THANK YOU TSOGA FOUNDATION

 

I would like, on behalf of our Management Team and the Board, to express my greatest gratitude to you in making it possible through the Capacity Building and the Income Generation Budgets, to host a 3 days First Aid Training and to unveil our “Tent for Hire”.  

 

Ten of our fourteen Staff members had attended the Training. On the other hand, R450.00 was generated through hiring a Tent to the Upbeat Youth Centre for its Youth Training outside our yard. Fifty Chairs and an Electric Urn to boil water for Tea was part of the package.  

 

Again, we were blessed in that a local Church has already booked one hundred Chairs for a Service on the 6th of July 2014. 

 

God willing, we hope to do better in this endeavour. Ernest Matsela

 

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From: Ernest Matsela, Thembalethu Centre

 

Dear All, 

Isn't the love of God through His Son, Jesus Christ, amazing? He operates in a way no one can comprehend! We, being His Son's extremities ( a concept I borrowed from our First Aid Trainer, Billy Thesner, meaning arms/legs) and as such different parts of Jesus Christ's body, has daily plans about us that He uses to touch those in need of His love, care, sense of belonging and assurance of hope that He is in control of our lives.

 

What then is this supposed to mean? This morning, as I was in Church, I got a call from Thembi from the neighbouring Phola Park, asking if the Centre was opened/operational  on Sunday. She was eager to go to the Centre to donate some clothing for the children.

 

My response was for her to go there and with the assurance that our Cooks were to attend to her. Hence her undertaking that she would be there between 14H:00 and 15H:00. It was while I was back at home, doing my house chores, when I received another call from her, at around 16H:15, apologizing for not having made it then. Being as it was, she asked if it was still fine for her to bring the clothes at the Centre then.

 

As a result, I accepted her offer and promised to be at the Centre by 17H:00, meaning I had to abandon what I was doing and leave for the Centre. Half-way my usual route to the Centre, I decided to take another direction with the aim of passing at a Saloon in order to cut my hair. 

 

Before I could arrive there, a bakkie stopped along-side me and a passenger offered me a lift. That was Thembi. She was with her husband. I also noted she was holding a newly born child...I could understand why she could not make it earlier. We then arrived at the Centre, helped her husband to unload the clothing and had some little talks about the Centre, before allowing them to drive back home. That was Thembi. She could not wait another day longer to make a difference in the lives of the children we serve. 

 

It was at that time that I decided to go back to the Saloon. On my way there, I met Esther Sibiya, a UNISA (University of South Africa) Part -Time Student who was also a Volunteer Teacher at our neighbouring Elukhanyisweni Secondary School. She had earlier in the year asked for permission to study in our Library on Tuesdays and Thursdays when she was not at School. All she wanted to confirm was whether I did receive her message to the effect that she had already started with her Examination and that it was going well.  Those were today's blessings! 

 

 

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The other day Lina remarked about how proud she was to be associated with successful stories!

 

I was also humbled this late afternoon by another successful story from a different walk of life. That is to say, I was walking down the street when a young man riding a bicycle made an emergency break in front of me, with a big smile.

Before I could ask who he was, he introduced himself as Kenneth Sithole from Tweefontein J (the community where Upbeat Youth Centre is located) 

 

He then narrated how thankful he was that I had allowed him an opportunity to attend the Evening Study at Thembalethu Centre last year, when he was doing Grade 12 at Mzimhlophe High School, although he was not our beneficiary. He had managed to get two Distinctions: in Mathematics and Home Language (IsiNdebele).

 

His regret was that he did not, then, apply for Tertiary Education, something he was now working on this year. Most importantly, he has accepted my invitation to come to motivate and share his knowledge with our beneficiaries.

The young man was really pleased! Ernest Matsela.