some unwelcome visitors

we have often posted about the amazing people who come and spend their time here at the village of hope, our visitors normally range from international volunteers who have been with us for nearly 3 years to people making a quick visit whilst on holiday in the western cape, however in the early hours of thursday morning the peace that surrounds the village of hope, and especially the children's unit, was broken by the arrival of four masked men who made an unwelcome entry into the unit, waking the house moms and placing them under pressure to hand over their valuable cell phones and jewelry.

its hard to put into words the trauma that was caused to our two house moms who were sleeping gently whilst looking after the children that have been placed into our care and it's hard not to worry if the same events might happen again, however we a not so blind to notice that we live in a world that is full of violence let lone a country that has some of the highest crime rates on earth and a little town that has seen violence erupt over the lack of service delivery around education or higher pay for the work that is undertaken on the local farms over the last couple of years.

our home was broken into three years ago, we have lost personal belongings, our fences have been stolen, many times, and our cars have had their radios stolen but i think the hardest thing to come to terms with is the fact that a unit which has been the haven for over 35 children during the four years we have been open was violated, thankfully the children slept through the whole event and we trust that this was a one off opportune event rather than something that was planned. in fact we thank God that he protected the moms and children, as well as all of the other volunteers who stay at the village of hope.

unfortunately we have to live with the fact that possessions were taken not to be used by those men but to be sold, maybe for food, maybe for drugs and that the plans and four years worth of work were lost when the stuttgart university laptops were stolen during the incident.

God calls us to love one another, even those who we see as our enemies, so we continue to pray for those who felt the need to bring this angst to our team and ask that they might know that we will continue to bring 'new hope' to the town of grabouw via our village of hope and thembacare outreaches and that God has a plan for both our and their lives!