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During the past six and a half months we have lived in South Africa, we have been privileged to experience amazing things whilst sharing the good news of the Kingdom of God using the “touch and teach” principle. We have also enjoyed a wonderful period of fellowship with the brethren and sisters in South Africa, who are a pleasure and an inspiration to work with. In true African style, the duties we undertake here in South Africa are both many and varied and above all, constantly changing as God works His Will in powerful ways through the projects here.

We spent the first 6 weeks of our time here in Gauteng in the house of Lucas and Leona Scheepers and since then have been based in Durban in KwaZulu Natal; however, we have made regular trips down south to Margate and the Eastern Cape and back to Gauteng. It is difficult to explain in words the exciting work happening in South Africa; however, we will try to convey some of the things we have been involved in so far by God’s grace. The two main projects we have been focused on are Mariannhill and the Durban Bible Education Centre; however, we are also involved in many others.

Marianhill

We have absolutely loved being involved in the exciting work happening in the small, growing ecclesia at Mariannhill. When we arrived in KwaZulu Natal, there were five local brothers and sisters in this ecclesia (three youth and a middle aged couple, Phinda and Sylvester), plus Tim and Ilse Genders and family. Just in the time we have been here, the ecclesia has grown to 12 local brothers and sisters, with another baptism this coming Sunday!

Soon after arriving, we began regular youth classes on a Wednesday (which have continued to the present). These were attended by the baptised youth, their friends and in particular, some youth who were interested in baptism. Four young people, Nelly, Nosi, Dudu & Kwanda were all baptised in June, which was one of the most amazing moments of our lives!

Since then, we have continued to be actively involved in this ecclesia, running the youth classes, attending and occasionally running Sunday meetings and organising youth and Sunday school activities. The youth are a wonderful, vibrant group who have a lot of potential for becoming leaders and for spreading the good news to others, which is already happening, as we are having regular baptisms from the youth! We are attempting to help develop them in their new-found faith and empower them to organise their own youth activities to encourage each other and also to do their own bible studies, so that their spiritual development continues regardless of any outside assistance – something we feel strongly about.

Related to this, we are involved in planning a men’s conference (January 2009 DV) and ladies’ conference (November 2008 DV) to be held for our new brethren and sisters, to assist in their ongoing care and development. For the women’s one in particular, this will involve many of the youth at Mariannhill that we have worked with and will be a Saturday workshop for the sisters in the Durban area who are key in the growing and nurturing of Sunday school, youth, newly baptised and keen contacts in various areas, including Mariannhill. This will aim to help the sisters in looking at welfare of their members, managing a growing Sunday school, development of the youth, nurturing the ecclesia in terms of pastoral care, preaching to new contacts and also to discuss opportunities for growth and community outreach.

In June 2008, a house in Mariannhill was purchased for the ecclesia to meet in and was set up as a place of worship. In a recent exciting development, a large corporate donation has been acquired by the COP Trust to build a community centre/crèche/ecclesial hall at Mariannhill.

The building work has just commenced and is to be finished by the end of the year. We will be heavily focussed on this project until then, both in overseeing and managing the building and fitting out of the centre and also in planning for the activities at the centre once it is completed, when it will play a vital role in supporting the rapid growth of this ecclesia and acting as a hub in the Mariannhill community.

Durban Bible Education Centre

Whilst in KwaZulu Natal, we have enjoyed being a part of the wonderful preaching opportunity that is the BEC. We are responsible for the overall running of the Durban BEC and also for supporting the Margate BEC, two hours south.

As part of this, we have loved getting to know Sister Mary better. Sister Mary works in the Durban BEC most days and is an absolute asset in terms of building relationships with the locals and developing these along the path to involvement in ecclesias. This is because Mary speaks several languages, is from the Congo so the locals relate to her, is approachable and is consistently available at the BEC to assist people. Amongst many things, our work at the BEC has involved:

1. Manning the BEC for several shifts per week (assisting customers, marking courses, sales etc);
2. Coordinating a monthly BEC roster, with an emphasis on attempting to increase the level of involvement of the local volunteers;
3. Identifying suppliers and buying, pricing and shelving stock to be sold in the BEC:
4. Helping develop sister Mary (eg providing her with computer and administrative skills and guidelines on her daily tasks, to increase her effectiveness);
5. Streamlining BEC administrative procedures, such as the capture of student information and the process for correspondence courses, working with Lucas Scheepers (National BEC Manager) to ensure there are strong processes that are sustainable throughout changing volunteers;
6. Holding a BEC graduation, which was attended by about a dozen students. This was a very special day for the students to celebrate their achievement, which in some cases was completing all four
7. BEC courses! We are planning another of these graduations for November.
8. Setting up regular bible classes on Friday, which have worked well. We have about 4/5 people who come each Friday during their lunchtime to discuss the word of God and ask questions; and
9. Working on bridging the gap between students and the ecclesias by referring them to the Durban ecclesia and getting them involved in one-on-one tuition. We have local and volunteer brethren running fortnightly classes for BEC contacts on Sunday afternoons at the Durban ecclesia, as a forum for their further learning and these are attended by between 10 and 20 people.

We will continue to manage the BEC and ensure that improvements made are documented and implemented with training so that these continue to assist the effectiveness of the BEC into the future. We are confident that the Bible Education Centres in South Africa will continue to help people in their quest for the truth of the bible – their success in reaching out to the community and spreading the good news cannot be understated!

Other Projects

Prepared to Preach (P2P)

• In July and August 2008, about 30 people from the UK, US and Canada embarked on South Africa to work on the 2010 projects.
• Along with the locals, Dan and I worked on coordinating a large part of this - from welcome packs with branded “GNOTKOG” t-shirts and transport, to weekly programs and organising preaching and social events. We also physically led projects at different places each week, at Mariannhill, Durban BEC, Emakheni Primary and Mason Lincoln school at Emalendini (Happy's school).
• It was amazing to see how much could be achieved on the 2010 projects with the help of many others, plus it was a wonderful time of fun and fellowship! Some of these young people are planning to return to SA to work on the projects next year, which would be fantastic.

Sponsorship website

• We have worked on putting together content for a new website (which was then built by Craig Blewett) to enable people and ecclesial bodies to financially support the 2010 projects and fund ongoing running of the 2010 centres.
• This website is now in operation – www.gnotkog.org and already has regular donations coming through to further fund the work in South Africa.

Crèche Teacher course

• We wrote a Crèche Teacher Resource Handbook and associated Crèche Teacher Course based on some of the handbook content.
• This course was developed so that it could be run as a life skills course at the 2010 community centres and projects.
• This course provides basic skills on teaching young children and has been run four times so far at existing centres (Ubuhle Bezwe in Gauteng, Margate in KZN and Candu in the Transkei) and is running again at the Lamontville centre in October.
• We have been very happy with the success of the course in terms of assisting people in disadvantaged communities, building relationships and increasing the exposure of ecclesial halls and what they are all about.

Maintenance

• Dan being good with his hands is often called on for maintenance work at the 2010 projects, from repairs and minor improvements (such as work at Dumisani’s school, Emakheni Primary) through to larger building projects (such as project managing the building at Mariannhill).

Margate

• We have worked on supporting this small ecclesia of five members with their BEC, crèche and maintenance through several day visits.
• In June, we stayed down in Margate for a week to run the crèche teacher course. We had 13 local ladies who attended and it was a wonderful week of relationships being built and the exposure of the hall being extended.
  
  It was particularly special to see Brother Nelson and Sister Cecilia (the couple of who are caretakers at the hall and run the crèche and BEC) chatting with the ladies and even signing some up on correspondence courses!

Lamontville

• We have supported this 2010 centre and ecclesia (which includes a crèche, community centre and HIV prevention office) in terms of maintenance and also running youth days and life skills courses at the centre

Emakheni Primary (Dumisani’s School)

• This is a very needy, rural school about an hour’s drive from Durban that has at its Principal a brother from Westville, Dumisani Qwabe.
• We have been involved in this project in terms of a needs assessment for the school, organising a P2P team in July that achieved a great deal and follow-up in terms of providing bibles for the children and other maintenance related tasks (eg Westville held a tree-planting day there in September 2008).

Mason Lincoln Special School at Emalendini (Happy’s School)

• This project is a school for disabled learners and we have conducted maintenance, been part of a P2P team out there and also have ongoing involvement in running bible classes and activities for the children as part of a weekly programme.
• We now have about 15-20 older students at the school completing the correspondence courses, something we set up as a result of interest shown by some of the older students in the things of God. These students now attend bible classes once a week at the school and are involved in combined youth days, along with youth from Mariannhill and Lamontville.

Ubuhle Bezwe Orphanage

• Located in Gauteng, we have assisted this orphanage by running computer training for the children, providing them with stationery for their schooling and running activities for them (eg movie night) as well as much maintenance,

• About 20 children from the orphanage and area nearby regularly attend Sunday school at Kempton Park, including several older boys and their interest in the word of God and our faith is exciting!
• We also ran the crèche teacher course at this location and had a great response, building good relationships with women, some of which have continued to this day, their children now attending Sunday School.

We have visited/supported the following smaller ecclesias down the Eastern Cape:

• Candu (maintenance, bible classes and assisting the crèche)
• East London (preparation for the P2P team)
• Port Elizabeth (planning for a possible satellite ecclesia and container BEC, a project bought to completion by a P2P team in August 2008).

We are in constant contact with the 2010 team through meetings every Monday morning and regular communication throughout the week. These meetings are key to establishing a plan for the upcoming week, reporting on responsibilities and developing new ideas. We also enjoy good working relationships with the other international volunteers (which actually number eight at the moment!) as we work together to spread the good news.

God willing, we will continue to work on the 2010 projects in South Africa until mid-January when we leave to return to Australia. We are thankful every day that we are able to play at small part in God’s work here in South Africa and again, many thanks to the Williamsburg Christadelphian Foundation for making our time here possible.