George in Canada Nov '09

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

• Friday, November 20, 2009, Mount Royal University http://www.mtroyal.ca/  1:00--2:00 pm Jenkins Theatre

• Saturday, November 21, 2009, Hands at Work in Africa (Canada) Society National Conference and Banquet

• Sunday, November 22, 2009, St. Martin's Anglican Church Service http://www.stmartinscalgary.ca/

• Monday November 23:  2:00--3:00 University of Calgary MacEwan Centre Cassio A/B

• Tuesday, November 24, 2009, Central United Church Friend Raiser Breakfast, University of Calgary http://www.ucalgary.ca/

• (Open to all)Tuesday November 24^th from 7pm to 8:30pm
  Ambrose University College
  Room A2133
  150 Ambrose Circle SW

 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

• Wednesday, November 25, 2009, Kings College Chapel, Concordia, University of Alberta (private function)

Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada

•  Saturday/Sunday, November 28/29, Aylmer Evangelical Mennonite Mission Church, 3 Services, Aylmer Ontario  

 Phone: 519-773-3374 http://www.aemmc.ca/en2/default.php

George will also be attending various meetings during the week with Anchor Churches, Foundations and Friends. If you would like more information on a particular event or arrange to meet with George, please contact lisa@ca.handsatwork.org

George in the US

Hands at Work in Africa CEO and founder George Snyman will travel to the US in November/December to challenge churches about their role in caring for the orphaned, widowed and the dying, to cast the Hands at Work vision, and to attend strategic meetings with the organisation’s country offices and partner churches.

His itinerary is as follows:

St. Louis, MO, November 9-11

Meeting with Ten Talents Foundation

Minneapolis, MN, November 12

Breakfast meeting with local area pastors 10:00am

Hope Church in Apple Valley, MN

(If you would like to attend please RSVP to Dara Hillstrom at DaraJean15@hotmail.com or Kristy Kes at islandgirlKristy@yahoo.com)

Evening with friends of Hands at Work 7:00 pm

Vision of Glory Lutheran Church in Plymouth, MN

(Contact Dara Hillstrom if you have any questions: 480-272-2742 or darajean15@hotmail.com)

Racine, WI, November 13-18

Sunday, November 15, services at 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. at Grace Church in Racine, WI  

Small group meetings throughout the week

Boise, ID, December 6

Sunday, December 6, services at 9:00 am and 10:45 am at Faith Community Bible Church in Boise, ID

For any queries or to schedule a meeting with George during his time in the US, please email lauren@us.handsatwork.org or Jed@handsatwork.org.

Hands at Work in Africa CEO and founder George Snyman will travel to the US in November to challenge churches about their role in caring for the orphaned, widowed and the dying, to cast the Hands at Work vision, and to attend strategic meetings with the organisation’s country offices and partner churches.

His itinerary is as follows:

St. Louis, MO, November 9-11

Meeting with Ten Talents Foundation

Minneapolis, MN, November 12

Breakfast meeting with local area pastors 10:00am

Hope Church in Apple Valley, MN

(If you would like to attend please RSVP to Dara Hillstrom at DaraJean15@hotmail.com or Kristy Kes at islandgirlKristy@yahoo.com)

Evening with friends of Hands at Work 7:00 pm

Vision of Glory Lutheran Church in Plymouth, MN

(Contact Dara Hillstrom if you have any questions: 480-272-2742 or darajean15@hotmail.com)

Racine, WI, November 13-18

Sunday, November 15, services at 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. at Grace Church in Racine, WI  

Small group meetings throughout the week

Boise, ID, December 6

Sunday, December 6, services at 9:00 am and 10:45 am at Faith Community Bible Church in Boise, ID

For any queries or to schedule a meeting with George during his time in the US, please email lauren@us.handsatwork.org or Jed@handsatwork.org.

 

Join George in Cape Town

Sunday, 18 Oct Tableview Assemblies of God (Services: 8h15, 9h30 & 11h00)

Sunday, 18 Oct Edge Church (Service: 18h00)

Tuesday, 20 Oct Common Good Foundation Insights Evening, Common Ground Café To all interested in HIV and rural social development issues and to all seeking social justice. Arrive between 18h00 and 19h00 for fellowship, cappuccinos and finger food. Guest speaker, George Snyman will begin at 19h00 and we’ll open the floor for questions afterwards.

Thursday, 22 Oct Preferred Future Connect at Life Church, Sea Point (10h00-13h00)

Sunday, 25 Oct Urban Edge (Services: 8h30, 10h30, 18h00)

A Battle for One, Toyota School (DRC)

Katherine Callaghan is a nurse from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  She volunteered in the DRC for one month in April 2009

Stepping onto African soil is something that I’ve always wanted to do at some point in my life.  In April this dream was fulfilled, serving with Hands at Work in the dusty soil of Congo.  My time there in Africa had been challenging and inspiring, a time of restoration and discovering beauty.  

Hands at Work sent me and another volunteer, Dayla, out to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and we had the honor of seeing and sharing in the work that is being done day in and day out. One day during our time in the Congo exemplified this service, so let me share it with you. We were given the opportunity to go to a school run by volunteers of the community based organisation in the city of Likasi called Toyota School.  It had been arranged that we would spend a morning with the children and volunteers, playing games and teaching Bible stories.  The school teaches grades one, two, and three and has over two hundred children from the Toyota community, all of whom are orphans or children in a vulnerable situation. The school is run by volunteers from the community who invest in, build up, and serve these children simply because it is what the Bible says and it is what God has called them to do.

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Why Everything Must Change

Hands at Work in Africa will be at Why Everything Must Change, Foundations for Social Justice Conference featuring The Shack author, Paul Young, October 23 – 24, 2009.

Click here to download a poster. Find out more about this event at: http://www.ychange.ca/

Telethon for Hands at Work

Last year October, Living Truth, based in Toronto Canada, aired two programs highlighting Hands at Work in Africa’s work in Mozambique and South Africa.  The telethon raised sizeable funds to care for the vulnerable children of Africa by providing access to education, healthcare and food security through care centres.

Due to the success of the programs, Living Truth returned to Africa to film updates from the countries they originally covered, and also to highlight new areas in which Hands is working. The programs are about to air in Canada and parts of the States.

                11 Oct 2009                         Mozambique
                18 Oct 2009                         South Africa and Zimbabwe
                25 Oct 2009                         Malawi

Check out www.livingtruth.ca for specific broadcast stations and times.

Please send this on to your friends at home who have the opportunity to watch. Thanks for your interest and support of this exciting event!

Watch last year’s programs online here:

• South Africa (56k Dial-up / Cable or DSL)
• Mozambique (56k Dial-up / Cable or DSL) 

Advocating for Kennedy (ZAM)

Kennedy Kashiwa, 14, has faced many obstacles. Following the death of his parents, he and his older sister moved in with their grandmother who had no steady source of income - an uncomfortably common story in the impoverished communities surrounding the city of Kabwe, Zambia where Kennedy lives. But Kennedy has faced more adversity than most. At the age of 7, the young boy fell from a tree and, because there was no money to seek treatment and no access to aid for health purposes, he lost his ability to walk. Kennedy couldn’t attend school for a long time because he had no means of getting there.

Recently, concerned care workers communicated Kennedy’s story to a donor in Canada, Visionledd. Now, Kennedy has been given a wheel chair and can attend school and, though the setbacks have placed him at a grade 4 school level, Kennedy has strong aspirations to complete his education.

Kennedy is regularly visited by local care workers who monitor his health and provide food parcels. The donation of a wheelchair has made an immeasurable difference in Kennedy’s life. Because of the love and encouragement of local care workers, Kennedy has hope once again and dreams of one day visiting specialists to help him walk again.

Reality for Joas and Luisa (MOZ)

Lynn Chotowetz

It had been one year since I’d met Jaos and Luisa. That was July, 2008, and I found them sitting together in the dust outside of their straw home in Nhamatonda, Mozambique. They hadn’t eaten in at least two days, and had been hungry for months. That day was the first time I’d ever encountered such hunger. Their mother had died a year earlier. Their father couldn’t use the upper left side of his body due to an accident.

A local Hands at Work group of volunteers had “adopted” the family, meaning they would take responsibility for their care and wellbeing. This was good news. But the faces of those two children haunted me. A photo of them was lodged in my memory.

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Challenging Pastors Across Nigeria

In response to the massive need of Nigeria’s most vulnerable children, Hands at Work partners are challenging and training church leaders in the poorest areas of 3 regions across the country: Lagos, Ibadan and Kano. Recently, more than 200 leaders were trained in 3 – 5 day workshops.   

Training Care Champions (MAL)(ZAM)(DRC)

A multi-country training workshop for the first ever group of Hands at Work Regional care trainers from Congo, Malawi, and Zambia was held in June at the Kachele Farm outside Luyanshya, Zambia, led by Levy Mwende, a long-time Hands at Work trainer and home-based care champion. These trainers will lead the training of other volunteers in their home regions, making the replication of the Hands at Work model of caring for vulnerable children more efficient and locally sustainable.  . Special emphasis was given to the vulnerable children and their real need of love and affection as we minister to their felt physical needs

59 Bicycles Donated (ZAM)

Fifty-nine bicycles were donated to Community Based Organisations around Kabwe, Zambia. Care Workers are now able to visit those in need in their community more often and when needed use their bikes to transport patients to the clinic. They used to have to walk long distances especially to the most vulnerable who are often located on the fringes of communities, now they are overjoyed with this gift from Tour d’Afrique.

Hope for Families (DRC)

A recent partnership struck in Congo will bring life and hope to desperate patients and families suffering from AIDS by providing free access to life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) medication. Patients in the community of Likasi, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) have never had access to ARV’s, leaving most AIDS patients (including mothers and fathers) no future other than death. Hands at Work in DRC has had a great longing to see their patients live longer, healthier lives. For too long they’ve seen broken families because of the death of one or more members due to HIV/Aids. Through a long process Hands at Work in DRC have finally been able to see their dream come to a reality. All patients now have access to free testing and treatment through AMOCongo.

Children Left Behind (ZAM)

Emily Osborne, from the US, volunteered in the communities surrounding Kabwe, Zambia from October 2008 to July 2009.  This is one of her experiences.

I spent a couple of days with one of the communities Hands partners with in Zambia—Makululu; this community is the second largest shanty compound in all of southern Africa. While in Makululu, I took some time to do home visits with orphaned and vulnerable children and patients, as well as to visit two community schools in the compound which together serve over 1000 children. I’ve been racking my brain for what to write about this experience, but after those two days in Makululu shanty compound, I decided to go back to the beginning, why it is that I came to Zambia, showing you some photos and telling you a little about some of the people I met.

In this home, these grandparents are looking after their three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Both parents of the children died of AIDS and now the grandfather is sick and suffers from severe back and chest pain. The eldest orphan, Elizabeth, is 14 years old and at the time I visited had gone to town trying to find a bit of work for food and school fees. The little boy being held by the grandmother

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Why My Little One...

A poem written by June Vorster after the God revealed His broken heart for the plight of the orphan and the widow. She is a 70 year old living in South African who recently met George Snyman when he spoke at her church. She shared this poem with him and now we share it with you.

I see you sitting all alone and forlorn,
Why my little one?
Your clothes are all tattered and torn,
Why my little one?

I see the emptiness in your dark brown eyes,
The sores on your legs covered with flies,
I see your thoughts and feel your shame,
I cry when you cry, I feel your hunger, your pain.

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Makululu Shanty (ZAM)

 Wrtten by George Snyman, founder of Hands at Work.

As my bus entered the outskirts of Kabwe town in Zambia, I remember staring out of the window and seeing the terrible slum for the first time. “Why have I never seen it before?” I wondered, and the next day asked Eric, the Hands at Work representative, about it. Eric’s words still ring clear in my mind to this day.He said, “George, not even the Catholics work in that area!” I understood what he meant – if the Catholics don’t work in an area, then nobody will work there. Seeing my yes, Eric knew what was about to happen next! And the next morning we entered Makululu. I wanted to know why Makululu existed and what made it such a difficult place.Eric and other community leaders explained to me that when President Chaluba came into power in the nineties, he launched a huge initiative to privatize the country’s mines and most of the factories. The whole exercise went horribly wrong for a number of reasons, and most of the deals were characterised by huge corruption. Within a year, most of these mines and factories closed down completely. It had a devastating impact on cities like Kabwe, and overnight thousands of people lost their jobs and houses. Adding to this, many rural people left their homes after a series of bad crops and flooded the bigger towns like Kabwe looking for work – all of these events contributed to the mushrooming of people in the informal settlement called Makululu.

The first day we walked the roads of Makululu there was no clinic, no government school, no government services like police or social workers, and no NGO activities. I was overwhelmed by what I saw: children in the streets trying to sell paraffin in small

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