following our post on the 22nd we have just received an urgent email from our friend in south africa, adrian who works for thembalitsha, and have spoken with vicky who runs thembacare in grabouw, please read email below from adi but as some further background we are in urgent need of prayer for the xenophobic attacks that are happening in south africa which are now effecting the people and township/settlements we are working in.
the ‘village of hope' is already fulfilling it’s calling as we are providing accommodation for 2 families, from zimbabwe, who have been driven from their homes in philippi township, these are guys who have been on the micro business training course, run by thembalitsha, our wonderful and recently employed farm manager and his wife who works as a staff nurse at the AIDS clinic in grabouw, have welcomed these families in to 'the village of hope' to protect them from further attacks.
everynation church in somerset west are using a warehouse to house around 500 people, please pray as they seek to provide food, sanitation and medical care for these families, many of whom have fled the violence in zimbabwe only to find themselves at the forefront of attacks in south africa….we hope you realise the urgency of this prayer as cape town is as far away from zim as can be, so the continued violence has now spread through all of south africa. the center in somerset west is seeking to provide nappies and basic food stuffs for the babies, some of whom will be living with HIV/AIDS, if you can or know someone who might be able to help please comment below and we will put you in touch with the guys on the ground as we seek to help those to helpless to help themselves.
please read adi’s further email for more info…..in a way we are so happy that thembalitshauk have been able to provide this accommodation at the village of hope so quickly, but it saddens us as to the reason why we have had to do this, the country has enough problems without this happening…..we wish we were there to help but we know that there are good guys on the ground to provide the help and support the people so desperately need. please join us in praying for this nation and the attacks to stop.
URGENT URGENT URGENT
Dear friends and family near and far,
Our nation is in a major crises. Xenophobia attacks on poor immigrants based in the townships have spread like wildfire across the nation in the last week to 10 days.
A week ago reports of mobs driving out Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Somalians etc being lynched, and killed by running gangs and mobs in Johannesburg hit the news.
By last night this had spread to most cities in South Africa, including Cape Town.
Quite a number of Thembalitsha staff were forced to flee their homes, and families we work with, were facing the prospect of being targeted and attacked as recently as last night. We did a mercy run into Crossroads at sunset last night, for a young family and moved them up to the Village of Hope farm in Grabouw. 2 other Zimbabwean families we know of are being harboured in people's homes, and more and more christians are opening their homes to harbour these people.
When we were in the township last night, the police stations, halls and churches were filling up with these hapless foreigners, who are honest hard working people, but are been given notice to leave their homes and their little shops or face the wrath of the community.
( 450 people where being kept in a warehouse in Somerset West, over 1000 people are being kept at a racetrack near Tableview and about 300 people had sought refuge in a police station in Crossroads ( for those of you not familiar with Cape Town, these are areas around Cape Town)
mobs, most of teenagers and young people patrol the streets, threatening anyone who does not speak the local language, even if they are South Africans, but just happen to speak a language from another part of the country.
Our Johannesburg church has set up a crises centre, our Cape Town church has set up 2 large tents to cope with the people, and today we will start sending buses into the poor communities most affected in CPT to pick up as many people as possible from police stations and other places of safety and move them out of the hotspots and to tented refugee centres.
We need your prayers at this time, as it comes just weeks after a time when revival and a return to prayer has been noticeable throughout the nation, and its almost like its the counter attack from Satan, and he is using people, teenagers, young people, in an organised effort to drive out people who have fled to our nation for safety, and now face persecution again at the hands of a nation that is supposed to be the hope of the African continent.
We are concerned it is being fueled politically, because it seemed to spring up out of nowhere, and perhaps its an attempt to make some inroads in the current leadership crises in our nation by one or other group of politicians. Newspapers are reporting that it seems to be organised, and that someone is behind this that is in a position of power, but nothing concrete has come out of these speculations as yet.
We round off this email by saying we need your help, practically, we are just getting our teeth into the problem this week, so for now, we cannot say what, but until we can send concrete requests, please pray, pray pray. The churches in our nation are rising up to meet the challenge and serve those in need, but we have no idea of how large this problem is on the ground.
What we are seeing is that hundreds of people are being displaced in Cape Town, and in Johannesburg, thousands.
Thank you taking the time to read this email, and please treat this with the utmost urgency.