a helping hand (near and far)

well, we have been extremely busy over the past weeks so apologies for the intermittent posts! we are still trying to get the building works finished which seem to be taking forever!

wood for our mentors before the rains came

and then the rains came

from our previous post you will have read that winter is starting to set in and with it comes stormy weather and rain. even a dusting of snow on the mountains! although the snow looks pretty, these harsher weather conditions make life in the township even more challenging than usual.

helping with a sports mentors new roof

as always we do our best to go the extra mile at this time of year, whether it’s organising extra soup to be provided to some local creches or donating scrap wood from our recent building projects that can be used by our faithful sports mentors as fire fuel. with such overwhelming need in this community it’s very easy to get distracted from our ‘day job’ (?) and consider setting up a soup kitchen or start another equally worthy project…but we have to remain focused on what we are already doing and build on that, trusting that God will fill in where we cannot. we cannot always do more… 

however, if you feel like you DO have room in your busy schedule to do more then we’ve made it really easy for you to help to restore hope through Thembalitsha wherever you are! 

the clever bods (yes, we have a few believe it or not!) in our marketing team have come up with a wonderful plan... it’s called #Active4Hope and it is very easy to do!

1.      get active:

run, cycle, walk, row, jump, skip, craft, sew, dance, make music…..whatever you love to do you can create awareness for our cause and be #Active4Hope.

2.      wear:

they’ve got a very smart t-shirt to go with this (thanks to mel who designed this for us) which you can download and print onto your preferred white t-shirt. the idea that you wear this shirt whenever you are active and become a walking (or running, crafting, rowing etc) billboard for us! (download it here)

3.      join or enter:

lisa modeling the new active4hope tee shirt

to take this concept further you can even decide to enter an event and fundraise for us too or create a social or training club where each member of the group wears the shirt for meetings/training sessions.

4.      tweet:

we just ask one favour, that you tweet us (@thembalitsha using hashtag #Active4Hope) and send us a pic of how you are being #Active4Hope to keep us informed of what you are up to!

if you need to be led by example then look no further than the wonderful lisa baldy who’s doing a number of sporting events for us over the course of the year. she is the first to own an #Active4Hope t-shirt and has raised nearly £500 for us already. also krissy clark has began a cycle group to train for events in south Africa called ‘a freakin’ cycle’. they are sure to be famous throughout the western cape of south africa before too long!

we hope that this will be the beginning of an online movement and we can build a whole community of people who are joined together in being #Active4Hope.

by doing this one simple thing, you can make a difference wherever you are in the world and whatever you do! be inspired!

soup run hits the news, again.

page 4 of this weeks elgin grabouwer

last week i was able to take our local photo journalist, peit marais, on our weekly soup run. as reported in page four of the elgin grabouwer, see image, peit captured the fact that although this is a service provided by the village of hope it really is one mans way of connecting those who are able to help with those that are in the deepest of need.

the soup run was really birthed out of a conversation had over a beer with a local restaurant manager and has blossomed over the last few years, where each and every friday we now collect soup which has been lovingly made by two of our local farmstalls, who also provide us with bread and pies and distribute it to three creches in the rooidakke and iraq areas of our town.

it really is a simple way of serving but really does show the local community that there are people out there who care for them, supplying a valuable meal to those poorest of children or people who need to take specialized medication on a full stomach.

we know that time is an important thing and we are blessed to be able to serve people in this way but for those with little time but a big heart this is a way for them to really feel connected to those that we serve each and everyday via our thembacare and village of hope projects here in grabouw.

for more photos of 'the soup run' then please visit the elgin grabouwer facebook page by clicking here!

the soup run continues!

collecting the soup from the orchard farmstall

blessing the local creche with the lovely warm soup

people are often willing to get involved in helping those in need but are either unable to spare the time or know who to link up with to enable them to do that...and this was the case when a few years ago i chatted to the owner of a local restaurant as we tried to encourage them to get involved with the local community in a tangible way. they didn't want to give money and couldn't spare the time for a visit to see what we were doing at the village of hope, both via the children's unit or our sports outreach however the way they could do this is by committing to making us up a batch of soup which we would transport into the creche in rooidakke as well as iraq informal settlement each and every friday. this worked well for the last few years however our initial suppliers restaurant is due to close for the winter next week so we were left with a bit of a dilemma.

whilst this isn't really part of our main calling towards those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB it does allow us to be a conduit between those that have and those in need, after a few conversations we have been blessed with the provision of soup from the orchard farmstall who have taken up the batten to supply us with this much needed soup for the foreseeable future, and although all we have to do is deliver the soup from their kitchen to the creches in the community it is a wonderful way to see these people gain an extra nutritional meal which will help with their TB medication.

saying goodbye.....

grete, maz and trondar

debbie, jeff, tony and hazel

we have been blessed with some wonderful visitors over the last few weeks and months, trondar has been visiting from norway and although he has been busy with his writing he has been ever present at the sports outreach in waterwerks on a wednesday afternoon and on the soup run every friday. his wife and son visited for his last few weeks and it was sad to say our goodbyes yesterday.

we have also been visited by one of our longer term volunteers parents, jeff and debbie joined their daughter jess for the easter school holidays and they leave on the same day as some of our very good friends from winslow, tony and hazel allen who's daughter, lizzie, volunteered with us last year. it has been great to show these friends around the projects here in grabouw and to have some time to see the sights in south africa.

we will miss them all and wish them all a safe journey home.

soup and teddies

each and every friday we deliver soup into the community, we support two projects, a multi purpose centre in rooidakke and a small creche in the iraq informal settlement. last week we were not only able to provide the hot soup to these precious children, which is donated from the local rose and bull restaurant, but we also gave out some hand made teddies to the children which had been given to us by the local round table.

the teddies were made by the local 'teddy bear club' and we were able to get these to those children most in need, to see even grown boys of 11 and 12 years old receiving a teddy and hold it close to their hearts was a special experience, to think that these kids might not have ever had their own teddy before was somewhat humbling and we hope to be able to do this again some day.

crazy days.....but still loving it!

creche in iraq squatter camp with
the soup in the buckets in the foreground

today has felt like a week in one day....so many things have happend during my day, stresses, strains, highs and lows, but one thing that bought me back down to earth with a big bump was around lunchtime when i was able to 'do' the soup run.

the soup run is a 'service' that we have been providing for a couple of years now and is a partnership between us and the rose and bull restaurant here in grabouw, in fact all we do is transport the soup to those in real need of a balance meal and we have been totally blessed by doing this.

lines of adults and children at the
multipurpose centre, rooidakke

today i was running around like a headless chicken, meetings here, there and everywhere and was slightly late with the delivery, as i arrived at the multipurpose center in rooidakke i was greeted by lines of adults and children waiting for the arrival of the soup, perhaps the only meal that many of them will have today.

i hope the photos show the huge need that we have here in grabouw  and it is only our pleasure for the village of hope to provide this to our needy communities, non of this is for our own gain, we are just here to serve!