Living Hope and Masiphumelele

DAY 6 IN SOUTH AFRICA

Today was somewhat different from our previous days working in Masiphumelele. On Thursdays, the crèches do not come to kids club, so we spent the morning touring all of the Living Hope facilities around the Cape Town area. This may be a good time to provide somewhat of a summary of Living Hope ministries. The Living Hope (LH) ministry motto is “Bringing Hope, Breaking Despair”. They go about doing this through four distinct ministries which make-up LH. The four ministries are Living Care, Living Right, Living Way, and Living Grace. Living Care is what started LH and it is the organization’s effort to compassionately support the health of the community which includes a 25 bed health centre (yes that is how it is spelled here in South Africa), home based care, and what started it all, HIV testing. Living Right is an educational arm of LH that tries to teach people in the townships about proper hygiene and basic medical care they can do at home. For example, close to 50 children died in townships last year because of diarrhea. DIARRHEA! A completely curable condition, but because they don’t know how to properly hydrate and care for this, those children died. So this is the way LH goes about educating people in the area about a variety of things. Living Way, and this is a big one, is the economic empowerment arm of LH, where they work with people to teach them new skills that they can use to generate finances for their families. They are taught everything from a new skill, to a proper business plan, to how to effectively market and sustain capital for themselves. This is really impressive. It also includes the Life Skills educators (what we have been doing this week), not only for children, but their parents and families as well. LH has a holistic approach in the way that they do ministry. Finally, Living Grace is the aspect of LH’s ministry that seeks to offer recovery from drug addiction and provide needs for homeless people in the area.

 Joey, a business volunteer from Nashville shows up the crops that will be sold

 The bakery on the Living Way campus. This guy is now an owner of his own bakery business.

 In the candle shop... this guy has people like Hillary Clinton who own his candles!

This photo frames were made out of shipping crates and they are beautiful. 

This morning we visited the various campuses of the respective divisions within LH, as well as LH’s locations within each of the townships in which they currently work. This was great for our team to see other parts of the city that we had not seen, but it also gave us a better understanding of the amount of work LH is doing on the ground here as well the number of volunteers who make this organization strong. When we visited the Living Way campus, we were able to purchase products that some of the students who came through the program had created such as candles, picture frames, and even cookies from the bakery. To show you the success of this portion of Living Hope, a group of the students at the campus are currently putting together reindeer candle holders that will be sold at Crate & Barrel stores in the US this Christmas, and the funds go directly to the LH organization and the students who did the work!

Today following our lunch we went to the Living Care medical centre where we visited with patients in both wards who are suffering from a variety of calamities. We just sat with them, listening to their stories, sang songs with them, and prayed with them. It was a great way for our team to come alongside the caregivers at Living Hope and hopefully encourage them, and the patients with the love of God.

Following that, we went back to Masi for the last time this week for the combined kids and teens club where today was all about fun and games. Today was by far the most exhausting day as we had close to 100 students that we were able to work with for a couple of hours. Though it was extremely exhausting it is nothing compared to what the Life Skills Educators do because they do this every day, every week, and its on a volunteer basis! Truly amazing stuff. I just feel fortunate to spend time with those LSE’s and these students to see the joy that is in their lives despite their circumstances!

 A wall in the Masiphumelele township that we all liked. 

 One of the students, Niko, who always was the first to welcome me each day

 The kids on the black-top, having a blast

 Amanda getting her team of kids ready for the afternoon's events. 

 We were able to help distribute the food that Living Hope provides the students each day

Tomorrow will be a special day for us as we will be at the Living Hope campus spending the day with support group leaders of LH. These are the people who work with HIV and other patients in breaking the news of their conditions to them and their families, as well as counseling and helping to provide medical care to them. We are going to have a small workshop of sorts meant to solely encourage and uplift them. We have some great things planned for this special group of LH workers.

Thank you again for all of the prayers and support back home in the States. Our team truly feels the love, support, and prayers from all of you because there is no way that we could do all that we are being asked to do over here without the power that God gives each of us. It is hard to believe that we are on the down slope of this trip, but the work is not over. There are still many things left for us to do here, and I look forward to each of them with great anticipation.

Be Blessed!