a visit by a flying dutchman..

henk, marlies and our new bus!

we are so grateful to all our sponsors and donors who enable us to undertake the work that we feel called to at the village of hope, many of you give funds help with the day to day running costs, which cover our house moms salaries, children's food bills, electric and vehicle maintenance etc etc but sometimes people give to a specific project or requirement.

it is also really really great when those who donate can come and make a visit to see where their hard earned cash is being spent and last week we had such a visit from henk from the charity 'wings of support' who had blessed us with part of the funds that we used to purchase our new minibus (see previous blog around that here).

wings of support as a charity set up and run by employees of the dutch airline KLM and it was good for henk to meet up with one of dutch students, marlies, who is studying with us for 10 months working around her social work degree.

thanks wings of support and thanks henk for making the time to come and visit us all the way up the mountain in grabouw.

michelin chefs cook up a storm in grabouw

today we have had a wonderful dutch filled day, not only did we have the chance to show the dutch ambassador to south africa, mr rob de vos, around the village of hope but we also were blessed by the visit of some of the top chefs from holland on their culibus, visit their site here.

the chefs are touring around south africa following the dutch football team and are visiting projects like the village of hope, where they are providing a five star meal made from local produce, ours were provided by elgin learning foundation who we are working with on our food gardens.

the local and dutch press were also present and we were able to take them and the chefs up to the village of hope as we had to base the bus at the elgin country club as the access road to our project was much to unstable to take the 1million euro bus!

please keep your eyes out for publicity at the following site www.zuidafrika2010.net, which klaas deknatel has been running for the buildup and duration of the world cup.

to cap a busy day we were also visited by wings of support from klm who came to have a look at our project.....

...roll on saturday!, oh no its another sports saturday so no peace for the wicked, that's us by the way!...

(photos show the size and extent of the bus and one of the chefs, onno kokmeijer, with one of the boys that the village of hope has successfully placed back into the community).