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!

dutch publicity

following on from the wonderful time we had with the culibus last friday, see previous post, there has been some press coverage in holland, have a look at this link, photos 14-22 show us and our children enjoying the day with the dutch chefs.

have a look and see if you can see me enjoying myself with the guys.

michelin chefs cook up a storm in grabouw

today we have had a wonderful dutch filled day, not only did we have the chance to show the dutch ambassador to south africa, mr rob de vos, around the village of hope but we also were blessed by the visit of some of the top chefs from holland on their culibus, visit their site here.

the chefs are touring around south africa following the dutch football team and are visiting projects like the village of hope, where they are providing a five star meal made from local produce, ours were provided by elgin learning foundation who we are working with on our food gardens.

the local and dutch press were also present and we were able to take them and the chefs up to the village of hope as we had to base the bus at the elgin country club as the access road to our project was much to unstable to take the 1million euro bus!

please keep your eyes out for publicity at the following site www.zuidafrika2010.net, which klaas deknatel has been running for the buildup and duration of the world cup.

to cap a busy day we were also visited by wings of support from klm who came to have a look at our project.....

...roll on saturday!, oh no its another sports saturday so no peace for the wicked, that's us by the way!...

(photos show the size and extent of the bus and one of the chefs, onno kokmeijer, with one of the boys that the village of hope has successfully placed back into the community).