tim and maz celebrate in holland

tim with some of the sports students

tim and maz have been away in europe for a couple of weeks now and during their stay they had the opportunity to travel to holland to join the celebrations at were taking place at the HAN university that the village of hope have relationship with.

maz with some of the social work students

the celebrations were around the 10 year partnership that the HAN university have with our local theewaterskloof (TWK) municipality, the local grabouw town manager as well as other people from south africa had made the trip to holland to meet up and share with some of the students that had completed their internship in grabouw.

it was a joy for tim and maz to catch up with so many of the students who had spent their internship at the village of hope over the last five years and it was interesting to here about their career moves since graduating from university.

the automotive facility at the HAN

it was funny to see all the students together in one place and as they were all from different year groups they really didn't know each other that well so we gathered the sports management students, social work or nutritional students together and introduced them to each other!.

during the day they were shown round the vast university campus, made up of over 28,000 students, and the tutors explained some of the subjects that the HAN offer, including automotive development, water management and design technology.

towards the end of the day we gathered in one of the huge lecture theaters where students gave their thoughts around the time that they had spent in grabouw, which was very insightful and the day ended with a braai for over 200 of us who shared our stories and caught up on the things the students were doing.

if you would like to read more about the day and the partnership created between the university and the municipality then please follow this link.

saying goodbye is never easy

sharing our highs and lows in the new children's unit
with marlies and erik

it's crazy how time flies, especially when your having fun!, and the last 10 months have been no different. this week we are saying our sad goodbye's to our two dutch students who are coming to the end of their internship with us.

last night we through a party for marlies who has been working with maz on our social work side since august and erik who has been with us since february working with me as we bring our lifeskills programme via sports outreach to the children in our community.

erik and the sports mentors

it was great to honor these two wonderful students with a party which was attended by the majority of our house moms and our sports mentors who enjoyed a great meal prepared by maz and the evening was capped by the village of hope tradition of sharing our highlights and (if applicable low lights) of their time with us.

we are so blessed to have this relationship with the HAN university who we have partnered with over the last four years and our minds were also bought back to the wonderful students that we have hosted over the years, you know who you are and you are all truly missed.

another successful sports saturday...

last saturday morning, into the early afternoon, we held our most recent sports saturday, this time with help from our german students who are busy building the extension to our children's unit acting as managers for the boys soccer and girls netball teams.

trying to get everyone's attention

once again the event was held at the magnificent elgin country club, with the wonderful scenery providing a stunning backdrop to the games being played by over 180 children who were split into 25 teams, playing soccer and netball under the guidance of our dutch student, eric, who did a sterling job in managing the other volunteers and local sports mentors.

heniz the manager of one of the 25 teams!

there isn't much that hasn't been said before about these amazing events (click on these links to see other posts around our sports saturdays, nov 2012, oct 2011, mar 2011) however it must be said that it is one of the longest but most exciting days, the joy on the children's faces as they board the 65 seater coaches for the short journey to the club, the fun that is had by playing sport against other children from the 6 different clubs we run and the 'thank you's' that we receive whilst giving out prizes or for the meal which ends the day are sights and sounds to behold.

the amazing volunteers for the day
(minus a couple of local girls and ladies who
had already left!)

after the children have been safely returned home it has become the custom for sports mentors and the volunteers to play a large soccer match, unfortunately this time there weren't enough german's make up a team, so we played europe verse africa, with a few ringers from the USA and grabouw making up the european team. for once it was nice to be on the winning side especially to come from 0-2 down to beat our wonderful sports mentors (peer educators) who really should have won!

i am hoping to put up a few more photos but i have included a couple that were taken of myself trying to sort the kids as they arrived on the buses and then a team picture, less some local help, of the helpers who made this day possible.

a quick catch up!

ukuqala3 richtfest lead by heinz wolf 

firstly i am really sorry about the awful layout of this post, i have been playing around with the photos and text for ages and this is the best that blogger can do at the moment!

so much is happening at the moment, which i am sure you can imagine with 28 students and their tutors from stuttgart who are completing the amazing changes to the buildings here at the village of hope but we have also been joined by our new dutch sports student and we have received some very special gifts which are making a difference to both the lives of the children who live with us and those who we help in the community. what follows is a very short catch up on all that is happening, complete with photos to give some visual perspective!

phillip aka roger visits from switzerland,
with friend (chris)

we have received visits from some amazing people, not only did phillip, commonly known as roger federer, who was one of our first volunteers over 4 and a half years ago, come and visit us he also got involved in our sports outreach where we were able to use 40 of the 100 small footballs which were donated by travelstart.

rodnights visit
(complete with german underpants!)

visits from pop stars!

maz received a visit from 3 children that she used to work with when she was a classroom support in england and some friends who we met last year, via my parents, came to visit from sweden, two members from the amazing 'wholehearted' band came to visit to chat around how they can get further involved in our projects here in grabouw they were swamped by our house moms who revere these people as true hero's (think the boot might be on the other foot if truth be told!!!)....yes it has been a busy time.

the new rocking horse
...thanks matt and katt!

matt and katt donated a wonderful outside rocking horse in memory of assi and the children have been enjoying riding that for the first time this week, thanks guys it is a real hit with the children and its hard to keep the house moms off of it too!

following the departure of yoram and annemiek we have been running short of support at our sports outreach, however this week we have been joined by eric, our latest student from the HAN university in holland who will be with us for the next five months, you might be able to see his tall frame in one of the photos!

the ukuqala2 house gets plastered!

kids playing with new footballs and
eric the new HAN student

and last but not least not only have the building works moved on at a pace but we held our very own ukuqala3 richtfest, read more around this german tradition here, which celebrated the completion of the roof section of the new children's bedrooms. the toilets at ukuqala2 are coming along well and the walls inside the main ukuqala2 building are receiving their sand, lime and straw rendering so we will soon be able lay the floor and fit the kitchen in readiness for our first family of volunteers!

me and maz sharing at the richtfest...
(i know the socks!)

i think that's it for the mo, sorry there are so many stories in one post but i think that gives you a flavour of the things that are going on at the moment.

first person to sit in the ukuqala2 toilet!

sports outreach year ends at the beach....

kids eating pancakes at strand

our rooidakke and iraq clubs at gordons bay

the children who attend our sports outreach programme are now on their summer holiday's and to celebrate the end of another amazing year we have taken around  70 of the 250 children who attend our seven weekly clubs to the beach over the last four afternoons...

...i know that sounds idyllic but to have the worry to ensure that not only do the children travel safely down the long and winding mountain pass that we have to negotiate between grabouw and the seaside town's of strand and gordon's bay but also make sure that they all have a great time playing in the water, which for some it might be the first time they have ever visited, then its not all plan sailing!

beach 'water' football!

however everything went well, the weather was fantastic, the sea a perfect temperature for the kids to enjoy a dip and food provided by the dutch students, pancakes (pannenkoeken), which for some children were the first time they have eaten such a delight was all very special.

our amazing HAN students yoram and annemeik did such a good job throughout the last five month and it was great to share this time with you guys, we will miss you both loads! thanks must also extend to our longer term volunteers, tim and jacque who made sure that the children enjoyed their special days.

digging holes to holland!

it was a great end of the year for our sports mentors as well, we have been working hard with these guys as they serve us so well through the year, you guys rock.....we will now be taking a well earned break from the sports outreach until the middle of january!........

pancakes on the beach!

....more news will follow then as we seek to extend the work we do into new areas to bring 'new hope through sports' into our poorest communities of grabouw.

our biggest sports saturday yet!

fun at the huge netball tournament

on saturday we hosted our biggest sports day ever at the elgin country club. our weekly sports outreach clubs have been growing in number over the last 6 months and the investment we have made with our sports mentors being a huge influence on that. as has become custom we like to bring all the children that we work with at the different clubs together for a whole morning of fun and games, based around our soccer (football) and netball teams.

it's a goal!

i hope that i'm not taking anything away from any of the other sports saturday's that we have run by saying that this was not only the biggest, with a total of 198 children attending, around 140 was our previous highest, but also the best organised. as with all things you hope to improve and some of the lessons we have learnt in the past were overcome and even with a smaller team of volunteers compared to the past we were able to host a bigger event which is a real testimony to those who helped.

awaiting the prize giving

a big thank you must be given to the dutch students who are on placements with various projects around grabouw via the HAN university, especially yoram who is our sports intern and who took the main lead in organising the event. our volunteers at the village of hope also helped and were assisted by our wonderful sports mentors (our local 16-20 year old's who assist us at our weekly clubs) in managing teams,  refereeing the games or keeping an overview on the whole day.

the winners!

winning girls receive their funky sportswear

we took a different approach to the way that we ran the soccer tournament  having all ages playing together instead of an under 13 and under 15 tournament, and with boys being split up from their normal weekly clubs to play in mixed teams. this worked really well, uniting teams, old boys caring for the younger ones, and working together as they played. we had a total of 16 soccer teams split into 4 leagues with the winners of each group playing in the semi final and then final.

headbands for all!

the girls played in their normal weekly groups but with over 60 girls playing it needed to be organised and refereed really well and we want to thank lori and cozi for sorting that with the help of jaqui.

in the past we had used just one bus to transport the children from the various areas around grabouw, with the two sets of farm children arriving via their own transport, but such was the numbers seen on saturday that we had to set up a second bus to ensure that the children had seats. as you can imagine there was such joy as we firstly pick up and then journeyed to the wonderful country club, many of the children visiting for the first time.

thankfully we were blessed with no major injuries but with our system of indemnity and contact forms we are always ready for the worst......the only down side of that system is that some of the children had forgotten or had incomplete forms which meant disappointment for them as we were unable to ensure their safety whilst in our care!

a great day was had by all, with the winning sides being blessed with some amazing sportswear which was donated by our latest american mission team..we hope the photos will show some of that joy!  

the kids enjoyed a russian and chips (pork sausage) before they left and the day culminated in a big braai at the country club for all our helpers, and even the house moms were able to join us with the children in our care from the village of hope. the weather played its part and we thank God for that too.....

.....bring on the next one in 2013....can it become any bigger or better run?

October News

Once again this month has flown by! It doesn't seem a minute since we were in England celebrating Maz's big birthday with friends and family and we are already at the end of October and thinking about Christmas! At least the sun is starting to warm our bodies again and the blossom on the fruit trees on our surrounding farms is a sight to behold. However winter has one final fling since we returned - we awoke last week to a snowy view of the local mountains!

We firstly want to thank the core team here at the Village who allowed us to spend some much needed time away with the confidence that the day-to-day stuff would be undertaken. Thanks Rob, Em, Tim, Mel, the amazing house moms and maintenance team you really are all stars!

As always our children's unit remains our main focus, however there always seems to be something to fix and this month we have had to sort out the septic tank which is used by the children. This wasn't a pleasant task but with the help of our local plumber, digger driver and trusty volunteers we managed to sort that with a few new trenches which we hope will also drain our top field to allow us to proceed with some agriculture projects.

There has also been some exciting progress around our first Ukuqala house, with two big work parties working on filling then flattening the land and installing some much needed turf around the building. We have to be intentional in setting aside time to complete this type of work as our daily chores can overwhelm and run away with us. We are indebted to our friends Graeme and Charles Cherry who have been very helpful in getting this sorted for us with the supply of soil, turf, plant hire and labour.

On the children’s front we are now back up tour full complement of nine children! This week another two year old girl arrived who is in need of our support whilst she is stabilised on her medication and one of our older girls is making the big transition to being placed back home. She has been with us at the Village of Hope since we opened and before that spent her early life at Thembacare in Athlone. There has been little contact over the years with her family and unfortunately we heard the sad news that her mother passed away just a couple of weeks ago. In spite of this she is making some good progress with her weekly weekend visits to her paternal aunt who will care for her when she leaves us in December.

The new Dutch students are settling in really well, and they have also been joined by an ex HAN social work student who is spending some time working with Maz and Mel on the children’s cases as she seeks to become a full time social worker here in Grabouw.

Community Work
Sports Outreach:
The sports students have really helped to push along the development of our outreach, working with Jason, our new part time employee, to re-establish clubs in Rooidakke. It is now attended by around 50 children a week, as well as a rugby outreach to some older guys. They are also working with Michael in Waterworks and have even started a girls netball team in that area which is a brand new venture.

We were also blessed with a ton of sports gear, bought over by our latest mission team from the USA, the kids have already received some head bands as a simple thank you for attending the clubs and the kids enjoyed wearing their new training bibs at the Iraq club this week.

Rainbow Smiles:
Our volunteers and students are also working hard in the running and planning of our Rainbow Smiles HIV support group which runs each and every Friday afternoon and we are grateful to an ex volunteer, Heather from Australia, who has produced an amazing resource for us to use during the weekly planning programme....thanks Heather! – It must be over 500 pages long!!!!

Other News
Volunteers:
Australians seem to be getting mentions all over the place in this newsletter, as we were joined by Jacqui for 3 months. Yes, you guessed it, from Australia! She has joined our other volunteers, Kathryn and Martha, just wondering where all the male volunteers are at the moment...If you would like to come and join us for a short, medium or longer term trip then as always please get in touch with Emily...see contact details below.

Cycling from London to Paris!
Last month we had a team cycling from Aylesbury to Brighton to raise funds for us, this month Danny Gowing cycled from London to Paris to raise funds for us. Thanks Danny! We can tell you that your aches and pains were worth every penny. If anyone else wants to hop on a bike to raise money for us we will really appreciate it!!!

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 (it doesn’t have to be cycling)!!!!! – 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!

Up And Coming Events
For further details check out our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/thembalitshafoundation

South Africa

HOPE 2012

Top SA bands are going to be making some noise for us this World AIDS Day (1st December).
Diarise it and get your tickets before they sell out!
They are available on computicket now. A steal at R150 a ticket. Please support us and get the word out to your friends/family/school. The more people who know about this event the better!
Line up: The Parlotones, Watershed, The Muffinz, Tailor, Margaret’s Daughter
Get your tickets at www.hope.org.za/2012

England

If you can’t quite make it out to South Africa for World AIDS Day we have another equally attractive suggestion for you! The Thembalitsha UK guys are organising a Celebration of Hope
The evening will consist of live music and comedy from a top BBC standup.
Tickets are only £10 and there will be drinks and snacks available. Saturday, 1 December at 19:30, Aylesbury, Bucks
Please contact Jessica on 077 3883 1507 to book your tickets

Worldwide

A Song Of Hope!
It doesn’t matter what country you are in. Everyone can benefit from this! The fantastically generous and talented folk of up and coming British band, Being Buffalo, have released a track especially for us! And it sounds great too! We get 50% of every sale so please let your friends and family know about this! You can find the track for download here:
http://beingbuffalo.bandcamp.com/album/hope-charity-download

visits from local dignitaries

thembacare grabouw make the front page

sorry that we have been so quiet since we returned home, but for those of you that follow us via this blog or have visited the village of hope project here in grabouw you will know that our days and therefore weeks seem to run away with us. added to that but just before we returned from england my (tim) laptop's hard drive gave up the ghost so i have been without my own internet connection which has hindered my prolific blogging!....however that is a poor excuse so whilst maz is enjoying an evening at the school of hope awards i thought i would share a bit of news, prior to the october newsletter which will be out soon, this majors around our appearance on the front and middle pages of last weeks local newspaper, the elgin grabouwer.



major visit with the HAN and UWC delegation at the
village of hope (in the rain!)

i say we appeared as in the royal we, meaning both thembacare and the village of hope, but news is news and we are so closely linked to our sister project that the we is really we....anyway the front page news was the fact that following their mandela day visit to our two projects in grabouw staff from the cape town parliament felt led to purchase a much needed hoist to help our staff manage the lifting and movement of the patients in our inpatient palliative care unit.

the major and maz

the other news, which took up the middle pages, and included a nice little article about the work that our former volunteers, daz and lisa, are doing with a little creche, was all around the visit of our major, chris punt, to the town. the visit was initiated by the HAN university team to showcase the work that their students are involved in.

the village of hope are currently proving placements for 2 sports students and a social work student, as well as a past HAN social work student who is volunteering with us at the moment and therefore a visit by the HAN delegation and therefore the major was always on the cards.

the delegation also included tutors and facilitators from the university of the western cape who we not only showed around our children's unit but also informed about our work in the community via our sports outreach and thembacare home based care team...the major also enjoyed lunch with us and had a long chat with myself and maz around the needs of our town and the ways in which the thembalitsha foundation are helping local and national government, and their departments, to provide much needed help in the health and education sector.

although some photos were taken for the paper it is very hard to see maz so therefore i have added a photo with her and the major together.!

a new child and new student

it's always exciting for our house moms to
welcome little ones into our care

this seems to be a season of new things, today we bring you the exciting news that we have been able to provide a new home to a little boy (around 16 months old) with a very complex home situation. unfortunately his home (tin shack) was burnt down with a fatality and the young mom is unable to cope with everything during this trying time.....it is wonderful to be able to provide a place of safety for this child whilst his family situation is sorted by our local social workers.

marlise our new social work student

speaking of social workers we are pleased to tell you of our most recent dutch student from the HAN university who will be with us for 10 months as we host her as a placement for her social work studies. the help and support that we receive from these students is invaluable and we look forward to the work that marlise will be providing the children who stay with us at the village of hope and also those who attend our rainbow smiles HIV support group.

new sport support from the HAN students

new sports students with the kids from
site view and snake park sports club

over the last few years we have been blessed with a plethora of sports students who have been placed with us at the village of hope sports outreach project, it has been my honor to be the 'practical supervisor' for these students from the HAN university in nijmegen, holland, and we have not only been able to continue but also expand and extend our sports outreach, via better planning schedules and documentation, thus ensuring that the project continues long after the dutch students have returned home. this has been due to the work that we have developed for our sports mentors (peer educators) and this is something that the new students will continue to work towards.

this afternoon we held our first sports outreach with the new students, yoram and anna, who will be working with us for the next five months. the field was packed with children, some of them much too young to be able to understand the topic for the day, which was all based around planning for the future and how being prepared is an important lifeskill to learn, however the 24 boys and 20 girls aged 9-15 who attended the club had a wonderful afternoon.

the photo was taken right at the end of the session when at least half of the children, and our wonderful care worker, lindi, from thembacare who comes to help run the netball with the xhosa speaking girls, had gone home. however i hope you can see the joy on the faces of the children that we work with on a monday afternoon from the site view and snake park areas of the townships here in grabouw. the photo also shows themba, standing to the top left of the photo, who is our peer educator for that club....unfortunately michael (our other mentor) was late home from school and could make it today!

tomorrow we will be working in iraq with our further clubs taking place in rooidakke, waterworks, and the two farms on wednesday and thursday afternoons. please keep an eye out for the future news of the sports outreach we do in grabouw.

impressed with our dutch students, again!

angelique and marijn

since we started work at the village of hope we have always had a heart to enable people to take the step from their first world existence into the lives of the poor and needy third world which surrounds us here in south africa.

there hasn't been a day in the last three and a half years where our volunteer unit has been empty, in fact we have welcomed over 300 people on to the project, some have come on a visit and felt the call to return for the longer term, like rob and emily house, or mel kidd and tim berger, some have stayed for a night during a mission trip whilst others have volunteered for 3 to 6 months and we thank them all...you know who you are!

with the direct action that we have via our village of hope community work, sports outreach and rainbow smiles HIV support group, and our sister project thembacare grabouw with their seven bed inpatient unit and outpatient care work we are able to offer people a chance to work with some of the most sick and needy people in the world.

over the years our relationships have developed with international churches sending return mission teams back to us again and again, the infocus team who spent time with us last week are an example of such groups. we are  also bless to be able to provide practical opportunities for students to come and serve with us, this can be seen via our relationship with the university of stuttgart who have committed to a long term partnership with the village of hope and they have already blessed us with building two eco house under their ukuqala projects.

one of their power point slides

yesterday i was attended the latest presentations from the most recent group of students from the HAN university in holland, maz attended a presentation last week as well. last november me and maz were able to make a visit to their campus in nijmegen and their partnership with our local municipality encourages students to come and make a difference to non government and government projects in and around grabouw.

over this last few months we have worked with nutritional, physio and sports management students who serve with us at the village of hope.

the impact and input that the HAN students have at the village of hope is invaluable, over the years they have enabled us to set up policies and procedures to enable us to run an effective children's unit and in the wider community to develop our sports outreach programme with written documents to help stimulate and engage new ideas on health and life style awareness to the 200 or so children that we work with each and every term time afternoon.

the latest sports students (angelique and marijn) have been working on their thesis which will help us evaluate the effectiveness's of the sports outreach programme, capturing data to see what impact, if any, our weekly clubs have on the behaviour, social awareness and self esteem of the children we work with to ensure we are not wasting time providing something that is having no tangible impact.

at the moment i am busy reading through their thesis, evaluating their findings which compared 100 children who attend our clubs against 100 who don't, i will then have to see how we will implement their suggestions for us to be more effective both in the use of local resource, our time and planning for the future!

this team of students have excelled themselves in helping us to serve our community, even the guys who are part of other disciplines have helped out with some of our sports clubs and we are really going to miss them when they return home next week.

we want to thank the HAN university for their willingness to partner with the thembalitsha foundation through the village of hope and we want to especially thank the students who are a real God sent as we seek to impact the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in the world.

supporting mentors...ajax come so close

view from signal hill

its hard to put into words the sights, sounds, feeling and or just the experience that we had yesterday evening as we took our 8 mentors who help with our sports outreach to watch cape ajax v orlando pirates at the green point stadium in cape town. we were also joined by some of the dutch students and a few of our volunteers who came along for the ride (more about that later).

our first stop was at signal hill, the back side of lions head mountain which shares the cape town backdrop with the world famous table mountain, from our lofty view the boys had a great vista across their city and were amazed by the sight of the stadium far below. as we drank in the view the mist from table mountain rolled in front of us, causing the stadium and roben island to appear and disappear from the scene....one of the boys commented that it looked like a dream, and in a way he was right, it was a long way from the realities of his daily life filled full of worries about the basic things of life that we all take for granted.

the wow of the stadium

from those lofty heights we ventured down into cape town and made our way to the victoria and alfred waterfront where the boys were wowed by the street performers and overwhelmed by the amount of people enjoying the sights and sounds of africa (not the real africa but a good introduction to the the continents many tourists!).

after a long meal at the mcdonalds overlooking the harbour, where the boys enjoyed and even lingered over their big mac and fries, we made our way with a few thousand other vuvuzela blowing fans to the stadium and other than a few minutes getting through the not so tight security we found ourselves walking up the steps to the awe inspiring stadium which was fully lit against the cape town skyline.

to see the faces of the boys as they saw the view of the pitch for the first time was one of the most amazing things i have had the pleasure to have share, their eyes opened wide at the spectacle that presented its self before them, not only were they dumb struck by the vastness of the stadium but also with the presence of their famous footballing stars right before their eyes.

our intrepid volunteers

many of the boys come from homes with no running water, let alone electric to power a tv, for some of them these legends were only seen via the newspapers or soccer magazines telling of tales of heroism and glory. tonight they were going to share in the highs and lows of their team, and even if 'their team' wasn't playing they would cheer and clap at every move of these modern day gladiators. (i've be waiting to write a report like this for years but after the 2010 debacle that england played on this very pitch against a poor algeria side, and the fact that that night the stadium wasn't a riotous colour of african fans but just the same old random blokes from london, huddersfield or manchester who were in south africa to watch their hero's fail once more, (this time in africa (rather than south america or europe as has happened so many time before), it didn't seem that fitting until now!

only god can help his team!

the game was fast and furious with cape ajax taking a dissevered lead around 20 minutes, however that lead only spurred on the pirates and their large allegiance of supporters which out numbered the home support by at least 2 to 1, and they leveled 3 minutes later with what was to be the last goal of the game.

we were surrounded by home, away and even neutral supporters who all aligned their support of their clubs, pirates, ajax, cheifs and stars fans chanting their songs, calling upon their god's support of their teams...the riot of colour, the cacophony of sound filled the stadium and although the game ended as a 1-1 draw each fan, each child and spectator took away their own thoughts and dreams such as i have seldom seen before.

boys enjoying after game celebrations at the waterfront

after a short walk back to the waterfront, posing in front of the 'ferries wheel' we found our faithful combi to join the queues of vehicles making their way back to their homes, for us it was grabouw  but along the N2 we said our goodbyes to those from the townships of langa, athlone, kayhelitsha, maccassa and lwandle.....

...dropping the boys off in the informal settlements of grabouw proved to be a quiet affair with the majority of friday night party people in their homes when we arrived at 11.30...and as we dropped off our last of our sleepy mentors we received a phone call from 'the girls', our volunteers had broken down half way up (or down dependant on your stance) sir lowry's pass in our newly acquired audi A4....argh....another two hours waited us as we firstly returned to the village of hope to secure our toyota hilux to provide the much needed pulling power, but found that the car was fixed fast and only a tow truck would suffice to bring the car to its return to grabouw.

the audi on the tow truck...eeek how much will
that cost?

an amazing and long day came to an end at 1.30am with thoughts of new sights and sounds, new friendships made and the thought of an expensive repair bill filling my mind!....

...for me today is another day, the stresses and strains of running a project which engages with people infected or affected by HIV, AIDS or TB, but for the boys a new day has dawned where they have seen the stuff of dreams.....such is the life we lead here in grabouw, its a real conundrum but thanks for taking the journey with us.

new sports outreach (our 7th)

our HAN student setting up the warm up
(in 25 degree heat) game!

we currently deliver our sports outreach into 6 different areas including a fruit farm in the elgin valley and last year we were approached by another farm to work with their children. its always hard to balance starting a new club with the greater impact it has on our current sports outreach team, our heart is to bless as many children as possible with this life skills and health awareness based outreach but we need to ensure that anything we do is sustainable, ensuring we are not letting the children down if we have to stop for any reason.

i am glad to say that we felt happy to accept this opportunity to work with this new farm and yesterday we ran the first club there (our 7th club), the site has a large rugby field and some broken netball posts (which we hope to fix to engage the girls in the netball training). the session was led by one of our sports mentors (local young people that we have seen potential in who is now a 'support worker' to the main team) with a HAN student and myself supporting him as he took the children through a simple introductory session. the 10 children who came were aged 13-17 and were very enthusiastic, they will encourage the younger children to come next week to bolster the numbers.

weekly sports planning meeting

after our thursday clubs we have our weekly planning meeting where we discuss how well (or some times not so well) the last week went and we plan the next week of our 40 week programme, we split each group up into the 7 different teams and assigning jobs, from the initial warm up, to the life skill, health talk and bible story. each week has a theme and is linked to a bible verse and life skill application.

this week our meeting was very busy as we were joined to two of our newest sports mentors, from the iraq informal settlement and a couple of older guys who are keen to expand the programme into other areas of grabouw.

it's amazing how God is using us to engage with the children, now over 180, each week, impact their lives with positive messages, providing them with role models and life application skills and sharing God's love with them in a very practical way. as saint francis of assisi was credited with saying....'spread the gospel at all times and use words when nessasary'...this is what we do each and every afternoon and we are so privileged to be able to spend time with these children who come from some of the poorest homes in our community.

dutch visitors with gifts from ajax...

harry (left) with michael and the rest of the older
 iraq football team

this afternoon we were blessed by the visit of our good friends harry, winny and son joel, their daughter elise worked with us on her placement in grabouw from the HAN university a couple of years ago and we stopped with them when we visited the HAN in nijemgen in november.

harry has some good contacts with ajax amsterdam (the real ajax) and during our training session with one of our sports outreaches in iraq informal settlement this afternoon we were able to present the most regular of our boys, along with one of longer term our sports mentors, michael from waterwerks, with a waterproof training jacket...which was very welcome as we had some very unseasonably wet weather which meant that the children could go home warm and dry!

the younger children received ajax scarves and tee shirts, the children at the village of hope were also blessed with some goodies...thanks guys your support certainly does make a difference.

walkers update III (wholehearted tour news)

well another week has flown by with our week long trip to germany and holland now over we are focusing all our attention towards to wholehearted tour which kicks off tomorrow evening in taunton, with further events in bath on wednesday, aylesbury on thursday on what is world AIDS day, and then a weekend in london starting in hammersmith on friday and finishing with 4 events with the everynation chruches on sunday....for further info the please visit the wholehearted facebook page or the wholehearted blog which they will be keeping updated with stories of their trip......but that is all to come, what follows is a short recap of what we got up to last week.

the ukuqulaII students

on monday morning we got up for the early flight to stuttgart where we had a short meeting with leslie, the project manager from the ukuqula I project, and then we had a three hour presentation by the students who will be working on the ukuqala II project. it was wonderful to meet these 25 students who have not only spent time looking at the 2012 project but also the long term development of the village of hope in the future.

in the evening we met up for a meal with the students who built the first ukuqula home in feb/march of this year, words cannot express how much their time and commintment to build us an amazing ecco house is appreciated and they will always be held up high in the stories of the village of hope.

some of our ex-HAN students
at the pancake house!

tuesday was another early start to make the hour long flight from stuttgart to dusseldrof where we were met by an ex HAN student, elsie and her father, we enjoyed an evening of football and food with them at their home just outside bemmel.

on wednesday we met up with the international department of the HAN (highschool arnhem and nijmegen) and their tutors to discuss the work that their sports, pyhsio and social work can do as they partner with our thembalitsha projects in grabouw, we also had a chance to speak to some of the students who will be joining us in early 2012, providing them with some cultural background to south africa and the types of things that they will be experiencing during their five months with us.

we were totally blessed by the amount of ex students that came to meet us at the 'pancake house' in nijmegen on wednesday evening where we took time to catch up with them and their progress since they left south africa, it was so good to see them all.

children at the emmaus school in arnhem

thursday morning was also an early start, no rest for the wicked they say!, where we had an oppertunity to share with 3 different classes of children at a school in arnhem, this went really well, they had some very good questions which followed a powerpoint where we showed them some photos of the work we do in grabouw.

gerrit spronk picked us up in arnhem and we enjoyed an afternoon in amersford before sharing with his home group in the evening. gerrit also drove us over 300kms on friday, taking us to meetings with an ex village of hope volunteer, leo, and then on to den hag to meet up with the dutch chefs who visited the village of hope with the culibus in 2010 and who are looking to set up a fundraising event in early 2012.

saturday was spent with eveline and bart in amsterdam, a wonderful if not somewhat 'hippy' city, before flying back to england during the evening to stay for two nights with josh's (our middle son) girlfriends  (haddy) parents paul and lindy who made us feel very welcome after such a long trip.

heres to a wholehearted coming week!