2021 June/July Update
We hope you are well and your summer has been full of fun and adventure! It's been a cold winter here, and South Africa has been weathering its third wave of COVID infections. The good news is the numbers are headed in the right direction, down, and the government has just relaxed some of the lock-down restrictions that were in place.
You may have heard about unrest in South Africa a few weeks ago. Some of you reached out to us. We want to thank everyone for their prayers. Although there have been all kinds of news stories from one end of the spectrum to the other, unrest in South Africa is nothing new. The majority of people are peace-loving and just want to get on with it. Our work continued through it all. And currently, everything is back on track; all is well where we live, and in the communities we serve.
At the end of June, we hosted a team from Crossroads - a video crew and members of their ReachOut team. It was super exciting because the focus of the whole trip was Build The Future! They filmed in all our locations, capturing not only our stories but many of our team as well. Like Alice and Mavis, who run the feeding program in Soweto, Elizabeth, Busi and Judith from the preschool at Kya Sand, and Tembe, Thobini and Thandi from the projects in KwaZulu Natal. While it is a bit hectic being in front of the cameras and the focus of so much attention, we are very excited to see the stories captured and know many people will get to hear them. We are grateful to Crossroads for taking so much time to share our stories well, and it was great fun to have them all here.
Our library in Soweto is looking bright and inviting, thanks to a local artist, Megan, who has been busy painting murals on the container. It's also busy inside with children coming to read and hear stories with our new library assistant, Mihle. She is so passionate about working with the kids.
With the infrastructure for our third preschool already in place—fencing around the preschool grounds, Jojos (water tanks), toilets, and a jungle gym—we are just waiting on the arrival of a shipping container for the classroom. But we did not want to make the kids wait any longer, so in June, Thobini and Clive put together a simple but beautiful shelter where the preschool can meet while waiting for the container to arrive. And it will still be able to be used once the container comes. It was important to honour our commitment to the community and move forward on the preschool no matter what, having faith that God will continue to provide for what he has called us to do.
