La Verne
Busbee – International Christian Hospice in South Africa
I got in
contact with Ms. La Verne through the founder of International Christian
Hospice, Ron and Susan Nash (http//www.ichospice.blogspot.com/) who I got to
serve with in Honduras a few years ago.
A few weeks ago at a missions conference I reconnected with them and
they were overjoyed to share what La Verne was doing in the Kruger National
Park Area (bush area in northern east part of SA). La Verne is a lovely German woman who has
given her life to working among the dying and impoverished and sharing the
gospel everywhere she goes (like with the kids in the picture above). We have been emailing back and forth and I’m
hoping to join her on some of her journeys in the later part of January.
This is a
little bit of information about Daniel and Maryna’s (friends that I meet in
Israel Summer 2011) ministry in the bush. We will be visiting/working with them around the new year. He is a doctor and she works with the women
and has begun an organization called Fancy Stitch.
The
Fancy Stitch group is a self-help, income generating and skills development
initiative amongst women living in the deep rural hamlet of Ingwavuma,
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and a supplier of high quality, artistic greeting
cards, picture frames and clothing.
Fancy
Stitch started with 27 members in September 2001 and has now grown to include
more than 400 members. The dedication, talent and social and emotional
connectedness amongst the members is impressive. All these characteristics,
combined with a dynamic vision for the future, makes this an exciting and
inspirational development initiative.
Ingwavuma
is situated in the Lebombo mountains in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa. Focused around a small cluster of shops and amenities, the settlement
lies scattered over a 60km radius and supports around 120 000 inhabitants.
People survive through migrant labour, subsistence farming and government
grants, often shared amongst entire households. Poverty is deeply rooted, and
social problems like alcoholism and teenage pregnancy are widespread.
Desperately, HIV infection rates amongst young women keep rising. The costs of
HIV, the numerous funerals, and of caring for children orphaned by AIDS drain
scarce household resources, deepening poverty further.
But
there is also hope here. Witnessing the suffering and inspired by the vibrancy,
Fancy Stitch holds five main objectives:
- to create jobs for
local people to alleviate poverty
- to develop the
skills of our members
- to build the
capacity of our organisation
- to market our
products
- and to be an
independent and thriving business.
|
Fancy
Stitch is a business enterprise, with annually-audited financial statements.
Equally we are a group of real people with real lives, and that’s what drives
us. Each day’s work is powered by our aims to:
- create beautiful
products to a consistently high standard
- encourage one
another to have hope and a vision for the future
- actively support
vulnerable persons amongst us
- and raise awareness
of HIV/AIDS and encourage positive living.
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When I told a friend at the coffee shop that I was headed to SA- he said that I had to look into Iris Ministry and should consider going to check it out. I was really encouraged by their history and heart. We have been accepted to visit and I am hoping to get my Mozambique Visa the first day I'm SA and to visit in beginning of the new year.
Iris Ministry in Mozambique http://www.irismin.org/
Our Mission
Iris Ministries is a Christian organization
committed to expressing a living and tangible response to those commandments
that Jesus called greatest: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,"
and "Love your neighbor as yourself." It is our conviction that the
Spirit of God has asked us to make this love concrete in the world, incarnate
in our thoughts, our bodies, our lives and our every action. Iris Ministries
exists to participate in bringing the Kingdom of God to earth in all its
aspects, but most especially through our particular calling to serve the very
poor: the destitute, the lost, the broken and the forgotten.
We have been sent to places where "love"
must every day mean bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty and healing for
the sick. It must mean family for the orphan, freedom for the captives and
peace for the war-torn. We want always to make our love real in these ways, for
as long as the poor are with us. Our ministry is built around the application
of the Gospel to some of the most desperate economic and spiritual
circumstances on earth, with all the boldness of which we, in Christ, are
capable.
As we seek to display God's heart in the outpouring
of this love, we have found that we are also constantly blessed by a great many
treasures uncovered in the hearts of those we are sent to serve. We believe it
is also an important part of our calling to share these treasures with the
whole body of Christ. It is our hope, therefore, that every one of our trials,
our testimonies and our victories may in turn become life and encouragement for
the entire church – "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the
knowledge of the Son of God." While our primary efforts are focused on the
poorest of the poor, we remain constantly aware that we are enabled to make
those efforts through the astonishing faith and generosity of men and women
from all walks of life and all corners of the globe. As God has provided for us
in this way, so we believe that together we receive our greatest reward, as
members of a single people – one Body, one Bride.
On the national level, we are committed to working
with indigenous leaders, with the aim of facilitating a strong, empowered
citizen leadership that can ultimately take the reigns of Iris's main
in-country activities. In our home nation of Mozambique these include the
building of schools, children centers, homes and churches; extensive feeding
programs; evangelism and healing; well-drilling; medical care; training
programs for local and international ministers; conference hosting and local
pastoral care. In Mozambique, without exception, we are also committed to
offering a home to every child we find who does not have a family. As our
organizational capacity has grown we have been privileged to extend many of
these activities to other nations, a growing list which currently includes
Brazil, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Nepal, Sierra
Leone, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan and Tanzania.
This is a beautiful
missionary family that I met briefly while living near Houston, Texas. It is amazing that we will be in the same
city again: But now on the other side of the world! I’ll get to reconnect in Pretoria with them
and we’ll see where it leads. This is part of an email that they sent a few
weeks ago.
Hi Ginny,
Mike and I
spent the first four months of our journey here attending Church Leadership
School at Hatfield. Then we began exploring in our areas of passion and
interest the different community ministries that have been launched out of
Hatfield. Mike has been serving with the worship team here. I have
been serving with the children's ministry team. But during the week, I
have been getting involved with Early Childhood Development Center teacher
training in the township areas. I have also been getting involved with SA
Cares for Life that serves families that are taking care of orphans and
vulnerable children. Mike is involved with a community ministry called
James 1:27 Trust. His involvement is with IT software solutions to help
organizations that care for orphans and vulnerable children.
We
hope to go back to Texas for Christmas. So we will be gone the month of
December. We will return in January until December 2013. We sense
that God probably won't be finished with us here at that time, but we will see
what He says. We, too, trust God to guide us. That is an exciting
and scary adventure to be on, don't you think?
