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Praise God for the sacrificial death and victorious resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ! We enjoyed a beautiful fall day as we celebrated Easter with the saints. We thank God that two fellowships are gathering weekly in Worcester and are growing in their understanding of what it means to be the church. These groups are gathering for fellowship, worship and ministry. Many of those who are involved are so hungry for a deeper and more meaningful expression of the body of Christ. We really believe that this is what God is doing in these days across the earth. He is drawing the hearts of His people back to the basics of loving Him and gathering around their common relationship with Jesus! He is making His body ONE. We are blessed and excited to be a part of what He is doing.
April was full of various activities for us as a family. The children had one of the yearly holidays from school for two weeks around Easter. We were able to go with some friends on a short camping trip which was lots of fun. The kids really enjoyed the experience (except for Natalie getting pushed into the river by one of the other kids just after she had bathed and prepared for bed!) It was a really relaxing time. Wesley had minor surgery during April to have tubes put in his ears and his adenoids removed. He did really well and we believe the tubes are helping with his speech development. Thanks to all of you who are praying for the kids and especially for Wesley's development in these areas.
We have been really blessed this month by a new relationship with a man from a nearby city that Cliff recently met. His name is Kobus Swart and his wife is Hazel. Kobus is a very mature apostolic father with over 30 years experience in ministry. When he and Cliff met for the first time, they really felt strongly that their relationship was ordained by the Lord. We had lunch together as couples and really enjoyed our time with them. It is so encouraging to see God bringing people like Kobus and Hazel into our lives to be our friends and help us mature in our journey.
We continue to believe more than ever that God is busy literally "connecting" the members of His body together in ways that is going to ultimately bring about the perfect unity of the body of Christ. We are living in a season where all of us who love the Lord with all our hearts need to be very sensitive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives and to obey Him at all times. Perhaps the most important area that we can all do this is the area of relationships. Everything the Lord wants to do today in His church and through His body is done through relationships. This is the most powerful way for the Lord to accomplish His purposes and to build His church!
Thanks so much for your prayers and love. We pray your month is filled with a wonderful awareness of the nearness of God and His unfailing love for you.
Cliff, Stephanie, Camille, Natalie, and Wesley
I have been so impressed lately that we need to be aware that the Lord is always directing our steps. Proverbs 16:9 says, "The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps." This verse can almost sound trivial and harmless. We might say, "No problem, I'll plan my way and the Lord will direct me along that way." This type of understanding of this verse doesn't quite get the meaning. This verse is actually a profound challenge to each of us to consider how we relate to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives each and every day.
One of the greatest temptations we have as believers is to reason in our minds about how we will act and things we will do in life. Notice the verse says the "mind" of the man plans his way. Our minds are the greatest obstacle between us and the will of God in our lives. That is why Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is." As those who love God with all our hearts and desire to fulfill His purposes for our lives, we have to constantly resist the temptation to make our plans by our natural understanding. The truth of the matter is our plans made with our minds seldom, if ever accomplish the purposes of God. That is why the Lord in His love and grace for us still directs our steps, even when we make our plans with our minds. The point I think we really need to see is that we have to be aware at all times that the Lord is directing our steps. What this means practically is that we have to constantly be aware that God is directing our steps and that we must remain sensitive to His leadership. In order to do this we have to be willing to lay down our own agendas and plans that we have set up through our own reasonings. This takes humility of mind and a desire to obey the Lord at all costs. We often don't understand the leadership of the Spirit in our lives at first. But if we will follow His promptings in our hearts and allow Him to direct our steps we will see His hand in our lives and His purposes will be crystal clear.
Just last week we were invited to spend time with some friends on Friday night for their son's birthday party. They had a big evening planned and we figured it was a good way to spend a Friday night. However, I could not get a peace about committing to be there. All week we put off the decision to join them, the whole time thinking why don't we just go. On Friday morning I received a phone call from another friend who urgently requested that Stephanie and I join her and several others to pray together concerning some important issues involving a ministry here in town. I immediately knew that this was God directing our steps for that night. It is not at all because we were gathering to pray that we were somehow more pleasing to the Lord. The point is that we resisted making our plans when we felt the quiet prompting of the Spirit and we simply waited for the Lord's direction.
I have to admit that many times I have "missed it" because I was committed more to going my way than I was to allowing the Lord to direct my steps. I think we will all be amazed at what God is busy doing in and through our lives if we will stay sensitive to His Spirit's leading.
Believers
gathering on Resurrection Day for food, fellowship and worship. |
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| The Easter Egg Hunt. . . | |||||||||||||||||
| South Africans don't hunt for Easter eggs, they give chocolate bunnies to their children. Luckily Stephanie's parents brought some plastic Easter eggs when they came in March. The South Africans love learning about American traditions. We enjoy learning about their's as well, especially chocolate bunnies! | |||||||||||||||||
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 Wesley filled his bag full! |
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Cliff
hides the eggs.
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