Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The Sundays River Valley is the largest citrus producing area in South Africa. One of the problems facing the community is that of seasonal labour and unemployment. Employment opportunities are largely limited to the picking season. The result is a community struggling with poverty and its associated social evils. HIV/AIDS is particularly prevalent in the area.

In 2004 the Vineyard, Anglican and NG churches in the Valley began independently to look at new ways of addressing the problem. Through the ministers' fraternal, Dominee Johan Enslin, Pastor Chris Morley and the Revd Rod Greville, rector of Sundays River Valley Parish, decided to co-ordinate their efforts. An interdenominational team led by Natalie Hansen from the Vineyard church began doing weekly home visits in the Addo area, to encourage those who were sick, to pray with them, and to generally offer counselling and support. These home visits also included advice on nutrition and sexual practices and the provision of fortified foods, fresh fruit and herbal remedies to boost compromised immune systems. As the Spirit led, patients were also evangelized and encouraged to give their lives to Jesus. All visitors had undergone some sort of training through their respective denominations.

During the course of last year, 912 home visits were conducted, and nutrition was provided on a weekly basis to about 30 people living with HIV/AIDS.

The leadership of the three churches has registered a trust - the "Thembalethu Aids and Edu Trust" - to co-ordinate fundraising and finances for the project. As the name suggests, a second focus of the Trust is support for pre-primary education in the Valley. Janine Briggs and Debbie Miller from St. Michael's Anglican Church at Summerville are involved in the provision of nutrition for three creches serving approximately 140 children under the age of 6. Muffy Miller (also from St. Michael's) has a similar ministry to the children of the northern side of the Valley, where a new creche has recently been erected by the churches.

Rod Greville commented to Iindaba: "In this Valley, we are too small, as individual churches to do our own thing. We have to work together, and I think this also pleases God and answers Jesus' prayer 'that they may be one' (John 17)."

This article is reprinted from Iindaba, the gazette of the Diocese of Port Elizabeth