* OFFICIAL OPENING OF EMSENI CARE CENTRE AT KWASIZABANTU MISSION - "Appearances are deceptive. One can look from afar at the rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal and think that everything seems fine. You need to get closer and enter into their world to realise what awful misery there is in many homes because of HIV/Aids. I am so thankful that our Carers who have graduated today have been willing to lay down their lives in going into these troubled areas and have learnt how to care for them." Rev E. Stegen said these words as part of his speech and message to thank the Department of Health and the group who have been trained as Care Givers for Aids patients.

Although ECC has been operational since March the Care Givers needed to complete a Home-Based Care course before the centre could be officially opened. The main aim of ECC is to provide love, care and prayer for those who are suffering from HIV/Aids. The first stage of the complex has been completed and can accommodate about 20 people as well as full-time staff. As the Lord provides the Kwasizabantu Mission hopes to build larger buildings for many more.
The guest speaker was Mrs D. Zwane who also handed over the certificates to the 20 or so students who have successfully completed the course. She stressed the importance of testing for HIV and using ARVs if necessary (as well as living a healthy lifestyle).
About 1200 people attended the 4 hour opening of ECC. A short video about the centre was also shown.(CFT News, 12 Aug 2006) (to index)

* NATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY OUTREACHES - For 12 years in a row, Africa Christian Action has used National Women’s Day (09 August) as an opportunity for outreach in the shopping centres.
As on previous years, Africa Christian Action members and volunteers set up literature tables and photo displays in prominent shopping centres and distributed thousands of balloons with Scriptures and pro-family messages to children. Soon the shopping centres were filled with these Scripture messages on balloons. It is very hard, even for an irate atheist adult, to take a balloon away from a child!
We also managed to distribute many thousands of Gospel leaflets to shoppers and many conversations resulted. The overwhelming majority of passersby were positive and some were enthusiastically supportive. Only a very few were negative and expressed hostility for our pro-family literature and displays. Numerous counselling opportunities resulted and we had the privilege of praying with a number of shoppers, including with a Muslim who was very convicted.
Africa Christian Action displays were set up at Century City – Canal Walk, Somerset Mall and at Sanlam Centre in Khayelitsha. The ACA table in Khayelitsha was absolutely swamped with enthusiastic shoppers eagerly clambering for balloons and literature. Some of our people were busy on their feet for almost 12 hours at Canal Walk and for 9 hours at Somerset Mall. The conversations, discussions, witnessing and counselling opportunities came thick and fast and at the end of the day our legs were sore and our heads were whirling.
All who took part in these outreaches rejoiced at the opportunity to sow Gospel seed and make a stand in the busy shopping centres, being salt and light in the community. We also had the opportunity to encourage over a hundred women passing by with the gift of a rose. It was heartwarming to see the surprised and joyful responses of so many as they received a balloon, a rose or Gospel leaflet.
Thank you so very much to each one who had a part in organising, sponsoring, praying for, or conducting, these outreaches. Let us all continue to pray that the Lord would mercifully and graciously continue to work in the hearts and lives who have been touched and impacted through the literature distribution, witnessing, conversations and counselling, or even just read the simple Scripture and pro-family messages on one of the balloons.
If you would like to get involved with Africa Christian Action and its pro-life, pro-family, pro-moral campaigns, please contact Taryn Hodgson, PO Box 23632, Claremont, 7735, Cape Town, South Africa. Or phone: 021-689-4480; fax: 021-685-5884; or E-mail: info@christianaction.org.za

"Who will rise up for Me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for Me against the evil doers?" Psalm 94:16 (Christian Action, 11 Aug 2006) (to index)

* AFRICAN ENTERPRISE’S NEW LEADER - "Those two gentlemen over there each have two Masters Degrees but they chose me, a man who never went to school, to lead them," says Stephen Lungu during an interview with The Witness on Saturday.
Lungu has just been appointed chief executive officer and international team leader of African Enterprise. He is taking over from Dr Michael Cassidy, who is also the founder of African Enterprise, a Christian organisation which has offices in ten African states.
Telling his story, which sounds more like a fairytale, Lungu said he was "transformed, through the power of God, from being a nobody to a somebody".
Born in Zimbabwe to a Malawian father and Zimbabwean mother, the young Lungu never had it easy as a child. At the age of seven he was abandoned by his mother and lived in the streets scavenging for food in dustbins. At the age of ten he was hooked into a variety of drugs including LSD and dagga.
He formed and became leader of a gang called "The Black Shadows" when he was thirteen. Besides wearing strictly black clothing, the gang had a more darker side as it was involved in a number of criminal activities that included house breakings and armed robbery.
He stabbed his first of many victims at the age of 13. In his book, "Out of the Black Shadows", he describes his first experience of stabbing someone as a "moment of high drama" in his young life.
"For the first time in my life I felt I had the power over somebody else. But all night under the bridge I relived it. I had nightmares."
Despite the nightmares, Lungu and his gang continued their terror and later the gang joined the liberation struggle, bombing institutions associated with the then Rhodesian government and those perceived to be symbols of oppression.
It was in 1962 — during a mission to bomb a bank — that his life was to change forever. "On our way to the bank, armed with petrol bombs, we passed a big tent where Christian missionaries from Johannesburg had come to preach.
We perceived all things Christian, which involved white people, as linked to apartheid. We then decided to bomb the tent instead and kill everyone inside it. We set our target for 7 pm that night".
Before the planned bomb-time, Lungu and his gang decided to get inside the tents "to have a look at the faces of the people we were about to kill".
Lungu was so touched by the sermon inside the tent that he went on stage and confessed his sins.
The rest, he says, is history.
A year later he was adopted by an Afrikaner family. He was later taught to read and write, ironically by a blind friend.
Lungu made his mark in the Christian community and later became one of the most respected and well travelled preaches.
It was during one of his sermons in Mozambique in 1975 that he was re-united with his mother whom he had last seen when she abandoned him.
He later married his wife Rachel and together they are involved in a number of programmes aimed at rehabilitating abandoned children and prostitutes around the continent.
He says one of the challenges that his organisation aims to address is the alarming spread of HIV/Aids in South Africa. (The Witness, 14 Aug 2006) (to index)

* FARMER WILL LIVE WITH BULLET IN HIM – It is a miracle that Wartburg farmer and father-of-three Dave Williams, 41, is alive today, and he will live the rest of his life with a bullet in his chest as a constant reminder of his close shave with death.
Williams was shot and wounded by one of three men who ambushed him on the farm where he lives at Windy Hill in the Wartburg district during an apparent robbery attempt on Friday afternoon (4 Aug).
Williams, a sugar-cane harvesting contractor, was on his way to the pay point when the men – two of whom had guns – emerged from the sugar-cane and stepped into the road.
"The guy who shot me had a pistol. The other one had something like an AK-47, but he couldn’t get it to shoot."
"The chap with the pistol stepped out and pointed the gun right at me and I just went for him with the truck. I wasn’t going to stop for anything. Then he shot me."
Williams said the bullet went through the windscreen, passed through the sun visor and into his chest, lodging just behind the breast bone. Surgeons later decided it was too risky to try to remove the bullet.
A second shot was fired through the left passenger door but missed him.
Williams continued driving and the attackers chased after him, still firing shots.
"I immediately phoned my wife and told her I’d been shot and warned her to lock up and put on the alarm. Then I called the security company and told them to speed up to the house and take care of my wife."
"When I was seen by the surgeon (at Pietermaritzburg’s Medi-clinic), he kept on saying what a miracle it was and how lucky I was to be alive. He said I must have had God on my side. I am extremely grateful to the Lord for sparing my life as I have a young family to care for," said Williams.
He said he and his family would not give up their country life in the wake of the shooting. "We can’t stop living because of something like this. I love the country, I love this place and I’m staying."
Willams added that the Wartburg community had rallied around to support him.
"It’s an absolute privilege to be part of such a district."
Farm manager Werner Scharlach, 37, was shot dead in a shed on the same farm in November 1996, and farmer Eckhard Wittig, who co-owns the farm, was shot and wounded in his shoulder when he encountered the killers driving Scharlach’s stolen bakkie.
By yesterday afternoon no arrests had been made in connection with Friday’s incident.
(The Mercury, 7 August 2006) (to index)

* GAY UNION DEBATE GOES ON – The government does not plan to kick for touch on same sex unions and will meet a December constitutional court deadline for legislation to be adopted on the issue, says Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.
The issue is one of the most divisive to come before parliament and has elicited as much interest and division as the controversial abortion legislation, with many religious groups and traditional leaders among those opposed to same-sex unions and its recognition.
On the other side stands gay rights and human rights activists who have heralded South Africa’s progressive constitution that outlaws discrimination on the basis sexual orientation. MPs on the justice and home affairs committees made clear yesterday that despite the tight time frames, there would be public participation and consultation before a bill is adopted by both houses of parliament.
Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange acknowledged yesterday that proposed legislation on same-sex marriages was one of the "issues in our society that actually can widen the social cohesion deficit in this country."
In terms of a Constitutional Court judgment, parliament has until December 2 this year to correct section 30 (1) of the Marriage Act, in that the reference to wife or husband in the current marriage formula is unconstitutional, because it excludes same-sex partners. The court ruled that the omission of the words "or spouse" after the words "or husband" in the Marriage Act was inconsistent with the constitution as it did not permit same-sex partners to enjoy the same status as heterosexual couples.
Meanwhile, the ACDP said in a statement it was concerned that parliament was even considering redefining marriage to include same-sex partnerships, albeit because of the court ruling. ACDP MP Steve Swart said that the case evoked strong emotions, but that the traditional concept of marriage, as that between a man and a woman, should be protected. He urged that a constitutional amendment should rather be adopted to protect "traditional marriage as that between a man and woman". De Lange said the government was trying to "maintain maximum social cohesion" while processing the proposed legislation and there were already calls from the religious community to amend the constitution to stop the way the courts had suggested parliament define marriages. (Daily News, 3 August 2006) (to index)

* HOMOSEXUALS SAY THEY’LL IGNORE NO-PROTEST ORDER IN JERUSALEM - Despite a police order, homosexual activists still plan to protest in Jerusalem’s Liberty Bell Park this evening. Jerusalem police announced early yesterday that they would prohibit the event, called "Protest Against Hatred," because they are afraid it will lead to violence, The Jerusalem Post reports.
The protest was planned to highlight the city’s cancellation of the parade that was to be the climax of this week’s WorldPride celebration (August 6-12). Police barred the protest after organizers refused to limit the number of demonstrators or promise to contain the protest to an allotted spot.
"There is no legal basis to the police decision as such an event, which is not a demonstration, does not require a license," Hagai El-Ad, executive director of Jerusalem's Gay and Lesbian center, which is hosting the event, told The Jerusalem Post. A police representative told the Post that police have the right to place conditions on events in order to maintain civic order.
The WorldPride event has drawn few international visitors. Israel is in the midst of a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with missiles falling in northern Israel on a daily basis. Although the parade was cancelled, other events, including a "gay" film festival and seminars, have been held in Jerusalem. Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders have spoken against the event, urging cancellation of all aspects.
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who is in Israel on a special mission representing Jews for Morality and the Orthodox Rabbinical Alliance of America, told CWA on Wednesday that he urges American Christians to contact Israeli officials, either in Jerusalem or at the embassy in Washington, and ask them to convey their desire that the law be upheld and the illegal protest be barred.
"It’s of utmost importance that Christians let their voices be heard," Levin said. "I can’t stress how much this would mean."

Contact Information:
Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.
(202) 364-5500
Interreligious@israelemb.org
Israeli Foreign Affairs (Jerusalem)
011-972-2-5303111
sar@mfa.gov.il