Brandon & Julianna Jones

Another month has come and gone and the time has just flown by. It seems each month brings new challenges (as well as new opportunities) to get settled into life in South Africa and what God is doing here.

The overriding theme of October was Relying on God in all things. Most of you probably heard, but if not, in early October our car was stolen from us. To make a long story short it was recovered but we weren't able to get it back for 3 weeks (we actually *just* got it back this past Tuesday). And, while we have insurance that covered the cost of repairs (the thieves seriously tore up the inside of the car), we had to pay our deductible (~$400 US). It also made ministry quite difficult as it put us totally dependent on rides to get to and fro (it was especially difficult getting rides to Masi where transport is often necessary to have arranged for safety reasons).

The tendency when really unexpected events creep up is to get stressed and unnecessarily emotional rather than relying on God -- we did quite a bit of this -- but God was faithful in it all:

• We now have our car back and it is in pristine shape.
• Rather than being liable for the $1000 US the repairs cost, we only have to cover $400 thanks to the insurance.
• It brought out an issue where the dealer that sold the car to us had broken the law and has allowed that issue to be cleared up.
• For the period of time we were vehicle-less, Danielle (a fellow "M"), lived with us and could get us to and from the All Nations office daily (we got our car back the day after she moved out).
• We had to totally rely on God to provide ministry opportunities and He did:
  • Julianna was able to meet and encourage several potential CPx students from African countries.
  • Julianna and Brandon were able to sit in on and participate in several Strategic Planning sessions for various All Nations Africa ministries to help give input and guidance for future work.
  • Brandon was able to get some significant "Tech Work" done: writing All Nations Africa IT policy, Architecting the new All Nations (which will be used by all of All Nations thru out the world), working towards significantly improving the efficiency of office networking, developing an IT course to provide job skills for African Missionaries to support themselves, etc.

We unfortunately don't have any of the grand stories that people think of when they think "Africa" and "missions" this month. But we think that's OK because God still did significant work in us (molding our hearts towards His; growing a love for South Africa even as times get tough; relying on Him rather than our own strength; etc) and through us (the above are just a few examples).

Thank you again for all your prayers and support--they truly mean so much to us. We couldn't do this without them!