Mellos4Knysna May/June 2019 Newsletter!

Hello Friends,

We hope you all are well and that you enjoy our latest newsletter update from our last few weeks of ministry here in Knysna. The weather is turning colder now as we head into winter here in the Southern Cape. It has been quite a warm summer so we’re glad for the shift in temperatures! We’re now in the middle of the winter school holiday for a few weeks, so Levi and Chloe are off school and we’re enjoying some extra family time.

We have much to update you all about, both from the ministry side and for us personally. From the Knysna Hope side of things, the ministry is continuing to grow and many exciting things are happing now. Our Launch Workplace Readiness ministry has had another graduating class, both for introduction to computers and beginner typing. Another beginner class and an advanced class will resume in late July. The Biblical Leadership Institute is wrapping up another term as well. We’ve had 25 ministry students in Knysna and Sedgefield, completing several classes, including biblical counseling and ministry leadership. Our Embark Teens youth group has had several great activities recently. Its exciting to see a consistent core of teens coming every other week and bringing their friends along as well. Many have been coming consistently since the youth camp in March so we’re so grateful for the continual follow-up with these teenagers. We’ve been teaching through the book of Philippians, both for the content and themes of the book itself, but also as a way of teaching how to study the Bible. Terrah’s a capella choir, Resound, is in full swing rehearsing and fine-tuning our music for the “Stages” concert series later this year. It is such an awesome group of people from around the community that are singing together and we’re so excited to watch and hear the growth each week. The life group that we host in our home is continuing through the school holiday. We are loving our time as a small group as we continue our study through the book of John. The church plants along the Garden Route are steady and strengthening. There are 7 churches in various stages of development across three towns that our extended team is involved in. We’ve enjoyed leading and coordinating worship and music at Lagoonside Baptist Church for the last six months and Caleb has had the opportunity to preach a couple times recently as well, which has been a rewarding and challenging process. And in his role as COO of Knysna Hope, it’s that time of year again for annual reports to the relevant governmental entities so summarizing all of our operations and reporting on them, both from a financial and tangible perspective, is one of the primary projects he is working on at the moment.

It is a privilege to be part of the Knysna Hope team, which when you boil it all down, is simply a collective of missionaries and volunteers who engage in relationship-building ministries across Knysna and the Garden Route. These relationships serve practical upliftment purposes for our community and are tools for discipleship and for fueling additional church-planting efforts (of which several more are in the planning stage). What an awesome thing it is to see God raise up such a diverse team, each person and family with different backgrounds, skill sets, and passions, and then to have a vehicle, a structure, through which we all have the freedom to pursue the ministries that God is leading each family to, while at the same time supporting and assisting each other in these efforts. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside our Knysna Hope team, knowing that ultimately, we all have one unifying goal: to raise up disciples of Jesus in the Garden Route, for the glory of God!

Our family has had a couple different milestones over the last two months as well. First, on 2 May, Levi turned seven! We’re not entirely sure how that has happened, but we are so grateful that God has blessed us with such a happy, fun-loving, smart, growing boy! He is such a delight to our family, and is turning into an awesome big brother. He is constantly thinking and curious, particularly when it comes to airplanes and building things. There’s a great program here called “Young Engineers” that happens after school once a week. They use Legos to teach engineering and architectural principles; Levi absolutely loves it! He is enjoying learning rugby after school as well and is looking forward to starting field hockey when school resumes in July.

Second, on 23 May, we celebrated our 10^thwedding anniversary! 10 years ago, we could never have imagined what God had in store for us, but as we look back we are overwhelmed by His goodness to our family. If the last 10 years are any indication, the next 10, 20, 30+ should be just as wild of a ride! We were able to get away for a few nights to a beautiful town called Swellendam, right at the edge of the mountains, for a wonderful time of relaxing and reminiscing. We are so grateful that God, in His providence, put us together and we look forward to all that He has in store for us in the future!

Baby Lily is doing well, and all is currently stable with our pregnancy. Terrah is at 27 weeks now, and after the successful operation a few weeks ago to do a cervical circlage, things are very encouraging. That being said, after much prayer and consideration with others, we have decided that it is best for Terrah to step back a bit from her normally hectic teaching schedule. So she will not be going back to teach in the schools until after Lily is here and we’re back from our visit to the US (more on that shortly). For the sake of a successful pregnancy, we believe this is the best course of action. Its only a few short months until Lily will be here, so this is the best way to assure her safe arrival in September. Being at 27 weeks is something of a milestone for us. It was at this stage during our last pregnancy, at the end of 9 weeks of bedrest, that our son Micah was born and then passed away the next day, now almost two years ago. So not having to go on bedrest and even with an operation to keep things in place as they should be, getting to this point successfully is a blessing and an answer to prayer. Please continue to pray for continued stability for Terrah and Lily. We are so grateful for so many of you who consistently pray for us in this regard.

And our final news regards our financial situation. As you know, since the complications of this pregnancy have prevented us from returning to the US for support-raising as we had originally planned, we are now entering a short-fall period from now until when we can get back at the end of the year. A few weeks ago we explained the situation and the need to raise “gap” funds to help us remain afloat until we can get back to the states. If you missed the video, check it out below. We are amazed at how God moves among his people! As of this writing, we are at 93% of the funds to shore up the deficit for the next 6 months! It is amazing what the people of God can accomplish together. Thank you for so many of you who have sacrificially given to help us through this time. If you have not yet considered partnering with us in this way, won’t you consider it now? We are so close to filling the necessary gap, truly any amount helps. Will you pray about how you can partner with us?

We are grateful for the new monthly supporters that have partnered with us in the recent weeks as well. Adding new monthly partners will help us now of course, but will also reduce what is necessary to raise when we’re back in the US. Will you pray about supporting on a monthly or yearly basis? In our next newsletter we will update you all on our projected future support percentages, as we look ahead to when our “gap” period is over. As of now, we plan to return to the US somewhere around Dec 1 and return to South Africa at the end of February, 2020. We look forward to spending the holidays with our family and to seeing how God will raise up new partners to keep us on the field here in Knysna.

An additional prayer request, we are in the process of collecting the necessary documents to submit our visa renewals. We have secured the services of an immigration attorney to help us with this process, but its quite a project and quite a cost involved. If you remember back in November, we had a special “Giving Tuesday” fundraiser to help with this project, so we do have a good deal of the cost already covered, which is a huge blessing. Please pray for the success of the renewal process.

Thank you for reading this far. Many of you are faithful prayer warriors and financial partners. We are so grateful for you! Thank you for your sacrifice for the sake of the gospel in South Africa and the sake of the glory of God among all nations!

-Caleb, Terrah, Levi, Chloe & Lily

Caleb, Terrah, Levi & Chloe Mello
Knysna, South Africa

Sending Church: First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL