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| January 1, 2006 New Year's Day I believe I attended Cinderella's Ball last night. Quite a spectacular New Years Eve Party. In attendance were 30 beautiful children ages 1 year to 15, 10 volunteers ages 18 to whatever and Gogo's all ages and Baba Elliot. It took place in the kitchen, red balloons donated from Mr. Price Store. Santa chocolates for all donated by Carin. Everyone was dressed in his or her best, a fashion show was held and we all took our turn showing off our outfits. Thanks to the volunteers who scrounged our warehouse where all donations are kept we were able to dress every one including volunteers in South Africa's finest. Some had dresses from the sixties, suits from who knows when but we thought we were pretty cool. Mama Tara catered ice cream cones and music was provided by volunteer (Cottage) CD Player. We danced and then like Cinderella we had all of our clothes back to the warehouse by midnight. All had a great time! Happy New Year! Love, Ps, These 30 children were the ones left behind for the holidays, all the other children were gone to extended family or Gogo's. We had great Christmas and New Year's Eve Parties that I don't think these children will ever forget. Again, I thank you all for supporting Our Journey this past year and making it possible for me to be here. I am blessed!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------ January 15, 2006Dear Family and Friends, For some reason this latest journal has been a hard one to write. I have attempted to write it on three different days and hopefully will succeed this time. It might have something to do with how fast my time is going here and my departure date to leave is inching its way here. I am leaving here to go home on April 21, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach just typing this, and although I miss my family and friends so much, I believe my whole life has been a dress rehearsal leading to this work. My plan is to go home and work for Our Journey, Inc. fund raising for six months and then back to South Africa in January 2007. Hopefully, Our Journey will be supporting other volunteers to go with me. Update on what has been happening since the arrival of the New Year - All my babies have been treated with the medicine we purchased and have had stool cultures done and no bacterial infections were found. Although that is good we still need to find the cause of their chronic diarrhea. The Doctor suggested changing some of their diet - we are currently working on that - quite a challenge to say the least. I am forever thankful to friends of Our Journey and volunteers that have been helping me purchase cases of baby wipes and medicine. Phila, the precious baby that I was trying to adopt for my daughter and son-in-law, it appears that is now final that I will not be able to adopt him. My heart hurts. Please keep us in your prayers. This week all the kids go back to school to start the new school year; I plan on seeing them all off on their first day and taking pictures. Two nights ago someone tried to break into the rondavel right beside my house, we were all up and our lights were on, our night time security (2 men) heard them and ran after them. Mind you the only thing our security is armed with is a flashlight so I am not sure what they would have done if they caught them. The metal security gate on the house was bent in two and you could see where they had removed thatch from the thatched roof trying to get into the house that way. We heard about five gunshots in the area after this took place. This is a reminder to me not to be as comfortable and relaxed as I have gotten here. We live in area away from the children's home and off by ourselves. Our "Young Zulu Warriors" (a song and dance group of 18 children here) are going on a three-week tour March 16 - April 8, traveling through Germany (Munich to Hamburg) and then on to the Netherlands. I have been asked to go as a chaperone; of course I jumped at the opportunity. Can you believe this, 6 German volunteers (ages 18 to 20) that are here now have arranged from start to finish this tour to raise money for the children's home. With help from their parents and friends in Germany they have also raised all the money needed for our plane fares. These volunteers are truly amazing! The children are going to sing and dance in the traditional Zulu style and costume. they are really great! They will be putting on fifteen shows while we are there. As you can imagine they are practicing every day. I get to hear drums playing morning, noon and night and I love it. Remember to dream the impossible because all is possible to those that believe! Love, January 21, 2006 Whew! Everyone went back to school this week; it sure is quiet around here. I got to see all the kids off. Even rode on the big bus with the new first graders to school. It really has helped me focus on how fortunate the children that live here are. All of our children have come here from nearby valleys. Now they get to attend decent schools that tuitions are being paid for by individual sponsors (that is a challenge in itself to raise the monies needed), sometimes it takes numerous sponsors for each child to make that a possibility. Transportation to school whether private or government run is not provided so the home also supplies transportation to get them back and forth to school; sometimes it is quite a distance. The home lives from month to month on donations.sometimes they can meet all their bills and other times money has run out and they barely have enough for food for the children. I hope this upcoming tour to Germany, with The Young Zulu Warriors, will raise enough money to help with some of these challenges. Their hope is having a fully equipped theater so they can have weekly performances here to help offset some of these costs. Since the Apartheid in 1994 in South Africa all children black or white can attend school. That all sounds great but if you have no money, no transportation no way to pay for mandatory uniforms it is impossible to go to a decent school. The valley children are not so fortunate, they don't have the money or transportation to go to any school other than the government run one in their valley where they can walk to school. Sometimes a teacher shows up and most times not. Even that cost something; you must supply all your own school materials, all the paper and pencils you will use for the year, even your own toilet paper for the school year. This situation is not a good one, raping little children in the valley while they attend school happens on a regular basis . hard to believe but it is true. My time to leave is drawing near and the realization of where I have been this past year is really hitting me hard. I am concerned that I have not been able to share or convey all that I feel sometimes. I so desperately want you all to understand the depth of happiness and sadness that we've had and the trials that we deal with on a daily basis. I am considering coming back to South Africa next January, not sure where yet. It could be back here at this home or sometimes I dream about living and working in the valleys nearby. There continues to be a lot of child headed households, where children are bringing up their little brothers and sisters with no food or shelter. In some cases, they have lost both parents to AIDS. It would be great if there were some way Our Journey could support volunteers and start a crèche in the valley for these little children to go to during the day and the child that is the head of household could go back to school or get a job. I am just dreaming out loud with you all . I believe if I put this out there there is more of a chance of it becoming a reality. Please keep all of these ideas in your prayers . I will go where HE leads me! Much love, January 29, 2006 What a week. Emotions flying high! This way and that way. This week started off as an emotional roller coaster, our baby that I speak about often that had been so sick since birth is now called our miracle baby, she walked this week for the first time with another baby holding her hand. You could not wipe the smiles off our faces. Many past volunteers and those of us that are still here never expected that she would see this past Christmas. I get goose bumps and teary eyed just writing this. Check out the pictures. Four months ago the child holding her hand (Phila) could hardly walk on his own and now he is helping her. Hot off the press! I was just told by a volunteer she asked to go on the Potty - she is not one of the ones we are potty training. Can you believe it? A couple of months ago she had never spoken and had never walked and look at her now! On a sadder note, we experienced another break-in in our neighborhood this week; this one was a lot more serious than the attempted one two weeks ago. The volunteer was held at gunpoint and tied up while they took all of his possessions; thankfully they did not harm him but really shook him up. This is causing a lot of uneasiness amongst all of us. We have had meetings and discussed our safety concerns. We are in the process of hiring another security guard; they are unarmed so I am not sure what will happen when they encounter someone armed. Break-ins are not uncommon but using guns is. I will keep you posted about what measures are being taken to ensure our safety. Ps, I hope you enjoy the attached pictures as much I am! Love, |