“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.”~ Hebrews 6:19.
Bringing hope to the hopeless in eMalahleni, ‘Hope is here’, a Non-Profit Organisation that started with a caring heart towards the broken and homeless.
“We have always had an extra bit more love for the broken people around us before we even started the NPO. We started the NPO to combine all the different projects and to make our mission more effective and so that we can touch more lives,” said Pastor Nadine Van Schalkwyk from Lewende Woord, Witbank.
When asked how they came up with the name, she smiles and says: “Hope is such a powerful thing! If you’ve lost hope, you have lost everything, but if you have hope, you have an expectation for something better to take place! So ‘Hope is here’ is a declaration of new life over someone that feels hopeless.”
The main aim for this organisation according to Nadine is bluntly to “bring hope to the hopeless, wherever hope is needed.”
The NPO consist of categories such as pregnant women, babies, children and elderly in need, where they supply them with food.
“But mainly we focus on getting women off the streets, rehabilitate and restore them into society and we help people that are addicted to drugs that would have never have had the opportunity of going to rehab. For example, a homeless addict’s family that is financially unable to help their loved ones to go to a rehabilitation centre to become sober again. There is a screening process for that of course as we cannot help everyone that needs to go to rehab,” she added.
Although this project is still in the beginning phase, except for giving hope, they work with severe cases each day.
“I daily perceive the tremendous gaps in the system. To help these individuals successfully we will need more safe houses, more loving hands, more training programs and resources to help them, not only by bringing hope, but also for them to see a bright future. There is a lot of work in eMalahleni because of a broken system,” she sadly added.
With an organisation like this, so many life lessons are taught by these broken people, according to Nadine, but one thing that fuelled her passion was when someone once asked, “why do you even try to help these people, they will never change.”
“That day I felt a deep urge to never stop going back to the streets, because if we will not go, who will? If we serve a God of grace, who am I to give up on someone?”
WITBANK NEWS asked Nadine what the most amazing part of running such a project is and her eyes lightened up when she said:
“God’s business is people! He loves His creation. I’ve prayed a ‘dangerous’ prayer as I said, Lord, break my heart for what breaks Yours and that was when I started seeing the brokenness of this world and I partnered with God.”
Nadine left all of us with food for thought by concluding with the quote of Mother Theresa, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
*Anyone that would like to contribute to put back hope in our city can contact Nadine on 066 218 7621 for more information.
Share your news tips via: Telephone: 013 656 2490 WhatsApp: 060 866 8682 Email: info@witbanknews.co.za
Or follow us on WITBANK NEWS platforms: Instagram, Twitter Witbank News App Facebook page Witbank News Breaking
