Gospel Outreach

Greetings in the wonderful Name of Jesus.

Our main work is and by the grace of the Lord will remain the preaching of the Gospel but to facilitate this, we have established and now launched the Charity: to be the means of effectively accessing communities at ‘grass roots level’.

GO-SIZA ISIZWE
Go-Help the Nation
(Number 052-781)

The charitable activities of Gospel Outreach will more and more be rooted through GO – Siza Isizwe but we are now about to expand on a wide front. Thus we start going through some of the ‘open doors’ we spoke of last year. Various matters press on us but right now our Number One priority is:

ORPHANS, HIV VICTIMS, ABANDONED AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN  

South Africa is a field ready for harvesting and either we as Christians enter and harvest it for the Lord Jesus Christ or Islam will certainly take the harvest.  We know that they have the will as well as the funds and their declared objective is to gain control in South Africa .  

By the grace of the Lord, we certainly have the will, can find and train the right people and in the process access whole communities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  However, this will require strong backing from the Christian community. 

 MEET THE CHILDREN  

Here are our first two harvest fields:

1) In the City Centre: 
They stay in shelters, abandoned and out in the open.  Homeless, neglected and some abandoned by parents for days or weeks at a time.  Most of them unschooled.  Example, one building, 111 adults, 18 children and only two go to school.  They have on average ONE meal a day.

Medical care is very deficient.  Meet the little six-year old Lethwayinkosi who fell

some two or three storeys through a hole left in the metal stairway of which the steps were removed and sold as scrap metal.  Improperly treated, the arm with multiple fractures turned gangrenous with a day or so and had to be amputated.  This is but a visible picture of other damage done emotionally and spiritually, which cannot be seen with the naked eye.

2) The Grasmere Area: 
Here you find more orphans and victims of the HIV / AIDS plague.  Many child-run households and famished children.  Numerous children, victims of extreme poverty, abused in many different forms and numberless single mothers.

In both areas we look at a most severe socio-economic problem which eventually affects all South Africans.  Behind it all there are desperate spiritual needs but these can only be ministered to as we deal with the basic problems of life facing them.  

WHAT ARE THE GREATEST NEEDS?
First and foremost it is food, food, and again food. Then it is clothes and particularly also shoes. Proper schooling and character building pose a real challenge.

With Daphne Khumalo there is need to help her erect a day-care centre and for this we need equipment such as toys, bedding, beds etc. Also sports equipment, particularly for soccer and volleyball. Then there is needed stationery, books and paper in general.
The needs are extensive, mountainous, severe and heart-rending.

WHAT ARE OUR PLANS?

FOR THE CITY we have an action plan for the next three months establishing and structuring a program of amongst others, proper food distribution.  This has already commenced.  We access one building after the other in a methodical way and have initial manpower set aside to do just that.   

We plan a holiday club for children who do go to school, therefore accessing the school going too, and hopefully eventually more of the schools during school time.  

In the Johannesburg area we are initially aiming at 50 to a maximum of 100 children and have a three month plan to reassess and see how we go further.  Through the medium of Verlene and Daphne we would be accessing about 200 children.  

During March we are commencing special Ladies Meetings on Fridays to train them in basic life-skills while at the same time from our own people, training volunteer personnel in such life-skills and passing on their knowledge to others which in the process becomes also a job-creation program.   

Colsie Kloppers has started to train a group of people in beadwork, which is very popular.    

We have already trained some and will do more, in training the unemployed from our numbers to work with the special ‘dough’ Sonia has a recipe for.  From this many souvenirs, awards and decorations for special occasions as well as trophies for schools etc have been made.  The list is endless and Sonia has developed dozens of these types of items.  Colsie in turn has many ideas for the beadwork, and interest is keen.  In these we target the homeless and particularly unemployed so as to train them up , develop fine motor skills, create employment as well as generate funds for the Charity.

THE ACTION-PLAN FOR GRASMERE  is in operation and we have started distributing food parcels. A day care centre must be established and a complete program developed with Daphne Khumalo. Also for this people must be specially trained. Sports facilities are to be set up and it must be remembered that through these means extensive Biblical principles can be taught while our own people are also being trained further.
Also here everything will be done on a methodical basis in terms of a program which we can control and manage in terms of resources available.
Here we also hope to have a first holiday club during the March / April school holidays.
The truth is that we can reach where most of our readers cannot. We have the access, can find the manpower as well as being able to bridge the language barrier through our own people.

MEET OUR CO-ORDINATOR  

She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Religious Education, has extensive artistic abilities and has been in the business of making ornaments, momentos and souvenirs for sometime.  She is specially talented to work with children and loves them dearly.  She has drive, vision and a very special way with people in general.  Relentless in the pursuit of her goal, and loving the Lord with all her heart, she is the person for this most challenging work and her name is:

SONIA VOSLOO
And for those of you who do not know she is the wife of Pastor Trevor Vosloo.  

She has resigned her part-time employment taken to supplement their household’s very meagre income, to pour everything into this Charity for the sake of the Gospel and of desperately needy people.  She is also working out ways and means of sharing her talents and knowledge in various craft works with more than those already able to do some of what she does and so merge these other activities of hers as well as her talents to serve the work of the Lord.   

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

For this cause, we are prepared to speak plainly and boldly about the extensive needs to be funded. All of what we said costs money, money and more money. Just to train up people costs a lot of money and there are those who need a very basic income as well as for instance taxi fare to be able to get to where we train them and eventually to where they will work.

There are extensive overheads and many kinds of materials must be purchased.  For instance to do the beadwork a ‘kit’ to train one person would cost about R40.00.  This can be sponsored specifically.   

We have already been donated a delivery truck (Praise the Lord!) but we need money for insurance, upkeep as well as fuel.

 Sonia needs a salary and there is a host of other simple basic items of expenditure that will mount up as we go along.

 We reckon, just to get this operation running at a reasonable level, we shall need a basic income of about R25 000.00 per month, rising to a minimum of R50 000.00 per month.

In addition, we have targeted to sponsor, through the help of individuals the children being unable to go to school.  Registration fees are R100 to R200 per child and school fees about R250.00 per month.  This refers particularly to the city children, bearing in mind that there are no government schools in the City but only private schools.  

Food, toys, materials of wide variety are needed and Sonia could tell you more about it.  

Then we need prayer, prayer and more prayer!   

 

WHAT DID JESUS THINK OF CHILDREN?

It is good for us to ponder again and read prayerfully what is said in Matthew 18:1-14, Matthew 19:13-15 and see how highly He rated children. We need to remember that ‘It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish’. And then again: ‘Suffer the little children and forbid them not to come unto Me…’
Recall again that it was children who cried out in the Temple the glory of ‘the Son of David’ and of whom Jesus said:

‘Out of the mouth babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise’.  (Matthew 21:15-16).  

Are we not standing in desperate debt before the Lord if we neglect these special people so highly prized by our Saviour?  Can we one day look Him in the face and shamefully admit that we ignored the crying need right at our door?  

         WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?  

We must say, that since we have embarked on this road the Lord has simply gone before in a most amazing way facilitating matters for us but we now come to you with a very simple challenge:  

WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT THIS ?

WHAT DO YOU  INTEND TO DO ABOUT THIS ?

§         Frankly, how ‘converted’ is your purse?  
§         How comfortable are you living and how secure?  
§         To what extent have you given till it really hurts your finances?
§         Do you not know people who will be able to lend a hand financially?
§         Can you not speak to them or can you not make it possible that we make a proper presentation to them of things we cannot even mention in this Newsletter?  Are you available for such a presentation?
·        How committed is your Church to mission work?  How much money are they spending effectively and accountably on such needs?  Is it not possible that we can make a presentation to them or that you can represent us at the right committee or board to make this need known in a convincing way?
·        How about adopting a child and sponsor them for schooling at R250.00 per month?  At the moment we have just a few children sponsored in this way.  

·        How else do you think you can be of assistance?

 Putting to you the question the Lord put to Moses:  ‘What is in your hand?’  

Or what He said to the disciples when He faced a very hungry crowd:  ‘YOU must give them something to eat’.  

We have never appealed to you for funds for Gospel Outreach and it is still much under funded with our people drawing very low salaries but at great cost we have sought to be very discreet in handling those matters.  However, for the needy around us we are bold, persistent and direct and are asking you once again: What would you do?  And for that matter, what would Jesus do if He were in your place?

REPORT BACK  

We bind ourselves to proper accounting, proper administration of the funds, food, clothing and whatever other help we receive.  What is more, by the end of March / early April we shall report back to you again as to what has transpired in the mean time.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

And here are our banking details:
NAME: Gospel Outreach
BANKERS: Nedbank Ltd, Sage (Fox St)
ACCOUNT NO:        1957-226099
CLEARING CODE:  195 705
NAME: GO-Siza Isizwe
BANKERS: Nedbank Fox Street
ACCOUNT NO: 1908 886560
CLEARING CODE:  190 805

IN CONCLUSION:

We have been bold, continue to be bold but thank you for your attention and ask you to please firstly go on your knees and speak to the Lord about these matters and then

‘whatsoever He says unto you, do it’.    (John 2:5)

 With Warm Greetings in the Lord Jesus Christ,

EDDIE VOSLOO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 12:14 am and is filed under Latest News.