June  The team have returned and there is so much to report on.
PLEASE check back to this page for updates by early July 08.

Feeding Programme

- for pre-schoolers in the rural community of Hlanganani, near Mtubatuba.  This is the initiative of Sue Smedley and Tudi Galloway from our partner church, Grace Community Church, in Mtubatuba.  The children are fed at the pre-school 5 days a week with a high protein and rice meal, cooked by the 2 teachers.  This is greatly appreciated by the parents and community.
 

For further details, see Newsletters of December, 2007

‘When we realise the great need of the unsaved world and know that need can only be met by the great heart of the Father operating through the church, it stirs us to mighty intercession for a needy world. God cannot touch the human today except through the church. It is His only mediator, and if the church fails to assume its obligation then the hand of God is powerless.’ (E.W. Kenyon, The Father and His Family).

My most striking impression of Zululand is the spiritual poverty under which its people live. It has vast communities of peoples where only a few have been touched by the gospel. Mostly these Christian people are poorly educated, don't have access to Christian resources and have a rudimentary understanding at best of the great doctrines of the bible.

Zulu people are however a very spiritual people and are not at all secular when it comes to spiritual beliefs as we are in our culture. Ancestor worship is almost universal and is practiced even by many people who have become Christian believers. In addition to ancestor worship the sangoma, or witch doctor, plays an important role in the spiritual belief system of the Zulu people.

I meet Zulu Christians who love God with all their heart and have come from traditional Zulu belief systems. Nonetheless they still mostly walk in a degree of spiritual poverty due to limited opportunities to receive sound doctrinal teaching. I meet others who, perhaps like so many in our own cultural setting, have made a commitment to Christ but are largely disinterested in pursuing God and don't participate in the walk of faith to which God has called them. Thirdly, there are those who, although professing Christ as their Lord fail to turn from idolatrous ancestor worship and availing themselves of the services of the sangoma.

In our western societies we have such a rich heritage of the Word of God which has served our society so well down through the generations. When such a heritage is absent, then societies are enclosed in spiritual darkness which remains uncontested until it is intruded upon by Light. When this is the case, societies are bound in all sorts of oppressions. It is only Christ who can set them free, and He (as the head of the church) only as the church becomes His hands, His feet etc. God cannot touch the human today except through the church.

What appals me as a Christian medical worker at Hlabisa hospital is the terrible apathy and unconcern for patients that is evident by so many of the employees of this hospital. If it were not for the few who do care and are prepared to swim against the current and actually work hard the hospital would almost cease to have any effective role in the community that it supposedly is serving. In this environment it is far easier to not care. Then you don't even care that nobody else cares. As I reflected on the situation of Hlabisa my thoughts turned to God who sent a great gift to the world in His own dear Son. The world largely doesn't care for the precious gift that God gave and wouldn't care if He took it back again. However, God continues to offer this gift whether it is received or not.

As I continue to reflect, I consider the plight of so many people afflicted by so much disease. In this spiritual climate, the sufferings and the lives of these people are not considered important to many of those to whom their care has been entrusted. And yet, each of these souls is precious to Him who died to set them free. The great tragedy is that the hand of God is powerless to touch these lives and give them both value and dignity unless we who make up Christ's body fulfil our obligation as His mediator.

Roger