YAY ...... MANY PRIZES WON

The Ethembeni Team Raffle Event

Over 400 raffle tickets were sold by the Ethembeni team as part of the “learning fund raising” event.

The 10 prize items included:  a SPAR shopping voucher for the person who sold the most tickets, 2 tickets to the AFCOM SEMI’s – won by Nhlayenza Zungu, a teenager who has never won a prize before, and other shopping vouchers.

 

Grateful thanks to all those who participated in the event:

Ethembeni Team

SPAR

Pick Stores

Family Centre Kids

Mpophomeni Community

Volunteers

 

THANK YOU!!!   SIYABONGA!!!   DANKIE!!!

The Sibalukhulu Family

Sibalukhulu Family

The Sibalukhulu family started to attend the family centre programme in July 2012, when a member of the community came to report that the mother of 4 children aged 7, 11, 14, 18 had left them on their own. She claimed that she left to look for a job in Johannesburg. When we arrived at the house there was no food. The children were so sad and missing their mother. The oldest child would go to the neighbors and ask for help to survive. Their mother had been gone for two months when we first met them.  Nqubeko, a male child, was really angry at his mother. And he stated that he is not missing her any more since she had been living them on their own regularly. “We are used to it now” said Nqubeko.

The oldest child, Thandiswa, disclosed her status to us that she was HIV positive but was not yet on treatment. At school she was not copying and she was sick most of the time. The children also told me that their father sent money but their mother would take that money and abuse it. Ethembeni asked the Howick social work department to take over the case as we realized this family needed a major family intervention. The social worker decided to remove the children to a place of safety in Dundee.

The positive thing out of all this is that the children now are safe. Before they were moved, the Ethembeni nurse helped refer all the children to our local clinic for checkups. Thandiswa started her ARV treatment. And joined her mother who made a promise to take her to school in Johannesburg. Bongiwe the 14 year old had TB. The social worker gave us an assurance that she will be looked after medically.

A good team effort involving many different people has resulted in the Sibalakhulu family having hope for the future. The Ethembeni mentors played a big role in restoring relationships and loving these children unconditionally – praise the Lord.

The Josefin Ekstrom Testimony

Testimony

Striving for perfection made me terrible afraid of making mistakes

Ever since I was a little girl I have wanted to do good things, wanted to be a nice person…  But I have also always been tremendously afraid of making mistakes; that people would get crossed with me, and so disappointed that they would leave me behind. The feeling of not being good enough has always haunted me and for many years it tore a big hole in my soul.

First visit at Ethembeni and the Family Centre

When I was here three years ago I felt so happy, relaxed and so complete in this Christian environment. I have not ever had that feeling before. I knew that all of you were working as Gods servants; Claire and I had long and long discussions about God and Christianity every day in the car out to Mpophomeni. And I had thousands of questions! I did also go to the church every Sunday with my host family – Rob and Bridget Langley.

Still not good enough for God

But I couldn’t feel Gods presence inside me, I couldn’t grasp the whole picture of how He is working through us. I didn’t think I was good enough – even not good enough for God… So back in Sweden the wonderful feeling of completeness, from my South African experience with you, eventually faded away and my soul was left with a big hole of darkness again. A hole I tried to fill with all sorts of stupid things.

Turning point

The turning point came when my Mum was diagnosed with lung cancer in July 2011, and a cousin of mine who is Christian gave me a book she thought I should read. However it took me a year to open that book. In September 2012 I felt that I was on my way to fall into the black hole of my soul again. I was about to go into a deep depression with an outcome I don’t want to think about. However, my life on the “outside” was shining bright: I had a nice job, many wonderful friends, Mums treatment was going very well and she grew stronger and stronger for every day. You couldn’t even tell she had cancer. But I knew this would just be for a temporary period. It had been so clear for me that my loving Mum who I loved more than my own life would sooner or later leave me, leave me behind. Why her? Why not me I was questioning?! Mum loves her life, she is such a happy person and I was not… I didn’t like being who I was. I didn’t want to live! My life was worthless, I was worthless,  a such rotten person like me shall not be walking on this beautiful earth… So I thought:  “It is now or never Josefin! You must make a big change NOW! You have tried everything else to find peace in your life, everything from having a super tidy and perfect home to doing yoga early Sunday mornings. Why don’t start reading that book you have had sitting in your kitchen window for a year now…!?”

Jesus came into my heart to stay forever and ever…

So at my wits end I started to read the book, which is called “100 days with Jesus”. Every day I read a verse from the book of John as well as some thoughtful comments from the author. Each day ended with a spiritual task like “try to picturing Jesus in front of you”, “try to see every single person you are meeting today as a child of God”, try to hand over all your worries to Jesus today”. I don’t know when it happened but slowly I started to sense a new feeling of peace in my heart and in my mind I started to formulate two statements which made me realize that I had found my faith in God, that Jesus was working inside me and that I had finally come home to my loving Father. The two statements were:

Compare to my Mum and all other beloved family members and friends walking on this earth, JESUS will never ever leave my side. He was here when I was born, He is here with me today in this very moment and He will be with me tomorrow, forever and ever.

JESUS will always love me no matter how much I think I'm failing. Understanding that God created me with the purpose just like I am, I never need to doubt my right to exist anymore. (1 Cor 4:3-5)

So finding my faith in Jesus has given my life a complete new meaning - He gives me a strength that I've never felt before. A strength which I hope and pray for can help me be a better person - a servant in the name of Christ.

Returning to Ethembeni – Place of Hope

To all of you who works at Ethembeni, the Family Centre, volunteers from Howick Community Church and of course to my Christian Family – Rob and Bridget Langley – who always let me stay with them while I am here: Thank you thank you billions of time for planting a seed of God's spirit in me. Staying with you and working in a Christian environment was definitely a very important step in the process of what I became to realize these last couple of months…

And now I’m here again sharing your hope and trust in God and effort to every day trying to live his way. It just makes me want to sing, laugh and cry at the same time!

So finally I would like to share a poem that came into my mind in October last year after being a Christian for a month, which encourage me and reminds me how I shall keep on struggling in a sometimes very dark world.

“God,
with your voice inside me,
I will be heard.
God,
with your light inside me,
I will be seen.
God,
with you in my life,
I dare to live.

Josefin Ekström,

Howick, South Africa
January 16, 2013

The Story of Buhle and Thuli

The Story of Buhle and Thuli

 

Buhle is a domestic worker with four grown children and six grandchildren. She has raised her children for the latter part of their childhoods as a single parent and also been the mother to several of her nieces and nephews. Buhle has always had at least four but usually five or six children in her care at any one time. She even put a nephew through nursing training.

 In spite of Buhle’s relatively low income as a domestic worker and the ever increasing cost of living, she has a desire to give and care. She is passionate about children and is dubbed in her community as a “social worker” for her ability and desire to help those in need. At one point this included taking in three children who were orphaned. Buhle expressed her desire to care for a child in need of a family this Christmas. The staff at the Mpophomeni Family Centre were contacted and they identified Thuli, a fifteen year old girl. Thuli’s mom died many years ago, she has an aunt who works away from Mpophomeni and returns once a month. She also has a grandmother who lives in Mpophomeni but who is constantly verbally abusive to her. Thuli is, by all accounts of MFC staff, a responsible, bright and pleasant girl. She has a family, but there is very little love and affection shown.

Thuli spent two weeks with Buhle and her family, all of whom embraced her with love and care. All that belong to Buhle’s family was shared openly with Thuli as well. The visit went so well that Buhle and Thuli have started making plans for the next school holidays…!!

The challenge in this story for me is Buhle opened her heart and home not out of her abundance of resources, but in spite of her lack of resources. Her faith that there is always enough for one more. I am challenged by this faith. I want to live 2013 not afraid to give in case I don’t have enough, but to give freely knowing that God is my Father and He has more than enough. Time, food, money, emotional energy, relationships… God has all of these for us in abundance, we can never out give God!