wfn.org | UMNS# 04455-South African church women help those in need

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South African church women help those in need

Oct. 5, 2004	 News media contact:   Kathy  Gilbert * (615) 7425470* 
Nashville
{04455}

NOTE: Photos and related coverage, UMNS stories #456 and #457, are available
at http://umns.umc.org.

By Kathy L. Gilbert*

PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa (UMNS)-Drive down a dusty, rocky path, weave
through a maze of fences, dogs and chickens, and eventually you will arrive
at
Sekunjalo Pre-Primary School.

Floria Humani, a retired teacher who runs the center, cares for between 26
and
30 children, ages 18 months to 5 years old, in three small shacks made of
flattened oil drums and other scraps of metal and wood.

One of the shacks serves as the schoolroom, one is a kitchen, and one
shelters
a toilet. Inside the largest room, the walls are decorated with tiny painted
handprints and other drawings made by the children.

Outside under a tree, the children are laughing and playing under the
watchful
eyes of Humani and one of her assistants.

"I love the children," Humani says, smiling. "Whatever they do, I do. If they
are running, I am running. If they throw a ball, I throw a ball," she
explains. "If I did not take them in, they would be in the street."

Members of the social and international affairs committee of the World
Methodist Council's executive committee visited Sekunjalo and several other
ministries to get a first-hand look at what the Methodist Church is doing in
Port Elizabeth. Bishop Ivan Abrahams, presiding bishop of the Methodist
Church
of Southern Africa, led the tour.

The World Methodist Council's executive committee met Sept. 15-18 at St.
John's Methodist Church.

"I expected to visit a school; what I saw was a 6-by-8 room in the middle of
a
shanty town with dirt floors, no electricity, no plumbing, no water and a
common toilet, which was a hole in the ground," said Patricia Miller, a
member
of the social and international affairs committee, after visiting Sekunjalo.
"I saw people in poverty taking care of people in poverty."

Miller urged members of the World Methodist executive committee to remember
the people of South Africa in their prayers but also "remember to help them
financially and in any other ways possible."

Sekunjalo has been adopted by St. John's, and Eileen McDonald, a mission
partner from the Methodist Church of the United Kingdom assigned to the area,
is a welcome sight for Humani and the children. She brings food, clothes,
toys
and candy from the church as often as possible. St. John's is trying to buy
land in order to build a more permanent structure for the day care center.

McDonald, who was invited by Bishop Zipho Siwa to the district, will be in
the
Port Elizabeth area for three years to work with children's ministries.

She and Arthur Croft, projects and capacity building facilitator for the
Methodist Church of South Africa's Grahamstown District, are two lay leaders
who have a passion for mission work. They drive countless hard miles to
visit,
assist and encourage the local women who are running day-care centers,
home-based care for those with HIV and AIDS, and other projects such as
sewing, beadwork and gardens that provide income to women and children in
need.

 "You don't worry about how you are going to get the money to solve the
problems," Croft says. "You go in and work on the problems."

Women reach out

At Yizani Sakhe Home-Based Care, Evelyn Mtongana, Eunice Moai and Valerie
Ganishe go into their community and cook, clean, care for and love those
suffering from HIV and AIDS. The money for the food "comes out of our
pockets," Mtongana says.

"If they tell us they need help, we come," Ganishe says. The cooperative is
part of the ministry of J.C. Mvusi Methodist Church.

"The African women have hearts that are so big," says McDonald. "If they see
a
need, they take care of it."

Examples of that care are evident everywhere. At Promised Land Pre-Primary,
another center run by local women, a daily routine is posted on the garage
wall with a schedule for essentials such as naps, snacks, art and toilet
training.

McDonald says the women were trained by the government and given the
schedule.
"They try to stick to the schedule, even though they have no clocks," adds
McDonald, laughing. "They know when the children need to do things."

Promised Land has been operating for five years in a garage next to the
founder's home. The church has been able to buy land next door, and the
Rotary
Club of South Africa has donated some containers-pre-fab storage sheds-that
will increase and improve the center for the more than 30 children who come
daily.

"These ladies don't get paid, but they don't turn children away," McDonald
says. "I am sure more children will come when the containers are open."

Many of the women working in the communities are retired nurses, teachers or
unemployed.

Mission partner

McDonald has worked with children for more than 38 years in the United
Kingdom. She had an opportunity to work as a volunteer in a children's home
in
Cape Town and just "felt this was me."

In this partnership with the Methodist Church in South Africa, she has quit
her job and sold her car. She has no idea what God will call her to do next.

"The children just tug at my heart," she says. "I have skills to offer, and
there are always children who need care."

Laughing, she says, "God has really grown me in the last few years."

*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer in Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
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