Week of contrast

What a contrast this week has been compared to last week. I was playing mum while my amazing friend was lying in a hospital bed. This week I’m back to being “Auntie Lindsay” and my friend is back home and recovering extremely well! Praise the Lord for restoring some sense of reality back into our lives.
The little girl I wrote about last week is still progressing at a fantastic rate. She is now interacting well with all the other children in baby crèche, as well as the other volunteers and house mothers. Whenever I’m in crèche with my camera she always wants to have her photo taken and then look at it. She is communicating so well now, it truly is amazing. God is really answering our prayers!

Our new little baby is also doing very well. She is bonding nicely with her new house mother and is happy and smiley!!!

Unfortunately, the little boy that arrived shortly after Christmas isn’t doing so well. I’ve written about him before as he was admitted to hospital with TB. He has gone from 10kg to just 7kg and he’s 4 years old (he should weigh 17kg). Whenever I pick him up I pray that I don’t break anything, he really is just so underweight. He is being cared for very well by his house mother, but the TB and the side effects of the TB treatment are just making him so ill and weak. Please guys your prayers for him would be so greatly appreciated! Thanks also for your prayers so far.

All the children have a “memory book” which we update with pictures throughout the year. There are pictures of birthdays, Christmas’s, outings, family members that visit amongst other things. It’s a lovely thing to do for the kids so they can look back over the years they have been at Rehoboth and see just how blessed they are to be here. We’re in the process of updating the books and so have been taking some new pictures of the newer houses and of the two newest sibling pairs we have (two brothers and then a brother and a sister). I had to include the pictures this week as they are just so cute!!!

Rehoboth was blessed with a new car last week. We traded in our old car which was becoming dangerous for a newer model. Hopefully we will have less problems with this car! We also got some amazing news that we have been awarded a grant from the Lotto here in South Africa. They’ve awarded us nearly R400, 000 (28,000 pounds ish) which will go towards a new 4 x 4 truck and will also be used to increase the workers salaries which is a real boost for us! It’s so wonderful to see just how much God is blessing this village! He is truly amazing!
With only now 2 weeks left, I’m trying to spend as much time with the kids as possible. In the mornings that’s in baby crèche and in the afternoons I swim with the older kids and sit with them outside. It’s always such a special time just to go up to the houses and be with the kids. They’re so much more relaxed in their familiar, home environment. Man I’m going to miss these kids…….

Lindsay "Mother of 4" Bewick

Introducing the new Lindsay, house mother extraordinaire!!! Let me explain myself a bit more! One of the reliever house mother’s baby daughter became the latest victim of the horrendous bug going around the village and community. She had to be rushed to hospital on Monday evening with more than 10% dehydration. The little baby was struggling to breathe and kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Finally both mother and baby were admitted to hospital. Mother’s bed was a hard wooden bench next to her baby so she can still breast feed her. I quickly popped into the hospital to visit on Tuesday and the mum was so tired- she got very little sleep at all. But by the grace of God her baby has perked up a lot. She is responding to the fluids being pumped into her nicely. So, how does this make me a good “house mother”. When the reliever and her baby went into hospital it was up to us the volunteers to look after the 4 kids in that house. So on Monday night I slept over and played mother. The kids got me up at 5.30am (eek!!!!!!!!!!) but were so good. The two older kids didn’t need my help at all except to make them breakfast and put up their school lunches. The younger two were just as good though, we ate breakfast, had a nice bath and got dressed. Each child took their medicine willingly without fuss. These kids are so well behaved, I really actually had to do very little. The next night, Robbie stayed over and played the house father, while Sophie our newest volunteer stayed over on Wednesday night. Between us we kept that little family together and running! What an achievement!
While all of this was going on unfortunately one of the management team and a very special friend of mine was taken into hospital for an operation to remove her Gall Bladder after an infection. A routine operation which should have gone smoothly quickly turned into a nightmare with my amazing friend ending up in ICU for the night. When we heard the news our first instinct was just to pray. Pray that God would keep her safe. Pray that God would influence all those involved in trying to fix the problem in theatre. It was an intense time waiting to hear whether she would be OK. Praise God she is now out of the woods. Praise God for keeping her safe. It’s been a long few days now. I miss her terribly. I miss having her around the office to chat to and laugh with. I miss our “pity parties” which only we can have together. I miss seeing how wonderful she is with her children and most of all I miss how good and appreciated she makes me feel every single day. I praise God for my amazing friend and pray that she would be healed quickly.
Excellent news on our newest little girl. I’ve spent a lot of time one on one with her this week and she is now responding very well. She is smiling with her whole face now. Her eyes have life in them, she is now ready to fight to live! She has a cleft lip but has started speaking. She even managed to nearly say “Auntie Lindsay” yesterday. Most of the children do struggle with my name. At first they call me “Lindy” or “ Linz” but eventually they get it! I’m going to miss being called Auntie Lindsay when I leave (just 3 more weeks to go- ahhhhh!).

We had a new arrival in the form of a tiny (only 2.5kg- about 5.5 pounds!) 3 month old baby girl on Friday. Clearly she was born prematurely so we need to keep a close eye on her. Her mother is in the final stage of AIDS and has TB so it was impossible for her to care for the baby and all her relatives refused to help her. She is now being cared for by a wonderful house mother and is a happy, smiley and most importantly healthy baby! Praise God.

I'll leave you with a few new pictures taken in the last few weeks of the kids on their bikes and visiting the stables.....

Many happy and beautiful returns!

Last Sunday took us on a road trip to Pietermaritzburg to watch Ryan swim the “Midmar mile”. It was a great chance to get away for the day and have some fun together. The weather was quite overcast and pleasant so we didn’t think to put on any suntan lotion! Oops big mistake! By early afternoon I could feel my face getting hotter and hotter- I’d got sun burnt through the clouds! Typical! So the first half of the week my face was rather red and is now thankfully back to normal! Needless to say my skin is as sensitive to sun as it has always been. On the way back home we visited a friend in hospital. He’s been quite sick for some time and is on morphine. When we arrived he was sitting out of bed with his tools fixing a fan. Even though he is in tremendous pain he’s still just getting on with life. If he sees something broken his instinct still is to fix it. He gave an amazing short testimony in church a few weeks ago, which totally blew me away. He spoke of how it took a serious illness for him to get right with God. We mustn’t do the same. We can’t just turn to God in the bad times; he must be the centre in the good and the bad. We know what God wants us to do for Him. We must love Him and do His work. It’s as simple as that. Goodness if we all stuck to that philosophy how amazing would our world be!!!!
We had another birthday this week and so it was time for another birthday party! As usual it was a great time for the kids to get together and celebrate another year of their life. The little girl whose birthday it was turned 3. When she came to us she was rather overweight and very unhappy and it’s only been in the last 5 months that she’s really picked up. She’s lost a little weight and has turned into a happy, delightful little girl (as you can see from all the photos). Praise God for working so many miracles in her short little life!

Praise God the little baby girl that was admitted to hospital last week came home on Sunday fit, healthy and back to her normal smiley self. Thanks for all your prayers- they really do make so much difference! I am sorry to say though that a different little baby girl was admitted on Thursday morning with 10% dehydration (ie SERIOUS dehydration). There is an horrific bug going around which causes vomiting and diarrhoea at the same time so in this heat And humidity it doesn’t take long to get dangerously dehydrated. We were very lucky to get a bed at the hospital as it was full of children with the same bug- it literally is sweeping through the village and the surrounding community. It doesn’t discriminate who it affects- old, young, healthy or sick everyone is at risk of contracting it. Again prayers for both our little one in hospital and all those affected by this bug would be appreciated!!!

quarter life crisis

Ok so in my old age (well I am nearly 25 you know- gosh am I that old???) I left my USB stick at home and it's a 50km roun trip to go and get it so SORRY guys but I've not got any photos for you this week. What I'll do is just give you a general update and then put up extra pictures next week- promise!!!!!
We had a birthday party last week for a little girl who has turned 3. We had lots of fun playing, opening presents and eating cake. Fun times were definitely had by all! The little girl who I told you about last week who was admitted to hospital is now home praise the Lord! She is now absolutely fine and back to her cute smiley self. Unfortunately I had to admit another little girl last Thursday as she was 10% dehydrated due to an horrendous vomiting and diarrhoea bug which is sweeping across the community and our village. I went to see her yesterday and she is doing very well. She looks just about back to her normal self so hopefully she will be discharged on Monday. When we admitted her there were no beds available- most of the children in the ward were also suffering from the same bug. Prayers for resilience and strength to fight this bug should it affect any more people would be appreciated thanks!
I've not had anymore encounters with snakes this week thank goodness. I've basically stayed away from all the snake hotspots in the village (including the toilet attached to the office!!!) as I don't think my nerves can stand it much longer! I think though that most of you would be proud of me as my phobia of all things creepy and crawly is getting less and less huge each day!!!!
Well think that's it for now guys. I'll put up photos of our fab birthday party next week- infact I'll probably just do two posts- one new and the one I was supposed to do today to try and make up for forgetting my stick- doh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arrivals, departures, an almighty storm and some snakes

I can't believe that I've only got 5 more posts to do before I come home! It's reallys starting to hit me now that I'll be leaving very soon and that I'll have to say goodbye to all the children. I'm so close to all the children so it's going to be so hard. On the plus side though it will be nice to come home and see all my family and friends again!

Well it's been a very topspy turvy week. On Sunday one of our volunteers left as she'd completed her 6 months here. We took her to the airport, dropped her off and then had to wait 5 hours before we our new volunteer arrived. We decided to go and see a movie at a huge shopping centre near the airport. Anyways after the movie eventually got started after 3 attempts (seriously every time I go to the movies there's a problem!!!) we headed back to the airport. That half an hour was one of the scariest of my life. We got caught out in the middle of the worst thunder storm I've ever seen. We could see lightning hitting the ground all around us! Seriously a lot of prayer went on in that car as the roads were flooded (the roads have no drainage) and cars who'd been struck were just sitting ducks (literally!) in the road. Ever bridge we went under there were cars stopped so we had to keep plodding on. We eventually got to the airport alive and the storm passed. Our new volunteer Sophie arrived safely and we got home with no more problems at about 11pm! Man I was tired! She seems to be settling in really well and is getting along nicely with all the children! David and Glen from my church back home also arrived this week. They've been involved in the project for years now, really from when everything began and they come out for generally 3 months twice a year. It was so lovely to see some familiar faces and get some lovely hugs from them!!!

Thanks for all your prayers for the two little boys that were in hosptial (first two pictures), I'm happy to say that they are both home now. They were discharged on Monday, praise the Lord! They are both doing very well and are visibly so happy to be back at home. Unfortunately we had to admit one of the little baby girls (bottom picture) to hospital on Thursday. She aspirated some milk and so was struggling to breath. She is doing much better already and hopefully will be home on Monday. Again your prayers would be greatly appreciated.

We had a new arrival last week in the form of a beautiful little 3 year old girl. She has been placed in a house with all girls as she has sufferent horrendous abuse in her short little life. When she arrived she had the usual "death stare" as we call it and was visibly distressed. However she has instantly bonded with her new house mother and is even calling her "mummy" which really is a result. Then on Thursday as we arrived at devotions I saw her and said hello and she smiled at me. Ah it was so amazing. It was such a beautiful smile. Praise God, we're really making quick progress with her! I sat with her on my lap and she seemed so comfortable in my presence. It was such a special time for me. I've not taken a picture of her yet as I think she would be rather confused as to what I was doing as she has come straight from the community and didn't even know what a mirror was. She really have lived a horrid life up until now. From now on though she will receive so much Godly love and attention- something she so very clearly deserves!
The weather is certainly heating up now we're into February so with that the snakes have come out. In the last week I've seen 3 snakes, one of which was poisonous (but not deadly). As most of you know I'm not particularly fond of spiders, snakes and generally all things creppy and crawly so I'm having to adapt fast to this new threat! Prayers again greatly appreciated!!!

At one with the animals

Before I start this post please let me apologise for not posting at the usual time for the past few weeks- we’ve been extremely busy here with the celebration day and lots of other projects so getting into town for the internet didn’t some how fit into my agenda! Well this week I’ve had some time off just to chill and recharge my batteries. I’ve felt so tired and a little emotionally drained these past few weeks to be honest so I really needed the break. Last weekend we went to a few Game parks in Northern KwaZulu Natal and had an amazing time. We saw lots of different animals and birds and generally had a restful time away. It was extremely hot but thankfully we had an air conditioned car so all was well!

Unfortunately we have 2 little boys in hospital at the moment. I admitted them both and have visited them as often as possible. Each time I leave them both they scream and my heart just breaks for them. It really does bring home to me the situation we are in here. The hospital is not getting any better- it takes me on average 4 hours to admit each child. I’m definitely learning to be a lot more patient and understanding as losing my cool and getting angry really gets me absolutely no where. Last Wednesday afternoon we had a memorial service for our beautiful little boy who is now with our Father in heaven. I had to leave to go to the hospital as soon as it was over to admit one of the children. I sat in the admissions queue for more than 2 hours. I was 6th in line however an old lady behind me in the queue soiled herself so I let her go before me. Then a lady who was in labour started bleeding and was visibly in agony so of course I made sure she went first, then a lady with severe chest pains again needed to go before me. Of course I was more than willing to let these people go before me even though it was now 6.30pm. What really frustrated me was that they had to sit in the queue in the first place. I have no idea if the lady who was in labour successfully gave birth or if the lady with the chest pains is now well. People in Africa literally do die in the queue waiting to be seen to. It just serves as a reminder to me just how amazing the NHS is really! I’ll never complain again!
One of our volunteers is leaving us on Sunday and as she leaves another volunteer arrives from America. She did a similar degree to me so hopefully we’ll have a lot in common and finally I’ll be able to have some “geeky” conversations with her! Also she will be eventually taking over the role of running the clinic we have and admitting sick children to the hospital so that when I leave in March (6 weeks time argh!) she’ll be able to do everything for herself straight away! Also it will lighten my ever increasing workload a bit so I can spend a bit more time with the older children! Fingers crossed!