seemed very receptive to the preaching and asked us to come again. She shared with us her grief. Her husband left her (or went missing) several years ago without an explanation. She does not know what has happened to him. But it is not uncommon to hear that men have left their wives, or found other partners or cheat on their wives but the wife is expected to wait for her husband and not cheat. Such gross abuse and perversion of the biblical marital roles (where not only the wife is to be submissive but the husband is to love and to lay down his life for his wife) is spoken strongly against in scripture; if a man does not honour his wife his prayers will be hindered.

We are also pushing deeper into Ngenitsheni and Alpha mine. Di has been joining Salvi in going out a lot and we have been able to give away a great number of the knitted jerseys sent from Australia. We have struggled to give away the tiny jumpers knitted because many babies in KwaZulu tend to be big but yesterday we phoned a trustworthy lady who works at the hospital as a nurse. We gave her a box of the tiny jumpers and bibs etc for her to make sure they get to new born babies. It was a blessing making contact with this lady because Di was able to ask her if she knew a doctor that could write a certificate for someone who is on ARV medication to qualify them for a government grant. Thembi is a lady in the community who is on ARVs and she told us that she would have to get such a certificate from a ‘special’ doctor who would charge her R150 for the service. Someone else we know paid another doctor R190. Thankfully she knew such a doctor and said she would ask him for us. We should be meeting a Scottish guy today who works with orphaned children in an area not too far from where we live to give a number of jumpers for them.

On Sunday, we visited a church who was having a tent crusade in Alpha mine. Salvi had met with them to listen to their doctrinal persuasions. They are a South African church group called, ‘The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ’, started by a South African. They have about 30 different churches around the UK. Salvi had met with them before and rejoiced that so much of what they believed was what we believe, even down to bible prophecy. But there was a fear that they were oneness. They baptize in the name of Jesus only, which they do according to the pattern of the apostles in Acts. But there was some confusion over Mt28. When Salvi explained the doctrine of the trinity they agreed with every bit of it but there were still communication problems. On Sunday we met with one of their main pastors who spoke English fluently and they presented the doctrine that God is one and He is three. This was wonderful because it is a church that we can encourage the people of that area to go to if they respond to the message.

Yesterday was a great blessing. We had to get the back lock fixed to the 4 x 4 that we use. At the end Salvi started talking to the mechanic who was from Zimbabwe. The mechanic mentioned Dave Hunt in conversation, upon which Salvi remarked, ‘I know Dave Hunt!’ Allen, the mechanic, stated that he listen to Dave, Bill Randles and all of them. It was an amazing crossing of paths that the Lord had engineered because we had just started to get to know the new owner of the local Christian bookstore who is the wife of an independent Baptist pastor who is discerning. Allen is a member of their church! The pastor’s wife yesterday gave us a children’s Zulu book of bible stories for which we were very grateful. We look forward to getting to know Allen more. God is amazing; Allen also knows and made good friends with Caleb and Sophie Massey whom Salvi used to work with in the area and even drove them to Gauteng when the Massey’s went to live in America.

In Louwsburg we are going through 1 Corinthians but with lower numbers. Our friends Olaf and Charnel have moved to Piet Retief which is too far for them to travel every week as it is too late for them to get back but they are able to visit Elijah ministries, Sundays on occasion. We hope to visit them soon over there. In Vryheid we have made friends with the Laundry lady who goes to an Afrikaans speaking Pentecostal church. She has started asking questions about truth. We gave her the details of a website and she was touched and blessed by the teachings. She said she is boxing all her Christian books and sticking to reading the Bible. This was a huge blessing for us to see. We also purchased a double bed with some belated Wedding present money Salvi’s Grandmother gave us while in the UK. This will allow us to give up our hut with ease when we get visitors staying with us. We will be able to stay in one of the other huts at this time. While we were loading the bed the helper got talking to Salvi and confessed that he was a Jehovah’s witness. Salvi showed him in the pocket New Testament where the scripture referred to Jesus as Jehovah. He was shaken up by this and Salvi offered to meet up with him again with his New World Interlinear translation if he wanted.

Next week we look forward to the arrival of our friends Tony and Shaun, who are members of Truth Ministries. They will be bringing clothes, toy diggers for children and God willing doing some evangelism and leading the bible teaching on Tuesday night. Soon after we will be having the pleasure of our good friends Allen and his son Clayton Wells, while Clayton is visiting South Africa for a short holiday.

We would also like to promote a petition for British citizens or British residents to read and sign if they wish.

“Romans 13 Declaration”
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/test12/

I really think this is an important cause for evangelical believers to support which will go to petition parliament, and I’d like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It’s free and takes just a few seconds of your time. Please click on the above link to find out more information.
We would just like to say thank you to all those who faithfully pray for us and share in this ministry. Our hope is that this newsletter should always be an encouragement to you in your lives and Christian walk. May the Lord richly bless you.

Salvi and Di

Devotional 12

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TEXT:

Esther 2 v 22 – 23:

“But the plot became known to Mordecai and he told Queen Esther, and Esther informed the king in Mordecai’s name. Now when the plot was investigated and found to be so, they were both hanged on a gallows; and it was written in the Book of the Chronicles in the king’s presence.”

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Esther was a replacement for King Ahasuerus’ former wife Vashti who he had banished after being angered by her ‘supposed contempt’ for the King’s royal position when the king wanted to show her beauty off to the courtiers at his banquet. Hadassah, whose gentile name was Esther, was rounded up with other young women and brought into the Harem from which the king would replace Vashti. When you read Esther, God’s name is nowhere mentioned. The people are in Exile. The Persian king is lewd and his society did not serve the God of Israel. The wrath of the king was feared. A person could wonder where God is when he reads these opening chapters. Was it God’s will for Esther to become part of the king’s harem? Then when Esther takes Vashti’s place her uncle Mordecai came to know about a plot by two of the king’s officials who sought to assassinate the king, possibly angered by the king’s treatment of Vashti but we cannot be sure of that. Esther presents this information to the king in Mordecai’s name. Mordecai does not even get a thank you from the king. Whether it was protocol to give the name of the informant or it is an incidental detail to the narrative, it causes you to wonder are the little details important in the big scheme of things? Then there was Haman, the king’s right hand man who is honored by all except Mordecai. Being angered by this Jew’s lack of reverence he seeks to enact a plan to annihilate the whole Jewish nation within the kingdom, just as in the Pogrom’s in Russia, the holocaust and the disgraceful organizations of Hamas, Hezbollah and other Palestinian and Arabic Islamic militants have sworn to do today.

However Haman decides that every day he will draw lots and on the day that he draws the right lot, fortune will be on his side to seek the king’s permission to execute his plan. He does this for a whole year until he pulls the right lot. Fortune seems to be on his side, his superstition has worked because the king grants him his request. The judgment is made. The Jewish people mourn and fast. Esther is challenged to speak to the king even at the danger of her life. Where is God in all these details? That is not all, Haman puts up a gallows in order to hang Mordecai and was about to come to the king to seek permission. He does this before Esther has been able to petition the king and request the liberation of her people. God seems to have abandoned His people. But the night before Haman arrives, the king cannot sleep and asks for the book of Chronicles to be read to him and he hears the story of Mordecai’s uncovering of the plot to assassinate the king. Asking whether Mordecai had been rewarded he found that he had not. Before Haman could present his request for Mordecai’s neck the king ordered Haman to lead Mordecai around and honour him in front of all the people. It ended up being Haman that was hanged on the gallows his own hands had built.

Is it possible that the incidental details of our lives as believers that we think are not important, or the terrible and pointless challenges that we have to face are the very materials that God wants to weave into his plan? I believe they are. Romans 8: 28 says, “For we know that God causes all things all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” The little paint strokes that God works upon your life today seem insignificant but are necessary to create His highly detailed masterpiece. God uses the light strokes and the dark strokes. He takes the seemingly good material and the bad and weaves them together into His great tapestry. But God does not do that for everybody. There is a qualification. It is for those who love Him, as He has presented Himself to be in scripture, and who are called according to His purposes.

When Vanities prevail and are seemingly rife,

When ugliness and darkness mark out your path,

The flesh casts doubt that you have everlasting life,

But faith sees the guidance of the great shepherd’s staff.

Biblical texts taken from ‘NASB’.                                                                                                   SUH