September News

It’s less than a week to go until our fearless leaders (Tim and Maz) return from their 6 week break. We are thanking the Lord for getting us through so far without too many hiccups! Although we have had some rather frustrating technical issues with our water system (which has to go through lots of hoops, gadgets and gizmos to make it clean before it magically comes out of our tap) we are still standing!

Our trusty volunteers doing their thing!

Children’s Unit
The children have been enjoying some more pleasant weather and it makes everyone’s lives a little easier when they have opportunity to let off steam outside! They are looking forward to a short, one-week school holiday too. Let’s hope the weather is good to us then too!

Last week we had a new admission of a cute little two-year-old girl. She is settling in really well to our strange little family here and certainly is happy to hold her ground around the older children! You may have read our blog post about her but we have recently found out her mother died due to TB. It is very sad but we are hoping there is a possibility for her to be placed with her grandparents soon.

We are still rather worried about a recent decision that has been made by the courts for one of our children. It is not appropriate to divulge the detail but please pray that God protects the little girl in question throughout the process and that His will be done.

Our football pitch - perfectly flat as ever!

Sports Outreach and Community Work
Sports in the informal settlement of Iraq now has a couple of challenges. We arrived last week to find that our ‘pitch’ (and we use the term loosely in the first place) had been attacked by a digger and had huge chunks taken out of it. The boys managed to play around it but it has severely reduced the space they have to play and makes it a bit of an obstacle course! Of course, we are more worried about it than the boys! We are also battling a little bit with all the younger children who come to watch the club. There are more of them that there are children to teach. A lot of them are younger siblings of the kids who are in our club. As much as we don’t want to tell them to go away – especially when we know they don’t really have anything to do or anywhere to go to – it is really distracting and makes it hard for the mentors to teach the sessions. When we have the manpower we can offer a babysitting service but this isn’t always possible and quite often there is a lot of in-fighting amongst the little ones. We need to pray about a good solution! They are so cute and need love and attention too but we can’t always do everything!


Other News
Volunteers:
This month we have been able to welcome two lovely all-american gels to the team. Kathryn and Martha are both from Texas and heard about our work through our church links there. They have been fantastic at getting stuck in and are great self-starters which is always helpful when we are short-handed. Both the girls will be with us for a couple of months and it’s really nice to have some refreshment to the team again.


Cycle To The Sea:
Our terrific team of 10 who cycled themselves silly for us managed to raise in excess of £2500. When we asked them for a report on their efforts this is what we received:

Too tired for prose but in brief my report is:
-          Great success
-          Splendid route
-          Stunning weather
-          Perfect lunch stop
-          Good crack
-          Varied fitness!
-          Very welcome overnight
-          Impressively generous donations
-          Most are keen to repeat next year


Thanks so much guys. We appreciate every penny. And to hear that they want to do it AGAIN makes our hearts swell!

You can still add to their total here: www.justgiving.com/CycleToTheSea2012


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!!!
• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise R10000s with enough enthusiasm!
• Pray – need we say more?!

For more information contact us fundraiser@thembalitsha.org.za


Volunteering
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 for Thembalitsha please check out our website or email us at volunteer@thembalitsha.org.za.

Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!


Up And Coming Events
For further details check out our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/thembalitshafoundation


Wholehearted New Album Released 1st October

Our friends at Wholehearted are launching their new album, Fearless Love, which will be available on iTunes very soon. If their previous offering is anything to go by then you are not going to want to miss out on this. It also includes Hope Is Here which was written with Thembalitsha in mind! Check it out! http://wholehearted.co.za/

HOPE 2012

Top SA bands are going to be making some noise for us this World AIDS Day (1st December).

If you are going to be any where near Cape Town then diarise it and get your tickets before they sell out!

They are available on computicket now. A steal at R150 a ticket. Please support us and get the word out to your friends/family/school. The more people who know about this event the better!


Get your tickets at www.hope.org.za/2012

Reality Bites

Mummy Netty taking good care of the new arrival

We are always very excited to have a new admission to the children's unit and last week we were able to welcome a gorgeous little two-year old girl (although she looks more like a one year old than two because she is so under-developed). She has settled in really well, is smiley, affectionate and definitely has some dance moves on her! She even has a pronounceable name which is always a relief for us English speakers!

She was referred to us because her mother, who is HIV positive, was too ill and had been taken to hospital because of TB. The social worker had said that the mother looked like she wouldn't survive much longer but we have often been told such things and then seen dramatic restorations to health so we didn't give it too much attention.

This week we heard that the mother had died. Just like that.  Of course, we don't know the reasons why this lady got so ill but it does make me wonder....Was she born with HIV or was she given it unknowingly? How did she find out? Did she know to take her ARVs regularly without fail? Was she getting any support from anyone? How did she get so poorly with TB? Did she even know she had TB or did she think it was just a cough and ignore it? If this woman had been born in another country or in this country but with money would her life have been the same?

We do have to be thankful that there is a possibility of this gorgeous girl going to live with her Grandmother in the Eastern Cape but it still doesn't detract from the fact that she will never know her mother....in this life anyway.

Emily

The Perfect Reason To Celebrate!

Last week, our little girl, who has been living at Village of Hope since we opened three years ago, celebrated her 5th birthday! It is hard to believe she is so big! She truly is a reason to celebrate because, even at 5 years old, she is one of life's survivors. Not only is she living with HIV but she also was a foetal alcohol syndrome baby. Her mother came from a farm that used the dop farm system (where workers were paid in alcohol rather than cash) and drank heavily during the pregnancy which has stunted her mental and physical development. When she arrived at Village of Hope she was severely malnourished and neglected and had to be fed via a tube in her stomach. Goodness knows what would have happened to her if she had not been discovered by the social workers! Now, although she is slightly smaller than the average five year old and has a short attention span, you would not be able to see there is anything wrong with her. She is such fun to be around and a cheeky little monkey to boot!


Maz and the rest of the team have been working very hard to progress her case. Despite all the hard work there is still a long way to go. Please join us in praying for the future of precious girl.

cycle to the sea

tref, harry, dan, chris, andy, lucy, lucy, robin, cara and andy

dan and harry off on their 3 day trip

as i write this post 9 intrepid cyclists will be on their way to brighton on the 2012 cycle to the sea, raising funds for the village of hope and the wider thembalitsha foundation.

myself and maz rose early to see the guys off from thame clock tower at 8am this morning, sending the team off on their 100 mile ride from west to east, the day has been extremely warm and we are trusting that they have enough water with them for what will be a hot ride.....

...two of the riders, dan and harry, are actually gonna be riding for 3 days, attempting to cover 300 miles in a round trip via brighton, southampton back to thame, if you would like to sponsor them, thus donating to the work that we are doing in south africa then click on this link to their justgiving site......or if you would like to support the core team of tref, andy, cara, lucy, robin chris and chris' friend andy then please click on this link

thanks guys and we hope to have some good news very soon that you completed the trip successfully.

the last we saw of them!

A Land of Promise - Reflections on some recent photos

For the next few weeks this blog might not be up to its usual standard. Whilst Tim and Maz are away I will be filling. But be encouraged; normal service will be resumed in October!

Beginning of a rainbow over Grabouw informal settlement

Perhaps one of my favourite things about living in this place is how often we get to see rainbows. I can't explain why we see so many of them (I am sure that science is involved so it's best for me not to go there with my limited knowledge) but what I can say is that they are beautiful and I never take them forgranted. Whenever I see them I am reminded of God's promise to never leave us or forsake us and whenever I see them here in Grabouw I am reminded that God has never left and won't forsake the people here. 

Working in this kind of environment, when we are faced with desperate situations more days than not, it really does make a difference to have this encouragement - especially on the days where it's hard to see that we are making a dent in the brokeness . It's good for us to be reminded that God has got all the situations we see in hand. He has His hand over every child we care for at the Village of Hope, those we have relationship with in the community and those we don't even know. South Africa is often fondly called the Rainbow Nation in reference to it's multi-cultural make up, but for me, I think it refers to a nation of promise and potential. I love the fact that the HIV support group for adolescents that we run decided to call themselves Rainbow Smiles and I really pray that it lives up to its name for the sake of the children who attend.

Rainbow coming in the gates to Village of Hope

We are just coming into spring here, the trees are beginning to blossom in the orchards, the sun is visiting us more frequently and you can just feel the potential in the air. There is so much opportunity for change in Grabouw and for God to break though. I am excited to see what will happen in this coming season and thankful that, no matter what, God keeps His promises.

Emily