Phokeng Student Outreach

YWAM Rustenburg has many ministries. One is a feeding scheme in the township of Phokeng. There are three ladies that have a heart for the orphaned children so they feed from 20 to 50 kids each day at their homes. As partners with them, we help out with providing food and shelter and school supplies and uniforms and as many other things as we can. The community of Rustenburg and donors overseas have been amazing support for this ministry. With monetary donations and volunteer hands from the DTS staff and students, this week in March was a successful step in the Phokeng Ministry. Martha’s is one place that we have already been able to build a building for more space. However, it is just the structure. Recently, windows and electricity have been added. Then the DTS students used one week of their outreach to add more during the week of 16 March through 20 March.

In the words of one of the DTS students……….

“There is already a building where the children come everyday after school for help with homework, Bible studies, and meals, but the building was in desperate need of some color. So the first day, we cleaned and taped the walls. Everyone worked well together so it went pretty smooth. On the end of the first day the top half of the walls were a cool blue color. When the children came after school time they were all very excited.

The next day we went back with fresh energy and this day had a “brown theme” to it as we painted the bottom half of the walls a warm brown. On Wednesday we went back and it was dry and it looked pretty good and Martha and the kids, as well as ourselves, were all very pleased.

Martha had the desire to have a garden so she can grow vegetables that can be used in the meals for the children. The only thing was that the ground next to her house was covered in stones.

So our mission in the second part of the week was to bring new life to this piece of ground. First of all we plowed over the ground with shovels and pick axes. Then got down on our knees and removed all the stones out of the soil. Never knew now many stones there can be in African Soil. :-) Some of us had a little bit of knowledge about how to plant so after discussing the best way to organize and cultivate the plants, we planted the broccoli, spinach, cabbage and spring onion in the nice straight lines. Some of us proved to be real gardeners! It was nice to see each other in a completely different way during this week. (also we literally saw a different side in the “work outfits” we all wore) Most of all it was great to serve together and to see how much that meant to Martha and to the kids.