Mcv family

Each and everyone of these people are huge treasures. Love them very much. The Sithole family The Nicole familyThe family of mama Lindiwe The Family of mama GcebileThe family of mama Martha

Dignity is everywhere

Recently we have been invited to come speak and do awareness campaigns is many different settings. In churches, conferences, schools, communities and child care centres. It’s been a blast because we have an excellent team.

Now we have been offered to go into All the public schools …

October we are training border officials in all the clusters of Mpumalanga…

We need some more speakers so another three ( so far, but the number is growing ) people will be getting trained beginning of September.

We have three calls for proposals waiting to be filled in and send of to the aids foundation and the EU and UN …

Lots of breakthroughs… the harvest is big … the workers are few.

In general, we need you !

And a vehicle … lol

Sunday games, we love it when visitors come !

A few of my local friends wanted to come and play and connect with our children. It was a perfect Sunday. Relaxing, playing connecting … it was beautiful. ​​

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Our new family member Bella

No words needed … This is love….

   
 Getting to know each other. 

  I can sleep in papa’s bed, yeah!! 

  
At the vet getting her shots …. 

Back in business

First of all thank you all so much for the kind words and encouragements. They mean a lot to me. 

It s been a good time of mourning and celebrating Tienas life. She was and still is an inspiration for all of us. We find ourselves hugging longer and talking to more people intentionally. 

In the middle of this quite time ministry wise, God sent is little presents to keep our faith growing, even in the quite times. I would get messages from girls that we had met on the street, some even years ago. Saying that they were doing well and that they had left the life on the streets since the prayer, returned home and found a job…. He is faithful, all the time. I love these encouragements. Like kisses from heaven. 

Now it’s back to business. We are starting another camp on the 14 th of September till the 24th. A girl from our last camp is so enthousiastic about her life change, that she wants to work with dignity. She identified 15 girls for us and will be staying with them at breakthrough the ten days of the camp. She will also shadow the working on fire leader to learn from her. I am so proud of her. She is a real leader and enjoys serving. 

A busy time ahead, but only for a while …. 

Much love 

Positief antwoord

Ze hebben mijn applicatie om ontwikkelings werk te verichten in het Panzi hospitaal in Bukavu, DRC aanvaard!! Joepie !! 3 weken naar Bukavu en dan terug naar Zuid Afrika 

They accepted my application to go volunteer as a physiotherapist at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Congo. Yeah!! 3 weeks to Bukavu, then back to South Africa. 

“Chère Catherine,

nous serons très heureux de vous recevoir à l’ hôpital de Panzi pour

beneficier de votre expertise (essentiellement dans la rééducation

pelvienne) et améliorer les services que nous offrons aux patientes.

Le besoin est grand car en plus de la moyenne de 300 accouchements par

mois, l’hôpital de Panzi est spécialisé dans la reconstruction des

organes génitaux externes de la femme,ma réparation des fistules

uro-génitaux ainsi que la reduction des prolapsus génitaux.

Soyez la bienvenue dans notre belle région et merci pour votre

contribution à la prise en charge de la femme congolaise.

Cordialement”

Back to school

It s been a hectic but such a joyful week. Getting the uniforms and shoes, books and pens, but then watching the kids getting ready for their first school day… It s an absolute joy. Their excitement is contagious. They looked amazing, so proud of them.

Surprise and Mpumelelo

Our little surprise is one and a half years old now. It has been a challenging time. Mum only 18 years old, not finished school, living far from home, no work and no friends around, life is not easy. Making good decisions is hard when you haven’t been taught to do so. If you have lived your life just ‘surviving today’, you can only think about today. The future is  a non existing event. Surviving like this during hardship is a wonderful thing. But to limit your life to simply surviving is not what God wants for us. He wants us to thrive and live happy. We can cast our worries on to Him, His plans for us are good and full of hope,  He wants us to prosper. Like always in the Kingdom, where things ‘are right side up’, thriving does not come by struggling. It comes by doing the opposite of surviving. It comes by laying it all at His feet. That is a very difficult thing to do. Trusting Him and knowing that, in Him I am seated in heavenly realms, I am adopted in His family, a son of the King, blessed beyond what I can imagine. When you grow up in an area where poverty is all around, that means there is a constant knock on the door from other people needing help when you can’t even make ends meet yourself. It’s hard to receive help when it comes by. Recognizing good from bad help is very difficult without this revelation of Son-ship.  So when you have to make a decision that will burn your bridges for the future but it will get you what you need today, you will make that bad decision. She has a lot to learn, about life and about being a child of God. She has sold/ given away all the things we had put in the safe house. She has made some really bad decisions about men. But step by step she is growing up, her mind is growing, like they say here.

Now I just received some wonderful news. One of our mamas from the childrens village took her to her home a few weeks ago when she was visiting her family. Mpumelelo has found a job there; helping in the household and most importantly she is living in a family. I hope and pray she takes this chance with both hands and will finally feel accepted and loved by the body of Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

Saterdays at MCV

 

Sometimes we have easy saterdays when nothing is going on and we can just rest, sometimes we have full saterdays when people come for a picnic and play games or when we have soccer practice or when occupational therapists come and spend their free time on working with some of our kids, but always we have fun saterdays…

 

Stretching before soccer

The games we played…

We make paper aeroplanes for teaching the kids the fysics of flying…and for playing of course.

Four O.T. come two times a month on a saterday to help our kids who have learning difficulties. It s a awesome team that gives up their free saterday for our kids, we love and appreciate  them very much. They are doing this for almost a year and we see so much improvement with the kids. Their grades have gone up substantialy. Now they have taken on a new group of kids and we are excited for them.

 

Some people in my life in Africa

Menzi and Justin

I met Menzi and Justin in 2011. The first one is the drummer, the second one played base in the worship team in the Partners in Harvest church in Backdoor and the Iris Revival church in Nelspruit. Both fathered by Pastor Surprise Sithole. I drove the team every week to practice and to the service, back and forth…we spend hours and hours together in the car, but I loved it. They are so much fun and it became one of my highlights of the week. Friday after practice in Nelspruit we all joined the youth night at the church, fun fun. Like these kids always seem to do, they sneak into your heart. Our conversations became heart to heart conversations. They let me into their lives and into their hearts. In 2012, they both had a rough year and we became even closer, I started calling them sons and they called me mom. They are my joy and pride and I love them.

Justin was touched by the Holy Spirit, who descended upon him as a dove and whispered in his ears. Since then, his life changed. Together with Iris South Africa He started the dream center ; empowering local people by teaching them computer skills and encouraging them to find jobs. Because of his passion for people and good teaching the dream center quickly became the place to be. The word spread and he gained trust with man. He took a little job but did it so well that the people trained him to work in the office. In January he got a job offer in Cape Town. I m missing him but cheering him on. He made it. He is building his dream house for his family and supporting his siblings. He is out of backdoor…

He took in my cat Joshua

Justins going away at his old office…

Now his little brother plays the base in church….

 

 

Menzi has got the gift of joy. He puts people at ease and makes them laugh, he loves just spending time. He doesn’t worry to much and takes life as it comes. He pushed hard to finish his last year of secondary school and is also doing marketing since January. He had 81% on his first exam. I have to admit, I was surprised…but very proud! He hasn’t got the ambition of Justin, he likes to play but he will make it.

His 21st birthday…

 

We went shopping for his first suit to wear at his matric dance.

I send him flying for his 22nd birthday…