Cookout at Delta Park

Overall it was a successful day. A couple of challenges but then isn't that what serving the Lord is all about? Six girls arrived. There had been no sign of Stella when the driver had called for her.

First I demonstrated how we were going to cook rice in the solar cooker in the sun. Only Jeanette believed it would cook. Then while the Blue Crane Patrol made pancakes, the Flamingoes decorated meskit bags.

The gel stove that we used for the pancakes was challenging as the wind kept blowing the flame out and the gel would finish just as a pancake was half cooked. Nevertheless, they all got eaten.

One thing the girls were pretty good at was collecting wood and making fires. For a group who are brand new, to light a fire without any paper, using only one match was quite impressive. I taught them to wrap chicken in tin foil and cook it in the coals and I introduced them to banana boats - bananas with chocolate and marshmallows inserted and wrapped in foil and cooked. The rice was beautifully cooked, not one chicken piece was burned and they all enjoyed the banana boats.

After washing up, the fires were still hot enough to toast marshmallows. Nellie, my new asistant was very impressed with toasted Marshmallows.

I asked Amanda, who had missed the enrolment because of a funeral, if she wanted to be enrolled at closing colours and she said yes, so we did.

The girls enjoyed the day but their good behaviour couldn't last so long and they became very challenging towards the end. Next time I'll go for a shorter day. Seven and a half hours is quite heavy for primary school children.

Please pray for the selection of patrol leaders.

Enrolment Day

 

There are always two events – the one I plan and picture in my mind, and the reality.   The first one went like this.   The District Commissioner would come at about 4.15 by which time I expected the girls to have arrived, looking neat and smart in their denims and shirts and accompanied by their friends and family.  We would do the enrolment, play the chocolate game, including all the brothers and sisters and finish with delicious eats.

Well the delicious eats materialised. They were provided by the orphanage and organised by Bertha.  Plenty of sandwiches, boxes of juice for twice as many people as we had as well as two big packets of assorted biscuits.  

Things started going wrong when I got a phone call from my commissioner just before I left.  Her dog needed to be rushed to Onderstepoort and she wouldn’t be able to come and enrol the girls.   I would just have to do it myself.   Then I got a call from Bertha.   There appeared to be a crisis involving the transport and everybody would be late.

On the positive side, Nelly came to help me.   She had been a grade 10 student at Roseact at the time when I was teaching science on Saturday mornings.   She is so enthusiastic and I am sure she will be a great help.  

When the girls arrived, further disappointments.   No sign of Amanda.   Minenthle didn’t know where she was – perhaps gone to a funeral with her aunt.   The girls from the orphanage arrived without their uniform.   Laizah was wearing ski pants and a short frilly dress and Maria did at least have jeans but a pink top.   One of the carers from the orphanage went to get white school shirts for the girls and Maria was almost acceptable.   So I only enrolled two.   The rest will have to wait until next term.

The chocolate game was a great hit as it almost always is.   The party went well and we ended up by playing “I wrote a letter to my love” for the last 10 minutes before closing horseshoe.

Not quite the success I had planned but I think Jeanette for one enjoyed it.   I also have ideas about how the cookout will go on Tuesday.   No doubt the actuality will be vastly different.   I must try not to have expectations.

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A change of Mindset

When you go as a missionary to a foreign country, you have to adapt to the new culture and work accordingly.   Likewise, I am going to have to adapt to a new culture.   Instead of carefully planning the programme to get the most out of every 15 minutes, I must realise that although Guides starts at 3.30pm, I will never be able to start before about 4.10.  
I had planned to make mosaic crosses with the Guides in preparation for Easter.   I realised that I had been setting my standards too high.   Instead I would spend most of the meeting testing each Guide and making sure she was ready for the Enrolment. 
Sure enough there were no girls at 3.45.   I had put up the flagpole myself.   Jeanette and Samkelisiwe arrived first with John and who I thought was Mitah, the driver’s children.  (The driver, Saul, is Jeanette’s brother).   There was no sign of Stella, who was supposed to come in the combi with Jeanette and Sam.  I thought that John, who is about 5, would be much happier across the road at the orphanage where there is a play area with swings.   Well, I thought wrong.   After arranging with the carers at the orphanage to leave him there, I sent Jeanette and Sam back while I waited for Laizah to finish her lunch and show me her room.   Well, John ran into the road and stopped when he saw me running after him and screamed.   I picked him up bodily to get him off the road and he screamed even more as I carried him to the pavement.   I didn’t know what to do.   One of the carers calmed him down and ascertained that he wanted to stay with Jeanette.   So I had to give in.
So, already feeling stupid, I got Jeanette and Sam to get out the patrol boxes and clean up for inspection.   Laizah came soon after and we went outside for the opening.   I did inspection with the three girls and I broke the flag with Jeanette and Sam as escorts.
I was impressed with the way the girls are trying to look neat and tidy.   They are using the shoe polishing kits and nail brushes that are in each patrol box.   I talked a bit about Easter, asking the girls if they knew anything about it.   They just looked at me blankly.   I went into a brief summary of the gospel and the fact that Jesus died for us so we can have a relationship with God and have eternal life.   I explained that the egg is a symbol of new life so we were going to make tiny Easter eggs.
We went inside to start melting chocolate and Maria arrived.   She at least knew about Easter and could even quote John 3:16.   I asked Mitah how old she was to decide if she would join us in the programme.   Jeanette said “That’s Amanda”   I couldn’t believe it.   I know that I am bad with faces but I didn’t even recognise my own Guide, that I had gone to visit last week and that I had bought a pair of denims for when I found out that she, too, didn’t possess a pair of jeans.   Because she had arrived with John, I had assumed she was his sister, Mitah.   Admittedly, they do look similar, even though there is more than 2 years difference in age.
Mitah is in the middle.   The other two pictures are both of Amanda.
I tried to laugh off my stupidity by mentioning that I was going to be 60 this year and my memory is not what it was.   Sigh.
Despite these ineptitudes of mine, I think the meeting was a success.   Four of the girls can now say the promise and have a good idea of what the law entails.   Only Sam, who has just recently joined us, and Stella who didn’t come will have to be enrolled next term.   I told them that if I couldn’t sign off each clause of the Trefoil challenge, they couldn’t be enrolled next week.   They tried.   They worked together as patrols.  I have a bit more hope for them.
The chocolate Easter eggs were a great success. It didn’t take long for each girl to fill one mould with chocolate and the orphanage allowed us to use the fridge. .
Surprisingly, the scooby doo was also a hit.  For the same girls who couldn’t make a clove hitch after 5 tries last week, to be able to tie the scooby doo knot was quite impressive. It was one of the options to do during patrol time along with colouring in the flag or decorating the patrol box.

Well next week is enrolment.   Here’s hoping all the arrangements come together.   Most of them are out of my control.   Bertha needs to arrange with the driver to pick up not only the girls but also their guests, she has to organise with the orphanage to provide us with tea and eats.   Annette (my district commissioner) is coming to enrol the girls and I hope we can get going early so she can get home before the traffic.   Please pray for all the arrangements.

Visits and Flags

 

When I was involved in the Third Randburg Guide Company, we used to make a point of visiting the girls in their homes.   I saw no reason not to do the same with the Rays of Hope Guide Company.   So I organised with Bertha (who is my Rays of Hope contact ) to visit two families before Guides this Friday and two next.    All the girls except Stella had said that they had a pair of denims and a white school shirt so I had bought a pair of denims and a shirt for Stella and I asked that we visit her first.

It was raining on Friday.   I drove and Bertha directed.   When the road ran out and I saw the muddy track going down hill leading towards Stella’s house, I decided to park the car and walk because I didn’t fancy being stuck in the mud.

I’ve never actually known anybody who lives in a shack before.   Stella lives in a shack.  She shares the bed with her older sister (who is the head of the household since the mother died in 2010), her younger sister and the baby.   The brother sleeps on the floor.

Things were going well with Stella.   Her teacher, having seen the state of her only school dress and shoes, had given her a new school uniform and shoes.   Now two days later I had come with some denims and a shirt.   I wonder if she’s been praying…….

The next stop was Minenthle and her sister Amanda.   Two weeks ago when there was only one vehicle available and the girls had been collected from school, the two of them had not come and had run away when the driver had called them.   Bertha phoned their aunt who said they were tired.   Now there was no sign of Minenthle, although Amanda was there.   We waited until we had just enough time to be 10 minutes late.                           

After the girls had been given lunch in the orphanage, we had lost half an hour so again my programme was adapted.   I went over the last 5 Guide laws.   I don’t know how much they took in.   They just looked at me.   After three weeks of going through the promise, which they are going to have to say on the 30th when they get enrolled, not one of the girls could tell me what it was.

The highlight for me was that Jeanette brought a friend.   With Minenthle probably dropping out, five guides is below the minimum number.   Perhaps the Lord made provision before I even knew about the problem.  

After playing a relay type game about the motto,  We went outside to put up a camp style flag pole.   Well, one thing is for sure, I am going to have to hoist the flag for the moment with two escorts.   The whole flag raising procedure is totally beyond my girls.   Even marching in step is out of their range at present.   They can, however, knock in pegs.

Our ending was very rushed.   I misunderstood Bertha.   I understood that because the orphanage young people were going to youth groups at Rosebank Union to be there at 6, we had to finish promptly so the transport to take the girls home could do that and still be back in time to take the youth group kids.   So instead of having the duty patrol tidy up, I ended up doing everything myself.   Then I felt quite annoyed when at 10 to 6 ,I found the orphanage Guides playing in the street outside.   It turned out that I had misunderstood Bertha.   There were 2 buses and only Maria and Laiza were required to finish early.   I wonder if Friday is the best day to run Guides.   Already we had to miss a meeting because of the party at Ihe orphanage once a term to celebrate birthdays that term, now with youth group taking place on Fridays also, we might need to rethink.

I am feeling a bit out of my depth, especially with plans to get the girls enrolled on 30 March when they don’t seem to understand the promise and law.   Perhaps I have been too  ambitious thinking I could get them ready for enrollment in just a term.    Lord, this is your idea, your company,   HELP.

Learning to polish shoes

I should have known better

It seemed like a good idea.   Let the girls paint the lids of the shoe boxes that they are using as patrol boxes.   Later they can then draw a picture or paste one.   When I tried with craft paint I didn’t even get a spot of paint on my hands.   Anyway, I provided newspaper to protect the paving.   To be quite sure, I provided black bags and showed the girls how to cut out the neck and arms and make a protective plastic covering.   What could go wrong?
I had told the girls to wear school uniform and to look smart because I would do inspection.   The four CHH girls had listened and did look very smart.   The other two wore jeans, Laiza’s looked new and made of a stretchy fashionable denim.   I showed the girls how to paint in very thin layers which would dry quickly.   Laiza got to paint for the Flamingos and Maria for the Blue Cranes.   I engaged the 9-year olds,  Stella and Amanda, in trying to get the information from them that they didn’t fill in on their forms last week.   It turned out that Stella, for one, cannot understand English.   Minentle translated and I managed to find out that Stella likes playing and is good at drawing and Amanda also likes playing and is good at singing.   I then showed Minentle and Jeanette how to do the duties for their patrol.   Minentle got on with preparing the juice and sandwiches and when that was done I called the others to come and eat and drink.
We could see Maria and Laiza painting outside the window.   I told them to wash the brushes and come and get juice.   When they still hadn’t come after about 10 minutes I went to find them.   Maria had paint splashes all over the front of her plastic bag overall.   I was just explaining that that was exactly why we wear protective clothing when I saw Laiza’s jeans.   The girls were trying to use a scrunched up black plastic bag to clean paint off her jeans.   A lot of paint,  When filling in her form last week, Laiza had listed her jeans as her favourite piece of clothing and I don’t know how much clothing orphans have.   I felt sick.   I fetched the paper cloth that I had thrown into my bag as an after thought and went to help get white acrylic paint off navy blue jeans.   I knew that if we got it before it dried we would be all right.   Fortunately we did manage to get all the paint off.
The next activity was to find puzzle pieces of the world flag that I had hidden in the garden.   The girls enjoyed the hunt, especially Jeanette, Amanda and Stella.   Once they had collected 12 pieces per patrol, they got together in patrols to assemble the puzzle.   I noticed where the Flamingos were sitting on the back steps that some paint had been spilled.   I moved them off and told Maria and Laiza to clean up but it was too late.   A lot of the paint had already dried.
By now time had run out (the girls had once again arrived 45 minutes late because only one driver was available because of a funeral).   At closing horseshoe I noticed that Jeanette had big paint splodges on her navy school skirt.   Once more to the water and the paper cloth.   Fortunately (or was it God’s intervention?) we managed to clean that off too.  
From my point of view, not a good meeting.   Besides the paint problems, we didn’t have time to get down to the important issue, the first three Guide laws although we did cover the flag.   The girls however had a great time even if two of them did go home rather damp.

First Guide meeting

 

One thing I’m going to have to get used to is Africa time.   The plan was that the bus would collect the girls from the Child Headed Household (HSS) programme  at 3pm and bring them to the orphanage.   They would be given lunch and at 3.30 they would come across to 5 Lupin St and we would start.   Well at 3.29 I got a message saying they would be a couple of minutes late as they were waiting for two children.   They turned out to be the drivers’ children.   He couldn’t leave them unattended so he brought them with him.  Eventually we got started at about 4.10pm.

I didn’t know what to expect.   When the girls arrived I felt a connection immediately.   They are just girls.   Guide age girls like any other.   We are going to have fun together. Laiza (12) likes fruit and vegetables and is good at English and Maths

Maria (12) likes chicken and rice and is good at singing

Jeanette (12) likes drawing people and is good at boxing

Minentle also likes singing and her favourite food is bread and eggs

Then we have 2 nine year olds, Amanda and Stella.   Stella says very little but modelled the sash and scarf for us

 

As a first meeting I think it went well.   We had fun, played with balloons, learned about the law and promise and how Guiding started.   We formed two patrols, the Flamingos and the Blue Cranes and had a couple of minutes patrol time.   The girls seem enthusiastic and all said they will come again next week.   Let’s see what happens.

The Beginning

Sunday, 12 February 2012

So it's all about to start. The Rays of Hope Guide Company starts on Friday. I am excited, but nervous at the same time. Although I ran a Guide company for 10 years, it was a totally different culture. This time we are starting in an orphanage - Ikhya Lomusa in Marlborough. Only two of the girls will be from the orphanage, another 4 will be bused in from the Child Headed Household Programme, also run by Rays of Hope. In a typical yard where these girls live, there is only 1 tap to about 20 families so your normal basic hygiene is an irrelevant luxury. I will have a lot to learn and a lot to adapt to. Some of my preconceived ideas will have to go but I am convinced the Lord has called me to this outreach.


It happened like this.
I have never been one to hear God talk to me. Most often a set of circumstances and some scripture verses have been the most usual way I have been guided. It was the same pattern last year in about April or May. One of the things I enjoy about my job is I get to take students from our school to various science orientated competitions to compete against other schools. The area finals of the "Johannesburg Libraries' Psyched for Science Model Building Competition" were held at the Florida Library.
We were the only white school there and the first thing that struck me was how privileged the students of our school were compared to the others. Whereas our winning entry was a valve designed to prevent wastage of water during toilet flushing, some of the others were things like a cardboard box with a hole cut in and a picture pasted at the back to represent a TV. I realised that it was the lack of teaching skills and resources that disadvantaged many black schools. That was the first pointer.
The second was in the charity book shop. Outdated library books, donations and homemade goods are sold to raise money. While I was browsing through the book shop, waiting for my teams to be judged, I found in an obscure basket almost hidden under the table, not one, but three books about Girl Guides. They were very outdated and probably of British origin. During 10 years of running Guides, I had not come across any books like that.
The two impressions superimposed for me a powerful message. God wanted me to run a Guide Company in an area that was very disadvantaged and where the skills could make a real difference to girls. As my church, Rosebank Union, is very involved in Alexandra and supports orphans and Child Headed Households, it seemed the logical place to start.
I've been in contact with the church and the Girl Guide Association of South Africa and at last everything has come together and I start on Friday.
My head is so full of all the things I could do, all the things I need to do with the girls. It is almost overwhelming. Please pray for wisdom for me that I can get the programme right - The right balance between fun, team building and the important stuff for this first meeting on Friday. The girls must want to come back again but must also have a good idea of what Guiding is and the importance of the promise.
"I promise that I will do my best
to do my duty to my God and my country,
to help other people
and to keep the Guide law."
http://www.girlguides.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=109&Itemid=3







photo from http://www.rosebankunion.org/rays-of-hope


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