The Fringe (Zion, IL) helping out in Lesideng Soup Kitchen (Vaalwater, South Africa).

I am beginning a three part interview series with Cory Sanders. Cory is the pastor/facilitator of a local house church called The Fringe where some friends of mine are involved. Just a few days ago, all but a couple of their group participants were in South Africa helping out with a great work there called Lesindeng Soup Kitchen (LSK). Here are his reflections.

Lesideng Soup Kitchen
The Fringe

Tell us a little about your house church and your involvement there.

Our house church grew out of a desire to connect with people who don’t feel like they would fit in a typical church setting. We were noticing a trend of more and more people finding the church institutions unattractive and we could relate to the negative feelings towards church politics and institutionalization.

As we stepped out, we encountered an immediate issue: We couldn’t decide on a model/framework for what this new endeavor would look like. We came to conclusion that we would begin by de-programming ourselves. In essence, our first step was to get out of the box and see what the world looked like without walls.

What actually came out of this process was a beautiful period of growth for us. Most of us in the group were so absorbed in church life that once we removed it, we developed this intense desire to begin filling the void that the church had previously filled. So we found ourselves reading scripture, books, listening to sermons on line, and praying more. It’s kind of twisted…we had to leave church to revitalize this area in our lives.

We found ourselves to be focused on a couple principles:

• We decided that we will always put more money out than in. Our budget was set up to allow only up to 20% to be used on ‘administrative’ purposes and the other 80% on needs and missions – and our intent is to stay that way.
• We believed that God loved everyone and works in everyone. Often Christians fall into a belief where we classify everyone on one side of the fence or the other. We view this more as a journey – with people in different places but God always in the same place. When we partner with people, we don’t need a doctrine of beliefs before we decide to get involved, we just need an invitation and a good cause.

Now that we have been out for two years. We still have a similar model to where we started – sometimes a member of our group brings some thoughts or a bible study, sometimes we listen to a teaching from another church, and other times we do child-focused activities.

I think if you ask us where we are going, I think the only uniform answer you would get from our group is ‘one step closer to Jesus.’ You can’t really go wrong with that focus.

Who went to Lesideng?

Pretty much everyone in our group except for a newer couple and the younger kids. We had 12 go – 2 teens and 5 couples. Our ages ranged from 13 to mid 40s.

Where in South Africa is the Lesideng village?

3.5 – 4 hours north west of Johannesburg – in the Limpopo region. If you look on Google Earth, enter the city Vaalwater, South Africa. Lesideng is an undeclared community of 50,000 people on the outskirts of Vaalwater (which is reported as having a population of less than 700 people!).

What is life like in the village?

When we first drove up to the community, it didn’t really look that bad because the government built some brick houses along the main road. Terri said that she had lived in the area for a few years before she knew that this community existed. It seems to be a theme – the Government is very concerned about the appearance of these communities – or more appropriately – they want these people to disappear. That’s why they claim Vaalwater consists less than 700 people. That’s why they only care to build houses for people along the main road.

Once you enter the community, it doesn’t take long to see how bad the living conditions are. Most of the people lived in little shanties, maybe 300 square feet. 6-10 people live in these little shacks made of tin, wood, or anything they could scrounge together. Some people had electricity, very few people had water. We met one lady who had to go about two miles to get water, and this was not uncommon.

What is the Lesideng Soup Kitchen?

It’s basically two people who are trying to make the community better. LSK started as an actual Soup Kitchen. In the summer they switched to Peanut Butter and Jelly. In the winter they tried to to switch back to Soup, but the kids preferred PB&J so they have stuck with that and have been feeding about 800-1200 kids every Wednesday. As the support for their work has grown, they have expanded into various other projects including: micro-financing, adopt-a-family programs, building houses, and water reclamation projects.