A Speedbump on the Way Home - News from Alfred and Leonie

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5000 miles from Home Within days the door to return to India has slammed shut due to the new Covid mutation. We have taken some strain in the last few days. more details below. This month you can read the following: Going home Our time in Gauteng A special Invitation Christmas: a prime time for outreach Flying in a glider The tale of Oscar As usual, prayer requests and praise reports. Be greatly blessed. Going Home As you may recall, the original intention was that we would return to India on the 8th of December. However, with the discovery of the Omicron mutation, many countries have shut their doors to travellers from South Africa. The good news is that we have been able to book tickets to take us home via Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia. These tickets were very expensive. In addition, we have been forced to delay our return from the 8th to the 14th of December. We hope to arrive in McLeod Ganj on the 16th and emerge from home isolation on the 23rd of December. Please pray that the way will stay open, and that we will be able to see our home soon. Our time in Gauteng In November we met some amazing people. We stayed with great friends. Thanks to Faan & Liezl in Kempton Park and Jonathan & Joy in Pretoria, You were such a blessing! Thank you to Francois who lent us his caravan so that we can camp out in Jonathan & Joy's front yard. This month we met at fewer churches, but we met several home groups. We have no idea how many people we met this month, never mind over our total stay in South Africa, but we pray that everyone was blessed in some way. Thank you and welcome to all our new friends who subscribed to our newsletter since we arrived in South Africa. In the last few days we reached a milestone; we now have over 600 subscribers! May each reader be blessed! Christmas: A Prime Time for Outreach In India each religion has its special festivals that take place at various times in the year. These festivals are generally rowdy and in your face. For this reason it is considered perfectly acceptable for Christians to celebrate Christmas openly and lavishly. This is the opportunity to share about Jesus. We are excited about using our new Ministry Centre as the base for some exciting projects. Teremi and Achui, our housemates, are setting plans afoot to bless many people this year. This includes inviting people for meals, home visits and little gifts. The goal is to reach 100 families with the love of Jesus this year. Each household will receive a pack of handmade Christmas cookies lovingly baked and decorated by the team. A Special Invitation We will be having a final meeting on Sunday 5 December in Faerie Glen Pretoria. W ewould love to see you there! RSVP so that we can do the catering. Cost of the event is R50. Flying in a Glider (Alfred) Leonie has for many years had a dream to fly in a small plane. Our new friend Chris Burger heard about this dream and kindly decided to provide the answer to Leonie's dream. He part-owns a glider and he announced that he would take both Leonie and me for a spin. I was completely bowled over - nowhere in my imagination had such a thing ever seemed possible. I was first to fly. We took off beautifully, and soon we were high above the West Rand. I was enjoying the view when Chris interrupted and said, "Would you like to take control of the controls?" Imagine my surprise! I mumbled something along the lines that I did not feel ready for something like that. Chris answered, "You are now in control." I acknowledged that I was taking over control and immediately the nose lifted into the air and the glider started turning alarmingly, causing me to feel as if I had left my stomach somewhere behind. "No, I can't do this!" I yelled. Chris was completely calm. "Bring down the nose and go straight." I pushed my panic down. If Christ thought that I could handle this then maybe it was possible. Soon the plane was flying nicely on track, but it took all my concentration to keep the glider on something like a level straight course. Chris observed slyly, "Strange, the plane is a lot more obedient when I am at the controls." After 10 minutes I asked Chris to take over again. He did so, although I suspect he was a bit disappointed that I was not enjoying controlling the glider as much as he clearly does. However I spent the rest of our time savouring the beauty of our surroundings and feeling like an eagle in the sky. The above picture is the view of the runway as we came in to land. Despite the strong gusts of wind that day, Chris brought us down for a perfect landing. After landing, Leonie started preparing for her own flight. As she was doing this a Cessna came in and its pilot wasn't able to deal with the tricky crosswind. I watched in shock as the plane plunged the last three metres down, shot into the air with loss of speed. The plane then dropped down to the ground and its wing clipped into the grass beside the tarmac. It ended up on its nose on the edge of the tarmac. We rushed to the scene. Fortunately no one was hurt. We waited for clearance to remove the Cessna. Chris was quick to assure us that in tens of hours of flying he had only seen such a thing happen three times. I'm not sure that is reassuring, but Leonie was still eager to go on her flight. If anything it seems that she enjoyed it even more than I did. The Tale of Oscar (Alfred) One day soon after we arrived at Faan & Liezl's house a strange thing happened. We were sitting on the couch just shooting the breeze when a pigeon flew in through the door and perched on the floor in front of us. Were we surprised! But that was nothing next to what happened next: the pigeon hopped onto my leg and started pecking at my trousers. But that was not all. The pigeon then landed on Leonie's chest before perching on my head as if I were a particularly suitable statue! It turned out later that Faan & Liezl had hand-reared the pigeon, who is rather tame as a result. He has been given the name Oscar. After that first day Oscar would regularly visit, and would pay close attention to our computer screens. He would seat himself on top of the screen and quizzically turn his head through various contortions to follow the action. Praise Reports We have had been able to speak to people around South Africa about God's love and work. We have seen more support for the video translation and for the Ministry Centre. We were able to get a flight to India despite the panic that has taken hold of the world. We keep hearing reports of students of the English Conversation Classes wanting to know more about Jesus, and even requesting Bibles. Please pray for these dear friends that they will meet Jesus. Prayer Requests We are very excited about the Christmas outreach. Please pray that the Lord will soften peoples' hearts. As noted last month, kiwi.com owes us a substantial amount of money. They have still not paid it. Please pray that the funds will come in soon. That we will be able to raise all the support that we need to continue the making of the Bible story videos and to support the MInistry Centre.

How you can support us We need your prayer support: without prayer and fasting the walls that are surrounding Tibetans will never be broken down. Our newsletters aim to help you focus your prayers strategically. You can also support us financially. South Africans can pay directly into our bank account: Account name AE Smith Nedbank Cheque Account 1556031424 Branch code 155605 We also have an international facility. Simply click the link below, choose an amount to donate, and then provide payment details. Click below: Support Alfred & Leonie We also have a separate payment for our video project. If you would like to donate specifically to that project, you can use the following link: Support the Video Project We appreciate you Thank you to each one that is praying for us, supporting us financially and being there for us. We deeply appreciate it that you can be a part of our lives. May you be blessed far beyond what you can imagine. Do you have news? We'd be glad to hear from you. Do you have a need? Let us pray for you. You can write to us at writetoalfred@gmail.com. Be greatly blessed Alfred & Leonie

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