A visit from friends from Grace church today was a good start to our new year. Colleen and her sewing ladies are old friends and Annemarie brought along her i-pad camera and showed some of the clients, that we visit in the community, pictures of themselves and this caused great hilarity.

One of the families we visited really battles. When Sipho first visited them, they were not expecting him and the mother (lady in green) was cooking phuthu and mixing sugar water into it to make it palatable.  She is the only able bodied adult and works in Hammersdale, hoeing in the cane fields and comes home once a month. She takes her two youngest children, 3 years and 8 months old (the two children sitting next to her in the photo above), with her and they stay with her while she works. The father has abandoned them.

Back home she leaves her very old mother (lady with black hat), who is riddled with arthritis, to take care of her other four older children who are at school as well as two small children (sitting next to the granny in the photo) from another  daughter who has passed away.  We brought them some food, such as mealie meal and soup from Container ministries, and have offered to enrol the two little ones into our crèche gratis so the granny can have a break and the little ones will receive two meals a day from us. We will be keeping a close eye on this family.