You Cook On What?!?

One of the joys of what we do is getting to spend time in places like Chris Nissen Park and Broadlands visiting our many friends there. It's especially fun and joyous at this time of year as we get to take some amazing blessings in to them, particularly our HOPE ladies, who have been blessed by so many friends in Blighty.

However we were shocked by L's living situation. L is an amazing lady who never grumbles and is always a genuine ray of sunshine despite the seemingly continual knock-backs she takes.

Delivering Food Parcels - Round 1

We've had a fun and blessed morning delivering food parcels in Chris Nissen, Broadlands and to a rather chuffed car guard at the local mall.

One of the true joys of what we do is to be at the coal face of blessing people, and seeing the delight and gratitude of recipients never grows old.

Blessings

We had the privilege of visiting our beloved HOPE Home Based Care ladies this morning and were able to bless them with small gifts thanks to the generosity of some special friends in Blighty.

It blesses us so much to be able to love on the ladies in this way and to hear their grateful hearts as they pray and give thanks to God for you.  This is true partnership.

Thank you to those that made this possible!

Update On Aunty Henna

I'm delighted to say that Aunty Henna is home again!

She had pneumonia and has high BP. I was thrilled to visit today and find family members buying her food and pouring over her Discharge form with a dictionary!! As usual, everyone was waiting for me (the non medic!) to explain the medication! So what have you been up to I ask her, "praying" she answers! She really is my very own Aunt Clara from The War Room!! Such fun also to see her face as she was blessed with a DVD player, one of her heart's desires

Thank you Lord!

Aunty Henna

Over the years many of you have visited our friends in Chris Nissen Park and will remember my dear friend Aunty Henna from the HOPE Home Based Care team. Please will you pray for her as she is now in hospital with a respiratory infection and the Dr is also querying a stroke. I have just been to see her and we talked, read the Bible and prayed together. As we might expect, she is in her usual great spirit, full of faith and can't wait to leave and go home! That I can understand as the conditions at the hospital are really not great.

R.I.P. Aunty Poppy

20 September 2013 will go down in history as the day the earth lost a precious lady, a woman who spent her life giving and serving, a woman who loved Jesus with all her heart, all her mind and all her strength, a woman who loved her family and pursued unity at all costs.

Aunty Poppy was one of my first real friends in South Africa, very quickly she won her way into my heart and before long I regarded her as my South African mother. She loved me and my family with a passion and could never wait to see any visiting members of my own family from the UK, particularly my Dad!

Aunty Poppy

We were saddened to learn this morning that Aunty Poppy is again seriously ill and has been admitted to intensive care.

She recently had a major heart attack and home life is very hectic and stressful for her.

Please pray for Aunty Poppy!

A Tree Has Been Planted

If you managed to catch up with Paula at one of her recent Facing The Mountain Roadshows in Weald or Cheadle you will have seen our latest DVD offering.

If you didn't manage to catch up with Paula, shame on you you can watch the film right here from the comfort of your own computer screen.

We hope you find it helpful as you uphold our ministry here in Macassar in prayer.

So get some popcorn, put your feet up and enjoy the next 16½ minutes.

Girls Will Be Girls!

I had a very eagerly anticipated "girly" coffee morning with 4 special ladies at my house today - it was time to get my wonderful HOPE home based carers out of their community for a few hours to just spend time chatting, laughing, eating and reviewing the past year! Each lady is a special nugget of gold, they will definitely be taking their places at God's top table one day!! It was so good to enjoy some lovely food and to potter around the garden chatting about patients and friends and our lives.

Neighbourhood Watch CNP Style

So often in life it is the same people who do everything and this is often met with criticism or complaint.  In the case of Chris Nissen Park we are always so thrilled to see men and women who are solid, full of Jesus Christ and committed to serving in their community taking on the roles.

It is so exciting to see again two of the HOPE Home Based Care team taking the lead in Chris Nissen in the fight against crime. All of these ladies are loved in the community and we are proud of them. In particular go Anne and go Aunty Poppy!!

Royal Treatment

Sometimes in life special people get rewarded. I was so thrilled to see that our local community newspaper printed an article on my HOPE Home Based Care team. We were recently blessed for lunch by our friends at Taste Restaurant and the paper picked up on it. Let's hope we get some local interest, these amazing women do what they do for nothing!

A Little 'Taste' Of Heaven!

Sometimes God gives us an incredible little taster of the blessings that are to come one day for those who love Him and serve Him.  Yesterday was one such day as Paula was privileged to escort her 5 lovely ladies, four from HOPE Home Based Care, Chris Nissen Park and one whom we trained and sent out into Broadlands Park, to lunch at the fabulous Taste Restaurant, Somerset West.

Mission Ed' Videos Part 1

HOPE (Hands On, Prayer & Evangelism) Home Based Care Team video produced for our 2010 mission education trip to the UK. We used this video as part of our main Powerpoint presentation.

This video is a follow up to our previous HOPE video

Life, Death & Cake!

Once again the weekend demonstrated what a diverse life we seem to live at the moment, and quite how many opportunities we have to participate in all walks of life and be ready with a word of encouragement, listening ear, tissue(!) etc. etc.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Despite the silence on the blog we're still alive and very much kicking. We hate it when we don't keep the blog up to date but sometimes things happen in life which are just not appropriate to be shared in a public way so it's best just to say nothing. All we will say is that the last few weeks have been very tough as we grapple with issues which have been bubbling for some time and whilst we're prepared to put the past behind us and move on others aren't which is tough to deal with.

So here's an overview of just what we've been up to....

New Favourite Activity

One of the joys of our life is that during the school holidays we have to share the childcare and this morning is one such occasion. Paula is in Chris Nissen Park with the HOPE Home Based Care Team which means I'm stuck with the boys, my equivalent of a 'snowday'. It's a hard life.

So this morning we combined our new favourite activity of dog walking with our old favourite activity of throwing stones into the river at Radloff Park.

Feeding Programme

One of the joys of being involved in the stuff we are is that we get to distribute food to some of the most vulnerable and neediest people in Chris Nissen Park.

Each month the food is provided by St. George's in Weald, Paula's home church and the Phillipi Trust here in Somerset West.

The distribution is specifically targeted through our home based care team; HOPE with the most vulnerable patients being at the top of the list. Amazingly, the usual gossip and jealousy which has often dogged feeding programmes in CNP and other places seems to be diminishing in CNP as the community are beginning to recognise how and why the food is distributed.

For us it's a real privilege to be able to bless some dear folk with desperately needed food which makes a massive difference to their daily lives.

Treats & Blessings

Regular readers of our blog may remember Paula writing about the fundraiser she attended recently for the Christmas party for children who attend the ARV clinic at our local hospital (Down To Earth With A Bump). During the event the lady who owns the restaurant in the Nature Reserve invited Paula to bring her HOPE ladies for a treat lunch one day. So, today was the elected day and following our morning visiting in Chris Nissen, Paula and a friend transported the ladies to the Reserve for a real treat!

Aunty M

I took a phone call from one of the home based carers last night asking me to come in to Chris Nissen today because the mother of one of our patients who died last year had just been taken into hospital. I went in to find a very classic situation of hopelessness! It seems that Aunty M has classic first signs of Alzheimer's disease. She is not recognizing family members, getting very confused and upset and is generally causing anxiety to everyone around her. The worrying thing is that she spends every day supposedly caring for her 3 year old great granddaughter.

Feeding Programme

Our feeding programme in CNP continues to go well and As has become custom over the last few years, once a month we deliver food to some of the neediest folk in the community. Today we bought the food (made possible by the Phillipi Trust and St.George's Weald) for our 13 HOPE home based care patients. This is a monthly venture and really blesses the families concerned, particularly in these days of huge price rises. It is quite a big task, but, together with our local supermarket, we are finally getting a system together that runs like clockwork! We then use the bakkie to pile all the food in before taking it off for house to house deliveries - you should see the smiles on people's faces and hear their thanks!! It's very humbling.