"For I know the plans I have for you ..."

Hello Friends

Winter has finally arrived. Hosepipes are frozen, two layers of clothing have become three and soup is on the menu much more often.
It has been a long time since I last wrote, which is smply an indication of how busy we have been. Even now I am stealing time from other places so that I could do an entry.

Thankfully everyone is well. The trauma of the robbery was soon put out of mind as life continues its hectic pace around here. Because of time constraints I will share one good story and the rest I will put up in photos with a few comments for context :-) Hope you don't mind.

As you know TLC has made a few friends in its time. Many of them are people in distress or who are needy in some way or another. One such friend is an old man named "Eddington". We call him Eddie.

Eddie had been living in a little windowless mud room (about 1m by 2m) on a piece of land between TLC and the local informal settlement (Jacksons Drift). He visited often asking for food and occassionally we were able to give him something like clothing or blankets. It became more and more frequent that Eddie was being harrassed by young men who would push down his door and take whatever he happened to have. After almost a year of this Eddie was able to find a new place to stay where he was further from people. The problem is that now he is further from us too.

This is where Eddie now lives. The little brick room to the left of the building with the green water tank s situation almost 2km from any major road and one has to cross a wetland preserve to get there. It is about 6km from TLC.

Eddie asked us to help him move.

All Eddies worldly belongings.

So we loaded up his things which included a few 3 legged chairs, a table made of salvaged rubbish and a small shopping bag of clothes.

It was so humbling to see how grateful Eddie was for this little bit of assistance.

His new Home

Eddie was exhausted after the move.

Eddie has asked me to see if anyone would be willing to help. I would like to buy him the staple foods once a month so that he does not have to travel to find food or have to walk the far distance to carry home whatever he does get. If you can help with this please contact me and we can arrange something.

NOW FOR THE PHOTOS

The kids were treated to a session of Action Soccer! It was a close shave, "Team Barcelona" beating "Team Manchester United" by 1 point

Every now and then we are allowed to "play with our food". Here we had some potato candles!

We had a Mother's Day Braai at the New Farm and despite the chilly weather it was a lovely time to be together.

School applications for 2013 opened which kept us all busy for 2 days making sure everyone is registered in the right places.

This is what the Nursery sections looked like this morning:

Our Nest has 4 occupants. (1 was in the bath)

Our Fledgies and Grubs number about 9 and all had immunisations on Tuesday so yesterday was a lot less fun than today!

Our Creepies have the morning sun in their playroom and it makes all the difference!

The Bathroom is the busiest place in the mornign as everyone gets themselves made beautiful again!

We had a milkshake at the airport when we took Uncle Thomas from TLC Germany back to cath hs plane after a 5 day visit.

We got a lovely donation from Rialto foods again. Beautiful pastas, bruschetta and other biscuits.

And every now and then we put babies to work washing windows :-)

YOU KNOW
WE LOVE YOU ALL
PIPPA

Sometimes Smooth Sailing ...

Do you ever feel like you are being watched?

Despite the humour of this photograph we all felt this quite keenly last Thursday. Our Beloved Bernard went to the bank with the driver Alfred. He withdrew his monthly salary to send home to his family in Zimbabwe, as he always does, and he cashed the TLC Wages cheque for Viv while he was out.

As they arrived at the TLC driveway a vehicle follwed them in and when they parked the occupants of the other car jumped out and robbed them at gunpoint! Needless to say it was a terrifying ordeal for eveyone involved. When our security guard attempted to lock the gate to hold them in, they threatened to shoot him too! The security company feel that they must have followed the two home and taken advantage of our unpreparedness.

All this happened on the same day we were preparing to take the kids on a camping weekend.  Just like the devil... to try ruin what turned out to be a spectacularly, wonderful, marvelous, tremendous camping weekend.

We spent it with our dear, like minded friends the Hardings. Chris and Mark run the children's home called Tshepo ya Bana. They are blessed to be located in the new Dinokeng Game Reserve and so they have many varieties of animals right on their doorstep!

Here the boys enjoyed some "Custard" which is actually Creme Brulee that we were generously donated by the company called "Rich's".  In the distance behind them you can just see the huge tent the boys used. The girls used smaller ones :-)

We did all the good camping things: sleeping in tents, meals over the campfire, we each had a game drive and even had a water balloon fight. The Hardings' children and ours got along famously. It was the best weekend I've had in ... years, probably.





When we got back it was back to work. The nursery is running so smoothly. The volunteers are well and with the return of Astrid to her birth mother and Grace to her forever family things are pretty quiet really. We look forward to some new arrivals in the Nest shortly.

Here are some pictures of what the Nightshift have had time to do while on shift:

SPARKLY FLOORS

FAYE'S SPLINTS ALL READY TO WORK!

TOILET PAPER PYRAMDS!

TIDY, LABELLED TOOTHBRUSHES

PERFECTLY PACKED TOILETRY CUPBOARD

BEAUTIFULLY ORDERED LAUNDRY


AND ALL OF THIS MAKES FOR HAPPY, CONTENTED AND SECURE CHILDREN.

ENJOYING THE NEW TRAMPOLINE MAT!

TUCKERED OUT AFTER LUNCH

SLEEPING SOUNDLY

THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR LOVELY FRIENDS.  MOM AND ZOE RETURNED HOME SAFE AND SOUND THIS MORNING SO THINGS SHOULD GO BACK TO "NORMAL" NOW :-)

PLEASE REMEMBER TO PLAN YOUR 67 MINUTES FOR MANDELA! IT'S A SHAME TO WASTE SUCH A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW YOUR COMMITMENT TO MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE!

WE LOVE YOU ALL
PIPPA