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!

parting christmas parties

our 3 year old and his granny

it is the season to be jolly (tra...la..la...la..la..la...la...la..la..la..etc) and on friday lunchtime we were able to celebrate with the children who are currently staying with us, with some of those who have been discharged and with their carers. it was great to see some of the little ones who had spent time with us at the village of hope doing so well and to be able to bless their moms, aunties and grannies with a festive feast (kindly donated by chanttel and her husband)....'father christmas' (aka josh holtrum) made his annual (josh's first) appearance and handed each child and their siblings a present.

clicking thumbs for the last time!

the party had its ups and its downs as we knew at the end of it two of our longer term boys would be going home to stay with aunties and grannies for good. the aim of the village of hope has always been to provide a safe environment for vulnerable children to stay whilst their medical and or social issues are sorted and maz and her team have now successfully placed over 40 children back with their families or into long term foster or adoptive care, however saying goodbye is never easy and we will constantly think of and pray for the dear ones who we have cared for over the last five years.

please take time this christmas season to think of those who are less fortunate that ourselves and should you wish to donate or make a pledge to the work we are doing then please follow the links to our giving pages by clicking here!

thoughts from the village of hope around world AIDS day...

stories in the news around HIV can be confusing, on the one hand we hear that there has been a 'dramatic drop in new infection rates' and 'that mother to child transmission is falling', and on the other hand there are 'reports of a more dangerous strain of the HIV virus in west africa' and that 'adolescence dying from AIDS in south africa is on the increase', what are we to believe on 'world aids day' in 2013?

well we will now provide you with four stories that have impacted us in grabouw over the last four weeks where we are really feeling the effects of the loss of our full time ARV doctor at our local hospital, not all of these stories can be attributed to the fact that we have lost probably one of the most amazing and caring HIV specialists in south africa and we don't want to get into the politics of all that here but the facts on the ground are pointing to more suffering and even deaths due to the changes that have been made.

the facts are that two of our children, one who we discharged back to his mother in 2010 and another who is still living with us have had mothers dying due to the effects of HIV, with another mother of two siblings who were placed with us for a period, also 2010, dying of cancer, perhaps with HIV complications during this last month.

further to the news of those dear mom's, two of whom were still in their twenties, and the other under the age of forty passing, one of our security guards has been off ill and upon his return he looked awfully gaunt and told us that he was suffering from TB, another disease which is prevalent in our town and is often linked to HIV, we are praying that he continues to take his medication and that he welcomes the home visits that our wonderful thembacare careworks will make to ensure he follows his course to the end, however he didn't report for work this morning and we are full of worries about his health.

it's not all doom and gloom as we are seeing progress via our careworkers, rainbow smiles (our weekly adolescent support group) and our sports outreach health and lifeskills training but when we were discussing the worries around our patients one colleague said that 'we aren't waiting for the time bomb to go off' we are literally 'picking up the pieces of a bomb that has already exploded'.....

...therefore please think and pray for us on this world AIDS day 2013 as we seek to serve our children, their parents and the wider community, all of whom are affected by HIV and TB and many of whom are infected by those two debilitating but not life threatening diseases!

friendly but challenging encouragement from mal

we get the feeling that mal enjoyed the wonderful
scenery that surrounds us here in the
western cape!

as you will have read in june's newsletter we have welcomed barbara wood back onto our team and she will be followed in quick succession by josh (a young man from the aylesbury area), emma (a returning volunteer) and shana (who arrives slightly later in august) and we will cover those arrivals in a future post.

today however we want to express our heart felt thanks to mal calladine who visited us from england for a short but very exciting and challenging week last week.

myself and maz have known mal since his days leading the emerging generation stuff at the new wine conferences at the bath and west showground and we have kept in touch to be inspired, confronted and encouraged, even during his time in america, he is certainly a key part in our spiritual journey and is someone who has walked the path that led us to come serve in south africa.

we always make a point of touching base with mal when we have our annual home visits to england and have often chatted around him making time to come visit and impart wisdom to our small team at the village of hope and this was realised as he spent a crazy busy week with us last week. we did enjoy some 'down time' in cape town and franschhoek at the start and end of his stay but mal's main focus was to spent some time watching us as a team.

this 'team watching' meant that he played with the children in the children's unit, came out for some sports outreach, visited community members and engaged with our thembacare staff at our wednesday afternoon service, he also spent time with our local pastors, niel and frank, which was very helpful. he then took time with us both as individuals and as team where he led some workshops around the five fold ministry and some 'up, in and out' stuff that we had enjoyed so much many years ago. we were certainly blessed to receive his teaching, insight and God given wisdom as a team and it seemed right as we look to the next stage of the development of the village of hope.

we want to thank him for making the looooong trip down for such a short time and are looking forward to seeing how our team will move forward with some of the things he left us with after the school break, where both rob and emily along with mel are enjoying some much needed rest, and we are excited to see how the new volunteers will engage with refocused team!

a helping hand (near and far)

well, we have been extremely busy over the past weeks so apologies for the intermittent posts! we are still trying to get the building works finished which seem to be taking forever!

wood for our mentors before the rains came

and then the rains came

from our previous post you will have read that winter is starting to set in and with it comes stormy weather and rain. even a dusting of snow on the mountains! although the snow looks pretty, these harsher weather conditions make life in the township even more challenging than usual.

helping with a sports mentors new roof

as always we do our best to go the extra mile at this time of year, whether it’s organising extra soup to be provided to some local creches or donating scrap wood from our recent building projects that can be used by our faithful sports mentors as fire fuel. with such overwhelming need in this community it’s very easy to get distracted from our ‘day job’ (?) and consider setting up a soup kitchen or start another equally worthy project…but we have to remain focused on what we are already doing and build on that, trusting that God will fill in where we cannot. we cannot always do more… 

however, if you feel like you DO have room in your busy schedule to do more then we’ve made it really easy for you to help to restore hope through Thembalitsha wherever you are! 

the clever bods (yes, we have a few believe it or not!) in our marketing team have come up with a wonderful plan... it’s called #Active4Hope and it is very easy to do!

1.      get active:

run, cycle, walk, row, jump, skip, craft, sew, dance, make music…..whatever you love to do you can create awareness for our cause and be #Active4Hope.

2.      wear:

they’ve got a very smart t-shirt to go with this (thanks to mel who designed this for us) which you can download and print onto your preferred white t-shirt. the idea that you wear this shirt whenever you are active and become a walking (or running, crafting, rowing etc) billboard for us! (download it here)

3.      join or enter:

lisa modeling the new active4hope tee shirt

to take this concept further you can even decide to enter an event and fundraise for us too or create a social or training club where each member of the group wears the shirt for meetings/training sessions.

4.      tweet:

we just ask one favour, that you tweet us (@thembalitsha using hashtag #Active4Hope) and send us a pic of how you are being #Active4Hope to keep us informed of what you are up to!

if you need to be led by example then look no further than the wonderful lisa baldy who’s doing a number of sporting events for us over the course of the year. she is the first to own an #Active4Hope t-shirt and has raised nearly £500 for us already. also krissy clark has began a cycle group to train for events in south Africa called ‘a freakin’ cycle’. they are sure to be famous throughout the western cape of south africa before too long!

we hope that this will be the beginning of an online movement and we can build a whole community of people who are joined together in being #Active4Hope.

by doing this one simple thing, you can make a difference wherever you are in the world and whatever you do! be inspired!

the village continues to bring ho ho hope!

santa and his sleigh before we left the village of hope

it has been another amazing year here at the village of hope, we continue to see God's provision to us as we seek to serve the community of grabouw especially focusing on those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB, all of which are rife in our town.

we could spend a whole blog post about the wonderful things that have happened this year, all the stories of the children that we have helped to find a stable family to go home to live with or those that we are still seeking to help via our children's unit, we could talk about the provision of a new building provided by the students from stuttgart university or the people carrier bought with funds from our friends in england and the dutch charity 'wings of support'. we could provide a long update on the sports outreach which has grown from strength to strength, now engaging with more local mentors who have been supported by the students from the HAN university in holland but all that would take such a long time, so we urge you to venture through the previous posts on the blog to find out what we have been up to during 2012.

children excited to see santa coming to their street

however what we would like to share is the fact that our incredible team of permanent staff (our house moms and maintenance team) and our willing band of volunteers, both longer termers, short term mission teams and individuals, have continued to offer hope in what can sometimes be seen as hopeless situations and this culminated in our annual sleigh ride into the areas where we work day in day out.

it was great to see the children and members of their families that we work with enjoying the sight of father christmas being towed through the town, up the main street and then into each of the communities, many of whom live in little wooden shacks with no water or electricity. the whole community seemed to be out on the street and although we did bless them with a few sweets and apples that wasn't the reason we run this event.

kids chasing santa and his sleigh 

the main reason to do this again was to bless them with the chance to see santa coming to their streets and for that to provide another sign of hope as we celebrate the most amazing story of hope, that of a little baby coming to earth to show us how to live, to love one another, our neighbours and even our enemies, as we love ourselves, to look after the widows and the orphans and proclaim the good news that he can provide hope in the most hopeless places. thank God for Jesus and we thank him for inspiring us to do what we do each and everyday here in this little town in south africa.

happy christmas and may you see hope in 2013 as we enter another year of opportunity to serve those less fortunate than ourselves......

food need outweighs flashy headgear!

happy but hungry mentors

late last week i was able to bless two of our sports mentors with a wonderful gift that was donated from our latest team who visited us from the united states. the gift was a sports cap with built in flashlight which is not only a cool accessory, maz has one so as not to wake me when she is reading at night!, but will make such a difference for our two mentors as they struggle to complete their school homework in their dark and electricity free tin shack in the iraq informal settlement in grabouw.

delivering our life skills in iraq informal settlement today

the boys were very pleased to receive this gift but once i had presented them with their cool hats, see photo, they asked if there was any way that i could help them out as they didn't have any, yes any, food in their home for that evening meal..........it suddenly stuck me that although they received a $30 cap which would help them in the future their immediate need was to put some food on the table!

engaging with their peers, so cool!

as a charity thembalitsha don't encourage us to provide hand outs, we are seeking to provide new hope via empowering people to a place of self reliance but what could i do, what would you do?, leave the boys with a wonderful new cap but with empty stomachs?......no i took them into town and purchased a few tin cans of meat, some eggs, fresh milk, sugar and paraffin to lite the stove, God calls us to love our neighbours as ourselves and i couldn't face the thought of leaving them with nothing knowing that my cupboards were full of food and a nice cauliflower cheese bake that maz had made for me to microwave as she was out for the evening!

today those two same boys were back helping with our sports outreach, they told me that their hats were great and that they could now read some of the educational magazines i had left with them, and that their mother had received her pay cheque and they had some food for their family....at least for this week!

a new child and new student

it's always exciting for our house moms to
welcome little ones into our care

this seems to be a season of new things, today we bring you the exciting news that we have been able to provide a new home to a little boy (around 16 months old) with a very complex home situation. unfortunately his home (tin shack) was burnt down with a fatality and the young mom is unable to cope with everything during this trying time.....it is wonderful to be able to provide a place of safety for this child whilst his family situation is sorted by our local social workers.

marlise our new social work student

speaking of social workers we are pleased to tell you of our most recent dutch student from the HAN university who will be with us for 10 months as we host her as a placement for her social work studies. the help and support that we receive from these students is invaluable and we look forward to the work that marlise will be providing the children who stay with us at the village of hope and also those who attend our rainbow smiles HIV support group.

just another (women's) day

flowers and kids trying to get in the photo

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

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

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


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

an alternative view!

this village of hope blog was set up to allow all members of the longer term team to share their thoughts and experiences with you (the wider world) and as you will know we are never short of news stories here in grabouw, however on this post we thought it would be good for you to have a look at some of the other blogs that have been set up by some of our shorter term volunteers who are living with us at the village of hope at the moment.

we hope that their stories and views will give a bit of an alternative view of life on the project and will highlight some of the things that have touched their hearts as they serve with us in grabouw and as they venture around this amazing country. if you would like to take a peek then click on the names below which will link to their various blogs, katia, jess and grace.

March News

As ThembaCare Grabouw have probably mentioned in their news, we have had a dramatic month here in Grabouw. There has been a large amount of unrest in the community which culminated in violent protests a couple of weeks ago. We are thankful that our project is not immediately in the township so we weren’t caught up in anything directly, however it impacted our staffing for over 24 hours because it was not safe for our House Moms to move back and forth. Thankfully we are currently blessed with lots of very capable volunteers who stepped in to fill the gaps and they did an fantastic job of keeping the children stimulated and the routines running.

Children’s Unit

Peek-A-Boo Easter Bunny

With the Easter Holidays now in full swing, the House Moms are being kept on their toes. Nine children to entertain all day, seven days a week can be quite full on! To add to this we have been looking after two extra little boys in the day as well. The boys are staying with ThembaCare (because we don’t have any spare beds) whilst they wait to go into hospital for TB treatment. Thankfully we have the distraction of a new trampoline. The frame was a second hand donation a while back but the pad arrived perished and sun damaged and no good for hardcore bouncers. Tim’s parents brought out a new one with them from the UK using some money that was donated and now trampolining is a new major past time. We have also got Jess, Grace, Heather and Katia on hand to do some Easter crafts with the kids to keep them entertained.

Sports Outreach and Community Work
Two weeks ago we had one of our Soccer Saturday events at the Country Club. We had a fantastic turn out with over 150 children attending from the seven different areas we work in. All credit to the volunteers and Dutch Students who arranged it. It all ran very smoothly and the kids had a fantastic time. The German building students came along to lend a hand and be ‘managers’ for each of the teams and then later on the Dutch and German students went head to head in a match of their own. We are very grateful to the Elgin Round Table who came through again with food and refreshments for all the children. We stood back and realized that at one stage with had volunteers from England, USA, Canada, Holland, Norway, Germany and New Zealand helping out…Village of Hope really is going global!

It really was also great to see investment that we have been making in the sports mentors paying off. They conducted themselves really maturely and were an asset to our day. We are exploring how we can invest more in our mentors off the pitch too by seeing whether we can offer a scholarship to one of them to help to develop them and give them hope for a better future.

Other News
Volunteers:
The whole team was very sad to say goodbye to Niall this month. He had five weeks serving at ThembaCare Grabouw and with us and had become a true father figure in the volunteer unit. We are confident it’s not the last we will see of him but we are already missing him. Lance and Travis, our Canadian duo also said goodbye – things are certainly very quite around here without them!

On the flip side we were able to say ‘hello’ to Katia and Heather. Both of them are serving with us for three months and have already got stuck in! Katia is a Nurse from New Zealand and is assisting in the children’s unit and we have been enlisting Heather with lots of admin and petty cash. Not always the most glamorous of jobs but the help is always very much appreciated. We have even loaned her skills out to the Day Hospital who have needed help with their mountains of filing.

The New Building:
….Is complete! (well very nearly!) Yes, the Germans have now left, leaving us with another lovely straw house. This one is a two-story affair but is very similar to the house they built last year. The whole team worked extremely hard to get it completed as far as possible working late into the night and early in the mornings. We are so blessed to have another building which we hope will help us cater for more volunteers in the future and eventually lead to us being able to expand the services we can offer in the children’s unit. But for now it’s the same process as last year: we need to wait for the straw to dry out before we can plaster it and then begin to use it and with the rains on their way it could take a while.


Events
With Easter just around the corner, why not give a chicken this year rather than an egg?! We have a great alternative gift for you just visit eBay to get yours! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290691216752

It’s that time of year again when we are recruiting runners to for our 10k run. We have six places available and the run takes place on Sunday 8th July. This really is a fantastic race – you get to run past major London landmarks like Big Ben and St Paul’s cathedral. It costs £30 to enter and you need to be willing to commit to raising at least £500 for us. So, whether you are new to running and looking for a challenge, or an old hand looking to beat your personal best, this is a great opportunity to get into training and to run for a great cause. Contact us at office@thembalitshauk.org.uk for more information.


How You Can Help
We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!
• Give - 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. Or nominate us as your charity of choice within your church or business.
• 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 under the ‘Support Us’ page on our website (http://www.thembalitsha.org.za). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!

February News

‘Hope is Here’ is the new single from Wholehearted and is inspired by the work of the Thembalitsha Foundation.

If you caught us when we were in the UK you will have had a sneak peak. The single in available for free download (click here) and the video, that was filmed in Grabouw, shows some of the work of Village of Hope and ThembaCare. Those that are subscribed to our email newsletter (sign up here) get an exclusive preview of the video which will be released officially later on this week. We will post here and on our facebook page when it's released. Make sure you check it out - You might even recognise a few faces!

Through everything that we do as a Foundation our main aim is to bring New Hope and we hope that the video gives you a taste of just that. You can also see more stories of hope within our news this month – because we have been very busy and have lots to share! We hope the stories inspire you to join us in our quest to create positive change in our communities.


This month has very much been the month of birthdays with many of our staff, volunteers and children celebrating another year. It’s at these times we really do come to appreciate life and what a blessing it is – particularly when it comes to the children in the unit, whose lives could look quite different if they weren’t here with us.

Children’s Unit
We had one little boy turning two. He has been staying with us while we stabilised him on his ARV and TB medication but we are very excited to be placing him back home with this Mother. His Mum has been in to get all the training and advice she needs to look after her little boy and we are very hopeful that this will be another successful placement. On the flipside the other birthday we celebrated was for one of the girls who has been with us since we opened three years ago. She became four this month and her case has been a lot more complicated to work out – and is still on going.  It is hard to know when she will ever move on to find a home of her own. Of course, she has been with us for so long now that Village of Hope is the only home she knows and she had a fantastic time celebrating with all the German students (28 of them!) coming in to sing to her. Her face was a real picture! We are also pleased to welcome back our two year old girl from hospital. She has been in under observation whilst she was put onto her ARV medication. This little cutie has TB too so it was important she was monitored because TB can flare up when combined with the HIV medication and last time we had a real scare. This time we are pleased to report that it all went smoothly and she is happily settling back in here at the Village of Hope.

Our House Moms are also looking very pleased with themselves at the moment thanks to some new uniforms. The uniforms are in the Thembalitsha colours and, along with the nice new name badges, certainly bring an air of professionalism to the unit! They were provided by one of our old volunteers, Jennifer Hunt, who has visited the project a number of time. Thanks Jenn!  The attire is comfortable to work in too - which is a necessity when working with little ones.


Sports Outreach and Community Work
Our community outreach is still going strong. We have welcomed our two new interns from the HAN university in Holland, Angelique and Marijn. It’s the first time we’ve had two girls but, of course, they don’t seem to be phased by the football (and the boys have been very welcoming as you can imagine!) and seem to be at home with their roles already.

The girls already have two new boys who are keen to make the commitment and train to become mentors. This is really exciting because it shows that the strategy that Weike and Stephan set up is working: the older boys in the clubs are seeing how rewarding it is to be a mentor and wanting that for themselves.

The other exciting news is that we have been approached by the Waitrose Foundation, who visited the project earlier in the year, to see how we can role out our sports programme to all of the farms that they invest in. We are so pleased to see that Waitrose see the value in the work we are doing and are keen to be able to share the programme with as many people as possible. It’s still early days and we have a lot of logistics to sort out before anything can become definite so please pray that God shows us the right way to go about this.

Rainbow Smiles, our support group for HIV+ teenagers is doing well too. Our volunteers, Jess and Grace are doing a brilliant job of pulling activities and ideas together along with the support of Tim Berger and Johan. ThembaCare are also providing their wisdom in how to educate the kids on HIV and this month Jess and Grace have been roping in all the adults to become antibodies (or ‘soldiers’) to dramatise the battle that does on in the body when the HIV virus attacks!


Other News
Volunteers:
Our volunteers continue to do sterling work. Jess and Tim are settling in well and since then we have welcomed Grace Perret and Niall O’Loghlen from the UK – Grace is here for three months (and is a link from Aylesbury) and Niall for five weeks. We’ve also welcomed three young men from Canada: Travis, Lance and Andy. Andy is only with us for a week. He is actually Tim Walker’s cousin and it’s always good to meet more of the family, however briefly. Despite the brief stay, he has still managed to come face to face with a puff adder and a hornet’s nest! He also led the mid-week church service at ThembaCare so I think we can safely say he’s had a good glimpse of Africa! Travis and Lance are staying on till mid March and are getting stuck in on the farm, felling trees and chopping wood and also exercising their sports skills in our afternoon outreach. It’s good to have them here – even if they did have to bring their own emergency stash of Cheerios all the way from Canada!

Although Niall is staying with us, he is here to serve ThembaCare and will be training them in how to use syringe drivers for the next five weeks. Please check out ThembaCare’s blog (click here) to read all about the difference he is making – it is so exciting and he does know what he is doing because he’s a doctor! It’s nice to be able to host someone who is here to bless another project and good for us at Village of Hope to feel like we are working more closely with our ‘sister’ in town.

The New Building:
Well it’s all go, go, go on site. If you have been reading our blog you will be up to date with all the details! The German students are all here and getting well and truly stuck in – this time with hard hats (which is a relief!). The two-story building is coming on quickly and they already have the door and window frames in. As well as the building the students are also working more closely in the community by providing some shading area for a crèche. The shade is an intricate pattern cut out of a old sail and it is a very complex jigsaw to complete – each piece is unique in shape taking ages to mark and cut out and then having to (some how) bring it all together. We can’t wait to see it finished and we are sure the staff and kids at the crèche will be blown away!


Events
It’s that time of year again when we are recruiting runners to for our 10k run. We have six places available and the run takes place on Sunday 8th July. This really is a fantastic race – you get to run past major London landmarks like Big Ben and St Paul’s cathedral. It costs £30 to enter and you need to be willing to commit to raising at least £500 for us. So, whether you are new to running and looking for a challenge, or an old hand looking to beat your personal best, this is a great opportunity to get into training and to run for a great cause. Contact us at office@thembalitshauk.org.uk for more information.



How You Can Help
We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!
• Give - 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. Or nominate us as your charity of choice within your church or business.
• 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 under the ‘Support Us’ page on our website (http://www.thembalitsha.org.za). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!

praying for our children

just chilling in the kitchen before dinner,
her favorite time of the day

on tuesday morning maz took our little two and a half year old girl into tygerberg hospital where she will stay for a few days whilst the team get her started on her ARV (anti retro viral) medication for her HIV. normally there's no need for our children to go to hospital to start this treatment but due to the fact that she is also on TB medication and has had TB meningitis then the staff want to observe her before sending her back to stay with us at the village of hope.

she is such a dear little (well not so little) thing, she copies everything anyone says and has really developed since she has been with us. please pray for her as she stays on her own and that there wont be any complications with the different types of medication.
we are longing to see her happy smile back with us again soon.

an update on our 11 year old boy is that he has now been discharged from the red cross children's hospital into our sister project, thembacare athlone, mommy maz visited him yesterday and he is doing a little better but he is still a poorly boy!

pig leaves and tim and jess arrive.....

tim trying to send an sms on his a new fangled phone!

jess enjoying the shade as she engages with the children!

during the last week we have extended our warm (in more ways than one as the summer weather has certainly arrived with full force as well!) to two longer term volunteers. tim berger has joined us for two years from the USA, tim has a long relationship with the thembalitsha foundation where he has bought mission teams over to serve the charity in the past. tim has a real servant heart, which has been demonstrated as he lead his previous teams and he has shown that as he settles into his role here at the village of hope. we hope that tim will also be a blessing to the wider thembalitsha grabouw team which includes themabcare grabouw where his arrival has been waited with great expectation (by some of the ladies!). tim is a bit of a technophobe so don't hold your breath if you are expecting lots of updates!

our second longer termer is jess trigg, a proud yorkshire lass who will be focusing her attention into developing the children's daily activities during her 6 month stay with us. she is already a big hit with the children but is finding the weather a little bit different to the normal summer conditions that she is used to!

heinrich and tim trying to coax the pig into leaving!

as these two wonderful volunteers arrive we have sent our latest little piggy to be turned into food which will be used to feed our children in the unit, whilst it was a sad and somewhat fraught goodbye.....where a comical chase ensued with johan, heinrich and tim spending a hot hour trying to coax the pig into our trailer.....mr pig you will taste good.

new year and new baby boy...

the last week of 2011 saw the village of hope offer new hope and a loving family environment to the 30th child since we opened in 2009. our home has been a little quite since our 11 year old boy has been in the red cross children's hospital, again, but we are now up to our full compliment of 9 children with the addition of a wonderful little boy who needs our support whilst his family get their feet back on track.

he is around 20 months old and is on TB medication and is HIV+ so please pray for him as he settles into life here at the village of hope, thankfully his grandparents have already made a visit to him, which is all positive news, lets hope that 2012 will prove to be a better year for him.

please could we ask you to continue to pray for our little 11 year old in red cross, he has had a rough time of it, unable to keep his food down over christmas, due to some of the medication he is taking, although maz was able to feed him his first meal when we visited him on thursday which was good to see.....we will keep you updated on his progress here.

may we wish you all a very blessed 2012.

October News

Once again we find another month flew by here at the Village of Hope, Maz’s sister, Viv, and brother in law, Mark, have been visiting the project on a sort of ‘holiday’ so Tim and Maz have enjoyed a few days away in the Cederberg mountains with them, which they tell us was beautiful....maybe because of the lack of mobile reception!?

This month our headline news must be the final completion of the house that was built by the team from Stuttgart earlier this year. Rob and Emily are thrilled to finally be in. We are also pleased to announce the appointment of a Nursing Sister to assist with the medical side of the children who live with us. Sister Portia will be shared between us and Thembacare Grabouw, where she will oversee our Home Based Palliative Care Team. She comes highly recommended and we are already seeing the benefits of having a professional nurse around the place.

The wider Thembalitsha Foundation held their ‘staff party’ at the Erinvale Golf Club, in Somerset West, and all of our staff were able to attend that. We enjoyed a hearty brunch and were entertained by some of the project managers who performed a variety of songs and skits...Tim and Maz ‘performed’ a version of ABBA’s ‘I have a dream’ with Maz in full 70’s regalia and Tim dressed up as an Angel, prancing round with his halo and wings!.....say no more.

Children’s Unit
Our little ones continue to challenge and amaze us. This month one of our little girls was readmitted to Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, with suspected Hepatitis, brought on by her immune system being suppressed with the HIV that she suffers from. Maz was trying to register one of our other little girls into a local crèche and found out that she didn’t even have a birth certificate. These things are sent to try us but we take each day as it comes and amazing things seem to happen. We thank God for these little miracles because without Him I am sure we would all give up!
The children enjoyed a week off from school, their spring break. This is always a taxing time for our House Moms who work a 12 hour shift (7am – 7pm) however we were blessed by having some help from our volunteers from the USA who tried to make their lives a little easier by entertaining the children in various ways.

Mark and Viv didn’t sit in the sun all the time, we did keep them busy with a few tasks. Viv helped out in the unit when the team enjoyed their staff party and we were blessed when Mark and his faithful assistant, Viv, turned his hand to the construction of a wooden sand pit, complete with a wishing well style roof to protect the children (and the sand) from the sun...Thanks guys it’s already a hit with the kids.

Sports Outreach and Community Work
During the spring holidays we took a day out to run another ‘Sports Saturday’ which is always a bit of a challenging day for us to organise but to see the smiles on the children’s faces always makes it worthwhile, especially as we held it on a Monday (!) which meant that they had a full day of activities on what can become a bit of a boring time away from school. The event was held at the Elgin Country Club, quite a contrast to the areas and living conditions that these children are used to, but it is so good to be able to bless them with those things that we so often take for granted. Over 130 children joined us for the event, in which we bring together all the different teams/areas that we work with on a weekly basis, we had 11 soccer teams and 6 netball sides and the children played so well in all the tournaments. For the record Hillside boys won the Under 14 soccer, a first for that area which they were so happy about, Iraq won the Under 16 tournament with some stiff completion from our newly found club from Site View. Rooidakke girls won the Netball tournament but were given a good run for their money from Hillside.

We were also able to take a team of under 14 boys to a soccer event held at Santos Football Club in Cape Town, this was part of the South African Police Force campaign ‘sport against crime’. We had a team made up of children from all around Grabouw, each of the teams/clubs /areas that we work with were represented. Whilst it was great to see the children from different colours and cultures come together to represent our town, it was sad to see other teams ignore the under 14 age limit, which meant that our boys lost all 3 of their games. It’s a hard lesson to learn but having good ethics and being truthful often means that you don’t win.......life skill 1...!

Our Dutch students, Wieke and Stephan are proving to be a real blessing and we thank God that he bought them to us at just the right time. They are helping to document the life skills, bible and health awareness programme which we run every afternoon in the community and this will be an amazing resource to pass on to our mentors when they return to Holland in January. They and the other HAN students helped out at the sports day which we were truly thankful for.



Other News
The Straw House:
As we mentioned in our headline news Rob and Emily have moved into the new long term volunteer accommodation, it has taken a little longer than we thought it would but with some designated funding that we received to complete the building we have finally managed to get them into their new home.

Volunteers:
We were blessed with the week-long visit from two of our long term friends from America, Helen and Jen. They joined us here at the Village of Hope and also blessed our Care Workers at Thembacare Grabouw with their fun and sense of humour. We have also been joined by Simon, a young man from England who will be with us until the middle of December....welcome to the team Simon.


Events and other stuff!
Prayer Day:
Our day of prayer this month was very well supported. Thank you each and every one of you who gave up some of your Saturday to lift up our project in prayer. It really means a lot to us to know that we are being supported in this way. If any of you have any feedback from your prayer time please do let us know.

Tim and Maz on Tour:
Tim and Maz are going to be in the UK (and Germany and Holland!) throughout November and some of December. They are going to be touring the country speaking at churches, small groups and schools. If you want to try and see them along the way then check out their tour dates under this blog post: tim and maz on tour to find out when they are going to be near you.

Wholehearted:
The South African worship band, Wholehearted, will be accompanying Tim and Maz for a week in December. They have an amazing ministry and if you have the opportunity to get to one of the gigs (listed in Tim and Maz’s tour dates) then don’t miss it.

World AIDS Day - December 1st:
This is a significant day for our project. Wholehearted will be doing a special gig at Vale of Aylesbury Vineyard Church for us. If you can get there please do. Also, if you are interested in raising funds for us on that day, why not suggest to your local school that they Wear Red for World AIDS Day and each student can choose to donate £1/£2 to be out of uniform? Quite a simple idea but it could be very effective. If you would like any help with fundraising materials please get in touch.

Christmas:
Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, please put a penny in Thembalitsha’s hat! We will have alternative gifts available to buy on ebay by the end of this week. These gifts are ideal for hard-to-buy-for relatives this Christmas and start from £5. If you can’t wait to purchase email us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk to find out more, if not, keep your eyes on the blog and on facebook for more information.

Thank You:
Finally we just want to say a big thank you to High Cross Church in Camberley (again) for raising more money for us from their quiz night. High Cross Church have chosen us as their charity to support for the next three years and we are really noticing their impact. You guys are amazing!


How You Can Help
We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!
• Give - 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. Or nominate us as your charity of choice within your church or business.
• 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 under 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!

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.

love is in the air....!

the village of hope has been blessed with literally hundreds of volunteers since we took our first steps as a project nearly 3 years ago, they are the life blood of the work we do here and we love hosting people who want to get involved in the lives of the children that we serve, not only here on the project, but also in the community via our sports outreach and at our sister project thembacare in grabouw.

as you can imagine spending time serving certainly has in impact into many of our volunteers lives and over the years we hear stories from lots of them that speak about 'rediscovering themselves', 'understanding the love God has for africa' or 'Gods love for the children that we look after', but never in our wildest dreams did we ever consider that the village of hope would be a place where two young people not only found God in a deeper way but also found their partner for life.

on sunday evening we had a wonderful skype call with two of our volunteers, both of whom have served with us and with thembalitsha in the past, who over their summer break spent time with us again this year and, without it being too obvious to some of us, fell in love in a way that has meant that they have committed their lives and love to each other....yes that's right folks we could be seeing our first village of hope wedding in the very near future!

we are so please for tyler and britton, we wish them all the best for the plans for their wedding and hope that they might be able to join us for at least part of their honeymoon....well done guys you are true stars and we thank God that we were just a small part of your big story, God bless you both.

more birthdays and more fence stolen!

two year old girl, her mother, our house mom and
other children enjoying a game of pass the parcel

we have been able to celebrate two birthday's this weekend, yesterday i celebrated my 44th birthday with maz and arron, they took me for a wonderful birthday lunch at the guardian peak vineyard near stellenbosch and then we enjoyed an evening of cheese and biscuits with our wonderful volunteers....however that wasn't the main party that we had a the village of hope this week!

on friday we were delighted to have a birthday party for one of our newer children, she came to us a few months ago and has been very ill since she has been with us, ending up in hospital with TB meningitis  however it was great to celebrate her second birthday and also welcome her mother, who is also quite sick, to the party. as usual our house mom's and volunteers did an amazing job with lots of party games such as pass the parcel and lots of yummy food.

unfortunately we did suffer another loss of fence and fence posts from around the edge of the property on friday, this is a real pain in the neck and we are wondering what to do to prevent more being stolen. we are trying to make those that steal it realise that they are actually stealing from themselves as we have to spend donated money to replace that which is stolen rather than helping those in need through our two projects (village of hope and thembacare) here in grabouw.

continuing sodexo support

tim, barbara receiving a donation of food from colin 

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

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