Day 4 - Oshoek Community

Day 4 - Oshoek Community

Our day began early this morning, ready for the arrival of members of the Service Team at 7:30am. When they arrived, we settled and shared rusks and tea, and then split into two groups for a small group study session, tracking the progress and reflections on Hands’ watch word: Luke 9: 48. Focusing on this, and with a Centre on forgiveness and living this love and forgiveness out, we all took part in discussions which were challenging and encouraging. Forgiveness is a considerable part of our calling and witness in faith, and we all shared how this changes our understanding and way of life. This was a challenging discussion, and enabled all of us to acknowledge our weaknesses and frailties in making ourselves vulnerable to forgive and love. The mutuality of these two things was also explored and we then carried this into our day.

On arrival at the Care Point, we were blown away with the stunning view that surrounded us - this was equaled by the welcome from Nelly, Gertrude and members of the Service Centre! They were delighted and we set about introducing ourselves and getting stuck in with chopping carrots, cabbage and enjoying time just to be in Gods creation. 

As part of our time and shared experience with the care workers at the Care Point, we shared in worship... songs, dancing, Bible encouragement and prayer. Following updates and introductions for all present, we joined in wonderful and infectious worship at the home church of Ma Esther. This church is a small building, vulnerable on the top of a hill, made of corrugated iron and home to a chapel, a cooking space for the Care Point and a wood store. After worship songs and dancing lead by the care workers, Oliver, Clarrie and Alice then shared a word of encouragement. They refocused on the end of Corinthians 16: 13-14 to consider and remind the care workers of their strength and courage in their hard work and commitment, and also how their vision and ours is based in love. The care workers were grateful, and fed back to us straight away how much it meant to them, and how much they needed to hear the words. This was a wonderful experience, and was inclusive and relevant for all. We ended in prayer for a care worker with a poorly shoulder, Ma Annie who had just been bereaved, and developments of the Care Point and they begin their expansion work.  

Part of visiting the Houtbos Care Point today was that they asked us to to undertake a “gardening” project to start a vegetable garden for the Care Workers to grow vegetables. Well this was some task, the Care point is located on top of a Mountain and the ground cover was complete, the ground was actually so hard that when you hit it with a spade, it barely made any difference. However after tough work and power from our team, members of the hands team, some help from a very strong child at the Care point and some useful tools, we made good progress and managed to clear the whole top layer of the marked out area which was a big area that can be continued to be worked on ready for planting later in the year.

Whilst the team were gardening Alice the first had a lesson in cooking Samp, beans and cabbage from Nelly one of the Care Workers.... the lettuces to chop had just come literally straight out of the garden and were therefore covered in caterpillars and flies - we washed them in salt water before chopping them up.... Alice and Nelly made up a rhyme “chop chop chop” which became the mantra for the cooking demo... then it became “stir stir stir”! As they cooked she shared they chatted away - her English was very proficient. She shared about her family of four - three girls and one boy... her eldest was at university away from home studying to be a teacher- she was in her first year and Nelly was supporting her financially. This was 400r for accommodation and 400r for food which is SA is a large amount of money a month. Nelly is not working as is a Care Worker at the Care Point. The financial support is largely coming from her Fathers Disability Allowance. Nelly was inspirational in sharing that she trusts God to provide for her, her daughter and her family and that this is the journey towards the light at the end. We encouraged her that God is good and will provide for our needs and it is both honorable and amazing that she is choosing to support the most vulnerable of children in her community over work.

It was time for home visits. We split into three teams with Alice P staying behind to help at the Care Point. 

Alice S and Sophie: 

Alice the Second, Sophie, Brie, and Sifiso went on a Holy Home Visit before the children arrived at the Houtbos Care Point. After a long walk down a very grassy mountain with the most amazing view, we arrived at the house of Sienna. It’s home to 16 people living in 4 rooms. We had the pleasure to meet the beautiful Sienna - a young woman of 21 with a small son and the most infectious smile. She spends her days caring for three other babies in the family. Shockingly, the house is home to 4 sets of twins ... that’s right, 4! The youngest is 8 months and the oldest is 17. Within the family, 9 of the children attend the Houtbos Care Point. We spoke at length with Sienna about her life, her struggles, and her hopes and dreams. Despite spending her days caring for many young children, Sienna is desperate to return to school to study accounting because of her love of numbers - something that nobody in the team understood! Sienna also lives with her two sisters although we unfortunately didn’t get the chance to meet them. They were out looking for work to support their family. Part of the discussion also centred around one of the younger sets of twins. Brie had actually met the family before on a previous visit and remembered that one of the sets of twins suffered from a reoccurring cough. We asked about this and unfortunately they are still suffering from it. What’s worse is that the nearest clinic is too far for Sienna to take them and the rest of the children. We finished out visit by praying for Sienna and her family, that she would achieve her dreams and be able to complete her education, and for the health of the twins and their cough. 

Lucy and Chris:

So today Lucy, Angelle (our Hands host), Nesta (Oshoek Service Centre) and I (Chris) went on a fairly local Holy Home Visit. The first home that we planned to visit, unfortunately no one was home and so Nesta quickly change our plans and we walked onto the house of Care Worker Nelly.Nelly was busy preparing food at the Care Point, however we met her Son, Peter, who was busy doing his washing! Peter graciously arranged seats for us and we talked to him about his situation. He told us that he had just finished his exams and was awaiting the results. We talked about the subjects he had taken and he shared that his favorite subjects were Life Science and Geography. Peter was unsure of what was next for him, whether it be university or whether he would try and get work ( but he said that it would be wrong to say that job opportunities were scarce, as they are actually non-existent. Peter asked us to pray for him and his situation and to guide him in the decisions that he will need to make. We started praying and to our surprise Peter actually prayed for us which was really lovely!

Oliver and Clarrie:

Our holy home visit was the furthest house that was visited (which we did know before we left the care point), so after walking for 25 minutes we ended up within a South African forest. We were joined by Busie, Caleb, Nellie and Nontebeko, we found out while walking that we were going to be visiting a family where the four children were new to the care point. However, the care workers had noticed that the four children (a girl Naomi, aged 8, and 3 younger boys, aged 7, 6 and 4) had not been visiting the care point regularly and recently having only joined with the new intake in June. When we arrived at the house that the family are staying in there wasn’t any sign  of the family members and as there were dogs on the property we couldn’t enter as we were unsure of how they would react. Although, after a while of waiting and looking around we discovered that the Father and Mother were at their plot of land which was opposite the house that they were staying in (the fathers’ uncle’s house). We were welcomed into the home by the father, Samuel, and the mother, Polly, and we went and sat in their partly made new home which they hope to move into by the end of September. We began chatting to the father (who spoke very good English, having been schooled in Swaziland) about the reason that the children had stopped coming to the care point at which point he explained that he was often away and therefore wasn’t around to encourage the children to attend the care point and he identified that the mother was not very pro-active in encouraging the children. Busie tried to build a good relationship with the father. Informing him about the care point and the role of the care workers and what they want from the parents and children. The father then agreed that he would give 50KG of the crop to the care point to try and build that relationship and to encourage the family to get involved with the care point pro-actively. However, after long discussions we came to the conclusion that the father was going to speak to and encourage the children to attend the care point. We then prayed for the family and for the good work of the care point before we left and we then walked back to the care point where Busie shared that she was unsure as to whether what the father was telling us was the truth as she knew of other family troubles which have been made known recently. As we walked back to the care point we were joined by the four children and we were able to play some games with them as the other children were running late on the school bus.

Alice P: 

Whilst the others were off on Home Visits Alice P stayed behind at the Care Point to continue to help Gertrude another care worker to finished preparing and cooking the food for when the children arrived. It is a great opportunity to spend time encouraging and just listening to their stories...Gertrude shared about her family of four and how her eldest child who would be 28 now has died and it reminded the team that these Care Workers who have chosen to care for the children in the Care Point are often in similar situations themselves. 

Once we had all arrived back from holy home visits, the children had not yet arrived back because of some delays in transport, so the team quickly ate some lunch of samp, cabbage and carrots, and beans - which was all super delicious! The children finally arrived and we fed them immediately and with the help of Oliver, Lucy and Alice, all lunches were served. Once the children had finished eating, we started to play games, including a big game of throw and catch with a football! We then got the bubbles out which provided a massive source of fun and joy for both children and care workers, as well as to the team. As we had done the day before, the speaker was all set up and we danced and sang to Shine and Great Great Brill Brill - both of which the kids and care workers absolutely loved! It’s truly amazing to see the joy and smiles on all of their faces, just simply because of some songs. We said our final goodbyes and headed back to the service centre.

Once back, the team decided to cook for our host and the service centre team so we all mucked in on a homemade pasta bake, homemade garlic bread and fruit salad before a time of debrief and discussion. It was so useful to share stories from our home visits, questions that arose and also feed back possible homes or children to follow up on. Angelle encouraged us to think of one person that we would like to hold in our prayers for today, our rest of our time at Hands and when we returned to the UK. It seemed a fitting end to an amazing day in the community.