General News
10 January, 2023
Beauty and poverty
SUMMER READINGBy Michelle HeatherSOUTH Africa is a country of extreme contradiction. It is the most spectacular country full of the most beautiful people, yet it is also a country ravaged by corruption, crime and poverty. In one street, you will find...
SUMMER READING
By Michelle Heather
SOUTH Africa is a country of extreme contradiction. It is the most spectacular country full of the most beautiful people, yet it is also a country ravaged by corruption, crime and poverty.
In one street, you will find the richest of the rich and surrounding them is the poorest of the poor. Addiction, abuse, crime, poverty and extreme brokenness is everywhere.
Melusi (the Zulu word meaning “The Shepherd”) is a mission base on five hectares of land in Dundee, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa that has ministered to and served those suffering and in poverty since 1984. It was established by Pastor Peter and Angeline Hambidge who are still to this day, serving the community and living on the base.
Along side them are short and long-term missionaries from Germany, Netherlands and Australia. Melusi is a multi-faceted ministry that operates a Food for Work program, Temple Gate ministry, Melusi United Soccer Club and kids’ clubs/teenage Bible studies along with a yearly youth conference ‘MYC”.
Melusi has the most amazingly huge veggie garden. On a weekly basis a number of unemployed people come to Melusi to “work for food” in the Food for Work program.
They are involved in working in the veggie garden or on the mission grounds and in return receive a food parcel with basic staples (maize meal, vegetables and maars which is a fermented milk product).
This program was established to give the poor a hand up rather than a hand out. During Covid, the veggie garden was able to help feed over 1000 people each week.
The Temple Gate ministry takes in homeless and destitute men who have little or no money and are often addicted to alcohol/drugs, have lost their jobs, have been in prison or who have had relationship difficulties leaving them homeless.
When they come to the mission, they are given a bed, three meals a day and they find purpose in helping out on the mission, learning life skills, receiving counselling and most importantly they are loved and valued.
Each afternoon through the week, outreaches are run where the missions team go into the community (particularly the squatter settlements) and run kids clubs, teenage Bible studies (which in some locations include the provision of a cooked meal) and also visit many of the families to check on their wellbeing.
In 2012, Victory Church in Bendigo formed a relationship with Melusi and has provided monthly financial support. In 2013, a team from the church was sent for two weeks to South Africa to help build a new church building on the mission.
This was the first time Glenn and I went to Melusi. We both felt a real connection there and a few months later we returned to South Africa with our three boys for a three-month stay where we all worked and served the mission.
Glenn provided much needed maintenance to vehicles, repairs to many pieces of equipment and spent a lot of time chatting with the residents.
The boys did their schooling on the base in the mornings and then worked in the veggie garden in the afternoons and I assisted on all the outreaches into the squatter settlements.
Since our first trip in 2013, Glenn and I have returned six times to Melusi and the last four times we have taken a team of people from Victory Church to join where they get to experience life on the mission and serve the people of Dundee.
In 2020 we had a team of 12 who were six weeks away from heading to South Africa when Covid hit and all plans were cancelled and the whole world was sent into a spin.
Fortunately, most restrictions have now lifted and Will (our youngest son) and I have just returned from a two-week visit where we were able to serve at their yearly Youth Conference which had been on hold for the past two years. Over 1000 youth attended each of the three days where they sang, danced, heard a message of hope, received a hot meal, were loved on, listened to, prayed for and told how valued and important they are.
Next year we will hopefully again see mission teams from Victory Church returning to Melusi to experience the life on the mission.
Michelle Heather, of Murphys Creek, is a pastor at Victory Church Bendigo and Church at Tarna.