We are a group of young couples from Valley Church in West Des Moines, Iowa who have felt God's call to help The Pines Christian Care Center for Children in Welkom, South Africa as they care for children who have been orphaned by the AIDS Pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
Kevin Barber
We had a very exciting day today, Brian and Lois were able to pull some strings with their social worker and the government and after much consdieration have arranged for Kris and Jenny to adopt one of the children, Tsuna, from Thabong. Inspired by their hero Angelina, they would like to begin collecting orphans from every continent. Tiffany and Cory have offered their plane tickets to allow Tsuna to return on their flight. Tiffany and Cory will be returning to the US at a later date (to be determined).
We had a fun day of rest today at The Pines. We were fortunate to have our first day that we could sleep in until 8 AM! Kevin was relieved to be able to finally wash and cut his hair since he was not able to do so since his accident on Tuesday. Cory did an excellent job of cutting his hair.
Then we crammed 28 people, 12 adults and 16 children into a 10-passenger van, setting a new Pines passenger van record on our way to church. We visited a small church which was mostly attended by children from a housing project. Of course, the 28 of us from the Pines made up the majority of the congregation today. It was a wonderful service preached in both English and Sotho.
After the service we came back to the pines and had another Braai followed by playtime with the children in the pool and a stop-motion flannelboard production that would make PJ Homertz proud. The story of creation came to life like no other! We later used this to tell the kids the story of The Creation and the importance of obedience, preceded by a rousing game of "Red Light/Green Light" and singing all the Sunday School Classics such as "Father Abraham", "This Little Light of Mine", etc.
We finished the evening by having a light dinner and home-made ice cream with the founder of Morning Star, the day-care center we visited last week. It was an informative time learning about how and why they started Morning Star and also gave us a better understanding of the AIDS pandemic in South Africa from the perspective of someone who has been on the front-lines for years.
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Kevin Barber
We had a very exciting day today, Brian and Lois were able to pull some strings with their social worker and the government and after much consdieration have arranged for Kris and Jenny to adopt one of the children, Tsuna, from Thabong. Inspired by their hero Angelina, they would like to begin collecting orphans from every continent. Tiffany and Cory have offered their plane tickets to allow Tsuna to return on their flight. Tiffany and Cory will be returning to the US at a later date (to be determined).
We had a fun day of rest today at The Pines. We were fortunate to have our first day that we could sleep in until 8 AM! Kevin was relieved to be able to finally wash and cut his hair since he was not able to do so since his accident on Tuesday. Cory did an excellent job of cutting his hair.Then we crammed 28 people, 12 adults and 16 children into a 10-passenger van, setting a new Pines passenger van record on our way to church. We visited a small church which was mostly attended by children from a housing project. Of course, the 28 of us from the Pines made up the majority of the congregation today. It was a wonderful service preached in both English and Sotho.
After the service we came back to the pines and had another Braai followed by playtime with the children in the pool and a stop-motion flannelboard production that would make PJ Homertz proud. The story of creation came to life like no other! We later used this to tell the kids the story of The Creation and the importance of obedience, preceded by a rousing game of "Red Light/Green Light" and singing all the Sunday School Classics such as "Father Abraham", "This Little Light of Mine", etc.We finished the evening by having a light dinner and home-made ice cream with the founder of Morning Star, the day-care center we visited last week. It was an informative time learning about how and why they started Morning Star and also gave us a better understanding of the AIDS pandemic in South Africa from the perspective of someone who has been on the front-lines for years.
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