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By now a lot of you have followed our 2009 mission trip update messages or perhaps attended one of our trip report presentations. The highlights of this years activities have been the exciting development that we are starting to spread the borders of our activity beyond the confines of the tri-city Richards Bay area. We are now active in 6 cities across two provinces and have even had requests to train teams in Swaziland and Mozambique.
We have shifted our focus a little this year to put more emphasis on involving local churches in an ongoing character development and discipleship program with the schools that have been through our Better Choices HIV/AIDS training program.
Another first for us this year was our participation in a fund raiser diner at prestigious five star hotel in Cape Town. The event raised R72,388 or about $10,000. for the benefit of the Campus Crusade Crossroads program. Hopefully this will be the first annual event since there seems to be interest to do it again next year.
God's richest blessing,
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10,000 Students
Five years ago we started out teaching one hundred High School students about the love of Jesus and God the Father, about dangers of sexual promiscuity, and about how to protect themselves from becoming the next victims of HIV.
We came back from that first trip in 2004 completely demoralized about the magnitude of the devastation crushing the nations of Southern Africa as a result of the HIV pandemic. Two years later we went back with a renewed commitment to use what ever resource God put at our disposal to reach as many kids as we could even if we had to do one kid at a time.
We are now on the verge of 10,000 students having been through our program in partnership with Campus Crusade for Christ. According to our statistics better than 50% of these students are making new commitments to follow Jesus and an even greater number are making pledges to remain abstinent until they get married and then to remain faithful to one partner. |
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Richards Bay Report
 Clement's Team:
The Empangeni or western area team is leading the student count this year with 2319 students at 11 schools that have been taught by Clements two teams. His teams have been team teaching with new trainees to introducing Better Choices in two new areas of Nseleni and Mandini. Clement has started a new house church in Esikhawini. It now has fifty-two adults and eighteen kids and he is using the Campus Crusade transferable concepts booklets that I gave him last year to disciple this group.
 Kenny's Team:
The Esikhawini or southern area team have trained 842 students from 8 schools. He is doing a great job considering that he does not have transport and that he is continually dogged by residency and immigration problems, which is a drain on his funds and time. One of Kenny's disciples is from Swaziland and is planning to get a team of four people trained so that they can start the program in their country.
 Derrick's team:
The Richards Bay or northern area team has taught 356 students in three schools. The Outlook church and Richards Bay Baptist church working in Derrick's are have also adopted two city schools and are running Better Choices and character development discipleship programs. In addition to Derrick planting his own church in Esikhawini he also runs a prison ministry and has planted a second church in the village of Mtunzini just south of Richards Bay.
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Sohanguve Report
 Zodwa's team:
We received a call from a Life Orientation educator at Modiri Secondary School requesting the Better Choices team to come to their school. This school had a class that was very problematic, the learners of this class were ill disciplined, not motivated, and had no respect for their teachers. No educator was at ease when time comes to teach this class. It happened that this educator met with Mr Masango from Tsibogo Secondary School. She told him about the situation at their school, and then Mr. Masango referred her to us after he had shared with her the outcomes of the teachings at their School (Tsibogo).
As a team we came together and prayed earnestly for this class asking God to intervene. We also did our best to motivate these learners by buying them some goodies. We thank God that indeed His presence was with us and we did everything through Him who strengthens us to do the work He has called us for.
On the 2nd week we had a meeting with two Life Orientation teachers and they explained the situation to us. On the third week we started teaching Better Choices to thirty-two students.
The results are as follow: Of the thirty-two students, nine were already Christians, twenty made new commitments to follow Jesus, and all thirty-two committed to abstinence.
We committed ourselves to adopt this school and start the Student Christian Movement at the school since there was none. The learners are very optimistic about this, they are looking forward to see this happening soon because they are thirsty for the word of God. Other educators are also in demand of the teachings in their class, so we hope that the school will come up with a plan to accommodate us during exam time. |
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Greytown Report  Patrick, Principal of Kwandunge High School, and Mark:
Our borders have been expanded again to the farming town of Greytown, about 150 km south west of Richards Bay. Our new partner in this area is Pastor Patrick Zondi. He is an incredible man of God and we look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Patrick and his disciples. Pastor Zondi is an elder in Shalom Fellowship, which is the church founded by Angus Buckan, the farmer evangelist who is South Africa's Billy Graham. Pastor Zondi has also planted his own church in the rural area about 50km north of Greytown. His wife Doris is a principal at a primary school in the area where we taught one hundred and sixty six students at two high schools during our 2009 trip. | |
Beacon of Hope International
is a registered 501(C)3 non-profit organization | |
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Supporting Orphans in South Africa
There are still many more children who need sponsorship... For $35/month you can make sure that one child gets a good meals, goes to school and gets necessary medical treatment. When you contact Horizon please stipulate that you want to sponsor a child from Richards Bay. Click Here to Sponsor
creating a world of hope for HIV/AIDS orphans...one child at a time.
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