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Friday, August 3, 2007
Hi Everyone,
We have only one week remaining in our trip - we cannot believe it! It will be incredibly hard to get on the plane to come home. Our hearts are in this nation. At the same time we miss all of you and our critters at home. We pray that the Lord will find a way for them to come here with us.
Our time in Durban has been very different than our time in the Jo'burg area. God has been showing us different things. We have visited two homes for street kids and this has deeply touched our hearts. One we wrote about before was the home in Howick, S.A. This past week we also visited a home for children about 45 mins south of Durban.
There are 56 children living there and they are running an incredible program. Three levels of pre-school. Two for very young children and 1 Grade -R program which is like our kindergarten. The children that live here are either orphans or their parents are simply unable to take care of them. It is a larger property with 24 small cottages that are being renovated and/or torn down and rebuilt. There is a farming part - this home as over 10 hectare of property, they are raising chickens and there are reaching our in big ways into the nearby community.
They are starting a program sending a bus into the townships each day collecting the pre-school children of AIDS infected mothers. These children will come and get a bath, clean clothes, pre-school as well as breakfast and lunch. This frees-up the mothers to get the medical help they need, which frequently involves them traveling to clinics which may be a distance away. me of these children are HIV + and are on anti-virals, all are doing well. This is a prototype of how an orphanage can benefit not only the children who live there but also the entire community.
While in Durban we have also been able to visit with Liz Towell who is an icon in South Africa for her work in the area of AIDS. When AIDS came onto the scene years ago, she was curious about this disease that was labeled a gay disease. So, when the government was looking for someone to head-up the medical care for AIDS treatment, Liz asked for the job. She linked herself to some gay doctors who introduced her to the gay community and she spent the next decade teaching, directing and nursing AIDS victims.
After 10 years of frustration with the discrimination of the gov't, Liz resigned and continued her work as a private consultant where she and the doctors helped thousands of AIDS victims as they scratched out a living caring for a neglected part of the South African population. A powerful woman who now herself is very ill with cancer.
God has also been linking us up with people in the Deo Gloria Family Church who have a heart for mission and outreach. God spoke to us during our quiet time and we have spent time talking over plans at dinner and doing prayer walks with them. We have walked and prayed around the police station and court house which are door to door.
Linda Combrink, our host while in Durban, feels strongly that God is calling her to pray powerfully for the justice department and the police. There is great corruption in the system and violent crime is off the charts. Our time of prayer around these buildings is so very powerful and we will return (Continued on page 2)
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