December 2002

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow

"Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments." Deuteronomy 7:9

Dear Friends

It is with grateful hearts that we look back over the last year. The celebration of the incarnation of Christ gives us ample opportunity to count our blessings and rejoice in His mercy over our lives. 2002 has been a watershed year filled with risks, threats, exciting new developments, tremendous new opportunities and important new milestones.

Andrea and Daniela are both really enjoying home schooling - enrolled with the Christian Liberty Academy School System (CLASS). We all thoroughly enjoy the Christian Liberty textbooks. Andrea's favourite subjects are English, Bible and History and Daniela's are Bible and Nature Readers (Science). Calvin (now 3½ years) joins in whenever possible and takes out his crayons or puzzles and often announces: "I need to do my work!" Home schooling has been such a rewarding experience for me in particular. I feel for the first time that I am truly in touch with what our children are learning and thinking.

Our girls have quite a full extramural programme. This includes going to an art school, Celtic dancing, piano lessons and ice-skating. I was determined that they learn at least one Alpine sport and even 7-year old Christopher is showing some proficiency at ice-skating. (I join them on the ice each week as well). Andrea has now joined the Girl Guides. Daniela is in her last year in Brownies (next year she will also graduate to the Guides). Andrea enjoyed a Guide camp, and Daniela went with other Brownies for a sleepover with the sharks at the Aquarium. They literally rolled out their sleeping bags in front of the huge shark tank at the Two Oceans Aquarium, joined the penguins and seals for breakfast in the morning and generally got to know all the sea creatures much better.

Christopher has developed his ball skills with Playball and has added swimming lessons as well. By God's grace, Christopher's health has been very stable this year allowing for a little growth. He is still on an appetite stimulant, but we are decreasing the dosage. There is, however, concern about him "spilling protein" and this is being monitored. Christopher is our miracle boy, a daily reminder of God's healing hand and gracious answers to prayer. Christopher's impressive skill and agility on his scooter and bicycle attest to his improved health, despite renal failure. May God grant him even more physical development and increased strength.

At 3½ years Calvin is also learning and catching up fast. He is now joining his brother and sisters on Saturday outings with Peter. And he can cycle his tricycle all over our little suburb frantically trying to keep up with his siblings. And he even joined his Dad for a scramble down a stream in Newlands Forest on the slopes of Table Mountain. Along with Christopher he amassed some impressive cuts and bruises and got soaked.

Andrea and Daniela also took part in our Summit Youth Leadership Training camp in January and the Great Commission Camp in July, and they've helped Peter with various literature outreaches, including in Khayelitsha. It was while distributing Gospel literature in this huge sprawling city of mostly informal dwellings that Andrea and Daniela developed a burden for the many stray and malnourished cats and dogs in the area. So they bought bags of pet food and on their next outreach to Khayelitsha, were happily going around providing extra nourishment to all the cats and dogs they could find. This created even more interest amongst the community in the film evangelism Frontline was conducting in a big tent nearby.

Another major highlight for our children this year was the adoption of two new kittens. Andrea chose a little tabby called Tabitha and Daniela, our redhead, appropriately adopted a little ginger kitten whom she called Toffee. Shortly after this we had a major crisis, when at midnight, Toffee was severely mauled by some feline intruder and Peter had to track down a veterinary surgeon who could begin surgery immediately on Toffee, who had so much of his fur and skin ripped up that a large part of his stomach was exposed. By God's grace, Peter found a very dedicated vet who worked from midnight till 4am, stitching our little kitten back together again. Barely a day later, Tabitha was also mauled by the same intruder cat, although this time we managed to intervene before too much damage was done. Little Toffee and Tabitha ended up in the same Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in adjacent cages. Our children solemnly visited the kittens daily, holding their paws and praying for them and the veterinary staff in the Animal Hospital ICU! This resulted in much discussion and witnessing with the medical staff. In answer to prayer, they both made dramatic recoveries and within the week were playing energetically again as though nothing had ever happened! But this event deeply affected all of our children, and Christopher took to carrying his BB gun around, alert for any further attempt by the bully intruder cat to assault any of our kittens. We now have six cats at home!

It is an impressive sight watching any large ship sail into our beautiful harbour in the shadow of Table Mountain, and there was much excitement when Operation Mobilisation's mission ship, MV Doulos, came to Cape Town. Peter and the children were standing on the pier with the bands welcoming the Doulos, Daniela waving the Christian flag enthusiastically. As we had friends on board, we made many trips to the Doulos.

One of God's special blessings in my life is having my Mom and Dad in Cape Town for 6 months of the year. It is a privilege to have them so close by and they are invaluable to our family and to our mission. Mom fetches and transports the children to many of their afternoon activities and sometimes the children enjoy a night at Grandma's house - one at a time.

In October/November, the tables were turned when suitcases were packed for me instead of Peter and I headed out to Europe with my Dad, while Peter was left behind with our four children. As I've stayed behind looking after the children for many scores of mission trips that Peter has undertaken, this was an interesting reversal of roles. The last time that I had been able to travel alone with my father was in 1988, just before I met Peter for the first time.

My Mom switched into overdrive and took my place during the day, especially home schooling, organising and feeding the children, to release Peter for mission priorities. In the evenings and on weekends, Peter would take over and Mom would retreat to her own abode. I could never have gone to Europe on this special trip down memory lane without my Mom's help.

My niece, Lenora Pelzman, was being married (in the Sound of Music church where Maria's wedding to Captain Von Trapp was filmed) in a full traditional wedding, with horse-drawn carriage and 600 guests, all in farming community style with everyone wearing Austrian Trachten. The wedding was an experience of a lifetime for me. I enjoyed every aspect of this two-day affair, and my German skills were just beginning to improve when, all too soon, it was time to leave. I was blessed to be re-united with my childhood friends, Wendy and Conny.

After this wonderful family event, I travelled to Slovenia with Conny. Then with my father I drove 6000km by road through Hungary to Romania, and to Germany and Poland. In Romania, my Dad preached in the largest Baptist church in Europe - Emmanuel Baptist Church in Oradea, where I had been baptised many years before. These were ministry trips for Dad and I was able to renew precious old friendships while delivering books to pastors and Bible Colleges.

En-route to ministry in Poland, we managed to stop in at Wittenberg and obtain some interesting books and memorabilia on Martin Luther's ministry there for Peter's research. One of Peter's next books in the pipeline is on the heroes of the Reformation.

I returned from Europe just in time to take part with Andrea and Daniela in a Music Concert. Between us, we had seven items on the programme, including a duet sung by Andrea and I. Daniela very bravely did a piano piece all on her own. This was our first performance in front of such an audience and our cultural horizons have been broadened. I particularly enjoyed singing with the small music ensemble I've been learning with.

Aside from being the teacher at our home school, I have been enjoying our young mothers Bible study fellowship. Through this group God has blessed me with friendships that are lasting and that provide such practical support. I've also enjoyed gardening projects at our new mission house and at our church.

Peter undertook 8 ministry trips this year, including to KwaZulu, Zambia, Sudan and the USA. He endured tick-bite fever, an arrest in Sudan, a root canal that finally needed to be extracted and many battles, including with the authorities who sought to ban a book he co-authored with Christine McCafferty, The Pink Agenda. The book was censored - then we won the appeal and had all restrictions lifted! And Peter completed The Greatest Century of Missions book which has received excellent reviews from around the world.

One of the big changes for Peter this year has been his conversion to Power Point. When he found Daniela helping him to download e-mails on my computer, Peter knew that he had to get to grips with this new technology! Over the years Peter has always given a high priority to audio-visual presentations, and he developed a huge array of slides and overhead transparencies for literally hundreds of presentations. Despite being non-technical and having an aversion to computers, this year Peter finally relented, acquired a laptop and began the process of converting all his slides and overheads into Power Point presentations.

During his September/October ministry trip to the USA, for the first time Peter left behind all slides and overheads, and travelled around with a small video projector and laptop computer, showing slides on Zimbabwe and Sudan and presenting seminars on the Reformation, the Great Commission Course and the Muslim Evangelism Workshop, using Power Point presentations. It represented a major learning curve for someone who was brought up amongst animals and library books in Rhodesia, and who thought that he had achieved the heights of technical proficiency by mastering the 16mm projector and the FN rifle. Most of his presentations at the Great Commission Course and Reformation Conference were also by Power Point, and these presentations are being perfected more each week.

Another new development was the result of much campaigning by Christopher, scheming by myself and the generosity of my parents. Our children had become embarrassed about the old, rusting car of their father. Yet all their attempts to persuade Peter to obtain a new car were in vain. He always has other priorities, especially mission trips and printing projects, so that acquiring a new vehicle was very low down the priority list. So finally in November, my parents, Bill and Harriett Bathman, made a very sacrificial gift to enable the Fellowship to acquire a new Mazda for Peter. This replaced the Mazda, which had also been a gift from the Bathman's 11 years ago. Christopher was particularly pleased to come down, help select and bring home the new car.

We are very grateful to the Lord for our family and friends. Thank you so very much for standing with us, for praying for us and for supporting us. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated. May God abundantly bless you and your family as you celebrate Christ's incarnation:

"For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulders. And His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end … with judgement and justice … the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this." Isaiah 9:6-7

Christopher Celebrates his 8th Birthday
Many have asked how Christopher is doing. Christopher is a daily reminder of God's grace and mercy. He is our "miracle boy" and a living testimony that God answers prayer. From the time he was diagnosed with kidney failure, even before his birth, and since the doctors gave him no chance of survival at birth, the call went out to our friends to intercede.

Despite still being one of the key kidney patients at the Red Cross Children's Hospital here in Cape Town, needing regular monitoring, Christopher is suprisingly healthy. During our Great Commission Course, Christopher joined us for a couple of our mountain hikes, up Lion's Head, and up and across the full length of Table Mountain - a grueling 7 hour hike, much of which was completed in the dark. Some of the men who were struggling on the hike commented afterwards how seeing that little boy striding determinedly up the mountain helped inspire them to keep going on this strenuous hike!

Christopher does get sick quite often, and just this week had Lenora in tears again. However, he is a determined young boy, not letting his renal failure hold him back. Along with his home schooling, he takes guitar and recorder lessons as well as doing ice-skating lessons and soccer. In fact, Christopher joined the missionary's team in our soccer evangelism in Khayelitsha, when we beat the home team 5-0.

On the morning of Christopher's 8th birthday party, he got up with us in the dark to head out to set up everything for the outreach at the shopping mall, and spent all morning handing out balloons with Scriptural messages to children. For his birthday party that afternoon, he chose to go to the antique car show at The Castle (the oldest building in Southern Africa, still a military head-quarters), and go-kart racing. So, thank you for continuing to pray for our Christopher. The testimony of Theodore Rooseveld and his resolution to overcome his early infirmities by making his body fit and healthy against all odds, inspires us for Christopher, and it is our prayer that true to his name, Christopher will bear the message of Christ to many people.

Peter, Lenora, Andrea, Daniela, Christopher and Calvin Hammond