PRESIDENT’S BLOG- SEPTEMBER 2017 UPDATE

Beth and I have been back in South Africa for one month now. It is spring of the year and all things are like new.

Many of our animals have new babies and even our Pastor Jonathan and his wife have a new baby girl. The rains have not started yet, so the grass is still dry and tender. This is the time of year that we have to be concerned about grass fires. We are praying that the rains will come soon.

Our first team this season was a group of women recruited by Beth’s sister, Paula. They were here specializing in distributing Days for Girls feminine hygiene kits. The kits are much appreciated by the young women, as many of them are unable to afford to purchase disposable pads. One of the things that I like most about this program is that it gives us an opportunity to teach these young women many things about women’s health issues and general life skills. We were able to visit four different large schools and distribute more than 1,500 kits. This was the second annual short-term mission trip for us that focused on educating young women and distributing the kits. Several team members have already told us that they will be returning in July 2018 with the next Days for Girls team.

Our second team this season is a Rotary team led by Lee Holmes. With this team, we have had a good time doing optical outreaches and distributing glasses to children who need them. We screened the vision of approximately 2,000 children and gave eyeglasses to 269. We were very blessed to have an optometrist, Ralph De Haan, from Pella leading the optical outreach. We are hoping to recruit many more optometrists to join our efforts to continue this effort.

We were also blessed this week to have Bob and Lois Vermeer from Pella joining us to see some of the projects that they personally, as well as their foundation, have been supporting. They also enjoyed joining us on the optical outreaches and Lois especially mentioned that she enjoyed our shoe distribution outreach as well.

The Rotary team visited two Rotary Clubs and helped me put the final touches on the global matching grant application. The name of this grant is “Teach a Child to Fish”. It is primarily a program to teach African young people to farm with excellence by establishing high quality school gardens. These gardens will provide excellent nutrition for the children at school and teach them to start their own gardens at their homes. We are seeking about $150,000 to set up these gardens and to train the teachers and children. In addition to agronomy training, we will also have a three-day course for each school on learning good business and budgeting principles. The program and follow up in each school will be intense for the first 2 years with less frequent follow up, monitoring and motivation of the schools for years 3 through 5.

We have already started a pilot garden at Sterkrivier School where our Mountain View Church is located and it is already looking nice. Our ministry has adopted Sterkrivier School, and doing our best to make it better and better. There are 140 children there in grades 7 through 12—58 of these students are boarding students. Over the past two years, we have been remodeling and painting our church building there. We have also been helping them with cutting the grass on this large property and soccer field. Now we are beginning to help fix up their student boarding area. Last year we put new glass in all of the windows in the boys’ dorm. The Rotary team showed the boys how to paint their room and were able to replace some of their mattresses and bedding. It is a never-ending task but gradually, together, we are making a difference in these children’s lives.

I have also been working to raise significant funding from here in South Africa. Kabelo and I have been meeting with the largest platinum mine in our area and have given them a proposal for matching funds to help us drill more wells and build more toilets next year. The funds will also help us to distribute more shoes, eyeglasses and feminine hygiene kits. We have had two meetings with them over the last couple of weeks and they seem quite interested in our proposal and indicate we may be able to get started with it around the first of the year.

Hy-Vee has indicated some interest in working with us with a matching program such as this to provide more water systems to children in rural South Africa. We should have an answer from them some time in October.

I also learned of a group from Germany who plans to donate 6 billion euros to help communities in all of Southern Africa. They have a good relationship with the Rotary and want to work with them as they apply for this donation. We will be applying for additional matching funds from this group to again drill wells and build toilets in our area.

Both of our churches remain strong. Last Friday evening, I helped transport youth to our rural church at Mountain View Christian Church for youth group. Even in this remote rural area there are 50 young people attending. They are singing and dancing listening to the Word of God. I am so appreciative Pastor Manyathela who works fulltime as a dentist and still gives so much of this time to shepherd this great church.

I never cease to be amazed at how God continues to provide all of the resources that we need to do the work that He has called us to do.