Pre-school upgrades in Tembisa

The past few weeks we have had a record breaking amount of creche upgrades, God has blessed us and is always involved in helping provide the funds and the man power to make a difference in these teachers and children's lives.

This is what happens at most upgrades: We arrive and clean out the class rooms and clean off anything from the walls and then wash them down with sugar soap. We then start painting the classrooms, dark color at the bottom and light color at the top. 

Next, murals get drawn on the walls and then people start painting them different colors. Material ceilings get put up and shelves and desks get built and installed. In the kitchens shelves get installed and murals get painted on the walls.

Outside gets cleaned and balancing beams, tyres and jungle gums get installed and painted. If there is a cemented area we paint hopscotch on the floor too.

T

he teachers of the creches make delicious lunches for all the hard workers and we all enjoy lunch with them.

Below are a couple of photos of creches we have upgraded.

Our community centre in Tembisa, Aphiwe, also got upgraded a little. There is always some program running from the centre so to find a couple days where it was empty was a challenge. We went in and cleaned the whole place properly and also repainted the walls and shelves and the garden was cleaned too.

Liezl Viljoen

Holiday club fun (Gauteng)

During the school holidays we ran some holiday club programs for the children to attend. We ran a games day where we played many different games with children from our Sunday School and then also had children walking by on the street come in and join us. At the end of the afternoon we had just over 60 children attending.

Fifteen volunteers from the USA helped out and ran another holiday club. Close on 55 children attend. There were two crafts for them to make and take home and then we played games with them so they could get to know one another.

Sunday School at Aphiwe

After running some holiday clubs and games evenings we had many new children join us. We invited them to join us at Sunday school on Sundays.

So on one warm Sunday in June we got to Aphiwe and there were so many children and we had some teachers who were sick and not able to help. So we had fun dividing them into classes and also finding space for all of them.

We had Bro. Hendri outside with the youth class, Bro. Andrew led the adult class (also outside). Sis. Liezl had ages 10 – 15 inside and also kept an eye on the children ages 4 – 9 who played outside on the jungle gym. They later colored in some Bible story pictures.

It is an amazing feeling to have so many children come to learn more about the Bible. With God and Jesus on your side you just always have energy to do the work.

Coloring in on the play ground

Regular youth class led by Bro. Hendri and Bro. Lucas

New girls attending Sunday School for first time.

Kingdom Kids

Recently the "Kingdom Kids" have been working through lessons following the theme of "Lead the Way, Jesus". We have been exploring events in Jesus' life, such as when he stayed behind to discuss biblical matters with the priests and elders, and then finding ways to apply his example to our own lives.

Here are some examples of these applications:

We should always strive to please God & our parents through obedience.

We should serve others with caring hearts.

We should know and live the Truth (God's Word).

We should praise God and be grateful.

We should show kindness to everyone.

Of course no lesson is complete without a craft of some kind - and I would like to share some photo's of the craft we did for the "kindness" lesson. The event we looked at was Jesus healing the two blind men, even when the crowd was rebuking them. Since blind people usually wear dark glasses I picked that as our craft basis, and then added colored cellophane for lenses.

Cherish showing off the example craft

Tania chose to make heart-framed glasses

Tumi & Junior acting cool - these two teens are really great kids with hearts full of love for the younger Kingdom Kids

Taffi (Cherish's older brother)

Cameron gave his glasses a more modern look

Angelo. They wrote their memory verse (1 Thess 5:15) on the frames

While doing this craft it really struck me that, just like the world looks different through the glasses they made, the world looks very different when you are looking through Jesus' perspective. Then you realize that every single human being is special, uniquely made in God's image. You realize that each and every human being deserves to be loved and respected. You realize that everyone deserves to hear the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

For us, that last realization is what inspires & motivates us to keep looking at the world through "Jesus-colored" glasses.

With love in Christ

Michael & Lilandi Furstenburg

"... always try to be kind to each other and everyone else" (1 Thessalonians 5:15)

SNUGGLE up for Bible Study!

Greetings!

I am very blessed to be back in South Africa for another stint with the Scheepers family. Upon my arrival, I was again very quickly integrated in their normal activities. I was pleasantly surprised, and thoroughly tickled to see how much the Wednesday Tembisa women's bible class and SNUGGLES distribution program had exploded since I left back in November 2012. There was a gathering of twenty-five women at the bible study, and about five more that came just for the SNUGGLES distribution.

Seven months ago this gathering was only about ten ladies! The women were all actively involved in the bible study and discussion. We read and talked about Abraham and how we are made part of the promise God made to him.

This topic was suggested by one of the ladies, and at the end they openly expressed that they understood how we are Gods children though we all come from different "blood" and color. After our bible class, we laid out one suitcase of SNUGGLES squares, totaling between 800-900, and let the ladies take one prepackaged stack of 25 plus pick out 25 more from the pile. Talk about excitement!!!

Later that day we visited a crèche where we handed out some finished SNUGGLES blankets. The children loved them, and the teacher could not stop smiling! This is truly a Touch to Teach program, directly showing the people how much we love them!

Kaitlin Ross