HOUSE OF LIFE UPDATE

In the House of LIFE June was the month of breakthrough and growth. I am so grateful to Jesus for bringing me into the kingdom of God. What a blessed life it is. The life of faith is rewarding, challenging, and stimulating. But we are also mere servants to the King of Kings. It is not our burden, it is His. It is not our plans, it is His. It is not our power, it is His. It is not our wisdom, it is His.

THE THREE GIRLS UPDATE
The girls who featured on our first Blog are as follows.
P. is at the House of LIFE rehab center. More about her further down. …. N. has been thoroughly saved, reconciled with her mother and has returned home to the Cape. She is living there and is attending church there. B. has returned home to the Gauteng area after having been saved. She is also back with her parents.


PHOTO: P in March




PHOTO: P in June



JUNE UPDATE
In mid June we accepted four girls to the House of LIFE Rehabilitation Center. J, P, M, and Pa. There are at least 20 girls who wish to come, but we made a decision to vet them first so as to start off well, and continue well. We also decided to not fill up the center before we had the entire bedding, lounge chairs, plates etc. Please see the Blog for the things still needed for the house.

• We have decided to preach the Word of God unadorned in all its power and simplicity. We have not bought in secular techniques, fads or fashionable philosophies. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more [Rom 5:20].
  
  Our method is by passionate and loving evangelism, and solid, pointed, no-holds-barred-biblical teaching. After all, Paul said that he preaches nothing other than Jesus Christ and him crucified.
  
  Our aim is to look for Jesus Christ to be formed in the lives of the disciples.[gal 4:19]. Despite the fact that Paul was a formidable intellectual, he looked to the simplicity of Jesus Christ 2 Cor 11:3. That is our aim. We have found this to be astonishingly powerful.
  
  P …………….
  P was photographed before. She is on the blog titled three women. Her face was puffy and swollen with drug addiction and a commercial sex lifestyle. After the previous report, she became very sick, nearly dying. One day she asked for a hug. I gave her one, but the smell of rotten flesh was overpowering. She lost huge amounts of weight in two or three weeks. She requested and received prayer and became healthy again.
  
  Her face has been radically changed into a young woman of poise and beauty. She has an angelic voice qualified to glorify Jesus in Gospel songs. However, first she must get her foundations or roots right. These are spiritual roots, moral roots and community harmony roots. She has woken up to the fact that Jesus is here, he is alive, well and loves her.
  
  She is also undergoing social transformation as she realises that she has been put in a family, the family of God. Previously she would be hostile and antisocial with people in the Durban shelter. They would shout at her and sometimes punch her and kick her till she became quiet. This has traumatised her, but she is rapidly healing as she realises that she should love her Jesus family and be loved by them. She now abounds with love and affection, and joyfully receives love from Christian women visitors.
  
  She ran away from home. Her mother advertised on TV and the newspaper that if anyone knew where she was, they were to contact her. P phoned home from the rehab center and there was rejoicing that she had been found, was well and was being discipled in Jesus. She is very keen to learn the computer, and she has received a couple of small lessons on my own computer.
  
  Pa ……………….
  Pa is in her late 20’s. She was a commercial sex worker, standing on the streets. She was driven to this because she has two children who are not with her but are being looked after by their father. She was not being supported financially by the father of her children, so she was forced to seek money on the streets for rent and food. Sex work was so abusive that she began drinking heavily to dull the inner pain she was feeling. She responded to the preaching of the Word of God by Petra, and came to Christ. She also is responding to the teaching given by Pastor Steve Blomefield.
  PHOTO: Pa .............

She was not addicted to rocks [crack cocaine] or other drugs.
She is a good cook and often cooks for the people in House of life. Her whole countenance has become radiant because of the inner spiritual change. She has rapidly grown in Jesus and her whole manner is changing as she becomes more and more like Jesus. She has realised that her previous lifestyle was sheer madness. It was not at all sensible.

J ………………
J is an orphan. She fell in love with a fellow schoolboy, got pregnant and was thrown out of her family home. She moved to Durban and found a new boyfriend from Burundi. She believed strongly in the power of Sangoma’s [witchdoctors], and magic and muti [magic medicine].

Unfortunately J’s boyfriend was abusive and violent. He abused her by slapping, punching and kicking her often. Her response was to learn the same style of violence. Petra has encountered J fighting with claws bared and seeking eyes to puncture and make blind, and fists lashing out, uncaring of punches received. Several times Petra has had to pay for a shelter so that J could find temporary refuge and a place to stay.

PHOTO:J ........................

She responded to Petra's preaching of scripture and her love. She has renounced this way of life of violence, magic and muti. She has fallen in love with Jesus. She formerly was an orphan, but now she has a spiritual mother [Petra], a spiritual father [Steve] and a family – Christians.

She says that Jesus has changed her life from the former life to a new life. Jesus has a plan for her life. he has helped her resist temptation of the devil and she has no desire to return to her former way of life. She is filled with joy, and fun, and bubbly happiness now that she knows Jesus loves her, forgives her and has placed her in a loving family.

Margaret …………………….
Margaret, formerly the Queen of Durban, [see the Blog on the Queen of Durban] has also come to the center. Petra met Margaret many years ago. Petra met up with her on her return to South Africa from the USA. Margaret was so happy and desired to hear her at the Tuesday and Thursday meetings when Jesus was preached. The more meetings she attended, the more she lost the desire to do practice prostitution.

PHOTO: Margaret reading the Word of God

She came to House of LIFE in mid June. She has been completely delivered from the desire to drink, to smoke cigarettes and to engage in prostitution. She has well and truly given her life to Jesus, seeing his love, mercy, grace and forgiveness. She reads scripture most of the day and gets revelation from the Word of God. Instead of turmoil and stress, peace and quiet joy have taken over.


Margaret can also crochet and is making a blanket for someone.

Steve Blomefield
Pastor
HOUSE OF LIFE