A meeting last week discussed how Hugenote College can create online biblical languages courses and make them available to other colleges in the NetACT network throughout Africa. Everyone involved was very positive and determined to move ahead.  Pray for the next issue of the NetACT journal which is due out soon.

Dawn’s Mum has a significant birthday in November. We haven’t seen James and Ruth for a long time so hope to go to the UK in November for two months.  If anyone would like to meet up whilst we’re there, let us know.

An outbreak of rabies has reached a township on our side of Cape Town (about an hour’s drive away). Pray that the disease would be contained.

Please pray for South Africa’s prisons. A 60% increase in crime will worsen the already severe overcrowding, violence and societal breakdown.

Gangs in Drakenstein Maximum are demanding the blood of a warder to keep peace inside the prison. A Christian inmate has been stabbed and is in hospital but his blood is not enough to satisfy the gang leaders.

A major cause of crime and deprivation is the breakdown of family life with many children growing up without fathers or in uncaring homes. Dawn has offered to run “The Marriage Course” at Zebulun church to strengthen marriages and family ties and educate married couples in ways to show love, communicate, forgive and learn to grow together.

Fraser was finally able to successfully update the software he was struggling with.  Issues impacting Fraser’s work are the next issue of the NetACT journal, new NetACT email addresses, racial/cultural bias (conscious or not) and the extent to which NetACT should involve itself with continent-wide issues in its overall focus as an organisation.

The leadership of our church in Wellington have some big decisions to make about the church property and the future direction of the church.

Half of the Drakenstein inmates have been vaccinated against covid, the others have refused. Thank God that there haven’t been the major outbreaks we feared. Pray that the “spiritual workers” will be allowed back in.

The Wellington area is now a covid hotspot with many cases and deaths.  Pray for those who sleep on the streets.

Prisons might not reopen to spiritual workers until level 1 (level 3 at the moment). A prison officer was murdered at a Johannesburg prison this week. Pray for the safety of officers, and for Christian officers and inmates to be encouraged and distinctive in behaviour and attitude.

Dawn’s friend Beauty lives with her 2-year-old daughter as a single parent in a township on the edge of Cape Town. Abused and exploited by co-workers and others, she is still trying to live all out for Jesus, holding down a job selling clothes at a stall, attending work-based training, running a Bible study group, the music team at church, the youth group, attending the weekly prayer meeting and discipling individuals without much practical support from church leadership who just seem glad she’s taken on most of the work. Pray for love and pastoral concern.

Covid is still rife in the Western Cape. Pray that people will take sensible precautions.

Continue to pray for South Africa after looting and riots and for how communities are coming together to clean up and rebuild.  Give thanks that churches were allowed to open last Sunday for people to meet in person.

NetACT partner colleges are keen to make greater use of the portal but Fraser is still struggling to update one NetACT site with a new and improved version of the software.  He also faces a couple of sensitive and challenging issues requiring wisdom, tact, courage, one concerning attitudes amongst NetAct colleagues of different backgrounds, and the other with church in Wellington and the attitude and hang-ups of another person in leadership.

Prisons are still closed to spiritual workers.  Pray for men who struggle to follow Jesus with no other encouragement and those tempted to return to gangs to be protected.  It’s always challenging to be released after a long prison sentence but in these days especially so.

Dawn asks for wisdom as she meets someone who believes all sorts of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

A couple at church live by a river in Wellington where many people sleep rough. They are generous and try to show God’s love but have been robbed many times, often by those they’ve previously helped.  It’s a terribly stressful situation in which to live. Pray for protection for them.

Edwin and Mbulelo were released in July, need to join a Bible teaching church, be loving and patient as they rebuild relationships, and be protected against the temptations to return to their old ways.

Pray for a peaceful resolution to the standoff between ex-president Jacob Zuma and his supporters and the South African state.

Pray for prisoners who can have no visitors and are missing the spiritual input. Pray for prison officers as they have a dangerous and difficult job. Pray especially that those who know Jesus will be strengthened and able to minister to colleagues and inmates.

Dawn has delivered textbooks for men in Drakenstein Medium A to start a Bible study course.  The chaplain has to work as an ordinary officer in the single cells section and no one is providing spiritual input for the inmates at all. His concern is that some men will slip back into the gangs. Pray for believing inmates to encourage and strengthen each other in God and volunteer spiritual workers will be allowed back in.

Fraser is waiting for Stellenbosch IT dept. to help him with a computer problem as the IT department has retained control over certain aspects of his laptop

Jacob Zuma’s supporters have incited rioting and violent protests, businesses are being looted, locals are resorting to “mob justice”, the covid19 vaccination rollout is being halted and the army deployed.

A lot of shootings are occurring among the taxi firms in Cape Town, making it hard for those from the townships with no other means of transport to hold down honest jobs. So much seems to be conspiring against ordinary families.