We have a brand new member on our team.  MANCO realized since we started the new therapy with the amazing assistance and guidance from the local Com Serve team (see photo below) that we would need a very special person on board to steer this ship.  I must admit I often felt quite panicky about it but I have had to learn all over again that we serve a good God and He supplies all our needs and at the beginning of October we welcomed Mary Orpwood who has accepted a part time position as co-ordinator of the therapy in the Esinqobile Therapy Centre.  She has experience working with mentally disabled people and has a special affinity and heart for our precious children.  Already she has come in like a little whirlwind and moved furniture and commandeered an extra room and become hands on involved in learning from the Physiotherapists and occupational therapists, applying specific therapies for each child and supervising and guiding the carers to implement the new regimes.  After all my worrying, all I can do is watch “gobsmacked”(my children’s favourite word and so expressive, don’t you think?)  how things are happening.

Much to Neils Luyt’s (our “engineer on site”, who in his retirement has been keeping the wheels oiled,) relief, Mary is also a star gardener and has taken over the running of the veggie garden with Nkosinathi’s help.  However, her first words, when she saw the garden were “This soil is terrible!”.  So… calling all local farmers!  If any of you would like to spread some manure around we would be so grateful for a few loads to get the soil up to scratch. 

Our community outreach team has steadily continued with their door to door visitations as well as delivering food and clothes to the needy in the community.  They have also assisted Peter with the showing of the Jesus film at some of the local schools and community halls and quite a few young people have taken the call to following Jesus seriously.  The youth in this country really need hope for their futures and they need guidance and love and compassion to help them make good decisions at this crucial stage of their lives.

We are also very happy to announce the arrival of little Lucy Barton, to Clare and Marc our very dear friends in London who have supported us so generously in the past 18 months. Below is a picture of Lucy with her “big” brother and sister.

Container Ministries from Grace Church in Durban have a wonderful ministry of receiving containers full of “stuff”  from all over the world to be distributed amongst the needy in African countries.  They are very conscientious about distributing these gifts from our overseas friends and HNO is one of the organizations that is part of this distribution network.  We receive a lot of dehydrated vegetable soup mixes, which are wonderfully healthy pot fillers and it is a great privilege to be part of this.

I have just delivered some of the soup to an organization in Mphopomeni called Sizanani WC group, which is made up of a group of old retired grannies “ogogo” who cook meals for local orphans and help them with their homework. I was so glad some of those kids were around because those boxes were heavy.

That’s all folks… for now!