Aletheia International Ministries – Newsletter FEB 2016

Dear friends and family

South Africa has been caught in the grip of the worst drought we have experienced in the last 50 years. Temperatures over the past few months have consistently soared to well over 30 degrees C (86 F) in Johannesburg, and to over 40 degrees C (104 F) in various parts of the country! Praise the Lord we have had some good rain (and huge thunderstorms) over the past two days.

Mom Batha

Morne and I met with the guy who will be installing the palisade fencing for the closed off playground at Mom Batha this week. The job should be completed by next week Monday or Tuesday. We are very excited, as the children will finally get to play outside in a safe, cordoned off area. We also have two caring donors who will supply playground equipment as well. This is so important for the physical development of the children and we praise the Lord for His provision! Mom Batha and her team continue to do a fantastic job of caring and providing for the orphans and children of Dube hostel, although there is a huge spiritual battle going on in the area. 

We have seen and felt it, from the problems we experienced with the builders and the building of the kitchen, to the issues Mom Batha and the daycare centre have had to deal with from certain members of the community. Please continue to keep them all in your prayers. 

Thanks to continued support, the little ones are being fed nutritious meals daily

Getty Vukela

 
Getty, who works for us and is based in Soweto (where most of our feeding projects are situated), has been going through a tough time lately. She currently has 5 unemployed family members and 11 children living with her, and this is placing a huge financial burden on her and her husband. In addition, Getty is supporting a number of child and granny led homes in the area. One of these homes is where Nhlanhla and her three younger siblings live.

Nhlanhla and her siblings were being looked after by their alcoholic aunt who was hardly ever at home and didn’t do a good job of providing for them, but the aunt passed away in January this year. She is a really bright girl who received an academic bursary at a top school, but she does not want to return as she is worried about her siblings. Getty is really doing an amazing job of helping to look after Nhlanhla and her siblings, but they need a lot more support. Aletheia assists Getty and the child led homes with food donations, but it is not nearly enough.
  

Limpopo Project

 
We are happy to report that the building of the kitchen and toilets in Limpopo will soon be completed. The new building is going to make such a huge difference to Gladys and the feeding scheme she runs from there. They will finally have electricity, running water, proper toilets and a sheltered area for the children to eat and do their homework out of the sun and rain. We will be going up to Limpopo on Monday 29th to arrange for the kitchen cupboards to be installed, as well as purchasing a new fridge and freezer. For those of you who don’t know, Gladys was feeding roughly 200 children from an old wooden shack.

When it rained, the shack would leak, and they would make a fire in the middle of the shack to cook food for the children. On a sad note, Robert, the pastor who was working with Gladys at this feeding scheme, passed away this week after battling a long illness. Please keep his family and co-workers in your prayers.
  

The new kitchen, dining area and toilets are progressing well at the Venda feeding scheme (Gladys in the photo on the left)

Aletheia 2016 – Going Forward

 
We have attached our objectives for 2016, and this year we feel the Lord leading us to help Motswedi Daycare Centre by assisting them with any needs they have outside of the current food donations. We have also attached a detailed report from Dudu Dhlamini, one of the teachers at Motswedi, which outlines the challenges they are facing, as well as the needs they have. Motswedi really is an excellent preschool education centre, where one of their priorities is to teach the children about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They desperately need support.

In our previous newsletter, we mentioned that we want to bring Morne full time into the ministry. We have begun the transition by bringing Morne in to work for three days a week. At the moment we cannot afford to have him work full time, but we are trusting the Lord to open a door at the right time. Aletheia needs another full time staff member in order to achieve our objectives and expand our works. We believe that this year the Lord has huge things in store for us and we are very excited to continue to be used by Him to expand His kingdom. 
  

Morne and Connie interacting with kids from Motswedi Daycare Centre

Family news

Many of you have been receiving my prayer requests and updates on my seven week old granddaughter, Michaela, Morne and Jacques little girl. She has been in hospital since Wednesday 10 February when she was admitted with a stomach virus. This has cleared up, but she was losing weight and too weak to feed properly. They are now trying to build up her strength and get her to feed properly before she is able to go back home. She needs to drink 120 milliliters of milk at each feed. Whatever she doesn’t manage gets fed through a tube into her stomach. She had her best feed (90 milliliters), but then the next feed she only took 20 to 30 milliliters. The doctor told us that it is going to take a while to get her strong and he won’t send her home too early. Please keep Morne, Jacque, Kelsey and little Michaela in your prayers while they are going through this extremely stressful time.
  

Michaela met her great-granny Marilyn Cook.

In Him,

Connie, Morne and Aletheia Team
 
Aletheia International Ministries
PO Box 302, Fontainebleau, Randburg, 2194, South Africa
Phone: 011 782 4920
email: aletheia@iafrica.com or connie@aletheia.org.za

Banking details: 
Aletheia International Ministries,
Absa Bank, Swift code ABSAZAJJ, Clearwater Mall Branch 632005, Current account 2930140204
or PayPal account Aletheia International Ministries

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