shedding a tear or two....

i feel enormously proud and honored to be part of the thembalitsha foundation, each one of our projects is doing some amazing work as we seek to provide new hope via our healthcare, education and training projects.

today i would encourage you to take 10 minutes to sit down in a quiet space and watch the new video that has been put together for our sister project thembacare athlone....click here to follow the youtube link....

my words cannot express the way this team of doctors, sisters and careworkers have impacted the lives of literally thousands of children who are infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB since they opened 10 years ago, so i will let the video do the talking, but please be inspired by the work, put your hand in your pocket to pledge to give or your hands together to pray for this work and the work the wider foundation are involved in.

and lastly i am sure you will find it hard not to shed a tear or two when you see the appearance of a certain little man at the end of the video, his life really captured the essence of the work that is done at thembacare athlone!...God bless him!

shock and awe

their simple table with all the crockery they own!

i am really sorry for those of you who might think i am blowing my own trumpet but this blog is a place where we are able to share our day to day experiences with the wider world and although i must say that i'm not proud of the photos that i am sharing with you today what i hope to do is to raise the plight of those that God has sent us to help here in grabouw.

two adult ladies were sharing this single bedstead
their life possessions were held on the table or
under the simple bed.

a famous american once used the words 'shock and awe' about military power, i hope that this post will provide a 'shock and awe' to the millions, if not billions, of us who think we have a hard life.

over the last couple of days we have been able to bless a few people, who have been highlighted by our thembacare team, with some of the tin (zinc) sheets which we have been able to collect from a local friend. that was until i visited the home that i found in our waterwerks informal settlement caused me to question how anyone could live in such poverty and squallier and by handing out a couple of sheets of tin would hardly do the house any favours.

the shack is a home to a mother and daughter who are known to our thembacare palliative home based care team and without going into too much detail it was one of the most shocking places that i have ever experienced.

we were able to help with support from another amazing NGO called siphle sonke and rallying the troops in the community around the ladies we provides her with some clean clothes, hot water and hygiene products which were received with open arms. we were then able placed her into the care of my good friend who provided her with some hot food and a roof for the night.

placing her in the care of my friend in the community

this weekend we hope that we will be able to provide the community with some poles, tin sheets and materials which will help them to tear down the existing structure and build the ladies a new home...it's hard not to want to do everything for people but to be able to help support those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS or TB in our community is what we are called to do and via thembacare and the village of hope we trust that we are doing that in a very practical way.

helping where we can....

i'm not really sure where to start this post, part of me is really happy to have helped a few of our thembacare patients with some zinc (tin) sheeting for their homes but another part of me not only feels a little of the pain of those people but looks at what i have done is such an insignificant part in their lives that it's not really worth blogging about.

the reality of life in south africa is really hard for the majority of people, that's excluding the people who attempt to make a living doing the things that would seem 'normal' in europe or america which is also time consuming and hard work. the people i'm talking about those 'previously disadvantaged' under the apartheid years who have come to seek employment, or better job opportunities in grabouw or the wider western cape or those who have lived in grabouw for many years but have never received the education to enable them to provide the 'over and above' for their families.

what we in 'the west' take for granted is only a luxury for millions of people who live in this rainbow nation, running water, electricity and a roof over your head would seem to be the basics of 'normal life' however today i was able to bless a few of our thembacare patients, who had been highlighted as those in most need, with a few sheets of tin to provide some extra against the winter rains which are raging around us at the moment.

the pictures show a few people who have benifited from a few tin sheets, all of them thanked me for taking the time to deliver or hammer in the nails which will provide some comfort tonight, but in reality it was such a small token of what they really need to make a significant difference in their daily lives.

my heart aches with the injustice that i see, not only in this country but throughout the world as the rich seem to get richer, although they would challenge me on that one given the current economic situation, and the poor and needy seem to get poorer.

my question is 'what more can i do?', Jesus calls me to go the extra mile, to love my neighbour, who at the minute live in tin shacks, as i love myself. as a charity the thembalitsha foundation seek to provide hope through education, health and training, we don't provide hand outs but sometimes one needs to put that aside and get ones hands dirty and that's what i hope to have done this morning with those who most needed my help..........

help from afar

james and his new friends in the community

john, friend and wood pile!

the support that we recieve via our mission teams not only blesses us but also our local community. it's hard to quantify what a mission trip 'achieves', i mean we hardly ever seen any physical healings when we pray for people there and then and we aren't in the business of preaching the gospel from the roof tops, i suppose what we do is to use saint francis of assisi's model of 'continually share the gospel at all times and if nessasary use words' and this was our testomony this week as we have welcomed a team from the mid-cities church in midland texas for another 'mission trip'.

this team was made up of a family of 5, mom and her 4 children ranging from two daughters aged 24 and 14 and twin brothers who are celebrating their 11 birthdays with us today!....the other member of the team is an 18 year old young lady who was part of their mission trip in 2011.

worshiping at thembacare

delivering the friday soup to a local creche

as with any mission trip and or short term volunteer we try to give them a flavour of the things that we are doing both on the project here at the village of hope, at our thembacare hospice and out in the community via our home based care and sports outreach teams. however the reality of our day to day duties sometimes take over and this team have been a real blessing as we tried to juggle their trip with our daily jobs.

now 22 divided by 2 equals 11...(happy birthday boys!)

they have been such a willing team and to see them share this experincence as a family is very special. the boys have been able to help with the cutting, chopping and burning of our laying brush as well as blessing one of our local communities with a trailer of fallen branches for their fires. they have helped in the children's unit, lead our wednesday afternoon 'service' at thembacare and visited the sick with our home based paillative careworkers. this morning the team were able to come out into the community to distribute some of the tin sheeting that we were blessed with, this went to some of our sickest and poorest patients who are served by thembacare in grabouw.


guys it has been wonderful to spend time with you, thanks for your hard work, the servant hearts that meant that no job seemed to hard or meanial, your smiles and kind words, not only to us as a team but wider into those that we are called to serve.

our 23rd miracle quickly follows!

saying goodbye to her little village of hope
brother, so sweet!

what a couple of weeks it's been and all down to the hard work of maz and the local social workers who are seeking placement for our children. today we have the amazing news that so soon after our 22nd child being placed home we have our 23rd to celebrate.

this little girl has been with us for over a year, she was identified to us by our local ARV doctor who had concerns over the compliance of her medication and during her time with us she suffered some major trauma with her being hospitalised on a couple of occasions due to the bought of TB meningitis which hit her soon after she arrived with us. in fact if she hadn't been placed into our care there is a likely hood that she would have passed away due to the seizure brought on by the meningitis.

off home with uncle tim b

however that's all in the past and with some great commitment shown by her mother, who has visited every day for the last two months to build up that bond and to be taught by our team about caring for a child with an chronic illness, we confident to be able to place her home with her mother who will receive support from our thembacare home based care team to ensure that this reunification is fully successful.

please hold onto your seats for our next child to be returned home which should be at the end of this week with another following to a foster mom next week as well. things are really moving on with our children's cases and we want to thank God for his answer to our prayers for these children who are loved and cared for by our amazing team here at the village of hope but our desire is for them to be placed back home with a loving family after they have been stabilised by us and that is happening for so many of our children at the moment!

God's provision

the girls sort the roof nails whilst the boys
play around on the roof!

yesterday was a busy time, not only did we place our 22nd child back home with his grandmother, which is a core calling to the village of hope team, but we we were also able to bless a local worker who you may remember that i posted about in my 'some days that bite back' post a couple of weeks ago.

tim and heinrich from our village of hope maintenance team, and 3 of our volunteers, jess, kate and lauren, were able to take some of the tin sheeting to the home of a wonderful young lady who virtually leads the rainbow smiles HIV support group for children aged 9-15 in grabouw. the rainbow smiles club is an initiative with the ARV clinic at the government day hospital, ABBA family counseling and thembacare grabouw (of which we receive no direct funding to run, so any help towards those weekly costs would also be greatly appreciated).

the home next to the local toilet blocks

the roofing team spent the morning stripping off the old leaky roof and replacing it with the new, this is a wonderful way to bless some of the people in our community, not only connecting those that might have with those who perhaps don't but also working with the young ladies boyfriend to encourage him that sometimes you need to help yourself too by engaging him in the building project himself.

we know that we can't help everyone and even yesterday the team were inundated by request of help from other people in the neighborhood, however we understand that the best way to move forward with this reroofing project is to work alongside our thembacare nurses to identify other people in dire need.

please keep your eye on this blog to find out where the next blessing may be poured out and if you are able to provide labour or more materials then please contact us as we seek to bless those in need.

a very positive party...

johan (sponsored by white squirrel) and
mother christmas hold court!

we (tim and maz) arrived back to find that the village of hope was still standing, we want to thank rob, em, mel, johan, our house moms and other key volunteers for doing such a wonderful job when we were away.

as with most things we found that there were a plethora of activities set up for the children to enjoy, which can be increasingly busy around this time of year as people want to bless our children and those that we support in the community with presents and parties, which are all wonderful but take time to arrange and run.

yesterday we had the pleasure of taking the children from the village of hope, along with those known to thembacare (grabouw) and our day hospital to a party, hosted at agape but organised by mel from the village of hope, a sister from the day hospital and marlene from thembacare. mel also had help from our longer term volunteer heather who had sorted a magician to keep the children entertained whilst they waited for their food.

around 80 children attended, along with all our thembacare community based workers and village of hope moms and some voluteers....father christmas (well it was a lady, which provided some hilarity all around) turned up with presents for all the children, johan and hinrich also kept the children busy with games etc and a great day was had by all.

new wholehearted video shoot

set up day 1 in waterworks

as part of our fundraising drive for the work that thembalitsha is doing in grabouw, via thembacare and village of hope, and the wider foundation with the other 5 projects in the western cape, we are once again partnering with the amazing south african band from somerset west called 'wholehearted', these guys filmed a music video with us last year (see youtube link here) and they have been visiting us and the communities that we work in to shoot a new video for a song that will be used to tell the story of the day to day lives of thousands of people in our town and other such towns like grabouw throughout south africa.

red ballons on some homes used to tell part of the story

yesterday afternoon and all day today we have been filming in the waterworks informal settlement, using everyday people to tell their everyday stories, we also shot part of the film with the soccer club that we run in the iraq informal settlement and also had help from the careworkers and house moms at thembacare and the village of hope.

soccer outreach with the kids in iraq

we were blessed to have the support of the whole community where we were filming and they were very keen in appearing in a film that will be used to support the work that we are doing to bring healthcare and education to literally hundreds of people like them, be they family, friends or neighbours.

as soon as the dvd is released we will be posting it on youtube for you to view but as you can see we have posted a few photos showing the filming and the team who are sold out to make a difference in the very lives of the people who appear in the dvd.

stuggart team visit thembacare grabouw

it has been another busy day at the village of hope, let lone the 'normal' day to day stuff that we are involved with, taking our kids to school, doing hospital visits, praying for our children etc, we have also had the chance to meet up with an organisation called 'rice bowls' who support projects like the village of hope with finances to provide nutritional meals...more of that on another post.

we also took some of the students from stuttgart university on our weekly soup run, where we deliver soup, made at the local rose and bull restaurant, to a soup kitchen in rooidakke, the students also visited the squatter camp of iraq and met some of the children that we work with on our sports based life skills programme.

on our tour of grabouw we visited our sister project, thembacare grabouw, who provided the only over night palliative care for our town of around 60,000, the 7 beds are constantly being used by people suffering from the effects of AIDS and our home based care team support over 450 people who are HIV+ in our town and surrounding farms.

5 of the students are pictured with sister thandi who runs that amazing unit.

please visit the ukuqala blog here for more info and photos from their trip.

CD4 count just 6!

i was somewhat shocked today to find out that a mum of one of the boys who attends our soccer outreach was in thembacare receiving treatment for HIV....obviously this is a very sensitive and personal topic but when i enquired as to how she was doing i was very upset when i heard that her CD4 count was only 6. for those of you unfamiliar with HIV and AIDS i have copied a couple of statements from a web site to give you a bit of a background, see below.

"On a regular basis, your doctor will draw blood to measure the number of functioning CD4 cells. The higher the number the stronger your immune system. People without HIV infection have about 700 to 1000 CD4 cells in a drop of blood the size of a pea. HIV infected people are considered to have "normal" CD4 counts if the number is above 500 CD4 cells in that same size drop of blood".

"If the number of CD4 cells in that drop of blood ever drops below 200 CD4 cells, you are classified as having AIDS. Simply put, experts have found that when your CD4 count drops below 200, your body's immune system is no longer strong enough to prevent illness and infection. Some of the most serious of these illnesses and infections are said to be AIDS defining"

therefore i have a big concern for this lady as her immune system is very very low and she will be susceptible to other infections that may lead to full blown AIDS, please pray for her and her son who we love and care for....

the book has arrived

well after a few weeks of waiting the wonderful book entitled 'footprints in the sand' by wayne shoenfeld arrived in our post box this morning, we spent a good hour pondering over the thought provoking photos and reading the text about the work that we (village of hope and thembacare) are doing here in grabouw and then this afternoon i was able to take a couple of copies of the book out into the community to bless those who appeared in the book with us.

see photos of our security guard and care worker


the guy that provided 'security' for the team has now moved into one of the newly built government homes, his neice once spent some time with us at the village of hope and he is still fully employed as a security guard, however the thembacare worker who features throughout the book isn't doing so well. i was very embarrassed to have bought them a present, which wasn't going to sustain them through this tough period, her husband has not worked for a couple of months and they are waiting on his salary R830 for 4 weeks work which will only come through in 3 weeks time. this care worker had to be laid off from thembacare due to short funding and when i asked what they were eating she said that she had spent her last money on a cabbage and had borrowed R30 for some paraffin to cook over, she had a lot of washing in tubs on the floor of her shack but couldn't wash it as she didn't have any soap powder.....

...i came away feeling really really sorry for her, to be the star of a book and to be living like this is not the way it should be.......we really want to reemploy this amazing lady who lives with the HIV virus but with limited funds we have had to cut back.....it is shocking in a community with such a need we cannot employ enough staff cause of funding....

if you would like to find out more about the book then please visit waynes web page by following this link or have a look at the work that exeko are doing by visiting this page.

dallas team leave.....

last week we were blessed to have hosted the latest team from trinity church in dallas. the team were ably lead by krissy clarke who had spent 6 months working on thembalitsha projects last year, so the team were in good hands.

as with all our visiting teams we want to make sure that they gain the whole overview of the work that we do in grabouw, so we were able to send teams with the thembacare home based palliative care team, provide opportunities for them to engage with the children we work with via our sports outreach project in schools and communities and also allow them to spend some quality time with the 9 children who live with us at the village of hope.

they also blessed us with some amazing and much needed presents, such as syringes for drawing up the children's meds and covers for the mattresses in the volunteer unit. the guys also spent time painting a couple of new (secondhand) cupboards and filing cabinets for the new office and painted scriptures on the walls in the children's unit....which look fantastic.

on saturday afternoon we were able to take the guys to the semi final of the curry cup (a national rugby tournament) where the mighty western province beat the cheaters 31 points to 7....a great time was had by all.

we will miss the team and thank them for their support not only during the time they served on our project but as they go back to dallas as our ambassadors for the work that thembalitsha are doing here in the western cape.

we have a new baby....

we have been working with a very needy mother in our community, unfortunately this young lady has full blown AIDS and the virus has attacked her eyesight and she is now blind.....she has also just given birth to a 4 week premature baby, born last saturday in our local hospital....she was discharged that same day with the new born......!

the mum is now in thembacare receiving some much needed support from the wonderful team there and she realises that she cannot support this child and is happy to place him up for adoption, however for the foreseeable future we will help her as we take this precious one into our care at the village of hope until all the red tape has been sorted (and that could take some time).....

please pray for this mum, her child and the team here on the village of hope as we seek to do our best for her and her baby, that she might be fully restored and that this child might grow up in a family who can provide him with a bright future....thanks

norwegian joins the blogging on village of hope

trondar our norwegian volunteer has started his own blog, in norwegian, where he is posting about the year he is spending working with thembacare and village of hope here in grabouw, although the blog is in norwegain you can use the clever google technology to translate for you.

please visit his blog and have a look at the work he is doing with us on the village of hope.

weekend filming and a new boy!

this weekend we have welcomed a team from canada who are filming at our thembacare and village of hope projects in grabouw, the team are from the exeko project and are following the lives of our careworkers and the children we look after on our project.

today, as the team were filming, we were contacted by the thembacare team in grabouw about a boy who needed a home whilst his mom received treatment for HIV at the clinic, he is about 3 years old and is also HIV+, it was amazing to show the film crew around the settlements and for them to see the day to day work that we are doing in our community.

assembly what assembly

this morning i woke early as i was going to visit a school assembly with reagan and sandra, after waiting around for about 20 minutes, with loads of kids shouting out hello oom tim (afrikaans for uncle tim), we were told that the school wouldn't be having an assembly as planned this morning...what i thought, we got up early, prepared over the weekend, trying to buy watermelons, out of season!, and now there's not going to be a school assembly....why?......oh cause it's raining came the reply, still a poor excuse i thought but then when sandra showed me where they hold the school assemblies it made a little more sense....the school assembly would be held in an outside courtyard between the classrooms and they didn't want the 500 or so kids to stand in the rain whilst we led a time of prayer, worship and teaching......a good call in the end i felt!........

today we also had the pleasure of welcoming michael and janet arthern, from southcourt baptist church in aylesbury, along with their son peter, onto the village of hope, i also spent sometime showing them round the squatter camps and informal settlements were we work and introduced them to the team at thembacare in grabouw, i think that they were impressed with all that we are doing as we seek to bring new hope to our community...

village gives hope to another 2 children

today we were able to assist with the placement of two very vulnerable children who's mother has just been taken into our thembacare AIDS centre in grabouw, these two children from the nearest community will be with us while their mother receives the care that will enable her to take care of these children once she has been stabilised by our amazing team at thembacare. we now are back up to 10 children in our 9 bed unit so space is once again at a premium, however with three of our children now attending school or pre-school each day we are able to help these two dear ones at their time of need.