Transforming Hearts: The Chongs in South Africa (CAN) (SA)

Florence and Paul Chong travelled with their three children from Toronto, Canada to South Africa in March 2012. For two weeks, they exposed themselves to life on the other side of the world. Here Florence Chong reflects on "the best experience they have ever had as a family and as individuals."

The Chong family's relationship with Hands at Work was sparked by the eldest of their children, 8-year-old Nathan Chong. Nathan decided that, in lieu of gifts for his birthday, he would raise support for orphaned and vulnerable children in Africa through Hands at Work. He raise $300 CAN for the organization, but not just that, he inspired his family to make the trip to South Africa to see the results of his efforts for themselves.

We had never thought about going to Africa, not even for a vacation. We had always financially supported missions in Africa, but we thought that going there was for the called passionate few.  

Then God moved us by using our 8-year old son Nathan.  It started with Nathan's 7th birthday party. Instead of receiving gifts, he raised a small amount of money for Hands at Work.  From there, God led us into a friendship with Hands at Work. Eventually, God prompted us to take our three children, aged 3, 5, and 8, to visit the Hands at Work Hub in South Africa. Initially, we were hesitant, but God was increasingly clear about His intentions. We knew we’d better obey.

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Moving Through the Community: Kid's Camps (SA)

Sipho, 15, bakes in the sunlight as he lays sprawled on a trampoline after a busy weekend. He is participating in a camp for children of the community that are of his age – a treasured opportunity. His smile has not ceased since he joined with thirty other campers in a dancing and singing session, which ended moments ago. The sun warms his body, and the memories of the weekend warm his heart.

Kids’ camps were introduced in South Africa by Hands at Work in 2005. Children aged 10 -18 arrive by taxi during holidays to Sanderson Farm in Mpumalanga, where they are shown to a comforting room in which they will stay for three days. The days will include lessons centered on relevant life issues for these children, such as HIV/AIDS awareness, safety and precaution in their communities, relationships with God and each other, and what it means to be a leader. The children are invited to explore their communities and to consider the problems in which they can have an impact.

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Making a Lasting Impact (UK)

McKenna and Maleah (left) raised funds for Hands at Work through their love of basketball. They also joined the UK team on a trip to South Africa in February.A 10-member team from Locks Heath Free Church in the United Kingdom recently returned home after a two-week stay in our South Africa offices. The group represented their church, which has been supporting a community in Belfast, South Africa for four years. They visited the community to see first-hand who their support and prayers were affecting, to encourage the care workers who volunteer there, and to gain a new perspective from the other side of the world.

“During our time there we met the volunteer care workers from the local church and the orphaned children who will benefit from the funds raised here.  We joined the care workers in their daily visits to the vulnerable people in the community and quickly grew to admire and respect their commitment.”

Prior to leaving the UK, the team organized a fundraiser to benefit Hands at Work. They staged a ‘free throw’ basketball contest with a goal of making 3000 baskets over the course of eight consecutive hours. The event was successful, as 3002 baskets were made, in addition to a total of £735 donated to support Hands at Work. Upon reflecting on their experience in South Africa, and visiting the community they were supporting, Sharon, a member of the team, felt that the things they had seen and felt in their hearts would leave a lasting impact on their lives.

“There is so much that I want to take back with me. We went out [to Belfast] on Monday, and we came across this little girl named California. This little girl was so precious, like a diamond. She really shouldn’t be alive and she sang to us. Her hurt and her pain was in her singing, but she was singing that she was only bearing the pain that God had carried and that He had gone to the cross so that she could be saved. She was such a thoughtful person to meet, and God has given her life. I will take that memory back among many other things.”

The group was inspired by what they saw, and concluded their stay with a promise to share the memories with their friends at home, and eventually a return visit.

“The scope of the problem is huge in Africa, but we’re grateful that our family and friends could make a difference by contributing financially and personally to encourage the care workers and orphaned children in Belfast.”

Building a Future Together (SA)

10-year-old Londi and his gogo live in a small, run-down mud hut in the rural village of Siphamandla in north-eastern South Africa. He is a friendly boy who says he loves his grandmother very much and hopes she will live a long life, especially because she has taken care of him since his mother died when he was very young. The grandmother cannot work, and the two survive on a meagre government child care grant.

Londi is in Grade 3 at Mpakeni Primary School, but because he has no one to help him with his homework, school is an uphill battle for him. Londi’s biggest concern, however, is the state of their home. The stick and mud shack is likely to fall apart when the heavy summer rains pound down on it.

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Opportunity to Learn (NIG)

Boys who attend free community school with Michael, run by volunteers in Ago Okota, Lagos Slum, Nigeria.

10-year-old Michael is a vulnerable child living in the Lagos slum of Ago Okota. In 2010 when his mother could no longer afford to feed and keep him, Michael was given away to another poor family. His job was to work for the family, walking the streets selling rice and beans and passing the income over to his new guardians. He dreamed about attending school, but wasn’t allowed. He had joined the tragic situation of thousands of children walking the streets of Lagos: modern-day slavery.

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Counter-Cultural Example (ZIM)

41-year-old John is a volunteer care worker in Pimai, Zimbabwe committed to transforming the hopeless situations of vulnerable children in his community. Pimai is a poor rural village surrounded by tea and coffee farms approximately 130 km from Mutare, Zimbabwe. Many of Pimai’s population are families who fled Mutare after falling ill from HIV/AIDS and becoming too sick to work. Desperately seeking a place to feed and house their families, they moved out to the rural village. With the inevitably high death rate among many of those patients, scores of children have been orphaned and left in extreme vulnerability.

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Compelled to Compassion (MAL)

Lainess with the children she cares for - Thandi and her younger brother TamandaniOne of the children being impacted in Malawi is Thandi. She was 12-years old when her mother died and her father, as his culture customarily dictates for a male widow, abandoned the family. Thandi was left alone to care for her 18-month-old brother, Tamandani. Living in their rural Malawi village, Chinku, there were no social services or support to aid them.

The situation had seemed hopeless until a local woman named Lainess, whose church was mobilised by Royie and the Hands at Work team, came to their aid. Lainess had suffered the early death of her husband and had been struggling to make ends meet. But after hearing the stories of what was being done by the churches in nearby Mgwere, she felt compelled to participate in demonstrating the compassion of Christ and joined others in her community to become part of the Chinku volunteer care worker team. That’s when she decided to open up her home and take Thandi’s family under her care. Lainess does everything she can to fill the gap left by their parents; in order to secure milk to feed young Tamandani, Lainess regularly makes the day’s journey by foot to the city of Lilongwe where she is able to get milk from an organisation operating there.

Growing in understanding of the needs of vulnerable children in her community like Thandi & Tamandani, Lainess helped her church join with other churches in the area to launch a school and care centre. It’s a safe place for Thandi & Tamandani to come and just be like other children their age while Lainess is learning to be a mother for two more very grateful children.

A Defence for the Helpless (ZAM)

Six-year-old Maywa Tanda lives in a community in northern Zambia. At the age of three, she lost her father to a vicious attack by men in her community who left him to die from his serious injuries. Traumatized by the incident, Maywa’s mother fled to Luanshya with her and her sister Belinda. The two little girls became orphans soon after when their mother became ill and passed away.

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Walking with Wounded Children (SA)

Esther is a careworker at Siphumulile Home Based Care in South Africa“I was spending my life sewing comforters for a living to support my 3 children with my husband. I have always had a place in my heart for the children, especially those living below their means. In my community, if a hungry child came to my house, I would always feed her. God had blessed me with food every night and I was happy to share what I had with any child in need. It hurts my heart when a child tells me he’s hungry, it makes me feel like I am hungry also. So when a local clinic member told me about the group of Christian volunteers going out to care for those in need, I left my sewing behind to join them in becoming a careworker. I worked with several other women who cared about children as much as I did to fundraise so that we could feed the children of our community who needed it the most. We pooled together what we had raised and bought potatoes and machines to make chips to sell, and used the money to buy food parcels and other necessities to give to the children.” –Esther, a careworker from Siphumulilie Community Based Organisation who recently was involved in the Careworker training, Walking with Wounded Children.

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Dedicated to Serving (DRC)

In the southern city of Likasi, Erick Rukang oversees Hands at Work’s local Service Centre operating in the DRC. His job, to form and facilitate care teams in the region’s most broken communities, demands a lot. It demands meeting with church leaders to help them discover their God-mandated responsibility to care for the orphaned and the vulnerable. It demands walking with care workers into the homes of abused and orphaned children to demonstrate building relationships that heal and transform.

The community of Toyota, 7km from the Service centre, is a place where such indispensable relationships are formed. Erick has helped mentor and train a team of local volunteer care workers who are touching and transforming lives in Toyota. The team operates a school and provides a hot, nutritious daily meal for the community’s most vulnerable children. They also visit each child in their homes.

One such child is 6-year-old Gracious who lives alone with his blind mother since his father passed away after suffering for a long time with tuberculosis, a disease closely related to HIV. Gracious’ widowed mother would have struggled to provide for even basic needs for a growing boy if not for Erick and the Toyota care worker team. But with their help, today he is a happy and healthy boy attending Grade 1 at the Toyota community school and receiving a nutritious meal 6 days per week.

40 Days of Prayer

Please join us in 40 days of prayer for Africa’s orphaned and vulnerable children.

We will come together and journey through 40 specific prayer points, all based on sharing the love, compassion and generosity of Christ with the children He cares so deeply about. This event starts on March 1^st, 2012 and concludes on Easter Sunday, April 9^th, 2012. We encourage you to participate in this experience with your churches, friends and family, and anyone else who shares your consideration for the children of Africa.

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Bringing Good News (MOZ)

Anita and Annabelle are two sisters living in Macadeira in Northern Mozambique. Their community literally sits on the highway 30 km north of the Beira corridor that runs straight into Zimbabwe. It’s a busy trucking route, which drives commercial sex work in the communities and intensifies the vulnerability of young women who live there. Anita and Annabelle are thankful to be able to attend a primary school in the community for now. But they know their dream of attending secondary school will bring real dangers. They’ll need to walk out of their community along the highway to another place to attend the school. They will face the pressures that all young vulnerable girls face in their community: to abandon the indulgence of school in favour of earning income to support their poor families. It’s a pressure too great for many young girls to bear, as evidenced by the incredible rates of HIV, pregnancy and school drop out in the area.

Hands at Work began working with local church and community leaders in Macadeira in 2011 by gathering the churches and demonstrating the heart of Christ to see His church united together in caring for the most vulnerable people in their community. To overcome their lack of material possessions, the churches are being trained to see the strength of combining resources and working across denominational lines. They are also being challenged to get deep into the lives of the poorest children, sharing their burdens and providing love, support and mentorship to address the enormous challenges they face daily. Change looks possible for the future.

 Recently, the community’s leaders announced the plan to start making bricks from scratch with the aim of building their own secondary school. That is very good news for hundreds of children like Anita and Annabelle.

No Longer Alone (SWA)

Six-year-old Mdeni Dlamini is a quiet boy who lives in Kaphunga, a remote and isolated community in the mountains of Swaziland. He stays with his 14-year-old cousin, Banele in a mud hut left by their grandmother. Their 25-yearold uncle stays in another hut on the same property. Neither child is in school.

Mdeni and Banele have no one to look after them. Banele’s parents have both died and Mdeni’s mother lives in the city of Manzini with his stepfather. The boys’ uncle, an orphan himself, is illiterate and does ad hoc jobs around the area when he can get them. But such work hardly brings in enough income to support the three. There is often no food in the house and water is scarce. The boys’ only source of water comes from a trickle of a dirty stream, likely to be infested with waterborne disease. The mud wall of the one-roomed hut has an enormous crack, and the unstable structure is threatening to fall apart completely.

The boys don’t have a bed, but sleep on the bare floor in this bitterly cold region. Mdeni tried living for a time with his mom and stepfather, but was treated badly and eventually returned to live in the rural village.

Hands at Work supports the local community- based organisation, Asondle Sive Bomake, working in the hills of Kaphunga. The community’s elderly women have banded together to bring the love of Christ to transform the most vulnerable children in the area. These women cross enormous distances on the mountainsides to identify and serve the area’s most vulnerable children, like Mdeni and Banele. Hands at Work supports them with mentoring, train-ing and finances to provide basic services. Maize seedlings and food supplements have helped to lighten the burden off Mdeni and Banele, giving them enough strength to start attending school in hope that an education will open doors for the future



Blessed to Be a Blessing - George in Lloydminster (CAN)

On Tuesday, Jan 17, Hands at Work Africa founder George Snyman commended the students of Lloydminster Comprehensive High School, on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada, on their commitment to adopt 50 children in Malawi.

Katie Ryan Photo

By Katie Ryan

Lloydminster Comprehensive High School students are giving children in Africa the gift of choice, according to the founder of Hands at Work Africa.
For two years, LCHS students have fundraised $9,000 to adopt 50 children in Malawi, in conjunction with the non-profit organization Hands at Work Africa, which works in vulnerable communities across sub-Saharan Africa.
And to commend their ongoing efforts and long-distance relationship with the African children, Hands at Work Africa founder George Snyman spoke with students Tuesday morning.
“When a school connects like this, they provide education, they provide basic health and they provide food security, and that allows the children to have choices in life. That’s so huge, it’s hard for us to even grasp the impact that a school like this can have on a whole community,” said Snyman, prior to his presentation to the student body.

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Community Transformation (ZAM)

Susu is an extraordinarily poor and isolated community in central Lawrence and Sanday at work in a local church.Zambia. When Hands at Work field worker Lawrence Kunda began visiting Susu the community was in despair. Poverty was widespread and alcoholism was a way of life. Nearly everyone existed only by subsistence farming and couldn’t afford access to schools or a trip to see the doctor for sick children.

Local community member, Sanday, was in such a situation when Lawrence discovered him. Lawrence struck up a friendship and began mentoring Sanday, slowly discipling him over many months about the love and compassion of Christ. In 2009 Sanday realised his faith was leading him to start doing something for the vulnerable community around him.

"Welcome to Susu, your second home. We love you, feel free!"

Together, Lawrence and Sanday mobilised a team of other local volunteers and began equipping and mentoring them to care for orphaned and vulnerable children. Seeing the great need for education, Sanday and his volunteer team began a small community school under the shade of the trees. It was a huge success and inspired the community to begin making mud bricks in faith that they could build an entire school.

By 2011 a full care centre had begun to emerge: the school walls were complete; a new bore-hole, providing children with access to clean drinking water for the first time, had been drilled; and a cooking space was constructed to feed the most vulnerable children. Community members have watched the transformation in front of their eyes.

Sharon and her sister recieve a hot meal from a local feeding point.One child participating in the transformation is 14-year-old Sharon. When her parents passed away in 2001, Sharon and her two younger sisters were taken in by their grandparents. Because they were poor and too frail to work, the grandparents struggled to provide food. Sharon’s grandmother often scoured the edge of already harvested fields to search for leftover food. Many days the family went without eating at all. When the family was discovered by Sanday and his team, Sharon and her sisters were enrolled in the school and the feeding programme. A dedicated Susu care worker began looking after the family, encouraging and supporting them in solving their problems. Sharon achieved second place overall in her class of students. This is a transformation the entire community is celebrating.

See more photos from Zambia 

Susu is an extraordinarily poor and isolated community in central Zambia. When Hands at Work field worker Lawrence Kunda began visiting Susu the community was in despair. Poverty was widespread and alcoholism was a way of life. Nearly everyone existed only by subsistence farming and couldn’t afford access to schools or a trip to see the doctor for sick children.

Local community member, Sanday, was in such a situation when Lawrence discovered him. Lawrence struck up a friendship and began mentoring Sanday, slowly discipling him over many months about the love and compassion of Christ. In 2009 Sanday realised his faith was leading him to start doing something for the vulnerable community around him. Together, Lawrence and Sanday mobilised a team of other local volunteers and began equipping and mentoring them to care for orphaned and vulnerable children. Seeing the great need for education, Sanday and his volunteer team began a small community school under the shade of the trees. It was a huge success and inspired the community to begin making mud bricks in faith that they could build an entire school.

By 2011 a full care centre had begun to emerge: the school walls were complete; a new bore-hole, providing children with access to clean drinking water for the first time, had been drilled; and a cooking space was constructed to feed the most vulnerable children. Community members have watched the transformation in front of their eyes.

One child participating in the transformation is 14-year-old Sharon. When her parents passed away in 2001, Sharon and her two younger sisters were taken in by their grandparents. Because they were poor and too frail to work, the grandparents struggled to provide food. Sharon’s grandmother often scoured the edge of already harvested fields to search for leftover food. Many days the family went without eating at all. When the family was discovered by Sanday and his team, Sharon and her sisters were enrolled in the school and the feeding programme. A dedicated Susu care worker began looking after the family, encouraging and supporting them in solving their problems. Sharon achieved second place overall in her class of students. This is a transformation the entire community is celebrating.