Delivery Day

Monday was a long, hot and dusty day. It was delivery day for Two Tunics. Through our partnernship with Food4Africa and Feed the Babies we receive monthly supplies of a nutritional porridge to distribute to our Two Tunics supported creches and other projects. Currently this program is supplying nutritional support to over 950 children in 6 communities.

Normally the deliveries are done over two days at the beginning of each month utlizing Pastor Amos and his van. But since Robin and I are here this month wanting t see all the projects in a short time and we have the use of our vehicle again, we elected to do all of the deliveries in one day. The day started at 8am by sorting the large bags and boxes of porridge into piles on the floor of the office so that each of the 13 projects will receive the needed numbr of packets for the month. Then the separated bags and boxes were loaded into Amos's van and my Subaru in the right order - first in, last out according to the delivery schedule for the day.

Porridge sorting (top)

Debbie stacking porridge in the store room (left)

By a little after 9am Amos, Onnie, Debbie, Robin and I were on the Road to Murchison community with a quick stop at Norwegian Church to pick up Marco. He is a volunteer from Holland working with the Ugu AIDS Alliance who wanted to come along to see what Two Tunics was all about. We made deliveries to our 5 creches in Murchison with the last stop being Sunnyside Creche(Nokukhanya in Zulu). This is the site of one fo the 3 creche classroom buildings provided by Two Tunics last year. It was gratifying to see the creche thriving and the faclity being so well used. It was also encouraging to see a sign posted announcing that the Department of Health was going to utilize the crech in April as a site to provide polio and measles immunizations to children in the community. It has been a vision of Two Tunics Community for Kids program from the beginning to see the creches become projects in the communities that other services could be built around. It was very rewarding to see this becoming a reality in Murchison. As we were leaving "Good by tin house" written with red pain on the door of the tin shack formerly used to house the creche.

New Sunnyside Creche Building; Department of Health Notice at the Creche

Then it was off for deliveries to 6 more creches in Bhobhoyi, Bhomela and Gamalakhe communities. At the Lutheran Church Creche one of the facilitators from TREE was there doing a site visit to the creche.TREE is an organization that trains creche (pre-school) teachers on early childhood education. Two Tunics has sponsored several of our creche teachers to complete level one training. This includes onsite follow-up visits to see how the training is being implemented in the classroom. Again it was gratifying to see the educational material from the curriculum posted on the wall of the creche and the TREE staff person keeping the teachers accountable for using what they are learning to benefit the children.

Finishing up in Gamalakhe we said goodbye to Amos and headed down the coast about 30km and then inland to the final two delivery sites, Masakhane Community project and Khandandlovu Baptisit Church. At Khandandlovu iIt was great to see Pastor Eric's wife Bonisile and her 4 month old son (he looks just like his brothers). This is the site of another of the Two Tunics provideed classtooms. Unfortunately there had been a freak windstorm a couple weeks before that caused sever damage to a small area around the church. The portion of the roof of the church and the new creche classroom was damaged. We will have some discussions with the project next week to see how we can help with some of the repairs needed.

Having completed our deliveries it was back to the office in Port Shepstone, dropping Marco on the way. Delivery day was a full day, a good day, a blessed day.

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NBC Mission Team Update

Today was an amazing day for us and the NBC Team as we held Two Tunic's first of a kind "Creche Health Awareness Event" (creche = pre-school). This event was targeted to the creche teachers, helpers and parents but also to the children. Many of the basic child health, safety, hygiene and child development concepts that are common sense to us are not widely appreciated or practiced by the parents and caregivers of the children in the creches we support. The event brought together the teachers, helpers and parents from the 3 creches we support in the Gamalakhe township.

The NBC Team gave talks on hand washing, oral hygiene, child safety, basic first aid and importance of play in child development. some involved the children and others were focused on educating the parents and caregivers. Each child was given a packet with toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and other gifts. Each child also received a T-shirt saying "Jesus Loves Me" in both English and Zulu ("Ujesu uyangithanda").

Here's a few photos of the event.

Make a Smilebox photobook

Pastor Ranjeeth and Donna Seepersad put on a puppet show that the adults enjoyed as much as the children. We are so grateful that the team was here to enable us to put on this program. Tomorrow we will do another full day program in a rural community focusing on HIV/AIDS education. Hopefully we won't wear the team out! But we are putting them to good use and God is blessing us and many others.

NBC Mission Team Day Two & Three

Here's some more photos of the teams activities working with Two Tunics the last 2 days. They have been hectic but a blessing to many.

Northview Bible Church Mission Team Day One

Last night the Northview Bible Church Mission Team arrived in Durban, South Africa. They are such and encouragement to us in the work we are doing. The team of five women will be with Two Tunics doing ministry for about 10 days. This is a quick photo tour of their first 24 hours with us. Check back regularly the next couple weeks for more updates and photos.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

1,000,000,000 People

During our recent trip to Franschhoek (see my last post "The Winelands") Robin and I enjoyed some of the best meals we have had in a long time. Franschhoek is considered the gourmet capital of South Africa and 8 0r 10 of the 100 best restaurants in the country are in this one small village and the surrounding wineries.

Robin and I have always enjoyed good food and one nice thing about living in South Africa is that eating out is quite reasonable. Even at the best restaurants the prices are a lot cheaper than equivalent restaurants in the US or Europe. And now with the dollar-Rand exchange rate at something over 10 it is a great deal. So we were able to enjoy some wonderful meals at several excellent restaurants during our 3 days in Franschhoek.

Part of the purpose of our trip was to get away from the realities and seemingly never ending needs associated with the work we are doing here in South Africa. Getting away from time to time is quite necessary if one is going to be able to sustain this type of work. In this regard the trip was a success as we were able to get away from phone, internet, emails, people begging at the gate and all the other daily demands that are a regular part of our life here.

However, even as we were enjoying our escape and especially several wonderful restaurants there was one thing I couldn't seem to get away from. It was the title of this post which was also the headline on the second section of the Sunday Independent newspaper on January 4th this year. I couldn't seem to get the number one billion out of my mind. You see as the article explained, that is the number of people that will go hungry in 2009. And this has nothing, or at least very little to do with the worlds current economic crisis.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organizations makes annual estimates of the number of people who will go hungry and is predicting the number to go over one billion for the first time in history. This is despite a second record worldwide harvest in as many years and contradicts the undertaking of world leaders in 2000 to cut in half the number of hungry by the year 2015. The biggest factor in the increasing rates of hunger is the increase in food prices so that more and more of the worlds poor are unable to afford adequate nutrition even if it is available. The Sunday Independent article points out that although "At a special summit in June last year, rich governments pledged $12.3 billion to tackle the food crisis, but so far they have handed over only $1 billion of it, as they have scrambled to provide trillions to bail out failing banks."

I am thankful that I am one of the privileged and becoming few that can afford food. Certainly I am among the privileged elite who can afford to eat in a restaurant. I am not saying that I should have to give up eating as much or even eating out (as I said it is not really a food shortage). But I am convicted that I need to be more intentional about helping in some way to meet the growing hunger in the world.

Robin serving meals to children after school

Two Tunics name comes from Luke 3:11 where John the baptist says "let him who has two tunics share with him who has none and let him who has food do likewise". One of the things we are doing as Two Tunics is giving nutritional support to vulnerable and hungry children. We have established a partnership with Food 4 Africa through which we are providing a nutritional porridge food supplement daily to over 500 children at community based day care and after school feeding projects. We also provide healthy daily snacks (peanut butter, brown bread, milk, fruit etc.) to children at several of the creches (pre-schools) we support. Two Tunics is about sharing and I am proud to a part of this work that is doing something small in the area of the world's hungry children.

Robin feeding Food 4 Africa porridge at a creche

999,999,500 to go. Can any of you take on a few more?

An Ebenezer Stone

One of our main partners in doing AIDS work here in KwaZulu-Natal is Project Positive Ray (PPR), a ministry of a local congregation of the Evangelical Church in South Africa (ECSA) and SIM (Serving In Missions). This past week we were asked by PPR if we could help arrange and host a children’s Christmas party for one of its sister congregations in the district. As we work with several community children’s projects we were able to assist even though we had already had Christmas parties at all our projects. We knew another party would be an additional blessing for these kids that have so little at Christmas.

We arranged a local Zulu church in the community as a venue and made plans to transport approximately 20 children from the nearby crèche to the church for the party. The visitors coming from the ECSA church would bring presents for the children and KFC (yes that KFC) for the meal. On the day of the event the heat and humidity were very high. We managed to get all 19 children and 3 or 4 helpers to the church on time and I went to meet our visitors to bring them to the rather remote site. At the agreed upon meeting time I received a call from the visitors saying one of them had some medical problems and they would be an hour late. Meanwhile Robin, Onnie, the children and the women were cooking in the small church with little ventilation and almost no nearby shade outside. I offered to pick up the KFC to save some time (15 min drive each way). Fortunately Robin had planned a couple games for the kids and brought some music to dance to (they love to dance). The sweat was rolling by then!

Eventually our visitors arrived and the event was a blessing. One of them named Mike could hardly walk due to his back problem but he was committed to come and so was there and shared a message with the children. We had a time of prayer for Mike’s healing and the kids loved the food and gifts.

- Kids with their Christmas gifts

We learned that our visitors came from a church named Ebenezer Church. Obviously being Christmas time and giving a party for children brought to mind Ebenezer Scrooge from “The Christmas Carol”. An interesting name for a church we thought but Robin and I remembered it was a Biblical name and that at one time we had studied (and forgotten) its meaning.

Back home we looked up the “Ebenezer” passages in 1st Samuel and found this reference to an Ebenezer Stone in 1 Sam 7:10 & 12: “Now Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, and the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with great thunder on that day against the Philistines and confused them, so that they were routed before Israel. … Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen and named it Ebenezer saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’” A footnote in my Bible says Ebenezer means “stone of help”.

“Thus far the Lord has helped us”. The truth and significance of that statement rings deep in my heart. Where would I be on this journey if the Lord had not helped me? How many Ebenezer stones should I have erected this year, this month, this week? I mentioned in an earlier post that I believe I am in a war, that we are all in a war. What battles have we come through recently? Did we recognize the Lord’s thundering in our defense? Do we realize we are only here standing because “thus far the Lord has helped us”? We probably don’t feel like the enemy has been routed but he has, time and time again. What will be my Ebenezer stone that I and others who see it may remember his help and victory?

A Visit to Sinothando Creche

Today's post will hopefully be a little lighter and more encouraging than the last. It will also be more of a story of our activities this day and an opportunity to hear about someone with an awfully big heart. More about that later but first a little background.

Since early this year Robin and I have been developing and implementing a Two Tunics' program to help support orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) that are being taken care of in their communities. These communities here in the Ugu District of KwaZulu-Natal are being devastated by the AIDS epidemic. 40% of women of childbearing age are HIV+ and as the epidemic matures women in their twenties and men in there thirties are dying at high rates. This is leaving thousands of children (more than 1.2 million in South Africa) without moms and providers.

Orphanages are not an approved or acceptable way to care for orphans in South Africa (as it is not in the US) and nearly all of these children are cared for in their communities by extended family or neighbors. But this often leaves the children vulnerable. Schools provide an important protection and safety net for many of these children. But for those younger pre-school children it is the neighborhood "creche" that provides this support. Many creches are started by women who have a heart to care for the children in their community. They often give sacrificially of themselves and what they have to provide a little something for the children. We have been finding these people and their projects (creches) and coming along-side them with some encouragement and support.

Today we returned to visit one of these women and her project in the township of Gamalakhe. Nomapasika (Pas for short) is a big woman with a huge heart. For about 2 and 1/2 years she has been providing daycare for up to 25-30 children in her shack of a home. Often the children's parents/guardians leave the children with her into the evening and on the weekends. Although she has little, she provides amazing care for the children. Anyone who visits is quickly aware of her love for the children and their love for her.


In the picture Pas is on the left with some of the children. This was taken a couple months ago as Robin gave her a new (used) crib for some of the many babies she cares for. The small shack in the background is the only indoor space she has to care for all of these children. When it rains (often this time of year) the yard turns to mud.



Today we went back to visit her creche to make a plan to provide her with a better facility for the creche. We hope to be able to help her build a 5x3 meter building with attached toilet and wash basin. Our friend Ian went with and has offered to act as the contractor and work with a local builder. Hopefully the work can get underway in January. We also hope to provide some playground equipment so the children have something to do during the day. As you can see in the picture on the right the kids are often quite bored.

In our work we must be very careful about coming into situations and trying to rescue or provide free easy solutions. But over a period of months we have observed Pas and the work she is doing and believe she and her project are the type deserving of Two Tunics help. We believe that our assistance will help provide loving care to many OVCs over the years. It will help Pas sustain the work of her heart to meet a growing need in her community. It is a priviledge to be a part of this work and thank you to Two Tunics donors who are making this possible.