Greetings people of the world, Catherine here (again!)
Thought I would take some time to tell you about Sbo- someone who has been an inspiration to us lately. Sbo works for LI and is based in amaoti 1, at first glance it may seem that she doesn't have a huge role but in fact she is the only person who is prepared to work there. Amaoti 1 is a tough school,cooperation with teachers can be hard and there are so many harrowing stories of children's home situations. During our time in SA I have been struck by the fact that God doesn't call us to live comfortably, we are called to love the unloved even if that doesn't look how we may hope, not a glamorised hugging of cute babies who have been abandoned but sticking by the kids who are being abused no matter how many times they try to push you away. amaoti 1 may not be an easy place to work but that doesn't mean we should ignore it. Sbo is a vital link between the school and charity and knows all the back to school children, she distributes uniform and is a friendly face for children to talk to. With about 60 children in a class teachers can't invest time in individual children but if they are worried about a child then they will tell Sbo.
A couple of weeks ago a teacher alerted Sbo of a child who needed to go to the clinic due to a broken leg, so we dropped her off (that was Thursday), on Friday morning she arrived at devotions with the girl having helped her get ready due to family members not bothering. We took the 2 of them to the hospital and it turned out that her leg was infected due to her aunt (a witch doctor) trying to treat it. Sbo stayed with the child till Monday, sleeping on a short wooden bench, her selfless love for this girl led to other people in the ward thinking they were mother and daughter. This led me to wonder what I may do in this situation, would I be prepared to stay with a child for 3 days with only the things I left for work with in the morning, I like to think I would have reacted in the same way but the reality is I probably wouldn't.
On Wednesday we received a phone call saying the child had been discharged, without questioning it Sbo left aftercare, this is when me and Pippa got to see the child on the ward, within a couple of hours we were beginning to get frustrated at the slowness of everything, and I wondered how I would have survived being there all weekend. Sbo's actions reminded me of the parable of the lost sheep and the farmer who leaves the flock to find one sheep, her love was sacrificial. She could have asked someone to swap positions or bring a change of clothes but she didn't, she selflessly stayed with the girl showing her Gods love. She sacrificed a weekend with her family for a child she barely knew but who cried when Sbo left, she invested time in that girl when she needed it most.
Gods love doesn't need to be shown in a flamboyant way but going the extra mile behind closed doors.
We love Sbo!!
Xxx
Thursday 22 May 2014
Sunday 18 May 2014
It's Kez's turn to blog!
Hey lovely blog readers, Kez here :)
Two minutes ago I was sitting comfortably wearing my cosy loungers and slippers, on my own (a rare treat in itself!) in our living room. Picture a perfectly content Kezzie on a beautifully chilled South African Sunday, humming away to some acoustic mellow musical goodness, trying desperately to get from 4 to 5% of Eliot's 'Middlemarch' on my Kobo, contemplating making my third cup of tea of the day. Now imagine the distress and terror that gripped my heart when I heard the fateful 'ding' from my phone, signalling the call to battle that I've been nervously anticipating since Catherine set me up in her last blog. Message received from Pippa and Catherine who are out doing a little food shop:
"We have decided that we would like a draft of your blog post for when we get back this afternoon ;) good luck and may the odds be ever in your favour."
So here I am, scribbling away on my hastily-grabbed paper with the first pen I could find, writing to you good people and wondering whether or not the odds will be in my favour. The pressure is indeed on.
Firstly I'll update you on the team's whereabouts and goings on over the past couple of weeks ...
- Team Amaoti 1 Primary School (Pippa and Catherine): To continue where Catherine left off in the last blog ... Unfortunately, in classic African fashion, the meeting that the Head Teacher needed to have with the staff in order that the girls could read with the Back-To-School children, hasn't happened yet. But, in classic Pippa and Catherine fashion, they've been stars anyway! For the first few days they gathered drawings and letters from LI's children to be sent to their sponsors, keeping the communication ball rolling. This week, though, an emergency case involving an LI child occurred, meaning that trips to and from Amaoti, social workers and hospitals were vital ... *Enter Pippa and Catherine!* Team Amaoti 1 transformed into Team Taxi for the week which wasn't quite the plan, but hey, TIA!
- Team creche and LI office (Hannah): Our lovely little Hannah has been splitting her days up by spending the morning in creche and then early afternoon in the office helping Innocent with LI admin (e.g. organising sponsors' files, finding information on the Back-To-School children and sorting paperwork). She's been such a blessing to the creche staff, this week in particular; Gugu took a day off in order to revise then sit an exam, leaving Noombosa alone to look after the 30ish kids ... *Enter Hannah!* This meant that Hannah spent Tuesday looking after the 8 youngest babies for the morning - playing games, singing songs and being a blessing!
- Team Brookdale Secondary School (Abi, Emma and Kez): We've just finished our second week of taking LI's Back-To-School children, who are really struggling with English, out of class to run our own reading 'lessons'. We take 4 groups with about 10 children in each, aged around 13-15 years. The reason they struggle so much is because they've fallen behind with reading in primary school and aren't given the opportunity to catch up. *Enter Abi, Emma and Kez!* We've loved getting to know some of the after care children better and just show them some individual care and attention. Teaching a teenager to read who is barely at primary school level can be really draining and feel like an impossible task, but God is good, the kids are good and I think we're doing well at trying to be good too!
Although I love the projects we're working on and the people were working with, I'd love to share what's been on my heart, this week especially.
If I can be honest, sometimes the 'routine-ness' of it all wears me out. To think that my day has consisted of Brookdale -> office -> after-care -> home for the last two weeks and will be the same for the next five weeks, makes me tired. I find myself going through the same selfish thought process, seesaw-ing between "oh, it's fine, it's only five more weeks - I can get through it" followed by "what difference can I possibly make in such a short amount of time when there is so much to do?!".
Although the fact still remains that my daily routine will be more or less exactly the same for the next five weeks, whether I choose to see that as a long time or not enough time, I've realised that actually there's richness in the routine. I can choose to see it as 'mundane' and 'everyday' or I can choose to see that it's what I'm called here for. Not because I'm supposed to have a boring time or to dread the thought of having the same old week - not in the slightest. But because we are called to action, and in our action, to be effective and to show Jesus's love. The routine reminds me that being effective doesn't necessarily come in the form of living the classic #gapyah life; a group of young white girls all-singing/all-dancing surrounded by beautiful, wide-eyed, gap-toothed African children clinging onto us for dear life. No, in reality, being effective in this time looks like driving around and then waiting for hours in a hospital car park. It looks like wading through documents from 2006 in order to make the cupboards tidier. It looks like sitting with one child for however long it takes for them to be able to read one sentence.
I think I've had a bit more of a heart realisation that this adventure has been and will continue to be about relationships and community. In reality I don't think that can happen without simply humbling ourselves, plodding on and pressing in, even if it feels like we did that yesterday. And the day before. And on Monday. And all of last week.
There's richness in the routine.
Two minutes ago I was sitting comfortably wearing my cosy loungers and slippers, on my own (a rare treat in itself!) in our living room. Picture a perfectly content Kezzie on a beautifully chilled South African Sunday, humming away to some acoustic mellow musical goodness, trying desperately to get from 4 to 5% of Eliot's 'Middlemarch' on my Kobo, contemplating making my third cup of tea of the day. Now imagine the distress and terror that gripped my heart when I heard the fateful 'ding' from my phone, signalling the call to battle that I've been nervously anticipating since Catherine set me up in her last blog. Message received from Pippa and Catherine who are out doing a little food shop:
"We have decided that we would like a draft of your blog post for when we get back this afternoon ;) good luck and may the odds be ever in your favour."
So here I am, scribbling away on my hastily-grabbed paper with the first pen I could find, writing to you good people and wondering whether or not the odds will be in my favour. The pressure is indeed on.
Firstly I'll update you on the team's whereabouts and goings on over the past couple of weeks ...
- Team Amaoti 1 Primary School (Pippa and Catherine): To continue where Catherine left off in the last blog ... Unfortunately, in classic African fashion, the meeting that the Head Teacher needed to have with the staff in order that the girls could read with the Back-To-School children, hasn't happened yet. But, in classic Pippa and Catherine fashion, they've been stars anyway! For the first few days they gathered drawings and letters from LI's children to be sent to their sponsors, keeping the communication ball rolling. This week, though, an emergency case involving an LI child occurred, meaning that trips to and from Amaoti, social workers and hospitals were vital ... *Enter Pippa and Catherine!* Team Amaoti 1 transformed into Team Taxi for the week which wasn't quite the plan, but hey, TIA!
- Team creche and LI office (Hannah): Our lovely little Hannah has been splitting her days up by spending the morning in creche and then early afternoon in the office helping Innocent with LI admin (e.g. organising sponsors' files, finding information on the Back-To-School children and sorting paperwork). She's been such a blessing to the creche staff, this week in particular; Gugu took a day off in order to revise then sit an exam, leaving Noombosa alone to look after the 30ish kids ... *Enter Hannah!* This meant that Hannah spent Tuesday looking after the 8 youngest babies for the morning - playing games, singing songs and being a blessing!
- Team Brookdale Secondary School (Abi, Emma and Kez): We've just finished our second week of taking LI's Back-To-School children, who are really struggling with English, out of class to run our own reading 'lessons'. We take 4 groups with about 10 children in each, aged around 13-15 years. The reason they struggle so much is because they've fallen behind with reading in primary school and aren't given the opportunity to catch up. *Enter Abi, Emma and Kez!* We've loved getting to know some of the after care children better and just show them some individual care and attention. Teaching a teenager to read who is barely at primary school level can be really draining and feel like an impossible task, but God is good, the kids are good and I think we're doing well at trying to be good too!
Although I love the projects we're working on and the people were working with, I'd love to share what's been on my heart, this week especially.
If I can be honest, sometimes the 'routine-ness' of it all wears me out. To think that my day has consisted of Brookdale -> office -> after-care -> home for the last two weeks and will be the same for the next five weeks, makes me tired. I find myself going through the same selfish thought process, seesaw-ing between "oh, it's fine, it's only five more weeks - I can get through it" followed by "what difference can I possibly make in such a short amount of time when there is so much to do?!".
Although the fact still remains that my daily routine will be more or less exactly the same for the next five weeks, whether I choose to see that as a long time or not enough time, I've realised that actually there's richness in the routine. I can choose to see it as 'mundane' and 'everyday' or I can choose to see that it's what I'm called here for. Not because I'm supposed to have a boring time or to dread the thought of having the same old week - not in the slightest. But because we are called to action, and in our action, to be effective and to show Jesus's love. The routine reminds me that being effective doesn't necessarily come in the form of living the classic #gapyah life; a group of young white girls all-singing/all-dancing surrounded by beautiful, wide-eyed, gap-toothed African children clinging onto us for dear life. No, in reality, being effective in this time looks like driving around and then waiting for hours in a hospital car park. It looks like wading through documents from 2006 in order to make the cupboards tidier. It looks like sitting with one child for however long it takes for them to be able to read one sentence.
I think I've had a bit more of a heart realisation that this adventure has been and will continue to be about relationships and community. In reality I don't think that can happen without simply humbling ourselves, plodding on and pressing in, even if it feels like we did that yesterday. And the day before. And on Monday. And all of last week.
There's richness in the routine.
Friday 9 May 2014
Hello!!
A lot has happened since we last blogged..... (This is being written at midnight, every dog in Durban seems to be up and barking- maybe they are discussing todays election result....)
As many of you may have heard we have had some problems with our car recently. Let's start from the very beginning (its a very good place to start)
We have had a lot of issues with our car from the beginning.... For the first couple of days in SA Abi and Pippa spent most their time at the airport trying to hire a car which was a long process due to problems with licences and funds being in the wrong account and took a lot longer than hoped. We had a car for a month and all was well but then in our second month we reversed into our gate causing damage which we fixed using 'panel beaters'- a local company. We were impressed with the result but the hire company weren't and when they discovered the damage withheld money from us. Once we returned from our holiday it was uncertain if we could get another car as the company didn't want to give us one but once again this was resolved and we had another car (an automatic this time- a new experience for everyone!) Then last week whilst we were painting a wall at the safe house a woman reversed into our hire car, we reported this to the police (another new experience) and then took the car back to the hire company. They said that we needed to pay 17000 rand (about £1000) in order to get a car, if we paid and the woman paid at a later date we would get our money back but there was no guarantee she would ever pay. We sent messages home asking for prayer and refused to be defeated, that night we went home and praised God, struck by a song saying 'I will praise you in the storm'. The next day we were overwhelmed by people offering to cover the cost for us but this wasn't needed as tearfund found that our insurance will cover the cost, praise God!! Those days were filled with lots of emotions!! Please continue to pray for the car.
Me and Pippa are back in amaoti 1 (the primary school) and the craziness began on day one. We were helping Sbo to cover a grade one class and what follows is not exaggerated..... We won't tell you every detail but this is a 20 minute snippet of our day. Sbo had to go photocopy some sheets for the class so we were left alone with a lot of Zulu speaking children, after a bit of learning the names of shapes the chaos began, we don't really know how but Pippa ended up with half the class round her asking for toilet roll which she was distributing with a confused look on her face- hec-tic. A child then began crying so Pippa went to find Sbo leaving me alone.... In a attempt to keep the classes attention I began a copying game we had played earlier, it didn't take long for the whole class to be clapping but they then began to all sing a Zulu song, marching seemed to be a crucial part of the song and soon half the kids were marching on the tables.... My very limited Zulu doesn't stretch to 'get off the tables' and they then started copying my action which was meant to mean get down! Order was resumed when Pippa and Sbo returned! The rest of the team seem to look forward to hearing what happened on our mad days but we are hoping that next week meetings will happen that allow us to take struggling children out to help them with English. We are also aiming to get photos of all the 'back to school children' who are sponsored and get letters/ pictures from the children to the sponsors. We have a manageable target of 44 children in our school but as an organisation we need to find around 500 from many different schools!! Forming contact between children and sponsors is vital in ensuring sponsors continue to support LI and finding new sponsors.
Thats all for now, see you next time (on the blog Kez has promised to write!)
Byeeeeeee
Catherine
Xxx
HOW COULD I FORGET??! you might remember that last time we blogged we mentioned a singer called Matthew mole... Well last Monday we googled to see If he was playing in Durban soon but Google failed us, luckily though Kez spotted a sign when we were out and after driving round in circles to see it again we got the details! Next thing we know its Sunday and we are at a outdoor gig seeing Matthew mole and just jinger! Not only did the ticket cost convert to just £6 but we also all got photos with Matthew! Maybe in Kez's blog she will write something profound about some of his lyrics.... Pressures on girl!!!
P.s temperatures have dropped to 22° this week meaning we have experienced what its like to be cold (a problem we used to only have in the shower!) The 3 fleeces Emma packed along with a number of scarf's are finally being used and I'm hoping that it won't be long till I'm not ridiculed for bringing a wooly hat....
A lot has happened since we last blogged..... (This is being written at midnight, every dog in Durban seems to be up and barking- maybe they are discussing todays election result....)
As many of you may have heard we have had some problems with our car recently. Let's start from the very beginning (its a very good place to start)
We have had a lot of issues with our car from the beginning.... For the first couple of days in SA Abi and Pippa spent most their time at the airport trying to hire a car which was a long process due to problems with licences and funds being in the wrong account and took a lot longer than hoped. We had a car for a month and all was well but then in our second month we reversed into our gate causing damage which we fixed using 'panel beaters'- a local company. We were impressed with the result but the hire company weren't and when they discovered the damage withheld money from us. Once we returned from our holiday it was uncertain if we could get another car as the company didn't want to give us one but once again this was resolved and we had another car (an automatic this time- a new experience for everyone!) Then last week whilst we were painting a wall at the safe house a woman reversed into our hire car, we reported this to the police (another new experience) and then took the car back to the hire company. They said that we needed to pay 17000 rand (about £1000) in order to get a car, if we paid and the woman paid at a later date we would get our money back but there was no guarantee she would ever pay. We sent messages home asking for prayer and refused to be defeated, that night we went home and praised God, struck by a song saying 'I will praise you in the storm'. The next day we were overwhelmed by people offering to cover the cost for us but this wasn't needed as tearfund found that our insurance will cover the cost, praise God!! Those days were filled with lots of emotions!! Please continue to pray for the car.
Me and Pippa are back in amaoti 1 (the primary school) and the craziness began on day one. We were helping Sbo to cover a grade one class and what follows is not exaggerated..... We won't tell you every detail but this is a 20 minute snippet of our day. Sbo had to go photocopy some sheets for the class so we were left alone with a lot of Zulu speaking children, after a bit of learning the names of shapes the chaos began, we don't really know how but Pippa ended up with half the class round her asking for toilet roll which she was distributing with a confused look on her face- hec-tic. A child then began crying so Pippa went to find Sbo leaving me alone.... In a attempt to keep the classes attention I began a copying game we had played earlier, it didn't take long for the whole class to be clapping but they then began to all sing a Zulu song, marching seemed to be a crucial part of the song and soon half the kids were marching on the tables.... My very limited Zulu doesn't stretch to 'get off the tables' and they then started copying my action which was meant to mean get down! Order was resumed when Pippa and Sbo returned! The rest of the team seem to look forward to hearing what happened on our mad days but we are hoping that next week meetings will happen that allow us to take struggling children out to help them with English. We are also aiming to get photos of all the 'back to school children' who are sponsored and get letters/ pictures from the children to the sponsors. We have a manageable target of 44 children in our school but as an organisation we need to find around 500 from many different schools!! Forming contact between children and sponsors is vital in ensuring sponsors continue to support LI and finding new sponsors.
Thats all for now, see you next time (on the blog Kez has promised to write!)
Byeeeeeee
Catherine
Xxx
HOW COULD I FORGET??! you might remember that last time we blogged we mentioned a singer called Matthew mole... Well last Monday we googled to see If he was playing in Durban soon but Google failed us, luckily though Kez spotted a sign when we were out and after driving round in circles to see it again we got the details! Next thing we know its Sunday and we are at a outdoor gig seeing Matthew mole and just jinger! Not only did the ticket cost convert to just £6 but we also all got photos with Matthew! Maybe in Kez's blog she will write something profound about some of his lyrics.... Pressures on girl!!!
P.s temperatures have dropped to 22° this week meaning we have experienced what its like to be cold (a problem we used to only have in the shower!) The 3 fleeces Emma packed along with a number of scarf's are finally being used and I'm hoping that it won't be long till I'm not ridiculed for bringing a wooly hat....
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