January 2005

New Years greetings to each of you! One can scarcely believe that the first month of the year has already passed into history. This year, one senses, is pregnant with hope for Anathoth. We continue to watch, wait and listen to discern God’s will for all of us here in 2005.

It has been a busy month at Anathoth. We returned to the property after the Christmas break to find that successive severe hail storms had accentuated leaks in parts of the thatching. Subsequent inspections revealed that the thatch was becoming increasingly sparse in places over the office. The end result is that we now have a brand new thatched hat on the office area as well as the Conference Centre.

Anathoth was the venue for the memorial service of Mrs. Jacky Langhorn, our neighbour from Briarnook Kennels. She was tragically killed in a motor car accident on the corner of Howard Road and the main tar road adjacent to Anathoth. Our condolences to John and Yvonne Gallow, our next door neighbours on the passing of their mother. The service was a remarkable celebration of the life of Jacky, with many fond memories being shared by a wide variety of folk whose lives had been impacted by this remarkable woman.

The Kahtlahong Emmaus Reunion group, led by Rev. Isron Thlolwe met at the property one Sunday in January, and they all expressed delight at the state of the grounds, which are looking very lush, green, neat and tidy. The grass cutting equipment purchased in October is being put to good use by Johannes and the Pienaar family.

We are proceeding with the installation of shelving to just below window level in the Conference Centre. This is in readiness for regular shipments of books and printed resources from our Nashville headquarters. We are really excited at the prospect of being able to offer quality Christian resources to clergy at no cost to them. We envisage distributing the books by holding regular book festivals at the property. Invitations to the events will go out to all denominations once the shipment arrives. AURM will pay for the shipping costs of these resources and, in return, will be asking for donations to defray these costs from the recipients of the books. Sounds like fun!

Further exciting news is that St. Mark’s UMC in Tucson, Arizona has decided that they will make a substantial contribution towards the regular radio broadcast of The Upper Room daily devotional in another language (yet to be decided, but it looks like a choice between isiZulu and Swahili) into rural parts of Africa. This assists us significantly in our calling that every person in Africa spend time with God each day. The medium of communication will simply change from print to the spoken word.

A new feature of the Anathoth News this year will be from time to time to introduce readers to various indigenous words, history and customs from Africa. We came upon the word “Lesedi”. Lesedi is a Sotho word that means “light”. It was made famous by the great leader and founder of the South Sotho nation, Moshoeshoe. During the terrible Mfecane wars, refugees from many nations joined him and were saved by him. Each morning, legend has it, Moshoeshoe would awaken and walk out into the new day with this expression on his lips….”Ke Bona Lesedi” – I see the light. Our respective cultures are the light of the nation. Without the traditions and cultures woven into the fabric of our societies, we are nothing. For us as Christians, the light of Christ needs to burn brightly in our lives. We need to shed that light each day in the lives of those we meet. May God give us courage and strength to bring that light to the world.

In future issues of the Anathoth News, we will always close with the phrase “ Peace is my Sister”. These words come from a man widely regarded as the African Socrates, the founding father of the Basotho nation, Mohlomi. By this he meant that a sister was in a fragile position in society and needed to be looked after, protected and cherished.

Peace is my Sister.

We go forward –
Roland Rink