South Africa T2T Update 2024

Bible Club at the Fundani Community Centre (WCF Sponsored Container Classroom) 

Our consistent efforts here are bearing fruit as we now have over 70 children on the roster, with more joining every week. Since our space in the container classroom is limited, and we do not want to turn children away from learning about God and His word, we are now hosting two Bible Club sessions per week – one on a Friday afternoon and one on a Saturday morning. 

We are pleased to have children from both the nearby communities (Wolwerivier and Morningstar) attending as this means we can serve both these impoverished communities by providing for both the spiritual and physical needs of these children. 

We have, over the past year, worked through the entire Old Testament and are encouraged by how much the children remember, as well as by the reports we receive from adults in these communities, who have shared with us that they can see the difference in the behaviour of the children who attend Bible Club, compared to those who do not. We continue to provide monthly food parcels to these families, which are much appreciated.  

STACK (Skills Training Academy for Community Kids) Project at the Fundani Community Centre

A new project that we have launched this year is the STACK Project, where we support children in developing critical thinking, math, language and creative skills through playing board games and doing arts and crafts together. This has been well received and we are already seeing an improvement in their understanding, logic and reasoning abilities – as well as the ‘soft skills’ such as cooperation, teamwork, turn-taking and both winning and losing with grace. 

 We have previously run this project in Kempton Park, and saw a marked increase in the attendees' school grades, and so look forward to God Willing seeing the same benefits for the children here in Cape Town as well.

Youth Camps

The relationships we have formed with the children at the Bible Clubs and in the BASIC ecclesia have prompted us to once again host camps where we can further extend these children’s biblical knowledge and understanding, as well as begin to help them form a network of like-minded individuals with whom to socialise. 

Over the last year, we have hosted youth camps in both Cape Town and Kempton Park. In both cases these have been hugely successful in terms of supporting the children’s understanding of the Bible and the gospel. We discovered, for example, that many of them had never handled a Bible before, and did not know that there was an ‘old’ and a ‘new’ testament! The camps have also provided us with the opportunity to get to know the children on a much deeper level, and the benefit of this has been evident in how much more open they have become in their communication with us, which lays the foundation for continued mentorship in Christ. 

Ongoing support at Little Brink’s NPO (safe house for children in short-term foster care)

We continue to strive to live out James 1:27: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world” as we connect with the children at the Little Brinks safe house every week (this is on the same property as the Fundani Container Classroom.) Our goal here is to foster first of all their social and emotional well-being by sharing unconditional love and affection with them. Additionally, we then engage the children in games and activities that support their holistic development and ensure that they have the same foundational skills as children in more privileged situations, especially those that are of school-going age but are not able to attend school because of their current circumstances. 

Youth Mentorship

Over the last three years, we have been delighted to add to our spiritual family, through baptism, several young adults. I have been privileged to be in a position where I am able to offer a few of these new members mentorship with regard to Bible study techniques, preparing classes and also general life topics. 

Mobile Bible Education Centre (BEC)  

The gospel-related products (such as stickers with biblical sayings on them) have proven popular, but unfortunately, our previous venue is no longer suitable to host the BEC. We are exploring new options, such as outdoor markets closer to our home, and will God Willing soon have the Mobile BEC in action again. 

‘Clean-up for Christ’ Preaching Initiative

This initiative continues to be a highlight with many of the members of our ecclesia here in Cape Town and now also in Kempton Park joining to help clean up the beaches, green belts and parks in our respective areas. We are further encouraged to see how this initiative has been replicated in the USA by volunteers who were introduced to it while visiting with us as part of the P2P groups. 

This also continues to be an effective way to engage with the community at large, as we are regularly asked who we are and why we are doing this work, which allows us to share our faith as our motivating factor. 

Fellowship Events and supporting the other Cape Town ecclesias

Lilandi and I regularly host ecclesial luncheons at our home, believing these gatherings are essential for fostering fellowship, strengthening bonds, and supporting the unity and growth of all the ecclesias in Cape Town. A key part of these events is singing hymns together, which helps us learn new hymns that we might not practice during meetings and allows us to joyfully praise God.

Additionally, we organize quarterly social events for the Sunday School children from both the BASIC and Cape Town ecclesias, such as hosting ‘pool parties’, beach days and holiday clubs. We hope that the friendships formed in this way will develop a strong support network among these children, encouraging them to remain within our church even though their numbers are small.

We also continue to open our home to our spiritual family during holiday days such as Christmas and Easter where we host an open-invitation lunch to ensure everyone can be with their spiritual family rather than alone.

Kempton Park Visits (supporting the growth of the BASIC hybrid ecclesia)

Lilandi and I continue to travel to Gauteng a few times per year to support the ecclesias in Kempton Park and Pretoria. As shared previously, these ecclesias form part of the BASIC hybrid ecclesia, as this is where groups of members meet together every Sunday, and also used to be our home ecclesia/s before we moved to Cape Town. Since these groups are small and mostly in desperate situations (many are refugees or live in poverty) and consist of many newly baptised members, regular visits from more experienced brothers and sisters are invaluable in helping to strengthen and grow their Sunday School and Youth Groups especially. We generally spend two weeks at a time in Gauteng as we try to be there for a minimum of two Sundays.

During these visits, we prioritise hosting holiday clubs for the Sunday School children, where they get to know each other better, learn a lesson from the Bible, and participate in games and craft activities, and as mentioned above, we were also able to, by God’s grace, host a Youth Camp for the children from the Kempton Park ecclesia.  

There is always a need to perform general maintenance to the ecclesial building/s and provide IT support so that these groups can continue to join in on the online events hosted by the BASIC ecclesia such as sisters classes, bible classes, Sunday school, youth classes, and the memorial meeting, and my previous work expertise in this field has proven valuable in this regard. We also meet with our Congolese brethren and sisters in Pretoria which is always a rewarding experience. 

Preschool Upgrades with the CUDDLE Trust

Part of our work with the CUDDLE Trust is supporting preschools whose teachers we have trained by physically ‘upgrading’ their premises/resources. This usually involves performing maintenance work and also painting educational murals at the school, a seemingly small act of service but one that goes a long way in terms of improving the status of the school, and so also ensuring better levels of education for the children attending. 

Social Media Manager for ‘Ignite & Shine’

It has been my privilege to create and curate content for the ‘preaching’ side of our ‘touch to teach’ model here in South Africa – the “Ignite & Shine” account - on both Instagram and Facebook. I have found that sharing the efforts and highlights of the various preaching endeavours more regularly has been well received and offered encouragement to our audience of mostly brethren and sisters in Christ.

P2P Groups

It is so exciting to have the P2P groups becoming a ‘regular’ occurrence. Lilandi and I are very much looking forward to once again housing fellow believers in our home and have a productive program planned for the P2P group – we believe a good balance of preaching, outreach (touch-to-teach), fellowship and tourist activities. This year, we are maximizing the group’s input by including a sisters' retreat and a Youth Camp to their program!

Future Plans 

I consider all of the above projects to be successful in following the preaching model of “touch-to-teach” and so will, God Willing, continue to invest my time and energy in all of the above in the following year.

Additionally, the CUDDLE Trust has recently acquired a property that we are in the process of converting into a campground. Since this will alleviate the cost of accommodation, it will, God Willing, enable us to host many more ‘teambuilding’ days and youth camps with the children attending our various projects, which we are very excited about!

With love in Christ,
Brother Michael Furstenburg