Farewell Video

A 5-minute farewell video created by Lucas Scheepers and the Kempton Park Ecclesia of our 4-month missionary trip to South Africa.

Creating Lasting Memories

While going to a fast food restaurant might not be that exciting to us or even a place we would want to avoid eating, it’s a rare privilege and major treat to a child living in third-world impoverished conditions. As Megan and I saw the end of our missionary trip approaching, we wanted to spend some fun time with the children we’ve grown attached to through teaching in the Tembisa township crèches every week and create for them a lasting memory.

We took all 11 of the children from Sara’s crèche that we work with through the C.U.D.D.L.E. project (Crèche Upgrades, Diligently Developing Little one’s Education) to McDonald’s playground and to eat on Monday, which was a school holiday. As we’ve grown accustomed to working with the children in the classroom setting each week, it was such a joy to be able to spend time with them in a fun playground setting and watch them play and have a good time.

They were quite adorable to watch on the car ride over to Birchley, where the McDonald’s is located nearby our Bible Education Center. Since most of their families don’t own vehicles, the car ride itself was a different experience for many of them. They sat quietly in the back of our pick-up truck’s enclosed camper bed intently watching the other cars on the road around them through the windows. When we pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot and they could see the brightly-colored playground equipment they would get to use, the truck started shaking up and down from all of the excited energy.

Once they had begun playing in the McDonald’s playground, they weren’t content to let Megan and I simply stay on ground level and watch them from a distance. We were lead/dragged by the hand up into the playground tunnels and towers with them and down the slides along with the children.

In many ways, the children’s day-to-day environmental conditions in Tembisa can be quite rough and harsh. It was such a blessing to be able to let the children leave that environment, even for a few hours, and just play and be kids having fun on a playground and eating Happy Meals. While we set out to create a lasting memory for the children themselves, as Megan and I find ourselves recollecting often about that day, it’s not only the children who will be remembering the experience for a long time.

Finishing Touches on Aphiwe Good News Centre

With less than a week to go until the launch date, we had another all-day workday at the Aphiwe Good News Centre in Tembisa. Megan and Liezel did a great job of painting a light brown section of the walls in the main room and bathroom. Hendri finished hanging more bathroom fixtures (this time avoiding the water lines, thankfully). Christy and Llewellyn painted a beautiful mural on the backyard wall behind the kitchen.

Lucas and I have been working outdoors on the landscaping around the building and today’s projects were removing leftover rubble, spreading gravel for the parking area, and cleaning the street which had inches of compacted dirt layered on it that had to be broken up and removed.

Working outdoors around the building regularly puts us in contact with the thousands of people walking by on their way to and from the train station down the block, and it’s always enjoyable chatting with people throughout the day who want to know what the building is going to be used for. Today was one of the more unusual days in interacting with people, though. One car driving by was upset with the speed bump we had installed last week and then a few minutes later a man walked up and thanked us profusely for installing the speed bump (his 5-year-old daughter had been hit by a car on the same road last week and her leg was in a cast – the reason we installed the speed bump). I was asked to pose for a photo with one pedestrian (white people are a novelty in townships like Tembisa) and may have been proposed to by another lady. We regularly have people who ask us for work at the community centre and we politely explain that we’re all volunteers and that we don’t have any paid positions available. This explanation didn’t stop one young man from trying to take my shovel out of my hand to do my work for me and earn himself a job. We had an almost-comical, five-second tug-of-war match over the shovel. All of this while there was a chanting ritual going on in the house behind us offering sacrifices for their ancestors. It’s never boring spending a day in Tembisa!

We have a tremendous amount of interest from the feedback we receive in starting bible classes there immediately along with life skills courses like first aid and sewing. It’s easy to foresee an ecclesia forming in the new community centre within months, God-willing.

Christy and Llewellyn in the beginning stages of painting a wall mural on the backyard fence.

Halfway through the painting process of Christy’s creative wall mural.

Breaking up inches of compacted dirt with a pick on the street outside the Good News Centre.

Liezl painting the main bathroom.

Lucas and myself removing dirt from the street while children take the liberty of playing on Lucas’s trailer in the background.

Recycled pavers from the construction site form a new entryway to the yard from the street.

Megan painting a nice light brown border around the main classroom in the Aphiwe Good News Centre.

The main room at Aphiwe all finished with painting.

Sweeping the streets just in front of the building alone became an all-day task in removing all of the compacted dirt and dust that is common in townships.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term “bed head.”

African women are gifted at balancing items on their head for transport, but this one gave us a chuckle and made us pull out the camera. This lady walked by us as we were pulling onto the street leaving the Bible Education Center class today. The amazing part is that she’s more than likely not walking just a block or two this way, but probably several miles with the mattress on her head.

Special Moments During the Most Amazing 4 Months of My Life

As our African missionary trip sadly comes to a close in a little over a week, I was flipping through some pictures that encapsulate special moments in time during the past 4 months that haven’t been posted online before. Some are quiet times, some more spectacular, some just silly, but all touch upon meaningful events during our journey here in South Africa that cumulatively make it the most amazing experience of my life.

TOWNSHIP CHILDREN

Megan and I have become very attached to many of the children we work with here in South Africa, and the Thato Preschool children are no exception.

TABLE MOUNTAIN

Standing on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town overlooking the Atlantic Ocean felt like being on the tip of the world.

APHIWE GOOD NEWS CENTRE

Pictured here in the Aphiwe Good News Centre kitchen with Lucas Scheepers during the early stages of construction remodeling to convert the small house into a community centre that will serve Tembisa for many years to come. Launch date is next Thursday and we fly back home that evening.

PILANESBERG GAME RESERVE

Getting the camera ready to photograph some wildebeest we’re about to pass while driving through the Pilanesberg Game Reserve where we saw 4/5 of the Big Five game.

HOLIDAY BIBLE CLUB

Studying the bible with the teenagers from our Kempton Park Ecclesia during Holiday Club in January at the Girl Guide’s Campground.

BOWLING

Glow-in-the-dark bowling with the Kempton Park missionary team. It was Lucas’s idea to do some creative preaching: notice the score cards which spell out a 5-word spiritual thought and was quite the attention-getter, creating conversations with fellow bowlers.

CAPE TOWN ECCLESIA CLASSES

A quiet moment reviewing my notes 15 minutes before the first of two bible classes begin at the Cape Town Ecclesia. Our reception there was warm and inviting and their group was a joy to spend time with.

HELICOPTER FLIGHT

Taking a helicopter ride flown by Brother Stephen Blewitt over Johannesburg was really special. We saw the landscape transition from high-rise skyscrapers to township shacks to green prairies with cattle grazing.

FLIP-FLOPS

Getting to wear flip-flops the majority of the days of the week in South Africa was very nice and comfy on the feet, especially in a warm climate!

BICYCLE GIVEAWAY

Only in-country a little over a week, we were blessed to be part of a bicycle give-away to 26 impoverished township children by the local municipality that Lucas and Leona arranged.

BABOONS

Passing baboons along the road on the drive through the Drakensberg Mountains is definitely an experience we don’t get back home in Missouri! We also “accidentally” fed a very perceptive baboon while in the Cape Peninsula.

SATURDAY MORNING BIBLE CLUB

Saturday Morning Bible Club at the “God is Love” crèche in Delmore Gardens was very special for Megan and I. In the photo, the children and I are listening to Megan’s lesson on creation in the book of Genesis.

STREET FUN IN ESSELEN PARK

Playing games in the street with the children on a Saturday morning was always a blast and a good way to integrate with the community to build trust for preaching. The little boy behind me in the photo never left my side during our visits.

SPINNING

Our missionary director Lucas’s spinning class at the Family Fitness Gym was incredible, a great way to end a long day of missionary work: hard physical fitness, great music, and time to let your mind review the day’s projects. Pictured here with Mat Collard from England, one of the other missionaries.

LIONS

Getting to pet lions at a lion farm in Mikiti was a real blessing. Both my arms are still intact, too, which is even more of a blessing.

TRANSPORT

Playing the never-ending game of “How-many-children-can-you-stuff-in-the-back-of-a-bakkie?” This morning, 15 of us squeezed into our pick-up truck to get to Kempton Park Meeting for services.

Showing the Love to “God is Love”

The Kempton Park missionary team and visiting Durban P2P group spent a workday yesterday at the “God is Love” crèche in Delmore Gardens. We’ve held Saturday Morning Bible Club for teenagers at Gogo’s “God is Love” crèche for the past two months, so it was high time to incorporate her crèche into the C.U.D.D.L.E. project (Crèche Upgrades, Diligently Developing Little one’s Education). As we’ve been teaching at the Saturday Morning Bible Club, we’ve been eyeing repairs we’d like to make when time was available, and, with the visiting P2P group (comprised of Phil Ashcroft, Naomi Midgley, Mat Collard, Laura Iredale, and Christy Beyers), we had the manpower to get a lot of work done in a relatively short amount of time.

We scrubbed down the back wall along the playground fence with sugar soap and also an indoor wall, both of which were in bad condition and also contained a misspelled word (“Saterday”) that was supposed to be teaching the children days of the week. We gave both of the large walls a fresh coat of tan paint and then hand-painted in the proper spelling of the days of the week. Then, instead of random fruit shapes which were there, we painted the five main shapes to be used as teaching tools for the children to learn from. Indoors, the wall we painted was in really bad condition, but it looked as good as new once a fresh coat of paint was applied. Gogo’s old hand-drawn teaching posters were showing their age and were a little too small to be seen by a small child sitting on the floor, so she agreed that we could replace them with 9 new professional teaching posters educating the students on shapes, numbers, body parts, months, vehicles, animals, etc.

Gogo’s crèche had only a tiny sign out front that was barely visible from the road, so Christy and Laura hand-painted a large “God is Love” sign in an interesting, eye-catching font along with a heart shape on the front brick fence that is approximately eight feet wide by 3 feet high, so very visible for people walking or driving by to help promote Gogo’s crèche for new business. Gogo was very appreciative of all the help and we were able to spend some quality time with her crèche children after the work was over. By the end of the day, we were able to show our love of God to the “God is Love” crèche!

Laura and Christy just finishing hand-painting the new sign for the “God is Love” crèche in Delmore Gardens.

Mat setting up the paints for our workday as part of the C.U.D.D.L.E. project.

Megan painting on a square shape on the back fence wall to teach the children from.

BEFORE: The indoor wall of the “God is Love” crèche was in desperate need of help.

AFTER: Not only a fresh coat of paint to look brand new, but 9 quality teaching posters for the children to learn from.

Hendri hanging one of the new teaching posters donated to the “God is Love” crèche.

BEFORE: The back fence wall to the playground contained random fruit shapes and a misspelled word: “Saterday”.

AFTER: A clean coat of paint, properly spelled days of the week, and the five main shapes hand-painted on brighten and uplift the entire playground area.

Happy, energetic children at the “God is Love” crèche.

Spending a little quality time with the kids at the end of the workday.

Our P2P wrap-up dinner after 11 days of work with the preaching group in the Johannesburg area. From left: Hendri Viljoen (Guateng), Liezl Scheepers (Gauteng), Laura Iredale (England), Christy Beyers (Durban), Mat Collard (England), Phil Ashcroft (England), Naomi Midgley (England), Llewelyn Scheepers (Guateng), Megan Sabo (U.S.), Jonathan Sabo (U.S.), Lucas Scheepers (Guateng), Leona Scheepers (Guateng), Lilande Scheepers (Guateng), and Michael Furstenburg (Guateng).

Productive Workday at Good News Centre

We had a highly-productive day of physical labor at the new Aphiwe Good News Centre in Tembisa today. With four additional Christadelphian missionaries from England and one from Durban visiting, we were able to get a lot of work done: planted two trees, built the front entryway, leveled the front yard, spread gravel in the parking area, hung bathroom fixtures, and painted a creative wall mural of Noah’s Ark.

The building remodeling is going very well and the construction crew will finish later this week, so we can continue with finishing touches to prepare for the launch in two weeks. The launch date is March 25, coincidentally the day we fly back home to the U.S. The community center sponsor, AutoPage, chose the date for the launch, which fortunately wasn’t beyond our departure date, so we could get to be part of the launch festivities which will take place all day long on the 25th and then Megan and I will fly out of the Joburg airport that night, God-willing.

The African people are so amazingly friendly and inquisitive, which makes it such a joy to do work in the townships. I spoke with several dozen different people today as we were working in the front yard who wanted to inquire about what we were doing. They were very appreciative of white people who live elsewhere and wanted to help their impoverished community. They were glad to know with several areas the community center will serve that there’s something available for virtually everyone: preschool, bible courses, and general education life skills classes.

With an ideal location in front of the busy Tembisa train station, thousands of people walk by the front of the Aphiwe Good News Centre every day. Many people wanted to stop and talk with us about what we were doing.

Leveling the front yard to prepare it for laying down more sod.

Planting the first of two trees.

The new tree looked great in the front corner of the Good News Centre property and already provided some immediate shade.

Megan hanging bathroom fixtures.

Hendri drilling holes for bathroom fixtures.

BEFORE: The front door entry area, in desperate need of a proper entryway.

Laying concrete steps with drainage in the entryway to the Aphiwe Good News Centre.

AFTER: The finished front entryway complete with proper drainage and concrete steps.

The inside of the community center is looking good and will be finished later this week in time for the launch date March 25th.

Lunchtime with sandwiches to eat.

Mat and Christy painting the beginning stages of the Noah’s Ark wall mural in front of the community center in Tembisa.

Megan painting the border around a cloud on the wall mural.

We drew a crowd of interested onlookers all day who wanted to watch us work.

The finished wall mural in the front of the new Aphiwe Good News Centre in Tembisa: a rendition of Noah’s Ark.