News update from Joan Adams - July 2010

16 – 07 – 2010

Dear Friends of Morning Star

Well, here we are at the other end of the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa! A compelling reminder that I’ve been back at Morning Star for a whole month already and that a newsletter is long overdue!

The exuberance in South Africa this past month has been absolutely awesome! The plane that flew me home on 11th June was full of excited, rowdy soccer supporters, giving me a foretaste and feel of what I was returning to. And, from the moment I stepped into the arrivals forecourt at OR Tambo International Airport, the overwhelming vibe prevailing – even there – gripped me and I instantly became like most other South Africans here at the moment, thrilled that we were hosting the World Cup, excited that we were having the opportunity to showcase our beautiful country and delighted that history was in the making before my very eyes!

It was a privilege, indeed, to have had the opportunity to be at one of the soccer matches (and to have witnessed Bafana Bafana defeating France in the process) and to have been in the midst of about 20 000 noisy vuvuzelas and all the excitement, the cheering, the colours and the great ‘wave ’. It was an experience I wouldn’t have missed for the world! I only wish I’d been able to take at least our male staff members along to one of the matches as well. The incredible camaraderie between all South Africans over the past month is something I’ll never forget! We know in our hearts it won’t last – very soon now the excitement and hype of the past month will fade and people will go back to being what they were beforehand – but it’s certainly been a taste of what could be if our hearts truly softened towards one other and we could accept each other unconditionally.

The matches are all behind us now. We all know that Spain beat the Netherlands in the final and that Germany narrowly beat Uruguay into 3rd position. I’m sure many of you, as most of us have lived and breathed soccer like never before in our lives!  I’ve never been too interested in the game before but now, all of a sudden, I’m even missing the nightly broadcasts of the matches on TV!

We’re sorry England didn’t make it through to the finals. I know many of you must’ve been disappointed with your team’s performance. But, to cheer you up, I thought you’d like to know that we staged our own Soccer World Cup at Morning Star on the 26th June and that ENGLAND won that! Yip! It was our quarterly Teens’ Meeting and, amidst other activities, we divided the 42 children present into 8 five-a-side teams, had them choose the country they were representing, donned them in different coloured shorts and, hey presto, the magic was wrought! It was so much fun! With our vuvuzelas blaring and our excited voices filling the air we had all the security personnel from the Kopano Complex congregating around us within minutes and swelling the number of keen supporters. The vibe was almost as intense as the real thing! There were monetary prizes at the end for the winning team plus soccer shirts for the boy and girl-of-the-match. It was a busy, tiring day but the fun we had will be engraved in our hearts and minds forever.

26-06-10 - World Cup Fever, Teens Day	26-10-10 - Teens Cup Final at Morning Star	26-06-10 - World Cup Winners (Mmiki Bochedi in red)

We now have a growing desire to have our own Morning Star soccer team in the future. Imagine that! Our older boys and girls meeting regularly to practice and even play matches one day! Maybe a couple of them could even make the Bafana Bafana Team for the World Cup in Brazil in 4 years time! One never knows!

The second most significant happening since my return from the UK is that Elizabeth vd Westhuizen, our Operations Manager/Second-in-Charge has had to undergo emergency surgery for a ruptured disc in her neck. The amazing thing is that the excruciating pain she developed started the very day I was back at the helm at Morning Star! God graciously kept her all the time I was away. It was almost as if He said
“OK, now you can go off and have a rest! Joan is back!” Elizabeth kept going the 2 weeks prior to her scheduled surgery but, how she managed, I’m at a loss to explain. Her only comfortable position was with her elbow raised and her hand resting on the top of her head! An MRI scan confirmed that she had a ruptured disc and surgery followed in Bloemfontein within days. Happily, the operation was a success and she’s making a good recovery, but now, lying before us all are the 6 weeks of recuperation time at home. We’re managing without her efficiency and organizational skills at Morning Star but the extra strain of holding things together is keeping a handful of us away from our own jobs a lot of the time. Very frustrating for Elizabeth too as she’s not in much pain anymore!

Next in line of importance is that our long-awaited bus was awaiting my return to South Africa. There it was to greet me – shiny and new, a wonderful size, just what we’d dreamt about! The only thing, there was no door for our driver to get in and out through! One hadn’t been cut for him, for security reasons, they say?? So, poor old Sam was forced to climb up through the children’s entrance, scramble over to the front and swing his legs down into position! Quite a feat for an overweight man close to 70 years of age! I tried it myself – not easy, I can tell you! Well, to cut a long story short, the bus was finally taken back up to Johannesburg for a door to be cut and was only returned to us this past Tuesday. It has a beautiful door now and looks great from the outside! BUT, Sam still cannot use it and swing himself up from the small step near the ground! It’s just too far down and one has to almost do the splits to hoist oneself up into position! So now what? My husband, Ron, suggests we take the vehicle to a local panel beater and have him cut some steps in the right places for us! But, the other problem with the bus, a dreadful rattle within the chassis of the vehicle – which wasn’t sorted out whilst the vehicle was up in Johannesburg for the door – appears not to be as straight forward to fix…. It’s as though there are no shock absorbers – making it a very uncomfortable ride for passengers – large and small alike!

Our children have mostly kept well during our colder weather this season. We’ve had 2 very cold spells, with temperatures plummeting to 7 degrees below zero (centigrade) at the time but, mostly, the weather has been mild and during the daytime, sunny and warm. Sadly though, we have had a few deaths, those of Malefa Moloi, Mpho Tseisa, Thabo Moqheku and Mamello Blom whilst I was in England and, since my return, almost-16-year-old Mooila Cossa died on 22nd June and 14-month-old Molemo on 4th July. It’s always a deep tragedy & heartache and something one never gets used to. And the sad thing is that, mostly, deaths occur due to neglect and when ailments are not treated immediately.
We also have 2 seriously ill children at the moment – 14-year-old Mmiki Bochedi – in hospital with severe tuberculosis and a suspected blood clot in her lung and 2-year-old Mamello Tsekahadi from Kultwanong. Mmiki’s illness took us by surprise as she appeared so well at our Teen Function at the end of June and joined in all the fun with zest and energy. It just goes to show how unpredictable this dreadful disease HIV/AIDS is. Sometimes it’s the least expected who suddenly takes ill and dies and sometimes a child who looks as though he’s close to death’s door rallies and recovers. Mamello’s condition deteriorated markedly when his biological mother ‘kidnapped’ him from his foster home and went into hiding with him. The 2 of them were ‘missing’ for over a week, a long enough period for this precious little boy to become grossly dehydrated through lack of nutrition and care. And, all this in the midst of the coldest ‘cold spell’ we’ve had in years! Mamello’s back with his aunty now (and his mother is in police custody) but is just skin and bone and hanging onto life by a thread. If he pulls through his ordeal it will be a miracle indeed!

Great excitement this week was the arrival of a team of teenagers (and a sprinkling of adults) from Trentham Parish Church, Stoke-on-Trent. We’ve been looking forward to their visit for months, as have they, and already they’re a hit with our little ones and a joy to have around. They’re doing some painting and repair work to the exterior of Selina’s classroom and what a difference it’s going to make to her section of the building!
We’re also awaiting the imminent arrival of Sarah Wilkins from Manor Park Evangelical Church in Worcester and Linda Wade from Chertsey Street, Surbiton, at the end of July. Both are coming out for at least a year, Sarah to take control of our educational program at Morning Star and Linda to take up residence at The Pines Children’s Village and oversee their medical/nursing needs. We’re busy getting ready for Sarah right now and I just can’t wait to place the entire school program into her capable, experienced hands.

In closing, quite a lot of discussion at various places I visited in the UK centered around poverty and wealth – and into which category we’d fit. I’ve used the following insert before but it’s a timely reminder to all of us:

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

57 Asian, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western hemisphere, 8 Africans
52 females, 48 males, 70 non-white, 30 white
70 non-Christian, 30 Christian, 89 heterosexual, 11 homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth, all 6 from the USA
60 would live in substandard housing, 70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition, 1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth, 1 would have a college education and 1 would own a computer.

When we consider the world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent. So remember …

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness …… you are more blessed than 1 000 000 people who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation you are better off than 500 000 000 people in the world.
If you have clothes, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish somewhere, you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthiest.
If your parents are alive and still married, you are very rare indeed.
The fact that you can read this makes you more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all!

The above should give us pause for thought and turn us to thank God for all we have.

Do remember ‘Christmas in July’ for our Morning Star children. If you’re planning to send your little girl or boy a gift please do so as soon as possible so that it’ll reach us before the end of November. Our children’s last day at our 2 Centres will probably be Friday, 10th December.

Yours in Christ
Joan

Current Prayer Needs

1. Praise and thanks for the improved conditions of Nthabiseng Matlakeng and Amukelo Khohlongwane and also for the wonderful way Teboho Tsele’s facial and body sores (eczema) healed up so quickly (answer to prayer and due to Sr. Patricia’s incredible perseverance).
2. Praise and thanks that 2 of the remaining 3 Tseisa children (Mamello & Mphonyana) have now, legally, been placed with other relatives and are no longer with their neglectful mother. Please continue to pray for 3-year-old Lerato who is still with mum, that we’ll be alert to any neglect immediately it occurs.
3. Praise & thanks that Val is managing her back pain so much better and is still with us. I suppose I should be asking you to keep praying that their house will sell soon so that they can move closer to their children, but, at the same time, it’s so very nice still having Val at Morning Star.
4. Praise and thanks for a successful UK trip, once again – for safe traveling for Glenys and me as we transversed almost 2000 miles of beautiful England, for the opportunity to talk about Morning Star at 29 different venues, for the 50+ children who have been newly sponsored out, for generous donations wherever we went, for rich fellowship in so many homes and the warm reception received at all the churches we visited. God is so good!
5. Please pray for our 2 very ill children – Mmiki and Mamello – that God will be merciful to them both and heal them.
6. Pray, too, for our ill staff – for complete healing for Elizabeth v.d.W, for Tim Kelly still in agony with his leg ulcers but now on new treatment, for Gladys – our cleaner, with gall stones to be removed surgically at the beginning of August and for Evelyn – our second cleaner, with a benign tumour in her brain but still suffering with uncontrolled epileptic seizures even after treatment.
7. For our children’s safety in their townships homes. Pray that we’ll be made aware of undue suffering and rejection in good time and be able to take necessary action timeously.
8. For a successor for Joan. Pray that God would raise up someone with an equally burning passion for the impoverished, suffering HIV/AIDS children in this region and who would eventually be able to take my place at Morning Star. Somewhere out there, God has a younger, fitter, more qualified person in mind to take Morning Star Children’s Centre to new heights of blessing. And, just maybe, that person is YOU?

But in the meantime
I trust in you, O Lord. I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands.
Psalm 31:14-15.

 

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