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!!!