Well, the New Year is upon us and that means that it is time for us to head back to Durban! As this letter is written we are in JFK airport readying ourselves for the long journey home.
This past year has been a challenging and rewarding time of ministry – both in SA and the USA. Some of the ministry highlights have been:
- Our church planning, hosting and supporting an international mission’s conference in May 2010.
- Teaching classes and mentoring students at BBCKZN. In addition, three of our students graduated with their bachelor’s degree in Theology in 2010 – praise the Lord!
- The world cup soccer in SA and being able to experience the unity of the people – long may that continue!
- Being able to report to and visit with our supporting network of 16 churches and many individuals from August 2010 to January 2011.
- We are able to go back to SA at 100% support!
As we head back, we are looking forward to what is in store but we expect it to be a challenging year on several fronts. Our church hopes to complete our new building this year. You can access our church’s website at www.thephoenixfellowship.com to see pictures of the progress. We have several ideas of how to raise the additional funds we need, but more about that in another letter! However, building the building is only the start – it is merely a platform to do ministry. We are excited about the potential this building has in our religiously diverse and impoverished community. We want to use this platform to show people the love of Christ through recovery ministries, education – both theological and supplementary, and poverty alleviation. We ask for your prayers as we, along with our church leaders, discern the best use of this great gift.
This will also be a big year in the life of our College. Several of our students will be moving into their post-graduate studies with us in 2011. We have been hit hard over the past three years with constant constraints from our accrediting University and staff shortage to name but two issues. Our goal right now is to finish what we started with these students and wisely discern the future for our institute. As we frequently said during our ministry presentation, the key is contextually appropriate change – we need to change but we must do so wisely and carefully. We covet your prayers as Darryl leads our college through these difficult waters.
Finally we ask that you would pray for our adjustment back to South Africa. It is hard to explain to a three year old that we are leaving “home” to go “home”! It is hard for us to understand too sometimes! Pray that we would transition quickly – especially as responsibilities at church, BBCKZN and various other committees start up pretty much as soon as we arrive. One thing we won’t miss is the snow however!
As always, we want to keep you in the loop as to what is happening in our lives and ministry and we have several platforms for that. in addition to the social media sites we have on Twitter and Facebook, we also have a channel on Youtube (www.youtube.com/dcmeekins) where we will have church messages, personal videos and Vlog (video blog) entries in an effort to ‘show’ you and not just ‘tell’ you about ministry in SA.
Thanks again for your love, prayers and support – we feel privileged to partner with you,
In Christ,
Darryl, Casey and Emma Meekins
