the plight of south african children

i was sent a link to this interesting article on the bbc website from one of the thembalitshauk board members, it tells of the story of so many children in south africa who are the only breadwinners in what are child headed homes.....and as you imagine homes in the affluent west, or even affluent cape town, please amend your thought to a tin shack with no running water or electricity which you wouldn't put your dog!.......click this link to read

funnily enough (well not so funny) we were only talking in our village of hope meeting yesterday about the plight of a 14 year old girl living in nearest squatter camp, who is looking after her brothers and sisters and has never attended school.....we were asked to help her, but how, we have so many other children who live with the same situation in our town.....

another interesting article on the bbc site, and one is at the heart of my concerns, is that of all the work that is being completed on the stadiums that will be used for the world cup and the infrastructure that surrounds that, as opposed to the governments concern on providing the promised new schools, basic housing, sanitation etc.........it's a mad world!

the houses arrive

yesterday i had the pleasure of picking up rob, emily, rosie and isaac house from cape town international airport, rob and em are from our home church in england (rob is also a trustee on the thembalitshauk board) and they have committed the next 10 months of their lives to working with us on the village of hope....we will keep you up to date with their activities on this blog so please keep an eye on how they are doing.

it's great to have them around and we look forward to seeing how they fit in with our current team and what God has planned for them as they serve us and our needy community here in grabouw.

trondors take on the soccer saturday

we have a wonderful norwegian couple working with us at the moment and as i have highlighted before trondor, the gentleman, has his own blog, in norwegian, but you can get google to translate for us!, anyway he has posted a blog about the soccer saturday, pls visit his blog here to read the post and gain his insight into the work we are doing in the community.

i'm hungry but i can wait.....

on friday afternoons we pick up soup from a local pub/restaurant who make this up for to provide 'a meal' for a local feeding project. well this friday we were a little late in picking this up so i had the chance to take one of our local boys with me (they finish school at 2pm here)...during the conversation in the car he was telling me of his woes, this little lad is only 9 years old, no mum and father in prison (for a very long stretch), told me that he normally goes hungry on thursday and friday evenings as his uncle doesn't always collect his pay until the saturday morning...'but that's ok' he said 'i am hungry but i can wait till tomorrow'...

..my heart just broke, but not just with this little guys story but of the thousands of children who live not more that 500 yards from my home, where i can take cold beer out of the fridge or cook up a meal from the 'stuff' we have in the freezer, who have a similar story of hunger, poverty, disease and woe,.......thankfully i was able to provide him with a bowl of soup from the feeding kitchen, which fed his belly that friday evening, maybe next week he won't be so blessed.....

birthdays and soccer saturday!

i can't believe its nearly been a week since i last posted, things just seem to be rushing away with us at the village of hope at the minute.....and we didn't really have any time off over the weekend as we ran our latest soccer saturday in the morning and held a birthday party for two of our children, along with their families at the village of hope in the afternoon.

well lets start with the soccer saturday, once again we bought together the children that we work with in the 4 different areas of grabouw, each area providing 2 soccer teams (under 12 and under 15) of 7 boys and one team of girls for netball...all in all we had over 120 children playing sport between 9am and 1pm which was fantastic.

i picked my boys up from the squatter camp called iraq, at 8.30 in the morning and took this photo of the boys next to our training post and in front of the squatter camp before we left, as you will see in the following photo the pitches we played on and the setting of those pitches were a little different to the area where these boys live.......such is the contrast between the have and have nots in this country.

trondor and the two dutch students who are working with us, lars and denis, refereed the soccer matches, which were organised by daz, lisa sorted the netball which seemed to be played in a wonderful spirit, such a lot of noise coming from the girls supporting from the sidelines.

for the record, arron's rooidakke team once again won the under 12 age group, but he couldn't repeat his whitewash as last time with my team from iraq winning the under 15 age group on a penalty shoot out after the teams finished level in the group stage.....the iraq boys where singing all the way home in the back of my pick up (bakkie) and were warmly welcomed by the members of the squatter area with shouts of joy..elgin timbers won the netball again with much joy and excitement.

overall everyone had a wonderful time, each child received a fresh drink and a packet of crisps, which made their day, and the kids were so excited to travel to the country club in a bus as well...see photo below of the wonderful surroundings we played in.

ok then on saturday afternoon, after a short nap, we welcomed the family of one of our children who was celebrating his second birthday, the other boy wasn't so blessed as we have no contact with his family, however he enjoyed opening his presents, and feeding on the wonderful feast that maz, lisa and jess had arranged to celebrate his third birthday.

we played parcel the parcel with the children, which was more of a hit with the adults who were visiting, by their reaction i think that might have been the first time that they had ever played the game, which allowed everyone to unwrap a piece of the parcel and win a prize, it was like everyone was celebrating their birthdays!....

i will try to upload some further photos of the soccer day and the party onto my flickr account later, that's if i have enough upload gigs, please visit later for more photos.

the myths that surround HIV

living in grabouw we are part of a wider community heavily affected with the HIV virus, one in three people in our town live with this disease and many more are affected by it's prevalence. that said we don't see thousands of dying people walking our streets, living with HIV isn't a death sentence and what with the work we are doing via the village of hope, thembacare and the other NGO's in town we are seeing people not only stabilised but living a 'normal' life.

yes there are the drugs which must be taken every twelve hours to keep the virus from spreading and becoming full blown AIDS, but once a person is on the ARV programme life continues, with it's daily struggles and chores.....i was reading an article on the BBC web site about ladies living with HIV in zimbabwe who play football, the perception of 'the world' is that of people lying in hospital beds or dying in their tin shacks, however as the article states these ladies want their status to be known, for their lives to be as normal as possible, playing sport, working, raising a family is all part of life, with or without being HIV+.

we know and work with so many infected people, do we treat them any different to anyone else? no and neither should the world look down on or despise such people, we need to love them, embrace them and give them a hope and a future.

recommend reads....

much of my time is spent reading God's word, the bible, or books about the scriptures, how to apply them to your life etc, i do love to read other books as well but i love the bible, the characters, the way that it speaks to me day in day out, about the situations i find myself in here in south africa 2009....

....however over the last couple of weeks my reading time has been taken up by two amazing (secular) books, the first called 'dead aid' by dambisa moyo, it looks at the way that aid is used and given to african nations, i suggests new ways to help and support those on the ground.....well worth a read especially if you are working with organisations that benefit or help 'those in need'.....maybe i will write more on my thoughts about that at a later date......

..the other book is called africa trek, have a look at the web link here, and is written by a french couple, sonia and alexandre poussin, who have walked from the cape of good hope, just down the road from us, to jerusalem, (yes i said walked) this book is the first section from cape town to mount kilimanjaro...wow what a read, amazon have it for sale in the uk here, i would recommend this as well i couldn't put it down i was so amazed by these guys encounters, with the whites, blacks and coloureds of this continent, it is so well written and a real eye opener in many ways as they walk in the footsteps of mankind.

its been a year

tuesday 6th october 2009, was an amazing day for the walkers, yes it was a year to the day when they arrived 'full time' in south africa and it has been a roller coaster of a year. we have achieve so many things, not only looking after 10 amazing children in the unit which we have created from a humble garage and welcoming volunteers from around the world but working in the community, becoming well known in all areas of our town. it must also be siad that it has also been hard to leave our family, especially our boys (and daughter-in-law), mums and dads, sisters and brother-in-laws, friends, old and young....but hey God never told us that it was going to be easy, we are standing for him, following his lead and wanting to do his will in whatever way we can.

thanks for all the amazing help we have had, without the likes of vineyard mission team, saul and angela, johan, daz and lisa, reagan and sandra, joyce, vicky and chris, gerrits of many different surnames, bev, thandi, dros, spar, sales hire, elgin grabouwer, fnb, agri organics, evergreen, en somerset west, the endless list of volunteers (you know who you are), our amazing board of directors, uncle tom cobbley and all......thanks and thanks again, but main thanks to the main man, the perfecter of our faith, may he always guide and lead us, show us, strengthen and empower us.

amen

kidz club

last week was school holiday here in south africa and as with every holiday there are literally hundreds of kids wondering round doing nothing, our local church, elgin united, also work in the community via their siphla sonke care team and as part of their work they host a kids club in the informal settlement church, imizamo united.....as usual bethesda kidz running the programme for them....(i know that this is a little complicated but please bear with me!)....and me and the rest of the village of hope team (daz, arron and jess, along with two dutch and one norwegian volunteer) ran the club.

man it was busy, we had over 100 children at each club, which we ran on monday, wednesday and friday between 10am and 1pm, we sang songs, listened to outside speakers talk about health, safety and the environment, played games and made paper mache piggy banks....yea that was messy.

it was a privilege to get along side some of the poorest and most needy children in our community, really engage with them, encourage them and try to put a some positive in pact into their little lives.

follow jess' blog

our new longer term volunteer, jess, has started her own blog recording her thoughts about her time here at the village of hope, it is a real pleasure to have jess around and we would love for you to follow her as she settles in to the life here in south africa and finds out exactly what God has called her here to do!.....have a look at her blog here and i have also linked at the 'blogs we follow' down the right hand side of this page