Oppressive Heat

Oppressive heat. I have often read the phrase in books about the tropics without being able to really understand what it meant. Until now. Living in a Tugela Ferry summer has changed that. Now I understand – I’ve never sweat so much for consecutive weeks until moving here. Summer in ‘the Ferry’ makes it a norm… So much so that I can’t manage to wrap my head around Christmas approaching – how can such heat and Christmas possibly mix?!? Eugene was joking with my family the other day that we would also be enjoying a white Christmas, but soaking up sun on a white-sand beach! We’ll go to Cape Town for Christmas to spend time with his family there. We’ll have to see about the white sand beaches, though!

Besides struggling with the change from the milder Drakensberg to the heat bowl of Tugela Ferry, life is good. Yesterday I was back in Loskop with our Thembalethu Home-Based Caregivers celebrating Christmas with them. It was lovely to be with them again, I’ve missed being with them since taking on a more administrative role from Tugela Ferry, assisting Xoli as she takes on the day-to-day patient and orphan care. Yesterday it was lovely to be with the HBC and check in with them about how they’ve been doing lately. They each received a food parcel as a thanks for their selfless volunteer work. (See picture: 10kg maize meal, 10kg flour, beans, sugar, soya mince, salt and Vaseline.)

As I talked with them, getting updates on how their work is going, they expressed their gratitude for the money we’ve made available for them to assist their patients to access medical assistance. We’ve been giving out an average of R200, or $30 per month which is used to assist the poorest of their patients with money for the ‘taxi’ to reach the clinic or hospital. They told me yesterday what a big difference it makes for them to be able not only to recommend to their patients that they get tested for HIV or TB or do the follow-up to access treatment; but to be able to give them the mini-bus taxi fare to go immediately and not wait until their scarce money becomes next available. With HIV, waiting for treatment often proves to be deadly. We’ve been blessed to be able to have the funds so far to help people in need in this way.

We also talked a lot about the poverty that threatens the health and treatment adherence of our HBC patients. Many of them get disability grants from the government for a few months while they are at their sickest. But then when the grants end, the patients struggle to find enough money for food for themselves and their children. Poverty and HIV are deadly partners. Dependence on the government to solve all their problems is another big obstacle we face. I keep thinking and praying about how to integrate economic development initiatives in with the HBC work we are doing, and am thinking about looking into community-run savings/lending initiatives as a way of assisting not only our caregivers, but also the broader community. The idea behind this is to encourage poor people to save money a tiny bit at a time, and help each other to grow that money for micro-enterprises as well as for emergencies. My years of working in microfinance are coming back full-circle, and I can’t seem to get the idea out of my head as the vast poverty of the people continues to confront me. Please join me in praying about this.

Twenty seven of our thirty-five HBC just completed a three-part course they started back in May called Christian Listeners: 1) Learning to Listen 2) HIV: Listening to Pain and Hope, and 3) Listening to Children in Difficult Circumstances. I got a very good report back from them about the impact of this training in their lives – how it helped them with essential job skills as a caregiver in their communities, as well as in their relationships at home. The patients they encounter have often experienced so much that what they often need is a loving, listening ear to help them accept their illness, the loss of a spouse or a child’s loss of their parents, the loss of the use of their legs (sadly common with spinal Tuberculosis). The Home-Based Caregivers often are called on to fill this role in the community, and now have some counseling/listening training to help them with this. While the losses in this community are vast and seemingly unabated as the community suffers the weight of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, they are sharing God’s love and hope to their neighbors in need.

Yesterday we were all very sad to learn of the lost our first HBC volunteer. Thulile Malinga, although only in her early 40s, suffered a stroke and passed away two days ago. We will be visiting her family to offer our condolences and deliver the food parcel that was hers. Our prayers go out to her children and family. She will be greatly missed.

Back In the Contracting Business

A little over a week ago, we got a phone call from Qedi [the Q in isiZulu is a resonant click from the roof of your mouth], a 19 year old orphan-head of household that we’ve been assisting the last year or so. She was crying so hard when she called we could barely understand her as she told us that the roof on her house had been ripped off in gale-force winds that had struck the area that afternoon. Qedi and her 11 year old niece Lindo (pictured in the blue with her friend), live there alone after the death of Qedi’s parents, and then of her older sister, Lindo’s mom. Qedi has two younger sisters (17 and 18 years) who have responded more destructively to the losses of their parents by living with various boys and stopping by only occasionally, most recently to break into their house in an attempt to steal food from them. Qedi has so far chosen to and stick to the more responsible route which includes church attendance and taking on the responsibility of raising her niece.

In support of these two girls, knowing well that they don’t have any means of fixing their house themselves, we’ve hired a builder to fix the roof and the wider damages done to the house. After a history of inexpensive and even voluntary builders contributing to the building of their house in the first place, we feel that our assistance to this little family needs to see their house through. If you’d like to contribute to the repair costs of this house, please let me know. We could really use the funds to help meet the housing needs of these girls and get their house sorted once and for all.

Thank you all so much for all your support and generosity over the past year. May your Christmas focus on God’s good gifts and may He bless you greatly in 2009.

With Love,

Betsy

Married and Changes!

Reflections on a Time of Change

What a joy it is to think back over all that’s happened in the past few months. So many exciting developments! Visiting friends and family back in the USA, planning a wedding that turned out beautifully, moving as a married woman into a mission community in a new Zulu tribal area, passing the Thembalethu leadership to Xoli who has grown greatly in her new role, having a Zulu wedding reception (check out our Zulu wedding picture!), celebrating again with other South African friends, setting up a new house, getting used to married life, continuing HBC work, adding a new community, a new organization. There have been a lot of changes!

I was just reminded how different the Pacific Northwest is from Tugela Ferry, where I’ve landed in married life. Back at my dad’s house in Enumclaw, inspired to save energy, I tried valiantly on the hottest of summer days to dry my clothes on the clothes line. After more than half a day, a good portion of the clothes remained damp. Today, with strong winds and hot, dry weather before spring rains set in was a different story altogether. Within ten (maybe even five??) minutes of removing my clothes from the washing machine, and hanging them on the washing line, they were dry. Not a trace of dampness. This is why tumble dryers are almost obsolete in these parts. The sun, heat and low humidity contribute to the most conducive climate for drying clothes on the line.

Married life with Eugene has gotten off to a good start. We were so blessed to have many US friends and family around us as we made our vows and celebration. Thanks to those who were able to join us, for the huge blessing that you’ve been in our lives, for your contributions to our new life together! Time on the beach both in Washington, and then on South Africa’s east coast gave us time to settle into our new roles and life together as a married couple. Such a lovely time!

Welcome to Tugela Ferry

We arrived back at our new home in Tugela Ferry in late August, almost ready to get back to work. Philanjalo, the organization Eugene’s been working with for the past four years houses us in one of its ParkHomes, that is a three bedroom doublewide modular home. Yes, I live in a double wide! As of yesterday, we are a now linked to, although from the farthest extremity, the Church of Scotland Hospital (COSH). There’s a large hospital community of nurses, doctors, and their families, which is amazingly international (in large part from Philanjalo’s research element), so although the only change was putting a gate where a fence once stood, it feels like we have a bigger neighborhood now.

Although before getting married, I’d spent a good deal of time visiting here, I’d never appreciated the view of the vast community gardens between our home and the Tugela River. Because I moved into Eugene’s house at the very end of the dry season, the lush gardens from our bedroom and living room windows were an unexpected oasis, a delight to my eyes. I love to watch the local ladies out in their gardens, weeding, watering from the community irrigation trenches and tending their fields. It’s a beautiful sight to watch as the dry brown earth comes to life again!! As I was outside today gardening myself, I found I’ve adopted their bending at the waist technique for reaching down. My poor lower back!

And yet, life in Tugela is no big shock for me. Although people here tend to be more traditional than I’m used to in the Berg (more round thatched ‘rondavel’ houses, more topless women, purple capes on women’s backs, more skirts, less pants, etc), one Zulu area is not so different from another. Getting to know first Philanjalo (they have a large, successful HBC program), and then Eugene, I’ve spent increasing amounts of time here in ‘The Ferry’ over the past few years.

HBC2– Thembalethu carries on, Philanjalo added

Being situated about two hours drive from my former digs in the Central Drakensberg, my role with Thembalethu has shifted to being more of one of support, administration and oversight. Xoli has taken over the day to day management of our now-fully registered NGO, Thembalethu Care Organization. (Hallelujah – that was a LONG process, but we made it through!!) Lord willing Xoli will soon get her driver’s license (test date 14 October – please pray!), allowing her to better help the HBC, getting around to support sick patients and the OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) that we are assisting. I continue to look for ways and opportunities to build up her skills and confidence in managing Thembalethu so that she can do an even better job assisting the HBC volunteers and community at large.

I really enjoy staying involved with Thembalethu two days a week, driving the two hour trip as needed to support Xoli and the project. (I am grateful for all my friends there who put me up for the times I stay the night in Winterton.) When not required physically in the Berg, I stay by my computer at home in Tugela Ferry doing other admin support work. The other three days a week, I’ve been hired part-time by Philanjalo (that’s right, hired, and am promised a meager South African salary) to coordinate their large home-based care program. Philanjalo is a South African Christian NGO that is doing similar AIDS work, but on a MUCH larger scale. Instead of Thembalethu’s 35 HBC volunteers working in a small area within a municipality, Philanjalo is working with 170 HBC volunteers working within an entire municipality called Msinga. Philanjalo also has a Care Centre (previously know as hospice though with ARVs available, its very high recovery rate makes it more a respite centre), a pediatric Care Centre, does various HIV/AIDS/TB related research projects with top US medical universities, and some food and other assistance to local OVC.

I’m still finding my place, my work within the Philanjalo organization, but so far rejoicing at seeing the tremendous impact that good doctors have on the area. Tugela Ferry’s Church of Scotland Hospital is known throughout the area, the province, the nation, and even the world. Locally, it is primarily known for excellent Christian doctors who have committed their lives to serving here. Seeing first hand the ripple effects that passionate, dedicated management of TB and HIV/AIDS has on the community is very exciting for me after struggling with the inefficiencies and apathy rampant throughout other areas of the system. It’s amazing the effect that a few committed men and women, when centered on the hope and love of God, can have on a community!!

Impacts on Supporters

It never ceases to blow my mind how God provides. For four and a half years now I’ve been able to do work in the Amangwe/Loskop community through your generous donations. Thank you!! I’m so grateful to God and to all of you for the support that you’ve give me, how you’ve entrusted me to share love and hope with people in need here. Bless you!

So, what do all these changes, and promises of a part-time salary (don’t know yet when it’ll come through) mean to you as supporters? Primarily, having a paid part-time job, it’ll be able to free up a good deal of my previous financial needs. Instead of needing approximately $20,000 annually for a salary, I need to raise much less for myself. This provides an opportunity to use some of those funds to cover the expenses for the work I’ll be doing with Thembalethu (formerly funded primarily from South Africa, but I’m trying to free up and stretch their Rand). I figure I need $8,000 for my salary working with Thembalethu two days a week, and $7,000 to fund the work expenses I’ll accrue in the course of doing ministry (primarily fuel, phone calls and airfare), totaling about $15,000 a year. The later UPC calls Personal Ministry expenses, and from now I will separate them from my salary so the tax man won’t take as much.

ANNUAL NEED DETAIL
$8,000 Annually Part-time work with Thembalethu, two days a week
$7,000 Annually Personal Ministry Expenses for Thembalethu: my transport once a week to assist Xoli, as well as office expenses in doing the admin and organization, and an annual flight to the USA
$15,000 Annually TOTAL

All these funds can continue going through UPC in the same way, although the name on my account has however changed from Betsy Elfers to Betsy Meyer. If you would like to continue your monthly support for the coming year, please let me know so I can do a bit of planning. Thank you so much for your support! I will be in Loskop doing home visits on Thursday, and I look forward to reconnecting with the HBC volunteers and the work they’re doing there to support the sick and orphaned. I’ll send out a new update about how they’re doing, the people they’re assisting sooner now that life has settled down more.

Zulu Wedding Reception

Need a Car. Got a car?

Hi folks!

I recently landed back in the Pacific Northwest’s summer. It’s LOVELY to be here, and even better to have a lovely summer wedding ahead of me!

While I arrived thinking that I had a car to borrow, it unfortunately fell through at the last minute. Now I have six more weeks here, in the midst of wedding planning and catching up with many of you. If any of you have a car I could borrow, or know of someone who does, please let me know. It would make my life A LOT easier if I had a more convenient, reliable way of getting around. Just thought I’d send my feelers out to you all…

Meanwhile, things back in South Africa continue along. All is going very well, from messages from the board of directors and Xoli, who’s now assumed the primary management role of Thembalethu. God has been so good to us over the past months (and years!). Let me give you an idea of the tremendous ways in which God has provided of late:

o We got our initial seed money, one year of funding (that we’ve stretched to 1.5 or so) from the Winterton Methodist Church. Additional donations have come in from UPC and other friends back in the USA. But that funding was looking to run dry by August/September. But that was then…

o Now we are the charity of choice for a golf day fundraiser which, due to the economic downturn, won’t bring in as much money as in the past years, but will give us a good boost to continue for months to come. The big day for that is August 22nd. We’re so grateful for these 8 guys who organize the event that in the past has raised as much as $19,000 for the selected charity. New funds to help the HBC care for the sick and orphaned in Amangwe/Loskop. Please keep this in your prayers as it will provide for our operating budget for the coming months.

o I also found out a little over a week ago that we received a grant from UPC that we applied for back in May. This will allow us to expand our work in an exciting new way – to help the sickest access anti-retroviral treatment when the stage of their HIV/AIDS and the government bureaucracy wouldn’t otherwise allow them a chance at living. Instead of requiring 5 weeks to expansion to the work we’ve already been doing

o About a year and a half ago, I was poised to return to the USA. Sad to leave South Africa behind, but excited to spend time reuniting with friends and family, and optimistic about the bigger pool of ‘fish’ available in a much larger metropolitan area than the rural area I’ve been living in South Africa. But that all changed last September when Eugene and I turned our friendship into dating. I’m grateful to have found such a wonderful, fun and godly man to spend the rest of my life with!

As for now, I’m back in the Pacific Northwest planning a wedding and starting to catch up with people. I’m working on a date or two for an informational night to share what I’ve been up to and the latest from Thembalethu Care Organization, the NGO we’ve just gotten registered. (Another big praise report!) I’ll send out those dates as they get finalized, which hopefully shouldn’t be much longer.

I hope to be able to catch up with you while I’m around the northwest. Send me a line if you’ll be free in the next couple of weeks and would like to catch up!

Blessings and hugs,



Betsy

__________________________

Betsy Elfers

Thembalethu Care Organization
Amangwe Tribal Area (Loskop)
KZN South Africa

PO Box 195
Tugela Ferry, KZN
3010
South Africa
Cell: +27 83 510 5562

** NOTE ADDRESS AND PHONE CHANGE **

Life: Water, Power and LOVE!

I thought for a change I’d send you an update on a more personal note, and as my friend Tim found the tales of my living situations to be so interesting, I thought I’d write a little about that for a change. At the bottom you’ll see the biggest news of all… so don’t miss the “Life in LOVE!” section at the bottom!

On a brief Thembalethu note… Training, training, training! Yesterday was the final day of a long string of them, it’s nice to have a rest from the meetings, coordination, catering, etc. We’ve just finished multiple trainings over the past couple weeks: 3 days on Tuberculosis, 3 days on Counseling and ARV Adherence training, and a 2.5 day foundational course called Learning to Listen by Christian Listeners. They all went very well, and although they ended up being a bit bunched together, the HBC attended in great numbers and the courses were each a great success!


Life and Water
Today’s another day without water. I learned years ago in Ecuador how essential water is to accomplish the most basic daily tasks. How easily I had previously taken it for granted, never having gone without in surburban and rural America. I remember hearing how amazing it is how adaptable humans are. Being without water isn’t a big emergency for me anymore like it used to be. The great thing is that Sofi, next door, has a bit Jojo water tank full of water that fills up our water storage containers when ours run out. Today, it sounds like either a pipe has burst or the pipes have clogged up with mud.

You see, we and two other farms as well as a small Zulu farm village get our water from an underground stream up the hill from here. Not only is our water system very hand-done, a botch-job as Sofi would call it – 1km of low pressure plastic pipes dug about a foot under the surface, running from the dam they built to catch mountain stream water and take it down the hill to our farm, Cosmos Farm. High pressures from the stream cause them to burst, or in the dry winters (coming soon), wandering cows (of which there are MANY in the land of the Zulus) step on the pipe and burst it, smelling the water inside. And the time-share development up the hill, and their dumping of topsoil has filled our water source with LOTS of sediment. Making it brown and chunky on the best of days. I’m so grateful for our little countertop filter!

So, now it’s a waiting game. Waiting to see if this great fix-it guy over in the village will sort it out before we need to, as we’re at the end of the line.

[The next day]…It’s another day, and the water’s back on! Many thanks to Derek and his quick-acting Mr. Fix-It helpfulness! Oh, how I appreciate a nice hot shower in the morning! Not to be compared with a sponge-bath over a large round basin, what the Zulus call to “geza ngendish.”

Being at Cosmos with a nice-working gas geyser (hot water heater) is certainly simpler than my last year’s water-heating situation. I was living on a farm named Meadowsweet Herb Farm just down the road, which still had an earlier form of water heater that is affectionately known as a ‘donkey.’ I suppose it got its name from its stubbornness, and I learned to understand with use. A donkey is a primitive homemade water-heating system whereby, in this case, a large metal drum is turned on its side, mounted in a cement/brick structure, and a fire is lit underneath to warm the water. The donkey at Meadowsweet required a lot of work to get the fire started, a lot of wood to keep it going, a lot of time with a roaring fire (at least 3 hours), and only gave a couple of hours of hot water as an end result. Coming back from a long day at work, or a day hike in the Berg and wanting a warm-up or clean-off shower took a lot of coordination and patience to say the least!


Life and Power
This past year at Cosmos Farm is the most rustic of my living situations so far in South Africa. But even this is nothing in comparison to many of my Zulu neighbors, which is why I appreciate the basicness of it all – it makes me feel less removed from the people I work with and serve.

Here at Cosmos Farm, I live in a three bedroom volunteer house with a large communal kitchen/living space. I’m the most permanent resident here, and as I write this it’s the first stretch in the past seven months that I have the place to myself. Slindile (18, orphaned, with two young kids) stayed here with me for almost six months, and then we’ve had various volunteers, interns and visitors also staying here. My good friend and landlord, Sofi Ntshalintshali-Cogley is about 100 yards away, so I get frequent visits from her two young kids Doong (officially it’s Lungelo), aged 6 and Miya, almost 3, and we often share meals and life together. It’s been such a blessing being able to live in community and having their friendship and family!

The volunteer house has a long-drop toilet (think outhouse) which we recently moved outside, accessed by a door in the bathroom. It has greatly improved the general house smell since then… wouldn’t recommend an indoor outhouse! Yet the bees have moved in, thinking it a good home, and flies and mosquitos love to breed in the depths. Naja, in the scheme of things these are just small adventures in Africa. The house runs off solar with natural gas for the stove, fridge and water heaters. The two solar panels on top of the house charge during the day and we can keep high-efficiency lights burning until late at night, and still have a little power left to charge our laptops. We monitor the battery life by beeps of the regulator.

One beep: means you’re starting to use the battery’s power (maybe something like 10% used),
Then it beeps three times: (which I guess is 30% battery drained) sometimes it does this a couple of times, depending on what we unplug along the way, it can move to
Five beeps: the regulator is telling you the battery is almost gone (it’s hard on the battery if it goes dry). At that point, you stop everything for a moment to switch off all non-essential power. If the charge was low (lots of electricity out for charging a laptop or a cloudy day), it can quickly move into
Seven-plus beeps: At this point, you get up QUICKLY and look for the closest matches and candles as the electricity will be going out within the next 60 seconds or so.

I’ve like to think I’ve mastered the system by now – I can say for sure that with a good system up (ours isn’t in the best state at the moment, unfortunately), it is definitely VERY feasible to live off solar power. It’s cool to use the power of the sun, to not be affected by the frequent South Africa nationwide energy shortages. (Nationwide people have “load sharing” two hours a day three days a week where their electricity is turned off completely. While it isn’t in nearly the crisis stage it was a couple months ago, it continues to disrupt a lot of people’s daily transactions and business operations, and the sale of generators has boomed since it started.)


Life in LOVE!
The big news is that I’m engaged to be married! I’ve known this great Afrikaans South African guy named Eugene Meyer for almost three years now, and have been dating him for almost 8 months now. (I’ve attached a couple pics.) Eugene is a strong Christian leader originally from Cape Town who is committed to serving God’s servants around the world. He is currently working for a Christian NGO named Philanjalo that also supports Home-Based Caregivers (300 to our 35), has an HIV/AIDS Care Centre for adults, and another one for children, does residential and community-based orphan care, and does HIV/AIDS and TB research with various US universities (Yale, Harvard, Brown, Albert Einstein). Eugene has been working with Philanjalo, through the Church of Scotland Hospital in Tugela Ferry (1 ¾ hour drive from here) for four years and is now their financial and office manager.

The natural next-question is what this means for me. Well, first off, we’re in the midst of planning an August wedding in Tacoma, Washington. After that, the plans are for me to move in with Eugene in the sprawling Zulu metropolis (hahaha ;) of Tugela Ferry. (I’ve attached a picture of the hospital – the company house he’s in is just behind the complex, just against their back fence.) My plan from the start of Thembalethu was to get it to a place where it wasn’t dependent on my daily presence to continue and thrive. Being just under two hours away from Amangwe/Winterton, I’ll be able to support Xoli as she takes on the primary management responsibilities, by working back in the Berg two days a week, taking on fundraising and administrative roles. It’s such important work and as a board member and co-founder I’m committed to seeing the work go on! Xoli’s been such a Godsend to Thembalethu and the community and is already a great asset, and is in fact already gracefully leading most relationships with the Caregivers, patients and orphans. With the rest of my time, there are multiple opportunities already presenting themselves for me to continue serving HIV/AIDS infected and affected adults and children in the Tugela Ferry area. I envision that the next couple of years will be spent between Tugela Ferry and Amangwe/Loskop/Drakensberg, with the possibility of returning to the Seattle area sometime in the future.

As for Thembalethu, our funding with the Winterton Methodist church (and some generous contributions from UPC) will be running dry about September this year. Yet, a church member and friend has helped signed us up to be the charity of choice for a Golf Day in Durban that her brother is planning for late August. They normally raise about R100,000 to R120,000 ($13,500 to $16,000) for the charity, which would go a long way to allowing Thembalethu’s work to continue. Please join us in praying that this funding opportunity will come through!

Love to you all!

Betsy