Monday 24th July 2017 - Day 1 - Orinetation and Zweelisha

Monday 24th July

The alarm went off at 6:50am, but to our surprise we weren’t tired as we were all asleep by 9:30pm the night before! The poor men however were up far earlier as they had men’s prayer at 7am. After breakfast there was a Monday morning meeting, with the whole of the hands village. The meeting started with notices for the week, followed by sharing of experiences from the departing team and some funky South African songs. The focus of this Monday morning meeting was prayer and in particular for the teams that have been, that are here and are yet to come. We learnt the importance of teams and how much the hands village feel blessed by their presence.

Next up, orientation time! Tommy is our host for the duration and he went through step by step the ins and outs of the trip and what the days would entail. This helped as a first timer as he mentioned certain cultural no no’s which helped when we met our first group of care workers and children in Zweelisha.

After the short and sandwich filled bus journey, we arrived at Zweelisha to be warmly welcomed by the care workers, Juila, Lindeeway and Selena. Thankfully we had brought some expert Siswati speakers from the Hub – Jackie, Bethwell, Melodie and Devon. We spent some time playing a name game, which was hilarious for those of us who can’t multi-task, but the care-workers were great and learnt all 12 names J We warmed up our voices by learning some praise songs in Siswati with actions, including ‘Uthando lwakhe’ meaning ‘his love is amazing’. To end our meeting with the care workers before the children arrived we had prayer and sharing of a word from The Bible led so beautifully by Rosemary who recited psalm 150 and described her personal reflection.

During the day we heard several stories of children and care workers. One particular story that stuck with us all was that of a care worker that passed away in June. She was only 24 and had 3 small children and died because of really awful circumstances. She had made a huge Impact in her community and had formed strong relationships with her fellow care-workers, who were so clearly still grieving for her.

BAM the kids arrive! What a whirlwind we were about to encounter. The children were arriving from their first day of school showing off their new equipment for the year, pens, pencils, glue and books. It was really nice to see them so happy. They were super eager to play so we got some footballs and a skipping rope from the bus and the fun began. These kids really know how to play! We were playing catch for what felt like forever but they were having great fun, even the older ones as old as 16 joined in and loved playing with all ages, which for our British culture is practically unheard of.

After all the playing, we switched to praying! We all congregated in the small building called a Life Centre. This building was partly built using funds donated by the Biggleswade Deanery. Last years team saw the beginnings of the building work, so it was amazing to see the finished product in full use. The children were great and they taught us some new songs, including one about walking alongside Jesus, impressively led by a ten year old girl and boy.




Dinner was served (by the best servers in SA). Pap, soya mince and cabbage was on the menu and was demolished by all 35 children and 5 care workers.  My personal favourite was Precious, aged 3 who ate a HUGE portion for her age and had the biggest belly at the end of it, which she was very proud of! (Susie, this is your favourite tiny girl from last year).





It was soon time to leave, but there was time for one last big game of Crab/Octopus/Lion (depending where you’re from) a fun game for all.

Love from Holly and Claire