After years of ignoring the AIDS pandemic, South Africa has a crisis of over 2 million AIDS orphans. Many of these children live in tin shacks raising themselves and their siblings. In the middle of this devastating poverty is an oasis called the Lighthouse Children’s Shelter. The Lighthouse Shelter rescues children from life threatening conditions and gives them a safe place to heal, grow, and thrive.
In June of 2009, Red Rocks Church will be sending a team to work with the orphans of South Africa. This trip will have three main objectives.
First, we will work with the Lighthouse Shelter. We will serve the shelter in tangible ways by installing a sprinkler system for their vegetable garden, replacing or remodeling their playground equipment, and doing some cleaning and painting around the property. We’ll also have quite a bit of time to play with the kids and show them God’s love.
The second objective will be to work in Freedom Park, the shanty town where many of the children in the shelter came from. In Freedom Park we will take food and water to single mothers, most of whom are dying from AIDS.
Our third objective will be to work with a lady named Martha who saw that many of the children living in her neighborhood in Phokeng were orphans raising themselves and their younger siblings. Martha feeds the orphans everyday, helps them with school work, and provides valuable life lessons that these children miss out on without parents. It is possible our team will have the chance to improve Martha’s small house out of which she feeds the children by providing plumbing, electrical work, paint, doors, and windows. We may build some monkey proof gardens on the children’s properties and teach them some basic gardening skills. Our team will also spend time with these orphans helping them with school work, teaching them life skills, and doing abstinence training.
Our goal is to help break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that has gripped the people of South Africa. We want to be open to love and serve the people of South Africa in any way the Lord leads us.
Please email us for more information at JennyLincoln@hotmail.com
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