Hello

Hello everyon, howzit? Well let's see what's going on..
Well as you already know we finally got the volunteer car and a few days later it got stolen while we were skating and unfortunatley none of us got a picture.. But Mel did get a photo of me in the cop shop reporting it stolen. We were trying to be discreet so Ruth wouldn't notice us taking the picture, but I realized after the picture they had one of those mirror windows in the back so i'm sure she saw us giggling.

Here a few photo's of us enjoying some skating while the care was getting stolen in downtown Durban. The ice is kak, but I got my own skates. Check out Mels skates.

The last couple weeks the kids have been on holiday. We kept them pretty busy. The first week was more lax and the second one was a little more buys. The people that are living by Ruth's property had a vacation Bible school. It was open to all the children living around the property. I should add that most these people are very poor, so it was a little different to what we are experiencing in "rich" Durban. It's good for the other girls as well to see a little more of Africa. Here are some photo of the kids. Thanks Mel for all these photo's.

After the car got stolen we couldn't go anymore;o( Shame, it was really nice to go out there. Instead we packed up the house because we had to be out of the house by Sunday! So that gave us about four days to pack up and get out. Megan, Mel and I packed the small things on Thurs. and Friday and the boys came on Saturday to move the furniutre. Let's just say that we're all happy that we are moved out and kinda settled in. The bonus with this house is there's a pool!! So it will be quite easy to keep the kids entertained!!

So that's all the news i'm gonna put on for now. I have to hurry and pick up Thandi from the old house and truck her over to the new.

Ciao!

First the good, then the bad...

Hello everyone.. Well guess what? We finally got the volunteer car. I am sorry to say I don't have any pictures because.....
It got stolen last night;o( Mel, Tazz, her friend and I went ice skating in downtown Durban and when we came out two hours later it was gone;o( More bad news.. It wasn't insured yet.
To top things off, Jay (Ruth's son) and I got in a big spat tonight because we will have to share the car again till another one comes in. And other things came into the converstion as well.
Can everyone keep us and Sinakekele in your prayers! Things are starting to move here and you can completley see it. God has been so good this last month and Satan is desperatley trying to do all he can to stop the move.
So please pray about that and also about the car.
Thanks everyone.

Phhhh, wasn't much at all.

Hello everyone, howzit? Just for those of you wondering why I havn't been e-mailing, Ruth's computer is broken and I havn't had a chance to get on the internet until today.

Well the teachers are still on strike. One union has agreed to a 7% increase, but the other unions are still striking. They were asking 12% which would be nice for them because they get payed kak here! Listen here. The president here has decided to change a lot of the street names. Some of the names, not many, were from the Apartheid years, which is understandable, but Point Road? Come on! I'm not too sure many people would find that offensive, eh? Just an example of government spending here. So Mbeki (I think that's how you spell it) can spend many Rands to change street names, but can't give his overworked, underpayed teachers and hospital workers a reasonable salary increase? This government is messed i'm telling you!

And the police made empty threats and even if they did go on strike it really wouldn't of made much of a difference. I was told it's the security companies that do most of the policing anyways. You see here to be a police officer is one of the jobs that you don't want. It's a low end job. It too is another occupation that is underpayed, so I can see why it is so corrupt.

Besides that, everything is going pretty good here. The kids have been out of school going on three weeks, but today they went back and then Friday it's school holiday for two weeks!! It hasn't been bad at all though. The kids are a delite and they have finally gotten used to having us around and are taken by our beauty!! We will be keeping them busy the whole time. The first week we will be going to a farm and hanging out with children from the local townships. There is a couple that runs a camp sort of thingy for the week so the Megan, Mel and I, along with the kids and anybody from Destiny;o), will be volunteering there and hanging out with the kids. I'm looking forward to it. I will take many pictures and post it on here.

As for the other week. We'll be moving things. Ruth has possesion of the house next month so to keep the kids busy we'll be going back and forth. And.. There's a pool there!!! Lovely!! Tan here I come!! Everyone is anxious to get out of the old house (the landlord is a real prat!) and get into the new house. Jay will have his own flat. There is one connected to the house, so that'll give him the much needed space he needs.

It was Mary and Megans birthday this weekend. Unfortunatly I don't have any pictures because they aren't on disc yet. Come to think of it I could have brought my camera here and put it right on.. Oh well. Oh, Ruth got a new car!! The company that she works for gave her the company car, praise God!!! She didn't have to pay a penny!!

Mary's 4th Bday!! Sorry if it's a bit dark, I couldn't get my flash to work!

So that's about it for the news. Not much else is going on. Did I mention I found an awsome church here!? Never did I think it was possible to find such an intense real church! I'm telling you the Spirit of God is thick there. I promise you anybody that goes there will be touched in some way, I have no doubt!

Some people from Destiny. We took Megan out for her birthday. I must say the meal was beya lekker!!

Don't worry Zimbabwe, I didn't forget about you! There's many more wonderful people that we've met. I'm sure i'll be posting more as time goes by..

Much love and misses to everyone!!

Look my memory card does work in the computer. So here is a random photo and us and KD. Two more boxes left, but still plenty of Timmy's and Dill Spitz!

Monkey's are everywhere here. Love it. I know this isn't a baboon, but this is a question thanks to Clayton. And no I will never let this go. Who would win between a full grown male baboon and a human? Please leave me a comment. I still need to prove that Clayton is daft;o)

Everybody's on strike here!! Well that's what it seems like

Hey everyone, this is basically a prayer request. For over a week now the hospital workers and teachers have been on strike. At some schools they have to have people with guns because the teachers that do go to school may be threatened by those who do not choose to go to school. So for the rest of the week, like last week, the kids don't have to go to school.
Well the police threatened to join in the public strike if the public servants needs don't get met by Wednesday. If that happens all chaos may happen in this country.
I promise you the atmosphere feels very calm. Like the calm before the storm.
Would you please pray that the needs get met, if not, just pray for the country, it's completly messed up!!
Blessings to you all....

Help please?

Hello everyone, just wondering if any of you would like to do a favour? Alright.. Ruth will be moving out next month because her lease is due and the owner of the house is selling the house so she had no choice but to move.
Well her deposit is due Monday which is about $1000 Canadian and then she still has to pay rent on top of that at the new house which is another $1000 and then some money for the place she is living now..
Her salary doesn't even come close to covering that plus she has petrol money, groceries, etc. to pay as well..
Would anyone like to assist? She is in dire straights!
And I just wanted to say that Siya's med.'s have been sponsered! Praise God!
So please, please, please open your hearts to help her out. She cannot do it on her own. Reply to me, or e-mail me at cindee@sinakekele.org.za
Hope to hear from anyone very soon!
Many blessings to everyone!
Cindee

I like pie!

Hello everyone, howzit? It’s been a wee bit since I’ve last updated you so I’ll just fill you in with some news.

Last week was Siya and Jakes birthday. Siya is 6 and Jake 4! It’s amazing how time flies!! I remember when Jake first came in here. He was so malnourished and skinny. We used to call him Jake the Rake and he had a permanent purple tongue because of thrush. Purple because that was the colour of the medicine we had to put on his tongue. But now he’s a lean little boy who is full of so much energy! He looks up to Siyabonga so much, it’s kinda scary because Siya gets in a ton of mischief. Those two are going to be a force to reckon with!

Mel, Megan and I went to Siyabonga’s birthday at school. Jake’s teacher didn’t mention his birthday to us so we didn’t go! Poor guy! This past Sunday we Granny and Aunt Daph came by to celebrate. We had lekker cake. I love milk tart! Can we get that in Canadia?! Jake got a superman costume which in permanently stuck to him. Siya got a medal detector. He was all over the place with that thing. Mary and Simon also got some small gifts from mom. Mary got some hair thing and Simon a bow and arrow. Granny also made them some awesome pj’s.
All the kids are doing well. Come January, Siya will be going to primary school. Mary moved up a grade. Simon is doing very well with his occupational therapy and is thriving. Jake is Jake! He has a tendency to make anyone laugh. And he’s a very clever kid too! I already have plenty of stories of the kids, but I will save that when I see you again.

I don’t know if I mentioned this in the last blog (I write my blog entries on word before I post them so I don’t know what I wrote on the previous one) but we got a new volunteer from Canada and it’s been so nice. The stress is just about non existent now. We each have two days off. I usually get one day off cause I have to fetch the kids and take Tazz places. It’s much better than having no time off!!

Ruth is, as Jay and Tazz call it, getting her smile back. We have taken quite a bit of stress off of her, but she is still such a busy woman. I still don’t know how she did it without volunteers here!

Ruth didn’t get as much in the trust fund as she wanted. She applied for R700 000, but only got R200 000.It is still a large sum of money, but not enough to build a house and a nursery. The catch is, she needs proof of funds to build before she can receive the R200 000 and she has till February 2008 to do so. There is a Brazilian volunteer that has hopefully arranged monthly funds for Ruth at the sum of R40 000 for 6 months. Ruth should be finding out soon about that. Continual prayer would be lekker.

The three of us found this awesome church! I haven’t felt this alive in years and quite honestly I didn’t think it was possible again! This church is full of real people and I have no doubt that anyone from any back round would be touched in some way if they attended this church. The pastor is incredible.

Oh before I forget. For those of you who don’t know, Siyabonga has HIV. There was a mishap a couple years ago where his body started rejecting the anti-rets he was taking due to lack of communication. It took awhile for Siya’s body to finally accept a different kind of anti-ret. He about died due to complications. The medication he is taking now is called Ziagen and they are discontinuing it here. It is still available if you order it in, but it may be quite expensive. I’m not too sure of the price yet, but I was wondering if there is anybody out there that is willing to sponsor Siya’s medication? If he discontinues taking Ziagen it may be very difficult to find another one that his body will accept.

So that’s about it. The volunteer car isn’t here yet, but soon, hopefully!! Living in our own flat is heaven and I won’t be getting a job because my days start at 5 am and end at around 7:30/8:00. So that means school will be out of the question for now as well.
Well hope all is well with everything and miss slurpees, especially grape!!
Tons of love!!

Ps. What’s George Saxby’s e-mail addy!?!?!?

Lost me phone

Hey everyone, howzit? Well with lack of sleep this chauch here went shopping and put down her phone when she went to grap the milk or pay for the food. Therefore, it was stolen. The other phone that the ocean got is working, thank God, but I can't get any service. It's just in the shops now so hopefully by next week it will be fixed. I have a new phone number. It is 01127839552867.
Cheers all!!