soccer balls supa quick!

front page news, along with worries about
the water shortage in cape town!

over the last few years we have been blessed with a constant supply of soccer balls, we have received them from various different sources, FNB (first national bank), BP (petrol station) and various donations from volunteers, this has meant that we have never been in desperate need. however with around 150 children benefiting from our sports outreach programme each week we do tend to need a huge amount of balls, especially if we are doing drills where each child has their own ball. with that and the fact that we do like to bless our most regular kids with a ball that they can play with on the days we aren't in their area, so our 'stocks' tend to deplete very quickly.

at the back end of last month we were discussing whether we needed to set aside some of our cash to go and purchase some balls from the local sports shop to restock our bags but as i was buying some tyres from the local supa quick in grabouw i got chatting with the manager there about how they could help us as we seek to support those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB, he quickly got on to the area manager and within a few weeks had called to say that they had some balls to donate to us.

last monday willie and his family made a visit to the village of hope project to hand out the balls, which we will use in the local community in our training sessions and he also handed out some goody bags to the kids who live with us in the children's unit, the story made the front page of the elgin grabouwer, which you can view by clicking on the image.

thanks willie and the supaquick grabouw team.

precious 11 year old boy returns to village of hope

arron carries in the oxygen machine as our
11 year old boy returns to the village of hope

for those of you who have been following the story of the village of hope since the beginning or if you have ever visited our project you will know of our wonderful 11 year old boy who seems to capture every ones heart. his story is one that could be made into a movie, he has complex medical condition (which has been documented in an up and coming book about paediatric palliative care) and since arriving at the village of hope in may 2009 from our thembacare unit in athlone he has been in and out of the red cross children's hospital in cape town with various problems.

yesterday myself (tim) and maz had a 2 hour meeting with the various paediatric, infectious diseases and pulmonary doctors at the red cross hospital who are still very concerned about his condition but were happy to allow us to take him 'home' for his ongoing palliative care. he still needs to be given oxygen 24/7 but we feel that we can maintain his medical needs and are so happy that he is back with us.

he said his sad goodbye's to the wonderful team at athlone and jumped into the car to make the hour long journey up the mountain to grabouw. he never stopped talking and can even say 'grabouw', as we arrived we could hear the other children singing his name and he was greeted by all the house moms and the 9 other children who stay with us. it was an emotional return, the other children were waving from the unit window and as soon as he entered the door they came up to him and gave him big hugs and kisses.

we are so glad to have him home and would ask you all to join us in our prayers as we seek to provide a loving home for him and the rest of the children we look after.

first day at school (for our 4 year old)

its a long way on your own!

this time last year we were able to providing a home to two brothers who had been staying at our thembacare unit in cape town, there was hope that these two could have been reunited quickly with their sister, who is staying at another care home, however as with many of our children's cases these things don't happen as quickly as we would like. their mother is now very very sick and it looks like we might be responsible for these two precious boys for a lot longer than we first thought.

as we didn't expect to have them for so long we held back from placing the oldest one at the local preschool as we didn't want to take up a space that could be used by another child who would be in greater need, however with the change of events maz felt that it would be best (not only for the 4 year old boy who is getting extremely bored by having to stay at home at the village of hope all morning with all the babies when the other older children are at school, but also for our house moms as they were finding hard to keep him from crawling up the walls!) that he was found a place at the school.

well yesterday he had his first day, tyler our longer term volunteer took him to school, and although he looked so grown up with his new school bag and flask full of juice once he knew that he was going to be staying the little guy was totally overwhelmed and burst into tears....shame.

however on his return at lunch time he was full of beans and was excited to tell people about his first morning at school.

fence and post stolen again

what was left of our security fencing!

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

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

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

mom's plea as home burns down

we have had a sms (text message) from a mom of one of our 'discharged' children to say that her tin shack burnt down and she is now staying with neighbours. the winter weather, wind and rain has returned to grabouw and people are struggling just to keep warm.

this mom lost everything in the fire, clothes, food, bedding etc, these people have such tough lives anyway without this kind of thing bringing more pain and misery to their lives. we (voh) will be helping out where we can with a small food parcel and some new (second hand) clothing but this type of event is a daily burden that we face....please stand with us as we seek the best way to help those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB.

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.

mid-cities team enjoy their week long trip

the team at the top of sir lowry's pass

last saturday morning we were joined by 7 young ladies from the mid-cities church in midland, texas, joined us at the village of hope for a week long stay, during the week they were able to bless our community in many different ways, on wednesday afternoon they lead the service at thembacare, grabouw, and gave out goodie bags to our staff, they also helped out with a sports outreach in iraq squatter camp, played with our wonderful babies and children in the unit and completed some much needed maintenance around the 'farm'.

for some of them it was their second visit to work with thembalitsha and for others it was their first time, we were once again sad to say our goodbyes as they made their long trip home, but we hope to see them again in the very near future.