Please consider supporting this day by giving up 30 minutes of your Saturday, on 15th October, to pray for the project. Signing up is easy: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/prayer66 and we will be posting prayer points very soon.
In the meantime here's all our other news......
News
Phew! Is it nearly October already?!
This month has been happily hectic but here are the highlights:
We have some wonderful news to share about our two brothers (see the Children’s Unit update), Maz is thankful that Mel is back, Arron has been away completing his sailing training, we’ve welcomed two new Dutch students and said goodbye to Britton….
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| The boys with their sister and foster Dad |
Our children’s unit continues to be the main focus of attention here in Grabouw and each and every day presents itself with its own challenges. However this month we can share some amazing news: Our two little brothers, aged 4 and 2 years, now have a new family to care of them. This new family lives in Khayelitsha, the largest township in Cape Town with around 1.5 million people living in little more than a shanty town, however there are some wonderful people who live there and to find two of them, a Mom and Dad, is great news! We originally took the boys in last year because their home was found to be at risk by social services – Their parents were alcoholics and using drugs and one of the brothers is HIV positive. We were only supposed to have them for a few months, but as often happens here, the courts couldn’t come to a resolution until now. The new home for the boys is run by another NGO who we work closely with and we will make regular home visits to ensure that the boys settle well. The other fantastic news is that they are also going to be living with their baby sister, whom they hadn’t met before because she was removed at birth to another emergency care home. God is good!
Our other remaining children provide us with challenges. Many of them are HIV+ and that always means that we are kept on our toes and our house Moms, led by Maz and Mel, do a fantastic job ensuring nothing gets missed and that all the children are well stimulated both physically, emotionally and spiritually.
It seems that we have had birthdays galore but with 9 children, 10 house moms and a team of volunteers that isn’t surprising. It’s always a good excuse for us to spoil the children, which we love doing!
With the two brothers gone they were our 20th (yes 20th can you believe it?!) placement since we opened. We now have space to offer hope to another little one and Maz is busy informing those that place children with us of that fact. One thing’s for sure, in a town like Grabouw, the space won’t be open for long.
Sports Outreach and Community Work
We are very excited to receive our two new Dutch students from the HAN university in Holland. Stephan and Weiker will be with us for 5 months and they are already having a major impact on our sports outreach clinics with fresh ideas to encourage the children that we work with. They’ve also been inspiring us and the local mentors who make up the team providing this ‘service’ to the 5 areas in Grabouw: Hillside, Iraq informal settlement, Waterwerks, Site View and Rooidakke (Netball only) as well as our outreach onto a farm in the Elgin Valley.
The amount of girls joining us to play netball, especially in Iraq, continues to encourage us and as we said last month it is wonderful to be able to provide these girls with a bit of ‘them’ time as they spend a whole day at school and then have to complete ‘chores’ when they get home. This could be collecting water from the local standpipe with 25liter buckets or preparing the meal for the family and often means that they arrive late. But to see them enjoying the games that we prepare for them is such a blessing and encourages us to ‘keep going’ as we seek to build valuable lessons into their tough lives. Last week we were able to pray specifically with some of the children who were feeling unwell or injured. Quite often they turn up with burns or blisters on their arms and legs where they’ve spilt boiling water when cooking.
Our outreach into the community doesn’t end with sports. We are also involved in delivering soup from a local restaurant into a couple of soup kitchens and crèches each and every Friday. Last week we were able to bless around 50 children with a hand knitted teddy made by the local ‘teddy bear club’. For some, even younger teenagers, this would probably be the first teddy that they have ever owned. It was such a privilege to be able to provide these children with a little bit of love.
Other News
We shall miss Britton, who was with us for 3 months. She has returned to America to complete her studies, but we hope to see her (and maybe her new husband?) next year! Kat continues to provide Maz and Mel with support for the children in our unit and helps out with some of our sports outreach in the afternoon. We were joined by a young lady from Brazil for a couple of weeks and she is keen to bring some more of her friends over to work with us in the future.
Unfortunately our two pigs had become so greedy that we don’t have enough scraps to feed them, so we had to send one away to the butcher! But we know that the children will once again look forward to their bacon sandwiches!
The ‘German home’ is coming along very well and with some designated funding we have employed some local guys to come and help sort the kitchen, finish the lime, straw and sand mix walls and enable us to finally get into the home. We can’t wait to show you some photos of the finished building which we are so grateful for.
Events
Thanks to all of you who came and supported Rock for Thembalitsha in Aylesbury, despite the rain! Thanks also to Melissa Bassil, the organiser and all the bands that gave their time to play at the event as well as the other volunteers who lent a hand.
Also, thank you to the folks at Highcross Church in Camberley who raised £750 through a sponsored walk as well as two members of their congregation who asked for donations to us instead of presents for their Golden Wedding Anniversary.
Not forgetting Viv Knight who’s raised £350 through a cake sale! Thank you all you fabulous people for your efforts.
VILLAGE OF HOPE DAY OF PRAYER
As we mentioned before, please support our prayer day on Saturday 15th October. Our previous prayer day earlier this year was really fruitful and we very much appreciated being lifted up in prayer for 24hrs. It reminded us that we needed to keep prayer at the top of the agenda. Sign up here: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/prayer66. We will be posting prayer points very soon.
NOVEMBER: Tim and Maz back in the UK
Yes, you will be treated to another visit from the Walkers! They are going to be in the UK all of November. Please let us know if you would like them to come and visit you! They are available for church talks, house groups, schools. They really do have amazingly inspirational testimonies from their life in South Africa and would welcome the chance to share them. They will also be accompanying Wholehearted.
DECEMBER: Wholehearted band on tour
If you haven’t already heard of Wholehearted or read about them on our blog then where have you been?! Not only do these guys have a great sound but they are fantastic supporters of our cause and are going to be touring England for a week at the beginning of December. If you are keen to hold a Wholehearted gig at your church or school then please email emily@thembalitsha.org.za as soon as possible. When you book Wholehearted you will get a Tim and Maz appearance in with the deal! You can find out more and hear their sound at www.wholehearted.co.za
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.
CHRISTMAS:
Yes, well it isn’t far away and we have the perfect solution to those hard-to-buy-for friends and relatives. You can purchase Christmas cards for different values that contribute towards things like food, clothing, fuel for Village of Hope. Please email jess@thembalitshauk.org.uk if you are interested. We will also be running the alternative gifts again which you can buy through ebay so keep your eyes peeled!
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
Volunteering
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 under the ‘Support Us’ page on our website (www.thembalitsh.org.za). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!
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