Mankayane carepoint was started by a Swazi man named Pastor Sam. In this town is a large community where people are sent who have no where to go, or are cast out by their extended relatives. Pastor Sam buries people dying of AIDS on a weekly basis, and sometimes daily. There are about 15000 people living in this area, and the crime and drug rates are high. Only one child showed up today due to school exams, but normally about 100 kids show up for meals. Pastor Sam collected funds in Swaziland to build a school building which has two teachers. Once a kitchen is built he expects 200 kids to show up at this carepoint. He also believes there is a need for two more carepoints in this area to service 600 kids. We walked down a hill from the school into the village, and visited a few people who lived there. The first lady invited us to see her home and take a picture. She requested help from us so she could get her children back and have a place of her own. A lady on our team prayed with her and gave her a hug. We also took a quick visit to Pastor Sam’s church which is in the middle of a slow building process.
Next we traveled to Mpaka. This carepoint is run by a Swazi Minister and his wife who both have jobs, take care of their three kids and help run the carepoint that serves about 100 kids. The wife has a chior with the kids, and they represented her well by singing (see video). The children here had a lot of creative energy, and performed a short dance they made up for us.
Today, most of the team noticed differences between each of the carepoints. They all have unique characteristics, both wonderful and challenging. I am starting to understand the vision for the continued growth of current and future carepoints. Tomorrow after the Christmas party at a carepoint, we will have more discussion on the best way to choose a carepoint for the various team members seeking to find their connect community.
Little girl who showed up at the Mankayane carepoint after we arrived.
School building built with funds raised by Pastor Sam.
Woman in Mankayane who let us into her home to explain her living conditions, told us her story, and asked us for help. Four people on two beds in a 12x12ft shelter. There are a lot of boxes and things stored inside as well.
Pastor Sam is nationally influential and a teacher of pastors in Swaziland. He has great vision for his country and it’s children.
Today the reality of the situation has hit. We visited four carepoints and drove past several others. What struck me most today was two tings: watching the kids walk up the trails toward the carepoints where food cooking had just begun, and young girls and boys caring for their toddler and baby siblings.
The four carepoints are Thembini, Bevini, Ludlati(rural), and Mpholi(inside city).
Thembini is close to the same level of development as Balekane. Bevini has only land and a kitchen and serves about 100 kids. Ludlati is down the road only a couple miles, but only has a tree on the land. This carepoint is newly started and serves 90-100 kids two meals a day. This carepoint is in need of community connection to get development moving forward. Mpholi recently received land from a chief, but is currently run by a Go-go from her own place. There are too many kids for her place, but the plan is to get a kitchen started on the new land.
I want to write more, and plan to do so when I have more time. In summary, today’s carepoint visits revealed more about the desperate situations here in Swaziland. It hit many of the team members in the heart and guts. The great news is the large difference a developed carepoint (i.e. Balekane, Thembini) makes in children’s lives where more hope is given and received.
This is Little Guy’s sister (getting the real names is difficult because of language and the number of kids)...she became an attachment.
Whenever I tried to put her down, she would pull her feet up. It’s becoming the norm now to peel the kids off Don and drag him away from the carepoints. Here we are playing patty-cake. Photo by Ron Elmore
Might be hard to see, but here is one picture of two hands traced onto paper at the Mpholi carepoint. I have a bunch more in my notebook journal…gets a smile from each child.
This is what we call here in Swaziland a Camera Huddle. This particular huddle occured at Mpholi. Photo by Hannah Leman
Tomorrow we drive much farther to a couple carepoints with more severe conditions. I believe these carepoints serve up to 150 kids. There are other carepoints we might visit where they serve 300 kids.
Internet access is spotty, and we don’t have a post from Don today, but I have copied a post from another member of their travel group - Bob Mudd, COO of Children’s Hope Chest.
A Picture of ‘What is’ and ‘What can be’
It is Thursday afternoon in Swaziland and we have had two days with a great team taking a look at currently sponsored Carepoints in the region along with emerging locations that desperately desire to be sponsored. Before I dive in to provide existing sponsors updates, I first want to reiterate what anyone who preceeded already knows which is that the staff on the ground is top notch. We have spent the last two days with Jumbo, Kriek, Scott and the D-Team. Three words come to mind – Committed, Capable and Joyful.
We arrived in Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon and made the drive to Swaziland, arriving around lunch on Wednesday. Our first stop was the Balekane Carepoint sponsored by Vanguard church in Colorado Springs. The progress over the past three years includes well over 100 children being fed and discipled daily, a kitchen, loads of picnic tables, clean water, an agriculture based microenterprise, a set of fruit trees, a church plant and school through 4th grade with 5th grade being added in January. It is a pleasure to see the incredible commitment and sense of urgency by our friends at Vanguard. You guys walk the walk.
Our first stop this morning was Thembeni, which is sponsored by our friends at Capo Beach Calvary Church. Again, an incredible picture of hope, commitment and progress. In addition to also feeding and discipling over 100 children each day they have a pre-school and what has to be the most impressive playground in Swaziland. I will add some photos as soon as I get a sufficient internet connection. They have a large multipurpose building, a storage depot and two smaller multi-purpose buildings. The children at both of these Carepoints have a springboard to a future with possibilities rather than despair.
It was critical that the team was able to see these progressive locations first as our next visit was to Ludlati. Ludlati is a field in a remote area serviced by roads that run through dry creeks. It was started approximately one year ago by a compassionate mother serving children from her home. It quickly outgrew her capacity and she has secured a large field that I would estimate at approximately 30 acres from the local chief. A large tree in the field is currently the only protection from the elements and marks the spot for a daily fire started in bush wood collected by the group of 4 women who assist her. There were no children in the field when we arrived but as soon as smoke from the fire became evident they walked through the thick covering of trees and bushes. In no time nearly 30 children arrived. They shared that there are a number of children 3 and below that walk up to 2 miles each day to come to the feeding. The most important element is in place, a Christ follower who wants to serve the children of her community and it is going to be another success story, I feel certain.
In all, we will visit 5 new targeted Carepoint locations and I am confident that this vision team will not rest until we are able to develop the base of support needed to have each of them sponsored. A number of these will be ‘Connect Communities’ which will provide YOU the opportunity to become a part of the solution. Be back in touch soon.
Hello from Africa. I am on the second day of the trip. This morning after breakfast we drove from Johannesburg into Swaziland (about 4.5 hour trip). Close to the border between South Africa and Swaziland, the terrain changed quickly from rolling hills to mountainous. A south African KTM member had told my wife and I, and yes, Swaziland IS a beautiful countryside. This afternoon, we visited a carepoint near the city of Manzini called BaleKane. This care point has been developed from nothing but a 20acre plot of land to a location where about 100 kids come for food and school over the past three years. Some of the children walk for 2.5 hrs to get there. Most are orphans, but the primary objective is feeding, education and Swaziland led spiritual discipleship for the children. There are about 10 Go-Go’s (Grandmother aged women) that rotate through cooking and feeding duties. And there are teachers on site for grades pre-4th. These children are relatively well nourished and are receiving love and hope at this care point. I can give more details later, but significant progress has been made to date. They plan to add a 5th grade class room in January of next year.
From the moment I stepped out of the van, the children were on us with bright faces and greetings. We spent time interacting by taking pictures and showing them the screens. Most of the time, I had a tightly packed crowd of 4-10 kids trying to get recorded and/or view the play back. At any point in time there was one or two little ones riding on my arms or legs depending on if I was standing or sitting. They were hungry for the attention and love. I was happy to give hugs to these children. The reaction was once they got a hug, they pressed in and soaked it up. In all the fun one girl was tripped to the ground. She didn’t mind when I stood her up and wiped the dirt from under her eyes, and gave her a hug. She became one of my multiple hip riders for several minutes. I didn’t want to leave, but the children had to start their walk back to their ‘homes’, and we left for dinner and a culture training meeting. Tomorrow we will visit 3 or 4 carepoints. One or two are starting from what is called a ‘green field’.
Here is a short video clip to give you an idea how fun and active the interaction was while relating with these children.
First little girl to be carried about for several minutes.
Children getting ready for silly pictures.
Picture with just a few of the kids.
When I asked this little girl her name, she stated her name followed by “...I am six years old, I am a girl” as she smiled and pointed to herself. She hung around at the end for extra holding, hugs and pictures.
I was quite impressed with this young man. His name has a click sound in it (I need more siswati training), he is nine years old, and spoke to me very well in English. Before I left, he told me “I want to be your friend”. He wanted to know when I could come back.
The email below is from a staff member of Children’s Hope Chest to an online prayer group called iFast58. As I read it, I was moved to tears and haunted by the question of how I allowed myself to put this in a box and not care for so many years. I just flat out didn’t care. That’s the reality, and I’m not going to sugar-coat it. I knew full well that children like Dima existed, but I never opened myself to any level of personal compassion (that word again) for them. It is an interesting parallel to the biblical concept that “faith without works is dead”. I did not really care until AFTER I began to act out of obedience to what I saw in His Word, and my level of care and desire to serve orphans and the very poor has grown exponentially for every small action I take to physically help. Don’t put off action until you “feel” an emotional call. God will supply the emotional desire and the joy of doing His will when we act… at least that’s how it worked for me.
As I contemplated the iFast58 request today, my heart was broken. The profile of a young boy named Dima caught my attention. I am not sure why it caught my attention it has been sitting on a credenza in my office for weeks. But today, I began to think about him – how he is a little younger than my son Luke. I thought of how Luke sometimes needs his mom just to hold him or he will just come snuggle with us – Dima does not have that – he is alone. It is easy to dismiss Dima because we don’t know him – he is on the other side of the planet – out of sight and out of mind.
I want you to meet Dima:The is no current information on his parents.
Dima, probably much like your son, likes playing with toys and taking walks.His personality is friendly, good natured and nice – just like my Luke.
He is in pre-school and just entered the orphanage in May 2009.
In Russia , when a child is orphaned, they are stigmatized for life. Their options for education, work and a future are very limited. Their suicide rates are high as is their propensity to abuse drugs. Organizationally we have needs but I would prefer that you pray for Dima today. Please pray that he does not feel lonely when he goes to bed at night. Please pray that when he is scared someone will be there to tell him it is ok. Please pray that someone will encourage him and tell him he is special. Please pray that despite his circumstances that he will feel loved and not worthless. Please pray that he would feel the presence of a loving God who wants to him to know that he created him for a purpose.Thanks!
I forgot to add this tidbit yesterday… We ordered 10 copies of Red Letters just in case they were needed for any reason. We still have nine of those available. If for any reason you want to participate in the books study and have not gotten your hands on the book, let us know and we will get these books out to the first nine of you who request them. No cost, no obligation… other than participating in our book study.
...and I just remembered another good Dave story… ask him if it’s a good idea to shoot a skunk while it’s in your house (it’s not a good idea by the way, but the story of how he figured that out is a good one).
We will begin our group book study of Red Letters: Living a Faith That Bleeds, by Tom Davis with a live chat at KnownToMe.net on Sunday, November 1. We will cover the first two chapters of the book, and will start the chat with some questions or comments that came to the front of our minds, but we will not limit our discussion in any way. We will then post a summary of the chat to the forum so we can all post additional thoughts throughout the following week. You can find the Known To Me chat room under the “Member” link at the upper right of the menu bar. Try that link in advance, you may need to adjust your browser’s security settings to get in.
Since we are studying a Tom Davis book, it is great timing that he will be speaking at First Christian Church on November 6th, 6:30pm. The evening includes dinner, music, and the presentation by Tom Davis. This will be special - tickets are $20 per person. But, we will give two sets of two tickets away in a drawing - just take the plunge and tell your story in the KTM forum letting us know how you found KTM, and if there has been anything in your life that has particularly drawn you to caring for “the least of these”. We are just interested in you! Even a line or two counts here.
Remember, there are a lot of people here from a lot of different social and family settings. Please jump in to the forum and introduce yourselves, comment on posts… building relationships is at the heart of what we are doing here.
PS. Leanne, tell Dave I’m disappointed that I don’t have a comment from him on Pensee #1.
PPS. As you get to know me, you’ll find that I like to put people on the spot… including myself sometimes - in a fun and productive way, of course. The truth is that I hope Dave and Leanne become regular contributors and probably guest bloggers. Some great insights and writing skills from that duo. So, you see, if you don’t tell us about yourself, I’ll start choosing what I want to tell about you. I’m trying to think now of something else I could tell about Dave… maybe about the time I left fragments of my finger for him to clean up in his wood shop. That was not a good day… amazing how long ago that was now.
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Ludlati Carepoint Support Level 47 Kids Funded; 62 Kids To Go
About - KnownToMe
We have begun to ask ourselves...What would we do if our neighbor was starving right before our eyes? Would we not help? Today, their plight is not hidden from us. It is known. We believe there is a clear mandate that we must care for societies most vulnerable members, the widow, the orphan, those in extreme poverty. If you are stirred to a similar belief, if you know there is more that you must do, Known To Me will make you aware of specific needs and opportunities to help.
That was not a good day… amazing how long ago that was now.
