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Stanley has known missions all of his life. His parents were missionaries to the Kamba tribe in Kenya for 35 years. At an early age he felt a sense of
God's call on his life. After graduating from Rift Valley Academy in Kenya in 1965, Stanley attended Covenant College then enrolled at Covenant Seminary. During that time he met his wife, Donna.
Donna grew up in Springfield, IL, and at the age of ten accepted Jesus into her heart. God gave her an increasing desire to work for him on the foreign mission field. She
completed her nursing degree at Southern Illinois University. Donna has worked in several U.S. hospitals, in community health in Kenya and served as the director of a
Following Stan's
ordination in 1973, the Armes served in Kenya as missionaries for 10 years - first under World Presbyterian Missions until it joined Mission to the World. When the
family returned to the States in 1987 due to health reasons, Donna worked as a nurse and Stan pastored a church in Virginia for 5 years.
In 1997, God led them to Port Elizabeth,
South Africa where Stan is a teacher in the Bible Institute of the Eastern Cape (BIEC). Students and leaders with little Biblical training are eager to learn God's Word so they can take it to their own
people.
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News Letters
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Missionary: Stan & Donna Armes
Mission board: MTW
Location: South Africa
September 11, 2004
Dear Friends
One of the things that people hear about in
South Africa is the high crime rate. It is true. Of course it is worse in some places than others. We would expect murders and robberies to occur in cities like Cape Town or Johannesburg but not so prevalent in Port
Elizabeth (P.E.). The Bible Institute Eastern Cape (B.I.E.C.) is a small interdenominational college in the city of PE. Surely this crime wave would not affect us.
Lesley Jacobs was sentenced to 18 years in
prison. While in prison he met Jesus Christ who changed his life. Prison officials saw such a change in his life that after 5 years they let him out to attend Bible college. He is now finishing up his first year. At
the moment he is convinced that God took him out of that condition so that he can go back to the prisoners and minister to them when he is finished. When I talked with him, he said be sure that you ask the people to
pray for me.
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Wandile Nqcobo is also a first year student. A few weeks ago, one evening at gun point, he was hijacked in his car. The perpetrators were not satisfied with just taking the car from him they took
Wandile with them. He was driven around all night with the gun pointed to his head while being threatened to be killed if he did not do what they said. The hijackers forced Wandile to give him the pin
number to his bank account and proceeded to clean it out. God spared his life and he was able to come back to the college and tell us his story. The faculty and students took a collection and enough
money came in to help repair his car after it was recovered and replace some of the money that was stolen.
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Two stories, two men. One a perpetrator of crime, the other a victim of it. The mother tongue of one is Afrikaans and the other Xhosa. In both cases God's grace shines forth in the lives of the students he has
brought to B.I.E.C. These are men who love the Lord and want to spend their lives serving him by going back to their own people and telling them about Jesus. Training these men is the reason we are here in South
Africa. Donna and I have been here for close to 5 years now and we are enjoying it. We know that God has sent us here and there is no indication from God's leading or within our own spirit that this work should
change.
In the five years we have been here Stan has taught 9 courses. Before coming to South Africa he had taught none of the 9 topics as courses. It has been a challenging but good 5 years. In these 5
years we have seen several changes in the Bible college.
1. It is now registered with the government. In South Africa, this is a huge step in the life of an educational institution requiring many hours of hard
work.
2. We are now teaching on the BTh level. These are fourth year courses that are taught at BIEC but under auspices of a recognized university in South Africa. In our case we are working under the University
of Fort Hare where Nelson Mandela studied many years ago.
3. The college has some architect drawings for what it would like to see in the coming years. These drawings include a library, student center, some
accommodation for students on campus and a multi-use building that can be used as either separate lecture rooms that can be opened and used as a large meeting hall for conferences or graduations ceremonies.
September 20-24 is mission week. This is a week that is set aside each semester when we suspend classes and go out with the students on a rural or urban mission. Stan has been asked to coordinate this project. This
semester we are going about 1 and ½ hours away to a place called Kenton on Sea. It is a small place with three distinct communities that are Colored, Black and White. The main language in each of these communities
is Afrikaans, Xhosa and English. There is an Anglican pastor in Kenton on Sea who has been doing a lot of groundwork before we actually go up there. The communities have been fragmented and the Lord has used him to
begin to bring unity to the area. He organized a weeklong prayer chain round the clock to ask God's guidance and to prepare the community when 40 people from BIEC will arrive. They are excited about our coming.
Please pray that God use us during this time and that the Holy Spirit use our time to bring many people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
This year has brought to us both sad and glad times. At the
beginning of the year Stan's mom was sick and died. This necessitated two trips to the States. One of the trips both Stan and Donna went and the other Stan went alone. It was during this time that many of you
contributed towards that emergency trip home. Thank you very very much. Many of you will never know how much this was appreciated. Living on another continent made it financially impossible for us to travel in order
to see my mom before she died but you made it possible.
Another great experience for us is that all three of our children have or will be visiting us this year. Andrea and her husband Tim were here for only
a very short time. It was only a week but it was really nice. Debbie was here for two months on an internship working with HIV/AIDS orphans and orphans with AIDS and helping with the administration of Jerusalem
Ministries. Sarah will be coming at the end of September to be with us for three weeks. What a wonderful gift God has given to us this year! Regarding our children another surprising development has come. All three
are open to going to the mission field if God leads them. This is not something that we have tried to push on them. We recognize that missions is the call of God. None of them are on the mission field yet but it
will be very interesting to see where God uses them.
Thank you very much for your financial support and prayer. For those who have stayed with us since 1977 when we first went to Kenya - you are amazing.
Thank you as well. May God continue to bless all of you and keep you strong in your faith in Jesus.
Sincerely,
Stan and Donna Armes
Prayer
1. By the
time you get this letter the mission will be over. Pray that we will see continual fruit over the following months.
2. Thank the Lord for the passion the students have for the lost.
3. We have recently found out that our support account is behind $1400/mo.
4. That both Donna and I remain diligent in our study and enthusiastic in our presentation during classes.
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