Stories — Hands at Work in Africa

Australia Country Office

George's trip to Melbourne (AUS)

George Snyman landed in Melbourne on Tuesday March 16th amid a few minor dramas. He missed his flight from Sydney, which delayed his arrival for just over 30 minutes, and then his second flight was delayed for 15 minutes.

On arrival George had some lunch and then went to his first appointment, a meeting with the senior students at Northside Christian College in Bundoora. Students from this school had given George a donation two years ago for two Zambian youths to attend secondary school and they were eager to get an update on how the two boys were doing.

On Wednesday morning George and I travelled to Ballarat, an inland regional city which George had visited on his previous visits to Australia. Ben and Dani, our hosts, will submit a more detailed report on his visit, but while in Ballarat we visited Ballarat Christian College where George spoke to the secondary school students in one session and the primary school students in another. Quite a few secondary school students spoke to George after the session wanting to know how to get involved with what Hands at Work is doing in Africa.

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Local Business Supporting Hands at Work (AUS)

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Chelsea Eva of Ballarat in Victoria Australia, owns and operates EVE Salon and Beauty Bar, a small hair salon business that commenced trading in late 2009. When Chelsea heard (through one of her clients obviously) that Hands at Work in Africa founder George Snyman would be visiting Ballarat, she thought it was the perfect opportunity to do something herself to assist with the work of Hands at Work.

On the same day George was speaking with Ballarat school students, Chelsea was styling hair, as she normally would; but she had also committed to giving 10% of all sales on the day towards Hands at Work.

Although she desires to visit Africa herself in the future, Chelsea identified that she could put her skills to good use and easily assist those who are working on the cold face in Africa.

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Jarna's Volunteer Experience (AUS)

My name is Jarna McLaughlin and I recently went to South Africa with a team of 18 people from my church (President Avenue Community Church) and some interstate friends to volunteer with Hands at Work in Africa. While in Africa our main task was to kill the worms through the de- worming program. Amazingly worms can take up to 30% of children’s nutrition so you can understand the importance of this program. You know how Jesus fed the 5000 with bread and fish. Well we fed 500 orphans with peanut butter sandwiches, chips, really strong cordial and a de-worming tablet. We typical Aussies make a competition out of everything. So the ultimate peanut butter buttering race happened every night.

There are so many sad and inspiring stories I would love to share but, as this is an article and not a short novel, let me tell you about one 5-6 year old girl who particularly touched me. We were in the Joy community doing the de-worming program. On this

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