continued blessings

ashlyn (far right) enjoying an after church drink in the
beautiful elgin valley

this weekend we have been overwhelmed with volunteers from the U S of A, on saturday evening ashlyn joined us for a four week stay, she is the sister of britton, a long term volunteer who served with us for 3 months last year. then on sunday evening the latest team from infocus augusta joined us for a week long mission trip.

old friends, God brings us together!

we hope that ashlyn will become involved with all things village of hope and she has already experienced an amazing kids outreach in site view yesterday afternoon as we had over 70 children attend our club in that area, we are sure that she will fit right in and become a key member of our team for her shorter spell with us.

the augusta team are returning for another bout of self sacrifice, it's great to have returning teams, familiar faces that we just get on so well with, there isn't the need to break the ice they just fit right in but with new members who are also keen to make a difference here in grabouw. this time they have undertaken the huge task of redecorating the children's unit for us.....and although they have only been with us for a day they have already completed two of the children's bedrooms....

HIV talk at our site view sports club

...there was such a delight in the children's faces as i went in late yesterday evening to see how they had got on (i was going to use the word 'gotten' in that sentence but as it isn't a real word i had to restructure midway through!)...the children were so pleased with their newly decorated rooms eagerly showing me the wonderful work that these guys had done.

tuesday morning painting team in
the children's unit!

their week will be a real mix, today there is the threat of rain so we are having to keep the children occupied in a temporary room whilst the painting team undertake to complete as much as possible in this short time, two of their team are also down with our sister project, bosom buddies, in somerset west, whilst others are out with our care workers from thembacare....we hope that the weather will play ball this afternoon to enable the team to get the chance to hang out with the children in the iraq informal settlement as we bring our life skill programme to those precious ones but one never can tell what the weather will bring at this time of year.

if you would like to keep up to date with the augusta teams movements, experiences and highlights then please follow this link to their blog...

..thanks guys and we are only sorry that you have to return to the US over the weekend but we know that you hold us in your daily prayers and we continue to thank God for his amazing provision towards the work he that he has called us to do and you guys are a key part of that.....