Hello folks!
Many of you have been asking for an update on our eldest boy. Thank you for all your prayers and good wishes for him.
The good news is that he has been discharged from Red Cross Hospital. His saturation levels stablised whilst he was there so he has also been able to be off oxygen. He is currently staying, as we had hoped, in ThembaCare Athlone whilst we look into options for his future. ThembaCare is the best possible place for him at the moment as he will be surrounded by familiar faces and definitely smothered with love and attention. It is also only a short drive away from the hospital so is much more convenient in that respect.
We will post more news on this little man as and when we have it, but please continue to keep him in your prayers.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
May News
Well the sun continues to retain some of its heat and the much needed winter rains are still to come, this is good news for the new house, which needs to full dry out before we can apply the protective outside coat so let’s continue to pray that we can get that done soon. The team from Stuttgart have now left and many of them are back in Germany after a short break where they took in some of the sights of this amazing country, but there is still quite a bit to be done on the house before it can be used for our longer term volunteers, more of that later.
Contents:
Children's Unit
Sports Outreach and Community Work
The New Volunteer's House
Other News and Volunteers
Ebay
Events
How You Can Help
Volunteering With Village of Hope
Children's Unit
The good news is that we are once again up to our full complement of 9 children. Yes, that’s right, after a couple of months when we have had space we have now been able to provide a home to two little girls! Whilst it is amazing to give these children some new hope and the love that will hopefully lead to them being placed back with their families, it does bring home the fact that there are so many children who live in families that aren’t equipped to care for even their basic needs, let alone provide the right quantities of the medication that can suppress the HIV virus.
Much of the work that we do with the children is to provide them with a balanced life, looking at their physical, educational, emotional and spiritual needs whilst they stay with us, but that isn’t sustainable if their parents, or carers are unable to provide that when they are placed home. Therefore regular home visits to those we have placed home and contact with families, who are still around, whilst they are here with us, is a key part of what we do and we are thankful to people like Evelyn, our student from the HAN university who helps Maz and Mel with this.
Evelyn also generously provided an Easter Egg hunt for the children over the holidays which, as you can imagine, they were VERY enthusiastic about!
We have celebrated 2 birthday’s during the last month, these seem to come around so quickly. One of the new girls also had her birthday, I thought that she was only 2 years old, it turns out she was celebrating her 3rd birthday that just shows how small and malnourished she is! Also our eldest boy is now 11 years old! Unfortunately his celebrations were slightly dampened by a visit, on his birthday, to the Red Cross children’s hospital. He has since had to be admitted back into Red Cross as the doctors are worried he is in the early stages of heart failure. Please join us in prayer for his future.
Maz and Mel also ‘enjoyed’ a day of team building with our house mom’s. This took place at a local outward bounds centre and included raft building and then racing them on the dam. This was quite an achievement for all of our moms, especially those who can’t swim!
Sports Outreach and Community Work
We had the wonderful opportunity to take the Rooidakke team (who won our most recent Soccer Saturday) down the mountain to play against a team from the Lwandle Township which sits between Somerset West and the seaside town of Strand. For some of the boys it was the first time that they played a full 11 a side game and many of them turned up without shoes therefore they had to play in just the socks from the kit that we had made up of some of the soccer kits that we have had donated over the last few years. The boys did look quite a sight with our blue and white hooped tops, green shorts and a mixture of different coloured socks, however, as my Dad used to tell me, ‘it’s not necessarily the team that has the best looking kits that has the best players’ In reality our team was beaten 0-1 but the boys literally played out of their socks and really deserved to win with some very good skills which surprised the other team.
As you can see from the above report we are in huge need of second hand soccer boots, sizes 2 – 7 (UK), which will enable us to keep a stock for when we play what we hope will be more regular games against other clubs in the local area. If you have access to an old pair and live within kicking distance of Grabouw/Cape Town then we would love to hear from you.
The integration of the health awareness programme, which has been introduced by the HAN university students is proving to be a real hit. So far we have covered basic hand washing, oral hygiene and we will be moving on to cover some more sensitive topics to do with HIV and sexual disease awareness. As you can imagine every child was keen to receive a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste to use at home, so once again this is an area of need for us as these items can prove to be quite expensive. If you have access to any health products we would be delighted to hear from you.
As the winter weather starts to build we often have to cancel our sports outreach due to the rain, which can fall in abundance at this time of year, however since October 2010 we have only had to postpone one sports club, which is absolutely fantastic and gives the children something to look forward to each week. When the rain starts to fall we are keen to keep contact with the children so we will make sure we turn up even if the weather is poor and do some home visits which the kids love for us to do. They are very keen for us to see where they live and are very proud of their homes, many of which are shacks made out of old pieces of tin, wood and cardboard.
The New Volunteer House
The team from Stuttgart have now left us, returning home to Germany to complete their studies. What they have left us with is a home that is around 90% complete - which we are truly grateful for. There are a number of items (around 40 at the last count!) that still need to be completed; these include very small items such as the sealing of the work tops which are made from cast concrete, to the larger task of fully rendering the ‘cob’ wall once it has fully dried out.
The home will become a space for our longer term volunteers to stay and we are keen to get this completed to allow Rob and Emily, along with their two children, to move into thus allowing our other longer term volunteer, Mel Kidd, to move into their room giving her a little bit more privacy. However we currently don’t have the budget to complete the £5K work that needs to be done therefore if anyone would like to donate toward these costs which will enable us to compete this quite spectacular eco house then please contact us!
Other News and Volunteers
Adventure to the Eastern Cape:
We (Tim and Maz) had a wonderful trip to visit one of our successful home placements. The boy, who is now 5 years old, stayed at the Village of Hope and we were worried that his family had lost contact with him, however around a year ago we were able to place him home with his mother (who has since passed away from the HIV, AIDS virus) and his Great Aunt, who is still caring for him.
The Great Aunt was keen for us to visit them in their ‘location’ in the rural Xhosa homelands in the Eastern Cape, so we made the 2500kms round trip over the Easter weekend to stay with them. I am trying to write up the details of our trip (which I would be happy to send anyone keen to read them) which included the fact that we were the first ‘Europeans’ to visit their location, staying in their homemade round mud hut, and being welcomed into a culture which hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. It was a real eye opener to live with no running water or electric for those few days and one that we hope to repeat again sometime!
Animal Update:
Our male pig has met his demise and is being turned into what we hope will be some wonderful Ham, Bacon and Sausage! Poor Mrs Pig wasn’t lonely for long though as we now have another little piglet. We are also just about to purchase some Turkeys which we hope will be ready of Christmas, Arron and Shane have been busy building them a home near enough for Mrs Pig to see her new neighbours.
Some sad news is that we think we have lost our dear little Jack Russell, Bruno, who hasn’t been seen for around a week, we are just hoping that he has gone on a long holiday but the reality is that we might have lost him for good.... ☹
Volunteers:
Shane Johnson from the In focus church in Augusta, USA, has been a wonderful addition to our team, he has been willing to put his hand to anything and he, along with Sophie Child, is coming to the end of his trip. Sophie has been a God send! Throwing herself into our sports outreach programme and been a willing driver on the early morning school runs. We will miss these guys when they leave.
And Finally:
Tim and Maz are going to be in Europe visiting both England and Germany for two weeks, where they will be catching up with their new Grandson, Elijah, who was born in April, and other members of their family and church. They are also going to be visiting the team from Stuttgart where they hope to meet up with their Professor to make a link for a future team.
EBay:
We are now registered as an official charity on EBay! This means that if you sell anything on their site you have the option to donate some of your sale price to us and it’s also another way you can just make a donation too. We are in the process of setting up an alternative gifts shop and hope to have that up and running in time for Father’s Day….so we will keep you posted on facebook about that.
Events
Please consider sponsoring Andy Gilbert and Harry Hogarth as they cycle themselves silly from Calais, France to Lausanne, Switzerland to raise funds for us. They are going to be covering an epic 796km in total and all within just 6 days! It’s easy to sponsor them just follow this link: http://www.justgiving.com/cycle4hope . We also have some other enthusiastic sporty people running the London 10k at the beginning of July! http://www.justgiving.com/10kThembaTeam2011
If you have an idea for an event that you would like to organise for us do let us know as we would love to have more things planned in the diary for this year and desperately need more people to be doing stuff for us. We will do our best to support you in making it successful.
How You Can Help Thembalitsha
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!!!
• 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!
• Pray – Sign up to pray for us regularly
To get involved further email us at info@thembalitshauk.org.uk
Volunteering With Village of Hope
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff 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 or to request and application form, please email us at office@thembalitshauk.org.uk
Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!
Contents:
Children's Unit
Sports Outreach and Community Work
The New Volunteer's House
Other News and Volunteers
Ebay
Events
How You Can Help
Volunteering With Village of Hope
Children's Unit
The good news is that we are once again up to our full complement of 9 children. Yes, that’s right, after a couple of months when we have had space we have now been able to provide a home to two little girls! Whilst it is amazing to give these children some new hope and the love that will hopefully lead to them being placed back with their families, it does bring home the fact that there are so many children who live in families that aren’t equipped to care for even their basic needs, let alone provide the right quantities of the medication that can suppress the HIV virus.
Evelyn also generously provided an Easter Egg hunt for the children over the holidays which, as you can imagine, they were VERY enthusiastic about!
We have celebrated 2 birthday’s during the last month, these seem to come around so quickly. One of the new girls also had her birthday, I thought that she was only 2 years old, it turns out she was celebrating her 3rd birthday that just shows how small and malnourished she is! Also our eldest boy is now 11 years old! Unfortunately his celebrations were slightly dampened by a visit, on his birthday, to the Red Cross children’s hospital. He has since had to be admitted back into Red Cross as the doctors are worried he is in the early stages of heart failure. Please join us in prayer for his future.
Maz and Mel also ‘enjoyed’ a day of team building with our house mom’s. This took place at a local outward bounds centre and included raft building and then racing them on the dam. This was quite an achievement for all of our moms, especially those who can’t swim!
Sports Outreach and Community Work
We had the wonderful opportunity to take the Rooidakke team (who won our most recent Soccer Saturday) down the mountain to play against a team from the Lwandle Township which sits between Somerset West and the seaside town of Strand. For some of the boys it was the first time that they played a full 11 a side game and many of them turned up without shoes therefore they had to play in just the socks from the kit that we had made up of some of the soccer kits that we have had donated over the last few years. The boys did look quite a sight with our blue and white hooped tops, green shorts and a mixture of different coloured socks, however, as my Dad used to tell me, ‘it’s not necessarily the team that has the best looking kits that has the best players’ In reality our team was beaten 0-1 but the boys literally played out of their socks and really deserved to win with some very good skills which surprised the other team.
As you can see from the above report we are in huge need of second hand soccer boots, sizes 2 – 7 (UK), which will enable us to keep a stock for when we play what we hope will be more regular games against other clubs in the local area. If you have access to an old pair and live within kicking distance of Grabouw/Cape Town then we would love to hear from you.
As the winter weather starts to build we often have to cancel our sports outreach due to the rain, which can fall in abundance at this time of year, however since October 2010 we have only had to postpone one sports club, which is absolutely fantastic and gives the children something to look forward to each week. When the rain starts to fall we are keen to keep contact with the children so we will make sure we turn up even if the weather is poor and do some home visits which the kids love for us to do. They are very keen for us to see where they live and are very proud of their homes, many of which are shacks made out of old pieces of tin, wood and cardboard.
The New Volunteer House
The team from Stuttgart have now left us, returning home to Germany to complete their studies. What they have left us with is a home that is around 90% complete - which we are truly grateful for. There are a number of items (around 40 at the last count!) that still need to be completed; these include very small items such as the sealing of the work tops which are made from cast concrete, to the larger task of fully rendering the ‘cob’ wall once it has fully dried out.
The home will become a space for our longer term volunteers to stay and we are keen to get this completed to allow Rob and Emily, along with their two children, to move into thus allowing our other longer term volunteer, Mel Kidd, to move into their room giving her a little bit more privacy. However we currently don’t have the budget to complete the £5K work that needs to be done therefore if anyone would like to donate toward these costs which will enable us to compete this quite spectacular eco house then please contact us!
Adventure to the Eastern Cape:
We (Tim and Maz) had a wonderful trip to visit one of our successful home placements. The boy, who is now 5 years old, stayed at the Village of Hope and we were worried that his family had lost contact with him, however around a year ago we were able to place him home with his mother (who has since passed away from the HIV, AIDS virus) and his Great Aunt, who is still caring for him.
The Great Aunt was keen for us to visit them in their ‘location’ in the rural Xhosa homelands in the Eastern Cape, so we made the 2500kms round trip over the Easter weekend to stay with them. I am trying to write up the details of our trip (which I would be happy to send anyone keen to read them) which included the fact that we were the first ‘Europeans’ to visit their location, staying in their homemade round mud hut, and being welcomed into a culture which hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. It was a real eye opener to live with no running water or electric for those few days and one that we hope to repeat again sometime!
Animal Update:
Our male pig has met his demise and is being turned into what we hope will be some wonderful Ham, Bacon and Sausage! Poor Mrs Pig wasn’t lonely for long though as we now have another little piglet. We are also just about to purchase some Turkeys which we hope will be ready of Christmas, Arron and Shane have been busy building them a home near enough for Mrs Pig to see her new neighbours.
Some sad news is that we think we have lost our dear little Jack Russell, Bruno, who hasn’t been seen for around a week, we are just hoping that he has gone on a long holiday but the reality is that we might have lost him for good.... ☹
Volunteers:
Shane Johnson from the In focus church in Augusta, USA, has been a wonderful addition to our team, he has been willing to put his hand to anything and he, along with Sophie Child, is coming to the end of his trip. Sophie has been a God send! Throwing herself into our sports outreach programme and been a willing driver on the early morning school runs. We will miss these guys when they leave.
And Finally:
Tim and Maz are going to be in Europe visiting both England and Germany for two weeks, where they will be catching up with their new Grandson, Elijah, who was born in April, and other members of their family and church. They are also going to be visiting the team from Stuttgart where they hope to meet up with their Professor to make a link for a future team.
EBay:
We are now registered as an official charity on EBay! This means that if you sell anything on their site you have the option to donate some of your sale price to us and it’s also another way you can just make a donation too. We are in the process of setting up an alternative gifts shop and hope to have that up and running in time for Father’s Day….so we will keep you posted on facebook about that.
Events
Please consider sponsoring Andy Gilbert and Harry Hogarth as they cycle themselves silly from Calais, France to Lausanne, Switzerland to raise funds for us. They are going to be covering an epic 796km in total and all within just 6 days! It’s easy to sponsor them just follow this link: http://www.justgiving.com/cycle4hope . We also have some other enthusiastic sporty people running the London 10k at the beginning of July! http://www.justgiving.com/10kThembaTeam2011
If you have an idea for an event that you would like to organise for us do let us know as we would love to have more things planned in the diary for this year and desperately need more people to be doing stuff for us. We will do our best to support you in making it successful.
How You Can Help Thembalitsha
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!!!
• 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!
• Pray – Sign up to pray for us regularly
To get involved further email us at info@thembalitshauk.org.uk
Volunteering With Village of Hope
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff 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 or to request and application form, please email us at office@thembalitshauk.org.uk
Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!
Thursday, May 19, 2011
eldest boy back in red cross
unfortunately our eleven year old boy has been readmitted to the red cross children's hospital following a routine visit last monday. for around a month now he has become increasingly reliant on oxygen and towards the end of last week his saturation levels started to dip even when he was on his machine, therefore the visit was in fact a God send. he has been kept in to monitor his lungs, heart and liver but we have had encouraging news to say that he is now off the oxygen machine and breathing normally.
there is some concern that due to the altitude of the village of hope, grabouw sits along the edge of a wonderful mountain range, and the damp conditions, it rains a lot in the winter and the town has the highest rate of new TB infections in south africa! that if he is discharged he might not be able to come home to us, but we have a couple of plans and thembacare in athlone is a wonderful home and where he was prior to being placed with us.
please continue to pray for him and also the team at the village of hope as me and maz are flying back to england today for a couple of weeks holiday, to see our new grandson!.....
there is some concern that due to the altitude of the village of hope, grabouw sits along the edge of a wonderful mountain range, and the damp conditions, it rains a lot in the winter and the town has the highest rate of new TB infections in south africa! that if he is discharged he might not be able to come home to us, but we have a couple of plans and thembacare in athlone is a wonderful home and where he was prior to being placed with us.
please continue to pray for him and also the team at the village of hope as me and maz are flying back to england today for a couple of weeks holiday, to see our new grandson!.....
Monday, May 16, 2011
bruno gone but never forgotten!
 |
| our little bruno is missing! |
what happened next we don't know, did someone take him home, did he get lost on his way back or did he get into trouble with a snake or a snare?...we have put a 'wanted' article in our local paper but we haven't heard anything since that came out last friday.
whatever it seems like we have seen the last of him, which is a real shame cause he was a real character around the place, the children in the unit loved him and he was the first dog that i had ever owned...and i miss him :-(
Thursday, May 12, 2011
birthdays and a new child
 |
| party time at the village of hope, again! |
we have already been to visit the mom and dad at their home and we are expecting them to make their first visit to see their child this morning. we hope that the time that this little girl spends with us will enable us to not only stabilise her condition but also help her family understand her complex needs.
yesterday afternoon we were able to throw a party for a new little two year old girl, who not only celebrated with her new friends but her mother bought up a cake which is fantastic news and shows the commitment that she is making towards her child which is very encouraging.
Monday, May 9, 2011
watermarks...identifying the maker
on saturday morning we were fortunate to visit the barnard gallery in newlands, cape town, to view the exhibition by duncan stewart called watermarks. we only met duncan a few weeks ago, as our good friend set us up to stay over with duncan and has wife natalie in their home in port elizabeth as we traveled to the transkie (see ealier post).
we were so blessed to meet this amazing man, who has a living faith in christ and who challenges people through his art to think beyond ourselves. it was great to hear duncan speak, not only about the art, but what inspired him. his work has such depth and can be viewed on many different levels, watermarks is subtitled 'identifying the maker' and duncan explores the use of water within this work and asks the question of what watermark would we have if we were held up to the light, would we have the makers watermark?
if you are in cape town, or even south africa, then please take time to visit the gallery on main street in newlands and be inspired and even challenged by the depth of the art that duncan is exhibiting.
have a look at his web site here and visit the gallery's site here.
Friday, May 6, 2011
11th birthday....for our eldest boy..!
 |
| joy at seeing his birthday cake... he didn't really eat it as he loves meat! |
 |
| inyama......meat pizza |
 |
| presents as well! |
Thursday, May 5, 2011
this little piggy went to market....
 |
| mrs pig having her last piggy back! |
we have really enjoyed having him around and we think arron's experiment with the pigs has gone very well. i suppose the proof will be in the pudding (nice black pudding to go with the sausages!) but we have already decided to keep his 'wife' as the next plan is to get her another husband who we hope will provide us with a constant source of piglets for us to grow on.
it was quite a sad moment as i took the photo, she is making the most of the piggy cuddles, as you can see!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
sister projects
for those of you who have visited us in grabouw you will know that the village of hope isn't the only thembalitsha project in the town, in fact our 7 bed inpatient unit called thembacare was established in 2006 and it was during the visits that we made to that amazing project in 2006 and 2007 that inspired me and maz to not only move to south africa, but also to the town of grabouw and set up the project village of hope....wow that was a long sentence!
each wednesday i run a small 'church service' at thembacare where the staff and patients join to praise God for the work he is doing through this team, i would encourage you to visit their blog, which is usually updated monthly with their newsletter, and i think this months news is well worth a read as it includes the work that the wonderful outpatient palliative care-workers do as they support over 450 people, infected by HIV and TB in our town.
follow the link here to the thembacare grabouw site (you will notice the similar look to our blog with new logos etc!) and if you think you could provide some much needed financial support to ensure that we continue to provide a much needed service to our community then please contact me!...
each wednesday i run a small 'church service' at thembacare where the staff and patients join to praise God for the work he is doing through this team, i would encourage you to visit their blog, which is usually updated monthly with their newsletter, and i think this months news is well worth a read as it includes the work that the wonderful outpatient palliative care-workers do as they support over 450 people, infected by HIV and TB in our town.
follow the link here to the thembacare grabouw site (you will notice the similar look to our blog with new logos etc!) and if you think you could provide some much needed financial support to ensure that we continue to provide a much needed service to our community then please contact me!...
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
sunday at the dam
 |
| the long walk to the waters edge |
each of our volunteers take turns doing 'weekend cover' and we are keen for the children to understand that sunday is special and that God loves them, therefore the people on weekend cover either take the children, and house moms, to a local church, or spend sometime singing, reading bible stories or creating an activity around that story.
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| children playing at the dam, they all got every wet by home time! |
please continue to pray for us as we seek to not only provide a 'home' for these precious ones but also show them that even though many of them haven't known the love of a family that God does love them and that they are special to Him.
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