Good News from South Africa
Frontline Fellowship Receives 1,800,000 Gospel Booklets for Southern Africa
Founder Peter Hammond Survives Stroke
Frontline Fellowship, a Reformed and Protestant mission working from South Africa reports that they just received a shipment of 1,800,000 Gospel Booklets in various languages for distribution throughout the region. World Missionary Press prints the booklets for ministries active in out of the way places. Frontline Fellowship describes the booklets as, “compact, light-weight, saturated Scripture, topical, and extremely relevant to the issues and challenges of people in Africa.
The booklets are particularly prized by those travelling itinerant evangelists who use motorbikes to get to their destinations.
Frontline Fellowship says their records indicate that that “have delivered and distributed over 7,000,000 World Missionary Press booklets throughout Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Malawi, Tanzania, Congo, Rwanda, Sudan as far afield as Nigeria.”
The ministry’s founder, Peter Hammond, recently suffered a stroke. In his newsletter he described what happened.
“In the early hours of Tuesday morning, I suffered a stroke. At about 2 AM, I awoke to a sharp pain in my left ankle. As I tried to stand up and walk out this cramp, I fell over. My left side felt lame. As I called out in prayer to the Lord, my speech was slurred. I could feel the left side of my face was numb. It was apparent to me that I was suffering a stroke so I went to the medicine cabinet and took out an Aspirin. Then I attempted to go back to sleep.
“In the morning when Daniela knocked on my door to find out if I was all right, the thought came to my mind: I’m dying. I did not say that, but that is what I was thinking at the time. I placed my sword by my bedside, knelt down and prayed the Psalms. As I tried to walk down the hallway I found myself bumping into pictures and bookshelves on the left. Plainly my left side was not co-ordinated, confirming that I had suffered a stroke. Daniela insisted that I stay at home and not attempt to drive through to the mission, and designate to others my upcoming radio, TV and other meetings. Later I asked her to drive me through to the hospital and admit me to casualty.”
After an MRI exam confirmed that he had experienced a stroke, the Chairman of Frontline Fellowship, Anthony Stander visited.
Hammond continued, “Anthony Stander, visited ICU and anointed me with oil in accordance with James 5:14 & 15: ‘is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up.’
“The Lord certainly answered that prayer and the prayers of other friends who visited. On subsequent days, the doctor and the therapists expressed amazement at how well I was recovering. When the neurological therapist gave me a puzzle to solve, she announced: “well that’s a record” when I completed it promptly. The nurses also commented on how I was visibly better and how mobile I was able to be. By God’s grace, Friday morning, Daniela came to collect me from the hospital. Surrounded by my books and cats, I was very grateful to God for His hand of mercy and healing.”
Dr Hammond is now back to work.
