Robert & Dorah Yoder Newsletter (Winter 2022)

Dear Friends

Greetings to you family and friends and Happy 2022 to you!

We hope and trust that you are all doing  well. Here in South Africa we are all great by the grace of God. It is summer time here and we have rain almost every day.

It has been some months since we last wrote to our family and friends. South Africa is now in the fourth wave of COVID with a lot of infections and few deaths each day. We have not gone on lockdown despite many infections and right now our kids have even gone back to school. Praise the Lord.

The Lord allowed us to hold Boot Camp and we are so thankful for that. We hoped to have six teams, but unfortunately we only managed to get team members for three teams as most people were afraid to come if the country decided to go on lockdown.  Anyway, Leaders training was Monday, December 6th to the 10th.  Boot Camp started on December 11th and went through 22nd. Project time was December 23rd to the 4th of January 2022. January 5th to 7th was Debrief and then 8th was go home day. We had a great time at Boot Camp and most of the kids gave their lives to the Lord. We only had two people test COVID positive at the end of training, so we kept the teams at the base for three days just to monitor the spread, then we were able to take them to their project sites. We also want to say we had BMW graduation on the 18th of December.  There were two graduates and five who were commissioned. So now we pray that God will bring more laborers into his harvest this year.

We thank God for allowing us to see this year. In December me and my wife got so sick, but the Lord healed us. We treated ourselves with steam and drank a lot of ginger garlic and lemon mixture. We had one staff member who tested positive and the others had symptoms, but all in all we just thank God for preserving our lives up to this day. We are not clever or special; it is just by God’s grace that we are alive.

Our kids are healthy.  Esther is now in grade 6, Ethan is in grade 4, Elisha is in kindergarten and next year he is starting grade 1. Pray for them for protection as they are in school. Pray for me currently as I have an ear infection and am on medication.

The base is doing okay. We have five staff and we hope to have three students this term. Pray for South Africa Bible school that God will send students who have a passion for God. The base was blessed with the couple (Brandon and Madison and Darrel Metzler) from the head office who stayed and worked tirelessly for two months in the guest house and we want to say thank you!  They really did a great job and encouraged us a lot. As a base we are also blessed with a new borehole to help get enough water to run throughout the day, thank you so much for this too. Keep us in prayers next week as we begin our new term programs and different ministries like sun sky and the butchery which are our Sunday ministries.

Finally friends, we are saying thank you!  Thank you so much for your generous support; even in times like these you chose to support us. We love you and we appreciate all your support in any form. May God continue to bless you and to keep you and replenish your source. May God fight all your battles and may He answer you when you call on him in times of need. We are so blessed by you.

Pray Requests:

1. God’s wisdom and guidance in making decisions

2. Protection as we do ministry here

3. The children to do well in school

4. Visas for Robert and Esther for South Africa and Dorah for the USA

5. Travel arrangements to come and visit family and friends this year

Yours in His service,

Robert and Dorah, Esther Ethan, Elisha Yoder

Is 41:10