Day 10. Tuesday 17thSeptember Zwelisha visit two We had an early start today with three groups going out for the holy home visit. The group I was with went to a family that had no father and an ill mother, so Witness a nineteen year old mother herself cared after the children.Nothando a sister of 12 year old, Prudence an 11 year old sister, Ayanda a 5 year with poorly eyes and a brother Sethu of 4 years old. The mother had money problems and her allowance cards for the children had been taken away from her. So she was not getting enough money to feed or clothe the children correctly. At the care point you could see in their eyes that things were not good at home, it was good to go to their home and witness their home life which was not good, Stella prayed for Witness and Grace a lady from another team gave her some encouraging words.We then went back to the care-point with Witness and Nothando were we joined in with the singing and dancing competition were we came last ,but was great to see the children laughing and joining in with the fun, we joined the children with a rice and chicken meal,then headed off back to the hub. A good day, thank you lord.

The team I was in visited a family with Melody , Carla and Julia (one of the Care workers from the care point.) The family consisted of a boy,       Success,17,his sister Lindslae,11 and 2 youngerbrothers Polite and Reboy,7 and 5. They haven’t seen their mother for over a month, she just disappears . She has an alcohol problem as many do here. The father is doing peace work in a nearby town and gets home occasionally. Success looks after the family as he has had to leave school after completing Grade 8 but now he can’t go back as he doesn’t have the right papers. It’s a common problem here and very difficult to solve. It relys on the mother producing the paper ID. Success was very sad. He said his dream had been to be a doctor because he wanted to care for people but now he had lost all hope of that. We can’t imagine anything like that happening in the UK. We tried to encourage him and say there were other good things he could do caring for people. We prayed with him for his papers to be sorted out so he could return to school and also for their mother to return. Then we took the younger children back to the Care point for lunch and to play. It was a long walk back and very hot. Onceback, we too joined in with the singing and dancing which was hilarious but I keep thinking aboutSuccess and his struggles in life.

We promised to keep praying for these children and their situations. We heard other stories of some of the other children there and it’s all so sad but Hands at Work do what they can to encourage them through the Care workers.

‘Success’ and his family