summer time fun...

katie and her babies

last week the local schools closed for summer so we have had a bit more time to spend with the children in the unit who are already crawling off the walls and proving to be a bit of a handful to our dedicated house moms, who are also nearing the end of the year and having to plan and prepare for their own family Christmas.

katie has been preparing some morning time activities for the older children but as we celebrated another public holiday on tuesday we decided to take all the children, house moms and volunteers to the local beach for an afternoon of fun. looking back it seems that we have done this each and every 'heritage day' and it's amazing to see the children's reactions as they get time to play in the sand and swim in the sea.

greg's castle

they are such a pleasure to be with and i think every child dipped their toes in the sea with some taking it a little bit further by actually trying to body board!.....greg made a huge and complex sand castle trying to replicate the french island setting of mont saint-michel but one of our more challenging (in a very sweet way) boys had other plans and duly knocked it down before greg managed to finish the moat.

moms it the beach!

beach soccer

on wednesday morning it was the turn of the sports outreach children to have some time at the beach, we work with over 450 children each week so it was a bit of a mission trying to plan for all of them to attend the day that they look forward to all year, however as around 250 of the children are under the age of nine there was no way that we were going to put ourselves under pressure to take them (there will be a 'next time' for those children as they grow up into our senior clubs), so that left around 200 who would have loved to have come.

happy kids

in the end we booked two 60 seater buses and with the help of our sports mentors, volunteers and willing others we end up taking over 75 children from four of our daily clubs, it's always hard to chose how to run these things but as many of our children return to the eastern cape for Christmas we are confident that most of the children who remained in grabouw were able to join us.

fun times for the girls

as you can imagine looking after 75 children on a wide open beach with an inviting sea to entice them is no mean feat but we are thankful to say that none of the children ended up as shark bait and apart from a badly cut foot (which occurred as one boy stepped on a piece of discarded glass whilst playing football) everyone returned to their homes in grabouw in one piece!

greg came up with a novel idea to split the children into ten separate groups with two leaders responsible for that team, we then placed netball bibs on the children, all an array of colours so our team leaders could keep a check on the children in their group. this worked so well and i'm sure it provided the beach with a riot of colour as the children ran in and out of the sea, having the time of their lives.

a riot of colour in gordon's bay

it's always great to see the children playing and being truly free for a few hours, leaving the cares of their complex lives behind and having fun together. this is one of the day we will miss when we leave the project in february but trust that our team will continue to offer both these wonderful opportunities to both the sports outreach children and those that we care for in our 24/7 unit.

special thanks to lisa baldry for the wonderful photos!

one child leaves and opens a space for us to provide new hope to another

as one child leaves to be reunited with his family the door opens for another child to receive the amazing new hope that we are able to provide via our wonderful children's unit. each child has there own individual story and some are more complex than others.

please pray for this new little boy who has been placed with us to provide some space for his parents to seek the help they need to enable them to gain prospective on their lives and set up a home which will become the secure environment that this little one needs as he grows.

celebrating 5 years since the opening of the children's unit - its a family affair!

 barbara, maz mommy francis and mommy nettie with the cake!

on saturday we celebrated the fifth birthday of the opening of the village of hope children's unit, this was a momentous occasion and one where we wanted to use it as a time of thanksgiving to God for his great provision towards the project and those that we have impacted over the last five years.

children playing and adults worshiping in the garden

our intention was to host an 'open day'for all our friends, partners and community projects but the numbers would be so huge that we wouldn't be able to cope. so although we have other outreaches into the community via our sports and rainbow smiles clubs this was just for the children, their families and some key staff both past and present. saying that we must have had around 60 people come join us for a time of worship, tea, cake and an easter egg hunt.

the children on an easter egg hunt!

our friends from wholehearted leading worship

the weather was so hot that we had to throw up a makeshift sail to provide some shade to those who joined us, including some of the first children that filled our unit, those boys and girls who were around two years old when they stayed with us and are now six or seven years old and had all grown so much. although not all of the 45 children who we have provided care in the unit for were able to join us we had a great time as we looked back at the family tree and remember those who aren't with us now.

the worship time was led the amazingly talented 'wholehearted' band from somerset west and we want to thank them for their incredible support, however their leading was complimented by some of our house moms who sang some traditional african songs which really embraced the 'rainbow nation' feel of the village of hope.

after we had sung some songs people were able to share some of their stories of hope and gave thanks for the work that has been undertaken by our amazing team, it was great to hear these stories, shared in english, afrikaans and xhosa, of how God had blessed people both children, staff and parents via the support that we were able to provide, proving that we can be Jesus hands and feet in all situations we find ourselves in, be that praying for someone in a supermarket, to giving a life to a person at the side of the road, or providing a safe and loving home to some of the most sick and needy children in our community.

so we celebrated our first five years, we wonder where God will take this project in the next five years...watch this space!

providing new hope to another needy child...

mommy maz reading a bedtime story.

it's wonderful to be able to provide a home to those children most in need and yesterday we received our newest addition to the vast numbers of children that we have helped in the nearly five years since we first opened the doors of our children's unit here at the village of hope.

each child who is placed with us comes with his or her own complex problems, perhaps the child has grown up in a home where the care that they need isn't being provided by the ones who love them, perhaps the child has a chronic illness or is on medication which needs to be monitored to ensure they are stabilised before discharging back to their families.

all of the cases are heartbreaking but we know that we have provided care for around 50 children, sometimes they stay with us for a short while, some a little longer, but each one has been loved and cared for whilst we work with their families or adoptive parents with the desire to ensure that both the child and their families are able to live a healthy and balanced life.

our newest admission has been in hospital for quite some time before he came to us, he is still very malnourished and is on one of the largest programmes of medication that we have seen, however we will now make those first steps with him as we seek to reunite him with his mother as soon as he and she are stable.

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!

times they are a changing!

new bedrooms on the back of the childrens unit

taking down the bedrooms which the vineyard team
constructed over 4 years ago!

the architectural team from stuggart, along with their trusted and adopted student, dave knight from england, are making a real impression on all three projects at the village of hope.

saul and nigels bathroom is remodeled!

for those of you who have visited or stayed as a volunteer you will notice a huge difference which can be seen in the few photos which i have posted, the children have now moved into the 'old volunteer' kitchen/meeting room and the team have been busy converting the volunteer bedrooms into our new office space with new entrance/reception area, but the main changes can be seen in the children's unit where the new bedrooms are taking shape and the kitchen and bathrooms have been ripped out to create some extra space for the additional work that we are planning at the village of hope.

our new morning meeting space

the long term team at the village of hope have also had to find a new meeting place and this morning we joined together on the stoop of ukuqalaI to pray around the and plan for the challenges we might face during the day.

german students enjoying a game of netball

it is quite sad to see some of the hard work that has been undertaken by some of our volunteers over the last few years being taken apart but we know that there is a bigger plan and we are excited to see how the new space will be used to enhance the work we are doing both with the children that we are called to help, as well as providing better work space for our long term team and volunteer experience.

we have tried to engage the ukuqala3 team in the work we are doing in the community and it is our desire that each member of the team is able to join us at our sports outreach in the different areas around the town, as you can see some of the team have enjoyed playing netball and even a version of 'duck duck goose' with shannon our longer term volunteer.

duck duck goose with shannon!

please visit the ukuqala web page to keep up to date with the work that is going on this year by clicking on this link and if you would like to see some of the work that the ukuqala2 team undertook last year then please visit their youtube pages here.

our 28th home placement follows quickly

not only did we place our 27th child home with either their own family or into long term foster care on friday but today we have the wonderful news that we have now found an adoptive family for our 28th child.

we can't say too much about the case as it is a little complicated but please know that whilst we are sad to see this little one go we thank God that a secure and loving home has been found, and we send the child off with the knowledge that we provided the care that was needed at this point of their life and we were able to love and nurture them in our wonderful children's unit

another story of new hope

mommy maz and nettie signing to discharge docs
with the little girls father!

we had quite an eventful friday afternoon, some of which i will update you on now and some we hope to bring you news of later, but just to say that we really saw the work that the team at the village of hope children's unit, ably lead by mommy maz, come into it's own.

the new hope story (for those who don't know 'thembalitsha' means 'new hope' in the local xhosa language) is that we were able to successfully discharge our 26th child into the care of her father who will be reuniting her with his family in the eastern cape (traditional xhosa tribal homelands around 1000kms from cape town).

this precious little 2 and a half year old girl had been in our care for around 9 months and we had been busy with the local social workers and those in the eastern cape to try to find a solution for her to return home, which is never a easy task, but we thank God for his amazing promises towards us and to the children we care for.

saying goodbye to a child is always a bitter sweet time, on one hand we are so pleased to have provided the secure home, the love and care for the child and we are pleaded to have had some positive input into the next steps of these little ones lives but we do have to trust that all the work that has been done with the family will pay off and we have to place them into their hands with confidence that they will take on the things that we have taught them prior to the discharge....which is never easy!

time to play

up up and away!

one of the most disappointing and frustrating things about running the village of hope is the limited amount of time we have to just play with the kids that God has placed here. much of mine and maz' (as well as our longer term volunteers like rob and em, or tim, mel or even johan and heinrich) time is spent on completing the long list of daily tasks, such as shopping, or admin for social workers, or finances or report writing for our stats given to the department of health.. we seem to spend more time cutting grass, mending the myriad of broken things, taps, cars, toys etc......rarely do we have chance just to chill with the kids.

however just before i went out to run a sports outreach at a local farm yesterday (which in itself is an amazing part of what we do!) i passed the kids lying around on the newly transformed trampoline and grabbed a minute or so just to support them as they jumped into the air....as you can see by the photo they are somewhat fearless and reached heights which would have turned maz' stomach but we had such a cool time just playing....

...oh for more of those....life is so full and i miss just being a dad to these precious little ones.

a new volunteer arrives

simon helping with our tea time!

we are so pleased to welcome our new volunteer, simon, onto the village of hope team, he will be with us for a couple of months and come over to us via his good friend and one of our ex-volunteers, harry who was with us in 2010 and did a crazy bike ride fundraiser for us earlier this year.

simon has hit the floor running and was found this evening helping out in our children's unit at tea time, we hope that he continues to bond well with the children and look forward to him getting involved with our sports outreach in the community.

full team from stuttgart arrive

over the weekend and during the early part of this week we have welcomed the new arrivals from the ukuqula team from stuttgart. some of them flew direct to cape town, others had arrived in south africa a couple of weeks ago and had traveled down to grabouw on a road trip.

and

now the hard work starts.

fortunately for us johan, our maintenance man and his wife, joyce, moved out of the single bed accommodation that they have lived in on the village of hope for the last three years, to a new home in grabouw, which has enabled the team to set up their HQ

in that space.

all the foundations are in place, see last post, and the straw and clay which will provide the 'cob wall' construction have arrived, the team are now busy designing the windows, doors and internal furniture which will make up this new build.

please follow their progress on this blog and also their own university blog here.

keeping it level....

the team from stuttgart universtiy have been doing an amazing job this week, leslie, ulrika and gerhard have been working all hours God sends in making sure that the foundations of our new build are level and stable....it speaks so much to me as we think of the 2 years we have been running the village of hope, without firm, level and solid foundations any project is unstable and is at risk of crumbling when any presure is put on it, however with lots of help we are getting closer to this project being less reliant on one or two people and ensuring it's longer term success by spreading a load over a firm foundation.

on friday afternoon i took the boys from the children's unit down to see the work being carried out and each of them had a look through the 'dumpy level' to check on the progress....see photo......we hope and trust that the work that we are doing in their lives, as they stay with us at the village of hope, will also provide a level and stable foundation for their little lives.