Rev Neil M Ross
Our gospel work in Zimbabwe is, of course, supervised by the Zimbabwe Presbytery. However, it is hoped that the major restructuring of the management of the Mission institutions – hospital, schools and orphanage – will contribute, by the blessing of the Lord, to the promotion of the gospel. That restructuring is now completed, largely due to the invaluable work of Mr Hugh Mackenzie, Mission Co-ordinator.
Instead of the Field Committee overseeing the Hospital at Mbuma, the High School at Ingwenya, and the Children’s Home at Thembiso, separate Boards of Governors will now be responsible for managing each institution. One or more of our ministers, as well as the leaders of these institutions, will be members on each Board, whose main objective is “to promote the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ by all legal and practicable means” within the areas in which they operate.
The Field Committee is now effectively dissolved and the Boards of Governors will be fully operational from the beginning of 2015, God willing. The new management structure is slimmer and less expensive to run, and it is believed it will “bring the gospel work into sharper focus under the oversight of the Presbytery” and be more efficient in making use of limited resources for the primary work of preaching and teaching the Word, and reaching out to sinners in their need of salvation.
Our input to the primary schools in our missions continues under the Primary Schools Development Committee, headed by Mr M Mpofu, Mission Administrator, who has been appointed Education Officer (and is also a member of each Board of Governors). The Presbytery is still responsible for the work of the Translation Team and the Publications Committee, but has been relieved of running the Reformed Bookroom in Bulawayo – it had to be closed due to falling sales and increased costs. Bibles are now sold from the Head Office.
The Translation Manager, Mr Teus Benschop, reports that the Shona Bible Revision Translation team in Zvishavane has translated from Numbers to 1 Kings in the past year. He adds, “The team praises God for prospering the work”. Most of the 40 000 copies of the revised Shona New Testament
(completed in 2013 and printed in Holland in 2014) are being sent to Zimbabwe, where they are eagerly awaited at the time of writing.
Mbuma Mission continues to provide medical and spiritual care to the community it serves. During the year the first major step was made in devolving some secondary health care at the hospital to primary health care at the newly-erected Lutsha Rural Health Clinic (for which the hospital will be clinically responsible). Dr Snoek and her hospital team will soon, it is hoped, have extra help in the person of Dr Janlouis Bezemer from Holland, who has been appointed by the Jewish and Foreign Mission Committee to work there for two years; this in turn will assist the process of devolving further hospital care to another rural health clinic as planned.
John Tallach High School at Ingwenya continues its function of drawing many young people near to the net of the gospel, says Mr Mackenzie. They are attracted by “the high standard of education for which the school is nationally famous”. Mr Roy Bartle, a mechanical engineer and member of our Aberdeen congregation, has been accepted by the Committee to teach in the High School for a limited period of time. He hopes to be in Ingwenya by the beginning of the school year in January.
Thembiso Children’s Home currently cares for 41 children plus two girls who are over 18. The children not only attend worship in their family unit in the Home and in our Lobengula church in Bulawayo, but also receive one-to-one instruction from their house mothers. One of the adult girls has completed her training for pre-school teaching, the other is going through a primary-teaching course at Masvingo Teacher Training College, and a former Thembiso boy is in his final year of teacher-training. As Mr Mackenzie says in his last report, the Home “aims to unlock the potential of orphans and vulnerable children by nurturing their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being” in order that, with God’s blessing on these efforts, they will eventually become self-sufficient, productive members of society and be faithful Christian witnesses in their lives.
The Zimbabwe Presbytery has been sending Rev A B MacLean, Ingwenya, to visit and supply the congregation at Sengera, Kenya, which continues to meet for worship each Sabbath since our Mission there was closed. His last visit was in November. The Presbytery has been granted funding by the Synod for this purpose.
Israel. Rev J L Goldby reports that his recent two-week visit to Israel was for the purpose of renewing in person his “clergy visa”. Having completed the application process, he expects to receive the visa from the Israeli Ministry of the Interior at the end of January. He was also involved in the necessary restructuring of the Hebrew New Testament revision project, having been
commissioned by the Trinitarian Bible Society to act as co-ordinator between the team and the Society in London. The team requires to be strengthened by the addition of experienced Jewish Christian translators, but this will depend upon further funding becoming available. Mr Goldby also held church services on each Lord’s Day in the YMCA chapel in Jerusalem.