Kids Games

During the 2-week school vacation, we hosted a lot of special programmes that we would not have had the time to present during the normal school year. For 2 weeks we arrived at the office early and set up for a morning of Kids Games. Kids Games is an international programme that pairs games and fun with life lessons and experiential learning. We focused on the themes of serving each other, love, working as a team, respecting people and property, forgiveness, and honesty. We started each day with a drama to illustrate the theme and then our teenage youth leaders took the children in their team on a journey to experience the theme for themselves. We averaged about 200 children each day and saw the growth a huge success!

Our First Fruits

As Neal and I trust God for great things one day, we are trying to be faithful with the little that we are given now. We are so excited about our little vegetable garden in the back yard of our apartment! We feel like proud parents as we show you the "first fruits" of our garden. Our first tomato is a beautiful reminder that God keeps His promises and that our dreams will be realized one day. In the mean time we are fully committed to the place and ministry that we are in. We are learning all that we can everyday.

First Aid/CPR training

Everyday we encounter hundreds of children, youth and adults at our centre. It often occurs to me that the Lord really protects our kids from harm because our building is old and our children like to take risky chances. For years, I have been concerned that a child would choke at our feeding scheme, or fall from our Learning Centre loft, and we would not be equipped to save those children. Therefore, I have done a lot of research and have found a First Aid/CPR training course that will equip our staff to help in such emergency situations. The Lord provided us a donor from Germany who backed our vision of safety, and has paid to have 15 of our staff certified. We have recently hosted the First Aid/CPR training and invited representatives from other NGOs, churches, and daycares in our area to also learn how to handle emergency situations. I have so much peace knowing that we have 23 new "first responders" in our community trained and able to serve better than before.

Sharing Views Water Day

Last Saturday, 20 February, was close to if not the hottest day of the year. Reaching 43 degrees celsius (about 109 degrees farenheight), we were all weak from heat exhaustion. That didn't stop our Sharing Views team, however, from providing the kids with a fantastic Water Day. Nearly 700 children from the Kayamandi community came dressed in swimming suits or underpants ready to get wet! The local fire department came and sprayed the kids with water and foam, and there were lots of water games and even a water slide! Everyone involved loved it, and the water helped us to survive the intense summer heat!

My Garden

I was reminded of Proverbs 31:16-17 recently. It says,"a wife of noble character... goes to inspect a field and buys it. With her earnings, she plants a vineyard. She is energetic and strong, a hard worker..." Now, I am not claiming to be that cool, but I did get a small bit of money last weekend that I invested into the soil. Our office had a small yard sale bazaar where we could sell things to the community and cheap rates. I decided to help work the bazaar and ended up earning R70 (which is about $10.) I then took that money and went to the nursery where I bought tomato, green bean, eggplant, strawberry, spinach, basil, coriander, thyme, and parsley plants. We have a small plot of land in the back yard of our apartment, and I was SO excited to take a stab at growing the food that we will need for nourishment. Food is getting very expensive and more and more nutritionally deprived due to the shipping of vegetables. Therefore, I am very excited to try to grow our own plants that will keep Neal and I healthy this year. Look out proverbs 31 woman... here I come!

Prayer Team 2010

We are very excited to see what God is doing this year in our prayer team. The prayer team is led by Abongile, one of our graduated students, who has recently joined our social work team. The group has grown and is now including many younger children as well. The kids and teens are eager to stand in the gap and intercede for their families, communities, country and the world. There is nothing more beautiful than seeing the hearts of children trusting God for miracles and coming humbly to their Father in Heaven in prayer.

Opening Learning Centre

This past Monday, Feb 1, we finally opened our learning centre classes for the year. Up to this point, we have been marketing and recruiting new tutors. Then we had to have orientation trainings, and coordinate their schedules and transportation. It has been an admin nightmare, but with good results in the end. This week we have already signed on 45 tutors, and have helped over 200 students in grades preschool- grade 10. The students seem eager to learn and our partnership with the schools has never been stronger. We are so grateful to God for the doors that He is opening! Yesterday we had our grade 8-10 math classes and we were short of teachers. A group of grade 11 students also came for help, so we were spread very thin. I don't usually tutor math, due to my terrible math skills, but I gave grade 9 math a try and we ended up having a fun and educational class for us all.