shock and awe

their simple table with all the crockery they own!

i am really sorry for those of you who might think i am blowing my own trumpet but this blog is a place where we are able to share our day to day experiences with the wider world and although i must say that i'm not proud of the photos that i am sharing with you today what i hope to do is to raise the plight of those that God has sent us to help here in grabouw.

two adult ladies were sharing this single bedstead
their life possessions were held on the table or
under the simple bed.

a famous american once used the words 'shock and awe' about military power, i hope that this post will provide a 'shock and awe' to the millions, if not billions, of us who think we have a hard life.

over the last couple of days we have been able to bless a few people, who have been highlighted by our thembacare team, with some of the tin (zinc) sheets which we have been able to collect from a local friend. that was until i visited the home that i found in our waterwerks informal settlement caused me to question how anyone could live in such poverty and squallier and by handing out a couple of sheets of tin would hardly do the house any favours.

the shack is a home to a mother and daughter who are known to our thembacare palliative home based care team and without going into too much detail it was one of the most shocking places that i have ever experienced.

we were able to help with support from another amazing NGO called siphle sonke and rallying the troops in the community around the ladies we provides her with some clean clothes, hot water and hygiene products which were received with open arms. we were then able placed her into the care of my good friend who provided her with some hot food and a roof for the night.

placing her in the care of my friend in the community

this weekend we hope that we will be able to provide the community with some poles, tin sheets and materials which will help them to tear down the existing structure and build the ladies a new home...it's hard not to want to do everything for people but to be able to help support those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS or TB in our community is what we are called to do and via thembacare and the village of hope we trust that we are doing that in a very practical way.

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.

new wholehearted video shoot

set up day 1 in waterworks

as part of our fundraising drive for the work that thembalitsha is doing in grabouw, via thembacare and village of hope, and the wider foundation with the other 5 projects in the western cape, we are once again partnering with the amazing south african band from somerset west called 'wholehearted', these guys filmed a music video with us last year (see youtube link here) and they have been visiting us and the communities that we work in to shoot a new video for a song that will be used to tell the story of the day to day lives of thousands of people in our town and other such towns like grabouw throughout south africa.

red ballons on some homes used to tell part of the story

yesterday afternoon and all day today we have been filming in the waterworks informal settlement, using everyday people to tell their everyday stories, we also shot part of the film with the soccer club that we run in the iraq informal settlement and also had help from the careworkers and house moms at thembacare and the village of hope.

soccer outreach with the kids in iraq

we were blessed to have the support of the whole community where we were filming and they were very keen in appearing in a film that will be used to support the work that we are doing to bring healthcare and education to literally hundreds of people like them, be they family, friends or neighbours.

as soon as the dvd is released we will be posting it on youtube for you to view but as you can see we have posted a few photos showing the filming and the team who are sold out to make a difference in the very lives of the people who appear in the dvd.

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.

40 homes burnt to ground in waterwerks

last friday night around 40 homes in the waterwerks squatter camp in grabouw were burnt to the ground. the fire, which seems to have been started by an overturned paraffin stove, swept through the area so fast, due to the high winds, that people were unable to protect their limited property and most people lost everything that they own.

the village of hope team, boosted by matt walker and the other walker boys (josh and arron) along with rob, emma podmore and jenny jiggins, were amongst the first on the scene in the morning and helped with the rebuilding of the homes....we must say that the assistance we offered we very limited and even five days after the event people are still struggling to obtain enough material to rebuild their homes.

the photo shows a blind grandmother and her granddaughter sitting in her part rebuilt home, she lost everything and you can see the remnants of her bed in the foreground!

after another fire

on thursday evening i was contacted by a member of the local community letting me know that around 20 homes (shacks) were on fire, there was nothing we could do until morning and as soon as we woke we contacted the people on the ground to see what we could do. rob and the team (along with trondor, our norwegian volunteer) went along to share out blankets and clothes to those affected. trondor has posted an excellent item on his blog (you will need to use google translator to convert from norwegian to english) which you can read.

sadly not only were homes burnt to the ground but a young girl visiting her grandmother was unable to get out of the shack quick enough and she died at the scene, unfortunately she was a friend of one of the elder girls who live with us on the village of hope, who's home was also burnt down at the same time, it was a real blessing that she was stopping with us at the time as she might also have been affected by the fire.

please pray for those who have lost their homes and also the wider community as we seek to help those affected in a practical way.

limited internet and more americans!

we are going through some tough challenges with our communications from the village of hope, last week we had our phonelines restored after cable theft and today we are battling with telkom to have extra gig downloads placed onto our account after our new american volunteers used up all the months limit in a couple of days.....no blame on them they were unaware of the cap!

this new team are led by erica lee from the everynation church in new york and it's been a busy day today with tim taking the team out into the community where the guys had the opportunity to pray for people in their tin shacks (homes) and hand out clothes to the most needy of thembacare patients...the team also led the afternoon service and have been working with the children from the school of hope.

our babies are doing well in the new unit and we continue to ask you to pray for them and the new 'house mums' who are looking after them so well.