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January/February 2012
The new school year is upon us, and it may be our best one yet!  Our enrollment is up, with many of our classes filled to capacity, and our grade PR and R are so full that we are considering splitting them into two classes.  (But for now poor Teacher Cricket is dealing with a stuffed class)  Our grade 4 class is finally complete and looking great, and we're in the process of building retaining walls and concrete pathways to help deal with some of the mud that comes with our rainy season. 


New Sports Fields
The road that passes by our school is currently under some major construction as they widen it and make it safer.  One of the benefits of this is that, in exchange for dumping their dirt and parking their equipment on our property, the workers are bulldozing and flattening a regulation-size soccer field for us!  Our kids love soccer, but in the past they've been limited to playing on our tiny uneven ground, as we could never afford what it would cost to level and expand it.  Once we figure out how to affordably plant grass on the field and get regulation-size goals, they will have a perfect place to practice, and we could even host games.  We are so thankful for the ways God blesses us with things we could never imagine being able to do!


New Grade 6 Teacher

As Erin is now working in the office doing administration for the school, we have a new grade 6 teacher.  We were very thankful to have Leonard come all the way from Mpumalanga to join our staff (as was his wife, grade 3 teacher Judith!)  The students love him already (and Wendy couldn't resist jumping into this picture with him) and his blend of discipline and kindness has been great for them.


Property Purchase Fund raising Update

Excitingly (as you can read in the "Help Save Pfunanane" page) we now have almost $75,000 of our $150,000 goal of what we still need to purchase the farm!  We are continually blessed by God's faithfulness, and by so many people who have sacrificed to be part of Pfunanane.  Thank you to all who have given, and please keep trusting and praying with us for the remaining $75,000.  We have been pushing back the deadline, but will likely have to sign the contract in January, leaving us only 60 days to raise the remaining money. Please be praying for us in this - we know God is faithful and can do anything!

Sponsored Children
As we do every year, we have added several new sponsored children to the school this year.  We carefully (and prayerfully) choose these children from the surrounding areas based on things like need, background, family history, and vulnerability.  These children are all in need of sponsors, as are many of the sponsored children who have been in the school for many years - we simply absorb these costs while we wait for someone to sponsor them.  Please go check out our child sponsorship page for a complete photo listing of all our waiting children, and fill out the sponsorship form if you are interested in being a sponsor! 

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December 2011

Christmas Fun! 
December is our month off from school as it is our "summer holidays" (school goes year-round here in South Africa).  Our children's village kids were so blessed this year to receive gifts from people overseas, and we were able to buy Christmas gifts for some of our neediest sponsored families also.  The children graduating from grade R and moving up to grade 1 are always excited to be getting their new school uniforms (and backpack from Burton!) - check out the pictures below of some of our happy kids receiving their gifts!

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November 2011

November has flown by, and we can hardly believe we are already at the end of this school year!  With so much to do before school closes at the beginning of December, we have been busy as usual! This has been a great year full of changes for Pfunanane, and we are trusting that next year will be even better!

Prize Giving and Grade R Graduation

We recently held our annual prize giving and grade R graduation ceremony, where we honor those children who have made exceptional efforts during the year and celebrate the children moving up to grade 1.  We also announce our prefects (student leaders) at this time,which is really exciting for the kids and something they all work towards. 

Here are a few pictures of some of the sponsored children that received awards, along with some of our adorable graduates!


Children's Village Baptism

Many of Mark and Sarah's children have made the decision to follow Christ, and expressed a desire to be baptized (or bathtubsed, as Nyiko says).  We made a day of it, with many friends and family coming out to support the kids as they made this big step forward in their walk with Christ.  We are so proud of them, and so happy with the direction they are taking in their lives!


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October 2011

October is the start of our rainy season here in South Africa, and as things begin to turn green and the jacaranda trees are blooming, the school is also starting to look more beautiful!  We finally had new signs made for the entrance to the school with our new logo and correct phone numbers on them, and the children's village kids spent their holidays giving them a  fresh coat of paint and planting flowers around them!  The effect was dramatic and a big improvement over our old outdated signs! 

Along with these signs, we have added new signs outside each classroom, helping visitors find their way around the school more easily! 

We are also thrilled to finally have a new office!  After many years of having the office in a dark storeroom betweenclassrooms, this is especially exciting!  And amazingly, our local bank was renovating at the same time we were, and donated beautiful new office furniturethat we never would have been able to afford!  What an awesome example of God providing for our every need! The new office also has space for staff to meet, allowing the grade PR and R classroom to expand into the former staff area. 

Also expanding is our new grade 4 classroom that now has a roof!  The grade 4's and their teacher have been so patiently waiting while crammed into their tiny classroom, and it looks like the new one will be ready soon!  This will also allow us to use the old room for other purposes...possibly a staff room/medical room, or maybe even a grade PR classroom...

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September 2011

New Missionaries

Since the beginning of 2011 we've had two new missionaries join our staff! 

Cricket Meyer joined us in March as our new grade R and PR teacher! Cricket is a South African and brings tons of experience from working for several years with Rafiki Foundation and Children's Villages in Uganda and Rwanda.  As well as teaching, she is heading up the feeding program to provide healthy meals for our children, and is also involved in the children's village and children's committee.  Cricket is great with our young children, and is doing an awesome job teaching them!

Sarah Ogle is an American missionary who joined us in August, and is living at the children's village.  She brings tons of coaching and sports experience, and our kids are especially excited about her soccer skills!  She will be working with the soccer, athletics, and cross-country teams, and is doing physical education with the younger grades.  She is also teaching art and tutoring kids who are struggling academically.  In her spare time she can usually be found playing soccer with the children's village kids!


Pfunanane Rocks the Cross-Country Scene!

Though we've officially had a cross country team for the past four years, we had yet to have much of an effect at meets against the other schools in our district - most of them with 1,000 or more students, huge budgets, and strong sports programs, we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were just doing it for fun and the occasional medal.  This year we had EIGHTY kids join the team - more than half of the eligible grade 1-7's!

And Coach Sarah Terwey worked them hard, having them run strenuous daily workouts that she knew would really challenge them, but also giving lots of attention and encouragement.  And their hard work really paid off, as at the end of the season our kids had won 46 gold, silver, or bronze medals in races (most of the races with 60+ kids in them!) and seven  Mopani District medals - overall medals placing these kids in the top three places in our entire district of 20+ schools!  We also placed 22 kids on the Mopani District team (top ten runners in each age group in the region), more than any other school!  Everywhere we went we drew attention and positive comments as our runners continually beat out well-known schools for the medals!  We were so proud of them!


 
Backpack Donations!

We were so excited to receive ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY really great quality backpacks from the snowboard company Burton!!!  This meets a huge need of our sponsored children, as they travel so far to school and some only have a plastic bag for their books.  Backpacks here are very expensive, poor quality, and break quickly, and we struggle to make sure all the kids have something to bring their things in. 

Our kids were ECSTATIC about their new bags - the children's village kids actually slept with theirs the first night, and most of the children vowed that their bag would never touch the ground!  What an amazing blessing for our kids - THANKS BURTON!!!








Help Us Purchase our Farm!!

We have finally been given a contract to purchase our land, so that our entire property and all our school buildings and children’s homes will finally be ours, and our ministry can continue to grow!  We have been paying rent, waiting and praying for this opportunity for many years!  The contract stipulates that the full amount be paid after 60 days - there is a chance that this opportunity will be lost if we do not come up with the rest of the money by December 1, 2011!
Pfunanane means “Let’s Help Each Other”…and WE NEED YOUR HELP!!  We have raised and saved more than half the money,and over the past few months have raised $30,000 more through individuals giving - but we still need $120,000! 

I know!  You probably don’t have that much just laying around your house or in a Swiss bank account!  But we feel like God wants many people to be involved in this, and to be a part of our ministry!  So we are looking specifically for 120 more people to give $1,000 each.  Don’t have that much either?  How about your office, sports team, church, class, or home group?  Could you mobilize others to be a part of what God is doing through Pfunanane? 

God asks for our sacrifice to serve him and be his hands and feet to people who are hurting – could he be asking you to sacrifice something in order to help this ministry continue?

If you want to be a part of this, please mail your tax-deductible check to (and made out to) Perrow Church c/o Harvey Wegert 5345 Big Tyler Road Cross Lanes, WV 25313.  Enclose a note saying it is for the Pfunanane Property Purchase.  For more information, e-mail us at info@pfunanane.org.


Pfunanane Fundraiser and Fun day
On September 2nd we had our annual fundraiser, where the kids come up with and carry out their ideas on how to raise money to support the school.  We had a great one this year, and made more money than ever before at a time when it is badly needed!  We had raffles, contests, sales, games, and class competitions to encourage team spirit and working together!  We also had a huge sale of clothes that have been donated from the states - this enabled us to not only raise money for the school, but to make good quality, very cheap clothing available to our families who need it - giving them pride in providing for their families, and not just getting another "hand out."