For God so loved the world that He gave...



the Friday crew

 Building on Faith in Mfuleni



What a fantastic opportunity to Build on Faith with Habitat for Humanity last week. The weather started out cool and damp but soon became sunny towards the end of the week. We successfully completed building a new home for Richard and Nosiphelo by the Friday afternoon.

Nosiphelo, a mum of 2 daughters explained that she had been waiting for her own home for 8 years since first moving to Mfuleni. On joining the Habitat for Humanity project a few months ago, she's finally able to see this dream realized. Volunteers were mostly from the His People congregations and an awesome volunteer from Germany, with 2 or 3 volunteers from other churches pitching in to lend an extra hand. Our crewleaders for the week were Victor and TK who resides in Mfuleni.

Habitat for Humanity have built a relationship of trust with the residents in Mfuleni over the years and the houses built are easily distinguishable in the community. Residents are very delighted with their houses, so much so, that a Habitat for Humanity house has not been sold in all the years they've been building! 

 
Hard Work!

  

William





Dot



 


 

The week consisted of some VERY hard work. Volunteers were mixing cement, carrying bricks, painting window and door frames, placing roof tiles and hammering them into place. Definitely not for the fainthearted!










Ann

 





Ken





 


mixing cement

 

Maurice, Alex and Msizi

I had an opportunity on the last day to climb up onto the roof. (My plan was to go up there to take some pictures. When I got there though the builders really made me work!) I looked out across Mfuleni and it was quite a sight to see so many red roofs where there had been shacks before. 

   



Our theme for this year was based on John 3 v 16; 'for God so loved the world that He gave...'  We were reminded that giving is God's act of unconditional love towards us and were encouraged to follow in His footsteps by giving of ourselves this week. We started each day with a Habitat war cry reflecting that as participants we were declaring war against inadequate housing.



A highlight for me was the closing ceremony at the end of the week. I watched as excited new homeowners expressed their deep gratitude to the volunteers for their efforts during the week. I noticed tears, from both the homeowners and some of the volunteers. A visiting volunteer from the UK also told of how deeply he was touched by the warmth and the welcome he experienced from the community of Mfuleni. The week definitely was a significant one for many.

Below: Victor handing over the keys to Richard and Nosiphelo, expressing a big thank you to them for affording us such a magnificent opportunity to give. A big cheer followed because this family now has a decent place to live!   



 


the completed house



Time to Build...

Mfuleni, meaning the 'place by the river', is home to about 25 000 people. This township, about 30km from Cape Town, is situated on the east bank of Kuils River.

The street scene below shows some recently built houses but there are still some residents living in informal dwellings. This situation exposes residents to unsanitary living conditions and increases incidence of disease in both adults and children. Nosiphelo says: ... "it isn't right living in a shack."

One such resident is Nosiphelo Mcaphayi who has been staying in Mfuleni since 2003. She has 2 children, aged 4 years and 19 months. She's waited this long for a home due to delays with another housing project that she joined. Finally now able to join with Habitat for Humanity, we'll be building a house for her this month. She says that even though she was one of the first to erect a shack in that section of Mfuleni, she'll be the last one on her street to receive a house. Here are a group of volunteers praying for her on the day we went to dig foundations.



A picture of the shack Nosiphelo's looking forward to moving out of soon!

 

Volunteers Maurice and Godfrey - armed with spades and working hard!



Adrian



Heloine

We'll be building Nosiphelo's house in Mfuleni from the 12th to 16th Sept. If you'd like to volunteer, get your hands dirty and join us Building on Faith, please contact me at english_tracy@hotmail.com.

Finishing the race

"It's not too late, your race can start again."

We were encouraged with these words as we celebrated His People Tokai's 9th birthday recently. These are the words of Jesus spoken as a vision for our church at this time. This is an encouragement for everyone to experience a fresh start regardless of where they find themselves in their spiritual race today. So to all who are injured, tired or distracted, Jesus is walking among us on the race track and firing the starter's pistol, signalling a brand new beginning for each of us.

Be inspired by these words of hope to get back in the race so that we eventually can declare with Paul "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith"(2 Timothy 4:7). Paul came to the end of his life knowing that he had accomplished all that God had purposed for him to do. Jesus says something similar in John 17 v 4 where he says that he has brought God glory on earth by completing the work God gave him to do. Let's follow their example and grab a fresh chance to start again, regardless of where we find ourselves on life's track and finish our race.

My lovely colleagues Marion (centre) and Lizelle (right)

In June I had the chance to join the Every Nation School of Campus Ministry to do a 2-week intensive course called Perspectives. It was here that I met the team co-ordinating another Perspectives course and was invited to join them. : )

I've since been enjoying meeting once a week and watching a new class discover the material in the course. I've been leading the prayer for the nations segment of the evenings so am gaining fresh insight into God's heart for nations. The course takes a very broad look at what God has accomplished in the world through missions and at the same time also looks at the task remaining. It explains how God is unfolding His ancient story and invites us to join Him on the journey!

Below I've included some pics of friends I've been blessed to spend time with lately! Genevieve and Stacey

And we recently took advantage of the sunny winter weather to go walking in the mountains above Constantia Nek.

Myself, Genevieve and Nicky

Mist covering a dam on the mountain..

Hope through Education

I have been privileged, for the past few months now, to become a part of the life of the School of Hope. This school, located in Athlone, is a place where youth at risk and vulnerable young people are given a second chance to finish high school. The ridiculously high drop-out rate in the Western Cape means that many are not completing school for reasons like teen pregnancies, drugs, abuse and a lack of value placed on education. I have found the school to be such an encouraging environment. Here young people are stirred to make their lives count and day by day gain the confidence to do so. The School of Hope is a special needs school and an educational project of the Thembalitsha Foundation. At the moment it caters for about 70 students from Grade 9 to 12.
I've been helping the English teacher Yentl by tutoring 2 English additional language students in matric (and having lots of fun in the process). Here they are at the school market day earlier this year, preparing traditional delicacies to sell.

Bianca and Thandazo
I also had the opportunity to help Lana, another one of the teachers, to create a small vegetable patch for one of her students living in Phillipi. Says Lana: Where there's soil, there's food!
To read more about the School of Hope, take a look at their blog at http://soh-thembalitsha.blogspot.com/. At the moment, the school is bursting out of its current venue so definitely needs new room to expand. Also, with the lease coming to an end soon, the school needs to secure new premises at the end of the year.I know that God delights in this school so please pray with me as He leads the school into a spacious new place!

A Saturday at Sea

After months of training, the 7th May finally came. Stacey, our very excited and brave swimmer was ready for the Robben Island to Big Bay challenge. This annual extreme swim sees swimmers plunging into cold water (13*C that day) to swim the 7.5km distance from the island to the mainland. Our early morning started when we dropped Stacey off at the Nelson Mandela gateway where lots of swimmers were already gathered to register.Stacey getting her swim number written on her arm..

A familiar face at the registration desk - Bonisile!

and getting interviewed.. she shared about her dream to swim that she's had for years

Jade, myself and Keith ( Stacey's dad) then dashed off to Three Anchor Bay where we boarded her support boat, the Morning Glory with Liam and Alvin, our 2 skippers. We sped off to Robben Island and anchored close to shore to wait for the start of the race.

While we waited...
The birds showed us where the fish were...

Keith got really seasick...Boats waited... A boat with a team of relay swimmers drifted into us and someone shouted that they had lost steering control. Liam jumped to the rescue...

so here he is fixing...

and attempting to fix pretty much just about every other boat that vaguely looked like it was in trouble. (here he's giving advice on how to get rid of seaweed) Spot the penguin. In the meantime, the swim was delayed by half an hour so the swimmers were waiting around on Robben Island. The wind however was picking up and the waves getting bigger as the day wore on so it wasn't too long before the whole swim was called off! A ferryload of disappointed swimmers returned from Robben Island. We made our way back to Three Anchor Bay. At this point I had to put my camera away and hold on with both hands. We travelled back through 4-5m swells screaming and holding on tight as we went.They were so big I could still see them later that night when I lay down to sleep. We would fly over a wave, be in mid-air and then crash back onto the water. This was the day that I learnt that boats can fly.

Later that evening we heard that the Robben Island to Big Bay swim had been called off and a contingency swim at Big Bay arranged for the next day. The swim was called off due to rough seas, strong wind as well as a shortage of boats. (Some of them sank - seriously hectic stuff to watch!) Despite the disappointment, I'm glad to report that our swimmer is by no means deterred and will attempt to swim from the island on another day. Go Stacey!

Graceland

A rainy day in April saw my friend Stacey and I dropping some beautifully wrapped gifts at Graceland preschool in Devon Valley, Stellenbosch. The boxes were filled with gifts for each of the 44 kids who come from the surrounding farms. We asked members of the congregation to bring their gifts to church in the weeks leading up to Easter. Tracy sorting through some of the many shoeboxes..

Elizabeth the principal (above), was thrilled to have us visit and commented in gratitude for the gifts: "This preschool belongs to God and He looks after it."

We helped the teachers hand out a gift box to each child and then watched as chaos ensued. It wasn't too long before ribbon and wrapping were everywhere and the children were showing off their new gifts. They received toys, chocolates and some much needed clothing and toiletries.

As we left, the kids said a big 'baie dankie!' for the presents and sang us a sweet song about how special they are. I can't convey enough the excitement and happy faces we saw as they opened up their presents.To those of you who contributed and gave gifts, thank you so much for making this Easter a special one for these young ones.