Back to South Africa!

I wanted to put my newsletter on here like before but for some reason the computer won't let me this morning. I've sent it out to people via email and it's also on facebook, so if you would like one and can't get it via these routes (if you haven't received one via email yesterday you are not on my list yet!) then get in touch, send me an email to grapevinemanager@gmail.com and I'll make sure you get one!

In any case, I've booked my ticket and I'm heading back to KwaZulu Natal! I leave the UK on Monday 30th November and take a brief stop off in Dubai before flying direct to Durban and get there late afternoon on 1st December. The 1st December also happens to be World AIDS Day.

From there on in I will have 10 days until the end of school term in which to co-ordinate the plan for feeding our children over the holidays. My aim is to get them in to the school twice a week and arrange for a proper meal cooked for them and then to get them some extra food to take away to tide them over. Given that we don't have much money at the moment I'm not sure how much we can give them, but we'll use what we have and pray for a miracle that it will stretch to feed them all (God's good at expanding food miracles, it's about time we saw some more of it!)

I'm also planning to do some teaching for the children and some fun games and other activities so that they will be fed not only physically but also spiritually. They are quite used to praying and hearing about God, so we'll be giving them an opportunity to engage with God too as well as some fun crafts and learning about how precious they are to Him.

This will be happening until the new term starts on 11th January. After that I'll be working on assessing each child's situation and listening to their needs with the aim of meeting as many as we can through our further work there.

It's all exciting stuff and I'm keen to get back as soon as possible. In the meantime I'm off to get my visa sorted. Travelling to London this afternoon (with only an AA driving directions map and no Sat Nav - should be interesting!) and tomorrow at 9.30am I have an appointment at the South African Embassy to apply for my visa. I really need this to go smoothly so if you can pray for that to happen that would be great. All being well I should be in and out quickly and in 10 days time be in possession of the longest possible volunteer visa.

The rest of my time is spent sorting things out and trying to earn a bit of money as well. There are so many little jobs to be done, my 'to do' list spans over 2 sides of A4 at the moment and there's no sight of the end! It will all be done in time though I'm sure!