MCM News and Updates:

May 16, 2008
Grand Opening

What a great time! The Food Center is officially open! No more dealing with contractors or deliveries of equipment where it was always "defiantly, maybe tomorrow."

We really pushed hard to have everything up and operational before our big event. We even made our first BIG pot of soup for the event. That was a wee bit stressful, since we didn't even know if the pot would work or not. We also baked bread and rusks and served Monte Christo Spring Water! It was really great to see all the people from the Paarl community come and check out the Food Center.

The crowd at the open house	Jae and a BIG pot of soup

As if the Grand Opening wasn't enough, the following Monday we hosted a meeting of the Paarl Community Service Forum at the Food Center. This was a sit-down dinner where we served soup and bread from the Food Center, a Quiche and salad from the MCM Coffee Shop, and water from the MCM Farm in Porterville. All of this was served by members of the APU short term team.

Our first week of full operation went very well. We were able to provide soup and bread to all of our feeding programs ( a little over 1000 kids) as well as provide soup to a couple of other organizations around Paarl. We are also starting to see some food supplies coming in from various places in the community. We were invited to speak at a local Dutch Reform Church about the Food Center, and they decided to donate the offering to the Food Center as well. We really are starting to see this become a Community In Action program and not just an MCM project.

May 30, 2008
Camp Amazing

We love our camps! But this one was over the top! It was not only the largest camp we have had at the MCM camp but it was also the first with White, Black, and Colored kids together! That is truly a historic event for MCM and the community of Paarl. Ten years ago this would have been impossible, and even today there is still a lot of difficulty in getting the different cultures together.

Not only was this the biggest camp it was also very well organized. There were so many kids that we had to set up tents for the boys to sleep in while the girls got the bunks in the house. It was so crowded that Debra and I had to pitch our tent out back of the pack shed. We also had a big tent for the meeting and worship time, complete with hay bales for pews. The MCM team also put together our own worship band, which lead some awesome worship time. Again the APU team made a huge difference by helping out in the kitchen and wherever else they were needed.

The campers get organized (sort of)	Awesome worship
Amazing Teaching	Gathering by the camp fire

Some of our MCM staff had to leave early to return to Paarl to help out with the crisis developing there, but the reports back from the camp indicated that 28 kids made decisions to make Jesus Lord of their lives. An additional 5 asked to join our discipleship leaders program to be trained to teach in our small group bible studies. It just doesn't get any better than that!

May 30, 2008
Xenophobia

Most of us have never heard that word before and er are am sure most of you haven't either. It means “a fear or contempt of that which is foreign or unknown, especially of strangers or foreign people.” The world press has now and for a long time to come tied the word to South Africa. Let me explain. Here in South Africa we have what is an increasingly volatile problem. Unemployment exceeds 30% and, due to the many known problems in many of the African countries to the north, we have a large illegal immigration problem. Many of the immigrants are men seeking gainful employment and/or safety. They are from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Somalia, Congo, Nigeria and many others. Many of them are also trained with Job skills (teachers, retail sales, engineers, professionals, etc.) and are hard workers.

Frustration and anger have been building among the local unemployed South Africans and much of that anger has been focused on these foreign nationals, considered by some as illegally stealing the work that is available.

All that is background to the violence that has sprung up around South Africa. Beginning about mid May, shops and homes of foreign Africans were attacked in Johannesburg. The news reports of these attacks spread around the country slowly triggering like actions in townships and informal settlements throughout South Africa. We, in our community of Paarl, thought it would never happen here - but last Friday it did! The next thing we know there are mobs that have developed in Mbekweni forcing people from their shacks. The Police responded wonderfully evacuating everyone before their were any significant injuries or deaths. But now we had a camp outside of town with a growing population of frightened people. What to do?

Jae serving from the back of the truck	The crowd of refugees
Eating on the steps	Evening Worship

MCM responded quickly. From the grand opening of our new food center just a week prior to these events we had a small inventory of soup and some bread already prepared. We agreed to provide the food to the refugees. Many of our team members were called in on Saturday and we quickly made plans to go up and feed everyone at the refugee camp. We got a meal up at mid-day and began making another batch of soup for dinner. The crowd was still growing.

By the next Monday morning the camp has swelled to 650. We served Pap (corn meal mash), bread, and soup. As the week has gone on, we have continued to supply food to the refugee camp. We have also provided some entertainment and spiritual upliftment, including an evening worship service lead by the MCM team.

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.