Report on 2011

Report on Karatara Holiday Club 11-14 July 2011 Memo to: Basil Sparks, Mike Whitney, Bradley Anderson, Craig Wilcock, Richard Southey and all members of the Mission Committee Durbanville Baptist Church From: Cornelle and Stan Young Cornelle and I would like to thank you very much for the donation of R4000.00 you gave towards the Holiday Bible Club at Karatara. We were able to take a team of 14 young people from the Factreton/Kensington area of Cape Town and they were joined by another young lady from Sedgefield. The coordinator for the team was the SU full time officer for the Northern Suburbs and I worked as facilitator and mediator.. The team slept in the hall in which the Club was held which was far from the most comfortable being that the only washing facilities were in the toilets or in some showers used by the local sports ground neither of which had hot water. Cooking was done on a two ring gas cooker which Cornelle and I supplied, this was true mission. On the first day the kids started to arrive from 8.30 in the morning from every direction some had walked a long way. We has a bakkie and a Cape Town Taxi and these went out collecting kids from a very wide area. The Taxi was driven by the coordinators cousin and he was a Muslim, here I would say that much work was done on evangelizing this young man and I would add that he would join in with all the activities with the kids and yeas he did bring his own Halaal food. He was even included in our devotional times together. On the first day we had 160 kids turn up and the average number for each day was 150 and over the week we had 250 kids attend. The club used the SU Time Travel program written for 2011 and included the normal Holiday Club components; worship time, memory verse, drama and small group times. In addition at this club we fed the kids at lunchtime, we had a lady from one of the churches in Karatara, who runs a Soup Kitchen in the Township, cook each day for us and she worked wonders with Samp, Soya, Rice and Dried Beans. This food came from the provincial feeding scheme which supplies food to schools in t6he Western Cape during term time so that kids would at least get one decent meal a day. The food was meant for two clubs but as we only had one was aloud to leave what was left over for use in the Soup Kitchen. Fruit and Veg. City in Knysna also made a donation of fruit and produce. Others made contribution to the club and these together with the R4000.00 given by DBC were used in helping too pay for transport to and from Cape Town, we still have an outstanding R2000.00 which is being paid off at the moment. The highlight of the week was the Parents evening when over 250 kids and at least 200 parents turned up. In true African style the evening started at 6.30 pm and what was meant to be for an hour finished at 9.30pm. Karatara rocked that night as the youngsters who had been hanging around outside wanted to be told more of what we were about and the youngsters from Cape Town were ready to give out the gospel in full to them. Remembering that this area has a very high unemployment rate, high alcoholism and drugs are rife we were very fortunate that we were kept safe during our stay. Karatara is a much quieter place than Cape Town and the kids were so well behaved. These kids don’t have much if anything and one morning we opened the door too find four girls standing outside, they were dressed in their Sunday best and they had put glittering lip gloss on. They were asked why, their answer we had to dress properly in our best because this is better than going to a party or Christmas we just had to show what it meant to us. We dealt with orphaned kids and ones who were extremely vulnerable. Kids were bought from Sedgefield and Plentenberg Bay as well as from a wide spread area around Karatara. As I drove away from Karatara I knew we had made an impact in Karatara; our big concern is that we are not able to be there all the time to continue the work and we are praying as to how we can contribute further. It obviously needs a consistent ministry amongst the children and there are churches working in the area but seem to be working to their own ends. What we are thinking is that we need to bring the church leaders together and encourage them to get the churches working together for the sake of the children. We realise that even the youngsters from Karatara come from a very widespread area some living in the bush, some in the forest, some on farms. It will be a big job but we serve a very big God we need them to seek the Lords guidance, the area is so wide spread but the Lord is able to do a mighty work.