christmas present for maz

christmas may have passed last weekend but in true style our amazing friend matt walker arrives with something to blow us away.....maz has only been saying recently that she can never get to a computer, even in our new office, however today her dreams have come true as matt bought us a brand new laptop....this man has a wonderful heart of generosity and we want to thank him for all his love and support over this last year.

walkers christmas newsletter!

we (tim, maz and arron) wanted to send out a more personal Christmas newsletter, but due to some internet/googlemail problems we weren't certain on who received this and who didn't, therefore we have decided to at it to this blog with a link from our individual facebook sites.

we hope you enjoy the read and want to encourage you to continue to follow our progress on a daily basis here at the village of hope blog.


Walker Christmas Update from Village of Hope

Grabouw, South Africa

Dec 2010.

Firstly we (Tim, Maz and Arron) wanted to bring you a more personal news update from the Village of Hope Grabouw, rather than the more ‘corporate’ ThembalitshaUK newsletter that you may normally receive.

Well what a year 2010 proved to be and we will try provide some of our personal highlights (and maybe some low lights) throughout the next few paragraphs.

We started the year in the wonderful summer weather of South Africa, always a bonus for those of us that love the sunny weather, however within a month of the New Year starting Arron had made the long trip to Harpenden, England (complete with snow), to join Paul Baker and the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) team of another 20 or so young people from around the world who were on a 6 month Sports DTS and who would serve in Grabouw during the 2010 Football World Cup.

Whilst Arron was way we (me and Maz) enjoyed sometime as ‘Derby and Joan’, the first time since we were married, 23 years ago, and even went to see Elton John in Kirstenbosh Gardens together....(not one of my choices, I managed to miss the Cliff Richard concert! Tim).

As Arron left Harry Hogarth joined the Village of Hope team and became one of the family, Harry was one of many volunteers who came to join us throughout the year and we are grateful for everyone who has visited and served us during this year, including the return visits of Jess Strafford, Barbara Wood, Emma Podmore, Tim Berger and his team from Dallas, Krissy Clarke, Mel Kidd and her amazing friends (Mel has stayed to serve us long term), Fran Black and her sister Kate, Matt Redette sent another team, Tom Digsby and the team from Infocus, man the list goes on and if we have missed anyone we are really sorry.(dan williams, the margette and leo, gerrit and all the students from the HAN in Holland, trondar and greta from norway!)

Tim’s sister Vicky, husband Chris and their children Faith and Joel, along with Chris’ father Antony joined us for an extended stay (due to some volcano blowing it’s top and delaying flights in Europe, when will the airlines in England cope with ‘out of the norm weather conditions’?, we hear that England is at another standstill due to a little bit of snow!).

Rob and Emily (and their amazing children Rosie and Isaac) recommitted to volunteer with VoH (Village of Hope) for another 2 years and we were visited by members of their family through the year as well.

Early in March we had some mixed news, Tim’s Granddad passed away (97 years young) two days before the arrival (birth) of Tim and Maz’ first grandchild (Alfie), Tim returned to England to attend the funeral but had a blessing of meeting Alfie for the first time. Maz spent some time on a visit to look after Alfie later in the year which she enjoyed immensely.

The YWAM team joined us for nearly 3 months to bring a sense of hope to the children of Grabouw that we work with on a weekly basis throughout the year to bless them over the World Cup celebrations, we had up to 400 children a day join our clubs, who were feed, watered, entertained and watched the big game on a screen at a local school. We want to thank them for all the hard work that they put in to make that time special for some of the most poor and needy children that we work with.

Trefor Williams came over during the early stages of the World Cup to run a Big Shot cricket coaching course, well he is Welsh and needed an excuse to get involved in the football fest, we just wish that the England football team had turned up too and that would have made the year even better...Josh was also over at the same time and Tim, Josh and Arron, along with some of the YWAM team were at the awful 0-0 draw with Algeria at Green Point Stadium, and yes I did boo Wayne Rooney (thanks for the waste of hard earned cash there guys!). Matt Walker was over doing some big business work around the World Cup and we enjoyed his humour and support during that time.

Our work in Grabouw has extend during the year, we have successfully place 15 children home with either foster, adoptive or their own families and the support to our children living with HIV is increasing by the day. Maz was ably supported by Lisa in the baby unit and Daz ran a very effective sports outreach programme, Rob and Emily provided much needed admin and fundraising support and Johan managed to keep himself busy with new projects on the farm and also at Thembacare Grabouw.

We enjoyed a short trip ‘home’ to England in August, where we enjoyed a family holiday at Wick Court near Bath, we also celebrated Alfie’s dedication at that time with our extended family which was an amazing blessing. We were also able to share some stories about the work that we are doing with churches and other small groups, it was good to catch up with friends and Trefor and Mandy Williams made us feel at home as usual.

In August the health of our eldest boy, Assi, gave some rise of concern, especially when we were away in England, the team over here did so well in supporting him as he spent time at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, where we thought we might lose him to the disease which has plagued him for the whole of his little life, however through God’s grace he is back with us, fitting fit, learning new things each day and gives us hope that through prayer God can restore what would seem a hopeless situation.

Assi is one of many miracles that we have seen this year, and to work with so many needy children is a real privilege, however to complete the work that we have started all costs money, supporting 12 staff, running vehicles, buying food etc is a real drain on our finances and although many of you will be facing an uncertain future with the down turn in the world economy we urge you to partner with us for a few pounds a month to enable us to help those widows and orphans that we work with.
As the year came to an end Arron managed to find another trip to go on, this time to work with Big Shot Cricket at an outreach in Uganda, he has certainly travelled a lot this year, we wonder what might be in store for 2011!

As we come to the end of another busy year Tim’s Mum and Dad (Ann and Roger), son Chris and his wife Claire and Alfie, along with Claries parents, Paul and Sue, have joined us the celebrate Christmas together and it is wonderful to share the day to day work that we do with our closest family.

We want to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a bless 2011, and if you would like to find out any more info about the work we are doing please visit our blog, which we try to update daily @ www.thembavillageofhope.blogspot.com or if we could tempt you to donate to the work then follow the links from the Thembalitsha website @ www.thembalitshauk.org.uk

Tim, Maz and Arron Walker Grabouw Dec 2010

homes for sail.....take 2

see previous story here.
once again we have been blessed with the provision of two sailing (yacht) sails from our friend mike in somerset west, and once again we have blessed another family in the iraq squatter camp, grabouw, with a new roof.


photos show arron, our eldest son chris and chris' father-in-law paul smith taking a morning to cut and install the sail.

christmas in the squatter camps

i don't think anyone can really appreciate the poverty that surrounds our town until they have visited the poorest of the poor, not just on some township tour but walking, talking, sharing time and conversation in the very homes of the thousands of people who live in some of the worst conditions in the world. the contrast between the have and have nots is somewhat brain challenging but God has provided us with a platform to not only help but really engage with these people.

on fridays we are provided an amazing pot of soup from our local resturant (the rose and bull) which we normally share with a local soup kitchen that cares of the needs of a small number of people in the rooidakke informal settlement, however last friday (christmas eve) the centre was shut but we still had the soup to give out...therefore rob (house) called me to see who we could bless with it.

we made our way to the iraq squatter camp, which sits above rooidakke, in my bakkie and encouraged everyone to go and collect their pots where we then ladled out soup into litrelly hundreds of bowls...it was an amazing sight to behold as the rains fell on the tin shacks people were blessed with hot soup, full of meat for their christmas eve meal...

i thank God for the opportunities he places for us to be his hands and feet in some of the most shocking places of this amazing country of south africa.

santa hits the big time!

for the second year running the village of hope hit the front page headlines in the christmas edition of our local newspaper, the elgin grabouwer. see story as image and click for a larger version.

but this year santa has gone one step further by appearing on youtube, see link here . emily house, our wonderful film tech guru, put this clip together to give you all a flavour of the event, include the assembly by johan, decoration by tim and rob, our santa played by tim's dad, and elves fran, kate, jess and mel giving out sweets from the sleigh, unfortunately you don't really see arron, josh, chris or dan who were playing crowd control!!!...hopefully you will see the joy that was bought to hundreds of children who can be seen running after the sleigh in the waterwerks squatter camp.

next year we will have to go one step further, but for now we want to wish you all a very happy christmas from the team at the village of hope, grabouw, south africa.

kayak day makes the news

as you may have read last week we took 50 children who have been the most regular at our weekly sports outreach clubs to the local dam, read story here. well the story has been reprinted in our local paper, see image to the left and if you would like to read further click onto it for a larger copy.

christmas decorations

this afternoon the boys, arron, josh and dan, with the help of a few friends, put up the christmas decorations in the children's unit...i know we are late but better late than never!

father christmas arrives early in grabouw

yesterday afternoon the children in our local community were surprised to see father christmas riding on the back of our sleigh. this was the second year that we converted our trailer into a sleigh and the response was no less joyful from the children who saw us.

last year we had trondor our Norwegian volunteer, play the star role of father christmas, see last years post, this year my dad (roger) had the staring role which i think he enjoyed. he was joined in the sleigh by our 'elves', mel, katie, fran and jess who gave out sweets, bars of soap and mens aftershave from the back of the sleigh.

it was so wonderful to bless the kids in this way, and to see their smiling faces as they saw santa coming past their homes was a real pleasure.

emily house took a lot of video which she is hoping to upload to youtube and as soon as it is available we will post a link.

new home, new family

this morning we had the wonderful privilege to take our 9 year old girl to her new home in khayelitsha, she will join 5 other children at one of the homes run by the amazing charity 'home from home'.

whilst it was a sad morning for our house moms and our 8 other children, she was so excited about moving into her new home and meeting her new foster mom. she is the 16th child that we have placed back into the community with either foster, adoptive or their own families which is amazing in the 20 months we have been open as we had little or no hope of placing any of them back home.

with her leaving we have one space in our 9 bed unit to take in another child who we will work with, stabilise their medication and work with our local social services to place them into a new home and the cycle of new hope which our project offers will continue.

please join us as we pray for this young girl as she settles into her new family and pray also for continued links as we look to work with 'home from home' to set up a house in grabouw with them to support the children in our town.

photos show her with her new mom and sisters and her sticking her last photos into her photo album at the village of hope.

helping friends

yesterday we had an amazing afternoon when we took 50 of our most regular children on a special outing as a prize for their attendance at our sports based life skills and bible clubs.

we had hoped to take the children to the beach at gordon's bay but with high winds forecast we thought that rather than being sand blasted for 2 hours we would try to come up with another plan.

early in the morning i made a phone call to a guy who runs an outward bound style camp in the wonderful apple orchards around grabouw, and without hesitation he invited us to bring the children to the dam where they could swim and learn how to kayak.

what rikus, who runs company 'true north team building and adventures' didn't tell me was that he was already running a camp for some of the children who attend the applewood and Beaumont schools in elgin and somerset west....these children are mainly those from the richer end of our community who are on a week long summer camp.

the large majority of the children we work with in our communities are unable to swim and they were quite excited about going to the beach to chill but when they took a look at the dam they were very scared and didn't even want to get onto the kayaks!

however rikus got his team of 8 - 14 year olds to partner with 5 of our children and share the skills that they had learnt only the day before, it was so amazing to see the children working together, having fun and sharing their skills. ALL of our children managed to overcome their fear and enjoyed time on and in the water.

to me it showed what can be done when we all work together, the children that we work with are amongst the poorest children in south africa but if those who 'have' share the skills and opportunities with those less fortunate we can make a difference, and by working together these children made new friends and had a great time as well.

when all hope is lost, there's still hope in Jesus!

it's five years ago today since i first stepped foot on south african soil, a lot has changed since then and having moved over full time two years ago i have meet some amazing people, these could be white vineyard owners, coloured community leaders or simple black children who capture your heart with their stories and smiles.

no one has captured my heart more than a 15 year old boy who has been regularly coming to our sports outreach in the iraq squatter camp in grabouw, this young lad has provided me with endless hours of laughter, his ability to translate my bible stories or soccer training to the younger children has enabled me to build into many many children's lives.....however his life story is one that would keep me awake at night as the wind and rain pour down on my tiled roof, whilst he only about 1/2 a mile away from my home contends with the same conditions in his small tin shack.

only last week when we were chatting about how the local people have accepted me (us VoH) into their community did he really share the truth about his life, the hardships he faces each day as he lives away from his mother due to her new boyfriend not wanting to help her children from another marriage.....

....not only does he care for himself, cooking, cleaning, collecting water, but he also walks to school each day to gain the education to change his life. when i asked him how he coped he replied that 'well i pray to Jesus every night like you tell me Tim, and he helps me when i feel sad, or lonely or scared'.....

there's not much hope for the likes of this guy, but his only hope is placed at the feet of Jesus.

the village gets pigs

yes that's right the village of hope have now taken two little piggies into their care, well not exactly our care as we are hoping to fatten them up to reduce our food bills in our children's unit, but they have come to join us in our wonderful surroundings for a few months!

arron is still to name them but i will keep you up to date with their little lives on the blog over the next few weeks...they have already made their dash for freedom by evading both the electric fence and the 'pig proof' fence which arron has placed around their home....arron and bruno (our little jack russell) weren't so lucky and both felt the full force of the electric fence...that'll teach them!

all the children have been down to visit the pigs this evening, the picture shows arron with on of our little girls...lets hope the children don't grow too fond of them!

CD4 count just 6!

i was somewhat shocked today to find out that a mum of one of the boys who attends our soccer outreach was in thembacare receiving treatment for HIV....obviously this is a very sensitive and personal topic but when i enquired as to how she was doing i was very upset when i heard that her CD4 count was only 6. for those of you unfamiliar with HIV and AIDS i have copied a couple of statements from a web site to give you a bit of a background, see below.

"On a regular basis, your doctor will draw blood to measure the number of functioning CD4 cells. The higher the number the stronger your immune system. People without HIV infection have about 700 to 1000 CD4 cells in a drop of blood the size of a pea. HIV infected people are considered to have "normal" CD4 counts if the number is above 500 CD4 cells in that same size drop of blood".

"If the number of CD4 cells in that drop of blood ever drops below 200 CD4 cells, you are classified as having AIDS. Simply put, experts have found that when your CD4 count drops below 200, your body's immune system is no longer strong enough to prevent illness and infection. Some of the most serious of these illnesses and infections are said to be AIDS defining"

therefore i have a big concern for this lady as her immune system is very very low and she will be susceptible to other infections that may lead to full blown AIDS, please pray for her and her son who we love and care for....

roundtable headlines in grabouwer

last saturday's sports outreach has been covered in this weeks 'elgin grabouwer', one of the highlights of the day were the new tee shirts which were provided by the local roundtable and this story has been chosen for the paper.

we want to thank all the guys from the elgin grabouw roundtable for their continued support of our work and the way that they give so selflessly when we call upon them.

December Newsletter

Hello everyone!

So we enter the last month of what has been a very exciting year not only for Village of Hope but for the whole of South Africa. The Football World Cup truly was a great success…

However, this success does nothing to detract from the terrific damage that HIV and AIDS continues to do to the country. Today (December 1^st) is World AIDS Day, so please continue to think and pray for us as we seek to make a difference to those infected or affected with this disease in Grabouw.

Tonight we are holding a fundraising quiz night in Aylesbury. Please come and join us if you live nearby. We are even hoping to rope in the Village of Hope Team via Skype! – It should make for an entertaining evening. Please see Events for more details

Of course, we have also been thinking about you with the run up to Christmas and know that some of you are struggling to find suitable gifts for your relatives and friends. So, to help you with your stressful predicament we have produced some fantastic Thembalitsha Gift Cards. They start from as little as £10 and truly are the gift that keeps on giving! Simple and stress free, email us here to get yours sorted! – No need to thank us! - and before you know it you could be providing food, nappies and more for the children at the Village of Hope.

November has been as hectic as always. We are still trying to wait patiently for a the courts to get organised so our 9-year-old girl can move to her new foster/cluster home in time for Christmas. In the meantime we have put on our last Soccer Saturday of the year where our smart new Village of Hope t-shirts made their debut. Please read-on for a full run-down of our recent happenings.

Menu

• Children’s Unit
• Sports Outreach & Community Work
• Christmas
• Other News
• Events
• How You Can Help
• Volunteers

CHILDREN’S UNIT

Well the children’s unit has been busy again, with 9 children you can hardly expect little else!, Many of our children have been suffering with some sort of cold, or flu, or other ailment that has kept them from a full month at school, and with 9 children in the unit the staff are often at their wits end to keep order and their sanity. That said, the summer sun has enabled the children to have a lot of outside play time with the new ‘race track’ proving to be a real hit.

Assi’s health continues to give us concern, however we are still praising God for his miraculous recovery from his extend hospitalisation and we must not forget that this is one very sick little boy. Assi continues to steal the show and captures the hearts of all the Mom’s, volunteers and day visitors, he certainly brightens up each day in his own special way.

Unfortunately we are still waiting for the social workers to have the courts grant foster care to our 9 year old girl, who will be going to live with her new Mom at a foster/cluster home in Khayelitsha. Both Tim and Maz took her on a recent weekend home visit, the day before the untimely murder of the Swedish honeymooner, our journey was also a bit of an adventure as we had to divert around some very ugly protesters who were stoning a bus full of children and ‘white’ charity workers!

SPORTS OUTREACH & COMMUNITY WORK

We have had some real highs and some real lows as we venture into the new season with our sports outreach in the local primary schools, whilst the numbers have been lower than we had hoped, which is a low point, we are seeing the same ‘new’ children returning week after week to engage with our soccer and netball clubs (that’s a high point!) We have however lost touch with some of our longer standing relationships and that is a real pity. As with anything new it takes time to settle and establish and we are still hopeful of encouraging more and more children to attend these clubs which we run each and every afternoon.

Daz organised a successful sports Saturday on the 27^th November, we welcomed many new children from the new schools outreach and a great morning was had by all, help was provided by the members of our ‘Sports outreach team’ and the HAN university students fully kitted out in our new light blue tee shirts. On the playing field the Waterwerks team were successful in the Under 13 football competition and Iraq once again triumphed in the Under 15 tournament, however Arron’s Rooidakke team, who have been successful in the past are now amalgamated with the KMP and Pineview schools outreach so they were unable to defend their past success under that banner. The netball/girls sports competition was won by the Remhoogte farm team, so honours were evenly distributed.

After the sports we were blessed with a Braai provided by the local Roundtablers, we thank them for their continued support and the sponsorship of the tee shirts which certainly give an air of authority!

Tim has been meeting up with one of the Dutch volunteers and the local municipality to explore the possibility of installing an astro turf in the Rooidakke community, we have visited two projects in Khayelitsha which were set up to run during and post World Cup 2010 and with the contacts we have made we are confident that we can create something special for the children of Grabouw.

OTHER NEWS AND VOLUNTEERS

Transport:-

We have replaced our 7 seater Toyota Condor with a 8/9 seater VW Microbus, whilst the seating isn’t much of an increase it does now mean that all of our children and a couple of staff can travel safety in one vehicle...we are still praying for a nice new Toyota Quantum but God knows and has a plan when this will arrive!

Food Garden:-

Our food garden, which has been set up with the help and support of ELF (Elgin Learning Foundation), is growing very nicely and we are hopeful of a successful first harvest of cabbage, spinach, potatoes and lettuce.

Staff:-

Unfortunately Johan had a nasty accident which resulted in him having stitches in his left leg and foot. For those of you who know Johan you may not be totally surprised…needless to say we will be reviewing health and safety on the farm.

Volunteers:-

Well this has been quite a quiet month! We are continually blessed by the help and support of our longer term volunteers, Daz and Lisa and Rob and Emily. They have been joined by Mel Kidd, who is with us till at least July. Our only short termer at the moment is Fran Black who has been a little under the weather over the last week and we wish her a speedy recovery. This coming month sees the arrival of Tim’s Mum and Dad, two older sons: Chris (and his wife Claire, and Alfie), and Josh, who is arriving with Dan Williams. Jess Stratford is returning for the umpteenth time (which is great) and Fran’s sister Kate is joining us for Christmas so a busy time is ahead of us!

Christmas Presents:-

We thought it wouldn’t hurt to mention it twice. If you need help finding a gift for that awkward relative or friend then look no further than a Thembalitsha Gift Card. They start from as little as £10 and truly are the gift that keeps on giving! Simple and stress free, email us here to get yours sorted! and before you know it you could be providing food, nappies and more for the children at the Village of Hope.

EVENTS

A Cracking Quiz Night for World AIDS Day

When: 01 December · 19:00 - 22:30

Where: Church of the Good Shepherd, Churchill Avenue, Southcourt, Aylesbury

For those of you who don't already know, 1st December is World AIDS Day. As you can imagine it is a key date in our diary as a charity and we thought it only right to mark the occasion! So bring you friends along, join us for a fun-filled quiz evening and find out how we are working for those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

There will be a bar and a raffle too....what more could you ask for on a gloomy winter's Wednesday?!

Tickets are £5 and include a free drink (£15 for a family ticket). So roll up, roll up!!!!

Buy your tickets or find out more information from the lovely Ellie Carman (07912 888298) or the lovely Jess Stratford (07738 831507) We hope to see you all there!

PS If Aylesbury if a tad too far for you to travel then why not host your own quiz night on World AIDS Day or another date? - We have a ready made package for you to make it nice and easy for you to organise. Email us at office@thembalitshauk.org.uk for more information or inspiration!

HOW YOU CAN HELP

We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!

• Become a regular monthly giver  - Regular givers are like gold dust to us!!! You can download a standing order form from our website – don’t forget to sign a gift aid form if you are a UK tax payer
• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise £1000s with enough enthusiasm! We also have annual walks, runs and bike rides. For more information contact us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk
• Pray – Sign up to the prayer newsletter. Prayer is just as vital to us (if not more so) than money! We can’t have enough people committing to pray persistently for us. Sign up at prayer@thembalitshauk.org.uk

VOLUNTEERS

We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff out here in South Africa. It can be a fantastic way to give (and receive!) However, we do have some criteria you have to meet in order to apply. For more information on Volunteering for the Village of Hope please download the INFORMATION FOR VOLUNTEERS documents from our website (www.thembalitshauk.org.uk). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!