Pippa's Passions

Courage and happy families!

2012-02-16T09:26:00.005+02:00

Hello friends

What a busy and challenging time we have had lately!
It seems that now that the world is in full swing, the challenges of having separated the two mainhouses are being very keenly felt.

Mom has a house full of raging teenagers, each one adding their furious fuel to the fire and I have my hands full with bouncing preschoolers and homework laden school goers! We barely see each other anymore because our usual time of "catching up" at night is no longer possible. Poor mom is carrying such a heavy burden and her kids are at such a "stinky" age, the majority of them seem to delight in causing mayhem and drama! Blah!

That's where the Courage comes in. Courage to keep going, Courage to stay strong and purposeful and courage to not compromise the standards in the house!
The word has become so laden with depth and meaning for us because to avoid an absolute meltdown a week ago, I stole Mommy away to go watch a movie and it was called "Courageous", it was such a wholesome and uplifting movie. We both came away feeling enriched and energised.

You all know that the whole point of TLC is to help form, celebrate and support FAMILY, so here are a few pics that spoke to me :-)

My happy girls watching the Microlight's flying above the local airfield on a Saturday morning!

My happy hens, the proud mommies to 17 new chicks!

This was EXTRA special! Our beautiful boy, Warren finally found his Forever Family! He was placed with his new Mommy and Daddy on Friday and he is SO LOVED!
The initial 2 days were about relationship building and whilst his age makes it harder for him, I firmly believe he will be happy and settled in next to no time. We did a lot of preparation and the family had the right balance of closeness and allowing for space. It was beautiful to be a part of this!

I have to go now but could you all pass around this little need for us?

Our Trampoline mat is about to become "HOLEY"! They cost about R3000 to purchase new and another R700 to have it fittted or installed. Those who have visited will know how much joy the kids get out of this particular playground item and we desperately need to get a new one!

We love you all

Pippa

Three definitions of home

2012-02-03T12:53:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

I have been reflecting over the last few days about the meaning of :H~O~M~E

It occurs to me that each of us have similar but varying definitions for the word.

This week I have been privilege to see 3 definitions in action.

Firstly. I was approached just before the weekend last week to try and help in a most desperate situation.

There was a young girl (7yrs old) ready to be discharged from Baragwaneth Hospital. She had been there since a violent assault almost took her life in November. Physically she healed well, the damage done to her throat after it was slit had mostly healed but her broken little soul will take a lifetime.

The problem came in that whilst her mother is desperate to take her back, the man who was responsible for the attack has not been arrested and she fears for her life and the life of her 5 yr old son, on a daily basis.

Obviously we would want to help but bringing the children here was not an ideal option. After some leg work we were so blessed to find AMCARE (The outreach run by the Alberton Methodist Church). They are going to assist the mother in skills training and get her a certificate in catering and the social workers have a foster family near where the mother lives who will take the children for the interim. Our hope is that the man is arrested and the mother equipped to give her children the HOME they deserve.

The Second Experience

Lookie gets a home of her own

Many of you will remember my darling Lookie from the post long ago (http://pippaspassions.blogspot.com/2010/11/back-to-basics.html)

Well through the last few years she has been lovingly supported by TLC friends abroad, facilitated by Judy Gilmour and Liton Ministries. In late November we discovered that the house she had been living in had been registered in the name of her late sister and that her niece had inherited the house.

The niece immediately set about getting Lookie evicted and my poor old lady was once again faced with being homeless at Christmas.

But God is good and Lookie's supporters rallied around her.

This week we were able to watch her very own "HOME" being built on a plot of land in Jackson's.

This is how it went!

Lookie shows us the land she was allocated

The Builders measure up the length

They offload window frames, glass, doors, steel and wood!

They then told us "You can come back in an hour and it will be done!" We all laughed ofcourse! It takes longer than that to build a child's playhouse, surely?

Anyway, we went and visited Zoe's project, Mama Tracey's Miracle Creche. As always she was doing a tremendous job and the children all greet you with a VERY LOUD cry of "HOW ARE YOOOOOOOUUUUU!" It is so sweet.

After an hour we went back and to my surprise ...

There was a house where we had stood!

Lookie was so very happy.

The next day we went and delivered sand and cement for the floor to be completed and I will be giving her several items for her house that we recieved lots of when we made our appeal for the new farm.

Last but not least ...

We placed a baby this week. Not an unusual event by any means but more or less the first of the year. She went to a beautiful, local family and what was unusual was that I got to spend a good deal of time (a couple of hours) getting to know the family and really connecting.

It reminded me of what a privilege we have doing this work.

Making babies feel at home then sending them truly home ... what a gift.

Thank you to everybody who helps us do this work. Thank you for being stirred when we are stirred, for reaching out when we need it and for allowing this great would to continue.

To all of you who know us closely, please keep mom in your prayers. It has been a physically exhausting few weeks for her and she is struggling to keep her head above water. Please send up prayers for her rather than messages to her as these at the moment are adding to her stress because she feels overwhelmed when she struggles to answer everything.

Last but not least!

PLEASE will our South African friends sign up to sponsor us on the MY School Card system. It costs you nothing but will help us tremendously! Email pa@tlc.org.za fpr details!

WE LOVE YOU ALL

Pippa

A Day in the Life

2012-01-24T12:08:00.002+02:00

HELLO FRIENDS!

At last I'm here and able to put some of our news down for you all :-)

Similo's first day at Big School!

The school year has started in full force, hence the L~O~N~G wait for some real news!

He was so excited but in true Similo style he took it all in his long...steady...slow...stride!

There is no rushing Similo, so planning and organisation are key. We have to leave plenty of time for him to have a good cuddle with the dog, visit with the chickens and inspect the fish :-)

James showing Similo how to straighten his collar.

Mighty is ever the handsome man!

Our Grade 8 Parktown Boys going off to camp!

The Bus now carries 2 Preschoolers, 7 Jarvis' and 3 Jones' to and from Aloe Ridge

While the "Big Kids" are being dropped off at school, the "Tigers" make sure the fish are fed. They love the responsibility and the fish are fantastic to watch as they come splashing to the surface for their breakfast.

The school day whizzes by and all too soon the homework hours are upon us.
Here Theresa practises her reading allowed, while I peel potatoes next to the Fish Pond.

By the end of the day the kids are ready for a final frolick and there are plenty of activities to keep them busy.

Dominique has turned out to be an excellent Milkmaid and comes over early on Weekends to be sure she doesn't miss her chance to milk the cows.

The Tigers have taken to picking peaches as the trees around back are drooping with ripe fruit.

And, after the slow December holidays fade into distant memory the building of the wall picks up momentum. I am so glad because we have had one or two worrying moments lately and I will feel much, much safer when the main entrance is secured properly.

All of this goes on around the main body of our work which is ofcourse caring for and nurturing the tiniest of babies. This December we brought about 6 new babies into our Nest and it is so wonderful to know we are able to give them excellent care and the hope of a family.

Sadly with the joy always comes the possibility of heartache and this last Saturday we were all saddened to learn that one of our Nesties, who had been admitted to hospital due to a serious blood disorder, had passed away.

Many of out volunteers have never had to deal with death in any fashion let alone trying to come to terms with the death of a baby. It is a difficult and painful time and we appreciate all the thoughts, prayers and offers of support from our friends from every corner.

Please keep checking our website for other updates and information and feel free to send us feedback or suggestions ~ we are loving it!

We Love You All
Pippa

Happy New Year

2012-01-06T08:21:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends.

I know you are all waiting for lots of news! But please may I beg your patience for a little longer!
Things have been very busy and I am not finding time to do all the things I should right now! The blog is always high on my to do list and I always feel bad to leave it for long so I promise I will write soon but for now I will leave you with some pictures :-)

TLC TURNED 19 YEARS OLD ON JANUARY 1ST!

THE SAND PIT ON THE NEW FARM IS A FAVOURITE

FRANK TURNED 4! WE BAKED OUR OWN CAKE (NO LAUGHING, YOU!)

RUNNING IN THE SPRINKLERS IS ALWAYS FUN!

Du Pont helps us refurbish the girl's bedroom.

Ruthie slip and sliding

Waiting turns on the slip and slide

Inspecting our Lucerne grass we will be feeding our cattle in the winter!

Sorting uniforms for the New School year!

Sibu learns to ride a bike!

WE LOVE YOU ALL!

PIPPA

2011-12-26T17:15:00.001+02:00

December 24th continued ...

Fr Christmas always drops off one present for each child on Christmas Eve.

The children are always super delighted and have so much fun getting into the Christmas spirit.

After all the excitement died down, the cookies and carrots were put out for Santa, and the children went to sleep. It was time for the magic to begin.

Santa set up all the gifts around the living room. The children were so blessed. Each of them received a pile of gifts. By midnight all was peaceful!

Things started off quietly as most of the little ones were a little taken aback at the idea that all the gifts in their pile were actually "THEIRS".

BUT they soon got into swing of things and it didn't take long before the lounge was carpeted in gift wrapping and toy packaging :-)

Mbali was delighted with her giant hippo and it accompanied her all throughout the day

In the late morning we were joined by the Mainhouse kids (seen here receiving the gift vouchers brought by our generous friends). We had organised to have a braai which is something we haven't done for ages due to the high cost of meat nowadays.

We all had fun, there were smiles all round and the New Farm became a family retreat for the day.

It was the first time in over 2 years that we have been "just the family" and everyone felt the difference.

Many of you will remember, Nadia was our first victim of the chicken pox and unbelievably our poor little Warren woke up Christmas morning covered in spots but as you can see he didn't let that dampen his Christmas spirit.

We were able to use the time to reconnect,

Play some ball

Have some farm fun

And best of all

just put our feet up for a little bit!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our friends for their support this year. Without you we would not be here, we have watched countless homes closing down under the strain this year and we can but thank God for our worldwide body of friends who always remember us.

We love you all
Pippa

2011-12-26T16:55:00.000+02:00

HELLO FRIENDS

Please bear with me!
I have been trying to post a blog about Christmas for the whole day but my connection is so slow, my pictures would not load and my kids are all in overdrive so I've been upping and downing all day!

In the end I decided I am going to try do it in a few parts because of the bad connection. So keep checking back 'til you have the whole story!

Friday 23rd!

SINCE MY KIDS MISSED THE CHRISTMAS LIGHT SHOW WE HAD PLANNED BECAUSE OF JOSHUA'S ACCIDENT WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NICE TO CATCH THE ONE AT THE JOHANNESBURG ZOO.

WE ALL DRESSED UP AND PACKED A PICNIC SUPPER AND HEADED OFF TO SEE THE ANIMALS AND THE LIGHTS!

We bought our tickets ... no small cost for 14 kiddies and 4 grown ups! WE GOT TO THE ELLIES AND WE'RE WATCHING THEM SCRATCH AND SWAY WHEN ...

THE CLOUDS STARTED ROLLING IN THICK ...

DARK ...

AND HEAVY...

WE GOT STRANDED UNDER THE LEAKY THATCH WEATHER SHELTER AND ENDED UP EATING OUR PICNIC WHILE THE THUNDER AND LIGHTNING SHOOK ALL THE TREES ON THE OUTSIDE.

HERE SIMILO AND CHRISTIAN SHOW OFF THE PEACOCK FEATHERS THEY FOUND ON THE GROUND.

AFTER 45MIN THE RAIN LET US ESCAPE BUT BY THEN THE LIGHTS WERE TURNED OFF AND WE HAD TO JUST GO HOME.

SATURDAY 24TH

THE KIDS WERE IN CHARGE OF THE COOKIES AND BROWNIES, THEY HAD A BALL AND MANAGED TO CREATE SOME PRETTY AMAZING CHRISTMAS COOKIES AND OF COURSE GOT SUPER SUGARY IN THE PROCESS.

MORE TO FOLLOW AS SOON AS I CAN.

WE LOVE YOU ALL

Pippa

2011-12-09T15:33:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

Just a quickie.
On Sunday Mom and I were returning from a hospital visit to Joshua, who was hospitalised after a serious injury at a music concert. We stopped at a traffic light as we got off the highway and a man smashed the window on my side, grabbing the handbag from my lap and running off. In the struggle my right hand ring finger was snapped into two pieces and my left arm was cut by the brkon window glass.

I had an operation to insert two pins to help hold the finger together and was released from the hospital on Tuesday. I have a follow up operation in weeks.

I'm doing better but still a little groggy and more than just a little frustrated at having to use my left hand to do everything!

We still plan to move this coming Wednesday and Christmas still looms on the horizon despite having lost all my identfication cards, credit cards and cell phone!

Thanks to all of you who found out via the grapevine and have sent little messages :-)

I will endevour to write again soon.

By the way we have TLC SA Christmas calenders for sale at R150each. One with wildlife and one with TLC kids pictures. Drop us an email and we'll hold one for you :-)

We Love you all
Pippa

Another Birthday, Blisters and Bonhomie

2011-11-28T12:50:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

Isn't she gorgeous! Even when things are difficult it is such a pleasure to share my life with these fabulous little people.

First and foremost may I apologise to those of you who recieved what appeared like SPAM from us! I'm afraid neither I nor my PA knew about the "BCC" protocol for group emails and so it arrived in many mailboxes looking decidedly suspicious!

The email was to encourage people to sign up to receive the new format TLC newsletter! Please sign up on the TLC website - the November News will be sent out on Wednesday :-) Remember to send me feedback as I am trying to learn and improve all the time!

The last little while has been exhausting! It has been another financially sickening month for us here, we are all working like crazy people trying to find money to pay for the silly things like bin bags and toilet paper! It's so ... yucky!

In between the stress of that we have had a birthday ...

Christian turned 6 on the 20th. He was treated to the usual breakfast in Mom's bed :-) And he recieved several little goodies in the post which he was thrilled about! Thank you to everyone who sent him something, it always makes them feel so special to get their very own post!

He was spoiled the whole day and then had his breath taken away when his Godmother Sonya arrived here with a brand new PUPPY! He has named her Star. She is 7 weeks old and will be our very own "family dog" on our new farm!

Add to that the arrival of 2 not so fabulous creatures!

One was when Nadia picked up the Chicken Pox!

But nothing gets this little girl down! Despite the itches and the "owies" she was able to smile and only had one really sick day.

And then Mighty got a Conjunctival Infection that kept him off school for 4 days!

It is weeks like these that I really feel like the mother of 11 and I am counting the days along with my children to when we get to have more SPACE!

The Christmas season is upon us ... Uncle "Elf"red is ready for some Christmas present pick ups :-)

And the kiddies are SO READY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!

Here they are at a little Carols party held by a local youth group :-)

The Kirsty Watts Foundation set up a new playground for the Creepies and they just love it!

Please remember us this festive season! I know everyone is having a tough time but if you can spare a little to help us out we would be so very grateful. We should have a secure online credit and debit card facility added to our site in the next little while so look out for that :-) It will make donating a little easier!

Also I have had some beautiful feedback from our Adopt a Cot sponsors. Thank you for that. Remember you can become a sponsor by signing in on the Adopt a Cot Page on the website and I will send a monthly report on what's been going on in "your" cot.

Well that is most of the news for now, the rest is mostly boring stuff. Keep in touch and let us know what's happening in your life, it means the world to me to hear how you are all doing :-)

We love you all

Pippa

Are you living your heart song?

2011-11-15T11:55:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

It has been 2 weeks since my last post and a lot has been going on but I don't want to make this a V~E~R~Y long post so I'm going to condense the bits I think you won't mind too much about and then spend the rest of the time telling you about my trip to Kwazulu Natal with Similo and Nadia's parents!

So in brief:
The New Farm is coming along nicely. We are busy changing accounts from the old names to the new, putting in security fences, walls etc and trying to get to grips with all the "little bits" that will need doing when we move in. In this regard I am desperately on the hunt for beds and mattresses if anyone has a contact I need 8 minimum but 15 ideally!

TLC is being hassled by nightime visitors again - wanting to carry away anything not bolted down. The Christmas season is almost upon us and this is always the case around this time of year. It is such a pest! Luckily our guards have managed to foil them so far but the interrupted sleep for us is GRRR!!! We are still having to spend more money than comes in, despite every effort to reduce this we just cannot go without certain items, security, staff or petrol and so we walk by faith.

The Nursery roof has begun to leak very badly and we are ever so grateful for the donation from TLC UK towards getting it fixed! Our 31 babies are all doing well as are our volunteers.

Mainhouse kids are all in the midst of exams - the preparation time seems to be paying off so thank you all for your prayers!

The new website continues to get a lot of visitors and we ask you all URGENTLY to sign up if you want to recieve our newsletters! The new mailing software requires each recipient to OPT-IN and I cannot send you the Newsletter unless you have signed up!

NOW TO THE GOOD STUFF!

This little bit goes to the title of this weeks post...
Every now and then God gives us an extra little gift ~ a special opportunity to do something amazing, something extraordinary and something so startlingly beautiful that you remember that your heart can sing!

Most of you will have read and maybe sensed that I had some anxiety and not a few reservations about being asked to drive Similo and Nadia's mother to her family home in Kwazulu Natal.
Most of my worry was that I had no idea where exactly I was going, what I would find when I got there or how we would be received.

So I set about making a plan :-)

First I got Alfred (our driver) to visit the parents in the hostel where they were living and enquire, very friendly like, whether or not they would be able to direct me properly if I drove them. When he came back to tell me we thought it best to get Bernard (our Groundsman) to go along when I went so that he could interpret and offer some "respectability" to the whole advernture :-)

Then I hired a car! Wohoo! I got to drive a brand new Toyota Fortuna 4x4! Heehee, THAT was an definate perk!

Then I went shopping! AND HERE GOD WAS SOOOOO GOOD! We have this rewards card at the PicknPay where we shop and it turns out I had not claimed the rewards for several months and I was able to use these to buy a PILE of groceries and toiletries for them and it didn't cost me anything! The rest of the story has pictures!!!

SO the stage was set. I roped Anne in to come along and share the experience, we fetched the folks, packed the car and set off to the general area of "Van Reenen".

Through the Natal Drakensburg

We got to Van Reenen in just a few hours and I was driving merrily along when Veronica (the mom) started gesturing wildly for us to take a little service road just of the well known Van Reenen Pass, 1690m above sea level!

So I took a breath, thinking this was where the 4x4 was going to come in handy, only to find that in the 6 years since she was last home the road had been beautifully graded and maintained and it was a smooth trip along an incredible view to the place she calls H~O~M~E!.

The view from Van Reenen's pass service road!

The whole world seemed at peace up here and Veronica could not keep her face from smiling the broadest smile ever! We drove a little way listening to her breathing catch ever so slightly and then she pointed right and indicated for us to stop.

This is what we found

Her Aunty Kethiwe, looking confusedly up the hill at this huge white car with it's multi coloured occupants. It only took a few seconds and then she started waving fiercely and weeping as she was overcome with the realisation of who had just arrived!

A sweet sweet rejoicing as aunty and niece were reunited.

We were welcomed in and seated as guests of honour. A mystery was solved for us in a few minutes as one thing we at TLC had always wondered about was Veronica's ability to use certain commonly accepted aspects of Sign Language. We thought perhaps after her stroke someone had taught her a little but then we met her Cousin Nathi ~ he is the same age as Veronica and they grew up together and he is mute. He attended the Catholic School for the Deaf in Ladismith and learned Sign Language there. Growing up he had communicated with Veronica in Sign and so it was natural for her to try communicate this way when she lost her speech.

I will not lie it was a bizarre experience for me to be surrounded by excitedly spoken Zulu and not understand a word and yet be able to communicate fluently to this young Zulu man who could barely make himself understood to the family around him. It was a strange strange experience and he was SO unbelievebly thrilled, he chatted and chatted about his life in the hills with the animals and his fear of snakes and ... and... and ... ~ I had to laugh at God's sense of humour really.

After the initial shock and excitement settled into general contentment we unloaded the car of it's gifts and this unleashed a whole new buzz of excitement and we were instructed to wait while Kethiwe called the neighbours to come and see this "miracle".

Turns out calling the neighbours only takes about 40min!

They live across the valley!

After a time, they joined us and we were invited to share tea with the headman ~ a great honour. They filled plates with the gifts I had meant for them and Bernard acted as our interpreter as we shared their joy and some sorrow as they filled Veronica in on all the news of the village and of the death of her Grandmother, Mother and another Aunt. All of strokes similar to the one she suffered during her last labour.

After a few hours we really had to leave and so we took a final photograph, neighbours and all and then we left them behind, waving us off with Blessings in the air.

On our journey home, we just knew that God was happy.

Look at the silver lining he presented us with as a parting gift!

I have had a lot of blessings in my life but I can tell you that THIS ONE left me feeling the same way I imagine I would feel had I got to hold God's hand for a day.

It truly made my heart sing!

God Bless You All
Pippa

On the updraft!

2011-11-01T16:56:00.000+02:00

Hello friends

For so long now, things have felt heavy and burdensome so it is with great joy and relief I share with you that slowly, slowly things are settling down.

Last night's sunset :-)

After the blessing of the donation of the security wall, the new farm continues to be a beacon of hope and a future for us all at TLC. Rhys has completed planting the lucerne grass seeds that will be used for the winter to feed "our" herd of cattle. The rains have come and the fine green tint hesitates just above the rich dirt - funny how it can only be seen from afar and is not nearly as impressive right up close.

In honour of the legacy of the family that has lived there and been great custodians of the property I believe God always intended for us, we have called the farm "Albert's Rest". It is dedicated to the memory of the families second son, Albert, who passed away tragically and is remembered in various places on the farm. He will be our guardian angel I am sure.

A Donation of furniture! A couch and TV/book cabinet

A donation of pots, pans and miscellaneous kitchen items! Thank you Bidvest Foods!

As everyday ends I am a full day more grateful for the knowledge that we will have a real home soon :-) The kids are starting to really rub each other up the wrong way with each passing day and it will be so good to have S-P-A-C-E :-) We even have a company offering to decorate one of the rooms for us, so that is certain progress :-)

Ok, so maybe they don't mind the lack of space so much!

The new website is getting a LOT of visitors! Thank you to everyone who has forwarded the address to friends and family! Our Newsletter is almost ready to send out so make sure you have signed up for it on our homepage! And the Adopt a Cot program now has new members too who have pledged their R100 per month to help us keep those heads in beds :-)

It's her birthday on Friday! She will be 3!

On Thursday I am taking Similo and Nadia's family home to their family in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Thank you to the special friend who donated some money to help us buy them a few survival items :-) We are so grateful and I promise I will tell you all about THIS adventure for sure!

A little craziness is good for everyone!

Exams are looming for most of our kids and so everyone is a little highly strung but that is a good thing ~ I think, it means they are taking it seriously. We appreciate all your kind thoughts and prayers.

We Love you all
Pippa

At Last ... It is LIVE

2011-10-24T21:27:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends!!!

Great news so a very short post for now ...
The ALL NEW, beautiful and long awaited TLC website is now up!

CLICK HERE TO GO THERE

Please take some time to help us by proof reading and looking for bits that aren't quite up to scratch :-) We appreciate your feedback and hope you are as impressed as we are with the fabulous work, Lauren Lopes has done for us ~ thank you to RICOH for all the support with this project too!

Feel free to email us your thoughts and comments and then ...
SPREAD THE WORD and let's get new people clicking into it ... just another way we are trying to keep heads in beds over here :-)

Oh, and if you are an adoptive family or a volunteer and would like to have your profile reflected feel free to send us a good picture and a write up that we can use, we'd be happy to add more profiles :-)

We Love You All
Pippa

Birthday, Blessings, Blimey and Bliss

2011-10-19T09:46:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends,

Well it seems God is on a mission to remind me just how much He cares for us here at TLC and how much He approves of the direction we are doing with the farm.

But first things first!!! A BIG HUG AND THANK YOU to all of you who contributed to mom's birthday!

She was away for 5 days with Joanna to the Kruger National Park and so we took advantage of the time to do a mini-makeover on her bedroom and bathroom.

We were able to get rid of that disgusting mattress and replace it with a fabulous, new, firm one.

We had enough contributions to get new linen and a few spoily goodies for her too. I also managed to get a narrow shelf for her bathroom which means the things in buckets next to the bath could be packed neatly :-)

Then the Blessings!

We had a lovely visit by some friends on Saturday, they brought with them new linen for each of the mainhouse kids and a set for mom's new bed! They also were able to take a walk with me around the new farm and were very interested in the plans we are putting in place to bring the farm to a place where TLC doesn't have to worry about food everyday. We discussed the bits and pieces and I was able to show how essential it is to have Securing the premises be our first big project becuase without good security any further investment is likely to be plundered.

These wonderful and generous friends have agreed to finance the building of the perimeter wall!
The comfort this has brought me is indescribable.
The devil knows my weak points and the idea of moving into a place where my children may be in danger has had me sleepless for weeks.

I have been struggling with anxiety for such a long time now and every week we here of a family, neighbour or local resident who has been attacked and murdered on near by properties. Just last Monday a family we know from church and who lives next door to the kids school was tortured and murdered out if spite. The young son of that family was in the same chatechism class as our boys, Carlton, Brett and Erin and it is a heck of a job to explain to the kids why these things happen!

SO it is truly a HUGE blessing to know that our perimeter will be secured and my little family will be safe! Thank you my friends.

There are other blessings too :-) We have 2 babies being adopted this week, we have had a big donation of dry goods, mielie meal and other bits and pieces which have kept the hunger at bay - thank you to St John's Preparatory, Rialto, Libstar and all our friends!

Now the "Blimey" part!!
SO for all my non-english speaking freinds :-) "Blimey" is from the British part of my heritage and it means "Yikes" or "Oh my!"
This part is because last Thursday I managed to get the foster care for Similo and Nadia finalised. And at the same time the Child Commissioner has asked me to transport the biological mother (who became disabled after a stroke) back to her rural village in Kwa-Zulu Natal. I am delighted to do this for her ofcourse as I know the life she leads now is a very, very hard one, it just surprised me that the comissioner sincerely cared enough for this mother to try and make a plan for her. So now I need to hire a 4x4 because otherwise we would have to park at the police station in the nearest town and cross the mountains on foot for 10 to 20km! Doing that with a lady who has compromised balance may take a great deal longer than would be safe.

I would like to make an appeal to those of you who can assist, I would like to buy some food, a plastic washing bowl and some blankets etc to help settle her in there best. She will be living with her grandmother and I do not want to make the burden bigger than it already will be.

Finally, the "Bliss" part :-)

For the most part we always feel that we are failing in someway, that we are not succeeding in achieving all our goals. And then ... we get a little boost that transports us to a place of bliss.

This week our Blissful moment came when Joshua was elected to be a school leader in 2012. It is a tremendous achievement and he has worked so hard to be recognised in this way. We are so proud and thrilled for him and with him!

Here are 2 pictures, one of him helping feed the animals with Amy and one of him at the beach where he went on holiday recently with some amazing friends :-)

I'm afraid that is all I have time for at the moment.

We Love you all

Pippa

Let's play catch up ... and read the important bit at the end!

2011-10-11T21:02:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends!

Firstly, my sincere and grateful thanks for all the uplifting and heartfelt messages you all sent while I was feeling down. It is humbling and touching to know how many people have a genuine affection for all of us here at TLC!

I thought it may be useful to make a little photo blog this time around. The pictures will help you get a clear picture of what I am talking about I think :-)

First ... the people I love ... or some of them anyway!
This is what makes life worthwhile. No matter how hard a day is or what chaos, crisis or catastrophe looms, these people bouy my spirits, lighten the burden and thrill me to my toes :-)

A Mighty Funny Boy found this wig and pair of glasses and made everybody laugh :-)

Fun with face paints!

Proudly South African

Gogo and her grand daughter ~ makes my heart sing!

My Ruthie~licious!

My Super Strongman Jerome had a sports day at school where he insists he left everyone in the dust!

A Gang of Girls, Joy, Joy, Joy!

The other thing making me happy ...

A Few more visits to the New Farm

The neighbour is willing to sell all his implements to us at a very reasonable price. This means we can make excellent use of all the farm has to offer right from the start. We begin tomorrow buy ploughing the land to plant the grass seed for the animal fodder we will need come next winter ~ he is teaching us how.

There is so much to learn and every visit is a thrill. This area is like a compound within the compound where the livestock are housed at night for safe keeping. At present he has meat rabbits, chickens and cattle.

The reservoir is deep ... like 10 feet deep! and full of fish that come to the surface to nibble :-) Some of my boys think that is very "fishy" indeed, whilst Similo tells me he saw on TV that "you can get young if you let them eat your skin!" EEEWWW!

This is one of my favourite parts ... the place my imagination goes wild with visions of my children playing under mist sprayers and my sipping iced tea on the porch watching them :-) The front garden has 2 water features, beautiful landscaping and plenty of relaxing atmosphere ... I am in the market for a porch swing if anyone has one lying around ... hee hee!

The refurbished Massey Furguson will cost R38 000 but we believe it to be an excellent investment as it costs about 4 times as much for a new one and other used versions are not to be found in such condition. We learn to drive it tomorrow!

This herd of cattle has been resident in various generations for 16 years on the farm. There are 4 cows in milk which should give 20Litres a day, just perfect to start with :-)

The Track between TLC's Southern boundary and the New Farm. Isn't it beautiful!

And then two final things before I say good night:

The TLC Pool has a new fence! Those that have visited even recently will hardly recognise the pool area anymore. The previously uneven and ugly cement "patio" has been replaced by a single level tiled patio and a pool fence. Our children are doubly safe and we now comply with the health and safety needed for this area! Hooray and Thank you to the Kirsty Watts Foundation for this tremendous help to TLC!

AND LAST BUT MOST IMPORTANT!

It's Mom's birthday on Saturday!
We have put money together to buy her a new matress for her bed (the pictures here shows her nearly 10 year old squished and pee'd on current one that every Jarvis and many others have slept on!) and would like to offer those who are interested the chance to join in so that hopefully we can get some new linen and odds and ends that I know she would like. If you do make a donation please put it in TLC's account and remember to MARK IT as THEA'S BIRTHDAY! Thanks!

We Love You All!

Pippa

New Home, New Help, New Hope!

2011-09-29T15:08:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

Well, I humbly admit that I have been down in the dumps for awhile now - hence the lack of posts here.
It is hard to feel like writing and even harder to write something worth reading when you feel miserable.

I'm happy to say I feel a bit better at present and so I thought I'd snatch the chance to write before the kids all get home from school.

So my little Alexander has not come to TLC as yet, the mommy appears to be having second thoughts and so we wait at the ready in case for some reason she cannot cope. Ofcourse if she can then that will be wonderful for the baby and we will support her where we can.

It was Mighty's birthday on the 15th so he had the usual breakfast in bed treat but in keeping with his sweet and generous nature it had to be enjoyed alongside a friend, in this case little Ruthie :-)

The news on the New Farm is that, as of yesterday we are now legally the owners :-)
A thrilling bit of sunlight in an otherwise pretty bleak time. I took Matthew, Ben, James and Mighty around for a few minutes yesterday and while I chatted with the neighbour about possibly moving in December, the boys ran around taking it all in - it is so exciting, a real adventure and already they are discussing plans for swimming in the reservoir, building a tree house and setting up a "secret den" :-) Oh to be a child again :-)

On the 1st of September TLC was joined by Natsai Shoko, a wonderful and enthusiastic young lady helping me in the position of Personal Assistant. It is such a wonderful blessing and whilst I am still learning to make the best use of her it is such a relief to have someone help shoulder the load.

On the weekend on the 16th to 18th September we had a "baby away" weekend which allowed me to give the volunteers some individual time. We played a games and spent the whole of the Saturday in the Pilansberg National Park looking for wild animals :-) It was a long day but everyone had a good time. The babies all got thoroughly spoiled and it was good to have a change of routine after such a long time of working so hard.

The volunteers are truly the HEROES of TLC and our babies are so blessed through their willing and tender hands :-)

We have said good bye to many babies over the last little while and have 3 more going in the next few weeks. This should take our numbers down to close on the 30 that we need to be in order to survive. Every baby that goes now makes me a little sad because I know that there are so many families waiting for babies and so many babies waiting for families but we are having to narrow the channel which means ultimately the formation of these precious, wonderful and amazing families slows down. ~ Sigh~ I promised I wouldn't be too blue, so enough of that.

We are working on several funding proposals and trying hard to be everything people want us to be, the department is now in possession of all the required documents for us to be registered under the new Children's act.

We tried to raise the profile of TLC this year by making a big deal of our 18th Birthday this Heritage day. We had newspaper coverage, sent invitations to over 600 people and set up jumping castles and stalls where we sold various craft things, some TLC branded bottles and various other things. Unfortunately we did not have the expected turnout because the weather turned out to be pretty horrible most of the day but we continue to get phonecalls from people interested in helping in some small way.

The kids had a fabulous time and thanks to the generosity of Mr Mike Forsythe we were able to enjoy the jumping castles right through to Sunday and he even fixed our sound system in the Barn so now we can watch movies "for real" as Christian says :-)

Those of you with networks of friends, please see who you can motivate to club together to help sponsor a child for school in 2012. We have had the most success in getting these important needs sponsored when people team together as book clubs, office groups, friends and families.

Right, this was a long one but I know you don't mind :-)

God Bless you all

Pippa

It's a boy! and other news :-)

2011-09-05T12:32:00.003+02:00

Hello Friends

Well, here is a little secret I've been holding on to :-)
My darling Mighty - whom I mentioned in the last post, has close contact with his birth parents. A few months ago his mother informed me that she was pregnant and had gone to have an abortion but the doctors said it was too risky given her ill health. She asked me to take the baby and raise it with Mighty.

Well, little Alexander was born over the weekend weighing 3.1kg. I get to meet him at 2 o'clock today so I'm super excited :-) When I can I will post a pic :-) My kids are all so happy with the idea (although most had voted for a girl :-* ) I know it won't matter though when he comes home, they will all love him madly :-)

The other news is that today would be the 65th Birthday of Freddie Mercury :-)

I can here the ???? in your minds.

Well, our wonderful Austrian Adoptive father, Volker Nogradnik has recorded and dedicated the proceeds of a Memorial song for Freddie Mercury to TLC.

You can view it here of on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stkpcU0jvro

And then finally :-)

Heritage day is this month!

Here is the invitation ... you are ALL invited :-)

Those of you who cannot make it, please consider making a small donation toward the expenses of hosting such an event, it is always good for TLC to present ourselves to new people but it is not without its cost.

Also, things have been very quiet from all of you lately but I can see our hits are nearly on 20 000 so I assume you are all still there :-) I love to hear how you are doing so please send me a little note to say what's up :-)

We Love you All
Pippa

Tommy turns 18 and some other happy news!

2011-08-30T13:28:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

It continues to be a very busy time. Everyone is working extra hours, the volunteers and some of the big kids are doing a sterling job keeping things running smoothly. We have very little time to do followups on emails or make phone calls and work on some bigger projects - but we continue to plod along trying to get through everything :-)

A special thank you to our friends who have done special fundraising in their communities to help TLC. We made it through yet another month end and we are so grateful.

The biggest news this week was that our Beloved Tommy celebrated his 18th Birthday on Sunday. A huge milestone for all of us as we look back and reflect on all the challenges and difficulties Tommy has faced and overcome! We are so blessed to be a part of his life and are so privileged to watch as he becomes the man of his destiny.

Vivienne, her husband Jo and their friends Ruby and Steve did a Potjiekos lunch for us. It was like therapy for everyone - the first bit of relaxed fun we have had in ages.

On Friday I got a great phonecall from the Virologist who sees 6 of our HIV positive children to congratulate us for how well the children are doing on their treatment. They are all undetectable! Which means the virus is so well under control that they cannot count the virus!
It is a great blessing and huge relief - especially since our nutrition has not been 100% given our money troubles. God is Good!

On top of that God has done an extra little miracle for my Mighty boy.
Many of you know that when Mighty came to TLC he was literally on death's door. He had been sent to us from an Hospice and we thought we were going to do terminal care for him.
But he responded so well to the treatment and was soon a delight and a blessing in so many ways and it wasn't too long before he became my 3rd adopted son.
The only health problem that continued to plague Mighty was continual leakage from his ears which had both eardrums perforated due to constant infections before he came to us.
The specialist had told me that there was no remedy for the perforations and that over time Mighty's hearing would deteriorate and he would likely become severely hard of hearing if not deaf over time.

For years now we have been cleaning his ears several times a day and rotating different eardrops to try keep control of the infections and then yesterday ...
the specialist doctor was so happy to inform me that despite all expectations the perforation on Mighty's right eardrum had closed up! What a tremendous blessing. Once again ... God is so Good!

Here is a photo of me and my Mighty boy.

It's spring and we need a few things :-)

If anyone has about R600 our little sand pit at the preschool needs to be refilled with the washed riversand and some salt added to keep it free of infectious bugs etc.

We could really use a sponsor for another pair of hands in the food production section :-) Our farm is all set to SPRING into action and we need an extra farm worker to help get things set up for optimal production. It will cost about R3500 for a month of this type of skill.

Also it is that time of year again where we need to find sponsors for the children 's school fees for the next year. If anyone wants specifically to continue sponsoring the child they are committed to, please just drop me a mail so I can put you down before I work out who doesn't have sponsors.

We Love you all

Pippa

Hello again my friends

2011-08-25T10:41:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

As I'm sure most of you have realised, things have been ...
Actually I'm not sure there is a good word for how things have been!
basically ... the universe continues to spin, faster than we would like most of the time.

In the time since I last wrote here are some of the things that have happened:

After many years of searching we have found a Forever Family for our two little sibling boys (Age 2 and 5) who have been with us for most of their lives! We are so delighted, it is such a blessing and a gift. We have implemented a specially designed plan to help them bond and attach with their new daddy and all systems are a go to have them placed by mid-September :-)

Oh Happy Day!

Most of our time though has been spent helping keep the Nursery running smoothly. Our current volunteers are doing an extraordinary job keeping things together. They are amazing and I am so grateful to them!
I am supposed to cover 2 hours between 7 and 9pm but most nights I find my own little brood full of needs and demands and I feel so bad when I can't do both things, but the volunteers have risen up and everyone who can, works an extra 2 hours to help cover that time so I can be with my family. I have no words to properly thank them for such extraordinary perserverence!

Our new policy of not filling all the beds is really taking an emotional toll though. Going into the nest where half the cots are empty is so miserable, it feels like death has come.
We continue to hope and pray for some answer to our struggles but everyday we are faced with more devastating news. We just found out that a long established, excellent, well supported and pretty famous children's home near us is closing down in December. They have already closed their baby section and that room is now storing their office furniture and odds and ends.
God save us from such a day!

It wouldn't be so bad if there was no need for them, BUT THERE IS A NEED! A terrible, overwhelming, urgent need for safe places for these babies to go, but more and more places are closing down and where does that leave the babies? AAARRGGHHHH! I feel so stressed with the desire to do more but the resources to do less and less!

As always I have to tell myself ... just do what you can with what you have!!!

And so let me change focus onto the good things :-)

Here are a few pictures of my Beloveds!

Mighty, Jerome and Christian had to have their regular blood tests yesterday to make sure all is well and we don't need to change their treatment or anything. They were so brave and so I took a picture of them and promised I would tell everyone how amazing they were ... so here you go ...

My Brave Boys!

Here are 3 of my darlings cuddling on my bed :-) I am so blessed that for the most part they all get along really well!

Cushy cuddles

And finally, here are 3 of my boys creating a battle between the animals and the cars! Not too much space in the trailer house but they make it work :-)

Between the laundry, couch and mom's bed we WILL find a place to play!

Finally, I would like to reitterate my very grateful thanks to the young Event Students at Damelin for organising, coordinating and managing the excellent fundraising event at the Barnyard theatre for TLC.

They managed to raise R10 500 from the evening and we are so grateful!

Here is a photo of the 3 volunteers who won the lucky draw to attend it!

Hannah, Birgit and Doris having a chance to do something different :-)

I will do my level best to write again soon and update you on the other things going on here :-) We are working frenetically to fulfill the new government requirements for the new registration so that hopefully we can access some funding through them, but it involves a great deal of work and the development of many new policies, procedures and registers that take a whole lot of hours to devise.

We love you all

Pippa

"... the centre cannot hold ... "

2011-08-07T11:20:00.003+02:00

Hello friends

I may have mentioned before that I am a bit of a poet at heart. Things are often clearer to me through poetry and so today because my heart is too full and my eyes are starting to leak a little too much I give you one that speaks to our troubles. If you're not into poetry just read the first stanza. Below it you will find a picture diary of the last little while.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Last week my James turned 10, he and Matthew have birthdays just 6 days apart.

Who doesn't enjoy a Birthday Breakfast in Bed?

Later in the day James' Granny Helain treated us to a meal and we had a wonderful time. The waiters sang Happy Brithday to him and then danced Kylie Minogue's "Locomotion"!

James and Granny Helaine

Birthday Brothers

Whilst our cash flow is slowly crippling our ability to function at least we still have our Daily Bread. We have been so blessed by the donations of food we have received lately. Without these we would've been looking at having to drop one of our meals.

Sparrows school delivered two bixes of mixed groceries

Rialto Foods donated pastas, flour, tinned white beans and chickpeas

A lot of them :-)

Mr Richard Church donated us an old tractor that we hope to be able to fix up

Everyone had to have a good look ... even Nebo the dog :-)

The plum tree outside my house reminding me that "to everything there is a season"

The beautiful buds of the promise of spring

Upstairs renovations being inspected by Miraculously Healed Tommy

Bedrooms being sectioned off by new dry walling

Finally yesterday...
Due to our dreadful volunteer shortage I was looking after my 8 "Tigers" and the 8 "Lions", we had just started heading toward the Barn for our monthly Sign Language class when Joanna phoned to say the car she had borrowed (becuase hers was stolen, found and now needs repairing) had broken down when she dropped her son Kay at a party nearby.
So off we dashed (me and the 16 ones I was looking after) in the taxi to rescue her.
Turns out she was stuck right next to the BMX track so while we organised a tow for the broken car, the kiddies were thrilled by the madmen on BMX's doing tricks off a huge mound of sand :-)

By the way this blog had its 18000th hit last week! You are all amazing! Thank you for all the love you send our way.

We love you all

Pippa

And so the pendulum swings ...

2011-07-31T17:02:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

I realise that I have an unusual life and that in many ways it has aged me, but the fact that my firstborn is TWELVE! Just FREAKS me out!!

Matthew had his birthday on Sunday - he had asked for clothing mostly and we went for pizza and a movie.

A free ice cream for the birthday boy!

Matthew, Khensi, Percy the Waiter, Benji, Dominique and Murphy

Tuesday we received a wonderful donation of blankets from St Stithians Junior Prep school

The Kirsty Watts Foundation had continued to do wonders for our creepy room!

The floor looks so great, it is a special linoleum type laminate

The upstairs renovations have started! We are so thrilled!

Those of you who have been following our story over the last months will know how very difficult things have become for us it TLC. Yesterday we had our AGM and Board meeting and today we had a full day family conference about everything going on at TLC.

It is with a heavy heart and not a few tears, that we have had to make the dramatic and terrible decision to reduce the intake of babies at TLC.

The simple fact is that we can not manage. After reviewing our financials from 2010 up to now it is apparent that our situation is not changing. Despite a cash injection here and there we are all under too much strain to continue being responsible for so many little lives without the sure knowledge that we can take care of their needs.

Those of you who know us will know how this sickens us.

For 18years we have walked by faith and learned many things, God does provide but He is an 11th hour God and we are small, frail human beings who are cracking under the strain of never knowing if we can honour our commitments. We have sacrificed our individual personal savings and (more devastatingly) our ethic of quality over the last year - we have had to find a more prudent path and this is the only one possible.

We have tried what we can, each of us working ourselves to a standstill, working on every aspect but without proper cash flow our commitments are too many and our resources to few.

The decision then, for the next 6 months at least, is to reduce our intake of babies. For every two babies we find families for we will only admit one new one - in this way we should still have a flow of babies through the system, just not as many as we have now.

We thank all of you who have and continue to stand by us. We ask that you pray for God's mercy on our work and that He open the doors in the next 6 months if He wishes us to continue. Mom says perhaps this is His time for pruning.

We Love you all

Pippa

From week ... to weak.

2011-07-24T07:14:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends (grab a cup of coffee, this one is a little long, sorry!)

I told you before how this week started of with Mandela day. The day when everybody gets to send a big "figurative hug" to Mandela by donating 67minutes of their time to uplifting the community. Well it was astonishing how many people rose to this challenge!

TLC had over 200 visitors on Monday! Our preschool corridors and one classroom got painted, we had 2 lunched prepared for us! (one on Sunday and one on Monday :-) ) and our babies had so many cuddles and our hardworking volunteers had such enthusiastic help - they thought they were in paradise!

It was Nadia's 4th birthday that day and anybody who knows Nadia knows that she has an oversupply of self confidence :-) Well imagine if you will her delight at being sung "Happy Birthday" to at school by 100 paintbrush wielding members of our Department of Social Development, then again by the group who had prepared lunch, then again when the kids got home and she got ot open her presents! She even had her picture taken with the chairman of PPC's "Chairman's fund" that helped us get our poultry project off the ground! Needless to say her rendition of "Happy Birthday Dear Nadia" has been doing the rounds for most of the week!

This was also the day most of the kids went back to school after their 3 week holiday, so there was a certain amount of logistical chaos ~ what with our now sickening car shortage being compounded by a national strike that has seen our petrol station run out of fuel for 4 days out of 7 lately!

Tuesday was marked by my Doctor's visit with Paul. Paul (12) is significantly smaller for his age (growing 0.8cm in 4 months) than he should be and the specialist who has been monitoring his growth patterns is now concerned that something is very wrong with his glands that are supposed to produce growth hormone or something. He has booked Paul in for a series of tests this coming Tuesday and we will have to see what is going on. Ofcourse Paulie would be one of the children not yet covered by our medical insurance ~ sigh!

Vivienne's Faith ~ a miracle of grace!

Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning and Wednesday evening went by in a blur as we attended meeting after meeting with social workers, donors, volunteers and friends.

Thursday I spent almost all of it in court with Similo and Nadia ~ the social workers have agreed to advocate that they get placed in my foster care so that they can finally be settled and I can enrol Similo in school for next year. After court Nadia was quick to remind me of my birthday promise of getting her haircut and her ears pierced ~ so dutifully I took her off to Southgate where she got her hair cut by (in her words) "her tall, bald boyfreind!" and then she had her ears pierced, finding the man who held the piercing gun far less "attractive" after he spiked her in one ear and then expected her to hold still for him to do it again to the other! She was quickly consoled when she saw the results and the pretty gold hearts that had magically appeared in her lobes :-) After that she managed to extract a pizza, a fanta, a toy cellphone and a pair of purple sunglasses WITH WINGS on the frames before we got her out of the mall and back to the car!

Thursday evening we attended a function at St Katherine's school. It was a Storytime Pajama Party being held for the small girls, so Theresa was attending. She had to dress up in her PJ's and got to bring a teddy along - all the girls snuggled together in the auditorium and were read to, while the parent's got to meander through the hall which was set up with books to buy (ofcourse :-) ) Well, I don't know how many of you know how much I love books (I was an English major after all :-* ) and whilst, as I'm sure you've notice, our life does not afford us with much "lesiure" time, I couldn't help myself and ended up buying an armful of books that I hope to be able to read ... at some point!

Theresa had to dress up as a character from a book on Tuesday ~ she chose Robin Hood :-)

After the function we had to make a search of the local petrol stations to find one were we could buy fuel for the minivan - otherwise half our kids would not be getting to school the next day! Luckily it did not take long and we managed to fill the jerry can we had and a few empty cooldrink containers, bring them home and funneling them into the petrol tank ~ thanks to a sawed of vuvuzela that acted as an excellent funnel :-)

And then Friday ... I WAS SICK! We had had several kids in and out of bed with the flu all week and usually I managed to escape such dramas but not this time! I was feverish, achey and my throat felt like perhaps I had swallowed some of that petrol from the night before. I spent most of the day in bed, presenting myself only for the 2 meetings we had and to say Hi to our faithful Ricoh chefs who had come to make a meatball meal for lunch :-) I dosed up on "Ambrotose" (thank you Susan!) and Viral Guard (thank you Sonia) and then I slept and slept and slept (thank you Ellen, Zoe and Mom who filled in on babysitting duty) and by Saturday morning I was much improved.

So there you go ~ a week in the life :-)
I hope it was a good read ... I couldn't sleep so I got up early, started one of those books I bought and thought I should let you all know what's going on :-)

We Love you all
Pippa

No Way José

2011-07-15T12:05:00.000+02:00

Helllo Friends

This morning at 3am Joanna was woken by Rhys and the groundsman (Johnny). Her car had been stolen from the garage. While Rhys was on the phone to her he heard noises down the far side of their property and gave chase. He narrowly missed being shot when the robbers opened fire on him! I feel sick from all the "what might have beens" we have had lately!
The robbers escaped but abandoned Joanna's car in a nearby veld - its ignition was pulled out and the battery and spare wheel stolen. She was not allowed to look closely at what else may be missing because the police wanted to take it to the impound lot for fingerprinting etc.
She is so devestated. It is her only car and school starts on Monday. The insurance will only be able to help her once the police investigation is complete.

This is a picutre of us at the showing of Harry Potter on Wednesday

Mom has decided to cut her holiday at the sea short. Too many worries are making her crazy. They will be coming home a day early.

Last night I had a volunteers meeting and I got to share some beautiful things with them. Here is one of the things:

We do not choose to be born.
We do not choose our parents,
Or our times or country of birth,
Or the circumstances of our upbringing.
We do not—most of us—choose to die
But within all this realm of choicelessness
We do choose how we shall live—
Courageously or in cowardice,
Honorably or dishonorably,
With purpose or adrift.
We decide what is important and what is trivial
What makes us significant is what we do, ... Or refuse to do.
We decide and we choose
And so we give definition to ourselves.

By Joseph Epstein

The Tiger Boys went to the zoo with Mighty's Grade 1 teacher, Miss Schlebusch but they should be back soon because Ricoh's next Masterchef team is blessing us with Chicken Wraps for lunch today and the smell is simply divine as I write this. The renovations on the Creepy playroom are almost done and it looks fabulous! We are cleaning it up as the last coat of paint goes on so hopefully we can move back in over the weekend. Here are some pictures.

On Monday it is "Madiba" day. The day every South African is encouraged to give 67minutes of their time serving their community in honour of Nelson Mandela's 67 years he served the people. We are expecting 4 big groups already. One group is painting at the school, one is providing lunch and 2 others are coming to bring gifts of food and nursery items and spend time with the kids. It is sure to be a great day - one where we get to show people our beautfiul work and where we get to recieve a lot of love from the community.

We Love You All
Pippa

The week that was.

2011-07-13T09:50:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

Saturday the confectionary company called Rich's came and did a Cake Decorating Party for us. It was super dooper fabulous (as Christian says). The kids were all given a mini sponge cake which they then got to decorate with a sweet whipped cream icing and sprinkles and smarties and jelly tots and marshmallows! It was so much fun! Here are some pics!

Mom and the "Big" guys left for the sea at about 5:30am Sunday morning. Whilst the house is very quiet and stays clean for longer :-) there are not the same number of hands to help. You only realise how much of a team effort everything is around here when half your team is gone :-) It's meant running around seeing to visitors, feeding the dogs and the birds, offloading donations and feeding the poor who come to the gate - all jobs I haven't really had to do in a while :-)

We've had a tummy bug and a flu going through so half the nursery has been sick but seems to be on the mend again :-)

On Monday Joanna fetched a baby girl, a teeny weeny one. She was prem, weighs just on 2kg and is so sweet and precious! We have named her Ria.

I've got to go.
(Irish) Dan has bought us all tickets to go watch the last Harry Potter movie, so I'm off.

We love you all
Pippa

You're kidding me ... right?

2011-07-08T14:07:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

Today well... it started at 2am. How do I find the words to explain what has happened now?

We're you ever a stupid teenager? Did you ever do something you knew was stupid but because YOU are doing it ... everything would be ok?

So ... last night Reuel took Mommy's car for a joyride and crashed it into the neighbours electricity supply box. The box is wrecked, the car is wrecked but REUEL miraculously escaped with some minor cuts and bruising.

Our Angels are working serious overtime here!

Then at 9ish the third RICOH masterchef team arrived, jumping castle and all! It's fabulous fun. They are cooking up a storm - literally check out the picture!

They have decorated the diningroom to be the TLC Restaurant and it has Tinkerbell and Spiderman posters around. The kids are all really excited to be having such a special Lunchtime Treat - just because :-)

Then our friends from the Kirsty Watts foundation have had a builder out to renovate the Creepies playroom, so that is all going on too. The results are looking great :-)

They are fixing our leaking roof, renovating our uneven pool area and putting new flooring and decor into the room :-) We are SOOOO blessed.

A great friend of ours has sponsored a holiday for Mom and 10 kids down at the sea. They leave Sunday ... but now mom's car is wrecked and so we had to figure out a plan B where they would go down in the bus and hire a small car for a few days but ...then we realised Mom's credit card expired (in MAY!) so we dashed to the bank but they can only renew the card by Wednesday and you can't hire a car on someone else's card! So now they'll just have to use the bus to do everything - even the shopping!

GEEZ! What a day! and it's only lunch time now!

Pray for us!

We love you all
Pippa

Topsy Turvy Tuesday

2011-07-05T16:01:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

YES YES I KNOW! I promised to write more! and then ... you hear nothing.
I'm so sorry!

Joanna kidnapped me on Sunday for a rest :-) I got to blob, watch a movie (or 2) and read a whole book without being interrupted :-) It was fabulous :-)

But I'm back now and things will be back in order shortly :-)

Tommy is having physiotherapy on his hands every few days now and continues to improve daily.
Here is a photo of one of the hands - It is MUCH improved.

Here is a picture of a happy Tommy with Amy on the night we had our welcome back party for Tommy. (You can read about this soon on Mom's blog)

Our New Farm blog will be up and running shortly (I promise!) and then you can all follow along as we begin a new adventure in our plan to make TLC more self-reliant.

We Love You All
Pippa

The week that Whizzed!

2011-07-01T21:30:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

Whoosh! Is all I can say!

Since the last post I have been trying to get online to write more about the new farm ... and the universe has conspired against my internet activities!

Our 3G network crashed yesterday so no one in the whole country who uses their service had any joy yesterday and today was just a whirlwind of activity!

So a very quick update before my energy really fades ...

Tommy continues to heal well physically. His hands only need splinting when he sleeps and the doctors say we can take the bandages off tomorrow. Emotionally he seems to be having a hard time now. He seems anxious all the time and just does not quite have the same spark. We have organised a counselling session for him in the hopes that he can talk through the experience and find the parts that are still making him feel bad.

We wait for his brightness to return

The reconstruction of the house is set to begin the middle of next week, and we still are waiting for final confirmation of how much the insurance will cover but from what we can tell it will be less than half.

Most of the kids are on school break now and so the house is full of noise and energy all day long :-)
Thursday was Kay's birthday and today is Taylor's so Joanna has had a busy time too.

This morning I courageously decided to change the bed linen on all the beds in my mobile / matchbox house... well I only know now how courageous it was because I had to put it all back tonight! BLAH!
I feel like I went to gym and then some!

The blog about the farm will begin soon, I'm so sorry I haven't got to that part yet but I am working on a lot of things at once. My Varsity assignment took a lot of time and I'm working on the new website with someone and a new electronic newsletter that should be pretty cool etc etc etc.

I am sending you all fabulously warm and squishy TLC hugs for all your love and support and ... just because!

We love you all
Pippa

Tommy Healing well and some new BIG news!

2011-06-29T07:21:00.000+02:00

Good morning Friends

Yesterday we were in a workshop being held by the Government and there was no way I could update you guys, sorry!

As is the nature of life at TLC our difficult times are often accompanied or followed by some extraordinary events - God's way of saying "Don't panic, I'm still here and I know what's going on".

Tommy is doing really well, every prayer that has been said for him has helped an extra piece of his charred skin heal beautifully! Yesterday he had his first physiotherapy session to regain the full use of his hands. Whilst he is very stiff and he said the session was pretty uncomfortable it appears that he will not lose any of his functioning but will only need some therapy before he is back in action.

We Praise God for His mercy and are so very, very grateful to all who contributed their support at this very terrible time.

As we reach a place where we can take a breath another development at TLC occurs.

As most of you know, it has been TLC's intention for several years to extend our Mainhouse to accomodate the few children who continue to fall through the cracks in the system and require permanent care.

The extending of our mainhouse became more and more problematic as we discovered issues related to our waste water system, our town planning department and the rising costs of building new structures. There was a time when we didn't know what we would do, we had raised some money through our faithful support base but had no where near enough to overcome these problems.

And then in a 6 month period, beginning at the darkest time for TLC last year, when we had no money and thought we would close, God opened a door for us. The property directly adjoining TLC's top end came available for sale.

Using what we had in the building account we were able to motivate to donors and the great German Funding organisation Ein Herz Fur Kinder for the rest of the money. The offer has been accepted and we pay the deposit today!

It is a lot to take in and there is a lot of explanation you will all want and need so I have decided to use our Season Giving blogsite to keep everyone informed and up to date on what's going on with this project. It will begin tomorrow, as today I have to complete an assignment for the course I am doing.

We Love You All
Pippa

Another Miracle: Tommy comes home!!!

2011-06-26T10:39:00.000+02:00

Hello friends

Today is GLORIOUS!
THEO IS HERE AND TOMMY IS HOME!

Theo arived yesterday and went to visit Tommy staright from the airport!

And then they said he could come home!!!!

The doctor was so impressed with the healing of the hands he said Tommy could come home, as long as he can go in to the hospital every 3 days to change the dressings.

We are so happy. It is such a relief and a blessing to have him safe back home. God has been so good and I really thank each of you from the bottom of my heart for all the prayers you sent up for him, God is faithful in His promises!

I will keep you posted in his progress and the developments as we repair the house and replace his personal belongings.

We Love You All
Pippa

He is in the General Ward!

2011-06-24T13:07:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

Our news from yesterday is fabulous!
Tommy was moved to the General ward yesterday and it is just so wonderful to hear the medical fraternity using words like "miraculous" and "unbelievable" :-)

He is in much better spirits now and is completely obsessed about coming home! He is determined to do everything possible to make his departure from hospital as speedy as he can!

I joked with him yesterday that if he makes it too quick he won't have a bed at home yet! His response ... It's fine I'm going to sleep in Mommy's bed for a while anyway :-)

I guess he is entitled to such comfort after such a trauma!

Thank you all for everything you do and continue to do for all of us!

We Love You All
Pippa

He can breathe!

2011-06-23T12:43:00.000+02:00

Morning Friends!

Yesterday WAS a very busy day as I predicted.

This is what is looked like:

8:30 RICOH team members arrived at TLC for the launch of their MasterChef competition.

They will be competing in teams over the year to create the most delicious, best presented and most totally awesome lunches for the TLC kids!

9:30 I had to leave the team to prepare while I went to collect a donation of meat from an adoptive family and the BIDVEST group who collaborated to generously bless TLC with 130kg's of meat!

1:00 the first lunch setting was presented and at 2:00 the second one is put out for the kids who return from school at that time!

Each of the kids got a personalised juice bottle!

Elma and Nadia struck up a great friendship

Dishing up was frenzied fun!

2:30 The RICOH bigwigs (and now close friends!) met with us to discuss developments on the TLC farm, have a tour and celebrate with us as they were instrumental in making all this possible!

4:30 I had to squeeze in homework and exam revision for those who needed it

6:30 I left to visit Tommy

AND THIS IS WHAT I FOUND!!!!!

Tommy is breathing all on his own! And he smiled a little!

He even managed a few minutes with his RICOH IPOD!

He was suffering with terrible anxiety but I think this is a side effect of all the trauma and the meds.

He also has his voice back now! This makes things a whole lot easier!

God Bless all of you who have come together to help us at this time!

We love you all
Pippa

Tommy can eat!!

2011-06-21T21:21:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends!

I am so happy tonight because they have removed his feeding tube! It was a ghastly fat piece of plastic going in right in the centre of his belly just below the ribs and it made me so unconfortable to see it and now it is gone!

His throat is healed enough to eat soft things like yoghurts and the foul tasting protein shakes he has to eat to help with the healing :-( I'm sure it won't be long before he is eating normally again.

They also seem to have succesfully reduced his dependance on the ventilator so we are hoping to hear some good news soon about moving him from Intensive Care to the General ward.

He was very tired today, probably because of having to breathe and eat more on his own but he seemed happy enough and was keen to show me that he could wiggle his fingers. You can just see the blackened tips of the fingers, as if he was working with oily car parts but the oil was dry. Here are some pictures he wanted me to take of the fingers.

Tomorrow is set to be a VERY busy day and so I am not sure I'll get to updating you all but I'll do my best to do it as soon as it's possible.

Once again we send you all cyber hugs
We Love You All
Pippa

Tuesday 21 June

2011-06-21T09:22:00.001+02:00

Morning Friends

Last night I could not write because I could not find my 3G card, I looked everywhere and eventually at about quarter to 11 I gave up. This morning I spent another good hour looking and ofcourse I found it exactly where it was supposed to be and where I had looked at least 20 times before! GRRRRR!

So the update for yesterday...

~sigh~

Tommy had an emotional day yesterday. During Mom's visit he cried and cried, he tried to get out of the bed and make Mom take him home. It seems that as he heals he is more and more desperate to be home.

When I went at 3 o'clock they would not let me visit as his hands were being cleaned and so they were exposed and vulnerable to infection.

Poor boy. He seems to be holding more breath on his own now but they are still taking it slow, which I think is wise.

As an update for all who are sending help:
# The ticket for Tommy's best friend, Theo, has been paid for
# The cost of his glasses has been covered
# The music "IPOD" has been replaced

The insurance are sending a builder now that the assessor has been because they want measurements to give an accurate quote.

Thank you all for sending so much love and support
We Love you All
Pippa

Sunday 19 June

2011-06-19T21:58:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

It's been a harder day again today I'm afraid. Tommy had a difficult morning because they reduced the oxygen help from the ventilator to see how much he could manage on his own. It wasn't much unfortunately and it became quite an ordeal, which culminated in him throwing up. It was very traumatic for him and he was really upset that he can't seem to catch his breath.

Mom was there luckily so she did her best to soothe him and when I visited this afternoon he seemed a bit better. He was able to ask me if I could bring him some small pieces of ice as his mouth felt hot inside and he was craving ice. Mom took some with her tonight, crushed ice in a little ice bucket. Hopefully a soothing comfort for him.

I know all of you reading are reading because of Tommy but I wanted to share another sad story, if you don't mind. It seems that tragedy is making the rounds at the moment and today I experienced some that hit very close to home. Please don't feel you have to read on. I just need to tell this story so that it is not all stuck in my mind as I try to go to sleep.

Our cook, Cynthia, lives in a township not too far from us called Orange Farm. It is a mixture of steel shacks, self built homes and government houses called RDP houses. These houses are tiny matchbox buildings, unplastered airbrick walls and only 1 electrical outlet.

Living next door to Cynthia and her family were 2 young men. Bongani (20) and Vusi (18). They had been orphaned several years before and whilst they had one of the government houses to live in, they struggled to manage. An uncle of theirs lived in a shack in the yard to help offer some adult assitance as Vusi was still finishing school and struggled with epilepsy, and Bongani worked night shifts fairly regularly.

Two days ago, Vusi spent the day washing the 4 blankets they owned and he lay them out to dry inside near their one bar heater. It was a horrible day and the blankets did not dry by evening. Vusi went to sleep with no blanket and Bongani was out at work. Somewhere in the night the blankets caught fire and Vusi tried to crawl to the front door and escape but it appears that midway he suffered a siezure and was killed when his head hit the small broken television laying near the bathroom.

Cynthia and her husband, Stephen heard the sound of breaking glass at around 2:30am and went out and worked feverishly to put out the fire and find Vusi. They were devastated to find that they were too late to save Vusi.

Cynthia came to work and asked if we could help with some food for Bongani as he was beside himself with grief and unable to go to work. I packed up some food and a few new blankets that we had recently been given and drove with Cynthia to drop them off.

It just broke my heart. This young man, now all alone, motherless, fatherless and now brotherless. It is beyond comprehension how much suffering there must be in his heart right now. His house smells like acrid smoke and there is a big black streak up the bricks where his bed must have burned. You can see little patches where the two must have tried to apply plaster to the bare brick walls when they had a little money to spare. The house is freezing because many of the windows are broken and the roof is exposed as there is no ceiling but worst is that he has to live there in this building that is such a terrible and constant reminder of all he has lost.

The idea that I had brought such measly offerings makes me so depressed. I wanted to do so much more. These are the times when I really hate how poverty is able to keep people in bondage until the lie broken or dead at the feet of society. I wish so much that I had an endless supply of resources to help people like this. It is just so unfair.

Thank you all for listening and may I ask you all to pray for Bongani and seek God's compassion for him.

We love you all
Pippa

Saturday 18 June

2011-06-18T22:00:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

The last two days have been a little hectic. There are a whole lot of tiny chores that need to happen now that my little brood and I are seperate of the "mainhouse". Beds to make and wet beds to change, clothes to fold and "stuff" to organise. It takes a lot of time and energy and so last night I was just not up to writing, sorry.

Things with Tommy seem to be improving in small steps.

Yesterday he slept through my visit - he was asleep when I got there and had not woken by the time visiting hours were over. I could not bring myself to wake him since I am a firm believer in the healing effects of sleep, but he was furious! Every visitor since then has been silently but clearly and vehemently instructed to wake him during visiting hours, so today when I went he made me promise that I would not let him sleep through one again.

When Zoe visited him last night she found a nurse there speaking to him in Sotho. His registered name is Itumeleng and so she, and apparently many of the staff just assumed he could speak the language. He was so happy to see her and pleaded with her to "TELL THEM I SPEAK ENGLISH!".

These are good signs. He is feeling stronger in himself and I believe it won't be too long before he can hold his own oxygen and they can remove the tracheotomy and let him move to a general ward.

Anyone who knows about South Africa knows how much the country loves any excuse for a holiday so it shouldn't surprise you to know that although only Thursday was a holiday most people took Friday off too and so it is like a 4 day weekend. This means information is a bit scanty so I will be sure to update you when we get more information on his hands.

Today he was mostly concerned about the strange little tremors he seems to be having. His body twitches and shakes in small movements, uncontrollably even when he sleeps. He is also itchy all over and it worries him and so I have told him I believe it is just his body's way of managing the trauma - I hope it eases as time goes on.

I must say that his face has healed miraculously. Today there was barely a hint of the scabs and damaged skin that had been visible before. He was so much improved in fact that he even asked for headphones so that he could hear the television or radio now that his ears are cleared of the wounds.

We pray that God will show the same mercy to his hands and that they too will heal as remarkably.

Thank you for all your prayers
We love you all
Pippa

Thursday 16 June

2011-06-16T21:41:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

And Happy Youth Day.
Today is June 16th, a National Public Holiday in our country where we celebrate the strength and resilience of our youth.

How appropriate then that Mom has written a beautiful tribute to Tommy on her blog which can be read at http://thea-jarvis.blogspot.com/

Our visits went well today. Tommy says on a scale of Not depressed being a 1 and very depressed being a 10, he would say he is a 3. I think this is pretty remarkable really, I know many people in the world who would be a whole lot more depressed than that for a lot smaller reasons!

His face is looking so much better. They have cleared away most of the damaged skin and now you can really see the new skin. Whilst it is obvious there will be some discolouration of the skin, it will I believe not be as bad as it might have been. Thank you for all your prayers in this regard!

An interesting thing I noticed today was how the skin around his eyes and I believe his eyes as well was saved because he was wearing his glasses. It's amazing, he has perfect white lines where the glasses frames were over the bridge of his nose and along the sides of his head, it looks like a little racoon mask.

Out of curiosity I had a look at his glasses when I got back and they are destroyed. The frames are bent and buckled and the glass itself looks like it was sandblasted. These were new R5500 glasses, specially made for his eye condition, called Low Vision. I will be using some of the donations people have been sending to get a new pair made, as he is lost without them but the medical insurance will not cover a new pair so soon after the last ones.

Tomorrow he scheduled for another dressing of the hands and he is really stressed about that as the last one was so painful. I have asked the nurse to mention this to the doctor in the hopes that they can give him a little more pain relief.

I'll be in touch soon.
We love you all
Pippa

Wednesday 15 June

2011-06-15T21:42:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

I am happy to report that Tommy is improving. The doctors have managed to turn the ventilator pump off and he is able to breathe through it using his own muscles. This means that in a few days they may remove the tube altogether and then he should get his voice back. This will be a great relief for him because he is so frustrated with not being able to talk.

The burned skin on his face is being plastered with a moisture filled gel which keeps it from getting taut and allows it to seperate from the underlying skin without pulling or causing more damage. He finds the sensation a bit irritating as his body tells him to rub or scratch the dead or dying skin off and of course he can't.

He indicates that his hands are painful and when I asked if he had seem the damage to the hands he said he had and that it had scared him. I reassured him that everyone is doing the right things and tried to encourage him as best I could.

All the nurses in the unit now know his name and people are constantly popping there heads in to greet him. He seems to want to hear every detail of the goings on at home and so the visiting hour passes so quickly.

He was distressed when the time came for me to leave, he does not like the nighttimes as he is awake a lot and it gets lonely. This is the hardest part for us too, knowing that he is feeling pain and is unhappy just makes us want to be there all the time.

Pray for God's comfort and that the pain will lessen.
Thank you to all of you and God Bless you
We love you all
Pippa

Tuesday 14 June

2011-06-14T11:38:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends!

Sorry I missed yesterday! I know you are all waiting for any news but yesterday came and went in an exhausting blur and I just couldn;t get to the blog!

Yesterday Tommy had another debridement. Zoe, who visited him last night, says his face looks much better than she had thought it would. It appears that the top layers of skin are peeling away, leaving new and unscarred, healthy looking skin below. This is really great news. We had heard that because gas burns so fast the burn does not always go to the underlying fleshy areas and so the scarring may be minimal and it seems this is the case. We are so grateful for this!

His hands however are still of grave concern. We are trying to get the specialist burns hand surgeon to come and have a look but for now they are saying he will need splints to help the hands heal with as much mobility as possible and he will definately need skin grafts to cover the wounds and likely several surgical interventions to help things along.

Mom has gone across now to see him and she has taken the little file with all your lovely encouraging emails to read to him. Remember the address is getwell@tlc.org.za and we will be sure to give him all the messages.

The repairs to upstairs should begin any day now. The insurance assessor was here today and we will find out soon how much we will need to contribute to get everything back on track.
Our Board of Trustees has decided that should there be a shortfall we will take some money from our savings for the property next door but we are hoping this will not be necessary.

Whislt life is still topsy turvey, my kiddies think living in the mobile home is FANTASTIC! Here are a few pictures taken on Similo's birthday.

Matthew, James, Murphy and Mighty playing with the Car mat in the sun!

Mbali and Ruth prefer to be inside. They call it "helping" :-&

Similo, Christian and Sibu climping in the plum tree outside the front door.

Thank you for all the kind messages, please know that whilst I cannot write you all an individual response to your letters of support, they are very much appreciated!

We Love You All
Pippa

Sunday 12 June

2011-06-12T21:38:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

Another trying day I'm afraid. Tommy was lucid and in good spirits this morning when I went to visit him. We spent the hour trying to communicate with some very weird sign language. His boxing glove hands make that extremely difficult and frustrating but I think he got answers to a lot of the questions he had.

In the afternoon Mom went and she said he had a whole lot more questions and she couldn't make head or tail out of what he wanted and so eventually they we're both close to tears and decided to give up the conversation so Mom just spoke, trying to fill in as many gaps as she could think of.

By this evening when I went again, he was quite unwell. I had taken Crispin with me as he had asked in the morning but now I think that might have been a mistake. Poor Crispin first went all weak and had to sit on the floor for sometime, then he came and stood next to the bed while I spoke to Tommy, when I looked again he had his head on the sidebar of the bed and could only cry and cry and cry which made me cry and cry and cry and then Tommy got really upset and sick.

We are all so emotionally exhausted it only takes a moment and all the composure you have managed to gather crumbles. Crispin sobbed all the way home, my heart just aches and the poor child begins his first set of highschool exams tomorrow. I just wish we could press pause on the world so that TLC can just gather its wits again and we could have time to sit with each child and really find out how they are doing. It is so hard.

Thank you to all of you who have sent us special encouragement and please can I remind you all of the email address for Tommy, it is getwell@tlc.org.za. He was really excited about the idea and I will start reading the messages to him tomorrow I think - probably a few at each visiting session.

Remember us in your prayers.

We love you all
Pippa

Saturday 11 June

2011-06-11T20:51:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

Another late entry, sorry you had to wait. It has been a busy day.

Saturdays are normally busy as we have sports meetings to get the kids to, catechism for the younger ones and many visitors who come around.
Today was also Similo's birthday and so it is only now that I have a few minutes to catch you up on the news.

Tommy is conscious and seems lucid. He cannot make any sound at all but his eyes speak volumes. He was able to indicate that he is not in any pain (which is great) but there were obviously other things bothering him and he was not able to make them clear to us which is so frustrating and upsetting for everybody.

Poor thing, tonight during Mom's visit he was trying to lift his top half from the bed and side to side, she thought he wanted to be lifted up a little more on the pillow and when she went to help him she found a sharp plastic clip that usually attaches to an IV line but that must have been forgotton and it had found its way behind him and had dug great big dents into his back. Heaven knows how long he has had to endure that discomfort! It is so devastating for him not to be talking. He cannot even sign a bit either as his hands are bandaged up like big boxing gloves.

The Doctor was there this afternoon during my visit, he says Tommy is doing well now and that they would like to do a skin graft from his thigh to his hands on Monday. Please pray for special grace when that happens as I know from Ben that he often said the graft was more painful than the burn in many ways.

Things are all out of balance for us here. Now that I am in the mobile home I feel disconnected from the other mainhouse kids and there has been so much sorting and packing and organising to do I have fallen behind in many other important areas. It is like trying to keep up your fulltime job while moving house, raising 10 kids and worrying about a loved one.

I appreciate all the love you have sent and ask that you reserve a few prayers for me too please :-) I am holding on but it has been a tough week and sleep is hard to come by.

Bless you all
We love you
Pippa

Friday 10 June

2011-06-10T17:36:00.003+02:00

Hello friends

So sorry for the late update today. Things are spiralling faster and faster and I am falling further behind in many places.

Tommy seems to once again be coming out of sleep. He is restless but seems more coordinated and less frantic. He can open his eyes now but doesn't seem able to make sense out of things. His eyelashes are singed into little blobs of white and his eyes are blooshot as can be, but at least they open.

Today the Dr's had to debride his hands and remove all the damaged skin, which is a very uncomfortable thing. The Dr seems fairly sure that the hands caught a lot of the explosion and will likely be the areas needing the most attention and after care.

Sorry again for the short update but yesterday we moved 14 of us from the mainhouse into the 3 bedroom mobile home so that repairs upstairs can start next week. 3 bedrooms and 14 people you ask?
Well, yes it's kind of like camping (we even have triple bunks) but with a group of over excited under 6's and a lot more "stuff" than you would normally take camping :-)

Thank you all once again for your prayers and blessings.
God Bless you
We love you all
Pippa

Thursday 9th June

2011-06-09T09:45:00.001+02:00

Morning Friends

So today is one where things seem almost too hard. Tears sit too close to the edge of ones eyes and ones brains feel like they have gone into hibernation.

Tommy was restless during last nights visit and the nurse says it is because they are reducing the sedation. This means he can now hear us talk and it was obvious he knew we were there and what we were saying but you can see he feels trapped. He wants to talk back, he wants to swallow or cough and he can't. It was terrible to see him trying so hard to control these things and feeling like he was suffocating becuase the ventilator only provides air when it is prgrammed too so a big deep breath is not possible and coughing or swallowing are also impossible. The nurse had to suction him and he was so uncomfortable.

Please pray for gentle hands to care for him and God's comfort as he becomes conscious. It is going to be a hard time for him.

Viv is setting up a special email acocunt for all your messages of encouragement that are meant for Tommy. It will be getwell@tlc.org.za and you can send through things we will print out and read to him or, when he well enough, let him read on our laptops. It should be active in a few hours so feel free to use it when you can. I know he will appreciate hearing from all of you.

We love you all
Pippa

Wednesday 8th June

2011-06-08T13:22:00.000+02:00

Good morning friends,

Tommy was a little restless last night. His body seems to be twitching a lot. I expect it is the nerves and muscles way of dealing with all the subconcious pain and discomfort but I will be asking the doctor when I see him.

The builder came back with the quote for the repairs to the building and it totals to R208 750.
We are seeing what portion our insurance might pay and then we will need to fundraise for the rest.

The repairs require that the entire wing is gutted down to the floors. The ceiling will be replaced and new insulation put in. The geyser will be moved to an external wall and this will free up a little more space. The big room at the end will be divided through the middle to make a corridor right to the end with a fire escape door - it has long been a worry that the current fire escape plan is terrible ineffective in the event that everyone need to evacuate from upstairs.

This will mean we will have 5 rooms in place of 4. The rooms will no longer have built in cupboards and we will have to purchase a free standing one for each room.

The builders start on the volunteer cottage repairs on Monday and will be available as soon as we give them the go ahead to start upstairs too.

Please put the word out to your groups, I know TLC has plundered everyone since last year but if there is even a little help available it will reduce the stress by that much.

Here are a few pics:

Please keep Mom in your prayers too, she is having a tough time and this kind of stress she really does not need.

We love you all
Pippa

Evening 7 June 2011

2011-06-07T18:44:00.000+02:00

Hi friends

It's been a hectic day but thankfully Tommy appears to be much more settled and peaceful. I believe this will help the healing process and I am thankful that he is not feeling any pain at present.

The gas company viewed the explosion site today and are confident that it was "user error" that caused the explosion. The gas must have collected during Tommy's efforts to switch it on.

The insurance company will review our claim and we are very grateful to TLC Holland for their gift of the money to repair the volunteer cottage we desperately need to put people into again.

Can I thank each and everyone of the over 300! of you who have written, called and sent messages to us during this terrible time.

The counsellor will visit us tomorrow afternoon and hopefully give the children a "safe" space to talk about how they are feeling. We find most of them too worried about causing us stress and so they don't talk about how upset they are. It is not ideal.

We love you all
Pippa

Tuesday 7 June

2011-06-07T08:39:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

I went and saw Tommy last night. I am relieved to say he seems much more comfortable and peaceful now that the tubes are not in his throat.

Another love tap from God is that the ICU nurse in charge of Tommy in the daytime is one of the few South African TLC volunteers from ages ago! Her name is Cecelia and she volunteered at TLC almost 9 years ago, now she is a wonderful nurse and amazingly is responsible for Tommy during the day shift.
We are so grateful to God for this becuase we know she will be gentle and loving towards him.

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers
I will write again this evening.

We Love you all
Pippa

Monday 6 June

2011-06-06T18:29:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

Thank you for the outpouring of kindness and the endless prayers that are being sent.

Tommy was moved into an isolation cubicle within the ICU last night. The Dr's believe it will help keep any likely infections at bay and the room is easier to cool as he has a recurring temperature.
I will be visiting him in a few minutes to see the results of the operation where they inserted the ventilator through the trachea and the feeding tube into his stomach. I will let you know more tomorrow about this.

For now could you let your networks know that we have had to work out a solution to the problem of relocating the children who are now roomless due to the damage to upstairs.

1) Joshua and Reuel will move into a volunteer cottage - this means we have to fix the damp and crumbling wall problem in the cottage known as Somewhere Els. This will cost R119 000 - we have R20 000 toward this already.

2) the boys from upstairs will move into Joshua's vacated room downstairs.

3) For right now Ellen and Theresa will have to stay where they are but when renovations begin we will have to cram them in somewhere - likely in the upstairs lounge with me.
And when Tommy gets back ... well hopefully the repairs will be done before then.

The repairs (and insurance possibilites) for this renovation should be quoted on within the week and then we will know more.

We appreciate all of the love you have sent us from around the world.

For those who asked what you could do for Tommy especially - these are his banking details and since he has lost everything of his own he will be very grateful for any help toward replacing them.

NAME:               ITUMELENG CHRISTIAN JARVIS

BANK:               STANDARD BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA

ACCOUNT:       007963084

BRANCH:         SOUTHDALE
CODE:                006405

IBAN:                 SBZAZAJJ006405

Bank’s Address:
Standard Bank of South Africa
Southdale Shopping Centre
36 Alamein Road
Southdale
Johannesburg

We Love you all
Pippa

Tommy hurt!

2011-06-05T20:24:00.000+02:00

Dear friends

Whilst many of you know about our tragedy this weekend I thought we should record it here for those who may be a little out of the loop.

On Friday night at around 8pm, Tommy was in his room preparing to go out and celebrate Crispin’s 15^th birthday. He was pottering around and began trying to light the gas heater in his bedroom. It was a bitterly cold night and it was the first time this season we had tried to put the gas on, it is not uncommon for the heaters to need several minutes of “bleeding” to allow the air in the pipes to work its way out and be replaced by gas which can then be ignited. Something must have been wrong with Tommy’s heater because when he clicked the flint to create the pilot flame, the entire room exploded like a bomb. The neighbours even heard the explosion and chaos ensued.

Tommy was badly burned and rushed to hospital where he remains in ICU, sedated and on a ventilator. He is unable to breathe on his own and will have a tracheotomy operation tomorrow to allow the ventilator that he is on to not have to go down his throat the way it does now. He will have hole for a feeding tube made in his stomach at the same time as the nasal gastric tube is causing damage to his nose and it keeps bleeding.

His hands are badly burned too although we are not sure exactly what damage these have as they are bandaged up like to boxers mitts.

Needless to say all of this is just far too close to our traumatic memories of our Ben. The kids are in varying stages of shock and emotional meltdown and Mom and I are barely able to keep it together. The temptation to be physically sick is never far from us. How this can have happened to our Tommy on top of everything else just destroys my ability to reason completely.

The wing of the house where Tommy’s room was has 3 small rooms and 1 big room. The drywalling partitions in all of these are going to need tearing down and rebuilding. The force of the explosion bent the walls out, blew out the windows and cracked the ceilings.

We are having the builders come in and give us a cost estimate but as you all know TLC can barely afford to keep the normal costs covered let alone add this kind of thing to our budget. If any of you have a creative way to help with this feel free to email us your ideas, our brains are not working completely rationally yet.

Thank you to all who have offered up prayers for our Tom and those who have sent words of support and encouragement we appreciate you all and ask for your patience with us if we are slow to respond to things for a while.

We Love you all

Pippa

Not the best week.

2011-04-17T10:52:00.002+02:00

Good Morning Friends.

The week started of pretty badly. Firstly I was heartsore over my little Similo and Nadia's move to fostercare with someone else. It is just never the best for a child to be in such a tenuous placement and it grieved me greatly that I could not be their constant. Similo had his own place in my little family and now there is this gaping hole. My kids are distressed and poor Mighty (who was best friends with Similo) is just pining away, it breaks me.

Mighty Christian - my beloved son!

Then the whole spider bite saga took me out of action for days. The antibiotics were so strong and the whole week I spent just feeling physically and emotionally gross.

BUT THE WEEK IS OVER!

So I am resolved to begin fresh. I need to get my mind back in order and sort myself out - being unproductive makes me grumpy!

Pray for us friends, the burdens are great here. So many people each having their own needs and only a few they look to for satisfaction of those needs makes things though.

Bless all of you who have been working so hard behind the scenes to raise a little bit of money here and there - it is all helping and we are so grateful.

We love you all
Pippa

Thanks and see you later

2011-04-11T14:21:00.000+02:00

Hi friends

So thank you so much to those who responded so quickly to my request yesterday. I am afraid the situation has resolved itself and so I have taken off the appeal.

I am not well due to a spider bite that has gone septic. Saw the Dr today, so now I am sore, doped up and going to sleep for two days:-)

Love you all
Pippa

Frustration and Celebration!

2011-04-06T09:04:00.001+02:00

My Friends

I know so many of you have been following our financial saga over the last months and so you will all know how many of our hopes were pinned on receiving our lotto funding and our outstanding government grants. Well I'm afraid we are once again sitting frustrated and upset.

We have been informed that our lotto application for 2009 has been declined. We waited 13months for an answer, went through all the hurdles to the very last one, did what we were told to to make ourselves "acceptable" and then were rejected. They have given us 90 days to appeal, which we will, but I don't know if they will even consider it now that the call for new applications has closed. All this while places like ours are closing down daily and they sit on R5.9 Billion rand of charity money not dispursed! It makes me so sick.
No regard given to our 18 years of experience, our track record and our daily work to maintain our integrity and quality for the sake of South Africa's babies.

Anyway, we will lodge an appeal and let you know.

The celebration part is that TOMORROW TLC and JOSHUA and REUEL turn 18 YEARS OLD!

Hip Hip Hooray! It is such an amazing thing to look back over 18years and know that we are still standing :-)

Thank you to every person who has

ever given us of their time, talents,

resources and prayers.

Where would we be

today without you!

We Love you all
Pippa

A TLC Newsletter

2011-03-29T09:50:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends

The last few weeks have been filled with emotion and challenges some good, some stressful, some bittersweet - the nature of the life I guess:-)

Here is the link to the February Newsletter recently sent out by email to all the contacts on my list - if some of you missed it and would like to be on the mailing list for next time please send me an email telling me so and I will add you to the list.

We love you all
Pippa

For those who believe South Africa is beyond redemption.

2011-03-10T17:38:00.000+02:00

My Dear Friends.

Every so often a gem comes along that is just simply too beautiful to not share!

Jonathan Jansen is the Rector and Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State. A university that has been fighting a great battle against racism with such grace and integrity that it has become a beacon that reminds every South African that we chose to be ONE NATION and that we all knew it would take a committment from every individual to make the impossible, possible!

My South Africa by Jonathan Jansen Wednesday, 09 February 2011

My South Africa is the working-class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing. It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker's children through the same school that her own child attended. It is the politician in one of our rural provinces, Mpumalanga, who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than just a few words. It is the teacher who worked after school hours every day during the public sector strike to ensure her children did not miss out on learning.

My South Africa is the first-year university student in Bloemfontein who took all the gifts she received for her birthday and donated them - with the permission of the givers - to a home for children in an Aids village. It is the people hurt by racist acts who find it in their hearts to publicly forgive the perpetrators. It is the group of farmers in Paarl who started a top school for the children of farm workers to ensure they got the best education possible while their parents toiled in the vineyards. It is the farmer's wife in Viljoenskroon who created an education and training centre for the wives of farm labourers so that they could gain the advanced skills required to operate accredited early-learning centers for their own and other children.

My South Africa is that little white boy at a decent school in the Eastern Cape who decided to teach the black boys in the community to play cricket, and to fit them all out with the togs required to play the gentleman’s game. It is the two black street children in Durban, caught on camera, who put their spare change in the condensed milk tin of a white beggar. It is the Johannesburg pastor who opened up his church as a place of shelter for illegal immigrants. It is the Afrikaner woman from Boksburg who nailed the white guy who shot and killed one of South Africa's greatest freedom fighters outside his home.

My South Africa is the man who went to prison for 27 years and came out embracing his captors, thereby releasing them from their impending misery. It is the activist priest who dived into a crowd of angry people to rescue a woman from a sure necklacing. It is the former police chief who fell to his knees to wash the feet of Mamelodi women whose sons disappeared on his watch; it is the women who forgave him in his act of contrition. It is the Cape Town university psychologist who interviewed the 'Prime Evil' in Pretoria Centre and came away with emotional attachment, even empathy, for the human being who did such terrible things under apartheid.

My South Africa is the quiet, dignified, determined township mother from Langa who straightened her back during the years of oppression and decided that her struggle was to raise decent children, insist that they learn, and ensure that they not succumb to bitterness or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the two young girls who walked 20kms to school every day, even through their Matric years, and passed well enough to be accepted into university studies. It is the student who takes on three jobs, during the evenings and on weekends, to find ways of paying for his university studies.

My South Africa is the teenager in a wheelchair who works in townships serving the poor. It is the pastor of a Kenilworth church whose parishioners were slaughtered, who visits the killers and asks them for forgiveness because he was a beneficiary of apartheid. It is the politician who resigns on conscientious grounds, giving up status and salary because of an objection in principle to a social policy of her political party. It is the young lawman who decides to dedicate his life to representing those who cannot afford to pay for legal services.

My South Africa is not the angry, corrupt, violent country whose deeds fill the front pages of newspapers and the lead-in items on the seven-o'-clock news. It is the South Africa often unseen, yet powered by the remarkable lives of ordinary people. It is the citizens who keep the country together through millions of acts of daily kindness.

Remember to point people to our Lenten Appeal on our Season Giving Blog :-)

News and Lots of Love

2011-03-08T21:29:00.001+02:00

Hello Friends

So, sadly it seems to be a bit of a trend now! My lack of posts, I mean.
2 Weeks ago we had to let our one driver go and have been hobbling along since then trying to keep all the various logistical needs moving along smoothly. It is a massive challenge and of course things conspire to end up as complex as possible and we have had no less than 5 flat tyres and 1 flat battery in that time!!! ARRGGHHH!

I have been working on our Newsletter and will post it here in the next few days. I will also be emailing it to as many people as I have in my inbox so you may get it twice :-)

Today I spent the first 4 hours at the vegetable market. Buying the squashes, potatoes and fruit we never seem to have quite enough of :-) I had a somewhat shocking but very humerous encounter with an old gentleman who always watches my car.

He had not seen me for several months as my beloved Tammy and Anne were doing the veggie buying for awhile. Since Tammy is away I am back at it and so the old man looked at me with some interest because he knows the car and is always curious about who is driving it this time. He asked me where the young lady is who always wore the head scarf. Those of you who hve known me for awhile know that for many years I enjoyed wearing a head covering and when I told him I was indeed the same person he peered at me and then laughed and said ... "You got fat!".

How is that for motivation to get back into the gym!

When I got home I had 3 hours hosting two film students from Boston who are doing a documentary on the experience of HIV and AIDS for the people in our country. It was a good thing for me to have a chance to articulate again why we do this work and how important I truly believe it is. We are literally on the coalface here, putting in our blood, sweat and tears but for great results. I am so grateful to every person who helps us do this work and make the impact we do.

After those 3 hours, I spent 3 hours at a genetic specialist trying to find out if Paul perhaps has an abnormality that causes him to be so unusually small. The doctor did xrays and investigations and says he seems to have minimal but not abnormal growth and so we have begun a period of obervation to measure the velocity of his growth so that we can get an idea of what we should or can do.

After that it was a few hours of homework, organising logistics and making sure there was enough milk :-) Now I have spent 3 hours checking and answering emails and updating the 2 blogs.
Those of you who haven't checked the SeasonsGiving blog for awhile should do so again. We are displaying an image and short message each day for the Lenten period leading up to Easter to support our efforts to gather funds for a rainy day. It is called the "Nest Egg Project".

We love you all
Pippa

OH MY GOODNESS!

2011-02-23T21:57:00.000+02:00

20 days!!! I cannot, cannot, cannot believe it! 20 DAYS!! Since I last wrote! NO WAY!!
I am so sorry. I know how many of you check regularly for updates and how frustrating it must be to check for 3 WEEKS with nothing! Yikes, I resolve to do better!!

So in these 3 weeks what as happened! WELL ...

We were able to complete 2 more families! One of our little girls and one of our little boys found forever families early in the month ... What a great and special time that is, to have the privilege of being a part of something so marvelous and miraculous!

I also, finally (after 2 years!!) got Mighty's adoption papers in the post! Now I can get Birth Certificates made and then add him to my Medical Insurance which will be a great weigh off my mind!

Last Thursday he had a followup Audiology appointment and his hearing has deteriorated. He now has moderate hearing loss in the left ear and moderate to severe loss in the right. The recommendation is to get him a titanium clip bone implant where a hearing aid can be attached because we cannot get regular hearing aids due to the constant leaking of his ears. ~Sigh~ So much money again!

Jerome had an appointment at the same time and his only option to access the hearing world is definately the cochlear implant. I am still working on finding a funder for this and have a new lead in Germany I am following up. So pray for that one please!!

The HIV check up for the Jarvis 6 went well. Only a hiccup here and there, a couple of concerns about liver function and a drop in one of their CD4's but it's under control ... so we march on :-)

Having some volunteer issues again ~sigh~ I wish you could get a thing like they use to measure heat signatures that could tell you what you're getting before you say yes! It is such a tricky business trying to keep your finger on the pulse of every little thing, making sure you address complaints but not to the detriment of the countless other considerations ... blah blah blah... I guess I'm a little frazzled :-) I usually don't blog the blah stuff! I hope!

OK so maybe I should log off but please pray for us. Things are so overwhelming sometimes it is easy to forget how much great stuff there is too :-)

We love you all
Pippa

Ps: Remember Selby the Pumpkin Money man?

Well, a few days after that I had fetched the kids from school and they asked me to stop and give this other old man a drink one of them had.

We see this man fairly often on our way to or from school.
He uses a homemade walking frame (picture to follow when this website will load them!) to get around and that day it was very hot!

He was cutting the grass on the roadside and tying it in bundles to sell to the thatch roof makers. You get about 20c a bundle ... what a terribly unrewarding job!He said his name is "Baba" which means father in Zulu but I reckon it is just what he is used to people calling him, not actually his given name.

Anyhow, he was quite taken aback by the gift and looked suspiciously at us until we left. I guess kindness is not an often experienced thing for him!

Selby and the Pumpkin Money!

2011-02-03T20:33:00.001+02:00

How many times have you followed the nudging of the Holy Spirit and been really surprised when you have?

All the time there are opportunities around us to make a difference in someone elses life, in a small but meaningful way. Often these things are small choices, decisions that don't cost us much and because they are not great or grand we often overlook the impact they can have.

I just had one of these touching experiences and thought I would share it with you.

Today I went to the Pick n Pay, our local grocery store to buy the things we needed for supper. I had to take the bus as I was going to collect the children from school afterwards.

The route I took led me past a large tract of vacant land where for the last 2 or 3 seasons some industrious residents of the local community had set up several vegetable patches for growing their own food.
(I went back later and took the pics below :-) )

Today there were about 4 ramshackle stalls set up on the side of the road. Built out of scraps of wood and plastic, each stall was manned by a lady and each was selling the surplus from their crops.

I resolved that I would rather buy the pumpkins I needed from them on my way back rather than give my money to the big supermarket. So merrily I went about doing the other bits of shopping, packed it in the bus and then I made my way back with my R100 carefully tucked in my sleeve.

It was with great frustration that I noticed too late that there was no way I could pull the bus over onto the shoulder where the ladies were, as the recent rainfall had washed away the sand and left too big and sharp a drop to pull over safely.

I had no choice but to keep on driving. I was disappointed that I could not make one of the ladies happy but there was really nothing I could do so I drove on.

Soon a traffic light forced me to a stop and my attention was suddenly drawn to a little old man leaning on an old piece of stick and pleading for someone in the traffic to give him a lift. Generally I would not pick up a hitchhiker but something about the man made me feel like he was someone I could help. And he was so happy! As soon as I indicacted to him that he could come on the bus he grinned from ear to ear. He had eyes beginning to go milky with age but a bright bright smile.

He started praising God and thanking me over and over again and then without taking a breath he went on in rapid speech as follows:

"... my name is Selby and I am a father of 2 underage children. God blessed my wife and I late in our lives with children and then she died. I have pins in my foot after an operation and can not stand long enough to do any proper work. I am going now to beg so I can take some food home for the children."

The way he spoke, so clearly and succinctly touched me. I know how quickly people close their ears and harden their hearts when people in need try to tell their stories. Many find it easier to assume the person is lying or that somehow they deserve their circumstance.

Immediately my mind was taken to a piece of advice I read in a novel. A mother saying to her daughter "you can't solve everyones problems but you can choose to be the answer to someone's prayers everyday."

Isn't that lovely?

So I chose to give Selby the Pumpkin money.

Just as he was getting ready to get off the bus I slipped it from my sleeve and said "God Bless You".
It was a special moment. Milky eyes brightened by sudden tears and a shaking hand of thanks in lieu of words.

May you all be so blessed as to know what that's like.

I love you all

Pippa

I'm in Europe!!

2011-01-26T13:06:00.000+02:00

Hello Friends!

How strange it is to write a blog and not be at TLC!
I am at the moment sitting in Thomas and Anke Lauff's lovely home, cozy and happy to be able to avoid the chilly wet weather outside!
It's like home away from home actually because from all the news I get it seems to still be cloudy and rainy at home too, the only difference is that it is hot - like being in the tropics! Most unusual for Johannesburg!

With the children back at school I am so happy I was able to leave Mommy with some great mainhouse volunteers to help keep everybody moving forward!

For me it has been a special time. Seeing our TLC babies growing, so many of them starting school and acheiving new things. It has been wonderful. My trip started in Holland (a fabulous experience and I am so grateful to everyone!) and I made my first television appearance on a popular television program called Heart of Holland.

Here is the 3 min video clip!

It turns out TLC has been on a few international stations. Here is one done during the World cup for ARABIC nations! Anyone who can tell me what they are saying? I would be happy to know!
Hope it's nice!

Love you all

Pippa

Photo Display from the holidays

2011-01-15T08:04:00.000+02:00

Hi friends!

I thought I would show you some of the great pics taken during our December / January Summer Holidays. The tell a great story of what we get up to around here! Enjoy!

Feeding Time!

Jesse helping

pack donations!

Creepies having

a picnic!

NAP TIME FOR TOM!

We had a leaky pipe ~

a really leaky pipe!

Superman had to be taught how to fly by someone - right?

Two little ladies, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere!

BIG KID BAKING TIME WITH ANNA!

LION'S HAD BAKING TIME TOO!

LEARNING TO MULTITASK IS KEY!

SONGTIME!

TEETHING TIME!

UNO!

Fun time For Volunteers!

We Love you all!
Pippa

My holiday!

2011-01-06T07:23:00.000+02:00

GOOD MORNING AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

I thought I would give you a little report back on the holiday I took last week. As many of you know, holidays come far to infrequently around here and so it was a very special treat to be able to go away for the week of my birthday!

I love the African bush and wanted to share that with my kids so we went up to the Kruger National Park.

The photo above is a view from the Long Tom Pass, the area is largely used for the cultivation of pine.

We stayed at a little resort called Aan de Vliet, a family run establishment that was very hospitable and who have lovely staff.

We rented a small chalet that lies along a river and took two day trips into the park. We spent the rest of the time just hanging out by the pool and being together.

Here are some pics of what we got up to.

Matthew and Ruthi were the first to spot an animal in the Park, in fact it was not one but a herd of about 100 Cape water buffalo - one of Africa's Big Five.

Jerome just loved everything about the
holiday. He sat right up front when
we were driving through the park,
and honestly, chatted and
chatted until I thought I would go crazy!

We spent the evening the night before making little foam hats from a kit we got for Christmas, the kids had fun and used as many sticky bits as they could to fill them up.

Little Ruthi scraped her big toe and it bled a little. True to her dramatic nature she made quite an effort to let me know just how bad it was. She covered the toe with a wet wipe, grabbed her bottle, threw her arm over her head and then... dozed off!

Elephants were in abundance and we saw a lot of great things. In one incident three young bulls were rough housing right next to the road and very nearly smacked into some nearby vehicles who had stopped to watch the herd. We were just too late to capture it because they all dashed off into the bush.

The temperature in that area was 38.7 degrees Celscius in the shade! And the humidity was very high too so poor little Ruthi got a heat rash on her face. In this picture you can just about see the rash. Here Matthew had told her she had a beautiful double chin and that she should show it off!

Thank you to everyone for seeing us through to this new year. We pray it is a better one than last and ask for God's blessing on all of your lives.

Love you all

Pippa

A "pool" ogies!

2010-12-19T21:02:00.001+02:00

To all the faithful followers of this blog and all the friends who can't follow because they don't use gmail ... but who religiously check what's going on here ... I'm sorry I have neglected you!

This time of year is notorious for TLC, it is our busiest season. Every day is filled to the brim with friends, visitors and the interested public who find themselves with some extra time on their hands and are happy to come offer it in service to TLC. It's fantastic but boy does it keep us busy!

Today we went to the Aquadome at the Emerald City, it is an indoor water park. Thanks to 2 volunteers we were able to spend the day away from TLC and just have some fun. It was wonderful. The kids had a blast and everyone arrived home thoroughly pooped!

I will start writing on this blog more often as soon as the Christmas blog is done. We will be keeping that blog site live until early January, just in case anyone has some extra cash around after Christmas haha!

Life is carrying on, we are busily preparing to give the kids and volunteers another memorable Christmas and we send love and light to all our supporters in every corner of the globe.

FYI our blogs are visited from as far afield as Iceland, Russia, China and Argentina and everywhere else inbetween!

Thank you!
Love
Pippa

3000 hits! and the end of the school year

2010-12-02T17:11:00.001+02:00

Hello my dears!

Yes it is true! We have had over 3000 hits on our Christmas blog so far! and another $3000 to transfer from paypal to the TLC account!
Thank you! Thank you!

Schools are closing all across the country now (It is our Summer holiday). We have a few kids at home already and another group finishing early next week. G-R-E-A-T everyone says - don't you?
Holidays ... F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S - aren't they?

Can you hear the sarcasm and a tiny bit of terror in my voice?

Have YOU ever tried to entertain 30 kids, mostly boys for 5 weeks on a shoe-string budget?

Trust me it can turn the most patient of saints into a foaming-at-the-mouth crazy person!

We are so blessed to have a few Christmas parties lined up but it would be really nice if someone would consider helping us organise a couple of special outings for the school break.

Here are some ideas of fun things they like to do:

Movies
Gold Reef City
Ice Skating
Montecasino Bird Garden
Zoo
Bass Lake

And finally for all my dear, dear personal friends who have been supporting me through this difficult year and who have been worrying about my own health and sanity as we go forward :-)

I am taking a weeks break over my birthday on the 28th at a lovely little place called Aan De Vliet just near the Kruger Park.

I will be taking my wonderful children along, Matthew, James, Mighty, Christian, Jerome, Similo and Ruth. We hope to get into the Park for one or two days and will have a chance just to be "the little family" for a change :-)

We love you all
Pippa

Thank you Thank you!

2010-11-23T20:30:00.000+02:00

What a wonder you all are to me!

Every morning I wake up at the crack of dawn to go and load our newest profile on the Season Giving blog, and every morning while I'm working I can see by the stats that some people are hovering, just waiting to see the new page!

Thank you Friends of TLC. Thank you for your love, for your kind messages of encouragement and for your enthusiasm to get involved!

As my mom mentioned on her blog, we were able to transfer a whopping R20 000 into the TLC bank account last month. In a few days we hope to be able to transfer a further R30 000! Isn't that amazing!

And that's all you!

Do you know the saying

"It takes a village to raise a child" ?

Well, never has that been clearer to me.
We are willing hands to the child-rearing plough but we cannot generate an income this way and without income we cannot eat, it is as simple as that.
And then there you all are!
Helping one by one in "villages" all over the world to put food on our plates everyday!

There is no individual credit in the work at TLC only a great big Glorious Hug for whole the world.

WELL DONE WORLD! WELL DONE!

The season giving blog is now getting just over 200 hits a day! 200! That's fantastic!

Can I challenge you to remind a friend or family member to keep reading? I just know that of the 40 stories you will eventually know, at least one will strike a chord in a persons heart.

The more readers we get - the higher the blog moves on the ratings and the more publicity it gets ... so please copy the link and add it to your signature on emails and send it to everyone you know!

http://www.seasongiving.blogspot.com

We love you all
Pippa

The countdown begins ...

2010-11-16T05:29:00.000+02:00

SO ... ARE YOU READY???

READY STEADY GO!

HERE WE GO .....

It is 40 Days to Christmas and here is our Christmas challenge to you:

Commit yourself to look at the newest TLC blog :

http://www.seasongiving.blogspot.com/

EVERY DAY until Christmas!

Each day we will profile a child that has been loved at TLC -
The blog has an 'ideas page' of easy things people can do to raise a little money and hopefully we will be able to see in the New Year without a huge cloud over our heads!

Remember that

1 drop dripping is only a drop,

10 drops dripping is only a plop,

100 drops dripping is the making of a puddle

and

1000 drops dripping will get us out of this muddle!

So It's the 15th but I couldn't wait!!

2010-11-15T09:24:00.000+02:00

HELLO MY DEAR, DEAR FRIENDS!

TODAY I HAVE A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

TLC has a new blog ESPECIALLY for CHRISTMAS!

How many of you make a special effort to use an Advent Calendar with your families?
How many of you have done the "JESSE TREE" with your loved ones?

Well here is a special TLC version for you!

Check out our newest idea on

OUR SEASON GIVING BLOG

Please send the link to as many people as you can and ask them to do the same! THIS ONE IS FOR THE WORLD!

Please visit it regularly so you don't miss any of the kids stories and MAKE Absolutely sure you check out our page that gives you Cool ideas and other things that have worked - See how a little fun can make a big difference!

HELP US HELP MANY!

Love you all
Pippa

Something Special Up our Sleeves!

2010-11-11T19:39:00.000+02:00

Hello My Dear friends.

I would sincerely like to thank everyone of you who read and commented so positively on the last blog.
It touches me how touched you were!

This weeks blog has taken me a little longer to put up because I had my final presentation "Exam" for the Certificate program I have been doing at the Gordon Institute of Business Studies this year. It was a fabulous course, I learned so much and I will write a detailed briefing of my experience later.

Today I want to do two things:

Firstly - I would encourage you all to go and read Mom's latest Blog - it is a beautiful trip down memory lane all the way back to the beginning of TLC.

Secondly I want to plead with you to diarise November 16th!

I will be announcing something BIG on that day on this blog!

I love you all
Pippa