God is Moving!

After recruiting 45 students from multiple different high schools in the area, we at Africa Ablaze hosted our first Church Planting Camp. The most dedicated Christian students were chosen to be a part of the weekend. We equipped and trained them about how to start their own small group and how to grow other like-minded students into mature followers of Christ. Our sponsor had a vision to reach 1,000,000 souls, and we have already started counting!



Roasting Marshmallows!



When we ventured back into the schools this week, we had many young people coming up to us with their “Reach for Life” Bibles in hand to tell us that they had already formed groups and were meeting regularly.  These youth have seen the vision and how to attain it and they are making something happen.

Oh yeah, I (Leah) have started preaching in the schools. I’m still learning and growing, and it’s pushed me way out of my comfort zone. Piet preaches regularly and he’s such a natural.

In other news, life is hard. We are facing lots of challenges personally and even in ministry. We know that life has its ups and down, but right now seems to be especially difficult. I’m so thankful that we have each other to cling to during this time, and of course God is carrying us through it all. We’d be nowhere without Him.

Our car died yesterday. We are officially fixing it for the last time, parking it, and selling it. At this point, I’ve actually been considering throwing it off a cliff so I never have to think about it again. BUT God is good and we have someone who really wants to buy it; who knew. Luckily we aren’t far from buying our new and improved car. About a week ago we only needed about R10,000 for our new vehicle, but now it’s looking like we will need an extra R5,000 in order to repair our old car. Plus, we won’t be able to get the amount we were hoping to get from it. So, in translation that is $2142. I’m so thankful to God that we have raised and saved as much money as we have in the few months that we started trusting God for a new vehicle. It’s incredible really.

Thank you for your prayers, we really need it.

Pray for:
-The last finances to come in for our truck/SUV
-Ministry
-Wisdom and understanding
-Peace

We love you!

The Bakers

P.S. Some have been asking how to give. The best way is to send a check written to “Discovery Church” with “South Africa” in the memo, sent to Discovery Church, 5860 Las Positas Road, Livermore, CA 94551, USA.

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



Our New Truck is 6 Months Away

Hi friends,

We have posted two blogs this week as our internet access is finally at our finger tips. These blogs have been sitting on our computer for weeks just waiting to be posted!

Things are going great here in the southern hemisphere. It’s beginning to get colder as we move into winter. We have had to break out our jackets and warm hoodies the past few weeks.

We wanted to give you an update on something we have been praying long and hard for. About a month ago on a previous blog I mentioned that we are trusting God for a 4x4 vehicle; hopefully a truck or a nice SUV. We have been doing a bit of looking and quite a lot of financial planning for this. The roads here are just terrible and our little car is having a tough time handling them. We have already had to do major servicing on our car. So, we believe it’s time for an upgrade.

This new car will really help us in ministry to transport people, food, and equipment. With a bigger and more durable car, we will be able to help out more than we are able now. Part of our ministry involves going into the townships (rural areas) and rural schools.

I have pushed our numbers and figured out a way where we can have a new vehicle in exactly six months. The cost of a decent used 4x4 is R60,000 (approx $8500); so this is our goal. Piet and I get a small salary from the ministry that basically covers our food and household expenses each month. Also, we get a petrol (gas) refund whenever we use our car for ministry purposes. So, we have decided to save both earnings for the next 6-months, plus sell our car at the end of the period. This will give us R30,000, exactly half of the cost.

So, we are able to give half toward the car, but this is where we are asking for your help. The other half would be about $4200. I have calculated that if we can find 7 willing people/families to contribute $100 per month for 6 months, we will have it! It’s that simple.

If you believe in our ministry, what we are doing, and in us, then please consider helping us out in this area. We would greatly appreciate your gifts.

God bless and thank you for your support,

Piet and Leah Bakers

Touching hearts and nations

Dear friends,

Our 17-day April camp was a great success! We had a few days off and it was back to normal ministry for the last two weeks.



Roasting Marshmallows!



The first three days were leadership training with all of the leaders of the camp. The first full week was children’s camp, and the second week was youth camp. We had about 60 or 70 kids on children’s camp, and about 50 youth on youth camp. But! The really amazing thing is that there were less than 10 youth camp registrations two weeks before! The camp is an outreach mostly to urban young people who are introduced to the Gospel on camp. The time with the kids and youth was really incredible and we saw a lot of passion and growth in these young people.



Piet and I invited three of our strongest youth from Refilwe YMS to join as leaders. Ishmael, Itumeleng, and Siyanda served whole-heartedly and really enjoyed themselves. Itumeleng, age 21, plays the drums for the worship team at our church and on camp he taught three or four kids to play drums! As always, there are problem children at camp. There was one little boy in particular that no one could get through to. On one occasion he threatened to run into the electric fence if we didn’t open the snack shop. But whenever Itumeleng spoke to him, he was suddenly fine. He was such an awesome leader, and out of 20 leaders, he received the best leader award! Congrats Itumeleng, we are so proud of you!!

Itumeleng receiving his award!



Although we loved the children’s camp, it was very draining so we were glad to move into the youth camp where they could look after themselves a bit more. Piet and I basically coordinated the entire two weeks ourselves. We are thankful that we had strong leaders to back us and support us.



The youth camp was a lot more active. We played night games, a blindfolded hike, bon fire, sunrise hike, fear factor, paintball, go karting, and more! Because of the maturity level of these youth, we were able to do teaching games and we even burned all of our fears and anxieties that we had written out.

Piet had the opportunity to sit down with one young man who had really been through a lot in his life. He has been coming to camp for years and even all the leaders said this year something had happened in his life. Even after two weeks, I saw him leave as changed person and one who was ready to forgive those who had wronged him.

Small Group Time

We praise God for all that has happened in and through this camp. Thank you for all of your prayers and support in making this work possible.

Piet and I are so happy where we are at. We feel that we are really making a difference in the lives of young people.

Love perseveres,

The Bakers

Rights and Miracles

Today is a public holiday: Human Rights Day. Although I’m not sure what exactly we are celebrating (our rights I suppose) I am thankful for the day of rest!

This morning we drove to Pretoria to a scrap yard for some much needed parts for our car. Unfortunately, most everything was closed seeing as it’s a holiday. But, we did look around at a handful of used car lots to find a new car, and we did find some prospects. We just need to sell our current car, and raise another R45,000 ($6500) and we can drive away in a new dirt-road-ready 4x4. Just to give you an idea of what how bad the roads are in our little area of the world here is a picture of a road we drive down almost every day.

Please stand in agreement with us as we are really trusting God for a miracle; we aren’t sure how much longer our little VW Golf will last on these roads. Someone has already offered to buy our car at a very good price and we are very tempted to hand over the keys. We are still looking and praying and it will probably be months before we can actually buy something unless God provides.

This Friday is the commencement of a leadership training for all who want to be involved in running camps. Piet, Michelle (the other volunteer our age), and I will be running the majority of the weekend. Beginning Sunday afternoon, we will be running two 6-day camps back-to-back. It’s going to be really intense and exhausting, but we are looking forward to ministering to all ages during this time.

Africa Ablaze was founded with the intention of starting a Missions Bible College. After 30 years of fundraising, they are finally able to achieve this dream. Piet and I will be taking various courses through the college to gain further Biblical knowledge and missions experience.

Piet and I feel very strongly that we are at Africa Ablaze for a reason. We really feel like we are making a difference and impacting people’s lives regularly. In our school ministry, Africa Ablaze is able to reach out to 10,000 students a week! Piet and I fit in very well with the ministry and staff and we can see that we have definitely fulfilled a need and a void. All in all, we are doing well. We are enjoying life and trying to utilize our downtimes to invest in our newfound marriage.

There is power in Love,

The Bakers

The Hole in My Hand, Not My Heart

Yes, I have a hole in my hand…sort of. In our new house, we don’t have hot water in our kitchen tap, so we boil water to wash the dishes. About a week ago, while washing dishes, I poured boiling water directly on my hand. Needless to say I screamed and cried it was so painful. Here it is more than a week later and most of the skin on the back of my hand has peeled off to reveal what Piet says is “albino skin”. I feel a bit like an alien.

This is the first internet access I’ve had in weeks! Four to be exact. It’s been impossible to keep everyone updated and I feel a bit guilty. Piet and I have been using our phones to access emails and things, but it’s difficult to write anything meaningful on a tiny keypad.

The Bakers Family with our new dog Tess!

Gosh, so much has happened in the last four weeks. We have gotten settled in to Africa Ablaze ministries and are hard at work. We are actively involved in running school assemblies three days a week, Piet helps with maintenance and things on site, I help with the financial books, and we run camps. This past weekend we held a career camp for 44 high school students from the rural areas. A company called WesBank sponsored the entire camp and came in on the Saturday to run career oriented seminars with these 11^th grade students. Piet, myself, and one other volunteer that stays on the property ran all the games, facilitations of the weekend and just invested into these high schoolers. On Saturday night, Pastor Willem had a spiritual conversation with them and led almost all of them to the Lord! They came into the camp with a hunger for their future, and left with an indwelling of the Holy Spirit and a calling to fulfill. The great thing is, we see most of these kids in school assemblies during the week so we are able to encourage them in their walk with

God. Also, many of them will be returning as leaders for the
youth and children’s camps.

We have two more camps coming up between 27 March and 9 April. We are busy preparing all the teaching topics, games, and fun activities for the kids and youth.

There is always a lot to be done around here so we need prayer for rest and refreshment constantly. Also, our car is in the shop, but that’s a whole other story in itself…I’ll save that for next time. Please pray for either the finances to fix it, or for a miracle of a new car.

Oh! Piet and I have gotten permission to take time off in October to come to the U.S.! I am so excited that Piet is able to visit. I am also beginning to get a bit homesick for America, which is strange because this never happens.

We love you.

Love is stronger than death,

The Bakers