News from the Eichstadts

Marie WritesThis has been a much quieter year for me in so many areas.  Last year I stood in at Sophumelela Aids Centre for seven months as Project Co-ordinator.  This was a great experience and I really learned a lot in regards to working in a South-African cross cultural environment. 

A wonderful blessing to me was to help out at a Project Management Consulting firm.  It was a great way to end the year and taught and encouraged me in relationship to teamwork and leadership.  I am really grateful for the opportunity to learn from Louis and his team.

Currently I only work every two to three weeks for two days only.  Jaco is a Neurophysiologist and flies down from Johannesburg and I do reception work.  I also volunteer as a councillor at Breath of Life which is a ministry to Abortion Vulnerable Woman.  This is a wonderful way to sharpen my counselling skills and training again. I am also involved in a fundraising team for our Hope School that is part of Sophumelela centre.  We had a tea that raised nearly R30 000-00 and in November we will run a Christmas Craft Fair. 

Nicole is in Grade 11 and it is quite a shock to the system to realise our girl has only got one more year in school and if all goes well she will be heading off to university the year after.  That’s right:  university!!  She would like to become a high school teacher with History and Drama as her main subjects.  Rowing season has started and this will be Nicole’s last season to participate. She received half colours for her rowing acheivments.

Nicole also had the opportunity to participate in the Eisteddfod (competitive festival of the arts e.g. Drama and poetry.) I always enjoy going to watch her ‘perform’.  We are also very proud of her as she has improved in her academics and got another Academic Merit. This term she will really have to work very hard as we will be looking at bursaries to help her to go study in 2013.

Neil is just starting with building another home for Restore Home Trust.  This will be the only one this year.  Even though you want to build so many houses for so many people there are a lot of technicalities and legal matters to work through before the work can start.  So we are very happy to get started at last.  During the year he has helped a lot with computer related issues at First City and Sophumelela Clinic.

Neil is also currently working on a possible project in Natal which will involve bring a design international design team out to work in conjunction with MMM.  To design a master plan for the development of a church site on the N2 near Port Shepstone.  We are looking at a team from eMi (Engineering Ministries International) spending two weeks on site to develop the plan and related documentation which would include a fund raising brochure to assist the church.

While the eMi team is here Neil would like to see some professional SouthAfricans also join the project and work alongside the team from eMi to see how they work and then incorporated this much needed aspect of ministry development into the services that MMMSouthAfrica offers.  There is a tremendous need for good planning of projects in South Africa particularly in Christian ministries.

My mother got very ill whilst on holiday and Neil and his dad had to go fetch them and bring them to us in East London.  I did a three day road trip with them down to Cape Town when my mother was better to travel.  My half-brother Jurie (age 59) passed away and Neil’s granny also passed away at the age of 102!!  A highlight was a visit from Frank (our friend from the ships and Bremen).

We just celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving and next month we will celebrate American Thanksgiving!  Having international friends is truly wonderful!

Praise:

• Thanks for good health and strength. 
• This has been a really tough year financially.  We had to really cut back but we are so grateful for the faithful support and our churches, friends and family.
• Prayer support as we see Nicole grow in all areas of her life.
• We can stay in a wonderful house in Cape Town again and this year my sister and her husband are coming to visit.  Have not seen them in four and a half years!!!  So exciting!

Prayer:

• Our walk with the Lord as we face problems so many times instead of facing right up to God.
• We already put feelers out for ministry opportunities in 2013.  Let the right doors open.
•  We have to renew our efforts in area of support raising.  May we be let to the right people and that we can form a strong focused team.  This is the most difficult part of being in ministry especially in the current financial climate and not being ‘out’ on the field.