South Africa Trip Highlights

It was so good to sleep in my own bed last night. Especially after 3 weeks in a small bed in a hot room and our 33 hour trip back to Seattle. These last 3 weeks in South Africa have been busy and hard but incredible in so many ways. Unfortunately due to the busy schedule and shortage of access to the internet I have not been able to post regular updates on the progress of the trip over the last 2 weeks. So I will try to give you the highlights now and fill in some of the details at a later time.

Some Trip Highlights
In addition to delivery day and the church dedication in Eastern Cape I wrote about in the previous posts, here is a partial list of other trip highlights.

1. Meeting with the management committees of the community projects of Two Tunics' 9 key community based partners: These meetings were one of the key objectives of our trip. Two Tunics is committed to responding to the needs related to AIDS and poverty in a way that enables each person to fulfill God's purpose for them. We want to be about sustainable solutions that build upon local assets (people, knowledge, skills, and resources) rather than just offers short term relief. We really believe that real solutions are to be found in the local community and especially the local church (Christian people not institutions).

We have selected 9 key community projects to partner with in a more developmental, non-paternalist way that does not perpetuate unhealthy dependence. Our meetings were such a confirmation that we have selected the right projects to work with. Each of them is led by a person or two that have incredible hearts for people in their communities, especially the children. Cornelia, Thabile, Dumisani, Busi & Lindiwe, Pas, Evelyn, Bonisile, Moie, and Amos are names of some of our heroes. While we often get the thanks, these people are the ones doing the hard work of caring for the needy in their communities and sharing Christ's love on an everyday basis, with little or no support at times. We believe in these people. We are privileged to be a part of what they are doing.
Meeting with Sinothando Creche management committee.
Pas is in the center holding the child.

2. Spending the day with the Grace Church short term mission team: The South Africa mission team from Grace Church in St Louis overcame incredible adversity, and I believe attacks of the enemy, in serving God last week. After spending two nights in airport hotels in Mpls and Atalanta due to flight delays, they arrived 2 days late and without their luggage. Having their mission cut from 7 to 5 days just seems to give this team a greater urgency and determination to overcome any and all challenges as they jumped in to serve in schools, creches, churches and communities. They spent one of their precious days in South Africa with Two Tunics and God used that time to bless us all.

Grace Church has partnered with us in supporting Busi & Lindiwe and their Sunnyside Creche in Murchison. We had a great morning at the creche loving on the children (the parachute was a big hit) and making plans together for further improvements to the facility. Then Pastor Amos took the team on several home based care visits. The team got a close up look at the impact of poverty and AIDS on a few of the thousands of affected families in the area. I believe God did a work in hearts of many on the team during those few hours. The team also had a powerful time of worship and prayer with each family. Finally, the afternoon ended with a visit to Pastor Dumisani's feeding project in Gamalakhe township, which included the distribution of shoes to needy children. As always the singing of the children blessed us all. Hearts were stretched, challenged, full and overflowing at the end of the amazing day. Grace Church team visiting poor families outside the shack home.
Grace Church team distributing new shoes to children at Dumisani's feeding project.

3. Having a chance to catch up face to face with our South African friends: Robin and I loved being together again with our South African home cell group on a Thursday evening. Also spending time with dear friends like Sharon Jones, Athena and Dougie, Pauline and Simon, Ami, Pastor Trevor and Helene and so many of our friends at Norwegian church. Meeting with staff at the Genesis Care Centre over tea was special as was being able to meet with Dave at Genesis, Clement at Positive Ray, Chris at Gibela and all our Ugu AIDS Alliance partners.

Having 3 weeks to enjoy times with Debbie and her girls Rachel and Nunus was also very special. They are family to us. It was amazing how the girls had grown in just 4 months! Whether it was going to church at Norwegian's, going out to lunch, swimming and a picnic at the beach or shopping together for Rachel's birthday gift (her birthday is on Easter this year) our time with them was precious. Picnic by the beach with Debbie, Rachel and Nunus.

4. Visiting a Zulu church started by pastor Amos meeting in a shed in the Mkholombe shanty town: As we met with our community partners we began to hear stories of several strange happenings in the communities, especially involving children and the schools. Children are falling down crying in the schools, often saying they are seeing dwarf like creatures. Some schools have had to be closed for the rest of the day. The high school age daughter of one of our partners has been plagued by disturbing appearances and attacks at school. We are convinced that many of these happenings are the result of spiritual warfare. God is doing a work in this area especially through many of our community partners and God's enemy is bringing opposition. This is strange stuff to us and not in the realm of our usual experience. Pastor Amos leader of Jesus' Voice Kingdom Ministries, one of our partners, has been called out with other pastors to pray at the schools and with affected individuals. Pastor Amos has a lot of experience with these things that he says are the results of the activities of demons. Much of this is related to the traditional African religious practices of the culture.

As we met with Amos he shared with us the work God was doing through the church he had started in Mkholombe a shanty town on the outskirts of Port Shepstone. People, many who have been plagued by spiritual attacks are responding to the gospel and experiencing incredible deliverance. The church which meets in a small 3 sided shed has grown to 150 people. They have started building another larger "shed" to meet in but don't have funds for the roof. Amos asked us if we would come and visit the church on Sunday and see the new building. So Sunday after attending nearby Norwegian Settlers church in their large hall with the new even larger church building going up next door, we and our friend Athena followed Amos on the short dirt path-like road to a little shed with sounds of amazing voices singing praises coming from it. We then walked down a narrow path to the site of the new church "building". The wood poles with slats forming walls were already overgrown by tall weeds and could not be used for church meetings in this hot sun (or frequent rain showers) without a roof.

Following the sounds of praise back to the existing "church", space was made for us on the crowded benches under the shade of the roof. Dozens of others crowded around the opening of the shed in the beating sun. For the next hour we were blessed to worship, pray and share from God's word with this incredibly real, vibrant and growing church. God is using Amos in a powerful way to bring light and hope in this incredibly needy, dark and hopeless place. We are convinced that God would have us be partners in this work.

Watch this space for more details to come. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with on the day we visited Amos' church but he did have his and took some photos. I will hopefully get some from him via our South Africa office and post some soon. I also plan to give some more details about my thoughts and impressions as a result of this trip back to South Africa in future posts.

Visit to Eastern Cape

Yesterday was truely an amazing day.

One of the projects Two Tunics has been supporting for a little over one year now is the Jesus Christ Cares Ministry (JCCM) in Holy Cross in the Eastern Cape. As Two Tunics we focus our work in the Ugu District of KwaZulu-Natal and JCCM is the one exception being a project outside of our usual catchment area. The reason for this exception is that the chairperson of this project is Cornelia Mgaga, the mother of Onnie our Two Tunics Programs Manager. JCCM is serving orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in a very poor and underserved area. We have been pleased to help with support of the feeding program offering Food4Africa porridge and 500Rands ($70) for groceries each month.


Robin and I visited the project which is run out of Onnie's mother's home in November 2008. At that time we saw the partially finished church on the back of their familie's property.We stood with some of the women from the church that have been meeting in a small flat on their property and prayed that God would supply the funds needed to finish the church. This church had been the vision of Onnie's father who tried for many years to obtain land for it and eventually gave the church a piece of the family's land for the church building. In 1998 the women began to dig the foundations of the church and when Onnie's father died in 2000, her mother committed to use a portion of his pension for the building of the church.

After our visit in November 2008, several people heard about the need to complete the church building and through them God has provided. So on 10 March 2010 a celebration and dedication of the new Taweni AFM Church building was held on the occassion of Robin and my return to visit JCCM again. The original purpose of our visit was to meet with the JCCM committee members to discuss the future of their partnership with Two Tunics. As we sat in the Mgaga home discussing the project we could here the singing voices coming from the church building just behind.

As we closed the meeting the Regional AFM Pastor and other pastors and guests arrived for the church dedication. It was a blessed time of song and dance and celebration.

A digital photobook by Smilebox

During the event I shared a message from God's Word from Luke 4:16-21 where Jesus announces that He is the messiah and is bringing the gospel of good news to the poor, the prisoners, the blind and the oppressed. Robin presented orphan sponsorship gifts of shool uniforms and bags to 5 orphans that had been identified as especially needed. The gogos (grandmothers) who care for them wept with gratitude as did Onnie's aunt at seeing the vision of her brother for the church become a reality.



Praise be to our faithful God and thanks for the privilege of being in His service!

Delivery Day

Monday was a long, hot and dusty day. It was delivery day for Two Tunics. Through our partnernship with Food4Africa and Feed the Babies we receive monthly supplies of a nutritional porridge to distribute to our Two Tunics supported creches and other projects. Currently this program is supplying nutritional support to over 950 children in 6 communities.

Normally the deliveries are done over two days at the beginning of each month utlizing Pastor Amos and his van. But since Robin and I are here this month wanting t see all the projects in a short time and we have the use of our vehicle again, we elected to do all of the deliveries in one day. The day started at 8am by sorting the large bags and boxes of porridge into piles on the floor of the office so that each of the 13 projects will receive the needed numbr of packets for the month. Then the separated bags and boxes were loaded into Amos's van and my Subaru in the right order - first in, last out according to the delivery schedule for the day.

Porridge sorting (top)

Debbie stacking porridge in the store room (left)

By a little after 9am Amos, Onnie, Debbie, Robin and I were on the Road to Murchison community with a quick stop at Norwegian Church to pick up Marco. He is a volunteer from Holland working with the Ugu AIDS Alliance who wanted to come along to see what Two Tunics was all about. We made deliveries to our 5 creches in Murchison with the last stop being Sunnyside Creche(Nokukhanya in Zulu). This is the site of one fo the 3 creche classroom buildings provided by Two Tunics last year. It was gratifying to see the creche thriving and the faclity being so well used. It was also encouraging to see a sign posted announcing that the Department of Health was going to utilize the crech in April as a site to provide polio and measles immunizations to children in the community. It has been a vision of Two Tunics Community for Kids program from the beginning to see the creches become projects in the communities that other services could be built around. It was very rewarding to see this becoming a reality in Murchison. As we were leaving "Good by tin house" written with red pain on the door of the tin shack formerly used to house the creche.

New Sunnyside Creche Building; Department of Health Notice at the Creche

Then it was off for deliveries to 6 more creches in Bhobhoyi, Bhomela and Gamalakhe communities. At the Lutheran Church Creche one of the facilitators from TREE was there doing a site visit to the creche.TREE is an organization that trains creche (pre-school) teachers on early childhood education. Two Tunics has sponsored several of our creche teachers to complete level one training. This includes onsite follow-up visits to see how the training is being implemented in the classroom. Again it was gratifying to see the educational material from the curriculum posted on the wall of the creche and the TREE staff person keeping the teachers accountable for using what they are learning to benefit the children.

Finishing up in Gamalakhe we said goodbye to Amos and headed down the coast about 30km and then inland to the final two delivery sites, Masakhane Community project and Khandandlovu Baptisit Church. At Khandandlovu iIt was great to see Pastor Eric's wife Bonisile and her 4 month old son (he looks just like his brothers). This is the site of another of the Two Tunics provideed classtooms. Unfortunately there had been a freak windstorm a couple weeks before that caused sever damage to a small area around the church. The portion of the roof of the church and the new creche classroom was damaged. We will have some discussions with the project next week to see how we can help with some of the repairs needed.

Having completed our deliveries it was back to the office in Port Shepstone, dropping Marco on the way. Delivery day was a full day, a good day, a blessed day.

This digital slideshow created with Smilebox

Back In The Office

Well, at about 11:30 pm on Tuesday night, and about 33 hours after we left for the Seattle airport we arrived at the flat we are renting for this week in Uvongo, near Port Shepstone South Africa. Thankfully all our bags arrived intact as well. Overall the trip went very smoothly and we both were able to sleep about 5 hours on the 15 hour flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg. Thank you to those who were praying for our travel. God is faithful and gracious.

It is now 1:45 am on Thursday “morning” and I am sitting here typing because I am unable to sleep even after taking a sleeping pill, drinking some rooibos tea and having a snack, hoping that one or more of these will assist me in getting back to sleep for a couple more hours. The jet lag is always hard on me as in recent years I have become a bit of a fitful sleeper. Thankfully the weather has cooled considerably from recent weeks. Although still quite sticky, there are some cooler ocean breezes and gentle rains that are refreshing. With the low dark clouds and drizzle it does feel a bit like we brought Seattle weather with us as many here had asked us to do.

But as I said in the previous post this trip is not about the hard travel, the jet lag or the weather. We have much to accomplish and so we jumped right in with a busy day yesterday (Wednesday 3March). Most of the day was filled with things we needed to do to get settled here for the next 3 weeks. Buying groceries, water and other supplies, getting our old car back, sorting through stuff in our storage room at the old house to find what we need for this trip. Then it was off to the Two Tunics office in Port Shepstone to hook up to the internet, catch up on emails from the last 2 days and to meet with our staff to go over the continually evolving schedule for the next 3 weeks.

When we arrived at the office, there was our staff, Onnie and Debbie greeting us with smiling faces and warm hugs. It was hard to believe we were back with them so soon and it felt a little like we had only been away a few days. They both look well and despite the additional stresses they have had to deal with since our departure last November it quickly became obvious that their attitudes remain positive.

Onnie and Debbie

As we talked through our plans and schedule – receiving the Food4Africa and Feed the Babies porridge deliveries at the office, setting up the deliveries and visits to all the projects, arranging Pastor Amos and his vehicle to help with them, preparing for the building dedication event in Eastern Cape, arranging meetings with the management committees of our 8 key community partners, meeting with Give A Child A Family about the orphan issues we are struggling with, and more – I was struck by the tremendous volume of work these two women and this small office are doing and what a huge service and ministry they are providing.

They continue to have a great commitment to the work Two Tunics is doing in the lives of people affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty in the Ugu district. Onnie is the incredibly competent and detail oriented Programs Manager that we depend on to run the operations. Onnie accurately tracks and documents a large amount of information about donations received and distributed, progress of training and other activities for each project supported, as well as the needs and support of the orphans in the communities. And Debbie is the right hand Office Assistant that Onnie depends on. Even as the four of us met together, Debbie popped up several times to answer the phone or the door, to sign for a package or to print a few copies of a document.

Please continue to pray for Onnie and Debbie. Some of the changes we are asking them to implement will not be easy. Dealing with people and getting them to change their thinking never is. Pray that God would protect them and strengthen them. Pray for their health and for their families, especially Onnie’s son and Debbie’s two daughters. Pray that God would use them in a way that allows others to see Jesus in them. It is a privilege to be here with them doing this work. Our community partners and the children they serve are depending on them. They are depending on us and we are depending on God’s people.