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Hello From The Hornes - 2003:
September 30, 2003
GREETINGS FROM SOUTH AFRICA: As anticipated, our annual 2003 SABC
Lectureship which just ended was a huge success. As usual, we ourselves were
both featured speakers but the real stars of the event were the two from
overseas -- Doctor Harold Redd from Memphis and brother Russell Cook from
Knoxville, Tennessee. The attendance on Sunday morning was 450 and that evening
554, while the weekly daytime classes broke all records in attendance. Two
changes this year in the Lectureship program are as follows:
- Instead of each day's program beginning at 9 a.m., an "Early Bird'
lecture was instituted at 8 a.m. and,
- An extra day was added so instead of closing on the traditional
Wednesday night, the Lectureship ended on Thursday night.
A banquet was held on that final evening, featuring the students annual
"Parade of Flags" as well as the showing of a 33-year-old film called "Benoni,
Son of My Sorrow". It's the story of Southern Africa Bible College from its
beginning and even shows a young Donna and Al in their thirties in classroom
scenes. Now, nearly twice that age, we are still hanging in there with SABC. In
addition to Dr. Redd, we had three other houseguests during Lectureship -- Gayle
and Tom Baird from Kerrville, Texas, and Helen Smith from Auckland, NewZealand.,
who spoke on counselling to the ladies' groups. We had both a full house and
full hearts as we ended each day full of joy and gratitude for such a wonderful
time of inspiration and fellowship. Roll on, Lectureship 2004!
CHECK IT OUT: SABC now has a web site. Look it up at www.sabcollege.com
Many thanks to Gill Boyd who initiated our web site and to Ryan Steyn, our
oldest grandson and a senior Bible major at
Harding University in Arkansas, who worked extensively to develope it. Along
with pertinent information about the Bible College and the general bi-monthly
SABS-letter, it also features the weekly bulletin editorial of the Benoni
congregation written by Al.
CRIME IS UP: Unbelievably, crime is up 33% since 1994 when the new
government (ANC) first took over. This
information was in the Citizen News Paper,
July 28, 2003, and sources for the information are:
Central Statistics Service,
Interpol,
South African Medical Research Council and the
South African Department of Home
Affairs. At the same time,
United Christian Action reports the following crime statistics:
- Of every 1000 crimes committed, only 430 (43%) are arrested.
- Of these arrests, only 77 are convicted and only 8 of them are sentenced
to 2 or more years.
- Of all persons released from prison, 94% become involved in crime again.
- On average every day, 89 murders are committed.
- Back in the year 2,000 already, the
Medical Research Council (MRC) reported 32,482 murders.
- Interpol gives the per capita murder rate for South Africa as 59 per
100,000 whereas in the USA, it is only 6 per 100,000.
- Police corruption: 1 of 4 police officers in Johannesburg are under
investigation.
- Of the 700 "extremely well financed and superbly armed crime syndicates
operating in and from South Africa", not one ringleader has been arrested
thus far.
A MIXED BAG: Besides Lectureship,
everything that could happen did happen this month. The townhouse of one of our
Christian couples burned to the ground and they lost everything. Then Al held a
funeral service for a non-Christian family named Childs. One Sunday morning, Al
had someone stand in for him at Benoni church so he could preach for the
brethren in Vosloosrus. And don't forget the hospital visiting -- we had one
member in the surgical department of the Kempton Park Hospital and another two
patients in Benoni's hospital with terminal cancer. Meanwhile, out at SABC, we
moved our office to more spacious quarters. Also on the campus, we had intruders
break into the apartment of Kathy and Sam Wishart, Dean
of Academics, in the middle of the night. Kathy woke up and seeing
flashlight rays, awakened Sam. The silently moving thieves must have heard them
stirring and whispering and they left, taking with them Sam's Sanyo hi-fi set.
They'd cut the razor wire at the back of the property though no one can figure
out why the alarm didn't go off so the armed response link-up would come to
investigate! Then they'd entered through the end room of that building, standing
on a little table from the Wishart's front porch to cut the bars. It is
faith-building to see how time and time again, God's people are saved in
incidents like that from harm. It's like they say, "When God has work for you to
do, He'll see you through".
SHADES OF TYLENOL: Do you remember when Tylenol tablets were lethal
weapons of mass destruction so that they had to be put into tamper-proof
wrappers and packaging? Well, some South African lunatic spiked some containers
with cyanide poison at Pick 'n Pay, our largest supermarket chain. Three of
their name brand products (sardines, pilchards, and garlic flakes) were
reportedly poisoned and sure enough, to lend credence to the report, a customer
became deathly ill after eating a can of sardines. In a strange twist, the
perpetrator had labeled the cans as "poisonous" and then brazenly tried to
extort the supermarket with a series of financial demands. Now all the named
items have been recalled in a costly mass media advertising campaign. (Never let
it be said that South Africa is short on lunatics, so please don't export any of
yours to us).
IN CLOSING: Recently, one afternoon when Al was studying for his sermon,
he indulged himself in a Magnum ice cream bar when he noticed the words on the
wrapper. It was called "Greed" and had a "greed-o-meter" on it. On the front it
said, "Naughty No No's" and "You know you shouldn't. . ." On the back it said,
"You shouldn't be eating this, go back to work!" He commented, "Boy, when an ice
cream wrapper rebukes you, what chance have you got for happiness!!?" On that
decadent note, we bid you farewell for another month from across the ocean.
WITH ALL OUR LOVE AND APPRECIATION,
AL AND DONNA HORNE
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