one child leaves and opens a space for us to provide new hope to another

as one child leaves to be reunited with his family the door opens for another child to receive the amazing new hope that we are able to provide via our wonderful children's unit. each child has there own individual story and some are more complex than others.

please pray for this new little boy who has been placed with us to provide some space for his parents to seek the help they need to enable them to gain prospective on their lives and set up a home which will become the secure environment that this little one needs as he grows.

another child leaves the village of hope to return home

another story of hope

it's always sad to say goodbye, especially to a child who has become so loved by the staff at the village of hope, however in our sadness there is joy as we know that we have done everything possible to not only stabilise a child who has been placed with us with either complex medical or social problems but also worked so with our local social workers and the child's family to ensure that a successful placement, often to a home which caused the issue which resulted in the removal of the child in the first place, is made with confidence.

this post therefore contains a great story of new hope as over the weekend emma took one of our dear little three year old boys back to his family home, this is incredible and exciting news as he was in such a poorly state, requiring specialist hospital care this time last year. we are so thankful to our house moms, key staff and the persistence of our team to ensure that he received such wonderful care whilst he was with us and that we were able to place him back with his own family who now know how to care for him and meet his needs.

Year 7: A Time For Rest

tim and maz leaving!

Dear Friends and Supporters

Can you believe that Tim and Maz have just begun their seventh year working full time for Thembalitsha in South Africa? How the time has flown and what a lot has happened in the past six years!

This courageous couple were the catalyst that enabled Village of Hope to be birthed and their perseverance over these years has enabled this essential haven for vulnerable children to develop into a professionally run project which has sustainability and is well respected throughout the Grabouw community and beyond.

As you can well imagine, this kind of result required a significant amount of time and energy from Tim and Maz and, because of this, they’ve requested a six-month sabbatical period to re-charge their batteries and explore possibilities for the next phase of their lives. In order to do this they will be stepping back from their roles as project managers for Village of Hope.

Tim and Maz will remain at Village of Hope until the end of January to allow enough time to hand over to the new project manager.

We have not discussed future roles as yet because Tim and Maz want to be open to all possibilities, but we would be very pleased to welcome them back should they wish to return to Thembalitsha!

As we close this particular chapter in Village of Hope’s life we have nothing but fond memories. We are extremely thankful to Tim and Maz for their dedication. They will be sorely missed by us all, but we are also excited for what is in store, not only for Tim and Maz but also for us as we take on the responsibility for this cherished ‘baby’ and nurture it into its next phase of growth.

Watch this space!

With love from Thembalitsha and the team at Village of Hope.

volunteers galore

seb and chris chipping away

over the last couple of weeks the day to day team at the village of hope have been blessed by a plethora of volunteers who have come to spend time with us from all over the world.

trinity team with matt and seb
(not sure what maz was laughing at!)

firstly we were joined by matt, seb and chris who hail from sydney austraila, these three guys, also known as captain hook, peter pan and tinkerbell, were an absolute God send as they cut, chopped, mowed, chipped and thoroughly overhauled our grounds, giving it a real spring tidy up after the cape winter. they also joined us at our sports outreach where they worked with our sports mentors during our afternoon sports sessions.

then we hosted an amazing team, ablily led by larry, from trinity church in dallas, this was the second time that larry, his wife and son, along with sarah and her son christian had visited us, however this time they were joined by a village of hope newbie called celeste who fitted into their team very well. not only did they help out with sports, some gardening work and playing with the children in the unit they also spent time at the other themablitsha projects and even led the weekly thembacare service here in grabouw.

cozi, lori, with maz, greg, teresa
and agatha

next greg arrived from paris, greg will be interning with us for the next seven months where he will be leading our sports outreach. greg is a pure track and field athlete and we will have to hone his football and netball skills to ensure he fits in with the children that we work with each afternoon.

and finally we had a flying visit from some of our ex-volunteers, cozi and lori, along with cozi's mum and sister, these crazy girls were in cape town for a wedding but couldn't resist coming to spend 4 nights with us, they also bought some much needed netball kit for the girls in our sports clubs. we are really looking forward to using these at our forthcoming sports day at the country club.

as we said, it is a true blessing to be able to host people from all around the work, they really are able to capture the essence of the project and the heart we have for our community, thank you to everyone who takes time to come visit us and use up their valuable time, money and holidays to be with us.

October News

Feeding the horses at Paul Cluver Wines

The past couple of months have not been lacking in drama here in Grabouw. This was particularly highlighted with the service protests in the community that descended into days of violence. The protests left us without any of our usual staff of House Moms as they were not able to get into work safely and the school-age children remained home because the schools had to close.

Although these few days were challenging, we received wonderful ‘back-up’ from the rest of our Thembalitsha family and were left with a reminder of what wonderful ladies we have in our House Mom team – being Mom to 13 kids is a tough job!

As well as the days off because of the protests it has also been school holidays which gave us an opportunity to arrange some outings for our children. Paul Cluver Wines kindly allowed us to come and visit the Zebras that live on their land. Unfortunately we did not see the Zebras up close but they allowed the children to feed, ride and stroke the horses which the children loved! We also took our older children on a 2.5K bike ride in the mountains. The children who taught themselves to ride their bikes loved the adventure! We were extremely proud of their efforts and they had a great time.

We are making slow progress on some of the children’s cases but slow progress is better than none! Some of the kids have been able to have weekend visits back home which is a great step towards reunification and it has been wonderful to work alongside the families and social workers to make this happen. We hope that some of our children will be reunified with their families before Christmas.

The mentors with a captivated audience of eager listeners

Sports
Sports is going well. Although we have missed Josh Houltram’s assistance, the Sports Mentors have been doing an amazing job and even ran each club on their own whilst Tim was away. Our relationships within each of the nine groups are growing each week and we can see that the life skills training is really having some positive impact on the behaviour of the children.

Bonny is doing some great work with the younger children and it's perhaps time to seek some longer term help to ensure that he isn't overwhelmed by the hundreds of children that attend his clubs which are aimed at children aged three to seven years.

The winter weather has challenged us to provide sports every afternoon. The children who attend our clubs often only have one set of clothes and they are for school, especially shoes. If they get wet then there is nowhere for them to dry them out before going to school the next day. The other challenge was around the strike action that took place where we were unable to safely go out into the community. It was so disappointing to hear that some of the children were either caught in the crossfire or used almost as 'human shields' between the rioters and the police who were firing rubber bullets!

Rainbow Smiles –HIV support group for adolescents
The Rainbow Smiles group was another casualty of the protests and we had to cancel our weekly meeting that week for safety reasons. It was sad to hear that some of the children had been involved with throwing stones in the protests but it was a good opportunity to discuss the issues behind the protests and to talk about different ways to respond. We were impressed by the children's honesty and openness.

There is a boy in the group whom we’ve appointed to join us in leading. He spends one day a week with us helping with planning. Last month we were able to send him on a leadership course which he thoroughly enjoyed and did us proud with the way he listened, behaved and contributed during the course. It also enabled us to understand that he responds well to learning with adults. As he is almost eighteen we have been able to look at an adult learning class for him to finish his education. This is great news as we have been trying to get him into a school for over a year now. He will undertake assessments to ascertain his level and to ensure he is started in the right class and is supported in the correct way.

Emma has also attended a course on running an adolescent support group which provided us with a great teaching resource and enabled us to connect with other professionals as well as learn new skills and gain more knowledge to assist us running this club.

Other News:
Volunteers:
This month has seen the arrival of three lads from Austrailia. Seb, Matt and Chris who are stopping off on their round-the-world trip to do some volunteering with us. We are also hosting the mission team from Trinity Church in Dallas. Trinity send a team to volunteer every year and it’s great to see some familiar faces as well as new ones.

Finally we are looking forward to welcoming a volunteer from France. Greg is going to be arriving to help with running the sports outreach and we are looking forward to the extra help.

Hot Wheels Car Club:
This club from Cape Town collected donations of food and clothes to Grabouw last weekend.

Emerging Leaders:
Trevor and Jane Waldock are basing themselves at Village of Hope as they explore how and where to deliver their grass roots training programme, Emerging Leaders, in South Africa. Having already established this successful programme in many other developing countries around the world, South Africa is next on their list and last week citizens of Grabouw were able to benefit from this training. The training was particularly pertinent in light of the recent protests and encourages everyone to be a leader and to take ownership of their community. It’s been a privilege to learn from their wisdom and to assist them in organising the workshop.

emerging leaders!

break out into small group work

it's been a whilst since we updated the blog and we are thankful to report that things have calmed down since the last posts. in fact since myself and maz returned from our break in england i have been very busy in the local community rallying local leaders to attend a well timed and aptly named 'Leadership for Hope' training session.

are you on the front or back foot?

as i type we have just drawn to a close day two of the three day course which we are hosting in the local community hall with the programme being given by trevor and jane waldock from the charity 'emerging leaders', who work with various partners including 'world vision' around sub saharan africa.

'performance' equals 'potential' minus 'interference'!

it has been amazing to see the local community come along and support this mind changing training session which is looking at encouraging everyone to consider themselves as a leader, whether that be in the home, at the work place, or within their local street or town.

leadership starts with yourself and this wonderful training in enabling people to see that they can write a different story for their own lives and help those around them succeed in being the answers to some of those tough questions, many of which were being asked during the strike action which recently overwhelmed our small town.

we are incredible grateful to trevor and jane, who will be staying with us at the village of hope for the next few weeks as they use us as a base for further travels around the western cape, for coming to share this valuable training with members of our community and we thank God for the connections that have resulted them in being here with us.

The Show Must Go On!

We've had to batten down the hatches over the past few days because the protests over service delivery in Grabouw have descended into riots. The kids can't go to school because the schools are shut, we are struggling to get supplies because the shops are shut, the local hospital is shut making access to medication difficult and the main routes in and out of town have been closed. To top it all off, our House Moms, who live in the community amid the violent protests, are being threatened with death if they attempt to come to go to work. They are extremely scared and have had to witness some terrible things. It is horrendous and tough.

With our wonderful House Moms unable to come in to fulfil their duties it was up to us (the Dream Team as we like to call ourselves: Barbara, Emma, myself, Johan (our trusty maintenance man) and Nigel the gardener) to pick up the baton and keep the unit going.

Yesterday was quite hilarious as we tried to continue the usual routines that the House Moms make out to be simple! - Clothing, washing and nappy changing 13 kids, keeping them entertained and fed and happy. It was slightly chaotic but a lot of fun too and the children were very kind to us!!

We were very relieved when back up arrived in the form of Monica (our MD) and other wonderful Thembalitsha staff from Somerset West  - Who had to drive the long route around to get here safely. I don't know what we would have done if we'd had to cover the night shift too! Thanks guys!!

Yesterday afternoon we had a party because one of the little girls turned two. It was nice to have a bit of normality and a brief respite from thinking about all the tensions that were happening in town.

We are very fortunate to be mostly out of the way of the hot spots and thankful for all the prayers and thoughts that are being sent our way. We have definitely felt a sense of peace and protection about the place.

Please continue to pray for all the Thembalitsha staff and people we know who live in the centre of town and are still in the thick of it. Today seems calmer and the roads have opened again - although there is still a heavy police presence. Heavy rain has also arrived which should help to deter the protesters.

Please also keep praying for resolution - there is a lot of anger and frustration on both sides and no simple solutions.

Thanks

Emily