January Newsletter
Water, water nowhere!
Firstly may we take this opportunity to wish all of you wonderful supporters, family and friends a belated Happy New Year and we trust that you will be blessed with all the things you hope for in 2010.Christmas is a hectic time for any family and that was no different for the team here on the Village of Hope. With the turning of a new year we are really looking forward to everything that 2010 holds for us as we seek to develop the plans for our project, especially as the focus of the world in June and July will be on South Africa as we host the 2010 Fifa world cup. It looks like it's going to be another busy year for us out here!
Unit NewsAs with most months, December wasn't without its challenges. Our phone lines were stolen on 7th December, only to be replaced and stolen again within 6 hours on the 14th December. It has been difficult to communicate with the wider world, which was a little disappointing over the festive period and we are sorry that we didn't have much chance to speak to our close friends and family.
We also faced another bigger problem on New Years Eve when we found that our 50,000 litre water holding tank had run dry. Our borehole pump had stopped working a few days before and it was only when the staff came to bath the children that evening, that we found out that we had no water. Of course, the whole country had closed down for the long holiday weekend! Thanks to our relationship with the local municipality we were able to procure the use of an 800 litre water tanker, complete with water! This gave us access to some water whilst the pump was being sorted. We must thank a local plumber and electrician for their quick response during that crisis.
The nine children that live with us on the Village of Hope continue to be a blessing and they enjoyed a great Christmas! We had parties before Christmas and on Christmas Day we enjoyed a braai (BBQ) at lunchtime and delayed the opening of the presents till the afternoon where we gave the children a party tea, complete with games. On Boxing Day we took the children and house moms to the beach which we hope they enjoyed as much as we did!
As we explained in the last newsletter we were able to place one of our three year old boys back with his family in the Eastern Cape. Unfortunately we have found out that his mother succumbed to the AIDS virus and passed away last week. His grandmother is now looking after him and he is doing well, we even spoke to recently on the mobile phone!
Unfortunately we have had two of our house moms leave during the last month which has put pressure on Maz and Lisa as they seek to create a stable team. Thankfully, we are blessed with a great team of 'back up moms' and as we enter the New Year we are happy with the team that we have. We are looking to employ a full time staffing sister who will oversee the dispensing of the medication which our children need to take every twelve hours.
Work around the village has taken a bit of a break but when you look around at what we have achieved in December it certainly doesn't look like we slowed down at all. Not only did we have to sort the borehole out but we have also been experiencing problems with our septic tanks so we have now diverted our grey water (that's the water from our sinks and washing machines) from the volunteer’s and children’s units into a couple of 'soak a ways' which we are then looking to recycle for toilet flushing. We had around 40 trees donated, mainly 'pin oaks', which we have been busy planting. Unfortunately though, with all our water problems and the lack of rain at the moment we may have lost a few to the drought.
Community NewsThings were busy all over the festive period but we did have some fun. A lady from the Every Nation Church in Somerset West put on a party for the children in the unit and we were overwhelmed with presents. If we had kept them all we would probably be still opening them next Christmas so we thought that we would bless a couple of the local crèches in the squatter camps with some of the toys, which they were very thankful for.
Another idea we had was to make a sleigh, complete with a real Norwegian Father Christmas. We cut out and painted some ply board panels (well, Emily House did!) and then fixed them to our trailer, which we hooked up to the Toyota and drove around the townships and squatter camps. Santa aka Trondor from Norway sat on the back giving out sweets to the thousands of children who were running from every direction to see what the fuss was about. It was a truly memorable experience and one which we feel will become a custom for the Village of Hope. It was good for publicity too as we hit the headlines in the local press.
On New Year’s Day we took eight children from the Iraq squatter camp to the beach. For some of them it was the first time that they had seen the sea and many of them collected sea water and sand to take home to show their friends. It was an great day and I will post some photos on flickr once we get the internet back and sorted properly.
Our kids clubs took a break for the school holidays. This is always a mystery to us as it is upsetting to see so many kids hanging around with nothing to do, however we did manage to take some of the children who attend our sports teams to the local dam for a swim and some to the beach with some surf boards we had bought for them, again another great time. Things will be different during the month long holiday for the World Cup as we are welcoming a team from YWAM, (Youth with a Mission) Harpenden, who will be leading our sports outreach during that time.
Volunteer NewsOn Christmas Eve, Trondor and his wife Gretta cooked a traditional Norwegian meal for us. The belly pork was very tender and the caraway seeds in the cabbage certainly set it off nicely! On Christmas Day we had a traditional English Christmas dinner minus the turkey. This was replaced by ostrich steaks cooked on the braai! On New Year’s eve Arron went to Cape Town to celebrate with the Dutch students, Daz and Lisa were away with Daz' parents, so me, Maz, Rob and Emily enjoyed an evening game of settlers (which I lost so badly it wasn't worth playing!). We really know how to party like its 2009! (Maybe lost on those who don't know the Prince song 1999!)
We have had to say our sad goodbyes to two of our longer term volunteers, Fran Black has returned to Jersey, and Jess Stratford is now back in sunny England. Fran and Jess made a great team and we will miss the onion pasta salads and the silly kids songs which they sang with the children on the way to school or in the unit during 'play times'. The children will really miss them too as they embraced everything it means be a volunteer on the Village of Hope. We have even forgiven Jess for locking the keys in the car, with the kids inside!....they are already greatly missed.
However one set of volunteers leave and another team arrive, each person brings a slightly different flavour and each have their own skills to share, so it was great to have Matt Walker (no relation) over from England to do some soccer coaching with our sports outreach project. Matt is a key guy involved with the South African football captain (Aaron Mokoena) and we look forward to working with him again in 2010.
The New Year seems to have come and gone so quickly. One day seems to blur into another but we are so looking forward to this year and pray that God will use us well as we seek to share His love with the widows and orphans of our town of Grabouw.
