all smiles for the paper!

this weeks overberg venster has a photo of the grabouw world cup task team with visitors from the UN and the department of social development, the photo was taken at groenberg school where we (along with the YWAM team) are running sports clubs for the children each afternoon and was part of the vuvuleza against crime campaign.

(the photo shows the team with clint holding my vuvuzela!)

michelin chefs cook up a storm in grabouw

today we have had a wonderful dutch filled day, not only did we have the chance to show the dutch ambassador to south africa, mr rob de vos, around the village of hope but we also were blessed by the visit of some of the top chefs from holland on their culibus, visit their site here.

the chefs are touring around south africa following the dutch football team and are visiting projects like the village of hope, where they are providing a five star meal made from local produce, ours were provided by elgin learning foundation who we are working with on our food gardens.

the local and dutch press were also present and we were able to take them and the chefs up to the village of hope as we had to base the bus at the elgin country club as the access road to our project was much to unstable to take the 1million euro bus!

please keep your eyes out for publicity at the following site www.zuidafrika2010.net, which klaas deknatel has been running for the buildup and duration of the world cup.

to cap a busy day we were also visited by wings of support from klm who came to have a look at our project.....

...roll on saturday!, oh no its another sports saturday so no peace for the wicked, that's us by the way!...

(photos show the size and extent of the bus and one of the chefs, onno kokmeijer, with one of the boys that the village of hope has successfully placed back into the community).

moving into new homes

yesterday myself and maz had the pleasure of spending the morning moving a family into their new home in rooidakkes (and it only took me three trips using the back of my pick up to do that), in grabouw, the family, who include a young girl who spent sometime at the village of hope children's unit, have been living in a tin shack for many years, it was amazing to see them enter their new home for the first time.....unfortunately we had to demolish the banisters on the staircase (yes the home has two floors!) to get the bed up to the second floor but hey that's easy to fix.

lets hope and pray for more homes to be completed soon and thus help with the health and welfare of the poor and needy in our town.

international soccer saturdays! (and daz out injured)

yesterday we held the second of the five sports saturdays taking place at pineview park in grabouw during the duration of the FIFA 2010 world cup. once again over 300 children enjoyed a fun packed morning which included a netball tournament, face painting, dance and music as well as a football competition which included 2 teams from ashfield school in northern ireland who are visiting south africa on a school trip.

it was great for our local township children to have some international opposition and to the irish boys credit they made it through to the under 15 final where they were beaten 3-0 by our rooidakkes team....see photo.

unfortunately during an after hours game played between the YWAM students and a mish mash of VOH volunteers daz suffered a leg injury which has left him on crutches, pls pray for a swift recovery for him.

feeding the five thousand

starting last monday we (VOH and YWAM) have been running the world cup sports outreach clubs and we have seen the numbers of children grow from around 30 on the first day to over 200 yesterday.

the clubs are held at two schools in town and we are not only running sports based activities every afternoon but we are providing the children with a hot meal as well....this is all funded by the village of hope and we praying for extra food to cover this outreach.

the photo shows yesterdays event at groenberg school, this was the first of two sittings! it is an amazing previlidge to serve these children, many, if not all, come from tin shack homes and have very little input from adults in their lives.

youth day SA

well the world cup has fully gripped the country, south africa is celebrating (if you can celebrate the violence that surrounded the killing of children!) youth day, a day where the country remembers the events of june 16th 1976 where some children in soweto protested against the use of Afrikaans as the main language of the education system (and maybe some deeper stuff which goes along with the apartheid regime at the time), around 500 children and young people were reported to be killed.

tonight bafana bafana, the south african football, team play their second game in the 2010 fifa world cup, lets hope that the country can 'unite' under sport and come together to support their team.

we are running soccer clubs each and everyday in the squatter camps and informal settlements in grabouw for the duration of the championships, lets hope the national team stay in the tournament long enough for the impact to make a real difference!

sports and snow at village of hope

last saturday we had our first world cup sports saturday, this was run with some other NPO's under the FIFA social development banner, the weather was clear if not a little windy. our YWAM team were there to help oversee the sports where around 400 children played soccer, netball and even had a try at golf, with real golf balls.

since saturday we have started our midweek afternoon outreach in two schools, yesterday we had snow in grabouw and the mountain tops are covered as i write this, please pray for better/clearer weather and that the children, many of whom live in tin shacks, will want to come and join us for fun each afternoon.

one day to go

well the world is watching, well at least millions of football fans, i visited cape town airport this morning and the place was heaving with international visitors. lets hope and pray that south africa can put on an event to be proud of and the world will hopefully see the plight of millions of our citizens living in appalling conditions and not just the glory boys running around in their shinny shorts earning more money than sense.

please pray for us as we seek to put on a holiday programme to bless the children of grabouw, which starts this coming saturday with the first of 5 sports saturdays, we are hoping for around 1000 children to turn up and enjoy the fun.