February Heatwave

February started with a meeting with two of our Elders from NewGen Church. They sat down with us so we could clarify their role in accountability and management. It was decided that it would be helpful to put together a ‘Business, Ministry Plan’. We have now completed this with some valuable advice from our good friend Stuart, who also attends our Life Group.  We found this exercise very helpful as it has helped us focus our dreams and vision, and now as always, the ball is in the Lord’s court.  We have also been asked to submit this to a friend’s family, having inherited a trust that they would like to fund Christian missions with.  We will let you know how that pans out.

Beginning of the month saw our first crime scare. We awoke at 2am on Thursday 3^rd to find a raging fire near our cottage. Wires had been stolen from both Tuppy’s & his daughter’s house preventing us from getting water to the flames. We finally managed to get water & for the next three hours we worked with the fire brigade & contained the fire. The next day it started again as the fire stays in the roots, but, The Lord sent a huge thunderstorm that sorted things out. Thank you Jesus.

Prayer & Counseling

Our Morning Prayer sessions in the Community Hall have quietened a bit due to many of the ladies finding tempory work. While this is great news for them we still need to find opportunities to connect with the community.  Aside from this, new people have just walked in, either to pray after God put this community on their hearts, or to ask for advice or practical help. Three young boys aged between 16 & 19 have approached us as they have dropped out of school & need assistance. This always annoys us as we know how important school is, especially in their circumstances but after assessing the situation we realize that the guys should be nearing the end of their schooling but are in actual fact just finishing primary school due to failing so many times. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome once again.

The three of them now have applied for their ID documents & have been working within their community cleaning it up with their elder’s….promising.

Can we request that you keep in your prayers one of our mom’s who has recently given her life to Jesus and on our recommendation has been planning a wedding to her long time partner with whom she has 3 children.  He has recently stabbed her and we are feeling a little lost to what direction to counsel her now!

Tot’s Therapy

The O.T sessions run by Lees to assist the crèche children in getting ready for school has shown much promise over this past month, giving her opportunities to demonstrate appropriate teaching techniques and exercises to their under trained ‘teachers’.  It has also allowed her to pick up potential problems in children’s development, some of which she has seen visible improvement in, just by advice on appropriate diet (some of our 3 year olds start their day with coffee and snack all day on MSG and Tartrazine filled chips and sweets) as well as seeing the benefits of the ‘teachers’ following through with exercises demonstrated in the sessions.

The hope for these sessions is that when these children do go to school they will hopefully have the building blocks in place to ensure that they do not fall behind.

Homework Club

We have had an average of about twelve children of different age groups regularly attending these sessions. After meeting with the head master of one of the schools we found out that each child needs to be doing at least an hour of ‘quick math’ & reading everyday, so gone are the futile excuses of, ‘I don’t have any homework’. Many of the kids are way behind due to the poor support they get at home & even in the schools. What we hope to do is wait for the school reports to come in for this term and then hope to get the parents involved in utilizing the clubs by ensuring their children attend.  Watch this space.

To be honest, sometimes when we realise how far behind the children are, it is difficult not to become very despondent. This is definitely an area, which has much potential for growth if God sends some assistance.

Friday Night Youth

Every Friday evening from 7pm onwards we take our less fortunate kids to Kingsway School in town. We have an amazing group of mentors who really want to make a difference & as we draw near to the end of the term we have had loads of fun & plenty of exciting activities for the kids to do. They are still finding the 'mingling' part difficult but that will change in time. This last week they completed a 'Amazing Race Challenge', running around the streets looking for clues, where the central theme was relience on God & the clues He gives us in His Word for tackling this life. They loved it & it's been a highlight of their week, every week.

Boys Mentorship Club

We are focusing on a life skill a month instead of once a week as we find that it was just not sticking. I still use sport as the medium but the emphasis is being there for the kids & trying to go deeper. The relationships are getting stronger every week & keeping them busy is a constant challenge but the fruit will be evident in the future…please Lord.

Girl’s Mentorship Club

Following the theme of ‘service’ this month and our reading from Matt 20:26-28 on Jesus’ declaration of His coming to serve and not to serve, has proved a true journey for a lot of the girls.  We started the month by planning to do something special for a special lady in each of their lives and as we planned a lot stated but “what do we get?”  However at month end the girls had all invited mom’s, sister’s and aunts to a special pedicure evening where they washed their feet, massaged them and put some paint on their toes, whilst serving them tea and cake.  It was a special evening enjoyed by everyone and the girls even ended up dishing out the chocolates I bought them, to their moms.  Progress…. :0)

Home Visits

We are still making our way around to every single family in the community & so far we have prayed over & with many families. We know who is working, who are not, what personal problems they are facing & what are their dreams for the future.  However as this is something Lees and I would like to complete together, her current severe nausea has rather slowed down progress.  We are finding that building relationships is slow moving and something we are putting in the hands of the Lord as we just aim to be a consistent and loving presence. 

Adult Fitness

One of the issues raised by the community in our ‘Needs Assessment’ was the lack of health & fitness. So we have started an Aerobics/Military Fitness session on Thursday evenings. While mostly ladies & the older children attend we are hoping to get the men involved soon. I have an idea for fitness tracks placed around the community for outdoor fitness sessions where everyone can benefit. This will take some planning & funding. Look forward to uploading those pictures.

 Community

As we have said above, more people have applied for their ID documents & birth certificates and we trust that these will bring that little more security and allow these residents to receive the nominal government support they are entitled.  We do however have a prayer request, alongside this particular community is a small cluster of houses that are in shocking condition, to say the least. We have been trying to help one of the young ladies there who is in a very bad shape. She is sick, poor & hopeless. We have managed to get her ID documents organized but over this last weekend she was attacked & was found lying in her shelter full of blood with her small baby lying on the dirty floor with no food & filthy. Please pray for her & her baby & for us to know how to help.

We have identified two ladies who have shown commitment & integrity & in spite of their hard work have had no return. They have been a real strength to others & have proved a great help to us.  Therefore we have managed to get them registered with the Elgin Learning Foundation who will be paying them a small stipend while they help us to transform this community. We look forward to many more coming on board.

Our News

As most of you know, we are expecting no. 2 and for those of you who remembered Lees during her pregnancy with Seth, she is not a shiny happy pregnant person and unfortunately this time is no different.  She is finding the nausea unbearable and we are praying very hard that this trimester will end very soon, about another 3 -4 weeks to go! 

However in saying this we are very excited about the privilege of bringing another little miracle into the world and are looking very forward to Sep / Oct when ‘Bean the 2^nd’ will be joining our little family.

Thank you for your support & prayers.

All our love,

The Muir's

But without faith it is impossible to please Him...Hebrews 11:6

New Year, New Ministry…

As you all know January has been our first month on our own, but it has not felt like it at all. God has been so gracious & blessed this new venture every step of the way.

Our 1^st official day in the little hall was the 10^th January & a young 18 year old, Keaghan, who has just finished school with the dream of eventually becoming a lawyer came to see us. From our point of view he has a long way to go but we also know that with God all things are possible. We managed to help him with the 1^st baby steps, like a presentable CV, interview skills & he has now enrolled in a carpentry course so he can one day fund his studies. He has also asked for driving lessons…that should be interesting.

We have been very conscious about being busy for the sake of being busy, as we want to do what the Lord wills every step of the way. However, when you work amongst such poverty where people’s needs are so obvious it is difficult to not just get stuck in. Therefore we start everyday with prayer and are rather diligent about waiting on God’s guidance before just doing. We are joined most days by a group of 4 or 5 moms (as well as occasional dads) and have been sharing with them the love of Jesus and offering biblical principals to assist them in overcoming their problems.

As it stands we have started a homework club four afternoons a week where the kids have a dedicated safe place to complete their schoolwork under our supervision where we can help them. Many of our kids suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome which makes it very hard to learn & retain information, so many of them have failed & are far behind. This causes many social problems as they don’t feel comfortable being in a class of 10 year olds when they are fifteen.

We have continued with the sports outreach, using sports as a vehicle to teach valuable life skills & bible teaching.

The area of ‘Klein Begin’ has a small crèche, which is in desperate need of assistance as many of the community children attend but only two or three of the parents pay the lady (Lettie) a very small fee to keep it going. We are currently assisting her to get funding & get the other parents on board, seeing the value that this brings. Lees also assists by running a biweekly O.T session where she not only identifies the children’s difficulties but also demonstrates appropriate teaching methods to the unqualified ‘teachers’ in getting children prepared for primary school.

Many of the people don’t even have ID documents & some don’t have birth certificates, which is a huge hindrance, as they can do nothing without these. Part of our work has been assisting those who have accepted the offer of help, (many have no hope at all for so long that they just don’t try anymore) in sorting out their personal documents & filling in the correct forms to get these people on the road to a brighter future….baby steps, but hugely important.

Testimonies

As you know we are running this work without any additional funding at the moment as we feel that being a presence in the community is what God wants & what we have to offer doesn’t cost anything, although there are a few things that do, but the Lord is placing people around us who want to help & give & its been very exciting watching how the Lord is working…

Five people including two school dropouts are waiting on the arrival of their ID docs so they can now pursue work.

2. A lady from FNB bank approached me in the parking lot & after a minute conversation she has requested a letter so they can help assist in any way.

3. Another gentleman who runs a new recycling ministry right next to the hall we are in, offered to buy us sports equipment off his own back & to help us draft funding letters to equip the Youth Centre.

4. After praying for one of the young moms to get her daughter back from the West Coast after her ex ‘kidnapped’ her, little Charnay has now arrived back home, & we are now looking at schools to enroll her.

5. The same mom whose boyfriend we have also been praying for has now asked her to marry him and we have been blessed to be able to speak into this, as they have four children to care for.

6. Charlie Bedford, a professional rugby player came up to run a sports club & brought us a bag of rugby equipment & is now helping get one of the young guys into a rugby academy for next year…watch this space…

7. Riaan, a former 7’s Springbok player also provided a bag full of rugby balls, & is assisting me in organizing a holiday camp in April to raise funds.

Looking forward to many more.

Lees is also running an aerobics session on Thursday evenings which is well attended. Fitness & well-being is one of the key areas that the community said was lacking in a recent survey they completed.

We have recently started our NewGen Church's DNA series as this is where we feel God has placed us & have been blessed with some amazing friends in the short time we have attended. The guys took me out surfing last week & I was in the water by 6:30….bbbrrrr….was exhausted by 8am & one of the guys saw a large fin about 50 meters out….Thankfully I was sitting on the beach by then enjoying the view.

The Life Group I lead on a Wednesday night is still going strong with all wanting to get involved in community work. Brenden, a local headmaster, has his Masters in Theology & Greek so we are soaking up his valuable teaching on The Word at the moment…very interesting.

Friday nights we co-run a Youth Group at one of the schools in town & the kids are loving it. Some amazing new people have come on board with a heart for kids & it’s going from strength to strength.

We just want to thank you all for your support & sticking with us. Please continue to pray for us and this work as that’s the best & most powerful thing we can offer these people.

All our love in Jesus

Daz, Lees & Seth xxx