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Jerry & Ann Hogg P. O. Box 11165, Rynfield 1514, South Africa June 30, 2008 Dear Friends and Loved Ones: While our bodies are tired from all our work and travels,
our minds and souls are refreshed from all the good things we experienced during
the month of June. In just over a week we went from the very top of South
Africa, 50 miles from the Zimbabwean border, to Cape Point, the very tip of
Africa! All by road, with me driving most of those miles (kilometres!) Fortunately for us, we get a lot of visitors during
summertime in the USA. The first Sunday in June found us preaching in Benoni
after being at the Tshidimbini church in Venda on Sunday May 25th where our
visitors, Robert Simpson and Blake Wilkerson, taught the Youth class and Dan
Spann and I both spoke during worship to the Adults. After that, we enjoyed a
few days of R&R in the Kruger National Park, followed by classes at the
Southern Africa Bible College the rest of that week. On the
second Sunday in June (8th), we were in Cape Town during a 3-day seminar, having
driven almost 1,000 miles. Funny thing was, having gone that far by car, we also
had to drive home again. Enroute back to Benoni that Sunday night, we stayed
overnight in a small town on the edge of the Great Karoo, a desert area
extending out of Namibia into the Northwestern Cape. The temperature that
morning was -3BC. Brrr, was
it cold! These visitors learned it is not always HOT in Africa, as many suppose! Arriving back in Benoni early Monday evening, we put our Knoxville visitors on the plane Tuesday headed home. We all appreciated the work these four did during their 19-day stay. The day after returning from the Cape, I prepared and administered exams for my first-year classes at SABC and completed grading their assignments. Curtis Hays had begun to assemble computers for our Student Computer Lab and he even showed me how to install additional memory to each unit. Later, after James Howard III and his 12-year-old son, James Howard IV, arrived on the 16th, he worked with me to download some software and help improve internet capability on the older computers we installed for our students. I don't know what we would have done without these 2 brothers (Curtis & James) who used their know-how of such technology to help SABC. James (from Buford, GA) also preached one Sunday night and spoke in chapel at SABC. We were blessed by their visit, and had some fun times together. Right offhand, I can think of 4 baptisms during June. One
was Heather, the daughter of Wendy Jenkins Bekker, who was a friend and same age
of our son, Rick. We have known Wendy since she was 7 mos. old in Boksburg.
Heather was baptized by her older brother (Ricci) who was named after our Rick,
so Wendy tells us. The Jenkins family were one of the prominent families when I
preached at Boksburg in the early seventies. Lew & Mickie Jenkins were already
members when we arrived in 1969, but I baptized his parents, Wendy's
grandparents, Heather & Ricci's
great-grandparents. Makes me feel quite old! After my sermon at the Central church in Cape Town the
8th, SABC graduate, Felicien Mulama (refugee from the
Congo, converted and trained here) baptized 2 Congolese that morning whom he had
taught. At Benoni the last Wed. night in June, another Congolese SABC graduate,
Gabriel, brought Gordon (a Zimbabwean) for baptism. Unfortunately, the
baptistery at Benoni was being repaired and had no water. Problem was quickly
solved when Sister Margaret Tonkin offered us her heated swimming pool for the
baptism. Margaret's
daughter, also another Wendy, and a friend and Asweetheart@
of Rick's long ago, teaches
swimming lessons year-round in that nice heated pool. How grateful we were to
solve this problem in such a fine way and to witness yet another conversion and
baptism by a former student. One-by-one God is blessing the church here. Because of your faithful support and interest in the work
at SABC, we do our part to train others as workers in the Kingdom. As we hear it
is in the USA, petrol has gone sky-high in SA, as well. On our mission trips to
Venda and Cape Town, we paid up to $5.75 and sometimes $5.95 per gallon
(R9.83/litre). The cost here is figured in litres and paid with Rand, but when
converted, it is beyond reason what we are paying. However the cost, our joint
efforts have proven to be very fruitful in reaching many from different parts of
Africa. God has no way to spread the Good News but through us. We trust you are
all well at this time. God bless. Training Men for the Master in Africa, |
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