one child leaves and opens a space for us to provide new hope to another

as one child leaves to be reunited with his family the door opens for another child to receive the amazing new hope that we are able to provide via our wonderful children's unit. each child has there own individual story and some are more complex than others.

please pray for this new little boy who has been placed with us to provide some space for his parents to seek the help they need to enable them to gain prospective on their lives and set up a home which will become the secure environment that this little one needs as he grows.

providing new hope to another child in need...

the first meal for our new child, given
by our house mom at the village of hope

some days the day to day chores that come with running a home for 9 children infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB, along side our daily sports and health awareness programmes into the local formal and informal settlements, can become so overwhelming that we have little time to really stand back to see the ways in which we are really making a difference to the people we have been called to work with..

...however there are some days where our eyes are opened to the amazing work that is undertaken at the village of hope, and today is one of those days as we successful see the fruits of the work of placing stabilised children home with families.....what do i mean by that?....

...well due to the recent successful placements of some of our longer term children (see their stories by clicking here, or here, or here) we have been able to create some more bed space to provide accommodation for more needy children, and today we are back up to our full compliment as we have welcomed another 2 year old girl into our home.

this dear little girl will be loved and cared for by our wonderful house moms and we hope that she will soon be back home with her family after we work with the local day hospital in addressing her immediate medical needs.

another story of new hope

mommy maz and nettie signing to discharge docs
with the little girls father!

we had quite an eventful friday afternoon, some of which i will update you on now and some we hope to bring you news of later, but just to say that we really saw the work that the team at the village of hope children's unit, ably lead by mommy maz, come into it's own.

the new hope story (for those who don't know 'thembalitsha' means 'new hope' in the local xhosa language) is that we were able to successfully discharge our 26th child into the care of her father who will be reuniting her with his family in the eastern cape (traditional xhosa tribal homelands around 1000kms from cape town).

this precious little 2 and a half year old girl had been in our care for around 9 months and we had been busy with the local social workers and those in the eastern cape to try to find a solution for her to return home, which is never a easy task, but we thank God for his amazing promises towards us and to the children we care for.

saying goodbye to a child is always a bitter sweet time, on one hand we are so pleased to have provided the secure home, the love and care for the child and we are pleaded to have had some positive input into the next steps of these little ones lives but we do have to trust that all the work that has been done with the family will pay off and we have to place them into their hands with confidence that they will take on the things that we have taught them prior to the discharge....which is never easy!

new boy is placed at the village of hope

today we had the opportunity to offer a short term home for a 9 month old boy who is in need of our help due to some unfortunate family circumstances.

it's always good to know that we can offer new hope (thembalitsha means 'new hope' in the xhosa languague) to a child, whether they stay with us for a short 3 month placement or over a longer period, however it's hard to understand the social, medical and cultural issues that the family are facing that mean that we have to provide this home.

we ask you to pray for the family as they seek to get their lives back on track to provide this baby boy with a stable home for his most important years.