My eyes tricked me when it came to the beatitudes. I always stopped at "blessed are the poor" and missed the "in spirit" part. It seemed to me that poverty was a blessing of beautiful simplicity that I was unlucky enough to have foregone. Poverty was the choice of those ancient and holy monastic orders. And where choice didn't come into it, poverty produced nuns and monks out of those with only stones to eat.

Until I went to Zwelethemba, I'd never walked in a community in poverty. It wasn't the Blessed Poor walking its streets. It was the ragged, needy, poor; as greedy as you and I, only with nothing to gorge themselves on. The kind of poor that grabs your arms to wrap around itself.

The children of poverty want out. They grasp at anything that looks like hope and sometimes hope looks like you. They lean and grab and hold and jump on every part of you. They won't let go. Pretty soon, you feel uncomfortable. You're hot and sweaty and tired and the dirt of poverty is sticky on your skin. It's messy and bleeding and dribbling and you realise the good you thought you could do is at its very short and weak end. That's when I knew that if they grabbed on to me because I'm white, the reason I have to keep holding on is because Jesus in in me and on me. Without him we've both got nothing. But with Him, we, though poor in spirit, have the kingdom of Heaven and truly we are blessed.

by Hannah Jamieson (student on CIN DTS 2009)

This year we have joined together with the 5 students from the socker DTS to give us 14 nations on the course all praiseing God together and He is teaching us how to really love these children He has made and we believe chosen for His family.

USA Canada Australia Northern Ireland Holland South Chorea Ghana Brazil Madagascar Uganda Tanzania South Africa Zimbabwe and England

Today I have been meeting with some of the children we have know in zwalethemba for years, we got to know them when they where just little children and now they are teenagers. How fast they have grown up, we are now meeting with them each week to help with homework and encourge them in their studies. These kids who have had now chance in life it seems have such potential and we beleve God wants us to give them support and maybe a better chance in life, now with help with their home work and studies but also to know God and have eternal life. The gap between Cildren in Need DTS's seems long sometimes. We would love a big group of missionaries focused on serving and loving these children, but as we wait for the next DTS to start on September 28th we have to be down here with these amazing children.

Each morning we cooked sadza and beans for the lunch feeding. Sadza is kind of like mashed potates, only thicker and more filling. It is the 'staple food' here and is made by mixing maize meal (corn flour) and water.

The trailer full of food supplies

On the first day, we fed 80 of the neighborhood orphans. But word the feedings quickly spread through the neighborhood and by the last day over 180 orphans were coming to each feeding. Thankfully we still had enough food for all of them!



The church we worked with had a registry list of all the orphans in the neighborhood. As the time to serve the food came nearer, we saw kids running in from all over the neighborhood into the church gate.

At first they were somewhat shy but as we played with them they really opened up, and would run up to us smiling boldly. The boys started calling me 'Gret Collins', who apparently is some especially tall WWE Wrestler. WWE is very popular with the children here. I told them I didn't know who Gret Collins is, and they laughed as if I was joking.

The kids will often surround us and curiously touch our skin and hair, while repeating “Agacha, agacha...” They whisper it together in unison, as if it's some sort of magical chant. We later learned that “agacha” means “he/she is so light-colored."

The conditions in the camp are horrible. When it rains, it turns into a mud pit. The houses barely provide enough shelter in friendly weather, let alone wind and rain. The houses are simply 4 poles stuck in the ground with blankets draped down the sides. People construct their shelters with whatever scraps they can find: chunks of wire fencing, wood panels, cloth shreds.



And even here, the people still aren't left alone. The government military came in before and harassed them- the refugees said they are being forced to leave next month. Just last night the police randomly shot 5 bullets into the camp- this time no one was hit.

A six year old boy described his daily life at the camp to us. He said "Don't go over that hill over there. There is a policeman who will shoot you. They fire bullets. I pick them up and play with the bullets and they make my hands greasy. He said he wants to go back to Somalia and be a policeman "to stop the bad people from what they are doing". But the adults don't have that much hope for the children. "See that child over there," they say, "he has no hope, no future." They want to believe there is hope, a way out, a better life, but their situation tells them otherwise.

after 3 months of training We are starting our second phase a full time outreach phase.
So far, the children we have worked with in the past 3 months are incredible. I seriously believe they have taught me far more than I have taught them. The beauty and simplicity of the way children think and live, despite the hostile environment they have been raised in, is something we all can learn from.



Children from the local community in the De Doorns township we worked in.



Children from the Zwelethemba community.
Even when it is time to leave, the children still follow us and swarm around the vans.
The language barrier doesn't stop us much- smiles and hugs are universal. The kids always love to be picked up and swung around and spun in circles. It reminds me of what my dad used to do with me when I was a kid. In this community, many kids are raised in neglectful or fatherless family situations. Even though we're just teenagers, if we can inject that small glimpse of fatherliness or brotherhood into their hearts it will make that much more of a difference later on in their lives. One thing I've been learning is how it really is the little things that make the biggest changes, how one 'good' overcomes a hundred 'bads'.
Now we are in the Kruger Park area of South Africa. In this area, we are not operating with any particular agenda, we simply connect with the locah churches and organizations already established in the area and respond on a need-by-need basis to the community.

In a week we will being working in the townships around the outskirts of Pretoria. More on that to come.

Finally, we will go to Zimbabwe for a week to distribute food and encourage the people there. Zimbabwe continues to be in a desparate situation. The cholera virus has spread and as a result all the major hospitals in the country were overcrowded and then completely shut down. So now they have no food, the water is infected with cholera, and if they get sick there are no hospitals to go to.


 A common grocery store in Zimbabwe.
The biggest adventures- and challenges- are still ahead. Please keep praying for our team and project. I will try to keep you updated amidst the chaos. :)

The neighborhood around Elizabeth's house is on a steep hill. If you walk up that hill you will find a small house. Inside that house is a family of 2 teenage sisters and their little brother.

One of the local missionaries we worked with told us their story.

Right now, their mother is dying of AIDS. The doctors said she has a month or two. Their father is watching and waiting for their mother to die so he can kick the children out and claim possession of the land. Once their mom dies, the kids have no idea where they will go.

One of the girls came to the program that day. Later that same afternoon, 2 men broke into their house and tried to rape them. Fortunately the girls fended them off this time. But- this wasn't the first time. The men know who lives there and how vulnerable they are.

We went to the house to visit them and see what we could do to help.

The house itself was maybe a 15x20 feet area. When I walked in there was a big 3ft puddle in the middle of their dirt floor (it had rained heavily last night).
The inside was a mess: just two beds taking up all of one end and random pots, plates, boxes, picture frames on the other end. Clothes hung up to dry inside scattered around the walls. Their house is covered in mold. Buckets are arranged on top of their furniture to catch rain from the torrential downpours which are common in the region. Outside, the house was literally falling apart. We would grab onto boards and they would break off, exposing holes in the wall to the inside. The door isn't even properly on its hinges, it just lies to the side with some rope holding it in place.



Me and a few others spent the whole day fixing up this house. We tore off all the metal sheets on the roof, then reinstalled them along with plastic tarps to keep the rain out. We also reinforced the door, set it back on its hinges, and put a good lock on it to keep the men out.

What we saw was horrible. Its so unjust. Its a situation that no person, no human being, should ever have to be in.
But we see such a short snapshot of their story. Long-term, they are connected well with the local missionaries and have neighbors that keep an eye on them. And you never know how the small things we have done today will ripple out into bigger things in the future. This is an opportunity for a miracle.
Although this specific family is far out of reach for most of you who will read this blog, remember that there are millions of other people in the world with stories similar to this one. Find them. Don't let this story depress you; let it motivate you to find more stories and causes on your own that you are passionate about, and go out and help them. They can be anywhere- across the world or in your own neighborhood.



Putting up the final peice of roofing



The daughter and her frail mother watch the work.



The two sisters.

We spent several weeks in community called Kabokwene, we partnered up with a nice old lady named Elizabeth. We assited her in running a feeding program from her home for the local children three times a week, serving 120-180 children each time. We also played with them, sang songs and taught basic lessons about self-worth with the help of a translator.

We built a playground close to Elizabeth's place for the local children. It is so important to them to have a place they can just go to and be in community with other children. We don't know what their home life is like but for many it is a hostile environment. This gives them a safe refuge where they can simply be children.



The children were so excited, they wanted to help build the playground.



Next to the play ground we dug 2 toilet holes, each 1 meter wide and 2 meters deep. An toilet hole is just like what is sounds like: a hole that you like a toilet. There is a porta-potty shaped box constructed on the ground, above the porta-potty shaped hole below.



We also dug out land and planted a vegetable garden, to help produce food for the feedings.



All this was interspersed with lots of lovin' on the children. Hugs, hand-clapping games, and basic conversations in English were all it took to befriend them. To our delight, they tried teaching us basic words in their language. And to their delight, most of our attempts were pitifully mispronounced.

One of the most important things we do for them is simply be a friend to them. That's something they can remember for years.

Members of the first Childen in Need DTS had a break down in Malawi on their way back from an orphanage in Mozambique, while there God spoke to them about bringing food to some of the children they had met while on outreach with CINA. It is amazing God opened a door of provision for the tousands of dollars needed to fill a truck with maize and bring it accross the border. Food was delivered to an orphange, a disabled childrens home, a home for destitute old people and to 160 orphand children being cared for in the Comunity around my brothers church in Gweru. Praise God, where th enemy tried to steal the food from the children in zimbabwe and kill them, God had a plan, He wants to feed these little ones. This disaster God turned into a victory. We are on the winning side every time with our God. Amen

introducing the DTSes. There is a Children In Need Focused team, as well as a Soccer focused team that reaches out to the local community using soccer games. We've got quite a diverse group. From the 150-200 people that are on this base, 39 nations are represented.

On the DTS teams (Children In Need and Soccer), we have:
6 from Germany
6 from South Africa
1 from the Netherlands, aka Holland (but they are not Netherlandish or Hollandese, they are Dutch. Go figure.)
1 from Madagascar
2 from Canada
1 from Zimbabwe
6 from the USA
1 from South Korea
1 from Kenya
1 from Rwanda
1 from Camaroon