What we will be doing

On Sept 20th - Oct 5th, our team of three people from Community Covenant Church will be joining three others from Rolling Hills Covenant Church as we head to Franschhoek, South Africa, where we will help Bridges of Hope International run a camp for 120 third through seventh graders.

            Bridges of Hope International is a non-profit organization devoted to “building bridges into suffering nations in order to create long-term, self-sustaining solutions to the deep problems of our world.”   The Bridges of Hope South Africa Project, with which we will be partnering, was developed in response to the AIDS pandemic that has ravaged the nation of South Africa during the past two decades.  Bridges of Hope’s After School Program was developed in cooperation with local leaders in South Africa as a means to empower kids with leadership skills and give them the resources to make wise decisions for their futures.  The six-month curriculum emphasizes the need for sexual abstinence until marriage – a practice in South Africa that is, literally, a matter of life and death.  It also provides kids with discipleship and life skills training.  Halfway through the program, the children are invited to attend a camp at the Bridges of Hope Retreat Center, where their facilitators and camp leaders can help them to dig deeper into the truths they are being taught.  The kids also get to experience the joys of camp – many of them for the first time.  

Our role as a mission team will be to work alongside local volunteers and staff to help make this camp possible.  We will be assisting local facilitators as they run two four-day sessions, each of which will involve 50-60 students from elementary schools in the township of Philippi.  

      Here is a picture from the last After School Program Camp