Encouragement to the apprentices by Steve Manhanga

Are you living life to its maximum or are you living just to get by?

The answer to that question depends on the way you see yourself. You will live to the level of your faith. Not everyone lives on the same level of faith. As your faith rises to different levels, your business or your income rises, you will be in a shifting pattern of relationships and friendships. Intimate friendships change at each level. That is part of the price of growth.

It’s also the reason why some people don’t grow. They allow their intimate friends to influence them against growing in grace. Because their friends have not experienced a fresh or new level of truth, or manifestation of God’s presence through hunger to know God, they discourage those who have that hunger.

You need to learn to march to a different drummer and live life to the full. Determine within yourself to be all that God wants you to be.
We need courage to face reality
We need courage to admit need
We need courage to make decisions
We need courage to change
We need courage to hold convictions.

Heroes are ordinary people who act in a moment of time on a need greater than themselves.

Snapshot of the 1st year appy's - Africa Tshuma

Africa Tshuma

Africa Tshuma is from Bonyane in Mapisa (approximately 60km from Ebenezer). He is 17 years old. He is enjoying his time at Ebenezer. He enjoys the work and is happy that he finished planting his crop of tomatoes. He likes working in the field and starts at 7:00am and finishes at 5:00pm.

Letter to the apprentices......from Steve Manhanga

“Choose you this day”

Joshua 24:15 “but if you are unwilling to obey the Lord, then decide today whom you will obey. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”

There comes a time in ones life when tough decisions and choices are to be made. It is very easy to be pushed or led to make decisions or wrong choices. Many times this leads to disastrous consequences. We are left to stew in our poor choices and wrong decisions. You see, life is all about the choices we make.

If we put God first and ask Him for his opinion and purpose for our life, we will find the true meaning for our existence. Life begins to have a purpose and we get fulfilment in all we do. The day to day chores we do are seen through a new pair of eyes and leave us satisfied at the end of the day. We approach people differently. Seeing in them the good and not only fault finding. Being able to encourage and uplift rather than tear down or destroy.

May God richly bless you as we advance His kingdom........

Letter to the apprentices.....from Steve Manhanga

“Vengeance is mine”

Judges 16:22 “But before long his hair began to grow again.”

It is hard to keep a good man down. Samson had made his fair share of mistakes. He trusted in Delilah and as a result lost his eyes. Even greater than losing his amazing strength and his hair, Samson had lost his relationship with Almighty God.

Samson in chains and grinding like an ox in the prison, begins to have his relationship restored. Day in and day out all he could do was think of what could have or should have been. He recounted his great exploits, catching 300 foxes, killing 1000 men with the jaw bone of a donkey, slaying a lion with his bare hands. Wow! All these amazing things done by the spirit and might of God. Now he was being led around by someone. He could not enjoy a beautiful sunset or see an amazing rainbow fill the sky. He is brought out of prison to be made fun of and laughed at. With all the Philistine leaders around and 3000 people on balconies, they cheered as fun was made of blind Samson.

Then he prayed – “Lord remember me again and strengthen me one more time so that I may pay back the Philistines for the loss of my eyes.” God answered Samson’s prayer and in his death he killed more Philistines than during his lifetime.

Update on Ebenezer

1. New Apprentices: The new apprentices joined Ebenezer on the 18th July. There are 13 boys and 7 girls. It looks like they have settled and are enjoying their group work.
2. Volunteers: A 19 year old volunteer from the U.K – Benjamin West served at Ebenezer for 12 days. Much of his time was spent helping the apprentices in the field and teaching them to play soccer. Thanks also to Matt Romans who served Ebenezer for 5 months and left at the end of June.
3. Frost: Quite a bit of the crops were wiped away by frost. There are still onions in the field and they are doing really well. The 2nd year apprentices are ready to plant their maize.
4. Chickens: Of the 3100 chicken that were delivered to Ebenezer, about 900 have died due to the cold temperatures in Kezi.
5. Soccer: Soccer has been going pretty well. In the last month, 3 matches were played and Ebenezer won 2 and lost 1. The challenge has been trying to fit the new apprentices on to the team. Some are gifted soccer players while others......well......they need a little more practice.
6. The model farmers are preparing to leave for Antelope......Read previous post.....

By Molly Manhanga

Farewell to the model farmers

There was a special dinner to bid farewell to the 6 model farmers: Brilliant Khoza, Mkhululi Ncube, Tawanda Moyo, Mqondisi Moyo, Simangaliso Ndlovu and Sithabiso Thsuma. The evening started off with a bit of humour after the dinner and with a song by the Union Brothers. Two of the model farmers gave testimony of their time at Ebenezer and encouraged those remaining to give it what they got and not be sidetracked.

I really enjoyed listening to the remaining apprentices publically honour the 6 that were leaving. It was beautiful. The 6 have been at Ebenezer from August 2007 and have done extremely well. Seeing the change in their lives from 2007 until now is wonderful. They are more confident, well trained and equipped in business, agriculture and spiritual, they have given their lives to the Lord and are ready to go out and teach others in another community. In one sense it was quite sad and touching saying goodbye and praying for the model farmers but in another it was just so momentous seeing young people rearing to go and start a new life for themselves and impact a new community.

The two girls Simangaliso Ndlovu and Sithabiso Thsuma capped the evening by making biscuits for everyone. Thanks so much to Marlene Poe for the discipleship of these girls and for the many biscuit recipes she left behind.

It was a good evening!

By Molly Manhanga