Mills-Robert-Phyllis-1984-SAfrica.pdf

7/29/2019 Mills-Robert-Phyllis-1984-SAfrica.pdf

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Dear Co-workers,

G03>EL TRACT CENTREJohannesburg,

S. Afr i ca1 9

phone 869-8331January , 1984Another new year is before us. We look forward to God's leading and blessingsin His work and we thank you fo r your praye rful support i n the past year.Decenfcer brought further equipment breakdowns, one on the press and one on thecollator, but I was able to repa ir the electrical fault i n the collator a t noexpense and Mr Kerker soon sorted out the press problan. His bill was for RlOOthis time. We are especially grateful for God's provi sion through you all forthe clearing of the mission's debts so that we start the new year with noneoutstanding and with a healthy contribution toward replacanent equipment. OurLord even saw to it tha t those funds arr ived a t a time viien the exchange ra tewas especially in our favor. This varies daily.During Decenter we also referred 22 South African students to Umzumbe BibleIns ti tu te for further study after they had finished all of our series of Biblecorrespondence lessons. There were several more we could have referred had theynot been insti tutionalised prisoners. We saw no point of referring them. Wejust prcjy that some of these referrals will follow through and eventually enterthe ministry. Normally the students at Umzumbe come from our churches and areeither Xhosa, Zulu or Afrikaans speaking. Most of our references are of othertribes so they are needed i f we are to reach out to those tribes and areas forthe Lord. We also posted well over four hundred catalogues of other Biblematerials we print along with the correspondence lessons, to new South Africanstudents who enrolled during the month. Because of exchange and travelcomplications we do not send the catalogue to our international students, orrefer then to Umzunbe Bible School, and there are mary of those as wel 1.We have had a great many requests from Zimbabwe for lessons this month and Isuspect that as soon as these a re f il 1ed I wi 11 f ind that I have to re-pr i ntEnglish study books. I haven't dared to make a count of reserve stock, for Ihave hardly been able to keep up with typing the addresses into the wordprocesser le t alone f i l l the envelopes. We are in desperate need of staff a ttimes, as well as equipment and facil ities for them. In fact, we have reachedone of those pi ateaus where we must expand or we wil 1 have to cut back onservice. Pray with us, tha t His will be done.The printing of Edgar Nichols' book "OUT OF WEfl


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Dear Co-workers ,

GOSPEL TRACT CENTREJohanne sburgS. Af r i c a

0 tjO 5 '5 ' ^

phone 869-8331February , 1984We give praise and thanks to God tha t a t l a s t , af te r many months of exhaustingwork, press fai lures, a nd a grea t deal of extra expense fo r s uppl i es a nd specialbinding equipment, the Nichols book, "OUT OF WEAKNESS" i s completely finished.{Because of the 1ong delays, I can not help but wonder tha t i s a reference to ourweakness. ) I am sure t ha t there wi 11 be some er rors , the re always a re, but we areposting i t to Edgar as rapidly as we can, and you can addre ss o rder s to him:Edgar Nichols, P.O. Box S, Hyrtle Creek, OR. 97457. He shoul d have copiesavanab 1 e in a few weeks if not ye t . His pr ice i s $5.00 by mail . I t i s a 142 pagebock, plus pict i res . We are posting only in lo ts of ten copies, so we can acceptorders only for multiples of ten cop ie s here i f you send orders to us. Encloseyour personal check, a nd i f your order i s fo r s ingle copies or fewer than ten,send it to him in Oregon. Thanks so very much.Already we have re-printed 2500 copies of our basic English Bible correspondenceworkbook and are finishing it up for use. I had become dreadfully behind dur ingth is 1as t push to compl ete the Nichols book. Now we must catch up again.We are especial ly appreciat ive of Rick Bui lard who i s presently in South Africaand pi ans to be here for the next few months. He 1s 1odgi ng wi th us and helpingme mornings in the press room. As he has had th i s sor t of experience in America,his help i s especially welcome. He i s also an experienced minister so i s f i t t ingin very well in the vvork a t the Kimberley Road church. I hope to c lear away mostof th i s back work as we are planning a long t r ip la ter th is month to par t ic ipatein a Bible Training School seminar a t Graaff Reinet. We shal l be away perhaps tendays, the Lord wil l i ng. I t i s our pi an to vi s i t a number of churches i n theEastern Cape. I had original ly planned to vis i t four more, but t ha t was before Iknew the dates of the seminar. I new plan to go back fo r those we had to cancelin April as we have the Nfinister's ffeeting in this area in March and will behos ting several mi ssionaries as wel 1.After clearing away the ent i re l i s t ear l i e r in the month there are severalhundred fresh requests fo r lessons fron Zimbabwe to be typed up. I could use anexpert typist for a day or so as tha t i s tedious work. Another book is waitingthe press as well while stocks are low on yet a third. I see busy days ahead.There i s the usual o rder for cer t i f ica tes for the mission meeting as well, ,probably about 24,000 of those, printed in two colours. I recently examined a twocolour p re ss . I could surely use it now to speed tha t l i t t l e order along.However, I do not have an/ pi ace to p ut i t even i f I had i t .God has been wonderful to us th i s month. We can sense your many prayers and yourconcern for the wel 1 being of the work. Thark you especial ly for those as wel 1 asfor the material uplifting. Thanks to the la t ter we now have a small equipmentand buffer fund again. Burroughs has made a tenpting offer of a reconditioned andguaranteed replacement for our present troifclesome word processor. This newer onehas a mathanatics capab ili ty a s well a s s ele ctiv e re trie va l and uses disks whichs tore more and are cheaper and fa r more sat i s factory than our present casset tes .We need those features in our type of work and the pr ice i s at tract ive in that Icould afford to pay cash, but it would leave me with the present machine on hand.I have offered th i s one in exchange fo r the l a rger press or col la tor we need, butmy contact fee ls our machine i s too large for her needs. Probably she real lymeans 11 i s too o ld. I am pr c(/i ng that s he wil 1 change her mi nd as her press 1sof s imilar age.Yours in Jesus Chr i s t ,

11s Mil Is

Mr and Mrs Raymond Anderson, F. Agents706 E. Washington, Urbana, IL. 61801Webber St ree t Church of Chris t ,


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GOSPEL TRACT CENTRE -C 0-Johannesburg ^ ^South Africa . r) -i - 'iQgA ^ o.. oq-jiphone 869-8331 D?ar Co-vorkers, ^934A-busv month is behind us but with Rick helping we managed to complete theEnglish B^ble Abodes and he ispresently worthing on two other books whichcaL from the press yesterday. Naturally the press acted up as I ^s underrTssê to clpfete'the job'quickly. There are stil 1mountains "Tbe done since I mist prepare the year's supply of baptismal and other certificatesfor the entire mi ssion in the next few days.

"7. sr.'f..,ed..and after a lovely meal with them we hastened on to Middelburg we onlyjustmrde it in time for the three o;clock services. Again the bull di ng wasfull to capacity and both Rick and I spoke as vas f ng^nettrin Up had time onlv for a cool dnrk before hastening on to Gr^^ff Reinet.Even'so we were ushered straight from the car tostarted services at 6:30. The first three had been African Xhosa speî^conqreqations so this one was a change. This congregation in GraaffColour^ Afrikaans speaking church. Brother Joseph served a lovely meal afterchurch in his home. We would return to Graaff Reinet, but on Monday,tn iiitpnhaae where we delivered some parcels to our eldest daughter, Kathy, andspent a liesurely day at their home. On Tuesday we again sought out theColoured chirch at Port Elizabeth and preached for them. Wednesday, we returnedto Graff Reinet and spent the afternoon climbing about on theirresfrê. That evenirg our appo intent wa s wi th the Aberdeen chirch, a smal l buthistoric town about 35 miles away. Returning to Graaff Reinetstaved there the rest of the week to share in a saninar being conduct^ by themibe Bible Institute. Tbere were four of us teaching and we oivided our timebetween the African and the Coloured congregations and spent the morningsassemblinq 15 church benches Lynn Staney had brought for the Aberdeen church.U^s a deligh^^^^^^^ Tnd rewarding but exhausir ten days. We supp led abc^t700 different items of printed materials from our kiosk to the various brothersdSrin!^ the vi sits^but Ttoll was paid. The car used over R300 worth of petrol,a side mirror shattered on the rough roads, and the frame of the kiosk was bentand one side wall pulled J oose maki ng a big crack which has to be repaired assoon as I can find the t ime.We have decided to replace this word processer for one fitted with three diskstations and capable of selecting and forming special category railing listsfrl Zl Taster'list. One has been offered at aprice c^per t an coertingthic: nrhine We will be selling this machine or exchanging i t for betternrintf eûiDmlnt Ue Lo^^^^ Please pr^ with us that the Lord willSpen those doors. The new machine should work wonders in the uselists in conjunction with trips sxh as we just returned from as well aspreventing the loss of stored information such as we have been having with thet apes .We thank God daily for your prayers and uplifting hands. May God bless you allin t h i s minis t ry .

Yours in Jesus Christ. Mr and Mrs Raymond Anderson, F. Agents706 East Washington, Urbana, IL 61801Robert and Phyllis Mills Webber St. Church of Christ, sponsors


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f\UG 1


5/26

- - l .

VGOSPEL TRACT CENTRE

The Mobile Unit will be visiting:

Come hear brother Mills preach the Gospel and followingthe services buy your books, hymnbooks, Bibles or tractsf rom th e mobile unit .Ompel Trici Centre


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A NEW FOLLOW-UP SERVICEThe replacement of our old word processor with a more up-to-dateversion has enabled us to make greater use of it in the work. Not only isthis one less temperamental, and less likely to lose information stored init , but it now has the capability to search our main mailing list, aheadybroken down as to country, and creating new localised lists. We haveprepared special inserts (like the one on facing page), for our bookcatalog on which we will over-type annoimcements of local meetingssuch as the monthly trips. I plan posting these about three weeks in .advance of future meetings to encourage personal contact with our correspondence students when we visit churches near where they live.

OUR ASSISTANT SOON TO LEAVERick and Susan, who have assisted us greatly in the print shopassembUng most of oiir booklets, will shortly be returning to Americapermanently. (Rick came on a visitor's visae and planned only to stay afew months.) I greatly appreciate the contribution that he has made, but

this means that I will have to do my own booklet assembly in the future.We have been offered a fully automatic 88 page booklet assembly andfinishing machine for $4000. At the same time an offer was also made tous by another person to purchase our old 48 page, partly automatedmachine, handling paper only half the size. Four thousand dollars isalmost exactly what the sales tax alone would be for the same model ifpurchased new afte r tax goes up to lO^o on the first of next month.GOD BLESSES EVEN IN D IF nCULTIES!

Brother Lynn Stanley and 1made a trip to the low vield (pronouncedfelt) for a visit to the circuit of brother Mabaso, who used to work withus here. Unfortunately he did not keep his appointment to meet us so wemade a last minute Sunday morning switch and went to Barberton tovisit Simon Mtshayisa instead. We found the church building filled tocapacity. I preached and afterwards sold many books even though mostpeople had not come prepared and some had to hurry away to attend afuneral. We had the under-carriage of the^book van, welded andstrengthened before that trip, but. unfortunately it bent again in anotherlace. This is the third trip in a row in which we have had problems withie van. Clearly the chassis is too weakly constructed to cope with thestock of books on gravel roads and the wind resistance. The manufacturer claims it is a "write-off, but we have hopes that if the frame istotally re-constructed of heavier material than original we can continueto use it. Otherwise we would be wise to get a lower profile van btult on astronger chasses. I have made tenative enquiries from a local manufactu rer who has a reputation for strong trailers.


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MEMORIAL &PROJECT AVA

If you believe, youwill recei(Matthew


8/26

< r < r ^ GOSPEL TRACT CENTRE nr.n i / 1QftAP.O. Box 1347 APR u*' "" Alberton, S. Africa

U50Dear Co-Workers, phone 869-8351

Apr i l , 1984

This letter is being prepared on the replacement word processer which has beeninstalled, and we are now getting used to it . I have already spent one day atBurroughs transferring material from the old medium to the dislcs and must s t i l lgo again. We have been so busy that I have not had the opportunity to properlyadvertise the old machine, but we must sell i t soon as we have virtually noworking funds this month until we do, though we did manage to draw our salarycheck. A fully automated booklet assembly machine has also been offered to usfor $4000 and at the same time an offer of R500 has been made for our oldpartly automated machine. After Rick's departure in about four months time thisautomated machine would be a great blessing as he is doing this for us now.The annual Minister's Week was held in our area this month, and we enjoyedhaving both th e S tanley and Nicholson families with us. We took back Rick'sroom for the Stanleys and we slept on the floor in the living room to give theNicholson's our room. A good visit was enjoyed by all. Both famlies willprobably be returning for a few days this month as well, as the Stanleys areleaving for furlough and Mr Nicholson has b us in es s h er e.Rick and I have jus t returned from a trip of more than 1670 kilometers thispast week-end. We had planned to preach at four churches but all did not gowell with us. At the first stop at Kuruman in Bophuthatswana, our lights on thecar all failed while I was driving at about 70 kph on a washboarded dirt road.They could not be repaired in the intense dark, so we drove the remaining 15 ormore km with only the emergency breakdown flashing lights to see by. Praise Godwe did have those or we would have slept beside the road. The church at Kurumanwas greatly appreciative of our vis i t , however, and we had a wonderful timewith the Christians there. I most enjoyed our brief stop at the LondonMissionary Society's station founded by Robert Moffat, where we spent thenight. David Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat under a tree in the garden.The present family were most gracious hosts. Sunday morning we hastened toPostmasburg where there was a filled to capacity church house fo r services aswell . They held us t i l l two o:clock which made us an hour and a half late a tDouglas where we unfortunately had to shorten our stay and cancel our plan togo to Hopetown for the night services as we s t i l l had no l ights. Instead wedrove straight to Kimberley and arrived just after the onset of darkness. Ithank God that we were not stranded on the road! On Monday we got the lightsand the carburet tor both repaired. We had to co ntinu e on home with the t r a i l e ras i t was though I was really concerned for i t . The bad roads had again badlybent the frame and the body of the kiosk is t i l ted backwards and the floor isbadly buckled and torn loose from the sides. I dare no t ven tu re onto the roadsagain until i t is properly repaired and repairs are impossible with the presentstate of our finances. We are scheduled to make another trip the f i rst week-endof May. In the past three weeks we have used i t to distribute nearly a thousandBibles , hymnbooks and othe r Bible re la ted bookle ts .We pray that God may bless you a l l in His service .

i^^sus Christ Mr and Mrs Raymond Anderson, F. Agents/ J^ \^ "706 East Washington, Urbana, IL. 61801Robert and Phyll is Mills Webber Stree t Church of Chris t


9/26

Dear Cb-orke r s ,

GOSPEL TRACT CENTREP.O. Box 1347

Alherton, South AfricaU50

MAY r i 1984phone 869-8531May, 1984

Arather interesting thing happened on our last long trip out with thekiosk. We stopped at Womerangstad for gasolene and while we were there,the pump attendant asked if he could buy a Hew Testament m Zulu. Evenbefore I finished serving him another person had oome to a^ if wein Tswana. I was happy to sell the Bibles, but I ^ won^r if the stationowner was not going to ask us to move away from his pumps before we set Pfor business! It was on that trip that the ftame of the kiosk completely brokeand we have not been able to get it repaired as yet. I had hoped to use i tagain this coming week end too.This has heen a terribly busy month in which I have worked at the typewriteralmost daily. This machine keeps a daily productivity report and one typicalday recoiled 11,430 key strokes with 1502 lines printed. I am very pleasedhowever that we are entirely up to date on lesson requests andbeen marked. The last go out in the post today! Yesterday I spent the entireday in the dark room preparing negatives for printing to be done. Rick ispresently finishing that task so we hope to print later. Two of our origin^printings in Portuguese must be done in a new edition as I gave the balance ofthe entire first printing away. In the aftermath of the terrible floods inMozambique, Swaziland and South Africa we were approached and ask if we hadtracts and Bible studies agailable in Portuguese that could be included with thematerial aid of blankets, food and the like. I gladly gave them almosteverything we had in stock and so we must now reprint those, at the same timeimproving on appearance of the covers.The gasolene bill for the trip mentioned last month plus normal drivinghas come in and leaves us $250 poorer. I think the trip this week-end w^lhave to be the last until Sept. to allow me to catch up on such bills. Postagewas also $250 this month! Postage has recently made another increase, butfortunately not on out-of-country mailings, though the counter m^ tried toraise i t himself and it took a visit to the post master to satisfy him thatwas correct. The greatest increase was simply that there were many more letterst h a n b e f o r e .

The Kimberley Road congregation had a burglary just before ResurrectionSunday and the organ, piano, and amplifier systems among other thi^s werestolen. The thieves gained access through the roof. The insuran^e^ hel-ped,and one member donated his organ so they were able to have the Cantata asplanned and have nicer replacements than those stolen, actually, praise o Phyllis and I missed the Cantata as we were invited to partici^te in the BlacKservices at Tembisa township where I was the speaker that particular day.Nick Qwemesha and Alvin Nicholson also spent a day and night with us and Iserved as driver to take them to the Dobsonville township to see thesuperintendent on a church matter. That took one entire day, but it would seemthat we should have a "new" building and site for the effort. Our members innear-by Soweto would appreciate that building.We thank you again for your continued interest and support of the Lord's workhere. May you be blessed in Christ Jesus.Yours i n H is Se r v i c e ,

Robert and Phyl l i s MillsMr and Mrs Raymond Anderson, F. Agents706 East Washington, TJrbana, XL 61801Webber St ree t Church of Chris t


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m

GOSPEL TRACT CENTRE ^Johannesburg, South AfricaNotes from Bob and Phyllis Mills

ribone direct dial 01127 11 8698331V oM SUMMER

Address: 706 . Washington, Urbana, IL 61801Anderson's phone 217 3282955

No . 2

The Kimberiy Road Church of ChristThe Kimherly Road Church of Christ meets in this building in Johannesburg. This is the church home of Bob and Phyllis and where Bobteaches a regular mid-week adult class and Phyllis serves in the SundaySchool and as organist. The church hopes to add the auditorium to thisexisting Sunday School unit shortly, the Lord willing.


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RICK AND SUSAN LEAVE.

Rick and Susan are busy as this is being typed making very last minutepreparations to return to America permanently. They have been a greatblessing to the work at Kimberley Road where Susan served as YouthDirector and Pianist. Rick took over the leadership of the older youthgroup and they all enjoyed many social activities, hiking in the naturereserves, ice skating, ten-pin bowling, etc. Their absence will be felt bythe church as well as in the print shop where they both turned a willinghand to what ever needed doing. They assembled all the booklets whilethey were here .

BORG COLLATOR AVAILABLE

In the last issue I mentioned the completely automated 22 station, 12 x17 inch paper size Borg collator and booklet finisher that is available forthis task. It is still available and I made an offer which was reluctantlyturned down as the present owners do not have use for our extra wordprocessor. They did suggest terms, however should I be interested. Theprice, because of the present exchange rate, would be only $2970if I werebanking dollars today.

DOLLAR / RAND

The exchange rate of the dollar has been fluctuating wildly forcing theRand and gold down in the process. (I made the mistake of convertingour pay check into the dollar equivalent on paper recently. We are paidin Rands. It has shrunk to $330!) But one might say, we get more randsfor our dollars! That is true, however. South Africa is a major trader inAmerican commodities and petrol is paid for in dollars. Petrol priceshave risen giving excuse for rises over-the-board. American manufactured items are shockingly expensive.

EJECTED FROM THE POSTAL UNIONSouth Africa has been expelled from the Postal Union. Internalpostage rates had gone up a few weeks back, but now the rate foraerograms is much higher, and the postage on our lesson materials hasdoubled for even next door African countries! We may be forced to rethink our growing Bible Correspondence ministry, especially internationally.Of recentmonths, wehavebeenprintingmoresaleablebooks inany case, and wemay be forced into this area completely in time.


12/26

CHRISTIAN BOOKSELLER'S CONVENTIONAs Alberton is again the host of the Christian Bookseller's Convention, we have booked a table and are preparing a displaywhere we planto offer a number of our recent booklets to the trade. There is not muchoffered for black readers, especially in their languages. It has pushed meto get this display ready as I havebeenbusywithother urgent tasks aswell,but in a fewweeks wewillknow if it issuccessful or not. I willmention it in the next let ter to you all.

OUR MOBILE-UNIT REPAIRED!Our claim for insurance help in getting the mobile-unit repaired wasrejected, sowehad no choice but to try to make repairs ourselves. Theseweredone in stageswith the helpof two of our Christianfriendsfrom thechurch who own welders. Freddy Hopewell and Steve LeRoux both wereof great help at various stages. In the end, we welded angle irons toundergird the front and rearof theboxwith bracing at the rearwhere theframe wasespecially weak. The basic frame was twisted and caused thefloor to virtually collapse, so I purchased two 3 inch box tubing thelength of the box which I bolted from the inside through the floor andthe frame underneath with a whole row of bolts. This pulled it fairly wellback to placeand I wasable to closethe cracks around the wheel housings. Phyllis, Becky andsome ofourgrandchildren helped with that! Itispresently being restocked and will soon be ready for the road. Iwill needit mid-August again. The total cost came to about $100 for materials.

HAIL

Johannesburgis especially prone to hail storms, sonowduringthe dryseason, I have had a steel car-port errected to protect the tow-car for theunit. The men have just finished putting it up. This has cost us $425fromour own pocket but willgivea lot of securityto the car, unfortunatelywecould not put up one for the mobile-unit as it is in the front garden andcan not be gotten through to the back.

NEW BOOKS

We have been busy typesetting a new lesson book for the women'smeetings, a sermon outline book, and also in re-settinga wholeseriesofnew editions of older books which are ready for re-printing.


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GOSPEL TRACT CENTREi ' P .O . Box 1347

Alber tonRepublic of South AfricaRobert and Phyllis Mills Telephone 01127 11 8698331

FACTS AND F IGURES

July 15th 19841,540,358 Bible Study Booklets printed to date.(18 languages)1,812,293 Gospel Tracts printed to date. (20 Languages)266,845 Enrolled in the Bible Correspondence Lessons63,000 Baptismal Certiflcates printed to date.(Used only by the local ministers of the Church of Christ Mission)Of the Study Booklets, 121,000 were "New Testament Doctrines"English 96,500 (South Africa)Zulu 10,000 (South Africa)Xhosa 7,000 (South Africa)Tswana 6,000 (South Africa)Afrikaans 1,500 (South Africa)Of the Study Booklets, 175,000 were "The New Testament Church*'(Representative of 18 languages)

THE HIGHEST ENROLLMENT BEINGNyanja 77,500 (Malawi)Venda 25,000 (South Africa)Tsonga 18,000 (South Africa)Shona 13,000 (Zimbabwe)English 12,500

Of the Study Booklets, 30,000 were "The Church at Work"THE HIGHEST ENROLLMENT BEINGNyanja 10,500 (Malawi)English 7,000 (South Africa)Venda 4,000 (South Africa)Tsonga - 3,500 (South Africa)

The balance are short printings of about 150 special study bookletsdistributed through the mails and the mobile unit primarily along withBibles, Testaments, and Hymnals.

Alberton Population FiguresWhites 65,000Coloureds 10,500Asians 272Africans 58,000Total 113,770

BULLETININSERT GospelTract Centre


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Dear Co-workers ,

GOSPEL TRACT CENTREP . O . Box 1347

A l b e r t o n , 1450Rep. o f South A f r i c a

I!PI i i 1984phone 869-8551

June , 1984We.have j u s t posted a printed note to a l l of you which contains l e s s dated newsalong with pho to s, hut as i t i s "by sur face mai l, I am sending a long the usuala i r l e t t e r s with the more current matters. So many things seem to "be "hanging f i re"that i t i s really difficult to know exactly what to include and what may changedramatical ly i n only a few days. . The word processer i s being advertised a:gain this week, t h i s time in a local doorto door advertiser. This is a city with much light industry and is growing rapidly.This paper i s much cheaper and allows f a r more words i n a c l a s s i f i e d advertisement.We shall see what the Lord wills. The book-van is s t i l l at the agency pending areport-back from the insurance company. I am personally very doubtful i f they willcover what actually could be desc ribed as "wear and tare". The damage to i t has beencaused by pot-holed, corrugated gravel roads and strong wind resistance. The dealer^ t a quote of virtually full value for repairs, hoping that they would choose to payme out on i t and l e t me start anew, perhaps with a different, stronger, and largerbut lower profile make. e shall await His leading. The next trip for the van i s nowscheduled for Pretoria area in a l i t t l e over a week's time. Unless i t is another repairjob, it w i l l not be ready.We have been taking advantage of warm winter days to print a new sermon outline book,(this is volume III), and to print a new edition of "The New Testament Church" inPortuguese and in Tsonga. These have cleared our reserves of printing paper! I put anew cover on these with a photograph of the Kimberley Road Church building. I hadplanned to spend the day today at the typesetter out in the print shop, but i t hasnot s t a r t e d out to be a warm day a t a l l ! There i s a r e a l c h i l l about and a cold wind.Pertiaps la ter i t will warm up. I have been asked to prepare books and Bibles forGladstone who i s going to Transkei this week end so I will have to get out there nom a t t e r w h a t t h e chill.The cold nights have brought the usual winter problems here. The grandchildren a l lhave colds and Clinton has a bad cough too. Ify sinuses are streaming down my post-nasal area resulting in severe reactions with my hyatus hernia. Our druggist mixedme a special cough remedy yesterday and last night I slept beautifully for the f i r s ttime in days. I t looks l ike another day a t the word processor in the study. Thestudy i s the warmest room in the house. Phyllis is working at the knitting machineon the glassed in porch. Unfortunately, i t i s on the cold side of the house again.Cold weather always brings many c a l l s for sweaters. She also bakes cakes. There havebeen a number of requests for those recently too, usually through the women's meetingcontacts at Aletheia. She and Margaret will soon be busy making plans for D.V.B.S.which i s to be i n July a t the church. This year, Kathy plans to send Shannon andRhonda back to stay with us that week. We will probably also have Susan and Tommyalong with Clinton, Nikkie and Shaun. (That sounds l ike a house ful l!) Susan had aadenoid operation this past week. We have not seen her after i t and they do not havea te lephone so we have n o t heard how she i s .Ron w i l l be leaving next week to spend most of June i n America. I assume t h a t variousmen of the church wil l be f i l l i n g the pulpi t , nothing has real ly been said. I ambooked for one of those Sundays a t an African church meeting near Pretoria.We thank the Lord daily for your remembrances and prayers on our behalf. May Hisbless ings also be upon you a l l .Yours i n His S e r v i c e ,

yllis M i l l s

Mr and Mrs Rajrmond Anderson, F. Agents706 East Washington, Urbana, IL 61801Webber S t r e e t Church of C h r i s t , sponsors


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GOSPEL TRACT CENTREP.O. Box 1437Alterton JUL l3 1984

1450Republic of South Afr i ca

July, 1984 phone 869-8531Dear Co-Workers,

It seems l ike I have spent vi r tua l ly a l l my time typing up addresses and sendingout Bible Study Lessons o r marking books and prepar ing new mate r ia l s to go out . Wehave had a very cold month with some very unseasonable r a ins as wel l and it hasbeen miserable in th e p r in t shop. I do t h i s work in the sm all s tu dy which i s r ea l l yth e warmest room in the house so I am not complaining. As a r e su l t I have kept almostr igh t up to date on correspondence and m ailing s, b ut have fal len behind on pr in t ing .I a lso s en t ou t a p r in t -ou t of a l l s tuden t s who h av e c omple te d a l l our l e ssons inr ecen t years in Zimbabwe to our fe l low m i ss io na rie s t he re . Perhaps they can so r t themout to the neares t minis te r fo r fol low up. A ll our l a t e s t l i s t s have been coded sot h a t I can i n s t ruc t the computer to search and p r in t such l i s t s on reques t. In SouthAfrica we can use ei ther the postal (zip) code or town names for such a search i f wewant a l l who have enrol led or can do the search fo r those who have completed theseries o f studies.

This l e t t e r i s being rushed a few days to t r y to bea t the da te when a l l fo r e ignpos tages r i se on the f i r s t of Ju ly . It i s no t a sma l l r i s e as t hese l e t t e r s go from15c to 25c each! I m ^ f ind it cheaper to p r i n t them and send them second c l a s sa i r mail l a t e r . A ll the ra te s changes have not ye t been made publ i c , but we can besu re t h a t it i s going to e f f e c t our le sson mai l ing co s t grea t ly too and t hus ourto t a l operating costs per month. We already pay out about $180 a month in postagea lone . One would be tempted to drop fore ign mail ings but these a re now most ly toZimbabwe and tha t i s a country where we should "Make hay while the sun shines." Ourdays of f r ee access may be l imi ted the re .

The i ns ur an ce a cc es so r was to look a t th e mobile un i t yeste rday to advise th einsurance company of the cos t o f r epa i r s . I had to take it to the people who woulddo th e work as he wanted to examine it in t h e i r presence , so I hope to hear somethingin time. Johannesburg i s bewailed as a "fast" ci ty here, but they move fa r too slowlyfor me at times! (Except for t raff ic .) Hopefully we will have some idea what we cando so on. R ep airs a re doubtfu l as the en t i re chass i s i s j u s t bending and f a l l i ngapa r t . A new la rg er u ni t would cos t more and they quote nine weeks to de l ive r . Therei s your example of slow! It would cer t a in ly be cheaper to buy a second-hand model ands t r i p it and r e - f i t it a p pr op ria te ly o r perhaps a heavy duty chass i s and bui ld myown body for it. I can ' t do anything a t the present time anyway. Unfortunately, mynext t r ip was scheduled for the 8th of July.

D.V.B.S. wil l be upon us in a very few days now and Phyll is wil l be teaching andt ak ing s tud en ts each day. We expect severa l of our g randchi ld ren a s wel l as Becky tobe staying with us tha t week. Phyll is has been part ic ipat ing in a "ta lent" programa t the church and her project has been kn i t t ing sweaters by machin e. The orders havebeen ro l l ing in from the chu rch peopl e and she i s get t ing rea l ly s ick of a l l thekn i t t i ng , bu t she i s r a i s ing money! D.V.B.S. week wi l l o f f e r a r e s t from t h a t anyway.

I have the Wednesday evening adu l t class so it i s ongoing; We have j u s t finisheda s tudy on John and a re now going back to th e S .S . s e r i e s fo r a whi le .

We thank our Lord fo r you a l l da i ly .Yours in Jesus Chr i s t Mr and Mrs Raymond Anderson, F. Agents

706 E. Washington, Urbana, IL 61801R o b e r t llis Mil l s Webber S t r e e t Church of Chr i s t , sponsors


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GOSPEL TRACT CENTRE

CHRISTMASearth among men of good will."

Luke 2:14

\QM

While there is anything but peace on earth among allmen in Temblsa andthe other riotous Reef townships of our area, there is peace of heart amongthose who are Christians and who join in sending greetings this joyousChristmas season.


17/26

RON WHISMAN SADLY MISSEDOur friend and co-missionary, brother Ron Whisman passed on to hisheavenly reward on the 25th of October, following a short illness. We knew

that Ron was not well but had no idea that he had advanced lukemia until onlya very few days before he entered General Hospital in Johannesburg. Ninedays later he was dead! I drove him to the local bank and spent hours gettnghis financial affairs in order the day before he was admitted and then to thehospital where we spent the entire day the next day. The next several days weall made many trips to the hospital and I took over the necessary pulpit work atthe Kimberley Road church in Johannesburg. After his passing we all had ahectic week of preparations for the family to be in America in time for his burialthere. Furnishings had to be sold, personal belongings sold or packed, shipping arranged, reservations made and tickets bought, accounts paid, and muchmore. Thanks to everyone itwas done in time. I have only a few final things tosell, and the finances to wrap up for Margaret now. The church desperatelyneeds a new full t ime minister. The sharing of the pulpit is only a temporaryemergency plan. The congregation has been marvelously cooperative and weare very pleased with their willingness to help with what ever needs doing.

THE COLLATOR INSTALLEDOur replacement collator has been installed in our very limited space. In fact

it had to be split into component units in order to fit at all, but even so we havemade good use of it in assembling thousands of book volumes. We now workin narrow "aisles" as that is the only way to get about in such a small pressroom. There now remains only one item of equipment which badly needsreplacement and that is the press itself. Please pray God's provision in Hiswi sdom .

ASSISTANCE ALSO NEEDEDThe demand for printed materials and correspondence lessons has grown sorapidly the last few months that we have been forced, both because of cost

and lack of time, to retrench and to phase-out all new foreign enrollments. Itbreaks our hearts to have to ignore the thousands of requests for Bible lessonsfrom Zimbabwe in particular, but we are struggling to cope with the massiverequests now coming in from South Africa Itself! We could probably print theneeded materials if someone were to go to Zimbabwe, to staff a "depot"there. We even still have the word processor and mailing list on tapes that weused to use, but it would be necessary for them to also raise funds for theoperating costs there and at the same time we would also need to recruit orhire local assistance in the press room. We need both a translator and operatorwhich means the latter might be preferable since one could hire a black mancapable ofdoing translations. This would both avoid the need for a visfa and befar cheaper.


18/26

ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN TRANSKEIThe annual mission conference was held in Transkel this year and in spite ofrather primitive camping conditions In the middle of an African village and thelack of water and bathing facilities, it was probably the most successful conference I can recall. I will let photographs tell the story.

Brothers Malafu and Qwemesha,the mission secretary andsuperintendent, in a committeemeeting. These sessions are inevi t ab le .

All the visitors came by car, orbus this year. There was at leastone chartered bus which came tobring, then pick them up againafterwards.

Sess ions were held in th e newt en t and the ch urch h ou se nextdoor whe re meal s were also served .

We moved the van near to thetent each day and it was' apopular place for the visitors tomake their select ions . W e werealready out of some books evenbefore everyone had arrivedl


19/26

GOSPEL TRACT CENTREFinancial Report

1984On Hand December 1,1983Deb t ca rr ied forwardDesignated gift still in account

INCOME

Working Fund ($20,778.31) ($1 = R .54)BorrowedBook SalesPrintingDonations f rom South AfricaTyping and TypesettingInterest on Checking Account

($24,665.14)EXPENSES

Mills Salary ($3564.)SuppliesPostageLoan RepaymentLease on EditwriterGasoleneRepairs on EquipmentInsurances and LicencesDesignated 30th Anniversary GiftsPrinting Equipment Replacements

Borg 22 station CollatorBurroughs Word ProcessorHot Glue Book Binder

Moving and Installation of CollatorHymnbooks, Bibles and Books for stockAdvertisementsBank ChargesTelephoneMisc. I temsAccomodation when travellingTransla t ions

($21,349.07)

2308.731000.00353.06

38,478.361,500.001,087.721,191.06572.84432.98104.49

45,676.18

6,600.004,802.992,921.612,500.005,001.832,197.591,667.261,220.61353.06

4,400.004,815.00

948.70660.00445.68411.03224.62167.48137.2040.6620.00

39,535.32On Hand December 1,1984 ($3316.06) 6,140.86Praise to God we ended the year oweing no one and with a few dollars savedtoward the badly needed Printing Press Replacement!


20/26

GUa rEL TKAbT UJl/WXiVEiP.O. Box 1547

A l b e r t o n1450 ePP 1 IQR'IRepublic of South Africa -r-' ' 'September, 1984 phone 01127 11 869-2531Dear Co-Workers ,

We have been absolutely overwhelmed with requests for lessons for Zimbabwe thismonth and have been unable to do anything about i t at all! There are thousands ofthem arid the postage is now double what i t used to be, even i f I could manage theprinting and typing on my own. What we need is an office in Zimbabwe i tself as wellas Malawi, Ghana, and Zambia with someone to post from there and we only provide thematerials in bulk from here. This would cal l for recruits with working funds for theoffice expenses spec i f i ca l ly fo r that purpose.

One of the "spin-offs" from the Bookseller's Convention was a conversation witha representative from Emmanuel Press which does a very similar work to ours, as theyalso have a large correspondence course and publish booklets and tracts. They useregional offices in other countries where they have a large enrollment. They havesome income from a small bookstore a t the i r print shop and they do printing forothers as well, but they do not have a mobile unit as we do, nor, so far as I couldlearn, do they do any preaching at week ends, but they do have a staff of 40 people,and are magnificently equipped and housed. I am obviously trying to do too muchs ing le handed!

Our books wil l be in a few more Religious Bookstores a f t e r t he convention and anumber of others took catalogs and may order la ter . One thing I noted was tha t wemust improve the cover appearance i f we are to really succeed in book stores. I haveordered quality cover material for our new books and the f irst one has left thepress with a much improved cover. This is a good time to introduce these as Ihave been working very hard a t the typesetter and there are present ly e ight booksready for printing, six of them were completely newly keyboarded! Seven are in lineto be re-keyboarded as soon as possible after these and there are eight t racts whichmust be re-printed urgently, as well as two new ones. I hope to improve on coversf o r t h e s e a s we l l .

I have been out in the c i rcu i t s each of the past three week-ends. The f i r s t weekwas for the circuit meeting which was held on a small holding (small farm). We had adelightful day there. The next week was a t Kempton Park, sin ce then, the scene ofr iot ing during the elections. Some wanted to disrupt and prevent others from voting.The past week end I was at Soweto, a satel i te city of a couple million black people.No one real ly knows the popula^'io.ri there. Gladstone oame bv or> Mondflv After / l a t tomake sure t ha t I had got ten home sa fe ly .

He asked me to go to Pretor ia this week but I have so much to be done inpreparation for conference, only a week away, tha t I asked to be excused. The carhas to be prepared for the t r ip , the van stocked, the f in an c ia l r epo rt for theAfrican account done and printed. My sermon prepared, and I am ju s t finishing thenew book of lessons for the Women's Meetings. I came out one pr in t ing p la te s ho rt ,but hope to have it in time to assemble a t leas t f i f ty copies to take along.We ju s t praise the Lord tha t we had not sold the old word processor jus t yet as

t h i s one broke down during the rush and the serv ice man had problems in f ixing itand had to replace the "drive board," a job that was done on the other one a fewmonths ago. He did not have a board available so we "borrowed" th e one from theother machine unt i l he was able to get one. That was an expensive l i t t l e repa i r ! Godhas been good though and we did not even miss a day's work. I simply switched tosomething else tha t desperate ly needed doing till he came to f ix it.Yours/"^ Mr and Mrs Raymond Anderson, F. Agents

Urbana, IL 61801RolSS"^^am Mills Webber Street Church of Christ, sponsors


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\

. _ - ^tirncc ~ - ,^P.O. Box 1347 r-^Alberton S S\ OCT 1 1 1984 1^50^ October, 1984 phone 01127 11 869-8331Dear Co-Workers,

Praise God for the answer to our prayer for "help" in the book assembly!Our forwarding agent sent funds a l i t t le early this month, catching the bestexchange rate I think I have ever seen in doing so, but also enclosing noticeof an extra donation toward printing equipment. Almost to the day that was, postmarked in America, I had stepped out on faith in South Africa and agreed topurchase the Borg collator as we are simply not able to keep up with thepresent demands of the work without i t l The Borg is several times faster than ourpresent equipment and completely automatic as well as being able to handle 22shee ts o f mater ia l of twice the s i ze . Pra ise the Lord I could wri t e a check fo rthe full amount in payment now! I have arranged for the local agency to collectit and make the i n s t a l l a t i on as it has to be dismant led before it can be moved.

We plan to re se rv e th e funds from the sale of the old co l la to r , which i sbeing taken to a printing equipment show room, and the word processor toward a newprinting press the Lord willing. Pray with us tha t God may provide the $24^000 tha twill cost. ( If you know of a church with an estate that this would make a goodmemorial for, perhaps you could help answer your own prayers by putting in a word o^this behalf.) This is the only major equipment st i l l needed in the print shop tobring it properly up to quality. God will provide. \

We have recently returned from the annual mission gathering, this time inTranskei Republic. I t was a wonderful experience even i f I was i l l most of theweek from al lergies which complicated my hyatus hernia problem. Some of ourmissionary friends thought I had tuberculosis because I was coughing so badlytha t week; others saw me in the midst of a hernia at tact and thought I must behaving a heart at tact! The cooks were probably offended because I could notkeep the food down! Actually th e troub le s all traced r ight back to the treesunder which we had to camp. We were camped"^ the minister 's grounds right inthe middle of an African vil lage. Toilet faci l i t ies were remin iscent of myyouth when we used p i t to i le ts also, however not shared with quite so manypeople, nor in the middle of an African village. We hauled our water from thenearest European town about twenty miles away. A g reat d el ight on reaching homewas plenty of hot water for a shower, shampoo and shave!

Both as we entered Transkei and departed, border post officials asked i f wehad a Bible available in their language, also a t the over night camp s i teanother res ident came to buy a Bible and a study book.I rewarded the conference's confidence in me shown by the i r re-electing metreasurer, by promptly lo sing the mission check book. I t had about 170 checks in itand of course I had to stop payment of those and get a new book as soon as wereached Alberton again. I had a few sleepless nights over my own carelessness fromthat , and had to foot t he grocery bil l of over $1000 from my own check book until Icould get a new check countersigned a week la ter . Just fortunately I had a balance

t h a t co uld co ver it.The book van travelled well and was a very popular place during the v^oleconvention. We ran out of some materials even before offic ia l opening, andBibles, Testaments, hymnals, chorus books, and some of our own t i t l es before

the week was over. There seems to be no way of knowing which books they aregoing to buy in large numbers. This time i t was mostly Xhosa material ofcourse, as it will be next year as well since we go to Sada in the Republic ofCiskei then, the Lord wil l ing.

us Christ Mr and Mrs Raymond Anderson, F. Agents706 E. Washington, Urbana, IL 61801hyllis Mills Webber St. Church of Christ, sponsors y


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Alberton, 1450 fJOV 9 B84 ^IT ^Republic of South Africa J O c-Dear Co-workers, phone 01127 11 869-8331 November. 1984The Christians in Johannesburg have been greatly shaken by thedeath of our good friend, and co-worker, Ron Whisman. Ron had been feeling ^tired and weak for some time, but kept pushingtook blood tests and then iimediately a bone marrow test. He tol


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^ ^ 1985GOSPEL TRACT CENTREJohannesburg, South Africa

Notes f rom HVo l . 1 : 706 ETWashhigton, Urbana, IL (1801merican Address

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