Sunday, March 31, 2013

Saturday Bible Club - Tswelopele (Gauteng)

Our Saturday Bible Club numbers have been on the increase – with several “new” faces joining us after attending the Braingym program! We now have a core group of about 40 kids, with the average age being about 10 years old. Even though this means there are lots of under-8’s, perhaps limiting the amount of hard-core doctrine we can teach, it does mean they enjoy doing craft activities which are great for reinforcing the lessons that we do share.

Michael presenting the bible club lesson about Israel's 1st king - and how we should rather accept God as our king.
Creating crowns, with colored foam and buttons as "jewels"

Group photo with everyone wearing their crown!

And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.
(Rev 5:10)

With love in Christ
Michael & Lilandi Furstenburg

Monday, March 11, 2013

Fighting the unimaginable fight

Imagine going to a school where you know you are different, but the only thing that makes you feel normal is sport, but then you don't have the equipment you need. I have the privilege to work with such children in a mentally disabled school in Tembisa.

The first time we ( Leona, Liezl and myself) met with the school staff the sport coordinator was not there. The following week we met up with the sport coordinator and played some sports with the kids. While Matt and Adam were busy with the kids, I had time to talk to the sport coordinator where he told me more about the school.

There are so many things they need. There are about 450 children in the school with only one 600g javelin, one 1kg discus and one shot put. This is the equipment they are preparing with for their inter house (between all the disabled schools in the Ekurhuleni district.) One of the biggest need are medals. When any of the children from any school come 1st, 2nd or 3r they will be going to nationals to represent Gauteng. If they come in 1st 2nd or 3rd place at the nationals they will have the opportunity to go to a special Olympics to represent South Africa. There are 2 boys who run the 100m in 10:61, they do that barefoot on gravel.

This is a new project that I have been privileged to start during January this year. T objective of this project is to help provide as many talented children with the equipment they need.

Hendri  Viljoen


Sisters Bible Study Classes

I thought to write of our weekly Sisters Classes that take place here in Gauteng. These classes have been going strong for a good couple of years now. As the years have passed our numbers went down as some sisters moved to different parts of the country and some sisters started working. We have in the meantime also had newly baptized sisters from Tembisa join us so the numbers have grown again. I am very blessed to still be part of these classes too.


We have been learning this year mainly of different women in the Bible and today looked at how we remember Jesus in a SMILE…

S – Savior, Servant, Shepherd,
M – Messiah, Master, Mediator
I – I am the way, truth and life. I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the bread of life, etc.
L – Lord, Lamb
E – Emmanuel

The classes teach us allot and we also learn so much from one another. We have both very young and old attending the class as the picture below shows. Sis Rene is close to 91 years of age, she attends every class and still reads and gives her ideas on the classes presented. Then on the other hand we have little Zante who is now 16 months also attending and she will walk around sometimes drawing her thoughts on everyone else's papers! It is a true blessing to be part of these classes.