Saturday Morning Bible Club

This morning, some members of the Kempton Park preaching team launched our first Saturday Morning Bible Club for children ages 10-15 that will run every other Saturday morning from 9:30 – 11 am. With this being our first venture into the township of Delmore Gardens for a bible program, we didn’t know exactly how many children to anticipate and expected approximately 30 students… but in actuality 52 children arrived for classes. They were well-behaved, eager to learn, had a respect for God, and we found the older students had a solid bible foundation that we could build on.

We hold the Saturday Morning Bible Club sessions at Dorris “Gogo” Zwane’s GOD IS LOVE Creche where we teach bible lessons, feature fun activities, and play educational games with the children from the township of Delmore Gardens and an adjacent shantytown.

Sis. Megan Sabo from the U.S. led the children in a lesson on understanding how the bible works and how all of the many books fit together with God as the ultimate author. They were quizzed on the lesson afterward and the first child to raise their hand and answer correctly could select a small prize from a grab bag. We played name-that-object from the bible and also sang a song about the bible complete with hand motions that the children picked up on extremely quickly. Small treats were given promptly at our start time of 9:30 am to encourage arriving on time. We also provided nutritional snacks of fruit juice and apples for everyone midway through the lessons.

During the last half hour we broke up into groups and one group played bible bingo while the other group went outside to play pig-in-the-pen with the ball. The children all seemed to have a great time, so we’ll try to increase our expectations and possibly anticipate a larger turnout next time, God-willing.

52 students turned out for the first Saturday Morning Bible Club session.

Sis. Megan Sabo from the U.S. led the bible classes with Sis. Liezl Scheepers and Bro. Hendri Viljoen from South Africa assisting.

The children brought their bibles and came ready to learn and have fun.

Plenty of eager students ready to answer bible trivia questions.

Feeding the masses! Sis. Megan Sabo serving fruit juice while Bro. Hendri Viljoen cuts apples for the children.

One young lady enjoying her nutritional snack served during a break.

The children busily working on their Psalm 23 worksheet.

The boys working on a bible study sheet handout.

The children listening attentively while Sis. Megan teaches a class on the bible.

Bro. Hendri and I explain a game we’re going to play with the children.

The crowd cheers on the rest of the children playing a game.

The girls enjoyed playing the bible bingo game.

While our bible classes were intended for 10-15 year olds, many younger children came along with their older siblings. Oftentimes in townships, teenagers are left as the sole caretaker for their younger siblings.

With nearly double the turnout of students we expected, we were very thankful to have the help of Bro. Hendri and Sis. Liezl.

Closing in prayer at the end of our first Saturday Morning Bible Club.

In the Glorious Hope of Israel,

Bro. Jonathan Sabo – Kempton Park, South Africa Ecclesia

Second Crèche Course in Tembisa now in progress.

Our second Crèche Course kicked off with a BANG today :-) - 25 Ladies registered for the course but 37 turned up. Leona had to re-locate to the bigger hall next door to the room originally booked.

 

The course serves as the "start up" phase of our CUDDLE (Crèche Upgrade, Development, Directives, Liaison and Education) project. The course runs for 6 consecutive weeks for two hours every Friday. After the course the ladies (who complete the course) receive a certificate. We then visit every crèche personally and give the ladies a collage of photos taken during the course. We also then get a firsthand idea of the "condition" of the crèche and how much the crèche is in need of repairs etc. The list of crèches are then prioritized according to certain criteria and we are supporting the crèches according to the priority list one by one. The work is endless but is every little thing we do at the different crèche's serves as a huge encouragement for the ladies who do such great work in looking after the children every day. 

 

Whilst we are doing the work we build relationship with these quality woman of the community and we open up opportunities for preaching through word and deed. We are now in the process of getting a roster together for people to give Bible classes at some of these crèches and the demand for Bible related classes and teaching to the children are growing as we come into contact with more of the crèche teachers. Some of the teachers have also expressed a desire to attend our ecclesia and also want to be taught how to teach Bible education. With the community centre launching soon in Tembisa we will be giving courses to the teachers on how to teach children about the Bible as well as providing a venue for more formal Gospel teaching.

 

We are exited about the opportunities God is opening to us in this way and the way the community has accepted the work we do there and the way we can work together with them. There are still over 250 ladies who are on the waiting list and we thus have a great opportunity to make a difference in the lives of many teachers and children in the future until our Lord returns.

 

With abiding love in Jesus

2010 Team here in KMP  

Kempton Park Bible Education Center Classes Off To A Fast Start!

This week, we launched the lunchtime Bible Education Center classes at the new location in Birchleigh North and it’s been an amazing experience already with a very positive reception to bible teaching. It’s such a blessing to be able to have a venue like this to share God’s word with the public on a regular basis.

The bible classes are held from 1-3 pm Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We had five sharp, perceptive students who showed up on Monday and four students on Tuesday, which bodes well for the future since many times it takes a few weeks to gain momentum for student turnout in the free classes and the student numbers should only go up and up. Already, our students are saying they’re going to bring their friends for Thursday’s classes and they seemed very pleased with the classes.

We’re very blessed, as a not-for-profit group, to be able to use the Committee Room in the Coen Scholtz Community Center free of charge. The community center is located directly next door to the Birchleigh North Mall where the BEC kiosk is located. We advertise the classes through signage at the BEC kiosk and via SMS messaging.

Bro. Lucas Scheepers and I take turns teaching, and he does a remarkable job of adeptly handling in-depth bible questions with ease, since he’s spent 20 years teaching on bible doctrine. The students showed up on the first day ready to fire away with bible questions and they are a friendly, respectful group that are a joy to get to teach.

Some typical questions they’ve asked so far:
Are sacrifices necessary? (In the culture here, people offer sacrifices for their ancestors)
When we’re baptized, do we receive the Holy Spirit?
Why is there suffering in the world, like with the earthquake in Haiti?
How do the Jews and Gentiles fit into the big picture of God’s plan of salvation?

Bro. Lucas Scheepers using E-Sword bible software and an LCD projector to show bible concepts to the students.

Teaching a class on how to become a better bible student.

The students are sharp and showed up ready to learn and ask questions.

Some of my scribbles on the whiteboard during my first class in answering impromptu questions the students had.

Bro. Lucas Scheepers answering bible questions during the BEC lunchtime classes.

Explaining a bible concept to the students in today’s BEC class.

Your brother in Christ's service,
Bro. Jonathan Sabo – Kempton Park, South Africa Ecclesia

Creative preaching

The latest P2P campaign provided us with an unique creative way of preaching. The P2P group went to play ten pin bowling as a social night out event. All the members of the team wore "the Good news of the Kingdom of God" t-shirts. We really stood out as a group and it was clear that we were a group of Christians. Lilandi had a very creative idea however that added even more preaching value. Instead off putting our names on the electronic scoreboard we put words that would make a sentence that related to preaching the Gospel message. This called for some innovative thinking as the names only allow for 5 characters. There were two lanes so we had to divide into two teams and thus had to come up with ten words , 5 each making a sentence. Mat came up with the first which was "Gods grace can save you" and Lucas with the second which was "Love gives many souls hope". 

 

So when people looked at our scoreboards there was a gospel message for them instead of names. It worked well as the lady in the group next to our lane asked Jonathan about us and he had a chance to chat to her about who we were and what we were doing. It brought home to us the fact that the world is still full of people who are Christian and notice when other Christians live their faith and are happy to declare it publically. We cannot preach the gospel directly everywhere or convert people on the spot but we can be the salt of the earth and add a flavor of grace and encouragement just about everywhere we go - all it takes is a willingness to be create and mindfulness of the opportunities that are everywhere.

 

With abiding love from the KMP 2010 team

P2P - Kempton Park - January 2010

An amazing lot "went down" here in Kempton Park the second and third week of January 2010. Our P2P team included 4 sisters (Megan Sabo, Liezl Scheepers, Laura Iderdale, Leona Scheepers) and 4 brethren (Jonathan Sabo, Hendri Viljoen, Matt Collard, Lucas Scheepers) as well as Llewellyn Scheepers. We thank God and Jesus for what they enabled 9 people to achieve in a space of 12 jam packed days that seemed to just fly by very very quickly.

 

Our activities focused on the following:

 

1. Preaching work at the KIOSK BEC where we spoke to interested people walking buy and also distributed leaflets advertising the BEC and Bible classes. The distribution was done at a busy traffic light intersection and provided a lot of fun as people in cars and trucks passed by, all with different reactions to someone trying to hand them a leaflet through the window. Special mention to the girls who were brave enough to face the traffic.

 

2. CUDDLE project. 

 

(a) We did maintenance and repair work at three different crèche's. Mollie's crèche was most rewarding as we managed to replace her somewhat makeshift roof that was leaking with a proper metal corrugated roof. Jonathan, Hendri and Mat really turned into skilled "roofers" overnight and were delighted that Mollie reported that the new roof was leak proof one night after they had finished and a storm broke loose over Mollie's crèche. The new roof will make a world of difference for Mollie. She has already had two more children enroll into her crèche as parents were impressed with the upgrades and have confidence in her facility now. Previously some of her children would stay at home on rainy days because of the leaking roof. The team also painted some games on the floor , painted the jungle gym equipment and made a new name and information board for Mollie's crèche. Sister Megan and Laura gave Bible classes to the children while the repair work was in progress. Mollie was quite overwhelmed. As a result we now have Mollie's daughter joining us for Sunday School and had some discussions with her regarding the Gospel. She has shown an interest to attend our ecclesia meetings. 

 

(b) Zelda's crèche was as much fun. The team installed shelves and cupboards, painted two of the rooms and did a small amount of repairs to the equipment outside. There was a little time to play some cricket with the children. It was beautiful to see how our spirit of giving freely rubbed off on Zelda. She was quite happy to give some of the wood she had that was left over after our work to Mollie so that her crèche could also be improved. Zelda has also (as with Mollie) requested that we come and give Bible classes to the children on a weekly basis - we will start this as per regular roster as from 1 February God willing.

 

(c) Leona, Laura and Mat paid a visit to Kalina's crèche. Mat gave a very interactive lesson about Daniel in the lions den to the children which they thoroughly enjoyed and participated in. A lot of singing followed which was enhanced by Laura's guitar playing.

 

3) KINOS group. The Kids In Need Of Support group was transported to our Sunday School and the numbers have now increased to 33. A first that turned out very very special was our FUN IN THE STREET event that was held in the Esselen Park township adjacent to the Tembisa township. Our team arrived in Esselen park and set ourselves up in one of the quieter streets near where many of the KINOS group kids live. At first there were just 4 kids and we started playing soccer and other games with them. Within half an hour 62 other kids joined! We just had great fun with the children for 2 hours playing games and ended off the time by singing spiritual songs and giving each of them a fruit and a sweet or two. Many of the parents gathered around to see what was going on and two of the mothers expressed their thanks for what we were doing asking us to come again. The result of the street funs was 6 additional kids for Sunday school the next Sunday.

 

4) General work at the "home base" included repairing a jungle gym donated to us a while ago, collating preaching material, sorting out donated second handed clothing for re-distribution.

 

5) HOLIDAY CLUB. The team took 28 children away for a two day/one night sleep over camp. The camp activities included Bible classes, craft classes, singing around the campfire, playing games etc. The kids had a lot of fun while learning about the Bible and God's plan for this earth in a relaxed atmosphere.

 

6) There was time allocated on the busy program for some "after hours" group bonding activities which included ice skating; ten pin bowling; a day trip to the Pilansberg; eat out at the Mug and Bean; some even got time to attend the gym for spinning; mid week Bible classes; attending the Congolese meeting in Pretoria. Juma's baptism ( a student from the Congolese meeting) was a highlight for us all. Another unforgettable event was our dinner/supper at Mollie's place on Thursday evening/night. Mollie specially invited us and it was a honor for us and for her to go to her house to have a meal there. We all had to try a bit of tripe for starters and it was really funny seeing the different expressions on the team's faces when they tried the new "delicacy." The rest of the meal was absolutely scrumptious and we all enjoyed the evening tremendously. It meant a lot to Mollie that we were willing to come and our bonds of friendship was strengthened a lot. She specifically asked for us to pray for her at the end and thanked God for bringing us into her life. We left her place uplifted and thankful.

 

After 12 days the team was on their way to Durban where we attended the P2P wrap up night. Feedback from the other P2P team that was as busy and fruitful in Durban left us humbled but ever so thankful for all these incredible opportunities God keeps on providing us to live our faith holistically in theory and practice while showing the love of God and Jesus in such a hands on way.

 

Again it was proven that P2P not only changes lives but is life changing!

 

All thanks glory and honor to God and Jesus who has made it all possible and has given us the strength to do all these things.

Juma is baptized and our joy increases

We had the privilege of baptizing Bro. Juma Wilondja on Sunday afternoon. Bro. Juma had been faithfully attending the satellite Congolese ecclesia in Pretoria Central for the past 8 months. He was interviewed last week and gave a good confession of his faith. He is a lovely young brother that takes his christian life seriously and we were all very happy that he decided to dedicate his life to God and Jesus. The Congolese ecclesia in Pretoria now has 6 members and it is our privilege to support them every Sunday afternoon when they have their memorial meeting. Various brethren and sisters from overseas have also visited them on different Sundays and they have experienced practically what it means to be part of a world wide brotherhood.

 

With abiding love from the brethren and sisters in the Kempton Park meeting