A New School for our Iris Kids

In August, we rented out a new space as a school for our kids. This is the first time they have had a building for a school. Previously, we have schooled them in whatever space was available, eg. a guard's hut for a preschool class and the Boy's House lounge, which had 3 classrooms in it, with curtains separating the classes. This was far from ideal.
                                  
                                  
                    Above photos: Old classrooms in lounge and room in Boys House.

The new space as a huge 3 story building, with plenty of rooms for our 2 preschool classes, 6 primary school classes, a staffroom, and a storage room. It has a huge yard too, so lots of room for the kids to run around and play.

It was great timing getting the new land and building in August, as we had a visiting team of young people who cleaned and tidied up the whole space for us. It was such a mess when we got it. There was junk metal everywhere, rubbish everywhere, overgrown grass and weeds, old peeling paint etc. It really was in a terrible state!

                                  Photos above: The school and yard when we got it.

Under Gerhard's direction, the place was transformed to an amazing facility with new paint on the walls, murals on outside and inside walls, a junior playground, a senior playground and a treehut. School started back in September, and all the teachers, staff and children were so impressed!

Photo above: School assembly on the first day back

Since then, Gerhard and fellow team member Michiel, have continued to transform the Iris School property. They have added a basketball court/soccer field, a bike track, foursquare, hopscotch, a water run, musical sound wall and other bits and pieces.

Photos above: Preschool kids enjoying new musical sound wall and Gerhard coaching the principal in how to coach the preschool teacher. Photo right: Preschool class

The children love the school, especially the outside space. Which is great, because we love these children and want them to have the funnest, most stimulating, exciting learning place that they can. Our appreciation goes to our Iris leaders for renting this space for our Sekoly (school), and to everyone who has helped or contributed to our fantastic learning space for our amazing kids.

A Day in My Life as a Missionary Mum

Street Evangelism

Evangelising

As one of the school holiday activities for the Iris kids, Gerhard has been doing street evangelism every Friday morning. The last 2 times, he has taken along Tabitha and Mary-Beth, as well as some of the Iris kids. They have had the opportunity to share their testimonies with the locals in our village and to pray for the sick. One time they prayed for someone, who reported that they were healed. Another time they prayed for a homeless young mum who had a toddler and a newborn baby. She had nothing and lived on the street (in winter). It is a great opportunity to grow their compassion, faith and courage in sharing about God and praying for strangers.

Praying

Rubbish Dump Outreach

My Iris Small Group of girls blew me away on Thursday...

Our Iris kids are on the long school holidays and Gerhard came up with the idea that every small group should serve our local community in some way over their break. My (Rebekah's) Small Group came up with the idea of ministering at the local rubbish dump.

Tabitha and Hoby with the rest of our team already on rice fields

So on Thursday, we walked across the rice fields to Golana, our neighbouring rubbish dump community. There are about 250 families that live in and work in the rubbish in extremely poor dirty conditions. Children in dirty ragged clothing without shoes, babies tied on the backs of girls as young as 5, the stench of rotting rubbish, houses made out of cardboard and scraps of corrugated iron and roofs held down by rocks and tires are just some of the sights that I take in.

We made our way to the school building that Iris has recently made. This coming school year will be the first year that Golana will have a school. It is a single simple room, with a blackboard at each end and benches around the edges.

About 40 children and a few mamas follow us like the pied piper into the school. Tabitha is the first to preach. She talks about God and how much she loves Him. As her Mum, I am so proud of her. Then 3 of my Small Group girls get up one by one and talk about God and read from their Bibles. Afterwards, we ask if anyone would like prayer, and some children and one mum ask for healing. We all surround them and pray for them.

Sydia sharing God's Word

Then the moment came which really melted my heart. My Iris girls had voluntarily decided to bring clothes and toys to give to the poor. I was so humbled, with how generous they were. They didn't just bring one thing each, they had brought lots to give away. Wow. I was speechless.

Hoby on the left, Tabitha standing next to the girl wearing the headband that Tabitha had given her.

Then, while we were waiting for the school key to be returned, Hoby, one of my Small Group girls, all her own without prompting, puts her arm around a girl from Golana, and starts sharing about Jesus with her. Yeah!!! Go Hoby! I can picture her as a preacher/evangelist.

Listening to the Word of God

Sometimes, you give out, and sometimes you receive. Today was one of those days that I received more that I gave.

"For out of the mouths of little children and infants, You have built a fortress against your opponents to silence the enemy and the avenger." Psalm 8:2

Delphine's Family

Shortly after we returned to Madagascar, Iris found one of our boy's family. He had run away and the courts require us to make every effort to find their family. His mum was very sick, malnourished and extremely underweight. She has Diabetes Type 1 and only weighed 29 kilos when Iris found her. She had no job, no husband and not enough food for her and her three children still living with her. Iris has a Kids Community Programme, where we support families who are too poor to provide for their children, by supporting the families with rice and other food, school and medical fees, while training the parents or helping them to start businesses, so that in time, they can be weaned off the programme. Our family has paid her rent for the next year, as she is too sick to get a job at this stage. She is living with three of her children (the forth is at Iris) in our village, about 5mins from us. We have been able to visit her and take her some girls clothes for her girl, and give the boys, who are at the local community school, some picture books in Malagasy. Tabitha and Mary-Beth wanted to give her six year old girl one of their dolls, a pencil case and some stickers. These will be the only toys she has. We also took her a set of pots and fry pans. As much as Delphine and her children were touched by our gifts, we also were blessed by being in the position to be able to give and the joy and the humility that that brings. We were very emotional and humbled to see their humble abode and how little they have, but what joy they still have. It reminds me of the verse "Blessed are the poor...".

Wearing their new clothes

Lunch Time Feeding Programme

Every Thursday Gerhard does lunch time feeding programme at Iris and he has been taking one of our kids with him each time. Lunch time feeding programme is where a lot of poor kids in the community come to hear the Gospel and are fed a big lunch. Iris does this three times a week. For a lot of these children, this will be their only meal each day. Tabitha, Mary-Beth and Immanuel have been really brave and been able to share their testimony, talk about Jesus and what He has done for us, and have been able to pray for the kids. Mary-Beth prayed for two boys who were sick, and one boy got healed instantly (her first miracle!). The community kids have really appreciated hearing from kids their age and even gave Tabitha a standing ovation when she finished. We aim to involve our kids in our ministry as much as possible, and it touches our heart to see them growing spiritually and more in love with Jesus, as well as in character.

Our First Malagasy Wedding

On Saturday we went to our first Malagasy wedding. Our oldest Iris boy Lalaina got married. It was such a lovely wedding! On Friday, I helped decorate the venue. Sky blue was the chosen colour, and everything was decorated in this colour. Big, bold and beautiful describe the decorations! Lots of sparkle, ribbons and balloons. On Saturday, we got dressed up and we walked to the venue. The bride was in a beautiful sparkly white wedding dress, and Lalaina looked dashing too! Caroline married them in a beautiful ceremony with all the older Iris kids in attendance too. Then we had an appetiser (which we mistook for lunch!). Next came some wedding games. Lalaina had to guess who was the bride by the sound of her voice, then he was blindfolded and had to guess who was his bride, by touching faces. Malagasy like to have fun at their weddings! Next came the bride and groom's first dance, followed by the traditional Malagasy wedding dance, then the floor was opened up to whoever wanted to dance. Gerhard took our kids dancing. and I got to gaze at our gorgeous sleeping princess baby.

Lunch was served up, lots of vary (rice), chicken and pork with a tomato salad, followed by a delicious desert of fruit salad, yoghurt and ice cream. By this time we were voky be (very full)! After lunch, the microphone was opened up to whoever wanted to use it, be it a song, dance, poem or speech to the married couple.

2 of our Iris girls singing to the Bridal couple

After 4 hours, our kids were ready to head home, so we left the wedding and decided we didn't need any dinner! We heard that the wedding continued for another few hours!

Back in Madagascar!

We have been back in Madagascar for about a month now. We are enjoying seeing everyone that we had gotten to know the last time we were here. It was hard saying goodbye to friends and family in New Zealand, but so lovely seeing old familiar faces again. Our journey here was anything but easy! Of course, we didn't expect it to be easy with 4 young children, including a newborn and a heck of a lot of hand luggage and over 50 hours travelling, jet lag, airports etc. However stressful it was (and it certainly was!), God did answer our prayers, with making sure all our luggage arrived safely, and that was a miracle in itself, with not being able to leave customs in Joburg, due to not having a transit visa (which we were assured we didn't need, turns out we did!). Our children behaved really well for the most part, and slept on the plane. Hadassah slept really well everywhere we went. No one got sick and we got out Madagascar visas. So thank you to everyone who prayed for us before we left, and during our hours of travel.

When we finally arrived in Madagascar, it was such a lovely surprise to find our good friends and team mates, the Drekmeyers had set up our house, even putting things away for us (all our stuff had been in storage). Another friend had bought some food for us, and we even had a meal brought round for us. The kids loved exploring their new/old house again and checking out the gardens and bikes. They were pleased to see that our turtle 'Turbo' and our guinea pig 'Rosie' were still alive!

Immanuel adores his little sister!

On the first night, our water pipe in the kitchen broke and our kitchen flooded. Thankfully Michiel was able to fix it for us the next day. Then one week after being back, our hot water cylinder and shower broke. The landlady has refused to replace it, so for the last month, we have had bucket baths. Every 2 days we heat up a big pot of water and have a tiny bath. During our second week here, there were some BIG thunder storms with heavy rain. Both of our kids' bedrooms leaked, so we had to move their beds and put down buckets. We have been searching for a new house with a bigger yard, so the kids can ride their bikes, and so we can make more of a play area for them, as there are no playgrounds and places to ride their bikes here. We have found a place to move into, but there are some complications that need to be sorted, before we can move in.

The view from our bathroom towards the rice patties and local rubbish dump.

It has been great to be back with our Iris family again. On our first Tuesday, we went on a big picnic with all the kids and house mums. It was so lovely to see our children playing with the Iris kids. I (Rebekah) have started attending a small (discipleship) group of Iris girls aged 8-10. Tabitha and Mary-Beth go with me. I will be taking it over at the end of this month, when the leader returns to the USA. Gerhard has been helping out with ideas for some of the special needs children in the Iris School as well as meeting with the school principal and teachers. I have also started taking language lessons again. It has been frustrating not being able to talk with the Iris children as much as we would like to, but it has surprised us, just how much we have remembered after not speaking the language for 2 years.

Please pray for:
* Good health. Gerhard has been very sick for the last 24 hours, we suspect it is a tummy bug.
* That the complications with the house we want to move in to be sorted out.
* Good transitions for our Iris team, as our Director returns to the UK for 12-18 months to sort out adoption of her 3 children and 2 of our other long term missionaries return to the USA.

Give thanks for:
* Our suitcases arriving safely.
* Our visas being sorted.
* Finding a new house
* The kids settling in well.

Thanks for your prayers and journeying with us.

Love and Blessings
Rebekah

We Are Off!

We had a lovely send off from Taumarunui at Church last Sunday and also on Friday at the bus station (we have sold our 2 cars Praise God!). Thank you to all who came to say goodbye to us, that was really special. :)

Tomorrow we leave the beautiful country of the long white cloud and head off to the beautiful island of Madagascar. We would like to ask for prayer for a safe and peaceful journey. Travelling with 4 young children is never easy, and it is about 52 hours from Auckland to Antananarivo, so it is a very long way! The first flight is the longest. It is 17 hours straight from Auckland to Dubai (one of the longest flights in the world). It is a night time flight, so we would like to ask for prayer that all of us sleep well and that Hadassah is peaceful and sleeps well. We then spend 4.5 hours in Dubai Airport. Our second flight is 8.5 hours from Dubai to Johannesburg (this is a day time flight). We then have an 18 hour layover in Johannesburg. Please pray that everything would go well as we exit customs, collect our suitcases and head to a hotel for the night. Please pray that there would be no visa issues in South Africa, as New Zealanders are now required to have transit visas, and we don't have them, as we found out that we are exempt, if we are in South Africa for less than 24 hours. Our third and final flight is 3.5 hours from Johannesburg to Antananarivo the following day. Please pray that we have no issues with luggage, or losing any of our belongings. Finally, please pray that the visa process in Madagascar goes well for us!

For the first few weeks after arriving in Madagascar, we would like to take time as a family focusing on settling into our home (the same house we previously lived in), unpacking, language learning, saying hello to all our Iris family and friends in Madagascar and doing fun things as a family. It is important to us, that we transition as well as we can in the first few weeks. We know that the way of life in Madagascar is very different from what we have been used to in New Zealand,(different language, culture, new house, new people etc) and we would like to make things as easy as we can for our kids. Please pray that our kids (and us) do not go through cultural shock, but handle all the changes really well. Please pray that we can spend time relaxing and enjoying time as a family. Gerhard has gone straight from finishing his job as principal/teacher (literally this week) straight to packing for Madagascar, and we need time just to breathe!

In brief: Prayer requests:
* Smooth airport times (Auckland, Dubai, Johannesburg, Antananarivo)
* Sleep on planes (17 hours Auck-Dub, 8.5 hours Dub-Joburg, 3.5 hours Joburg-Tana)
* Sleep in hotel in Joburg
* No complications with luggage, it stays safe etc
* No complications with visas in Johannesburg or Antananarivo
* Smooth adjustments to life in Madagascar, no culture shock for any of us

Thanks for all your prayers! We will miss all of you in New Zealand and we love you all! Next update will be from Madagascar! (when we sort out internet etc). Please do email us, we would love to hear from you.

God Bless
Potgieter Whanau

Do You Like This Painting??

We have been donated a stunning painting by award-winning artist Yana Meech to sell to raise money for our family of 6 going to work as non-paid volunteers at an orphanage in the third world country of Madagascar in Africa (see our blog: gerhardandrebekah@blogspot.com ).

Do you like this painting?

"Keep It Together"

PM (private message) me your price and it could be yours. It's retail price is $1250. We are happy to receive offers over $200, the highest offer wins. Closing off Tuesday 28th March night. Will let the winner know Wednesday 29th March morning. Free courier within NZ! Please feel free to share on your FB page.

canvas measures: 48" x 24" or 1.2m x 61cm
Acrylic paint on Cotton Canvas, wood mounted. Ready to hang on wall.

Yana's website: www.yanameech.co.nz

Profile for Yana Meech:

Yana lives in Ararimu, with her 2 boys and 2 dogs, a self taught artist preferring to work with acrylic as a medium on framed canvas.

Her style ranges from contemporary landscape to abstract, experimenting in her home art studio with the old and the new. Favourite painting subjects; forests, cities, ocean, female form, she likes to paint the interaction between rural and urban subjects.

Her works sell throughout New Zealand and overseas including UK, Scotland, Australia and the United States.

Yana has exhibited extensively, from the Hibiscus Art Show in Orewa to the New Zealand Art Show in Christchurch. She placed First for Best Overall Work in June 2016 at Ellerslie Art Exhibition, received Merit at Auckland Easter Show 2014 and second in the acrylics section at the 2011 Franklin Arts Festival.

Exciting News!

Arrival of Hadassah Joy Potgieter

Many prayers were answered with the safe and fast arrival of our beautiful daughter Hadassah Joy on the 25th January. I (Rebekah) awoke with light contractions at 2.45am and at 5.57am she came out with one push in the birthing pool. Praise God! She is such a peaceful baby and all the kids absolutely love and adore her! Her name is Queen Esther's Hebrew name and means righteousness and a sweet fragrance. Her middle name is from Isaiah 55:12 "You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace..." I got that verse a couple of days before she was born, and I felt that it was both for her and for us going to Madagascar. We feel very blessed to have another precious blessing added to our family.

We have our tickets!

Our other exciting news is that we have our tickets to Madagascar. We leave NZ on Tuesday 11th April. We fly via Dubai to South Africa and then on Thursday 13th we fly from Johannesburg to Antananarivo. It has been a huge drama with our tickets. Expedia got the names spelt wrong on our tickets and for a few weeks now, Gerhard has been spent a long time on the phone trying to sort it out. We have had to pay for new tickets, and cancel the incorrect ones, so it has been very stressful especially for Gerhard who has been dealing with them.

Important dates

2nd April: Send off/commissioning/farewell at Taumarunui Baptist Church

6th/7th April: Last day in Taumarunui, heading to Auckland

11th April: Flying out of Auckland to Johannesburg via Dubai

13th April: Flying from Johannesburg to Antananarivo (capital of Madagascar)

We give thanks for

* The safe arrival of Hadassah, and for how peaceful and easy she has been for a newborn baby.

* Our tickets to Madagascar

* Selling our small car (within one hour of being advertised!)

* Getting support from a new church (we are now supported by 2 churches)

* Receiving a large donation from an anonymous sponsor (thank you whoever you are!)

* Receiving a gift of a water filter (drinking clean water is a must in a third world country!)

Please pray for

* Selling our large family car

* Our suitcases to arrive safely with us (we are transiting in Johannesburg overnight, and we won't be allowed to go through customs to get our suitcases, as NZ residents now need visas to enter SA, which we won't be getting, so we are tagging our suitcases with both lots of tickets, all the way from NZ to Madagascar).

* Smooth flights/airport times with our family of 4 young children (first flight is 17 hours straight to Dubai!!, 4.5 hours in Dubai airport, 8.5 hours to South Africa, overnight transit in Joburg Airport, 3.5 hours to Madagascar).

* Increased support

* Health for our family (currently Rebekah and Hadassah are sick with colds/coughs)

* Peace for our family during this busy time, packing, cleaning etc

With love and blessings

Rebekah

A video on Iris Madagascar

Our previous time in Madagascar