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: