My wife Emma and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to South Africa during the spring holydays to help improve the processing and maintenance of literature requests and Good News subscriptions for the South African office. In late 2011, Jason Webster from Pretoria, South Africa, contacted me for help with the tremendous response they were getting from their local advertising efforts. Jason works full time as an engineer but was volunteering his time to maintain the Good Newssubscriptions. Isella Wallis, who is the lone office employee in South Africa, was diligently working to try to keep up with the large volume of weekly literature requests.

Much of the problem lay in the computer program that had been in place in South Africa for many years. It was antiquated and no longer provided the capabilities needed by the South African office. It was hoped that I would be able to improve and streamline the computer programs to allow Isella to handle much of the workload with greater ease and provide better services to subscribers.

The trip was planned to occur over the spring Holy Days (which are in the fall in South Africa) so Emma and I would be able to spend some time with the local brethren in Johannesburg and in Cape Town. I had the opportunity to speak on the Sabbaths and Holy Days in Cape Town and Johannesburg and Emma provided special music. The brethren were so wonderful and warm. They made us feel so at home.

The South African office now has a much improved computer system that will help them maximize their resources while automating many processes that were previously done by hand. This new computer system will help them tremendously as their work grows. The relationships built also help us support and encourage each other as we do God’s work on this earth.