More Blessings

12 November 2009

Dear Pastors and Prayer Partners,

Three boys sat together during the preaching Brent, 12 yrs old, Jodie, 11, and Marco, 12. They confronted me as soon as church was dismissed. Teacher, why doesn’t Marco have a Bible like ours? He got saved at camp, you know. Good question. Camp was back in July! We have a box of beautiful BEAMS Bibles to give out to new converts. After camp, I stopped by Marco’s home several times. Either I was there when it was his weekend with his real mother or the house was full of people and we got sidetracked talking to his father or aunt. I went to fetch a Bible and sat down to talk to Marco. He looked nervous. I explained that these Bibles had been given by people who wanted new Christians to have a Bible of their own. I had heard that he was saved at camp. I just want to know, what did you ask Jesus to do for you when you prayed that day at camp? He brightened right up and told me that he had asked Jesus to forgive him and be his Saviour. He told me that he had wanted to accept Christ as his Saviour in Sunday School but then thought, “what if I got saved and all my sins were gone and then I sinned again?!! Wouldn’t that be bad? And so I didn’t do it. Then I listened to the teaching at camp and I understood. I understood that it would be alright. And so I did it.” Sometimes as a teacher, I am so sure that I see conviction on a face and wonder, “what is hindering that child from being saved today?” We have a wonderful Lord who speaks to individual hearts.

Keith had a sudden pain in his side and was so short of breath that he was utterly miserable. One of his lungs had collapsed! With long lines at the government clinic, a shortage of doctors, chaos with every shift change, it was 24 hours before his lung was re-inflated and he could rest in a bed but Keith was rejoicing when we saw him the second day. He’d led his roommate to the Lord in the early morning. Nyanga died just a few days later.

Tania moved into a tiny backyard apartment near the church a few months ago. She told me that she’d accepted Christ as her Saviour just a year ago while attending the Assembly of God church. She visited our services because we are now so close. It was difficult for her with a 6 yr old and a big baby to walk to her old neighborhood. She attended all of our services for a month and then quit. She started coming again. One Sunday evening she stayed to talk. Tania had started smoking again and some other things were bothering her. She wanted to feel clean. Did I think she should rededicate her life and be baptized again? We looked at 1 John 1:9 and then I turned to John chapter 13 where Jesus is washing the disciples feet. Peter had objected to Jesus washing his dirty feet but Jesus said ‘if I don’t wash you, you aren’t mine’. Now Peter wanted Jesus to wash his feet, hands and head, the equivalent of a bath. In vs 10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed (bathed) needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. I explained that Jesus was teaching a great truth, this is an object lesson. Jesus was telling Peter that when he was saved, all of his sins had been forgiven, washed away and he was clean. He was saying, ‘Peter, you disciples have been washed clean, but not all, - that refers to Judas Iscariot’. Tania interrupted me, “You mean Judas had never… Judas had never been baptized?” Then she gave her head a little shake, “no. That’s not it. Is it? It’s not the water.” We went back to 1 John 1:9. We confess our sins and He washes every sin away (one bath) and then for the rest of our lives, we confess the sins that sneak in or pop up and He washes our feet to keep us clean. Pray for Tania to come faithfully that she might learn and grow. I think also that she’s been to several churches listening to different teaching. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice and another they will not follow.” Pray that she’ll know which church is teaching the truth and stick to it.

The Lord has really blessed us. Albert Richter and his wife, Sandy, have recently returned to South Africa after years of working and living in Australia. They came back to South Africa when Sandy needed medical care not covered by their insurance in Australia. This couple loves the Lord. They worked for years representing Regular Baptist Press Sunday School material. Albert has experience both preaching and pastoring. They have years of experience training Sunday School teachers. Albert is working as a tax accountant both to earn a living and pay for medical insurance. They couldn’t see their way clear to starting deputation to raise full time support at their age but asked the Lord if they could do relief work for missionaries. Albert has been preaching and helping another Independent Baptist missionary who suffered a heart attack and needed to curtail his activities and stress level for a while. He comes highly recommended. We feel as though the Lord has given us a precious unexpected gift. As South Africans they speak both English and Afrikaans. They have a heart for the Coloured people. And they would love to help our church for 6 months while we are gone on furlough!

We are planning on being in the States from March 2010 – August 2010, 6 months. If you would like us to report back to your church during this time please let me know so we can work out a time. I can be reached at joblanton@gmail.com or jblanton@telkomsa.net , we also receive normal mail at PO Box 19617, Lentegeur 7786, South Africa.

Your Missionaries,
Jeff & Judy Blanton

Rejoicing!!!

Jeff & Judy Blanton

South Africa

14 October 2009

Dear Pastors and prayer partners,

We’re praising the Lord that Ambrose accepted Christ as his Saviour! We’ve known him since he was about 7 years old. Ambrose is bright, he could read before other kids his age had learned yet but he had some problems. While most others sat quietly, Ambrose patted his knees with his hands or snapped his fingers by his knees. He turned his head and watched the flannel graph pictures change using only his peripheral vision or cocked his head toward the ceiling while listening to the story. He never volunteered to answer a question but when I called on him, he knew the right answers. We got used to Ambrose being different. If something catches his interest, he’s intensely interested, otherwise he’s in his own world. He doesn’t look people in the eye, doesn’t care for conversation and he isn’t interested in making friends.

Ambrose turned 13 yrs old. He seems calmer, chewing gum during church instead of patting his knees. The teen SS class doesn’t use flannel graph. They discuss verses and fill in an outline. Ambrose is bored and his attention wanders. Keith calls on Ambrose frequently in an effort to help him focus. Ambrose started coming to Friday afternoon teen time. He doesn’t listen well. Pretty soon the others his age are looking at him because he’s done or said something that seems odd with the result that Ambrose often bursts out with, “what are you staring at?” He’s been dragging his feet on Sunday mornings to the point that his Mother had to leave him at home a few times.

Wilma had told us a couple of years ago that Ambrose prayed with her at home asking Jesus to be his Saviour but we’ve never been able to get him to talk about it. So we were surprised Sunday when Ambrose came forward and asked to be baptized.

We were talking about Ambrose on Thursday. Keith was concerned that he might not be saved. Part of their SS lesson that same morning brought out the fact that Nicodemus didn’t understand how to be saved. Keith called on Ambrose to tell the class how to be saved. Ambrose tried to explain it but got confused and quit. Why did he ask to be baptized an hour later? We talked about how difficult it is to get Ambrose to answer a question with a whole sentence instead of a shrug, a look, or mumbles. We prayed. We prayed that the Lord would help us get his attention and that Ambrose would open up and talk! We prayed for his salvation.

There was a youth rally Friday night. I picked Ambrose up first and asked him to sit up front in the pick-up. “Ambrose, tell me again why you want to be baptized?” “Pastor, I want to make sure my name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (Now that is a whole sentence! Something from the sermon got through too.) “That’s good Ambrose. But being baptized isn’t how you get your name in the Book of Life.” “Oh.” It looked like Ambrose deflated. He turned his head toward the window. I explained that baptism is a witness after salvation. Was he listening?

At the rally, Ambrose leaned forward and listened intently for 30 minutes! The guest speaker told that God compares each of us to his own perfect Son and we fall short. He gave an illustration of a time in his own life when he knew that he’d ‘blown it’. Only mercy had saved him. He got out his Passport and talked about the Visa that allowed him to come into South Africa. His desire to come and the money spent on the ticket would have been wasted without that Visa. Ambrose raised his hand for prayer.

Time to go home and Ambrose rushed for the seat up front! We got on the road and I asked, “Ambrose what did you think of the speaker?” He said, “I’ve figured it out. I need to be more like Jesus!” “Good. Now how are you going to do that?” He thought about it a long time before he answered, “I can’t be like Jesus. I’ve blown it. I need that Visa to get into heaven.” “And how do you get the Visa, Ambrose?” “Pastor, I really did listen but I don’t know how to get the Visa.” “Ambrose, all you have to do is ask.” “Just ask?” “Ambrose, if you needed bread and went to the shop –what would you ask for?” He looked at me like I was crazy. “So would you hand the man your money and say ‘give me a Coke’?” No! “Ambrose, people tell me that they want to be forgiven, want Jesus as their Saviour, want their name in the Lamb’s Book of Life but when I ask them to pray… They say, “our Father which art in heaven…” Ambrose do you know that prayer? Yes, he can say that prayer. Is there anything in that prayer about wanting Jesus as your Saviour or your name in the Book of Life? No, not really. “Ambrose, talk to the Lord and ask for what you want.” By this time, we’d dropped the other teens off at their homes. We pulled over and Ambrose prayed a long prayer asking the Lord to be his Saviour.

Look what God did. When we thought Ambrose was in his own world, the Lord got his attention. The Lord focused our attention on Ambrose so that we prayed for him. The Lord sent a good speaker. We didn’t think Ambrose could pay attention for more than a few minutes but he kept that train of thought through a 30-minute devotion and a 30-minute drive home! The Holy Spirit opened his understanding and brought conviction. He wasn’t just parroting words. In the middle of his long prayer, he slowed down, and then he said, “Lord, you know, I prayed this prayer before… back then I was just saying the words but this time I really mean it.” I filled the baptistery and baptized Ambrose on Sunday

Your Missionaries,

Jeff & Judy Blanton

Good intentions not enough

Dear Pastors and praying friends,

Last month we ordained Nicholas Perrang to the Gospel Ministry. Immediately afterwards, Bro. Perrang baptized a few more converts and all the baptized members signed the charter organizing into the Atlantis Bible Baptist Church. It was a wonderful day of rejoicing for all of us. An odd thing happened that day. Bro. Perrang and another man came to tell us later that a woman caught up in the excitement of the hour jumped into the line and signed the charter as a founding member who didn’t qualify to be a church member! She had attended their services for months. She professed to be born again but came from a charismatic church in Namibia. They had urged her to accept Baptist baptism and become a member but she had refused. Bro. Perrang couldn’t get to her fast enough to quietly pull her out of the line before she signed as a member. A few weeks later, our ladies hosted a ladies meeting on National Women’s Day and invited the ladies of Atlantis BBC to join us. Between times for lessons, handcrafts and refreshments we all had a good time getting better acquainted. At some point I found myself sitting next to this lady. She was smiling and telling me how she had realized that day that she just had to be a part of this church. Yet I knew that 3 weeks had gone by since that day and she’s still not baptized.

Desmond stood up in church and testified that his heart had been touched and he’d decided that he needed to do something, to stand up and be a part of this church and really serve the Lord. Weeks later different ones were asking “Pastor, why hasn’t Desmond been baptized yet?” Because after that church service Desmond has never responded to the invitation to walk down the aisle and ask to be baptized and join the church!

Siann stayed after a church service for almost an hour and we went through the Romans Road and talked about repentance and salvation. I didn’t know Siann very well. When my mind searched for an example of repentance I had no idea that the one I came up with would land like a brick on her toes. I told Siann that some people wanted to accept Christ as their own ‘get out of hell free card’ while they continued with the life of sin that they were enjoying. True repentance means that we agree with God that sin is wrong, feel some sorrow over that sin and agree to give it up. So if a woman had perhaps been living with her boyfriend acting as though they were married and she asked the Lord to be her Saviour, she would have to go home afterwards and tell her boyfriend that she wouldn’t be sleeping with him anymore. Siann wanted some time to think about all of this. I visited her in her home a few days later and she told me that she’d made up her mind. She asked the Lord to be her Saviour with a very short prayer. It’s been several months now and Siann is still living with her boyfriend. She assures me that they are planning on getting married and he is going to pay a lawyer and adopt her 4 year old little girl too so both the children will have the same last name, etc. But they aren’t married.

This past Saturday we had another ladies meeting. Two of our long time members gave their testimonies. One lady ended her testimony with “and every week after the preaching, I look into the class where the littlest ones are coloring and my heart goes out to them. They are so precious and I want so much to be in there with them but my husband doesn’t want me to get so involved. So I have to be content with knowing that I’m being a submissive wife.” I was shocked. She wasn’t even asking us to pray that the Lord would change his heart!

Each of them is acting as though good intentions are the same as having actually done it! We’re trying to build churches here. “What doth hinder?” and Philip baptizing the Ethiopian keep going through my mind. Pray for all of us. Pray that we will serve the Lord with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.

Your Missionaries,

Jeff & Judy Blanton

A Saint Goes Home

Dear Pastors and praying friends,

We buried Michael Whitlend on the 20th of June. Funerals for the saved sure are better than those for the lost. As I stood before the packed auditorium, I was able to give them Michael’s own testimony. A year ago, Michael was doing his best to avoid me as I visited in his parent’s home before his father’s death and during the time of his Dad’s funeral. But when Michael himself became seriously ill, he called for me. By the time I got to the hospital, he’d changed his mind about calling for the preacher. Said he’d been thinking about it and realized that he’d been prepared to bargain with God; but it won’t work, Pastor. It doesn’t work like that does it? At that point Michael wanted God to restore his health so he could go back to work to earn the money to support his drug habit! He’d been quite content with his life. It was weeks later that Michael confessed his sin and accepted Christ as his Saviour. He lived another six months with drug resistant TB. He couldn’t walk a block down the street without almost fainting from difficulty breathing. He didn’t stand before the church to give a public testimony, he wasn’t baptized and didn’t become a member though when an old acquaintance asked ‘do you still smoke (drugs) as much as you used to?’ he answered, ‘no. I read my Bible now.’ At the close of the funeral sermon his aunt raised her hand for prayer. When we returned from the cemetery she came to tell me that she needed to do what Michael had done. Levine was ready to ask Christ to be her Saviour. Levine’s husband is quite uncomfortable with her decision to accept Christ as her Saviour. He has been quite active in his own church for years, living a life of good works. His fellow church members obviously agree as they’ve made him a deacon. He knows people who talk about accepting Christ as Saviour and being ‘born again’ but he doesn’t see any need for it himself since he’s never really been a sinner.

We’ve just finished with taking children and teenagers back and forth to the various camps for their age groups. Keith and I have become the unofficial fix-it guys for the camp. This year we fixed a hot water heater and hung baboon proof lights in the shell of a new all-purpose building. Some of those kids thought the invasion of 30 baboons that came from the top of the mountain looking for food was the highlight of camp! Kim, one of our church members, led 2 of the girls in her cabin to the Lord. 10-year-old Marco has been attending Sunday School for the past few months as he’s come to live with his real father and stepmother now. Belinda (his stepmother) testified at Ladies meeting that Marco came to tell her that he’d accepted Christ and asked 15 yr old stepbrother Hayden, ‘so, when are you going to get your heart right’? She welcomed him with the words “now, there are 2 of us to pray for the family. I’m not alone anymore.”

Thank you for sending us to South Africa,

Your Missionaries,

Jeff & Judy Blanton

Sunday School

27 May 2009

Dear Pastors and prayer partners,

One of the national pastors called to ask for Sunday School lessons for all ages, in Afrikaans to teach how we got our Bible. Teach something of the men God inspired to write. How about a song with a catchy tune to teach the names of the Books of the Bible? (in Afrikaans not English) Knowing that we’ve been missionaries so long and used to work exclusively in Afrikaans, he was pretty confident that I could open a file drawer and pull out a series of 6 – 8 lessons complete with handwork and take-home pages!

Now this is something I’ve roughly pieced together myself in the past when I also had the idea that it would be useful and interesting. Unfortunately, we never did have a complete series dedicated to this theme. If it had been done in English, and if we’d had it, we could have simply translated it. I called another missionary who also works in Afrikaans. She didn’t know of any such series by any good

Sunday School publishers either. We decided it was worth taking the time to work on it together, to get it right and do 6 sets for the 6 churches we know are using Afrikaans. We raided our respective files for anything that might help, worked up an outline and set some goals. Deciding to do it was easy! Getting it done is another story: keep it simple but include all the important and interesting stuff, keep it interesting; find pictures or think of interesting objects to keep the kids attention… I had all the kids think of as many ways as they could to leave an important message if they had no pencil, pen or paper… they thought of writing on the ground with a stick or better yet writing it on the wall in blood! Then we talked about how the Lord prepared Moses to write the first books of the Bible by having him adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, who sent him to school in a time when Egypt had invented paper but also often carved on stone, wrote on clay tablets or engraved on metal. When Moses broke the stone tablets God had made, he had to make the second set himself! Cathy and I determined not to break any copy write laws. If I have only one page of a coloring book, showing Moses dressed as an Egyptian writing on a long sheet of papyrus – no running off 6 copies. Pray for us. I need creativity, inspiration, and brevity.

I’m trying out my ideas on our present English speaking Sunday School. iTunes offers several different groups singing the Books of the Bible (English). You can download for $ .99 the Justus Brothers singing the Books of the Old and New Testaments from their Open Any Door album or Thing-a-ma-kid singing Books of the Old Testament, Books of the New Testament from their Sunday Bible Tunes album!

Pray that God will call more Sunday School teachers. Pray that God will call men out of our ministries to serve as Pastors. Pray that God will give many good gifts to his servants – we need more who can do things like put a tune to the Books of the Bible in Afrikaans.

Thank you for sending us to South Africa,

Your Missionaries,

Jeff & Judy Blanton

FINISHED

19 April 2009

Dear Pastor and Prayer Partners,

When Strafford casually said, “Pastor, we started building 8 months ago today” I thought, “no, that can’t be right”. I checked the calendar later and sure enough, this small building has taken 8 months to build! Almost everything that could go wrong; did go wrong. Listen to the last tribulation; we had wired the building and passed inspection. All we needed was for the Power Company to run a line from the street to our building and hook it up! Strafford called to report that he flipped the lights on as soon as the electricians had packed up and gone. The fluorescent fixtures glowed brightly for a few seconds and then bulbs began to blow! He quickly switched them off even as his brain was registering that they smelled burnt and had made odd noises. An electrician with years of experience mistakenly hooked us up with 415 volts (which is what the farms use) instead of 220 volts. That took a few days to straighten out and someday they will process the paper work and reimburse us for a dozen fluorescent tubes! Everyone is glad that the church didn’t have a refrigerator or computer!

We held the building dedication in Calvinia over the Easter weekend with good groups from Upington and Mitchell’s Plain also attending. We will forget the swarms of mosquitoes that dive bombed innocent sleepers and remember the good stuff!

In a quiet time, Carmen (in her 30’s) gathered the teenagers together and shared her testimony. Like many of them she grew up in poverty because both of her parents were drinking heavily. The Lord helped her to finish High School, get some secretarial/office training and make a life of her own. After her testimony, a couple of the teenagers asked Kim (20 yrs old) about her life. They were amazed that Kim has been a Christian for so long! (since she was 9 yrs old) They asked her if she doesn’t find it difficult to live a Christian life. Kim admitted that sometimes she does find herself in places and situations where she suddenly realizes that a Christian shouldn’t be here. She was able to tell them that it’s not hard to turn around and leave when you really want to please the Lord. One of Calvinia’s teens promised to try again to live a life pleasing to the Lord.

Everyone was admiring the building. It has that brand new, not a fingerprint on it yet, beauty. And one of the men said, “built by tithes…this is what we can do when we all tithe.” At the beginning of the morning service, Pastor Frantz reminded the people that as soon as they’d had a small group meeting regularly they had saved from the tithes to purchase this land. Bro. Feni charged the new congregation that they should continue in tithing and go forward in the Lord’s work. At home again on Wednesday night when Jeff asked for testimonies, Keith said – “we built that church. We sent Strafford, we prayed, we supported them from our tithes and offerings. We preached while Pastor was gone. We built that church!” (We had originally borrowed $10,000 from the revolving fund. When everyone was talking about worldwide inflation and the Dollar being so down – we decided to see how far we could get without using borrowed money. The Lord was really good to us. Last month we returned the $10,000 to the Missions Office.)

Faith (16) shared her testimony with Raymie and Leroy, teens from Calvinia. Jermaine (17) didn’t speak to anyone he didn’t already know! And neither did 15 yr old Byron. So it wasn’t perfect. Most of our people moved around and met others from both congregations. It was good, really good to have 3 churches together for this celebration.

Thank you for sending us to South Africa.

Your Missionaries,

Jeff & Judy Blanton

Almost Finished

Greetings from South Africa,

Everybody keeps asking, “Is the building done yet? When’s the dedication? Are they using it yet?” No. Don’t know. And yes! Yes, the congregation in Calvinia is using the building, but we have not been able to finish it. It has been painted inside and out, the bathrooms are in and working, the building has been wired and lights fitted. When we had an electrician’s certificate in hand saying that we’d done all required of us and were ready to be hooked up; the one municipal technician was first off to a conference and then started a 2-week vacation! We need power to finish the eaves, cut the floor tiles and do the baptistery lid. We are patiently waiting. As far as a dedication service, I am hoping that we will be able to have it during the school Easter break.

The world economic recession has also come to South Africa. After gasoline prices stabilizing they are back on the rise; this time the American dollar is getting the blame. As Americans, we get tired of hearing America blamed for all the ups and downs of the world economy! The American dollar had been low and it was time for that pendulum to swing the other way for a while. There has been another round of factories closing their doors due to the loss of overseas (American) contracts. One reason that offerings are down in several congregations is that people who were tithing have lost

their jobs. The government suggests that the unemployed go into business for themselves! Please pray for our people who are seeking employment.

Last Sunday could have been called Cousin Sunday. Almost every visitor introduced to me was someone’s cousin; even a family of regular visitors brought a cousin and his wife. All total we had 76 present with 22 of them being under the age of 6. Judy really had her hands full.

We want to thank you for your faithfulness towards us.

Your Missionaries,

Jeff & Judy Blanton