Thursday 12 March 2015

Home

Thank you for following the blog over the last few weeks. We have valued you travelling with us.

It has been a journey full of challenges - overwhelming need...impossible struggles...

I mean, what do you do if the choice is to sell your body or let the children starve?

Where do you find role models when your grandparents were shot and your parents died of awful illnesses?

How do you raise young children when you are 12, yourself?

How do you motivate 4 teenagers from the same child-headed family who all left school with qualifications and none of whom can find work?

What do you do when you are old and sick and the nearest water is several fields away?

How do you earn money for food when you are too sick to work but without a good healthy diet the anti-retroviral drugs won't be effective?

What do you do when your children have died and you care for their kids but are getting sicker and sicker, yourself?

And yet...surely we have found hope in a hopeless place...

We have met a young man, part of a child-headed family himself, choose to become a care-worker so that other children don't have to go through what he went through...

We have been awed to hear from a beautiful mother whose husband initially didn't support her, whose children were cross with her...still choose to feed other peoples' children who had no food...

We have seen mothers who have lost 1..2..or even more children of their own, choose to daily cook under the blazing sun, for large groups of orphans and vulnerable children...who otherwise wouldn't eat...

We have seen young women with their own struggles, choose to walk miles each day to accompany children or visit their homes to ensure there are locks on the doors and that noone has moved in and taken advantage of the fact there are no adults to supervise...

We have met a Father whose wife died and instead of abandonning the kids like many would have expected, he stuck with them and raised a healthy thriving family...and now helps set up new centres across different countries even... where orphaned and vulnerable children can come and be shown love, given food, offered help with homework...be advised on how to protect themselves...

We have found the love of Christ shared with us (who thought we had so much), by people ( whom we think of as having so little)...We have found abundant faith and hope and love and hospitality and humour and so much more...against the odds...in dark and difficult circumstances...

Ruth





Monday 9 March 2015

What is poverty?

What is poverty?

Sometimes I cry when I’m alone
These tears I cry are bitter and warm
I cry because my heart is broken inside
I cry because I find it hard to carry on.
If I had an ear to confide in I would cry on

The world moves so fast and it would rather pass by
than stop and see what makes one cry so painful
In the midst of my calamity all my hope
Is gone

We see them in t.v. wearing expensive suits
with beautiful sharp nosed shoes
-proclaiming poverty
But they can’t even define it

Having lot of hunger and having no foods
Not having spare clothes- take a bath that’s poverty.
- take a bath that’s poverty.
Yes needing for shelter but not having one
Child is sick but the parents cannot afford to buy treatment.
Indeed sitting with umbrella on a wedding bed during showering nights
An ill deserted mother selling her child, wishing it will survive- that’s poverty

A defeated and desperate mother poisoning and killing a child
Sharing the same water with cows and donkeys
Thoughtful mother, two mouthfuls rice and three children
That’s poverty
Like David said “We lift up our eyes
To the mountains, where our help comes from”
Nobody is left but only you, God
Be our prayer as we proclaim ‘LET IT BE’

Let the hand that greets be the hand that feeds
Let the hand of salvation be the hand that ends starvation
Let those who can’t see me have time to feed me
Let all who wake up to find work, see what life is worth
Let every hand of a Christian touch a hungry child
Deeper
Let my soul rest in a place where there is peace,

Love, joy and happiness

Pogiso 

Sunday


Sunday afternoon, after the morning service, we took a picnic and headed up through Hazy View and over towards God’s Window- a very special viewpoint and the amazing geographical features of Blyde River Canyon. It was slightly cooler with fine mist rising from the trees and up in the rainforest area we were amazed at the stunning views and beautiful plants.

The week has seen us individually be faced and cope with different challenges- the contrasts between haves and have-nots, the traumas and pressures of other peoples’ lives in survival-mode… heat, tiredness, learning to live in community…to name but a few…so it was great to be out in glorious surroundings and just have fun together and be reminded of the amazing natural resources to be found in this land of contrasts.


Ruth

Mullings...

Over this last week we have experienced many things which in our contemporary Western contexts are unfamiliar- the need to collect water from a local river…the sheer physical effort of walking up hill and down dale, in high temperatures, through fields of maize, to get to the next village…carrying a large bundle of fruit in a cloth on your back…carrying 20+ litres of water on your head…such things are everyday things here.

What will never cease to amaze me is the resilience of the amazing caring women, who whatever the weather, visit the orphaned, the widowed, the vulnerable… and put their own fragile selves and situations after the needs of those they serve. Sometimes in doing so, they are misunderstood or simply not supported and find themselves torn between their families and those for whom they care.


In a society where so many children grow up without positive male role models we have been so privileged to have met some of the exemplary male care-workers and Hands staff who steadfastly serve the poor. Some have themselves been in child-headed households…or have experienced great personal loss but have then chosen to follow the tough call, of looking after their neighbours so that others will know that they are loved.

Ministry in the wild


We had an early start this morning- well-prepared for the visit to Kruger National Park- with the sun rising beautifully, it assured us of a great day ahead. ‘Maybe we will be very lucky and spot all of the ‘Big 5’ animals’ I thought.
We spotted a leopard in the distance but it disappeared very quickly into the bushes. The following animals which we spotted, were in groups and they were not scared like the leopard. They stayed until we finished taking pictures.
I was reminded of the saying ‘united we stand, divided we fall’.
There was also a time we saw birds on top of the animals feeding on the tics (insects) which were causing the animals pain. For me this was ministry in the wild - Love your God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself’.
After a very interesting day with the driving skills of our game-ranger ( Andy) we spotted 3 of the big 5 – leopard, rhino and the elephants.

Kgowe


Saturday 7 March 2015

one by one

Life is so fragile here... and so many kids are growing up without parents...it is heartbreaking.There is such a dearth of daddies - caring fathers who will stay with the kids, not chase away women or beat them or spend away their house-keeping money. Pray that God will raise up a generation of fathers who will be examples...role models... prophets to the following generations

Global warming starts to affect seasonal rainfall is a headline which we might barely discuss at home...but the impact here, is that the whole community struggles because they have no water...No water? And how often do we just leave the tap running?

It's so hard too, to get your head round the poverty when it is side by side with all the 'mod cons' we are used to. South Africa is so full of such contradictions and contrasts.

Thought for the week is definitely the one that Madiba said and we keep repeating- that serving the poor is not an act of charity it is an act of justice.

It just cannot be right to ignore the suffering of the orphaned and vulnerable.

Things have to change.One child at a time.One care-worker at a time. One by one.

Ruth

Friday 6 March 2015

Siyathuthuka 2

It's been an amazing journey so far... we are a team drawn from different parts of the world thrown together to learn and grow and it's been awesome but challenging to face up to the realities of life which some people face.

In Siyathuthuka they usually get water brought by the Government in a tanker every two weeks...but last time it didn't come and they don't know when it will come again. So instead of a regular water supply for the family, the Grandparents we met were having to fetch it from across the hillside container by container. These 25 litre containers are really heavy- I could hardly walk straight with one- but they carry water from a young age and make us feel very weak and unfit!

The parents of these children have died. So Gogo and Tata ( Granny and Grandpa) are supporting everyone off a meagre state pension.This particular Grandfather - a pensioner-and his 2nd wife try hard to meet the needs of their dependants, but it's tough. In small bare, breeze-block shacks, he shares his home with a wife, 6 kids and 5 grandchildren. The other 16 of his children live in the surrounding area.

Last year there was so much rain it was no good for the crops. This year, on his land, he planted a field full of maize- but there has not been enough rain and so only a little will survive. Pray with us that rain will come here in Mpumulanga...

Ruth