Christmas Wishes

Praise Jesus for an Office

We thought that we would close on the 16th for the first time in five years but I got it wrong. Jesus had other plans. After 12 years of prayer Jesus has blessed us with office and warehouse space. Praise Jesus for the generous sponsor who made this possiable. So after 4 days we are in our new premises. I am so happy because Sharon gets her house back, my father in law is off my back because I have removed my suff from his place, and my brother in law is off my back because my stuff is off his balcony. What an awesome feeling to have that burden off my shoulders and my daughter said how nice it was to say " my dad is at his office." I praise Jesus for the office because I did not realise the amount and kind of pressure I put on my family. I am truly blessed to have the family, friends, partners and supporters that I have.

And then we moved in

And my wife got her balcony back after 12 years

Now maybe I will be able to get the end of year report out

Christmas Parties

After 3 long weeks of Christmas parties at many locations around South Africa, with about 5000 children and adults attending. 16 very weary ER Christmas team members headed home. I thought that I would get a nice break and catch up with all my admin. That is the problem with being a one man operation, something always suffers and in my case it's the admin, so my appologies for late postings.
The day I dropped the last team member at the airport my truck broke down and because all auto electricians close after the 16th, I can't get it repaired until the new year, at least it gives me time to save. It is just difficult to drive around without a fuel guage, especially a V6.

We held 3 parties in Beaufort West. After travelling through the night after parties in Belhar we arrived late at our accommodation in BW. We got up early and started our first party at the container in Little Bagdad. This project called Sunset Ministries who teach, dance and drama as well as feeds 300 children from extremely poor background and many of them are abused or have been abused. We arrived to a celebrity welcome and we felt so humbled by these wonderful kids. There is absolutely no form of entertainment, churches, playing fields or play grounds in this area to keep the kids off of the streets. This ministry is the only light is an otherwise very dark area. These beautiful children put on a show for us. We went to bless them but we were the ones blessed when we left.

At all parties we did face painting, played games, played sport, did a craft, applied tattoo's, told the Christmas story with the Gospel of Salvation and then they were given a party pack and gift pack before they left.

Checkout 

https://picasaweb.google.com/dcarnill?authkey=Gv1sRgCLC6p9D8yoDH9AE

https://picasaweb.google.com/charly.sommers

for all the photo's and action. 

We then headed for Helping Hands prodject which Nashville Road is very involved in. Many of these precious children have one of the dread illnesses but because of Jesus using Nashville Road we have not lost a child in the last few years. This is one of the projects where we don't mind the children being naughty, we just praise Jesus that they are alive and doing well. Jerry Carnill, President of Extreme Response noted that the children were looking so good and healthy and had filled out so much since he last saw them - praise Jesus. I love coming to this project and seeing these kids and seeing how Jesus is changing their lives for the better. 200 children came to this party

Next the team went to The Christian Centre Church for a combined party between the chilren of this church and Pure Heart Ministries. Pure Heart runs the sanitary towel ministry among other things and The Christian Centre is the first Christ centred church we have partnered with. This has open doors into the community. Nashville Road sponsored an evangelical outreach in July of this year. We will be running leadership development seminars from this church a long with monthly evangelical outreaches. There were over 100 children at this party. By the time the team had finished this party, they were well and truly tired, humbled, excited and sunburnt. While the team went to lunch, I went and did the shopping for the various projects. If we had more time and team members we could have run at least another couple of parties for 1000 more kids.

After this the team left for Fairy Glen Game Reserve, a 5 hour drive away for a day of well deserved R & R

 All good thing have to come to an end and it was back to Cape Town for the rest of the parties.

Greetings from South Africa

Wow what a great way to communicate. It feels like writing in a diary with one exception, you want someone to open it and read what you have written lol.
What a year it has been, it started out so well with an awesome visit to you guys, but when I got home, it was down hill from there.

Firstly most of my e mails I sent out did not get to the various recipients. I carried on in ignorant bliss until Paul pointed out that he did not receive anything from me in a long time.So I apologize now if you never received an e mail from me, I am going to go through past e mails and redo then. I will attempt to summarize the year so far.

Helping Hands (Feeding of the children with dread diseases)
Feeding of these kids always brings a joy. To see them running around and being naughty and full of fun brings tears of joy to my eyes. These kids are doing well in school and have a chance of making something of them selves. We have had a few teams here and they have heard the Gospel but they have experienced God's love in action because of Nashville Rd. Of course there is the negative side too, earlier this year we had just delivered the food and later that night someone broke in and stole all the food. We made a plan and put a security gate on the hut and bought more food. It just made me mad that people will steal from these children.
The children are so looking forward to seeing some of you guys next year.

Pure Heart Ministries (Food and Sanitary Towel Ministry)
This ministry supplies sanitary towels to 36 girls and food to children from very poor families. These girls that are receiving the sanitary towels are doing super well. They are currently writing their year end exams all look like passing again. We want to expand this ministry next year and see if we can help many more girls. These girls are not only helped physically but also Spiritually. Nashville Rd, have stepped in and helped when ever money runs out one lady (who does not want to be named) also donated to this project. Nashville Rd will help out this December.

                                       The young girls are embarrassed to have their photo taken

Nozi's Soup Kitchen
Nashville Rd helps this awesome lady of 62 help feed the mentally ill and people with full blown aids. About 2 years ago the mental institution was closed down and the authorities gave the patients back to their families and gave the families a grant. The families spend the money on themselves and not on who the money was intended for. Nozi looks after about 30 - 50 people. Nozi often takes abuse from her neighbors because they want her to feed the people elsewhere. It was at this project that I had stones thrown at me and a guy attacked me with a pick axe handle.

                                         Rudi is closest to the truck and Nozi on the opposite end
Olive Trees
This is turning out to be a challenge. We are really battling here. We ordered 60 olive trees to start and the supplier did not have stock. They promised to deliver in the next week. As yet the trees have not been delivered. This is one of the huge frustrations I go through. It took us 3 years just to get the pump into St. Francis Center. I will keep you updated.

Leadership Development
In October we brought 2 of the leaders from Beaufort West to Cape Town to take part in a leadership development seminar. They spent 3 days with leaders from around the Western Cape (26 in total). The trainers came in from California. Next year we will launch what we call Skype Leadership Development School. This will enable us to hold leadership development training in Beaufort West and the trainer can be anywhere in the world. Pastor Darren you will be able to help us train if you want to or anyone else you think will want too.

Truck Stop
We are still having a hard time trying to minister at the truck stop where the prostitutes hang out. The truck drivers hid inside the stops and we are not allowed in. We try to encourage the ladies not to enter but we can't offer them an alternative way to earn money. We have seen kids as young as 10 go in and out of the truck stops. This is also the place that children are brought to be trafficked out of South Africa. This is heart breaking. But we continue to ask Jesus for his solution.

The Trash Dump
This last trip to the trash dump broke my heart and has left me very down. Here I feel so helpless. We feed the people here once a week if we can get transport to the dump. Rudi and his family have to rely on others to transport them and the food to the dump. When I am there I transport them. This trip was particularly depressing because the local Christians are trying to stop the feeding of the people on the dump. They want the people to come back into town. This policy has not worked in the last 6 years, why is it going to work now. There is no work and these people feel like the dregs of society and outcasts. They don't feel wanted. It really hurts to talk to these wonderfully soft people. To see the babies crawling in the smoke amongst the trash reduced me to a sobbing wreck. I left there and did not ever want to go back. A huge thank you to Sammy for the e mail of encouragement, it really helped. I want to put a sea container at the dump, with a kitchen and shower, I dream of a preschool in a container there too. With doctors going through to check on these people. I feel so helpless here. I am begging God for answers for this ministry

Straight from Beaufort West into the army. Here God was so good to me. We had to go for our routine medicals and while I was there things went blurry and I could not see to well. By God's grace I surrounded by medic's and doctors. I spent 2 days going through a battery of tests, my blood pressure and pulse rate where so high they thought my heart was going to explode. At the end of all the tests they could not find anything wrong or any damaged caused. They suspect I had a Transient Ischemic Attack. Jesus is so good because if I had of been out of the army, this would have cost me so much money but because I was in the army it was free of charge. I was able to take part in the Remembrance day parade. I got to preach 3 times in one day.

Thank you again for walking with me in this ministry. I praise Jesus for you because I could not make it on my own. My family praise Jesus with me for you guys. If you could join us in prayer for an office and storeroom because I have a lady who has volunteered to help with admin which would talk a lot of pressure off.

May Jesus bless you all in abundance and we are praying for you all

Pierre

Transforming Lives in Beaufort West, South Africa

There is a sign as you come into Beaufort West that says: “Hands off our children”. Sex with children is a crime” 2 out of 7 children are affected with this kind of abuse. 

 Beaufort West – what a challenge! If I think back to the beginning of the year (2010) when I stood on the rubbish dump crying before the Lord as to what he wanted me to do and why He had me there without any means to help. Little did I know that He was working in the heart of a church in Kleinburg, Canada… Pierre Roux

Our goal is to help eradicate the existing problems of unemployment, material and spiritual poverty, substance, violence and child abuse, child neglect and help with the HIV/aids pandemic as well as help the elderly.

One of the things Nashville Road has successfully done in Beaufort West has been to expand the work of the Helping Hands Soup Kitchen. This project provides food to a large number of children, many of whom carry the deadly HIV virus.  Without this food, these vulnerable children are unable to hold down their medication.  Prior to our involvement in this project, the soup kitchen was unable to provide food for these children on a daily basis.  Thanks to your generous giving to Nashville Road Community Church’s weekly offering, the children and parents are now fed on a daily basis.  The happy consequence of this is that the children are not getting as sick as they used to and both they and their parents are hearing the life changing truths of the gospel that is presented to them by the soup kitchen. 

There is much work being done in Beaufort West... stay tuned for further updates and how you can partner with NRCC to transform lives together in Beaufort West.

Report from Neil Henry

Neil Henry visited Pierre in August 2011...

Pierre Roux, two staff workers from Living Way (Richard Lundy and Joey Lankford) and myself have just returned from Beaufort West and George. We had safe trip and are grateful to the Lord for His provision..

We visited several projects that are funded through HIS Trust and met with some key leaders with respect to various options for job creation, alleviation of poverty and leadership development.

·         In Beaufort West we visited three out of the four feeding schemes that are funded through HIS Trust:

o   Pure Hearts (an outreach ministry to children and teens caught up in the extreme poverty. Rudi and his wife reach out to young ladies offering free sanitary towels because so many girls don’t go to school during their period because they can’t afford sanitary towels). I met Rudi Oranje and his family – a godly man and a real asset to the ministry in BW. He has a deep passion for the gospel and is greatly burdened by the plight of kids and depth of despair that sin has plummeted the community into. He also works part time for ATAIM and represents all their interests in Beaufort West. He lives a very modest lifestyle and is greatly in need of additional support. It would be a real pity to lose him as he serves with great sacrifice to his own family.

o   Helping Hands (a feeding, care and counselling ministry that provides for about hundred and ninety kids with “dread” diseases). This ministry is run my Mrs. Stoney in the heart of a community from a “run down wendy house” where support for these kids is all but non-existent except for the food that has been donated by a church from Canada. What really stood out was the extent of the effect that these social evils have had on this burgeoning community.

o   It was a great privilege to meet Nosi, a 61 year old Christian lady with a huge heart, who just pours her life into providing feeding care and refuge for many kids who are left destitute and abandoned by “absent” parents. She would often take them in, in the evenings and provide shelter for them by keeping them off the streets where prostitution and substance abuse is rife. She also feeds mothers ravaged by HIV/Aids and the mentally retarded.

·         We met with the leaders of St. Francis Centre and particularly with Pastor Eugene Le Fleur (the Anglican Archdeacon of the Karoo). The water tank and pump have just been installed at the St Francis Centre (after 3 years of trying to find someone to install them) and the potential for development of the Olive groves is great and the growing of vegetables which will go a long way in supplementing the fresh food for the children of Helping Hands. There are several ministries at the centre which has five arms of outreach to the community: Home Based Health Care for HIV and TB, Annex, a ministry dealing with child prostitution and child trafficking, Schools Outreach and job skills programme; ABET training, Sompumalela HIV/Aids support group  and Church community development. There are no training facilities and the few opportunities offered by government are not Christian based. There was great appreciation for the interest shown in basic Bible and Theological training. A leadership course offered by Leader Mundial has been previously hosted at the centre. Facilities are available, but the great challenge will be developing relationships within a fraternal that is largely distrusting, divided, disengaged and disinterested.

·         We also had fruitful meetings with the pastor of Christian Centre, Stephanus Jooste (who is also the District Manager for BW) – this local church has excellent facilities, and is willing to host seminars, leadon leadership development and teams on mission trips and short term outreaches. Richard and Joey discussed extensively with him the possible tender for the takeover of the hydroponic tunnels project just outside the town, which if run successfully, would  assist with job creation, feeding the poor and providing a huge economic injection into this already impoverished economy. We visited the site and the 30 tunnels have been abandoned, vandalised and neglected since October 2010. The potential of this project in huge, but much wisdom and careful investment with a strong Christian ethos would be a powerful witness in this community. Pray for pastor Jooste as he has to balance his political office with its huge responsibilities, with his work as a pastor and shepherd of a local church.   

·         Pierre also arranged meeting with Church leaders from the local Methodist Circuit which was represented by the pastor, Jabu, the secretary of the local WA and several lay leaders. It was encouraging to find a group that were enthusiastic about getting involved in the local community and this meeting led to the church volunteering their labours to help paint a few classrooms at a local school. One can imagine how encouraging this is to a rather frustrated school principal who last had his school painted 23 years ago. This is a great way to bring the love of Jesus to the children.   

·         A visit to the dumpsite showed the desperation of a community where 50-80 folks live on the smouldering heaps of trash and garbage rummaging with skinny children and dogs for discarded food or anything that could be salvaged so that they could eke out some kind of existence. This was probably the most emotionally devastating visit of our trip and it was with relief that we drove out of the dumpsite, so that we would not continually be plagued by the desperation and hopelessness of people there. The district municipal manager also indicated that there was a fully fitted kitchen container that he would try and make available to ATAIM to put at the dump to feed these people. Christian Centre Church has volunteered to do the cooking and feeding if we can raise the food.     

·         Our stay at the Karoo Gateway led to a meeting with the owner of the property. Pierre had reported this at a previous Trust meeting, and Bambi again confirmed the use of a house on the facility for use by ATAIM to house ATAIM workers to bring costs down when travelling to Beaufort West and to help fulltime Christian workers whenever they visit the area. Teams will be accommodated at the B&B, A farm outside the town was also offered for ministry use at a lease of R50pa (... yes that’s right) -  that could be developed into a Christian Conference and Camping Centre, Children’s Adventure Farm for outreach to local school children, a Retreat for fulltime Christian workers and a working farm with produce and livestock that could provide a much needed boost in the local job market.

In summary, the trip was exceptionally fruitful, many contacts made and new relationships developed, a good understanding of the need and the major difficulties, as well as a look at potential opportunities for the future. One big observation that stands out is the sense of “hopelessness” amongst the local people. The evidence of children on the streets near the truck stops, adults sitting around in stupors under the influence of some or other substance abuse, large numbers wandering aimlessly evidencing the 67% unemployment rate, disunity in the churches with many church splits and the discouraged expression of forlorn and lonely pastors left us all emotionally devastated.     

Thank you for your prayers and support.

Yours in Christ

Neil Henry