Hellos and Goodbyes (February 2015)

Children’s Unit 

Back to school!

Over the Christmas period, the children went on bike rides, swimming, to the beach, played games, made crafts, and lots of exciting stuff. We enjoyed a big Christmas day altogether which the children loved! They where given some presents, and it was fun watching their excitement opening them and being so grateful for all the things they got. When school started back, two of our dear ones started big school – they looked so grown up in their uniforms!

Also during the holiday period, we discharged five of our children and had three new arrivals who came to stay with us for a short time. We said goodbye to three brothers who went back to their grandmother who was now in a place where they felt she could look after all three children. We also said goodbye to a baby boy who came to us at two months old after nearly dying in the hospital. His mother died shortly after giving birth, but his father remained very involved during the year he was with us. This tiny baby who came to us so small left fat and healthy to live with his grandmother in the Eastern Cape. The last discharge was a little girl who had been with us for 14 months. Her mother sadly died whilst the little girl was with us. Her grandmother came from the Eastern Cape to spend a week with us getting to know her grandchild and learning to administrate her medication. She has now taken the little girl to live with her in the Eastern Cape.

We were also able to provide care for a new arrival: a young boy who had become very ill due to not taking his meds. He had developed TB and needed somewhere to build his strength so he stayed with us for three weeks. His mother was also unwell and each time she was in hospital the people caring for him did not give him the meds. Due to this referral from the clinic, we were able to get social workers involved who are able to monitor the situation, and the mother knows now that if she has to go to hospital she can call the social workers who will help support her.

Rainbow Smiles

Farewell pool party for Tim and Maz

We kicked off the holiday period by having a great Christmas party with a braai and a water slide! The children particularly loved racing down the slippy slide. Following the party, we began a very long break and have only just started back at the tail end of January when we began the new year by having a pool party to say goodbye to Tim and Maz.

We have added two more children to the club, which brings the total to 17 children – an amazing number for us. Unfortunately, we have had to say goodbye to our trusted volunteer Johan, but we have gained Greg from France who is helping at the club. Starting this week, we look forward to two students from Holland joining our team! Due to the need for more helpers, we have moved the meeting time to Wednesdays, which we’re hoping works out with the earlier school time.

Lastly, one of our children who has become young leader has been able to re-start his schooling at community college after being out of school for over two years. This is a massive achievement for him, and we are incredibly proud of him. He is 17 years old and left school after only completing Grade 6 (primary school level). If he works hard and continues with his adult education, he will be able to matriculate by the time he is 20 years old.

Sports

A day at the beach with our sports kids

Village of Hope sports leaders Greg and Emma combined forces with our community sports mentors to take 80 kids to the beach at the end of December to celebrate the end of 2014 and the summer holiday. Two busloads of kids got a day of fun in the sun and swimming in before school started back! Then in January, Village of Hope collaborated with local Strand-based charity Solid Rock to do a full week of 9am-5pm athletic activities and biblical life coaching at Groenberg School in Grabouw. More than 175 kids attended per day - an amazing turn out, and a lot of fun for the kids and our staff alike. Now well into February, we are excited to return to our scheduled daily sports programme in different pockets of the Grabouw community. Word is spreading amongst the kids, and we expect to be operating with full volume by next week!

mission team brings us back infocus

don and his bathroom painting team!

over the last week the village of hope team have welcomed some very familiar faces back onto the project, it is so good to see friends from infocus church in augusta returning year after year to come spend time with us.

six of the team (of ten) have been part of previous mission teams and their willingness to get stuck right in has impressed us once again. it's hard for us to put into words the value that they add during their visit but they have not only been involved in some of the more physical aspects of the daily chores that a six hectare property needs to ensure that things don't get out of hand, such as weedeating and tree felling, but they have added  much value to our spiritual well-being too.

the list of jobs they have undertaken is quite substantial so if you would like to find out more about those and their other experiences during their trip then it's probably best to visit their blog via this link to get their prospective on their time spent with us.

more birthday celbrations....

our little princess

a party to crown all parties!

with thirteen children in our unit birthdays seem to be a regular occurrence and last week was no exception as two of our little ones had their birthdays. as always we try to make our children feel really special so we go out of our way to ensure that they have a birthday party to remember.



its always hard to think of something new to do with the children but as one of our elder girls turned four auntie mel (kidd) was intent in creating a 'princess themed party' which she (the little girl) enjoyed so much, however i'm not sure the boys thought that was a great idea especially the one who celebrated his first birthday party with her!



obviously i jest as all the children really did enjoy making and decorating special princess (and prince) crowns which they all wore with so much pride and as auntie mel said 'pass the parcel can become a little boring after a while' (i don't know what she means!)

a couple are 'bould' over by the work of the village of hope..

kyle, sammar, maz and myself at the christmas
in july event at gordons kitchen last week
we all agreed that this was a very cheesy
family photo!

sorry for the cheesy title of this blog post but all will become clearer the further you read into this post.

a couple of weeks ago myself and maz spent some time 'off site' and decided to go to camps bay and this is where the story of the 'boulders couple' started.

as many of you who know us will testify the work we do at the village of hope runs through our veins, this isn't so much of a job or even a calling the project is at the very heart of all we do. it's hard to box our lives into separate specific times, we don't so much as go to work we are always at work and for some this is hard to understand, we are advocates for the thembalitsha foundation and agents of change for good and our God 24 hours a day seven days a week, even when we return home to england or take a trip to madagascar for instance the work and the impact that we are having is on the very tips of our lips.

with this in mind its not hard to see the story of our meeting with 'the boulders couple' unfold but to give this blog post a twist i have provided a link to their blog in which they capture the meeting and therefore the heart and the work that myself and maz do, with the help of our amazing staff, both local and international, so please click on the link below to go read about sammar and kyles experience at the village of hope.

click HERE to visit the blog post which will bring some light to the ramble above.

all we need is love.......

baby walking boy.....

our social worker at the village of hope (emma podmore from sunny buckinghamshire) came to our morning meeting earlier this week with a wonderful story of love, hope and progress, we love sharing our stories each morning with the rest of the team, they encourage and inspire us and we wanted to inspire you all too so i asked emma to write up a succinct overview of this story which i hope will give you insight into what sort of work we are doing with the children who are placed with us.

emma writes "we often take children into the Village of Hope who have been extremely sick in hospital and have been severely neglected, they come to us to be loved  upon and cared for whilst we support the and empower the families to be able to care for their children. 

we see the children come on leaps and bounds whilst they are with us which is amazing. One of our little boys who came to us last July, was very sick and in hospital, they where concerned that he would not survive, but once he was stabilised he came to live at the Village of Hope.

upon his arrival we undertook a development check on him and although he was nearly one year old he couldn't sit independently or hold his own bottle, the check informed us that he was operating at the same level at the same as a four month old baby! 

Since he has been at the Village of Hope he has been loved on, stimulated, encouraged and given plenty of time and attention by our amazing house mothers and volunteers. We are now nine months on and he is healthy, running around with the other children and trying to talk. this week we undertook the same development test which showed that he is now operating at the same level as a 2 year old....this is amazing news.

we have been working with his parents since his arrival and they have made significant changes that mean that we are looking at reunification in the very near future.

We don’t do anything out of the ordinary at Village of Hope we just love upon and care for the children and invest it the families but it always amazes us every time how love, encouragement, acceptance and stimulation can have such an amazing impact on a child’s life".

we hope that you are inspired by this story of new hope!

more birthday parties

birthday cake!

last weekend our oldest little girl celebrated her sixth birthday, she enjoyed the day with an outing to 'children's church' at everynation somerset west with josh and emma, followed by a meal at the spur and a film at the mall. josh didn't want to go to see the film, he said it was too girlie but we think he was a little scared as it was in 3D!

and birthday presents!

its always good to share these special days with the children and we took time out on monday afternoon to have a smaller celebration with a cake and present, mommy maz sorted out the cake and emma blew up some party balloons but forgot to bring them out of the office, if truth be told we are sure that emma actually wanted to play with them herself so kept them from the children in case they burst them!.

we do hope that our now six year old felt even more loved than normal during those times and we thank God for her and the year that is to come.

newsworthy stories...

it's always nice to have the profile of the work we are doing raised in the media and last week the village of hope project, and the work we are involved with via the thembalitsha foundation, made the news in two papers around the world.

for those of you who don't live in grabouw the story of our fifth birthday celebrations made the news in the elgin grabouwer, see photo attached and for those who live outside of the aylesbury vale (the area where myself, maz, rob, emily, barbara, emma and josh hail from) we appeared in the local newspaper, the bucks herald, and if you would like to take a look at the electronic version of that piece then please click this link.

  

starting school

first day at big school!

one of the greatest joys we have is to be able to see our young children grow up and enter their formal education, most of our children stay with us only a short while as we seek to stabilise them on their medication and work with their families for a full reintegration however for some they stay with us a little longer so this schooling process usually takes place when a child has been with us as a toddler and then makes their first steps into pre-school.

however last week we were able to secure a place for our new 8 year old into his first grade of primary education, this child had never attended school before so there was a lot for emma to sort out, especially as all the schools in grabouw were already full, however with her 'never give up attitude' she managed to enter him into his grade one class of which he was so pleased.

he has made some new friends and seems to be very happy, the only down side is that  the school run has got a little more complicated with us having to drop children off at three different sites but it's good to our older children are now attending school in the mornings and with some forethought emma has registered another child already to ensure he can start his education at the right time!

celebrating 5 years since the opening of the children's unit - its a family affair!

 barbara, maz mommy francis and mommy nettie with the cake!

on saturday we celebrated the fifth birthday of the opening of the village of hope children's unit, this was a momentous occasion and one where we wanted to use it as a time of thanksgiving to God for his great provision towards the project and those that we have impacted over the last five years.

children playing and adults worshiping in the garden

our intention was to host an 'open day'for all our friends, partners and community projects but the numbers would be so huge that we wouldn't be able to cope. so although we have other outreaches into the community via our sports and rainbow smiles clubs this was just for the children, their families and some key staff both past and present. saying that we must have had around 60 people come join us for a time of worship, tea, cake and an easter egg hunt.

the children on an easter egg hunt!

our friends from wholehearted leading worship

the weather was so hot that we had to throw up a makeshift sail to provide some shade to those who joined us, including some of the first children that filled our unit, those boys and girls who were around two years old when they stayed with us and are now six or seven years old and had all grown so much. although not all of the 45 children who we have provided care in the unit for were able to join us we had a great time as we looked back at the family tree and remember those who aren't with us now.

the worship time was led the amazingly talented 'wholehearted' band from somerset west and we want to thank them for their incredible support, however their leading was complimented by some of our house moms who sang some traditional african songs which really embraced the 'rainbow nation' feel of the village of hope.

after we had sung some songs people were able to share some of their stories of hope and gave thanks for the work that has been undertaken by our amazing team, it was great to hear these stories, shared in english, afrikaans and xhosa, of how God had blessed people both children, staff and parents via the support that we were able to provide, proving that we can be Jesus hands and feet in all situations we find ourselves in, be that praying for someone in a supermarket, to giving a life to a person at the side of the road, or providing a safe and loving home to some of the most sick and needy children in our community.

so we celebrated our first five years, we wonder where God will take this project in the next five years...watch this space!

a full children's unit

children enjoying the late autumn afternoon sun 

we start this blog post with some great news.....for the first time since we had the unit extended by the students from stuttgart university we have a full unit!

over the last month we have had five new admissions who join children who have been with us for some time, however whilst we are so pleased to be able to provide a stable home to these children the news of any new admission is always tinged with sadness as every child who is placed with us arrives with a story of suffering and pain. unfortunately this is so true of the three children who we have been able to help this week.

as per normal we can't go into each of their individual cases but please pray for us as we seek to provide a safe home for three little ones who have had a very troubled life so far and also their family who are obviously struggling to support them at home. we hope to be able to sort something quickly with our social workers but as always things don't always follow a quick path.

arrival of the whirlwind.....

zebra cuddling whirlwind

during the week we have experienced some very strong northwest winds which have battered the western cape, however none of the winds impacted us as much as the little whirlwind of a child who arrived yesterday for some much needed support.

this little three year old suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and is very small for his age, he has already experienced so much in his little life and comes from a challenging home situation where things such as food, electric and hot water are a premium, so you can imagine the joy on his face as he saw the toys, beds and outside play equipment that greeted him and his mother as they walked through the door of our children's unit.

it is a joy to be able to provide a home for him but we do need help in understanding his needs so please pray for this little guy and also our house moms who will have to adapt to having this whirlwind around. please also pray for his mother who we will be working with as we seek to have him placed back with her once the home situation has been stabilised.

video of our sports fun day at a local creche

its amazing the relationships that develop from the work we do within the community via our sports outreach, rainbow smiles club and being involved with thembacare, one such relationship led us to put on a simple fundraising event for a creche up in the siteview area of grabouw last saturday morning. 

the leaders of the creche were so impressed with the dedication of our sports outreach programme which we run each monday afternoon near their building,  that they approached us to see if we couldn't help them with organising a sports day for their three to five year olds. 

josh and jasper grasped the opportunity with both hands and set up a wonderful event for the children, over 40 children took part in various games, including an 'egg and spoon' race, a sack race and games involving knocking down bottles of water with a tennis ball. all of the games were designed so that each child participated in every event and as they were split into different teams there were no winners or losers, just lots of happy children.

jasper put together this short video clip of our village of hope team working together, please click on this link and take a moment to watch us in action. thanks goes out to some of our international staff for giving up their time to make this a great event for the kids and supporting the work of this little creche.

  

all smiles at rainbow smiles

its been a while since we updated you about our rainbow smiles adolescent HIV support group which runs each friday afternoon under the amazing leadership of emma podmore, who is ably supported by johan and two of our thembacare care workers.

we have to respect the children's identities and therefore their status which is one of the reasons for the lack of updates about this wonderful group, however last friday we held a special session which celebrated the move to our new venue which is held at sunday school rooms at the elgin united church and it was a chance to welcome some new children who we had identified via the work we do with the local day clinic to our weekly club.

the children enjoyed an afternoon of drumming and dancing which was lead by our security guard, andlie. they had so much fun learning simple (for them but not myself and emma who really struggled!) rhythms and xhosa dancing which was great to watch. it was nice to see the use of music to bring the group together and we hope to do this again in the future, if we can borrow the drums again.

providing new hope to another needy child...

mommy maz reading a bedtime story.

it's wonderful to be able to provide a home to those children most in need and yesterday we received our newest addition to the vast numbers of children that we have helped in the nearly five years since we first opened the doors of our children's unit here at the village of hope.

each child who is placed with us comes with his or her own complex problems, perhaps the child has grown up in a home where the care that they need isn't being provided by the ones who love them, perhaps the child has a chronic illness or is on medication which needs to be monitored to ensure they are stabilised before discharging back to their families.

all of the cases are heartbreaking but we know that we have provided care for around 50 children, sometimes they stay with us for a short while, some a little longer, but each one has been loved and cared for whilst we work with their families or adoptive parents with the desire to ensure that both the child and their families are able to live a healthy and balanced life.

our newest admission has been in hospital for quite some time before he came to us, he is still very malnourished and is on one of the largest programmes of medication that we have seen, however we will now make those first steps with him as we seek to reunite him with his mother as soon as he and she are stable.

another first day at school..

its off to school we go!

its amazing to see the children grow as they spend time with us, there are many mile stones that we celebrate with them and their first day at school or pre-school is one of those most precious moments.

today our little three year old who has been with us for about 18 months made his first steps into the 'education system' which was a real joy, thanks must go out to our social worker, emma, who has been busy trying to find a place at a local creche since the school term started about a month ago.

our little one with pinkie (his new teacher)

the creche/pre-school that he attends is further away from the village of hope than where the other children go, so the school run will be extended by a few minutes but he was reunited with an ex house mom who is now working at the school and will be his teacher....good news all round and it seems like his day went well as maz picked him up around lunchtime all he could talk about was the fun that he had had.

sight provided for those in need!

the girl with her new glasses (side photo to protect her identity!

sometimes it is easy to take things for granted, such as our health, health care systems and just the ease to buy what we need!, we hope the story below will highlight the struggles that many of the children we work with face each and everyday. 

a couple of weeks ago during our Rainbow Smiles HIV Support group one of the girls approached emma, and asked if she could talk to her, it seemed to take all of her courage to tell her that she needed glasses and that her mother could not afford them, she went on to say that she is finding it difficult to do her school work without them. 

after undertaking a home visit we found out that this little girl doesn't actually live with her biological mother but her aunt, uncle and 3 cousins in a small home and that following the death of her parents they do not receive any extra money to help support them with her care, the glasses would cost R250 (£15). 

this initial interaction all took place on a friday afternoon, the very afternoon on which emma was going away on a well earned holiday, as you can imagine this broke emma's heart and challenged the very fact that that this young girl could not afford a pair of glasses, that are so essential and without them the affect on her health, education and future, and the holiday was a luxury and would not have detrimental affects on her future if she did not go.

these are some of the struggles we face on a daily basis living in a place that has completely different worlds right next door to each other. emma was able to express my heartache over facebook and emma had an amazing response, so many people offered to donate to buy a pair of glasses we have received donations of up to £80! there were also so many messages of encouragement from many people around the world encouraging the work we are doing and it is really amazing for us as a team to be able to hear those messages and it spurs us on a bit more to continue doing what we are doing. 

last week emma was able to take the girl down to the day hospital to buy the glasses, but that didn't go as smoothly as first anticipated and after waiting a long time they told us we needed to go to the provincial hospital as her eyes are very bad! as they started to make their way to book an ambulance they realised they had given the wrong folder!! good job they noticed and after going back and queering this they were finally told that they had lost her notes...!, this isn't the first time this has happened and thank God we were around to rectify the problem, we do appreciate all the work that the local hospital do and the fact that they have so many patients with complex cases but really! after some discussions they were able to see her again right there and then and redid the eye test, confirming once again that she needed to wear glasses. 

the young girl took great joy in trying on all the different frames and picked a pair she liked and we paid for the glasses. this morning we went to pick up the glasses, the day hospital was bursting with people at 7.30am but luckily all we needed to do was pick up the glasses, the young girl was very excited and seemed very pleased with her new glasses and it was a pleasure to watch this dear girl as she received an amazing gift she so desperately needs. 

unfortunately though this is just one case out of many, we would love to be able to help everyone and its difficult knowing that we are unable to do so but we continue to trust God and know what may seem impossible for us is certainly not impossible for God, we continue to be his hands and feet and pray he will put is in the places and with the people he wants us to be.  

thank you to everyone who donated, it was amazing to feel so supported by so many people, please continue to pray for the children in our Rainbow Smiles group and the children in the community whose lives are so complex.

thankful for our new entrance...

revamped lawn area

car parking

car park area

from car park to reception

whatever the content of this post it would be hard to follow on from our last blog post as the things that we shared still affect us on a daily basis, with further news of sports mentors with growing social problems, our rainbow smiles children who are opening up to us with difficult life stories, the mothers of our children who are suffering in various different ways, the list goes on and on, therefore this post might seem a little trivial in comparison, however we are keen to show off the new plants that we have been blessed with and we want to thank those who gave us a donation which has enabled us to transform the entrance areas to our facility.

view to the front gate from reception door

for those of you who have visited our amazing village of hope project during the last few years i am sure you will be surprised by the changes that have taken place, these might seem very superficial, but for us this bears out the call upon the project to do all things well, be that supporting the children who live with us in the new children's unit or delivering a great and consistent sports outreach programme to creating some amazing space for our volunteers to stay or creating an entrance to the property that looks fantastic and speaks of God's abundance towards us.

have a look at the photos, which i deliberately took on a warm but cloudy day so as not to make those in the northern hemisphere too jealous of our delightful summer!, and maybe next year we could open our doors and take part in the elgin open gardens which is quite famous around our parts!?

called to be his hands and feet.....

there are some days, and even some weeks, when you feel so overwhelmed by the plight of literally thousands of people who live in our town that you really do wonder what difference we are really making in the grand scheme of things.

I have had many such days since first visiting grabouw back in 2006 and even more since our move out to set up the village of hope in october 2008. there aren't many times when I actually get time to compile my thoughts however looking back through this blog I did managed to capture the thoughts of one of those days in may 2012, have a read of that post by clicking on this link, and today was another one of those days and I will try to put into words the type of day it was.

the day started in pretty much the same way as normal weekdays, we all met together at 8.15am at our team meeting where we discussed the things that we were involved in from yesterday and prepared ourselves for the day ahead, asking God to guide us as we complete the jobs that needed to be done to ensure we run a productive and well governed project, however it wasn't until around 3pm that I ventured out into the community to pick up one of our sports mentors who was going to help shana run our netball outreach in the iraq informal settlement....and that's when stuff started to impact me.

after the morning meeting most days I seem to be running from one meeting to another, completing a report for some funder or another or replying to an urgent email from a colleague who needs answers to a question, however this afternoon as I dropped the mentor at the club in one of the poorest communities we work in I stopped to talk to a lady who had called my name.

after getting out of the car, making sure I didn't step in anything untoward! and having a quick chat with the xhosa lady who had called to me I noticed a young girl sitting in the doorway of her house, a small tin shack, around 3 meters square with no water or electricity, she seemed to be caring for a small child and it wasn't till I approached her that I noticed a dilapidated wheelchair standing outside of the home.

it turns out that this young girl is 13 years old and can't walk, she seemed bright enough in herself but to see her shuffling around on the mud floor of her home compelled me to pray for her, asking God to restore all that was broken in her life, not only her physical condition but anything that was causing her to miss out on the life that God had originally had planned for her.

looking back at this interaction I know that this young girl was one of many who I passed today, but it was only when I stopped and took some time to understand her life, showed the love that Jesus calls us to show towards our neighbours that I was able to be the hands and feet of Jesus to her this afternoon.

I didn't have all the answers but within 10 minutes I managed to make a phone call to a local school who takes in children with physical problems (I am hopeful that this will be one of the answers to our prayers) but the best part was that I was able to pray with her and ask God our father to restore her and I just spent time sitting with her, engaging with her, even though we couldn't speak the same language.

its only when reflecting on what impacted me most that I realise that my (or even your) calling isn't to save the whole world, country, province or town, its literally to be the hands and feet of Jesus, but what does that mean I hear you ask?

well Jesus was both fully human and full God, here on earth he was only able to impact communities one or two people at a time (OK I know he feed both 5,000 and 4,000 people with some loaves and fishes but most of his ministry was to individuals) and that's what I was able to do today.

it was still a hard day, the sights, sounds and smells that surround us impact us in ways that you can never know unless you have visited but as I sit here typing this post I feel that although it was a tough day God was with me and pointed me towards that young girl who he so cares about and who's story I shared with you.