New HBCT workers join us!

It's been another great week at Refilwe, as I've been working with the Home-based Care Team (HBCT). On Tuesday, we had eight new people join us. Two people are planning to leave at the end of February, but our numbers are still growing. One of the eight is a full-time driver, who will be transporting the teams to the communities and will allow us do more visitation. Also, three of the new members are actually Congolese nurses. They are not yet certified to practice as nurses in South Africa, but their knowledge and experience will be very valuable to the team. So, the week has been full of more changes and paperwork as we've rearranged our strategies for doing home visits. The group is now split up into teams and each team will go to a particular area all of the time. This will hopefully allow for more continuity and better relationship building as we go out. This video is the team singing a song as people gathered for a health education talk at a nearby community. I'm not certain of all the words, but it talks about the Lord Jehovah and how He is all powerful, nothing is more powerful. That's enough for me to want to join them!

Here are some more pictures of the team:

And just some other pics of the week:

My Birthday

My birthday...this is a video of Bongane and Isaac, two co-workers at Refilwe, singing birthday cheer to me on Wednesday. The office staff also got me a cake and sang to me. In the evening, I had some people over and we ate too much food, cake, and soda! Here's to another marvelous year.

Presentations at Sunnyside

This is Sunnyside, one of the informal settlements near Refilwe that we visit as a Home-Based Care Team (HBCT). Sometimes people are at these settlements temporarily because they are working in the area and they actually have an established home elsewhere. Others have lived here for a long time and so this is home. Still others came looking for family, didn't find them, and didn't have money to leave or a place to go back to. There's a lot of history here. Everyone has a story, but generally, there's a lot of poverty and needs at places like this. The HBCT had been preparing some education sessions this week and did one at this community on Friday morning. The topic was Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), with a focus on abstinence until marriage, being faithful to one partner after marriage, and condom use when sexually active. This goes hand in hand with HIV/AIDS and is a huge problem in this area and country. Here are some more pictures of the people and the presentation:

I was listening to a song the other night which was a big encouragement to me, so I pass it along to you, wherever you are. The song is "If You Say So" by Rita Springer

"If you say go, we will go. If you say wait, we will wait. If you say step out on the water and they say it can't be done, we'll fix our eyes on you and we will come.

Your ways are higher than our ways. And the plans that you have laid are good and true. If you called us to the fire, You will NOT withdrawal your hand. We'll gaze into the flames and look for You."

Pictures of REFILWE Children

Pictures as promised! These are pictures of the children from the daycare receiving their breakfast of maize meal porridge.

Just some more pictures of cute children! The baby is the neice of one of my Home-based care workers. The pic of the guys playing soccer is on the yard in front of the houses, which they do nearly every day. More to come, for sure...

The Rain Came DOWN

Week 2: I think it could best be described as WET. It has been a great week, but the weather seems to be unpredictable, at least to me! But, the sun also shines between the rain and the weather overall is really great right now.

I think I'll summarize the week with a short story. And, unfortunately, I don't have great pictures to accompany, so you'll have to use your imagination. Pictures of these places will come, but I'm actually glad I didn't have my camera with me this week.

I went with the Home-Based Care Team (HBCT) to a shanty town for home visits on Wednesday morning. It was cloudy, but I didn't want to give in to their predictions of rain so that we could sit around all morning. It started thundering and raining at our first visit, but we were thankfully inside and it stopped by the time we were ready to leave, so I thought, "look at that, we'll be fine and God has just worked that storm out so we can keep working!" We did a few more visits, but rain was again threatening. It then started to POUR with close lightning. We found a house, which is actually where one of my team members lives and waited there for about an hour until our ride came. The rain was running in the cracks between the slats of the walls and blowing in at the door. I was freezing as we sat there and the rain seemed to be relentless. A few people managed to scrounge up some umbrellas so when it was noon, we ran in the still heavy rain up to the place where we met our ride. The what was once a road, had turned into a RIVER. And we were going up stream. Careful stepping (so as not to slip on a rock or sink to your knees in mud and lose a flip-flop) and large strides helped in this process. Meanwhile, I was trying not to let any of the paperwork get wet! Ha! It was quite an adventure. And eye opening as well. I mean, this is what people deal with every day and it can be challenging and stressful. I now understand what my team members mean when they say they couldn't sleep through the night because of the rain.

We did have some other good visits this week, in the sunshine! As we've been trying to finish assessment forms on each client we're seeing, it has been good for me to visit with the team and help them be more efficient in their work.

This upcoming week will be busy with more visits, some health eduction to the communities on STIs and condom use, and moving into my new house. Thanks for your prayers!