Missions Ablaze

09/10/2026

Somebody once told us our website made them think we were a scam, because they could not find a way to contact us directly.

That was fair, and we have spent the year fixing it.

So we wrote the checklist we would use ourselves before giving to a small organisation on the other side of the world, and then answered all 6 of them about ourselves. Including the awkward one about US tax, which almost nobody volunteers.

Link in the first comment.

07/10/2026

Peet spent 8 years at Missions Ablaze. 4 on his own, 4 after he married.

Then he left, and that was rather the point.

13 years at a mission school in Venda. 3 years training with the Jesus Film ministry in Mozambique. He is starting in Kozi Bay now.

Shama Dreyer arrived in 2022, aged 58. She met Leslie here and they married in November 2023.

Dewald Pieterse came in 2016 and stayed. He supervises daily operations and keeps the vehicles running, which in a food rescue operation is not a small job.

We are not looking for a gap year. We are looking for people who will still be here in a decade, or who will go somewhere harder because of what they learned here.

Kitchens, admin, outreach, logistics, vehicles. Every department needs committed people.

If that is a conversation worth having: [email protected] or see first comment

05/10/2026

Our biggest monthly cost is not food.

The food costs us nothing. Checkers, Spar, Woolworths, Food Lover’s Market and Food Forward SA donate the surplus that would otherwise be thrown out. That has been the model since the beginning.

Our biggest monthly cost is electricity. R40,000 a month.

Freezers and fridges keeping rescued food safe. Ovens and stoves cooking it. Lights on in a kitchen that starts before sunrise in the middle of a KwaZulu-Natal winter. None of that runs on goodwill.

The rest of the month looks like this:

Electricity: R40,000
Diesel: R18,000
Vehicle maintenance: R7,500
Support for 1 missionary: R500

Around R83,500 a month, roughly $4,175, to move free food across our network of community partners in KwaZulu-Natal.

So if you have ever wondered whether your giving disappears into overheads, here is the honest answer. It does. The overheads are the entire operation. The food was always free. Getting it to the gate is the part that costs money.

missionsablaze.org.za/donate/

03/10/2026

He was not on the building site when it happened. He had come home from it, and was lying down waiting for his wife to get back from work.

What he saw was the world, with a cross standing in front of it and an eagle rising over it. Above it, the name Missions Ablaze. Below it, 4 words.

We feed the poor.

That was 1995. We have told this story wrong in a few places over the years, so we have written it down properly.

Link in the first comment.

24/09/2026

21/09/2026

There is a rule around here that we do not say this sort of thing about ourselves.

So here are 4 people who said it for us.

Every one of these was left on this page by somebody who has actually been here, or given here, or worked alongside us. We have not edited them and we have not gone looking for the flattering ones.

Thank you for thinking of us. Thank you for looking after us.

19/09/2026

For 31 years, the answer to “how do I help every month” has been to work it out between us, one conversation at a time.

Not anymore. You can become a Monthly Partner from $25 a month, and every level is tied to a real cost we carry.

The food is donated. Checkers, Spar, Woolworths, Food Lover’s Market and Food Forward SA give us surplus that would otherwise be thrown out. So what you cover is the part nobody puts on a poster. Diesel and tyres. The storeroom. Electricity. The people who drive the routes.

Not one cent of it buys food, because the food was never ours to buy.

Pick a level and stay as long as you like. Change it whenever you want.

missionsablaze.org.za/donate/

18/09/2026

‼ We rebuilt our website, and the point was not to make it prettier....

It was to stop making people ask.

What is on it now that was not there before:
- Our registration numbers, on the page rather than buried.
- NPO 019-028. PBO 930020955.
- Trust IT 2049/2000.
- Section 18A.

What a month actually costs us.
- Electricity R40,000.
- Diesel R18,000.
- Vehicle maintenance R7,500.

Written down, in public, where anyone can read it.

The community partners we supply, and the people who run them.

A way to partner with us every month, at a level you choose.

A Section 18A application form for South African taxpayers, which used to be an email and a wait.

One of the most common things we are asked is some version of “where does the money actually go”. It is a fair question and it deserves a page, not a reply.

missionsablaze.org.za

11/08/2026

A retired man with a bakkie is the reason 28 families in Hambanathi Township get a food parcel.

In 2019, Wiseman was asked by a local school principal to collect food from Missions Ablaze. She was running the feeding for the children and the community herself. He had the vehicle and the time, so he drove.

During Covid, she passed away.

Wiseman took over the feeding. In 2023 he took over the organisation itself. Khylani Home of Community Service now makes up parcels from the food we deliver, and those parcels go to 28 families.

Nobody appointed him. The work needed doing and he was already there.

This is how most of our 17 community kitchens actually work. We do not run them. Local people run them, and they know exactly who in their street is going without this week. We supply the food and then get out of the way.

17 kitchens. We are working through them here, one at a time.

Missions Ablaze. NPO 019-028. PBO 930020955. Section 18A.