Update on the “death threat” situation

Dear Team,

Update on the “death threat” situation.

The hearing for the death threat to Dr. Peter Hammond took place as scheduled on November 24. The man, Rashid Kara, pleaded “not guilty” so his trial was scheduled for December 21. (Our deadline is the 16th to get this to the printer, so we are unable to give you the results, but we will keep you posted on the developments.) Please pray.

We are so grateful to each of you who wrote a letter or e-mail to Detective Inspector Estelle Kotze. She was greatly encouraged. “I’ve never had anything like this happen,” she told us as she pointed to a large stack of letters. “My office is very impressed.”

Harriett and I visited her several times in hospital as she recuperated from surgery. Her face was aglow with the glory of the Lord and the joy of her newfound faith. The doctors were able to find and remove most of the cancer, but there is still some left. Please continue to pray for her complete healing as a testimony to His grace and mercy.

Lenora Hammond continues to improve health-wise and is able to drive again. Her strength and stamina are still limited and after a busy day she feels exhausted.

Last month’s pre-Christmas highlight was the annual summer Youth Conference at KwaSizabantu, with some 5,000 teenagers in attendance. Peter and I had been invited as guest speakers. His daughters Andrea and Daniela traveled over with us to eastern Natal. There were teens from all over South Africa and several foreign countries including Europe and America. This year’s harvest was unusually abundant with several hundred young people trusting Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior. What joy!

    One Saturday evening last month we drove out to Somerset-West (about 50km east of Cape Town), to a Carols by Candlelight service at the Baptist Church. It also doubled as a picnic and Sunday School prize giving with about 200 family members present.

For several months, active Christians in the Church had encouraged the Pastor to have some kind of evangelistic outreach. He is a man of God and has a Bible expository message, but lacks the gift of evangelism. They said, perhaps too simplistically, “It’s easy. Even a 6-year old boy could do it.”

“Find me a 6-year old boy that can do that,” he jokingly counter-challenged.

The program organizer knew about Calvin Hammond, Peter and Lenora's youngest son, and his ability to memorize Scripture, so he was asked to "preach" the closing message. He did an absolutely superb job! OK, I'm his grandpa, and I am definitely very biased, but he gave the entire "Evangelism Explosion" presentation flawlessly. He had excellent delivery, paused for emphasis in the right places, used appropriate gestures to make his points and handled the mike like a "pro." At the end, he gave an invitation and led them in the sinner's prayer.

It was really stunning when you stop to think that he's only 6 years old and only just learning to read. The chairman of the event was so impressed that afterwards he came up on the platform, put his arm around Calvin and prayed a dedicatory prayer that he might grow to be a mighty servant of God and win thousands to Christ. We hope you’ll join him in that prayer.

Yours in His grip,





Bill Bathman