July News

Where has everybody gone?! After saying goodbye to three children last month, this month we have also said goodbye to lots of our lovely volunteers. It is feeling very quiet in the volunteer’s unit and Mel has also gone back to the States for a few weeks so it leaves just Tim B rattling around the volunteer unit! Ah well, we are making the most of the opportunity and our wonderful maintenance team are giving all the bedrooms a fresh lick of paint.

Making music in the unit!

 Children’s Unit
Those children who are old enough have returned to school after the winter holidays and we are back in the rhythm of the schoolday timetable. We currently have six children staying with us which means that when three of them go off to school each day there are only three left un the unit! We are making the most of this quiet period and taking time to tidy up, sort clothes and do appraisals with all of our House Moms. We are also very excited about the purchase of a new rug for the unit. We know it seems silly but it makes the place feel a little more cosy in the winter and it’s a nice area to do puzzles and read together.

Mandela Day was last week and the children were visited by the local old people’s home who came to play and brought yummy treats. The unit was also blessed with a huge supply of delicious soup and sandwiches from Applewood Preparatory School. We’ve got so much soup that we were able to fill an entire freezer and it means that we can add it to our weekly menu. Thank you so much guys!

Since we’ve discharged Boy B we have been helping to support his new foster Mum in getting established and last week Maz assisted her by taking her to SASSA to organise her grants. We have also been keeping in touch with out other families in the community – out of sight is definitely not out of mind.

We are very thankful for a whole stream of donations that have come in. Maz had just written a shopping list and was preparing to go and buy a big list of items and there is no need anymore because all the items have been provided! God is good!!! Now, as well as the new rug we also have lovely new duvets for the beds and two, much needed, new car seats.

Please continue to pray for our relationship with Social Development and that our registration is approved as soon as possible. There are so many children in need in this town but without correct registration it is likely the magistrate will not place any more children with us.

Michael, one of the mentors

Sports Outreach and Community Work
The winter months are tough for those living in the community. We’ve been doing our best to work alongside the other NGOs in town to meet more of the needs in this cold weather. You may remember us mentioning how we have been doing more repairs on shack roofs. Although these acts are helpful and appreciated by the community they are also providing us with an opportunity to see the deeper problems and help to address those where we can. These situations can often be overwhelming at times but, although painful, it is good to have our hearts broken again and be reminded about the real situations of the people we serve. Siphila Sonke, another NPO we work with, and ThembaCare identified the shacks that were most in need of roofing in the community. The most desperate case actually ended up being more about the shack’s inhabitants rather than repairing the construction. Through offering to fix the shack we found that actually the need was for the inhabitants (a daughter and mother living in squalor and dire poverty) needed to be reunified with their family in Khayelitsha and working with Siphila Sonke we were able to identify the family and deliver the mother and daughter safely to the Grandmother where they will be well looked after.

In our sports work the mentors are really stepping up to the plate and we are seeing fantastic results. They are taking on the responsibility of planning and running the sessions and the children are responding really well. It is so exciting to see the empowerment! We have been investing more and more in them and it is really paying off – although we are not suggesting that a trip to see Man United play wasn’t a good incentive too!

Other News
Volunteers:
Saying goodbye to ‘our girls’ who have been serving with us for months was hard. They have all been such a wonderful help and brought a real buzz to the place. They will be sorely missed but we know that God has exciting things in store for them and we are looking forward to hearing all about it. Thank you Ashlyn, Jess, Katia and Lauren!

In the midst of that Team Erwin (Shae, Susie Erwin and her family) arrived to give their time for a few weeks. Susie and Shae have both served before on mission teams but wanted to come back to share their passion with their family.

We have also been blessed to meet Lisa Baldry who has been spending some time with us whilst visiting friends in the area. Lisa is from England and has been putting her photography skills to good use and helping us to capture the work of all seven of the Thembalitsha projects. The images she provides will contribute to a photo library which we can use to promote our cause. Lisa has definitely got the bug and is planning to return in November!

The maintenance team improves the shed

Maintenance Team:
We don’t often speak about our fantastic maintenance team (Johan, Heinrich and Tim B) but that does not mean that their daily hard work is not valued. The effort they put in to improving our environment and keeping things tidy makes a big difference to us. Whilst Rob and Em were away they took the opportunity to get some jobs finished in the Ukuqala 1 house which was very much appreciated by the Houses when they returned. As we mentioned earlier, they have also been painting the volunteers’ accommodation from head to toe and it’s looking great.

London 10K Run
Earlier this month 6 lovely people from the UK ran the British London 10K Run to raise funds for us. Thank you so much!

Events
Cycle To The Sea:


Can you cycle 10 miles? 100 miles? Either way we’d love you to join us on Saturday 8 September as we challenge ourselves to cycle whilst raising money for Thembalitsha.

The challenge:

8 - 16 Miles: A there and back again route from Aylesbury on picturesque lanes in the Chilterns, suitable for all kinds of cyclists and all ages and including families, you just need to be able to cycle comfortably for around an hour at an easy pace. Entry fee is £5 for adults, £2 for children.

100 Miles: A wonderful route through the Chilterns and the Thames Valley before lunch at a riverside inn, then on to the South Downs and the sea at Brighton. You’ll be rewarded with a stopover at a farm and a hearty breakfast before being driven home the next day. Suitable for regular or more experienced cyclists, you need to be able to cycle at a moderate pace for most of the day. Entry fee is £25, which includes overnight accommodation, breakfast and return transport.

Whichever personal challenge you choose, our challenge to you is to raise as much money as you can for Thembalitsha in sponsorship. Are you up for it?!

Contact us: office@thembalitshauk.org.uk to sign up!

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!

sports mentors united in cape town

on saturday afternoon we were able to bless 7 of our sports mentors, the boys aged 16-20 who help us with our sports outreach each afternoon, with a trip to cape town to see cape ajax play manchester united. the weather was similar to that on a summers afternoon in manchester with wind and rain accompanying us on our journey from grabouw but once we found our seats high up in the green point stadium the sun came out to weclome the cape ajax team!

manchester united tour 2012, cape town!

another manchester united corner

as you can imagine the stadium was packed with manchester united fans, some how this team is loved the world over, however even though the game was a friendly and had that feel about it but cape ajax played very well and gave the likes of paul scholes and anton ferdinand a bit of a run around, indeed taking the lead late in the match with a brilliant goal but ajax's defence finally broke 2 minutes into added time when manchester united finally got the ball into the net to earn a 1-1 draw.

men and 4 of our mentors, in the ajax jackets!

the boys really enjoyed their time and it was wonderful to see their eyes as they sat enthralled watching their hero's right in front of them. we aren't able to pay the boys so for us to be able to repay them for all their hard work and commitment in this way is a real pleasure.

mandela day at the thembalitsha projects in grabouw!

always cleaning windows

today we celebrated nelson mandela's birthday in style, south africans are encouraged to engage in 67 minutes of social responsibility, and as a charity who work with our communities in many different ways thembalitsha are always inundated by people, schools, organisations and companies and or their employees who are keen to help out for their 67 minutes.

maz shares our vision with the team from parliament

as we posted on monday our mandela day started early with a visit from the ACVV old age home but today not only did village of hope benefit from visitors our sister project, thembacare grabouw, also received some willing volunteers.

who's enjoying their 67 minutes the most?

the first to arrive at thembacare were some children from the local high school who had come to clean the windows, they even bought their own water from school!....

they were soon followed by a team of over 20 people from the south african parliament who had read about thembacare and the village of hope on the internet and were keen to come and see what we were involved in. after a visit to the inpatient unit some of the visitors took a trip out into the community to make a home visit with sister portia (our outpatient sister who is also responsible for the medical care of the children at the village of hope)...the rest of the team came up and played with the children (and their toys, see the picture of tutu playing on the trampoline!).

sr joyce receiving the gifts of bedding for thembacare

we then returned to say our goodbyes at thembacare where the team made a wonderful donation of some much needed new bed sheets and pillow cases with the commitment to continue to work towards some ongoing support for the projects which they were truly blown away by.

upon our return to thembacare we met the local grabouw rugby club who had provided the food for us to provide the hot meal which our patients enjoy as part of their nutritional diet on their road to recovery or as we support them in their last days of life.

cwp managers discussing who we can partner
during their mandela day visit

in the afternoon both projects received a visit from the CWP (community works programme) managers who were not only interested in viewing the projects during their mandela day 67 minutes but were interested in how both parties can benefit from the work that we are involved in to provide employment to the poorest of the poor who are on their government run programme.

thanks to all who came, for your wonderful gifts and also the promise of continued support, whether that be physical, financial or the promise to pray for us as we give our 67 minutes each and everyday!....and last but not least happy birthday nelson, God bless you not only today but for the legacy that you have left for the people of this country.

mandela day starts early for the children

the mandela day visitors

this coming wednesday we celebrate nelson mandela's 94th birthday with a nationwide 67 minutes of social action to commemorate the 67 years that nelson gave to fight human rights issues here in south africa.

there will no doubt be many visitors to the village of hope on the official mandela day on wednesday but today the local old age home run by ACVV came up to spend time with our children, they had made up goody bags which contained home made cookies, teddies and jumpers for all of our children.

doing their 67 minutes of social action!

the children had a wonderful morning with our special visitors and we hope that they provided a glimmer of hope for the future of this country to those in their senior years!


thanks for all your hard work ladies and thank you for coming to visit!

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.

what we did on thursday!

this is a kayak, it's your friend!

i hope those that read this blog on a regular basis, or even stumble upon it via an internet search, will see the heart of the stories that we share here are to encourage you that the support (be that financial, physical or prayerful) that is shown towards the village of hope and or the wider thembalitsha foundation is being utilised with as much diligence as we can. we are mindful that we are in a privilege position to be on the coal face when many of our friends and families have their nose to the grindstone and don't have the opportunity to see God move in the lives of the people that we have been called to serve, whether that be in the work we do with the children infected by HIV who live with us at the village of hope or via the sports outreach that we do in our community each and every term time afternoon (weather permitting!). we value your support, we thank God for you and hope that you will be encouraged by what you see and here God doing through us.

today i want to share a most amazing experience that we had last thursday afternoon when we took the 7 young men who help us to run the sports outreach in the community, we call them our 'sports mentors', out to a local dam, actually part of the palmiet river, to spend some time 'team building' by taking to the water in sit on kayaks.

the stretch of the palmiet on which we
enjoyed our first paddle!

the boys were unaware of this stretch of river which is only 15 minutes drive from the centre of grabouw, and hardly any of them had ever got onto a kayak, however after a lengthy briefing about water safety, life jackets and the art of paddling, from our good friend rikus from true north (a wonderful guy who runs outward bound type events) we were ready of our first venture onto the water for a two hour paddle up and down the beautiful valley.

the boys really enjoyed their time, the weather was fantastic and as we sent them out in pairs it was good to see them work together, to first go in the right direction and then with some momentum which meant that they were really motoring by the end.

we hope to do another team building event sometime this week, although the weather doesn't look to promising, however we are sure that this is truly something that the boys won't ever forget and we hope that some of the skills that they learnt, like talking to each other when putting the paddles into the water!, will help them as we seek to provide a professional sports outreach to the children that we have on our programme.

celebrating our 25th home placememt

gogo leaves the village of hope with our baby boy

arrives at her home ready to start providing
a new life for him

yesterday we had the wonderful experience of our 25th child leaving the village of hope, this beautiful little baby boy is just over 1 year old and due to some complex issues at home has been placed with a dear old lady who has been visiting him for the last few weeks and who loves him very much.






although he has been placed on a foster order, there fore a temporary arrangement, we are excited but the hope this new mom will be able to work with his real mom (who is also very needy) in the near future thus bringing about a amazing  story of new hope to the baby and his mother.

helping where we can....

i'm not really sure where to start this post, part of me is really happy to have helped a few of our thembacare patients with some zinc (tin) sheeting for their homes but another part of me not only feels a little of the pain of those people but looks at what i have done is such an insignificant part in their lives that it's not really worth blogging about.

the reality of life in south africa is really hard for the majority of people, that's excluding the people who attempt to make a living doing the things that would seem 'normal' in europe or america which is also time consuming and hard work. the people i'm talking about those 'previously disadvantaged' under the apartheid years who have come to seek employment, or better job opportunities in grabouw or the wider western cape or those who have lived in grabouw for many years but have never received the education to enable them to provide the 'over and above' for their families.

what we in 'the west' take for granted is only a luxury for millions of people who live in this rainbow nation, running water, electricity and a roof over your head would seem to be the basics of 'normal life' however today i was able to bless a few of our thembacare patients, who had been highlighted as those in most need, with a few sheets of tin to provide some extra against the winter rains which are raging around us at the moment.

the pictures show a few people who have benifited from a few tin sheets, all of them thanked me for taking the time to deliver or hammer in the nails which will provide some comfort tonight, but in reality it was such a small token of what they really need to make a significant difference in their daily lives.

my heart aches with the injustice that i see, not only in this country but throughout the world as the rich seem to get richer, although they would challenge me on that one given the current economic situation, and the poor and needy seem to get poorer.

my question is 'what more can i do?', Jesus calls me to go the extra mile, to love my neighbour, who at the minute live in tin shacks, as i love myself. as a charity the thembalitsha foundation seek to provide hope through education, health and training, we don't provide hand outs but sometimes one needs to put that aside and get ones hands dirty and that's what i hope to have done this morning with those who most needed my help..........

help from afar

james and his new friends in the community

john, friend and wood pile!

the support that we recieve via our mission teams not only blesses us but also our local community. it's hard to quantify what a mission trip 'achieves', i mean we hardly ever seen any physical healings when we pray for people there and then and we aren't in the business of preaching the gospel from the roof tops, i suppose what we do is to use saint francis of assisi's model of 'continually share the gospel at all times and if nessasary use words' and this was our testomony this week as we have welcomed a team from the mid-cities church in midland texas for another 'mission trip'.

this team was made up of a family of 5, mom and her 4 children ranging from two daughters aged 24 and 14 and twin brothers who are celebrating their 11 birthdays with us today!....the other member of the team is an 18 year old young lady who was part of their mission trip in 2011.

worshiping at thembacare

delivering the friday soup to a local creche

as with any mission trip and or short term volunteer we try to give them a flavour of the things that we are doing both on the project here at the village of hope, at our thembacare hospice and out in the community via our home based care and sports outreach teams. however the reality of our day to day duties sometimes take over and this team have been a real blessing as we tried to juggle their trip with our daily jobs.

now 22 divided by 2 equals 11...(happy birthday boys!)

they have been such a willing team and to see them share this experincence as a family is very special. the boys have been able to help with the cutting, chopping and burning of our laying brush as well as blessing one of our local communities with a trailer of fallen branches for their fires. they have helped in the children's unit, lead our wednesday afternoon 'service' at thembacare and visited the sick with our home based paillative careworkers. this morning the team were able to come out into the community to distribute some of the tin sheeting that we were blessed with, this went to some of our sickest and poorest patients who are served by thembacare in grabouw.


guys it has been wonderful to spend time with you, thanks for your hard work, the servant hearts that meant that no job seemed to hard or meanial, your smiles and kind words, not only to us as a team but wider into those that we are called to serve.