Report from South Africa

Introduction

Before I begin my part of the report, I would like to commend this congregation and its elders for the work you are doing here and the young people I see in this congregation and the fact that you are using two young men to help them to learn how to preach the word of God and overcome the problems that they may have to face when they get out on their own and are not having elders to oversee them or to work with them. That is very important, and I feel one of the things I feel that more churches need to do to help young preachers get started in preaching the word of God. And I want you to know, and I we want to commend you both Pearl and I for what you’re doing in this way.

1. In the Beginning God Created

Without people like you, we couldn’t be doing the work that we’re doing. So everything that I say tonight, just realize this is part of your work and your coupling hands with other brethren throughout the United States, that this work may be done and that souls may be saved on the foreign fields. The Bible says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It also says that God or Jehovah for man from the dust of the ground, and that he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And so we see that man was created with body, soul, and spirit, both male and female, were created. But God didn’t just dump them on the earth that he had made.

He had made them to bring glory and honor to him. And so he built a garden. We call the Bible refers to it as Eden. And he built that garden, and Adam and Eve lived there. But God gave them one and only one, so far as we know, negative command outside of their fact, of course, they were told to keep the garden. And he said that you are not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which is in the midst of the garden, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. It seems that Adam and Eve were happy in the garden of Eden. Now how long they lived there, I don’t know. We have no idea because the Bible doesn’t tell us.

But we know they lived for a while and they were happy in the garden, and things were going well with them until we find that the woman partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent, Satan, taking the form of a serpent, deceived her, and she did eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because he said, Thou shalt not surely die, but you’ll be like God.

But then she also gave to her husband, and he did eat. And therefore they had violated God’s negative law of not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And so, true to his word, God cast them out of the garden of Eden. As man began to multiply upon the face of the earth, we find that he sinned. And sin grew and grew until finally God was displeased with man and decided that he was going to destroy the earth. So he told Noah to build an ark. And Noah and his three sons and their wives built the ark. And when it was ready, and the animals had come, and they were all in the ark, God sealed the door with Adam and Eve and their family in there.

And it began to rain. Now, this is something that man didn’t know anything about. If you go back and read the Bible, rain, that is. For up until this time the Jews had wet the ground. And when he was told Noah was told to build the ark, he didn’t know what rain was, but he trusted in God. Just like we trust in God, and we don’t know what heaven’s like, but we trust in God because we believe it. And the other people in the world didn’t believe what Noah was doing, didn’t even perhaps understand until the rains came and the floods grew. And now they try to save themselves, but it’s too late. It’s too late to change. And so they were destroyed. Some years later, God sent his son into the world.

2. God Sent His Son That Man Might Be Saved

And the purpose of sending his son into the world was that he might save the world or that man might be saved. The Bible says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So Christ died that you and I might be here tonight, or this afternoon, whichever way you want to look at it, and be his children and serve him. And, of course, on that cross. He up, I went backwards. That was a mistake. That’s okay. But as he died on the cross, he was buried and was resurrected from the dead. We might say the devil thought he had won because Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, was dead, and he was buried, but that’s not the end of the matter, for God raised him.

3. The Great Commission: Go and Make Disciples

And he walked upon the earth for another approximately 40 days. But before he left the earth at that time, he gave what we call the Great Commission. In Matthew 28, 19, actually on down through the end of the chapter. But there the Bible said that Jesus made this statement to his apostles. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So they were told to go, and they had a mission. Their mission was to convert people, to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. But that wasn’t the end of the matter. That wasn’t the end of the work. Sometimes we forget that. Oh, we convert people, much like I talked about some this morning.

People are converted, but what do we do after they’re converted? The latter part of that verse says, teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you, and I’m with you always, even unto the end of the earth. And that’s mainly what Pearl and I are doing in South Africa. Trying to build up that which exists, the churches that are there, and strengthen them, and enable them to have their men that will preach and ladies that will teach the Bible classes for the children and one another. And so we must turn our minds to the truth, the Bible, the Word of God, the absolute truth. And this is what the South African work is all about. You are here in America. Oops, I keep hitting the wrong one.

4. The Senders Are Just as Important as the Goers

Pearl and I are here in South Africa. But together, we are able to work for the Lord. You help to sin, and it’s just as important to have people that will sin. Not everybody can go. Not everybody wants to go, just like not everybody wants to be a preacher. Suppose everybody was a preacher. Who would listen? Suppose everybody went. Who would send? The senders are just as important as the goers. Always remember that. You are helping to carry out that great commission of God by doing what you are doing. And so what we report here tonight is your work, just as much as it is ours. And we need each other to accomplish this for the Lord. This morning, the sun rose somewhere in South Africa.

5. Our Part of South Africa

And this is the place where we live. I meant to ask it does have a point. Alright, let me back over here. Pearl and I live here in Johannesburg. And that’s where our main work is done out of Johannesburg as we live there and go to the other places to help the brethren wherever they need us and for as long as they need us. Pretoria is unique in the fact that it has two capitals, one in Pretoria, or South Africa, I should say, one in Pretoria and one in Cape Town. The population of Pretoria is five million people. Now keep that number in mind. Five million people. This is a Fortracker Monument. This is a monument that was built by the Fortrackers or the Afrikaners after they won the Battle of Blood River.

There was a great battle over there between the Zulu and the Dutch, and it was called the Battle of Blood River. They promised to build God a church if they won the battle. They did. And they built what we know as the Afrikaans church. And it is a very strong church, much like in some ways, at least as far as holding its members of the Catholic Church is. And it’s hard to convert these people because all of their ancestors from times that they can by far more than they can remember were members of that church that they promised God they would build. And so that’s in Pretoria. Used to be when you came to Pretoria in any direction you could see the Four Tracker Monument. This is the Capitol building in Pretoria.

A very nice building. It has a beautiful garden, well kept. And this is where our laws come from. This is the university of Pretoria. Here you can go and get a good education and then come out and hopefully find a job to do the work that you want to do. And it’s for all races, all colors, all people. Anyone that can afford it can go to that university. This is Pretoria, South Africa. Maybe you’re a bit surprised at what it looks like. You know, most of you all have the idea. Well, if you go to Africa, the only thing that anybody’s going to want to do is my husband is going to want to go out and shoot game so that he can put that big old trophy in my living room.

Well, that may be true, but also remember that you can go to Pretoria or some of the other cities and get your ladies. You can get your trophies. I don’t know where that’ll be, but you can get your trophies and hang them up in the living room as well on the other wall. But the point is, I hope that you’ll understand that although South Africa is a third world country, still today, consider that, it is not as primitive as you may have an idea. We have many parts in Pretoria, and very nice. And we have here, of course, the cars going up and down the road. Just remember one thing if you come. You drive on the wrong side, we drive on the right side. So don’t meet somebody coming the other way and say he’s on the wrong side of the road because it’s most likely you.

But anyway, it’s not so hard to remember. These jacaranda are beautiful, but they’re a mess when they finally fall off the tree. But you would enjoy seeing those. These are some of the homes in South Africa. You will notice that they have walls around them. I noticed as we were driving today to the place where we ate, and as we were coming over here tonight and this morning, a lot of places here have walls. Why do you have walls? Well, somebody says we have them for decoration. Some people say we have them for protection because of the problems that we have. The same is true in South Africa. We do have walls for protection because of criminals, but these things help us to live a safer life.

And the uh I’ll show you where Pearl and I live in a few minutes. Uh and we use these walls, and we have one of the safest areas, particularly in Johannesburg. But notice the the nice houses that they have over there. Uh not all the houses are this pretty, just like some of them are this pretty, uh maybe where some of them here are, but they have nice housing. This is Pearl’s ladies or teachers’ training class. Uh she has taught all these y young ladies how to teach the children and to help guide them in doing and learning God’s word. When we have a teacher’s training or have a preacher’s training class, Pearl will have a teacher’s training class. Uh this fellow here didn’t partake of the class uh really.

He he just liked to have his picture taken, and that’s Randy Harshberger, if you don’t know him. And so he got in the picture. Well, you know, we can’t say, hey, yeah, you can’t be in that. Uh he wanted to be in it, so we just let him get away with it. But here’s some of the children that she’s taught. They are older now because we were in working with the church in Pretoria, which started with six people, counting Pearl and I, or six Christians for eight years. Uh, and building them up, starting building them up. Uh, and we uh this is the congregation when we left Pretoria in 2013. Uh and here you Pearl, you won’t see Pearl in too many of these pictures because she’s uh she takes all of the pictures.

But there he is again. He had to get in there. Of course, I’m in there, but this congregation grew to about 80 at one time, but then we had to move a number of times because we could not own our or do not own our own building, or they do not, uh, and we lost some of our college students when we had to move from one part of town to the other because they could not afford to drive or not drive, but to come and pay the taxi fares to get there. Since we were here the last time, the responses in Pretoria, we had one baptism, and we have five to place membership at that time. Now let’s take a trip. Let’s leave Pretoria and we’re this is the how train, and if you come visit us, you’ll land at the airport.

I’ll show you that in a minute. Then you get on this train, and in 15, 20 minutes you’ll be uh close to our house. We’ll meet you there, and uh then we’ll start our trip uh from there. But again, this is Johannesburg, and we have worked, and this is where we work and where we live. Uh we can have worked here uh in Krugersdorp. It’s not up there. Yeah, there it is. Krugersdorf. We have worked in Soweto, we have worked in Tembisa, uh, and we have worked, of course, uh in other areas there. But what I want to do is now show you our part of South Africa. So we want to welcome you to that part where we live so you can understand that. We live in Johannesburg.

There are seven million people in Johannesburg. Now, how many did I say there were in Pretoria? Five. Five million people. Five plus twelve is or five plus seven is twelve. Well, if you go on the outskirts, you probably would have that twelve anyway. But there’s twelve thousand people in those two cities. They’re about 40 minutes apart. How many preachers full-time are there? Two. Both of us live in Johannesburg. There are two full-time preachers. Now there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. That doesn’t count the other places that I showed you. That only counts Johannesburg and Pretoria. And so we can see where we are. We’re about in the middle of the little higher north in South Africa, with the Cape Town being at the bottom.

We’ll see something on that in Durban as well. Johannesburg is known as the city of gold. When we went to Durban, Pearl and I were looking at some curiosity and the lady there, the African lady says, Where are you from? And Pearl said, from Johannesburg. Oh. The city where the streets are paved in gold. Pearl said, no. The streets aren’t paved in gold, but I don’t think she convinced her because they’re all convinced that they are, because this is where most of the gold has come from out of South Africa, as well as diamonds. And so as they have these air shafts built, uh, and as gold is taken out of the ground, we have some students that are going underground to see what it’s like to be in a gold mine.

Uh and then of course, these people are panning for gold. I don’t know how much they got or if they got any. But anyway, they are enjoying themselves. But when the gold is brought out of the ground, the dirt is piled up, and it looks kind of gold or yellow. That could be another reason that the people think the streets are paved with gold. But if the streets were paved with gold, I wouldn’t be here tonight. I wouldn’t need your money. I’d just go out and chip me off a little piece every once in a while, uh, and I’d be okay. But it doesn’t work that way. But Johannesburg is known as the city of gold. This is an air view of the city of Johannesburg.

You can see we have a lot of large buildings, not as high as many of yours, but it is a very modern town in many ways. This is the airport, if you’ve ever come over, that you will come into. They’re in Johannesburg. This is where Pearl and I leave from to come here. We leave there, and in 16 hours, we’re here in the United States as we land in Atlanta, Georgia. Now on November the 4th, we’re going to leave from Atlanta, and we will arrive in South Africa here at O’Rtambo International Airport 15 hours later. And if you’re wondering why does it take 16 to go and 15 to come back, the airport says the tailwinds. I don’t know much about tailwinds. I can’t fly. Had a hard time flying a kite, much less a plane.

But anyway, uh that’s what they tell me, and I know I we ride that and and we can uh see that. Now where we live in the Johannesburg area. The place we live in is called Rand Park Ridge, and as I suggested, the purpose of the guards and the purpose of the walls are for our security, and we do have very good security uh in this particular area. Uh and we work with the men that are providing our security. And we have two cars, 247, uh, every day of the year. And this is the man that is in charge of that ProForce security. We also have our walls on the outside, just as you have seen some, or uh as we have seen some in some of your sections of the town.

The only difference is uh our walls may not be as pretty, and they always have the wire, razor wire on top or electric fences, such as this house. We have a shopping mall not too far from where we live, uh, and we can go there uh for some grocer or our groceries. They say we have a parking area like you do. We have our groceries, we have our banks and our pharmacies there, and pick and pay is one of the big uh grocery stores over there. It’s a lot like Wendixie uh or Publix, uh, and then there are several other uh things there. We have a pizza parlor called Perfect Pizza, and we have another one called Perfect Burger, but we have one on the inside that is called Wimpy’s, a lot like uh your wendy’s.

Uh, you can go there and get you a burger, or you can get a real good cup of coffee uh from there. Uh, and uh, so that was the way uh that mall looks. I took another picture of a lady’s shop called My Ladies, which is much like uh our JC Pennies. You ladies can get your clothes there, that’s where Pearl gets a lot of clothes. And if I lose her in the mall, guess where I go? My ladies. She’s at my ladies, and I’ll find her usually there. But after I had taken the one of Wimpy, which I showed first, the guard told me, he says, You’re not supposed to be taking pictures here. So I said, Okay, and I put my camera up, and I thought, well, I can’t get any more pictures to show anybody of the mall.

Some of them are small like yours, some of them are rather large. This is the Coca-Cola Dome, and here’s where uh they have a lot of uh things like bands come or shows come, or we may have a bridal where they show all the things the brides can spend their money on uh to get married, and then of course, after that they have places uh or shows for baby carriages and all those kind of things. Uh and so it’s a very nice place to go uh if you need any of those things. This is Northgate, which is one of our bigger malls. We also have men that guard our cars while we are in the mall. Uh, in other words, we park and they come up and and they’ll speak to you and you’ll greet them, and you go on in and you come back out, and where is my car?

And the fella that’s guarding your car. We say, It’s right over there, Buena. Over there. And you’ll go over there, and sure enough, there’s your car. They can remember even if you forget. And then you give them two Rand for watching your car, which is about twenty cents. That’s the going price. Uh, and they were happy and you’re happy. Uh, we have one that we kind of try to park by all the time, uh, and so last year uh we gave them a little bonus. I’ve forgotten how much it was, but much as far as we are concerned, but as far as he is concerned, it’s a lot. The Africans are also encouraged to have their own little small businesses, and so they do. These are gates or can be used as gates.

They’re made out of limbs of trees, small, smaller limbs, or they can be used uh as fences for like your garden or something of that nature, and they will make them along the side of the road, and then you go and you’ll find them selling them there. This lady here went to the vegetable shop, bought some veggies at a cheaper price, and is now out trying to sell them so that she can make a living for herself. You’ll notice also the razor wire behind her, but these are in types of things that are encouraged, and you’ll have uh men coming up on the street selling sunglasses or things of that nature uh on the roadside to try to make a living. And that is encouraged. These fellows are the ones that rob your garbage can.

On the garbage day, they go by your house and look for the plastic bottles and tin cans and uh paper things or whatever, and then they’ll take it uh and sell it uh there at the uh place that collects that type of thing. Uh and they do manage to make a living. They walk a long way, you feel so sorry for them that this fellow may just get a dollar for all of his load. That’s 10 Rand. Uh if you would like to see some of our money, Pearl, I think has some. She’ll be glad to show it to you. Uh, and uh 10 Rand is about worth a dollar in the United States. Now, we also have something that you don’t have anymore. We go to the petrol station or gas station, uh, and as we drive in, we tell the attendant, give me 50 Rand or 100 Rand or fill it up.

And he’ll gladly do it. He’ll then check your oil and water. He’ll wash your windscreen and the screens on the side of the car in the back, and again you tip him about two Rand, and he’s happy, because that’s adds to his income. He the pet or gas stations don’t give them a lot of money. They make it up by what the people give them when they service them. Uh and uh if you give them money, they’ll well what you go to the same gas station very often and they know they’re gonna get a tip, you’ll see them rushing out when I’m rushing out. Here, here, here, you know, park here, get your gas here. Uh, and so that’s what they do some of the time.

We also have a health club, and Pearl and I used to go two to three times a week until she had so many surgeries. That’s to help keep our motors going and keep us in good shape so that we can continue to do the work that God would have us to do. These are other houses in the Johannesburg area. Now these uh right here, this one and this other one. Uh well that one does have uh fences, uh but this one doesn’t. This is in like uh some of your little villas that you see here, uh, and they’re protected there. They uh they do have their gates closed there, which you don’t have, but that’s the reason you don’t see big walls around their homes. Now, this is Rand Park Ridge.

Remember, that’s where I said we live, and this is the congregation that meets in our house. It’s made up mostly of people that work in the area, and so we have services on Sunday afternoon at four o’clock, uh, and from four to five. They’ll come to our house and we’ll have the worship service. We have the Lord’s Supper as well, uh, because some of those ladies are Christians, particularly the two in the two in the front, uh, and uh we’ll meet with them so that they can worship on the Lord’s Day. This is the street we live on. It’s called Sprue, and that’s named after a bird, and I don’t know which bird it is. I’ve never seen a sprue, but maybe I’ll find out, and if I do, I’ll take a picture of it and bring it the next time I come.

But this is our street. This is the wall in front of our house, and we have ProForce as our security. Here you have a small gate that you keep locked all the time, but people can come in, and that little white sign lets them know that we’re members of the Rand Park Ridge Association, which supplies the security. And here is uh a way to go into our driveway. You can see our trusted dogs there, uh, really on the ball, they’re just watching everything and looking over, keeping it for us. Here we have a young couple, oops, we we have a young couple over next door. And there’s their little daughter right there, and looking over the fence. We keep her some time so that they can uh go out and do different things that they need to do.

Uh this is where, or there she is right there, actually, in this picture. This is uh where uh we live here. This is the side yard, again with our dogs out there, and this we didn’t want, it’s a swimming pool, of course. Uh we didn’t want a swimming pool, but we found out that uh it makes a very good baptistry. So we’ve used it to baptize more than anything else, uh, and so that’s fine. But that’s our home on the outside, and over here, of course, uh in this next one is my office. Uh we had to refurbish the house. Uh Pearl had a house, and I had a house over here. She sold hers, I sold mine, and we put it together and refurbished our house after we uh purchased it.

You can see we have the rail guards on the garage door as well as on the living room or lounge door, as well as the office window. Uh and this is, I said, for our protection. Although we found out since we’ve been in the United States that we’re not much worse off than you are, with all the everything we hear on the r uh television, all the people getting shot or people getting hurt, or people stealing the uh purses of uh or handbags of the ladies and things of that nature, you’re in just about as bad a shape as we’re in. Uh I don’t know when you’re gonna start building your walls or whatever, but it’s not as bad as it used to be, really, in many ways.

But this is our lounge. Now, when you hear a preacher from South Africa talk about the lounge, he’s not talking about where you can go and get your drinks and things of that nature. It’s really our living room. We call it a living room over there, they call it a lounge over there. I don’t even think they have a living room, uh, actually, in their language, or the way they say it, they speak English, but I mean they don’t have uh a living room. Anyway, uh and this is a better shot of it there. Uh and there are those mischievous dogs. You see the one right there? Oops. I keep mashing that that one right there. Now she knows she’s not supposed to be there. But Pearl’s not on.

That’s Pearl’s dog. Supposed to be in mine, but that’s Pearl’s dog. Uh and she thinks she can get on the if she gets angry with you, she goes and jumps up on the bed. This one, this one here, uh, well, that’s not the one that jumps on, this is the one that jumps on the bed. And she messes the pillows up so she’ll know that she’s been there. Then she gets off. Uh and this one, of course, this one barks. If she hears anything, if that one barks, we know that there’s somebody around, not necessarily in the yard, but something’s going on. But if this one barks, we get up and we ring the little bell or make or call the one of the cars because there’s probably somebody in our yard.

We don’t have to do that very often. We’ve only done it a few times. This is our dining room, and we move these chairs every Lord’s day. And it’s between the living room and the dining room that we have our services. This is the kitchen. This is the most important room in the house because that’s where the food comes from. And you know how it is preachers like to eat just as well as anybody else. And so this is our kitchen. This is my office. You can see my desk there and my books. And there are some of the these are the books I took. I didn’t take all of them. But Pearl has her little office there. We’re both in the same room and we work there together.

This is brother from here in the United States. When we were working with the congregation in Orlando, we were asked to go there and help them, and they wanted us to teach uh training classes. And so we left Pretoria and went there first. And Brother Bobby Scripture came there and was with us. And in this case, he was there and he preached there in Orlando. Unfortunately, we didn’t stay too long because there was a brother that had been away, an elderly brother, and when he came back, uh he was not real happy with the situation. And in one of the our business meetings, he uh made the statement, or one of the brethren said uh that he had visited another congregation and they were having preacher training and teacher training classes.

Uh and they were conducting them on their own. I don’t know where it was, but uh I said told him, I said, Well, that’s what we came to do and what we want to do. This elderly brother said, Well, we don’t need your help. And nobody said anything. So I said, Well, if you don’t need our help, we’re going to go on where we are needed. Now, that sounds like, in one sense of the word, a one man ruling a congregation. One thing you have to remember about the African, they have a high respect for the older people. They will listen to the older people. They don’t always make the right decision, but they will listen to them, and you have to learn to cope with that.

Uh and uh so when they did not answer or uh refute what he said, I felt it was with my experience better for us just to move on. We could find some place where we could do better. Pearl had already started a lady’s class, and she taught these ladies, they had no classes for their children. Uh and so Pearl started this class. You can see this is her translator. Uh and so she’s talking and teaching those ladies how to take care, and not take care physically, but to take care of the children and teach them the word of God. This is Brother Bobby’s daughter. She came with him, uh, and these are the children that Pearl started the class for. We don’t know whether they still have a class or not.

We’re not sure, but uh at any rate we tried to get it started there. And uh so we find out also that the men take care of the communion. Uh and so they we they love to have their picture taken, uh, and so here they are. Now, Krugelsdorf, that’s where we’re working now. This is where we meet in a nursery, and the sign says Church of Christ meets here. And if you want to know what the bottom says, which is Church of Christ meets here and get it pronounced, you ask Pearl or Julie. You can ask them they can they they could talk that way. I can’t talk that way. I was driving down the road near the house one time and I saw a sign on the road said W I P H O U T.

Oh, without. Well, that wasn’t the name of it. It’s a bit out. Bit hour. I see I can’t do it.

But I said, Well, uh that ought to be easy to remember it’s without, but no, that’s not so. But anyway, uh they speak English, and this is where this congregation has met for a number of years and trying to make plans to get a building of their own. You can still see also the bars or the gates uh and things that keep the people out that want to be mischievous. Now, this is the church in uh Krugelsdorp. We have about thirty to thirty-five people on Sunday, uh, and uh uh when we go back, we’re going to have uh some work to do uh in this case, and we’ll talk about that or what we will do when we go back. As Pearl was uh in the most of the pictures, we took a second picture, so she would be in this one, uh, and there she is sitting right on the front.

You can’t get her on the front much very often, but we managed to do it this time. This is Pearl’s teenage class, uh, and uh this particular young lady right here has just obeyed the gospel within the last year. And the other young lady is her sister, and then the son of one of the members. And we have here this lady down here, Bonnie. She only has one student on this occasion. Sometimes she’ll have more. We don’t know how many are going to come, but when they come, we’re glad to have them, and she teaches them. Now we have here the uh families in the congregation. This is Raymond and his family, and this is the young girl that he was baptized. These brethren here and this sister there from Malawi, where I used to preach in 1960 and 263.

Now they weren’t there then, or if they were, they were real little, because that’s been a number of years ago. This is a grandmother with her granddaughter. This is some ladies that are at the 70th birthday of this sister. And this young couple here is the one that went away for a while to England and they worked there as uh they worked in their occupation. Then they came back to South Africa, and they’ve just recently moved and placed membership at Kruger’s Dorp. This is the baptism of the young lady that I told you about. Her father is one that is uh doing some preaching for us, uh, and they will be in our he will be in our preacher training class also. Again, he was there one time before uh and has been preaching since then.

Uh and when she wanted to obey the gospel, I thought it would be good to let him do the baptizing, and he did. The response is there uh in uh Kruger’s dorp since we’ve been back. We have two baptisms, six restorations, and eight to place membership. We also have some uh work to do uh in that relationship but right now while we’re away there are three men that can preach uh and they’re taking care of the preaching task. At Tembisa, which is a uh an African location, uh we went there we were asked to go there and this brother here works in one of the banks and he was a preacher or a brother Ed Pretoria and these brethren needed a preacher and so he said I’ll go for six months and that was three years ago and he’s still there doing a very good work with those brethren there and uh he and uh his family are are good friends with ours and you can see in this case he was translating for me.

Now let’s talk about Durban. Durban is where Pearl was born just a few years back. Now I’m not gonna tell you when she was born you can ask her that’s treading on dangerous ground. But here she is they have a population of two million seven hundred and eighty six thousand forty six people in their community and uh so let’s see something about Durban. This is it’s a beach town and so you have your beach sculptors going by we have uh a lion that has uh killed a water buffalo uh and uh the others in the pride will come along uh and help devour the animal. And here we have a car uh that uh sculpture has made on the beach. And here we have brother Harshberger you want to see what he’s looking at why he’s and look at him standing on a rock, keep from getting his feet wet.

But he was looking at this ship, trying to decide whether it was going to come in or go out, and that’s in the Durban Harbor. It’s one of our bigger harbors along with Cape Town. And so there’s a lot of work to be done there. These are some of the buildings that I want to show you, or places to stay. These particular ones, they’re refurbishing now. But here we have a nice motel or hotel, as they’re called there, where you can go and stay, just like you go in motels or hotels over here. Now, the next picture I’m going to show you is one of our five-star motels. And it even has a kitchen where you can do your cooking, ladies, if you want to.

Right there. You just undo it, put it on this little bit of raised platform there, and that’s where you sleep. When you want to do your your sweeping, there’s your broom up there. You take it down. We don’t have in this motel any ladies to come in and clean. You have to do your own. Here, of course, are the places where you’d keep your food while you’re there. And here’s your modern kitchen. Now I show this to show you a contrast, really, more than anything else. You’ve seen the beautiful houses, you’ve seen the places where people live. That’s not all of them. We had not everybody has a beautiful house, but in the bush, and I in the outer areas, the people still live like this with the grassroof houses and the mud on the side of the house and this type of kitchen.

And that’s where they live. I just showed that for a matter of contrast.

Cape Town is the second capital of South Africa. And we want to look at it. Table Mountain, this is this mountain back here. You can go up there and you can look all over the area of Cape Town. And you can see the all of the city. You can see it here as we’re looking from the bay at across Table Mountain. And every once in a while the clouds will come down. And when that happens, we call or they say that this is the tablecloth. And you don’t go up there when the tablecloth is there because you can’t see anything. And you might step off the wrong place. But they close everything down. Cape Town is a beautiful city, and it’s very interesting. We want to show you some Christians that came to help us.

There’s Bobby Scrimpcher and his daughter Ashley. This is Randy Harshberger, of course, here, over here. And these are two air hostesses. One is a Christian, uh Brittany is the Christian, and Savannah is just a friend of hers, and they stopped by and went to uh Kruger Park and uh saw the animals there. Here we have Brother David Tent when he came over, he and his wife, and this is old Bob Buchanan. You may know him. He’s been over several times, and he pr has preached twice for Kruger’s Dorp uh meetings on Satanism. We have a lot of a problem with Satanism in Kruger’s dorp, and so Bob is very good at that. If you ever need somebody to preach on Satanism, I hope you don’t, but if you ever do, he can help you understand that problem a lot better.

This young man here is, of course, the one that I was telling you about, uh, that has just moved back to place member and place membership with Kruger’s Dorp, Evan Pacheter, he is doing the preaching for us while we’re away at the house. And of course, then Bobby Scrimpcher, uh, whom you have already seen, and there’s Steve Malacca, uh, and then the brother baptizing his daughter. This is in one of our big shopping centers uh down in uh Johannesburg, uh, and it’s one of the biggest malls there, and that’s uh the statue of Mr. Mandela. Uh, and you can go see that and you can tour around if you want to. If you get tired, you can just lie down wherever you want to lie down, and nobody’s gonna bother you, and take your siesta.

This is uh ant hill that we went out to see, or uh we saw that out in the bush, and I thought, man, that’s high. So I stood next to it, and I’m five foot six and a half or seven, and so you can get some idea of how high that anthill is. You can go to the animal park or to the game uh here, animal chashay, and see the various animals. Uh, you can get very close to them. Pearl and I have been close enough that we could reach out and rub a lion’s back. But you don’t do that because you’ll put one arm out and you’ll come back with a snub. They’ll just take it off for you if you want to. You don’t get out when you go to the game parks.

Here’s another one. This is Pearl. Oops, wait a minute. Uh let’s see. Yep. This one’s supposed to come up. Well, it showed Pearl anyway. Uh, this is Pearl holding uh a little tiger that is in the game park. You can hold a line if you want to, up to six months old. But let me tell you, if they if they happen to put your uh their mouth over your hand, you just sit there and wait for them to decide to let it go. You don’t move it. I had one to do that. But he grabbed the hold of my arm, and the caretaker says, just be still, don’t do anything, don’t move. He’ll let it go in a minute. And I sat there and I thought he’ll never let it go, but anyway, he did.

And so I still have it. Uh and uh uh that’s fine, but you can do that. Also, oh, there he is. Uh I don’t know why I did this, but if you want to put a snake around your neck, you can do that as well. Uh, this is some of the things you can see in some of the things that you can do. Uh in this picture, this is uh when we had uh brother Harkrider with us. He came over for six weeks, and we took him around to preach in various places from Johannesburg down all the way to Cape Town and we walk with the elephant. So if you want to walk with the elephants, that’s fine. Now here’s what you do. You put your hand behind your back like this and the elephant sticks his trunk in it and you start walking and he’s walking in the well was walking with him and he went and when she took her hand back she said have you got a handkerchief?

6. We Forget That Satan Is There

And oh me I said yeah I got one when I got it back I threw it away. So if you’re going to walk with the elephants, please bring your own handkerchief. And uh but we learned a lot about elephants and it was quite interesting to do so we forgot to mention surfing surfing is good in South Africa and these fellow this fellow here is out there just really enjoying not have a care in the world just surfing away and here is he is again and he’s enjoying it and somebody says is it safe now I use this for this purpose the two surfers represent us in life enjoying life and the good things and some of the bad problems that we have and too many times we forget that Satan is there.

But just like that shark is there and they may surf out here hundred fifty or fifty times a hundred times we don’t know how long but the shark may come up. And it can kill them just like the devil comes up when we think things are going so well, and he kills us spiritually, this shark will kill you physically.

Conclusion

As we come to a close of our report tonight, these fingers should remind us of the hand of God. The clouds are the sin, and this is the world. In sin of cover, but God is opening the light that we may see. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re helping open the light so the people in South Africa can see the power of God and the work of God. Also, as the sun goes down, we’re reminded again of the beauty that is seen in God and God’s power. And this one shows the staff of life, the major staff of life in South Africa of the Africans, their homes, but Satan is still there with the dark clouds, but God shines through in the rainbow. So no matter where we are, we need to always remember that God is watching.

God is there, and God sees what is going on. Further now, I want to thank you for your support over the years. Our prayer is that the Lord will bless and keep you in his care, and that you’ll be faithful unto him until you’re gathered home and to be with Christ. As a closing scripture, we’re going to use 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 11 to 16, which says, But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on the life eternal. Wherever where unto thou was called, and it is confessed a good confession in the sight of many witnesses. I charge thee in the sight of God who giveth life to all things and to Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession, that thou keep the commandments without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in its own time he shall show who is the blessed and only potentating King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality dwelling in light, unapproachable, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be the honor and the power eternal.

Amen. As we come to the close of our presentation, I hope you have seen more of what South Africa is like and the work that you’re doing in that country. Just as in any lesson that we have there, as we come to its close, there may be those in the audience who need to return to their first love. If we can help you in any way with the problems you may have, we want you to let us know. And we’ll be glad to pray for you and work with you to strengthen you so that you’ll be able to overcome the temptations that face life. If you’re not a Christian and would like to become a Christian, you just need to let us know, and we will be glad to assist you, or the brethren here will be glad to assist you in becoming a Christian by burying you in the water of the grave of baptism that you might rise and walk in the newness of life.

Do we have a song for that? We had said something about it. Oh, okay. If we’ll st stand and sing that hymn now uh as we close our report.