Dear Praying Friends,

Theresa and I celebrated our 35 Wedding Anniversary on March 26. We want to thank each of you who sent cards, gifts, congratulations, and well wishes; we appreciate being remembered on our special day.

On Sunday April 6 we had a very special day. In the afternoon I baptized six people and what a special blessing that was to hear their testimonies of salvation.

The week prior I had attended a Pastor’s Fraternal in Pretoria and met Pastor Happy Ngnoma from Zambia, who consented to speak for us in both Sunday services; our people really enjoyed him.

I have know of Pastor Happy for a number of years as his brother and family attended our church for some time. He was sharing with me that he had a brother who has died with AIDS and a sister is now living with AIDS.  The government has recently published statistics for South Africa – 600 AIDS related deaths a day!

We still continue with the literature distribution on the streets and preaching from time to time. Some times the music from the shops is so loud that preaching is impossible.  Help us pray about this work because many who take tracts are dying with AIDS.

My health has been much improved for the last couple of weeks (prior to that I had been in bed for two and half weeks). I have stopped the soy milk and coffee and it has made a great difference – I thank God for this.

Our plans are to come home for a few weeks in June and keep the appointment with the oncologist at the VA hospital in Nashville. Things are not looking so favorable at this stage for our coming.

We wish to thank many of you for your great faithfulness to us.  We remain infinitely indebted to His Grace.

Bro. Joel

Joel & Theresa Bain
P.O.Box 3110
2125 Randburg
Johannesburg, South Africa
tel & fax: 011 27 11 462 5272
cell #     011 27 72 450 0535
(use all numbers when calling from US) joelandtheresa@hotmail.com www.directmissions.com