the passing of our wonderful assi...and facebook page

words can't really express the feelings i have as i write this short post but i'm sure many of you will now be aware that our wonderful little assi passed away at our sister project thembacare in athlone last friday morning.

assi was not just your ordinary young kid, those who came into contact with him will forever have been touched by this little life, it was a blessing for me to have known assi, to have laughed, cried, fought and played with him was a true privilege.

the whole of the thembalitsha foundation also had a huge soft spot for assi and his passing will not only be mourned by us here at the village of hope, but also at thembacare grabouw who had the opportunity to impact his life on many occasions and we thank thandi and especially joyce for the work that they did with him. however it will be thembacare athlone where his presence will be most missed, he spent time with noma and her amazing team both prior to his stay with us at the village of hope and he obviously passed away under their care last week, bless you noma and your team from providing a loving home for him there during his last days.

obviously there are loads of people who have fond memories of assi and we are sure that they would like to say their special goodbye's maybe share a memory or two via photo, video or just using words, so we have set up a page on facebook for them to do so please follow this link to assi's virtual memory board and lets tell the world about this amazing young man and in doing so thank God for his life.

God bless you assi, missing you already, but knowing that you are now at peace and maybe having a little too much fun up there....hope you got a lekker moooto (bakkie) and are enjoying an endless feast of inyama (meat)...see you soon....uncle tim x

August News

Yes, Tim and Maz are going to be at your disposal throughout November and early December so if you want them to come and pay you a visit just drop us an email. We’ve also got bands doing gigs to raise money for us and another day of prayer coming up. Make sure you check out the ‘events’ section of this post so you don’t miss out!

It’s wonderful to have Rob and Emily back with us from their 4 week trip to England. Mel has been away for a few weeks on a funding support trip to the USA so our long term team, which completed by Arron and Johan, is still down one member. That said we have had some wonderful support from Britton, Tyler (who’s brother and father joined him for a few days from Dallas), Barbara Wood who has returned for the third time, Katrin who is serving with us for 6 months and Claire who is staying with her Grandmother in town...so once again it has been a very busy time!

Children’s Unit
Our top news story is that our 11-year-old boy has returned from his ‘holiday’ at Thembacare Athlone, following his time in hospital with further respiratory problems. We had a good meeting with the team from the Red Cross children’s hospital who were happy for us to provide that special care that he needs. Unfortunately he is now constantly on oxygen so his attendance at school is restricted, however he is so glad to be back home with Mommy Maz and the wonderful house mom’s who care for him so well.

With  our 11-year-old being away for all that time we did have some space to take in another little boy, aged about 1 year, who’s mother had abandoned him with his Grandmother, who was sick herself with TB. Therefore we have shifted a few beds and cots around to help us provide beds for the 10 little children who live with us at the Village of Hope.

This new boy should only be with us for a short time as we have already made contact with the family who really do want to care for him. Please pray for his family that they might understand the responsibility that they have towards this boy.

All of our House Mom’s have been now completed the St John’s First Aid course. It’s good to have a full team back together. These ladies, who all live in the community, do an amazing job for us, looking after the needs of our children on a 12 hour shift is not an easy job.

The children (of school age) have been back for a couple of weeks, and we were able to secure a place for our little 4-year-old boy to join the other children at school. He had been so excited about going to school (and had been on the school run, just for the ride, for over 6 months) but when the volunteer led him into his class for the first time tears filled his eyes and he wasn’t quite sure what to do! By the time we collected him he had a smile on his face and was full of stories about the new friends he had made and the exciting things that he had done. It’s so special to be able to offer these children the ‘normal’ experiences that we all take for granted.

Sports Outreach and Community Work
Our sports outreach clubs started again after the winter holidays. We can’t wait till the next Dutch students join us next week! Our ‘skeleton’ staff of Arron, Emily, Kat and Britton are joined each week by our local sports mentors, Justin, Roger, Michael, Reggie and Lee who are all pupils at the local schools. These guys do a great job for us and have enabled us to continue to provide clubs in each of the 5 areas in Grabouw: Hillside, Iraq informal settlement, Waterwerks, Site View and Rooidakke (Netball only) as well as our outreach onto a farm in the Elgin Valley.

We have been excited about the amount of girls joining us to play netball, especially in Iraq. These girls spend a whole day at school and then have to complete ‘chores’ when they get home. This could be collecting water from the local standpipe with 25 litre buckets or preparing the meal for the family. They often arrive late because of this  but to see them enjoying the games that we prepare for them is such a blessing and encourages us to ‘keep going’ as we seek to build valuable lessons into their tough lives.

We still continue to ask for second hand soccer boots, sizes 2 – 7 (UK), which will enable us to keep a stock for when we play what we hope will be more regular games against other clubs in the local area. If you have access to an old pair and live within kicking distance of Grabouw/Cape Town then we would love to hear from you. However our need is growing for a full time Sports Outreach Co-ordinator, which could be a position that is filled by a local person and or complimented by an Intern who could stay with us for a year’s placement.

Other News
The Straw House:
Tyler, Arron, Johan and Katrin, along with support from Rob and Em, have been busy ‘plastering’ the inside of the new house that was built by the team from Stuttgart earlier in the year. The process involves applying our ‘homemade’ lime, straw and sand mix by hand to the straw walls. Not only is this time consuming but has proved somewhat dangerous with a few people receiving ‘burns’ from the lime.

Volunteers:
Tyler has now left us to return to Dallas. Before he left he was joined by his older brother and father for a few days. It was great for Tyler to be able to show his family around the work that we are doing here in Grabouw and the projects that he has become so involved with. They also cooked us up an authentic Mexican meal before they left bringing all their spices from the States!

We said our goodbyes to Joe and his team from Newcastle, but then had the privilege of welcoming Suzie and her all-female team from the Mid Cities church (the church where Tyler attends in USA) who were over with us for a week.


Events
Well, first of all we have to say a huge congratulations to newly weds Rachel and Neil Thomlinson. But we also want to say a big thank you! Instead of choosing to stock up on crockery and coffee machines at John Lewis they decided to hold their wedding list at Just Giving and give us the money!! Bless you guys!

Another thank you goes to Lisa Smith who braved a sky dive and raised £200. No mean feat (or should it be feet?!)

We continue to be stunned by the lengths you lovely people go to in order to raise funds for us! – Keep it up!!!!

SEPTEMBER: Rock for Thembalitsha
If you are near Aylesbury on 4th September why not rock out and support us at the same time?! There will be 6 live bands playing in the market square from 2pm as well as a BBQ and a raffle (where you can win a large flat scree telly – not bad eh?!)

OCTOBER: Village of Hope Prayer Day
We are holding another prayer day on 15th October. Our previous prayer day earlier this year was really fruitful and we very much appreciated being lifted up in prayer for 24hrs. It reminded us that we needed to keep prayer at the top of the agenda.
You can even sign up now if you like: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/prayer66

NOVEMBER: Tim and Maz back in the UK
Yes, you will be treated to another visit from the Walkers! They are going to be in the UK all of November. Please let us know if you would like them to come and visit you! They are available for church talks, house groups, schools. They really do have amazingly inspirational testimonies from their life in South Africa and would welcome the chance to share them. They will also be accompanying WholeHearted (see below)

DECEMBER: Wholehearted band on tour
If you haven’t already heard of Wholehearted or read about them on our blog then where have you been?! Not only do these guys have a great sound but they are fantastic supporters of our cause and are going to be touring England for two weeks at the beginning of December. If you are keen to hold a Wholehearted gig at your church or school then please email emily@thembalitsha.org.za as soon as possible. When you book Wholehearted you will get a Tim and Maz appearance in with the deal! You can find out more and hear their sound at www.wholehearted.co.za

We are going to be posting these events on the Thembalitsha Facebook page as details develop.

If you have an idea for an event that you would like to organise for us do let us know as we would love to have more things planned in the diary for this year and desperately need more people to be doing stuff for us. We will do our best to support you in making it successful.


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!!! You can download a standing order form from our website – don’t forget to sign a gift aid form if you are a UK tax payer
• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise £1000s with enough enthusiasm! We also have annual walks, runs and bike rides. For more information contact us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk
• Pray – Sign up to the prayer newsletter. Prayer is just as vital to us (if not more so) than money! We can’t have enough people committing to pray persistently for us. Sign up at prayer@thembalitshauk.org.uk

Volunteering
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff out 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 the Village of Hope please download the INFORMATION FOR VOLUNTEERS documents under the ‘Support Us’ page on our website (www.thembalitsha.org.za). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted.

fathers day gifts?

a pig, not your dad!

if you are anything like me, no not in the way that i am a tall long haired hippy who lives in south africa but some one who finds it really hard to find a suitable present for fathers day, then we have the answer to your problem.

the amazing uk marketing team (yes those 3 part time volunteers) have come up with a wonderful way to save a long and unsuccessful trip around your local town centre and have put together some very imaginative presents for you to purchase for your dad to help him realise he is someone very very special.

..now we must state that your dad won't actually receive the present, we will!, however if he wants to check he could get on a long flight to cape town to come and visit, which we would love for him to do, but we will promise that with the money raised from the sale of the items that appear on our thembalitshauk facebook site will go directly to the children that we are helping.

if you follow the link from our facebook page you will then see the items ranging from a soccer ball, or a packet of seeds to a lovely little piggy, you can then purchase them via the ebay site thus making your quest easier and giving your dad some satisfaction in the knowledge that he didn't get another novelty gift that will sit on his desk, by his bed gathering dust but that he is really really make a difference to children living with HIV and AIDS here in south africa!

new thembalitshauk facebook page

if you are on facebook then please sign up to be a friend of thembalitshauk, we will be keeping you up to date with future events, prayer requests and photos from the projects...visit this link to take you to the page thembalitshauk facebook page

facebook funds via travelstart

one of the most active of supporters for thembalitsha over this last year has been a company called travelstart, this week they have launched another way of supporting thembalistsha, this time via facebook. basically if you are on facebook and become a fan of travelstart they will donate R50.00, around £3.50, to thembalitsha.

we would obviously love for all our friends and supporters to sign up to this, so if you are on facebook please follow this link and sign up......

medibook stats

last night we met up with some amazing people who are already helping in the fight against HIV and AIDS, can't tell too much yet but we might have some exciting news to tell about that in the future. one guy, len, runs a 'facebook style' web based application called medibook which is an online data base for hospitals etc in the northern cape, we will be looking to see how we might work together to bring that in to support the work we are doing in grabouw.

one of the applications on this site is an up to the minute report of births and deaths in south africa, quite shocking really as you can see how many people today have died from various diseases, and or this can be looked at by the month or year.....the figure of 1000 deaths from HIV today still stands...click here to have a look and be shocked by the amount of people currently living with HIV.....in all that we are doing we still have an increase in numbers, but we might just have found a solution....more on that one another time!

please continue to pray for our 9 year old who is now in hospital in caledon, with suspected pneumonia, TB and possible liver and kidney failure (he's the guy sitting on my lap in the hilux on my flickr site)....we really need a miracle today!