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A Quick Summary for Our Busy Friends

First of all, we want to thank everyone that responded to our call for help earlier this month. We were surprised and humbled by the number and the passion of the responses that we received.

Please do not forget us in your prayers and giving -- we need your continued support to keep going.

September was a month where so much happened, so we have a lot of news items. It was not a photogenic month, though, so there are fewer photos than usual.

1. We Want to see You (and we MEAN it)
We REALLY want to meet everyone on this visit. We have booked out three months dedicated to meeting as many people as we can. We have lots of exciting things to say. We want to speak to you, your family and your friends. We want to speak to your home group and your church. Do not be shy - contact us to make an appointment TODAY. Our dates in the country are in the section below.

2. Visiting Prayer Team
A prayer team from Taiwan came to bless us. What a challenge!

3. Security Incident
The Intelligence Bureau came to our house for an investigation. All's good now, but it gave us quite a scare.

4. Uganda
Leonie has been training church planters in Uganda with exciting results. READ READ READ

5. Alfred's New Teeth
Alfred's dental treatment continued. Check out the before and after pictures.

6. Hindi Bible Video Series
Great news on the Hindi Bible Video Series - the complete materials have been published. Read this to find out why we are so happy.

7. Video
A video about a typical moment in Ludhiana

8. Gerhard - a Retrospective
Alfred speaks of the things he has learned following the passing of Leonie's brother

9. Praise Reports and 10. Prayer Requests
Thank you for your prayers.

1. We Want to See you! And we MEAN it!

We are very busy preparing for our trip to North India, Uganda, South Africa and Lesotho.

In South Africa, the provisional plan is as follows:
28 September to 6 October - Rest & Time with the grandchildren
7 October to 17 October - Pretoria
18 October to 23 October - East Rand
23 October to 31 October - Pretoria
1 November to 4 November - East Rand
5 November - 29 November - Pretoria
1 December to 9 December - Lesotho
10 December to 11 January - Family time
14 January to 18 January - Blocked out
19 January to mid-February - Cape Town and Garden Route to Jeffreys Bay (and maybe Grahamstown)
Please contact us to make an appointment. We'd love to see you.

We are preparing an exciting presentation with the theme "Stories from the Field" We want to make everyone we know excited about bringing the love of Jesus to all people. So please introduce us to your family, home small group and church service so that we can share this with your special friends too.

Indians love colourful occasions. I took this picture of a cultural festival in Ludhiana. It was loud!!

2. Visiting Prayer Team

We had a wonderful team from Taiwan visiting us from Taiwan for ten days. Their enthusiasm and passion inspired us to be even more dedicated in our service to God. Their prayer and worship were boisterous to say the least. They proclaimed the name of Jesus with all their might.

3. Security Incident

On the very day that the prayer team returned to Taiwan, we received notice that some security organization was investigating the house. They had set an appointment to inspect the premises for the next morning.

As you might imagine, this set off a lot of concern in the house. In Himachal Pradesh, our state, it is illegal to perform "conversions." The law speaks of "forced conversions" ie those that are done by trickery, inducement (such as money) and coercion, but in actual practice it covers all religious conversions, voluntary or no. The penalty for such activity would be deportation from India at the very least, but more likely prison sentences. I understand that these sentences could be for as long as twenty years. No only that, but whilst investigations are under way, one might be kept in jail for years as withholding bail is considered to be an effective punishment for people under suspicion of breaking the law, whether innocent or not. In practice, Indian law presumes guilt until proven innocent when bail is considered.

One of the tricky things about this investigation was that we had no idea at the time of why this was being done. We thought that perhaps the trigger was the loud actions of our prayer team visitors, but either way, there was little we could do. We prayed and gave the situation to the Lord.

We immediately contacted our intercessors and asked them to pray for us. We also contacted our friends at an NGO that provides free legal advice for Christians who are in trouble with the law because of their faith. Their response was instant and comprehensive. They guided us as to how to handle the situation. They also sent a lawyer to us. He travelled all night to arrive on time.

It turned out that the organization concerned was the Intelligence Bureau (IB). It seems that it has agents across the country. They arrived late in the afternoon and questioned our landlord. He was a star. On being asked whether he knew that we are Christians, he said that we are good for the people around us.

The IB then said that they had received a photograph of a person trying to "convert" an Indian. The photo was of a Christian brother talking earnestly to another person. What had caused the IB to take particular notice seems to be that he is very Chinese looking. He had even been seen around our building, causing the IB to investigate our house.

The person had indeed been in our building but had never been a registered guest. With all their fears allayed, the IB left. They took along the information of all the tenants in the house.

And that was the end of that.

So what did we learn out of this?

The folks in the house were magnificent. As we went over the events afterward, no one was afraid. We were all calm, experiencing the peace of the Lord. We were in complete unity all the way through.

Secondly, our lawyer encouraged us to continue with what we are doing. We believe that our work in India is in obedience to the Lord. We are more determined than ever to bring the love of Jesus to our Tibetan friends.

Thirdly, we have found that our support structures (prayer, legal and logistical) are good. If ever something happens to us, we are certain that we will be well taken care of.

Please keep praying for us - we need it!

Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go.” Joashua 1:9 (World English Bible)

4. Uganda (Leonie) READ READ READ

I spent nine days in Uganda visiting Wilson, the leader of a church planting movement that has established thousands of simple churches. Many of their leaders are illiterate, and none have attended Bible School. They needed a way to learn the Scriptures and dig deep into the truth of the Word.

By Design Visuals is the Christian organization based in the USA that makes the flannelgraph material that you have heard us raving about. You can see flannelgraph in the photos. Jon Melin, the leader of the organization, heard about the need in Uganda and decided to give 150 sets to Wilson's movement. He not only had them shipped, an expensive and time-consuming process, but he also went to Uganda to train Wilson's leaders.

I have known Jon for years, but we have never met in person. It was wonderful to finally meet! We had many hours of conversation and worked together very well.

We had five days to train 18 core leaders. They work in the ghettos, among prostitutes and drug dealers. Some have gone to remote unreached areas and raised up leaders there. They say “our movement is big, but shallow, we need to dig deep.”

Now the 18 leaders have completed cutting out their flannelgraph sets and have learned how to tell all 14 stories of the Gospel set. They also know how to have a deep discussion about every scene, using questions such as:

What are the choices they made?
What other choices could they have made?
What can we learn about God from the choices He made?

They have been so excited about this tool that they have stayed up all night learning stories. Even in their free time they go and share stories. This training has been life changing in Uganda.

The 18 leaders will not only be using their sets, they will also train others who will receive the other 132 sets. In this way, a large number of illiterate but passionate Christians will be empowered to bring the gospel in a way that is true to the Bible and life-giving to those who hear them.

My highlight happened when I learned that we are going to be able to have the flannelgraph prep cards, videos and scripts uploaded to a mobile app that they have developed. Soon all the teachers' resources for flannelgraph materials will be translated into Luganda and be made available there as well.

We will also be posting these materials on the app that was developed for our Bible Video Stories Series. An amazing feature of the app is that the program and the stories on it can be transferred from phone to phone without making use of the Internet. The stories will therefore be passed on without using data, a very important consideration in Africa.

I have no words for the size of what God has been doing. We give God all the glory for what is happening and going to happen in Uganda. We look forward to hearing the testimonies of the impact of these materials.

Click on the pictures below to zoom in on them.

5. Dentistry (Alfred)

Before Uganda, we both travelled to Ludhiana about 200 kilometres South of McLeod Ganj. Leonie had planned to go to Manali to teach the Christian leaders to do flannelgraph, but our lawyer advised us not to do that at present because he felt that we are currently on the radar of the IB.

The plan had always been for me to go to the Christian Dental College in Ludiana to continue the work on my teeth that started in May. I'm told that my bite has collapsed, and that left untreated would most certainly give me great pain soon. No dentist that I spoke to seemed to have a good plan for fixing this, but in May the wonderful folks at the Christian Dental College seemed certain that they knew exactly what to do.

Leonie also needed some dental work, but she had very limited time before her trip to Uganda. The dentists jumped in enthusiastically and did their best to help her. The bottom line is that more work is needed and that she needs to return soon.

Leonie left for Uganda after two days, leaving me to enjoy the dentists by himself. It took a while, but the work reached a special stage - twelve crowns and the implant were installed, giving me a brand new look. Below are the before and after pics.

To be honest, I have been very shy about my teeth and have taken great care not to show them in photos. The one on the left is an exception.

So thank you to everyone who has walked this journey with me. I appreciate your sacrifice in making this possible.

To my surprise, the work is not yet complete. I need to make another pilgrimage to the Dental College early next year to close this chapter. Apparently, I need some more crowns and a denture for the back of my mouth.

I already have more crowns than all the kings of Europe...

Dr Kevin Thomas did the work on my mouth. Here I am with him and his wife as we celebrate the excellent work he has done on my mouth.

6. Hindi Bible Videos Series

While all this was going on, Alfred worked on completing and publishing the Hindi Bible Video Series resources. I am happy to say that these are now freely available on the Internet at http://hisstoryresources.com

Why are we so happy about this? There are many peoples in the Southern Himalayas who have no Bible material in their language - no videos, no audio, no books and definitely no Bible. However, some of those peoples use Hindi as their trade language.

These peoples will be able to take the Hindi templates and make video series in their own languages. They only need a basic computer and PowerPoint.

This is important as these peoples do read much - an oral/visual approach meets them at their point of need.

We have a dream that soon many languages will have their own Biblical materials using our video series as a basis.

Please join us in prayer on this!

7. Video

Here is a little taste of Indian traffic at one unremarkable intersection in a city full of them.

Click on the picture to watch the video. Enjoy!

8. Gerhard - A Retrospective (Alfred)

When I wrote about Leonie's brother, Gerhard, in our appeal for funding, there was no room for writing about Gerhard's life. I thought that I should do so, because there are are important lessons in his life. Bear with me a moment.

Gerhard was a man who loved to please people - it gave him great joy to be a blessing to everyone he met. He was poor in money, but rich in the friendships he cultivated. He did not do this in order to favour, but purely because that was his nature. People responded to him and looked for ways to bless him.

I can't help thinking of Luke 6:38: “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to you.” (World English Bible)

We can all learn about being generous to all we meet. Since Gerhard's passing, his friends have been a blessing to us too.

Secondly, Gerhard had a dream to live in the Caribbean. This was tricky, because he had no money to get there, and he had no job either. I spent many hours with Gerhard discussing how he could make this plan work. On more than one occasion I almost said, "You can never achieve this. Try for something else."

I am so glad that I didn't, because Gerhard, by great effort and sacrifice, as well as the help of his friends, got to the Caribbean. Continuing his great efforts, he managed to buy a boat and was about to realize his dream of providing charters to tourists when he very suddenly passed away.

The lesson is that if we have a dream, it is possible to make it happen if we apply ourselves. I would ask, are you working towards your dream? What is the Lord saying in your life? Are you living his plans and purposes for you?

I encourage you to set aside some time in prayer to hear from the Lord what he has to say to you. I pray that will hear and that you will put it into action.

9. Praise Reports

Leonie was able to travel without discomfort despite long hours along the way. We are so glad for God's healing hand over her!
The investigation of our house went smoothly.
Alfred's teeth have been treated so he will have many years of healthy teeth.
The prayer team was a great blessing.
Leonie was able to teach many people in Uganda how to use flannelgraph. May he use this to his glory!
The Hindi Bible Video Series is now available on the Internet - may many people be blessed through this.

10. Prayer Requests

Please pray for Leonie's complete healing.
We will be in South Africa for several months. In this time, we want to bring awareness of the need for missions. We want to encourage people to go, or to pray or to support financially. Please pray that we will know where to go and what to say.
The Social Media program continues and many people have been reached so far. Please pray that these people will be willing to reach out to us to learn more about Jesus.
Please keep praying for Timothy, Alfred's long-time friend. He confided in Alfred before making a major mistake. Alfred counselled him not to do it. Alfred has his confidence. May this lead to him coming to Jesus!
Please continue to pray for the next Kongki Ka translation that all will happen in the Lord's time and in the Lord's way.
We still need financial provision for our living expenses. We have received some amazing provision in the last two months that have made a real difference. Please keep praying for us.

How you can support us

We need your prayer support: without prayer and fasting the walls that are surrounding Tibetan Buddhists will never be broken down. Our newsletters aim to help you focus your prayers strategically.

You can also support us financially. South Africans can pay directly into our bank account:
Account name AE Smith
Nedbank
Cheque Account 1556031424
Branch code 155605

We also have an international facility. Simply click the link below, choose an amount to donate, and then provide payment details. Click below:

Support Alfred & Leonie

We appreciate you

Thank you to each one that is praying for us, supporting us financially and being there for us. We deeply appreciate it that you can be a part of our lives. May you be blessed far beyond what you can imagine.

Do you have news? We'd be glad to hear from you. Do you have a need? Let us pray for you. You can write to us at writetoalfred@gmail.com.

Be greatly blessed

Alfred & Leonie

Our WhatsApp number is +91 82650 37842

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Alfred & Leonie Smith · 342 Konstant Street · Meyerspark · Pretoria, Gauteng 0184 · South Africa