Going forward in the midst of the darkness of a pandemic
Yes we are living through an unprecedented time in our history when a virus has taken hold of our life in a manner we have never known before. The entire globe is grappling with this unyielding virus which continues to threaten our lives and livelihoods. But the question remains, What do we do ? We are being confronted by two sad choices and as a result people are divided, (some believe we should hide and let hunger devour us at least we won’t be on the Virus statistics and some believe there is life after the pandemic so lets get up and prepare ourselves for the times ahead).
As we have been praying the Lord gave us peace to go ahead and start the program, knowing the risks and problems we might face but we decided to be obedient. Just like the four men in 2 Kings 7:3-10 they knew that they may be killed but because they realized that either way death was waiting for them so they made a choice. With all that said I would like to share with you all that we will be starting with our 2020 class on the 6th of July 2020. This is after we have prayed and seek for advises from our trusted mentors and some government authorities. It hasn’t been an easy decision to make but we felt God wanted us to do it. So just like we mentioned to some people before that this year is going to be a different year for us due to the number of students we are expecting to train. We started with only 8 students in 2017, 2018 we had 9 students, 13 students last year 2019 and this year we will be training 20 students.
God has grace us with three other people to be on our team this year, two guys and one lady (Melusi Dlamin, Mduduzi Simelane and Dudu Dlamini). Melusi is one of the first fruits of AOH and we are so excited to replant it.
Other things that we have done so far to get ready to start, we have purchased the required equipment to monitor the students everyday (infrared thermometer) also we got the supplies like sanitizers, face-shields and disinfecting chemical. As I speak now the students are in quarantine, some are quarantined at Nsoko team house and the other team is quarantined at the Mndoni farm. We are currently monitoring Melusi here at Nhlangano as Mduduzi and Dudu are with the students. As a family we are aware that humanity is facing a grave and uncertain crisis as it confronts a virus which by its nature knows no geographic boundaries and recognizes no personal sovereignty, so we keep our movement on the minimum as much as we can to reduce the risk of being exposed to the micro serial killer.
God has been so good to us as a family I must say, our kids are healthy and we are also doing well emotionally, spiritually, physically and otherwise 🙂 Yes this rampaging virus did get close to our hearts as one of our close relative tested positive (the news really shocked us and we felt the uncertainty if she will be able to fight it) but by God’s grace she is doing well and she got tested again last weekend still waiting for the result and we believe very soon she will be Covid-19 free.
Prayers : Please be praying with us as we will be doing this program, we need strength, wisdom and courage to go through this year. This year we won’t be giving the students a break to go home like the previous years so its gonna be a long five and half months for both the students and staff.
Also please pray for the health of everyone, peace of mind and unity of the team.
Before I conclude I would like to express our deepest gratitude to Welcome Dlamini, Wandile Mazibuko, S’manga (Stereo) Setilo, Lihle Gina and Thabani Shongwe for joining us in praying for this year and the program of AOH. We spent three weeks of intense praying and zooming in the scriptures together as a preparation for the reopening of AOH program.
I would like to invite you to read our next blog post as we will be introducing our students one by one, while taking you through the experiences and challenges of the journey.
Best regards
