A Permanent Residency Update
In our last letter, we were thrilled to announce the judge ruled in our favor and ordered Home Affairs to grant Dan Permanent Residency and an ID book within 10 days. Of all the plans we were working with, this answer was the best result we could’ve hoped for. Ten days and counting have passed, and this morning we got the news that Dept of Home Affairs has decided to officially disregard the court order. They announced their intentions to take us back to court because they do not want to give Dan PR. This means more fees and more delays. We are so discouraged and frustrated. We are hopeful that the court date will be in November before the government offices all close for the whole month of December, otherwise we were told it could be March before another court date would be available.
We are going to need $5,500 right away to cover the new legal fees. If you are able to contribute towards this with any amount, we would be so grateful!
We have always stewarded our Magezi finances carefully, but this ongoing visa process has drained our ministry savings account and we have been paying out of our personal account to cover the remaining outstanding expenses for the past six months. We would be so grateful for a donation to Magezi Ministries during this holiday season. There is a brown “donate here” button above which will take you to the giving section of our website. Please reach out to us via email or phone 206-724-7383 if you have any questions about giving.
The last few weeks have been so fun as we felt the freedom to dream with the Lord and friends about “the next 20+ years of ministry” we would have in South Africa. Today has been hard. Our hearts are hurting as the hope of returning to SA early in the new year has been deferred. It feels horrible to be rejected and opposed again.
One of the lines in a song by Shane and Shane says, “I don’t know what You are doing, but I know what You’ve done” and that has been really ministering to my heart today. Even though we don’t understand what God is doing right now, we choose to remember how He has made a way for us over and over again in the past and we can trust that He has a good future plan for us. We still feel called to go back to South Africa and will continue to follow the advice of our agent and pursue getting the paperwork we need to return.
We are so thankful to have you all joining us in prayer as we contend for breakthrough again in our journey to get back to South Africa.
A Hartley Health Update
We also asked in our last letter for you all to pray for a miracle for our brother-in-law Brad who suffered from a massive heart attack on November 1st. God has preserved his life and he is still with us! He had no measurable brain activity for a couple days, but now he is no longer on life support or the breathing machine and has been able to blink his eyes to answer questions. We would ask you to continue to pray for complete healing for Brad’s brain and heart. Trisha says a big thank you to all of you who have joined us to pray for him. His doctor said “He shouldn’t be here with us” so we know that it is an absolute miracle that he is doing so well. He will likely have a long road back to full health, but we are still so thankful he is still with us.
Don and Shirley (Dan’s parents) could use your prayers as well. Shirley fell and broke her collarbone a couple weeks ago and has some significant ongoing body pain. Last week, Dan remodeled the upstairs bathroom to have a walk-in shower and this week, Dan built a wheelchair ramp and installed a “stair chair” to help her with her mobility challenges.
Don is currently in the hospital not feeling well and waiting to have a couple of procedures done on Friday. We hope the procedures will give his Doctors some helpful info which will translate into a care plan so he will feel better again.
Please keep Brad, Don, and Shirley in your prayers. They all need breakthroughs in their health challenges. Dan is currently in Seattle with his parents, Janell and the kids are in Portland for a couple weeks and we hope it won’t be too long till we are all back together again.
We are so grateful to be able to be close to help during this challenging season for the family.
Thank you for supporting us!
