Here is the background information about our partnership church in SA.
Information on how you can support our trip is available at the bottom of this entry and on the April 11 entry. Thanks for reading and for your support!
OUR WORK IN SOUTH AFRICACrossroads in Cincinnati, Ohio, began its partnership with Charity and Faith
Mission Church in Mamelodi, South Africa, several years ago when the leaders
of both churches, Brian Tome and Titus Sithole, met at a conference in Chicago. As Brian and Titus grew to know each other they found that the missions of their churches were similar. Specifically, both churches strongly believed that they must be a blessing to their communities by helping to solve the real issues they faced.
Titus was the only pastor in Mamelodi who was actively confronting the AIDS epidemic. Mamelodi is a township community of one million people where between 30%-
40% of the population is HIV positive. Titus built an AIDS crisis center on his church property that provides free testing and counseling for hundreds of people both
inside and outside of the church. He also established a large home-based care team to provide vital services to AIDS patients throughout Mamelodi.
In 2003, Titus had a vision to build a full-service AIDS hospice that would both:
A) serve as a base for in-home care of AIDS patients, and
B) provide a place where people in the final stages of AIDS could be taken from
private homes that were often abusive and be placed in a
caring environment.
Concurrently, Crossroads was beginning a building campaign to double the size of its facility in Cincinnati. Brian and Titus agreed that a portion of the funding
raised in the campaign would be dedicated to make Titus’ hospice vision a reality.
Funding for what is now known as Bophelong Community Hospice was secured in May 2004, and the facility officially opened in April 2006.
Both churches believe that the AIDS hospice in Mamelodi was only the beginning of a long-term partnership. Crossroads employs full-time staff, supported by a strong volunteer team, to lead the partnership in the U.S. Charity & Faith has also
developed a team of leaders in Mamelodi dedicated to the partnership.
The ideological foundation of the partnership is that Titus and his church best understand the needs in the local community and that the role of the church in Cincinnati is to support h is vision. Currently, core initiatives in the partnership are:
• Providing health care services, beginning with the AIDS
hospice and expanding to other capabilities.
• Creating jobs and sustainable revenue that offset the
operating costs of these services.
• Meeting immediate needs such as food and medical
supplies.
• Personally connecting individuals from both communities to
accelerate volunteerism and engagement.
HEALTH CARE SERVICESCrossroads has assembled a team of over 40 health care
professionals who partner with Charity and Faith to:
• Volunteer their time on mission trips, providing medical,
dental and eye care to the community and building relationships
with the local health care community.
• Develop a plan to provide a continuous presence of U.S.
health care professionals on the ground in Mamelodi.
JOBS AND REVENUE GENERATIONA Crossroads business team has focused on several projects to combat crushing unemployment in Mamelodi, and to generate revenue to help offset the cost of health care services.
IT professionals from Crossroads installed a fully-functional adult education center on the Charity campus, complete with dozens of computers and one of the only high-speed Internet connections in Mamelodi. Two Crossroads volunteers spent
almost a year teaching English and typing classes. Five South African women were trained as medical transcriptionists and are currently working out of the computer center for a Cincinnati-based medical transcription firm.
A team of Crossroads business experts have created a business development program in Mamelodi that envisions quarterly job-seeker and entrepreneurship classes as well as
business mentoring for Mamelodi-based entrepreneurs. The team is also actively seeking out business opportunities in South Africa to create jobs.
And Crossroads has assembled a team of grant-writing experts to seek out long-term funding for the various initiatives. In fact, Crossroads received its first monetary award as a top ten finisher out of 100 churches in the 2007 Award for Courageous Leadership in HIV/AIDS.
Crossroads and Charity also helped establish a non-profit business called “Beaded Hope” (www.beadedhope.com) that connects a community of South African women affected by HIV who create beaded jewelry to a receptive market in Cincinnati. This provides much needed income for these women who are severely disadvantaged in the local employment market.
MEETING IMMEDIATE NEEDSCrossroads has mobilized a team of volunteer shipping and logistics experts to facilitate the deployment of much-needed food and supplies in Mamelodi. Over the past two years, the team has shipped over $225,000 worth of medical, construction
and business supplies to Charity. Also, as part of its annual Thanksgiving Food Drive, Crossroads has collected and shipped over 140,000 pounds of food to be distributed by Charity to those in Mamelodi who are starving.
PERSONAL CONNECTIONSIn the past two years, a project entitled “GO Mamelodi” brought nearly 900 members of Crossroads to meet and serve alongside members of Charity and Faith Mission. As a result of these trips:
• Hundreds of Americans and South Africans formed strong,
lasting relationships, with many still communicating via
e-mail.
• Hundreds of Americans spent an evening in the homes of
the people of Mamelodi. This is groundbreaking as very few
Americans have ever set foot in Mamelodi and many South
Africans refuse to visit the townships.
• Hundreds of backyard gardens were planted in Mamelodi’s
squatter villages providing much-needed vegetables to those
who are dying of malnutrition.
• Dozens of homes were constructed using both South African
block construction and American wood construction.
• Thousands of Mamelodi kids attended programs with music
and games designed just for them, a first in the township.
• Nearly 900 suitcases packed full of children’s classroom
supplies were delivered and teachers from Crossroads
partnered with teachers at Charity’s school to discuss best
practices in education, classroom management and
administration.
• A children’s library was set up at Charity’s school, complete
with 6,000 donated books.
• Because of the extraordinary presence of hundreds of
Americans in the township, important public officials,
including the South African Minister of Social Development,
the Mayor of the City of Pretoria and the Deputy Speaker of
the South African Parliament visited Charity and committed
to help Charity in its efforts.
• Both Crossroads and Charity leaders were interviewed on
several national TV and radio programs.
• After the first trip, Titus received a call from the South
African Vice President saying, “I’ve seen your church and
those Americans all over the news, and I want to learn more
about what you’re doing and how your model can be
expanded nationwide.”
• After the second trip, the Minister of Social Development
was so impressed with what was accomplished and the hope
that Charity & Faith is bringing to the people of Mamelodi
that he instructed his staff to begin negotiations with Titus to
rent the second floor of the hospice, thus providing
additional support services to the poor of Mamelodi and
helping to offset a majority of the hospice’s operating costs.
2008 AND BEYONDCrossroads is now sending three or four teams to Mamelodi each year, and we plan to send up to 400 people to Mamelodi in November 2008, with regular annual trips thereafter. Crossroads hosted 35 Charity members in our homes in May 2007, and we are bringing more of our South African partners to the U.S. in May 2008. Charity members join us in a one-day “mega serving” opportunity where 4000 church attenders
volunteer at over 175 projects of non-profit organizations in Cincinnati and surrounding areas.
Crossroads and Charity both hope to hire full-time professionals in Mamelodi to manage the partnership, and are working diligently to ensure the long-term stability of the infrastructure we have already built.
Finally, Crossroads and Charity are both 100% committed to the partnership and believe this model of relationship and service can change the world, through widespread replication with other churches and organizations in the US and Africa.
***How can you help us change the world? Well, we need your prayers and we need your money! Please ... if you were considering any gifts to us this year (birthdays, anniversary, Christmas ... or even if you weren't!), we ask that you please redistribute that money towards this trip. Checks can made out to Crossroads and are 100% tax deductible. Once our deposit is raised and paid (by May 5th, in case you forgot. Hehe.), contributions can be made online to our account. Your contributions go far beyond changing our lives and rocking our world forever ... they go towards combatting poverty, providing health care, shelter, food, love, and so much more to an entire village impacted by life-shattering poverty, sickness, and oppression.
Checks should be made out to Crossroads and mailed to Crossroads,ATTN. GO MAMELODI, 3500 Madison Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45209. Please write our names (Jeff and Joyce Kendrick/Go Mamelodi) in the memo).
We thank you in advance for your prayers and financial support! And please know that no contribution is too small (or too large. We like the large contributions, too!)
We love you!***
