Showing the Love to “God is Love”

The Kempton Park missionary team and visiting Durban P2P group spent a workday yesterday at the “God is Love” crèche in Delmore Gardens. We’ve held Saturday Morning Bible Club for teenagers at Gogo’s “God is Love” crèche for the past two months, so it was high time to incorporate her crèche into the C.U.D.D.L.E. project (Crèche Upgrades, Diligently Developing Little one’s Education). As we’ve been teaching at the Saturday Morning Bible Club, we’ve been eyeing repairs we’d like to make when time was available, and, with the visiting P2P group (comprised of Phil Ashcroft, Naomi Midgley, Mat Collard, Laura Iredale, and Christy Beyers), we had the manpower to get a lot of work done in a relatively short amount of time.

We scrubbed down the back wall along the playground fence with sugar soap and also an indoor wall, both of which were in bad condition and also contained a misspelled word (“Saterday”) that was supposed to be teaching the children days of the week. We gave both of the large walls a fresh coat of tan paint and then hand-painted in the proper spelling of the days of the week. Then, instead of random fruit shapes which were there, we painted the five main shapes to be used as teaching tools for the children to learn from. Indoors, the wall we painted was in really bad condition, but it looked as good as new once a fresh coat of paint was applied. Gogo’s old hand-drawn teaching posters were showing their age and were a little too small to be seen by a small child sitting on the floor, so she agreed that we could replace them with 9 new professional teaching posters educating the students on shapes, numbers, body parts, months, vehicles, animals, etc.

Gogo’s crèche had only a tiny sign out front that was barely visible from the road, so Christy and Laura hand-painted a large “God is Love” sign in an interesting, eye-catching font along with a heart shape on the front brick fence that is approximately eight feet wide by 3 feet high, so very visible for people walking or driving by to help promote Gogo’s crèche for new business. Gogo was very appreciative of all the help and we were able to spend some quality time with her crèche children after the work was over. By the end of the day, we were able to show our love of God to the “God is Love” crèche!

Laura and Christy just finishing hand-painting the new sign for the “God is Love” crèche in Delmore Gardens.

Mat setting up the paints for our workday as part of the C.U.D.D.L.E. project.

Megan painting on a square shape on the back fence wall to teach the children from.

BEFORE: The indoor wall of the “God is Love” crèche was in desperate need of help.

AFTER: Not only a fresh coat of paint to look brand new, but 9 quality teaching posters for the children to learn from.

Hendri hanging one of the new teaching posters donated to the “God is Love” crèche.

BEFORE: The back fence wall to the playground contained random fruit shapes and a misspelled word: “Saterday”.

AFTER: A clean coat of paint, properly spelled days of the week, and the five main shapes hand-painted on brighten and uplift the entire playground area.

Happy, energetic children at the “God is Love” crèche.

Liezl putting the finishing touches on the word “Square” on the back fence wall.

Doris "Gogo" Zwane on the left, owner of the "God is Love" creche.

Our P2P wrap-up dinner after 11 days of work with the preaching group in the Johannesburg area. From left: Hendri Viljoen (Guateng), Liezl Scheepers (Gauteng), Laura Iredale (England), Christy Beyers (Durban), Mat Collard (England), Phil Ashcroft (England), Naomi Midgley (England), Llewelyn Scheepers (Guateng), Megan Sabo (U.S.), Jonathan Sabo (U.S.), Lucas Scheepers (Guateng), Leona Scheepers (Guateng), Lilandi Scheepers (Guateng), and Michael Furstenburg (Guateng).

Your brother in Christ's service,

Bro. Jonathan Sabo - Kempton Park, South Africa Ecclesia

Second Work Day at Aphiwe community Center

We had another fantastic work day at the Aphiwe community center. The center is really starting to look very neat and classy. We are well on schedule for the launch day (25 March) and give praise God and Jesus that has been with us every step of the way. Today (Tuesday 9 March) was another "hard labor" day as we leveled more ground near the front door, installed some cement slabs at the entrance, removed rubble, planted two trees, watered the lawn, installed bathroom accessories and painted a FANTASTIC mural on the one wall.

 

Phil designed the mural and all had great fun helping to get it painted on the wall. It turned out very very nice, awesome and creates just the right kind of "feeling" for the community center. Many of the people passing buy stopped to admire the work of art and we were glad about the interest it is creating as it gives us the opportunity to make them aware of the activities that will be going on at the center in the near future, God willing.

 

It was another rewarding day, at the end of which we thanked God for giving us the opportunity to be involved in this great project.

 

With abiding love

 

The P2P Aphiwe team and the 2010 Kempton Park ecclesia crowd.

Productive Workday at Aphiwe Good News Centre

We had a highly-productive day of physical labor at the new Aphiwe Good News Centre in Tembisa today. With four additional Christadelphian missionary P2P’ers from England (Mat Collard, Laura Iredale, Phil Ashcroft, and Naomi Midgley) and one Sister from Durban (Christy Beyers) visiting Kempton Park, we were able to get a lot of work done: planted two trees, built the front entryway, leveled the front yard, spread gravel in the parking area, hung bathroom fixtures, and painted a creative wall mural of Noah’s Ark (Phil’s ingenious creation).

The building remodeling is going very well and the construction crew will finish later this week, so we can continue with finishing touches to prepare for the launch in two weeks. The launch date is set for March 25.

The African township people are so amazingly friendly and inquisitive, which makes it such a joy to do work in Tembisa. We spoke with several dozen different people today as we were working in the front yard who wanted to inquire about what we were doing. They were very appreciative of people who live elsewhere and wanted to help their impoverished community. They were glad to know with several areas the community center will serve that there’s something available for virtually everyone: preschool for 5-6 year olds, free bible courses, and general education life skills classes.

We passed out several bible correspondence courses for God’s Master Plan to interested students and will have a large contingent ready to attend once bible courses begin in April. There is a lot of anticipation and positive support from the Tembisa community for the opening of the Aphiwe Good News Centre. They truly view it as a “gift” to their community, as the Aphiwe name means in Zulu.

With an ideal location in front of the busy Tembisa train station, thousands of people walk by the front of the Aphiwe Good News Centre every day. Many people wanted to stop and talk with us about what we were doing.

Leveling the front yard to prepare it for laying down more sod.

Planting the first of two trees.

The new tree looked great in the front corner of the Aphiwe Good News Centre property and already provided some immediate shade.

Sis. Megan Sabo hanging bathroom fixtures.

Bro. Hendri Viljoen drilling holes for bathroom fixtures.

BEFORE: The front door entry area, in need of a proper walkway.

Laying concrete steps with drainage in the entryway to the Aphiwe Good News Centre.

AFTER: The finished front entryway complete with proper drainage and concrete steps.

The inside of the community center is looking good and will be finished later this week in time for the launch date March 25th.

Lunchtime with sandwiches to eat.

Bro. Mat Collard and Sis. Christy Beyers painting the beginning stages of the Noah’s Ark wall mural in front of the community center in Tembisa.

Sis. Megan Sabo painting the border around a cloud on the wall mural.

We drew a crowd of interested onlookers all day who wanted to watch us work.

The finished wall mural in the front of the new Aphiwe Good News Centre in Tembisa: a rendition of Noah’s Ark.

Your brother in Christ’s service,

Bro. Jonathan Sabo – Kempton Park, South Africa Ecclesia

BEC Busking in Durban

BEC Busking




For the past month or so on Fridays we’ve been going to the BEC to draw people inside to sign up for the different courses. How did we happen to draw people in you might ask? Well through Zulu songs of praise of course! These passer-by’s are amazed by the fact that these odd group of white people are singing songs in Zulu.

Laura and Phil take turns with the guitar and the rest of us pass out fliers to let people know about what the BEC provides. Some people just stop and stare, and that gives us the perfect opportunity to start up a little chat and invite them inside. Some people stop and join in with either singing or dancing; it’s always best when it’s both.

Each week through God’s blessing we’ve signed up more and more people for God’s Master Plan! I’m pretty sure our peak number is 27 new students in just a couple short hours!

Onlookers have gotten so used to us in such a short time that they recognize us as ‘the singing people’, and ask us when we are singing again. I’m glad that these people are looking forward to it as much as we are!

We don’t just stay stationary outside the BEC on Mark Lane either, we tend to get around. The ladies at the front end of the street requested our singing. So we gave them a little show as they waited to get their hair done. Each of those women signed up for God’s Master Plan! It’s amazing the way music is a language of it’s own. Music is our way of sparking conversation about God and His kingdom that’s coming on earth!

We also moved into the shopping centre across the way, which had some great acoustics by the way. A lady came over and started videoing us on her phone. I invited her over to the BEC, but she said she couldn’t leave because she was actually the only one working in the shop and she left it unattended. Later when we dispersed we went back to her in the shop to sign her up for the course and she was listening to our singing already and showing customers!

Oh and another neat thing is that there have been a couple of keen students that have either finished the courses or are still enjoying them that come help us on Fridays. They pass out fliers with us, strike up conversations, and join in with the singing. God is so great!

All in all, God has been blessing these efforts greatly- praise to Him! Something as simple as playing the guitar and singing songs of praise in public is drawing people closer to God. How awesome!

P2P workday at Aphiwe community center

The special P2P team helping to get the Aphiwe community center here in Tembisa ready had a fantastic productive workday at the center on Thursday 4 March. Together with some of Autopage personnel the interior of the centre was cleaned and a lot of work was done outside the center. The majority of the hard work was done outside as 3 different areas around the center was prepared for laying down instant lawn. The process required hard physical work as the ground had to be leveled, additional soil had to be brought in, the grass off loaded and then laid down on the prepared soil. It was hard, dirty work but great fun.

 

God especially blessed us in giving us a cloudy day. The instant lawn need a lot of water after being "installed" and it rain the very night after we got the lawn down - just what we needed. Whilst working two people came and enquired about what we were doing and we could introduce them to the Bible course. Another gentlemen stopped his car, got out and asked where he could join our church! It just served as confirmation that people are starting to realize that Christians are at work showing the love of Jesus and God by way of giving their time and energy to the community without wanting anything in turn.

 

As the day ended we were all in high spirit as we managed to get everything done we planned and for sensing God's presence in all we did. Most of us had our T-shirts written off as we carried many a chunk of quick lawn to and fro but it was a minor "loss" compared to what the work would mean to the community. As we looked at the transformation of the centre in one day we realized how many miracles God is still doing in just the ordinary events of every day life as he uses us as privileged instruments.

 

With abiding love from the special P2P team and the Kempton Park 2010 team.