A SHORT HISTORY OF SACRED HEART CHURCH IN ACKERVILLE, WITBANK - EMALAHLENI
6. The Catholics of Ogies
The biggest Catholic community outside of Witbank served by Sacred Heart Church lives at Phola township,which is situated near Ogies.
The original inhabitants of Phola used to be employed at a mine which was closed in 1949. As a result these people moved to Ogies to a farm named Goedgevonden. They called the place Dindela and were employed at the Ogies mine.In 1960 the people had to leave Dindela and move to a piece of land 6 km away.There they settled and gave the place the name of Phola which was proclaimed a township in 1963. The township began to grow as more people found work in the iron and steel industries, the power-stations and railways. The Catholics at Phola used to worship in the garage of the Mashaba family because the administration board refused to give the Catholics a church site. After two years of fighting with the board,a site was given but it was in a lower muddy area which doubled the building costs. The church was eventually completed and dedicated to St Joseph in 1970. Mr Louis Mashaba was ordained a deacon and is still serving the Church of Phola today who number over 1000 Catholics.
7. A new church is built at Sacred Heart:1968
After 12 years of struggle in order to save the mission land, it became possible once again to consider building a new church. In 1967 the late Fr Bourhill and Fr Mkhatshwa worked very hard on this project. Every Catholic family in the parish contributed R12 towards the building costs.The priests went from house to house to collect the donations.The rapid development of Ackerville and the continued growth of the Catholic population demanded a bigger church. The new Sacred Heart church - with a seating capacity of over 1000 people - was completed the following year.
Much of the finances came from the Diocese of Rottenburg in Germany. It was blessed by Bishop Reiterer on 6 April 1968.
From then on the old church was used as the parish hall until the day it was totally destroyed by the apartheid security police in 1988.
Sacred Heart History