About

Hi! My name is Jordan Ridge. I’m a recent graduate of Elizabethtown College with a degree in International Business (finance concentration) and Spanish. I moved to Potchefstroom, South Africa in July of 2011, and I’m serving here as Hopewell United Methodist Church’s Missionary-in-Residence and Manager of Made by Mosaic. To learn more about what Hopewell is doing here and the organizations that we partner with directly, please read the exerpt below from our website:

“Hopewell’s outreach effort in South Africa is multi-faceted. Our work has partnered us with many ministries already working to address the enormous problems created by poverty, racism, and the AIDS pandemic in particular.

In the general Cape Town area, we support H.E.L.P Ministries, a hunger project providing a daily lunch for school children.  We also have provided salary support for a librarian and a computer lab teacher at the Nederburg School, a public primary school located near Cape Town with approximately 720 students.

Further north in the Potchefstroom region, we are supporting the work of ministries that are providing care for families and children who are living with AIDS. Those ministries include:

Mosaic: Meyer and Louise Conradie, a young South African couple, are making great strides toward the God-given vision of building a self-sustainable model of caring for orphaned children in South Africa. The Mosaic concept addresses economic, social and infrastructure development through: job training and creation, after school programs, a large preschool, parent training, and construction of homes in Ikageng. Construction will soon include a community center, which will house a second preschool, computer lab, and a large hall for community events and education. The homes, built by volunteers (our Hopewell family has physically helped build three of them!), are rented by families caring for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. To read more about this incredible project and view their videos, please visit the Mosaic website at www.mosaicsa.org

Made by Mosaic: Launched in September of 2011 as a for-profit arm of Mosaic in order to create jobs for Mosaic foster parents and in the surrounding community. Products currently offered by Made by Mosaic include knitted and crocheted goods such as scarves, blankets, and shawls. All materials used in Made by Mosaic products are sourced from South Africa, and all yarn used in knitted and crocheted products comes from another job creation project in Cape Town. Make a difference and shop Made by Mosaic today!

Mosaic Preschool (formerly Amaphelo Creche): Mosaic Preschool provides hearty meals, loving care and a safe, clean environment for 100 children ages 0-6 to learn and play. The children at this school come from families affected by HIV/AIDS, poverty, and unemployment. Because of this, Mosaic does not charge a school fee. Instead, the school has a sponsorship program encouraging people from the community and world to sponsor a child for his/her early education. To learn more or to sponsor a child, visit the Mosaic website at www.mosaicsa.org

Ikageng Daycare Center for the Aged: This daycare center exists to give elderly women in the Ikageng Township a safe place each day to share meals together and receive training in cooking, gardening, and sewing. While many of these women struggle with their own physical and sometimes mental ailments, they also provide loving care for other elderly women in the community.”

*all content taken from http://www.hopewellumc.org