Khayelitsha – Daycare, Sports, Learn to Earn

This morning (Wednesday) we went to Khayelitsha, a black township of 1,000,000, which is a mixture of wood and tin one-room shacks and some very small recently built homes.  Twenty years ago it did not exist.  In order to shift the voting majority in the Cape Town province from white to black tens of thousands of black Africans migrated into this province over the past two decades.  Kaleitsha is where the majority of them settled. 

We visited with a Korean missionary named Kim who helps oversee a large ministry to the children of Khayelitsha.  They have 14 buildings scattered throughout Khayelitsha that offer daycare for working moms. One of the impressive things about this ministry is that there is strong community buy in and support for these centers.  The local community provided land for many of these centers. On Saturdays they do a Saturday “Sunday School”.  They kids come from 2-3 hours of Bible stories and activities.  They also have a sports league that works with hundreds of teenagers throughout the week.

We spent the afternoon at Learn to Earn.  This is a jobs training center in Khayelitsha begun by Roche van Wyk along with several local churches and African Leadership in Franklin (The People’s Church gave him $15,000 about 10 years ago to help build his main facility.  The uniqueness of this 10 – 15 week program is that in addition to job skills training the individuals also attend a Life Skills class that addresses issues of dignity and self-respect.   Roche believes this class is key to addressing some of the root issues that contribute to a person’s unemployment. He practically guarantees that if a person comes through his job training program that they can get gainful employment in addition to new perspective on life.  Every Wednesday morning they have an optional worship service on site.  The program has an exceptionally high rate of employment and has begun to open similar programs in other communities. 

I have been extremely impressed with the balance of good news and good works that is being lived out at Learn to Earn.  It is a wonderful model of business as mission. 

In Khayelitsha we have seen how the Kingdom is coming to pre-schoolers to adults.  The compassionate initiatives of the Father's love are wonderous and overflowing with hope.