Hi guys,
I’ve been working on an update for you for quite a while now, and haven’t managed to pull it together. Yet there are SO SO SO many things that have been going on lately, so many stories to tell, exciting news to share, praise reports to give... I could go on and on! I just sent an update/questionnaire up to the UPC Urban and Global Missions Department that I thought I’d use as a preface to the other update I hope to send out soon.
I just got back from an amazing Christian conference for missionaries put on by a church in Durban that assists ministries around the KZN province. I’m so grateful for the encouragement, vision, and wisdom that God gave at the conference, and all so much more thankful for the many things that have been happening in my life and work in the last couple weeks and months. I’m so grateful for your partnership, prayers and participation to make my being here possible, this work possible. Thanks and blessings to you.
More to come soon.
Love and gratitude to you all!
Betsy
UPC Missionary Questionnaire
1. Share your current vision in three fairly brief sentences or less.
To share God’s love with those infected with HIV/AIDS as well as orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) affected by the pandemic in practical ways, sharing God’s Hope and pointing people to God. To support and show God’s light to the women giving of themselves in Home-Based Care and support the work of Thembalethu Care Organization, bringing it to a point where it can run well locally. To assist and advocate for the sick in their access to health services, to assist OVCs with food and advocacy to access their foster care grants.
2. What is/are your most immediate project(s) that consume(s) your time?
I am very involved in the management and oversight of Thembalethu Care Organization, a project initiated with support from the local church. At this point, since getting married and moving, this has taken on a more administrative role in which much of my time is spent in the bookkeeping, networking, resourcing, reporting and general office support. Every week or two I drive back to Loskop to be involved in the day-to-day running of the project (home visits, orphan food deliveries, etc) and for meetings to move things forward. I am also involved part-time with Philanjalo, a Christian NGO here in Tugela Ferry where I’ve moved, which has a 32 bed hospice and a large home-based care program. I am largely assisting administratively at this point, trying to create systems and structures that will help the outreach be more effective.
Over the last month or so, I’ve also been very involved in some social-work cases that God has brought into my life. An 18 year old HIV+ orphaned girl with a four month old baby that needs a place to stay has had me on the phone, making lots of phone calls, and having multiple meetings trying to find her a place to stay, get her a death certificate for her mother (who didn’t have an identity document, and thus no death certificate), a birth certificate for herself and her baby, as well as getting her back on her ARV treatment which she defaulted on since becoming homeless. All while trying to meet her daily needs (baby diapers, formula, etc). I’ve also been assisting patients from the Winterton area to get support from the Philanjalo hospice where I’m involved. There have been two patients that I have transported to the hospice here (there’s none in the Winterton area) for stabilization and care of their health status, and for time to sort out their home situations, both of which led to their need for admission into the care centre in the first place.
3. Share your top 3-4 goals for the coming year.
We have just been granted land by the local council, and prayerfully hope to be able to establish a centre there from which our ministry to the community can be more effective. Our desire is to have the facilities from which to be able to feed and care for orphans and vulnerable children (before and after school food, help with homework, accessing identity documents and grants, etc), to be a centre from which those in need can receive assistance, and a centre of support for those most affected by the epidemic – the orphaned youth and aging grandparents.
God has put it on our hearts over the past months to expand our evangelistic work, meeting people’s spiritual hungers, not only their physical ones and their tangible needs. We are looking for ways to partner with a solid Christian pastor whose heart is in the area to more effectively bring God’s hope and love to the people who we are in relationship with. Just recently, 15 of our Home-Based Care mommas committed themselves to Christ!
We have been feeding and assisting orphaned youth, primarily households where a youth is acting as head, to access identity documents and government foster care grants. We would like to expand the support we’re providing to these youth through Christian counseling and support groups, leadership and life-skills training. Many have gone through such hardships in the deaths of their parents, in taking on the responsibility of caring for themselves and their siblings at such young ages, that they really need support and encouragement beyond what we’ve been providing to date.
We plan to find ways to get our new Anti-Retroviral (ARV – that is the treatment for AIDS) bridging program up and running, assisting the sick and poor to access life-saving treatment privately and then bridging them over to the public program which would save valuable time and potentially prove life-saving.
4. Briefly describe the top need in your work for the coming year.
God has provided for the funding of our work in amazing ways since we started this project in November 2006. Currently, our funding is budgeted to run through the end of 2009, although this does not allow for our vision to build and run the centre mentioned above, nor much work with the OVC as listed above.
We also need a lot of prayer support as we embark on these new projects, that God would give His vision, his provision for this expansion to our work. That we would stay close to Him, seeking his wisdom, leading and heart for the community.
5. Note briefly 1-5 notable results of your investment of time and energy in your area of focus, whatever that may be (people, projects, vision, etc.)
As mentioned above, 15 of our Home-Based Care ladies recently gave their lives to Christ! This took place in a training session we organized for them to learn about testing and counseling for HIV/AIDS. We’re excited to see the ways God will continue to work in and through their lives to bring Hope to the community.
Through Thembalethu, we have been able to provide support to 375 orphaned and vulnerable children through monthly food parcels, assistance with obtaining identity documents and/or foster care grants, and school uniforms. Many of these children were able to attend school, or prevented from dropping out of school due to the poor/non-existent state of their school uniforms. We have also cared for 190 patients over the course of 2008 in the home based care program, supporting the sick at their homes, helping them access medical attention and medical attention, training their families how to care for them and protect themselves, providing counseling and prayer support and other tangible assistance. We were also to educate 290 people in our deep rural community on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. We’ve also done multiple trainings for our HBC volunteers: TB treatment support, Adherence to ARV medications, Christian Listeners’ Courses (Learning to Listen, Listening to Pain in Hope HIV/AIDS, Listening to Children), as well as the latest training in counseling and testing for HIV/AIDS.
Through God’s grace, Xoli Msimanga came into my life, and after over a year of working alongside her, she is now running the project with me a 2 hour drive away. It’s been a privilege to get to know her, to be able to share with her about God and watch her faith and love grow, and her passion to see others know God. She’s been a godsend, a provision to allow the project to continue without me close by.
It’s been a big encouragement also to see many of the patients we’ve known over the years recover to full health after accessing their ARV treatments. Patients who had been sick on their beds are now walking around, looking healthy and adhering to their treatment. Also, orphaned families that we have been supporting for a few years have finally received their government foster care grants, and are able to care for themselves with the money they are now receiving. In one particular family I just helped Phakamile, the eldest of a family of seven, to apply for nursing school after she successfully passed her matriculation (senior year exams).
