visits, concerts and poorly babies

frank and mommy trulene!

this new year is already racing away with us and as you know we like to keep the blog updated at least once a week but the usual busyness of our project has meant that we weren't able to do that last week....so here's a quick catch up on some of the things that have been happening.

our first news is that we have been running backwards and forwards to the caledon hospital with our little 10 week old baby boy who is very sick at the moment, he seems bright enough but has had a harrowing start to his life (can't go into too much detail here) and his health is very compromised.

the thembalitsha stand at the concert

our house moms take turns to complete a 12 hour shift sitting with the baby and liaising with the hospital staff and our wonderful volunteer team have done an amazing job in driving to and fro as we rotate those shifts.

on some more positive news we were delighted to receive a visit from our good friends frank and leigh rautenbach, we first met frank when we were still in england and he has made a couple of visits since we moved out in 2008. frank is somewhat of a celebrity in south africa, having stared in the soap 'sewende laan' and a few films, and our house moms were falling over themselves trying to get their photo taken with him.

crowds enjoying the music

frank and leigh now live in LA and we are hoping for some sort of partnering with their church over there, it was great to catch up with all their news and it was exciting to chat around how the links with another church in america might come about.

and last but not least emily once again pulled out all the stops to put on a truly amazing gig at the hope@paul cluver amphitheater last friday evening, the stars of the show were the south african rock band 'the parlotones' who also headlined at our hope2012 concert last year.

the parlotones singing out for hope!

our volunteers once again hosted the thembalitsha stand at the event which raised funds and the profile of the foundation to the sell out crowd of 600 people who were also able to enjoying the balmy summers evening listening to the guys perform some of their top hits.

funnily enough the parlotones have also moved to LA to further their musical careers....are there some uncanny links starting to form?


-thanks to david morris (our local grabouw photographer) for allowing us to use his photos on this post-