Bezaleel Newsletter – March 2009

Dear friends

Our days have slipped into the steady stream of routine that school life brings and we are fast approaching the end of the first term of school this year. Our main direction for our homeschool life is drawn from Charlotte Mason’s principles of education. It is diverse and creative, rooted in God and His creation, exposing the children to a broad base of subjects, providing a strong foundation for further growth in any field they choose to follow. The cornerstone of our education is the bible, with us beginning most of our days in reading, discussion and prayer. It is a delight to share God’s word with the children. They regard it with wonder and awe and so readily believe its claims, and trust and love God who is its author.

We regularly pray for all of you we know by name or have personally met and I am often moved as I listen to those of you the children raise up to the Lord in prayer. The central emphasis of our education is good literature, living books as aopposed to textbooks which are often lifeless and boring and very often without context, reduced to snippets of information. We are blessed with a wonderful library of books collected over the last twenty eight years. As we have grown in the Lord and gained experience, some of what we’ve had has been discarded because it is twaddle or downright error doctrinally. One of my joys is to spend hours in mostly second-hand bookshops, pouncing on the treasures I have searched out there.

Beside my own personal reading I love children’s books and have read hundreds of them to the children. We also cover math, English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Shakespeare, World and South African history with geography, science and biology from a creationist point of view and also exposing the other views for what they are. We also do nature study, art appreciation and practice, craft, as well as music appreciation, practice and movement.

At the moment we are reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr, a Jewish woman, a story told by her as a child about her and her family’s experience escaping Hitler’s Germany early on because of her father’s views as a journalist. It is important to us for our children to know the biblical as well as the modern history of the Jewish nation and God’s purposes for Israel as well as to have a love for her people and know and understand our shared heritage in Christ to those who believe. Our schoolroom has thirteen children from the age of four to fifteen, roughly divided between two age groups of age-appropriate learning.

Herman, who is four years old, joined us this year for school. He is HIV+ and recently started ART. His grandmother needs a lot of support and encouragement as she faces the enormous task of caring for him and vacillates between despair and just managing to cope as she contemplates their future. I sometimes lose hope and wonder about the quality of his care and the likelihood of compliance to his treatment over the coming years.

Beside our own children, the Lord would have us come alongside others living with HIIV/AIDS such as Herman and his grandmother, Masesi and her foster Mom and for a short while Sam and Lorraine. I had the privilege of Sam sharing his testimony with me one afternoon in Salvador and Dianne’s home. I think the fact that we both spoke Afrikaans and both of our lives have been affected by apartheid, albeit on opposite sides of the fence so to speak (Sam a part of the oppressed and I a part of the oppressors, again so to speak) as we wrestled and bore the yoke of the times we lived in.

I was somewhat of a wild child, a part of the tail end of the hippie movement although you wouldn’t have believed it if you saw my hair and the clothes I wore, using the drugs of the day and deeply opposed to the government of the time. Allen first came to know the Lord in a very powerful way, set free from the captivity of drugs and all the depravity that goes with it and I, a few months later, the Lord doing a liberating work in our lives, setting us free from the bonds of sin and planting our feet firmly on the rock, our Lord Jesus Christ. I felt the same joy when Sam shared his life story with me and I am filled with gratitude that Sam had come to know the Lord in such a powerful way, experienced the love of God for him and the joy of his salvation. Sam used to call Salvador his teacher because he faithfully taught him to read from his Bible. He had a hunger for God’s word which was some of the fruit he bore in the short time before he went to be with the Lord.

As we walked alongside him with Dianne and Salvador, trying to access care and experiencing the reality of failed medical care available in South Africa and the barrage of HIV in South Africa, discouragement can set in. The Lord in His graciousness brought a truth to my attention regarding our service to Him. When we are overwhelmed by what is around us and when we feel we can no longer cope we begin to harden our hearts towards the very ones God has called us to minister to in an act of self-preservation. It’s somewhat of a paradox. He who finds his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for Christ’s sake will find it (Matt.10:39) and therein lays our strength. As we daily surrender our lives to Him and His mercy, His love and strength will flow through us and to us to effectively bear witness of Him to those He has sent us to. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John15:4, 5)

We want to thank you all for your faithful prayers and support for our children and ourselves. Clayton, by God’s grace began working in London eighteen days after he arrived, has found accommodation in Charleston and is attending Tony Pearce’s fellowship at Bridgelane. We praise the Lord for this provision. The children are well and busy preparing for their music concert on Sunday afternoon, with five of the girls having started singing classes and having their first performance on Sunday. Rosie is doing so well at ballet and her arm and leg are already showing tremendous improvement in muscle tone, flexibility and strength. Because of her disability they will not enter her for exams but she will nevertheless move up with the class. Please, can you continue to pray regarding the house we are living in.

May the Lord bless you all and please feel free to correspond with us. It brings tremendous encouragement to hear from you and know more about those of you who show care for us.

Allen and Sue