Dedication

Today was the day of the dedication of the Fountain of Hope Community Church in Molelwane Village. After Pastor Garman cooked us a delicious breakfast, we all boarded the bus for the short drive to Molelwane. As thebus was traversing the dirt roads inside Molelwane, many of the smaller children who live in the village wererunning up and waving to us.

The dedication service was held in large tent that was erected next to the actual church building. This was done to accommodate the large number of dignitaries and members of other churches who came to celebrate this event. We sat up near the front, and were treated to a spectacular event. The singing and dancing throughout the service was unbelievable. This was pure worship, they hold nothing back.

Think of La Casa's contemporary service with African themed music and a lot more dancing than you'd ever see at La Casa. In between the music, Pastor Victor welcomed all of the congregations who had come to celebrate with them,including ours. Mr. M. J. Molema, the Head Man of Molelwane, and without who's permission the church could not have been built, spoke about the importance of the church providing a better moral foundation to the village's children than they were currently getting.

Pastor Garman spoke near the end of the service. He had the village children baptize the new church with water balloons that we had prepared in the morning. The service took a long time because most of the Setswana was translated into English and vice versa. What struck me while watching all of this, is that it doesn't matter what language you worship in, nor what you look like, nor how well you dance, we are all children of God, and God loves us all the same (John 10:16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.). The service was followed by a lunch with the dignitaries in the actual church building.

Once we got back to the house, Bill and Susan walked us over to Top Village, the first village that Helping Hands became involved with, and across the street from our house in Mafikeng. On the way over there, I was walking at the back of the group when I saw one of the villagers walking towards me shouting, "Shoot me! Shoot me!" This was very bewildering, so I called out to Bill who it turned out had actually met the guy before. He wanted me to take his picture, so I took a picture of him and Bill. Once at Top Village we placed orders with the beading project, and were given a tour of Top Village by their pastor, Pastor Patrick. The contrast between the utter poverty of the village and the relative prosperity of Mafikeng is striking. Houses with indoor plumbing and electricity and that would look nice in Phoenix are across the street from shacks with no electricity and water that has to be obtained from wells.

~Noel Olmut