a visit by a flying dutchman..

henk, marlies and our new bus!

we are so grateful to all our sponsors and donors who enable us to undertake the work that we feel called to at the village of hope, many of you give funds help with the day to day running costs, which cover our house moms salaries, children's food bills, electric and vehicle maintenance etc etc but sometimes people give to a specific project or requirement.

it is also really really great when those who donate can come and make a visit to see where their hard earned cash is being spent and last week we had such a visit from henk from the charity 'wings of support' who had blessed us with part of the funds that we used to purchase our new minibus (see previous blog around that here).

wings of support as a charity set up and run by employees of the dutch airline KLM and it was good for henk to meet up with one of dutch students, marlies, who is studying with us for 10 months working around her social work degree.

thanks wings of support and thanks henk for making the time to come and visit us all the way up the mountain in grabouw.

new vehicle of hope!

mommy maz bringing the kids home from school
in the new H1.......

over the last few months we have been in desperate need of a better larger vehicle to enable us to transport our children, both those who live with us at the village of hope and the children in the community, especially those who we pick up for our weekly rainbow smiles support group and our sports mentors as we complete our sports clubs at the local farms.

rainbow smiles kids with the new van this afternoon.

our 12 year old VW kombi had been giving us problems for quite a while and with it's temperamental backwards gear box and other quirks it proved to be more trouble than it was worth.

we need to thank both amanda and karlien who completed their ride from the village of hope to the lighthouse at cape agullas, our friends in england via the donations made to thembalitshauk, our dutch friends and the guys at Hyundai in somerset west that we are pleased to announce that we are now the proud owners of a H1, 9 seater vehicle, which is a real God send.

the children are really happy to be traveling to school in style, and everybody seems to want to do the school run now.

we welcome back mel kidd this weekend and we hope that she will be able to learn to drive a manual gearbox and she can join in the fun as well!