Giving

Dear WCF,

It is with great thanks and answer to prayers that we have been granted an extension to our stay here in South Africa. We are very thankful to the donors who support the projects to make this possible, so that we can help with the work load a little bit longer. We give praise to God that we have been able to continue do this work in his name. Val’s work has been very supportive as well and has agreed to extend her career break to the end of January

Winter (end of June through the end of September) is here in in Cape Town which means that the weather is wetter, colder and darker. With the rainy season comes the incredible flower season and we are waiting patiently to see this extraordinary event from end of July onwards. The Eskom Load (electrical power) shedding challenges have increased this month and we are getting used to regularly being without electricity. We are blessed that most of the properties we are staying in do have solar panel systems for use, but with the more frequent rains they are not always able to be charged up fully. 

June has been a very busy month and we give thanks that we have been able to keep well and have the energy to keep up with the fast pace. We pray for continued guidance and blessing on all the work we do. We know that all is in God’s hands and that no plans are able to be undertaken without His support. We are thankful for the many God moments which are revealed to us every day, which just helps to strengthen our faith daily and keep us motivated with all the challenges that are in South Africa and keep us energised and determined to be able to continue to serve in this manner for our Father. 

This month we have been working on the following projects:

1. Feeding scheme: A soup kitchen at Green Village:

We have continued to support the community at Green Village. For example, we hand out hot food on the second Friday of each month. We continue to hand out the soup, pasta, fruit and tomatoes from the church community hall. Our soup kitchen day is usually a very jam-packed busy day with preparation and getting things done for the other projects. This month’s soup kitchen day workload started at 6:30am and finished at 8:00pm. We certainly sleep well after these very busy days -- seeing how many people we are helping makes it well worth the effort. 

The soup kitchen was well attended by the children who were so thankful to have plenty food, many of them came back for third servings. Not many adults came to get food this month, which was strange but it meant that the children were well fed and able to take food back home. 

2. Food Parcels at Green Village:

The fourth Friday of the month we typically hand out food parcels at Green Village which are also now distributed from the church community hall. This initiative requires much preparation with purchasing, packing and distributing the bags. We managed to pack 60 food parcel bags and has some younger helpers (Ruby and Amberly Viljoen) to help with this activity. Our new system of managing the list and distribution seems to be working well and the community is happy with our arrangements so far. Our contact has supported us and provides us with extra help by being there when we are distributing as he is able to recognise the people and ensure that no one is able to obtain someone else’s packet. The families are thankful to receive their parcels and there is a feeling of calm and order being established in the distributions. The families also bring along a thank you letter to express thanks to the donors. We really appreciate all those who donate to these projects as without the financial support, we would not be able to do this vital work. Thanks be to God for his provision of people being able to make financial donations to support the work on the ground and help feed this wonderful community. 

3. Bible club with bible lessons, stories and guidance with the youth at Green Village:

We continue to meet with the younger generation of the community every second week and enjoyed giving them guidance, hope, Bible lessons and activity. They enjoyed learning about Jacob working for Laban to marry Rachel and Leah at the first class and later in the month about, Jacob’s 12 sons and they enjoyed the activity of making paper chain of people. They loved making little sheep on their own pencil to take home with them. Little gifts mean so much to these children. Lots of happy, smiley children. They even get a nice hot bowl of soup and pasta before we start. We do often have to dig deep into energy supplies once at bible club when faced with over 30 very excited children on their first day of school holidays. They are lovely and quiet when eating their food but the noise level lifts the roof once the singing starts. Our ears buzz for a couple of days afterwards and it can be a challenge for the children to hear us over the noise. 

4. Pencil cases and stationery:

When we do our bible clubs with the children, it is always a challenge to have the paper stationary accessible for all to share and some children occasionally end up quarreling with one another and grabbing supplies. To make this task easier, we have made pencil case bags. The children are still enjoying these and as our numbers of attendees grow, we need to keep on top of ensuring there are enough to go around. Lots of work and sorting out has been done this month to help make the bible clubs run smoother.

5. Little Brinks: 

Mondays are our regular visits to Little Brinks. On one of our usual visits to Little Brinks, we were encountered a very wet play area after heavy rains.. The usual play area was not suitable for that day so we decided to take the children over to the Fundani container classroom instead. The children were cautious about the new surroundings but soon settled into playing with the toys and enjoying time with us. We are very thankful that there are options of where we can still visit with the children during the cold, wet winter months 

Looking around the world right now, we see the world in all kinds of chaos, wars, pandemic and governments in a panic. We also see that this is all due to human greed. But if we look closely, we can see a very small amount of ordinary people trying to make a difference and most of them themselves do not have much to give but they give it all. They give of their time, money, love, heart and soul. This can be said of Kathy Brinks who started the NPO (Non-Profit Organisation) for Little Brinks. She is trying to make a difference in the lives of many little ones who do not get the love they should have been afforded. This she has done by providing a place of safety and works closely with social workers and the community to help those who are in need. Her limitations are that she is only able to help a few out of the hundreds needing help. She is often bombarded with overwhelming numbers of pleas for help. 

She has provided a place as best as she can for these children. They deserve to be accommodated and housed in the best of places but as already said, Kathy provides what she has. For those that she has been able to take in, they are living in the smallest of accommodation that is not fully fit for purpose as it gets cold and damp over winter, but it serves its purpose as best as can be provided by her and the donations the NPO gets. The children are safe, cared for and loved but deserve so much more. We have grown to love these children very much and give our time to them to support and help through developmental play. We can see the need here at Little Brinks, Kathy has such a vision for these children and gives her all. If we had the means, and we pray that God hears our prayer in this regard, we would love to provide these incredible children with better accommodation. Better accommodation would not only help the current children (seven in one room) but many others who come through Little Brinks doors. If we were in a financially privileged position, we would love to try and provide them with a safer place from the elements, unfortunately we cannot do this at this time. But if God will be so gracious maybe one day this could happen. We are thankful that we can be part of the team who are supporting these children through developmental play and showing them love and stability. 

6. Hopefield Workshop Project:

We helped support the Hopefield workshop project where people are taught some basic woodworking skills. There is also a children’s club run at the same time, which the younger children enjoy while enabling parents and older siblings to participate in the woodworking skills. This month they made a bird feeder in the workshop while the five children enjoyed fun games, craft activity and snack. This is a great project for making contacts in the community and teaching new skills.

7. Jacqueline’s Sunflower nursery school: 

We provide extra support to Jacqueline’s nursery school, she does so much good work supporting the community of Green Village and surrounding areas. On our last visit there, they had bought some new black motorbikes for the children to use while playing on the road map outdoor area. These new bikes came with coloured wheels and has caused a bit of fighting amongst the children to who was going to get the ‘boring’ bikes. We offered to help out by painting the non-coloured bikes wheels and dropped them back at the nursery school. The children are now delighted and no more fighting over the bikes. 

8. Fundani Education container, Bible club:

We have helped support the bible club activities with the children from Wolwerevier community, held at the Fundani Centre. It was a cold start to the morning and there were just 10 children waiting to be picked up. The children enjoyed learning about Jacob's 12 sons and colouring in the activity. They each received a donation bag of tomatoes and a can of donated mixed fruit jam. A lovely morning spent with the children. We are starting to see some regulars who are attending the Bible club and they really look forward to the next one. They are super excited when they see the cars and gather together for the lift to the Fundani centre. 

9. Days for Girls presentation and distribution:

After lots of planning meetings to arrange this distribution, we had a 2-hour trip through to Grabou to do a ‘days for Girls’ presentation and distribution. When we got to the school, we were met with a bit of confusion as they did not have everything organised but after waiting about for a while, they managed to find over 50 learners for us and we were able to complete the demonstration and distribution. The children found the information very informative and were very happy to receive their days for Girls washable sanitary products.

10. Ernita, Days for Girls Enterprise on a Blueberry farm:

We had another early start to beat the traffic and get to the Days for Girls enterprise set up in Wellington on a blueberry farm. Leona Scheepers and Val met up with the sewing ladies again to go through some small changes they need to make on the products to reach gold standard level. They are an incredible group of motivated ladies who deal so well with the set back of not reaching the standard each time. They are determined to make it and try incredibly hard. So many lessons to learn from them, if at first you don't succeed then try and try and try again. These ladies will meet the standard and we are sure they will be inundated with orders very soon. If anyone is interested in purchasing sets of washable reusable sanitary products or wanting to sponsor presentations and distributions then just let us know and we can give you more information. We have been working with these ladies for quite some time now and helping them to set up their own business making these products. They will then be able to supply the valued cause and also earn an income themselves, great example of the Cuddle trust’s motto of ‘Helping others to help themselves’. We pray for continued support for these ladies so that we can continue to touch the lives of many by the distributions and educational training sessions. We look forward to celebrating with the Ernita ladies once they achieve their gold standard level. 

11. Volunteer dog walking

We have started supporting a new project in Langebaan: the Langebaan animal care. This is a rescue shelter for animals without homes or who have been victims of cruelty in Langebaan and surrounding areas. This service provides shelter, food, field work, medicines and rehabilitation. Thefostering program works well for dogs, cats and kittens. It operates with volunteers and always needs extra volunteers to help with dog walking and cuddles. The puppy and kittens really enjoyed their cuddles and play time and the dogs enjoyed their walk.

12. Ongoing support with ecclesial duties (participating and presenting) and faith strengthening, this includes:

talks, sisters’ class, bible class, exhortations, bible studies and social linking with brothers and sisters and preaching opportunities. We have continued to support both the on-line zoom church and Cape Town ecclesia with duties. Val also supported a brother in Johannesburg with a zoom exercise programme to help with some health issues he was having. We are thankful to this new use of technology that we are able to connect with many near and far for many different reasons. The international sisters class held on every Thursday at 16:30 South Africa time is a fantastic example of technology being used well to bridge the distance of thousands of miles and the sisters are able to meet together around the word of God and spend time being strengthened in their faith. 

We had a very special Sunday towards the end of June, Michael and Lilandi had travelled to Kempton Park as they had lots of work to do there. An extra blessing was that Tino and Lucky had requested to be baptised. We all joined on to our usual zoom meeting to witness their baptism before going onto the memorial service. This is even more exciting as the two newly baptised brother and sister were some of the original members of the ongoing KINOS (Kids In Need Of Support) project which was started in Johannesburg (Kempton Park). They are another two examples of how important connections, consistency, continuity and time are when starting and working on these projects. It is not just an instant one-off connection but a long-term commitment to showing the communities God’s love by installing hope, self-belief, support and showing them that there is a different path in life. We ask for God's protection and guidance for our newly baptised brother and sister and give thanks to God for bringing them into the family of Christ.

We also ask for God’s blessing and guidance on the new projects being established in the Cape Province and pray that they will also touch the lives of the communities we support and that in the future there may be the same results as have been achieved through the KINOS kids.

13. Ongoing improvements, renovations and building work to various properties:

Another building work improvements underway, this time at Lucas and Leona’s and Liezl and Hendri’s house. The area is mostly sand and makes driving cars down the driveway and parking a challenge. Charles, Hendri and Lucas got stuck into laying iron ore slag and compacting it over the driveways. This will make a huge difference and stop the cars getting stuck in the sand and sliding. A full work-out for the guys!!!

In Conclusion: 

We are very thankful for the experiences we continue to have while doing God’s work here in South Africa and have enjoyed seeing and acknowledging all the “God moments” that happen to us on a daily basis. It is a great privilege to be able to be here to reach out and touch and help those willing to receive.

We continue to attend regular planning meetings to discuss ongoing plans and support needs, these are often changing as new projects and needs are highlighted. We are continuing with the ongoing projects and supporting the communities all around us. We are looking forward to an exciting July with a planned youth camp, this will be attended by some of the older Sunday School age children from Cape Town Ecclesia, Basic Church Ecclesia and some children from the local communities we are currently supporting. Lots of preparation work is already under way and we had a real God moment on finding the venue for the camp. 

May God continue to bless all the work being done out here and we ask for his continued grace by providing us with guidance and safety. 

May God be praised.

All our love in the Lord
Charles and Val Kotkin-Smith