Linking Communities

One of the things that gets me excited is seeing the community of Hilton intersted in partnering with their neighbours in Sweetwaters to reach this community. This time last year we ran a holiday club –a little like a vacation Bible school, for you Americans 🙂 — and we had three volunteers from Pietermaritzburg who helped us. They were AMAZING.

This year, we ran TWO holiday clubs simultaneously, on different sides of the community so we could reach more kids. We split the iThemba staff in half, and hoped (prayed!) we would get enough volunteers to make these clubs happen! And God answered our prayers!

At each club we had at least eight volunteers on any given day. Some of these volunteers were from schools in Pietermaritzburg, and some were from Trinty Church in Hilton, where David and I attend. We also had volunteers from Sweetwaters– teenagers who help out with our Saturday Kids Club and Life Groups came to lend a hand as well. And we certainly needed all the volunteers–we had over two hundred children at one club, and about one hundred at the other. Needless to say,we would not have coped with two hundred kids if it was just four of us iThemba staff trying to run the club!

It is so amazing for me to see how God is working and moving in both Sweetwaters and Hilton/Pietermaritzburg, bringing people together to accomplish his work. Our theme this year was “Wipeout” and we looked at stories of forgiveness in the Bible– Joseph, Jesus, and Simon the Pharisee. Join us in praying these kids not only had a fun time with crafts, games, and songs, but learned something about Jesus, too.