Rocklands Gemeente

There is a seat on Sunday

A congregation in Mitchells Plain, meeting since 1978.

Service times

Last Sunday, filmed from the back row

One camera on a tripod, nothing cut out. We put the whole service up by the Tuesday for anyone working a shift or stuck at home.

How a Sunday morning actually goes

We started in 1978 in the Rocklands civic hall — forty-odd people, a borrowed organ, and the chairs packed away every week before the ballroom class came in at one. The hall on Merrydale Avenue has been ours since 1991. The Sunday-school room in the photograph used to be the kitchen. Doors open at eight. Singing starts at half past: four or five songs, some Afrikaans, some English, words on the screen so nobody has to know them already. The talk runs about half an hour. The children go out after the second song and come back with something they made. Then tea, beskuit, and koeksisters when Aunty Sylvia has been baking. Most people are still standing in the yard at half past eleven.

People who sit here

Miriam Fortuin
Miriam FortuinHere since 1984

I came the year after my mother died and somebody handed me tea before they asked me a single question. Forty-one years later I still sit in the same row, third from the back on the left.

Ashwin Petersen
Ashwin PetersenSound desk

I run the desk one Sunday in four. Nobody has ever minded that I cannot sing, which is more or less the whole reason I kept coming back.

Zukiswa Ndlela
Zukiswa NdlelaJoined in 2022

I moved down from Gqeberha for work and knew nobody in the Plain. Someone asked my name at the door, and by the next week three people had it right.

Deon Arendse
Deon ArendseSoup kitchen

We cook for about eighty on a Wednesday. It is not a programme with a name. It is a pot, a gas ring, and whoever turns up to stir it.

This week, and every week

Nothing needs booking and nothing costs anything. Walk in.

Youth on Fridays

Fridays 18:30 to 20:30 in the hall, Grade 8 to matric. Started again on 7 February and runs to the December holidays. Bring a friend, we always cook too much.

Soup kitchen, Wednesdays

Wednesdays 11:00 to 13:00 at the Merrydale Avenue gate. Come to eat or come to cook — it is the same door and nobody keeps a list.

Baptisms, first Sunday

First Sunday of the month inside the 09:00 service. The next one is 7 September. Speak to Ds. Adonis about a fortnight before so we can put the kettle on.

Prayer, 06:00 weekdays

Monday to Friday, 06:00 to 06:40 in the side room off the foyer. Coffee afterwards, and everyone is at work by seven. Come late, leave early, nobody minds.

Come on Sunday, or ask us something first

Services 09:00 and 18:00 every Sunday. 41 Merrydale Avenue, Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain — parking in the yard. Say below if it is your first Sunday and someone will meet you at the gate.