Soccer fever!!!

For the last 10 days our church has been running an amazing programme for the children in the community called League of Champions – we managed to get sponsorships for all the Lambano children.

In the morning the children go to the church and play games and learn Bible verses, then they play soccer for an hour. On Saturdays are the tournaments days and parents are invited to come and watch their children play. The children have had a wonderful time and don’t want to miss any of the games even in this cold weather.

Our future Bafana Bafana team

The girls also enjoy playing soccer

Updates!!!

This little boy from the hospice turned 11 on Sunday! He wanted to go to Spur for his birthday and everything was organised but his condition worsened again and we couldn’t take him. Please continue to pray for him.


Updates:

The little boy that went for an assessment on Saturday last week was also accepted to the special school, he will start school in July!!!

God is good!!!

We’ve been struggling for the past few months to get 4 of our children into school. The two 4 year old boys need to go to a special pre-school because of their physical disabilities but everywhere we went we were told that the schools are full or they did not have the facilities for disabled children.

This week we got some good news – we have found placements for three of our children. The 10 year girl that we wrote about on the 07th of May will start school on Monday in a remedial class that will help her catch up with all she’s missed. The other girl and one of the boys have been accepted at a nursery school that integrates disabled children with normal children (we really like this) they will also start on Monday. The other boy will go for an assessment on Saturday to see if he qualifies to get into a school that specialises in cerebral palsy children.

Thank you all for your prayers!

Thank you!!!

The Lord is good! Last week we sent out an appeal for funds to all our sponsors many people responded. We would like to say thank you for your help and love for our children.

Dental Programme:

Smile of Joy is an NGO that gives each HIV infected and/or affected orphaned child in South Africa the foundation for total oral health.

For the past few weeks we have had a dentist coming to work on some of the hospice children’s teeth that had been identified as needing treatment. Some of the children had to have some teeth extracted, but most of the children were really good. Only one 14 year old refused to open his mouth – he’d seen the tray of instruments and he wasn’t budging!

Raising funds for the church:
McDonalds Mcpastor night - This event is to raise money so that the AWANA children can attend a special Holiday Bible Club based on a soccer theme during the June/July holidays. Most of the Lambano children go to AWANA and they love it.

On the night we took 35 of our children to the Mcpastor night to support the church and give them an outing. We had decided that we could afford an ice-cream cone for each child. However, on arriving there, one of the men took the matter out of our hands and insisted on paying for the ice-creams. Each child received an ice cream cup with strawberry, caramel or chocolate poured over it – what a treat!
We would like to thank the people who helped with the children and those who paid for the ice cream. The children had lots of fun.

This little girl has been with us for 2 years and was very ill so she couldn’t go to school because of health problems.

This year we tried to register her at the local school where the other Lambano children go, but the Department of Education told us that they would not register her because she is too old for Grade 1 and they said we had to home-school her.

Our teachers, Bronwyn and Winsome having been working very hard to try to get her ready for school but they’re limited in what they can do because they have the other children in their classes to deal with at the same time.

Since we feel that this is the Education Department’s problem – by law every child has to attend school, we contacted the councillor of one of the opposition parties in our area and they are trying to sort out the problem for us.

We are going to come across many more of these kinds of children as HIV takes a toll on their lives, so please pray that the Government will acknowledge the problem and make plans to help these children.

You got to love SA system!!!

It’s been a relatively quiet week for Lambano which is rather unusual. We did however have to make another visit to Social Services to renew the children’s foster care grant.

You got to love the South African system. The ladies in the office went to Social Services with the documents they had been told to complete, only to be told that the papers that they had filled in were not correct, or another document was needed, or, or, or… They made about 5 visits before the documents were finally accepted. What a waste of time!

Two children were discharged this week and we still have 3 children in hospital. Please continue to pray for these children.

Hospice:

Lyn always says that we need to buy a tent and put it up at Bara hospital. We have 5 children in hospital already. One of the children is been admitted to hospital today.
Please continue to pray for these children!

There is a gap in the office and in the hospice,Jenna ( one of the house mother from England)is sick, she is off for the next 6 weeks. How in the world do we cope without her? As the wise person (Lyn) has said "Africa is not for sissies"!
Please pray for health.