The vines are gone

Here is a field where there were once grape vines. They were about 30 years old and not great anymore. Besides, Bridges of Hope is not planning on being vintners. We thought it tempting, but not the plan for this place. So, now they are all gone and we have a big clean slate as it were. Ready for playing fields, a house, a place for horses, an ATV track (Dennis' idea) a garden and chickens! (our idea!!) So, while Dennis and Susan and family have been on vacation, what did we do....... Well, lots, actually. We painted the dining room, lounge, put together the library (it's going to be great for children!) the gift shop (helps with sustainability) and.... planted the garden and got chickens!

Kalon, Travis and Linda work in the garden.
Notice the hat Travis is wearing, it's Gracie's! He fit in so well!!

The chickens arrive! That's Cali, the Wadley's dog. She just wants to be friends!!

In their new coop we lovingly prepared for them.

2007 - A very good year

I started this blog some time ago and thought I should continue it!

Today we begin to learn about Wines! Dieter, the man who owns the vineyard where we rent our cottage, has been very kind to try to inform us about this process. I'll attach some photos for those of us who are visual learners. I am excited to see this process from plant to bottle. First the fruit on the vine:

Beautiful! Is this a Merlot grape or a Shiraz?

Pretty amazing to think that these will become wine. So first they get picked, obviously! And there are LOTS of them.

This is only part of the vineyard!

In the cold room

This is like the cotton gin of grapes. It separates the grapes from the stems

Is this Lucas learning about wine?

Dieter shows us how the color is coming out after only 24 hours of cold soaking.

So after they are picked they are brought to the cold room where they are run through a wine press. The grapes are separated from the stems and dropped into one of these big concrete tubs. There they have a cold soak for a couple of weeks before the fermenting continues.

So there is the beginning!! The wine bottles were delivered last week, pallets of them! Stacked right outside our bedroom window. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture. They have already been moved to the cold room, so I think the bottling has begun!

I just thought it would be good to share with you some of the other important things we are learning as missionaries. Hey, when you live in a vineyard..... We try to go wine tasting on the weekend, usually Sunday afternoons. I am trying to have a more discerning palate. It's going to take some more work, but I'm beginning to be able to distinguish some of the different flavors. It's really quite fascinating. One weekend, we watched the wine steward take the cork off a bottle of champagne using a samurai sword. It's called "Sabrage" and it was very impressive!! Hey, this is important stuff!!

When in Africa...

This is Millie. She was at our facilitators retreat in January and also at our CHE Training of Trainers retreat in March. She carried her baby on her back like this, as most women here do, while she was at the retreats. When she first walked in at the facilitators retreat, I didn't even realize the baby was on her back! She was just sound asleep and Millie walked in and sat down like anyone. Only later did I notice that she was sitting a little differently. Then of course when I looked closely and noticed the cloth tied around her, I realized.
This past Monday as Linda and I were driving out of Philippi, I saw the most adorable sight. A little girl, probably 3, had her teddy bear tied on her back like the mama's do! Oh my goodness, I wish I could have taken a picture, but of course, not in Philippi. So, when I came home, I told Gracie about it. The house keeper at the farm, Rachael, taught us how to tie the baby on Gracie's back! It is so practical and easy. WAY better on the back than using a front pack. They do this from very new born up to about 4 years old, I've been told. Many use a towel or a thin blanket. This is one of Lucas' baby blankets. It worked very well. Much less expensive than a Baby Bjorn!! I'm seeing a trend here. Any mum's with small one's out there? Give this a try. They make it look very easy. Even when the baby is very young, they just swing them on their back, put the legs around mum's sides, piggy back style, then tie the blanket around. Let me know. I think we could give Baby Bjorn a run for their money!! The practical things we can learn from each other.

Time marched on

Wow! It's been almost 6 weeks since my last post!

As staff members we have a helpful device for acknowledging a mistake and asking for forgiveness.

So, here's mine.


Late February and March was a full time. Let me catch you up on what we've been up to.

At the end of February, fellow staff member Ben returned to America. Ben was here at a difficult time of transition with Bridges SA moving headquarters from Stellenbosch to the Academy grounds, but much of staff still living in Stellenbosch. Ben was the exception, living on the grounds of the Academy and somewhat isolated. We were grateful to get to know Ben, and sorry to see him leave, but also thankful for the way he started things off here and managed to keep things going until our round of staff arrived.

Right after Ben left, our friend Linda, whom we met on our potential staff trip in September, arrived from America. We are so excited to have her working with us. Although it is a small group (Linda, Annelise -- our SA administrator, the Wadleys, and the Kelleys), we are developing a strong sense of community here at the farm.



Part of our community are the various people who come for retreats, visits from America, and other reasons. At the beginning of March, we enjoyed a visit with Semester at Sea collegians Anne-Marie and Kirsten, and friends Ricky and Zac. We had an enjoyable rainy weekend with some wine-tasting, a braai, music, and discussion.

In early March, we hosted a "Training of Trainers" training session for LifeWind's CHE (Community Health Evangelism) program.


We participated in training with about 20 others, including a dozen Philippians, and a couple of Swazi ladies. The training was excellent - when we return I hope we can help infect MCC with a passion for community development and health.

Other participants in the CHE training included a pair of Swazi ladies and a pair of young Philippian women who are teaming together to serve as a CHE training team that will try to start a CHE program in the community of Siteki, Swaziland. It's hard to express how cool this is! Siteki is an impoverished rural community where efforts to date have largely (perhaps necessarily) been focused on relief. For Philippi to be sending people out to another country is an amazing sign of the work of transformation going on in that community. And incredibly hopeful to observe multiplication in action.

Another participant in the training was a 20-something named Travis, who is working with LifeWind making videos that capture CHE through observation of it in practice in various communities. Travis has spent some time with us at the farm, enjoying communal life with us, and helping us to plant a vegetable garden. He has become an instant and welcome addition to our little community.

In mid-March, we (the Franschhoek staff and families) travelled to Wilderness, a beautiful area a few hours to the east on the Indian Ocean. There we spent considerable time as a staff together, learning more about each other, and coming together as a team. This was a wonderful time together, which will greatly help us know and understand each other as we spend so much time together working on our shared mission.

In the last week, Linda, Ruth, Annelise, and I have been on our own working on projects, as the Wadleys have been on a family vacation in Australia and Malaysia. We will be working hard for the next couple of weeks continuing to knock property development projects off the list before the Wadleys return and we enter an extended season of hosting numerous retreats and American church trips.

Throughout it all, we have been having a fabulous time, and we are getting lots of work done. Thanks so much for your prayers, and your continued support.

Please pray for the following:

• The Siteki training team. Pray that the team will bond well together, that the young women from Philippi will feel welcomed, and that they will collectively make the connections within the community which will start the CHE program off on the right foot.
  
• Mama Lulu, who is grieving the brutal murder of her nephew. Pray for her peace, and that she will continue an encouragement to and source of hope for her sister.
  
• The Wadleys as they continue to enjoy a well-deserved period of rest and relaxation. Pray that they come home refreshed and ready to continue with the work.
  
• Potential staff for next year, including our possible school administrator.
  
• Grace and Lucas, particularly Grace, as she continues to face hurdles transitioning from our much-loved Montessori environment to that of the sports-focused private school they are enrolled in at present.
  
• Us and our parenting. Pray that this will be an opportunity to spend a great deal of quality time together as a family.
  
• Philippi staff, who are doing an incredible job running programs in Philippi, and who are growing in their sense of empowerment in incredible ways. Pray in particular for Babalwa and her safety as she has taken on a whole new ministry to a group of gangsters in the community. Pray also that new opportunities for education and training opened up by the computer lab will be recognized and well utilized.
  
• Our work at the farm and preparation for the Academy.
  

Just another word of thanks for how you have supported us. We are merely the tip of your efforts.

Our work

So, what will you be doing anyway?

It was difficult to answer this question when we came back from our trip to SA in September. I'm not sure that I answered it to anyone's satisfaction, and even then it took me a lot of words to answer. Distilled, the answer was "we'll do whatever is needed, but mostly we'll be helping to get things ready for children to come to Bridges Academy starting in 2008."

So, what are we actually doing now that we're here?

1. Community development

BHI's primary purpose is to help communities in Africa that are hard hit by the twin challenges of AIDS and poverty to "create long-term, self-sustaining solutions to the challenges they face." Work within the township community of Philippi to address community-identified problems of health, the care of orphans and vulnerable children, and after-school care for children has dominated the agenda of Bridges SA staff for the last couple of years.

This work has been a success story. Bridges has worked with community leaders to create programs to address these problems, and these programs are now being run virtually independently by community-based staff and leaders. Further the success of these solutions has been noticed by adjacent communities and places further afield, who have requested and are now being trained by Philippi leaders to create the same kind of self-sustaining solutions in those communities.

The success of the last 3 years means that our work looks a lot different this year than it did to last year's staff. "Self-sustaining" demands that the goal of transient labor (like us) is to work ourselves out of a job. Train, encourage, and get out of the way.

In practice, this means that this year we will spend much less time in Philippi than last year's staff members did. This may be hard for us, but it is a mark of success.

Our efforts in community development this year are focused on:


• encouraging Philippi leaders (tangibly by meeting with them weekly, and praying for them continually),
  
• supporting Philippi ministries by providing the farm (and ourselves) as a resource for retreats for staff, their volunteer facilitators, and the members of the community they serve,
  
• working with Philippi staff to figure out ways of leveraging the newly installed computer lab at Masivuke Primary school for community development purposes.
  


BHI is using the farm as a base of support and training to efforts to reproduce what was started in Philippi into other communities, but while this work is very much a key element of what BHI is doing this year, it is not likely to be a significant focus for Ruth and me. We have had hopes of beginning community development work here within the Franschhoek community, but there will be fewer staff members here than originally anticipated, and this makes it likely that our approach to starting that work will necessarily be more organic and opportunistic (i.e. seeking to develop relationships with people in the community) than highly intentional, as we seek to remain focused on the principal work of the next year, which is to develop and prepare the way for the opening of Bridges Academy in January of next year.


2. Preparing for Bridges Academy

Preparation for the Academy remains our primary focus for the next year. That focus is manifested in a large variety of work, ranging from physical property development tasks to decision-making regarding class structures, living arrangements, curricula, and educational philosophy.

Physical property development includes the design of a new main house on the property (not likely to be completed before the start of 2008), creation of playing fields, developing networking infrastructure, experimenting with gardens, refitting of existing buildings for expected use as dormitory space, a library, gift shop, classrooms, etc.

I'm finding that I'm passionate about education, if far from an expert. (Educators - please send me links/references to educational ideas, philosophies, etc. that have influenced your thinking - particularly about secondary school education, since the Academy will first target middle and high school aged youth. To get the juices flowing, here's one of my favorite links.) There is lots of work to do here.


3. Planning for stewardship/sustainability

Bridges projects (including the academy) are expected to become self-sustaining - that is, to get to the point where they are sustained by resources provided by the community they serve. We will engage in creative thinking regarding how available resources at the farm might bring in needed revenues, in ways that are consistent with the primary use of the farm as the home of the Academy.

We will also be brainstorming potential business opportunities that could become a means of employment within the impoverished communities we serve.



4. Everyday life

As you can see, there is a lot that we expect to be part of this year. This is in addition to the ordinary business of maintaining a healthy family life, developing relationships here, and just generally adapting to life in a rather different culture. I hope it's obvious how much we depend upon those of you supporting us from back home. You are critical. We need your ideas, your love, your prayers and your support. Thanks!

Perhaps, says the Grinch, there is something more

Grace gets a piggy back from Manalesi

Mama Lulu serving sandwiches

It started out low, then it started to grow...

That's how the people from Philippi sing. One person, maybe 2, start softly singing something in Xhosa. Something that they think appropriate, that they are moved to sing. I don't know because I don't understand the words, but I feel the meaning. The Spirit is there, in them.

Last night I welcomed the group of 40 Philippi staff and volunteers to the farm and said a short prayer. When I was finished, Mama Lulu said to me, "would you like them to sing a song for you?" I have never been asked anything like this before. I am being asked if I would like this gift of music from this group. I answer that I love hearing them Sing! Thank you. Mama Lulu says something to the group and one woman, whom I don't know, begins, a cappella, no discussing what to sing, she just starts. She alone has this amazing voice. Some more voices join in, and more until the crescendo of all 40 voices singing, loud, strong, in harmony, with rhythm and parts. Then down again. This one voice leading the direction of the music, everyone just knowing what to do. It is amazing, beautiful. It is over, sweetly slowing and ending. It is too beautiful to clap to. I have goose bumps. Does God get goose bumps when his children are so beautifully gifted? I can imagine him sitting, admiring, smiling at the beauty rising up to the heavens. I just say thank you and close my hands together as if making one clap, but not disrupting the beauty lingering in the room.

As I put the children to bed sometime later, the windows are open and we hear them begin again. "Mama, the singing!" Grace says almost in a whisper. Even the children can feel this is a gift. I have been in the presence of people with amazing hope, kindness and love. They have very little possessions or things to give. They give of who they are.

"We give I Pods and lap tops and gadgets galore.

Perhaps we should give what we haven't before."

View from my desk

This is what I see as I sit at my desk at home. We are renting the guest house on the vineyard that is next door to Bridges farm. Very convenient, although we don't have internet there yet. So, I apologize for not updating our blog more frequently. There is so much to tell about, I hardly know what to share.

We are doing a lot of just regular physical work on the farm. Things like preparing buildings for use at retreats and for the school next year, figuring out where things should be kept, putting them there, building shelves, cleaning up, etc. etc. Also discussing how we'll use these facilities for the school. There will be a building, eventually, but until then, we're going to use what we have. How will that work? Where will the children sleep? House parents? Teachers? A principal? Curriculum? Uniforms? And on and on. I've (obviously) never started a school. There is a lot that goes into it. Dennis and Susan have made some great contacts here in SA who are very interested in helping.

Every Monday we go into Philippi and meet with the staff there. That is an amazing experience. I usually return at the end of the day pretty tired. But it reminds me why we're here and who we are trying to help. We have one staff person, Babalwa, a young woman, who has taken it upon herself to begin reaching out to the "skolies". These are the gangsters (or worse) of the township. They are very feared young men and commit dreadful crimes. Babalwa was telling me this past Monday how she feels so close to these young men, "they are like my brothers." she said. We pray regularly for her safety and wisdom as she continues meeting with these young men and tries to help them turn their lives around. I know she would appreciate your prayers as well. That is only one part of the ministry happening out there. Babalwa is also running the after school program where she teaches students computer skills. Then there are the 2 orphan groups that meet as well. We hear about various children and any issues there might be as well as offer any help or encouragement we can. These programs are being run by these people in Philippi so our only role is support. It's wonderful to stay informed and connected with them.

This weekend, Feb. 16 - 18, is a retreat for the volunteers (facilitators) for the after school program and the orphans groups. We will have about 30 people here starting Friday evening. This will be our (Kalon's and my) first retreat experience. So, pray for us as we are here with the philippi staff and volunteers and for them, that it will be a fun and bonding time for all. This reminds me of doing my first NOAH's camp or Telluride trip, I have no idea what to expect. I'm anxious to get the first one out of the way so I understand it better. We'll be doing quite a few of these for different groups this year. And retreats are part of the ongoing plan for the farm and school. Knowing how these work is important for me.

I haven't even mentioned regular life. The kids school, trying to meet other moms, maybe make friends, maybe learning Afrikaans or some Xhosa, grocery shopping, regular shopping, figuring out how life works here (notice I didn't mention cooking dinner!) I'm just giving up on that!!! I survived and grew on peanut butter and jelly....