CHN Community News – September

We are Steve and Mariaan Kidd and have been ministering  in South Africa since 2003 under the name of Restoration Ministries. We have been concentrating our ministry efforts in four main areas. 

The first was drilling a borehole (well) to provide safe, potable water near a local church in Kwandebele in land allocated by the village Chief which is used as a vegetable garden.

Secondly is a ministry to elderly homeless people and abandoned children in a community known as Hammanskraal. The third area was focused on teaching. We started a weekly ministry to area farm workers as well as hosting weekend teaching ministry to youth from Hammanskraal.

The fourth area was teaching at Gateway Christian church in an area known as Hartbeespoort, near Brits where I was asked to pastor and was able to continue  Restoration Ministries.  We conduct weekly Saturday morning “Soup Kitchen” in a vacant lot near a building supply business where men who are hoping to find daily “piece jobs” gather. Attendance usually ranges from 80 to 140, depending upon the time of year. This ministry involves serving food, evangelism, prayer and distribution of bibles.

We also minister at the local squatter camps and support a day care center for children from the camps. The Orange Farm daycare currently provides for about ninety children although the facility has been closed because of the Corona virus and will not be allowed to reopen until September. There are currently five informal settlements within a fifteen mile radius of our home, the largest being Bokfontein which is home to about twelve thousand people.

Here is one example of how the Lord provides and how even individuals can help: we were notified by Pastor Moffat of six small children who had been abandoned by their parents and sought refuge in their home. Thanks to the efforts of friends from Knoxville, R65,000 (at that time approx. $8,500) was raised to build a house for Pastor Moffat and Gladys in which they could care for the children. At that time they were living in a typical squatter camp house: corrugated metal, dirt floor, no potable water or electricity, etc. With the funds provided we constructed a prefabricated “Wendy House” approx. 200 sq. ft. A friend and member of Gateway church provided material and labor for an elevated wooden floor which kept the house safe from water that ran from a mountain during the rainy season. Within two years the local municipality relocated the six children to foster homes and requested that Moffat and Gladys continue to provide a temporary “safe haven” for other abandoned children.

Regarding the Corona virus, I suppose South Africa is typical, with the exception of considerable government corruption such as police confiscating food parcels intended for the poor and some politician’s involvement in the “black market” tobacco and alcohol business. Because of the hard lockdowns, churches were closed and the Soup Kitchen shut down. We adapted to what we called the “hit and run ministry” in which we drove throughout Hartbeespoort on Saturday mornings in search of small gatherings of people handing out the sandwiches and praying for people.

Please pray that we will be able to travel to the States soon; we have had at least six flights rescheduled since early April.”