A Crash Course on Hands at Work

The produce section

For 75 cents you can get a bag of 8 tennis ball sized tomatoes on the side of the road, or a half dozen sweet yellow onions from someone’s side yard. Simple cheese frozen pizzas are about $3 each and the bacon 🥓 that we are most accustomed to purchasing at the store is as expensive as it is in America but here they call it “streaky bacon.” Pineapples are a dollar each and they’re perfectly ripe when you buy them, but they’re maybe a third the size of the ones that are shipped back home. Because the bananas are locally sourced they’re never green, but always evenly yellow, smaller and sweet.

There is never a social event without popcorn and the idea of putting butter on popcorn is revolting to people here. They do add salt, vinegar powder, or cheese powder that tastes like Kraft cheese, but never butter. There is no Earth Balance (my favorite butter substitute) but there are many marjorams to choose from. The health food section is the size of a humble bookshelf. Organic? Forget it.

Time has flown by since my last update, so let's catch up! I have traveled to another country, tried new fruits, Eric brought home a car (as you probably already knew), I’ve started running twice a week with two other women before the kids go to school, Tali has made a friend and is looking forward to going on her class camping trip, and I’ve been working more and more in the office and in the communities.

In the office and in the communities I am a part of the Regional Service Team, where I describe my role as intern. I get to help lots of different people with lots of different projects and get to know various people and roles as I go. Sometimes I’m in community collecting images for social media, sometimes I’m writing a business letter requesting that local professionals come and train teams how to deal with trauma victims, and some days I help conduct health checks and train volunteers how to collect information that can be used to better care for the kids in the communities. Every day I get to hang out with amazing people. Every day we have scheduled times to pray. Every day is hard and challenging in new and different ways, but every day God has been providing and showing me more of who He is and what He’s busy doing here. The details in the newness of it all are overwhelming; mostly breathtakingly beautiful landscape covered with devastatingly poor people in depressing situations. Through the relationships we are developing and the time we are spending in the communities, I get to see sickness, brokenness, and despair meet healing, relationships, and hope.

While I’ve explained what Hands at Work does to many people, it’s different and more powerful to see the work in action. If you haven’t yet seen in person what Hands at Work does, may I invite you to pray about the possibility of coming to see what’s going on here? I know not everyone can afford to make the trip to Africa, but did you know that Hands also works in Canada? Many people have asked what we are doing here, and to be honest it took me a long time before coming here (years) to figure out how this organization works. Now that I’m here, I’m still learning the ropes but it makes a lot more sense seeing it put into practice.

Hands at Work starts with serious and intentional prayer. Where do we go, God? What are you doing? How can we participate to build with, and upon, what You’ve already made and are continuing to sustain?

Next is “walking in community.” Hands teams literally walk through communities and get to know the needs of the people. Now to be honest, our white team members do not walk through most of these communities, not only because the communities they are exploring are not white, but because they don’t speak the languages, they don’t already know and understand the lay of the land, the culture. They are not attuned to the nuances between a community that is beginning to thrive and a community that is spiraling towards disintegration. They often do not receive honest answers to the question, “Who is the poorest and most vulnerable among you?”

Down nameless dirt roads in the far-off bush (wilderness) beyond what anyone would consider a town or a neighborhood, many of the people whom we serve live. Many are undocumented immigrants from Mozambique or Eswatini. Most live in one room homes. And no, I don’t mean one bedroom with a separate living room, kitchen and bathroom. I mean four walls, sometimes a roof and sometimes a door. You got a window? With actual glass in it? Your house is next level. You have a house made of materials other than sticks and mud and rocks? You are doing very well. Most of the children we care for share a grass mat with their Primary Caregiver and multiple siblings, and cooking is done on the floor by wood fire a few feet away. Construction of an outhouse is often an unattainable undertaking for these families.

A typical house in Welverdiend

How are these places found? Word of mouth, prayer, following (or not following) people’s advice to not go that way. When we hear “you don’t want to go over there, there isn’t anything over there worthwhile,” it makes us curious and we usually head in that direction. After locating the “nobodies,” we look for the nearest church. Any bible-preaching, God fearing church will do. Catholic? Yebo. Protestant? Yebo. Pentecostal? You betcha! Baptist? Sure. Methodist? Doesn’t matter. What matters is the church’s willingness to participate. Often this takes some education on our part to help them understand God’s calling on their lives as believers to serve and care for the most vulnerable in their communities. This stage we call “church mobilization."

We invite local pastors and their wives to listen to and take part in making a plan for caring for their own community. We say, “Oh it’s good that you love God. What are you doing about these orphans and widows over here that are in great need of help? Did you know that it’s your job as followers of Christ to love them and care for them?”

To which they usually respond, “Oh, yes, we see them, we aren’t exactly sure how to help them, we don’t have much, but we have some ideas and skills and volunteers, we can pray and we know the One who made the universe.”

“Ah good!" we say. "Let’s train your church members to be volunteer Care Workers, to go on Holy Home Visits and to identify the most vulnerable people in your community.”

“What are Holy Home Visits?”

“Those are one of the most important elements of what we can do to bring healing to brokenness in our communities." Holy Home Visits are when we go to homes and ask people how they are doing, what’s going on in their lives, where they come from and how can we be praying for them. How did they get to where they are now? It’s where we show love on a practical and relational level.

The Care Workers form a Community-Based Organization, an entity that can exist beyond the involvement of Hands at Work. With the guidance of the Hands at Work Service Centers, they seek out the most vulnerable in their communities: the abandoned girlfriends with 6 kids, the grandmas looking after their grandchildren whose parents have died or run away to seek lives that are more fun and have less responsibility.

Next, we ask for the church to help us find a place where we can build a Care Point in the community. Sometimes this is on the church property. Other times this may be an abandoned building or a house that can be rented out. Sometimes it’s a piece of land granted by the chief of the village with permission to build upon.

The kitchen in Mluti Care Point

After a Care Point location has been established, the children that are the most vulnerable in the community are invited to come. At the Care Point is a kitchen, a safe place to play, and sanitary toilets. The kitchen may only include a giant three legged pot (called a Potjie Pot, or as Eric calls it, a Pokey Pot because of the "pokey" legs) and stirring spoon (carved from a large branch), but there is a designated space to prepare food and we call it a kitchen. The play space may or may not have a play structure, but it is a safe space where children can gather and play together after school or during school hours if they’re under five years old. The Care Workers are often some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged community members themselves. Their children directly benefit from the service taking place at the Care Point. At the care points, a healthy meal with veggies, protein, and carbs is cooked and provided to the children once a day. Usually the menu in this area is the same: shredded and stewed cabbage, carrots, or beetroot, beans, and either samp or pap (variations of cooked corn that has been dried). Different countries and regions may have alternate veggies or proteins available such as fish or chicken on special occasion.

Mealtime at Mafambisa Care Point

The kids learn prayers, sing songs, play games, and hear Bible stories.  There’s no prerequisite for them to be Christians before receiving or having access to any of these gifts.

Playtime at Mafambisa Care Point

Based on an overall and ongoing assessment with many quantitative and qualitative points, a community eventually becomes eligible for graduation. After the care workers have an established understanding and capability independent of help from Hands at Work, and even more strength and support from their local community, we have an opportunity to celebrate all that the Lord has grown in them over the years, and we leave, trusting that our faithful God will sustain them. It sounds strange, but we didn’t go there to form a community dependent on Hands at Work, but rather one dependent on God. We went with graduation in mind from the beginning. We went to help create scaffolding, training, understanding of how to build a stronger community that is able to work together to grow and thrive.

This process takes time, and some communities take longer than others to graduate. In rare instances, some communities graduate and then after a few years fall back into needing someone to hold their hands through the process all over again. Over the last two weeks I had the privilege of visiting a community that is scheduled to graduate this year. I prayed over land given to Hands by a local chief in a different community, with expectation to start building another Care Point. Through this self-sustaining model, Hands at Work can continue to identify the most marginalized people and lift them to the bottom rung of the social ladder. Once the people begin climbing on their own, it is time to move on and repeat the process elsewhere. It is just as exciting to watch a community thrive to the point of no longer needing assistance as it is to pray over the potential of another community care point about to be born. We thank God for everyone praying with us and partnering with us, to lift up these orphans and widows, to offer hope and healing, and to be the hands and feet of Jesus here in Africa.

Extras:

Here's a song I'm enjoying on repeat. Don't worry, we're not building a literal house here (or at least not one for us, but the metaphor is lovely and it speaks to my/our growing pains and how we want to build something for His glory. I hope you enjoy and are blessed by it.

Other random moments I feel like sharing:

• I am happy to report no significant adventures have happened in the Fortuner- lots of safe trips to and from school and town.

• Zac turned six and he's loving life so much right now. He requested cinnamon rolls for his birthday and so we made some from scratch for the first time. We even made the brown sugar from molases and regular sugar because brown sugar is not a thing here.

• Soccer cleats are called soccer boots

• We held a baby sprinkle for a Mom the other day and one of the attendees thought that the baby's name was "Sprinkle" (she was confused when we explained that the baby's name was actually Noah)

• Beth watches something fly across the house and asks, "Do cockroaches fly?" Yes they do in Africa. So do praying mantis and lots of other fun things.

• If you fail to greet someone in the morning they may ask you "Did I sleep with you?" This really means: did we spend the night together and wake up together and so you don't feel the need to greet me this morning? Don't be offended, this is not a joke, but you may want to greet them with a hello and an apology hug for failing to do so sooner.

• Tali's going to away camp with her class next week and Eric is going to Eswatini in a couple weeks. Please pray for both of them- safety, joy, that they would be a blessing to others, and that they would see God even more through each experience.