SOUTH AFRICA CHUIiCH OF CHRIST

Hamilton News Letter

Fwd. Agent

June, I961

Mrs. A. V/. Hamilton Sr.

Albert & Annette

P. C. Box 50

Marceline, Missouri
U.

S.

Kimberley, S. A.

A,

Dear Co-laborers in Christ;

CO
o

Although this is our June letter, today is the lM:h.oT'JUly;

hope that each of you enjoy the short holidays therej5

The-^Sa.ut__

African fourth of July comes on Oct. 10 and is called "G-uy Faulks"

day, which corresponds with the American Holloween asd Li-thi.hfXra"
combined.

if

The entire Bionth of June was filled- .with preparation and"^ar'rying.

out of the Revival and D.V.B.S, here in Kiriiberley,

The church at

V/arren St. had printed and delivered over I|.0 large posters and 1,000
hand bills advertising the revival'meeting which ran from the 11th to
the 2^rd, On the 12th we began the V.B.S.. Annette was the director
this year and Bob and Phyllis'Mills and I taught classes, VJe also had
two of the Church members teaching this year, Mrs. Keith Forrester and
Annette PIo Yan. Since Carroll Fulford and family v;ere with us for the
revival, they brought with thera Carroll's mother, Florence Fulford, of
the Wynburg Church in Capetown, to help teach also. This gave us 7
teachers and two of these were assistant teachers; Annette Ho Yan and
Mrs. Forrester, Phyllis Mills gave the missionary talk each day and we
took an offering each day. It amounted to approximately I5 dollars it was sent to the hospital in Rhodesia. Annette had charge of leading
singing and the closing devotion. The average attendance was lj,5, x^ith
the highest

of 55 for one day.

There were 65 enrolled in the school.

This was a very fine Bible School, and the closing program on Sat.

Afternoon helped bring several nev; adults to the Church building for the
first tii;ie. One young man, Henry Ho Chuhg was baptized at the close of
the first week. He has attended the services for over two years.
The revival meeting was held in the evening along with the D.V.B.S.
with Brother Carroll Fulford proaching and his mother M'. c. Fulford
playing the piano. Many of the yoixng people of the V.B.S. attended the

services regularly, one of which ;ras Henry vjho was baptized during the
meetings. Bob and Phyllis Mills both did an inspiring work vjith Chalk
drawings during the meeting and members of the congregation provided

special music.

The higtiest attenda/ice was i|5 foh the service and many

of the Coloured "Christian Brethren" group were at all but two of the
services. The hectic two weeks envolved the morning in Bible School,
the afternoons helping to clean the Church building for the evening
services as well as making as many calls as possible and the evening
services which began at 7:00 P. M. At the close of the meeting the
Fulford's little girl Alandra Jo contacted tonsillitis

and was ad

vised by our physician to remain in Kimberley with us for three more

days. So Brotner Fulford spoke at the Lord's day services following

the revival. Frances Marie was also ill during these meetings with
Trench mouth and tonsillitis, in fact,

she had it first so Alandra Jo

probably cauglit it from her, Mancy Fulford and Carroll' s .mother helped
with cooking and washing so the burden on Annette was lightened. Nancy
stayed with Frances in the mornings and had lunch prepared when we
arrived from Church at the close of V. B. S. V/e did indeed enjoy the
two weeks, a:lthough we were all tired at the end of tnem.

Me were happy to have the Zimraermans stop in Kimberley the last

week in June for a 2 day visit, as they were taking a few days leave
from the work in Capetown at Polo Road Ciiurch where A1 is minister.

This was their short I4. day holiday with the children as school v;as out
for

three weeks in June.

The revival meeting was helpful in getting the filiii strij)s

scheduled again in a home we have tried for some time to schedule.

This is the Ho Yan home.

Several of trie members of the family a.re not

attending church anywhere and two of the young people of the home are

members at V.'arren st.

They have enjoyed the studies and ask sd many

questions concerning the New Testaraent plan for Salvation and for
the Church.

There is a^misaionary meeting scheduled for the last of this

month.

It is likely to be held at Capetox^jn or near East London

where the^Kernan family recently moved. Since we have been in

South Africa pur work has been mostly the responsibility of the
European and Coloured peoples. For this reason we began in June

to receive all funds for the work we are responsible for, and are

not sending our service link any more novr,

into the general

fund which was in operation here when we arrived on the field.

VJe now have an account for mission expenses here in Kimberley,

and we receive all funds, (salary and working or service funds)
directlyfbom our forwarding agent. V;e keep seperate books of
course for salary and mission expenses and vrill begin this month
to itemizB our service link expenses, so you will have a complete
record monthly.

Vi hope to build up a reserve, in our m,lssion

service link account so that we can begin scheduling film strip

(hod's 2^l9-n through the ages") studies in other areas or towns,

and possibly evangelistic meetings.

This would mean the cost of

renting a hall or building for such meetings. The general fund

of the African Native woi-k here has its own needs, and the treas,

for that fund is Lynn .Stanley of the African Bible Training School

in port Shepi^tone, Natal,

ipf course our salary covers all our

tmnspcrtation expenses and car repair etc. and h<.use rent, house
hold and family needs.

Received for June, service link -100 ,00 dollars (Rands R7j;.6o) .
(One Rrnd in South African cunency is equal to l.ko
U-.S,A,
currency),
Expenses for June-

Stamps for Mid-week reminder 5c newsletter-

200 1 cent and 1^00 l-f cent stairips,

2 reams duplicator paper

1 boK envelopes (^00) '

- (g RI.06 e/

1 typewriter ribbon -

3 stylists pens ' - R .73 e

1 roll guriVi.ed tape Revival expenses for- Phlfords
Bah on 1hand Monthly salary -41350,00

'

- rS.OO
- RR.12 '

_ Rl[6S'
p

- - R2I2S
_
p ^3
- -RpO.OO

R.te.cG
- R.26.^2'
- Service 15nkfi-om now cn-^50.00

We are. grateful to b e your s ervants for'Jesus' sake, 'We

are glad to .hear from you when you have questions or ccrm.ients,liiank you also for the friendly letters.
Love in Christ;

Sonny,'Annette h
Srances Marie

The HaBolltons

P.S.

As of June the three families in European and Coloured

work now opprate their own program, seperate fi'om the
African Npti've funds. Vife feel thl.s W'ill be less con

fusing since no one family has time to tackle all phases

of the work h e r e

J-

H
^

SOUTH AFRICAN CHURCHES OP CHRIST

^d. Agent:
Mrs, A. V/, Hamilton
loU V/est Santa Pe
Marceline, Missouri

Hamilton News Letter

juiy, 1961

*ac.

%
-k-*

tor

Slber,tirAnnett6
P n nM, 7n
<^lmber1^!^^
Af?^

pear Fellow Servants;

It is the second day of August now, and we have moved again. This
time to Hadison Park, about four blocks from the Mills family. Most of
our prospects in the European work are here in this new housing area.
New homes are being built every day, and we hope to hold Bible studies
here in the house we are renting, to reach more people. There really

needs to be__a-church-here-inHadison Farkr."^^M"0"^''of bur''film' strip "'

studies of the Bible have been in the homes of this area, so we hope it

will be advantageous to live here. We are renting a house, that is

rather new, unfurnished and well located for 75.00
month (RiiS.OO
South African money). We have leased it for a year.

The Bible film strip was scheduled again on Thursday evenings in

a home down near the Church building.

We have shown the first film

atrip and the^family seems very interested. We have plans now to begin

showing them in our house on Friday evenings for at least one other
family. Of course we will encourage others to come for them also.

Because of the four days it took to meet with the Stanley and

Nicholson families in Port Shepstone, Natal, in July, we only had 5

full weeks with the work here. Only I03 calls were made this month
but we secured 25 new names for the mid-week-reminder mailing list,
(our church paper in which we print Gospel material) and fifty of
these calls were new contacts. This bring our mailing list for the
reminder

up to 155

have had two Bible studies each week this month

and one showing of the film strip lessons.

A total of 8 Bible classes

apartfrom the regular Church services on the Lord^s Days and Wednesdays.
While in Natal, we got some bananas and pineapples to bring home.
The bananas were given to us by a friend of the Stanley's, Such fruit
is more plentiful there in Natal and much
cheaper than it is here.
The mountains certainly reminded me of Tenn<L-s3ee and Virginia. The
ocean too was beautiful.

We went through Durban and several other cities

larger than Kimberley. t^hich are presently without any of our churches.

Remember, we have four families in South Africa to distribute over a

European population of 5 million, and three families working with the

7 million Native peoples. We know you will be.praying for us. We hope
that we w ill be able to visit Bloemfontein(100 miles from Kimberley)
in the warmer months and see what prospects are for beginning a church
there.

The Lord's Day evening attendance has been in the 50's with several
new faces in the past few weeks. The Wed. evening service which is our
meeting and_C_hristian Growth claas (taught.by Bro.-Mills-)y-lias
also averaged over 25 for several weeks.

We want to make a correction to last month's letter, in that we

will send out ANNUAL reports of the Income received and used here,
instead of monthly. Rather than a boring monthly list of figures,

we feel that you will be happier with an annual report of funds.

Annette and I will not be represented in the "Torch" from now on,

ViFe

feel that the overhead of cost with it does not justify our use of it,
so we will try to prepare a news publication later of om' own which

envolves the iriiraediate work we are engaged in and will go to you who
It will possibly be only a
bi-annual publication, but will .rover the news of our work, needs and

are receiving this monthly newsletter.

plans.

Since Brother Mills and his wife are visiting the churches of the
Native Christians here in the Northern Cape, we feel that we shall
concentrate more now on European and Coloured work.

So far there'are

about 50 times the number of churches among the Native people as there

are among the European and Coloured population# (Churches of Christ).

Annette's chatter:

Some of you have asked about the weather here. Well we are supposed
to be having our winter now. However it has been a very mild one until

just this past week.

It rained last week end from Pri. through Mom.

and has really been cold since. The rain is very uinusual because we
usually have it in the slimmer (or so everyone has said). The trees are

all blossoming (about 8 weeks ahead of time) and the people are all
afraid that there will come a heavy freeze and ruin any prospects of
fruit. Everybody's garden is looking nice. We don't have any.
The family is just fine,

PranOie is talking more and more.

We

have a driveway gate that has a space about 6 inches high at the bottom
and yesterday, she followed one of her little playmates as she crawled
under it. It is a law here that every property be fenced completely
but nothing about spaces under the gates. Now I will have to really
keep an eye on her because she has a memory that just doesn't quit when
it comes to some things like that.
The house was unfurnirhed except for a few things that the owner
couldn't get into the storage room. She also left the curtains up in
every room.
The people here use a lace curtain underneath with drapes
over them. The lace makes it impossible for any one to see in in the

day time but they are of no use at night.

The drapes are almost always

half-way between the window sill and the floor instead of the correct

way.

They do some things differently here,

I am anxious to get our

own curtains since these look so odd,

VJell, enough for this time.

Now back to Sonny.

Thank you all again for your life, we are glad to be your

servants for Jesus' sake.

~

"""

IICa;iL:5
""""

" Albert "& Annette Hamilton

&

Prances

n
SOUTH AFRICAN
CHURCHES OF CHRIST

Fwd. Agent
>irs, A.W, Hamilton Sr.

Marceline, Mssouri

Hamilton

Albert & Annette

P.O.Box 30

News Letter
Aug. 1961

Kimberley, C.P,
South Africa

Dear Co-Workers in Christ;

The Lord has blessed us with several new opportunities here in Kimberley.
In the month of August one family has finished seeing the film strip lessons
and we began the series again vrith another new family, in the same neighborhood.

Beginning this week we are scheduled to start our Bible pictiires in the Kimberley
Cripple Care home at 7:oo in the evenings on thursdays. On the l^hh of Sept.
we are to begin showing the Bible in pictures to the children in the Kimberley
Home for Handicapped ChildrEn in another part of town. We" thank"God for these'
new doors of service now open. It is also our privilege to be allowed to come
each Lord's day afternoon to the Cripple Care Home to teach Bible school lessons

to the Coloured and Native children.

By the time you receive this letter only

Monday will be the evening of tl^ week in which we do not have a Church service
cr Bible study class. We hope that every night of the week will soon be filled
with a stu^y or service.

If the Lord is willing we live, Jan. 1962 will be the opening of the new
Kimberley Church of Christ School of Evangelism. Brother Mills will be the
Dean of the school while I will continue as Minister of the Church. We will
be using the church building for the school, both brother Bob and I will be teach

ing 8 hours of evening classes per week, making a total of I6 hours of class work
to be offered.

Several have already expressed the desire to study for the Min-

stry and Church leadership. We will need more books for our school library, as
both Bob and I have only a limited amount of necessary books. If you can help
us in securing such needed material we will be happy to send you a list of the

most urgently required text books etc. We believe such a school can help meet
the need of the European and Coloured evangelism in the northern Cape Province
and Transvaal.

Recently we began a contest for the" purpose of securing new names and addrs-

ses^for the mailing list of the Church paper (Mid-eek Reminder), V/e are giving
a Bible to the person turning in the most names and addresses of people who would

like to receive the paper each w eek. Already we have been given over 2.^0 pro

spective names, thus increasing our mailing list to 350. This trip ling of our
mailing list here in Kimberley will certainly increase the cost of stamps, paper
etc, thus using most of the service link,, but we always intend to increase the

our work in this way. We believe that advertising the Bible pictures, studies,

services and proposed school will be of great value to the work as a whole.

Already many have said they enjoy the material in our Church paper and look
forward to receiving it each week.

Please pray with us that this means of

preaching the Gospel of Christ will bear fruit..

We cannot help but feel that the hardest part of the work for Christ here

in Kimberley is over now, the ice istroken for European evangelism here with the
Forrester family taking great interest in the entire work of the Church, Their
very presence in the^rvices, Bible studies and help in the work of the Church

will mean very much in reaching the other prospective European families here.

The Coloured group called "Christain Brethren," are still meeting in a home, but

many of them come faithfully to the Sat. evening Bible study in our home. There
have been as many as 15 in our Sat, evening class and four of these are of the
"Christian Brethren."

Three young people (out of school) of the Christian

Brethren have expressed desire to stucfy in the school when it begins in January,
We urgently need another minister here in South Africa from the States

to

make it possible fof the work to expand as it should, if you are interested in
coming here to minister to a small congregation, please contact us.
Annette has spoken onee this month to the Native women's meeting on thurs.
She visits it often when Mrs. Mills speaks also.

We know you all will be praying for the plans and the work now in pro

gress here. Please pray espically that Mr. Kieth Forrester will want to study
and train for the Eldership or Ministry, and that others will enroll for the

first school term. We thank each of you for your faithfulness in providing
for the needs of this work, your faith and encouragement gives us strength, may

we have boldness to preach the Truth in Love, is our prayer.

Gratefully your servantsifor Jesus' sake, II Cor. h'S

r 4/

Sonny 5c Annette Hamilton

^ Frances,

A. W. HAMILTON FAMILY

SIGNIFICANT

P.O. Box 30,

Kimberley, Cape Province,

ACeim and VieiuA

South Africa.

JR. HIGH CLASS

At Bible School, taught by Annette, meets

in our Volkswagen Kombi. As many as 8
students have been in this class.

Thank you for the Bible School material

you have helped to provide for this and the
other classes this year.
Morning and Evening Church attendance
has increased this year (1961) and there have
been 8 baptisms so far in 1961.

Since we have been in South Africa we have been in two Revival meetings with the Polo Road

Church of Christ in Cape Town, the three (Coloured and European) congregations we have at pre

sent try to work together as much as possible, for we are few and have the great need for many
more ministers here. Other Revival meetings are planned.

BIBLE CLASS FOR THE CRIPPLED

CHILDREN

The Cripple Care Home of Kimberley

granted us permission to come each Lord's

day afternoon at 3.00 for a short song service

and flannelgraph lesson. Maureen Ho Chung

leads in this service and teaches the class in

Afrikaans. Mrs. Mills plays the portable

organ for the song service.

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL

Was held in conjunction with a Revival

meeting in July of 1961. Brother Carroll
Fulford and family came from Cape Town
to preach for the two weeks.
There was one Baptism and an increased
enthusiasm for the Lord's work, as a result
of the V.B.S. and the Revival.

The congregation is made up of Chinese,

Coloured and European.

NEWLY WEDS

Ted and Phyllis Brotherhood were bap

tized and married here at the Church of

Christ in Kimberley. Ted (Edward) has ex

pressed the desire to study and preach the
Gospel. It is hoped that he will find the
Training School of help to him in fulfilling
his desire.

CHRISTIAN SERVICE CAMP AT

CAPE TOWN

mi

Hout Bay is the site for the annual New

Year's camp for the Churches of Christ in
South Africa. We enjoy wonderful fellowship
and inspiration each year here. First oppor
tunity for the Kimberley Church to attend
this camp, was January. 1961. We look for
ward to many more such experiences for
our young people.

OUR AIM
KIMBERLEY CHURCH OF CHRIST

of bangeli?m
R. S. MILLS, A.B., Th.M. Dean.

A. W. HAMILTON, A.B., M.A. Minister.

The Lord willing we live, January, 1962, on the 22nd, will be the opening of
classes in the School of Evangelism. We will begin with night classes only, four
hours each evening from 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and
Friday. Both Brother Mills and I plan to teach 8 hours of class work. Thus offering
16 hours of credit to those who desire above every other desire to preach the Gospel
of Christ. Already some are planning to enroll in the School. Please pray for this
much-needed school for Christ, and help us to find books for the library.
The above picture of Brother Robert Mills and myself was taken at Cradock
at the Native Conference Committee meeting.

ROLAND JOSEPH

(foreground)

A young man of 21, Roland is planning

to enter the ministry and train in the School
of Evangelism. Roland is a Baptized believer
who left the Brethren denomination after

several sessions of Bible study. He has

already taken part in the services of the

Church at Warren Street and is fully con

secrated to the Lord.

DIAMOND DIGGING

As in the picture above, this one also

shows in the distance part of the crain equip

ment used in digging for diamonds. Both
of these pictures were taken at "Gong Gong"
near Kimberley. Roland Joseph stands near
Brother Mills on the right.
The larger stopes are removed and the
small stones and fine gravel are sifted and
separated by the machine in the picture
above.

FRANCES MARIE
At our front walk with her new doll and

buggy which were her birthday presents in

October of 1961. She also had a birthday
party. She is 2 years old.
We are pleased to be your servants, and
pray that God will help us as we work to
gether as long as He is pleased to allow us.
Thank you for your LIFE.

PRINTED BY NORTHERN CAPE PRINTERS. KIMBERLEY