40 Days of Prayer
Hands at Work
Meet Mwete

Raising a large family isn’t easy but Mama Safi isn’t alone in caring for Mwete. He has a bigger family of support at the Care Point, with the Care Workers and the other children.

Meet Mwete

Church Leaders in SA Complete Training

56 South African church leaders completed a six-week Hands at Work training program on July 9 on the church’s role in fighting HIV/AIDS and caring for widows, orphans and the dying.

Situated in the province of Mpumalanga and bounded by Kruger Park to the east, the local municipality of Bushbuckridge is a neglected area that is suffering under the crippling weight of poverty, social disintegration, and HIV and AIDS. 

With the mandate to capacitate locals to care for the poorest of the poor in their communities, Hands at Work has committed itself to helping start up four new home-based cares and multi-care centres in the Bushbuckridge area.  These new efforts are concentrated in the north-east corner of Bushbuckridge; encompassing approximately twenty villages in a 280 square kilometre area.  The residents have very little access to government health and social services.  The first step towards starting up these home-based cares is to mobilize the pastors and Christian leaders in the community to begin actively caring for the poor, sick, dying, and orphaned within their community.

Lindy loved to go to school

Lindy and her brother outside their home in Likasi, Congo.In a village called Chitulu, in Democratic Republic of Congo, on a home-based care visit one day, my wife and I met a little girl named Lindy. She is five years old. She has dark, mourning eyes, and wispy little legs that poke out beneath her skirt. She is HIV-positive. No one seems to know where their father is, and their very sick mother died shortly after Lindy’s birth. She has a seven-year old brother who is healthy. The kids live now with their grandparents.


The grandfather is very old and works each day farming in their field outside town. He loves his grandchildren very much, and when Lindy began getting sick, he carried her on his back to the local clinic. The grandmother is completely blind. She sits on a soft chair in the middle of their house smiling with her eyes wide open: creamy white moons leaking slow drips onto her cheeks.
This is a broken family, but together somehow they are strong. The grandmother calls out to Lindy: “Lindy, is the door open?” or “Lindy, is it raining outside?” The little girl is her grandmother’s eyes. The grandfather relies heavily on his disabled wife for the emotional encouragement to keep working in his old age. Recently the grandmother became very ill, and it seemed for a while that she might not live. His old wife’s illness almost killed the grandfather.

The grandmother told us Lindy loved to go to school, that even though she was too young and was sick, she constantly whined and begged her grandparents to go to school.

UK Summer Newsletter

Click here for the latest news from UK supporters or click the links below
Christmas in May in Swaziland • Spend two weeks in Africa • UK represented at African Leaders and International Conferences 2008 • British schools help with GoLD future in South Africa • From Halesowen to Africa - college students link with Zambia schools
• Regular monthly giving • Financial Statement for first 17 months as a registered charity • Your Will, Their future - a legacy from you will be such a welcome gift to ensure a future of hope and fulfilment for those affected •  Schools Service - From infant classes to agricultural students, talks are tailored suitably • Hairless for Hands! GBP1395 raised!  Forthcoming fundraising events: throw yourself off St Peter’s Church for Hands at Work  Abseiling with local scouts - “hands...at work... in Africa” photo exhibition -  “An evening of Words and Music” - performed by singers of the much acclaimed Midlands Chorale and The Keele Poets - whose poetry reaches parts of your soul no-one else ever has • Christmas is coming...
Give someone something useful this Christmas. Now you can make a difference to the lives of those affected by HIV/AIDS - and give it as a present to someone special! • Progress in Nigeria - Local managers report in Nigeria on our Lagos Home Based Care (HBC) Programme, and helping commercial sex workers tackle the daily problems of HIV/AIDS at Isolo. We include some stories of children given new hope by volunteers on our Community Based Organisation (CBO)

George in Canada

Hands at Work founder George Snyman will be in Western Canada Aug 9 to 19 speaking to churches and other organisations. The following key events are open to the general public:

Sunday, August 10 – Westside King’s Church, Calgary, AB – 9:29am, 11:11am, and 6:46pm
Tuesday, August 12 – Lakeview Church, Saskatoon, SK – 7:00pm
Sunday, August 17 – First Assembly Church, Calgary, AB – 9:00am and 11:00am

For more information on these events or to arrange a meeting with George, please contact: deb@manbiz.com.

facelessbook

"Statistics turn people into a number... A quantity... A thing... But AIDS doesn't happen to 20 million people in the same way. It happens 20 million different ways one person at a time.

Each story is different. Each story deserves to be told by itself."

Check out facelessbook.com. There are currently 4 profiles up there now, all stories from orphans, caregivers and volunteers of Hands at Work projects. Courtesy of Dave Zak.

PEPFAR Awards Funds

Deputy Chief of Mission for PEPFAR, Don Teitlebaum (R) with orphans from WINROCK program in Masoyi, South Africa."Hands at Work provides home-based care services for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in the Masoyi community.  Through its PEPFAR grant of R5,250,000, Hands at Work Africa has assisted 6,500 children and over 1,200 primary caregivers.  With PEPFAR assistance, the organization hopes to reach 100,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa by 2010."

See full article

Taken from: PEPFAR Program Awards More than 700,000 rand for Ten Mpumalanga HIV/AIDS Organizations

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Waves Across Africa

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Carly2.jpg Have you ever stopped to consider your life and wondered how you got to where you are today? I often do! If you asked me three years ago to tell you where I would be today, in May 2008, I would never have guessed that I would be living in South Africa , a part of Hands at Work in Africa. The past 3 years have changed my life completely. My name is Carly, I’m an ordinary 28 year old woman, who was living an ordinary life in Sydney, Australia. I wasn’t the type of person who dreamt big or looked to do ‘missions’, I simply prayed that God would use me, in whatever way He chose. It’s been an adventure ever since…

A Church Partner Working in Luanshya, Zambia

Dauna%20Chanca%20Girl%20-%20thumb.jpgIn March, long-time Hands at Work in Africa partner Westside King’s Church sent a team of congregation members to work with the Hands at Work Luanshya Service Centre supporting the launch of a new home-based care (HBC) organization in the community of Mulenga.

Below is the team’s report of their activities training HBC volunteers, mentoring youth, and generally participating in Zambian life.

New Footprints Intake

Footprinters.jpg A new session of Footprints is upon us! How exciting to think that this will be our 4th group of Footprints volunteers to join the Hands at Work team for mid-term volunteer service. Training officially began on 25 February 2008, but preparations began long ago, including prayerful consideration of which projects will receive the volunteers when they complete their 10 weeks training and depart to act as “scaffolding” at our projects across Africa. Please remember to pray for them.

View from the Ground

LizeMarie-in-Zambia.jpgby Lize-Marie Theron
For more than a year, I have worked as Hands at Work in Africa’s Human Resources officer, supporting projects across the continent from my office in South Africa. And this January I got my first opportunity to travel with Hands at Work in Africa CEO George Snyman to our projects in Zambia. It was an amazing experience that taught me many things.

We traveled between Kabwe and Luanshya, visitng project leaders and spending time with volunteers on the ground, where I learned much about giving. In Zambia I experienced an unknown freedom in the desire to give. In Zambia money had no meaning. Love was evident and it spoke to me. Of course money is what brings resources to those who serve on the ground, but it was obvious: money is not the solution to Zambia’s problems.

In Kabwe I experienced the heart and passion of a project

Looking Back on my Footprints

brooke2.jpgBrook Bruns
One bright day last May the three of us who were the February 2007 Footprints cohort, walked our final trip down the winding South African dirt road that led from our accommodation to the Hands at Work in Africa staff base. We admired the majestic view of hills filled with huts in the distance, and we teased and joked with one another, remembering our 3-months training time together and anticipating the 6-to-9-month journey we were each about to embark on at separate Hands at Work projects across Africa.

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Hands are at Work in the USA Office

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SanFrancisco.gifWith much excitement and joy we announce the official registration of Hands at Work in Africa (USA). Hands USA, as we call ourselves, was officially formed last fall, and our team and activities have continued to develop and grow from that initiation.

Our Roots

While we exist to work with all churches across the USA, it was with Wellspring Church that our passion to start Hands USA was born. I, along with my husband, Henry, and our 3 children, traveled with Wellspring to South Africa last July. We had decided to visit Africa as a family after hosting George and Carolyn at our home for dinner while they were visiting Wellspring Church in 2006. We had been touched by their commitment and compelled to look beyond ourselves here.

That same evening after our guests had left, Henry and I made the decision to go, but also to be open to whatever further involvement God might have for me in serving Africa rather than going back to work or school as I had anticipated in the near future. In Africa, I told George about this decision. His response was incredible. He said, " Lauren, we have been praying for a year about someone like you,

UK summer newsletter 2008

Christmas in May in Swaziland • Spend two weeks in Africa • UK represented at African Leaders and International Conferences 2008 • British schools help with GoLD future in South Africa • From Halesowen to Africa - college students link with Zambia schools

 

• Regular monthly giving • Financial Statement for first 17 months as a registered charity • Your Will, Their future - a legacy from you will be such a welcome gift to ensure a future of hope and fulfilment for those affected •  Schools Service - From infant classes to agricultural students, talks are tailored suitably • Hairless for Hands! GBP1395 raised!  Forthcoming fundraising events: throw yourself off St Peter’s Church for Hands at Work  Abseiling with local scouts - “hands...at work... in Africa” photo exhibition -  “An evening of Words and Music” - performed by singers of the much acclaimed Midlands Chorale and The Keele Poets - whose poetry reaches parts of your soul no-one else ever has • Christmas is coming...
Give someone something useful this Christmas. Now you can make a difference to the lives of those affected by HIV/AIDS - and give it as a present to someone special! • Progress in Nigeria - Local managers report in Nigeria on our Lagos Home Based Care (HBC) Programme, and helping commercial sex workers tackle the daily problems of HIV/AIDS at Isolo. We include some stories of children given new hope by volunteers on our Community Based Organisation (CBO)

Australian School Raises Funds for Zambia

1401168-1110612-thumbnail.jpg The Mt. Pleasant Primary School in Ballarat has reached out to the orphans of Zambia by raising much-needed funds to build a water well for the Chibuli Orphan School . As of October 22nd, the school and its 216 students had raised $911.

Hands at Work CEO George Snyman visited the school in October, where he met the school’s Welfare Officer, Danni Reeves, who has been instrumental in organising the fundraising events. George was pleasantly surprised to be entertained by the wonderful school choir singing an African song, as well as the song-and-dance group, also performing to African music.

Danni says the school hopes to reach the $1,000 mark by the end of the year.

Message from a Partner

Wellspring.jpg

When our first team of six men returned to Wellspring Church (N. California, USA) from their eye-opening visit to South Africa in 2005, all of us at Wellspring became introduced to George and Carolyn Snyman, founders of Hands at Work.

For these brothers, that visit was a life-changing event that God used to mark them with an indelible imprint of the faces and lives touched by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In October 2006, the Snymans had an opportunity to visit Wellspring to share of God's call for them to care for the poor, sick, and dying, and to remind us of God's heart for and the biblical mandate to care for the widow and orphan. Needless to say, this visit was instrumental in serving as a catalyst for those who would join the next team to Mpumalanga , South Africa.

Our next visit came last July and was indeed an opportunity to witness God's works of mercy and compassion through the body of believers in the midst of much suffering and loss.