In June this year, we celebrated 15 years of Heart for Children! Amazing, all this time, for me and Annette to be serving the children and the mothers in the homes that received support from us and to appreciate all the thank-you notes that we received from them. Actually, these should have also been addressed to you, our partners and supporters! It was such a privilege for us to be able to help. Sometimes you get to thinking that what we do is only a drop of water falling on a hot plate. But, just imagine when that drop is falling exactly on top of a mother or child who really needs it….Jochi, the mother of the safe house in Nellmapius, told me the other day that she was so happy with the roof that was repaired and the ceiling that was installed as the temperature inside the house was much cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
How good it is to look back and be thankful for all that was achieved. But is our mission finished? No, unfortunately anything but…We are confronted daily with the reality of wars, the results of extreme weather, hunger, drug abuse, criminality, abuse of children – you name it. I was so discouraged the other day on learning that more that 5000 children in Gaza have died because of the war. They are thinking of putting up a special cemetery to bury them. How terrible is that? A cemetery full of innocent children. It made me want to cry…..I just don’t have words for this. But I did find comfort in the shortest sentence in the Bible:
‘Jesus wept’.
Whenever we weep – because we do not understand why these dreadful things happen to us – , God is weeping with us. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted (Matt. 5:4).
Closer to home, we are confronted daily with the problem of insufficient power for all the homes of South-Africa. Obviously, this also affects the foster homes and orphanages. However, I am getting a strong feeling that we can beat this problem. “ ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan, tog?” It seems South Africans are not going to sit still but are fighting back by installing solar power and doing their cooking on gas stoves. I recently wrote something about that, click on the link below:
South-Africans are kissing ESKOM goodbye…. | Bread on the water
I am sure we can identify with one of the beneficiaries of Heart for Children, namely the Rehoboth children’s village near Murchison in KZN, who reported that with stage 6 load shedding they have no electricity for 13 hours a day. We would like to help them by converting their office, school, and, as far as possible, all the children’s homes, onto solar and gas. We have a challenge going on with our parent company in the Netherlands, ‘Hart voor Kinderen’. Seeing the problem with the power shortages at the orphanage, they have promised that they will sponsor us Rand for Rand! This means that our contributions in South-Africa for this project will be doubled up by Hart voor Kinderen in the Netherlands. We then asked for your help https://breadonthewater.co.za/2023/10/27/summer-newsletter-special-appeal/
and I can give feedback now that, so far, we have already collected 62000 raindrops. I am so encouraged! This includes of course the amount that will be sponsored by Hart voor Kinderen in the Netherlands. We had a song that we used to sing in church, a long time ago: “There will be showers of blessings.” Yes. Indeed. I can feel those raindrops coming now. It will be a shower. We need a big shower for those 20 homes in the Rehoboth children’s village.
At Christmas we are reminded of the Light who came into the world. Christ who told us: you are the light of the world. How amazing is that? We take this light with us wherever we are or go. We have God’s DNA within us. When the lightning strikes, darkness cannot exist. That is the power of love: let us share that Love with all our heart. Like flashes of lightning that make the darkness go away, let us not grow tired of doing the best we can!
Henry Pool, Cel +27836297690 e-mail: henrypool7@gmail.com
Annette Pool, Cel +27834696875 e-mail: annette.pool@gmail.com
Wherever I go nowadays, I am amazed at how South Africans are adapting to the situation of not getting enough electricity from ESKOM. Whether it is visiting family or friends, the MAKRO, hospitals or shopping malls: everywhere I see people putting up solar panels to beat the electricity shortage. I was amazed the other day when I visited the Kolonade shopping mall here in Montana, in Tshwane. I made a few pictures:
Ja. Ja. ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan! I could not even count the number of solar panels that I observed here. It covers the whole area that used to be the uncovered parking area to the south of the mall. I was also glad to be able to park my car directly underneath, as the panels actually do have the secondary function of providing shade for parked vehicles. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the parking on the south side will continue to be free of charge – as it always has been – and I am sure that all those panels do provide enough electricity for the whole centre during the working hours.
Yes! We are blessed here in South Africa, especially Pretoria and Johannesburg, with a lot of sunshine and therefore this is definitely going to work for all of us. Just one word of caution. We also have a lot of dust here, especially during the dry winter times. That means that the panels may need to be cleaned at regular intervals. No problem with that. But you have to be careful. I already know of one friend and dear fellow brother in Christ who had an unfortunate accident while trying to get down from the roof after cleaning the panels. Please ensure you take or create all the necessary safety precautions when trying to clean the panels.
Note that if you want to convert your home to be completely – or almost completely – independent of ESKOM power, you will have to convert your cooking to gas. We recently bought a gas stove & oven in addition to all our electrical cooking. It perfectly works for us when the power is down. Again a word of caution: remember that according to regulations (e.g. insurance) you are not allowed to have a cylinder of more than 9kg of LPG gas inside your house. Otherwise you need to drill a hole through the wall and put the gas cylinder outside.
I am sure we can indeed identify with one of the beneficiaries of Heart for Children, namely the Rehoboth children’s village near Murchison in KZN, who reported that with stage 6 load shedding they have no electricity for 13 hours a day. We would like to help them converting their office, school and, as far as possible, all the children’s homes onto solar and gas. Will you help us? We have a challenge going on with our parent company and this means that your contribution will be doubled up by Hart voor Kinderen in the Netherlands. Please click on the link below.
Take some time off from the worries of our land and listen to these worship songs from Michael W. Smith and Don Moen!
Net zero 2050 is the goal to achieve a balance with the emission of greenhouse gasses, mostly coming from burning fossil fuels, and their removal from the atmosphere. It is hoped that this goal is achieved by the year 2050. In this presentation by Theo Wolters from the Netherlands a serious attempt is made to see what this really implies for a country such as the Netherlands. This post is relevant for engineers and energy experts who are in the field of supplying the energy that we need every day. Theo has kindly given permission for his presentation to be used on other websites, provided that the source is mentioned.
The source is: https://mwenb.nl/symposium-towards-a-more-graceful-energy-transition/
Abstract:
Theo Wolters: Towards a new energy system based on wind, solar and nuclear energy
(Chairman of The Environment, Science & Policy Foundation)
With the transition from fossil to CO2 free energy sources, comes a major shift in electricity price from fuel costs to investment costs, or in general, from operational expenses (OPEX) to capital expenses (CAPEX).
Far more important for the electricity price however is the difference in system costs between on-demand electricity production, and sun and wind driven production.
The present electricity system relies on a merit order-based market, which has worked great for decades, but cannot cope with a substantial share of subsidized CAPEX driven production, in combination with a huge reduction of on-demand production. Without changing the system, we will end up with frequent and long black-outs, and a very high electricity price.
In my presentation I will compare solar and wind vs nuclear energy in an electricity system with a strongly reduced fossil fuel share on: production cost, backup cost, grid cost and net-stability cost (frequency-, inertia-, and reserve capacity).
I will propose a new electricity system, allocating the huge system costs to the sources that cause them. This which will restore market function, and deal with all demands of low carbon electricity production, thus providing both maximum grid stability and lowest electricity cost.
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