February 9, 2014

Our 1st meeting in our new Motupa building

Baptism in Tzaneen

JUST A REMINDER!

Motupa Barbeque on Saturday

COOKING PAP AT THE BARBEQUE

Face Painting at our Barbeque in Motupa

Cleaning the Tzaneen Building

Breakfast after cleaning-They love American Pancakes

Hello Everyone, 

This is our happy New Year letter as we have not written since before Christmas.  We promise that we have been busy though and we have much to share.  First of all, we will be staying on our mission until the end which is June 10th.  We had a bit of a scare in that the last time I wrote Ed was not feeling well.  He had vertigo and it continued until the mission President asked that we go to Johannesburg for tests.  The results were that he had continual low blood pressure and 2 blocked Carotid Arteries.  The blood pressure is under control, the vertigo is under control and the arteries can wait until we get home.  Shortly after the tests President Omer suggested that we prepare to go home early.  Dr. Hoffman agreed, but they both said that we could make the final decision.  After fasting and praying we felt good about the decision to stay. The others supported it but Dr. Hoffman said "we are forcing him to pray for us everyday." We need prayers and are good with that. Some of our friends will remember that there was a change in our mission call due to medical concerns and perhaps this is why.  We have felt the Lord's hand in everything that we do.  With that in mind you will know why we continue to feel so blessed and protected.  Almost 2 weeks ago we were in the village of Motupa.  I was teaching seminary.  The few students who were there shared that the others were not because they were preparing/avoiding a riot.  We soon heard the noises of possible danger.  It was getting dark.  We left as soon as possible but had to see that the few kids with us were home safe.  As we ourselves finally were on our way the locals had started to put up road blocks with tires and tree branches.  We drove through them quickly even though a few of them tried to detain our car.  We knew not to stop.  Yes, I was frightened and when we returned to Tzaneen the young Elders were at our flat and the first thing they said was, "Are you Okay Sister Smith." I briefly explained what happened and shared that I was scared to death but knew that we were being watched over.  Later we learned that there were 3 deaths that night and that foreigners were targeted. The tires and brush that were used for road blocks were burned along with bits of their only main road. Throughout the week there were a total of 7 deaths and 15 police officers were hospitalized.  President Omer asked us to not go back until he gave us approval.  Such a dilemma when we had our big Group party for our new building on Saturday.  He said we could go if we promised to leave before dark.  We did.  However, African parties are never short and never end on time.  We arrived at 2:00 with the salads, dessert, and paper goods.  Actually everything except the meat which they promised to take care of.  I knew we were in trouble when our 10 chickens for the barbeque were still walking around.  Hours later we got a bit of pap and some chicken before we had to leave.  I felt bad leaving the others to clean up.  They never even asked why.  The beauty of our day was that we had 60 people out for our little group party and 50 out to church the next day.  That's a record.  We have already out grown our "new" building that you see in the picture.  The church is growing in Africa.  I actually have a cute story to tell you about the baptism picture you see up above.  That's in Tzaneen in our nice building where most of the Africans who attend are from the village of Nkowankowa.  Ed was asked to baptize the two ladies.  They were both afraid of water and especially going under water.  The one sister struggled to the point that both she and Ed toppled over in the water, and when she finally went all the way under the rest of us clapped.  The testimony meeting afterwards showed that the spirit was there in abundance in spite of our extra excitement.  We love serving, we love the people, and are grateful to be able to stay and continue the Lord's work.

We send you our love,   

Ed and Jolene, (mom and dad, grandma and grandpa and happily Elder and Sister Smith)