mermaids swim for hope!

there are some amazing people around the world who support the work we do here in south africa, people have walked around islands (no not robinson crusoe), biked to various places in europe (lance?! :-)), jumped out of planes, run marathons, had their heads shaved, put on school productions to name but a few but this time we have a group of crazy students from warwick university who are planning to swim around 10 miles down (or up) the river thames in the middle of an english winter.

we are so blessed to have these wonderful people place their very lives at risk to raise a few pennies to help the cause here in south africa. if you would like to show your support to haddy and her friends then please visit their page on the justgiving web site by clicking here!

we wish you well mermaids and look forward to hearing all about it very soon.

pastures new

we are truly blessed at the village of hope with our wonderful long term volunteers who serve here with us placing no financial burden upon the charity but following their call to think of others before themselves. one of those amazing people is tim berger who has not only faithfully spent the last year with us at the project but had previously lead mission teams from the united states for the last 6 years to work with the thembalitsha foundation.

tim has been a key member of our team supporting johan and heinrich in their duties around the village of hope, taking on a role in our sports outreach and also assisting with our 'rainbow smiles' HIV support group.

during the year tim has been seeking to serve the wider community of grabouw and he has decided to follow that vision that he believes God is leading him to, so he will be leaving our merry band here at the village of hope but we wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank him for his wonderful handy work and the support he has given during his time with us. so it is with our blessing that we bid him farewell and trust that  he won't be a stranger as we all seek to provide new hope to those most in need in our little town.

thanks tim, for all your work and as a last hurrah he is joining the sports mentors this evening as we venture to cape town to watch bafana bafana play norway at the greenpoint stadium, we trust that this will be a fitting thank you!

just another (women's) day

flowers and kids trying to get in the photo

today we celebrated women's day here in south africa, it was a public holiday, even for the men and from what i saw it was mostly the women who were doing any work today....at least in the informal settlements around grabouw. i suppose it could have had something to do with the weather but it would seem that today wasn't a day to sit around and make the most of their day off, no it was a day to do all those chores that you don't normally get round to during the week.

maz bought flowers for each of our house mom's and for one of them, who is nearly thirty, this was the first time, yes you read it right, the first time that anyone had bought her flowers...she was so made up.

for our house mom's (and maz) it was business as usual in the children's unit, although maz did manage to get an hour off to go have a coffee with a friend mid morning....she has only just got home and is now busy preparing my evening meal and changing our bed as she managed to do some washing today as well....i can see why they celebrate women with a special day here in south africa.


i hope you like a few of the photos that i took today.....

fathers day follows youth day

it seems slightly ironic that over the weekend south africa remember it's young people with a public holiday on saturday and yesterday we joined the rest of the world to honor our dads on fathers day. ironic because here in south africa we have one of the highest rates of fatherless children in the world, and the fact that some of those who fought to have their schooling taught in their mother tongue have either succumbed to the HIV pandemic or failed to be the fathers that their children need.

south african men are no different to many others around the world, black, white, coloured, indian, who are failing their children by thinking of themselves rather than their responsibilities towards their children, yes a relationship may have broken down, or in some cases never started in the first place and that comes from either side, but our failure as men to provide the role model that our young people need, especially the boys, is hard to accept.

so we do honour those who stood up for their rights way back in soweto in june 1976, of which we remembered on the youth day holiday that we had on saturday but we also call them, and all fathers around the world, to become the fathers that i believe God calls us to be to the next generation no matter what has gone on before.

humbled by their joy....

this afternoon i had the pleasure of attending the latest presentations by the dutch sports students who have been serving with us over the last 5 months, and i will post about their wonderful help and support tomorrow as i have a further post to share about the other experience i had after enjoying their presentation.

keeping the home fires burning!

for those of you living in the western cape you will know that we have been hit by a severe storm which not only bought some much needed rain (for some) but high winds which i'm not sure any of us really wanted, save a few mad suffers who might benefit from the waves over the weekend! this type of weather is not unusual for this time of year in the cape but when it comes after a week of temperatures in the mid 20's with sunny hot days then its a bit more of a shock.

during the presentations from the dutch students we were battling to hear what they said due to the wind and rain, but once outside the full force of the storm really hit me. we were due to be running our sports outreach at the two farm clubs this afternoon which follows the weekly update/download and sports planning meeting but seeing as though the weather was so bad i had to let our sports mentors know that not only the sport but also the meeting had been cancelled.

happy family after a simple act of kindness

upon arriving at the home of one of our mentors, whom he shares with his brother and sister who are keen members of our sports club in the iraq informal settlement, i found the family huddled around their fire, and who can blame them, however this fire was set in an old metal bath tub which was full of simple wet twigs and with no chimney the single room which has no windows but an open door was full of eye streaming smoke.

after discussing the situation about the weather and the lack of the meeting or sports this afternoon he informed me that the tin sheeting which makes up the roof, and also most of the sides of his home, was leaking, the wind blowing the horizontal rain not only through the roof but also the walls too.

following my blog last monday about the different situations i found myself in, entitled some days that bite back, which can be read by clicking on this link, a friend from our elgin united church offered to help out with some tin sheeting which he had laying around.....we are hoping to get out to sort the roof of one of our helpers from rainbow smiles early next week, which i admit is a little late for this bout of rain, but this afternoon i thought that it would be a blessing to our sports mentor and his family if i could at least make a few of those sheets available to him.

preparing the fire outside

i returned to the village of hope only to find that the sheets we had been blessed with were a different profile to those already on the boys home, so instead of taking them i gathered together some old sail cloth and a few heavy blocks for them to make a hasty repair which might enable them to patch the worst leaks, which as always appeared over their beds!

i also picked up a basket full of dry wood so as to bless them with extra fuel which wasn't green and therefore wouldn't give off the smoke which really made my eyes run....it wasn't much but i think they were pleased with the thought.

whilst i was on my return visit with my simple supplies i saw the father of another family making a fire in an old paint pot, which he was carrying in with a stick into their tin home, upon inspection they invited me in for a coffee, which was much appreciated, we sat huddled around this fire, again with much smoke, and shared stories which made us all laugh, due to my lack of xhosa and their lack of english.

taking the fire into the home, a risky business!

after taking their teenage daughter down to the local spazza store to buy a cabbage to make up their 'watery' soup i left them to their lives whilst i came back to mine feeling very humbled by the joy that i had experienced during my hour or so spent in that wonderful little community.

i can't say that i did much and i know that there are literally thousands of others in our community with the same if not more immediate and desperate needs but i was able to bless around 10 people and if i only achieved that with a smile, which i hope showed them that not only myself but Jesus cared for them, then i sit here a little happier than i would have done if i had i turned a blind eye and gone home to sit in front of my warm fire complete with chimney.

personal note:- i don't want to belittle anything that has gone on in the past in this wonderful if not challenged country and i know that some of my forefathers may have had a lot to do with that, i can take that on the chin and only apologies for that on their behalf, but i would challenge anyone currently living in south africa not to be touched by the stories that i share on this blog. we might not look the same or even speak the same language, but surely we can't ignore the fact that Jesus calls us to love our neighbours as ourselves. 


it seems hard to cast everyone under the same banner because of things that have happened in the past, or even now as we sit here reading this blog, but we will never build up the trust and relationships that must develop if this country is to move forward so lets start somewhere cause to blame the past is so yesterday!

yes the people i shared the afternoon with do have their own homes in the transkei (eastern cape) and yes they have chosen to come to grabouw to seek employment offered by the highly labour intensive apple production, but none of them was complaining about their lot, they weren't asking for a hand out but seeing their plight i offered a helping hand to make their situation a little easier.

the thembalitsha foundation offers hope through health, education and training, we seek to develop people to a place of self reliance, but there are some days where one is called just to give of themselves and from the wealth that we have, be that financial, education or time, and that's all i did today and i would challenge you to do the same too.

so for any of you reading this with an internet connection, which should mean that you have electric power, a roof over your head with a fire and a chimney, which will also probably mean that you have a fridge with some food in then please don't tell me that you are cold, tired or hungry, cause i have met some people today for whom that is really true and they're not complaining!....

....i was spending some time thinking of how i should end this post, please don't hear this as a triad from some self righteous religious nut who thinks he has got it all sorted and therefore you should totally understand where i am coming from. no i am an ordinary guy who has to daily die to self, putting the thoughts of others first and asking God for wisdom, understanding and knowledge to cope with all that i am faced with everyday.

what i would like to finish with is the thought that those of us who try to follow Jesus and his teachings, becoming 'little christs' to this world, surely have an understanding that it's not great to be the one who casts the first stone and yet its us that so often we sit in judgement of those who seem unable to help themselves whilst sitting with all the power known to man in the universe at our disposal.

we can chose to look the other way, to have such an important diary of important things that need to get done, including racing to an event at church where we have been given a word to encourage others but fail to stop to help those along the way, or we may be the worship leader who is called to usher the people into the presence of God via song and liturgy, but yet be so busy that we miss what God has really called us to do.

as i see it God gives us ample opportunity to serve those in need, indeed james tells us in God's word to us that true religion is found in feeding the widows and the orphans, or maybe as Jesus would say 'to love our neighbour as our self', 'to go the extra mile', 'give one of your two coats', or pounds, to those without, this i believe is our chance to see God's kingdom come through us and that is what i find hard to accept when we can become so consumed by self that we miss God's call on our lives.

can you fill these spaces?

could you be sitting here this time next year?

as you may be aware the village of hope is run by staff of 13 full time paid workers, ranging from our house moms to a maintenance team but these key people are supported by a team of full and mid term volunteers who oversee the management of the project, run sports outreach, invest in the house moms, do the finances, write policies around the care of the children, complete the school and shopping runs, take the children to their medical appointments and assisting in running our adolescent HIV support groups, the list is almost endless and this all takes time and dedication to undertake the running of such a large project which is also linked to our sister project, thembacare grabouw where there are other opportunities to serve.

these mid and long term volunteers also oversee the short term mission teams who join us for 10-14 days throughout the year and who are an invaluable resource to carry out the larger tasks much like this weeks team from augusta have undertaken with the repainting of the children's unit.

we have never been short of volunteers and with the amazing support of the HAN students from holland we are able to undertake the day to day running of the project most of the time.....however we currently have a couple of opportunities for the right people to come and join our team for a mid to long term period.

our sports outreach is growing and with our 40 week programme now in a format which can be rolled out into other areas we are seeking a longer term volunteer/s who can help run and coordinate our sports outreach programme which currently takes place in 7 different areas of grabouw each and every weekday afternoon. this could be an opportunity for an intern or recently qualified student, however before you get too excited there are a few things that you must consider, firstly you must be able to drive a 4x4 vehicle, this is how we transport most of the sports equipment to the clubs, many of which are run in areas where a normal car wouldn't be able to access, you would also be able to lead and stimulating an existing team of willing local mentors (volunteers), and finally and most importantly you would have a passion for children, especially those aged between 9 - 15 years, who we work with bringing life skills, health awareness and the love of Jesus via sports!

...there are other opportunities around social work and our wider children's work, this post or posts would involve supporting the current children who live with us at the village of hope as we seek to place them back into their homes in the community, most of our children have complex medical and social issues which means that this is a job with lots of pressure but is also so rewarding when it comes together with a successful reunification back into their families. with this in mind there is a need for this person/s to complete home visits to ensure the 20 or so children who have already been placed home are still healthy and being looked after by their carers in the community. helping out with support groups and stimulating the children who live with us at the village of hope is also a key area of this role.

if you are interested in coming to live in grabouw, south africa, and are keen to help support our work with those infected and affected by HIV, AIDS and TB in an area which is rife with these health issues, if you are someone happy to share their lives with our other volunteers in the self contained volunteer unit, and are self motivated and have a love of kids and empowering people then we would love to hear from you!

time to play

up up and away!

one of the most disappointing and frustrating things about running the village of hope is the limited amount of time we have to just play with the kids that God has placed here. much of mine and maz' (as well as our longer term volunteers like rob and em, or tim, mel or even johan and heinrich) time is spent on completing the long list of daily tasks, such as shopping, or admin for social workers, or finances or report writing for our stats given to the department of health.. we seem to spend more time cutting grass, mending the myriad of broken things, taps, cars, toys etc......rarely do we have chance just to chill with the kids.

however just before i went out to run a sports outreach at a local farm yesterday (which in itself is an amazing part of what we do!) i passed the kids lying around on the newly transformed trampoline and grabbed a minute or so just to support them as they jumped into the air....as you can see by the photo they are somewhat fearless and reached heights which would have turned maz' stomach but we had such a cool time just playing....

...oh for more of those....life is so full and i miss just being a dad to these precious little ones.

saying goodbye.....

grete, maz and trondar

debbie, jeff, tony and hazel

we have been blessed with some wonderful visitors over the last few weeks and months, trondar has been visiting from norway and although he has been busy with his writing he has been ever present at the sports outreach in waterwerks on a wednesday afternoon and on the soup run every friday. his wife and son visited for his last few weeks and it was sad to say our goodbyes yesterday.

we have also been visited by one of our longer term volunteers parents, jeff and debbie joined their daughter jess for the easter school holidays and they leave on the same day as some of our very good friends from winslow, tony and hazel allen who's daughter, lizzie, volunteered with us last year. it has been great to show these friends around the projects here in grabouw and to have some time to see the sights in south africa.

we will miss them all and wish them all a safe journey home.

new sports outreach (our 7th)

our HAN student setting up the warm up
(in 25 degree heat) game!

we currently deliver our sports outreach into 6 different areas including a fruit farm in the elgin valley and last year we were approached by another farm to work with their children. its always hard to balance starting a new club with the greater impact it has on our current sports outreach team, our heart is to bless as many children as possible with this life skills and health awareness based outreach but we need to ensure that anything we do is sustainable, ensuring we are not letting the children down if we have to stop for any reason.

i am glad to say that we felt happy to accept this opportunity to work with this new farm and yesterday we ran the first club there (our 7th club), the site has a large rugby field and some broken netball posts (which we hope to fix to engage the girls in the netball training). the session was led by one of our sports mentors (local young people that we have seen potential in who is now a 'support worker' to the main team) with a HAN student and myself supporting him as he took the children through a simple introductory session. the 10 children who came were aged 13-17 and were very enthusiastic, they will encourage the younger children to come next week to bolster the numbers.

weekly sports planning meeting

after our thursday clubs we have our weekly planning meeting where we discuss how well (or some times not so well) the last week went and we plan the next week of our 40 week programme, we split each group up into the 7 different teams and assigning jobs, from the initial warm up, to the life skill, health talk and bible story. each week has a theme and is linked to a bible verse and life skill application.

this week our meeting was very busy as we were joined to two of our newest sports mentors, from the iraq informal settlement and a couple of older guys who are keen to expand the programme into other areas of grabouw.

it's amazing how God is using us to engage with the children, now over 180, each week, impact their lives with positive messages, providing them with role models and life application skills and sharing God's love with them in a very practical way. as saint francis of assisi was credited with saying....'spread the gospel at all times and use words when nessasary'...this is what we do each and every afternoon and we are so privileged to be able to spend time with these children who come from some of the poorest homes in our community.

continuing sodexo support

tim, barbara receiving a donation of food from colin 

our long(er) term volunteer barbara wood from southcourt baptist church in aylesbury (where myself and maz were married over 20 year ago) works for sodexo in england and has been instrumental in bringing us together with their local team here in south africa. we first came into contact with sodexo over a year ago and as part of their nelson mandela day commitiment to the local community they encouraged staff to donate dry goods for the continued support of the orphans that live with us on the village of hope.

it was great to meet up with colin from sodexo, who is pictured with me and barbara, who handed over the items that had been donated. it's great to know that there are people in high level industry willing to make a difference to those less fortunate. the support we receive is part of sodexo's wider 'stop hunger' champain and we thank them for getting involved locally.

fence and post stolen again

what was left of our security fencing!

have you ever heard the term 'don't bite the hand that feeds you', well that's exactly how we were left feeling over the weekend as we once again found that our fence and posts had been stolen from the southern edge of our property.

the people we serve have desperate lives, which drive them to seek out anything that they can sell for food, drink or drugs to take their mind off the existence that makes up their lives...however what is very hard for us is that it seems like we give with one hand and they bite the other.

i am sure that this is nothing vindictive, but the money that we will now have to spend on replacing the fence, which we installed to provide us and the children we look after with some protection, could have been spent on staff wages, kit for our sports outreach clubs or food for the children!...it's a tough call and a tough world...

small change....

praxis group staff, guernsey

yesterday we were joined by a new longer term volunteer, katrin, all the way from switzeland, via guernsey. she has come to help out in the children's unit and our sports outreach clubs. katrin's boyfriend is from grabouw and she returned with matthew with a wonderful donation from his employer in guernsey.

staff at the praxis group collected £450.00 of loose change and the wonderful management team at the company then matched that so we were blessed with a total of £900. have a read of the article about this venture from the local guernsey newspaper here and see how any small change can be made for good!

this little piggy went to market....

mrs pig having her last piggy back!

well we didn't have to take the piggy to market just to the man with the gun....yes that's right our male piggy is off to make us some much needed bacon, ham and sausage tomorrow morning, after his 5 months of piggy bliss at the village of hope.

we have really enjoyed having him around and we think arron's experiment with the pigs has gone very well. i suppose the proof will be in the pudding (nice black pudding to go with the sausages!) but we have already decided to keep his 'wife' as the next plan is to get her another husband who we hope will provide us with a constant source of piglets for us to grow on.

it was quite a sad moment as i took the photo, she is making the most of the piggy cuddles, as you can see!

sunday at the dam

the long walk to the waters edge

the village of hope is a full time project, the children we care for live with us in our children's unit and are looked after by a dedicated team of local 'house mom's' who work a 12 hour shift rota. other members of the team (including our volunteers) start each day at 8.15 at our morning planning and prayer time and finish their day by around 5pm, sounds simple hey! but as with anything that involves kids, especially those living with HIV, and a project involved in social issues there really isn't a 'clocking off time'...therefore we need ensure that we have 'cover' both overnight and during the weekends...

each of our volunteers take turns doing 'weekend cover' and we are keen for the children to understand that sunday is special and that God loves them, therefore the people on weekend cover either take the children, and house moms, to a local church, or spend sometime singing, reading bible stories or creating an activity around that story.

children playing at the dam, they all got every wet by home time!

last sunday afternoon we (me and maz) took the children down to the local dam, which is looking very empty at the moment. it's always a special time as we show the children new things, spending time travelling in the back of our bakkie (pickup) is a highlight of any trip and the children just love to explore. whilst we were down at the waterside maz asked the children what song we could sing, and without hesitation one of our little 4 year old girls piped up, 'fishing for Jesus'...which was so apt given the surroundings.

please continue to pray for us as we seek to not only provide a 'home' for these precious ones but also show them that even though many of them haven't known the love of a family that God does love them and that they are special to Him.

health awareness at our sports outreach

talitha teaching oral hygiene

as part of the link that we have with the HAN university in arnhem in holland we are blessed with new students every 6 months or so, who come to complete part of their studies with us at the village of hope, over a period of either 5 or 10 months. providing help to maz in the children's unit via social and physio students and to us with our sports outreach in the community via their sports management students.

we run our sports outreach in 5 of the poorest areas of grabouw each afternoon, this sports based ,bible and lifeskills programme uses football and netball to interact with the children, giving us a base to provide them with some basic life skills, such as working together which brings self respect and respect for others as well as allowing us to link that with a suitable story from the bible which shows the children that God is interested in their lives and can help them when they are faced with different issues during their home, school and social lives.

during the last few years the dutch students have been setting up a life style programme which teaches children basic health awareness topics, such as teeth cleaning, hand washing etc and over the last few weeks we have incorporated this programme into our sports outreach, which now provides the children with a wider knowledge for their lives.

this is working very well, although our hour long sessions are a little bit crammed so we are needing to spend slightly longer with the children, which is no bad thing!

the last straw!

team working hard outside front of house

well we are into the final week of the visit from the team from the university of stuttgart, they will leave us on sunday and therefore are busy with the last of the building work that they have been completing on the new accommodation. they have worked so hard and are making every effort to finish the building to that 'german standard' that they are known for!

over the last week we have seen the solar panel installed which will provide some cost saving on our water heating bills, the septic tank has been sunk into the ground, the window frames and glass are being installed as i write and the kitchen and bathroom units are being manufactured (the door fronts of the kitchen units are made from old yahat sails)....this really is an ecco house.

light switch in cob wall

we will be so sad to see this team leave, but we are so blessed to have had them come and visit, raising funds and build us a new home. myself and maz are returning to england for a short break at the end of may and we have made plans to visit the team in germany and not only thank but speak to their professor, who knows where our relationship will lead but we do hope to see them again soon.

new logo

over the last few months the thembalitsha foundation has been reestablishing itself as a provider of excellent health care, training and education, the same wonderful team of project managers have been joined by a new board of directors who are working with frank christie (our chairman) to ensure that the charity is beyond reproach as we seek to serve those less fortunate that ourselves in the most professional way we can.

last year our accounts were audited by deloittie's, which we feel is very important as it provides confidence for those people and companies (including government departments) who donate funds for us to use. we know that the economics of this world are changing and each pound, euro, dollar or rand that is given needs to work as hard as it can to provide care to those in need.

as part of our new look we have been working on a new logo, which was designed by our very own mel kidd who is volunteering with us at the village of hope. this logo will be used across the thembalitsha foundation, each project will use the same image with their individual project highlighted in text below that.

we hope that you like the new look and that it will give each of the projects the 'family' identity that we have with the wider/mother foundation, thembalitsha .

world TB (tuberculosis) day

today we are celebrating world TB day, TB (tuberculosis) is a constant threat to those living in dire poverty and with extended health issues such as HIV. please visit the Stop TB site here to find out more about this disease.

our town of grabouw has a huge problem with people infected by TB and our thembacare facility are doing all they can to combat the spread of this curable disease. unfortunately many of the people we are working with default on their medication which can cause further problems as the TB becomes resistant to the drugs, please remember those living with TB today and pray for the work that we and our sister project thembacare are doing.

The map shows the 22 nations who have 80% of the people living with TB today.

kids monkey around!

yesterday was a public holiday to celebrate human rights day, not one that we are familiar with in england but i understand that we remember the sharpeville massacre which took place on 21st march 1960.

with the children being out of school for the day, maz, mel, eveleen and two of our house moms took our children down to monkey town in strand, where they had a great time with the animals, enjoyed a picnic at the playground which included a real car for them to play in and then they visited the beach at gordon's bay for an ice cream.

as you can see from the photos the children had a wonderful time and the weather was perfect.

blog by jenny

it's always great to welcome volunteers onto our village of hope project, especially when they have were visit members of a youth group that I ran for over 16 years!.....last year we welcomed jenny jiggins, yes that's right her brother has just had that long hair permed!, (see that post here), jenny has her own blog and it's great to see the post that she has written about her time her with us in south africa and especially the photos she took whilst out with us in the community where we work...have a look at her blog here!...hope you don't mind me using one of your photos jen!