HELLO FROM THE HORNES:                                         May 31, 2007

SPRING FLING is a past thing as today it gave way to the splish-splash of summer! The Municipal Olympic Pool, which incidentally is located just down the street from our house here in Kerrville, opened officially today for the swimming season. Which reminds us that Louis Gerber, a SABC graduate and Benoni Christian, recently raised money to purchase 10 portable baptistries for his prison ministry. Made of canvas on a large frame, each baptistry cost $100 which was very reasonable. In fact, the Benoni church quickly raised that amount and like the people in Exodus 36:6-7, they were "restrained from bringing more because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work". Meanwhile, our Riverside congregation here in Kerrville will soon be getting its own baptistry. The men have been meeting regularly to push along plans to begin the immanent construction of our new church building. The schedule calls for a ground-breaking ceremony in July but with so many delays already, most of the men remain cautiously optimistic!

UP TO SPEED: Southern Africa Bible College in Benoni is also making great strides in I.T., thanks to generous brethren who sent funds for our staff members to have new computers and gain internet access. What a blessing to have reliable equipment and to be up and running! Then with the arrival at SABC of Curtis Hays and family on May 23, four of their seven suitcases contained computer hardware which had been donated for the college. SABC is grateful as well to Jerry Hogg, faculty member and fellow-missionary, who was the main driving force behind the acquisition and installation of the computers. To all of you who donated towards this wonderful cause, thank you! Our library was also blessed this month with the return to SABC of Dan and Carolyn Spann who further catalogued and trained our student-librarian. Accompanying them were Robert Simpson and Blake Wilkerson who conducted special seminars and taught our Benoni and Venda youth. Good folks who will come and help always leave an indelible mark on the hearts of those whom they help. 

XENOPHOBIC ATTACKS IN SOUTH AFRICA: The violence started a few weeks ago in the country's smallest but richest province of Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg. In just a few days, horrific acts of violence against foreign Africans had spread to at least seven of the country's nine provinces as well as the popular tourist resorts of Cape Town and Durban. Multitudes of displaced foreigners (illegal aliens) remained in camps set up to accommodate the victims of violence, while thousands were streaming back to their home countries. Typical was Mozambique where a state of emergency was declared, leading to the release of money and aid to help those fleeing back home. As for Malawi, after receiving distress calls via their diplomats in South Africa, the government rented buses to bring back its citizens. One woman returning home wept, "We have lost everything!

We had to flee and leave all our property after a crowd of machete-wielding young men attacked our house. We just ran with our lives!" Another displayed a bandaged head and said he had been hacked "savagely." As for the majority of those against whom the violence was directed, Zimbabweans suffered the most. You could guestimate the extent of it when told they preferred to return to their own dangerous and poverty-stricken country rather than remain in South Africa. But why all the violence in the first place? It stemmed from a domestic dispute with South Africans claiming that foreigners had come in from the neighboring countries of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe and stolen their jobs! And now to remain in South Africa, was to jeopardize their lives. Safety and Security Minister, Charles Nqakula, acknowledged this week that putting soldiers on the streets was sensitive since they were trained to kill, not to enforce the law! A very sad state of affairs indeed!

(On a lighter note, as it happened, we ourselves left violence and crime behind in South Africa when we moved here to work temporarily with Riverside. Only to discover when we returned from our March mission trip to South Africa that while we were away, a new couple had moved in next door. Their names? The Crooks, no kidding! So here we are in safe little old Kerrville, Texas, living right next door to the Crooks! Quick, call the cops!)

BUSY, BUSY: Included in our work load this month, we made a two-day visit to Houston to attend a meeting with our long-time faithful sponsors, the Memorial Church of Christ. The occasion  related to the SABC Endowment Fund we are trying to promote. We also made a 3-day visit to Fort Worth to celebrate Memorial Day with two of our children living there.  [We had not seen our daughter, Lisa, and her family since Christmas.] Earlier Al conducted a funeral for a sister in Christ who died on her 64th birthday. Unfortunately, though resident in Kerr county for over two years, she and her Christian husband had never gotten around to placing membership with the church and was virtually unknown to us in Kerrville. That situation made us really sad.  We also made our first contact with the city jail where we visited a young woman from out-of-town who had fallen foul of the law and was  beginning a year's sentence for drug abuse and related crimes. Please pray for her rehabilitation. Though she had been baptized, she was still a long way from the kingdom. 

IN CLOSING: This past month of May has been non-stop with activity and looking at our schedule this coming month of June, it appears the same. At the college, the semester will be ending mid-June with exams following and the mid-year winter break. Meanwhile here in Texas, I am extending  my teaching load by taking on, in addition to preaching both services on Sundays, the adult Morning Bible Class and the Wednesday Night Study. As SABC Director Fred Bergh put it, "It seems like we are being prepared for the 'Siberian salt mines.'  We should be able to take that in our stride -- imagine working with the salt of the earth for a change!" And now, with the reminder that we are the salt of the earth, we are bid you adieu. . . Please keep us in your hearts and in your prayers. Please remember, too, that we desperately need your financial support for the Bible College and for the reaching out to the lost of Africa. 

With love and gratitude from your fellow-workers,
Al and Donna Horne.

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