Letters Received - Recovery Programme
“Dear Pastor Alan and Pastor Xana
I would like to express my gratitude for all that you have been to me and the life skills you have taught me. Today I don’t have an excuse to say that I never had any help in this world, because of what the Lord has put in your hearts to express his love for all His children. I want to thank you for being His hands of compassion and now I’m looking forward to do the same in the near future. Funny to talk about a future! I never thought I had one! But now I’m going to make things right for my family and I’ll take an example from your family. Thank you for your patience, love and understanding. People say that you must be in control of your life but I realized that we are never in control, but God is. Kelwyn.”
Kelwyn grew up on the streets of Johannesburg. As a child he was accepted at our shelter (Paradise for Street Children in 80 Albert Street) and then moved on to the Rhema Children’s Village. At 18 years old he returned to the streets, as his mom was not able to provide adequate accommodation. He moved into Hands of Compassion and served faithfully. He was able to secure a piece of ground in Orange Farm; HOC purchased building materials and erected a 2 roomed house with electricity; with our congregation’s donations in kind we furnished it.
A poem from a resident at Hands of Compassion in his recovery to wholeness:
Having emotions that fade away
Moving to a distance far away
To reach a point of no resistance
That needs God’s assistance.
Where formality is a fantasy
Being filled with the insufflation from the Holy Spirit
Death has got to be easy, ‘cause life is hard
It leaves us physically and emotionally scared.
But when the intensity of God touches us
It will leave us with forever joy and healing
Bing filled with harmony for eternity
Every day I have learned to thank God for wisdom.
For I have learned the ways of love
I have learned to pray for love
I have learned to give those who betray me,
God’s love.
Because I have been searching for love in the wrong places
But not from God
Now I know that the love of God
Is the only love there is. [Matthew 26:47-50] Mawande N.
"First of all I have to give all the glory to God for sending me to Hands of Compassion. Since I arrived I only grew stronger in the Word. I have learnt to endure with patience; being a drug addict for the past eight years, I did not know where my responsibility was, but the leadership here at Hands of Compassion has helped me to deal with it. I'm slowly moving back into a normal life with God. My relationship with my family and most importantly with my son has been restored. I believe I am a new person in Jesus Christ and that God's will for my life is to help those with the same problem and to be able to get them to a place such as Rhema Hands of Compassion Recovery Centre. Life is not going from one drug to another in order to come right; but it's is about finding God and letting God take over and release you from your addiction. With this I thank God for the counselors at Rhema Hands of Compassion for they helped me in overcoming my problems". SM
A letter written by a resident of Hands of Compassion to his Team Leader:
‘Thank you Vincent and thank you to all at HOC for this chance at life again; really did not think I was going to make it out there; nowhere to go, nothing to eat, and really cold nights; like I said thank you for this chance to fix things, fix me, fix my life; it’s not going to be easy but I’m giving it my all; thank you; for once I feel at home safe! Give me lots of work to do and I’ll be happy. I’ll give you guys my best 100%. Thank you 4 everything!!! God bless. Ricardo’