Current Programs

COLLABORATION AT MARANATHA URCSA IN SEBOKENG

STM is partnering with the Maranatha Uniting Reformed Church (URCSA) in Sebokeng and the Driehoek Dutch Reformed Church in Vanderbijlpark (both south of Johannesburg). Maranatha is a vibrant church serving in a difficult settlement area where jobless rates approach 90%. As with most other URCSA churches, Maranatha is significantly active in service to their community. Often they are the only safety net for people in desperate straights. Services they provide, in addition to the traditional worship and diaconal functions, include crime prevention initiatives, HIV/AIDS ministry, senior citizens services, substance abuse training and a variety of youth programs. As they serve, they grow. Our initial joint project was expansion of their church facility to help serve this growing congregation. The current membership has grown from 800 in February, 2009 to 1,370 today!

A likely focus for STM will be on Maranatha’s daughter church, Klipkop. One must see to believe what they are using for facilities in this very poor neighborhood. The “church” is a 12′ x 15′ corrugated shack with one window – very much like all the surrounding homes.

It is boiling hot in summer, leaks when it rains, freezes when its cold, and usually the wind whistles through the broken tin sidewalls. Behind the church is a pit toilet – the “seat” is made with spaced tree branches supported on each side by the frame for the toilet pit. There is no toilet paper or running water.

Church elders lead worship here every other Sunday (the other two Sundays each month members are transported to the Maranatha church by bus paid for by a member of Driehook DRC).

STM hopes to be significantly involved in the launch of this new Klipkop community center/church. Click here to read former Board Member, Isaac Cameron’s 2011 Klipkop Case Study.

Please contact us if you can help us in this ministry – including possibly some personal involvement.

ALIWAL NORTH

Aliwal North is a small city in a rural area in the Eastern Cape, about 150 miles southeast of Bloemfontein. As in most of South Africa, this is a city from two worlds. There is a small, white, mostly middle class world scattered in the edges, but the majority of people are desperately poor black folks whose families are packed into tiny corrugated shacks. One isolated neighborhood at the edge of town has about 300 of these shacks each packed with up to eight or ten people. They have just one water tap and one outdoor pit toilet for this entire community.

Our connection with Aliwal North is through BADISA, a joint ministry of the DRC and the URCSA Cape Synods. (BADISA is a Tswana word that means shepherd/care-giver/elder.) In South Africa, churches are a mainstay in providing whatever limited safety net there is for people in need. In Aliwal North there is a beginning working relationship with other Christian organizations in their efforts to serve some of the overwhelming needs in that community.

His question, “Will you help?” Pastor Bradley had no money, only volunteers, a good dose of ambition, and neighborhood good will. The photo below shows what he and his congregation were able to do in less than a year – on a shoestring. The addition to the church serves as a community center and has a full kitchen for the continuation of the meal program for kids. The total STM contribution was only about $20,000 – in bits and pieces as he went.

This facility is up and operating and there is no debt!

SISTER CHURCHES

STM has helped establish Sister Church relationships involving churches in Seattle and Poulsbo with three Uniting Reformed Churches in Southern Africa (URCSA). Relationships have been established between First Christian Reformed Church of Seattle and Evaton Noord, and between Poulsbo’s North Point Church and both Maranatha and Aliwal North.

We are looking for churches in both North America and South Africa where similar Sister Church relationships can be established. Please contact us if you can help us in this ministry.