Feeding the Children

On our last 3 days in Belfast I got to help with the feeding program. One day I served Pap which so hot and thick. It was really hard to get out of the pot and you kind of had to chuck it on the children's plates to transfer it from the scoop! I'm surprised they didn't end up wearing it with my efforts.

On the menu, on Wednesday, the Grannies were most excited because they had managed to obtain some chicken's heads and feet. So serving up we had to ask the children if they wanted a head or a foot. It was gross, quite frankly. There was no meat on either but it was something interesting for the children to chew on I guess???

Before each meal the children would gather to gether and sing corus' and thank God for their food. Then they would be called through on a register and you got to see the kids that were heading up households on their own.

Our last team out to SA had visited a lady called Gloria who was very sick and distressed about what would happen to her children. Sadly she had died the night after they visited. This really upset our team and they were keen to know that her children would be looked after as part of the feeding program. I asked Prudence if they were there and ok. She introduced me. It's so good to see that this system really is working but also sad to see such lovely girls without their mum.

Day 6 - Belfast - Prudence

This afternoon had been set aside for the Love Life team and us to play football with the kids. We'd bought them 4 footballs as we hadn't seen any around and by the end of the afternoon at least 2 had completely had it! I decided that my best role was the cheer the teams on so I sat on the sides and enjoyed playing with the kids and chatting to Prudence.

Prudence is such a beautiful girl with an infectious smile and as for singing. Wow she's got THE most beautiful voice. She asked me if I lead songs in England. After a while I realised she meant that did I start songs and then everyone join in like they do in Africa. Er no! I would love to have found out more about how they sing and know who will start songs etc. She broke into an amazing recital of Celin Dion's My Heart Will Go On which stunned us all not only because it was beautifully sung but also because Cat had at lunch time recited the whole Titanic story to us, I can't even remember why now. Weird co-incidence.

But a bizarre question she'd asked me got us on to talking about relationships. I learnt that she didn't have a husband but she had a boyfriend who was also her 2 year old son, Roland's father. I asked her if they were going to get married and she told me she didn't know. She said that the reason they hadn't married was because her boyfriend could not afford her Lobola (this is like her dowry - a bride price).

I felt tears of fustration pricking my eyes again. I mean how are people supposed to have proper relationships and be committed to one another if they can't even get married? It seems to me that the issue of the Lobola is just compounding the problems of people not sticking to relationships and ending up sleeping around.

It was another piece of the mystery revealed to me.

Day 6 - Belfast - Unravelling the mystery

South Africa seems like a mystery waiting to be unravelled. Aspects of it are so frustrating and feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall.

This morning we sat the whole morning listening to the Grannies having a discussion about Farming God's Way and then health issues. Mark commented at the end that as a team we could have been putting up the enormous water butt that has been purchased. You can see it in the back ground of this picture lying against a wall. It's obviously been there a while. How much longer will it be there before it's put to use?

After the talk on farming, they went on to talk about health issues. Before we came out to South Africa we were asked to lead a workshop on cancer care for their patient support group. We said very firmly that none of us were qualified doctors so we would not be able to run that workshop. When we got to SA once again it was mentioned that we would be running the workshop and when Cat reminded them that we would not be running the workshop, it was suggested that she 'Googled' the information!

So this morning it wasn't really a surprise when during the health talk Doris turned to us and asked us to teach them on patient care.

I've learnt that even the little we do know seems to be more that the little they know and they need to be taught about even minor things like the fact that when taking medication you should complete the course. When people get TB they are given a course of medication for 6 months but quite often start to feel better early on and don't finish the course. Then the TB returns and is much worse the second time.

I also learnt more about the AIDS pandemic. Over 75% of the people in the community of Belfast are HIV positive. They have access to condoms but don't use them. Often a person with HIV will sleep around and maybe infect 10 others so that he doesn't die on his own.

When girls who are HIV positive give birth, they take a tablet just as the baby's head is crowning. They believe this tablet stops the baby's blood mixing with the mother's and therefore stops the baby becoming infected with HIV.

Day 5 - Belfast - A tricky conversation

As we were talking Doris asked me about our journey to South Africa. She was blown away that we would travel to be with them especially spending that amount of money. She asked how much the flights cost. So wanting to be honest I told her and watched her jaw drop!

I felt us getting on to tricky territory as she said 'you must be very rich to afford that price'. I explained that we did indeed have more money in our country but she then said 'I will come and live in your country and work'. Ahhh! So I found myself explaining that although our country is rich we are poor emotionally and spiritually.

But this is a common problem. As soon as people in Africa develop a skill or decide they want to do more with their life, they often will leave Africa to seek more affluent climates. This then leaves their communities with vulnerable people who become more vulnerable as they don't have the strength to pull through.

I found myself trying to explain to Doris that her role in the community was vital and felt myself feeling panic that she might leave it in search of a more comfortable life for her family.

Day 5 - Belfast - Young Mum's workshop

Lunch fed everyone today! And after lunch it was time for the Workshops. Margaret and I ran a workshop for 24 girls who were young mums aging from 16-25, although they all looked younger.

Doris who co-ordinates life @ the compound was going to interpret for us. She's in the picture - another beautiful lady!

This was the hardest thing I’d done whilst here. How do you build an instant relationship to be able to go deeper when you can’t speak the language and are not sure what culture taboos you’re going to be stepping on. My remit was to cover a vast range of subjects from Breastfeeding, to parenting, to sex and relationships! But I had no idea about these girls or their culture. Were they single parents? Were they part of the sleeping around culture? Had they had their babies just to get the grant money from the government (something many girls do out there so that they can eat!)?

We went round the group getting the girls to introduce themselves and tell us about their circumstances, and trying to persuade Doris NOT to answer all the questions for them! They all said they were not married and didn’t have boyfriends so how could I teach relationship stuff?

In the end I settled on parenting! We looked at some aspects of parenting and then widened it out to the Love Languages – the concept that each of us feels loved in a different way. It maybe when someone spends time with us, or if someone says nice things about us. It may be if we’re bought a gift or it could be someone doing something for us ie going to fetch our water. Or it could be through physical touch. This is a great concept because it applies to children AND adults! So having talked about it in terms of their kids, we could talk about how they liked to receive love. They mostly said if a boy bought them a mobile phone!!! HELP!

I felt such a failure at the end. I mean wasn’t it my job to instruct these girls about the pitfalls of easy relationships and the importance of sticking long term to relationships? And I hadn’t even come close to that. But I guess I’m a relational person and was never going to be able to just plunge at the deep end and say through an interpreter on my 2nd day in the community – right let’s talk about sex!

On the plus side, this was the first time these girls had been gathered together in this kind of group and if they can keep that group going that’s going to be such a powerful way to build relationship and then be able to talk about more important stuff than I was able to get on. So there was hope at the end of my feelings of failure.

There was other groups going on, Cat, Sophie and Krystal were taking a group of 13-18 year olds and trying to get them to talk about relationships. At the end of the day, this is preventative stuff. If we can get to these kids early enough we can change the way things are.

And the men were leading a group of 13-18 year old boys with the help of the boys from Love Life. This group went down a storm. I think the fact that Love Life knew the culture and were able to facilitate discussions just made all the difference. They were really able to have an impact and the boys were keen to know more and make a difference in their community. It was so good to hear.

The girls group was trickier; once again, like mine getting the girls to chat and open up about relationships was really hard. Perhaps they are not allowed to talk about it in their culture.

As we sat with Doris after the groups and talked about how hard the groups had been, she wept and we saw how passionately she feels the plight of the community.

Day 5 - Belfast

Our days start early here. We're up at 6am to leave for the hours journey to Belfast at 7.30am. However, by the time we arrive in Belfast the 'grannies' look like it's already halfway through their day. They are busily watering their garden.

I learned a lot about praying for people when you don't really know what to pray for, for them and what they can understand of what you're praying for.

Today we did more Home Based Caring. Cat and I were chuffed to bits when the grannies who we'd been out with the day before demanded that we go with them again. (More so as it had felt like picking teams at the football match with us all stood there waiting to be picked by the grannies!). I found myself more in my comfort zone with the visiting, although it was all relative as I still never knew what was going to happen next!

We met more of the same kinds of people we’d met on the previous day. Elderly sick people, although we did meet a mentally ill girl. I say girl, she was actually older than me – 40. But she had a childlike quality and was in this beautiful dress that made her look stunning despite the torment going on behind her eyes and the tinge of grey in her hair. She had such a vacant face.

Another house we visited and had to take our shoes off before entering. I’ll admit I was thinking, ok what am I going to tread on here! But we were ushered into the lounge of a lady suffering from TB. We were all crammed into this lounge. 3 grannies, the lady, Fele, Cat & I and it was all a bit surreal especially as when I sat down I was kind of aware that I was sitting on something that looked a bit like someone’s wig! And so the grannies were doing their thing – sometimes talking, sometimes just sitting but suddenly sitting in this lounge I felt God just sweep round the room and say to me – look at these women, aren’t they amazing. I love them so much’. I had an awareness of His love for them and felt tears stinging my eyes as once again I tried to stop them flowing. As I felt God’s love for them, I found myself falling in love with them despite the fact that I’d known them less than2 days and couldn’t even communicate with them properly.

As we were walking back to the compound with the Grannies, after visiting, one of them turned to us and explained with the help of the other Grannies that one of them had cancer and was about to go to the clinic. She wanted us to pray for her. So there and then in the middle of the dusty road, Cat and I prayed for her. It almost felt like she was saying, I've seen you praying for all those people, now I want some of that for me! What a privelege!!!! And once again so humbling.

Today the children wanted to play with us and it was hard to know what to do with them especially with the language barrier. There was no space to play anything particular. We were just all sat under a large tree. I found myself circling my finger round one girls palm and resisting ‘round and round the garden and that was it the kids were all over me. I was having hands shoved in my face left, right and centre. These kids love being tickled!!!

Day 4 - Belfast - Lunch - Food runs out

As we sat under a tree eating our lunch, all these children started to appear from no-where. Everyday 100-150 kids turn up to the compound for their lunch. They are all orphaned or vulnerable children. As I looked around I saw a girl in school uniform breast feeding a toddler that I'd seen running around earlier. I caught my breath because she was so young and naturally the school uniform made her look even younger.

As the children all gathered together they started to sing and pray before their lunch. Doris the leader of the project called to me and said 'Fiona, come and teach the children'. And I'm thinking, have I missed something here? Teach them what? Did I miss the bit on the schedule that dropped me completely in it?!!!! 'Fiona gives a 10 minute presentation on ........' Yikes! So I turned to Cat, let's face it she runs the children's ministry in our church - an automatic qualification I think! 'What shall we teach them?' We asked Doris. 'Just teach them' was her reply. So Cat gave them a short talk on personal hygene and then we sang them a song. Let's face it we'd been through the humilation in church, we were getting used to it! They did start to try and join in and looked fairly enthusisiastic, bless them!

They then all queued up for their lunch. Everyday lunch for them is a third of a plate of pap (pap is a kind of white sticky substance, like a cross between ready break and rice. It didn't look great!), and a third of a mug of broth or stew. We watched whole families called up for food and realising that some of these children were looking after their younger brothers and sisters single handedly was emotional. After a while, we noticed that the the queue was still increasing and the food very much decreasing. We realised we were going to run out. Panic started to set in amounts us, although it was only us, English people who were panicing. Everyone else wasn't bothered. The food runs out, that's the way it is. We had 20 children left, the food had gone. They didn't cry, shout or throw a tantrum, they just looked at us with acceptance. We were distraught! We started to ransack the leftovers of our lunch to see if we could find food there to feed them. We found tiny amounts of pasta salad, apples and buscuits. Each child ended up with salad or a few buscuits or an apple. It was horrible. Later as the children played I watched a boy with his apple. A two year old boy was hanging off him and jumping up trying to get a bit of his apple. Earlier I'd seen the 2 year old having a good meal. However the boy still broke a chunk off his apple and gave it to the 2 year old.

In the afternoon, a group called Love Life came to do some work with the children. They are 6 men and women all in their late teens who live in the area but have volunteered to organise games for the children and act as positive role models, mentoring them and teaching them. Their moto is 'Learn To Love Your Life'. They blew us away. They were so enthusiastic about bringing change to their community. They were confident and eager. In the picture with them is Krystal who was our Hands@work contact (I should perhaps mention that her hair is not normally like that, the kids had 'restyled' her!)

We all did some icebreakers with the kids and then it was time for them to head off home. And us too. What a day!

Day 4 - Belfast - Home Based Caring

We met at the compound at 8.30am and were introduced to the 'grannies'. These ladies are all around the age of 60/70(?) and work on a voluntary basis.

We all gathered in a circle and introduced ourselves. They seemed interested to hear that I do work supporting marriages. They asked if I would teach them about that later. We then sang (well they sang and we tried to follow!) and Cat bought a word. The singing once again was beautiful.

We split into 3 groups who were all going to do Home Based Care which meant visiting the sick in the area, checking how they were and us praying for them. Cat and I went with 3 grannies and a girl, Feli who had a 2 year old baby on her back. Another girl joined us - Prudence. She was all smiles, very chatty and remembered the last team that had gone out. She spoke excellent English and was able to explain what was happening. Well I say she spoke excellent English but by the end of the week I realised that the African's often said yes when they didn't understand what we were saying.

The first person we visited was a very old lady with a 2 year old child. We sat on a wall outside a rather smart house, whilst she hobbled towards us from what looked like a battered chicken pen. Questions cramed into my head as she approached - did she live in the chicken pen? What was wrong with her? Who lived in the smart house? What was her relation to the child?

Then as she took longer and longer to reach us with every slow painful step, the questions turned to why is no-one helping her? Why are they just sitting there? Should I help her?

Eventually she reached us and talked to us all, with Prudence interpreting for us. The child was her grandchild and I'm told that his very snotty nose was a sign that he had TB. She told us that she had high blood pressure and problems with her legs. She said they had been broken and not fixed properly. The grannies took notes and there was lots of just sitting and chatting with us not really having any idea of what was going on! I felt quite awkward, not really knowing what I was supposed to do. Cat then went to sit with her and asked more questions and we both prayed for her.

A large lady came and joined her. She spoke ok English so we were able to talk to her. Again she said she had blood pressure issues and pains in her legs but she also told us her chest was bad. She bought 2 young children with her and turned out to be the other lady's sister. Whilst chatting about different things she asked me if I liked Papya, I said it was delicious and how lovely it was to see it growing everywhere. We then prayed for her.

We got to the next house and had the same feeling of who are we here to see, where are they, what state will they be in? We stood outside the house for about 15 minutes whilst the grannies shouted at various people (infact they shout at everyone, it's just everyone's way of talking to each other!). After 10 minutes of this, they went into a room in the house - it only had 2 rooms and did some sweeping. I felt quite anxious at this point I hadn't got used to the shouting, then the sweeping that followed made me wonder if they were just trying to make the room more presentable for us. I wondered if actually the person we were visiting was so sick they didn't want to be troubled by extraordinary visitors but eventually we were ushered into the room. It smelt unbearable, really bad and there was a man lying on a bed faced down but trying to lean on a pillow. His legs were so emaciated I don't think he could have walked. He told us he'd had cancer since 1995.

On our last visit, we were ushered into a house where there was furniture gathered around a television which was playing quite loudly although the signal was bad. We sad down and realised that behind us was an old lady sitting on a bench against the wall. Once again we were sat there thinking who are we visiting this time? This lady or someone else? It turned out it was this lady and she was the sister to the ladies we'd visited earlier. Whilst waiting and wondering the TV suddenly loudly announced an upcoming Jamie Oliver programme! Then was more shouting, although this time it was the lady shouting at the grannies. They went off with a long stick and came back clutching 4 enormous papyas. The papyas turned out to be for us. This set off more embarassment on our parts. We had so much food and yet they who had very little were giving us theirs. We prayed for the lady and headed off back to the compound. On our walk back. Analeise (one of the grannies) proudly stopped at the corner shop, bought us all bananas and insisted that Cat & I have chrisps too! We knew we were going back to an enormous packed lunch but here they were again just wanting to treat us.

All our visits were pretty random with lots of standing around and not knowing what we were supposed to do. We just had to get on and pray, thanking the Lord for that person, praying for healing and reminding them how special to God they were.

Church soundclip

Day 3 - Church

We went to Gladys' church in Belfast today. An amazing experience.

The church was a small shack about twice the size of our playroom, built with slats of wood from packing crates with a tin roof on top. We filed into the back of the church and sat on benches.

There were about 40 people including children. The men sat front left, the children sat front right and the women sat at the back.

There was a lot of talking with Hallelujah at the end and whenever the person at the front said Hallelujah, everyone waved and said Amen. However, the Hallelujahs came at the end of every sentence so we were kept on our toes!

Then the singing started. What seemed a random lady or girl would start singing and then everyone else would join in, usually answering whatever she was singing. I learnt later in the week that if you have a good voice you are a leader and will be expected to start singing. The singing blew us away. They sing such amazing harmonies.



Our favourite song went:
Oh, oh, oh, oh my God is goodo, Oh, oh, oh, oh my God is goodo,
Everything is double, double Lord, is double, double Lord.



The leader of the church who looked about 18 came over and shook all our hands and told us how welcome we were and asked us to sing a song. We were NOT prepared for this!!! We'd heard they might randomly ask one of us to preach but NOT sing! So what to sing? Don't ask me why we ended up singing this but we ended up singing Phatfish's Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Er hem ok to start with but we forgot the words half way through and trailed off into a dead end as we forgot that it didn't really have an ending. The congregation all looked at us blankly as if they'd heard nothing like it before, well, lets face it they hadn't! And as for our singing!!! We were pretty strong singers but it was SOOOO bland compared with their beautiful harmonies. It was all we could do to hold the tune together let alone harmonize!! You'll be so sad that I don't have a sound clip of us singing!

In attempt to pre-empt them, Mark thought he'd share what we would have said if they asked us to preach. He did a sterling job and we then all shuffled back to our seats grateful that the ordeal was over. The guy in charge politely thanked us and requested that the first person bought the Word.

What followed was a series of people standing up reading from the Bible and then repeating what it said in their own words. It was all so simple and yet effective. Most humbling was the passage on giving. The lady speaking, re-emphasised the importance of giving descretely so that we weren't proud or boastful. What on earth could these people have to give each other?

The guy at the front then announced that Pastor Mike and Pastor Paul would bring the word. We're all nodding politely and then realised he ment Mark & Pete from our group. H E L P ! ! ! (I couldn't help feeling releaved to be a girl at that moment, they didn't seem to need to pick on us!). Pete also did a fantastic job sharing from Ephesians. I did realise though thought that actually it wasn't a pressurised thing, all they wanted was to listen to the Bible and hear someone emphasis what it meant to them.

The offering came next. We all filed up to the fronts to put offering in different plates based on what areas we wanted to give to - building fund, youth etc. Then a different guy got up the front and asked us not to laugh at his poor English but he had something important he wanted to say to us. He said that they loved us but more than that they adored us. He wanted to a word which meant more than love to express how grateful they were to us for coming to support their community.

It was so humbling, we had interupted their service and yet they just went on and on about how blessed they were that we were there.

They are so spiritually rich. They accept God, beleive ferverantly in him. Shout and sing words of praise. Whenever they prayed they ALL prayed at the same time out loud. This was normal. We are so bound up in our doubts, feelings and self-centredness. I totally envied them at that point.

At the end people came over and shock our hands, thanking us for coming. They were so courteous and welcoming. It was such an honour.

I found it really emotional. Why would these people think we were so special. We can't change their situation and yet they're not asking us to. They don't sit worrying for themselves. They worry for people poorer than them. We sit at home with our hangups, worrying about EVERYTHING. They just accept life and all that it throws at them.

Day 2 - Safari!

Up at 4.30am to head off to Kruger before the gates open at 6am. We then spent the day driving around hoping to see the Big 5: Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo and Rhinoceros. They are called The Big 5 because they are the most difficult animals to hunt on foot. Hannah also blinded me with the fact that Hippos have killed more humans than any other animals which is somewhat surprising!

Anyway we saw Hippos too! It was an amazing day, although a little bizarre. Quite often you'd drive for up to an hour and then you'd come across lots of cars and think right animals ahead. It really was at times like driving around a giant Longleat safari park.

The best bit was the Leopard who we only spotted because of his tail dangling down from the tree. He then got up had a stretch and settled back down again on his branch. It's a hard life being a big cat.

We were also really excited with the Rinos as we didn't think we would see them and then came upon them by chance. There was a mum feeding her baby and the other's just walked in front of our cars like they had no cares in the world.


Some people will do crazy things to get a good shot. Never mind the fact that the Rinos were all around us and we'd only just passed the leopard half a mile back!

Day 1 - Part 5 - African Time and Uno

It being our first day out in Africa, we weren't aware that we needed to adjust our timing to suit African time. The guys at the Hands Village laughed at our reluctance to go to bed before 10pm. And when we asked them tentatively if they would be able to open the gate to the compound at 5.30am the next morning, they said sure they'd waking up that time anyway. It would seem African time starts at dawn so that much of the work can be done before the heat of the day and then people settle down to sleep between 8-9pm.



Ignoring all this we embarked on yet another challenging part of our trip - who could survive Jump In Uno? My oh my how competitive some people are!!!

Day 1 - Part 4 - George's story

After Lula, we visited K2 which was another step on down the line from Lula. The chap who showed us round told us to follow him as he follows Jesus which I thought was really lovely. They had substantial buildings and were planning groups for children to mentor them and train them with skills. Another problem that Africa is dealing with is that people don't stay in community to help the vulnerable. As soon as they get the oportunity of education or a job they move to more affluent areas. The vulnerable are then left to fend for themselves.

We then went back to the Hands village and met George. George founded Hands@work. He told us something of his story and although we knew he'd told the story many times before you could see him reliving the pain of what he'd seen.

Please watch some of his story here

Day 1 - Part 3 - Lula

Lula

The meeting finished and we got in the car and headed out to Lula. This is about 10 minutes from where we were staying and is an example of what we hope to achieve long term in Belfast. It was a crèche which consisted of 2 buildings – one for preschoolers and one for toddlers. The children that attend the crèche are mostly from child headed households (ie children that have been orphaned and are now caring for their younger siblings). The children can leave their siblings at the crèche so that they can attend school. Once school is done they go to the crèche get a meal and often their school clothes will be washed for them. This means the whole family has access to at least 1 meal per day. We were told that most of the children there had HIV or TB.

As we arrived we found about 30 children all lined up in a row having lunch. Lunch looked like rice and grated beetroot. Quite nice, I thought! It was kind of awkward they were all sat there staring and we didn’t know the language. So what to do? Gradually they all finished their lunch, went off to wash their bowls and play. Still what to do? Did they want us to barge into their games? They were staring at us, we were staring at them.

My confidence deserted me. So I wondered around the site and eventually came across two boys taking it in turns to swing on the one unbroken swing of a fantastic climbing frame. So I pushed them. They shrieked at me and I wasn’t sure if it was a happy noise or ‘get off’ noise. So I persevered. Then offered them my sunglasses to try on. They thought this was just the most amazing thing. Pete from our team came over and next thing they were jumping up and wanting to be held.

These were no small boys. Probably at least aged 5 or 6. Arms aching I sat down and that was it. It was a competition as to how many children could sit on our laps at one time. They just wanted cuddles and to touch us. They were fascinated with our hair; they pulled down Pete’s T-shirt and screamed with laughter. The girls looked down my top with interest, perhaps they were looking for hair too??!!! They argued over who would wear our sunglasses. We had such a great time cuddling and playing with these children who just loved every minute of it.

Day 1 - Part 2 - Hands on Deck

Things kick off early here so we started at 8am with ‘Hands on Deck’, a team meeting for the Hands staff. People came from all over the place to share about what is happening in their area.

George the leader of Hands@work started off with reminding the team of a conference they had held 3 years ago. Our Pastors Mark & Tim had been @ that conference. George said that half way through the conference a darkness had descended and some people had even gone home they felt so afraid. As the delegates had met together the following morning they had all agreed that more must be done. Out of this was born the vision to reach 100,000 orphaned or vulnerable children in Southern Africa by the end of 2010.

Hands@work also more recently had a vision of houses on fire. If a house is on fire you don’t sit and discuss what to do or have lots of meetings discussing the price of fire services etc. You run in!!!! You run and rescue whoever is inside the house. George told us that they feel God is telling them that it is NOT acceptable that children should be in these circumstances so Hands@work will not say it’s caring for a child unless it’s providing access to 3 of its basic areas: food, education and basic health care.

We then heard from a guy called Lyn. He showed us the start of a video which is on Hands website (http://www.handsatwork.org/the-church-together/). In the first clip is a lady called Gertrude. She is sitting in a shack, very thin and says she is sick but needs to look after her kids. She is weeping. Lyn went on to tell us that Gertrude had died that week leaving 2 kids behind. He was really emotional as was his wife, and other workers in the room. We got a glimpse of how close they get to the people they are working with.

It was a really useful morning for us to find out what is going on in Hands@work. A team were just about to go off to Zimbabwe to work and they were all helping them move out there.

We did some random singing and dancing throughout the morning which was very funny. Our favourite went:
Sometimes in the sunshine, sometimes in the shadow,
all along the way, walking every day,
sometimes, in the sunshine, sometimes in the shadow,
walking with Jesus my way.

We are walking with Jesus, walking everyday, all along the way
We are walking with Jesus, walking with Jesus my way.

This song included actions and much walking!!!

Day 1 - South Africa - Part 1

Having taken 2 8 hour flights and a 5 hour car journey to get here. We woke this morning to heat and a beautiful view. The Hands Village is surrounded by beautiful hillsides.

Below is a pic of our accomodation. Mine & Cat's room is in the middle.