busy busy busy...

wow i can't believe it was last monday, that's 10 days ago, since i last updated our blog site, having said that it has been crazy crazy busy here and i really haven't had any time to think, let lone create a new post.

so what's been going on i hear you cry.......well the following is a snapshot.

the ukuqala3 team worked long hours into the night to complete the project, some members of the team left at 3.30am one night and others worked through from 8am till 6am (the next day!).

our key sponsor from germany sent a representative to view the project and it was great to show her around the village of hope and other areas of work here in grabouw.

we were also joined by the professor of the architectural faculty in stuttgart, this was his first visit and he was able to see the work that his previous students (ukuqala 1 and 2) had done.

last thursday was a public holiday but there was soooo much work to be completed that both myself, maz, shannon and mel worked tirelessly painting and decorating the new children's unit.

on saturday evening we held our 'unofficial opening' of ukuqala3, with workers, sponsors, volunteers and students enjoying a party like atmosphere, this was an amazing evening and if you would like to see some photos from that evening then please follow this link to the elgin grabouwer facebook page.

there have also been visits from paul cluvers and his daughter who bought some wonderful people to see our project, some friends from sweden visited with a whole group who are on tour, the village of hope was one of their planned highlights before venturing to franschhoek for a wine tour! and we also welcomed on a lady from finland who was visiting the rest of the thembalitsha projects.

and finally we have been able to host our first volunteers into the newly finished ukuqala2 short term accommodation, which still has some work for it to be completed but thank God that flip (yes that's his name) is around to help.

i hope to provide some links to photos etc soon but please bear with us as we seek to get the children's unit habitable but we will post further updates soon, promise!

in the news....

stuggart students in local paper

thought you might like a short update on the work that the amazing team of student from the university of stuttgart are up to here at the village of hope, i could go into the long working hours that they are keeping (at least a 12 hour shift, 8am till 8pm) or the crazy designs that they have created for both the extension of our children's unit or volunteer accommodation  i could speak about a workshop that was held with some green/ecofriendly capetonians over the weekend but i would be here all day explaining so what better way than let others do that explaining.

therefore if you would like to see some recent photos then visit the ukuqala web page by clicking here, or to see how the newspaper reported our recent break in against a back drop of outreach and support then click on the article for a better look.

times they are a changing!

new bedrooms on the back of the childrens unit

taking down the bedrooms which the vineyard team
constructed over 4 years ago!

the architectural team from stuggart, along with their trusted and adopted student, dave knight from england, are making a real impression on all three projects at the village of hope.

saul and nigels bathroom is remodeled!

for those of you who have visited or stayed as a volunteer you will notice a huge difference which can be seen in the few photos which i have posted, the children have now moved into the 'old volunteer' kitchen/meeting room and the team have been busy converting the volunteer bedrooms into our new office space with new entrance/reception area, but the main changes can be seen in the children's unit where the new bedrooms are taking shape and the kitchen and bathrooms have been ripped out to create some extra space for the additional work that we are planning at the village of hope.

our new morning meeting space

the long term team at the village of hope have also had to find a new meeting place and this morning we joined together on the stoop of ukuqalaI to pray around the and plan for the challenges we might face during the day.

german students enjoying a game of netball

it is quite sad to see some of the hard work that has been undertaken by some of our volunteers over the last few years being taken apart but we know that there is a bigger plan and we are excited to see how the new space will be used to enhance the work we are doing both with the children that we are called to help, as well as providing better work space for our long term team and volunteer experience.

we have tried to engage the ukuqala3 team in the work we are doing in the community and it is our desire that each member of the team is able to join us at our sports outreach in the different areas around the town, as you can see some of the team have enjoyed playing netball and even a version of 'duck duck goose' with shannon our longer term volunteer.

duck duck goose with shannon!

please visit the ukuqala web page to keep up to date with the work that is going on this year by clicking on this link and if you would like to see some of the work that the ukuqala2 team undertook last year then please visit their youtube pages here.

ukuqala3 arrive with a passion to build together...

starting the works last week

this morning saw the arrival of the full team from the university of stuttgart who will be spending the next six weeks at the village of hope creating the third phase of the ukuqala project and unlike the previous ukuqala teams the ukuqala3 team will not just be focusing their attention on one area of the village of hope, this year it is their plan to bless us in three different ways.

the first will focus on completing the ukuqala2 building which needs to have it's outer coat of lime and clay applied, thus ensuring it is waterproof and able to take our first lot of volunteers in what will be our short term mission team accommodation.

the ukuqala3 team arrive!

they will also be building an ablution centre which will be made up of three separate buildings, a toilet block, a building for showering and also a wash room with sinks and washing machines, this will be positioned near to the ukuqala2 building thus enabling us to provide facilities to our short term volunteers.

filling and leveling the site

however the main focus of their time will be around extending our current children's unit, building a new straw bale constructed bedroom block which will enable us to host more children, provide them with a bigger kitchen and bathroom as well as creating a new entrance and office space. all of the above will mean that the current long term volunteers will move out of that space and share the following six weeks with myself and maz in our home.

david knight from southcourt baptist church is helping the team, his building skills and knowledge have already been seen to provide great insight and we pray that his time with will be both productive and satisfying.

long and short term volunteers join the walkers house

we will include the students in all aspects of the work we are doing in grabouw, they will have the opportunity of joining our outpatient careworkers in the community as they visit the sick in their small homes and the sports outreach and rainbow smiles clubs will be blessed with their input which we hope will provide them with an opportunity to see how other people live and who the legacy of their building works will benefit in the future.

all in all we know that it's all going to be a crazy time, the german team will have to learn to work in africa and realise that things move on a little slower over here, not that i have learnt that very well but that is the reality of it, our team will have to move around and have their space invaded, but we are so blessed to have them around and we thank God for sending them to us to enable us to serve our community better.

for more info on the ukuqala project please click on this link.

October News

Once again this month has flown by! It doesn't seem a minute since we were in England celebrating Maz's big birthday with friends and family and we are already at the end of October and thinking about Christmas! At least the sun is starting to warm our bodies again and the blossom on the fruit trees on our surrounding farms is a sight to behold. However winter has one final fling since we returned - we awoke last week to a snowy view of the local mountains!

We firstly want to thank the core team here at the Village who allowed us to spend some much needed time away with the confidence that the day-to-day stuff would be undertaken. Thanks Rob, Em, Tim, Mel, the amazing house moms and maintenance team you really are all stars!

As always our children's unit remains our main focus, however there always seems to be something to fix and this month we have had to sort out the septic tank which is used by the children. This wasn't a pleasant task but with the help of our local plumber, digger driver and trusty volunteers we managed to sort that with a few new trenches which we hope will also drain our top field to allow us to proceed with some agriculture projects.

There has also been some exciting progress around our first Ukuqala house, with two big work parties working on filling then flattening the land and installing some much needed turf around the building. We have to be intentional in setting aside time to complete this type of work as our daily chores can overwhelm and run away with us. We are indebted to our friends Graeme and Charles Cherry who have been very helpful in getting this sorted for us with the supply of soil, turf, plant hire and labour.

On the children’s front we are now back up tour full complement of nine children! This week another two year old girl arrived who is in need of our support whilst she is stabilised on her medication and one of our older girls is making the big transition to being placed back home. She has been with us at the Village of Hope since we opened and before that spent her early life at Thembacare in Athlone. There has been little contact over the years with her family and unfortunately we heard the sad news that her mother passed away just a couple of weeks ago. In spite of this she is making some good progress with her weekly weekend visits to her paternal aunt who will care for her when she leaves us in December.

The new Dutch students are settling in really well, and they have also been joined by an ex HAN social work student who is spending some time working with Maz and Mel on the children’s cases as she seeks to become a full time social worker here in Grabouw.

Community Work
Sports Outreach:
The sports students have really helped to push along the development of our outreach, working with Jason, our new part time employee, to re-establish clubs in Rooidakke. It is now attended by around 50 children a week, as well as a rugby outreach to some older guys. They are also working with Michael in Waterworks and have even started a girls netball team in that area which is a brand new venture.

We were also blessed with a ton of sports gear, bought over by our latest mission team from the USA, the kids have already received some head bands as a simple thank you for attending the clubs and the kids enjoyed wearing their new training bibs at the Iraq club this week.

Rainbow Smiles:
Our volunteers and students are also working hard in the running and planning of our Rainbow Smiles HIV support group which runs each and every Friday afternoon and we are grateful to an ex volunteer, Heather from Australia, who has produced an amazing resource for us to use during the weekly planning programme....thanks Heather! – It must be over 500 pages long!!!!

Other News
Volunteers:
Australians seem to be getting mentions all over the place in this newsletter, as we were joined by Jacqui for 3 months. Yes, you guessed it, from Australia! She has joined our other volunteers, Kathryn and Martha, just wondering where all the male volunteers are at the moment...If you would like to come and join us for a short, medium or longer term trip then as always please get in touch with Emily...see contact details below.

Cycling from London to Paris!
Last month we had a team cycling from Aylesbury to Brighton to raise funds for us, this month Danny Gowing cycled from London to Paris to raise funds for us. Thanks Danny! We can tell you that your aches and pains were worth every penny. If anyone else wants to hop on a bike to raise money for us we will really appreciate it!!!

How You Can Help
We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!
• Become a regular monthly giver - Regular givers are like gold dust to us!!!
• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event (it doesn’t have to be cycling)!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise R10000s with enough enthusiasm!
• Pray – need we say more?!
For more information contact us fundraiser@thembalitsha.org.za

Volunteering
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff here in South Africa. It can be a fantastic way to give (and receive!) However, we do have some criteria you have to meet in order to apply. For more information on volunteering for Thembalitsha please check out our website or email us at volunteer@thembalitsha.org.za.
Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!

Up And Coming Events
For further details check out our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/thembalitshafoundation

South Africa

HOPE 2012

Top SA bands are going to be making some noise for us this World AIDS Day (1st December).
Diarise it and get your tickets before they sell out!
They are available on computicket now. A steal at R150 a ticket. Please support us and get the word out to your friends/family/school. The more people who know about this event the better!
Line up: The Parlotones, Watershed, The Muffinz, Tailor, Margaret’s Daughter
Get your tickets at www.hope.org.za/2012

England

If you can’t quite make it out to South Africa for World AIDS Day we have another equally attractive suggestion for you! The Thembalitsha UK guys are organising a Celebration of Hope
The evening will consist of live music and comedy from a top BBC standup.
Tickets are only £10 and there will be drinks and snacks available. Saturday, 1 December at 19:30, Aylesbury, Bucks
Please contact Jessica on 077 3883 1507 to book your tickets

Worldwide

A Song Of Hope!
It doesn’t matter what country you are in. Everyone can benefit from this! The fantastically generous and talented folk of up and coming British band, Being Buffalo, have released a track especially for us! And it sounds great too! We get 50% of every sale so please let your friends and family know about this! You can find the track for download here:
http://beingbuffalo.bandcamp.com/album/hope-charity-download

electric upgrade!

tim berger enjoying playing!

most of our post are centered around the work we do with the children in our unit or with those we work with in the local community, however today's news is a little more mundane but none the less important as we plan for the future of the village of hope.

men who know what they are doing with
high voltage electrics

i'm no electrician so you will have to bear with the limited amount of detail in this post but basically yesterday we had the completion of the first phase of our electrical upgrade, which included the whole of the supply from ESKOM (our electricity supplier) who increased our current 80amps up to 150amps, we also had to install a new thicker cable for the new power to come through, as well as a large distribution box with new fuse board.....

...most of that will have passed you by, as it did me, but what this means is that firstly tim berger got chance to play with some slightly heavier plant which included a trencher and overall it means that we are now able to connect up the ukuqala II building and plan for the next phase of building work and internal changes to increase the amount of children we can take into our unit.

all in all it meant that we were inundated with men in high vis jackets (well maybe not this is africa after all!), with some very heavy duty footwear to protect them from any danger, plus a large number of vehicles including a crane to install the new equipment.

sorry for that boring post, but news is news!

firm foundations

each pole set in concrete with reinforced steel frame.

we are encouraged by Jesus to set our lives, what we believe, what we hold to when the going gets tough, on firm foundations. he uses a strong visual image of two men building on different foundations, one sand and the other rock....as the storm and flood comes which one will stand? Jesus says he is the rock, that solid foundation.

the whole concrete base.

like Jesus story we all need to build on firm foundations, whether that be a business venture, our lives or even a charity looking to provide hope via health, education and training. this week the ukuqala II team have been putting this into action as they firstly made sure that the sand stone that they were building on was firm enough to plant the 9 meter posts into the ground (yes we used dynamite to do this!) and then ensured that they were securely set each of the one with concrete and then a wider 'slab' with reinforced metal to hold the whole structure together with further concrete poured over the top to ensure the building would stand firm.

much of what they have put their efforts into over the last few weeks is unseen and as the rest of the team of students from stuttgart arrive it may not look like a lot has happened but without these firm foundations the new building would be susceptible to the forces of nature and eventually crumble to the ground.

well done guys, chris, andy, and til, your hard work hasn't gone unnoticed.

January News

Happy New Year from all of us here at Village of Hope. As we enter 2012 we are full of excitement at what God has in store for us this year…We are also rather hot! The summer has decided to kick in and it has been in the mid-30s for the past week…phew! Anyway, we intend to grab 2012 by the horns, seizing every opportunity and continue our fight to restore hope to the communities we work with.

We want to invite you to join us in our quest and use this year to make a positive change . Why not sign up to volunteer or take on a personal challenge to raise funds for us? Two of our Thembalitsha staff might inspire you. Together with their friends they have organised two initiatives in aid of our Foundation. Frances from our sister project Bosom Buddies is completing 6 physically grueling trail runs within a month – for those of you who don’t know, these runs are actually like racing up and down a mountain! (Sponsor her here) And Amanda, our funding manager, is going to cycle from our Village of Hope project around the coast to the most southern point in Africa: Cape Agulhas.

Together we can make a huge difference. For more information on how you can get involved email us: info@thembalitsha.org.za…..Start now!

Village News
Tim and Maz returned back safely from their exciting tour or Europe – That might be a slight exaggeration but they did cover a few countries on their trip! The tour proved to be busy but very successful. It seemed a fantastic mixture of talks and presentations, worship events, radio interviews, plane flights and visits to past volunteers. They also managed to spend some quality time with their family too!

The rest of the team here were very relieved to receive them home! There were no major incidents whilst they were away, the project didn’t burn down and remained pretty much as Tim and Maz had left it! – Always an achievement!

The children opening their gifts from Operation Shoebox
(Isaac ably assisting!)

Children’s Unit
The Children in the unit had a most enjoyable Christmas time. This year, for the first time, all the children were able to spend at least Christmas day with either a House Mom or a relative. This was a really special time for the children. They all came home very happy and with huge grins on their faces. It must have been great for them to be so spoilt and have the sole attention of a normal family for a change. Our 11-year-old boy was the only one who was unable to go to a family. Unfortunately for him he had to remain at our sister project, ThembaCare Athlone, because he had just been discharged from hospital after yet more health battles. He is still there now. We have tried to bring him back to the children’s unit in between times but it just hasn’t worked – he isn’t stable enough and needs more medical support. Please continue to keep him in your prayers.

Christmas also saw a flurry of parties and celebrations for the children in the unit. This year our party, in conjunction with the day hospital and ThembaCare, was very generously funded and meant that we could have a magician: Mr Fu Lin Yu (get it?!) The kids loved it.

The new year brought in a new child who has come to stay whilst his home environment gets sorted. He is yet another little one suffering with HIV and TB but is a happy little soul and has made himself at home here very quickly.

Those kids who are old enough to attend school are back. Our 6 year old boy has started ‘big’ school and now has to wear uniform – he looks very cute and is very proud of his new attire but is a little overwhelmed by his new environment. Also, our 3 year old girl started preschool for the first time. She is loving it and is especially insistent on carrying her own rucksack despite the fact that it’s almost as big as she is!

Our Dutch and Australian volunteers with
some of the kids from our sports clubs

Sports Outreach and Community Work
We were able to take the children from our sports clubs out for their annual trips to the beach again which is always good fun. It’s such a special experience for these children who, although they only live 20 mins drive from the sea, hardly ever get to visit the beach and for some it was their first time. We were also able to take them to a local restaurant to have burgers for lunch. The expressions on their faces really were priceless when they saw their lunches arriving. It really makes you realise how blessed we are to consider eating out as a normal activity.

These beach days were the final flourish of action from our fantastic interns from HAN University in Holland. Stephan and Weike really have helped to develop and refine our sports outreach, taking it to the next level, and we were very sad to see them go last week. They were so dedicated to us in their time here and really embraced the project as a whole. They go leaving a legacy and a high standard to retain – so no pressure for the next two students who arrive in February then?!


Other News

Volunteers:
Where would we be without volunteers? This year we have so many bookings (right through to July already!) and we are so thankful because if it wasn’t for these fantastic specimens  we would really struggle to keep our heads above water. This month we were sad to say goodbye to Heather, whose solid, level-headedness  and hard work was so valuable over her three months of service – especially with Tim and Maz being away. We also said goodbye to Stjjn who was with us for a month including Christmas and new year. He was a building student from Holland and helped to construct a new water tower on site so that we can install a new filtration system to purify the borehole water. We will miss trying to pronounce his name and his big hair!
Thankfully we’ve also been able to welcome some new volunteers. Jess Trigg from Yorkshire is with us for six months and is already getting stuck in with the Children’s Unit. She is revising all the activities and bringing in some fresh ideas. She is already looking a lot less pasty that when she first arrived thanks to the heat wave we’ve been having recently!
We are also very excited to welcome Tim Berger back. Tim has served here numerous times by bringing over and leading mission teams from America. This time he has arrived to serve us for 2 years and we can already see that he is going to be a great asset to the team – even though he’s another American so with him and Mel here us Brits are rapidly losing ground!

New Year, New Building:
Yes, you did read correctly! –Guess what? We have another group of students from Stuttgart, Germany, arriving to build another building on Village of Hope. The advance party of three has already arrived and another twenty-five will be joining them mid-February. The university are keen to build a long-tern relationship with us and will be putting a plan in place to return annually to add more structures. Once again they have raised the funds to do this themselves which is staggering. Our thoughts at the moment are that, hopefully, we will be able to build enough accommodation so that we can move the volunteers out of their current place and free up that space to develop the work of the children’s unit to include counseling rooms and a staff room for the House Moms as well as meeting rooms….but this will all take quite a while. We will be posting regular updates on the blog as to the progress of this next building. It looks like now we really are going to have a village of the land!


HOW YOU CAN HELP

We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!

• Become a regular monthly giver - Regular givers are like gold dust to us!!! You can download a standing order form from our website – don’t forget to sign a gift aid form if you are a UK tax payer

• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise £1000s with enough enthusiasm! We also have annual walks, runs and bike rides. For more information contact us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk

• Pray – Sign up to the prayer newsletter. Prayer is just as vital to us (if not more so) than money! We can’t have enough people committing to pray persistently for us. Sign up at prayer@thembalitshauk.org.uk


VOLUNTEERING

We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff out here in South Africa. It can be a fantastic way to give (and receive!) However, we do have some criteria you have to meet in order to apply. For more information on Volunteering for the Village of Hope please download the INFORMATION FOR VOLUNTEERS documents from the Support Us page on our website (www.thembalitsha.org.za). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you

info@thembalitsha.org.za

volunteers come and volunteers go....

heather wearing her trademark face pack, i mean smile!

this weekend was another one of those bitter sweet ones here at the village of hope. we had to say our sad goodbyes to two amazing volunteers but we also welcomed three more...such is our life.

heather (from australia) had been serving with us for 3 months, holding stuff together whilst tim and maz were away, ably supporting our dutch students at our sports outreach and we certainly will miss her cheery smile, so apt that she helped out and extended the work with our new rainbow smiles club, (a club for young people living with HIV in our community)....and the enthusiasm to put her hand in all those things that 'just need doing'. she was a real servant and we trust that she follows the path that God is leading her on and hope that she will be back soon!

first ukuqula II students

we also said goodbye to mariana, who joined us on a short 10 day trip from brazil, she was a real hit with the kids but as the girls left we welcomed the first three students from stuttgart university who will be building the new ukuqala accommodation. they spent the weekend enjoying our beautiful weather and yesterday got stuck in to their first working day in africa....an eye opener to say the least for these guys from germany!

welcome guys its good to have you with us and goodbye heather, come back soon.

the stuttgart team are coming again

german newspaper article

this coming weekend we are going to be joined by the first 3 students from this years ukuqala project. these students from stuttgart university will be following in the footsteps of the previous group who built us a wonderful home this time last year. have a look at this newspaper article which appears on their website which picks up on the work that they did last year.

be assured that we will keep you informed of the progress of the new building which the rest of the team, who arrive during the middle of february, will build for us.

walkers update III (wholehearted tour news)

well another week has flown by with our week long trip to germany and holland now over we are focusing all our attention towards to wholehearted tour which kicks off tomorrow evening in taunton, with further events in bath on wednesday, aylesbury on thursday on what is world AIDS day, and then a weekend in london starting in hammersmith on friday and finishing with 4 events with the everynation chruches on sunday....for further info the please visit the wholehearted facebook page or the wholehearted blog which they will be keeping updated with stories of their trip......but that is all to come, what follows is a short recap of what we got up to last week.

the ukuqulaII students

on monday morning we got up for the early flight to stuttgart where we had a short meeting with leslie, the project manager from the ukuqula I project, and then we had a three hour presentation by the students who will be working on the ukuqala II project. it was wonderful to meet these 25 students who have not only spent time looking at the 2012 project but also the long term development of the village of hope in the future.

in the evening we met up for a meal with the students who built the first ukuqula home in feb/march of this year, words cannot express how much their time and commintment to build us an amazing ecco house is appreciated and they will always be held up high in the stories of the village of hope.

some of our ex-HAN students
at the pancake house!

tuesday was another early start to make the hour long flight from stuttgart to dusseldrof where we were met by an ex HAN student, elsie and her father, we enjoyed an evening of football and food with them at their home just outside bemmel.

on wednesday we met up with the international department of the HAN (highschool arnhem and nijmegen) and their tutors to discuss the work that their sports, pyhsio and social work can do as they partner with our thembalitsha projects in grabouw, we also had a chance to speak to some of the students who will be joining us in early 2012, providing them with some cultural background to south africa and the types of things that they will be experiencing during their five months with us.

we were totally blessed by the amount of ex students that came to meet us at the 'pancake house' in nijmegen on wednesday evening where we took time to catch up with them and their progress since they left south africa, it was so good to see them all.

children at the emmaus school in arnhem

thursday morning was also an early start, no rest for the wicked they say!, where we had an oppertunity to share with 3 different classes of children at a school in arnhem, this went really well, they had some very good questions which followed a powerpoint where we showed them some photos of the work we do in grabouw.

gerrit spronk picked us up in arnhem and we enjoyed an afternoon in amersford before sharing with his home group in the evening. gerrit also drove us over 300kms on friday, taking us to meetings with an ex village of hope volunteer, leo, and then on to den hag to meet up with the dutch chefs who visited the village of hope with the culibus in 2010 and who are looking to set up a fundraising event in early 2012.

saturday was spent with eveline and bart in amsterdam, a wonderful if not somewhat 'hippy' city, before flying back to england during the evening to stay for two nights with josh's (our middle son) girlfriends  (haddy) parents paul and lindy who made us feel very welcome after such a long trip.

heres to a wholehearted coming week!

arron and tyler start the plastering

arron and tyler getting plastered.

after a succesful test patch we are now confident that the lime, sand and straw plaster mix is ready to be applied to the inside of the new house built by the team from stuttgart university earlier this year.

arron and tyler are now busy getting their hands dirty and applying the mix onto the straw walls. this might take some time, but we hope that once this is completed we will be able to re install the kitchen and then start moving rob and emily (our long term volunteers) into their new home. thus freeing up space in the short term volunteers accommodation.

new village of hope accommodation video

we were so blessed to have the team from stuttgart university come not only to build but to fund and design the new accommodation here at the village of hope. the team kept a record of the progress of the building and have produced a short one minute 30 second video to show how the house literally came up out of the ground.

please visit a link to the video by clicking here, you will see our little jack russel, bruno, makes a brief appearance as well....i miss that little dog so much!

wanderers return

tim and maz have arrived back at the village of hope project after their short holiday in europe where they enjoyed catching up with family, meeting their new grandson, eli, and visiting the ukuqala team in their university city of stuttgart in germany. thankfully they didn't eat any cucumber whilst they were away but it now seems that beansprouts were the things to avoid anyway!

they arrived back to find a busy village of hope, during their time away two girls from england, both called rebbecca, a young lady from the USA who is going to be working with thandi at thembacare and returning volunteer tyler had arrived. unfortunately one of our new little girls had been taken into hospital with TB meningitis and the team have been running around trying to care for her and her mother who is also very sick with AIDS.

the village of hope is also once again without internet, the phonelines were stolen at the end of last week so our updates and replies to emails will be limited (i am currently sitting at thembacare grabouw writing this short update!) please pray that this gets sorted soon so we can keep in contact with the outside world....it's good to be back!

thankful for the building



last of the team to leave the new house

today we say our sad goodbye's to the last of the ukuqala team from stuttgart university who have been building us an amazing home for our long term volunteers at the village of hope. the rest of the team have been leaving in dribs and drabs over the last few days and are now either back in germany or of on a long deserved touring holiday around south africa!

the guys who left today have been completing the finishing touches to the kitchen, tidying the house and outside area. the team have been such a blessing to us and we are very sad to see them go.

new house is zwelitsha informal settlement



whilst we have been received this wonderful home, planned, designed and funded (all but a few thousand pounds which we are still trying to find!) it's hard to keep in context the work that these guys have done for us and our volunteers, whilst literally thousands of people in grabouw and who live on our doorstep do so with virtually nothing, many call home a small wooden structure with a tin roof, with little access to running water, sanitation and no electricity.

we know that God has blessed us and we thank him for his provision however as we were going to our sports club at zwelitsha on tuesday afternoon i was somewhat surprised to see a new home that had been built in that location. the home had a pitched roof and steel windows, we trust that those people will also be happy with their new home and that God will also bless them as they move in.



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.

march 2011 sports saturday...

on saturday we hosted our first 'sports saturday' of 2011 which we feel was our most successful event so far, we have learnt a lot of lessons over the past couple of years, including the work we did during the world cup and we ensured we had larger pitches which encouraged the children to use their football skills and a computer to work out the schedule of play, the weather was also absolutely gorgeous, maybe slightly too hot but no wind which was a blessing.

the event was organised by the village of hope sports outreach team, with the help of our three wonderful sports students from the HAN university in holland (djuri, talitha and jasper), who certainly benefited from the support their fellow students gave them.

the day started with the collection of the children around the informal and formal settlements of grabouw, the 65 seater bus to left waterwerks informal settlement at 8.30am and then ventured round to the rest of the areas (hillside, rooidakke and iraq) to collect the children to who arrived in fine spirits at the elgin country club at 9.15am. all of this went to plan and we were met by the children of remhoogte farm (commonly known at remwater by the dutch students!).

as we made our way from the bus we were greeted by the willing team of volunteers from both the HAN university and also the students from the ukuqala team, (stuttgart university), who had been busy setting up the football and netball pitches ready for the games to start at 10.00am.

as we sorted the 90 children into their teams, under 12's and under 16's boys football and 3 netball teams, they were also introduced to their 'managers' for the day (made up of the university students and our sports mentors from our weekly clubs) and given their kits, and after a short talk and prayer the action started.

the standard of football was amazing, the children have developed so much since we start

ed working with them and every team was very evenly matched, their team spirit and team work was something to behold and the overall behaviour of these children is something that our team can be very proud of. some of the poorest and most needy children in our town w

ould put some of the riches and most privileged children (and adults) to shame.....we are so proud of them.

for the record we had 5 teams enter the under 12's tournament, which was won by waterwerks on goal difference from iraq, unfortunately remhoogte didn't win a game but had a bonus of playing against the lovely young ladies from HAN university as their prize!...

..the under 16's tournament was once again a hard fought contest, the 6 teams played some of the best football that we have seen since starting with these children over 3 years ago. a special mention must go to hillside who beat one of the waterwerks teams and held their own in their other games against much stronger and larger opposition. not for the first time arron's rooidakke team won the prize.

and the prize was for the under 12's and under 16's to play a 10 minute game against the german and dutch students, which was a real sight to behold, both children's sides managed to sneak a win which made them very happy.

the netball was also a hard fought competition, to see the girls from very different areas, different races and tongues come together to play sport was wonderful to see, this competition was won by the slightly worrying team called 'the bad girls', who narrowly beat 'frans stars' (that's one for fran black an ex volunteer who started to work with the team last year) to the title.

by 1pm we had presented the prizes to the teams, the best player awards received a new football top, under 12's choose a barcelona kit and the two boys who won the under 16's choose a liverpool shirt and a chelsea top (as a queens park rangers support it slightly guiles me to write that name on the blog, but we are called to love our neighbours and even our enemies as ourselves so i didn't really have a choice!)...each child had a warm cup of soup (not really appropriate for the weather but for them perhaps the only nutritional meal they wound receive that day) which was kindly donated by the rose an

d bull restaurant (who provide us soup each and every friday for one of the nutrition centers in rooidakke).

once the children had been dropped home, the german students were challenged to a football match by the well prepared dutch students, who must have been eyeing this fixture for some weeks as they turned out in their 'orange' baffana baffana tops!.......i (tim) was picked to play for holland, it must have been my silky cruyff skills that sold that one, i was joined by shane (our american volunteer) and arron turned out for the german team (say no more)!.....

.....you wanna know the result....well lets say that history once again repeated itself with the english ref (rob house) awarding a hotly disputed penalty to the german team in the last minute of extra time.....you can guess what happened next......no chris waddle or garreth southgate to miss that one..........sorry holland

ukuqala on the back page

this weeks back page of the elgin grabouwer covers the story of the ukuqala team here at the village of hope, there are a couple of lovely photographs which accompany some text which you can view by clicking onto the image.

the team are certainly creating a stir here in grabouw and the guys from solar zone, also a german company, along with a representative from the german embassy have also made a visit to see how the team are getting on in south africa!

roof structure topping out

on saturday evening we had a short party with the ukuqala team to celebrate the completion of the roof structure on the new building that they are busy with at the village of hope.

it seems that it is a german tradition for the main carpenter, and his mate, to give a speech from the top of the new structure, complete with a small tree which is installed a top of the building.

the carpenter then says the traditional blessing, read as follows, during which he, and his mate, downs a bottle of wine and smashes the glass, thrown from on top of the roof, on the foundations below.

Now the building has been raised here,
Although not huge, but also not small,
The work may praise his master,The builders' soll'n be praised.

According to tradition, I cross to the glass
And'll raise the voice for them.
For every one bites the dust,
Drum let them all live today!
Who often wet the end of the welding
Who was harmless stone and mortar,
Who bricks probably said,
Who dragged bars, cones suggested
Who shoveled and motor-sawed,
Flex and excavators for hours
Located on the site here, moving
applies to our praise!
Usually it is customary
On such happy days
To drink to the client also
And his wife, no question.

Good luck and healing and God's blessing
The accommodation, which thrives hereWhere Voluntiers soon writhingWhere modern rooms still Zimmerleut!

How to keep the Almighty God
The house and the inhabitants thereof:
From disease, fire and Wassersnot
Possible 'he spared all times.

The glass shatter in the ground,
consecrated this house was at this very hour!

once again it was a wonderful evening, we thank God for these guys who are blessing us so much.

the house begins to grow (literally!)

the ukuqala house is beginning to take shape, long gone are the foundation holes, layers of wire beneath the concrete, or poles standing like lone statues, now the walls are coming alive......quite literally the walls are sprouting green shoots, which will give the structure a slightly 'telly tubby look' once all the walls are constructed.

the guys are doing a great job, working all hours that God sends, not only are the walls taking shape but the central brick core is nearly complete and the roof trusses are being installed, along with the 'round' windows, which have been created from old washing machine doors.

some of the team have also been out with us into the community this week to help run our sports outreach, they used their silky german football skills to bamboozle the children which i think everyone really enjoyed.

photos show the 'green' house and also the guys out in the community with the children that we work with.