MCM News and Updates:

April 7, 2008
Food Center Update

We continue to make a lot of progress on the MCM Food Center project. The building is nearly complete and most of the equipment is in place. We also have made significant progress on our Water Bottling project out at the MCM farm in Porterville. We now have all our supplies and the water bottling room is almost complete. We expect to begin the bottling process in just a few weeks. One of the neat things is that we just received our new Food Center delivery vehicle (thanks North Coast Church - Edgeites!), and we have already made our first transport of water bottles and supplies up to the farm. What a blessing to finally have all of this coming together.

         19 Pallets of water bottles                                     Our new Bakkie

    The Bakery side of the Food Center              Equipment and dry store room

If all goes according to schedule (HA -Remember TIA - This is Africa) we will begin baking bread and rusks the end of this week. We still need to get a couple more BIG pots and some tables as well as some small items before we will be cooking soup. But we are hopeful that the first batch of soup will be cooking in a couple more weeks. Thanks to all of you who helped make this possible.

April 7, 2008
Lukhanyo Face Lift

Go Chargers! Well that is what most of us from Southern California thought when we finished painting the outside of the Lukhanyo Community Center in Mbekweni. The colors that the Lukhanyo folks picked reminded us of the San Diego Chargers Blue and Gold. We had a lot of help from the MCM team, some of the Xhosa kids in our small groups, and a visiting short term team from the States. It was amazing how quickly we got the entire building painted, and we even had a small team clear a part of the grounds for a community vegetable garden.

The Lukhanyo Center plays a key role in our ministry in the Mbekweni township. Here we have our weekly discipleship groups and bible studies. It is also one of the places that feeds the kids one day a week.

                    One of our new interns, Lungile     Members of the team at work.

              Community members helping out                The team poses for a group photo

It is really great to see how far the Community Center has come over the years we have been here. As one of the Xhosa guys working on the project said, "Now the members of our community will know to go to the big blue building."  But don't you think it would look better with a big gold lighting bolt (Chargers logo) on the side?

A new HIV/AIDS resource center in the township of Fairyland is rising out of the ground. MCM is partnering with Drakenstein Hospice, Paarl Round Table and some wonderful supporters from Norway to make Butterfly House a reality. This past week, the foundation and concrete floor slabs were completed and for the next 5 weeks the brick walls will be put in place. The building is expected to be completed by the beginning of September! For more information on Butterfly House, click here.

The leaders of JAM (Jesus and Me) from Paul Roos Gimnasium in Stellenbosch had a spiritual retreat at Camp Monte Christo the weekend of 7-9 March under the supervision of their teacher – Mr Werner Truter. The lawn (and every other open space) was immediately converted into (could you guess?) rugby and energy release arena. But what an amazing group of Davids… Even with kitchen duty and cooking!

At sunrise each found a special corner to lay the day before the Father and at sunset 18 young male voices broke into angelic harmonies, worshipping God on the lawn – their only accompaniment a Djembe drum… I just know the angels around the farm joined hands and sang with.  The ropes course has never been so “alive” either – with stumps and trees being moved along by teammates to make sure the blindfolded trust walker really had to trust! Never ending initiative and creative problem solving spurring them on to give their all… It was truly a blessing to host JAM, and I pray that the Lord will bless them and keep them, that He will make His face shine upon them, and that He will give them His shalom, forever. (reported by Thana Smith)

March 11, 2008
Welcome the Van Rooyens!

We're pleased to announce that Quentin Van Rooyen, his wife Aneldi and daughters Amy Lee and Lara Ann have been added to the MCM family. Long time residents of Paarl and friends to the MCM team, the Van Rooyen's have been called to become full time team members of our growing work here in Drakenstein. Quentin was most recently the youth pastor at Church on the Rock here in Paarl and with Aneldi, also spent several years as missionaries in Mozambique.

Quentin will immediately begin work in the areas of front-line outreach, discipleship and leadership development in the Paarl schools. We are very excited to begin work in schools such as Boys High and Gymnasium and know that God has some amazing things in store for the youth of this area!
Welcome Aboard!

Bakery for the Food Center

 

 

             ...took the help of two of our interns         Finally in place.

January 30, 2008

MCM and WER blesses local school

At the start of the 2008 school season, Groenheuwel primary school was presented with over 100 additional students. Needless to say, classrooms and chairs were scarce! This past fall, MCM received a shipment of school furniture and equipment from World Emergency Relief in London. Out of that shipment, we still had 80 chairs in our warehouse, which was exactly what Groenheuwel needed! We wish you could have seen the look of amazed gratitude on the face of the principal as we drove the chairs back to the school in Tom's bakkie!

Thanks WER!

January 24, 2008
MCM Family begins year with Braai

The 2008 ministry year started off very well with an all-team Braai at MC House. Our team continues to grow and it showed with 46 total team and family members present. We're looking forward to some really great things this year, starting with what you see in the picture - building a family in Christ at MCM! Stay tuned for more exciting news as the year progresses.

January 23, 2008
MCM Sustainability Program Kicks Off With Great Grape Harvest (see the slide show)

MCM has taken the sustainability program of the ministry up a notch. A very big notch! With the harvest of the grapes at Monte Christo Ministries farm, MCM has made the first significant step into becoming a self sustaining ministry. The MCM sustainability program is designed to build ongoing projects and programs which will produce income into the ministry sufficient to cover the ongoing monthly costs of operations for the ministry. (Click here to learn more). While the ministry is a few years away from actually realizing this goal, the grape harvest for 2008, will provide a needed boost to the money required to keep MCM moving forward.