The team all got a very sound 10-hour or so of sleep last night and we ready to roll at 8:00AM.  Today we visited the hospice that cares for people from Freedom Park with AIDS and TB.  Just as we were arriving they were saying good-bye to a lady who had gotten well enough to return to her shanty.  In years past, the trip to the hospice was one way – sick people were brought there to die.  Now, with Anti-Viral Therapy (ART), many are regaining enough health to return home to care for family or themselves. 

This is a bitter-sweet blessing.  They have better health, but they are still infected with HIV.  They will certainly get sick and die if they do not remain on the ART drugs.  President Bush’s PEPFAR program is still funding the work here to provide care at the hospices and the ART drugs.  Should that funding be lost, people would surely die.

We talked with a number of the patients at the hospice and prayed with them all.   We took some newspapers for them to read and juice to drink.  Seemingly little for such dire times, but we emphasized the comfort and healing that only God can give.  ARTs cannot heal. God alone can do that.  Their hope is only in Him.

After lunch we went to Martha’s house.  She provides care for dozens of orphaned or vulnerable children (OVC) in her humble backyard.  Over time local businesses have provided a fence and a two-room building in the yard.  One room is a kitchen where she prepares an after-school meal.  The other room is an activity room that doubles as a cafeteria when the weather is bad.

Vickie and Teresa orchestrated some games with the kids (both in the activity room and the yard due to a brief rain shower) and then we broke all the kids into smaller groups where we could have some discussions.  I had six boys, 14-18, who seemed to have the average spread of interests, except one serious young man named Donald who said he was going to be a policeman.  He said he felt it was his responsibility to make his neighborhood a safe place.

I was more fortunate that Bill or GW.  They had some younger boys who didn’t understand English as well as the older boys.

Tonight we are at Mitch and Sarah’s house having a brai, a traditional South African cook-out with lot’s of meat (and chicken for Kristian!)  We picked up our young friend, Tebego Isaac, to eat with us.  He was formerly a student at Martha’s and now is taking a vocational computer training course in Rustenburg, thanks to a scholarship fund set up by Reaching a Generation.  Mitch and Sarah help us manage this program on an on-going basis.  Should you want to make an investment in a needy young person’s life, we can help.  There are many, right here in the Rustenburg area, that have no hope for higher education unless someone helps.

I’m sitting in the back of Mitch and Sarah’s house beside an open door.  I can smell the earthy aroma of South Africa after a brief cooling shower.  There are crickets chirping and doves cooing as the sun drops in the west.  We’ve all been touched, and touched other’s lives today.  Did we change any lives today?  We pray so.  We know our have once again be changed forever.

Continue to pray for our health and usefulness to the Lord.  He is maintaining our strength and health. 

I’ve got to go now because the smell of steak is now wafting through the house!