Recycle Swop Shop

Below is a guest blog by Ang Benjafield, wife to gavin, mom to Caleb and Judah. Check out all that she is talking about below by checking out the Recycle Swop Shop's facebook page...but only after you've read the blog!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Recycle-Swop-Shop-Cape-Town/274245865920062

"I went to Recycle Swop Shop this morning to take photos for our social media campaign. I’m not one of the regular volunteers. But standing there, snapping away at faces, seeing the huge need and people living with great lack, it was impossible not to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.

I helped a lady from the community of DuNoon hand out soup to the mothers and kids who were there. Ladies who bring recycling are given tokens after their bags have been weighed, and one of the tokens is a food token. With a food token, they are able to ‘pay for’ a cup of soup and a bread-roll. It’s not an ideal system; where hungry moms and kids queue without being able to eat until their bags are weighed. But it’s a system that works.

While serving soup, my heart broke. I became acutely aware of the overwhelming need in this community. Even with all our efforts and the enormous impact that Swop Shop is making… it’s not enough. Children cry with hunger, and moms share cups of soup and one bread-roll between several little ones. I must admit; I turned a blind eye when the odd bread-roll or cup of soup went, without a food token, to some of the frail-looking, horribly thin moms with babies on their backs.

But what I cannot get my head around, what has stayed with me all morning, is the fact that these people aren’t ‘somewhere in Africa’. They are here, 5km away from leafy suburbia. Is it possible that people living so nearby can be so ignorant of the need that exists just over-the-bridge? I know it is. I am one of them…

We must be able to do more. In our community of Tableview there are businesses; and families who can get involved. There are so many churches in this area, and why does the church exist, if it is not to love? To show compassion, and kindness. Jesus even said that it is true love when we love those who cannot repay us. There is a whole community in need of love, and education and help, and they are right here. Only ten minutes away.

It just takes a little, from many, to cause a lot of change. Many need to get involved. Many need to help, if we are to see the lasting impact of love in this community.
And while we wait for the help of many, still doing all we can: we hope. Hope that our efforts will create awareness. And that awareness will spark compassion. And that compassion will lead to action."
-Ang Benjafield

The Head and Heart of Revival

Below is an extract from the journal of John Wesley, the great revivalist of the 18th century. In this portion he speaks of his "lights on" moment- his new birth in Christ. Every story of grace coming alive in a heart get's me excited and reminds me of what we are called to. We preach for heart transformation, not mere mental assent.

"In the evening I went unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but I cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and He "sent me help from his holy place." And herein I found the difference betweenthis and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now, I was always conqueror.

The moment I awakened, "Jesus, Master," was in my heart and in my mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed upon Him and my soul waiting on Him continually. Being again at St. Paul's in the afternoon, I could taste the good word of God in the anthem which begun, "My song shall be always of the loving kindness of the Lord; with my mouth will I ever be showing forth thy truth from one generation to another." Yet the enemy injected a fear, "If thou dost believe, why is there not a more sensible change?" I answered (yet not I), "That I know not. But, this I know, I have 'now peace with God.' And I sin not today, and Jesus my Master has forbidden me to take thought for the morrow."

Wesley, Journal of John Wesley, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/journal.vi.11.xvi.html