Qedi & Lindo's House Back Like New!

BEFORE & AFTER


Qedi and Lindo have their house back! We found a very efficient, highly competent builder who rebuilt the walls of their house and reattached the roof. This time the girls tell me that the roof doesn't lift or make excessive noise when winds come, and it keeps the rain out. Thanks to those of you who gave to help fix up their house! If anyone else is interested in helping, we could still use some funds to reimburse the expenses of housing for these two girls.

Becoming a Social Worker

I never expected to become a social worker. But it’s such an integral part of serving in the community here. And there is a desperate shortage of social workers, and an even more desperate situation affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty. While starting to write this, I have two young kids (13 and 5 years) from the Winterton area sitting at my kitchen table, doing ‘school work’ I’ve given them.
I transported their mother about a month ago to the Philanjalo hospice because of her health and lack of care at home. She has meningitis TB and a recent CAT scan indicates she has severe swelling in her brain and therefore her outlook is very poor. Please pray for this patient, and her young kids, Nondethelelo and Lindokuhle (girl 13, boy 5) who, on the doctor’s recommendation, are staying with Eugene and I while they pay one last visit to their dying mother. Meanwhile, colleagues in Winterton are helping to sort out the children’s living situation, which will be with the families of the children’s fathers.

Another case came up about two weeks ago as I was driving to Loskop/Winterton for a meeting, I got a call from a colleague with the municipality about a young girl that needed help. Her name is Mpume, she’s 17 or 18 years old (no birth certificate, so a lack of consensus about this), orphaned and has a six month old baby. Her older brother fetched her April last year from the orphanage where she had been living since 2003 and she never went back. Then she ‘fell pregnant’ as they say here, and since defaulted on her ARV treatment. And, even worst, was kicked out of her brother’s house because of a fight with her sister-in-law. We found her a temporary place to live, but as they continue to remind us, it is only a temporary situation. While the social workers committed to help us initially, their supervisor reneged this commitment, and now it’s only us looking out for Mpume. It looks like she’ll be able to move into a three-month temporary Christian haven where she’ll be loved, Hope will be conveyed, and she’ll get some skills training. At that point, we’ll have to see where she goes next, though it might be a place up in Johannesberg for HIV positive mothers and their children. Prayers for her and her baby Aphiwe would be greatly appreciated as well.

While on the issue of social workers, a God provided a GREAT answer to prayers not long ago in the answering of Xoli’s prayers and the saving of the Loskop social work office. Social workers in Loskop work primarily with orphaned and vulnerable children, the majority of whom are helped to access foster care documents and birth certificates through their appeals in the office. Their office was located at the Department of Agriculture complex (Xoli lives next door) and when she arrived home one evening, she saw a great column of smoke. As she realized that it was the DoA complex, she started praying for the saving of the Social work office since so much of the assistance to the community’s most vulnerable rests upon the files in that office. She and her husband proceeded to remove all they could save from the social work office, while she continued praying that nothing would be lost. And GOD is GOOD! When I went to see the DoA office a week after the fires, I was impressed by how marvelously God answered. The entire building is a burnt wreck, but the social work offices, while undoubtedly damaged some by smoke and water, were untouched by fire. The fire brigade arrived from Estcourt just in time to save the office. The social workers confirmed that not a single file was lost. Thank God for this protection of the interest of the community’s most vulnerable!

Update in Brief

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).

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.