I think I should begin by outlining what Ethembeni, the project I worked with actually do. I believe I have mentioned before that Ethembeni means "place of hope". I now understand the significance of this; it is exactly that - a place of so much hope for all the people who encounter any branch of the project's work.
Firstly, the project runs a family centre, to care for children whose families cannot provide for them themselves. They provide them with food and clothes, and, perhaps equally importantly, love. They support their education, and are the family that some of the children just don't have. The centre provides them with a means of living. In spite of all that they might lack, I can honestly say that these children are some of the most incredible children I have ever met. They are intelligent, funny, ambitious, welcoming, and, from just observing how they behave with each other, loving. No, they are not perfect (most refuse to eat vegetables - it's apparently the same on both continents), but do you know any children who are? Some of them are faced with circumstances I just can't comprehend, and yet they are still amazing.
If this was the only legacy the project had, it would be enough. But alongside this, they also have a residential care centre, where they are able to care for AIDS sufferers. These are the people who are just too ill to care for themselves; the people who the hospitals have given up on. The carers (most of whom have HIV themselves - if that isn't a message of hope, I don't know what is) ensure they take the full course of their medication, and provide them with food, and prayer. Some patients don't leave the centre; on the other hand, some patients, who would not have otherwise been able to, make a recovery.
This centre has just four beds. Four. Only four people can get the care so many desperately need at one time. For me, this was the most shocking thing. I just couldn't understand how so few people were getting the care that they should have been entitled to. However, if I'd have continued in this mindset, I realised that I would have ended up discouraged. That's four families that are being reached at any one time; four sets of children who do not have to miss school to look after their parent; on a six week cycle, that's over 30 families a year. If you look at it from a different perspective, you can see how much difference they make.
That isn't all! Out of this centre, a home-based care initiative is run. Volunteers accompany carers to the homes of patients who are able to look after themselves, delivering vital food parcels, and checking that they are doing okay. They also read the bible and pray with them. Alongside this, the patient has to attend a craft class (bead-making, sewing, patchwork quilts) or keep a vegetable garden. This teaches them a new skill, which will hopefully be sustainable; it also provides people who are often outcast due to the stigma attached to HIV, and who are usually unemployed, with a place to go and socialise. A place to feel wanted. This, I think, is one of the most important and overlooked things.
One continual theme over our month away was fruitfulness. In particular, the passage of John 15:1-17 kept cropping up.
"...I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other." (John 15:16-17, NLT)The benefits of this project can be seen throughout the community. If anyone has taught me the true meaning of these verses, it is those I have met in South Africa.
Let's create the same fruitfulness back home.
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