its lovely weather for a sleigh ride together

santa and his elves (sports mentors)

yes its that time of year again when the days are sunny, warm and bright and we dust off the 'good olde sleigh' again and tow it, along with father christmas, around the community of grabouw.

if you have followed this blog for any length of time you will know that our annual sleigh rise has become a tradition at the village of hope, to see the faces of the children as they catch sight of santa passing their homes is a real treat and to hand out a few sweets brings so much joy to those who won't have chance to visit santa's grotto in the local mall.

santa in site view

we know that christmas isn't all about presents and a funny white bearded guy who supposedly comes from the north pole (no that's not you trondar) but to know that this one hour of fun can bring so many smiles from all ages of people is worth doing and we trust that this random act of kindness will be seen as our continued desire to serve the town of grabouw via our village of hope children's unit, our sports outreach and rainbow smiles club and confirm that the work we do via thembacare has a community feel about it.

santa in iraq informal settlement

our pictures hit the headlines of the christmas edition of the elgin grabouwer, whom we are so thankful to for highlighting the work that we do in the wider community throughout the year.

normal scenes behind the sleigh!

this year santa (once again played by the ever willing and somewhat typecast johan) was joined by his little elves (the not so little arron, shana, mel, maz and barbara, as well as my mum and dad, shannon and amanda from the thembalitsha fundraising team) and it was also great to see some of our sports mentors come out with us on this ride for the first time, it seemed like they really enjoyed it.

so its with a thankful and blessed heart that we wish you a very merry christmas from all at the village of hope.

the village continues to bring ho ho hope!

santa and his sleigh before we left the village of hope

it has been another amazing year here at the village of hope, we continue to see God's provision to us as we seek to serve the community of grabouw especially focusing on those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB, all of which are rife in our town.

we could spend a whole blog post about the wonderful things that have happened this year, all the stories of the children that we have helped to find a stable family to go home to live with or those that we are still seeking to help via our children's unit, we could talk about the provision of a new building provided by the students from stuttgart university or the people carrier bought with funds from our friends in england and the dutch charity 'wings of support'. we could provide a long update on the sports outreach which has grown from strength to strength, now engaging with more local mentors who have been supported by the students from the HAN university in holland but all that would take such a long time, so we urge you to venture through the previous posts on the blog to find out what we have been up to during 2012.

children excited to see santa coming to their street

however what we would like to share is the fact that our incredible team of permanent staff (our house moms and maintenance team) and our willing band of volunteers, both longer termers, short term mission teams and individuals, have continued to offer hope in what can sometimes be seen as hopeless situations and this culminated in our annual sleigh ride into the areas where we work day in day out.

it was great to see the children and members of their families that we work with enjoying the sight of father christmas being towed through the town, up the main street and then into each of the communities, many of whom live in little wooden shacks with no water or electricity. the whole community seemed to be out on the street and although we did bless them with a few sweets and apples that wasn't the reason we run this event.

kids chasing santa and his sleigh 

the main reason to do this again was to bless them with the chance to see santa coming to their streets and for that to provide another sign of hope as we celebrate the most amazing story of hope, that of a little baby coming to earth to show us how to live, to love one another, our neighbours and even our enemies, as we love ourselves, to look after the widows and the orphans and proclaim the good news that he can provide hope in the most hopeless places. thank God for Jesus and we thank him for inspiring us to do what we do each and everyday here in this little town in south africa.

happy christmas and may you see hope in 2013 as we enter another year of opportunity to serve those less fortunate than ourselves......

father christmas visits grabouw again...

santa (johan) and his little helpers!

during last week we made the necessary changes to our heavy duty trailer once again converting it into santas sleigh. the plan was to tow it into the community on thursday afternoon but with a little unseasonal drizzle we postponed it until friday afternoon.

this was the third year that we have taken santa into our community and this year johan, our maintenance man, was chosen to play the role as father christmas, following in the footsteps of my dad who played him last year and our wonderful norwegian volunteer, trondor played him the first year we were here.

kids chasing father christmas and his sleigh

we decorated the bakkie, toyota hilux, with tinsel and balloons, fitted a new speaker system which enabled us to play some traditional christmas hits at a louder volume than we had been able to do previously. johan was joined by some of our longer and short term volunteers in the sleigh where they 'gave' out sweets to the excited children that we passed by.

kids in the community, followed by a local taxi
trying to sneak in on the celebration!

its great to see the reaction of both the children and also the adults as they saw father christmas coming past their homes. this year we took a slightly longer route to enable us to reach more children, the joy on their faces was a sight to behold and the sweets were an added bonus.

if you would like to see a short video of last years venture then please click on this link which will take you to youtube, or if you would like to read more about our previous years stories then please click on these links for 2010 here and 2009 here

a happy christmas from the village of hope

johan as santa as we prepare the bakkie to tow
the sleigh into the community!

we just wanted to thank all of our wonderful friends for their support this year, whether you are family, have volunteered (which automatically makes you family as well!), given funds, arranged an event, hosted us during our trips to europe, you know who you are and we really do appreciate you.

the children who live with us at the village of hope will be going to spend christmas with our house moms, thus giving the moms an extra few days with their families, the children a bit of a holiday and the volunteer team a little time to chill and enjoy the festive season.

so from the village of hope team, the house moms, the children in the unit and those in the community we want to wish you all a very happy christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year.

unfortunately we can't post a photo of us with the children, but if you would like to receive one then we would be more than happy to email you one, so please get in contact, either through the blog or facebook and we will arrange that for you!

please could we ask you to remember our little 11 year old boy who is out of hospital but still very sick, he will be staying at thembacare in athlone over the weekend and we pray that he will soon be well enough to come back to stay with us, his family, here at the village of hope. thanks.

santa hits the big time!

for the second year running the village of hope hit the front page headlines in the christmas edition of our local newspaper, the elgin grabouwer. see story as image and click for a larger version.

but this year santa has gone one step further by appearing on youtube, see link here . emily house, our wonderful film tech guru, put this clip together to give you all a flavour of the event, include the assembly by johan, decoration by tim and rob, our santa played by tim's dad, and elves fran, kate, jess and mel giving out sweets from the sleigh, unfortunately you don't really see arron, josh, chris or dan who were playing crowd control!!!...hopefully you will see the joy that was bought to hundreds of children who can be seen running after the sleigh in the waterwerks squatter camp.

next year we will have to go one step further, but for now we want to wish you all a very happy christmas from the team at the village of hope, grabouw, south africa.

father christmas arrives early in grabouw

yesterday afternoon the children in our local community were surprised to see father christmas riding on the back of our sleigh. this was the second year that we converted our trailer into a sleigh and the response was no less joyful from the children who saw us.

last year we had trondor our Norwegian volunteer, play the star role of father christmas, see last years post, this year my dad (roger) had the staring role which i think he enjoyed. he was joined in the sleigh by our 'elves', mel, katie, fran and jess who gave out sweets, bars of soap and mens aftershave from the back of the sleigh.

it was so wonderful to bless the kids in this way, and to see their smiling faces as they saw santa coming past their homes was a real pleasure.

emily house took a lot of video which she is hoping to upload to youtube and as soon as it is available we will post a link.

spreading christmas cheer

the christmas period has continued to be a busy time for the team at the village of hope, and we have also been so overwhelmed by the presents and parties that our 9 children have been blessed with during this time. it was however somewhat of a problem giving our children hundereds of gifts whilst the large majority of the children that we also work with in the community receive nothing, therefore we decided to not only bless some local creches, in elgin timbers and iraq with some of the toys that we had received but also thought that it would be nice for all the children in our town to see and experience father christmas paying them a visit.

therefore with the wonderful arty skills of emily house we converted our trailer into a sleigh which we drove around the townships and squatter camps, complete with a 'real norwegian' santa claus (our wonderful volunter trondor, who had an amazing time on the sleigh)....see newspaper article (right) for an image.

christmas was and is indeed a time of giving, it was wonderful to be able to bring some light into what is a very poor and needy town.