Contents of this newsletter
Visiting South Africa
We are so thankful to be able to visit South Africa during July and August. Due to successive years of COVID and our move to the USA last year, we haven't seen our friends and family in South Africa for five years! Many have moved, gone grey (like Bets), or have retired ... We'll need maps, reading glasses and prayer to navigate all the visits we've lined up already! Thank you to everybody who've offered beds to sleep in, cars to drive with and yummy South African food to spoil us with!
"Open Day" in Centurion
We'll have an "open day" on Saturday August the 12th, from 10am to 3pm at our pastor's house. On the hour, every hour, we'll give a short presentation of what's been happening with us and Didasko Missions Academy over the last few years. In between the presentations we'd love to hang out with you.
Address: 230 Seeswaelstraat, Wierdapark, Centurion. Thanks Lourens and Amanda for hosting us!
So if you'll be in the Gauteng area then, please mark out an hour or two to come see us on that day. Although not strictly necessary, we'd appreciate it if you could give us an indication if and when you'll swing by that day. Please come!
Didasko Open Day for Pastors, Students and Friends
We'll also have an open day in Johannesburg for pastors and Didasko students on Wednesday, August the 9th. The time still has to be finalized. The Gereformeerde Kerk Linden (GKL) has very graciously offered to host us. If you aren't a pastor or a Didasko student, you're still welcome to visit us on that day. Please let us know if you want to come, then we'll send you an invitation with more information.
Address: Gereformeerde Kerk Linden: 3rd Ave, Linden, Randburg, 2104.
Our New Recording Studio
We recently completed setting up our new video studio. Even before we built the studio, we knew that the sound would reverberate in the basement. This would have made it sound like our recordings were done in a bathroom! So we built sound absorption panels and hung them from the ceilings. This did the trick!
The photo below shows Bets teaching; you can see the sound absorption panels suspended from the ceiling. Behind her is a grey paper backdrop for a neutral background. The soft box light towards the left of the photo illuminates her face, and the umbrella lights the backdrop. There's an identical set of lights on her other side (not visible here). This provides even lighting.
Seeing yourself on video, with lights illuminating every wrinkle and spot is quite humbling, to say the least!
The photo below shows what she's looking at. Well, Hendrik doesn't normally sit there, he'll be behind the camera, which is behind the text on the teleprompter (not visible on the photo). The lesson text scrolls across the screen as she teaches. When Hendrik is teaching, we swap places. That teleprompter and the camera behind it are well travelled - we bought them years ago in the USA, took them to Asia to use there, and then carted them back again last year. All without damage to either the camera or to the sensitive one-way mirror in the teleprompter. The blue squares on the wall above Hendrik are extra sound absorption panels. More of them are on the ceiling, not visible on the photo.
We couldn't get into that studio quickly enough to start making videos again! Because we didn't have a studio since we moved to the USA, we used the time to develop new course material. We ended up with over forty teaching videos ready for shooting. We've already completed eight of those for our upcoming Cross-Cultural Communications course. What a joy to be able to produce and teach again.
We believe that our mandate from the Lord is to 'develop more effective Kingdom workers'. More effective ones, and more of them. Producing courses on all aspects of missions is working towards fulfilling that mandate. This is the reason all of our courses are available free of charge to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Please pray with us for all our students that they will grow in their knowledge of God and His Kingdom work, and that each one will find his/her own role to fulfil. Pray that our course facilitators will pursue excellence, and find much satisfaction in seeing others grow into their roles. Also pray for more students and mission organizations to use our material, because our ultimate goal is to help see movements to Christ in every Unreached People Group, because 'in His name the nations will put their hope' (Matthew 12:21)!
Development of our Recording Studios over the years
We started our missions journey in the year 2000. It seems that in every phase of ministry, God directed us to produce audio and video tools to help others grow and become more effective. Below is a snap shot of our 'studio-journey':
Our first 'studio' was an egg-carton lined room in Mozambique. It was hot and stuffy in the tropical heat. There we recorded the audio for chronological Bible teachings in Kimwani, which we distributed on small solar-powered players. We found that the egg cartons did not really keep out the sounds of the village - women pounding their rice, the auto mechanic next door grinding things, or the mosque calling five times a day. A lot of these sounds came through ground vibrations. But it looked cool, and the sound was clear!
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When we moved to Southeast Asia, we lived in an apartment on the 18th floor. That's where Didasko was born. We converted a small study into a studio, lining the floor and walls with baby duvets and bathroom mats. There we made many videos for our first set of courses. As in Mozambique, we had to be very flexible as to when we shot the videos, because the apartment building was just like a vertical village, with people renovating their apartments, kids crying, and of course the mosques calling loudly. There was a noisy air conditioner in the studio, so we couldn't run that while recording. The longer a video took to shoot, the more shiny the speaker's forehead would get from perspiration!
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Now here in the USA, we have a spacious video studio that stays cool, with no external noises. What a difference this makes! It really helps us to be more relaxed and productive. Yet we are thankful for every studio that God has given us over the years, because we know that it is only Jesus who enables us to do what is beyond our capabilities, it is only Jesus who gives us the strength to persevere, and it is only Jesus who is worthy!
Visit from World Outreach Senior Leaders
Last week we were blessed to have three colleagues visit us for a few days. From left to right on the photo is: Malcolm B, head of all World Outreach's country offices; yours truly-s; Bruce Hills, International Director, and Ben B, the new International Director starting September. We have known all of them for more than ten years, and have served together on a number of World Outreach leadership bodies.
After doing the 'shuffle' with all their flights and inevitable delays, we did a lot of catch-up. Ben recorded a podcast with Hendrik about Didasko in our new studio, and much coffee was consumed ... It was great!
World Outreach Summit
Our mission organization, World Outreach International, had its 90th birthday last year! Because all kinds of travel restrictions were still in place after COVID, the organization couldn't hold its planned celebratory gathering in Thailand. What a disappointment that was, because World Outreach's summits are always great fun, with excellent speakers, great multi-cultural worship, while catching up with friends and colleagues over meals. To our joy the celebration is this year at the end of July. We have been asked to present a workshop on Prayer for Ministry, and we'll be exhibiting and promoting Didasko during the Summit.
Group photo from WO Summit 2018 - and we've grown a LOT since then!.We are in that group ... try and find us!
We are really excited to go, because these World Outreach Summits are absolutely awesome. WO is a rare missions organization in that more than half of our missionaries are from non-Western countries. The times of joint prayer and worship always leave us with the distinct feeling that we've gotten an inkling of what Revelation 7:9 says it'll be like in heaven one day, when there'll be "a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb." What a privilege to be able to get such a foretaste now!
Just in this worship team are colleagues from all over the world in their traditional dress. Heavenly voices in many languages!
Prayer for Travel Mercies
Due to the sudden and crazy rise in flight prices, we had to get creative. Flying from the USA to Thailand costs double - yes, double! - than the price from South Africa to Thailand. So we decided to make our time in SA overlap with the Summit, and fly from SA to Thailand and back in the middle of our stay there. We did a quick calculation - just the time we'll be in the air with all flights calculated will be around 65 hours!! This does not take into account airport waiting times ...
So please pray that we will not have extreme flight delays. Our flight schedule is tight, and one delay can have a domino effect on the rest of our flights. Please also pray for our safety. Most of all, please pray that we will be able to see everybody we need to see, so that we can have good God-discussions and that we could encourage one another (1 Thess 5:11).
Joining the growing Didasko community
If you're not already partnering with Didasko Missions Academy, please consider contributing. We offer all our courses free of charge, so we need funds to develop courses and keep the ministry going. If you'd like to, click here: www.dasko.org/donate