Lenora was born on the 16th of November, 1960. I could never forget that birth date because it's the same date that David Livingston discovered Victoria Falls. She passed on the 29th of November, the date that the Berlin Wall fell back in 1989, the same year we got married. Lenora Hammond has fought her final battle with pain. A family crest that we designed. In the early hours of Tuesday the 9th of November, Lenora fought a final battle with pain and she entered eternity. It's been a long and a difficult battle with cancer, 11 years, but she fought it bravely. These paddles have gone a long ways. In July, In 2010, Lenora's first bout with cancer asked her, what does she want? And she looked at me intensely and she said, I want to live long enough to see my grandchildren. Which at that point was not possible because none of my children were married. Lenora, the youngest daughter of Bill and Harriet Baffin, was born at dawn, hence the second name, on the 16th of November 1960 in Eastbourne, Sussex, England. that may surprise some people to know she's born in England. She is named after Bill Bathglen's mother, Lenora, who was the youngest daughter of her mother, whose name was also Lenora. Lenora's grandmother died of cancer, the same kind of cancer, in her 40s. But remember right, she was 42. So born in England to American missionary parents from Georgia and Tennessee, raised in Austria, as you can see with the dirndls. And the eldest there is Debbie, who's with us today, just flew in from Austria today. And this is Debbie's wedding in Salzburg, the south of Music City. Reverend Bill Baffin energetically ministered throughout Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain. He devoted 67 years of his life to missions, most of that time behind the Iron Curtain. This is the Rosenhof, the mission headquarters and found it in Austria. Of course, it didn't always look like this. Many times it was under snow. Lenora had the joy of having many mystery legends visiting her home and staying in her home and around the dining room table. This includes Brother Andrew of God Smuggler. When you read in God Smuggler, a phone call with another brother and saying, I'll race you to Wenceslas Square, 1968. The Russians were invading Czechoslovakia and two men raced into Czechoslovakia as hundreds of thousands were fleeing out to let just poor Bethlen and brother Andrew. And they were shoulder to shoulder handing out bottles to the Russians, in Russian, as they were invading Prague in 1968. Richard and Sabina von Brandt are tortured for Christ from Romania, also very good close friends of the Bethlen family. George Verva of Operation Mobilization. In fact, when I first met George Verva, he was the guest speaker at Stellenbosch at the Studentekirche during a mission week, and the whole church was packed, there was a standing remony. As he was leaving amongst the crowds, I said to him as he passed by, I'm Bill Bethvin's son-in-law. He turned around and he said, Bill Bethvin's the reason there isn't Operation Mobilization. He immediately stopped and started to regale people with stories of Bill Bethvin who would go into pubs in England and ask them to turn off the jukebox, stand on the bar and preach the gospel to the people, never more than five minutes, and children who wanted to hear more come and see him outside. He'd made an arrangement to the bar owner and the pub that he would take no longer than five minutes. He was never longer than five minutes, then they'd come outside and he'd always have people to bring to the Lord didn't want this. Many people came to him afterwards and said, Mr. Baffin, you always welcome me, but please don't bring those friends of yours. We don't want those kind of people here. You can imagine the problems that caused. Well, anyway, George Ferber launched Operation Mobilization from England. And I was at a mission conference some years ago, when Mike Evans was the guest speaker. And when Mike Evans met Bill Bathman, he immediately said to the whole ministers conference, this is a very dangerous man, he invited me to England for a few weeks, and I ended up spending the last 40 something years in missions. And Mike Evans became principal of Geneva Bible Institute. Francis Grimm, under whom I was mentored in hospital Christian fellowship, he was also Rosenhoff in Salzburg. Lenora loved travelling with her father and ministry behind the Iron Curtain and had many friends in Romania where Lenora chose to be baptised. Lenora's from the left as well there. This is the baptismal class of one event in Romania. Nobody under 18 was allowed to be baptized under the communist regime of Ceausescu at that time. Lenora said she wanted to be baptized where baptism meant something. Actually, where it meant a lot. Actually, life and death. When Lenora was baptized, there was one lady who, when she gave a test read, people started to weep. And when it was explained, they understood why. She said, five male members of my family are Communist Party members. My father, my husband, my brother, two uncles. They're all Communist Party members and they've all threatened me not to get baptised. And she said, this morning my husband came and put a knife to my throat and said, if you get baptised today, I'm going to kill you. She testified this and she went ahead and was baptised. Paul Le Groot, who here is baptising Laura, went back with the young person to her home and spoke with a husband who was shattered because he knew that she knew that he meant it. They were going to lose their home and everything if she got baptized. Led her husband to the Lord. They lost their home. He lost his job, lost his place in the party. They were kicked out. They had to live in somebody's overcrowded apartment. But that's the kind of cost some people paid for being baptized in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Lenore loved skiing. In fact, Her parents said that when she was about five years old, they put skis in her, pushed out the front door, and she skied down the road to kindergarten in Grosskirche. And every village in Austria had its own dialect, and Lenore was the one person in the family who spoke that local dialect, in addition to Hochdeutsch, or proper German, High German. Lenore was as fluent in German as she was in English, and she also learned French at school to such an extent that when we visited Paris, Calvin wouldn't remember this, but Calvin was just a few months old at the time, the French people were astounded. They said, she speaks French, that's a place of an accent. And I didn't know Lenore could speak French. She's full of surprises. This is what the Rosenhof would look like during winter. Bill Bathman said he loved Austria in the summer, the winter, the autumn and the spring. And they all were special. Skiing was a sport that Lenora was born for. Skiing was a school sport and they would sometimes spend days doing skiing as part of their schooling. I mean, imagine that. And she was soon separated from the rest and given special coaching to improve her skills as part of the advanced skiing group. And so her father liked to say Lenora was being groomed for the Olympics. which she would always say at the end, Daddy! Did not like him bragging about her like that. Then I said the biggest sacrifice for her moving to Africa is giving up skiing. She has determined that all her children would learn an alpine sport and the only alpine sport possible in Cape Town was ice skating. And so ice skating became part of our homeschooling curriculum and all of our children managed, but Daniela excelled to such an extent that she earned national colors, and represents South Africa overseas on synchronized ice skating in France and Italy and the United States, America. In fact, she was in Boston just a week or two before the Boston bombing in 2013. Team South Africa. And Daniela would be the second on the right. And I don't know how she does that. She doesn't get her flexibility from me, that's for sure. Daniela now coaches ice skating in her spare time. Before I met Dinorah, she had completed a Bachelor of Science in Education with an emphasis in special education in physical education. She studied at Northern Arizona University, which just happened to have some of the finest ski slopes nearby. As her dad said, she must have really sweated seeking the Lord's will on this one. Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff is at an elevation of 7,200 feet. And Bill Bethlen commented to his daughter, trust that you will not allow your studies to interfere with your skiing. And she won contests in women's freestyle downhill competitions, and she worked as a ski instructor during winter. After graduating from NAU, Lunara studied at Cape and Ray Barber College in England, up in the Lake District, Northern England. This is part of Major Ian Thomas' torchbearers. And after graduating from Barber College, she worked on staff at Townhof, Torchberrys Barberkosch in Schladming, Austria, which coincidentally was right next to some of the finest ski slopes in Europe. The door to the mission house where she lived was less than 100 feet, Bill Batten pasted out of me and showed me, from the gondola lift that within 26 minutes took her to the top of the Alps and provided not only a breathtaking view, but a stunning downhill run down Olympic slopes. there's Schludming, and here's all the different ski options around there. Isn't it extraordinary how God can lead one to one's studies and service next to fine ski slopes? Well, he didn't do that in Cape Town, but here you can get a bit of an idea of Schludming and some of the amazing ski slopes around there. It's quite amazing because Lenore told me she's scared of heights, but I don't know, how can you ski down 7,000 feet you're scared of heights, and I never really believed that. And this would have been up at Northern Arizona University near Flagstaff when Lenora majored in skiing and also did education. During my first ministry tour to the United States in February 1988, General Ben Parton of the U.S. Air Force pointed out to me that his good friend, Reverend Bill Baffin, was visiting South Africa with his beautiful, single, unmarried, missionary daughter. And I knew Bill Bathman. I'd organized meetings for him and his wife in Cape Town. But when Bill Bathman's friend, good friend, General Parkin, who's also my first contact in America, first time I stayed in a home estate and more than any other over the years, he said, you two have a lot in common. And like the precision guided missiles that General Parkin designed, he was on target. we did have a lot in common. And I began to be concerned that I'd miss meeting Bill Bathman's daughter, because she is visiting South Africa right at the same time that I was visiting America for the first time, and I still had a mission to Germany in between, and behind nine curtains. And by the time I got back to Cape Town, Lenore was in fact in Swakopmund. Now, I'd not yet met Lenore, I'd heard enough about her from Bill Bathman, from General Park, another good friend of ours, Elizabeth Arbuthnot, England, so I had a good idea this is the person I was going to marry. When I phoned her, she was in Swakopmund, and she had just a few more days in the country. And I said, I've got a missions conference in Kimberley, can you get there? Well, as it so happened, she could because South African Airways at that time had a Sea South Africa Airways open ticket for foreigners. You could fly anywhere you liked as often as you liked within a given time. And South West Africa was part of South Africa at that stage. So she managed to get a flight from Swakopmund through to Kimberley. And I That's my vehicle. until about midnight, snapped two hours sleep between 12 and 2, and then got up to drive the 1000 Ks on my own to Kimberley in time to meet her plane at noon. And as Laura reminded me many a time after that, my first words to her were, Miss Bathman, I presume, no time for formalities. We have a missions conference displayed to set up. And she said, I should have known right then that's the way I was going to be the rest of my life. We headed off, and for the next 12 hours, we talked constantly, so much so that it was midnight before I realized the time, rushed her over to her host, whose lights were all off, not a light in the place, and when we knocked on the door, we knew we were waking people up, and they were not impressed, and we'd really forgotten about time, but that a person you've just met, you could just talk nonstop 12 hours on the whole range, and there's so many things from doctrine, missions, politics, we had in common. Well, I put in front of her an application form to join Frontline. And under the question, why do you want to join Frontline Fellowship, Lenore wrote, to fight communism. Well, I was impressed. And that, by the way, was what her passport looked like at that time. And at one point, with all the things required, she said, Would you like my grandmother's dental records as well? She apparently thought I had too many requirements in the application process. And she presented me at the same time with a two and a half page typed list of requirements and what she expects from a mission leader. And in return, she gave me a half a page of what I could expect from her, which also was quite indicative. And they were all backed up with scripture from the books of Timothy. Will Dora return to America to sell her car, pay off her remaining college debts, raised support, picked up her belongings, moved to South Africa, and Debbie will have to tell me where this was. Is this Munich or? It's Frankfurt Airport. Frankfurt International Airport. So that's Debbie, elder sister, Linda, middle sister, and Nora's like me, the youngest in the family, or the baby, I don't know what else to say. And that's what her passport looked like a few years later. Interesting how Nora's hairstyle changed every single year. the hook mark for sitting around for getting prayer supporters for Noora joining our mission. She set up an administrative base in a barn, disque. It had rain running down the insides of the walls. Noora bristled at what she called my abrasive manner, and she let me know she thought I was too harsh and impatient, and if some of you think I'm still like that, you wouldn't have wanted to know me back then. She reminded me that she wasn't like the other frontline girls who had all come through the army. And while I did try to take her through some places, she was a very difficult student. But there's no doubting her love for the Lord, her hatred of communism, her dedication to missions. First picture taken of Lenora and I, obviously indiscreet, that's the flag that was right behind my desk, and totally politically incorrect. After a couple of months, my mother asked me, when are you going to marry Lenora? I said, well, trust me, I've got money to buy an engagement ring. She said, oh, for goodness sakes. Took her engagement ring and gave it to me and said, here, you can use that. Well, I didn't expect my mother to give her own engagement ring to me, but I now was out of excuses. Nothing could keep me from proposing. And as soon as the Bethlehems could arrange a time in Cape Town, which was March 1989, Bill Bethlehem walked her down the aisle at Bible Institute Chapel, Hawke Bay, and these were our wedding pictures at the time. A very home-grown wedding, Lenore Eden mixed own confession. And where did we go after this? curtain with her parents Bible-smuggling, and as we were driving down the autobahn, the bathrooms were in the car in front, I was in the car behind, and I was going 160, and Rory says, Foster, Foster, you're losing my dad. I'm going 160, there's no speed limit on the autobahn, Foster. He's going 260, and a Porsche comes whizzing past. on the brakes, go faster. I've got up to 320 kilometres an hour, faster than I've ever gone, and I'm still struggling to keep up with Bill Batham. And when he was pushing me to go faster, I mean that's the limit, I couldn't go over 320. But unbelievable, if you haven't driven on autobahns with no speed limits in Germany trying to chase Bill Batham, then you don't know what reviving a prayer life's all about. I've never driven like that. But behind the Iron Curtain, you know, Lenore is a pro at bubble smuggling, outfitting Marxist border guards. Here you can see the bathrooms, there's a double bathroom in the car. That's the front car. Very normal in Germany to hire cars that are Mercedes-Benz. That's pretty standard entry level. That's not a special car here, apparently. And three hours at a border post on average. Lenora is obviously much loved in the church in Eastern Europe. You can see her mom here and Lenora bottom right. And she had a lot of friends in Eastern Europe. Many missionaries are held back by their wives. Well, I could say Lenora was not like that. She is as dedicated to the mission and to the cause as I am. She'd sometimes push me out the door and say, it's time for another mission, get out. And I've got projects to do around here. Yeah, she. nicer person than me, the fact that she felt as strongly about the cause and the issues, even though she'd be a lot more polite about it. Being a well-travelled daughter of missions, moving between Austria, Africa, and America, Lenore could comfortably move between speaking German with a German accent, Austrian with a Dresdner accent, English or French, and she could speak to an American with an American accent, she could speak to a South African with a South African accent. So when we'd been married barely six months, and I was captured and imprisoned in Marxist Mozambique, a newspaper reporter, very nasty newspaper reporter, Steve Askin, he wrote, Lenora Hammond claims to be an American, but speaks with a distinctly South African accent. Of course, well, that was exactly how she was. In 1988, when Lenora moved to South Africa, she attended classes every week for a year to learn Afrikaans. Lenore was always athletic. Although she could not bring her skis to South Africa, she brought a racing bike on the plane, literally came through customs with her bike and the Order official asked her, what's your bike worth? And she said, to you or to me? This is a good answer. And when she was trying to change dollars at the bank and the person said, where do you get these from? She said, none of your business. Which is quite right. I mean, who do these people think they are? It's just nice having a person with a free spirit coming along like that. It reminded me of my mother when she first came to England and she was told to pay more tax for imports then she had on her. She smashed it in front of customers' officials at Dover saying, if I can't have them, neither can you. There are some strong women in the Hammond and Bethlehem household. She competed in the August cycling tour on a number of occasions. You'll notice the date, 1990. Apparently Andrea ruined all that. After becoming a full-time mother, she didn't continue with her racing, cycling tours. But Linra eagerly participate in the mountain hikes and all kinds of adventures, like when we were hiking with the rhinos. And these are some of the rhinos that were following us on one of the hikes up in the Machalisburg mountains. After contracting cancer in 2010, enthusiastic, with a capital E, dragon boat paddle. And of course, like many of the others, as she said, we're all in the same boat, losing our hair to chemo and all of that. But as you can see, Lenora really reached for recovery. I mean, she had the reach. Pam, who founded the Bells, apparently described Lenora's style with the paddle and how to reach as the ideal. Lenora really set, she was the stroke, and quickly moved up the front of the boat. And Lenora recruited everyone in our family to join dragon boating in the Table Bay Harbour, and it soon became a regular outing for me as well on Saturday mornings to join Lenora, often as the only male paddle in the boat, in the back of the boat, but I was even included as a member of the team on a number of races. And here you can get a bit of a feel for the fury of it. I mean, just look at that intensity in the fish. And this just shows you the kind of speeds they get up to there. And dragon boating in saltwater in the harbour is very different from in freshwater, such as at Gnawbork. At times, Lenora paddled in other teams too. Apparently, she didn't think the bells gave her enough workout, so she even was with paddlesnappers and majaji on occasions. And she loved the rebel flag. Her parents, after all, were rebels. When she was asked if she was a Yankee, her response was, my parents are rebels. And racing for the dragon. Lenora's best friend, Ketan Johan, Joined the Belles dragon boat team, even though she wasn't a cancer survivor, and Jan soon became a vital part of the dragon boating fraternity, trained to be one of the very few people capable of helming or steering the boats. And apparently that was right at the beginning. You're just, you're going to have to helm. And then you got to learn how to helm too. It was a good deal. I think you can see a little bit of concern here. Having tried myself, let me tell you, it's pretty scary standing up there in the back of the boat. waters is hard enough. We heard of a helm in Australia who fell off the boat and the rest of the boat didn't notice him. They lost the helm and never found him again. That happens. So I was riggedly questioning, why do you not wear life vests? In fact, the helm of all people should wear life vests, surely. And this must be the only dragon boating country in the world where it's not required. But anyway, Much of the equipment we needed to make Lenora's last week's concert were provided by Joanne, who's very creative. Some of the team, and you can see Lenora and team, they just loved paddling, and Lenora also loved singing. She enjoyed being part of a quartet, and later part of the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. Lenora had the privilege of singing Hayden's The Creation, and Mendelssohn's Elijah, and Bucksnake Massey's Passion, Town Hall. Carols by Candlelight, this is in Constantia. Absolutely wonderful, year after year going to these different Carols by Candlelight and it was a family event, it was a mission event, we all went and supported. And Handel's Messiah was also some of her favourite performances of any year. She had the opportunity of singing in St George's Cathedral and in Strand Street Lutheran Church, which is the oldest Protestant church, still operational, Southern Hemisphere infected. Strangely, Lutheran was built like a barn because it was illegal to have any church in the Cape in the 1700s except a Dutch farm church. So Lutherans were actually an illegal church. So the church was built like a barn, they pretended it was a warehouse, but they fixed the steeple and so on after it became legal at the end of the 1700s. But when they started in the 1770s, it was an illegal church. Quite a history. Lenora's second daughter, Daniela, sang in the Cape Town Youth Choir, representing South Africa overseas as well, singing all over Europe, including in Czech Republic, in Germany, and in Latvia. In 2009, Lenora donated a kidney to her son, Christopher, who went from renal failure to such a peak of fitness that he earned national colors in karate, represented South Africa overseas, bringing back bronze medals from international events. and soon was chairman of the Bells. And we hosted, even at this mission here, different events, whether it was committee meetings or Christmas in July and that sort of event. And Lenora took on the hats of all sorts of things, innovated. I think this was the 10th anniversary of the Bells being celebrated, and a whole lot of people brought together who hadn't been together in a while. Lenora was creative like that. She is part of the team during the World Dragon Boat Festival in Malaysia. It got a nice turn of events, instead of Lenora sending me off on missions, I was sending her off on more and more overseas events, representing the Bells, representing South Africa overseas, such as in Malaysia. And the team won trophies in different places. Sometimes, I think on this occasion, Lenora wasn't allowed to paddle, so she is drumming. It must have been after one of the treatments. And again, just look at that reach. And that's the stretching in the boats. Off on another expedition overseas, the team headed off to Spain and in Spain they won the Intercontinental Regatta. And I hope we can find that video at some stage and screen it, because it's amazing what Joanne, as the drummer, filmed with her head camera, just seeing how the bells just left the opposition in, we can't say the dust, in the water behind. You can see it literally left them behind and just pulled their head. It was such an amazing one. And it was the win, and they won the big trophy at the end. Very impressive. Lenora went to Sarasota, I think she's the only South African there representing South Africa at the American Sarasota Dragon Boating Festival. And you can see they went absolutely berserk with painting everything pink. And how's that for a lot of pink out there, the participants. And this was a major dragon boating event, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. because that's the thing, if your team's not there, you've got to join in. On another occasion, Lenora joined the Austrian team in Vienna, and in Florence, and in Venice. Just look at the intensity as she's helming for this team. And some of the Austrian team, I like the way they designed things. See how they've got the Austria on one arm, and the Lenora on the other, so they personalised their shirts, and it's Austrian, security like that. It just horrifies me to think of people standing up, helming in the hob without a life vest. We have numerous magazine, newspaper articles where Laura was a spokesperson for the cancer survivors. And these are different published magazine things that we scanned in. All kinds of magazines, newspapers, the bills were in the news on a number of occasions, and especially in October, making awareness of fighting cancer. The Tatler This is the Muse magazine, I think, and here, Table Talk. And she has also interviewed on radio and TV programs, The Breakfast Show and a bunch of things, ETV and so on. Lenora made ministering to people with cancer a major priority. And she became one of the counsellors for Reach for Recovery. How many people do we have here from Reach for Recovery? Thank you. She loved Reach for Recovery. Lenora proved to be a wonderful mother and a talented home educator. You can see our daughters welcoming the first son into the family, Christopher. Lenora is a homeschooling mother. This is just some of the workbooks completed. I might say that one time we had some school inspector want to inspect our home, and my first initial reaction was, none of their business, no. Then I thought, Wait a minute, we've got nothing to hide. Let's bring them in. Let's use this as a witnessing opportunity. So the inspector came in and he saw our maps and library and he said, you've got a better library than many of our schools. And he looked around and saw the different projects. This is incredible. And I asked him, so do you visit the government schools?" And he said, no, we're not allowed to inspect the government schools, we need to visit private and home schools. I said, well, how would the government schools work? He said, well, 95% of them are dysfunctional, they couldn't qualify for the standards that we're inspecting for the home schools. So isn't that interesting? A home was turned to a Both Andrea and Daniele enjoyed practicing on the piano, the very piano that's at the back of the hall now. They were completed Royal Academy of Music exams. Music and guitar lessons and art class at Frank Shabert Art School and Irish dancing and girl guides and scouts for the boys and soccer and tennis and ballet and of course ice skating, all a vital part of education. It made your head spin, the amount of extramural activities. Daniela won awards at Frank Shabert Art Centre. I added horse riding and regular visits to museums and battle sites. national parks and volunteering at animal welfare groups, and cat trees and neighbourhood cleanups, tree planting, these sort of things, to our homeschooling extramural activities. So there's so many people out there who are deeply concerned about socialisation. You can't homeschool, they say. What about socialising? Children who homeschool won't have any friends. And what about sports? Well, those things will not in our family because Lenora made sure of it. Each of our children are a tribute to their mother's dedication and determination and creativity in ensuring that each of our children excelled in their different spheres. And everyone had a different curriculum, and all had different majors and interests. My eldest daughter Andrea graduated with honors from Arizona Christian University with a major in communication and journalism. Considering people said, what about Tertiary education, you can't get a university education in homeschool. Yes, you can. Minora did an SAT exam at UCT and that opened the way for her to go to university. Routinely, homeschoolers outperformed those from state schools. Daniela excelled in art school at Varsity College, where she graduated with honours in graphic design and won her national colours in ice skating to represent South Africa overseas on the ice skating team. Christopher achieved a senior black belt in karate, second M, and was awarded national colours, represented South Africa overseas in the United States, in Switzerland and Germany, and brought back two bronze medals for South Africa. And he is completing his undergraduate motion picture editing, which, God willing, he'll complete at the end of this year. Calvin excelled in scouts and representing South African 2015 Jamboree in Japan. I might say one of Calvin's first experiences of our school. I was visiting Kwasi Banti Mission in KwaZulu, and Calvin was probably six, and he was interested in the school, and he said, can he stay for one of the classes? And the teacher said, no problem. And I said, fine, but I'm going to the recording studio when I come back from I'll pick Calvin up. So when I came back, I went to the classroom. Where's Calvin? He's here for a short while and he wants to go to the library. So I went to the library. Have you seen my son? He came here for a few minutes and then he left. And I thought, clever boy, he's six years old, he's worked up two steps to freedom. I walked up to something, I wondered what it could be, and the next thing I hear, screaming from the back of someone's motorbike, and this motorbike, off-road bike, comes roaring down the road, and he's on the back of it, and I'm just in the air. Well, I went to ask him, how do you like school? He said, they wanted me to sit in a desk and be quiet. I said, kids get sentenced to that for 12 years. It's inhuman. Like, why would people do that? It's horrible. Well, Kelvin earned gold in fencing and national tournaments, and he's excelled in water polo and hockey, and long distance running, and he represents South Africa in Egypt. So so much for, what about sports when you do homeschooling? Even while studying, Kelvin was coaching for years at a number of schools. And all of this is due to the emphasis Lenora gave to physical fitness, sports and academic excellence. Some people have assumed that our children have excelled in these things because of their dad. Not at all. I'm not things. I wouldn't have thought of most of these things. I was the history society, debating society, chess society person. The only sports I did was swimming and tennis at school. So Lenora was the one who made our children excel in all these areas. In 2019, Lenora spent the last months of her mother's Because in 2020, she wouldn't have even been allowed to see her. And this lockdown has been cruel. A lot of people have died without their relatives being able to visit them. Lenora's been an example of diligence, a high work ethic, unselfish, sacrificial duty to others. She's always been dedicated to her family. And she's taken the duties very seriously, so much so that we have to regularly tell her to stop worrying. She'd continue to be worrying about the home while she was literally dying. She's concerned about so many things. Leave that to Andrea and Daniela and Kristen, Karl and I, we'll handle it. And she is so concerned for duties. Who's going to see to this and your medication? She's been a blessing to so many thousands of people worldwide. In 2005, Glenora suffered from hepatitis, which almost took her life. She was 11 days on an IV drip. She has five weeks in the hospital. She has five months bedroom. Yet she came out of it fully healthy and made some of the greatest achievements in sport afterwards. Now this 2005 hepatitis was really, really bad. And she was death warmed up. She was yellow as anything. Her eyes were yellow. She was really, when I took her into Vincent Potty Emergency Unit, who was not a good representative of medical doctors. I said, what's her prognosis? He said, she dies. I said, in the best case scenario? The answer was, she survives. Not the kind of medical doctor you would want for your family, but Lenora's beaten odds many times. And I should say that when she first was diagnosed with cancer, she was told in 2010, July 2010, You cannot expect to live more than five years. You've got five years max. That's in 2010. She was told in January of this year she had maybe two, possibly three months to live. That's in February this year. on radio programs, creative and catering, and decorating for events, and warm and counselling and hospitality. She invested her time and energy in many people. Many a night, I went to bed and Lenora was still up past midnight counselling one of our people in the lounge. She poured heart and soul into so many people. It's been very hard for us to see the sudden deterioration in her health over this last year. I mean, just over a year ago she was hiking, paddling, everything. Since the hip replacement in December, she needed a walk or crutches to get around. Over the last year, she's been in constant pain, frequent nausea. And when we'd ask, how are you feeling? She says, fine. How's the pain? Manageable. On a scale of 1 to 0 to 10, it's a 4. How's a 4 manageable? But that's how she was. frequent visits to the hospital. In fact, I said she needed a gold, platinum, diamond frequent flyer status for Vincent Pardee Hospital. They should have a parking bay with her name on it. She needed blood transfusions, her platelets were low, and a cocktail of medicines. We needed a book to keep track of it. It was just so many medicines. We had a pharmacy at home. To keep all this straight, we had to get an excise book to record when and what was administered on a daily basis through the night, and I'd be marking there 2 in the morning, 4 in the morning, 5, 6.30, and so on, what was administered through each day. But Lenora was adamant. She wanted to die at home amongst her family and friends, those who loved her. She didn't want to die in a hospital amongst strangers. And while none of us are medically trained, aside from first aid. We sought to rise to the challenge of other wishes becoming caregivers. We really missed my mother, who was a nurse. She rose to medical challenges, she lived through medical challenges. My mother would say things like, my day is not completed, I haven't seen blood. None of the rest of us inherited that. Lenora's mother is also a nurse. In fact, Lenora's mother and my mother at Constantinburg ICU. Constantinburg ICU used to have a sign before Chris was born saying only family allowed in ICU. After Chris was born they put a new sign up there, no grandparents. Because both grandmothers being medical people gave them grief and well they would have helped a lot because they knew what they were doing. We didn't really know what you're doing but through getting advice and With frequent power failures, scheduled power failures, I steadfastly refuse to use the propaganda term of load shedding. Load shedding is such a stupid euphemism. Load shedding suggests you've got so much, you're giving it away free. It's a power failure. It's a blackout. But it's not load shedding. And honestly, the way our politicians, they speak about shrinkage in companies, which means theft by staff. Why don't you use the right word, theft, and speak about oxygen flowing through the night. And friends and family members came up with creative ways to make their life more comfortable, less painful. And thank you to Johan for helping out on occasions there. And so many good friends really were there giving us help and what we needed, especially Jane. As Nora needed constant, 24-hour care, our family members took in turns to watch her and care for her throughout the day, and in my case, after my duty. it became difficult for Laura to even drink. At one point, she was commenting on how, thanks to Daniela, straws are banned everywhere and we can't find any bending straws here because of the war on plastic, which is a good war, we all believe in it, but to find a bendable straw that she could suck, but after a while she couldn't even use a straw and we need to use syringes to give her water throughout the night. At the end, Lenora was skin and bones, and she'd lost so much weight, it seemed impossible that she was even alive. And she even made a joke early on, saying that when she came out of one of these events, she said, this is the first time in my life that I've wanted to gain weight. She organized video calls with her sister Debra from Austria to communicate with her. Here's when Lenora's parents were here in Cape Town. together for seven years. The Bethlehems were living in piles of plates at our dining room table every week and an active part of our children's life. A highlight of any year for Lenora and her family has been the regular visits of Lenora's eldest sister, Deborah from Austria. And it gave Lenora great joy to see how her sister, the teacher, could invest in the education of our children and our grandchildren. In fact, Debbie set up in the upper on and Jeremy had the opportunity of getting school and learning good lessons which will really help him. Debbie's enriched the life of all of us in so many ways. So much so, that with the encouragement of Lenora, Debbie wrote a book. She was called to teach, which we got printed earlier this year, in August. Lenora's last week was very restless. her, administer medicines, give her water with a syringe, hold her hand and read scriptures and pray with her. The last being Psalm 23. Daniela would often have inspiring music like Handel's Messiah playing in the background because both she and Lenore had sung in their choirs on numerous occasions and we're sure that these will all have provided inspiring memories in her final days and hours on earth. In the early hours of Tuesday, the 9th of November, between level 4 power failures, Laura passed into eternity. Sometime after 2 o'clock, I must have fallen asleep because I woke up with a new power failure starting at 4. The moment things shut down, I'm a light sleeper. I was up. I leapt to turn on the generator to keep the oxygen support machine running. Then I saw Laura was very still and she wasn't breathing. In fact, she was cold. She must have passed away sometime between two and four, probably around three. Every night, we're fearing that for the last week or two. Everyone was so exhausted that I decided to wait till dawn before breaking the news to the household. At five o'clock, I heard Hunter coming sprinting down the hallway because he obviously wanted to know why I turned on the generator. And so here's the first to hear the news. Now, we all know that Laura was not afraid to die. She often said to people, I know where I'm going. But it was traumatic for us to see her suffer and to see her in pain and discomfort for months. And the doctor from hospice expressed his amazement that she was still alive, that she'd lasted so long. Well, nothing fully prepares you for this, and we've already shed many tears. There's still also amongst the grief and the loss There is a sense of relief, too, that she's out of pain and free from that curse of cancer. And I should add that curse of chemo as well. It was one of our final acts of love and service to attempt to be a caregiver during a time of lockdown leniency when innumerable families have not even been allowed to visit their loved ones or dying relatives in hospital, which she did not want to happen to her. It was Laura's greatest desire to see her grandchild, and she wanted children and grandchildren to be no further than five minutes away. Well, she certainly got that wish. All four of her children, all three grandsons, and one son-in-law, live at the beautiful home and garden that the Norris so lovingly built up and decorated over three decades. In 2010, with her first marriage with Councillor Norris, she said, I want to live long enough to see my grandchildren. That wasn't feasible in 2010, but She was regularly quilting for her children and future grandchildren before they were born. In 2011, we celebrated Andrea's wedding. 17th of December, near Franschhoek, Hunter became the newest member of the family, tolerated because Andrea actually loves him, and we've learned to like him too. In 2015, the birth of our first grandson, Jeremy, and was his noni really delighted to have. In 2015, Lenora was in her second bout of cancer and chemo. And we've actually got a video of her dancing with Jeremy here. Dedication of our first grandchild, Jeremy. And Lenora, as always, organized a special cake for the occasion, quoting from Jeremiah 1 verse 5, Before I formed you in a womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. In 2018, we welcomed Joshua, born in Cape Town at Vincent Pallotti Hospital, the same hospital I was born in, in 1960, which was called St. Joseph's. This year, 2021, Oliver was born also at Vincent Pallotti, not that we were allowed into the hospital this year to welcome him, but he has, Oliver, been welcomed and so thankful. And you can see an extremely delighted grandmother. And I just love it. to be with her grandchildren. This is Mother's Day this year. We could still get Laura out. It was difficult, crutches and all that, and finding the closest parking space, but at the Roundhouse. And it was a special Mother's Day because Andrea was expecting their third born, who we now know as Oliver. This is the most delightful occasion of Jeremy's birthday with little baby Oliver. By God's grace, Lenora enjoyed the delightful challenges of three energetic little grandchildren, grandsons, she's still holding out for a granddaughter, playing in a beautiful garden that she planted and cultivated through her creativity and diligence over 30 years. There wasn't a plant in the garden when we moved there 30 years ago, it was a wasteland, student digs before us. Everything there has been planted by Lenora. And so, Lenora's knitting skills were so well known that during one of his missions behind the Iron Curtain, Bill Baskin was asked by a Communist official, where is your daughter, the one who knits? Because Lenora's hands are never idle at every one of our camps and courses and events, and many Reformation Society meetings she'd be knitting, quilting, doing something with her hands. Lenora became an enthusiastic quilter and presented these labours of love to every family member and some close friends, and so you see tonight we've got Quite a few, just a few of Nora's quilts, just demonstrating some of her creativity and her industry. And we would like anyone who's got a quilt of Nora's to bring to the funeral service in Franschhoek Dutch Form Church on Monday so we can display them there where we've got more space to because this is only a few. Like the woman described in Proverbs 31, Nora's constantly knitting, sewing, quilting, catering, and schnitzels, creating, decorating, and hosting special events, gardening, how she loved to garden, and her little helpers helping her with the gardening, and serving those around her. Improving the world in so many different ways. When new people moved in the area, she'd give us freshly-baked gifts to welcome them into the neighbourhood. And when people whom we knew were sick, she'd bake dishes to deliver to their families. So, Norah anticipated needs, and she was thoughtful and generous. After her mother's death in 2019, Norah took the whole inheritance she had received from her parents, from the sale of their home and everything else, and donated it to the mission for our Livingston House attic conversion, building extension plans and projects. This is what Livingston House looked like when we moved in 20 years ago, November 20 years ago. It doesn't look like this now. And a whole lot of changes have been made. And we are assembled in one of them right now, the Upper Room Bath and Memorial Hall, which was a vision of ours which Laura made possible And the Upper Room Bathroom Memorial Hall has been a blessing for the last year. It was November last year that we first started meeting in the Upper Room. And every Thursday night for Reformation Saturday meetings, for home education events, for conferences, seminars, variety contexts, and so much more, all being possible because of Lenora's sacrificial generosity. She put it all into this project. Services, musicians, I don't think and wonderful opportunities for musicians to be able to bless us with their talents on a number of occasions here. And so all of this is part of the vision. That was phase one, the attic conversion. Phase two was adding another four bedrooms, two bathrooms, the Pioneers Network recording studio. Bill Bethkin founded Pioneers and Network. And so in honor of his two ministries, we've named this the Pioneers Network recording studio. with four different bedrooms and a kitchenette and a workshop for comms IT department. That was phase two. Then it was phase three, completely renovating and expanding the mission's kitchen, which is unrecognizable from what it was before. Everywhere you look in the home, in the garden, at the mission, you see the fruits of Lenora's love and sacrifice and generosity. The upper room, This is what our home looked like when we moved into it 30 years ago in the Piemonts. But Delora coming from Europe knew there's a lot of space in the attic, you don't waste that, so we have attic conversions there too. This is a picture from Spain, 2018. The winning team passing under the paddle guard. You might have noticed when you arrived tonight, the Austrian flag outside, flying at half-mast. We cannot have the Christian flag flying at half-mast, not since 30 AD. But we are dual citizens, Kingdom of Heaven and of the nations that we belong to on Earth. In 2006, my first edition of the Greatest Century of Reformation book was dedicated to Laura in these words. This book is dedicated to my best friend, co-worker, missionary partner and wife, Laura Dornham. In 2008, Laura wrote Reforming Our Families. One of Lunora's last projects was typing up an unpublished manuscript of a book that her father, Reverend Bill Bathman, was working on, Reformation Revival in Romania, especially based on many interviews he had with Joseph Tarn, who was pivotal in the Reformation Revival in Romania. By God's grace, we plan to have this ready for publication soon. Our Lord Jesus Christ declared, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, nor principalities nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is an empty tomb in Jerusalem. And so in sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body.