Dear friends,
We send you greetings and trust that 2024 is going well for you. Here we are looking forward with expectation to all that this year may hold.
Towards the end of last year, a new member of staff joined our team. Karin Siepker is working on reception. She greets and helps those who visit our office, bringing lessons to be marked or perhaps wanting to buy a bible. She also marks any lessons that we receive through the post. The postal service continues to experience some difficulties, but we are praying that solutions will be found to keep this vital service running.
We are delighted that we have been able to start visiting the schools in the area again, to encourage the pupils to learn important truths from the word of God, through our lessons. Calvin Khoza, who has worked at Emmanuel Press for 40 years, was eager to see this ministry running again, and volunteered to be the one to take it on. We approached Nico Englebrecht to ask his assistance in getting the work up and running again. Nico, his wife Cecilia and daughter Netanja have, between them, been responsible for running the Emmanuel Press schools ministry for a good number of years.
Nico has graciously returned to help and mentor Calvin in this important work. The reception they have received, from the schools visited, has been a great encouragement. They returned to the office, following their second weekly visit to the schools, with the names of 279 students eager to enrol on a course. Week 3 brought 108 more enrolments. What a wonderful start.
Emmanuel Press continues to print and distribute tracts which explain simply the message of the Gospel. With a desire to see this message spread more in our local area, we have recommenced an earlier project of supplying display stands holding tracts to shops and restaurants in our community. In it early stages now, we hope to see this project grow, to shine a light in White River and beyond.
As you remember the workers of Emmanuel Press, please could you pray for safety and protection over them. In January, Domingos was driving from Maputo to White River to collect another supply of lessons, certificates and tracts for the work that he is doing in Mozambique. It was a rainy morning. With a car coming towards him in the opposite lane, the large coal truck coming up behind him decided that it could squeeze down the inside of the single lane road. The truck had misjudged the situation, and his size, and scrapped along the side of Domingos’ small car, removing the mirror completely. Thankfully only the car was damaged. Domingos was unhurt, though shaken. Please pray that future journeys will be uneventful.
Thank you so much for your support of Emmanuel Press, which we truly appreciate.
“Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”
Psalm 119: 105
