Final day at "Hands" - Monday 21st May 2018

So my final day at Hands, and as usual on a Monday morning we had Men’s prayers at 7am before the Hands meeting at 8.00. The small group that I had been drafted too last week had prepared the focus of the meeting and it was two fold.

Firstly we wanted to pray for each of the service centres across Africa from the Lagos service centre in Nigeria in the North down through 2 service centres in the DRC, 1 in Malawi, 3 in Zambia, 1 in Mozambique 2 in Zimbabwe 2 in South Africa and 1 in Swaziland. Each of these Service centres support about 6-8 Care points.

I volunteered to create a power point of them. With a picture of the team and some prayer points sent on by each team. As we prayed members of the Hands team from the Hub stood up if they had recently been to or supported the service centre Team.

The second half of the morning was a communion service and I had suggested that we sing “Here is Bread, Here is Wine” unfortunately no one else new it, and so a quick WhatsApp to AJ and he recorded me off his piano and provided me a backing track.  It is amazing sometimes what can be achieved.

Following these meetings it had been decided by the Comms Team that they would film me for a Facebook item in July. I am sure that I don’t want to hear myself played back but we achieved this, and I moved on to have a final chat / debrief with Tommy, who had been my host for the week. My stay was nearly at an end but the final thing before saying goodbyes was to go for lunch with George and Carolyn.

People asked me if I had achieved what I set out to, but I am not sure that I actually had a goal like that, I was responding to Cats invitation to come to Hands when not responsible for a team and when I could take time to be at the Hub to see things happening in the everyday setting. To this end my stay has far exceeded expectations, I have had a full week, both at the Hub and also out in the community. Seeing the Mafambisa Care point working so well was a particular highlight.

The Cupboard will continue this blog in 56 days time, we will start seeing their introductions before that. Please pray for them as they tackle their A level exams and make their final preparations to come to Africa.



Final Weekend - Sunday 20th May 2018

Sunday morning and I attended St George’s church, which is the local Anglican Church. This was Pentecost Sunday and I missed singing “On Fire” but we did sing some good Pentecost hymns.

The Vicar Mark told a story at the beginning of his address.

There was once a fresh water spring, on a hill side and people used to climb up the hillside to drink from the spring as the water was so good. Gradually others heard about the spring and they came also, people started to have to queue to drink this beautiful water. Some complained that when it was sunny they would get sunburn and when it rained they got wet while waiting for their turn. So they built a canopy over the spring, but still more people came and eventually the canopy was not big enough so they built a big building, a grand building over the spring one that everyone would fit inside of! And then people started hanging things on the walls and adding embellishments. The people who added the most decided that they had special rights, and that they could charge others to come into the building. Gradually people started to forget about the spring and eventually the water stopped flowing.

Mark asked if we recognized this as a church that we might know. Pentecost is a celebration of the birth of the Church. He asked if we knew what the mission of our church was and how we would know where to find it. He referred to the catechism for the answer - it says

"The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and with each other in Christ."

And how does the church do this -

"The Church pursues its mission as it prays and worships, proclaims the gospel, and promotes justice, peace and love."

And finally who is it that does this :

"The Church carries out its mission through the ministry of all its members."

So as Mark had said this is the mission of all of us as part of the Church, to pray and worship proclaims the gospel, and promotes justice, peace and love. It was quite a challenge but one to us all!

 After Church I was taken out for breakfast, tomorrow will be my last day at Hands, it seems that time has gone quickly but I have seen so much of Hands at work dealing with everyday issues, but issues right at the heart of their mission. I can honestly say that it has been a privilege. But its not over yet, tomorrow I have early prayers, the Hands Monday meeting, then filming followed by debrief with Tommy before lunch with George and Carolyn.

Back at the Hub - Friday 18th May 2018

There was again lots of meetings planned for me today. But first we had a very special event called “Hands on Deck” which brings together the whole community plus local supporters into a special presentation of what has been happening over the last month. 

One of the local visitors that had come for the presentation was Cecil, who was the Methodist Minister from White River, it turns out that Cecil did his training in England, due to the fact that he was Rhodesian and back then it was not safe for him to study in that country.

Tyler and Angie had been to Zambia, this was there first trip back to Zambia since the birth of their second child. One worrying development in Zambia is that the government have decided that they are going to clear away the make shift simple homes that our families live in and instead allocate them a plot of land and tell them how they must build their home on that plot. This is going to be a very difficult time for these people, and the Service centre are working hard to meet with families to discuss.

Tommy had visited Malawi which is a small spread out country and often referred to as the warm heart of Africa. This is because the people are so friendly. However when Tommy visited the Care Point, there were a lot of school aged children who were not in school. On investigation it was found that these children had been turned away from school due to not being able to pay there school fees. 

When Simon (a member of the Service Centre) heard this he jumped on his bike and headed straight down to the school, where he advocated upon behalf of these vulnerable children. When Tommy again visited a couple of days later, all of the children were back in school.

Next up we had a German team to speak, who have just returned from Mozambique visiting the Chimoio community. This was the first team to visit Mozambique.

Two of the team had never been to Africa and they shared from the heart about what they had encountered in the community. They all belong to the Lutheran church in Hamburg. The Lutheran church is most akin to us as Anglican’s. Their church supports 150 children in two communities in Africa. 

And finally Angie, a long term volunteer, shared about her time in the Congo. Angie spent time with the Service Centre Team . There are only 4 Service Centre people in the whole of the DRC who look after 6 Care points. She very much experienced the suffering and pain in people, they live In the constant danger of death. Children die of malnutrition, but there are also rebel attacks and the instability of the government lead to a high rate of violent crime. This is the Congo.

But God is bigger than this and her stay in the Congo had a real impact on her life, God really burst in on her and made it clear to her just how important what she was part of in the Congo made so much sense. 

Angie quoted from 2 Corinthians 4: 

 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

But actually it also made her realize that this is not about us, God does not need us in Africa, but it is about us responding to God, caring about our brothers and sisters, it is about loving one another. 

Erik and Angel have a huge impact on the community, the team brings light because of their love, they work so hard. The DRC Service Centre has only 4 people for 8 Care points and Angel has 6 children of her own, not grown up children but children that need attention, Angel serves the community all day and then goes back to look after own children in the evening. All we do is for the glory of God.

It was so humbling to be part of this meeting, this presentation. It showed the enormous scope of what Hands is involved in, what they are supporting. It shows real evidence that God is at work through them all and across Africa. 

The presentations finished at 10.00 and I then joined the South Africa Regional Service weekly Team meeting. Again the demonstrated the amount of detail and planning that went into supporting the Service Centres and Care points and even down to individual children.

Dan explained that the purpose of the meeting was to share where people were with different issues, to work out where people needed support and to equip the team for the week ahead. There are three Service Centre’s in South Africa plus the Lagos Service centre in Nigeria is also part of the SA RST. 

At the end of each day each of the service team members will text a report into their team leader. The team leader then texts a report into the RST. This report relates to three main topics: - 

         The team

         Any red flags 

         Any requests for help or support

We heard reports from the Swaziland SC, the Oshoek SC and the zhaziview SC. the Lagos report was that Boosi is currently in Lagos with the team, so will report on her return. In the Haziview report it was good to hear that Patience from Mafambisa was mentioned and that she had managed to keep her appointment at hospital and further appointments were being planned. In Swaziland some new care workers had come foreword to help and a charity called micro projects were looking to do some work at the care points to help with toilets etc. 

Meeting over, there was a quick chance to talk to Jo about this years team programme. Then it was time for the communications team ‘ content meeting’, this is where they look at all their communications going out in a month, they have designed a monthly plan of communications across the various different platforms - and you may wish to follow these:

Email communications often originate in Africa but are sent by each individual international office across their supporters - I actually issue these in the U.K. and anyone is able to join the mailing list - so please send me an email and I will join you up Chris.parker@uk.handsatwork.org. 

There are also Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts that you can choose to follow and get more info and stories of the children that we care for. 

It has been great throughout the week to become involved in these meetings, to see the every business of caring for children across Africa taking place in front of my eyes. 

Do we need a partnership with Mafambisa? I have found it amazing to be right at the coal face with these people and seeing them tirelessly working to help these children to reach up an almost touch the bottom rung of the ladder. 

Here is a video from Audrey that she wanted to share with you:

Share - Thursday 17th May 2018

Trip to SHARE. So no strikes today so we set out at 8.30ish. Two car loads. We drove north to Haziview where we collected Audrey. Then further north again as we headed for bush back ridge. Roadworks were taking place and we were diverted off onto dirt roads , through a community, this was quite slow going, lots of road humps and trucks as well. Eventually we were back on a metalled road and into the town, where we had to make a stop to buy vegetables for the care point at Share, things like cabbages, carrots and massive beetroot. 

The last few miles of the journey to Share are on dirt roads, quite bumpy, but eventually we made it! When we arrived all the Care Workers were sitting under the tree waiting for us. 

Audrey explained about the road works and how that has delayed us. It was great to see, Onie, and Promotion and Violet and Reliance who I had met before. Onie in particular met me with a smile and a laugh. We went inside for some introductions, and a short time of Worship, before Audrey shared some verses from the Bible about putting our trust in God. 

Audrey as always had two objectives for the visit, Firstly to visit a young lad, Simon, who was being bullied at school and also lived with his mum and two siblings. His father had died last year. There were some jobs needing doing on their house to make it secure and Betwell wanted to assess what was needed. The other objective was to visit one of the Care Workers mothers. The care worker and her family had lived in a different home but the family believed that their next door neighbor had cast a spell on the house, now we might cast this off as ridiculous - but it is very much a part of there traditional heritage and something that need careful handling. 

We set off to visit the grandmother and as I approached I quickly realized that this was the lady that I visited last year, who was busy collecting water with a wheel barrow. She recognized me as well, which was great! It was her daughter, who was a care worker, who had become scared. We talked with the grandmother for a little while and took pictures, which she so enjoyed last year, we then prayed for her home and her family and then while the rest of us left, Audrey stayed behind to talk with the care worker. 

Back at the Care point the other group were back from their visit, with Betwell having got the info he needed. There were pre-school children at the care point, but the others were late in arriving so we had to leave for home before they arrived, so that we would get back before night fall! 

It had been a long day, a long drive but again it was worthwhile, it was great the see the Care Workers again and to spend time with them.

Back at the Hub - Wednesday 16th May 2018

Wednesday starts with small group time! And I was asked to join Herman and Charissa group! Luckily because they were planning the Monday morning Hands meeting for next week, we got breakfast, lots of things to eat including bacon and scrambled egg and even banana cake.

It was decided that the Monday meeting would focus on prayer for the various service centers that exist across Africa. Hands currently has 12 Service centers in Nigeria, the DCR, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland. A Service centre each serves an number of Care points. For instance the Haziview Service centre looks after 6 separate care points, including Mafambisa.

The worship session will include communion.

After small groups I went onto a planning meeting for our team in July. The conversation was wide and reaching and helped those doing the planning to focus the visit on the nature of the team that we are bringing.

 Following this meeting I went to help out with the filming of an item to be published in the next Hands at Work newsletter. To film and record this Daytona used 4 cameras, at different angles plus a radio mic to get good sound quality! Having filmed George speaking about “the truth” from the way the truth and the life. Daytona will edit the various camera angles into one short film. This will go out across the world next Friday. And I got to drive one of the camera’s.  You can see my piece of equipment in the middle picture below! 

  

After lunch I had a short meeting with Cat about George and Carolyn visit to the U.K. next month. He is visiting Biggleswade on Friday 8th June.

Then to round off the afternoon I had attended the weekly meeting of the Comms Team, this was interesting to see how different projects were progressing, to see how difficult it is to work across a number of differing international offices, and to be able to input to some of the planning.

It was a long day but being able to be involved with so many bits of the day to day work that goes on here at the Hub was a privilege. 

Tomorrow we are due to visit Share but there are civil strikes threatened and often this leads to civil unrest , so we may have to visit a different card point.

Mafambisa - Tuesday 15th May 2018

Today it was a visit to Mafambisa, it was great to be make my first visit to new site! 

But this wasn’t just a visit, this was Hands at work doing their stuff, Audrey briefed me on the two objectives for today’s visit.

Firstly was to try and help a a girl of 10 who had been abused very recently. The little girl, we will call her Patience had been traumatized by the incident, as you would expect. Audrey and her team had organized an appointment at hospital with a therapist, but they needed to get a form signed by her mother and arrange to take them to the appointment tomorrow. But her mother was not responding and avoiding the Team.

The second objective was to visit a young mother who lived in a tiny house with her mother and also her three children and a child that belonged to her sister. Hands want to see what can be done to increase the size of here property.

So with these two objectives in our mind we set off to Mafambisa. The new care point is not that far from the former Siyathuthuka and I managed to find it with no problems! When we arrived there were two care workers there, Keway and Virginia just starting to get stuff ready to start preparing the food for the children. We went with them down a side street to Pater Buwani House where the food is stored.

When Hands realized that they needed to move the care point from Siyathuthuka, Paster Buwani volunteered the grounds of his church as the site for the new care point.

We carried the food back and got started chopping up the vegetables. Once all the veg had been prepared we went around to the front of the Church in the shade and met with the care workers, a couple more had now turned up. So we had Alzera, who is the mother of the House, Emma, Keway and Virginia. Please remember those names and pray for them when you can. Everyone introduced themselves to the group and we then spent a short while in prayer.

Having finished the meeting, we split up Audrey, Kara and Nico went to try and find the mother of Patience, to get the paperwork signed.

Betwell and Patricia accompanied the rest of us to Louise’s house. It was a long way, we walked through the houses and onto the road that leads to the old Siyathuthuka building. We walked way past there, almost to the very last building in the community.

Louise and her family had been living with her brother in a different part of the community, but the brother had forced them out and so they had managed to find and get permission from the chief to use this plot of land. If they can secure funding then the chief would allow them to purchase the land. The land is quite cheap because when it rains a river builds up and flows through the plot. This could be fixed with a little time and a few shovels.

Betwell needed to understand the terms of the sale that the chief was proposing, and when land is purchased it has to be registered in someone’s name. This is another problem, as the family are refugees from Mozambique and as such do not have South African papers. Therefore they could not register the land themselves.

The discussion continued, as Louise and her mum knew a South African man who would be willing to have the land registered in his name, but the problem with this is that while, completely honest - the man could at a future time force Louise and her family to leave the land. Hands were not happy with this as a solution.

We returned to the care point and Father Buwani agreed that the land could be registered in the name of the church, and so securing the land for Louise and her family. 

Audrey and her team were also successful in tracking down Patience Mum and getting the necessary paperwork complete for her appointment tomorrow!

The children had arrived and were playing well. All but 10 of the children that used to attend Siyathuthuka have now migrated to the new care point. The care workers continue to visit those children. In addition there are several children, who for some reason had not attended Siyathuthuka and they are at the new care point. so I think in the near future the number of children cared for will need to rise! It was great to see Matthew (who was very ill when we last visited) looking so well! 

The children all seemed very happy at the new Care Point and Audrey and her team are really happy with the new place, and that Paster Buwani And his wife Martha are becoming involved.

Communications - Monday 15th May 2018

So early start today as men’s prayers were at 7am. Chris Paulson talked briefly about the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts Chapter 8. In the story Philip is told by God to simply head south towards Gaza. Philip obeys and eventually meets up with the Ethiopian! The story eventually comes to an end when Philip baptises the Ethiopian in a nearby lake. But the point of the story that Chris made was that Philip did not know where he was going when God told him to go South, Philip simply obeyed and that going South caused him to meet up and baptise. The question to us all is how confident are we in what God is asking us to do? How many opportunities do we miss because we don’t think we have enough information to trust what we are hearing. Philip followed what God asked him to do, he didn’t know why he was walking South, but he heard and he followed. So what is God asking us to do and how are we going to summon up the courage to listen and follow? 

Monday is always a busy day for meetings and at 8am the whole Hands community meet together to reflect on the week ahead, to focus on things a particular topic and to pray for each other.

So today saw myself and Amy and her mum being welcomed. Amy and her mum had been in Malawi on a team for the past couple of weeks! They are from Calgary in Canada. To get to Hands they have to fly from Calgary to Toronto (4hrs), from Toronto to London (9hrs) and then the (11hrs) to Joberg - and we think that our flight is long.

Also there were several Hands volunteers going out to different distant communities for most of the week - so we prayed for them. Then we spent some time in small groups thinking about Care Workers from across Africa that we had come to know and what had stood out to us! I mentioned two ladies from SHARE, Promotion and Onie, who have been at Share each time that we have been there, I mentioned how I had found them both to be so dedicated to the Care Point and the children, Onie for her love of children and how she found time to go out and play with them, and Promotion who tirelessly looks after the Care Point and the cooking. Both of them are also so devoted to God, which comes out in the way that they sing and dance praises to Him.

The session concluded with us writing messages to the Care Workers on the back of photo’s and I was able to write messages from St Andrew’s to Mafambisa.

The rest of my day today was working with the communications team. And as well as being shown some stuff I was also able to contribute in the creation of an Auto-reply for our mail-chimp system.

Slight change in the weather, in that it rained heavily most of the day!

Hub - Sunday 13th May 2018

So last night the Hands community had a curry night, to which I was invited - so I quickly knocked up some Chicken Tikka Masala to take with me (well using a packet of sauce). It was good to be with the whole crowd and share many different concoctions from the curry world.

So this morning I attended SALT church, which was held in the school that many of the children from the Hands community attend. The service started with some worship songs - 3 out of 5 I knew so that was great! We then went into communion which was quite simple and then into a dedication for two of the children from the church. All that before George Synman was asked to speak.

George spoke about time and how in our world we never seem to have enough of it as there are always a million things on our agendas. He spoke about how Jesus death on the cross and resurrection and ascension were all time stamped, we know when they took place in our world at that time but Jesus is God and although Jesus went through those events in a worldly time line, God is outside time and so those events are now. It is not 2000 years ago that Jesus died on a cross for us it is now! And yet do we give him the time in our lives?

If we go into a shop with £10 and buy 3 things, we may stop and say if I had a bit more money I could have bought that fourth item. But it has been our choice, we have decided not to buy that fourth item but to buy the other three instead. It is the same with time, we choose what we do with our time, we choose how much time to spend with God - the question is -  is how far up the list do we put God! After the service the coffee was flowing, and before as well! But also because of the dedication there were cakes and sausage rolls - reminded me of St Andrew’s. I got talking to a guy who is a pilot for Mercy Air, we visited them last year, he had spent his week flying medical supplies and nurses around on Malawi in a helicopter.

On the way back from church Karla took us to a farm shop, as she wanted some supplies, only difference is that no one worked there. The shop was in a greenhouse and you collected what you wanted to buy and then wrote it down in a book, added up your total and put the money in a box!
This afternoon was games on the field, the families play a game called Ultimate Frisbee, which is similar to rugby but using a frisbee.

Tomorrow I am going to be working with the communications team to make a video! Tuesday will be my first day in the community, with a visit to Mafambisa!

Arrival - Friday 11th May

I have just arrived at the Hub, but traveling on your own is a lot different to traveling with a group of familiar faces!

I left the U.K. at about 19.05 last night and landed in Johanesberg at approx 7am this morning. British Airways Airbus 340, so there is seating upstairs and down, Films to watch, food to eat.

Then suddenly you are off the plane and in Joberg airport, a completely different environment. I cued up to have my passport stamped, but the officials, stamp had broken, so he waved me to the adjacent line, behind another passenger who was being dealt with by the adjacent official. Once this official had finished dealing with the passenger in front he went to help the first guy mend his stamp, so he waved me onto the next cue. The next cue had stopped because there was something wrong with a persons document. So after joining four different cue’s I did get my pass port stamped.

I had opted to take an internal flight for the next leg of the journey rather than the 4 hour drive that we usually do. But for this I had to collect my bags and then check in again before going to the gate. It is very much different doing all this on your own than together as a group.

Anyway it wasn’t long before I was boarding the ‘little plane’ bound for Kruger / Mpumalanga international airport. And so 4 hours had taken only took 40 minutes. The next challenge was taking possession of my hire car, then it was out on the open road heading for White river to pick up supples before going onto the hub.

Anyway all settled in now and one of the couples invited me to their place for supper, which gave us chance to chat and get to know each other better!

Thursday 10th May - Chris travels to South Africa

I am nearly packed and quite excited now about being invited to visit Hands at Work outside the team season, and see the hub working in its day to day mode. I have a programme and know that I will be visiting our partner community of Mafambisa and visiting Share, another community that we have got to know well over the last few years.

I have come along way on this journey since Claire and I together with Alice and DJ ventured out on our first visit to South Africa with Jessica, Alice, Alison, Adam, Nicholas and Alexander and I often remember how apprehensive I felt, I told myself that it would just be two weeks and I wouldn’t need to go again.

But that was not the plan, well not God’s plan anyway! On almost the first day of that first trip, i had a feeling of calm, it felt right to be there. As we got towards the end of the first week out in the different communities, our young people were saying that this should not be a one off trip, we must do more to support these very inspiring yet vulnerable people.

Our young people challenged the PCC to set up our partnership, based upon supporting 15 of the 75 children at Siyathuthuka, this soon rose to 45 children as individuals from the congregation made their own pledges to support a child. Since then St Andrew’s has sent out two further teams and I am privileged, together with Rosemary, to be accompanying the Cupboard on their visit in July.

I believe that God has called us as a church together to support these communities. Often we look at the news and see terrible suffering, people trapped as refugees, people trying to exist in bombed out towns, people suffering due to drought and malnutrition and we feel so helpless, so distant. What our partnership gives us is ability to become involved directly with some of the worlds poorest people.

I am thankful for the journey that God has taken me and us on, thankful for what He has taught me and us along the way.