Friends,

 

2026 is racing ahead and so as we hit the mid-point of the year, what a great opportunity to pause and reflect.

 

There has been a lot of change in our team over the last 6 months as we waved farewell to some volunteers, one of whom had been with us for 5 years. Roles have changed, our work is growing, and so we have also hired two amazing young men who have been part of Tree of Life for quite a few years.

 

Calemb (left) joins as our live-in Cru62 supervisor and Kiyano (right) is our live-in supervisor at the Healing Centre. They come with fresh energy and we're excited to sow into them and see them grow, as they serve our community.

 

Pray for them, and the rest of our team as we navigate this season of change.

Peace,

If you don’t already support us and would like to, check out our different giving platforms (click below) – every cent counts towards the big vision and mission! If you’re able to help with donations in other ways, drop us an email to info@treeoflife.org.za

All of our work aligns within 5 streams: 

 

Residential Ministries

Prayer

Spiritual Formation

Connectors

The Incubator – a place for new fledging ministries and ideas.

 

Throughout our newsletters, we want to give you snippets into what’s happening in some of the Streams. For today, enjoy our update from the Residential ministries and our Incubator.

 

To accommodate the staff changes this year, we hit pause on bringing more residents into our homes. It's given us time to discern the best way forward, look at staff capacity and reshuffle our programme. We're excited in this next quarter, with these changes in place, to re-open the doors to young men and women needing these healing spaces! 

 

For our current residents, we've still had lots going on.

Numbers and stats aren't everything to us, but we can't help but smile as we celebrate wins, big and small with our team members and residents.

• 4 community members completed their beginner Barista coffee training course with the New Beginnings Community Coffee School, with two receiving their Intermediate Level also.
• 2 young adults reached that 1 year sober milestone and another graduated from our programme and found work.
• Our kids at Basila continue to thrive every day and it's a joy to watch the mums find new tools to parent in the way their kids need.
• Leon, our Team Leader of Cru62 enjoyed a 3-month sabbatical and has come back rested and full of ideas!
• Leigh, Basila's team leader welcomed her baba into the community - congratulations to her and her family!
• Congratulations to Leroy (see below) who got married in April!

 

For years, the holistic Cru62 and Basila programmes have run separately at our two homes but this year we have brought them together into the Healing Centre. We have reworked a programme that contains even more space for growth and healing - including school, parenting classes, surfing, spiritual formation, creativity, grief support and much more. The young people are learning with, and from one another. 

 

Our residential programme is being managed by two team members, here's what Leroy had to say about his new role...

 

This may just look like another boring church hall, but to us it represents 10 years of prayer fulfilled, and the start of our exciting next chapter.

 

We finally got into the building at the end of 2025 and immediately started doing some basic refurbishments in order to host some activity. We have big dreams about what all the spaces can become, and we'll share more about that... but we don't want to wait for everything to be finished before we start using our amazing space to serve Manenberg through it.

 

Our friends at New Beginnings have been running Healing thru Art for women and a group for teenage girls in our space. They have found the gift of this building and where it is, means people drop by who wouldn't normally, and the teens have space, one afternoon a week to relax, lay aside their burdens and become like kids!

 

We have welcomed Greg James, a Somatic Experience Practitioner who is running two different groups a week at the Centre for free.  Somatic Experience is therapeutic approach that focuses on observing and processing bodily sensations to resolve trauma and restore nervous system balance. Already, it has been such a gift to our community!

 

 

As we hit this next quarter running, we are meeting with Architects who are helping us imagine how the whole building can be re-jiggled, re-purposed and beautifed for our dream of the Healing Centre being a place of healing, gathering, and community upliftment.

 

Right now we have a couple of excited parties in the wings who would love to help see this vision realised, but we're going to need more - if you'd like to donate to the development of this space, get in touch!

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this far, for more information, you can follow us on Instagram (@treeoflifemanenberg) or on Facebook.