A LONG winter...Cape Basic Foods feeds the hungry!

As spring is upon us, here, we reflect back to our long, cold winter and we are grateful to have been instruments to feed so many hungry children.  As Aletia Grundling, MCM's CEO shared "our vision was shown so practically during the June/July holiday, by feeding over 27,000 children."

Hungry children lined up with their food containers in hand

One of our MCM Food Center partners during this winter holiday was Cape Basic Foods, and we are grateful to this organization for supporting our FACED program during the school holidays.  FACED stands for Feed A Child Every Day, a program that we launched 2 years ago (during the 'Soccer World Cup' school holidays) and has proved to be successful at helping to feed thousands of children who would normally receive a government sponsored meal during their regular school day (see our blog posting from 6 July 2011 for more information about the FACED program).  We are also grateful to Iona, a staff member of Cape Basic Foods who daily dished out food to these very hungry children in an area called Klapmuts just outside of Paarl.  Iona shared the following thoughts:  "on 10 July 2012 a preacher visited our company at 8:00 in the morning to deliver a message about faith in God.  At 11:30, on a sunny winter day, we left the office to hand out the food...in the various squatter camps (informal settlements).  There were only 3 buckets and needless to say there were too many mouths and not enough food.

Children and mothers posing with soup buckets in the background

The people are so very, very hungry...especially with all the rain and cold that we have had this winter.  At the last camp, I said to the young lady helping me that I'm first going to pray over the last of the food.  There was no way that we could give all the people food from what was left.  I just thanked Jesus for multiplying the food and supplying what was needed.  When the last person came to receive her portion, it was the last portion in the bucket.  Praise Jesus!  This was so wonderful, especially for the young lady with me as she has not seen anything like this before.  God is good all the time and all the time God is good!"

Smiling faces with tummies ready to be filled

 

More hungry tummies

Aletia reflected upon this huge effort and shared with the MCM staff "looking at the impact that we made during the holidays, and how many children were served, I want to remind you to be alert so that we all can identify other areas where we can care for those in need.  God wants to use us to serve the poorest of the poor...this is our vision."

Monte Christo Miqlat (MCM)'s home office makes a move!

On 3 September Monte Christo Miqlat (MCM)'s head office moved to the MCM Coffee Shop which is located on Pastorie Avenue 19 in Central Paarl.  The MCM leadership and staff are very excited about this move, because it will place the head office in a much more centralized location in Paarl and help the organization to more easily accomplish one of its goals...to be the heart and face of the ministry in Paarl.  

Owners of Supa Sign-Paarl (who we thank for the wonderful discounts on all of our building signage) taking down the 'home office' sign at the old location

One of the primary objectives of MCM as a charity is to mobilize the community on all fronts to help those in need. To do this, MCM partners with churches; governmental agencies; NGO’s and service organizations in an effort to build strategic solutions to solve the major problems resulting from poverty.  Aletia Grundling, the CEO of MCM said that “our community has all the resources available to help create a ‘care umbrella’ for children and families dealing with poverty.  As a Christian organization, we fully understand our mandate to reach out and use all that we have to make a difference.”  MCM continues to run programs in Paarl East, Mbekweni and Wellington.  The programs are meant to address the problems of HIV/Aids, poor nutrition, homelessness and joblessness, as well as a lack of sports and recreation activities and facilities, programs for youth and children, and training, education and leadership development.  

New home of MCM's head office

The leadership team that moved to this new location include Aletia Grundling-CEO, Karen Petersen-Marketing & Communications, Tertius Spies-Grants & Funding, and Shanon Jefthas-IT and Administration.  The MCM team is looking forward to hosting an 'open house' reception later in the year and hope to welcome many community members into their new home.  Stay tuned...

MCM got uniform!

It is exciting times here at Monte Christo Miqlat (MCM)!!!  Our staff just took delivery of our long-awaited uniforms which allow us to proudly display our ministry name!  Pictured here are Aletia Grundling-MCM's CEO and Francisco Naude-MCM Director of Sports and Recreation proudly receiving delivery of our new clothing from Lynette Cronje, our clothing consultant who helped us with clothing selection and design.

Aletia shares that she feels that the clothing contributes towards the feeling that our staff is important to us.  Aletia says that "We want them to feel proud of the MCM family...a family that now looks much more professional to the eyes of the community."  She also shared that "because we are building the Kingdom, we strive for excellence."

Sharon, one of our Bowy House staff members above, said  “I feel that I am part of the family.” “The bibs are beautiful and professional.”

Johannes, our Director of Coaching 1000 (pictured above with his team), feels that the sports coaches now portray a positive image for MCM into the schools in which the coaches teach.  Johannes says that the uniforms are "very professional and the material of the summer track suits and golf shirts is very cool."

And our Food Center staff members have lots of enthusiasm for the chef jackets that they each received.  Petro shared that she "feels very professional and neat at work."  Grace expressed that she "thinks our new chef uniforms are great!  I feel honored to work in the kitchen to do my work."  And Kelvin expresses "in my chef coat, I feel like a professional baker."

As you can see, we're all pretty excited about our new look!  We all want to thank Lynette Cronje, Creative Director of KLC Services (www.klcs.co.za) for helping us all to look more professional and polished as we advance the Kingdom here in Paarl!