mission team brings us back infocus

don and his bathroom painting team!

over the last week the village of hope team have welcomed some very familiar faces back onto the project, it is so good to see friends from infocus church in augusta returning year after year to come spend time with us.

six of the team (of ten) have been part of previous mission teams and their willingness to get stuck right in has impressed us once again. it's hard for us to put into words the value that they add during their visit but they have not only been involved in some of the more physical aspects of the daily chores that a six hectare property needs to ensure that things don't get out of hand, such as weedeating and tree felling, but they have added  much value to our spiritual well-being too.

the list of jobs they have undertaken is quite substantial so if you would like to find out more about those and their other experiences during their trip then it's probably best to visit their blog via this link to get their prospective on their time spent with us.

thoughts from volunteers and mission teams!

the infocus mision team at the very 'country
club' that shana speaks of....

living in the day to day 24/7 world of the village of hope is an awesome experience and it's amazing to think that our small actions are having a huge impact in our community. we are obviously aware of the plight of the poor, we work with them each and everyday, however there are days when we forget that we still live in a very parallel universe, on one side are 'the haves' and on the other side are 'the have not's'.

we are blessed to be able to host volunteers at the village of hope, these come in all shapes and sizes, they can be individuals who have felt the call to serve for three months or more, or can be larger groups of short term mission teams, mainly coming from churches who are linked to the wider foundation.

it's interesting to watch the dynamics of these teams as they see for themselves the impact of our work via our various missions in our town and have an opportunity to meet the people we serve, it's also interesting to watch each individual as God moves them as they spend time with us.

we do try to give a broader view of our work on this blog but it's always good to read how other people see things during their time with us. over the last few weeks we have hosted a couple of mission teams, one from dallas and the other from the infocus church in augusta, georgia, who kept a blog about their time with us, we would encourage you to read their blog by clicking here and to see the things that impacted them during their time with us.

one of our longer volunteers, shana cox, has also been busy blogging and her latest post really picks up on the plight of our sports mentors, we are sure that you will be as moved as we were when we read this well constructed post so please sit down grab a coffee and or a tissue and follow this link to her blog and her post entitled 'opposite hillsides'.

we want to thank these teams and individual people for the impact they made and the skills that they shared with us.....it really does make a difference.

finishing touches

new bathroom mural and words.

since our children's unit received a wonderful repaint from the infocus team our longer term volunteers, ably lead by katia, have been busy installing the murals that were painted over. one can never recreate what was lost but we are so pleased with the work that kat and her team of industrious volunteers have achieved.

we have a wonderful underwater scene around that bath and nappy changing area, complete with two nemo's an amazing octopus who oversees the words for bath and toothbrush etc which are written up in english, afrikaans and xhosa to encourage the children to learn the names of things.

katia creating our family tree!

in the living area we now have a family tree complete with leaves and flowers with the faces of our discharged children whom we are keen to remember as part of the history of the village of hope.

we also have a new poster with the thembalitsha charity details on which hopefully will encourage over visitors to donate once they have seen the work that we are doing with these children who are infected or affected by HIV, AIDS or TB.

thanks kat you are a real star and have blessed us so much with your artistic skills.

two of our girls looking for themselves
on the new poster!

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.

continued blessings

ashlyn (far right) enjoying an after church drink in the
beautiful elgin valley

this weekend we have been overwhelmed with volunteers from the U S of A, on saturday evening ashlyn joined us for a four week stay, she is the sister of britton, a long term volunteer who served with us for 3 months last year. then on sunday evening the latest team from infocus augusta joined us for a week long mission trip.

old friends, God brings us together!

we hope that ashlyn will become involved with all things village of hope and she has already experienced an amazing kids outreach in site view yesterday afternoon as we had over 70 children attend our club in that area, we are sure that she will fit right in and become a key member of our team for her shorter spell with us.

the augusta team are returning for another bout of self sacrifice, it's great to have returning teams, familiar faces that we just get on so well with, there isn't the need to break the ice they just fit right in but with new members who are also keen to make a difference here in grabouw. this time they have undertaken the huge task of redecorating the children's unit for us.....and although they have only been with us for a day they have already completed two of the children's bedrooms....

HIV talk at our site view sports club

...there was such a delight in the children's faces as i went in late yesterday evening to see how they had got on (i was going to use the word 'gotten' in that sentence but as it isn't a real word i had to restructure midway through!)...the children were so pleased with their newly decorated rooms eagerly showing me the wonderful work that these guys had done.

tuesday morning painting team in
the children's unit!

their week will be a real mix, today there is the threat of rain so we are having to keep the children occupied in a temporary room whilst the painting team undertake to complete as much as possible in this short time, two of their team are also down with our sister project, bosom buddies, in somerset west, whilst others are out with our care workers from thembacare....we hope that the weather will play ball this afternoon to enable the team to get the chance to hang out with the children in the iraq informal settlement as we bring our life skill programme to those precious ones but one never can tell what the weather will bring at this time of year.

if you would like to keep up to date with the augusta teams movements, experiences and highlights then please follow this link to their blog...

..thanks guys and we are only sorry that you have to return to the US over the weekend but we know that you hold us in your daily prayers and we continue to thank God for his amazing provision towards the work he that he has called us to do and you guys are a key part of that.....