Even a half marathon requires endurance

It is remarkable to see what is happening around the globe every day. For example, there is a nice little story from Cape Town. Only upon reading does it become clear just how much a fun event can take out of you.

Cape Town, South Africa: 21.1 kilometres (13.1 miles), 15,289 participants. Start: Main Road, corner Dean Street, Newlands. Finish: UCT Rugby Fields, Upper Campus, Rondebosch. This is the route of the popular Two Oceans half marathon through Cape Town, which always takes place the day before Easter Sunday. This time too, as many times before, the leaders of the New Apostolic Church in Cape Town participated and proved to be strong runners in the end. Even District Apostle John Kriel put on his running shoes: he started out at 5.50 in the morning and crossed the finish line at shortly after 9 a.m. Just over three hours—a remarkable result!

The Apostles participated as a fundraising effort to support Masakhe NPC, the charity run by the New Apostolic Church Southern Africa. The foundation is the social outreach programme of the Church.

Nairobi, Kenya: A new biocentre was opened in Mukuru Slum in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, in February 2019. During the year-long construction period, several youth and women’s groups received training. In addition to accounting principles, they were taught how charcoal is produced, for example, or were shown the basics of recycling plastic waste and producing fruit juice. The sale of charcoal has been running successfully for several months now. The results are very positive: not only are there fewer house fires, but less money is being spent on energy. NAK-karitativ not only financed the training for this appropriate technology, but also established a fund so that the necessary materials can be purchased.

Celje, Slovenia: Slovenia is a Christian country in Central Europe. There are New Apostolic congregations there. In fact, another congregation has just been founded in Celje, the third largest town. It is situated at the heart of the country. District Apostle Jürg Zbinden conducted the dedication service on 7 April 2019 and spoke the dedication prayer. He used Exodus 20: 24 in the divine service: “In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you.” In his sermon he pointed out that the new church is a place where people can come together to worship God.

Many brothers and sisters had come for the dedication. Until then, they had had to undertake long drives in order to attend divine services regularly.

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