Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dear Sponsors, Friends and Family

We have been so blessed this year in so many ways but knowing that you all care about our children is the highlight.

We thank each and every one for all that you have done for us this past year and hopefully you will continue to support us in the future.

Our Christmas wish for you all is to have a Joyful Christmas with family and friends and a prosperous New Year.

If you need any more information or would like to donate on line please go to our website.

94.7 challenge

We sent out an appeal to all our donors to sponsor a cyclist for the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge. We had 11 cyclists participating in this challenge and the outcome was amazing, the cyclists were able to raise R118 000, 00. Thank you to all who supported us for this challenge and to the cyclists that rode so well.

The Cyclists handing over a cheque to Lambano

Christmas parties:

It’s been extremely busy for the past 2 weeks with Christmas parties and dancing rehearsals.

Twelve of our children have been practicing to perform at our Civic Theatre on the 09^th & 10^th December. This is a big production and our children will be doing two dances in the show - we know that they will do well.

Staff Christmas party:

Our staff had a lovely Christmas lunch. Thank you to Sarah Wittwer’s friends (Sarah is one of our volunteer from Switzerland) for donating money for this lunch. We were also able to give them Christmas hampers which they greatly appreciated.

I think this is the saddest part:

Goodbye:

Mama Barbara came to Lambano 6 years ago and what a blessing she has been to us. When she came to stay at McAlpine the children were around 4 years old and now they are 10! On Friday last week we had a farewell party for her and everyone was in tears. The children and the staff sang a wonderful song for her thanking her for everything she has done for them. Mama Barbara there are truly no words to express how grateful we are that you came to Lambano. You will be greatly missed!

Mama Barbara with the Lambano children

Mama Barbara with some of the Lambano staff

The School concert for our kids in primary school was a blast. The kids worked hard in rehearsals and gave us an entertaining show. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos, so we do not have any pictures to show you.

This week, four of our thirteen hospice children were discharged to go home. It was a sad time for some of our workers as they have bonded with these children, but the children were really happy to return to their family.

Sorry but not a lot has happened this week!

Some of the School children have a concert next week and they have been practising real hard for the concert. It's been quite entertaining when they come and show their dance moves. Can't wait to see the whole show!

Happy Birthday Mama Lyn!

It was Lyn's birthday on Tuesday and as you can see the Hospice children had a suprise birthday party for Mama Lyn!

The Hospice children singing Happy Birthday for Lyn :)

Hope you have a blessed year!

Jenna with the children from the 36 house

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 2 years since Jenna joined Lambano! For many years we prayed that God would send a House mother for the 36 children and Jenna came as an answer to that prayer. She is truly an amazing person, not only did she take on the job of being a mother to the children at 36, but she also took on the responsibility of managing the day-to-day running of the Hospice. Lyn was really grateful to have her help in the Hospice because she brought skills no-one else at Lambano had at that time. Thank you Jenna for all your hard work and love for the children, you will be greatly missed!

The GOSH Grannies (Grannies offering supervised homework )

These are the grannies that help our children with their homework in the afternoons.

One of the grannies with teacher Bheki and some of the children

Thank you ladies for all your hard work!

Another volunteer :)

Liz is from America and she will be with Lambano until December. We are really excited to have you here!

Scotsman from Malawi!!!

24th September is South Africa Heritage day and the School asked the children to wear their traditional clothes for today. And our boy decided he was going to wear a Scotish kilt to school and when he was asked where he was from he said he was from Malawi. Well what a laugh we all killed ourself laughing imagine a scotsman from Malawi! I suppose now we just need to teach him that Scotsmen come from Scotland!

Supporting our rugby team!

As most of you know it's the rugby world cup and the children were asked by their School to wear a rugby T - shirt every Friday to support our rugby team. We knew we couldn't afford to buy T - shirts for all our children but last week we were blessed by Luisa Cornelli with T - shirts. Thank you for donating rugby T- shirts for all our children!

Another volunteer!!!

We are really excited to have another volunteer. Sarah is from Switzerland and she will be with Lambano for 5 months!

New arrival in the hospice

This two are siblings

It was with great difficulty we said goodbye to Winsome. Teacher Winsome has been with us since our first children started school nearly 5 years ago.She did such an amazing job helping our children with homework, being a strict but loving teacher. Wimsome worked with the Grade 1 and 2 children, ensuring that the foundational skills were firmly in place, going way beyond just helping them with their homework. Thank you Teacher Winsome for all your hard work!

On that note, we are looking for a qualified teacher to take her place working with the Grade1 and 2’s, so if you feel called to come and volunteer your time you can email us.

Teacher Winsome with some of the Lambano children

Another goodbye – Elyse was with us for 2 months and she was really an amazing person to work with. She will be sorely missed and we hope that she will enjoy being back home!

Devyn with one of the Lambano's children

Devyn is 17 years old who has come all the way from America. We hope you will enjoy your stay in Africa for the next 9 months!

After months of praying for a registered nurse, the Lord finally heard our cryJ. Alta is a highly qualified and skilled professional and we are very happy to have her as part of the team.

It’s been a week since Alta started at the Hospice and there are so many positive changes already.

Birthdays!!!

June

May

Pictures of the Fashion show concert!!!

For the past few weeks we've been talking about the concert. Here are the pictures!!

Our 10 dancers

The dance

The Finale

Sorry we can't post the video on the blog the file is to big.

What a week!!!

I came back from leave on Tuesday and the first thing I was asked to do was take the children shopping! The daughter of one of our donors decided she and her friends wanted to do a fundraiser for Lambano and another charity and organised a fashion show for us. As part of this they found people to sponsor R350 per child so that all of them could have a new set of clothing. The children were allowed to choose whatever they wanted and, on the whole, they came back with beautiful clothes although we did see a few strange outfits J. We couldn’t take all 30 children to the shops at one time so we had to take them in groups which took the whole morning, but the children had so much fun!!! Thank you Alexi, Emma and Jade for making this possible (thanks too to the parents who also put in a lot of effort!)

As if that was not enough shopping, we also had to buy clothes for the 10 children that are performing on Saturday, so on Wednesday and Thursday Elyse and I were back at the shops trying to find the right clothes. This proved to be very difficult as the children range widely in age and size so finding the same outfit for all 10 children was very difficult but by God’s grace everything is in order now and we were able to find white T–shirts, Takkies (for my American readers that’s sneakers) and blue jeans for all the Dancers. Thank you Lord!

Update on the fashion show:

If you have been following our blog you have read from the previous posts that the children are working hard on rehearsing a dance that will form part of the fashion show. This week they had a number of extra rehearsals. Saturday will be a long day for the Dancers as they have to be at the venue at 12:00 for the concert which starts at 14:00, but the dancers are excited at being there the whole day!

We will post the photos of the children’s dance next week!

New volunteer!!

Tanya is from Canada and is going to stay with us untill September. She’s been with us for a week already and she has fitted in really well - she’s even helping with the Holiday Bible Club at our Church!

Holiday Bible Club:

Today is the last day of the Holiday Bible Club and the children are so sad because they had so much fun. On Sunday they are all going to perform at Church and show us what they’ve learnt this week.

We have been blessed in the last week by a few of the local Primary Schools: St James Preparatory, Hurlyvale Primary and Leicester Road Primary. The first School donated blankets, the second, groceries and the third gave our staff Coffee Mugs filled with chocolates. Our staff were so surprised and grateful for the gift.

It’s the last day of School today and trying to organise a Schedule for our children for the School Holidays is a mission! The children have so much to do these holidays, including a Holiday Bible Club for the first week. St Andrew’s School is organising a function on the 16^th of July for Lambano and they’ve asked our children to perform a dance. The children are practising really hard for this big performance - Lindsey the choreographer is working really hard with them!

Winter blessings!!!

Our children were blessed by the Life Roseacres Clinic’s Sizanani Project with blankets - my office was packed! Each child received their own blanket. Thank you for blessing our children with such a lovely gift!

Office packed with blankets

The Roseacre's staff with some of the hospice children

What a day!

Elyse - our new volunteer from Ameraica

On Tuesday we had 4 different appointments in different hospitals and, to top it all, Jenna - our Hospice manager was sick, so Elyse (a new volunteer) and I had the privilege of taking two of our children to the occupational therapy appointment at Baragwanath Hospital and Sibylle had to take another girl from the Hospice to a diabetic clinic in Boksburg. In the afternoon Elyse and Sfiso took another boy to the Johannesburg Hospital for a follow up at the Burns unit.

The two children that Elyse and I took for the appointment received splints and I was told that the boy has to have occupational therapy every day. This boy is 13 years old and he had a fungal infection on his left pointy finger (amongst many other problems). Some of the things that he has to do is learn to wash and dress himself, to pull his damaged finger back and hold it for a count of five. While they were showing me all this I saw how he struggled with every activity and this made me realise how much I take for granted, even knowing how to type this blog with all my fingers. I was saddened when I saw how this boy struggled with even these simple tasks.

Another Goodbye!!

Every time when the volunteer leaves we ask ourselves how we ever coped without them. They drive our special needs children to their schools and therapies, help with the hospital visits, do homework and therapies with the children – what a tremendous help they are. That’s why we are so grateful for each and every volunteer.

On Wednesday we said goodbye to Rachel who has been with us since January.

When Rachel came, she was really quiet and we thought the children would make toast of her but to our amazement Rachel handled the children very well, she was strict but loving. Thank you Rachel for all your hard work, you will be solely missed!

Rachel with some of the children

The guys working hard

Last week we were blessed by Distell Company making a vegetable garden at 82 McAlpine. It’s really encouraging to see people taking time out of their busy schedules to come and spend time working to make our homes look good. Thank you Distell for all your hard work!!

May Birthdays!!

Our little madam turned 3

He turned 12

What fun to work at Lambano!!!

Today I was entartained by 2 children and they were competing against each other
They were singing their hearts out, the boy sang for me ''you are my sunshine, my only sunshine'' and the girl is really competitive , she didn’t want to lose and she started singing ''Bayete, bayete Inkosi'' (Zulu song meaning Exalted king) as loud as she could. Oh what fun!

Thank you's

On Saturday, 9 of our children had an dentist appointment as most adults are teriffied of going to the dentist we feared for the children, but Jenna had a little talk with the children explaining what's going to happen to them and to our amazement all the children were really good. Thank you Dr Debbie for offering your service and helping our children with their teeth!

We are really grateful for people who offers their services to Lambano. Most of our children go to different therapies and for many years Centapaeds has been one of the places that have been offering their services to our Children and we are truly blessed to have facilities like this that gives up their time and efforts to help our children.

Birthdays!!!!

April birthdays

March Birthdays!!!

All our children attend school now that our 2 three-year-old’s have started at the Wychwood Baptist nursery school. The little boy found it difficult in the beginning and cried for a while when he was left, but our little madam took to it like a duck to water – our little socialite. Our little man has also settled in now and is enjoying the experience.

Movie day!

The children loved their 3D glasses!

Our children were on holiday for the past 2 weeks and Ster Kinekor donated movie tickets for them to watch the movie RIO, which the children loved. They were also treated to a tasty lunch by McDonald’s.

Thank you to Emma and Karen from Edenvale Baptist Church for organising the outing and thank you to Ster Kinekor for the tickets and McDonald’s for providing lunch!

Our 10 year anniversary!!!

My head is buzzing with all the things I could write about; the highlights of Lambano, the lowest times and the blessings. Then I decided I should write about God’s faithfulness throughout these ten years

When Melanie told us that she wanted to start Lambano I thought to myself this wouldn’t be possible. Many obstacles came to mind like, where we would she get the money to run Lambano?; where would the staff come from etc, but she had faith that God would provide and He did and is still providing! Yes, she had hard times and there are still problems today, especially with funds, but we are blessed!!

When Lambano started we had 1 house with 5 kids and now we have 5 houses; one house being the Hospice which takes up to 12 children and the other 4 houses are for our 30 permanent children. Who ever thought that in the last 10 years we would impact so many children.

Thank you Lord for your faithfulness


The Sponsors

I know that when I write thank you letters I always say thank you for your support but I’m not sure you realise just how grateful we really are for your contributions. We do understand that there are so many needs in South Africa and companies are overwhelmed with the needs, that’s why we are so grateful for the amounts that the companies are able to give to Lambano.

Thank you for your love for our children and for your contributions over the past 10 years

Thank you!!!

Working at Lambano is one of the most amazing jobs ever, there are days when I wonder “what am I doing here” but most of the time I’m really grateful that I work here. It’s really good to see how God changes people and to see them grow, especially our volunteers!

Miriam with one of the Lambano kids!

Most of our volunteers come through a mission organisation called SIM. SIM send us volunteers from all over the world. Miriam, a 17 year lady who was born in England but did most of her growing up in France, joined Lambano 6 months ago. She helped the older kids with homework and that helped the kids to do really well in school last year. Miriam was asked to do lots of different things and she did them well. It’s been a blessing to see Miriam grow in Christ - she not only got involved with the children but she made it a point to get to know the staff and the local people too and that was the highest highlight for me. On Tuesday we had to say goodbye to her; it was really hard for all us and we couldn’t believe that 6 months passed so quickly! The children already miss her.

Thank you Miriam for giving of your time to come and bless our children, you will be greatly missed!

Dr Maharaj with the little boy!

Two years ago we took this little boy to a private hospital to have his shunt replaced (you would have read about the whole saga and how we nearly lost him) and since then he is doing well. Last week, Mama Barbara took him back to the hospital that operated on him to thank the doctors and the staff for the wonderful job they had done. The doctor that operated on him couldn’t believe that it was the same child! When he arrived he sang a ‘’thank you song’’ to the doctor and the doctor had tears in his eyes. This boy is such a charmer!

Thank you Dr Maharaj for operating on this boy and making him well!

In the last few weeks, two of our special needs children have been moved to new schools.

One is a nine year old boy who is partially sighted so we’ve got him into a school for Blind and partially sighted children. Since the school is in Pretoria, he needs to board during the week and we collect him on a Friday afternoon. It was very hard for us to make the decision for him to go because he’s very small for his age and always has a lost look about him but he’s settled in very well and we hope he be happy there.

The second child is a girl who turns 7 in April. She suffered brain damage due to a stroke at the age of 2 years so she needs a school that will teach her basic skills to prepare her for assisted living as an adult. She’s also settled in very well and is excited that she is in “Big School”


Our children continue to enjoy the swimming lessons and it’s tough to get them out of the pool when it’s over.

Our staff has been spoilt this week!

We often have people who spoil our children for which we are most grateful, but most of the time our staff are forgotten. However, this week our staff were in for a treat! Denna and her daughter (visitors from the States) spoilt our staff, by buying them KFC for lunch. KFC’s is a favourite with the staff and they were really grateful for the lunch. Thank you Denna and Maheila for your generosity!