I’m Changing Tomorrow today…and so can you!

21 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment

by Heather H. in Africa Daycares

All t-shirt proceeds support a Soup Kitchen in Africa which will give meals to HIV/AIDS children.

I felt a tug of my middle school days Sunday morning as I got dressed for church. My friend Wendy and I decided ahead of time to wear our “I’m Changing Tomorrow” t-shirts. (Back in the day my girls and I used to dress alike in our Gap and New York and Company shirts.)

We got a lot of questions about why were dressed alike and what the t-shirts meant.

Sunday morning we got a chance to share the mission of Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation and Susan’s Kids with several folks in our church.

I’ve also worn the shirt for the last two Saturdays during my shift as a cashier. (Yes, I’ve washed the shirt already, I promise.) I’ve had a couple dozen of comments from customers. Thankfully my boss has allowed me to quickly explain to those that ask that ALL proceeds from the sales of these shirts will be given to Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation to fund the CTCF Shipping Container Soup Kitchen Project in Lesotho, Africa which will provided meals for children receiving treatment at an HIV/AIDS hospital.

Most folks have reacted positively. One woman from out-of-state asked me how she could give and I quickly scribbled down the web addresses. I’m going to have to start carrying around cards to hand out!

The slogan really does get people’s attention. All lot of people have a humorous comment in response.

“Thanks for changing.” (ahem…As if I’m not wonderful just the way I am.)

“Shouldn’t you change today first?”

“I tried changing once at work but decided it wasn’t worth it.”

Once they’ve brought up the subject of my t-shirt then I feel comfortable explaining how God is meeting the physical and spiritual needs of these children.

I’m excited about the seeds that the Holy Spirit is planting each time a person wears one of these t-shirts. Beyond the immediate need for nourishment of the children in Lesotho, I pray that the Holy Spirit will use these shirts (and you and me) to spark conversations about salvation

T-shirts are $20 sizes S-XXL. You can buy one through Jason White’s blog Second and Content. Or message me and I’ll get you in contact with Jason. They’ll also be for sale during the Carolina Country Stampede festival in downtown Williamston Sept. 23-24 at Memorial Baptist Church’s booth.

WIm Van Rensburg founder of Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation will be in the US Sept. 3-Oct. 3. He’ll be speaking in NC as well as FL, SC, VA and PA. Hop over to CTCF Facebook page for his speaking schedule.

Coming to America (via ZA Sept. 3-Oct. 3)

05 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment

by Heather H. in Africa Daycares

As the summer shrinks and families start shopping for supplies for the upcoming school year, I’m reminded that I don’t have to look across the ocean to find children in need. They are likely as close as the street I live on. All over the world there are children in need of food, clothes, shelter, a family, the Gospel…

My focus and my heart belongs to the children of Africa-particularly those in South Africa and Lesotho. Poverty in Africa takes on a whole other meaning. Many of these children are living in crisis.

Utloanang village in Lesotho, has a tiny building filled with 67 kids! Inside there is NO place to move, let alone write or anything else... CTCF and Susan's Kids are helping to buid a safe daycare for the children to receive a free preschool education and two nutritious meals a day in a loving Christian environment.

God has led me (in my small way) to serve Susan’s Kids and Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation.

My friend Wim Van Rensburg and his wife Hylien founded Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation which serves children in crisis in Africa. The Van Rensburgs’ are basically missionaries in their own country of South Africa and the nearby country of Lesotho.

The organization (along with Susan’s Kids based in Jamesville, NC) work together to build and fund daycares in rural villages that provide children with a free education and two nutritious meals a day, in a loving Christian environment. These daycares provide hope and a future for children who have little or no opportunities.

Wim is coming to visit all the way from South Africa Sept. 3-Oct. 3. He’s looking to speak with churches, bible studies, civic organizations, and anyone interested. He’ll be making a stop in Fla. and SC. before heading to NC and then to the NY area. So anywhere between Fla. and NC to NY is a possibility. Maybe beyond, who knows what God has planned!

Here’s what Wim says about the trip

“I will be visiting the US from September 1 to October 3. We will be setting up speaking engagements for this time and post them on the calendar as they are confirmed.

If you would like to hear what God is doing here in Africa, I would LOVE to come share my story, pictures and videos with you and your friends.

So if you are part of a care group, woman’s group, bible study group, small group, youth group, small church, big church, mega church, home church, bikers church, bikers club, bikers gang, chain gang or just have breakfast with a few friends every Friday, and can get me the opportunity to share about God’s goodness, I would greatly appreciate it.

God Bless

Wim
P.S. If I forgot your group it was not intentional.Let me know and I will ad it! “

I know there are dozens of Christian charities serving our God. Here are a few things I wanted to point out about Susan’s Kids and CTCF.

• Both organizations are 501c3 non-profits.

• Neither pays anyone a salary. They don’t have an advertising budget. Wim supports his family.

• All money donated to both organizations goes directly to serving children by meeting their physical and spiritual needs.

The two charities work together to build and fund daycares in rural villages that provide children with a free education and two nutritious meals a day, in a loving Christian environment. These daycares provide hope and a future for children who have little or no opportunities.
They currently fund several daycares and are helping build more. The big project right now is turning a shipping container into a Soup Kitchen which will be located on the grounds of a HIV/AIDS hospital in Lesotho, Africa and will provide ESSENTIAL meals to children who come to the hospital for life-sustaining treatment. It’s vital for the children to have a full stomach before receiving treatment. The shipping container is there. The plan is in place. Now the organizations are trusting in God to provide the funds to convert the container and provide the meals.
Wim has an amazing personal testimony as well as first-hand experience of how God is moving everyday among people who are physically poor but long to be rich in Christ.
Wim is very humble and has a heart for serving Christ. If your church (or any other group) is interested in having him speak and share photos and video, please let me know.
Even if you don’t feel led to support the ministry financially, Wim’s testimony and hearing about how the Christians in South Africa are living it an amazing opportunity. Please include these children in your prayers. Your prayers are priceless!

If you have any questions you can call me at 252-217-8368 or Debbie Roberson at 252-947-2534.

This is a quick video about the Container and Soup Kitchen among other things going on.

You can “meet” the kids served by these ministries by clicking

Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation
CTCF Facebook page (regular video updates)

Susan’s Kids

I’ll leave you with Scripture that I’ve been pondering this month, Ephesians 2 (ESV).

¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. ¹¹Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility ¹⁵by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. ¹⁷And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, ²¹ in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. ²²In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Thank-you for your time!

Check back in a couple of weeks for my book review of “A Family of Their Own” (book 2 in the Dreams Come True series by Gail Gaymer Martin

In Christ,

David and the “mean” man

20 Mar 2011 2 Comments

by Heather H. in Africa Daycares

For the last several weeks I’ve been a part of a local woman’s Bible Study focusing on David’s Life (Anointed, Transformed, Redeemed: A Study of David). As I prepared for Sunday’s meeting I felt a “God wink”  as I watched a video of  Sunday School children from a world away also learning about the life of David.

Bibi, 4, is one of Susan’s Kids. This morning he surprised his Sunday School teacher Hylien by reading in English (his second language) a few lines of the David and Goliath Bible story!

How precious to see the fruits of God’s blessings in the lives of these children who are able to receive a free preschool education and two meals a day at the daycares supported by Susan’s Kids and Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation.

The daycare in Leratong Village, South Africa is also the meeting place for  Faith Hill Christian Church. Here many of the daycare students and dozens of youth from the village are fed from the Bread of Life.

in John 6:35 Jesus said to them,

“I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

Bibi is one of dozens of children served by the daycares

Pray that as the physical needs and the spiritual needs of the children are met at the daycares that we’ll remember of the words of former Archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson.

“He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.” – John Tillotson

Jason White, a Susan’s Kids volunteer, is serving in South Africa with Changing Tomorrow for the next year. Follow his blog for frequent video, photo and text updates. This week his blog gives us a glimpse at how the Holy Spirit is working at Faith Hill Christian Church.

SN: I know I’m really behind but if you haven’t watched this viral video The Story of Jonah told by the Cutest Little Girl, go ahead and enjoy. You’re gonna want to pull out your Bible after and read about Jonah!

Under construction-new daycare in Lesotho, Africa

06 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment

by Heather H. in Africa Daycares

This was the heartbreaking scene in Kotsonkoaneng village, Lesotho, Africa one year ago.

The place where the "lucky" children in the village currently spend their days.

Today, Progress! The daycare construction in Kotsonkoaneng  has begun. The foundation has been laid. Susan’s Kids volunteer Jason White is serving in South Africa/Lesotho for the next year with Wim and Hylien Van Rensbrug (Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation.) This week Jason posted a video update from Kotsonkoaneng featuring a behind the scenes tour of the construction-including village women who carried sandstones on their heads to help make this center a reality and some ADORABLE children!

The children in this village currently attend a daycare with a hole in the roof. There are few teaching tools and no chairs or desks. Many can’t attend at all because their families can’t afford to pay. With the opening of the Susan’s Kids / Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation daycare, about 50 children will receive a free education and two nutritious meals a day in a safe, loving, Christian environment! Please pray for God to be glorified and souls to be brought to Christ through this project. There are 75 more villages with 2,000-3,000 preschool children that are in need of daycare in just a small section of Lesotho. If you’d like to give to this project please visit the Susan’s Kids website.

Susan’s Kids now supports two daycare/feeding centers-in Leratong Village, South Africa and Matlakeng Village, Lesotho Africa. To see how children are benefiting from this ministry visit CTCF’s page.

You can “meet” some of the kids from Kotsonkoaneng and Utloanang (future daycare site) at Wim’s photo blog.

It’s not much…unless it’s in God’s hands

10 Nov 2010 4 Comments

by Heather H. in Africa Daycares

“It’s not much…” I heard this phrase many times from people who donated to the Fill-a-Container Project for Botha Bothe (Lesotho, Africa) as they gave gently used clothes and toys, purchased hygiene items, or wrote a check to help with costs.

I think most of us tend to minimize our offerings and wonder how we could ever make a difference in a stranger’s life.

On Tuesday my friend Andrea posted a blog about her experience with the project titled “It’s not much.”

Her post encouraged me to meditate on God’s economy.

To anyone who has ever thought “it’s not much”  remember that when we give to someone or some cause that God has laid upon our heart, we can’t measure the contributions by a dollar amounts or number of items donated. God uses a different currency-love.

Kids at an HIV clinic in Botha Bothe play with their new toys.

This morning I woke up to find a  post detailing how the container has been a double blessing to the villagers. Wim’s post was like God saying “this is how I can use ‘not much’.”

If you still wonder what boxes of used clothes can mean to someone, think about the words of Wim Van Rensburg (he and his wife are missionaries in their home country of South Africa and acted as the hands and feet of Christ for this project.)

• “It showed God’s love in a visible way.”

• The contents, even though it was mostly used had something attached that no new piece of clothing can ever have..it was given by a real living person with LOVE to another real living brother/sister.
• Many other items in the boxes were made and packed for a purpose, and it achieved that purpose, it made someone whose existence is tough every day, feel special and loved.
• Lastly it gave us so many opportunities to share spiritual truths during this last week that I would not be able to share in a year of church…tangible truths.

You can “meet” some of those touched by this project by watching the video of the distribution by Wim.