June 2007

Anathoth is the headquarters of Africa Upper Room Ministries. On five acres of land near Johannesburg, South Africa, it takes its name from the Jeremiah passage in which land at Anathoth is purchased as a sign of hope for the future. Anathoth is, for Upper Room Ministries, a sign of hope for the future of Africa. This newsletter from staff-person Roland Rink brings news from this important ministry.

Greetings to you from Johannesburg. It's good to be home and to be able to communicate news from Anathoth and further exciting new projects from Africa Upper Room Ministries.

• Very cold winter weather has arrived in South Africa and we have had some "interesting moments" at Anathoth with the mercury plummeting to a very brisk -- 6° C during May.
• Zanele continues to make steady progress towards better health. It appears as if the doctors have finally found the right balance of medication for her. She is putting on weight and looks forward to going to school each day. She seems a far happier and contented little girl these days.
• Please pray for our accountant, Renny Stoltz. Renny begins an intensive six week course of radiation therapy at the Little Company of Mary clinic in Pretoria. This is seen as a precautionary measure following her surgery in February.
• Planning and conversations continue with regards to the production of an Arabic radio edition of The Upper Room daily devotional guide. Initial research has shown that we have a potential audience across the Middle East of almost 250 million Arabic speaking people. Quite a thought! We currently have a French and Zulu radio edition of The Upper Room daily devotional guide. We hope to have completed the Arabic radio edition before the end of the year.
• During our time in Nashville we had meetings with the staff of The Upper Room Living Prayer Centre. This "almost invisible" yet vital part of The Upper Room ministry receives nearly 30,000 telephone prayer requests each month. It is our hope that we in Africa can assist by sharing the work load, especially as we are geographically situated 7-8 hours ahead of the Nashville and USA team. We are looking for African based covenant prayer groups to assist us in this work. Please communicate directly with us if you feel called to be a part of this vital ministry. Please contact us via email at urmafrica@worldonline.co.za
• Between 16-19 June, AURM will again participate in the Cape Town Book Fair. Sales of our book resources have been nothing short of astounding so far this year. We hope that our participation at the Fair will strengthen our position as a growing force amongst African Christian publishers as well as afford us the opportunity to meet other like-minded African publishers.
• We are delighted to announce that we will launch another Upper Room magazine in South Africa. The magazine is titled Alive Now. To launch the magazine, we have chosen the May/June 2008 edition of Alive Now as it will feature South Africa. Alive Now has been strongly supported in the USA over a number of years and we are confident that it will be well received in South Africa. One of our main aims is that the African edition of Alive Now will act as a launch pad for new African authors. It will be interesting to see how articles depicting African spirituality, in words and images, is received. The magazine will also feature the work of previously published authors. If you feel a nudge to contribute in any way to Africa Alive Now™, please contact Rev. Mark Stephenson at mark@dorcil.co.za. We are very grateful that Mark has felt called to act as the coordinator and champion for this project. The editorial and contextualization work will be done by a collective known as the Incwadi Group. Follow this link to view the Alive Now themes. (By way of introduction, especially to Africans, Alive Now is a devotional magazine that supports the spiritual lives of small groups as well as individuals. The magazine invites readers to enter an ever-deepening relationship with God, helps them reflect on contemporary issues from a faith perspective, and supports them in acting on these issues.) If you would like to be one of the first subscribers to the African edition of Alive Now, we suggest that you contact Nancy Herron at nanceurmafrica@worldonline.co.za
• Our communications partner, Kyle Lauf at Kurula Media has done a wonderful job in placing a number of Africa Upper Room information videos on YouTube. You can view these by clicking on the following links:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqZVSuOMAZk
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3nOY5YWIR4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1HqDMTGKEw
• We have received the French and Portuguese translations of Prayers for Encouragement. If you would like quantities of this meaningful little prayer booklet for those affected/infected with life threatening diseases, please contact us. We still have a limited number of the booklet available in the English and Swahili languages.

As we have begun the inexorable journey away from the amazing events of Easter, Pentecost and Ascension to "ordinary time" during this past month; as we have returned from the excitement of travel to foreign places, I have again been challenged by the every-day; the mundane; the hum-drum of life. These words from Joan Puls have really been helpful:

"I believe that nothing human is foreign to the Spirit, that the Spirit embraces all. Our mundane experiences contain all the stuff of holiness and of human growth in grace. Our world is rife with messages and signatures of the Spirit. Our encounters with one another are potential sites for the awakening and energizing that characterise the Spirit. But so much goes unnoticed. We fail so often to recognise the light that shines through the tiny chinks and the dusty panes of our lives. We are too busy to name the event that is blessed in its ordinariness, holy in its uniqueness, and grace-filled in its underlying challenge".
(From the book Every Bush is Burning by Joan Puls).

We go forward!

Roland Rink