Perhaps being forced to drop out of school because your family simply cannot afford the fees anymore is just as heart breaking as not being able to go to school. When Lovelyn came home from school one day and realized she would not return, she felt lost and hopeless. Now, she faced the terrible prospect that her education was over.
Nokuphila is a seven year old girl. This desperately poor community struggles from a lack of clean, accessible water and, at times, impassable roads. There is also virtually no employment within the community. Her aunt immediately moved into the home to help care for Nokuphila and her disabled mother when her father passed away. With no job and no income, simply surviving was a constant struggle.
As workshops are held throughout each of our communities across Africa, testimonies of the transformation occurring in our Care Workers lives are being told by our local leaders as they witness the work of God in many lives.. As the revelation of His sacrifice and love becomes real to our Care Workers, they are experiencing a completely new reality and a completely new Saviour.
Kasongo’s story could have ended with her wandering the streets of Kikula with her siblings, desperately trying to survive. With no means of supporting herself, Kasongo began to suffer physically from a lack of food. The trauma of her father dying and the rejection of her mother abandoning her have left deep scars in this young girl.
Care Workers are the men and women from local churches who have committed their lives to caring for vulnerable and traumatised children. But many of them have suffered their own traumatic experiences of abuse and abandonment. Though many Care Workers desire to provide holistic care for the most vulnerable children in their community, often the pain within their own hearts affects their ability to give.
Leyton Wood was a volunteer with Hands at Work in Australia even before coming to Africa. Now back in Australia, he was given an opportunity to share at his church, President Avenue Community Church. Leyton tells stories of the “contrast between hardship and happiness” he witnessed with his own eyes and heart.
Madeline* is a 10-year-old girl living in Chilabula, a small village 30 kilometres from the town of Luanshya in Zambia. Madeline is now in grade 2 and enjoys going to school. One day, she hopes to become a nurse so she can help people in need. When she is not at school, she enjoys playing games and collecting wild fruits with her friends.
Marc has been a volunteer with Hands at Work since 2007. From Calgary, Canada, he is currently based at the Hub in South Africa where he serves as Project Support Leader. As a long term volunteer, Marc has experienced first-hand the trials and stirrings of living in a growing Christ-centred community with a focus to serve the most vulnerable.
A past volunteer with Hands at Work, Jessie's story reveals the wrestling she faced when she met the most vulnerable children and those who serve them in Africa. Years later, she continues to be challenged by God and the Hands at Work family to care and advocate for the most vulnerable back home in the US.
Tuesday December 10, 2013
Family,
Looking back at 2013 for Hands at Work on the very day of Nelson Mandela’s funeral is very emotional and yet a rewarding experience for me as an African and a South African. Today I am so proud to belong to the global Hands at Work family fighting injustice by reaching out to the most vulnerable children in Africa.
I see some characteristics in Mandela’s life that we hold dear to in the Hands family. He had an amazing ability to cross cultural barriers. His whole life reflected sacrificial giving. Not only did he spend most of his adult life in prison, but once he was released he continued to live a sacrificial lifestyle. During his time as President of South Africa he gave his full salary every month towards those in poverty. After he completed his career as a politician he started the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. He never stopped living a life of giving! He believed in and encouraged others all the time that an individual can make a difference in this world. Each one should just do what he or she can do.
Care Workers together in a Maranatha Workshop in ZimbabweIn the beginning of 2013, Hands at Work leaders across Africa came together in Zambia. After a time of prayer and deep introspection, a renewed commitment was made to accept full responsibility for Hands and the vision we believe God gave us to live out. Part of our time together was living in one of the poorest communities with the children and grandmothers we care for. It was a time of deep impact and out of it we developed Maranatha Workshops. Maranatha means, “Come Lord”. These workshops are an invitation for Jesus to come and reveal His Father's heart to the Care Worker. In this time, Care Workers begin to recognise the wounds that are deep within themselves. That due to the wounds they carry, they have often wounded others out of that pain. Now the realisation is being awakened to the One true healer. The One who came to pour His life into their hearts and bring restoration to their lives. The workshops have clarified the different role players in the Hands model and how we can support and encourage each other to reach the children and their Care Workers in the best possible way. Our commitment is to do this workshop in every one of our communities before the end of June 2014. As we end 2013 we have already reached many communities in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. The stories from the workshops are encouraging and we have discovered just how much pain and brokenness exists within the communities.
A highlight this year was to see how individuals and families not only visited us in Africa, but how they went home and mobilised their international communities to adopt the African communities they visited on the ground. We also saw short-term volunteers return home and then bring teams to Africa. They refused to just carry on living their lives as they had before coming to Africa. They became advocates among their circles of influence. I stayed in the homes of families all over the world where they would show me photos of our children in Africa and tell me those children’s names. They were praying for them every day!
In 2013 we had our first advocacy day in Chicago and friends of Hands came from all over the US to join us. A number of people with professional careers have cut back their working hours so they can volunteer their time to support Hands. Their skill and time will make such a difference in the countries where they live, and for us in Africa this is such an encouragement to see people accepting our vision with us and committing themselves to it.
Carolyn and George speaking to the Hands at Work family at the Hub in South AfricaAs I mentioned, this is the day of Mandela’s funeral. But this is also the day when Carolyn and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Early this morning, as we prayed together we had such a sense of overwhelming gratefulness. God is so good to us! He kept us together, He provided for our daily needs, He blessed us with children, grandchildren, and many amazing friends. He gave us a heart and dream to serve others. He showed us His heart! We raise an Ebenezer today declaring loud and clear that we serve a great and faithful God. Right from the start of our marriage, Carolyn and I agreed what our core values would be and we never negotiated away from them. We held to Galatians 6:9, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
We want to give that verse to everyone who is part of the Hands family and who believes in the dream of a better life for those we are serving. Hold to a dream bigger than yourself, commit to core values, and be held accountable. Today we stand as living testimonies that once you start to live for others and not yourself, you will always look back and say, “I received undeserving favor!”
George.
In our work in Africa, we talk a lot about having conviction to serve the most vulnerable children. We see a crisis, and hope people all over the world will respond with an understanding of the urgency needed.
Nelson Mandela lived his life in response to an urgent need, to a crisis. His bold conviction challenged, and continues to challenge all of us to rid the world of suffering. Inequality and injustice were non-negotiable to him. They had to end, and he would not stop until they did.
His passing leaves this challenge to our generation. How will we rid the world of suffering? How far will we go to live out our convictions? Look what happened when he laid his life down for what he believed in. Look, and act.
The season of Advent begins today. As we prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ to us, we remember that we are called to visit others as Jesus visited us. At Hands at Work, the foundation of our care is holy home visits. Christa and Daytona, two of our international volunteers, explore how God has called us to wait on Him, serve the most vulnerable children, and keep our hearts focused on what the coming of Christ truly means.
Holy Home Visits
by Christa Roby
In the formative years of Hands at Work, a group of people joined together with a heart to care for the many patients dying of HIV and AIDS. Through this time of visiting patients in their homes, another layer of need was discovered: the orphaned child. These children were wandering in the streets and hiding behind closed doors. They were the lost, the broken, and the abandoned. Having lost their families to HIV and AIDS, and with little to no support, they did not know where to turn or how to care for themselves. They had no voice and were slipping between the cracks. Hands at Work became attuned to the harsh reality these children were living in and knew they must act. If they did not step in to support these children, where would their hope lie? In response to the cry of their hearts, Hands at Work entered into a season of committed prayer. The result was a deep conviction by God saying the way forward was to build personal relationships through home visits, being very intentional to seek out the most vulnerable children in their communities, those who otherwise might not be found.
Visiting an orphaned child in their home is to act on behalf of the absent parent. During that visit, the opportunity is given to a child to put aside the stresses of home, of responsibility, and just be a child. Home visits demand time, and can only be effective with the right desire of heart: the choice to go, and the willingness to get to know the child’s name and story. A home visit is beneficial, not just in understanding the external needs, but in spending time to engage with a child’s hurting heart, therefore bringing value and worth into their soul. Home visits may carry a high personal cost of time, emotion, and energy. But like the gospel, they bring transformation. We know we have been adopted into Christ's family and we want to see the same realisation in our children. We cannot create a culture of changing lives through brief service. Change does not come quickly; it comes with time and commitment.
Hands at Work is being reminded that the core of a home visit is in what Christ has done for us. He found us in our deepest time of need, visited us, invested in our lives, and renewed in us who we are. It is essential that during home visits, we wait. We wait for Christ to show up. We wait on His leading. We often wait even for the words to say. But we know that in our waiting, there is always something to come. We are expectant people.
Waiting on the Messiah
by Daytona Swarbrick
We do not put life on pause to wait, but we continue to wait, as we have for years - thousands of them. We wait patiently sometimes, and with desperation at other times. We are waiting on God. As the Israelites waited in Egypt for God to show up, we wait today. As the prophet Isaiah awaited the time when the Messiah would arrive, so we wait each year.
And now we wait again, expectantly, during this advent season. We await the celebration of the nativity. Nativity is that incarnation - that coming - that we have been waiting patiently and desperately for, for so many years. Even as we are aware of the coming of the Messiah so long ago, we live in this tension of the now and that which is to come. There is an imminence that is felt and seen in the faithful practice of love. We see this evidence of the kingdom of God here and now, and yet we still wait for His presence in places where pain and poverty and death persist. Patiently and desperately, faithfully and hopefully we wait for God to show up. As we wait, life happens around us; with colour and vitality at times, but often just in the mundane.
There are homes we enter that have mud and stick walls with sparse thatching on the roof, doing little to dissuade the torrential African rains. We sit with grandmothers who are struggling to find food for the children that have been left in their care. Sitting in those homes, doctrine and theology somehow lose their value. At that moment, when we sit amidst the pain, and see eyes of fear, and understand a little of what grieves the grandmother and what gives her life, we understand our dependence on the Messiah. We must wait. Together, humbly, we approach the throne and wait for God to "show up" for us. How can we do anything less? What could be better? To be in the presence of God together is what we long for. Do we not say, "OUR Father...Your name is Holy. Let your kingdom come here on Earth as it is in your perpetual presence"?
We wait for the advent of our Lord, this Emmanuel. We do this faithfully and hopefully. Each year, the church enters this season as a symbol to keep the focus of the Messiah close to our hearts. December 1st, 2013 begins that season again. May we all experience the coming of Emmanuel this season and in each moment when we dare to approach God together, and wait.
This Christmas, Hands at Work has an opportunity for you to give to the most vulnerable children in Africa. Your gift will bless a child with access to education, basic health care, and one nutritious meal per day. A child like Chibesa…
Chibesa (middle, yellow shirt) waits in line for his daily nutritious mealChibesa is a six-year-old boy who lives in Chibote, one of the poorest communities in Zambia. Abandoned by his parents, Chibesa has been raised by his aunt, Peggy, who has struggled to provide for her household of 12. She could not send Chibesa to school, and most days he went to sleep without eating. Fortunately, Ruth began visiting Peggy and quickly realised how desperate her family was for even basic support. Ruth is one of many local volunteer Care Workers who are caring for the most vulnerable in their community. She arranged for Chibesa to receive a free daily meal, access to education and basic health care. In love and compassion, Ruth has taken Peggy and her family into her heart. And Peggy, wanting to be a blessing in return, has become a Care Worker! She walks alongside Ruth ensuring many more children are able to survive, and know they are loved.
Chibesa is receiving love through Ruth and Peggy, and because of this, he has hope. Through your giving, you can support Care Workers across Africa who desire to be able to provide for the children they care for physically, emotionally and spiritually. Your generosity will not only bless others, but we believe you too will be blessed as you witness the transformation your support can make in the life of a child.
If you want to give and support the transformation of a child this Christmas, please learn more about the giving options for your country:
Australia | Canada | South Africa | UK | US | Other
You may want to give on behalf of someone else. Download & Print the Gift Cards and distribute to your friends and family. With four cards to choose from, these gift cards tell the stories of Chibesa and three other children who now have hope for life and life abundantly. Through your giving, people in your life can read and share these stories, becoming a voice for the voiceless as well.
This season, may we all reflect on the birth of Jesus. He came down from heaven to be with us on earth as a human. And like so many children today, he was born into vulnerability. "And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."-Luke 2:7
This year, spread the message of Christ's love for the vulnerable children of Africa with Hands at Work Christmas cards.
We have six greeting card designs for you to choose from!
Select your country to download and print:
Australia | Canada | South Africa | UK | US | Other
Standard size 5x7 inch greeting cards
