Impartation and Expectation

Lately our friends have been telling us that we are the busiest people ever, and lately I’ve been feeling that it’s true!

Career Students in front of the Campfire



This past weekend we hosted a career camp for 100 students in grade 11. These camps take a lot of preparation and work to pull off, but we can say that it was successful. Career camps are one of our favourite things that we do here at Africa Ablaze because we are giving students from the rural areas a very unique opportunity. This weekend, a company called Iliad sponsored the entire weekend and paid for 100 students to come and even volunteered their Saturday to come in and share career guidance with these high schoolers. The students work so hard to come on these camps because they know that only the top students in discipline, grades, and attitudes get chosen to come.



The CEO of Iliad speaking to the students




Piet was the front runner of the camp and worked very hard to make sure everything went smoothly. We had a few glitches with transporting the students to and from schools, but everything turned out ok. Because we had the students for the whole weekend, we got to play lots of games and activities with them and share the Gospel. They are all very receptive to the Lord because we see them regularly through school ministries as well.

One thing that you may not know about South Africa is that the education in the rural government schools isn’t always the best. These career camps are such great opportunities for these students to make something of themselves and realize that they can rise above their backgrounds and be successful. Something that I picked up over the weekend from the series of speaker is to never give up. Continue persevering through circumstances until you achieve your dreams and your goals. And this is exactly what these students must do.

Crazy 11th Graders

About two months ago, one of the school principals came up to us to say that each one of the students that have previously been on our career camps have finished school without failing and have received distinctions! How incredible to know that we are impacting the lives of young people in such a tangible way!

We also have an update about our SUV that is on the way. We have received some of the money, but we are still waiting for the rest to come in. We already have $5482 in cash and assets (we just need to sell our car, but we’ve already had two offers). At this moment we only need $2857 to purchase our car. Remember only a few weeks ago we had saved about $450 and now look where the Lord has brought us! We have found such a nice SUV that we are highly considering to buy because it is exactly the price that we are trusting the Lord for and it’s a very practical car, and very good on the dirt road. Our goal was a new car by October, but it seems that we might get it a lot sooner, which is great. We don’t want to finance the car, but we are trying to negotiate that we can make three payments on the car since we don’t have all of the money in yet. So please stand in agreement with us.

Thank you for your prayers, here are a few prayer requests that we have at the moment:

-The finances for our SUV that is on its way.
-We are hosting a church planting camp this weekend. Please pray protection over all of us at the campus and our families, as well as for the souls of the young people we will be equipping to start small groups that will hopefully turn into churches.
-Our marriage
-Wisdom in ministry

We love you all, thanks for your support. We definitely cannot do this without you! We are an extension of all of you.

Love is Real.

The Bakers

Lesotho!

Since we’ve been married, we have had some crazy adventures together. A few weeks ago we were given a weekend away at a friend’s holiday home. Murphy’s Law struck and due to twists and turns in our journey, it took 7 hours to travel 2 hours away. But, our Lesotho trip trumps them all. When we’ve told our story from this weekend, everyone’s been saying it sounds like a bad movie.

Over this past weekend, we decided to take a trip down to Lesotho because I needed to extend my visa, and attend our friend’s wedding. Friends of ours very graciously loaned us their car since ours would never make the trip. If you don’t know where Lesotho is it is a land-locked country inside South Africa, about a 4-hour drive from Johannesburg, and what an interesting place it is!

We left Friday afternoon as soon as work ended. We figured we’d get there about 9:30 or 10. We were wrong. We missed our exit off the freeway, but decided to just go another way which would only add a bit more time to our trip. We finally found our way and arrived at the Lesotho border…it closed at 10 and it was now 11:30. 

 We saw a sign for a guest house so decided to check it out. The thing about Africa is that everything closes very early. Hotel lobbies don’t

The bride and her father with a lovely backdrop

 stay open after about 8 and people know they must arrive before then. The place was dark, but we tried looking around for a phone number or something. Suddenly a huge dog started barking and chasing us. I (Leah) screamed like I’ve never screamed before and we flew into the car like superman.  We found another man trying to enter who advised us that we had to use another border if we wanted to enter, so we drove to the other side and entered there. The unfortunate thing is, we went through all the procedures and they checked our passports, but we drove right past the station where they give us the entry stamp. The final officer checked our passports and we were through. Now there was a long drive through the country to the other side to get to our Bed and Breakfast. We eventually got to our room at 3am after having to pay someone on the street to use their cell phone.



Piet dancing with the mamas

When we tried to leave on Sunday morning, we ran into problems we did not foresee. We tried using the first border (the one that had been closed), but they wouldn’t let us through because we did not have entry stamps and claimed we had been there illegally. Piet continuously apologized and tried to convince them to let us go. They said they would let us through if we pay R4000 ($570), which we definitely didn’t have. They sent us to the other border which we entered through and see if they can help us. We prayed the entire way. In Lesotho, we couldn’t call, but we could receive calls, and luckily, one of our pastors here at Africa Ablaze called to check on us. We told him what was happening and within a few minutes, there was an emergency prayer chain going for us. When we arrived at the other border, there was nothing left we could do except explain the situation and pray for grace. I am so thankful for a husband that can speak Sotho. He spoke with the ladies working at the window and they agreed to let us out with only a R100 fine ($14) for negligence on our part. We got through the border and rejoiced for the grace we were shown.



Sotho people in the village



It was a very crazy weekend, but we still enjoyed ourselves and got to see many old friends. Lesotho itself as I mentioned is a very interesting place. It is high in the mountains, so it is very cold all the time. The people walk around everyone they go with blankets around their shoulders. And there are no shacks made from tin anywhere in the country. The people are very resourceful and build themselves stone houses no matter how poor they are. It reminded me a bit of Kwazulu-Natal (in South Africa), but still it was nothing like anywhere I had ever been before. And even though the country is only 4 hours away from Johannesburg, it is significantly safer. What a cool experience to see another part of the continent we love.

We praise God for our safety and for bringing us back to our home.



Love is an adventure!

The Bakers