Report from the Northern Conference, South Africa

By Pastor Corrie Venter

Sharing Hope and Healing is a social responsibility and moral regeneration project designed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The project has been dubbed Gauteng Hope and Healing due to its geographical location, which is the Gauteng province, in South Africa. The launch, preparation, implementation and follow-up events span from 2017 to 2020. Light Bearers has supplied containers of truth-filled literature to the Northern Conference in 2017, 2018 and 2019 in conjunction with these meetings in the Gauteng Province.

The Gauteng Province is of special significance to the Adventist church in that it is home to the headquarters of our Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division, which is comprised of twenty-three countries including some Atlantic and Indian Ocean islands. More importantly, South Africa, especially Cape Town, was the gateway of the Adventist faith into the greater part of Africa in the 1800s. It is against this background that the church finds it suitable to return a good favor to the people of South Africa as the Adventist church in South Africa is enjoying religious freedom and our mission is well appreciated across provinces.

South Africa, especially Cape Town, was the gateway of the Adventist faith into the greater part of Africa in the 1800s.

Sharing Hope and Healing is at the very heart of our mission and is part of our Total Member Involvement (TMI) initiative. We exist to partner with all traditional, civil and national leaders who endeavor to combat crime, substance abuse, poverty, destitution, hunger, disease, marital infidelity and divorce, and many other social ills that hinder young people from realizing their good dreams. While we eagerly wait for the Second Coming of Christ, we, however, have a duty to alleviate human suffering here and now through ministries and means that lead to disease prevention, stable marriages and families, job creation, reduction of crime, empowered young people and many other positive life choices. This is our way of healing nations and communities.

The Northern Conference received Afrikaans and English sets of Bible lessons on the most recent containers from Light Bearers. Most of the English sets have already been used.

Recently the Northern Conference held a series of evangelistic meetings in the Johannesburg/Pretoria area called “Gauteng for Christ Hope and Healing.” The following is how we used the material during these meetings:

  1. We used all the English sets of Discover Guide lessons as preparation work for the meetings.
  2. Many of the Daniel and Revelation studies were used for the meetings as well.
  3. All The Great Controversy books were used during the meetings and at the local church level, distributed within a specific time period.
  4. Other literature was distributed with the books.
  5. Each local church has a specific outreach program where the literature is distributed and used at various programs. This is a continuous effort and program for the local churches and fetching material from the Conference.
  6. There were 250 Bibles given for the children’s ministry.
  7. Those who graduated from the studies received a Bible.
  8. We received 950 Bibles and have just a few left.
  9. The Signs of the Times magazines were a great hit. There was a mass distribution launched through the churches.
  10. There is a great need for Bibles, and books such as The Great Controversy and The Desire of Ages. 
  11. A huge part of the material was taken by the smaller unreached areas in the northern area of South Africa to work these areas.
  12. The Spirit of Prophecy books were given to new converts and people who could not afford them. 
  13. Estimated about 1500 baptisms.

We are thankful to the Lord for the gift of this evangelistic material from Light Bearers. We are asking and planning for two more containers in 2020.

Light Bearers

Light Bearers' mission is to vindicate the beauty of God’s character. As the immensely blessed recipients of God’s grace, we possess an abundance of life-transforming truth and we deeply desire to share it with every person on earth.

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