Old Friends and New Friends

Back in October of last year, Byron and I did our very first community stay in a South African community called Oshoek. We spent four days and three nights in the home of a Gogo (grandma in Siswati) and her six grandchildren – getting to know them and experiencing life the way they do. Click here to read about our experience the first time around. The family is from the country of Swaziland, the border of which is about a half hour drive from Oshoek. With the desire to put her six grandchildren through school, Gogo made the decision a few years ago to move her family to South Africa, where school fees are much cheaper than they are in Swaziland. Since then, she has been fighting tirelessly to put food on the table and to make ends meet. Life has been difficult. They are isolated, tucked away in the hills of Oshoek, with little to no support from anyone. 

Beautiful scenery in Oshoek, South Africa

A few weeks ago, Byron and I had the opportunity to visit our family again and to stay with them for a night. This time, we had our friend, Sibusiso, with us, a fellow Hands at Work volunteer who was born and raised in Swaziland. We felt grateful for the opportunity to spend time with our family again, to show them that we hadn’t forgotten about them and to encourage them in the small ways that we could. 

Our friend Sibusiso

Clement, the youngest boy in the family, ran at full speed and jumped straight into Byron’s arms as soon as he saw us – what a special moment!  We were relieved that they hadn’t forgotten us and that we wouldn’t have to battle through the shyness that many African children have towards foreigners. It was almost as though we had never left!

Clement was all smiles!

We decided to go with Gogo to fetch firewood as the girls in the family went to fetch water. Byron tried his hand at chopping wood but that lasted all of two minutes. Sibu and the other two boys did the rest of the chopping while I gathered the chopped wood and Byron pushed the wheelbarrow. 

Wheelbarrow duties never got in the way of Byron being stupid

Observing as the boys chopped fire wood

Gogo

That night, Byron and I slept in our sleeping bags on a foam mattress on the floor. Gogo spent a lot of time preparing our sleeping quarters, ensuring that we had more than enough to be comfortable and warm in our bed and providing us with the best that she had. What an incredibly sweet gesture. The condition of the home was about the same as it was back in October – old, dirty and seemingly on the brink of falling apart. With Gogo so old and away from the house most of the day working, the house is often left a mess with dirt and garbage everywhere.

The room we slept in

Our bed

The front area of the house

Kitchen on the right and a bedroom on the left

Gogo's bedroom

The kitchen with a wood burning stove

We were sad to discover that the two youngest kids have not been going to school for a while (they’re not too sure how long they’ve been out of school for). With the large amount of Swazi citizens illegally settling in South Africa to put their children through school, the South African government often cracks down on the public schools, chasing out any children without the proper papers. We wondered if anybody knew about this, if anyone was doing something to get the children back in school.

Clement and Nonhle, the two youngest in the family

As the day wore on, Byron and I both felt a growing sense of hopelessness. Gogo is old and can barely earn enough to feed the children. The eldest boy, 20 years old now, but only with a grade eight education, is more interested in making rap music than pursuing an education. The eldest girl, 19, is often gone for days on end (she wasn't there when we visited and we suspect she was staying with a boyfriend), leaving the cleaning and cooking up to Gogo and her younger siblings and cousins. The two youngest children have been chased out of school and have no immediate plans to go back. The middle sister, age 14, spends her time hanging out with friends outside the neighbourhood bar where loud rap music blares and guys get drunk. Needless to say, it's not the ideal hangout spot for a young, teenage girl, especially when her little sister often follows her there. Without the intervention of Care Workers and those who can advocate on these children's behalf, what hope do they have? What hope does Gogo have in trying to provide a better life for her grandchildren? This is where the role of our Care Workers is SO critical. If home visits are being done properly and if Care Workers have a deep, parental-like relationship with the children they are visiting, situations like this one would never go unnoticed. It’s our job to advocate for children who have no voice and to stand up for those who are helpless. As discouraging as it may be at times, we will continue to pray for our family and to follow up on their situation.

After a cold, wet night, we said our goodbyes the following morning and continued our journey to Sibu’s house in the beautiful country of Swaziland!

As I mentioned earlier, Sibu is one of our fellow volunteers at Hands. He was discovered in his tiny little rural church after the leaders at Hands at Work, desiring to expand into the HIV-ravaged country of Swaziland, caught wind of a man who had devoted his life to caring for the orphaned and vulnerable children in his community. Since then, Sibu has been living in South Africa at the Hub, learning about Hands and taking up responsibilities as a member of the South Africa Regional Support Team.

Byron and I were invited to spend a couple of days with Sibu in his home, to spend time with his brothers and to meet his Gogo, the woman who raised him and his siblings. Sibu doesn't often get the opportunity to go home to see his family so this trip was a real blessing for him. He also could not have been more excited to show us his home and introduce us to his family. Byron and I were just honoured that we got to meet his family, see where and how he grew up in and visit his beloved church.

All in all, it was a great weekend. It's moments like these that really offer us a lot of perspective and remind us of how blessed we are.

Here are some pictures of our time with Sibu.

Look what we stumbled upon in Mbabane (the capital of Swaziland) ... The food was actually really good!

Sibu, Byron, Sibu's brother and his cousin

Byron and I at the top of the hill we climbed with Sibu

Resting our feet and enjoying the view

Huddling around the fire while dinner was being cooked at Sibu's home

Making breakfast with Sibu's sister the next morning

Sibu's Gogo

 

Sibu and his Gogo

 - Diane

Back to Zambia!

Again! After 3.5 months at the Hands at Work Hub in South Africa, we return to the place where a huge part of our journey began in Africa – the magical land of Zambia. We arrived with mixed feelings. On the one hand, we were dreading having to pack our lives up … yet again. It feels like, lately, we’ve constantly been on the move, making it difficult for us to feel settled in one place. We also aren’t looking forward to Zambian living – the many inconveniences and inefficiencies and the slow pace of what seems like all aspects of life here, not to mention the constant heat! There’s also much less of a community feel here. While Hands is focused on building up its presence in Zambia, there are still far fewer people here than there are at the Hub in South Africa. At times, it’s easy to get a little stir crazy because there’s really not a whole lot to do. We live rurally, on a farm, with a handful of Hands volunteers. The farm is about 12 kms away from Luanshya, the nearest town, and about 45 kms away from Kitwe, where we lived the first time we were sent to Zambia. But, as we’ve learnt in the past, it’s good to be uncomfortable. After all, we certainly didn’t come to Africa to be comfortable!

On the other hand, we are really looking forward to connecting with everyone back in Zambia, particularly the Kitwe Service Centre team – Blessings, Towela and Clement – that quickly became like family to us, and the international volunteers here that we became good friends with. We are also really excited about what we will be doing from a work perspective. When we first arrived in Zambia in mid-October of last year, we were mere rookies, fresh out of orientation. We didn’t know anything about Zambia, nor did we understand much about who Hands was or what we were going to be doing. Fast-forward 10 months and the difference is like night and day. We’re not saying that being in Africa a year has made us experts, by any means, but we now have a far greater understanding of our roles and of the big picture. We feel we have finally reached a point where we are contributing into Hands and really building into the work that’s going on here. In fact, it’s a big part of why we’ve been sent back to Zambia!

This time we’ll only be in Zambia for 6.5 weeks, as opposed to the 6.5 months we spent here the first go-around. It’s shaping up to be a very busy 6.5 weeks for both of us, though! Diane’s main responsibilities include training and working together with a new accountant that Hands recently hired to fill a huge role with our Zambia finances. She’ll also be helping out the Kitwe and Luanshya Service Centres with their bookkeeping functions, an area of constant need. As for me, I’ll be spending the majority of my time working with our Regional Support Team and our Service Centres in Kitwe and Luanshya to ensure that certain projects are completed by the end of the year. I will also be facilitating the planning and budgeting for essential projects and workshops in 2014, as well as providing general support wherever I can.

When we shifted into our long-term roles a few months ago, I wondered if I would struggle with not being out in our African communities, interacting with our Care Workers and seeing the children we serve on a regular basis. It was very much a regular part of our day when we walked with the Kitwe Service Centre for those 6.5 months and I absolutely loved it. I mean, who wouldn’t love this ...

Me and Philip, a little boy from a community called Mulenga (and yes ... that is me wearing a headband ...)

But now that we’re back in completely different roles, we are both very excited about how everything has taken shape. As much as we loved being in the community, we know and now completely understand that, as foreigners, that could never be part of our long-term role. Never mind the fact that we could never fill the shoes of our local community leaders, it’s just not sustainable, nor does it build into one of our core values of local community ownership. A part of us will always want to be on the ground and in the community with our kids (they’re pretty damn cute). But we know that we add much more value and build into something much bigger when we serve as the behind-the-scenes support. While we haven’t been able to settle down in a home as of yet, it’s been really, really good for us to feel like we’ve settled into our roles with Hands. We love that we’ve been entrusted with more responsibility and are being given opportunities to build into what we’re doing here.

With the rollercoaster 6.5 months we had here, it definitely became a love-hate kind of thing in our relationship with Zambia. But since we’ve been gone, we think fondly of our experience and are now able to laugh about the tough times we faced. We look forward to what God has in store for us this time around. It’s good to be back!

Enjoy some photos from our first few days back.

- Byron

Playing with 5 week old puppies at the farm

Relaxing, roast pig style

All 6 puppies napping

Jessie, the puppies' mom

Community church in Mulenga

Visiting a Care Worker's home after church

Diane with Johnny, Philip's older brother

Sylvia and Denise, one of our Care Worker's wife and daughter in Mulenga. She was NOT happy to see white people.

Shekinah, Blessings' new baby boy

Our room for the next 6 weeks inside the main house at the farm. Separate beds make for romantic times.

View of the farm

The office at the farm ... where all the magic happens

The volunteer kitchen

Got milk?

Former chicken coops being constructed into new accommodation for volunteers

Guest "chalets", also converted from former chicken coops

The back of the main house with our ghetto, non-functioning swimming pool

Reunited with our favourite little sweetheart at the farm, Towanga

Ce-le-brate Good Times, Come On!

Lately we've been noticing how quickly time is passing by. We have been back at the Hub in South Africa for over 3 months now, settled into our roles (Diane on the Finance / Project Support team for our Zambia operations and Byron on the Legal / Operations / Clau Clau Service Centre Project Support / Kitwe Service Centre Project Support side of things). Between the move back to South Africa, visits from our family, taking on more responsibility with our new roles, and life in general, it feels like we haven't had much time to spare. But no matter how quickly time has escaped us, it's never too late to reflect on the good times and to share these memories with friends and family back home.

In April every year, Care Workers and Service Centre staff from across the 8 countries that Hands at Work operates in, together with international volunteers, advocates and friends of Hands at Work, and local church leaders converge at Kachele Farm, our 'Hub' in Zambia, to "ce-le-brate good times, come on!" This annual conference, called 'Celebrations', is a time for our Care Workers and Service Centre staff - the men and women whose very heart and passion our organization is built on - to meet up, share stories, re-connect and be challenged and encouraged by the work we're doing and the testimonies and stories coming out of our communities. Most importantly, it's an opportunity to gather the entire Hands Family together in one place.

Whether we traveled to Zambia by bus, by car or by plane, whether we came from the next town over (like us) or all the way from Nigeria, the UK or the US, there was an undeniable sense of family and community among us. Many of our Care Workers (1-4 from each Community Based Organization (CBO) together with the CBO Coordinator) braved long (like, really long!) bus journeys and multiple border crossings (which are always gong shows in Africa) just to be part of Celebrations. For many of our Care Workers, this is the only time of year they get to travel outside of their community. For some, it was their first time ever!

As much as Celebrations is a time of fun and re-connecting, it's also a time to introduce and roll out the key themes that Hands is focusing on in the upcoming year. It's a wonderful opportunity to assess how we're doing as an organization and what we can be doing better to more effectively reach and care for our children. Two of the themes that dominated the discussion during this year were: 'Holy Home Visits' and 'The Jesus We Know'.

We've said it here before but, if there's one activity we do that defines who we are as an organization, it is home visits. We visit others because Jesus first visited us. Home visits are what enable us to properly assess and understand our children. It is what allows us to engage in deep relationships with a child and is what separates us from being a mere service provider. In short, it shows the child that we care, that he/she is valued, and that he/she is known by name. It must be so much more than just a brief check-in or an obligatory visit to be crossed off a to-do list. One of the main points emphasized is that, for our home visits to be effective and transformational, each visit must be approached with the same preparation, attitude and anticipation as one would have if they were to be meeting with God himself. Would we go into such a meeting with an agenda or a time limit? Would we go with impatient attitudes or a narrow-mindedness that limits our expectations of what God can do in our lives? Of course not! Rather, we go for no other reason than to love and serve. If we adopt the right spirit in our home visits, we trust that God will show up. Only then will we truly see the transformational nature of "holy" home visits.

Another theme that we talked about is something we termed, ‘The Jesus We Know’. Many of our Care Workers have been raised their whole life with an understanding of God, of Christianity, that misconstrues or altogether misses the true message of the gospel. Instead, the prosperity gospel - the theology that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will always increase one's material wealth (according to Wikipedia) - reaches throughout vast parts of Africa. Many are also exposed to a very legalistic view of what it means to be a Christian - that we must obey the Biblical commandments to earn favour with God and to, ultimately, earn our way into heaven. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the life Jesus lived and the good news He came to bring during His time on Earth. The 'Jesus We Know' is the Jesus who is the blameless Son of God but, yet, was mocked and persecuted and ultimately died for our sins. The 'Jesus We Know' is the Jesus who spent His life dwelling amongst the sinners, condemning the religious and the righteous. The 'Jesus We Know' is the King who came to be a humble servant and wash the feet of his disciples. During Celebrations, we were all deeply challenged with whether we know the true Jesus of the gospel, who loves and cares for widows and orphans, and who teaches us that it is the poor, the weak and the meek who will inherit the kingdom of heaven. As Christians, and as those who have made it our mission to care for such people, we need to be looking to the example that Christ set during His time on Earth and living our lives in a way that strives to be more like Him.

All-in-all, it was a joyous 3 days, full of fellowship, learning and just pure celebration of what God is doing in the lives of the children we serve. It was truly amazing! Our hearts were touched as we saw Service Centre Coordinators from different countries reunited after years, teasing each other and telling each other stories, despite their sometimes very broken English. The laughter, the dancing, the moments where a group of Care Workers would just break out in song ... these are memories we will hold dear to our hearts forever. Here are some pictures and hightlights from our time together.

-Diane & Byron

"The Wall" of protection that we build around the child 

Byron with baby Mischek, Clement's tank of a son 

A packed house on the first day of Celebrations with representatives from CBO's from all 8 of our countries! 

An impromptu song and dance before the start of day 2 ... so very African of us!

The little ones are always the belles of the ball. This little guy, Farai Jr., is the son of our Zimbabwe Service Centre Coordinator 

More singing and dancing

Amazing praise and worship

Prayer for those in need

Hadasah, the cutest little Congolese baby we have EVER met!!

Song and dance performances by each of the 8 countries Hands operates in

Nigerians (with honourary Nigerians) rocking the house (we just wanted to post this picture to show Lynn dancing)

The largest contingent at Celebrations, Zambia, after our song and dance number! 

Say "Mwentula!", which means "Smile!" in Bemba 

A precious group picture of the Kitwe Service Centre together with Care Workers from each of the CBOs that the Kitwe Service Centre supports

Our 2 favourite Zambian ladies: Elizabeth (R), the Coordinator of the Luanshya Service Centre together with Towela (L), our mom and the Coordinator of the Kitwe Service Centre

The dishes that fed over 225 people!

Is that ... Cleveland?! From The Family Guy?