Dear Friends
The following story was written by our eldest daughter Martie:
We still remember.
A wonderful thing happened to us this week. We would like to share it with you. We hope and pray that it will encourage you as much as it did encourage us.
When we first moved to Onseepkans in 2011, we stayed in a different area. It is also situated in Onseepkans, but further downriver. We had a family from the local community as neighbours. We used to play with the toddlers from that home and the family also used to attend services at our house.
In 2013, when we moved to our present mission premises, we lost contact with this family. They moved to a different town and we were now many kilometres apart, and we did not often as children go back to that area.
In this week we were busy in the afternoon with some activities. A group of young boys arrived. We kindly greeted them. To our surprise, we found out that two of the boys where our old neighbours! When we last saw them, they were toddlers and pre-schoolers. Now they were grown boys of ten and eleven years of age.
We exchanged greetings and started to recall memories of the times when we used to be neighbours. We were surprised at all the things they remembered, how we used to play church, our father working with the tractor, and all our names. They were very excited to see us and to be with us again. They went home again later in the afternoon.
The next afternoon the two boys came again and they brought a friend. We were astonished to see them again. They had walked +- 8 km in the heat to visit us. We read them some Bible stories which they enjoyed. Afterwards, we took them to the field to greet our father and to see him working on the tractor. They were delighted.
We gave them some dates and our mother drove them home. The next day was a school so we didn’t want them to arrive home late. We encouraged them to come and visit us again. We told them they will always be welcome.
We are grateful for such a reminder of God’s Grace. Many times in such ways he shows us His love and care; it encourages us and spurs us on. It is our prayer that the Lord will protect them, be with them in a special way, and let them experience his love and care.
Martie sharing a Bible story with the young boys.
Some general farm news on Onseepkans mission
Date trees
This time of the year is date season at Onseepkans. We have 13 date trees around the house and each year these trees generate a huge amount of dates. Last year someone sponsored us a 9m ladder and this year for the first time we can properly harvest dates. Harvesting, sorting and packing dates take a lot of time and effort.
Some of our date trees
Our daughter Naomi sorting dates
Bunches of dates hanging from roof trusses
Seed Production
We are grateful that all of the seed produced in 2018 have been packed and sent to the factory. The last to send was the carrot seed. We are now busy preparing the fields for the vegetable crops to be planted in 2019.
Carrot seed packed and ready to go on the trailer.
Our mission vegetable garden
Some will remember that last year March we wrote how rev. Glen Barkhuizen and a team of young men from Moreson Mission came to help us to put a large area under the net. We have already harvested a lot of vegetables for the mission last year and could also distribute some in the community. This year we hope to plant a lot more, and focus on specific varieties that we found is working for us. One such variety is Bloody Butcher maize that we have planted with considerable success in the past few years. It is old American variety corn which has given us good yields for home use. We think the interesting name comes from the red-purple colour of the kernels. We had an early season harvest end of 2018 and hope to get another late harvest before middle winter.
Our son Willie in our mission garden with some kernels and young maize plants.
In conclusion
We again want to remind everyone about the Minister’s conference beginning March 2019 at Kwasizabantu mission. We hope to see you there.
Thank you for all your friendship, prayers and support.
May God continue to be your refuge and strength.
Gerhard, Elmane and children at Onseepkans Mission.
