Steadfast Hope

September 1, 2021

It is with a happy heart that I can share with you that things are looking and feeling much better every day in South Africa.  The riots, looting and burning that took place in the Durban and Johannesburg a month ago were terrible, but South Africa came together like never before and cleaned and rebuilt.

Blessman International did not come out of this completely unscathed as we lost nearly an entire shipping container of food in a warehouse fire in the Durban area.  We have 8 feeding hubs that we work with throughout Southern Africa, and the container that burned is with Focus on the Family who we have been partnering with for the past 9 years.  Our major partner, Convoy of Hope came to our rescue immediately, and within 4 weeks they were able to get us a disaster relief container.  What initially looked like a disaster, and indeed it was bad, the Lord turned into good.  Through this course of events, we were able to add 2 large Methodist churches to our network so that we are now feeding hundreds more children than we were before the fire.

We had an enjoyable visit from Dustin who was able to attend our board meeting and his class reunion a couple of weeks ago.  He encouraged Beth and I to go to the Oshkosh Airshow with him.  It was very impressive. From there, Beth and I went on to the Okoboji Bible Camp which was a wonderful experience.

Doc