Who actually cares? the 'festive season' in the townships (by tony)

Laurie-Ann and I wish you and your family a meaningful and merryish Christmas 2017. Our missionary training in Mozambique last year bore fruit - here we are beginning a 3-year mission in Worcester, Western Cape, South Africa.  We both just felt a powerful pull to do this, and after my retirement there was no massive reason why not to. After all, look at her, this 13 year old in a township slum here in Worcester. By the way, she is an accomplished simultaneous interpreter (English - Afrikaans). The message screams at you - how could we turn away from it? My life has been smooth sailing so far. I won the lottery by being born a white Anglo-Saxon protestant in UK. I never went hungry in my life. My health is strong. And I am married to my sweetheart Laurie-Ann who loves the Lord - as I do!

Time to give back. Time to give time to people who have nothing but time, and hunger, and little prospect of change. They need hope and they need a friend. Even without speaking their language we can give human touch and show we care for them, each one. And every one is special and deserving. And they want to hear about things we can teach them, and Jesus.

And every couple of weeks, one of their parents gets shot in a gang fight, or killed by a hit man who never met them and had no reason to kill them except he was ordered by the gang leaders, probably in prison at the time, who needed a kill to move up the gang hierarchy.

2017 was the year of planning for this; downsizing (again), finding tenants for our condo, selling cars, selling records after digitizing them and all the other music, digitizing many hundreds of photos, giving talks in hopes of raising support for the mission, passing on responsibilities to others, saying goodbye. L-A had a job for 13 months as social media and administrative assistant to Darren Canning, a prophetic itinerant Christian storyteller. She honed her Internet skills and used them to create our excellent mission web site. I contributed nothing to this, though now I post to our Facebook and Twitter sites. Her health hasn't been too good - still isn't, due to a heavy hitting cold - but that didn't hold her back. She has such courage. Her art has blossomed ever since we went to Africa last year. She likes to draw the places we have stayed and give the result to the owners to bless them. Many end up on Facebook. Her latest project is the Kibbutz El-Shammah, an oasis within the Roodewal township. Will appear on Facebook and the "more art in South Africa" page.

We are spending Christmas with our friends and Afrikaans tutors and if possible, to join the Iris Robertson cluster in feeding the needy.  We're not set up yet for that kind of ministry in Worcester, but we can do this kind of outreach next Christmas.  Of note that Boxing Day isn't Boxing Day in South Africa - it's the Day of Goodwill.  This certainly sounds like an invitation to stop for the one.

To you all: Faith, joy, and prosperity (in that order!)
Love and God Bless
Tony (and Laurie-Ann)

Copples' giving page if you feel so led to visit

Copples Western Cape website

Christmas lights in the central Worcester square