2025 has been full of opportunities, reconnections, and so many blessings for Magezi Ministries.

Thank you for your prayer support, and your generous donations which make it possible for us to live here and impact so many lives in Southern Africa.  We’ve had an amazing year!

We have been incredibly blessed to be invited to partner with the dormitory supervisors of New Horizon College to plan activities, speak into lives, and occasionally to lead Sunday morning services for the 174 students who live in the dormitories at the school.  We had photo scavenger hunts, worship nights, a rugby match on the big screen, Christian movie night, Sunday services, and some Bible study together.  We also took the Impact Africa team to the school in October and they gave us an assembly slot to share with the entire student body – all 950+ students!  We are thrilled with how sensitive they are to the Lord and how they are responding!!  This year there were 45 students who rededicated their lives to the Lord and another 5 who accepted the Lord for the first time.  Magezi Ministries also gave some Bible study books to Mr. Mofekeng and his group of guys who wanted to study the Bible with him quickly outgrew the room and several came to salvation through his mentoring as well.  We celebrate all God is doing at NHC and look forward to what He has for the student body next year as well.  

We continue to host our Align group on Monday evenings – 3.5 years now!  This amazing group of people has transformed from barely holding on to living strong and standing tall with beautiful new transformed minds.  When the Zambian team visited in October, we gave space for them to share how the group has helped them and how the Zambians could start similar groups in their communities. Honestly, it felt like sacred ground.  We all are growing and still learning, but there has been so much ground taken back from the enemy.  Minds are shifting and thinking differently about God, relationships, and especially themselves.  One gal said, “This group is so much more than a safe place for the broken – true healing is found here.  It’s like the family I always needed.”  We have helped each other through loss, brokenness, miscarriages, health challenges, betrayal, grief, severed relationships, legal battles, financial crises and even a lovely guy in his late 50s in our group suddenly died.  Some dealt with pain better than others, but  all are coming closer to God’s heart. Align is a place for healing, encouragement and hope, and we are thankful for the opportunities we have to love and lead this amazing group of people.  Another friend said, “This isn’t a group for the especially broken, this is a safe place for healing and help and everyone needs this!” 

Dan got his Permanent Residency in 2024, and Janell and Titus got theirs in 2025.  We have appealed Miesha’s rejection and have been waiting since April to hear back.  We are trusting that God will come through for her in His perfect timing and we thank you for standing in prayer with us for her paperwork to live in South Africa.  If we don’t get a positive answer soon, we will need to get another temporary visa for her early in 2026.  God knows what we need and when we need it, so we are at peace.  We have several people on our prayer team who pray for this daily – what a blessing you are to our family!

We had the absolute joy of returning to the bush in Zambia for ministry this year.  Our whole family plus our friend Louise went for a couple weeks in April to Livingstone, Mulenje, and Lusaka to reconnect with old friends and to make new friends.  We had a lot of teaching time which was primarily focused on discipleship and had a lot of positive feedback.  We watched Christian movies at night, and one of the evenings as Dan and Titus were setting up the sound system, they were playing a cartoon version of the Crucifixion story to test the volume and such and 7 little kids were watching.  After it finished Dan asked them if they had any questions and all prayed to receive salvation.  God is so good! Dan had a chance to join 30 others from Foundation Ministries and spent another couple weeks in Zambia in June.  In addition to the ministry in the bush, Dan also provided some very practical support to the Lilema family through helping them get solar for their home and getting it set up. We look forward to going again in 2026 – there are so many incredible opportunities in Zambia! If you want to bring a team to join us – it is going to be an amazing outreach trip.  

So many pastors within the Foundation Ministries team have invited us to come and preach and minister in their communities this coming year.  We hope we can!

Very shortly after, we reconnected again with the Chombas in Eswatini (formerly the country of Swaziland) and visited their Hope House children’s home, preschool, church, farm, and the Eswatini Theological College where he is the president.  Dan gave a brilliant message on helping others overcome addictions in their chapel.  We had a wonderful long weekend with them and we look forward to partnering more with them in 2026 to rebuild and restore some of the buildings at the children’s home that were damaged by a storm and there was some talk of Dan teaching more at the college on helping others find freedom.  There are so many opportunities for people to join us to do practical support for Hope House through construction projects and loving on the hundreds of children in the neighborhood who come every afternoon for food or who attend their preschool.  We would love to take a team or two to Eswatini this coming year – let us know if you want to come with us or if you want to send money to help with the building repairs.

We have been partnering with Bambalela ministry with Miguel and Marlien Godoy and their leadership team for some of this year also here in Bethlehem.  They began a church service at 4pm on Sunday afternoons and we love attending and supporting what they do to love their community.  They also have an addiction support ministry on Tuesday mornings, and Dan has shared and taught there 4 or 5 times this year.  These are the two primary places we serve Bambalela, but when we have teams in town, we jump into more of the ministries Bambalela and YWAM do.  They have a midweek service and a feeding program which serves food to between 300-700 people every week!  They also have a ladies Bible study on Thursdays, and I have had the joy of sharing the message one time and then several other times, I brought teams to love on the ladies there also.  They also have an outreach to the poorest part of town and distribute food there too.  Marlien also has a ministry to pray for, encourage, and support the mamas who have just delivered premature babies and who are in the NICU of the two public hospitals.  The teams loved helping her there and they gave out 36 baby clothing parcels on one of the days!  I was chatting to Marlien this morning and they don’t keep official numbers, but I feel like I get a text from her every couple of weeks saying “another 15 got saved tonight”, or “6” or “25”.  There have been so many salvations through Bambalela this year, so many people are getting free of demons, and so many are practically helped through counseling or food/clothes parcels.  We look forward to partnering with them more in 2026.

Dan was able to be in the USA a couple different times for helping with a work project and to spend time with family.  The kids and I were able to join him for several weeks in September and it was a tremendous blessing to get to see some of you and to get some precious time with our families.   This coming February will be our 20-year anniversary of us moving to Africa (can you believe it?!) and we are so thankful for every moment we get to have with our families stateside, especially as our parents are getting older.

In early October, we hosted a team of Zambians who joined us for ministry in Bethlehem.  They had a tremendous impact and were such a big blessing everywhere they served.  We hosted several of them in our home and just being together and having so much time to chat and process was wonderful.

On the 20^th of October I had an operation and have been resting and recovering since.  I am in my 6^th week of recovery now and the pain is much reduced.  We have terrible roads in Bethlehem with potholes everywhere on the side streets.  My incision has declared the last 500 meters to get to our driveway on Mohlala Rd the absolute worst!  When I am at home doing normal things, I am pain free and doing so well.  When I venture out, the roads jostle and bump me so much it takes me a half day to recover.  I am thankful to the Lord for healing and rest and trust him for the remainder of the healing to come.  Thank you for all your prayers for me!

Five days post surgery, our 2^nd team in October arrived.  We partnered again with Impact Africa who brought their interns to serve Bethlehem for the week.  They were seven young ladies aged 18-21 and they did a whole lot of student ministry with Dan that week.  They visited four schools where they shared the love of God with over 3,500 students in just five days. They also spent time with our Align ministry and at Bambalela, handing out food and pampering the ladies, and helped with outdoor concerts in the Bakenpark community led by Pieter McKarthy. Additionally, they engaged in door-to-door evangelism and prayed for the sick in the local public hospitals.  There were over 50 salvations in the schools!  Glory to God!

Miesha and Titus are at youth camp this week and this is the first time ever that Dan and I have had a whole week without them.  Please join us in praying for God to move in all the student’s hearts, for them to have amazing times in His presence during the teachings and worship, and for many salvations here too. 

The kids have one more week of school for their Junior year (we were hoping to finish before youth camp, but we travelled too much!) and then starting in January 2026, we will have two seniors in our home and we will begin our FINAL year of homeschooling.  12 years down, 1 year to go!!  We are still exploring post high school work and study options for them and we will keep you posted.

Many of you have asked what happened to the property we were trying to buy – long story short…we pursued two different property opportunities this year, and neither one worked out.  We weren’t able to secure enough financing and we also didn’t have peace in the end.  We ended up becoming good friends with both of the sellers, and we are going for coffee next week at the home of the first one.  We still feel that buying property in Bethlehem is the right thing to do and every cent that was donated for property for us will be kept for the time when the right one comes along.  We are still looking!  Please let us know if you would like to partner with us in buying a Magezi Ministries mission base.

As we close the year, Magezi Ministries is doing brilliantly financially.  Thank you to all of you who have faithfully and sacrificially donated this year.  We were able to touch so many lives here in Southern Africa because of your generosity and because of all your prayers.  We have big dreams and an abundance of ways and places to further the kingdom of God in this coming year to reach even more students, to help people heal and get set free from addictions, to help teams have amazing ministry experiences, to practically serve, and to put down roots with buying property and we trust God will provide every cent needed.  Perhaps it will be through you?!  Thank you for considering Magezi Ministries in your year-end donations this year.

Together, we can change lives for eternity.  The best is yet to come!  

To give: please visit our website for multiple giving options.  Please let us know if you need help.
https://www.magezi.org/home/give/

With lots of love and full hearts, 
Dan and Janell Hartley