bruno and seth join the needs list

last night both bruno, our little jack russell puppy (8 months) and seth, daz and lisa's little boy (11 months) joined those who we need to take care of, please pray for seth as he is feeling a little under the weather and for our bruno who has got tick bite fever.........life is never dull up here on the village of hope.

building home, investing in lives..

today we had the honour to provide a 'new' home for one of the thembacare grabouw careworkers, the team from england wanted to bless someone or invest in something whilst they were over, so i arrnaged for a 'shed' (for want of a better word and believe me in our western eyes that's all it was/is) to be made and delivered flatpack into the new squatter camp of xola, rooidakke. the team didn't do much putting together, that was carried out by the guys who made and delivered, however what the team did was invest time, love and money into providing this amazing lady with a safe, secure and water tight home for the winter and we hope many more to come.

well done guys and get those photos onto facebook or flickr soon and we will set up a link for the world to see what you have done.

if others would like to invest in our careworkers lives then please contact me via our thembalitshauk web site and we will make sure that your money is spent well in supporting these wonderful ladies and their wider families.

first 'soccer saturday'

on saturday we enjoyed our first ‘soccer saturday’ outreach in grabouw, the aim of the morning was to bring together the various teams that we run during the week so that they could put into action the skills, both soccer (and netball) and the lifeskills we have been teaching them over the last few weeks..

the event started at 9am with prayer (following a manic time for the organising team, of daz, lisa, maz, arron, reagan, tim and sandra before hand to ensure all the children arrived on time) and then the ‘tournament’ started, this was which was a round robin affair with all teams (hillside, pineview, iraq, roooidakke, elgin timbers) playing each other to decide the overall winner.

4 teams contested the under 15 soccer league, all 5 entered the under 13 soccer league and lisa ran 3 teams for the netball. Each of the soccer teams were made up of 5 boys, with up to 4 substitues and the netball was obviously seven with again a few subs...it was great to see over 100 children come together from townships and squatter camps to enjoy themselves on a saturday morning and this is defiantly something we will be repeating throught the year, leading up to the 2010 world cup next year.

the everynation church from baxter congregation in cape town came to help ref the games and oversee the teams, they also provided the refreshments for the children after the prize giving. we were also joined by ross and the team from aylesbury who took loads of photos and also had a great time interacting with the children that we work with.

for the record arron’s roooidakke soccer teams were the winners of both age groups, with a 3 way penalty shootout decided the under 13 league and the under 15’s won with a last minute penalty both against tim’s Iraq sides.....not a lot was said by tim following those defeats! (he writes!)....the netball was won by the hillside girls who receive their training from reagan and tim on a monday afternoon....maybe that says something about tim and reagan's soccer v netball skills!

please visit tim’s flickr site for some photos.

better news on water and viv's skydive

thanks for all who were praying for the water situ on the village of hope, all now seems to be sorted, abet the water is back to it's inviting brown colour...however we have some so we should be more than happy....

the team from aylesbury have had a busy day, i (tim) took them into the community this morning to visit and pray for the sick and needy, think for some was quite tough but hey seeing the way that thousands of people in our town live is quite shocking......

for those of you who are interested please have a look at viv (the lady who completed the skydive for her 60th birthday to raise funds for thembalitsha) via this link and if you feel compelled to give then please visit her justgiving site! thanks

no water at the voh

today of all days we have had awful problems with our borehole. why today, well ross and his team of volunteers from aylesbury (my home town) arrived this morning and we couldn't even welcome them with a warm cuppa!.....mores the problem in the baby care unit where we spent a whole night with no water and this morning there was no opportunity to wash or even make up their breakfast....

....it all seems to be caused by an electrical fault and this has been temporally sorted by a local electrician, however due to the length and type of cable we require we have had to place this on order so there seems little chance of this being sorted before the weekend....so for now its no showers or even hot water (another long story) so please pray for us, the team and especially those precious little babies.....

silicon sealant and cardboard boxes

last weekend i installed a freestanding open fire in to the corner of our open plan living room which we hope will keep us warm during the colder winter months of the western cape, all seemed to be ok with the installation, i made sure that i sealed the chimney where i had broken through the tiles in the roof to ensure that we didn't have any unexpected puddles when it rained......

...last night it rained, and rained and the wind blew and blew and by the morning we had a lovely puddle under the fire with water streaming down the outside of the chimney...it seems that my efforts had been in vain. this afternoon i visited the local hardware store to find some heat resistant silicon sealer which might help with my problem....i'll let you know how it goes..

...the main reason for this story isn't to confirm my lack of handyman skills to many of you who will all know that that isn't my forte, other than i think over this last 7 months i have achieved much more during the building of the village of hope than anyone would have given me credit for!, the story was set as a back drop for my late afternoon trip with a friend, called anderson, who lives in the iraq

...i picked up anderson up from work, he packs boxes of apples for shipment to the UK, and loaded up my buckie, (mines a toyota hilux for all you non south africans), full of old cardboard boxes which he had been collecting over the last few weeks, as we loaded these in the rain, strapping them down for the 20 minute journey home i asked what he was going to be using these for......'oh to insulate my house for the winter, to keep me warm and to make sure that the rain doesn't pour through my roof like last night, that soaked my clothes and bed'.....i had thought as much and as we delivered the boxes to his home we were helped by some of the boys that i work with on tuesday afternoons at our soccer club....they all wanted a piece of cardboard to put over the hole in their roof to ensure that their beds didn't get wet tonight too....as i sit here in my warm home, with a slight leak in the corner, created by me to put in a fireplace it puts my silicon sealant story into context hey.....?

please pray for anderson, our soccer boys and the thousands, maybe millions of south africans living in and around cape town who tonight will be worried about the leaks coming through their make shift roofs, and pray for more helpers to enable us to empower these people.....thanks (timx)

bike ride and parachute jumps

just wanted to point you to the donation page of our 'old' youth pastor from aylesbury, the young mr chris stoddard and his even younger daughter, louise, are attempting to ride from the top of scotland, yes that bit of land with all the mountains and loch's, to the bottom of england raising funds for thembalitshauk, please visit his justgiving site and support him, and us!....

...we also want to thank viv bailleux, who on the celebration of her 60th birthday, sorry for the mention of your age viv, jumped from a plane, with a parachute attached i hasten to add, to raise funds for the work we are doing in grabouw....thanks to all those who sponsored her as well!

god of this city

now i know that grabouw is by now means a city, but God has really been speaking to me about the fact that whatever is going on in our town, and we have some really problems, our HIV rate is over 30%, we have the second highest rate (last year we were top, but thanks to the work that vicky and the rest of the thembacare team our doing in our town we have been knocked off the top of the pile) of new TB cases in the whole world, many of the children that we work with in our sports outreach programme have been raped or sexually abused during their short lives, and i would think that every family we are working with lives on less than a dollar a day, pretty grim hey.....God is still God of this city, this town, His people.

the song God of this city, which has been covered by the world famous christian artist chris tomlin, has become an anthem for me and i would just like to encourage you to have a look at this clip from the band who wrote this song, they're called bluetree and they hail from the wonderful town/city of belfast (northern ireland).

God is calling us to be those people who will love those the world rejects, as the guy says 'come on church get off of your backsides and get out there and share the love of Jesus to the world', He has given us the mandate to do this, for me, maz, arron and the rest of the village of hope team this is here in grabouw, south africa, where AIDS such a strong hold, for you it could be south london, southampton or even southcourt (for all you aylesburyits.!).......

tv hero's?

below is an except from this weeks football training session in the iraq squatter camp.......

'don't stand around with your hands in your pockets, do you see professional soccer players with their hands in their pockets?.....do the players for orlando pirates or ajax cape town stand about looking at the sky?....boys boys how many of you have seen a soccer match?....(silence) on the television?' (silence).....my mind then clicked into gear and i realised that the homes (wooden shacks with tin roofs) that these guys live in don't have electricity, or running water or a toilet for that matter, how could they have seen their hero's play, let lone on a tv, how would they know that footballers don't stand about with their hands in their pockets!.........

this is a day to day situation that frazzles our brains, we live with all that you guys have in 'the west' but in a country with so much how come so many have so little....?

birthdays and new children

today has been a special day at the village of hope, for one we celebrated our eldest childs 9th birthday, this little guy only joined us a couple of weeks ago so the team from thembacare althone came and joined us at his little birthday party......the team also bought over two new children for us to care for, a little 18 month old girl and a lovely little 2 year old boy.......it's amazing to spend time in the unit with these children, yes i (tim) even took time to feed a child this tea time!, and to see the village of hope provide a home to these little guys.

with the unit now up and running our costs are rising, providing meals, accommodation and care for these children costs money so if i could please encourage you to partner with us, the easiest way to do this is via justgiving or you could contact our team in the UK via our UK based website, all donations will go to the work that we are doing here on the village of hope and to the wider thembalitsha projects

yesterday...

yesterday was a sad day for the walker family and the rest of the village of hope team, as they not only said goodbye to rebecca and lisa from jersey but also tim's mum and dad (ann and roger) who had been staying on the farm for the last 6 weeks.....the place won't be the same without them, especially our mornings where a diet of porridge has been the order of the day!...

...but later this week we welcome another team from the united states and look forward to their help as we look to finish off the building of our tool shed, as well as completing the building which will serve as an overnight accommodation for visiting mums and installing some guttering around the buildings before the winter rains!