South Africa has been opening up more and more over the past few weeks. It was very slow for about 3 months but things seem to be going back to normal. My family is so glad to have a regular church schedule again. Our oldest children will be able to go back to school this week as well. 

      In some exciting news (for Meagan and I anyways) we have completed language school! Now our language learning is not over and we still have to work hard at understand as much as possible. I am thankful for Missionary Mark Coffey for helping us greatly, we were able to use the curriculum at Camp Rhino. This prevented us from experiencing many of the trials missionaries go through while trying to learn a new language. We will spend the last 4 months before our mini furlough working hard to learn as much as we can. Meagan is teaching the young ladies class at New Life. She has been preparing her lessons in Xhosa and I am very proud of her and am encouraged by her work ethic. I have been preparing messages and preaching in Xhosa for about 10 min every week. I am thankful for Pastor Mvume and Missionary Jeremy Hall for allowing me to preach at their churches. 

      Also this month, I had planned, and was excited, to start my first Bible study in the Missionvale township this week. Unfortunately we have had a spike in Corona Virus in that certain location we will have to postpone just for a couple weeks. I have been visiting and passing out literature in this area and was able to meet with some people for the first week but we are looking forward to meeting in this area each week. Please also remember the Motherwell area. This is one of the largest townships in Port Elizabeth with little gospel witness. I would like to start a bible study in this area as well. Please pray for an opportunity to open up. 

      We are moving into our first house this month. My family has been blessed to have this exciting opportunity during a hard time in this country. We are thankful for our supporters and for Christ allowing us to work for him in South Africa.

      We spent the month of April SLOWLY trying to get back in the swing of things. Our country has moved out of “lockdown,” to the next level of their recovery plan. Unfortunately, “level 4,” doesn’t look much different than lockdown. A lot of businesses are still closed, schools, and most important churches. We currently don’t have any idea when we as a church will be able to meet again (legally) but it looks like it could be awhile. That being said, we are not going to allow this to discourage us. We have chosen to look at the good instead of focusing on the bad like most of the world seems to be doing. We will find ways of sharing the gospel during these days, and the pastors we work with are making plans for us to meet in small groups. We are excited to be here at this time and look forward to seeing God move.

      This past month we continued our language school studies over the Internet. I was given the opportunity to preach in Xhosa a couple of times to a small group of believers staying at missionary Mark Coffey’s, Camp Rhino. I am very grateful for the opportunity to preach the past two weeks and looking forward to more message preparation. It takes about double the time to write a message in Xhosa then in English but I am learning so much just by reading and writing in the language. Please continue to pray for this aspect of our ministry. ​We have also been able to hand out bags of rice with the gospel message taped to them to several families.   

      Last weekend, My wife got back in the township and visited our teenagers from church. It was the first time she was able to see them since March. Please pray for the young people from our churches. They need support from Christian believers; which they not have gotten for almost 2 months. Most of them live in broken sinful homes, with no Christian influence at all.

​      During all of this lockdown, God has given us a great opportunity to buy our first house. The Lord blessed us with a deal we couldn't pass up especially with the Rand to Dollar ratio being so good for us during this economic crisis. We are very thankful for no longer pay rent and throw our money out the window. The Lord is good and we are very excited about this opportunity. With all the lockdown procedures we will not be able to move until the middle of July. 

      We love you all and appreciate your prayers during this time. Please know you and your churches are in our prayers as well. We know it hasn't been easy for you all either. It was a pleasure to see churches coming together again this past Sunday. We're thankful for your faithfulness in giving to our ministry, and God's faithfulness in all things. God Bless you all.

      Praises
        "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:" Eph 1:3. My family and I are extremely blessed to be serving Christ in South Africa. Since we have started deputation in 2016 we have had nothing but blessings from God. He is so good to us and I want to start this months letter by praising him. Christ is willing to save all those in South Africa who will believe. Please pray for souls to be saved. The longer we live here the more we see how great the need is in this country. Pray for laborers. Also, thank you for praying for our vehicle troubles. As it turns out our transmission did not need to replaced and it was a simple fix. Prayer works!

      Wells Estate             
        The Lord is blessing Pastor Mvume as he leads Lighthouse Baptist Church in Wells Township. Over the past month we have had over 15 people per service, new visitors each week and one profession of faith. Pastor Mvume and I are visiting twice a week right now and have plans to start some discipleship as soon as we can. Wells Estate is a smaller township in size and population but it is the neighbor to the largest township in South Africa, Motherwell. Motherwell was originally planned to hold about 120,000 people in the 1980's but since 2011 the population has grown to well over 300,000 according to the best numbers I can find. As of now this is where I believe the Lord is leading to plant our first church. Please pray for the Lord's leading and the people in this largely populated township. 

      Announcement.    
        We will be taking a short furlough from December 2020 to March 2021. This will allow us to report back to our supporting churches as well as raise some more support before we start our first church in 2021. We will continue in language school as we look to finish our classes sometime this year.  I have already booked some meetings for our furlough and if you would like for us to come report to you please contact me. You can email me at missionarysullivan@gmail.com or facebook messenger. You can also call me directly at (603) 780-4210.

      Prayer Requests  
        - Laborers
        - Furlough 2021
        - Health, The children have been sick multiple times this month
        - Camp Rhino and a new possibility of a radio ministry. 

Prayer Requests. 
- The above-mentioned Church Plants                    - Language School
- Mvume Johnson                                                         - Khona Mohambo
- Mark Coffey, Jeremy Hall (Zwide Church plant), Kevin Hall (furlough)
- I know many people struggle with this but we are having major car trouble. My wife's car has had an alternator, A/C Compressor and now a transmission problem all within the last 2 months. It will be in the shop for about three weeks while they work on it. Please pray they can fix it quickly and keep the expense low. With the ministries we are working in it can be a struggle with only one car. 
​
​Thank you and God Bless. ​

      Happy New Year from our family to yours! With the start of a new year comes new goals, new vision, and a time to refocus on what is important. We are excitedly asking God to work in and through us especially with the South African people this year. Isixhosa is a difficult language, that averages about 2 years to learn. With that being said, we are halfway there! This next year is “crunch time,” as we plan to work hard to finish language school, so we can start planning when and where God will have us to start a church. 

      December was a fun busy month. We were able to help in bro Mark Coffey’s camp rhino, which is always a blessing. The ladies prepared great food, lots of games were played, but most importantly the gospel was preached. There were 23 Professions of faith that week, and we’re so excited about that. It was my job to help with the games and to run the concessions, which is harder than it sounds. Overall it was an awesome opportunity to practice our language and see many teens come to Christ and dedicate their lives to serving Him. Please be in prayer for Junior Camp that will start the 2nd week of January. We are expecting about 55 kids. 

      We enjoyed spending some “downtime,” as a family celebrating the birth of our Savior. We hope you and your family had a merry Christmas. I was blessed by Pastor Jeremy hall who allowed me to preach at his church during the Christmas morning service. I preached for 11 min which is the longest I have preached in Xhosa. Please pray for me as I will have more opportunities to help preach in the coming months. 

    Although our letters our for updating our supporters and telling you all about things to come. I do not want to underestimate the need for the Gospel here in South Africa. After living in South Africa for one year I have seen a need greater than I first thought. Most of the Xhosa people go to church and would even profess Christ. But few have accepted Christ as their savior. The need for churches, the gospel, and laborers are great in this nation. Please pray for more men to be saved and reach South Africa with the Gospel. 

      My family and I just want to share our gratitude for all the love, prayers, and support we received during 2019. It’s never something we want to take for granted. Also, to those who gave extra for Christmas, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We love you all, and we pray the Lord's blessings over you for the upcoming year.

      This past month I was blessed to attend a pastor and missionary conference in Eldoret, Kenya. It was a great time to recharge and receive encouragement. I learned a lot and I am excited about putting it into practice. On our way back to South Africa we had a layover in Rwanda. The other missionaries and I were able to spend a few hours in Kigali, Rwanda. It is a beautiful country with over 12 million people. Catholicism is the largest religion and they are in much need of the Gospel. Please pray for laborers to be spent to Rwanda, Africa. 

      Almost the entire month of December is "holiday". Much of the people go back to the homelands from the big city to spend with with family. Those who do not go back still treat this time as holiday and spend most of the time in their homes. Many will not even come to church this month and we can see quite a dip in church attendance. Please pray for the Pastors as they try to help the people understand faithfulness. On the other hand summer in full swing and we are staying busy preparing for camp.

      We enjoyed a great time with my in-laws. It was relaxing to be with David and Misty. We treated this as a mini-vacation and my wife was very happy to see her family again. Even though we were so excited to see them it was also sad to see them leave. My wife and daughter took it hard to say good-bye knowing it will be over a year until they can see each other again. It is a reminder that It can be difficult on the other side of the World but we know we are where God wants us to be. We are glad to serve our savior. 

      Like I mentioned earlier it is time for camp. Many christian teens in America have a multitude of camps to choose from. Here in South Arica we are blessed to have Missionary Mark Coffey who started a christian camp. We will have about 100 campers this year and Of course most of these camper do not have to money to come. This year it will cost each camper $50 to attend. If you wold like to help a camper this year you can give to Camp Rhino. Of the 100 campers attending we still need about 60 more "scholarships".  If you wold like to sponsor a camper or purchase a unique limited Christmas ornament this year you can send your money through PayPal to paypal.me/camprhino. 

      This month we are celebrating one year in South Africa. We arrived on November 29, 2018. It's hard to believe we have already been here for one year. God has been good to our family since we arrived. We have an amazing team of missionaries in the Halls and Coffey families. They have bent over backwards for us and we would not be where we are now without their help.

      In one year we have moved across the World. We have met many new people. We have depended on God more than we ever. We are learning a new language. Our children have blended right into the new culture. We have received our visas and we are excited about what God is going to do in the next year. We pray that this is the first year of many that we will be here in South Africa. My wife and I have worked so hard to get to this point and we can't believe it has already been one year. 

      Meagan and I are progressing in the language. I am preaching more and still discipling a couple young men. I had the amazing opportunity to baptize Shamar and we have finished most of the discipleship program. Meagan has also been decipleing couple of young ladies, Ambeswa and Owam. I was able to baptize them as well. Please pray for them as they start their new life in Christ. 

      We have successfully moved into our new home and we are settling nicely. Our new address is 2 Salem Street. Taybank, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 6025. The number one rule of being on the mission field is to be flexible. We are learning more and more everyday and we are excited to continue in our language school so we can get to out goal of planting a church. Please continue to pray that God will give me a couple of young men to train in the ministry. 

      I have an amazing opportunity to go to Kenya for a Pastor/missionary conference. Please pray for a safe trip. I am excited to learn and spend time with veteran missionaries. Also Meagan's Parents will be coming to South Africa when I get back from Kenya. Please pray for them to have safe traveling. Thank you for your prayers and support. God Bless. 

Address: 2 Salem Street. Taybank, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 6025​      
​Phone : 603 780 4210

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 

      After months of waiting on the Lord, We have received our visas! This is a huge answer to our prayers. It has been a very difficult, stressful, and expensive process. We have spent the last 10 months working with out attorney and just waiting for a letter in the mail. After much fasting and praying, God gave us our answer. We are so humbled that the Lord would allow us to serve Him, and we are thankful for the confirmation that this is where He wants our family to be.  We are legal until March 2022 and the renewal process is much easier. Thank you to all for your prayers and support. 

      This past month our South African missions team was blessed to help work with the Medical Missions Outreach from Baltimore, Maryland. They are a missions team that held a free clinic in our city. MMO uses their medical abilities with one goal in mind and it is to use the opportunity to preach the Gospel to all who attend. The team was able to bring a Dentist, Personal Trainers, Doctors, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses and a few hundred pair of glasses. They were able to see and help over 2,000 patients and we saw around 200 professions of faith. Meagan and I both had the opportunity to personally witness in Xhosa to about 30 people. We did this is groups of 2-4 and We were so blessed to lead 2 ladies to the Lord. Now there is much work to do to follow-up with everyone who attended. We look forward to MMO returning in 2021. 

      There is a young man named Shamar who has been attending New Life Baptist Church recently. He helped us with the medical missions team and somehow left his phone is my car. This past week I drove to his house to return his phone and the Lord allowed me to use that time to witness to him. After about an hour of talking to Shamar he accepted the Lord as his savior. He came back to church the next Sunday and I have a great opportunity to begin discipleship classes with him. We have two more classes to go through and then I will be able to baptize him. Please pray for this young christian. 

      On top of all of this we learned this past week that the owner of the house we rent will be returning in a couple of months and we must find a new place to stay. We have already started this process so we ask for prayers as we move for the 7th time in 4 years. This has been a crazy, eventful month; but what a JOY it is to serve our King!

      This past week I was able to meet a young man named Simbolele (Loli). He is 20 years old and he has been interested in meeting with me the past couple of weeks. I have shared the gospel with him multiple times and we have had long conversations about it. He believes in Jesus and believes that Christ died on the cross for his sins but the biggest stumbling block to Loli is ancestral worship. Loli is the oldest son in his family and his father has passed away so he is the man of the house. He has many responsibilities when it comes to keeping the ancestors appeased. He shared with me this week how he just learned how to slaughter and cut the goat correctly so the ancestors will accept it. Please pray that the Lord will convict his heart and that he will make a decision to accept Christ and Christ alone. 

      While talking to Loli these past few weeks there has been a language barrier. When it comes to small talk I can keep up but when it comes to explaining the Bible it is much different. It is sobering and humbling to me. The urgency of learning this language became very real this past week. Meagan and I are starting our 9th month of language school. Meagan has thoroughly enjoyed this past month. She was able to start discipling two young girls this week that she was able to lead to the Lord last month. Meagan was also able to teach her first lesson to the children's class at New Life Baptist Church in Kwa-Dwesi. This is the church of Pastor Sipho Bonga and missionary Mark Coffey. Please pray that we can learn the language quickly so we can give the gospel clearly to the people of South Africa.