If not - let me refer you to one of the best articles I have read on Kuils River:
(extract from: www.SA-Venues.com)
The tranquil area of Kuils River that lies at the foot of the gentle slopes of the Bottelary Mountains is just being ‘discovered’ by visitors to Cape Town who want to escape the confines of a city for a more rural experience, yet remain close enough to the Mother City to benefit from her many attractions.
Kuils River is about 30 minutes’ drive from Cape Town and is closer still to the airport. It began as a cattle fold of the Dutch East India Company in the 1600s and later was a staging post en route to Stellenbosch. Original farms and small holdings are still in evidence, and farming continues amidst the more industrial ventures that sustain the area - major manufacturers such as Coca Cola and Nampak operate from Kuils River.
Kuils River, which still has cow crossings as testimony to its rural setting, is referred to as the gateway to the wine routes, and the area is fiercely proud of the Zevenwacht Wine Estate, which lies at the edge of the Stellenbosch wine route, sprawling over the Bottelary Hills just above Kuils River – the gentle hum of farm activity a refuge from the urban jungle of Cape Town.
Kuils River has a few wonderful examples of old church buildings and a quiet community centredness that is rarely in evidence in other suburbs of a city. The advantage of staying here is the relative accessibility via the N1, N2 and R300 although none of these major routes run directly through the town, saving it from unnecessary commercialisation.
Furthermore: Kuils River still has a rich history... Take for instance our Church in Sarepta: The Uniting Reformed Chuch (URC). When one reads up on its history, you can't help but be intrigued: The story of Jana van der Berg (co-incidentally: The Main Hall next to the original Church Building is called the Jana van der Berg Hall).
An Old 2009 article by Harriet Box:
My small part in His church
SHE knelt behind a bush in the dark night; the smell of freshly dug soil surrounding her. People around her unsure of where to hide, or run, whatever came naturally in the panic of the dark and gloomy night. Thatched roofs of well-kept Dutch styled homes tumbled – that’s all you could see in the glimmer of the burners a few lucky ones were able to light. Confused children pulled from their beds cried; not sure what to make of the commotion; confused and abandoned by their parents in the turmoil.
It is the day of the great earthquake. The date, 4 December 1809 – the same earthquake that could be felt throughout the whole of the Cape Colony.
Its aftershocks could be felt for the next 14 days and to me, Jana van der Berg, and many others, it was a certain reminder of this agonising and frightfully destructive experience; one that called us to obedience to God.
The experience was frightening, even for me, a freed slave. I’d seen some frightening things in my life; how slaves were beaten and how children of slaves were beaten. I watched how a cruel slavemaster rubbed salt into raw, open wounds. But today the experience (the earthquake) is different, almost strange…this time the display of power comes with the silent reassurance that God’s power is even greater than the venom of the worst slavemaster.
Yes, it’s probably time for me to start listening to what the freed Mozambican slave is preaching. I’m distressed Lord, anxious; I will start praying, but I don’t know what to pray for...
I remember the prayer I prayed that day and how that day changed me for the better. It was soon afterward that I became one of the first freed slaves. But my friends who I had to leave behind in the slave lodge, had to wait until the law was formally passed. It has been four years since the great earthquake.
Things were changing, though, and soon the slave trade in Cape Town would be banned. Soon, they say, just like me, they too would have the right to marry, be together, like I am with my husband and my five children. No one would have the right to separate wives and husbands anymore and our poor children, no more selling of our poor children...
Me, Jana van der Berg, a freed slave...Can it be? It has to be, because here in front of me lie these sandy dunes of De Kuilen (Kuils River) with a river running through it. It is real. I won’t hear the cannon sound from the slave lodge at sunrise and sunset anymore. This is my new home…me, a freed slave able to own land, to start a new life for myself, my five children and my husband.
I haven’t forgotten the prayer I prayed on the day of the great eartquake of 1809. I said to God that I would pray, but that I did not know what to pray for... But, now that I’m here I know what to pray for: a church for the sandy dunes of Kuils River.
Making a life here takes hard work. Getting our vegetable garden of cabbage, potatoes, onions and mielies going, is challenging, especially in this sandy soil.
But my family and I won’t neglect going to church, even if it is means a five hour walk to church out in Stellenbosch – every Sunday. It has been a few years now and my beloved is sick. Soon I won’t be able to go to church so far away.
He needs me and I have to face the fact that I’m getting old. I prayed to God to send a preacher to Kuils River. God has proved to be faithful once again because the good preacher, Paul Luckhoff, is visiting us every second Sunday now...we’re having our services on the farm, but the new farm owner doesn’t want us there anymore. So what now? We can use my house, I think, but we still need a church for Kuils River...
I go out daily to invite people to come to church and they do – in their numbers… I see how my house is getting smaller Sunday after Sunday. I’ve broken down the dividing middle wall of the house and it is a lot bigger, but its just not good enough. People are still sitting up in the ceiling on the crossbeams – there is really no place at all... We need a church in Kuils River.
But I have faith that it will all come to pass. The dream I had of the three preachers walking towards my house...it keeps me going.
I’ll just keep praying. It will be fulfilled – I believe this with all my heart.
It is a good year – 1838 – my friends from the slave quarters are now eventually free; just like I am. They are heading this way thanks to God’s mercy. God has a way of rewarding the patient. I must be his favourite…
Take for instance 27 February 1842; I won’t ever forget this day – my dream and prayers have been answered: the three missionaries, Luckhoff, Johann Georg Knab and Louis Francois Esselen visited Kuils River. This time with a double dose of good news: that they’d be building a church in Kuils River, the one I had always prayed for. I couldn’t stop the tears...a church eventually...because God values my prayers; mine, Jana van der Berg’s, a freed slave.
People around us are also feeling our vigour and enthusiasm. Help is coming from everywhere: wood, brick, reeds for the roof, free skills and services. Only a year later and there it is, on the exact spot where my very first house used to stand, a church building in the dunes of Kuils River. It is April 1843 and there it stands: the Rhenish Church in De Kuilen, with enough room for 300 people.
People say I was responsible for establishing the Rhenish Church in Kuils River. All I know, is that Kuils River had to have a church and here it is – here in the dunes, West of Sarepta. Because of me, a free slave, an earthquake and faith in God. I’m a slave to my only master; my job here is complete...
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| The Church Building still stands in the same place, 168+ years on. |
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