Update on Tzaneen

Greetings from Every Nation Tzaneen.

It has been great to watch everything unfold over the last 6 months, from the move from Centurion to Tzaneen and the grace that they have experienced, to finding a house in Tzaneen in a awesome location, and settling in since December. What is also incredible to see is the way in which REACH, as a movement has come together to help them with the practical and financial implications of the plant. Willem really wants to honour the leaders that drive this initiative to make it possible for all the Churches that have bought into partnering with REACH!

Their planning for the first couple of months there is to do only two things. The first thing is to settle in and get to know the community, talk to as many people as possible and get a good idea of who the people in Tzaneen are, and what the best door is to get the gospel to the lost in the community. Doing research on a town in preparation of the plant is good and you come to see a lot of things about the town, but you can only really get an idea of what is happening in the hearts of people once you are living in the community. With this in mind we have talked to other leaders in the community to find out what their experience is and what God is saying to them about their town.

The second thing we are focussing on is the establishing of the leaders that are here and have shown commitment to helping them with the plant. Like Pastor Steve Murrell said in session 5 of the World conference last year (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JwVv4Jog-U) we need to keep the salt shaker in the middle of the table, referring to our values as a spiritual family. So they are spending quality time with the leaders to underline who we they as a family and their philosophy on ministry.

In the prayer and fast week in January Willem had a dream and he saw someone with an aeroplane in a hangar trying to take off, but the person keeps hitting boxes and crates. He then stops the plane and says that he cannot understand what is going on because he is doing what he always does when he takes off, but it isn't working.

When he woke up he felt God saying that they are first going to need to take away a couple of obstacles before we will be able to take off.

On the Friday at the prayer and worship evening he saw a picture of a locomotive pulling a lot of heavy coaches and what he experienced God saying was that at first the locomotive will use a lot of energy to get the coaches moving, but when the train is moving the energy used to keep it going is much less, and that we should be patient in the beginning, and trust on Him for the movement.

In line of this I have the following prayer points:

Pray for:

· Wisdom to identify the "obstacles" that need to be removed.

· Patience in exerting a lot of energy with little physical movement.

· For the leaders to understand and run with who they are as a spiritual family.

· And having lots of God conversations with people, everywhere they are involved, and finding the "door" to the hearts of the people of Tzaneen ( The Tzanese :) )