Project reaches hundreds of children in Tembisa
To date, 2 085 million South African children have or are about to complete their training.
Some seven years ago, a partnership was formed between Kempton Park-based Kempbisa Christian Outreach and USA-based Samaritan’s Purse.
Shortly afterwards, Kempbisa’s focus shifted from promoting church unity in Kempton Park and Tembisa to become the South African consignee for a project called Operation Christmas Child SA. (OCCSA).
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Dr Hennie Barnard, chairman of Kempbisa Christian Outreach, said: “The success of the OCCSA project has been enormous and everyone involved agrees all glory and honour for this belongs to God.”
The first ingredient of this successful recipe was to train a group of adults who act as spiritual and life skill mentors to children. Children from South Africa’s townships and rural areas were assigned to these mentors, who spent quality time with them and trained them either individually or in a small group, at least once a week.
During such meetings the mentor will impart to them the fundamentals of Christian life and general life skills, while giving them an adult companion to laugh with when life is good and a shoulder to cry on when life throws them a curve ball, Barnard said.
In parallel with the training in South Africa, members of Christian congregations all over America compile gift boxes for the children according to guidelines set by Samaritan’s Purse. These guidelines differ for the different age and gender categories.
Each box consists of stationary, basic clothes, toys and a ‘luxury’ item or two such as headphones or a funky watch. Each gift box, including the distribution costs, is worth between R500 and R600.
After a child has completed his attachment to his mentor after about a year, and has finished all the prescribed training, it is time for graduation.
Before this exciting event, Boksburg-based Kingfisher Freight Services will fetch the gift boxes that were loaded into 40-feet containers by Samaritan’s Purse Logistics and ship them from the USA to South Africa. From here it is distributed by road freight to venues all over the country.
Barnard said on graduation day, each child receives a gift box according to his age and gender. “This joyful occasion is both the highlight and the end of the year-long journey.”
To date, 2 085 million South African children have or are about to complete their training.
Barnard, who is intimately involved with this project, has nothing but praise for the dedicated staff of Samaritan’s Purse led by Alain Randriamalala, Alwyn Nel and his team at Kingfisher Freight Services and the thousands of mentors out there who assist to make this happen.
“Standing in the middle of the distribution of blessings worth some R1 146-billion over the past seven years to predominantly children in townships and rural areas, is a privilege,” he said.