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.
Written by Sheila Mwanza, eighteen years old and a volunteer teacher in Mulenga community school near Kitwe, Zambia. As Sheila volunteers her time to teach primary school students who cannot afford to attend government schools, she finds herself learning and growing as well.
Moses is 6 years old and is in my class at our community school in Mulenga. Both of his parents are dead. He lives with his grandmother who does not work and is not able to take care of him. Moses’s parents both died of HIV/AIDS. They left three children, Moses and his two brothers. The other two brothers, one who is blind, live with their uncle. I’m afraid that Moses, the youngest in his family, is also infected with the same disease as his parents, and I would not be surprised if I was told that he has tested HIV+.
Can you imagine a 6 year old child having to start taking ARVs and then be on them for the rest of his life? Like all of us, this child could not decide for himself into which family he would be born. But God decides in which family we should be born, and does not make mistakes. He puts us into a family of his choice for a purpose.
George Snyman recently visited Minnesota to speak with area pastors and to meet with past (and hopefully future) Hands at Work volunteers. Here is an update of his time there from a few former Hands at Work volunteers: Dara Hillstrom and Kristy and Keith Kes (pictured below).
On an unusually warm day in November in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as we walked from the restaurant to the car, George said with a shiver, "Wow, the weather is really getting bad now!" I chuckled thinking of what the weather actually could be, and will be like in the coming months.
People drove for hours to hear George's message on his first trip to Minnesota. There was a morning meeting for Pastors and Church Leaders. This meeting surely had the Holy Spirit present! It was a small group of less than ten of us present, but as George said, "I have spoken to groups large and small, and all that matters is that God is moving in the hearts of those who are present." We could not agree more. Each person who was present had a heartfelt desire for the Lord and the lost and suffering.
The same could be said of the evening event. There were tears of compassion shed for our dear brothers and sisters in Africa, who are enduring suffering and hardships. All who were in attendance were touched and moved as George challenged us, as the the church in North America, to not accept the AIDS pandemic, but rather to decide that it's time we draw a line and say that, "This is enough, we're ready to fight against this greatest humanitarian crisis of all time."
George offered an open invitation for all to come and see the work of Hands at Work - to go and love and touch people, like Jesus did. The heart of Hands at Work is real and motivating as you listen to the stories and the passion spoken from George's heart.
I believe there were hearts that were touched in Minnesota that now will be praying for the widows and orphans of Africa and those faithfully serving with Hands at Work. May this be the start of more involvement from the people of Minnesota! We pray that Minnesota will be a state that is on fire for God and HIS people around the world!
Thank you George for sharing your time and heart with us. We pray that as you travel around, speaking out God's heart for the lost and suffering, that all will have ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts that will break for God's people in Africa!
In Christ,
Dara Hillstrom and Kristy and Keith Kes
On an unusually warm day in November in Minneapolis , Minnesota , as we walked from the restaurant to the car, George said with a shiver, “Wow, the weather is really getting bad now!” I chuckled thinking of what the weather actually could be, and will be, like in the coming months.
People drove for hours to hear George’s message on this first trip to Minnesota . There was a morning meeting for the Pastors and Church Leadership. This meeting surely had the Holy Spirit present!! It was a small group of less than ten of us present, but as George said, "I have spoken to groups large and small, and all that matters is that God is moving in the hearts of those who are present". We could not agree more. Each person who was present had a heartfelt desire for the Lord, and the lost and suffering.
The same could be said of the evening event. There were tears of compassion shed for our dear brothers and sisters in Africa, who are enduring suffering and hardships. All who were in attendance were touched and moved as George challenged us, as the church in North America, to not accept the AIDS pandemic, but rather to decide that it’s time we draw a line and say that "This is enough, we’re ready to fight against this greatest humanitarian crisis of all time."
George offered an open invitation for all to come and see the work of Hands at Work- to go and love and touch people, like Jesus did. The heart of Hands at Work is real and motivating as you listen to the stories and the passion spoken from George’s heart.
I believe there were hearts that were touched in Minnesota that now will be praying for the widows and orphans of Africa and those faithfully serving with Hands at Work. May this be the start of more involvement of the people of Minnesota ! We pray that Minnesota will be a state that is on fire for God, and HIS people around the world!
Thank you George for spending your time and heart with us. We pray that as you travel around, speaking on God's heart for the lost and suffering, that all will have ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts that will break for God's people in Africa!
George will also be attending various meetings during the week with Anchor Churches, Foundations and Friends. If you would like more information on a particular event or arrange to meet with George, please contact lisa@ca.handsatwork.org
Hands at Work in Africa CEO and founder George Snyman will travel to the US in November/December to challenge churches about their role in caring for the orphaned, widowed and the dying, to cast the Hands at Work vision, and to attend strategic meetings with the organisation’s country offices and partner churches.
Hands at Work in Africa CEO and founder George Snyman will travel to the US in November to challenge churches about their role in caring for the orphaned, widowed and the dying, to cast the Hands at Work vision, and to attend strategic meetings with the organisation’s country offices and partner churches.
Tuesday, 20 OctCommon Good Foundation Insights Evening, Common Ground Café To all interested in HIV and rural social development issues and to all seeking social justice. Arrive between 18h00 and 19h00 for fellowship, cappuccinos and finger food. Guest speaker, George Snyman will begin at 19h00 and we’ll open the floor for questions afterwards.
Thursday, 22 OctPreferred Future Connect at Life Church, Sea Point (10h00-13h00)
Katherine Callaghan is a nurse from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She volunteered in the DRC for one month in April 2009
Stepping onto African soil is something that I’ve always wanted to do at some point in my life. In April this dream was fulfilled, serving with Hands at Work in the dusty soil of Congo. My time there in Africa had been challenging and inspiring, a time of restoration and discovering beauty.
Hands at Work sent me and another volunteer, Dayla, out to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and we had the honor of seeing and sharing in the work that is being done day in and day out. One day during our time in the Congo exemplified this service, so let me share it with you. We were given the opportunity to go to a school run by volunteers of the community based organisation in the city of Likasi called Toyota School. It had been arranged that we would spend a morning with the children and volunteers, playing games and teaching Bible stories. The school teaches grades one, two, and three and has over two hundred children from the Toyota community, all of whom are orphans or children in a vulnerable situation. The school is run by volunteers from the community who invest in, build up, and serve these children simply because it is what the Bible says and it is what God has called them to do.
Hands at Work in Africa will be at Why Everything Must Change, Foundations for Social Justice Conference featuring The Shack author, Paul Young, October 23 – 24, 2009.
Last year October, Living Truth, based in Toronto Canada, aired two programs highlighting Hands at Work in Africa’s work in Mozambique and South Africa. The telethon raised sizeable funds to care for the vulnerable children of Africa by providing access to education, healthcare and food security through care centres.
Due to the success of the programs, Living Truth returned to Africa to film updates from the countries they originally covered, and also to highlight new areas in which Hands is working. The programs are about to air in Canada and parts of the States.
11 Oct 2009 Mozambique 18 Oct 2009 South Africa and Zimbabwe 25 Oct 2009 Malawi
Kennedy Kashiwa, 14, has faced many obstacles. Following the death of his parents, he and his older sister moved in with their grandmother who had no steady source of income - an uncomfortably common story in the impoverished communities surrounding the city of Kabwe, Zambia where Kennedy lives. But Kennedy has faced more adversity than most. At the age of 7, the young boy fell from a tree and, because there was no money to seek treatment and no access to aid for health purposes, he lost his ability to walk. Kennedy couldn’t attend school for a long time because he had no means of getting there.
Recently, concerned care workers communicated Kennedy’s story to a donor in Canada, Visionledd. Now, Kennedy has been given a wheel chair and can attend school and, though the setbacks have placed him at a grade 4 school level, Kennedy has strong aspirations to complete his education.
Kennedy is regularly visited by local care workers who monitor his health and provide food parcels. The donation of a wheelchair has made an immeasurable difference in Kennedy’s life. Because of the love and encouragement of local care workers, Kennedy has hope once again and dreams of one day visiting specialists to help him walk again.
It had been one year since I’d met Jaos and Luisa. That was July, 2008, and I found them sitting together in the dust outside of their straw home in Nhamatonda, Mozambique. They hadn’t eaten in at least two days, and had been hungry for months. That day was the first time I’d ever encountered such hunger. Their mother had died a year earlier. Their father couldn’t use the upper left side of his body due to an accident.
A local Hands at Work group of volunteers had “adopted” the family, meaning they would take responsibility for their care and wellbeing. This was good news. But the faces of those two children haunted me. A photo of them was lodged in my memory.
In response to the massive need of Nigeria’s most vulnerable children, Hands at Work partners are challenging and training church leaders in the poorest areas of 3 regions across the country: Lagos, Ibadan and Kano. Recently, more than 200 leaders were trained in 3 – 5 day workshops.
A multi-country training workshop for the first ever group of Hands at Work Regional care trainers from Congo, Malawi, and Zambia was held in June at the Kachele Farm outside Luyanshya, Zambia, led by Levy Mwende, a long-time Hands at Work trainer and home-based care champion. These trainers will lead the training of other volunteers in their home regions, making the replication of the Hands at Work model of caring for vulnerable children more efficient and locally sustainable. . Special emphasis was given to the vulnerable children and their real need of love and affection as we minister to their felt physical needs
Fifty-nine bicycles were donated to Community Based Organisations around Kabwe, Zambia. Care Workers are now able to visit those in need in their community more often and when needed use their bikes to transport patients to the clinic. They used to have to walk long distances especially to the most vulnerable who are often located on the fringes of communities, now they are overjoyed with this gift from Tour d’Afrique.
A recent partnership struck in Congo will bring life and hope to desperate patients and families suffering from AIDS by providing free access to life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) medication. Patients in the community of Likasi, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) have never had access to ARV’s, leaving most AIDS patients (including mothers and fathers) no future other than death. Hands at Work in DRC has had a great longing to see their patients live longer, healthier lives. For too long they’ve seen broken families because of the death of one or more members due to HIV/Aids. Through a long process Hands at Work in DRC have finally been able to see their dream come to a reality. All patients now have access to free testing and treatment through AMOCongo.
A poem written by June Vorster after the God revealed His broken heart for the plight of the orphan and the widow. She is a 70 year old living in South African who recently met George Snyman when he spoke at her church. She shared this poem with him and now we share it with you.
I see you sitting all alone and forlorn, Why my little one? Your clothes are all tattered and torn, Why my little one?
I see the emptiness in your dark brown eyes, The sores on your legs covered with flies, I see your thoughts and feel your shame, I cry when you cry, I feel your hunger, your pain.
Wrtten by George Snyman, founder of Hands at Work.
As my bus entered the outskirts of Kabwe town in Zambia, I remember staring out of the window and seeing the terrible slum for the first time. “Why have I never seen it before?” I wondered, and the next day asked Eric, the Hands at Work representative, about it. Eric’s words still ring clear in my mind to this day.He said, “George, not even the Catholics work in that area!” I understood what he meant – if the Catholics don’t work in an area, then nobody will work there. Seeing my yes, Eric knew what was about to happen next! And the next morning we entered Makululu. I wanted to know why Makululu existed and what made it such a difficult place.Eric and other community leaders explained to me that when President Chaluba came into power in the nineties, he launched a huge initiative to privatize the country’s mines and most of the factories. The whole exercise went horribly wrong for a number of reasons, and most of the deals were characterised by huge corruption. Within a year, most of these mines and factories closed down completely. It had a devastating impact on cities like Kabwe, and overnight thousands of people lost their jobs and houses. Adding to this, many rural people left their homes after a series of bad crops and flooded the bigger towns like Kabwe looking for work – all of these events contributed to the mushrooming of people in the informal settlement called Makululu.
The first day we walked the roads of Makululu there was no clinic, no government school, no government services like police or social workers, and no NGO activities. I was overwhelmed by what I saw: children in the streets trying to sell paraffin in small
In October, 2008 Mark Zweigenthal, a youth pastor and a friend of Hands at Work living in Johannesburg, spent a week in Lagos, Nigeria visiting the Hands at Work team and its local partners working in the slums of the city of 18 million people. Here is a record of his experience.
Leaving my home in Johannesburg, South Africa I was completely unaware of the adventure that awaited me in Lagos. Having been previously to Uganda, Zambia, as well as on many mission trips within South Africa I thought I had a good idea of what I was in for-until I stepped off the plane in Lagos and was confronted with a crisis of new proportions. I can honestly say that this week in Lagos wrecked my life (in the best way possible).
It’s fair to say that we live in a world of complete contrast, a contrast between the rich and the poor, oppressed and free, and a world where injustice wreaks havoc and materialism reigns. In my trip to Lagos I got to see how the other half live, love, and deal with this ever increasing poverty gap. A hugely humbling and eye-opening experience, one which I will never forget.
I do not believe that one can actually understand the crisis in Africa until one has touched it and shared the pain and challenges of the people who deal with it everyday. During this week I got the opportunity to experience this situation in a very unique and challenging way. I took part in many different aspects of the Hands at Work project in Lagos. All of which affected my life hugely.
Shooting went well for this years Living Truth telethon to raise funds for Hands at Work in Mozambique and Zimbabwe! We’re really excited to share this event with an even wider audience of Hands supporters this year. Dates for broadcast are as follows:
Oct 11 Mozambique update and stories Oct 18 South Africa update and new Zimbabwe stories Oct 25 Malawi
You can check out www.livingtruth.ca for specific broadcast times. Please send this on to your friends at home who have the opportunity to watch.
Thanks for your interest and support of this exciting event!
The pulse of Africa is felt in six-year-old Lebo. She carries a story of brokenness in her heart but fights back with a strong and resilient spirit. This is the tension that exists within Lebo and within Africa. Lebo's mother and father died of AIDS when she was only a baby, and left her with the same disease, which is slowly claiming her life. There is no access to affordable treatment for AIDS in her community.
Lebo lives, along with her brother, sister, and elderly grandparents, in the city of Likasi. They stay in a one-bedroom brick home that has neither electricity nor running water. Lebo’s grandfather worked in a copper mine for thirty years before being forced into mandatory retirement in 1995; he now stays at home most of the time and takes care of his wife, who is blind and requires assistance with basic tasks.
George Snyman will be in Gauteng and North-West area this weekend speaking at a number of events facilitated by World Missions AOG
Friday 31st July 2009 George will be sharing his personal testimony and on how the church can be effective in their justice and missions endeavors. 13H00 Preferred Future Connect, Assemblies of God Missions Conference, Vanderbijlpark.
Saturday 1st August 2009 George will be downloading his burden and passion for justice to tomorrows African leaders. 10H00 RIOT Camp (age 14-25 yrs.) in Rustenburg.
Sunday 2nd August 2009 George will be sharing his journey and growing heart for the poor and vulnerable. 08H30 Assemblies of God Church Service, Rustenburg 10H30 Assemblies of God Church Service, Rustenburg 18H45 Highway AOG church service, Johannesburg
If you wan't to get involved in any of this, please contact: Nobsi Sibanda 0836966028
