Miller Family

The Miller Family joined us in March during their Spring break holiday time. Together as a family, they served us and everyone at Restoring Hope Village. Their visit was very timely as they were able to help with the final touches on the O'Tools house plus other projects. The Village kids were also able to enjoy their two girls.

Karinne spent hours in our storage container organizing the clothing, shoes and household items we have. Now every time we open the doors and have to find something we think of Karinne and all the hard work she did. Thanks so much! 

Painting and hanging kitchen cabinets in the O'Tool's house

Thanks so much for being with us and for all your hard work. Your willingness to work hard and late into the night was a big blessing. 

Crafts and Games

While the last two groups of volunteers were here the kids were able to do a few things they love with the extra help around and that was crafts and games. All of the children enjoy doing crafts and being able to put their creative mind to work. 

{Crafting preparation}

The other activity is playing games. Any type of game is great. In one evening we had Jenga, Go Fish, Matching, Sorry, Bop-it, Uno and who knows what else going on. Thanks for all the fun!

Camping Fun

Recently our tent has been the highlight during the weekends and school holiday time. We have the tent in our back yard (or back garden as Liam calls it) & all of the kids have been taking turns sleeping in it. With winter approaching, quicker than we like, I think the tent will be getting packed away for a while. But I am sure when summer comes in a few months, the tent will be coming out again for some more fun nights.

Tumelo

Early in February, while Hope Community Church team was here, we visited the Hospice Daycare again. The ladies from the team brought with them some great crafts to do with the kids. As usual we also played games with balloons, sang lots of songs and shared a Bible story.

(craft time)

(The first day I met Tumelo at Hospice Daycare)

While we were there, the head sister (nurse) talked to me about a little boy named Tumelo. His mother had passed away a while back and he has been living with an uncle since. His uncle is now ill & often in the hospital, has no income & is struggling to care for Tumelo. The sister was asking us to help them get a place for him at Restoring Hope Village. She had already been phoning the social worker & leaving messages but was receiving no response. I told her I would follow-up with the social worker & see what I could do. I could tell from being with Tumelo for just a couple of hours that he was suffering. He looked healthy and his clothes we decent but he had very bad behavioral outbursts. He didn't know how to interact with the other children, when he didn't get his way he would get into a rage & he wanted to be held all the time.

(each child received a beanie baby)

In the mean time for about the next 2 weeks, I also tried to reach the social worker but received no response. After being back to Hospice two more times & hearing from the workers that his uncle was deteriorating quickly, Brian and I decided to find the social worker in person. After a bit of work, we found the social worker and she even admitted she had messages from the worker at Hospice. She said she was going to get to his situation sometime but didn't know when. Brian asked if we could take her in our car to the boy's house but she said no. We then offered to bring the boy and his uncle to her office and she agreed. Our first attempt to fetch the uncle we found him gone and the neighbor said he went to the clinic. We checked back the next week and located him. Brian & our houseparents went to fetch the uncle and Tumelo and took them to the social worker. The entire story is way to cumbersome but it took about 6 hours to get this all accomplished.

In the end, the uncle & another uncle that came on the scene, wanted one more week with Tumelo. The social worker said that would be fine. The following Monday, Brian and I went back to the uncle's house in Thabong & fetched Tumelo.

Tumelo has been living here since April 2nd and is living with Papa Revival & Mama Phelisa with Kamohelo, Tumi, Paulina & Modiehi. Tumelo is adjusting to living here but he needs lots of patients and love from all of us. He has never been expected to obey anyone before so life here is a big adjustment. He is learning to live with a family & to behave like a little 3 year old boy should. This past Saturday night he camped out in our tent with Papa Revival and Kamohelo and he thought that was pretty cool.

(Dieketseng and Tumelo)

He has become good playmates with Liam and Lindie. We are thankful to have Tumelo here and we pray that he will come to understand about God's love at a young age.

(Uncle Brian loves giving rides on the dirt bike)

Hope Community Church

Toward the end of February a wonderful group from Hope Community Church joined us for 2 weeks. We happily welcomed back some friends that came last year and quickly became friends with those we didn't know. The two weeks this group was here was the fastest two weeks filled with lots of hard work but also lots of laughs, good discussions, spiritual refreshment & fun.

The group worked on two main projects with many other little projects wedged in also. Half of the team worked mostly with Louie on constructing our new Guest Cottage. They named themselves 'Team Block' because they moved & lifted around 900 cement blocks each weighing 32 pounds. They built the exterior walls of the cottage with the cement blocks in about 5 days. Libby and Rachel did an awesome job keeping up with Louie and Josh.

They also managed to get the roof trusses fabricated and put into place, the roof on and the ceiling completed.

While Team Block was busy building the Cottage, the rest of the team worked on constructing the beginning towers of our future playground with Brian. We have a small shortage of cement blocks right now so the towers couldn't be completed but they got as far as they could go. Brian's ideal dream for this playground is for it to resemble something of a castle. When its completed it will have 4 towers that are connected by various forms of bridges & tunnels. Two of the towers are going to be 3 levels high and the other two just 2 levels high. As you can see, Brian has put great thought into this playground. Unfortunately, right now it is just a couple of towers, but someday it will be awesome, we hope.

I also need to add that Sue stayed extra busy painting just about anything she could get her paintbrush onto. She painted our front gate that was starting to get rusty. But she spent most of her time starting and completing the detail work on the O'Tools house. She painted trim, baseboard, interior doors & anything else to make it look great.

Along with the work they also had fun with the kids but that will be for another post.

Sidewalk Chalk

We don't really have sidewalks here but we have lots of paving stones. All of the kids really enjoy being creative and drawing on the driveway. Kamohelo, age 8, had a fun afternoon making our driveway very colorful. He wanted to color the entire drive but he ran out of chalk. I guess I will need to buy 2 packages next time.

Friday Night Pizza & Movie

Often on Friday nights I make homemade pizza for supper and of course I have two big helpers. They enjoy making their own little pizzas for supper & of course making a bit of a mess along the way. It makes for a fun evening!