June Update & Prayer Requests

Yesterday morning I had a lovely Saturday run in the Tugela Ferry community gardens. It was just my second time walking there with our dogs – quite a big treat that Eugene introduced me to just a week or so before. Crazy that I’ve lived there for almost nine months and just discovered the paths literally outside our front fence. Instead of greeting somebody every 10 feet, having children chasing after and being attacked by violent dogs, the community gardens maybe the closest to a ‘park’ setting that Tugela Ferry has to offer. Many of the large garden spaces in the community gardens sit fallow this time of year leaving it a wild ‘veld’ experience with the sound of the roaring Tugela River and the birds in the grass and trees. There are a few women there working in their fields, sometimes with men helping from on-top a tractor. This time of year there are lush rows of reddening tomatoes, row after row of bright green spinach and other leafy greens, onions, as well as a few sweet potatoes and pumpkins still remaining to be harvested. So nice to get out there and see some of the most industrious areas in Tugela Ferry and yet peace and beauty of nature as well. Beauty and quiet have been in short supply since moving to Tugela, and it’s such a blessing to have found such a lovely space!

Speaking of lovely spaces, our new land in Mandabeni for our community support centre is nearing closer and closer to becoming reality. Xoli and I are very excited about having our own ‘stake in the ground’ in the Amangwe community and to be able to get closer to the community with our own offices, not just our own pick-up truck (bakkie). We will begin by building a 6x6 block with a large L-shaped room with an outside stoop to expand our working space, as that’s what we feel comfortable we can afford at this point. As God provides more, we hope to add on more buildings – especially a training area. Our vision of the land is to be able to provide a more centralized space for assisting our HBC patients, their families as well as the orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) we support. To be able to have a base from which we can meet together regularly to host HIV and TB support groups for our patients as well as for the OVC we support. Hopefully to open a community soup kitchen for the very vulnerable young and sick, while integrating economic strengthening activities.

I really love working out in the community! I spent the other day meeting with Xoli and the HBC volunteers living close to our land where we will be building the centre soon. (Pictured, right). Because of Xoli's vulnerabilities in the community right now, I was able to step back in to do some home visits to some patients and OVC families. I realized how much I LOVE being outside and connecting with people, and how much I've been stuck doing the much more dry office work instead. Please join me in praying how I can get back out in the community more, being in closer relationship to those in need instead of serving a more distant administrative role.

In the last week during a visit to our Thembalethu project in the Drakensberg, I returned to Tugela Ferry feeling a bit like an ambulance service. After helping Mpume obtain the much-needed documents towards getting her identity documents and loading up for a round of food-drops to the orphaned families we support, my plans suddenly changed. Mpume (mentioned below in Prayer Requests) becoming very sick with the symptoms of meningitis as well as general body chills and fever. I had to leave Xoli to finish the food deliveries, and left with Mpume as soon as possible to get her to medical attention at Church of Scotland Hospital (COSH) where I live, and where she’s taken up temporary residence. We ended up with two other patients in tow as well: one was the son of a former Home-Based Caregiver who needed daily TB injections as well as to start ARVs ASAP but was too distant from the clinic to make it possible from his home. The other was a very sick baby named Ayanda who is eleven months old and yet weighed only 6kg (13.2lbs) and has been sick pretty much from birth. His first HIV test (which takes 6 weeks for a result) had come back negative, and the second hadn’t yet returned and yet his situation was deteriorating. So I ended up transporting a car full of sick people – a young gal with meningitis and pneumonia, a young man with pneumonia and TB, and a baby with a malnourished condition and severe diarrhea common with full blown AIDS.

At last report, the baby was re-initiated on TB treatment and the HIV test had come back positive, so initiating ARV treatment was just a few days away and his condition had improved. Mpume’s meningitis had been caught early, and her pneumonia was responding well. The young TB injection guy had been started on his treatment and the road to accessing ARVs had been started. So glad to be able to assist these folks, especially as the resources in Tugela Ferry are often in high demand (but unavailable) in the Berg – care centre (hospice) for adults and babies/mothers, as well as very dedicated, knowledgeable and proactive doctors at the hospital.

Prior to all of this, Eugene and I had a couple of tough couple of weeks. And yet so many exciting moments as well. Let me see if I can go back over the last couple of weeks and include prayer requests:

• After playing social worker for weeks, Mpume and Aphiwa (a homeless, orphaned 18 year old and her 9 month old baby, both HIV+ and not then on treatment) moved in with Eugene and I, supposedly for two days until they could get transferred to the local mother-and-baby-care centre. It ended up being 1.5 weeks full-on instead, as both mom and baby took turns getting very sick and admitted to the hospital. While Aphiwa was in the pediatric ward (the first time, when her mom was admitted, just prior to her initial transfer to the care centre) I was the only one feeding her regularly, as the hospital nurses didn’t get to it. Both are now on treatment and stabilized, staying at Khayelisha Care while they pray and wait to see if anyone from the local church will make available a place for them to stay here. They have been admitted to a HIV+ women’s home in Johannesberg, but the loving people at Khayelisha really feel for her rootless state and connection here in Tugela Ferry. In the meantime, I will give my all (again) to get the required documents (a death certificate for her mother who never had a birth certificate and then both mom and baby’s birth certificates) to make it possible for her to access some welfare assistance. Please pray for these two sweet girls, favor in working with Home Affairs to get Mpume her identity documents, as well as a healthy future in a place they can call their own.

• In response to all of this, Eugene and I are for the first time having to look closer at our lifestyle assumptions after having lived and served here in KwaZulu-Natal both on our own for so long. We have suddenly seen that we need to adjust our single living styles and callings to fit a picture of our calling as a married couple. He is accustomed to assisting the caregivers in caring for the sick and orphaned, while I’ve been more on the grassroots level of individuals. Please pray for us as we grow more into each other and into our God-given calling here in South Africa.

• My step-Dad Bud passed away unexpectedly, but peacefully in his sleep on Sunday afternoon. He and my Mom were married almost 23 years, if my calculations are correct. His memorial service is on Saturday. It’s been difficult grieving alone, but am glad that I’ll be able to spend some extra time in the Seattle area supporting my Mom. I’ll be arriving 2.5 weeks earlier than planned (24 June), and continuing with my previously-planned visit tagged-on. Please pray for comfort for my Mom and family in the midst of this loss.

• The same day that I heard about Bud’s passing, I got a very upset phone call from, the manager of our project in the Loskop/Amangwe Tribal Area. She had received an anonymous phone call on her work number telling her that someone had been hired to kill her (a disturbingly inexpensive and common thing here – as cheap as $25). She got safely away to her family home away from the area and has been really digging into God’s word and in prayer and is calm and at peace now. She decided to go back to Loskop the next week, but very understandably is hesitant to get back into the full swing of things. Not sure who to trust, where this threat came from. We really feel like this is a spiritual battle that we’re involved in, perhaps something to do with jealousy as well (?); as we continue to assist and share God’s hope and love with the sick and orphaned in the area we must be stirring up the spiritually dark forces in the community. Please pray for God to intervene and turn the hearts of the evil ones here, to continue to give Xoli peace, and to bring a clear end to this so that Xoli can go back and continue the work that God’s called us to do – assisting orphans and the sick in their distress.
• On an exciting note, building on our little piece of land for our Thembalethu Care Centre looks to be a closer reality! We staked it out (50x80 metres at the end - land pictured here) and are hoping to break ground in the next couple of weeks. We don’t have the full funding to put up much, but we’ll start with a 6x6 metre building and hope to put up a training centre and kitchen to feed orphans as funding becomes available. John Grant, one of our very dedicated board members has generously offered to help us with building experience, and has already organized a donated fence and its installation for us. It looks very promising for us to get funding from the Department of Social Welfare as well to be able to set up a program of orphan and community support there as well. We hope to feed the local orphans and vulnerable children with a healthy morning meal as well as an after-school meal and provide them with assistance accessing social grants. Thank God for all that’s been going on, and pray that we will have the funds necessary to continue our community work and put up buildings we need to expand!

• I’ll be in the Seattle area now from the 24^th of June through the end of July, with some extra time to support my mom. Should anyone have a car available I could borrow for some or all of this time, please let me know. Please pray for God’s continued provision of my work with Thembalethu in the Amangwe community as my funds are running low.

Blessings,

Betsy

Small Victories

Some days you just have to celebrate the little things. Like yesterday - such a lovely, productive day. May seem like little things, but it's no minor feat in South Africa to be able to achieve so much in a day. So grateful for the successes, and thanking God for moving things along so encouragingly! Thanks for your prayers and support!

Let me share with you yesterday's small victories:

Opening a new Thembalethu bank account in less than 2.5 hours .
We managed to get the five signatories for our bank account all to the bank at the same time with all required personal and organizational documents in hand (a stack over an inch high) AND were able to open the account. Hooray!!! We've been paying $20-30 per month in bank fees, and switched to a bank that promises we should pay less than $5 per month.


Getting our Permission to Occupy the land at our new community site!
After being passed between the municipal council (local government) and the Amangwe Traditional authority (traditional government, a parallel structure), we managed to get permission to occupy our new land in the Mandabeni area of Loskop. We hope to put some structures up soon and start caring for the community there, especially orphaned and vulnerable children!

Completing and handing in the last of the accompanying documents required for a Department of Social Development funding proposal, and just in the nick of time.
This 40-page funding proposal plus 20 pages of accompanying documentation was no minor feat to complete - especially with the last-minute notice I received to turn it in. The Department says they can't find enough NGOs to be funded to support the orphans and sick in the community, so we're praying that our application will be accepted so we can get going at our new site.

Finding a quaint lunch joint where Xoli and I could grab something to eat and two drinks for the two of us for just R25 ($2.50)! (And it was good - Indian pea and potato curry with two rotis, yum!)

Enjoying a newly tarred road on one of my favorite shortcuts from Winterton/Loskop back to Tugela Ferry.
Thanks to the upcoming elections, approximately half of the 20km rough gravel road, a nice shortcut to Tugela Ferry, was tarred just in time for the elections on Wednesday next week (22 April). It felt so luxurious to be able to enjoy a nice, smooth road instead of its rough, bumpy, hugely rutted former state!


Writing of elections... please pray for South Africa. That a man of integrity and truth would be elected. Politics and the whole political system seem to be at a big turning point here, and with the history of violence around political rivals, we need a LOT of prayer.

Also, in two weeks our church in Greytown, Shalom Fellowship is hosting the Mighty Men's Conference (www.mmc2009.co.za). Last year they had approximately 60,000 men attending the conference on the farm, most of them camping there. This year they're anticipating an unprecedented whopping 200,000 men to attend the weekend-long camping conference. The famous Christian evangelist, Angus Buchan, on whose farm our church is, will be leading the Conference. Please pray for this weekend (24-27 April) as well - for God's hand and movement amongst the men, and for Uncle Angus.

Please also mark your calendars for the evening of Tuesday 21 July, as I'll be giving an update of my work here in South Africa, and of Thembalethu at the Africa Interest Group at University Presbyterian Church, Seattle. It'll be a very brief visit, and my (our) time in limited so I hope to see you there! If anyone is interested in hearing more about what's happening here, please let me know, and I'll try to squeeze it in.

Being a Neighbor

Jesus replied: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-40

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers.…”
Luke 10:29-30


Bridging Program
We are so grateful for the funds we received as a grant from the UPC Caring Community for an extension of our HIV/AIDS outreach in what we call the ‘bridging program.’ Through the funding we are able to work together with local doctor and chairman of our board, Dr. Johan Düring, to provide access to the much more efficient private channels of anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment, and then ‘bridge’ patients over to the government ARV program. This program is envisioned to save valuable time in accessing treatment for the patients, who otherwise wait up to six or eight weeks in accessing the life-saving treatment. As this is a new initiative, we continue to learn more about how to make this happen.

Also to discuss the level of support required to make this happen: from Xoli and myself, to the Home-Based Caregivers, and the patients and their family.

In the process of figuring all this out, the key question has arisen in my mind of how far an individual, a community would be willing to go to care for their neighbor. How far would you be willing to go? How far would I be willing to go in caring for my neighbor? I can’t help but think of Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, and how far he went out of his way to ‘help his neighbor’ and how Jesus demonstrates not just what loving your neighbor means, but who is included in the neighbor bit. Individuals, home-based caregivers do this every day. For them it’s a way of life. But given the vast extent of HIV/AIDS illness and orphans in the Zulu community, how far can local individual action be taken? Just how much sickness, and desperate need can a community provide assistance to?

The reality is there is not a family untouched by HIV/AIDS. Not an individual in KwaZulu-Natal who has not lost someone they love.

I am really beginning to believe that, despite the Zulu people’s broad definition of family and family responsibility, the vast level of need that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has brought on demands beyond the absolute maximum of what a people can give. When their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and children are getting sick and needing their care, how can they be expected to be free to help their neighbor in his moment of need? I have gone through seasons with one wedding every weekend, but that was only a brief period, an exceptional summer. Here people have become accustomed to attending a funeral monthly, or in some seasons, weekly. It’s unbelievably sad to see the reality of what AIDS has done to this community.

Yet, the Home-Based Caregivers are an exception to the norm of giving to not only their immediate and extended family, but also to their entire neighborhood. But how much can we expect of them? The hardships of poverty are difficult enough already: fetching water at the pump, fetching wood in the forest or up the mountain, running a business for extra cash, walking, walking everywhere; looking after grandchildren… the list could go on. And then there’s the emotional and spiritual resources required to keep going, to continue to help others amidst the deaths, the desperation, the destitution of the children and families left behind after their breadwinner has passed away.

How much, how far can a community be expected to give? This question has been rolling around in my mind in recent weeks, I have come to the realization that despite the best efforts of people like the Home-Based Caregivers in the community, the need is too great for them to cope on their own. To be able to deal with the level of need in the community, they really need help. From people like me and you. Thank you for your support of them, of the Amangwe community.

I pray that God will give us all increasing amounts of strength to continue to love our neighbors, wherever they may be.

Blessings and love to you,

Betsy

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!