The Week in Review

It's been a pretty heavy week here. I told Anita this week that God must really want to sanctify our church. Starting with Dick being shot on Sunday, the week seemed to be full of a lot of heavy issues that needed to be dealt with. A woman in our church had her husband die rather unexpectedly on Tuesday night. An other woman had surgery for breast cancer later in the week. Someone pretending to be a interested vistor wanting a tour stole cell phones from one of our staff workers this week during that tour. Another worker was staying with someone when a robber broke in. In trying to get away, she fell and broke her arm.

Then this week I also found out that one of the women I have been meeting with has been basically lying about her whole life- not just to me but to everyone. I'm thankful that God has choosen to reveal her lies this week but it has been sobering and honestly, really sad. I have spent hours counseling/ discipling her. Please pray that God would bring her to repentance and for wisdom in dealing with the situation.


I took some time this week to go visit two of our Lambano staff workers at their homes. Both of them participated in the 1976 Soweto uprising. This was when black school children marched against apartheid. If I remember right, 16,000 marched. Hundreds of children were shot and killed by the police. Thousands were arrested and many others simply disappeared during that day. Emma and Catherine both marched that day and it was amzing to hear their stories and gain a better picture of their life.

On a lighter note, the Lambano kids were in a ballet receital recently. They were fish and danced to the song "Under the Sea" Honestly, there is few things more entertaining then seeing 4 and 5 year olds try to dance.


Below is a group of the young adults from church. As someone reminded me today, I am no longer fit the young adult catagory but rather am now middle age. Yikes...... but they graciously allow me to hang out with them.

 

Is it worth dying for?

Sunday started off a normal, calm, quiet Sunday but ended up quite different. I received a call after church that Anita's father had been shot. Here is their summary of what happened:

Last night after church, Anita’s father was shot. Dick Kelder, besides being my father-in-law, is an elder in our church. He and Mom K. live only a few blocks away from us and are very involved in our lives and the lives of our children.

After our evening service last night (August 13, 2006), most of our congregation stayed and had tea for about a half an hour, as usual. Mom K. (Marlene) had stayed home because she wasn’t feeling well and so Dick left at about 7:15 to go home – just minutes before we also left to put our kids in bed. On our way home, we gave Mom K. a call, she picked up the phone and said, “come over here quickly, your father’s just been shot.” Before we even reached our house, we turned around and went straight to the Kelder home.

When we arrived, amazingly, the police were already there and a number of neighbors were all standing in the street. We jumped out and were told that Dick had been shot in the face, hand and leg (we later found out that he was only beaten in the face and there were only gunshot wounds to his hand and leg). He was lying in the car and losing a lot of blood.

Up to that point, what had happened was that a mechanic friend of the Kelders stopped by to return one of their cars and pick up his vehicle. When Mrs. Kelder let him in the gate, two armed men held them up and tried to take the Kelder’s car. Mom K. ended up with a dislocated finger and some bumps on the head. Ian (the mechanic friend) was shot at, but they missed. Dick started to pull into the driveway while all this was going on. The two men, who had failed to start the car in the driveway, then ran to Dick and told him to get out of the car. When he refused, they evidently hit him in his face with the butt of the gun and then shot him (I later asked Dick why in the world didn’t he just get out of the car and give them the keys. He told me that though he knows he should have, that was just a natural reaction and he has no idea how he could have prepared for the incident).

Though the police had arrived and we were told that an ambulance was on its way, it was too much for us to wait while Dick was losing so much blood. We decided to pull the kids and car seats out of our car and leave them with Anita and Marlene. We then lifted Dick out of his car and put him in the back seat of ours and two police officers escorted us to the hospital. Once we got Dick into the Emergency Room, it was clear that there was no gunshot wound to the head and he was only bleeding from his face because of the bashing he took. The doctor and nurses were able to get to work right away on Dick’s wounds, so I headed back to the house to be with Anita, Marlene, and the kids. It took quite a while to sort out the police reports and phone calls. We also found most of the keys in a nearby storm drain. The robbers had obviously fled on foot and threw them down there as they ran by.

After we locked up the house, we headed down to the hospital where we were met by about a dozen of our friends from church. What a great blessing and encouragement to have our church family standing with us, praying for us, and other flooding us with phone calls and text messages. We can’t say enough times how grateful we are for the church family here in Johannesburg.

We were able to spend some time with Dick and see that he is doing fine. The x-rays revealed that the bullet had exited his leg and it had missed all major arteries and bones. He slept there last night and is due to have surgery on his hand today. His face is very black and blue (with one eye nearly swollen shut) – but he should heal up nicely.

On the way home, we stopped by the Kelder’s to meet a tow truck and we had to have Dick’s car (which was still in the street) towed into the drive way. That went pretty quickly and then Mom K. came home with us. We all got to bed at about 1:00 AM.

Please pray for Dick and his surgery today. Also pray for Marlene and Anita, myself and the kids. Anita is pretty shaken up as she has still been struggling with our hold-up four months ago. It has been difficult for us to sleep well at night – especially for Anita. We are very grateful that God has kept us all safe, and we are even grateful for these trials – which clearly draw us closer to Christ and help us to rely more on Him for true security. But please pray for us, our family, and our church.

Pray especially for wisdom. When trials come up like this, we inevitably face the question – should we move out of South Africa? On the one hand, we (unlike so many here) do have the option of moving elsewhere. Just about any place besides Baghdad or Beirut seems like it would be safer. On the other hand, God is sovereign everywhere and we know that the safest place we can be is following Him closely. It would be very difficult for us to leave the congregation and ministry that He has given us here – but if we stay here, we need to have the mindset that what we are doing here is worth dying for. It is not easy to keep that mindset when so many people around us are being affected on a daily basis from the high crime rate and lack of law enforcement.

In Christ,

Brian, Anita, Ami, and Bradley Biedebach

I have personally been challenged and encouraged by Dick's response to this. When I saw him on Sunday at the hospital, he told me that he had total peace the whole time because he knew God was in control of all of this. When he could have been self focused, he instead was asking others as they entered the room about specific situations in their lives and using his time in the hospital to share Christ with those he came in contact with.

I am often asked why I would choose to come to South Africa when so many are anxious to leave. I have to be honest and tell you that there are times when I am tired of thinking of security and safety but the answer is simple. Its because I believe that what I am doing is worth dying for.

Prayer Requests

Just wanted to pass on a few prayer requests.

1. Please be praying for a Women's Tea I am speaking at on Wednesday, August 9th at a church in Pretoria (my parent's church). Its an evangelistic event and last I heard there will be about 100 women and about 50 of them will be unsaved. The topic is "What Every Woman Needs". Specifically, I will be speaking on our greatest need is to be adopted by God.
2. Last Sunday one of our Lambano vans was stolen from the driveway of one of our houses. We are only receiving from the insurance company a fraction of what it will cost to replace it. Please pray that God would provide the funds necessary.
3. I am traveling to Bostwana the end of August to speak at a women's conference. Please pray for safety as I travel and for wisdom as I prepare and as I speak to the women there. Pray that I would be a workman who needs not to be ashamed accurately handling the Word of God. (2 Tim 2:15)
4. Thanks for your prayers for Gladys. Please continue to pray for her as she comes back to work tomorrow and continues to deal with the loss of her husband.
5. My bible studies at Lambano have been focusing on the tongue. Please pray that the staff would apply what we are discussing. There is a lot of strife between some of the staff which is being feed by gossip and lying. Most acknowledge the problem but few seem willing to change.

Thanks so much for partnering with me in the work here. Your prayers are vital to the ministry here.

There's something wrong with this picture.....

Normally in August I spend a lot of time scheming to get as many days as possible spent sitting on the beach. Not this August...... I am currently sitting in my living room so cold that I can see my breath. (For some reason, South Africa doesn't put central heat in their houses.) It's the strangest thing to me to have the seasons reversed.

Yesterday.......

So yesterday was one of those days that didn't exactly go according to plan. It was an incredibly cold day yesterday. In fact, we even had snowflakes in the morning. It also started off with some somewhat dissappointing news. In the afternoon, I needed to run next door and grabbed my set of keys to the front door. Now, I never come in that door and consequently have never needed to use a key to unlock it. I don't even normally carry the keys to my front door with me. I wondered as I pulled the front door shut if I should even bother to lock it but this is South Africa. So I did and figured it didn't matter because I had my keys with me anyway.

When I got home and went to unlock my front door, I came to the realization that my front door key does not work in the lock and none of the keys on that key ring work in that door or any other door. The great thing is that I have learned that my house is very hard to break into. It would take a lot of effort to get in one of the windows and past the burgular bars. 950 rand (about $150) later I was in. The other great thing is that I now have a key that works to my front door and finally have an extra set of keys in my desk at the church office (Something Brian encouraged me to do about two months ago. Why is he always right about these things???)

To end my evening, I discovered that my electricty was not fixed last week. With in a matter of 2 hours (of course 2 that I was trying to sleep through), it tripped 4 or 5 times. Midnight found me reminding myself of something my mother has often told me- God hasn't made a mistake yet and you aren't worth being his first one. Thanks Mom!

Romans 5:3-5

3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.