End of Year 2015!

Dear friends and family,

Thanks for your prayerful support over the past year. We hope you have had a ‘Merry Christmas’

season and ‘Happy New Year’ to you. In South Africa they have modern grocery stores and nice restaurants but ministry can be very challenging. The history of the Church in South Africa is troubling which makes the ‘Story of Christianity’ here a confusing one. While South Africa is called the 'rainbow nation' the people seem to be separate and suspicious of those outside their group. At the end of the day, South Africa is a beautiful but it also a very complicated place.

Pastor Yoms receives his Ph-D. 

Over the last few months there have been a number of protests at the University of Stellenbosch.  Local South African students started a movement called ‘Open Stellenbosch’ demonstrating against the use of the Afrikaans language and the dominance of the Afrikaans culture at the University. The majority of South Africans who don’t speak Afrikaans consider the use of Afrikaans a hindrance to them and others like them. Then students of all different backgrounds protested across the country against a 10% increase in student tuition. Students blocked buildings, disrupted classes and took over the main library before the exam week. In response to the demonstrations the government withdrew the increases in tuition. After this, workers on the university campus protested the practice of Stellenbosch University of hiring third party contractors to work on campus.  These employers pay lower wages and without any benefits. These last demonstrations got out of hand when trash cans and even a couple of vehicles were burned.  

These events happened right around us although those we’re working with are a little removed from these issues.  We’re working with 'international students' coming from outside South Africa who are doing their graduate studies in English. The students we are trying to serve are coming here from across the continent of Africa and also as far away as Korea. Many of these are Pastors so our emphasis on teaching Biblical Theology through the Bible’s own stories can have a far reaching impact. We’ve made a number of dear friends from places as diverse as Nigeria, Botswana and Korea. We all share English in common and we’re all in one stage or another of transitioning to life in a foreign culture.

Koreans and Africans learning stories. 

Our story group has been meeting for about 10 months now and it’s slowly progressing, but not as rapidly as it would in a pure ‘oral culture’. I'm working with Masters and Ph.D. students who are not typical Africans or typical oral learners. However they are still finding the ‘Biblical storytelling’ helpful and those in our group enjoy the approach and see the merits of it. We’ve been able to story through the gospels and Genesis and we’re currently up to the Exodus. So telling the Biblical story along with having students over to our house, meeting with students and showing basic hospitality is essentially our philosophy of ministry. We are doing this through the local church, Christ Church Stellenbosch, where I’m on staff and my role has expanded so that now I'm also the missions’ pastor. I've been invited to teach Biblical storytelling in Malawi, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Gambia and South Sudan. Malawi and Nigeria are the most likely stops for me in 2016.

Christmas Eve at our flat. 

Today we moved into a new house.  We looked at a least nine different places and when the house we really wanted fell through we were a bit discouraged. We were one of the last 5 potential renters down from 13 when the owner decided to sell rather than rent. The same day the place we wanted fell through we received a call from a couple in the church who had decided to go to the states for a year so to make a long story short we staying in their house. The rent is a little more than we had hoped but it’s a nice house and it will be great for entertaining and showing hospitality. It’s also fully furnished and it’s only a 10 minute walk from campus. Our girls are excited about the move since they’ve been a bit cooped up in relatively small apartment for a year. We’ve suffered some severe setbacks lately, so we are asking that you would please pray for us and our children. We feel particularly needful of prayer as we enter this ‘New Year’. Have a great a ‘New Year’ and thanks again for your prayerful support.

With Love from the Stoms Family,

Jay, Laura, Clara, Katherine and Lauren.