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12 April 2025
Announcements
April 5, World Ambassador Day: This Sabbath, we observe the first ever World Ambassador Day. Brother Given Mdhluli will deliver a mighty message.
April 5, TOC Stewardship Promotion: Pr Tshepo Aphane will be with his team at Lekazi SDA Church. We are sending representatives to attend.
March 30 – April 12, SID Week of Prayer: Prophecies of Hope is the title of the seminars held by the SID. The presenter is Pastor Oetla Simankane (of Sandton SDA Church).
April 4 – July 12, GC Prayer: The General Conference 100-day-prayer program has started. It is titled “.”
Apr 12, Lowveld Music Festival: The Lowveld District Music Festival will be held on 12 April 2025 at Lowveld High School. There are five categories (including children's choirs). Let us support the efforts of our music director Babe Cele and the district music director Babe Nkambule to make this day a success.
Apr 19, TOC Book Distribution: The TOC Publishing Director Dr Z Mbatha invites all churches to participate in the distributing The Great Controversy. Please buy them from the office at R25 each.
April 20-25, TOC Publishing WOP: The program is followed by a Publishing Week of Prayer from April 20-25. Each church is encouraged to host this prayer meeting. Mbombela Central SDA Church asks its members to hold the week of prayer in their homes during family devotion time. You can download the PDF of the message material below.
Publishing-WOP Material.pdf
1 MB
Apr 13-19, 19h00, AMO WOP: Pr T. N. Nembudani invites you to the TOC Adventist Men health week of prayer via zoom. Meeting ID: 836 2704 7127; Passcode: 010230
The lineup of speakers include: Drs. M Ncube, J Mongwe, and J Mahlangu, Adv. Nikelo Bangisi, and Pss. MC Nhlapo, P Ngwenya, and TN Nembudani.
For more information, contact or , or email .
April 13-19, 4th SID Camporee: Pr Mphathiseni Mbedzi will travel to Glen City, Harare, Zimbabwe for the SID Camporee. We wish her and all others travelling mercies both there and back. The theme of the camporee is “Saved to Serve.”
April 26, Cluster B Holy Communion: We will conduct a joint Holy Communion with White River SDA Church. The details will be communicated soon.
Apr 26, Lowveld District Dorcas & WM All-Night Prayer: The Lowveld Dorcas Federation leadership invites all women to attend the all-night prayer at Jerusalem Church.
May 10, Mbombela Central 10-Year Anniversary: We celebrate a decade in existence.
June 13-15, TOC Youth Congress: TOC Adventist Youth will meet at TESDA for a Congress. The venue is TESDA. We will make use of their new multipurpose hall.
Registration is R500
Registration + Pack is R950 (including meals for two days.
Accommodation (Tent, bed, bedding and lights is R1660)
Meals for two days (R950)
Accommodation (Sharing) + Meals is R1780
Accommodation + Meals is R2510
You can download all the information in the Senior Youth Federation letter:
Youth-Congress-Letter.pdf
479.6 kB
July 13-20, TOC AJY Camporee: The Conference Camporee takes place in Bela Bela this July. Registration has reopened, with tiers 1-4 available. Payment details are below.
Bank: Standard Bank | Account Name: Youth Account | Account Number: 001816381
Account Type: Current | Ref: [Initial & Surname / Church] e.g. T Rambau TOC
Aug 29-31, TOC Music Festival: This will take place in Durban and no longer in Mahikeng. This is due to the failing hospitality industry in Mahikeng. Please pray for that city. Please make accommodation bookings early.
Sep 5-6, AMO Congress: At the Hartbeespoort Dam.
Nov 12-16, TOC Dorcas Conference: The Federation holds its elective conference in Pretoria. They requests a contribution of R8,500 per district (R2,000 for affiliation and R6,000 for groceries) by 31 July 2025. Each affiliate is asked to pay R200 through your church treasurer ASAP. For more info, call Federation Secretary Ms Q. Madonsela at .
News This Week
The General Conference sat for the Spring Meeting this week, discussing many important issues and outlining the agenda for the upcoming GC Session in July. The church has entered the 100 days of prayer. You can find details at the website .
Impact Gauteng saw multiple churches host in-person and online worship services this week, including Golden Harvest, Zondi, Sunnyside, and Orlando West SDA Churches. You can find the sermons on the TOCmedia YouTube channel.
Penang Adventist Hospital is ranked among the top private hospitals in Asia. Among other areas of excellence in medical care, they conduct surgery aided by robotic arms. it services the region in and around Malaysia.
3,000 women marched against violence in Lubanga, Angola. 34% of women in Angola have been victims of sexual and physical violence. In a fight for faith, unity and justice, they held the largest civic march in Lubanga’s history. They aim to end violence and support women struggling with addiction, to help in providing a better future.
The German Swiss Conference formally joined an ecumenical body, (”the FREE Church” in English), by unanimous vote of its members on March 21, 2025. They have been involved via observer status since 2019.
Church History Trivia
We often talk about Adventist music. I have challenged that concept before at Mbombela Central’s music day some years back. If you weren’t here, you missed out.
For those who remember, we spoke a little about Franklin Edson Belden, Ellen White’s nephew. He is probably the most prolific Adventist songwriter of all time, or at least, he is the most represented in our worship worldwide. He is the most represented Adventist songwriter/composer in the 1941 Church Hymnal which contained 22 of his songs and hymns. The 1985 SDA Hymnal included 12 complete hymns and 4 tunes by him, such as The Coming King (#2); ’Tis Love That Makes Us Happy (#17); The Lord’s Our Rock (#32); We’ll Tarry By The Living River (#69); The Judgment Has Set (#72); Life in a Look (#112); I Will Sing of Jesus Love (#121); Hasten On Glad Day (#158); Here I Am, Send Me (#163); We Know Not The Hour (#180); There’s No Other Name (#245); Cover With His Life (#294); Not My Way (#278) and many more.
And before either of those hymnals existed, Belden gave us Christ in Song, first published in 1900 — a collection that swept across the Adventist world. It is the most popular songbook published by the church. The version many of us sing today, UKrestu Esihlabelelweni, is a direct translation of that work.
Which brings us to the translators. One such name is Pastor E. ka J. Kuboni — a pioneer, preacher, and faithful translator who served across Natal and the East-Transvaal. Working alongside Pastor Jeremia Mseleku and others, he helped bring core Adventist literature — including our music — into vernacular languages.
Pastor Kuboni visited and preached at Solusi during camp meeting season the very year it converted (from Solusi Training School to Solusi Mission College under principal Dr. C. Fred Clarke) in 1954. In that trip he visited 3 camp meetings in Sogwala, Gunde and Inyazura, and 2 other missions, Lower Gwelo and Hanke. By his count, in that month he visited (early August to early September), he preached four sermons and baptised 84 souls (out of the 340 baptised during the trip). At the conclusion of his article in the Southern African Division Outlook (November 1954, Vol. LII, No. 21, p. 6), he says:
?The special songs that the choirs at different camps sang, were indeed well rendered. We all enjoyed them and they are a credit to us as a church.
Pastor Abel B. Koopedi, teacher at Bethel College, wrote a short article for the division periodical at the time, the Southern African Division Outlook, on May 15, 1956 (Vol. LIV, No. 5, p. 8). He writes about the social life of Bethel students, noting the following:
?Musical concerts are part of Bethel’s social life. It has been said that after food, clothing, and shelter, “Music is surely the fourth need of an African.” We have no musical instruments, but the Lord has endowed most of us with good voices, and we enjoy musical concerts prepared by our young people. They do not seem to find difficulty in getting suitable songs and singing them harmoniously, but their difficulty has always been which songs to cut out, due to time limit.
In October 1971, Pastor Koopedi attended a Bible and Music Conference in the Trans-Orange Field, and preached on one of the four S’s of the faith (as they put it): Sanctuary, Second Coming, Sabbath , and State of the Dead. For that time, music was not divorced from mission and ministry.
I studied with his great nephew, Tshepo, at Tukkies over a decade ago. We spoke about how Abel’s mother was the first Adventist in the family and they have been Adventists since — 5 generations.
Music is the heartbeat of Adventist mission and social life. When songs are sung well, they do more than please our ears, they speak to our souls.
Pastor A. B. Koopedi left Bethel and wound up at Cancele Secondary School, close to Mount Frere, in 1965 as its first black African principal. He managed the projects of building the roof of the school and finishing the construction of the dining hall. This brings me to the last person I’d like to mention: one of the last principals of Cancele who ushered it out of the Apartheid era and into a new South Africa, Pastor G. B. Yaze.
While he passed away in September last year, his legacy lives forever, especially in a book he published a few years ago: an original hymnbook. The launch took place at Nahoon SDA Church on October 31, 2020. You can watch the livestreamed footage on YouTube. The book, titled Revivin’ Songs, is a compilation of his own hymns. These songs are written and composed here, in the vestry.
I have it with me. We have started a custom at Mbombela Central Church (that I hope will become a tradition) to give away Adventist books to people in the congregation during our announcements. I will gift this hymnbook to one of the choir conductors. Who will get it? I don’t know. Why they get it? I don’t know. But I hope the relevant conductor will choose to sing one of the homegrown compositions in Durban at the TOC Music Festival in August this year.
Pastor Yaze’s work reminds us: music is not just something we borrow. It’s something we create.
That brings me to the present — and to those among us who are still creating today.
We honour the incredible work of Revere God Ministries in Newcastle, who translated the entire SDA Hymnal into isiZulu. The result is Amahub' Ekhethelo, a digital hymnal available on the Google Play Store. It is the first of its kind — a full-scale vernacular translation of our hymnal in the modern era.
But while translation preserves, composition builds. And we are blessed to know one such composer who continues to build: Pastor Mangaliso Stephan Motha.
Many of the songs sung by our Adventist quartets and choirs across the Lowveld bear his creative imprint. His music reflects not only our theology but our context — the spiritual heartbeat of our region. One of his pieces will be sung here today.
Two copies of his scores are with our Music Director, ready to be shared with churches for the Own Choice category at the TOC Music Festival. I pray they will be sung — in Durban, at Camp Meeting, and in our Divine Services at church.
So saints, let us not settle for music by Adventists. Let us seek music from Adventists.
Let’s sing our own faith. Let’s write our own witness.
Let’s keep an Adventist song in our hearts.
Amen.
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