Issue 33: August 1994

Some of you will probably have heard of the imminent changes at Ameva. Martin and Marian Williams had their appeal for renewal of their permit turned down by the Minister of Home Affairs. They had to make a quick departure to Malawi but are now back at Ameva on a visitors' permit. They are busily packing up their belongings and fly back to U.K. on June 11th. They have made a tremendous contribution to the development of the Bible School and will leave a big gap at Ameva. Please pray that the Lord will make clear their future and also pray for the Bible School here. Charlie Foster is able to take more responsibility for the farm side which docs leave John Valentine freer to be more involved in the Bible School. John Valentine was due to visit U.K. in July/August but because of the change in circumstances at Ameva, has cancelled his visit. He suggested that we go home to be at the Summer Conference, so we are planning to travel to U.K. at the end of July and will be there for the month or August. We return to Zimbabwe on 1st September to start the new school term. It will be a short visit, but we hope to see many of you at Rora or when we visit other places. Although some of last year's Form 1 either moved to a new area or didn't return to school, we had more applications than we could cope with for the new first year. Each class has 42 pupils and every available table and desk was used. Even doors placed on piles of bricks had to be used as desks. A container is expected any day at Ameva with some much-needed school furniture. May we take this opportunity to thank all those who have kindly contributed to the equipping of the school. The new staff are proving to be keen and very competent in their subjects. We are registered to do the ZJC exams at Ameva and next year will be registered for ''O'' levels. This year's Form IV will take their "O" levels in Chegutu. There are now 190 pupils at the school so every day we have had to hold assemblies in the open air. Despite it being the rainy season, we never had to cancel it once. Although often it rained later in the day. The Lord has been good to us and many of the pupils are growing into fine young men and women. I was able to take a few of the pupils with me to a Youth Weekend organised by Melson at Concession over Easter. In the midst of the term, we moved into Martin and Marian's house while they were in Malawi. We managed to do that with Martha only having two days off school. At present we are sharing house with the Williams, and we will stay on there when they go. No more moves for a while we trust. Please continue to pray for all the work at Ameva. The outreach to the local farms remains a real challenge, with more invitations than we can fulfil and also, an awareness of a real need for a deep work or God to be done in lives. Martha has been encouraged with the women's meetings and it is the women who are the backbone of most of these farm churches.