Feeding Scheme in Clermont

I have been blessed to take part in a project the past year that has been a real blessing to me.  We live in a province that has almost 70% HIV positive population and as a result has many children who have lost one or both of their parents.  This leaves many hungry children with no means to provide for themselves.  Here is the history of this feeding program and the impact it has had on many different people.

This project was started by the lovely Palmer family from the UK who volunteered in South Africa from April 2010- January 2011.

Here is some background by Emma Palmer as to how the project came to be:

“Having been in South Africa as a P2P volunteer for 6 months, I was starting to feel more confident in the South African way of doing things. I had specifically felt that we should try and help orphans and widows as it says in James 1:27  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress.

Emma and Kitty

Kitty (my 4 year old daughter) and I, set off in the car to tour the area around Clermont township. We had recently been involved in setting up a church there and it seemed the right place to start. We drove around for the whole afternoon waiting for inspiration. 

When we were nearly ready to give up we drove past a hospital clinic – being a doctor I am attracted to these places and so parked the car to investigate. On the wall was a huge sign saying “ community outreach projects”. Little did I know that it didn’t mean there were any projects currently running. I visited the PRO office but there was no-one in.

A couple of days later I had a phone call asking me to come in to discuss this further. On arriving I was taken to the CEO’s office. She was a lovely lady called “ Spinkie” with the following request

1. To provide food parcels for the 200 orphaned families in Clermont. 
2. To provide soup to the TB and HIV patients as they waited for their appointments.
3. To provide tea and coffee to the elderly and chronically ill who sat for hours waiting for their medication.

It was an amazing moment – I felt as if God had written the list himself. I didn’t think for a second before I said yes we could do all of it! I would speak to the rest of the team, put together a proposal and call her back.

We then decided to stick to a budget of R100 per parcel and try to get funding to support it. The COPT (name of the NPO Christadelphian organization that runs community outreach projects in South Africa) agreed to take the project on and so all I needed was R25000 a month to keep it going!! I had promised Spinkie that it would  run for at least 6 months so I needed a total of R150000 ($21,500) Now I was more than a little unsure as to what I had started but felt that God was leading this.

 When I got home I was so excited with the news but also slightly daunted at the task I had volunteered us all for. I needed to work out if we could get food donations for the food parcels and thought this would be fairly straight forward. Having worked out a rough idea of what the food parcel would contain, a group of our White Fields volunteers phoned round all the various companies to ask for help.  Every one came back with a NO! Not one of them would give a discount or a donation.

I continued to pray and then sent an email to everyone I knew.  Amazingly, we had all the money in 3 days!!!!! Every Rand – mostly through an anonymous donor and Meal-A-Day UK and there was more to come.  It was yet another amazing God Moment. This project was supposed to happen!  

This was an amazing life changing project for me – I have never seen Gods love and overflowing abundance so obviously demonstrated. I will never forget the time spent in South Africa nor the appreciation for the work that is ongoing in Clermont. It demonstrates God’s love in every parcel and every mug of soup served – I feel very humbled to have been able to do so much with so little.”  - Emma Palmer/ UK

From that time forward, the Durban group of overseas mission volunteers along with the Westville church dedicated itself to this project wholeheartedly.  There was a role for everyone to play.  There was admin work in placing the order from the wholesaler and coordinating delivery, organizing and packing of 200 food parcels each month.  The hall was literally full of food one week out of the month as we packed with help from the ecclesial children and others.  We would include a bible verse in zulu and words of encouragement to join us at our newly formed ecclesia in their town.  Families would give up their Saturday mornings to help load 4000 pounds of food.  Then we would drive into the township to distribute it to the families in need.

Along the way, many people joined in our cause. A muslim caterer who wanted to help the community met our volunteers and came to serve food to the orphans waiting in line.  When Emma left in January 2011, Jude Norcross/UK WF volunteer took over the project and added her loving touch.  Virtually every volunteer that has come to South Africa during this time has helped in this project.

Two mornings each week we would give out soup and tea/coffee to about 350 people with TB/HIV.  Many of these people had been in the queue since 4 am waiting to get their medications.

In August of 2011 When our group of 10 volunteers in Durban reduced to 2 part time and 2 full time workers, we were a bit worried how we would keep this going. The manpower just wasn’t there.  But I had forgotten that God doesn’t use manpower he uses GODpower!    God provided help that we didn’t expect!  There were ecclesial soup makers that showed up with soup when we didn’t even ask, children that worked hard to help, the sisters from Durban that joined with Westville to pack parcels and friends from the community that God drew out to help us.  When our Muslim friend that provides a meal on the food parcel delivery day was sick, even her daughters jumped in and provided sandwiches for the orphans.   And if that wasn’t all…. we have been so highly blessed with Meal-A-Day providing additional funding for us to continue the provision!  Truly an answer to so many prayers- to God be the glory!!

God definitely wanted this project to continue.  And he made sure that we all knew it was His provision that continued it, not our own arm.

On the day of our next parcel distribution, Kwanda, our zulu brother from Mariannhill ecclesia joined us to help us promote our God’s Master Plan Bible Correspondence courses.  As we distributed parcels he signed up 18 people and told them about the services nearby at our Clermont church.

One of the local community members that has attended our Clermont church, Fanisiwe, has come faithfully to our soup kitchen to help.  After a year of service and study, she has been baptized and become our first newly baptized member in this community.  She is pictured above along with Jude- the project organizer, Funo – a dedicated church member that came on his day off, and Laetitia, a retired member of the church with only one arm – pouring soup.  These represent the bringing together of so many people in this project.  Everyone giving of what they have to help those in the community.

It’s beautiful to think how God has woven his glory being proclaimed through serving others into the heart of so many that have touched this project. As we watch how He leads it going forward we see it grow and change into what He needs it to be to reach as many people possible.