Came in 2016 looking for a way out of addiction. He met Odette here and they married on this mission. Today he supervises daily tasks and vehicle maintenance.
Volunteer With Missions Ablaze
Bring Your Time. We'll Put It to Work.
The mission is faith-led. The work is open to anyone willing to show up.
31 years in, Missions Ablaze still runs on people who turn up before first light and do the next thing that needs doing. Drivers. Cooks. Admin hands. Builders. Gardeners. A retired man with a bakkie. A gap-year traveller who wanted their year to mean something. A couple who came for a month and stayed for years.
If you have been looking for somewhere to put your hands to honest work, this is that place.
Roles we actually need
Real Jobs. Honest Hours. Something That Fits Your Life.
We do not run volunteer days for photographs. We run a food rescue operation that goes out every weekday. Every role below is one we genuinely need filled, not one we invented to give visitors something to do.
Kitchens
Food prep, sorting, packing crates for the partner kitchens, cooking for the daily community feeding, and cleaning down at the end of service.
1 to 5 days a week. Full-time live-in also possible.
Logistics
Driving collection routes to retailer partners, loading and offloading, managing the handover to partners, and maintaining the vehicles that keep it all moving. Retired people with a bakkie are particularly welcome here. So is anyone who has ever loved a diesel engine.
1 to 5 days a week. Routes start before dawn. Full-time roles available.
Admin
Office, data entry, donor communications, record keeping, Section 18A paperwork, and the quiet unglamorous work that keeps a registered NPO compliant and funded.
4 hours a week upward. Remote support possible for some tasks.
Outreach
Community engagement, church partnership liaison, visiting partners, collecting stories, and helping run short-term teams when they arrive.
Flexible. Suits someone with people skills and a valid licence.
Trades
Maintenance, building repairs, painting, plumbing and general handy work around the base. Every few months a geyser fails or a roof gets tested by a storm. Skilled trades are gold here.
Project-based, from a weekend to a season.
If your skill is not listed, ask anyway. 31 years on the same piece of land, there is almost always something that needs doing.
A day here, start to finish
What It Actually Looks Like Before Sunrise.
Vehicles leave the gate while it is still dark. Some head for Shoprite Checkers, others for Spar, Woolworths or Food Lover’s Market. By mid-morning, crates of bread, produce and dry goods are back at the base in Tongaat, being sorted by partner and by what will not keep.
By lunchtime the day's deliveries are on the road again, heading to partner kitchens across Tongaat, Inanda, Hambanathi, Verulam, Phoenix and beyond. Adel is making soup on the base, and by midday we are serving more than 150 people in our community a hot meal.
There is admin work in the office all day. There is maintenance in the workshop. There is someone cooking for the missionaries who live on site. There is always a phone ringing.
By evening, families across the network have eaten. The kombis are parked. The kettle is on.
That is a weekday, every weekday.
Day visit or full-time
Start Where You Are. Move When You’re Ready.
There are 2 ways to start with us.
Visit for a day
Come for a single day, spend it with the team, see the work from the inside. No commitment, no essay, no interview. Just a way to find out whether this feels like somewhere you would want to give your time.
This is almost always the right first step. It is low friction for us and for you.
Book a Day VisitJoin us full-time
For those ready to step into a longer season: retired with skills and time, on a gap year, between careers, or feeling called to mission work. Full-time volunteers often live on site in Tongaat. Accommodation, meals and a place in the community come with the role.
This path starts with a conversation, not a contract.
Apply to Join Full-Time
Bringing a church or a group?
Short-Term Teams Have Their Own Path.
If you are bringing a congregation, a small group or a short-term team, the church partnerships page has the detail, and the record of churches who have already done it.
Teams get a defined job, a briefing before they arrive, and a real handover at the end. Nobody stands around holding a bucket for a photograph.
A note on faith
The Mission Is Faith-Led. The Work Is Open to Anyone.
Missions Ablaze started with a vision in 1995. Faith has held the work steady through 3 decades of storms. That is real and it is not going to change.
You do not have to share our convictions to volunteer here. Volunteers who are not Christian are welcome, valued and used well. What matters is that you show up, respect the community you are serving, and do the work with care. That has been the standard since the first kombi left Hospital Hill Road.
International volunteers are welcome. Tongaat sits 40km north of Durban, near King Shaka International Airport.
Ready to start
The Work Doesn’t Wait. Neither Should You.
Pick the step that fits.
Start here
Visit for a day
Come see the work, meet the team, find out if it fits.
Visit for a dayA longer season
Join our team full-time
A longer season on the mission, on or off site.
Full-time enquiryGroups
Bringing a church or group?
The partnership path lives here.
Church Partnerships
Or look around first: Meet the team · See what we do · Our story
Trust IT 2049/2000 · NPO 019-028 · PBO 930020955
