Anticipation and excitement was thick in the air the night before, as we worked as a team to prepair the gifts (small toys and sweets in beautifully decorated brown paper bags, from different family members) for the little ones…

The next morning, Christmas Day, we got up nice and early…the children were informed that we will be visiting, and we did not want to keep them waiting. On the way to Sizabantwana, Jaco Lubbe shared a little of the school’s circumstantial and vision with us.

Even before we met the children, we knew that this place was created in love, and the volunteers/’saints’ are Jesus’ hands and feet.

We were warmly greeted by the ladies that had just fed them a warm meal, on arrival. We introduced ourselves to the children. Smiles decorated their faces, but in their eyes I could see that some of them have never experienced a ”warm cookie, overflowing Christmas stocking” Christmas, and I was humbled.

We sang, danced, played soccer and hopscotch with the children. We had short little discussions with a few that could communicate with us and those that struggled, spoke with their eyes. We received hugs…children love giving and receiving hugs.

When the time came to hand out the gifts, they all lined up and showed great self-discipline, they waited patiently.

A few family members prayed over the children, we prayed for guidance, favor, protection and grace.

I doubt that there was a dry eye among us when we saw the pure joy on each and every little child’s face when they opened their presents… God, once more, revealed why He says, “It is more blessed to give, than to receive…”

The look on their faces said more than words could ever say. It was these silent expressions and occasional shrieks of excitement that touched our hearts.

I kept thinking, I wish I could do more.

This, by far, is one of my favorite Christmas experiences.

We will continue to pray over Sizabantwana.

May you experience God’s love and kindness in everything you do.

Thank you for making a difference in each of those children’s lives.

jaco@indunaadventures.com

Induna Adventures : 082 463 2334

or

Jaco Lubbe : 082 429 0679

Dis-Chem Cosmetic

Marketing & Promotions

Tel 011 589-2215

On behalf of SizaBantwana we would like to thank you for your generous contribution of toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and face clothes for 250 children of SizaBantwana Children Benefit Organisation.

Without people and organizations like Dis-chem who open their hearts to organisations like ours we would not be able to support, care and feed these children.  Please be assured that your contribution will be used solely for the children to make a difference in their lives as we strive to show them the love of God not only through his word but also through our deeds.

We look forward to working with you in the future and pray that by love and faith we can support more children who are infected and affected by HIV/Aids and actually make a change.

Sincerely,
Jaco Lubbe
Marketing
SizaBantwana Children Benefit Org

Our children were privileged to visit Induna Adventures on Friday afternoon 22 June and Hazyview Public Library on Saturday 23 June 2012. While at Induna Adventures one of the teenage boys approached me and said sister Minky, “this lif is good; I better get schooled so that I will have a good job and earn money to sometimes spend on going our’.

On Saturday evening we all sat down and watched the Jesus Film (God man) and the one film called Izonozakho Zizokufumana (your sins shall catch you). The films were so good in that they brought awareness and caused one to think about the life now and the life after death. The reflection thereafter was to me the highlight of the weekend camp. The children were asking relevant questions about this life and the life after death. In writing about what they’ve learnt over the weekend, one girl wrote “It was my first time to hear the truth about Jesus”. The main messages were: God is the creator, God is Love John 3:16, God is Holy 1 Peter 1:16; About Man: that man is a sinner and sin separate you from God Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23; About Jesus: That Jesus is the son of God, He died for our sins Isaiah 55:5 and rose again; If we believe and receive His as Lord and Savior, we will saved John 1:12.

Not all major corporations have social responsibility programs and not all of them provide funding for NGOs to address various issues and problems of our society. The few corporations which have grant programs are too cautious to openly come out with strong commitments for rendering any kind of funding support. Such corporations do declare that they have community welfare programs but they do not seem to exist beyond their websites and publicity brochures.

This means that there are really fewer corporate groups that have clear policies on issuing grants to nonprofits.  Such companies have dedicated budgets, separate CSR departments and regular call for proposals to offer funding to NGOs.

CSR has become a popular concept only in the recent times and more and more companies are fast adopting it as a policy. This is happening mostly because of the increased pressure observed on the environment because of the uncontrolled profit-driven actions of the corporate agencies. How much of this policy is really implemented in the field is yet to be examined. Another reason for CSR is apparently tax benefits these corporate get when they invest their money in social welfare projects. Sizabantwana can provide you with a tax exemption certificate. One last reason could be that the corporations really feel for the society and believe in giving away a portion of the profit they make.

Sizabantwana can be your company’s Corporate Social Responsibility.

• Do you want to share your individual time with the children
• Do you want to incorporate Sizabantwana for your next teambuilding
• Do you want to share your money to uplift and empower the children
• Do you want to share your goods with the needy children
• Do you want to initiate a collection of old toys, blankets at your company

Give us a call or visit our website: www.sizabantwana.co.za

It is really an honour to share the story of what God’s done in my life. I came to Christ in high school through Young Life. I heard a message of God’s love for me, and the wrath that I earned by rebelling against Him. I realized that I needed the forgiveness that came from Christ taking God’s wrath in my place. So I came to Christ and soon after, went off to college.

Many people jettison their faith and morals during college, but it was just the opposite experience for me. I grew tremendously in my faith, and fell more and more in love with Christ. I was studying engineering with the intention of going back to work in our family business. But many of my peers were urging me to do something significant, like going into full-time ministry work. I prayed about it and I came to the realization that I could be a full-time follower of Jesus as an engineer and business owner. I didn’t need to be collecting a check from a non-profit to be truly following Christ. So I came back to Memphis and went to work for my dad in the family business.

An important thing happened during those first two years working for my dad. Because I was going into business, I studied every verse of scripture that I could read about money, wealth, giving, and the poor. There are thousands of verses that talk about money and I catalogued each one.

This scriptural study of money led me to two basic conclusions. The first is that God owns it all. We’ve been bought with a price, and everything we have is not our own. Everything that we have and everything that we are belongs to God. Our job is not to figure out what we want to do with our stuff, but what God wants us to do with His stuff. We are stewards and our time on earth is an infinitely small part of our existence. We’re going to live forever, and we need to be good stewards now.

The second belief that became ingrained in me through the scripture was fear-a healthy fear of affluence and wealth. I saw so many wringing throughout the Bible about wealth. For example, Jesus explains that it is almost impossible for a rich man to go to heaven in Matthew 19:24: “I tell you the truth…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And in Matthew 13:7, Jesus tells a parable about the seed that fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Jesus explained that the plants were choked out by the care of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I wanted to be like the good soil in Matthew 13:8 that yielded 30, 60 or even 100-fold.

I was 24 years old when I read these scriptures and I realized an important fact. I did not want my business success to equal spiritual failure. So when my brother and I started the process of transitioning from being employees in the family business to co-owners of Barnhart Crane and Rigging, we decided to establish safeguards against too much worldly success in our lives. The first thing we did was set a finish line for our lifestyle. We made a commitment to each other to keep our lifestyle simple and modest, and use any additional money we made to fund ministry. If God chose to prosper our business beyond what it would take to generate our middle class salaries, we would not increase our lifestyle.

Then we locked in our commitment by telling other team members in our company so they could keep us accountable. We explained, “This is the lifestyle that we’re going to live. If you work hard at generating additional revenue here and God prospers us, these profits will mean nothing to our lifestyle as owners but they will mean a lot to the Kingdom.” So many believers were attracted to our business because they wanted to be part of supporting Kingdom work through business. But it also built in accountability for us.

The next thing we did was put a system in place to do all our giving as a group called GROVE.  Our desire is to keep personal pride out of the giving process and share the joy of giving. So we involve team members of the company and their spouses in the giving process and make decisions as a group. We started as a group of six and now it’s almost 50 people.

The first year we didn’t know if our new venture would even survive. We began with a small group of about 10 employees and equipment from the original family company plus the corporate offices, which were two bedrooms of the home I grew up in.

What happened next is pretty amazing. The company started to grow and the first year we made some extra money. We were able to give $50,000- more than my salary, which I thought was awesome! Our profit with a purpose group, GROVE, prayed and decided where God wanted us to invest His money. We established an international focus for our giving because we saw such a disproportionate need there.

The next year we were able to give $150,000.00, and the next year it was more, and the next year it was more. God just kept bringing excellent employees into our business and doing miraculous things over and over again. We grew about 25% a year for the next 23 to 24 years. We went from being very small company to a fairly medium-size business.

In the early 2000’s we were able to give a million dollars one year. Then one of our salesmen (you know how salesmen are) came up with what seemed to be an outrageous goal: to give away a million dollars a month. In 2005, we were able to achieve this goal for the first time. Since then, we have continued to give a million dollars a month every year.

Eventually, our earnings (EBITDA, to be precise) grew to $60-$70 million and the value of our business had become significant burden to us. We were spending a lot of money and effort trying to figure out how to transfer the company if one of us died. Many of the financial advisors we met did not have any solutions. Finally, we were introduced to National Christian Foundation and were able to accomplish our goals by giving the majority of our business value to charity during our lifetimes.

In 2007, we contributed 99% of our business ownership interests (in shares of non-voting stock) into an irrevocable charitable trust. Some people think we are crazy but it was a wonderful relief to us. Our personal balance sheet changed a lot that day, but our lifestyle did not change at all. If I die now, we can pass on the stewardship of the company without having to transfer the dangerous part – the weapon of wealth; and, our estate taxes are completely eliminated. If the company is ever sold, 99% of the proceeds will stay in ministry.

All this time, my brother and I and our families have continued to live a modest lifestyle. It’s been an amazing adventure to be a small part of what God is doing in dozens of different countries around the world. We are helping folks that are much more godly, committed, and sacrificial than I ever will be. But helping them with funding, tools and training is such a great a joy.

As for my children, it has been a blessing that they have not grown up as rich kids. They have the privilege of sitting around our dinner table with people from dozens of different countries as they come through the U.S to hear what God is doing in Libya or Iraq or in China. They have grown up hearing about how great God is and what He is doing all over the world. I think that is so much better than video games, trips to Disney World, or the things that they’ve not been able to do.

We do a lot of things as a family, like going camping, and we have a lot of fun. And in reality, we don’t live a sacrificial life at all. We live life that even by U.S standards would be a very good life, and by global standards, would be extravagant. Even though there are some things that we have given up, we’ve given up none of the good stuff. And we have saved ourselves all the energy it takes to accumulate.

I hope that the result of sharing my story is not for anyone to say that I’m amazing but to say the God that I serve is amazing. He has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams and I am grateful to have learned that it is so much more joyful to be a giver than a consumer.

Our children were so excited to receive their gifts and the guardians who were present also passed on their gratitude. It is very encouraging to us to see the church playing a role in the community and we are grateful for your support every time as this is not the first time you have kindly donated or assisted SizaBantwana. We would like to extend an open invitation to you to come and visit our Care Centres when time allows you to see who’s lives you so greatly impact.

By: Minky & Frank Mashego 
Contacts: 072 250 9304  or  082 806 9375

Siyakhula – Located in Marite, Bushbuckridge

Reading Power project
We aim to bring hope to children in a hopeless situation and believe that improved education is the only sustainable way to offer hope to the young generation.

The Reading programme’s objective is to empower children by improving their English reading ability, by improving reading understanding and reading speed, through the use of effective computer technology. We are also endeavouring to create and promote a culture of reading with the children with a library that is stocked with donated books and magazines.

A reading development programme was started in June 2010 and SizaBantwana children from grade 2 to grade 9 (ages 8 to 15) attends from 13:00 to 17:00.

The computer reading laboratory runs scientifically developed software by “READING EXCELLENCE” that is accompanied by a work book. The software has been designed to be self-paced and allows for addressing the individual literacy needs of all users, simultaneously. Programme facilitators, employed by SizaBantwana, assist and oversee the sessions.