Category: Stefan

Hooray – One Year Today

Coke BearOne year ago today, at the O.R. Tambo International Airport we waved goodbye to our family and started the adventure of serving as missionaries outside our home country. We bravely stepped onto the airplane, certain that we were answering God’s call.

A year later, we are even more convinced of His calling and look back at the year with gratefulness to Him and to our partners.

Reflecting on the year, here are the highs and the lows of our experiences:

The Highs:

  1. Experiencing the Lord’s provision at a new level, despite the weakening Rand.
  2. Being used by God at the Global Headquarters as we join with others in seeing the Great Commission being fulfilled.
  3. Being the first people on our street and welcoming all our neighbours as their homes are completed.
  4. Our new friends and church.
  5. Seeing our children grow in leadership and wisdom despite the challenge of “being different”.
  6. Experiencing so many new and exciting places, foods, cultures and people.

The Lows:

  1. Missing our family and friends.
  2. The cost of living is much higher here.
  3. Language barriers – we wish we could speak Spanish.
  4. Witnessing the universal sinfulness of humankind – you cannot escape crime, poverty and abuse.

To God belongs all the glory for the privilege to serve Him!

Digital Tools

Hong Kong is a buzzing city. I joined 105 participants from 12 countries, mostly from Asia, to collaborate and develop new digital tools to help reach people for Jesus. Here are two of the tools we made one afternoon:

An evangelistic website: www.didjesuslie.com

Evangelistic Video: Here I am

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I’m on my way to similar gatherings to be held in Africa (Addis Ababa) and then in Europe (Amsterdam). I’m especially looking forward to connecting with my African brothers and sisters. Each continent has unique needs and connection points with the gospel. Pray that our collaboration will multiply our efforts to provide digital tools for each area.

Last Wednesday we voted in Washington, D.C and felt so privileged to have the opportunity. We are trusting that the voting in South Africa today (7 May) will go as smoothly.

Additional Prayer Requests:

  1. Pray for safety in all my travels. After Amsterdam I plan to briefly visit my Mom in South Africa. Her declining health has been a concern to us.
  2. Pray for protection and wisdom for Marie and the children during my absence.
  3. Pray for you, our partners. Your prayer requests showed that many are struggling with job security and in your marriages.

Answers to Prayer:

  1. Thank the Lord for good health and His provision.
  2. For my productive time in Korea and Hong Kong.
  3. Marie did very well in her course.
  4. The children completed their exams and we have one month left before the start of a long summer holiday.

Meet Moonshadow

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We are well but would appreciate your prayers for the following:
  1. Stefan will be in Korea and Hong Kong from 4-13 April. Please pray for safe travels and fruitful interactions as he learns how to serve our staff members in that region.
  2. Marie will be attending an “Old Testament Survey” course next week (7-11 April). Pray that she will learn a lot while juggling all her responsibilities.
  3. Kenneth and Monica are writing important State-wide Math, Reading and Science exams on 14 & 15 April. The grading influence many things so they are under pressure to perform well. Pray that they have clear minds and peace during the exams.
  4. Stefan’s mother, Lynne, is currently in hospital with various health struggles. Please pray for her and the health workers.
Meet Moonshadow – our adopted tom cat! Here in America the rules for keeping a pet are different, but we are learning fast. Since his arrival on Sunday, he had brought us lots of joy.
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We appreciate you prayers!

Hack-a-what???

GTO Manila Safe

Walking into the meeting room, I could have mistaken the chatting as a foreign language. Except, I knew it was just programmers lingo. Eighteen programmers joined us in Manila for our Global Technology meetings.

Campus Crusade for Christ is trusting God to have 10 million multiplying disciples by 2020. To track the progress toward the goal, we wanted to ensure that we have the right system in place. The programmers joined us to put their heads (or rather their hard drives) together and in less than two weeks integrated many existing systems into a data warehouse. We called this meeting a Hackathon.

It was exciting to watch the programmers from different countries and languages unite. Guided by the Holy Spirit, they developed the system. Thank you for your prayers – my expectations were exceeded and we continue to trust the Lord for wisdom to use technology wisely for the growth of His Kingdom.

Marie and I would appreciate your prayers for our teams as we develop a system to effectively communicate with our global leaders. My team works on the technology aspects and Marie’s team on the content.

Praise God – Kenneth and Monica both made some good friends.

Continue to pray that we will be a shining light for Jesus here in America.

Your Missionary

Stefan

See our latest Photo’s here.

Collaboration

GTL Sep 13

“Collaboration – the act of working with others on a joint project and shared goals”

Getting together with the technology leaders of Campus Crusade for Christ from around the world is always exciting. We get to see the great things that God is doing in other parts of the world and how similar our challenges are. Solving common problems together through collaboration has been a joy of our bi-annual “Global Technology Leaders” (GTL) meeting. I now have friends from all corners of the world because we have been able to solve problems together. These solutions have been helpful far beyond the specific area that first raised the need.

I am busy preparing to go to Manila, Philippines 20 February-4 March, for our next GTL meeting. The focus of this specific meeting will be “Leading as a Technologist.” Please be in prayer for our speaker Steve Bissell, and the leaders and participants:

Oumar, JR, Gabe, Jerry, Joseph, Timothy, Doug, Mark, Elaine, Sebastian, Jess, Ricky, Kelly, Azat, Salam, Touhami, Marla, Henry, James, Nick, Walter, Matt, Erik, Moses, Bob, Suneerat, Tachit, Peter, Daniel, Harvey, Jon, Michael, Johnny, Ric, Caleb, Dennis, Josh, Dave, Daniel, Karin, Mark, Russ, Mike, Todd, Mike, Richard (Yes I know this is a long list of names, but they would appreciate your prayers.)

We are grateful for your prayers!

Stefan

We have posted some new Photos here

Christmas in Orlando

13 12 Flag for Mandela
Flag Half Mast for Nelson Mandela at our Office

We are missing South Africa! It has been very real this past week with the passing of Tata Nelson Mandela and as we watch our friends on Facebook start their well deserved December holidays.

This Christmas season will be different for us. The school holiday is 20 December – 6 January but currently we are in the midst of tests, assignments and Christmas parties. We are looking forward to hosting dear friends from South Africa for five days over Christmas.

This year brought many changes for the Dell family. Some were hard and some were wonderful. We want to thank you for your support, prayers and encouragement as we followed God’s call. We are blessed to be in His service with you as our partners.

May you have a merry Christ-filled Christmas and may 2014 be a year of growth, grace and good health!

Your “missing you” friends,

Stefan, Marié, Kenneth & Monica

P.S. Click here to see how Christmas is celebrated in our neighbourhood!

#Indigitous

Indigitous Screen

Indigitous (Indigenous + Digital) is a movement of Christians passionate about connecting people to Jesus using digital strategies and tools. I was privileged to be a part of the first conference in Waterloo, Canada last week where I met many people that are natives of the digital world. They are Indigitous! Here is a little video to introduce you to the idea.

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If you can not see the Video please view it HERE

Pray especially for the next Indigitous conference for Latin America and the Caribbean in Panama next week. Pray also for my co-worker, Miheret from Ethiopia as he prepares to host the Indigitous meeting for Africans in Addis Ababa from 7-11 May next year.

House signed

House SigningAt 9:15 pm we walked out of the Title Company Office, exhausted, overjoyed and homeowners! It has been a roller-coaster day. At 2 pm our mortgage was approved and we could get all the contracts signed this evening.

God worked so clearly that the estate agent asked about all the people praying. Thank you for being present through your prayers!

Tomorrow is another big day for us with our presentation at our Headquarters. We covet your prayers, especially since we are so tired. Pray that our testimony will bring others closer to Jesus.

Your Grateful Missionaries

Rat Attack?

Micky

“From the interactions this week I have made more progress on my project than I’ve made in months!”

Someone commented after our time together in Budapest as technology leaders of Campus Crusade. It is so true that collaboration and inspiration from others spurs everyone on to greater heights for the Lord’s glory. Thank you for praying for meeting in Hungary.

Please pray for:

  1. Continued progress in the many projects our team is working on for God’s glory.
  2. Our Mortgage approval so that we can receive the keys on Friday (27 Sept.)
  3. Wisdom and stamina for Stefan in a number of big meetings the next 10 days.
  4. A presentation we, the Dells, are doing on Tuesday (1 Oct.) to all the Headquarters staff members about our journey of faith. We feel privileged to tell the story of God’s grace in our lives.

On a lighter note, we received Disney World tickets as a gift and it was everything and more than what we expected!

Mickey Mouse greetings!

Slow but Steady

13 09 01 Fuel

Slow, but steady best describes our settling-in process thus far. And the word “queues” paints a picture of how I spent most of my time this past month. Every task to make us Floridians has required standing in a queue. The good news is that we now have driver’s licenses, insurance, license plates and registered vehicles. We have uploaded some new photos here.

Give thanks for:

  1. God’s calling that is confirmed every day.
  2. Our ongoing progress with our paperwork.

A big disappointment was that we could not move into our new home due to problems with the mortgage application. A new date for our move is now 26 September. Our colleagues, Keith and Kay, have been amazingly patient by allowing us to continue to stay with them.

Pray for:

  1. The mortgage application to be successful.
  2. The children as they learn the new system at school. It had a few surprises.
  3. Stefan and his team will be in Budapest from 6-13 September for their twice-a-year Technology Leader’s meeting. This time of collaboration is strategic to help our missionaries spread the gospel.

Standing in the queues gave me extra time to pray for you and I thanked God for your part in enabling us to be here.

Your queuing missionary,

Marié